Dead and Horny Ch. 05

"Seriously, don't. For your sake."

He expected to see anger or delight written across her face, but if he was going to pick an emotion, she seemed more worried than anything else.

He fought to get up, but she held him in place. The succubus transformed into Tasia and came over to him.

With a wide grin, she leered down at him with Tasia's face, her tail coiling up to strike.

"Night, night, Master Cyrus." When her tail came down to sting him, there was a flash of light and she was knocked on her ass.

Through the witch's hands, he chuckled. As long as he wore the amulet, she couldn't touch him, not directly, and she had to use the desk to stand. Her tail had been reduced to a smoky mess that was slowly reforming behind her. Growling, she cracked her knuckles.

"Watch your hands," the succubus commanded as she stepped forward, and the witch let go. Cyrus opened his mouth to yell, but the succubus kicked him in the jaw hard enough that his head whipped around, knocking him for a loop.

Stunned, all he could do was try to open his eyes. He felt disconnected from his body, and knew that the only reason he was even still conscious was because of the defensive magic that protected him.

The front door of the lobby opened and filled with footsteps.

"She's in the dorms," the succubus said in Tasia's voice. "She looked like me when she went, so be careful."

He heard mutters and the sounds of swords being drawn.

"I'll protect Cyrus and Amida, you all need to go help the others before she changes again!" said the succubus. There were murmurs of assent and he heard the room empty. He prayed that only part of the team had come in, per protocol.

"Next phase?" asked the witch.

"Almost." He felt the succubus lean over him and could feel the heat of her breath on his cheek. "One day, I will catch you sleeping on the job," she warned, and then they left. He groaned in agony as the blinding light of the room filled his vision once more. His limbs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds and tingled as if full of sand.

Out in the big hallway, he heard someone yell, followed by the sound of gunfire and a motorcycle starting, followed by screeching rubber. Seconds later, the town car's engine roared to life, and he heard the peeling of tires on concrete once more.

Down the hall towards the dorm, he heard yells of confusion. The succubus had done it again, and he was even more disappointed in himself. They had fallen for such a simple ruse and then been defeated by little more than a manipulation of their own confusion. Groaning, he turned his head toward the door and waited, trying to hold in his dinner as waves of nausea rolled over him.

Someone else from his team arrived and came to assist him. Other members of his team fled the corridor and he could hear shouts of rage from Tasia.

"Stop them," Cyrus grunted, then stood with some help. "That's the real Tasia, the succubus is already gone." By the time the fight in the hallway stopped, Tasia had injured several of her own comrades, and reappeared in the lobby with blood running down her face.

"Where is she?" Tasia snarled, then ran for the door. Cyrus caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye and grabbed the Knight by her shirt collar before she could go any further. The fabric tore, and she whipped around, eyes wide and nostrils flaring.

"Master Cyrus?" she asked, but he kept his grip on her. Everyone in the room had turned to look at the monitor bank, and now she did, too.

The bands of light were all flickering.

"Act like you belong." It had been Lily's final piece of advice to Dana as the steady clacking of the cube had announced the arrival of Cyrus and his men.

Dana had thought it was a stupid plan, but trusted the succubus when it came to these things. People often saw what they wanted to see when confronted with new information, and the ruse that they belonged to the research staff had been an easy one to perpetuate.

They had both watched as the cube moved toward them on giant, spectral gears that glowed red hot. Once the cube came to a complete stop, the gears had faded away like the dying light of a candle, allowing the cube to rest on the ground between the large depressions. It was a sight to behold, but Dana kept her excitement in check.

After all, she belonged, had seen it dozens of times already, definitely wasn't cool anymore.

When Cyrus had looked at her and then away without a second thought, she said a silent apology to anybody who had ever been fooled by Clark Kent's glasses. By the time they all had walked into the lobby of the research area, Lily had woken up the guard using their previous guise as members of Master Cyrus's team. Naturally, now that Cyrus himself was here, that lie was even easier to accept.

Neither group questioned their appearance or allegiance, and they would have been able to simply walk away as planned if not for the fact that they were being tracked by Lily's necklace. It had been a surprise to see such a thing being used as a magic compass, but the succubus was good at improv and had been able to keep her identity a secret for just a few more seconds.

