Suddenly A Succubus

After parting ways with Nick, Amara had met up with Chloé and Tessa for dinner. The girls idly gossiped about the date, wondering what their friends might be up to, and eventually switched to more mundane topics. Chloé took up most of the conversation, eagerly sharing updates on her school project, and Amara was happy that she could contribute simply by listening.

Her thoughts lingered on Nick, on his date with Vee. She honestly hoped it was going well, but knew that things could easily change moving forward. Without Nick, she'd need to find new ways to keep her demonic needs sated.

After her week without sex, when Nick had visited family, she'd been paying close attention to her libido. In hindsight, the discovery that sex was a literal need wasn't all that surprising, but at the time it had caught her off guard. On several occasions, she'd experimented with avoiding sex to test how it affected her, and had learned several important things.

Depending on how much she fed, she was able to go about two days without sex before the side effects kicked in. The most obvious effect was, unsurprisingly, being incredibly horny, but it was hardly the most annoying.

Without sex, her body started shutting down. Food gradually lost its flavor and wasn't as filling, while sleep quickly stopped being restful, if she could even manage to fall asleep. Her ability to read sexual auras intensified, becoming something that she couldn't turn off, and she found it increasingly difficult to ignore the urge to feed.

She never went long enough to test the more severe effects, but worried that her self-control might vanish if her needs went unattended for too long.

I don't think I can rely entirely on Tessa, she's got other partners, but maybe if I--

"--isn't that right, Amara?"

Amara shook back to her senses, looking around to see Chloé and Tessa staring at her. "Sorry, what was that last bit? I spaced for a second."

"I was telling Chloé that you and I were heading to the library after this, right?" Tessa said, obviously hinting at the correct answer.

"Oh, y-yeah." Amara mumbled, trying to pull herself together. "I've got some class stuff I need to catch up on, and after my week off, I'm trying to avoid staying home."

"Well, you two have fun with that! I've got plans, unfortunately, otherwise I'd love to join you." Chloé smiled, grabbing her stuff and getting ready to leave. "Tessa at the library, who would've thought..."

Amara stifled a laugh as Tessa glared at her, joining Chloé in picking up their things. After a few minutes, the girls said their goodbyes and parted ways.

"So, the library? When did this happen?" Amara asked.

"Well, for one, there might be a circle there. But even if there isn't, I want to see if I can find the schematics for some of the original buildings."

"Dang, that's a good idea. Looking for the hidden rooms?"

"That's the plan, but honestly I doubt I'll find anything. This feels like something they wouldn't want records of."

"Who do you think they are? The creators of the circles?"

"Eh, not sure I care. I want to know why they exist, not who made them."

By the time the girls made it to the library, the crowds had thinned out slightly. Most students preferred spending time there between classes, and Tessa had hoped that they might have the basement archives to themselves.

As they walked down the main stairs to the basement, Amara couldn't help but notice that her friend seemed nervous, and was looking behind them every few seconds.

"Hey, Tess, you doing alright? You're acting like we're being followed."

"I mean, I hope we aren't, but I'm worried. We just found proof that people are fucking with the circles, and in case you forgot, we made a bit of a mess under the cafeteria. Whoever these people are, they might know we're onto them."

"That's why you've got me, right?" Amara flashed a cocky grin, manifesting her tail as she tried to strike an intimidating pose. "Your own personal demon bodyguard!"

Tessa couldn't stop herself from laughing, "True, I feel a lot better with you here. Though, no offense, but have you ever actually been in a fight?"

"Well, no, but I did a bunch of sparring practice with Nick. I'm also hoping that, between my fire and my appearance, I can just scare people away before anything actually starts."

They made sure that the archives were empty before entering, Amara eager to keep her horns and her tail out. The two of them decided to start on opposite sides of the room then work towards each other, and had no illusions that this was going to be a fun experience.

The archives weren't the most organized space in the library, and often served as a place to put materials that the staff couldn't find space for. For every well-labeled filing cabinet filled with helpful information, there were at least two boxes filled with random paperwork. Some were filled with receipts, some were filled with old promotional materials, and everything seemed to be at least a few dozen years old.

