A Succubus for Saint Patrick's Day and other tales

by M. E. Hydra

  He placed the Heart of Aphrossi in the same hidden pouch he’d carried its fake. A quick glance to check he’d been unobserved and then he headed back to the same curtained-off alcove he’d entered the hall through. The ease of the job so far had surprised him, especially considering Aphrossi’s fearsome reputation for dealing with those who mishandled her temple maidens. It reminded Nai of a fat merchant down in Oak Bay. Through carefully planted rumours and falsehoods of alliances with demons the merchant had instilled such fear in the local rogues that none dared target him. Unfortunately the stories of the man’s fabulous wealth had also turned out to be carefully planted rumours and falsehoods, as Nai had found out. A clever and admirable man, fat Yanbr of Oak Bay. While what he did was not magic as such, Yanbr had mastered his art surely as any wizard secluded away in their tower of books.

  Nai was just stepping through the curtain when he thought he saw a flicker of movement behind him. Nothing. A shadow or just a trick of his imagination.

  Unsettled, he entered the passageway and from there made his stealthy way back to the gardens. It should be easy from this point. The garden was open and there were plenty of dark spots for him to hide in. Instead he felt the prickle of hairs rising on the back of his neck. That only happened whenever he suspected someone was watching or following him. Nai paid attention to these feelings. They’d saved his skin on many an occasion.

  He wondered this time if it might be a false alarm. The people he saw were too engaged in their own carnal activities to notice Nai slipping by them in the shadows. He returned to the far corner of the garden and saw the couple on the bench were still lost in each other’s arms.

  His rope was where he’d left it. Hidden in darkness, he started the climb back to the top of the walled garden. The hairs on the back of his neck continued to stand up. Halfway up the wall he looked down and saw a minor commotion. The bushes were in motion as if someone or something was moving through them.

  Or it could just be wind.

  He climbed faster regardless.

  On top of the wall he checked out the narrow alley on the other side. It wasn’t well-travelled, especially at this time of night, but there was always the possibility of someone walking by. He secured one end of the rope and lowered the other to the alley floor below. He was about to start his descent when once again movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. A shadow was moving up the inside wall.

  It could be a cloud passing in front of the moon.

  Nai abseiled down the wall fast enough to jar his knees when he reached the alley floor below. He shook the rope free and coiled it up at his waist. He left the alley and walked out amongst the throngs walking the more populous thoroughfares.

  He should have felt elated. He’d carried out another legendary heist the bards would sing about without ever knowing who was responsible.

  He glanced backwards. A serpentine shadow slithered down the wall of Aphrossi’s pleasure garden and merged with the shadows of the alley.

  Nai turned around and walked faster. His original plan was to go directly to the pleasure quarters and hand the Heart of Aphrossi over to Madam Esqetti. That was on the other side of the city. He changed direction and headed for the much closer Unicorn’s Mark, the inn where he and his companions were staying while in the city.

  His unseen pursuer changed direction to follow him.

  He didn’t know what was on his tail. So far he’d only got an impression of shadows within shadows tracking him through the same pools of darkness he used for his own camouflage. His pursuer was not human and likely supernatural in nature.

  Nai cursed his ill fortune. Traps and guards were both perils he was equipped to handle. No wonder the temple of Aphrossi had been so light on either. There were unneeded if the priests of Aphrossi could call upon sorcery to defend their treasures.

  Nai knew of curses and sorcery. His strategy for dealing with them was to enlist the help of others with the knowledge to fight them. That meant asking the help of Seferia. Their pretty little mage was hopelessly naive in most worldly matters. However, when it came to the arcane, her knowledge was considerable.

  A faint whiff of fragrant perfume, the scent reminding Nai of the night-blooming lilies of Lake Abylessi, was all the warning he received before the shadows in front of him coalesced and reared up with the intent to grab him. It was all the warning he needed. Nai’s reflexes were beyond compare. He was already dodging to the left even as the darkness lunged forwards. His dagger was in his hand and slicing through...

  Shadow.

