Succubated!

“Are you sure I have to wear this, Susan?” Una rubbed the waterproof fabric of her new navy windbreaker between her fingers, frowning. The thing was at least a size too large, and had “OSA” emblazoned on the back in large letters, while the left lapel bore the department logo: a circle divided into three radial segments, with an eye, a pentacle, and an open book, surrounded by a wreath and the words “Perceptio Potentia Est.”

Susan, standing on the sidewalk beside the 77th Street entrance to Central Park, looked up from adjusting one of her hiking boots and grinned. “It’s more of a rite of passage than anything else. Otherwise I’d be wearing one!”

Una rolled her eyes. “You mean it’s hazing. Nobody wears these except new recruits.” She pulled at one of the jacket’s straps, trying to cinch the waist tighter so it didn’t hang so loosely over her waist and hips. “Easy to see why; this thing is hideous, even if it’s appropriate for the weather.” The storms of early afternoon had dissipated now, but the sky above New York remained as gray as the pavement.

“Look at you, trying to make a government jacket sexy!” Susan giggled and pulled a hair band off her wrist with her teeth, then gathered her bangs into a ponytail with practiced motions. “In the old days, you never worried much about baggy clothes—but now everything’s got to be form-fitting with a display of cleavage or thigh. I swear, succubae…”

Una whacked Susan playfully on the hip. “Hey, don’t act prejudiced against my kind. In the old days, I didn’t have these curves you enjoy so much.” She ran her hand over her chest, then down to squeeze her ass through the layers of her windbreaker and leggings. Her human form, petite and freckled, didn’t have the impressive bombshell quality of Una the scarlet succubus, but she still had a generous figure—albeit one disguised by work clothes.

Susan leaned forward to kiss Una gently on the lips. The two were the same height at the moment, and Una imagined what they might look like to passers-by. We’re two girls dressed like government agents, one in a baggy windbreaker and the other in a suit and hiking boots. Cute cosplayers?

Susan stepped backwards and held out a hand, palm up. “Frankly, you look incredibly cute in that get-up. I’m restraining my urge to jump you right here on the sidewalk, but you look young enough in this form that people might think I’m taking advantage of my intern. Come on, let’s get on the trail.”

Una hurried after her lover as Susan turned and strode past stone pillars and onto the bridge leading into the park. “Intern? After two years of working as my lay assistant, you’re sure enjoying the role reversal!”

“Ooh, yes,” said Susan, moving to the side of the bridge. “Should we come up with yet another cover identity for you? You could be my graduate researcher! I’d teach you… things, and you’d have to suppress how attracted you are to an experienced older woman in a position of authority.”

Una’s retort caught in her mouth as Susan hopped up on the edge of the bridge. “Wait—what are you…” she said instead.

“Our first lead’s down here. This is quicker than walking all the way around on the path!” Susan hopped off the edge, and Una started forward, her first instinct to catch her girlfriend. Stumbling to the edge, she looked over to see Susan landing lightly in a crouch, her hiking boots crunching on the gravel lining the path below, just before it entered an archway below the bridge. She looked up and flashed a grin, her bangs falling over her face.

Una shook her head. “Show off! Hold on, I’m going to… I don’t know, get down there as quickly as possible.” The drop was twenty feet, and Una never felt sure about how durable her human-like form really was. The low heels of her boots clacked on the stones as she hurried towards the far end of the bridge, wondering why she hadn’t chosen sturdier footwear. Is it really a succubus thing? Am I doomed to impractical clothing forever?

Susan seems more impractical herself, Una thought as she picked her way through the foliage covering the steep hillside. Or reckless, at least. Has the angel seed strengthened and toughened her, or is she just counting on her regeneration to fix a broken ankle? That’s a dangerous gambit.

Every use of Susan’s angelic powers built up that golden energy in her system, and though Una didn’t exactly mind the pleasurable methods they used to siphon it off, she couldn’t help but worry that the celestial light might overwhelm her lover.

