Dead and Horny Ch. 03

Lily scowled at the man. He was clearly trying to lure her into making a mistake, but she couldn't figure out how. "So, where's your backup? Shouldn't your buddy with the sword make an appearance any minute now?"

"Oh, it's just me these days. I was just wondering if we could have a little chat." He moved a bit closer, and then leaned forward on his cane. "Honestly, I'm not sure what to do about you, so figured I would start with a couple of questions."

"Have you checked my Tinder? I like to be choked and the safe word is chucklebunny."

"Why did you take the flask from Ray Scotes?"

It was a direct question, which meant she had to answer truthfully. She could choose to keep her mouth shut, or even dodge the question, but it was often better to tell a half truth and let the perceived deception play itself out then to say nothing at all.

"I didn't take a flask from anyone." Technically, Dana was the one who had taken it.

The man nodded his head. "Okay, I'll give you that. Why did your master take the flask from Ray Scotes?"

Oh. Now that was going to be much harder. If he was asking that question, it meant he knew that someone else was with her. She could easily say that her master didn't take the flask, but then he would know that someone else was technically in control of her, and this mess they had fallen into would become even bigger.

"Are you talking about that sexy blonde I'm with? She took the flask because she's always thirsty." Omit a detail, let the mind fill in the rest.

"Really? She took it just because she wanted it?" He shook his head in disappointment. "I get the feeling that you're hiding something from me."

"Well, it is our first date after all, and I don't even know your name." She pouted, then mentally judged the distance between the two of them. If he knew about Dana, then she was in danger as well.

"My name is Cyrus. What's yours?"

"I'm called Lily." She turned to one side and put her breasts in her hands, then jiggled them. "I'm a Sagittarius with a heart of gold, and a pair of C-cups to die for. I like long walks on the beach and hate mean people." When she turned to face him again, she was able to hide the small step she had taken toward him. "Oh. And I love puppies and being spanked."

Cyrus laughed. "Your kind sure do love to run your mouths, don't you?"

"Aw, now that's not nice." She pouted and hugged herself. "If you're just gonna hurt my feelings, maybe I should just leave."

"I'm afraid you won't be going anywhere." He slid the tip of his cane forward another inch and a large glowing rune appeared on the floor. It was almost twenty feet across and Lily was stuck in the middle of it. The familiar buzzing sound returned, and she recognized the magic as a sealing rune. Ancient letters swirled around the outside of the circle, and she knew from first-hand experience that trying to escape would be very painful.

"Clever little demon hunter," she snarled, then looked at his cane. The rune had been prepared in advance, and Cyrus had used the cane somehow to complete it. "Looks like you've got me trapped in here. At least, until you run out of juice."

"I only need a couple more minutes." He let go of the cane and it stood on its own. He pulled a small vial from his pocket and anointed his hands and face.

"Wow, an exorcism. How original. I warn you, I had a big lunch, so...might want to stay out of the splash zone."

"A one-way ticket to Hell, actually. As much as I would love to smite you into dust, I just need to trap you here long enough to find and kill your master. You can get in line and wait a few millennia before someone manages to summon you again. But I want you to know that it isn't personal."

"No, of course not, you pock-marked asshole."

He chuckled, then started speaking in Latin. Not only was his pronunciation perfect, but very fast. Already, she could feel the walls of reality softening around her, ready to give her the boot to another plane of existence. Even if he sent her to Hell, she could easily return in a few hours, but would be forced to come back to Earth at the Radley house where Mike was. It would be a very long time before she could return here where Dana was, and that was if the Order didn't get to her first.

She walked around the edges of the circle and examined the swirling words. Cyrus kept his eyes on her as she drew close to him, speaking from memory. He was clearly experienced at this, and she could feel her skin starting to burn. A sealing rune was a powerful tool, but it had its flaws. For instance, the more that was known about the demon being sealed, the better. She saw that the words described her physical appearance, which further confirmed her theory that they had been watching somehow. It also described her role as a succubus and how she was created in the depths of Hell.