  His blade cut into nothing.

  Damn. Magic. Supernatural. Earthly blades would not work here, as he’d feared.

  A tail lashed out, knocking Nai back against a wall.

  So it could be solid when it needed to, he thought wryly.

  He felt something loop around his ankle. He pulled free before the something could pull tight like a snare. He’d been expecting the apparition’s touch to be chill. Instead it had been warm and pleasant. Part of him was curious to feel it again. He shoved that urge aside as an indulgence he could not risk.

  The thing was darkness within darkness. He couldn’t see if clearly. He got the impression of a large and buxom female with the lower half of a serpent. It looked like one of the sculptures of exotic lamia from the statue housing the Heart of Aphrossi had come to life. If he was able to look into the great hall of the temple of Aphrossi right now, would he see that one of the exquisitely-sculpted figures from the statue was missing? This was the guardian of the Heart of Aphrossi, and it had found him.

  Nai had no way of dealing with it either.

  He dodged away and slipped down the Street of Sighs. He needed to get to the Unicorn’s Mark and Seferia. It galled him to need her help. The number of times he’d seen the clumsy girl about to blunder into tripwires or onto pressure stones. A few times he’d been tempted to let her step on them just to see what nasty trap she’d trigger. Now he needed her to save his life. Lucanni must be laughing down at him.

  Also it would raise some awkward questions and likely result him in having to share his treasure four ways. It was unavoidable. Nai was a pragmatist. A prize split four ways was better than one lost.

  “There is no need to run, little thief,” the guardian lamia said.

  Her voice was feminine, if a little deeper than the usual handmaiden. There was also a sibilant quality to it—like the hiss of a snake. From his hiding place Nai watched a long slender black tongue emerge from between her lips and flicker as it tasted the air.

  “Surrender to my coils and I’ll reward you with unparalleled sensual delight,” the guardian lamia said as she searched for Nai.

  Her upper body was as curvaceous as Nai liked his whores to be. Idly he wondered if she was naked. He couldn’t see. She was a silhouette—black on darkness.

  “I’m a servant of Aphrossi,” the guardian lamia said. “We do not deal in cruelty or pain. Even our enemies are loved.”

  There was a snare in her words, a subtle enchantment that dulled the senses and caused her prey to wonder if surrendering to her coils might not be a bad thing. Nai was strong-willed enough to resist.

  He was also intelligent enough to notice that the guardian lamia only seemed to move within the pools of darkness clotted beneath the eaves of Bollinbrocco’s rotting townhouses. Magic and sorcery often seemed grotesquely powerful to those with little knowledge of it. He was under no illusion as to his chances should the guardian lamia get her coils around him.

  The thing with magic and sorcery was that it was also governed by equally powerful clauses and conditions. He suspected the guardian lamia, being a creature of shadow, could not enter lit areas. Brightly-lit streets were as much a barrier to her as a raging river would be to him.

  It gave him an idea, a plan that might just save his skin if his hunch was correct.

  He circled around to Merag. This district was right behind the Unicorn’s Mark and inhabited by the Mergam, a queer tribal race f
rom out beyond the River Cyoa. This was a holy time of year to the Mergam and they celebrated by lighting up their streets with gaily-coloured paper lanterns. He remembered remarking on it with displeasure after noticing his window at the Unicorn’s Mark overlooked Merag. How Lucanni, the god of thieves and rogues, loved irony.

  He plucked a low-hanging lantern while making his way to a large townhouse that stood by itself in the centre of a tangled loop of streets. As he expected, taking the lamp created a bridge of darkness across which the shadowy guardian lamia followed. He led his supernatural pursuer in a circle around the dilapidated townhouse. Back at the start he reached up and returned the lantern to its original hanging place. A continuous strip of yellow light once again ran through the centre of the street. Nai backed away to the other side.

  Now we’ll see, he thought.

  The guardian lamia reached the edge of shadow and stopped. She hissed in frustration and retreated back into the darkness.

