Dead and Horny Ch. 16

"Shit," she muttered, then made a call to Esteban. That call went to voicemail, too. If she walked back to the real estate office, she might lose the trail.

She wished Amida were here. The mage had an easy going nature that became all business when they were on the hunt, and it would be nice to have a partner right now, someone she could trust. The man had been such an important part of her identity that times like these really threw her for a loop.

The trail steadily got stronger, but the witch was clever. Tasia found herself staring out into the ocean, just shaking her head in disbelief. If she could ever get this bitch away from a body of water, the outcome would be very different.

Picking up a massive rock, she hurled it out into the waves and let out a primal scream of frustration. Her sense of smell was good, but not enough to track through a body of water.

Groaning in frustration, she tried to call Lynn's phone again as she climbed the breakwater rocks. When the woman didn't answer, she almost threw her phone. Standing on the side of the road, she tried to ignore some of the stares she was getting. Looking down at her clothes, she realized that she was borderline indecent.

Muttering to herself, she headed back to Sunchaser Realty. She did her best to stay off the main road, taking alleyways and side roads to avoid suspicion. Feeling absolutely miserable, she rang the bell by the door and waited.

A couple of minutes passed without any response, so she rang the bell and knocked again. Puzzled that nobody was answering, she grabbed the handle of the door and pulled. The door swung open, and she realized that the door was no longer locked.

"Shit," she muttered, reaching for her sword out of habit. When her hand touched her empty hip, she groaned. Whatever was going on, she'd have to go in unarmed. Halfway down the hall, she smelled blood.

"Shit, shit, shit." She pulled out her phone and dialed Esteban. "C'mon, man, where the fuck is everybody?"

Nobody answered. Disturbed, she paused outside of the illusory wall, suddenly afraid to go inside. What on earth had happened?

The beast was just below the surface, ready to emerge once again. Maybe Tasia didn't have a partner anymore, but it was going to be okay. If nothing else, she would rely on herself.

Stepping through the illusory wall, she put a hand to her mouth.

"Gods," she whispered, surveying the carnage. It was indescribable. The room smelled of fire magic and blood. While counting corpses, she realized the number was higher than she originally thought. It wasn't until she spotted brother Julian that she realized the whole team was here. "Lynn? Lynn!"

"Shhh." Esteban walked around the corner, holding a box of crackers in his hands. "There's nobody here that can hear you."

"Esteban?" She stared at the knight in horror. "You did this?"

"Oh, no, this absolutely wasn't me." He stuffed a handful of crackers in his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. "This is what you'd call collateral damage."

"But why?" She felt the rage seething just beneath the surface, but needed to keep it in check just a little bit longer. "These are your brothers and sisters!"

Esteban rolled his eyes and pulled his pistol free. "Ah, yes, the Order and its dedication to fictional familial relationships. Trust me, I know what that's like. My mother is a real piece of work, but she's all that I have."

"I don't understand, your mother?"

Esteban ignored her. "So lycanthropy, huh? And not just any werewolf, it looks like they finally perfected the process. Able to change at will, control the animal form. I saw it in the notes. You had your own little fan club here, it's kind of a shame." He yawned. "Anyway, the Curator already got his prize, but I'm afraid he's taken an interest in you. You were just going to be the scapegoat for this, the bitch who lost control and slaughtered her team."

Tasia growled, baring her teeth. This wouldn't be like the incident with the witch, she was in control! She forced back her claws, her features rippling as bones tried to shift inside her skull. The transformation was always painful, and she was prolonging her own agony by fighting. "This wasn't me!"

Esteban chuckled. "Oh, I know that. You know that. But these guys?" He kicked Julian's foot. "They won't give a shit. The story will make sense, and I plan on selling it to them."

He pulled the trigger. The silver bullet was hot, hitting Tasia square in the shoulder. Her transformation stalled and she fell down. It was like her veins were on fire, and she couldn't move.

Esteban shot her again in the gut, then put his gun away. "That should keep you from digging it out. Gut wounds are the worst, but you'll be fine. The good news is that you're going to escape from the Order. Yeah, you'll be hunted, but they'll never find you. Bad news? You're about to become a lab rat." He stood over her now, bending down to grab her by the ankles. When he did, a crystalline blue necklace tumbled free of his collar, dangling overhead. She recognized it as the same one Dave had been wearing.

