by Louisa Lo
“You can open your eyes again, dearie,” a voice, cold as the last blast of winter, said. “We knew the moment you were awake.”
I sat up slowly and looked at the spot where my mind’s eye told me two supernaturals were. I made out the forms of two women as they descended to the floor. They appeared to be dressed in white. I think. I couldn’t be sure. Their images flickered, they kept appearing and disappearing from view until I realized the best way to look at them was through my peripheral vision.
I knew that the boogeyman and certain vengeful spirits could materialize and de-materialize at will, but I never heard of any supernaturals that seemed to exist slightly out of phase with the plane.
I glanced at my friends and kin. They were still sleeping. Enchanted to sleep, most likely. None of them were too shabby in the magical department, and I doubted I was the only one who had the alertness to not sleep through this.
“Who are you?” I asked the strangers. They were beautiful in an otherworldly way, all light blue skin and willowy. There was fluidity to their movement as they drifted toward me.
“We’re drawn to plagues and sufferings, but we’re no healers,” the first one whispered against my ear, her voice sly and musical.
“We frequent trenches and battlefields, but we’re no Valkyries.” The second one circled behind me, blowing the hair at the back of my neck.
“Is this supposed to be a riddle? I hate to spoil your fun, but I got nada.” I forced my galloping heart to calm down. I couldn’t afford to show fear in front of these unknown entities. “You’ll just have to spell it out for me.”
The first one snarled as her formerly gracious manner vanished. “You insolent child. How dare you speak to us this way. We are succubi.”
“You don’t look like any succubi I’ve ever seen.” I crossed my arms. These women were statuesque, not curvy. Though the Off-Blacks’ girlfriends were as haughty as they were fashionable, they were nevertheless affectionate to their targets. These two women had an infinite coldness in their core beings, as if they would not give a damn even if the world got blown to shit. Giggling, lively, earthy temptresses, they were not. “No succubus ever requires me to look indirectly at them in order to see them.”
“Those so-called succubi you have encountered in the past are not a true representation of our race. They’re just our handmaidens. We are their queens. I’m Pandora. And my sister is Hilda.” Pandora gave me a regal tilt of her head.
Oh great, one was named after a mythical character who released all the evils out into the world, and the other, stemmed from the Norse word for battle. I was getting a good feeling about this already.
“Those girls work for you, huh? Oh, is that why you know to be here?” Probably the same reason they knew how to get around the Off-Blacks’ sophisticated security system. Even my own Bubble Boy shield had now been neutralized. There was nothing like an inside job. Damn, I didn’t count on this when I picked this place to hide.
“We’re true succubi. We feed off the tragedies and miseries of the world. All the worlds.” Hilda glided to the motionless Serafina and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her face. Then she turned Serafina around like a statue so I could get a good look at her. My friend’s face was frozen in an eternal stare, her body as rigid as a rock.
“What have you done to her?” I grit my teeth.
“Poor little dear. So trapped inside her own body.” Pandora smiled mirthlessly at me. “Now that you know what we are, you must understand why we cannot allow you to prevent this war that the Concord Council is so hell-bent on. The conflict would provide us delicious energies for years to come. Pain and suffering speaks to us, sorrows call to us like a sexy dessert.”
It was one thing to have a race of creature that fed on a few lustful vibes here and there—one might even call it healthy, like the grazing of an overgrown pasture or something—but to exist entirely to make a meal of other peoples’ unhappiness? To use their grief and sorrow like a food bank? Wow. Just. Wow.
And here I was, thinking we needed to keep an eye out for supernaturals who might be after Eldon for vengeance. This was infinitely worse.
And if I wasn’t even taught about the existence of these succubus queens in school, then how was I supposed to fight them?
Chapter Twenty-One
In Serafina’s Shoes: Love
I COULD HEAR THE confrontation between the succubus queens and Megan, but try as I might, I couldn’t move my body to take a stand by my friend’s side.