That was strike one. Her birthplace was far more complicated than the Pit. The words moved faster as time distorted around her, but she was able to make out a few more words that described how she preyed on innocent and guilty alike.

Not anymore. That was strike two. If she tried to go through the rune now, she might make it, but would be severely weakened. The words were moving very fast now, and she took them in, hoping to find what she needed that would ensure her escape.

She caught the final mistake she needed, then walked up to Cyrus and faced him with a huge grin on her face. What was about to happen would hurt like a bitch, but would be way more entertaining than Hell, and he wouldn't see it coming.

The rune described how she was bound to a female master. Technically, she was bound to two masters, and that was all she needed.

"Strike three, fucker." She shoved her hands through the runic ward, which sent a painful surge of electricity through her entire body, and grabbed Cyrus by the face. His exorcism broke off when she hooked her fingers in his mouth and pulled him into the rune with her.

He was surprisingly strong, and tried to push her away, but all it took was a few strikes of her tail and his eyes got all dopey. She stuck her fingers against his temples and pulled his face close to hers.

"Oh, I am going to have so much fun eating you," she said, then forced her way into his mind.

Unsurprisingly, his Dreamscape was anything but peaceful. Storm clouds threatened to strike her from the sky as she dove through the clouds, and tornadoes made of fire and light chased after her, threatening to pin her down until he could wake up.

His memories appeared before her as broken images, memories that slammed shut to avoid her perusal. Even in those quick moments, she saw pictures of his life, and of his hunts. The more recent ones came up first, and she saw a small group of hunters in the woods where they had been. She saw herself and Dana in the elevator from his point of view.

She also saw the moment that he had watched Unearthly Delights burn to the ground. Every moment was only a couple of seconds long, and then the memory would change. Clearly Cyrus had training in the Dreamscape, which meant this would be more difficult than she had expected.

That was fine, though. She had gotten plenty of information already, and would have all the time in the world to examine his thoughts in detail after sucking out his soul. Below her, a large church appeared surrounded by gravestones, and she crashed dramatically through a stained-glass window depicting the tree of life. The floor was made of marble, and she tucked and rolled on impact, coming to a stop about thirty feet from the dais. She was surrounded by pews, and the church was lit by torches. The whole thing was very 16th Century, and a bit cliché if she was being honest.

Before her stood a younger version of Cyrus. It was how he saw himself in his dreams, but he still had those nasty scars.

"How did you break the runes?" he asked.

She was surprised that he was already waiting for her, but it made sense. The Order weren't to be messed with for a reason, and this guy really knew his stuff.

"I'll tell you all about it after I share my evil plans for world domination, you jackass," she told him, then grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. She needed to trap him in a dream and trick him into sex, but it would be very difficult with him in his current state. He was fully aware of who and what she was, which meant she needed to change the venue, perhaps break him apart mentally for a while.

She shoved her hand into the floor of the church and pulled. The marble ripped apart to reveal a door, and she pulled it the rest of the way out of the ground with her tail. If she cast him into a nightmare, it was possible to trick him into thinking he had woken up, and then go from there. She had enough info now that she could make him think he dozed off outside of Ray's cabin, maybe finish hunting for magic in Colorado, and head back to headquarters. It would take some time but it would be doable.

Of course, now that he was asleep, she could sense the trance of the people in the lobby breaking. Even though she could accelerate time in the Dreamscape, it would be difficult to just hold the man up in the lobby while he was out cold.

Cyrus, upon seeing the door, began kicking in her grasp, his face turning red.

"Oh, do you have something to say?" she asked.

"Chu...chucklebunny," he gasped.

This elicited a genuine laugh. At least he still had his sense of humor. "I take it you know what's behind this door, don't you?" Doorways were a dangerous thing in dreams, and this one was covered in glowing eyes and fangs. "What does a demon hunter have nightmares about, anyway? Are you a virgin who's afraid of a little pussy? Or cock? I don't judge. Oh, I know! Is it taxes? I bet it's taxes."

She grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it open.

Spiders swarmed out of the doorway as if a dam had burst, catching her and Cyrus up in a tide of hair, teeth, and legs. She lost control of him and was forced to fight her way against the steady tide of arachnids that threatened to push her out of the church.