"Fuck," she whispered. Was it some sort of mind control? Cursed items like that were typically destroyed on discovery, and she wondered how it had come to be in Dave's possession.

"I hate this thing." Esteban tucked it away. "I carried it around for centuries, you know. Just in case someone ever killed me, which finally happened. The Curator is supposed to find me a suitable body, but now I get to travel around as his fucking servant cleaning up his mess. Figures. This new body, though, it's holding up pretty well. Will probably get a couple of months out of it." He pulled her by the feet, dragging her back into the hallway and toward an emergency door. There was a van waiting outside, and he loaded her into it.

"Esteban, please." She searched the man's eyes, hoping for a response. "If you're in there, you have to fight."

Esteban chuckled. "Oh, he hears you, and he's very upset. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but if you've got some secret way to choke to death on your tongue, or maybe rip out your own heart, you should consider it. I've seen the Curator's experiments. You are far better off dead."

He closed the doors. Moments later, the van started, and Tasia cried out in agony, knowing that nobody would hear her.

The beach was crowded, but Lily didn't mind. Between all the exposed flesh and the general party vibe, she was more than happy to people watch. Not only did it beat sitting around with Dana and going over yet another plan for perhaps a couple of hours, but Lily was also hungry and figured it wouldn't take long for her to find a suitable snack.

"Florida sure is pretty." Mike was walking next to her in a pair of board shorts and wearing Ray Bans, unseen by everyone else. This version of Mike was a small piece of his soul grafted onto her demonic essence. At least, that was the working theory. Otherwise, his presence was actually a sign of a mental break, which wasn't unheard of in demons. "It's even better when you don't need sunscreen or bug spray."

"Have you ever been?" she asked. It was easy enough to make it look like she was speaking into an earpiece, so she wasn't worried about looking like she was crazy. Not that she really gave a fuck.

"Not to the beach. Attended a conference here one time, but didn't make the effort to get some sand between my toes."

"Tragic." She paused at the sight of a family gathering. A collapsible shelter had been set up along with a barbecue. About twenty people milled about, clearly related to one another. There were some kids, too, and a pair of women monitored the children as they built a sand castle.

"Looks nice, doesn't it?" Mike appeared ahead of her and was watching the gathering with interest. "Just a day at the beach."

"I guess." She watched as the women played with the younger kids. When Mike's children came, was that her future? Glorified nanny?

"Only if you let it happen." Mike didn't always wait for her to speak out loud, but it wasn't like she could banish this portion of her mind. "But I bet you'd look real cute, snuggling a centaur."

She scowled in his direction. "I don't need any shit from you."

He shrugged. "Not like I have a say in the matter. I get to be the little voice that reminds you that you're not just a murder machine."

"Things were easier back then." This was only partially true. Back when Amir and the society had been her masters, she was let out of her magic ruby only to assassinate people for them. Killing people was easy--dealing with them was much harder.

She sniffed the air, suddenly caught up in the ambrosia of evil. Ever since Mike and Naia had become her masters, she had to live by the rule that she could only feed on bad people. Typically, she would go out at night and hunt her prey, but she already had a funny feeling that the next couple of nights would be really busy.

Her future meal was a woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties, lying back in a beach chair with a beer in her hand. Lily moved nearby and spread out a towel.

"Hope you don't mind," she said, then sat nearby. "Figured I was less likely to be bothered if I was at least near someone else."

The woman tilted her head in Lily's direction and shrugged. "It's a free country."

"Thanks." She slipped in a pair of earbuds and stretched out as if sunning herself. Beneath the blanket, her tail slid into the sand like a worm, crossing the distance between them. It emerged from below the woman's beach chair and stabbed her in the fatty part of her ass.

"Yergh," was all the woman managed to say before one side of her face went slack and she passed out. Lily disapparated her tail and moved her towel closer to the lawn chair.

"C'mon, sugar tits, let's see what you've done to set off my kill-dar." She reached over and held the woman's hand. To anyone watching, it might look like a mother and daughter catching a nap, or perhaps even an older woman and her sugar baby. Lily didn't care what anyone thought, as long as they were left alone.