I couldn’t even make use of my own vocal cords, let alone a limb.
When I’d first experienced the numbness, I’d thought it was due to extreme exhaustion. By then everyone around me had dozed off. I was the only one who couldn’t allow herself proper rest. Proper rest I needed for the upcoming fight.
But then I realized that I wasn’t just exhausted, I was immobilized. I was fully conscious but trapped. Megan once talked about how her childhood sleep paralysis turned out to be a real attack by the Greys. I had never experienced sleep paralysis, real or presumed, but my predicament fit Megan’s description.
I felt Hilda’s icy fingers on my cheek, and through the sisters’ conversation with Megan, learned the true purpose of their visit.
I tried to sort through all the knowledge that my tutors had given me about the various supernaturals, but came up blank regarding the royal succubi our intruders claimed to be. It didn’t sound like Megan knew a lot about them, either.
Pandora was boasting about sexy desserts of pain and sorrow when Megan chimed in. My friend could speak, though I had a feeling it was only because the succubi had allowed it. In fact, I think Megan and I were conscious, unlike the rest of our friends, due to the same reason. Perhaps the royals enjoyed toying with us.
“What are you going to do to us?” Megan asked softly. Her voice was calm, but I knew inside she must be angry and afraid.
“We won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re asking. We’ll keep all of you in stasis like your friends here. You’ll be able to see and hear everything as the world descends into chaos around you. But you won’t be able to do anything about it.” Hilda grinned. “This way we get to feed on your increasing angst and helplessness, while keeping you out of the game entirely. It’s quite ingenious, if I must say so.”
“By the time you’re released from our spell, it’s going to be a brave new world,” Pandora said.
“And then you’ll be killed,” Hilda said.
“But not by us,” Pandora clarified. “The Absolute Good will do the job nicely.”
“Wait, you know about the Absolute Good?” Megan’s eyes widened.
“We’re in the business of pulling energy from supernaturals, dear. And along with their essence we get their secrets as well. Call it an occupational hazard,” Hilda said smugly.
“You’re aware of the Absolute Good and their agenda, yet you’re still helping to usher them in? Don’t you realize you’re going to be persecuted as well? I don’t see them looking kindly upon some sucker of lust and life energy.” Megan must be running out of options if she was trying to reason with ones who would not be reasoned with.
“We’ll go into hiding. By then we would’ve saved up enough energy to last a few lifetimes over, for both consumption and to ensure our disappearances. We’ll die of old age before the Absolute Good can find us. So what do we care if the world goes to hell?” Pandora shrugged.
“So said the major polluters about climate change,” Megan spat.
My heart sank. Megan, for all her disdain for politics, was always smart about not closing any door for the sake of survival. She wouldn’t be so openly defiant to the queens if there was still something to be gained with keeping good manners. Her choice of words could only mean that all hope was lost.
I couldn’t be kept in suspension. I couldn’t. Eldon needed me. My friends needed me.
Pandora and Hilda waved a spell over Megan as she tried a desperate charge toward them, immobilizing her. Then
they started working on an enchantment for our entire group.
To my surprise, magically enslaving everyone seemed to be taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Then I realized that was because the succubus queens were trying to accomplish a second goal at the same time—synching and knitting everyone’s varied power signatures together in a manner similar to plating a meal at a buffet restaurant.
A little meat and vegetables here. A little carb there.
A little trickster and changeling magic here. A little vengeance demon power there.
True to the succubus queens’ claim, we were to become their energy popcorn as they stood and watched the world burn.
As the people that I cared about across all the planes—Eldon, Alina, Trust—suffered and died.
Only to have my friends in this room eventually meeting the same fate.
Not on my life.
A massive tremor shook the building. The queens didn’t react to it, though it was at least three times as strong as the others before it. And it was continuous, not sporadic. It was as if they were wrapped in another Bubble Boy spell and I wasn’t.