Cyrus, on the other hand, was screaming bloody murder.

She grabbed onto a pew and pulled herself up above the swarm of spiders and spotted the man near the entrance. He shrieked in terror and pain as they crawled all over him, and she leapt across the church, landed on another pew, and reached into the mess and grabbed a fistful of his hair.

"You're making this so difficult," she told him.

He turned his face toward her. It was covered in hundreds of bite marks already, and he pulled at the collar of his shirt. The spiders were vanishing into the shadows, and she dragged him toward the doorway, eager to throw him through. If she could get him locked in a nightmare for even a couple of minutes, she could put together a solid plan for keeping him asleep.

Back in the real world, however, she was walking him across the lobby, eager to get him out of sight. Her wings and tail had disappeared and she was moving toward the stairwell. The plan was to hide him just under the stairs where nobody would see either of them until she could properly feed on him.

In the Dreamscape, she pulled him through the door and found herself in the forest. Tall shadows moved amongst the rocks, and she tossed him onto the ground.

"Spiders, huh? That's a little tame for a guy who likes to hunt demons."

Cyrus was on the ground. He had already discarded his jacket, and he was frantically trying to pull his shirt over his shoulders.

"C'mon, it isn't so bad. You'll at least get to touch a boob before you die." She gave him a kick, and knocked him on his back. "You're just making this more difficult on me and...oh."

Cyrus had pulled his shirt off to reveal a large, glowing rune on his chest. Drawing a rune in the real world was difficult enough, but being able to place one inside of a dream required a level of mastery she hardly expected from any mortal. It was a constantly changing environment that was capable of shifting at the merest hint of a thought.

The Dreamscape twisted violently around them when he spoke a single word in Enochian, the language of angels and demons.

Energy rippled outward in a fiery ring, and she barely escaped his mind. They had just reached the door of the stairwell when light flared from his eyes and mouth, his spell powerful enough to manifest in the real world.

When the light hit Lily, her body was vaporized into smoke. The hotel vanished, and her thoughts tumbled about as she was banished from the stairwell, her body trying to put itself back together in the middle of an astral tornado that was carrying her away.

When she was finally able to pull herself together, she materialized on the golden floor of an ornate palace with a high ceiling and decorative windows. All around her were golden statues of animals, their gem encrusted eyes watching a pair of golden thrones at the front of the room.

"Oh, please, no..." she whimpered as the front door opened.

"Lily?" Dana turned off the hot water and stepped out of the shower, pausing long enough to dry off. She stuck her head out of the bathroom to see that the succubus wasn't back yet.

She frowned. She thought she had heard Lily's voice, but was clearly mistaken.

Back in the bathroom, she dried her hair with the blowdryer. Wet hair in a motorcycle helmet was the absolute worst, and the last thing she needed was another reason to be miserable on the drive home. Even if the flask was the only thing they brought back, every victory counted.

"What a load of shit," she muttered under her breath, already dreading the long, midnight hours she would spend later justifying her decision to leave. It was hard to be objective, and if it wasn't for Lily, she would be figuring out how to follow these Order people and see what they knew.

Still, if the succubus was afraid of them, it had to be for a good reason.

Once her hair was dry, she walked into the bedroom and changed into a clean set of clothes. It was quick work to pack up; other than some spare clothes and her laptop, there was nothing more to be had. She zipped her backpack shut and looked around to make sure she got everything.

There was a knock on the door and she frowned. When she put her eye to the peephole, she saw an Asian man in a suit standing outside wearing a nametag. Was it the manager? She wondered if Lily had gotten into trouble in the lobby, maybe tried to swipe the soul off of some poor barfly in the lounge.

When she opened the door, he pointed a wand at her, and there was a hot rush of air moments before she was blasted across the room. She bounced off the bed and landed in a heap on the floor.

"Succubus master is down," he said, then lowered his wand. Dana remained still, and let him approach. The smell of the forest clung to him, and she realized that he had probably come from Ray Scotes' cabin.

Well, that was fast.