After knocking out Cyrus and sending the rest of his team down the hallway, she had expected their exit to be an easy one.

Now, however, they stood outside with a small team of people from the Order who still stood guard around Tick Tock. Apparently, they all hadn't come rushing in, and once more, Dana was forced to rely on Lily's natural instincts.

Lily, still in Tasia's form, took command right away. "Keep eyes on the door, the succubus is in the dorms, and she already got Master Cyrus." She was moving toward them at a brisk, but unthreatening pace, and Dana followed.

Wands and swords came out, but one of the men drew a pistol from his belt.

"A gun? You can't use a gun on a succubus," Lily said, now mere feet from the lip of the cube.

"But the bullets are silver," said the Knight.

"That's for werewolves," she replied, stepping past the rim and into the cube. The floor burst into flames, and a glowing rune formed all about her. She screamed and stumbled forward, catching herself on the edge of the town car. Her skin ignited, and white fire crawled all over her body, burning away Tasia and leaving Lily behind.

Everybody hollered and the man with the gun fired. The bullet hit Lily in the chest and knocked her down, and Dana immediately raised her hands in surrender. It took a few moments to realize that nobody was even looking at her anymore, they were all focused on the flaming demon standing in the middle of the cube.

Looking down, she contemplated the rune on the floor of the cube. It looked to be painted on, so she knelt down and scraped at it with her fingernails.

When the Order closed in on Lily, she leapt from the ground and clotheslined a woman with her burning tail, then grabbed a man by the throat and tossed him into his buddy. Large horns jutted from her head, and her visage slipped, revealing something far more sinister beneath her human form.

As the melee continued, magic wands went off, sending magic in every direction, most of it bouncing off of the succubus without any noticeable impact. Lily was laughing maniacally now, and Dana finished scraping a gap in the paint just as she put a guy's head through the windshield of the car.

The flames immediately faded, and Lily let out a roar that cowed the remaining men and women of the Order.

"C'mon," she said as she grabbed one of the chains holding the bike in place and snapped it apart with her hands. The engine roared to life and Dana ran to the bike and hopped on just in time to see Lily take a blast of white light to the chest. The succubus fell, and Dana throttled up the bike and shot forward. She leaned down and grabbed Lily by the hand and dragged her down the tunnel, figuring a little road rash wouldn't hurt her.

Behind her, she heard the gun again, and then her thoughts went foggy. Her whole body tightened up, and she would have fallen off the bike if Tick Tock hadn't extended an arm to support her. Her eyelids fluttered as random thoughts bounced around her head like confetti, slowly piecing themselves back together into images that she recognized.

It was the time she had smashed her hand changing a tire with her dad.

Now it was when she had played softball as a teen, standing in the outfield and waiting for a sloppy pop fly.

Now she was with Alex again, her beautiful Alex. She was on her back with her head in Alex's lap, and her girlfriend was reading a book of poems while stroking Dana's hair. They were on campus, just enjoying a sunny afternoon and...

Now Alex was dead, and Dana had her face pressed against the glass of the church. She hadn't been allowed to attend the ceremony, and the people inside looked like tiny, shriveled dolls that wore paper dresses.

"Dana!" It was Lily, and she was screaming. But she couldn't see her anywhere, there was too much sound in the way.

Sound? No, not sound. Light? The world became a pinprick and she gagged. The bike wobbled dangerously and she tried to grab her head, but her arms weren't working. Her mouth tasted like dust and oatmeal, and then she felt something massive work its way down her sinuses. The pressure built until there was a loud pop.

She was back in the tunnel, and going almost sixty on the bike. Up ahead was a wall, the end of the journey, and she slammed on the brakes, hoping she could stop in time.

The bike turned sideways and thick metal arms emerged from the engine block to keep them from falling over. Dana still had a death grip on Lily, who was leaving a trail of smoke behind her where the ground met her skin. They slid to an inevitable stop before a solitary door that had been painted red.

Behind her, she could hear a car engine.