Able to maintain her conscious mind in the real world at the same time as the Dreamscape, Lily walked along the corridors of her victim's memories. Her name was Evelynn Throp and she was in her late forties.

"Damn, Evelynn, you need to take better care of yourself." Lily sifted through her memories in an attempt to dial in on her past deeds. Based on a quick skim, it became readily apparent that Evelynn was a huge cunt. The woman was impossible to work with, a huge narcissist, and loved to bully people on social media. Still, those things alone wouldn't qualify her as food, and Lily was getting hungry.

Walking along the corridors of Evelynn's mind, Lily pushed open doors and watched the highlight reels. Narcissists were hard to figure out, honestly. Most of them didn't see anything wrong with their behavior, which meant the succubus required a different approach. Instead of asking Evelynn's unconscious mind what she had done wrong, she chose to pursue moments in the woman's life where she felt that she was the unfair victim of circumstances outside her control.

There was the time Evelynn had spiked the coffee in the breakroom with laxatives, and then got frustrated when she was blamed. Sure, she had been the one to do it, but the proof they offered was circumstantial at best. Then there was the time she had set up a donation fund for a friend with breast cancer and ran off with all the money.

"Evelynn, you suck." Lily shut the door and opened the next one. She saw a grieving family sitting in an attorney's office. The lawyer was reading the Last Will and Testament of Charles W. Dunning and had just revealed that Evelynn, his new girlfriend, was his sole beneficiary. The crocodile tears on Evelynn's cheeks as the family berated her were unconvincing.

"Ugh, this is worse than Netflix." Mike sat nearby in a black suit and tie. "So much drama and no pay off. Don't you have something better we can watch?"

"Somebody is being grumpy." Lily moved next to Evelynn. "C'mon, you know you're curious. Are you thinking she blew the dude until he changed the will or did she forge it?"

Mike frowned. "If I was a gambling man, I'd say she forged it. This woman takes from everyone she meets, I don't see her spending time on her knees for any person in life."

"Hey, it's called a job for a reason. If you could suck cock and make a thousand bucks in ten minutes, you'd do it."

"A thousand bucks? Is that really the going rate for a blowjob?"

Lily winked at him. "When you're as good as I am, you bet your ass it is." She grabbed Evelynn by the ear and pulled, causing the scene to unfold like a pop-up book. They were now in an apartment, and Evelynn was busy going through paperwork inside of a safe. On a nearby bed, an older man was frantically wheezing on the floor, trying to reach a bottle of pills on his bedside table.

"Oh, I see. She murdered him." Mike shook his head. "Sounds right."

"This bitch doesn't believe she murdered him. It's not her fault he took shit care of himself and can't even reach his meds." Lily sifted through Evelynn's thoughts. "Yeah, she had a fake will ready. She met this guy at a restaurant, she was his server. Flirted with him a little, they went on a couple of dates, nothing meaningful."

"So she's food?"

Lily licked her lips. "You'd better believe it. In here, she's at the bottom of the food chain."

"Tragic. And at such a young age." Mike's tone was sarcastic.

"And right after she retired, too. Well, with all that money." Lily dismissed the dream with a wave of her hand. Evelynn's consciousness was almost in the Dreamscape, and she needed to finish setting up. "So what will it be, you skeezy bitch? College stud orgy? Dinner for two with your favorite celebrity?"

Sifting through Evelynn's desires, she was upset to discover that the woman had no sexual desires for other people. Instead, she was closeted in regards to sex, and only masturbated once a month when her urges became too much.

"Ugh, this is going to take forever," she groaned, then recreated the Florida beach. In the Dreamscape, she could build anything and even manipulate time. However, that didn't always mean her meals came quickly.

Came quickly. This made her giggle in the real world.

"So what's the plan?" Mike pulled out a lawn chair and sat nearby. As far as Lily knew, Evelynn wouldn't be able to see him.

"Well, this woman only likes one person in the world, and that's herself. So the best way to turn her on is to talk about her favorite thing in the world." Lily summoned up an attractive man and had him run by Evelynn's chair. By now, Evelynn's mind was fully in the Dreamscape, and she sat forward with a start.

The importance of Dreamscape manipulation was not letting on that the victim was dreaming. For some people, this was very easy. For others, not so much.