  Nai smiled. You’ll not be taking the soul of Nai tonight, he thought. He was right. She couldn’t cross the lit areas and he’d trapped her on a small island of darkness surrounded by bright lanterns.

  He looked over at the inn. It was no more than an intersection and a street away. It did not matter. He didn’t need Seferia’s help now. Oh, the demon would escape the maze of light at some point, but by then the Heart of Aphrossi would be in Madam Esqetti’s hands and its guardian her problem. Nai would be returning to the Unicorn’s Mark with a lot of gold. And as Nai had not required the help of the others, there would be no need to inform them of his newfound wealth. It was only fair. They hadn’t done anything to earn it after all.

  Instinctively he slipped into the darkness on his side of the street while he pondered the most direct route to Madam Esqetti’s luxurious house of sin. He’d no sooner crossed the threshold into darkness when two black arms emerged from the shadows behind him and wrapped around his body. Nai’s eyes bulged in fear. The guardian lamia. Somehow it had teleported from one side of the street to the other.

  “Silly man,” the dark lamia whispered in his ear. “I cannot traverse the light, but the light is nothing more than broken shards of glass in an ocean of darkness. The ways between them are infinite.”

  Nai couldn’t squirm out of her grip. She turned him around and wound her serpentine lower half around him. He slashed out with his dagger to little effect.

  “Don’t be like that,” the guardian lamia said. “I’m a servant of love. I only want to love you.”

  She caught his wrist and twisted. Nai’s dagger flew away.

  “I want to hug you,” the guardian lamia said.

  Her coils, heavy and soft like sacks of wet clay, twisted him deeper into the darkness. Nai couldn’t pull himself free.

  “Squeeze you,” the guardian lamia said.

  She wrapped him tighter and her coils inexorably squeezed him until his limbs were pinned to his sides. Nai might not be a muscle-bound oath like the warrior of their party, Peakjohn, but he was not a weak man either. It meant nothing to this supernatural horror. He doubted even Peakjohn’s muscles could withstand the guardian lamia’s unnatural power. He would need brains not brawn here.

  Or luck.

  There was Peakjohn himself. Bleary-eyed, the big warrior had just emerged from the entrance to the inn. He yawned, stretched and then turned to relieve himself against the inn wall.

  Lucanni be praised! As the bards said, the god of rogues and always smiled down on the most adventurous of thieves. Nai opened his mouth to yell for the big warrior’s attention...

  ...only for his cry to be smothered in the massive breasts of the guardian lamia. She moaned and sighed like a tavern girl in heat as she rubbed her naked tits against his face. They were huge—as big as Bulbosia melons and soft like fine Kallahian cushions.

  Nai was shocked as his body responded. He didn’t know what it was—a temporary dislocation, the feel of her flesh against his face, the musky aromas of sex and perfume that reminded him of times spent in fine bordellos. For a moment he forgot himself and let his lips kiss the smooth skin of her breast.

  The guardian lamia leaned back with a satisfied purr. “The desire to love is always stronger than the desire to fight.”

  And Nai’s desire to survive was stronger still. He looked back towards the inn and Peakjohn...

  ...and was horrified to see the warrior was far far away. Peakjohn hadn’t moved; he was still pissing up against the tavern wall. Nai hadn’t moved either. Yet somehow the distance between them had grown into a vast impassable gulf.

  Sorcery. No doubt of the same witchery that had allowed the demon to appear on his side of the street.

  He was doomed. The guardian lamia had dragged him down through one of the cracks in the world and there was no escape. Unless...

  She caressed his face and planted soft lips on his cheek. The monster had him at her mercy and yet seemed more interested in loving him than killing him. It was befitting of a servant of Aphrossi, he supposed.

  “Then let’s make love,” he said. The guardian lamia’s face was shadow upon shadow, but he gave her his most charming smile nonetheless.

  Why not. Had he not done this many times before. There had been plenty of girls—noblewomen, heiresses of fat merchants, innkeepers’ pretty daughters—he’d promised the world as he’d bedded them, only to leave them before the cock crowed, often light a piece of valuable jewellery. Seducing a servant of Aphrossi was a far greater challenge. But they said Lucanni, the god of rogues, smiled down on the audacious and what could be more audacious than charming a servant of Aphrossi to let him escape with her goddess’s Heart?

