Succubated!

It preferred feeling anguish to feeling nothing at all. That was the lowest existence: the flat, empty, and timeless compression of nothingness. To avoid slipping back towards the void, it fed.

Prey was always nearby. Some were in the bushes, some in the trees or in the water, where it liked to stay. As always, prey would come to rest. It could tell from the scent whether prey’s anguish was strong and fresh. It would move in close, and wait for the moment, the fear and exhaustion, before settling over the prey like a cold blanket. Then it was time to feed.

Pieces of the last prey were still inside it, dissolving into the slime. Those pieces would become a part of it, from now on into eternity. This prey had been a man—a small man who had been sad, very sad, and had finally come to sleep in the dark place. The man had cried out and tried to escape, but he had been too tired to move. Now his skull bobbed inside the slime, floating alongside the pieces of the little feathered prey, the little clawed prey, and the pieces of fish and leaves. The man’s sockets stared, seeing everything and nothing.

It knew that sometimes prey could fight the urge to give up; that was always annoying. The prey would struggle and thrash, which hurt and made feeding difficult. Sometimes, the prey escaped. It would try to follow, but that required more energy, and it was always tired. If a hunter came, it would sink and hide; a hunter might hurt and cut it, or send it back to the dark place—to Hell, it thought with a shudder of protoplasm.

One end of its awareness realized there were fresh scents, new impressions. Two minds moved towards it, up from the lake below. They smelled of lust and curiosity, and it felt hunger stir. Prey, and prey with great energy. The slime stirred in anticipation, but it felt something else. These new prey were strange, wrong somehow. They smelled like women, and one was full of despair, almost ready to eat, but the other burned. The burning one smelled of anger, rage, hatred…

It had known a creature like that before, long ago. The memory of fear and loneliness stirred it, and that was hard to do.

The demon slowly flowed forth, preparing to meet this challenge. Readying itself to fight, or flee.

***

Every step Una took was like wading into deep snow. She fought to keep moving, against the flow of the small stream, and against the aura of despair that washed over her like gusts of bone-chilling wind. She knew the thing at the center of his aura wasn’t far in absolute terms, but it might as well have been on the far side of the Moon.

Una paused for breath and leaned against a tree, feeling her heart hammering in her chest and her breath coming in ragged gasps. When she closed her eyes, horrifying images swam behind her lids: the seminary student in the bathtub, his wrists slit open, blood clouding the hot water. An old woman collapsed in an armchair, her mouth agape in a silent cry and eyes rolled back in her head. A teenaged girl with a gun to her chin, about to pull the trigger.

“Stop it!” Una shouted, pounding her fist into the rough bark. The physical pain brought relief for an instant, and the images vanished. “Those were not my fault, you fucking… trash demon! You don’t know shit about me, so shut up!” Una pushed herself away from the tree, stumbling forward again. Her eyes were open now, but all the colors seemed washed out, as if life had drained from the trees and bushes.

As she struggled up the incline, Una kept her thoughts focused on a single goal: to tear the thing apart with her bare hands. Her talons, which had grown in sharper and longer than ever in response to her desire, ached to rend the thing; her tail whipped behind her, as angry as her thoughts.

Damn right, she seethed inwardly. I’m frustrated as fuck with the world. With enemies, and tricksters, and even friends. I’m pissed off at being a pawn, and it’s time to unleash that. No more good Catholic girl, no more sweet little priest who doesn’t want to cause harm. Fuck it.

Her thoughts drifted briefly to Susan and worry, but she forced that feeling down, focusing instead on her fury. Damn it to Hell, girl. Why couldn’t you be more patient and let us get out of here before sundown? You’re so fucking smart, and so damn stupid at the same time… and I just go along with it…

As she moved into an open space between the trees, the aura grew even stronger. Una felt it pressing down on her, the air thick enough with depressing miasma to make breathing a struggle. Her head pounded with a sudden, stabbing pain that shook her legs and drove her to her knees. She fell forward onto her hands, and her claws tore at the soil, ripping clots of grass and earth free. She felt tears running down her cheeks, and her throat choked with a futile sob that couldn’t quite emerge.

It’s no use, she thought, and the thought echoed in her brain. No use, no use, no use…

Get the fuck up, you little shit. Another voice rang out of memory into her thoughts, berating her out of her stupor. Get up, get up, get up! Una blinked, and her tears rolled to the ground, mixing with mud and grass.