When the mage stood right above her, she jumped up, her limbs surging with magical energy. She was always much stronger after feeding, and it was child's play to grab him by the collar and toss him into the ceiling. He struck his head and fell back into her arms, and she shoved him as hard as she could, which caused him to tumble back out the door and into the hallway.

A woman with dark skin and raven colored hair pulled into a bun stepped between them. She looked Meditteranean, and her eyes were an eerie shade of light blue. With a casual flick of her wrist, the dagger she held unfolded itself into a long blade.

"Oh, shit," Dana said.

"You got that right," the woman told her, then walked forward. Dana feinted to the left, then stepped to the right and threw a solid left hook at the woman's head. She not only took the punch, but stepped back and swung her blade down on Dana's shoulder like a samurai cutting a piece of bamboo.

Dana's arm hit the ground first, and the sudden weight change caused her to lose her balance. Once on the ground, she rolled onto her back and was rewarded with a blade straight through the heart.

Though it didn't hurt, the amount of pressure was uncomfortable, and she opened her mouth in a loud moan. Her attacker knelt and covered Dana's mouth with a hand.

"It'll be over soon," she whispered, so Dana went with it and dramatically fluttered her eyes, then closed them. She remained motionless while her non-existent pulse was taken, and opened one of her eyes just a crack to see the woman move back out into the hallway.

"We're good here, Brother Amida" she said, then helped the man up. "She's dead."

"Good. Close the door, and we'll come back later to clean up," he told her, holding the back of his head in his hands. Dana could smell the blood on Amida's fingers. It smelled like ozone and red pepper flakes. She would never understand how that even worked. "Master Cyrus hasn't checked in yet, and I want to make sure he's okay."

"Got it." She came in and snatched the key card off of the small counter by the door, then closed the door on the way out. Once in the hall, her two attackers spoke briefly, and then she heard them move away.

She stood and looked down at her severed arm. The cut was unbelievably clean. She tried to move her fingers, wondering if she could control the limb from a distance.

She couldn't. Disappointed, she picked up her severed limb and held it to the stump. Her skin fused over, causing a thin pink line to appear, but when she tried to move her arm, it still hung uselessly off her body.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she swore, then pressed on the wound with her fingers. While her body was able to heal itself, that didn't mean her severed muscles and tendons would magically reconnect themselves. She needed help, but she also needed to get away.

One of the first things she and Lily had established was that they needed a place to meet up in case they ever got separated. They had chosen the library on CSU campus because it was a public place with a lot of people, and both of them could easily go unnoticed.

Right now, she needed to get out of her room, but couldn't go through the front door. If she got spotted, they would do a lot more than just stab her through the heart. She put on her backpack, stared at the door for a few seconds, and then turned around to look at the window.

It was only a few stories, and she was fairly certain she could land in the bushes. She pushed open the window and prayed that nobody would be wandering around the parking lot in the middle of the day. They had picked this room because it faced away from the main road, and the only thing she saw now was a parking lot and a large field of grass.

She put on her helmet and then ripped the safety screen out of the window. She sat on the edge, took a deep breath and scooted forward.

When she fell, she was surprised at how hard she smashed into the ground. Her enhanced strength helped with the landing, but it didn't make her bones magically more durable. Something snapped in her left leg. She pulled herself out of the bushes and limped through the parking lot toward her bike.

Tick-Tock roared to life, and a pair of metallic hands extended from engine block to grab the handlebars. The bike drove over to pick her up, and she mounted it with more than a little difficulty. With a bad leg and a useless arm, it was much harder than she expected.

They circled around to the front of the building, and she saw a small group of people in the lobby. She wondered what had happened to Lily, but figured it would have to wait. With reluctance, she pulled onto the main road and headed into town.

Campus was busy, and she was forced to leave the bike behind in a nearby neighborhood. Lily had paid for the room with cash and a false identity, but the license plate on the bike could easily be traced to Dana, and she didn't need to leave any trail for the Order to follow, especially if it led back to Mike and his house. Her leg was already working much better, and by the time she strolled through the doors of Morgan library on CSU campus, her limp was almost gone.