Una pushed aside a broad-leafed fern and hopped down onto the path below; a spray of rain droplets flew from the leaves, showering her jacket. Well, I guess the windbreaker’s already come in handy. Susan crouched inside the shaded tunnel, poking at a pile of refuse with a telescoping rod.

Central Park had changed since Portal Day, Una reflected. The park had once held a place of pride as one of the world’s great green spaces, a leisure spot for the city-dweller and a refuge for the weary and the downtrodden. But after twelve years of rising magical influence and strange visitors—starting with the massive dragon who’d emerged on the Great Lawn north of here—Central Park had gained a reputation for oddness and danger. It was no longer a pleasant place where kids played in sandboxes, or lovers walked hand-in-hand down tree-shrouded paths. Instead, rumors of dangerous creatures and unexplained occurrences kept most people away.

According to Susan, the OSA found that most “unexplained incidents” reported here had perfectly mundane explanations: drug deals, homeless people seeking shelter from the elements, and the occasional lost tourist. Yesterday, however, Victoria Lombardi had handed the two new partners a case that had escalated to the next level: disappearances and disturbances with genuine cause for concern.

Una looked more closely at the debris piled against the tunnel wall. The refuse included empty plastic bottles, a torn blanket, and several fast-food containers. But the pile Susan was poking through was something more than just garbage, Una now realized: underneath the cardboard boxes lay clothing, an old sleeping bag, and a backpack.

“Looks like someone had a campsite here,” said Una. “Is this where Ignacio Marin stayed?”

Susan nodded. “Around here, at least. Under this bridge, according to the report. I guess it’s a better place for a homeless guy to sleep than a park bench, but it doesn’t look very comfortable, does it?” The scholar poked the tip of the telescoped rod under the edge of a box, then pushed upwards. “Ugh, I think he was using this one to…”

“…relieve himself?” Una finished. “Everyone has to go somewhere. If you live in a ten-foot cell, you go in the filthy metal basin in the corner.” She scowled, remembering the days of her imprisonment by the Curia she now ostensibly worked for. “If you live under a bridge, well…”

“You ladies looking for Nacio?” asked a gruff male voice from deeper within the tunnel. A pile of leaves and rags shifted and stirred as a large shape rose, unfolding into the form of a tall man with a bushy beard, clad in tattered jeans and a flannel shirt. He held a half-empty bottle of White Lightning by its neck; his eyes were red and unfocused.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. We didn’t realize you were resting down here.” Una shifted into the calm, diplomatic voice she’d always associated with ministering to those in crisis. The man just shrugged with a movement of one arm, so she continued. “I’m Una Belmont, and this is Susan Miller. We’re looking for Ignacio Marin, if you know the man.”

The drunk took another swig from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nacio? Yeah, I know him. Good guy. He’s not here, though.” He squinted suspiciously at Una’s windbreaker. “You cops?”

Susan stepped forward. “No, not exactly. His sister reported him missing and we’ve been asked to look into it. Do you know where he might be now?”

The man frowned, his bushy brows lowering. “He’s gone. It finally caught up with him.”

Susan’s brows furrowed in kind, and she pulled out her ever-present notepad. “What caught up with him, exactly?”

He waved his hands around, a gesture that seemed to signify frustration, confusion or vagueness. “Everything. The sadness, the exhaustion. Life. Sooner or later, gonna cut you down.”

Una raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Susan, who was taking down his words on her notepad. She let her breath flow from her nostrils and stared at the man with sympathy. “Life presents us with countless trials,” she murmured. “Sometimes, the only way out is through, as the poet said.”

He looked at her, his gaze focusing suddenly. “You get it,” he said, his voice a low growl. “That’s it exactly. Nacio, he… he’s given up. He went to the lake.”

“The lake?” repeated Una, nodding. “Right over the hill, you mean?”

The man suddenly backed up, looking alarmed. “Don’t go in there. Nice girls like you… that’s the worst thing you could do.”