“Shut up,” she growled aloud. “Just shut up, Yael. You can’t push me around anymore, so shut your filthy, ancient mouth.” Great, she thought. Una, the girl with too many minds, yelling at herself again. But she rose to her hooves, balancing precariously on the custom boots that had adjusted with her transformation.

Blood trickled from her palms. The succubus’ claws dug into her own skin, piercing scarlet flesh and drawing forth pain. Focus. Pain is focus. She breathed steadily, in and out through her nose, and tasted the scent of rotten leaves and decaying wood in the air—along with something else, something that made the hairs rise on her neck.

Una moved forward through the trees, the dappled light of sunset filtering through the branches. Her steps were quiet now on the forest floor, and she felt the weight of the aura pressing against her like a wall of ocean water, but it no longer felt like the end of the world, or the end of hope. It was just another obstacle; she had faced worse.

Visions confronted her among the leaves and swaying boughs. A hooded figure dangled from a noose. A man lay bleeding on an incongruous patch of stone tile, his life draining onto the pavement. A middle-aged woman sat alone under a tree, surrounded by empty bottles, a knife in one hand and a letter in the other. Suicides all, Una thought. Some that I know, and some… well, maybe Yael remembers them. Somebody should.

“The fucking world killed you!” Una’s cry echoed through the trees, startling a few birds into flight. Her voice was hoarse, but it carried. “It was cruel, unfair, and unjust. But I didn’t kill you. I didn’t give up. So you can’t… you can’t blame me. You can’t drag me down with you!”

She nearly tripped over a fallen branch, but caught herself and stepped forward through a pile of orange and yellow leaves. She was close now, so close… and yet the aura was so pervasive that she could no longer pinpoint its exact location.

Light rippled ahead of her: a reflection on water. She stood near the source of the Gill, Una realized—the hilltop reservoir called Azalea Pond, though the season was entirely wrong for the pink and orange flowers.

“I’ll find you,” she muttered, “you blobby little fucking shit.” Her head swiveled from side to side as she moved forward towards the edge of the pond. The trees seemed to lean in, watching her. She felt she stood in an audience of mourners at a pointless, somber funeral, mourning nothing and nobody.

“I’ll find you,” she whispered again, then closed her eyes and listened. The sounds of her own breathing, her own heartbeat, the rustling of the leaves in the breeze…

A cold sensation slid around her right ankle.

Una’s eyes shot open as something yanked her violently forward, sweeping her feet out from under her. Her back slammed against the ground, driving air from her lungs and making her head ring as she skidded along the muddy shore. Una tried to grab onto a tree, but her claws merely tore bark and splintered wood away as the force at her ankle dragged her into the water. Instead, she raked her talons across her ankle, severing the grip of whatever held her—a tentacle, or a tendril of muck.

The surface of the pond roiled, sending waves splashing against the shore. A mass of fluid rose, glistening in the fading daylight. Its shape shifted, forming and reforming as it moved, but nothing about the thing was even vaguely humanoid; rather, it resembled an amorphous lump of jelly. The slime had the color and transparency of dirty dishwater, with varied shapes moving inside it; chunks of bone, feather and fur mixed with larger, more indistinct shapes.

At the waterline, the current carried rivulets of the Mesembrine away in a steady, thinning layer of slime that rode the water downstream towards Central Park’s largest lake… and towards Susan. We’re idiots, Una thought, who were walking through this thing’s runoff—that’s how it affected us both. It’s spread itself through the water, and everywhere we got wet!

Una’s rage felt easier to tap now, as adrenaline and survival instinct overrode the Mesembrine’s influence. Part of her wanted to spread her wings and fly, but that would cost energy—and another part of her still wanted to rip this thing into shreds. The succubus crouched low, her tail thrashing beneath the edge of her awkward windbreaker and her claws extending even further from her fingertip, growing into hard black spikes with razor-like edges.

She stared in fascination for a moment at the work of her nanobots, but then the creature surged towards Una, pseudopods of fluid reaching out from its central mass. Una dodged backwards, then sprang forward, slashing her claws through two of the tendrils. Her hands passed through and split apart the creature’s gelatinous body, but the severed ends of those extensions simply flowed back into the whole, leaving no visible damage.

Una’s hands, however, felt numb and chilled to the bone, and she recoiled in disgust at the contact. The sensation was even worse than proximity had been. Nausea and loathing rose like bile in her throat: for herself, for the state of her hands, and for the world itself, rose like bile in her throat. She stumbled backwards again and felt herself falling. Her back struck the cold water with a splash.