"What the fuck?" Lily demanded. "You needed to go the other way, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"I... I don't..." She coughed, then gagged, then spat something out. It struck the ground with metallic clang, and Lily, back in her normal form and standing in a cloud of wispy, dark smoke, knelt to pick it up. She wiped it clean and held it out.

It was a bullet.

"That was...in my head?" Dana put a hand to the back of her skull. Sure enough, she could feel a slight divot in her scalp, much like a baby's soft spot recently covered over. Of all the things that had happened so far, the idea of an actual bullet rattling around in her head filled her with dread. If not for her ability to regenerate, that would have been it, the absolute end of who she was.

"Guess I can't blame you too much. Apparently, you had something on your mind." Lily pocketed the bullet and looked over her shoulder. "They're coming and we don't have the element of surprise anymore."

Dana looked at the red door. She didn't even have to ask what it was. "I guess we go inside?"

"Why die a normal death when you can get eaten by an extra-dimensional being, right?" Lily held open the door and Dana pushed the bike through. Once inside, she saw that the room was lit only by a set of red lights up above, and they were standing on a massive catwalk that hovered inside of a giant, black bubble.

"What am I looking at?" Dana asked. Lily shut the door behind them and then walked to the edge of the catwalk.

"Currently, nothing." She scanned the edges of the room. "We're at the bottom of the pit."

"We are? It's all black in here."

"That's the water. We're inside a giant, glass bubble. If you look by the edges, you can see how thick the—" Something struck the glass, and both of them went quiet.

It was a thick, fleshy appendage that shifted amorphously before her, lit solely by the waterproof flashlight held by dozens of fingers along its surface. Suckers that were also mouths and somehow eyes regarded them from the other side of the glass, and it felt like staring into a psychic strobe light. The anomaly hurt Dana's eyes to look at it. Pain built inside her head until she looked away, but Lily kept watching in fascination. Even now, the memory of what she had seen was already gone.

"Wow," Lily whispered. "It's so...beautiful."

"Why don't you offer it a blowjob and see if it will get us out of here?" Dana suggested.

Through the door, she could now hear the engine of the town car. The Order was close behind, and there wasn't anywhere to go in this room. She supposed they could try to burst the bubble and flood the place with toxic water, but she could almost sense the presence just on the other side. It was a sensation similar to the high frequency buzz of an old tube television, just on the edge of perception.

"Oh, I can feel it," Lily continued, and she hopped onto the railing, precariously balanced. "It really is sleeping."

"Not sure how that helps us," Dana said, then looked at the door. The car had screeched to a halt. "Should we block the door, or...?"

The railing creaked, and Dana looked down through the holes in the observation deck to see that the succubus was now standing on the glass, her fingers pressed against the glass.

"I can almost see its dreams," she said, her voice filled with awe. Her tail was whipping around in excitement, and she was pushing her whole body against the bubble.

"Lily. Lily!" Dana couldn't get the succubus' attention, and she could hear people on the other side of the door. Frantic, she looked over at the motorcycle. "Tick Tock, we're gonna need something sharp, are you ready?"

The motorcycle rumbled, and when Dana blinked, she heard metal parts shift around inside it. Tick Tock could only change when unobserved, so now was the best time to ready for a fight.

"Oh, there you are," Lily cooed, and the temperature in the room fluctuated wildly. "What are you dreaming of? Maybe something hungry with lots of teeth? C'mon, show me."

Footsteps had stopped on the other side of the door, and Dana imagined that an attack was being prepared. Whispered tones went silent, and she could just make out shadows beneath the door.

"I can see..." The succubus went silent, then let out a scream. Dana's equilibrium shifted and she fell straight up into the air, along with Tick Tock. They bounced against the ceiling and fell down again, crashing into the observation deck. Whispers filled the room, somehow audible over the sound of Lily's screams, and a dark shape emerged from the shadows around the room and pooled together in the air before them.

When they smashed into the floor, Dana heard a crash and then the door opened. Members of the Order rushed in and came to a halt, their eyes on something behind and above her.