  “My lovemaking will take you to heaven,” the guardian lamia said.

  She kissed him on the lips with full, sensual lips. Her long flexible tongue entered his mouth and entwined with his. Her kiss took his breath away and made him feel as giddy as a gauche teen. He knew this would be a challenge.

  Nai had tricks of his own. After the kiss ended he followed up by kissing her lightly on the cheek. He moved down her neck and across the curve of her breast, leaving a trail of gentle kisses. Her skin didn’t feel like any woman he’d kissed. It was warm but also slightly sticky, as if it was so hungry for his touch it was reluctant to let him go. Her form confused his senses. She was at once both as insubstantial as shadow and solid enough to hold him tightly bound.

  “How about you relax your coils a little so I can love you properly?” Nai asked.

  He felt the pressure around his legs lesson. A little more and he might be able to squirm free. And once he was free he was going to wait in the light until the sun rose above the horizon.

  The guardian lamia pulled his robes aside to expose his body. Her hands found his cock and stroked up and down. The sights and scents of the temple of Aphrossi—and possibly the influence of the Heart of Aphrossi—had left him partially erect. A few light touches from her skilled fingers and he was rock-hard and throbbing. Sighing in pleasure, the guardian lamia slammed the soft swells of her breasts against his naked chest. She mewled like a tavern wench in heat as she rubbed her soft tits against him.

  While Nai liked to charm and seduce the bored and spoilt heiresses, it was only their jewels and gold that attracted him. For his baser pleasures it was always the most vulgar of women that gave him the greatest satisfaction. The guardian lamia, despite her inhuman nature, triggered all his secret turn-ons. His prick was so full of need it ached.

  He’d been prepared to fuck her if it would give him a chance to escape.

  Now he needed to fuck her just to relieve the unbearable tension in his loins.

  She rubbed her body against his. His erect prick slid and bounced against her flat midriff. Again he felt a stickiness to her skin that reminded him of thick mud after a heavy storm.

  “I want you inside me,” the guardian lamia said.

  Though it shamed Nai to admit it, he wanted to be inside her as well. But where? She’d rubbed what would be the cro
tch of a human woman against him and he’d not felt anything resembling the opening to a vagina.

  The pressure of her coils lessened as she shifted position. Dimly, Nai remembered this was supposed to be his trigger to do something. He couldn’t remember what. He was too focused on wanting to fuck her.

  Her coils slithered higher up his body, binding the two of them closer together. A thick coil looped around his buttocks and tightened like a noose. His hips were forced forwards and he plunged into her.

  There was no orifice. Her skin enfolded his hard member and he sank into the soft, malleable substance of her body. It felt as good as sheathing himself in the tight cunt of a willing tavern whore. No, it was better. Warmer. Tighter. And... Nai sucked in a breath... more mobile. He quivered in pleasure as her silken folds enveloped him and manipulated his prick with the same skill and deftness her fingers had shown earlier.

  “I’m a servant of Aphrossi,” the guardian lamia whispered in his ear. Her long tongue tickled his earlobe. “My skill at lovemaking is beyond compare. Enjoy the pleasures of my body.”

  Nai had no choice. Her serpentine lower half was wrapped tight enough around him to lift his feet up off the ground. She squeezed him with regular contractions that drove his hard cock back and forth within the pliable, tenebrous substance of her body. Each constriction was followed by a secondary pulse within her that pumped the engorged head of his cock and sent throbs of pleasure spiralling down his shaft.

  Nai was held helpless, both by the irresistible coils of her body and the carnal sensations that overwhelmed him. He was nothing more than a puppet as she squashed their bodies together with regular constrictions. His arousal grew with every squeeze, but it was slow and steady... like the inexorable rise of a river on the verge of bursting its banks. The guardian lamia had full control of him. The moment of his eventual release would be decided by her alone.