“We appreciate your concern, sir,” interjected Susan, flipping her notebook closed and slipping it into the pocket of her suit jacket. “Thank you for your time. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”

The man’s eyes darted from side to side; he seemed on the verge of flight. Una placed a hand on Susan’s arm, and the pair backed away. “Never mind—thank you for your time, sir. We’ll leave you in peace.”

“I don’t want any trouble. I don’t… I just want to be alone, you know?” He retreated into the depths of the shadowed tunnel, the sound of broken glass on concrete marking his steps.

Una and Susan exchanged a glance before they turned and made their way up the slope, back to the street.

“So we go to the lake, right?” Susan looked to Una expectantly as they moved into the park.

Una nodded. “The other parts of the report were about mutilated wildlife over there, right? I assume you have a theory.”

Susan nodded. “You know me so well! I didn’t stay up late last night for nothing. A Mesembrine, maybe. Also known as the Noonday Demon or a Meridianite. They feed off negative emotions like sadness, depression, and despair, much as you draw from desire and lust.”

“For me and Yael, it’s more the energy of sexual release and fulfillment, actually?” Una tried to make her tone playful and self-mocking, but felt a little self-righteous about the correction. “But yeah, I see what you mean. So you think this thing is feeding… on homeless people, or the woman who disappeared while walking in the Ramble? Her family said in the report that they worried about her mental health too.”

Susan shrugged. “I’m not sure. The animals are a strange touch. I mean, I can’t find that much about Mesembrines; maybe they eat depressed raccoons too? They’re apparently not very intelligent, and they absorb their prey into their bodies somehow. Bodies that look like big, gelatinous blobs, from the only description I could find.”

“Sounds like a fun one!” Una’s voice was cheerful, but her thoughts were less optimistic. Having reached the north end of the sinuous lake at the heart of Central Park, they crossed over a narrow wooden bridge—a structure that had seen better days, Una thought. Once it had been painted brown and white, but now the colors had faded and peeled, and the surface of the wood was worn smooth by passing feet. On the far side, a path curved up the hill into the forest.

At one point, Una’s foot nearly went through one board of the bridge, and her thoughts turned sour. The last thing I need is to fall into a pile of algae. The extra stipend Albert offered me for this work isn’t enough for that. Then she noticed Susan staring at her, lips pursed.

“Not feeling happy about working with me, dark mistress?” Susan’s tone was teasing. “Come on, it’s not so bad!”

Una sighed. She stopped on the bridge and looked down, noticing the water flowing sluggishly beneath. “I’m thrilled to be here with you, Susan! But I’m not so keen to report to Victoria Lombardi or Ludovic Albert as an overseer. Even though he apologized… for all of this.” The succubus swept her hand outwards, as if taking in the entire situation. “Now he’s just using us again, for his own ends. As a bargaining chip with the OSA, or as another experiment to see what happens if we… what, track down a missing homeless man? Why are we here?”

Susan put her arms around Una, pulling the other woman to her chest. “I don’t think it’s just that. I really believe both of them want something out of this and want to help. It’s not mutually exclusive. Maybe the Yael side of you can’t trust human authority figures in more, and I don’t blame her—or you, for that. But we know what we’re getting out of this too, right? We need allies in high places, and access to their resources.”

Una leaned into the hug, resting against her girlfriend’s shoulder. Susan had changed so much since she was Father Michael’s shy but eager assistant: now she was confident, decisive, and willing to bargain with power. She used to be the naughty, rebellious one. Again, is that the angel seed? Or just Susan growing… the way humans tend to?

“Come on,” Susan said, skipping another half-rotted plank. “I want to check the cave.”

The pair navigated their way across the bridge and into the winding, hilly paths of one of Central Park’s wilder areas, long known as the Ramble. Storm-tossed branches strewn across the dirt trails, along with thick piles of leaves, suggested the New York City Parks Department had neglected maintenance here. Perhaps because of the very rumors we’re investigating, Una thought.