The motorcycle roared to life, and two long metallic arms emerged, each one tipped with a point like a spear. She expected to see the mimic attack the Order, but instead, it stabbed her in the thigh and Lily in the gut, then carried them through the red door, knocking over a mage on the way through. The whispers were temporarily chased away by the roar of the engine, and Dana briefly saw a moment of panic on the face of a Knight who was holding up his sword in self-defense.

One second, he was a young man, the next, easily in his nineties. Before Dana could close her eyes, she watched as his skull inverted, his bones now on the outside. Screams of panic came from everywhere at once, and the motorcycle caught on something, its tires screeching against the ground. The hallway rippled around them as if it was nothing more than a reflection in a still pond, and Dana was caught up in the sudden warping of the world around her. That itchiness was in her head now, and had become a tiny voice speaking to her through the static of reality.

Look at me, it whispered in hundreds of different voices.

The engine of the bike stalled, the absence of sound followed by a loud bang. The world went dark as Dana and Lily were pulled into a tight space that clattered along the ground. Tick Tock had fled the motorcycle and was now in the shape of a wardrobe that could barely contain the two of them.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," Lily whispered at a frantic pace before switching to another language. Her litany was punctuated by screams, and a fiery halo appeared over her head, allowing Dana to see that the succubus was rapidly changing shapes, her body now twisted around like a pretzel. "Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up!"

Through Tick Tock's exterior, she could hear the whispers approaching and, remembering what Lily had told her before, pulled the bag of marbles out of her pocket. She felt around until she found a couple of good-sized ones and then jammed them into her ears. There was pressure as she shoved them deeper, and then she covered them with her hands.

The last thing she heard was screams of terror outside the wardrobe, and she closed her eyes. Tick Tock was picked up and tossed about, but clearly was capable of taking a beating. Dana's world became nothing more than darkness and dread, and she lost track of time. Lily bounced around inside the mimic with her, but Tick Tock's double doors were now gone, the inside of the wardrobe now a single piece of wood.

She didn't know how much time had passed, but eventually the doors opened and both of them fell out. She kept her eyes closed, afraid of what an eternity of madness would feel like, when she felt a tap on her knee.

Wary, she opened one of her eyes just a slit. The tunnel was completely empty, and Tick Tock was now a large sign with a message written on it.

SAFE NOW

"Where...where did the others go?" She looked around the tunnel and saw that even the town car was gone. Puzzled, she stood and attempted to remove the marbles from her ears. Remembering that they had the property of switching places, she found a smaller marble and tapped it against the one lodged in her left ear. The marbles traded places, and the small one rolled out of her ear canal, allowing her to hear again. She repeated the process with her right ear, and was surprised that she could only hear Lily's repeated mutterings. The marbles went back in the bag and into her pocket.

It was only after looking around again that she saw the bike. It had been twisted about and was embedded in the bedrock of the wall as if it had only partially phased through. Sorrow flooded her heart as she approached it, her hands reaching up to caress the formerly bright chrome. This was the bike that Alex had died on, and even after a year of restoring it, here it was again, destined to remain a wreck.

Even now, she recognized the twisted shapes of what she had seen in the research room, her mind digesting the ramifications. Looking over her shoulder at Lily, she saw that the succubus now sat in a wooden chair, her legs pulled up to her chest. The chairs legs were already moving, and they walked back up the tunnel together.

Stopping only a couple of times for fear of being discovered, they eventually passed the research station. There was no sign of Cyrus' men, nor of the cube. It wasn't until eventually reaching the dock that she saw it sitting there, ready to depart for the surface.

Praying that it wouldn't alert anybody, she found out how to open the device and led Lily inside. The faint sound of a phone ringing came from the other side of the tunnel access door, but Dana knew better than to answer. Undoubtedly, the Order would send someone to investigate, so she closed the cube up tight from the inside. The door slid shut and seemed to melt into itself, becoming one continuous surface, the inside lit by glowing panels similar to the ones in the tunnel. The lever mechanism was simple enough to operate, and they rode up together.

Once above the lake, Lily had calmed down a little bit, but remained silent as they departed the cube. It smelled like fresh rain, and the skies above were cloudy, giving them ample cover.