The tainted water almost immediately flowed over her body, seeping under her jacket and tank top to lace her bones with frozen horror. The Mesembrine’s smell and presence grew overwhelming, turning Una’s vision gray and fuzzy around the edges. It’s going to kill me, she thought with detached certainty, as the creature surged towards her like a wave about to crash. It’s finally happened… I’m going to die here.

With a grunt of effort, Una found her determination and rolled to the side, avoiding the creature’s bulk as it oozed into the spot she’d just left. She rose, lashing out with one hand as she did so and tearing through the slime, with results just as futile as before. Her body felt heavy and slow, but she forced her way out of the water. Her clothes dripped with a steady stream of muck as she struggled back to her feet.

A creaking noise above Una sent her gaze skywards, but too late. Fuck me—it’s split itself! A mass of shimmering, translucent slime, visible only where the light refracted through it, fell from the hanging bough of the oak above her. Una threw up her arms to shield her head and face, but the substance simply flowed over her, soaking her clothing, hair, and exposed skin. She gasped and staggered backwards, struggling to free herself of the stuff.

More of the Mesembrine’s body encircled her legs, and Una let out a moan of horror. She tried to flex her hands, to swipe again with her arms, but the slime coated her limbs and held them fast. It flowed smoothly across her forehead and cheeks, tendrils probing her nostrils and mouth. The taste of rotting leaves flooded her senses. She felt the slime flowing into her ears, coating her eardrums. She heard nothing except its soft squishing sound.

Get off! I’ll kill you—I’ll… but her thoughts could no longer emerge as sound. The Mesembrine’s presence was inside her, filling and covering her completely. She felt pseudopods gently push her eyes closed.

***

A moving image, seen inwardly through the haze, presents itself for inspection: a handsome young man looking over his shoulder, his face breaking into a warm smile. A wave of slick, blonde hair; chinos and a bomber jacket with a tight-fitting polo shirt underneath. “Hey, you looking for Intro to Sacred Scripture? I think we’re on the wrong floor.”

Another moment: the blonde seminary student again, wearing a plaid shirt and work gloves, his brow beads with sweat under the summer sun as he pulls weeds from a garden. Wow, he’s just… too good-looking, a memory echoes. No, I can’t think of him like that! I’ve got to get over this.

More fragments bubble up from years long past: scenes of students studying together, making dinner. The man laughing as he walks the street of Manhattan with friends; his gaze turns to look at a nightclub here, a bar with a rainbow flag over there. Is he into…? No—that’s none of my business.

Michael Belmont’s hand reaches out to knock, for the fourth time, at an apartment door. A metal label, 1C, hangs slightly askew on the door. “Andy? You there? Andy?” He knocks again.

***

In an earlier moment, Michael Belmont lay on a grassy green hill, swept by spring wind, as the man called Andy reclined next to him. A future succubus-self gazed out through his eyes, overwhelmed by recollection.

“See the meadow beneath the trees over there, on the other side of the path? They used to call that ‘the fruited plain’ back in the 1920s.” Andrew Bajorek leaned back to gauge his friend’s reaction.

“As in ‘purple mountain majesties’ from America, the Beautiful?” Michael asked, squinting. The sun glared through the trees. “I don’t get it.”

Andy gently nudged Michael in the side. “It’s a joke, doofus. Antique slang for gay guys—they used to hook up there.”

“Oh!” said Michael. “Oh… is that the area they call the Ramble? I hear it’s dangerous…”

“Not during the daytime,” Andrew replied, with a knowing smile, “though I wouldn’t advise ministering to wayward souls there after dark.”

By this point, Michael’s face was bright pink, and not just from the warm spring sun. He cleared his throat. “I’m content with the modern, ecumenical take. There are plenty of gay Catholics, and if they have questions about leading a life free of sin… well, there are many paths to the Lord.”

Andrew gave the younger man an odd, sidelong glance. “You and I are certainly on a steep and narrow one at seminary, especially as finals draw near. Say… what drew you towards the priesthood, Mick? Sometimes it seems like you’d be happier as a lay theologian or historian.”

Michael shrugged, looking out at a group of children playing near the great museum in the distance. “I don’t know… just seemed like a natural choice, I guess. The idea of service, and the Church… I don’t know. Better than some alternatives.”

“I’m sure you will do well,” Andrew said, smiling. “But… you realize that even in an urbane and modern school like ours, the Church is not exactly welcoming to people who are… different.” He looked down as he said those words, as if afraid of the reaction he might provoke. Michael said nothing, his shoulders tense. The silence stretched between them, growing heavier by the second. Finally, the young student spoke, his gaze still directed at the distant children.