“I haven’t been up here in ages,” she mused aloud. “You know, these woods used to be infamous as a spot for anonymous gay sex.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “What do you mean, used to? You’re so terminally offline, sweetest. The anonymous gay sex is just less of a secret now, and more varied.” She stepped across a jagged shard of wood as they moved downwards again, towards the shoreline to the south. “And everyone’s gotten scared off lately, except for the reckless kids… but that’s part of why I wanted to follow this lead first. Gotta make the Ramble safe for kinky sex again!”

The cave turned out to be an old-boarded up hollow, nestled in the lake-side rocks at the southernmost end of the Ramble. Formerly boarded-up, rather—someone had torn open an entrance and tossed the boards to one side. Susan and Una peered through, and detected only blackness inside. Blackness, and the reek of something dead.

“How can we be proper government agents if I’ve forgotten a flashlight?” asked Susan, rummaging in her backpack.

Una pulled her phone from her pocket, then pressed and swiped the screen until a beam of light shot out, illuminating the darkness. The cave was more of a hollow, but it was full of fur, bones, and something dark and sticky. “Fuck… pits of Hell, this place stinks,” Una muttered.

Susan pulled on some surgical gloves from the pack, then took the phone and stepped into the cave carefully. Una watched the beam play over the walls and saw claw marks and scratches on the stone. “Looks like a raccoon den at one point,” said Susan, kneeling down. “But maybe something else…”

Una heard Susan gasp. “Lovely partner. Hand me the two tools that look like suction cups, will you?” Una dug around in the backpack before handing the objects to Susan, who held one in each hand and positioned them around what looked like a large, glistening puddle. As Una watched, Susan activated a switch, setting a humming noise in motion. With a wet squelch, a sphere of gelatinous matter the size of a fist lifted from the floor and hovered between the two cups. Susan shuffled her feet backwards gradually, and Una sidled out of her way, letting Susan emerge into the afternoon light with the blobby mass hovering in front of her.

Susan held her hands out, keeping the suction cups as far away from herself as her grip on the handles would allow. Una leaned in and peered at the substance at close range: it was mostly clear, though flecked with bits of bone and hair. It also looked like it was writhing, though Una couldn’t be sure if that effect was caused by Susan’s strange device.

Una’s shoulders sagged. Abruptly, a sense of hopelessness overcame her. The air around her felt cold, and even the sight of Susan holding up a piece of alien life failed to stir her interest. What are we doing here? Acting like errand girls? It’s getting dark already. I just want to lie down. I don’t want anything…

Una turned away. Susan was saying something, but the words seemed muffled, as if spoken underwater or through a thick wall of glass. Nothing seemed to matter.

“I need you to lick my hot, sopping cunt, Lady Una Belmont!” Una blinked, surprised. Susan grinned and swiveled the suction cups away from the startled succubus. The feeling of lethargy and despair fell abruptly away, leaving only the horrible smell of death and decay.

“Did you just… ask me to go down on you?” The succubus’s voice sounded weak to her own ears, but the fog was rapidly clearing from her mind.

“Had to snap you out of it somehow,” said Susan. “Just went for the easy bait. You looked like you were about to pass out and fall into the lake. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it that close to you… but this fits my theory, right? Genuine Mesembrine ooze. Could be.”

Una rubbed her forehead with one hand, aghast. “That tennis ball of slime produced… that feeling?”

“Seems that way. Sorry, I should have warned you; seems a little easier to resist it if you know what’s going on, though it’s still awfully unpleasant. Like a lukewarm injection of pure ennui, right? Grab a sample jar from my bag so we can seal it off?”

Una fetched a thick glass container and watched as Susan lowered the thing in. This time, she moved closer to the thing on purpose—and felt it again, a creeping malaise of hopeless indifference that made her skin crawl. Nope, she thought. Go back to Hell, whatever you are. I want to live, and fight, and laugh… and fuck!