Evelynn barely glanced at the running man, but he ended up coming back over and stood by her chair.

"Excuse me," he said, flipping his hair aside. " I was wondering--"

"Piss off." Evelynn was already packing up her chair. "Go find someone your own age."

The dream hunk frowned and ran off, disappearing from sight once Evelynn wasn't looking. The woman was already wandering off the beach to her car.

"So I'm curious how you're gonna do her in. Hot guy was a mistake."

Lily smirked. "I don't make mistakes in here, that was deliberate. She may be a narcissist, but she knows that a guy like that would never give her the time of day. She's a predator, just like I am."

The dream moved in fast forward. Prey like this took finesse, and she fed Evelynn dreams that fueled her own inner desires. They weren't scenarios that generated sexual tension, those wouldn't do. Instead, she made it so that Evelynn got her way.

It started with a speeding ticket. Evelynn cried hysterically because she had been busted doing 60 in a 45 MPH zone. The cop was stern, but melted immediately, and even apologized to her before wandering off.

Then came a free meal at a restaurant. The bill came to more than a hundred dollars, but Evelynn started an argument with the manager over her bread being too cold. Despite the man's best efforts, he ended up comping her the meal and even gave her a gift card for a future visit, all while begging her to give the restaurant a good review.

Evelynn's Dreamscape social media exploded with likes and smiley faces as she bullied public figures, a woman from her last job, and even got her old boss to admit to being a sexual predator, even though he had never actually leered at her. Her self-image slowly became reality, filling her with warmth and sunshine.

It had been nearly three hours in the real world, but weeks passed inside of Evelynn's dreams. The woman had put on a documentary about a serial killer right before tucking a vibrating egg down the front of her panties.

"This is so gross." Mike sat on a kitchen stool next to Lily as Evelynn made little grunts while watching her show. "Why do people watch stuff like this?"

"No idea, Romeo." Lily held a bag of popcorn in one hand and a soda in the other. "In her case, she loves seeing the bad guy get caught, because she never has."

"She hasn't?" Mike lifted an eyebrow. "Seems like she's been caught plenty of times."

"For some people, perception is more important than reality. Hold on a second, dinner is almost done." She moved over to the couch and studied Evelynn's flushed cheeks. "Oh yeah, you love it when they get caught, don't you? Seeing those big, scary men get taken down by their own mistakes. But not you. You got your fake will notarized and got away with all that cash. Just think about the things you'll do once the courts finally release that money into your account. You'll travel the world, maybe find someone else to scam, and...oh, here's the best part!"

She moved behind Evelynn and continued whispering in her ear. In the real world, Lily sat up and knelt over the woman as if speaking to her. Her prey let out a tiny gasp when her orgasm hit, and her eyes fluttered open.

The eyes were the window to the soul, and Lily smashed the glass with a hammer before yanking it out. Evelynn's body went on autopilot as her actual essence was sucked deep into the swirling mass of energy that was Lily's demonic core. There she was greeted by thousands of previous victims who tore into her with nails and teeth as the woman screamed for mercy.

Lily belched and got back onto her towel.

"Delicious," she muttered, her hunger sated. She laid on her stomach, undoing the back of her top to get an even tan.

"Why bother sticking around?" Mike was next to her now. "And you don't actually tan."

"It's about the experience," she replied. "I just finished my meal and want to relax for a bit before I get sucked up in dead girl drama. And even though this place is full of screaming kids, it's a hell of a lot more peaceful than it is at home."

"You mean it's easier. You don't give a shit about these people, so you can dismiss them."

Lily scowled and turned her head in the other direction. Mike was sitting on the other side of her now. "You know, even Jiminy Cricket knew when to shut the fuck up."

"Fair enough." He moved to kneel over her. "May as well help you complete the experience."

Though he wasn't real, she could feel his fingers on her skin as he massaged her back and shoulders. She let out a sigh of contentment and enjoyed the attention. One of these days, she was going to get Mike to a real beach and let him spoil her.

Deep in her thigh, she felt her cell phone buzz. Annoyed, she forced it up to the surface of her body and pulled it from beneath her legs. It was a series of texts from Eulalie.

She debated ignoring them, but decided to be a good girl and sat up. Scanning the words on her screen, her mouth dropped open and she stood.