Amara was almost impressed at how old everything smelled as she kept searching. She found a few drawers of old newspapers, several collections of out-of-date textbooks, even a few geological surveys. That last item seemed promising, given everything Tessa had told her about magical leylines, and she made a mental note to try and look through them some time.

"I think I've got something!" Tessa called out.

Amara, eager for something to break the monotony, rushed over to her friend. Tessa was already in the middle of moving stacks of paper out of the drawer, and soon continued talking.

"It looks like this whole drawer is old schematics, but I'm not entirely sure how they're organized. How about you take the back half, I'll take the front, and we'll start by looking for buildings where we've already confirmed circles."

"Can do, boss!" Amara was thrilled to have the scope of their work narrowed, and quickly got to work.

The two immediately realized they had found exactly what they were looking for. The drawer wasn't well organized, which was expected, but it seemed to contain a very thorough history of various building schematics for their campus. Frustratingly, the files seemed to have been organized differently at different times in the library's history; Some files were organized by year, others by building.

As they poured over all the yellowed papers, they soon came to one concerning conclusion; None of the files had the original schematics. They had found renovations, newer buildings, additions, but never the original plans for the original campus.

"Ugh, this has to be intentional, right?" Tessa groaned, tossing her head back.

"But intentional on whose part? The founders of the university? Or the people that are fucking with the circles?"

"There's no way to know." The witch groaned, throwing some papers to the ground in defeat. "We're back to square one, this is bullshit!"

"Hey, we're way past square one. We've already found multiple circles, you're learning how they work, and we've confirmed that someone is trying to weaken them. You did that almost entirely on your own!" Amara moved closer, wrapping her tail around Tessa and pulling her in for a hug.

"Y'know, it's hard to throw a pity party when you're being this compassionate and optimistic." Tessa leaned into Amara's shoulder, sighing heavily. "But yeah, I guess you're right..."

"Look, we've already been here for a while, how about we call it a night."

"What about the circle? We haven't even tried looking yet."

"If there's one down here, it's not going anywhere. You've pulled too many all-nighters looking for them, and you need to get some sleep. C'mon, up!"

Amara started putting all the papers back, and Tessa reluctantly joined in soon after. They finished relatively quickly, and it only took a few more minutes to clean up the other messes they'd made in searching the archives. The witch was still worried about being followed, and she was adamant they leave as little evidence as they could.

Amara hid her tail and horns before leaving the archives, then paused as they entered the hallway. "Hey, let's use the back staircase. If there's actually someone following us, it'll be less obvious if we leave that way."

"There's another staircase down here?" Tessa asked.

"Yup! Originally it was the only one, but the renovation added the bigger staircase by the front entrance. I have a friend that used to work here, she said the back stairs are mostly just for troublemakers now." Amara couldn't help but smirk as she spoke, remembering the last time she'd shown this to someone.

"Are you hiding something from me? Are you a troublemaker?" Tessa nudged her ribs, eager for gossip.

"I... may have brought Nick here once."

"Amara! You're such a slut!"

The girls laughed as they pushed into the old, decrepit staircase. Amara summoned a ball of flame so they could see, and they started climbing. "It was just the one time, right after we decided I was likely a succubus. I pulled him back here and--"

The instant Amara stepped onto the middle landing, a burst of light exploded from the ground. It was impossibly bright, blinding her even when she closed her eyes. The light lingered, bending in on itself before latching onto Amara. She screamed, falling to the floor as pain flooded her body, her limbs seizing uncontrollably. She felt Tessa's hands grab her, preventing her from falling down the stairs, but they did nothing to stop the pain.

The light vanished quickly, leaving Amara writhing in darkness while Tessa scrambled to get her phone out.

"Amara! Say something!" The witch cried.

Amara couldn't form words, her body was too preoccupied with its efforts to keep breathing. Every few seconds her muscles twitched of their own accord, the strange energy running circuits through her body.

"Fuckfuckfuck this is bad, this is really bad!"

"What... happened?" Amara whispered, managing to sit up slightly as the seizing stopped.

"Things just got a whole lot worse, I'm so sorry, we need to--"

"Cut the bullshit and fucking tell me!" Amara hissed. Another spasm hit, and she grabbed at Tessa to steady herself. Her fingers tensed, digging into her friend's pants as the magic attacked her. After another few seconds, the effects calmed down enough for Amara to come back to her senses.