She felt her tail flick against her waistband in irritation, and her determination cut through the gloom like a knife. Susan sealed the lid of the container and tucked it into a foam slot in her backpack.

“So, what now?” Una looked at the sun, low over the buildings on the west side of the park. “Does this thing hunt at night? Is that why we’re here so late?”

Susan twisted her lips in a moue. “Conflicting theories. I’m not sure why it’s called the Noonday Demon, but I thought it might either digest its prey during the day, along with crepuscular activity at dawn and dusk, or hunt at night…”

Una shook her head. “It’s from Psalm 91.”

Susan blinked. “It is? I… oh dear, did I miss a reference?” Her cheeks flushed.

“It’s a little obscure,” Una reassured her. “You would have heard the verse translated as ‘the arrow that flies at noonday,’ but Saint Jerome translated it in the Vulgate as daemonium meridianum, the Noonday Demon. If I remember my early theologians, it was Evagrius the Solitary who connected that idea to despair and apathy; maybe he encountered this creature?”

The succubus’ girlfriend stared at her wide-eyed. “Well, I guess that shows you’re a theologian, and I’m just an occultist.”

Una shook her head. “Just a pastor who likes theology, really. And now a demon myself. So… do we go looking for it?”

Susan tapped her lip with her pen. “The effect is stronger than I’d hoped, and it’s clearly been absorbing mass by devouring small animals.” She kicked at a tangle of weeds, which rattled; Una belatedly noticed that it concealed a half-dissolved ribcage. “I suggest we head home and try to catch it here tomorrow, since my guess is that it lairs in the cave.”

Una bent down and reached out a hand, then recoiled. “These slick spots… it’s faint, but they’re not just water or algae. It has the same awful aura as the other Mesembrine goo.”

“Aha! It’s leaving a trail.” Susan hopped lightly across the rocks leading uphill from the shoreline. “It must be following the stream that flows down here from up on the hill.”

Una nodded, following her and wishing once more that she favored practical footwear. “The Gill, I think it’s called. We could try to follow it upstream, but… tomorrow?”

Susan shook her head, moving more quickly than Una up along the small brook that burbled down from higher in the trees. “Ideally, I’d like to know its movement patterns. If this thing isn’t all that intelligent, that should make some kind of containment easy!”

“But Susan, if it’s really preying on lost souls like Ignacio Marin…” Una paused her thought to keep up with the more nimble-footed, younger woman. “That feeling of despair, it’s horrifyingly familiar. I can see how it could become a weapon.”

Atop a small boulder in the stream, Susan looked back at the succubus. “Familiar how? You’ve run into a creature like this before?”

Una halted a few yards away, trying to catch her breath. Wearing this softer form was silly, she thought. It’s not like I need to pass for human in a nearly abandoned park on a stormy day. She looked up at Susan, quizzical and cheerful of disposition as ever.

“No, but I’ve run into despair too many times. Hazard of the priestly occupation, when you’re tending to those in search of hope. There’s a reason they say suicide is contagious, you know. I’ve seen it spread among friends and take lives.” She shook her head, remembering. “A long time ago now, but it still haunts me when I think about it.”

The scholar furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “If the feeling spreads easily, that would explain how a dim-witted, obviously inhuman mass of goo could pose a threat… all right, I hear you. Let me just find the trail again, to confirm our hunch about this stream. Then we can head out before sunset.”

Susan hopped to the far side of the stream, then stopped. She let out a low moan, then fell to her knees in the sparse undergrowth.

Una started forward, splashing ankle-deep into the stream without thinking. “Susan? What’s wrong?” The other woman hunched over, then pressed her right cheek against the gravel. “Susan!” Una closed the distance between them, then suddenly felt it—an awful weight, like a blanket soaked with cold seawater, draping over her body and her mind. She staggered forward, sinking to one knee.