Maybe it wasn’t the ground, but me who was trembling. My teeth rattled and I was shaken to my very bone, yet the pictures hanging on the wall remained still. The vase on the side table was not in danger of shattering.
“It isn’t you who’s shaking, nor is it the ground of the vengeance plane. What you’re experiencing, Lady Serafina, is the ripple effect of the quakes originating from Dualsing,” a grave voice I recognized all too well said. A miniature dragon the size of a large hound came into my view. He was Trust, Eldon’s pet dragon and secret royal advisor.
I’d seen two radically different versions of Trust when I was at Dualsing. There was the disguise he’d shown to the rest of the plane, with cataract-clouded eyes and scales discolored from old age and lack of polishing. Then there was the real self that he’d only allowed Eldon to see all those years—eyes clear and full of intelligence, gleaming scales, surrounded by a light shimmer of gold.
The Trust I saw now was somewhere in between, with his pearly scales losing quite a bit of their luster. Nowhere near beaten, but not in his full glory, either.
The last I heard of his fate was that he was captured by Queen Deirdre, Eldon’s sister.
“Trust, how did you get here?” I found that I could not only speak, but move my body freely now. “And where is here?”
I assumed I was still physically at the club’s attic, though I wasn’t entirely sure. I could see the succubus queens and my friends in front of me, but ever since Trust appeared the scene had a grayed, foggy quality to it, much like how Megan described her experience in the Shadow World.
“Nowhere. And everywhere. The partially-formed passage into Dualsing is changing the rules of magic and thinning the veil between planes. Our spirits are together at a place that is of neither plane.”
No wonder Megan and the succubus queens didn’t notice Trust, just as they didn’t notice the tremors. We were not technically there with them.
“So you’re saying that the tremors I‘m feeling right now are an echo of the quakes from Dualsing, and not from the vengeance plane itself?”
Trust nodded. “The partially-formed passage is unnatural, and the vengeance plane is not the only one paying for it. The quakes are much, much worse in Dualsing. After all, we’re the one being invaded. A lot of structures have collapsed. A section of the Mirage Palace is in ruin. That’s how I was able to escape from my prison.”
I bit down a sob. Dualsing had been my home for most of my life. The Mirage Palace might be magnificent, but most royal subjects on the plane lived in mud huts, and such dwellings were no match for the quakes. And Alina…was she alright? I had a horrifying image of the young pixie getting her wings crushed by flying debris, injured and trapped in a small crack in the ruins somewhere.
My race, my real race, was responsible for this.
“It’s not your fault.” Trust seemed to have read my mind and his voice was a sea of comfort I didn’t deserve. “Things are happening as it was foretold. Just as Queen Deirdre was foretold. The true ruler of the changelings must be allowed to rise to the challenge and lead us out of the rubble of the past.”
“Trust,” I gasped. “My friends and I are trying to get Eldon back to Dualsing. But if his sister is destined to lead the people out of this crisis and beyond, then we would be sentencing him to certain death.”
“The crown is not meant to be his.” Trust bowed his head. “I deeply regret misleading him all those years, encouraging him to believe he could win the crown. I did it because Queen Deirdre was foretold to be one of the most terrifying queens in Dualsingian history, and I was desperate to find a way out for my people. I can see now that you cannot fight destiny. Prince Eldon knows that now. I already went to him. I’ll hold the connection so you can talk to him. There’s something he must say to you. I’ll ensure your privacy, even from me.”
Trust faded to near-transparency while Eldon materialized. Like before, he projected an image of himself in an immaculate outfit fit for the royal court. I could only imagine how he looked in reality.
“Finny,” he said.
I didn’t have the heart to correct his use of my old name, not right now, so I simply nodded.
We stared at each other for a long while. I opened my mouth, then closed it again. What could I say to him that didn’t sound hollow and superficial? To ask him if he was fine, when he was clearly not? To assure him that my friends and I were coming to rescue him, when we’d been hitting one roadblock after another?