She realized that Tessa was grabbing her wrist, trying and failing to pull it away. She was also staring at Amara, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fear. "Amara, what the fuck was that?"

"I-I... the magic, it--" She couldn't finish her sentence. When she pulled her hand off Tessa, she saw traces of blood on her nails. There were several small rips in her friend's pants, exactly where her fingers had been. Her eyes watered as she started speaking again. "Tessa! I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me!"

"Hey, look at me." Tessa spoke softly, her tone cautious but stern. "You still you?"

They locked eyes, Amara fighting the urge to reach for Tessa for comfort. "Still me. Promise."

The witch sighed heavily, tension leaving her body. "It might not be your fault. This trap, I'm pretty sure it was Enochian. It's... the language of the angels."

"Seriously? Please hope that doesn't mean what I think it means."

"It might not. I honestly don't even know if angels roam the earth anymore. Most mortals can't read, yet alone understand Enochian, but it's not unheard of. Every once in a while, supposedly, someone has enough holy juice in them to be able to speak it."

"So, what did it do to me? I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear, I don't even know what happened!"

"It was dark, so I couldn't see exactly, but... it felt like your nails grew? Just for a second, long enough to puncture my jeans."

Another shock, smaller this time, jolted Amara. "But you're... fuck... you're okay?"

"Just a scratch. Promise. I'll bet this is just the holy magic fucking with your body."

Amara crawled to a corner, leaning against the wall. She gestured to the landing around her before speaking again. "What do you think this was? They tryin' to kill me?"

"I wish I could say, but Enochian is a huge mystery." Tessa moved closer, pulling Amara into a hug before touching their foreheads together. They rested like that for a few minutes, Amara's breathing slowly returning to normal. "You're alive, though, so we avoided the worst."

Amara pulled out her phone, texting Nick an update while assuring him that she was safe. Cautiously leaning forward, she tried moving her body around to see if anything was still hurting.

"How's everything feeling?" Tessa asked.

"Surprisingly okay, which is a little concerning." As she tested various muscles, she remembered that she was still hiding her demonic aspects. "I'm gonna pull out my demon bits, back up a little?" The witch nodded, then moved to sit higher on the stairs. Amara moved further away from the wall, pulling her shirt off to prevent her wings from destroying it. After a deep, nervous breath, she tried to manifest her true form.

She immediately cried out in pain as another shock of energy surged through her. She saw flickers of white energy dance across her body like some kind of holy lightning, her muscles seizing once more as she doubled over from the shock. "Fucking... wow that hurts."

Tessa was immediately beside her, grabbing her shoulders to steady her. "I hate to say it, but I think I know what's happening here."

Still breathing heavily, Amara met her friend's gaze and nodded in agreement. She made sure to keep her hands to herself. "Are you thinking that all my demonic traits are being blocked? 'Cuz that's what it feels like."

The witch nodded, her face full of concern. "I wouldn't be surprised if the trap had a couple different effects. Obviously there's the magic blocking your demonic nature, but that initial blast of light seemed pretty intense. I wonder if it would have been able to banish a lesser demon altogether."

"I'm sorry, did you say banish?"

"Like, back to hell. That's normally what these religious fuckers want. Best case scenario, whoever's on campus isn't strong enough to do that. I'll bet you're magnitudes more powerful than like, a random imp or whatever."

Amara winced, another trace of holy energy sparking off her body. "That's... a terrifying thought."

"Can you stand? We need to get you home." Tessa pulled Amara up to her knees, then helped put her shirt back on. Though she was still fairly weak, walking felt comfortable, though she still leaned on Tessa occasionally.

Every few minutes, another jolt of pain shot through her. Tessa confirmed that, if someone were looking closely, they would definitely be able to see the strange flickers of light when it happened. The walk home felt impossibly long, Amara's paranoia reminding her of when her tail first appeared. She was scared of everyone they passed, nervous they might see the magic sparking, unsure who might be hunting her.

Her thoughts drifted back to the last time she'd left the library with Nick.

"I keep worrying about other students finding out, but maybe... we should be worried about bigger things?"

Sometimes she hated being right.