The sensation emitted by the blob of slime had felt numbing and distracting; this aura, emanating from the wooded slopes above them, felt like the end of the world. Una’s vision swam; even breathing felt impossible.

Nope, she thought. Not today, asshole. I have too much to do. Una forced herself upright, fighting every impulse of her muscles and her brain as she struggled to stand. “Get… get up…” she gasped at Susan. The other woman lay prone on the ground, eyes open and unblinking. Una staggered forward, her boots squelching through the shallow water. “Susan… get up!”

She crouched again by her lover’s side, though that meant nearly giving in again to the desire to collapse. Her girlfriend’s breathing was rapid and shallow, and Una felt the heat of Susan’s skin as she touched her arm. She’s panicking, Una thought. She needs to calm down.

“Susan,” she whispered, “it’s okay. I’m here.” She tried to pull the other woman up, but the effort was too great for her own strength; Una collapsed next to Susan’s prone form.

“It’s all my fault,” Susan whispered. “I killed you. I killed you.” She curled into a fetal position, her hands clutching the back of her head.

“What are you talking about? I’m right here!” Una tried to wrap the shivering girl in her arms, but Susan seemed lost in some inner hell. “Susan… remember when I found you at your parents’ house? I sensed you there because of that connection we have. Find your way back to me now, dearest.” The words tumbled out; she couldn’t think of what else to say.

“Jiyoun,” Susan muttered. “Jiyoun, why did you leave?” Her gaze stayed fixed, staring at some point in space beyond the trees, beyond the sky.

Una squeezed her eyes shut. Think, you useless slut—no. Not useless. Get out of my head! Her limbs were leaden, and she doubted she could drag Susan back out of this aura, whatever it is. Remember, she thought instead. Remember how to deal with this. Yael knows.

A flicker of anger sparked in her chest, a candle’s light in a dark cavern. This fucking demon, she thought. Noonday pest. Una felt her fingers curl into a fist against her thigh. The waves of despair crashed against her, but she growled back at them. Anguish transmuted into fury, and her eyes opened.

She stood slowly, pushing her way upwards against that force, against gravity that had emotionally amplified into a dead weight on her shoulders. She could see the stream flowing past her, but it seemed a trickle of blood, running down a hillside towards the sea. The trees seemed to sway, as if caught in the winds of a gale, but the air was still and cold around her. Her breath puffed out as steam; wrath blazed up out of the recesses of her mind into a white-hot coil of memory, old wounds and once-forgotten pain.

I’m going to fucking annihilate you, she thought. I shall rend you apart with my claws; tear your flesh into tiny pieces of ichor and feed each piece to the crows.

The image came to her mind of a young man, lying face-down in a bathtub, his dark hair floating in a cloud of blood and water. Una shook her head, trying to clear it away, but the memory lingered. She remembered his face from her youth—but in place of compassion or sorrow, she now felt only icy rage. She snarled inwardly at that stark remembrance, just as she had at the sensation of the Mesembrine’s unending despair.

Weak, weak! Cowardly and weak. You all let it kill you, let the night consume your souls, and left me behind with nothing but memories and a survivor’s guilt. I won’t let you win now.

Her tail emerged from her slacks, thrashing angrily. Her horns grew and extended, tearing apart the cloth of her headband and she felt herself rising, her legs shifting to digitigrade as her feet grew into cloven hooves inside her specialized boots. She was no longer a small, frail woman; she was a demoness again, powerful and angry. Una’s eyes flashed open, blazing golden, as patches of scarlet spread across her skin. Her nails extended and hardened into sharp points, then talons.

Una saw the stream again, and the trees beyond; her vision shifted. With her other sight, she often saw threads of life’s pulse, desire and the need for connection, but now she saw its pure absence, hanging in the air like mist. She could see the path the Mesembrine had followed up the stream, and she knew she could follow its trail.

“Stay here,” the succubus growled, her voice hoarse with barely suppressed fury. “Keep breathing. I’ll be back.”