“I know.” With the two words Eldon reminded me that we did, after all, grow up together, and words weren’t necessary.
I swallowed. “Trust said you have something to say to me? What is it?”
Eldon took a deep breath to steel himself, his eyes intense and determined. “Listen to me. Find a way into Dualsing. Block the half-formed passage from that side. Fight energy with energy and neutralize the tremors. Find Trust and Alina when you get there. The Molten Amber will help, too, because they can sense my will in you. Make a deal with Deirdre if you have to. She can’t be trusted, but she’ll want to survive this so she’ll cooperate.”
“Wait. What?” My head was spinning, and it had nothing to do with the tremors. The Eldon I knew craved power at all costs. Why would he suggest I make an alliance with his sister?
Something on my face must’ve betrayed my disbelief. Eldon’s face twisted into a sad smile. “Is it really that hard for you to believe that I want to do the right thing this time around?”
“I…I…” I wished I was a better liar. Truth was, I didn’t know what to make of his plan. “What about you? How can I go to Dualsing and save you at the same time?”
“You can’t. You have to leave me to my fate.” Eldon took both my hands in his. His palms radiated heat despite the fact that he was formless. “Would you believe me if I tell you that when I found out about the attack on Dualsing, I realized that I love my people more than I love the crown? They’re suffering, Finny. I could feel their fear and panic. Trust just told me the real prophecy, and I’m going to respect it. If being led by Deirdre is what it takes for the Dualsingians to survive and thrive, then I won’t stand in the way. I’m going to be the best king I could be by not trying to rule at all.”
Just when I thought I had Eldon all figured out, he surprised me. Pride swelled within me. “You’re doing right by your people. You are a great king, Eldon.”
“Thank you.” He smiled ruefully. “I’ve wanted you to say those words to me for years, but I never dreamt it would be under these circumstances.”
Tears ran down my cheeks. I tasted salt on my lips and bit into them. I’d given up on what was supposed to be real and what wasn’t in this spiritual realm. There were tears and pride in my soul, and therefore I could taste them on my lips.
“Don’t cry, love,” Eldon said softly. Then he cocked his head, as if listening to something. �
��Another tremor is coming to the vengeance plane. Ride it. Break out of your stasis. Go to Dualsing.”
Eldon stepped away from me and with a nod to the near-transparent Trust, both winked out of sight.
For a long moment, all was quiet.
I looked around the attic. The succubus queens were almost done “packaging” me and my friends into a perfect combo of harmonized, ready-made energy meal, adding layers of shields over us as humans would put plastic wrap over leftovers.
The tremors Eldon predicted hadn’t come to the vengeance plane yet, but the strength of the continuous ones from Dualsing was strong within me, reminding me of the duties he had entrusted me with, and the enemies in the attic who threatened my ability to fulfill them.
When the tremor finally hit the vengeance plane, I reached for it. Then I combined it with its more powerful counterpart on the Dualsingian side. I sent the amplified burst of vibration toward the succubus queens, breaking the trance they had cast and knocking them off their feet.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Place Most Safe
I COULD DO NOTHING except remain on my spot as the two damn parasites waved one layer of ensnarement after another over us.
Suddenly, strong magic burst from Serafina’s direction, lifting the succubi up and then crashing them onto the floor as if they were rag dolls. Before they even landed on the ground I felt their hold on me loosen. My body, which was in the middle of charging toward my enemies when it had been frozen, tried to finish the last command my brain had programmed it to do.
So that was how my arms and legs drove me into a dead run, smacking my face right onto the ground with my wings poking out from the back.
And I wasn’t the only one experiencing an awkward thawing. All around me, my friends were struggling to regain their footing while gearing up for a fight.
The vengeance power of Esme and Gregory, and the trickster power of Fir filled the charged air, weaving in with the changeling power of Pedro. Thanks to the succubi’s expert braiding of the different types of magic, my friends could now turn the power combo against them.