“There are many kinds of love in the world,” said the priest-in-training, quietly. “I’m certain God loves all those who love. But I can’t help but wonder… why do some of those loves seem to be considered less than others?”

Andrew sat up and clapped Michael on the back. “Just accidents of history and society, if you ask me.” They were silent for a while, until the shadows of the trees grew long across the grass.

***

Michael hammered again on Andy’s door. “Come on, are you there!? Answer me?” He leaned against the wood and pressed his ear to the panel. Silence. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. He moved back and raised his booted foot, ready to kick the door just above the knob.

Time flipped through another torrent of moments and memories like so many snapshots, riffled through numb fingers and falling through the void. Andrew, raising his hand eagerly in class. Andrew, tossing back a shot of vodka to roars of approval. Two cassocked clergymen, one saying something and pointing in their direction.

A snatch of conversation echoed through Una’s skull: “…heard he got caught doing something nasty. They say he’s been kicked out, but they won’t tell me anything about it…”

“Andy?! Vance said he left you here half an hour ago, and the doorman said you hadn’t left. Can you open the door, please?!”

Andrew, walking down the central steps of the church, his head bowed and his hands folded. His face, when it turned towards Michael, looked drawn and ashen, his eyes red and his jaw set. He walked quickly, ignoring his classmates’ calls and waving arms.

Michael, shaking himself out of his shocked stance, hurried down the steps in his friend’s wake. “Andy, what’s going on? What’s happened?” His voice caught in his throat; he thought he knew the answer already, but his thoughts whirled and couldn’t find the right question.

“They found out,” said Andrew Bajorek. The seminary student—his older, more handsome, broad-shouldered friend—stopped and turned to face Michael. He looked like a statue, carved from marble and painted with helpless rage. “But you must already know that. They said they talked to you—talked to everyone.”

“I—Andy, please believe me. I didn’t know what they were asking about, but I didn’t tell them about anything wrong or inappropriate. Some conversations we had, but there’s nothing wrong with talking, is—”

“Shut up, Michael!” Andrew crumpled a piece of paper in one fist. “Are you really that fucking naïve? They don’t need photographs or video recordings—just a pile of suggestive talk and circumstantial evidence. Someone else told them about me and Vance. It’s enough to get a witch hunt rolling, make an example of me, and bring my family down on my head.”

“What are you talking about?” Michael’s voice rose, despite his efforts to stay calm and rational.

“They’re throwing me out,” said Andrew. “I have until tomorrow night to move out of here, and then… back to fucking Wisconsin. The Chancellor made it clear that if I show my face at school again, he’ll call for excommunication. Get lost, Michael. You have your own problems—maybe worse than mine—and I’m sure you don’t want the stigma of association.” Andrew turned to walk away, but Michael reached for his shoulder, grabbing it.

“Andy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t want this—” Michael began, but Andrew’s hand shot out, brushing his aside roughly.

The seminary student glared at Michael. “I said leave me alone! Just because you’re in the closet doesn’t mean I want to hang out with you there. You’re not even worth my time, you coward.” With that, Andrew stalked off down the street, leaving Michael standing in the middle of the sidewalk with tears brimming in his eyes.

***

A phone call. “Michael? Man, I’m glad I caught you. Can you check on Andrew? Now, or sometime real soon? We had… a really shitty fight, you know? He just threw me out of his place, but I’m worried about him.”

“I’m not sure he wants to see me either, Vance. He was pretty… pissed off.”

“Just promise me you’ll check on him, okay? Never seen him like this. He’s in a bad, bad place.”

A long silence, and then the memory of a kick above the doorknob—which did exactly nothing, of course, Michael Belmont’s sneaker-clad foot bouncing off the plate uselessly. Five minutes later, he’d returned with the building superintendent, alarmed and honest-faced enough for the man to produce his huge keyring.

The silence in Andrew’s apartment; clothes strewn on the floor; the drip of liquid from the bathroom. The super, muttering something in Russian and retreating, as Michael Belmont stepped into his worst nightmare.

He kneeled by the edge of the tub, heedless of the overflow of hot water and red blood that spilled across the floor. He reached in with both trembling hands to pull his friend’s shoulders out of the water. Andrew’s head lolled limply to the side; his lips were blue; his chest didn’t move. The razor blade floated in the water.

Michael groaned wordlessly, a long hoarse noise that echoed from the tiles and the ceiling. He clutched the corpse of his friend to his chest in an embrace that could never be returned.