[Kassandra Lyall Preternatural Investigator 03] - Bloody Claws (16 page)

Though it felt good, I feared there was too much of a height difference between us.

Lenorre laughed when I growled my frustration.

"If you are trying to do what I think you are trying to do"-she sat up, touching my cheek-"allow me."

I did so and Lenorre used her hands to push my knees apart. She bowed her body and set her mouth between my legs, sucking my clit. I cried out at the unexpected suddenness of it. She sucked harder, threatening to break my skin on the cusps of her fangs.

Lenorre worked me with lips and tongue, worked me until my breath was ragged and the waves of pleasure rocked my body. The hold of her lips broke before I came, the pulse between my legs thudding like a tiny touch. I could feel myself, wet and engorged.

I groaned and Lenorre pushed my arched leg up. She lowered her hands, leaving me to hold the position as she splayed me with the tips of her fingers and swung her hips forward to press her sex against mine. When our clits brushed, I thought I heard her gasp. She took hold of my leg like an anchor and began to move against me.

Lenorre mumbled something and I grabbed her arms before she could change the position.

"Don't stop," I said and the thrust of her hips became something less controlled and more urgent. I writhed, nails digging into her arms. "Gods! Don't you dare stop."

Goddess bless her, she didn't.

CHAPTER 
nineteen

 was sitting in Lenorre's bedroom with Zaphara, Lenorre, and Rosalin. Zaphara being present had been Lenorre's doing. When I'd asked what Arthur had called about, Lenorre had summoned Zaphara to be present during the conversation we'd yet to have. Rosalin was my doing, as I didn't want to see her fall back into her darkness and hide in her room.

Rosalin pulled her legs up under her, leaning into me and resting her head on my shoulder. She draped an arm loosely in my lap, across my waist, seeking comfort. I had a brief moment to wonder if Rosalin hanging all over me would bother Lenorre, before I caught sight of Lenorre's expression and realized her mind was elsewhere. I had no doubts that she'd noticed Rosalin cuddle into me, but I knew for sure in that moment, it really didn't bother her. Perhaps when it came down to it Lenorre knew more about wolves than I did, though I was slowly but surely beginning to learn more about them through myself.

It did make me wonder, however, if Eris's teasing at the club hadn't bothered Lenorre, what did? It was a strange experience for me, being with someone who was so confident and who didn't feel easily threatened.

If I'd spent over two hundred years watching the world and all its myriad relationships around me, would I have felt the same way? Would I have been able to sit here and withstand Zaphara taking comfort in Lenorre's arms? I shuddered at the thought, as it wasn't one I liked, though it seemed Zaphara and I were on better terms. I wasn't sure how long that would last. Was it simply that Lenorre's and my natures were different in that regard? That she just wasn't the jealous type? When I thought about it, I wasn't sure I considered myself a jealous person. I didn't envy what another person had. I was protective and territorial about what I considered to be mine. Possessive, maybe. I wasn't worried someone would swoop in and steal Lenorre away from me. I didn't consider myself that insecure, and like me, I sensed Lenorre's loyalty was a deep and unwavering thing. I realized that perhaps it was selfish, but in a relationship I wanted the deepest and most intimate part of my significant other to belong to me. I didn't want tidbits or scraps from a lover, I wanted it all.

Lenorre was watching me as if she were trying to read my thoughts. I knew she couldn't, not unless I projected them to her, as we'd learned, and I was shielding too strongly for that.

"Are you going to tell me what Arthur called about or are we seeing who is going to break first?" I asked. If that was the case, I was pretty sure I'd just lost the quiet game.

Lenorre crossed her long legs. "The medical examiner completed her examination of the body," she said.

"And?"

"Do you remember the bruising you observed on the woman's neck?"

I gave a sharp nod.

"She could not withdraw any prints from the cadaver. She was able to recreate the size of the hand that had strangled the victim."

"Lenorre," I said, "stop drawing it out. Just tell me."

"The hand was not human."

"Okay," I said. "Do you have any guesses what it could have been?"

"Did Arthur send you the photographs of the sigil?" Lenorre asked.

I crossed the room to retrieve my cell phone from the nightstand. I went to the album on my phone, pulled up the first picture of the sigil, and handed the phone to her. Lenorre leaned over, offering it to Zaphara.

"What do you think?" she asked.

Zaphara gazed at the picture for a long moment.

"It's a summoning sigil," she said. "Though sloppy and homemade."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Each symbol corresponds to a piece of the summoning spell used," she said. "The symbol in the middle stands for sulfur, which corresponds to the element of that which the person summoned."

"Sulfur?"

"Demonic energy," she said. "Consider this symbol the key that goes into the slot and unlocks the door itself. The symbols around it build the room, the door. It all goes together, Kassandra."

"There were two symbols I recognized in that." I knelt on the floor in front of her, taking my phone and scrolling to the larger images of each smaller symbol that Arthur had been kind enough to provide me with. "Ceres?" I asked. "Why would Ceres be involved in this if it was used to summon a demon?"

"You do not believe it is demonic?" she asked, reading my tone and body language.

"I don't believe in demons, Zaphara. So it's kind of hard to."

"There's more to this world than meets the eye," she said. "You more than anyone else in this room should know that. I am not referring to the demons of Christian folklore."

"What are you referring to?"

"Merely a title for those beings of ill intent," she said.

"And what kind of spectrum does that cover?" I asked.

"A broad one, but given the psychic attack earlier this day, it's been greatly narrowed."

"You think what happened was more than a bad dream?"

"Yes, as well you know it was more than a bad dream."

I wasn't sure about that, but I nodded anyway.

"So what do you think it was? Specifically? What kind of… demon?"

"A night hag."

I felt my brows go up. "That doesn't tell me much."

"Perhaps this will. Whatever attacked you was an astral being of sex and desire."

"Like a succubus?" I asked.

"Yes, they have been called incubi and succubi, but they are also known as night hags. They appear to their dreaming victims and strangle them."

"Why would Ceres be a part of the sigil?" I asked.

"Ceres, as you know, corresponds to the mother and probably represents the summoner."

"What about the other symbol?"

"The full moon," she said. "You should know that one, little witch."

"Completion?"

"Or fertility."

Everyone in the room was quiet. I stood, leaving my phone in Zaphara's hands. If what she said was true, what would an astral being of ill intent, sex, and desire have to do with a mother and fertility? Something inside me clicked and shifted into place. It was a thought, an idea, and one that made me nauseous to even consider.

"You've thought of something," Zaphara said. "Have you figured it out?"

"It can't be possible," I said, surprise rendering my voice soft. "Is it?"

"That depends on what you are thinking."

"In folklore," I said thoughtfully, "incubi and succubi changed their gender to procreate," I said. "A succubus would lay with a man and steal his seed."

"And then," Zaphara added, "with his seed inside of her, the succubus would alter her shape to lie with a woman, to impregnate her."

"But," I said, "if they're astral beings, how is that possible? And wouldn't the succubus just act as a vessel, a fertility bank so to speak? How would they see the continuation of their species or whatever it is, if they're stealing human semen?"

"I do not know how to explain it in a way you will understand," she said. "The seed becomes hers. Their species, as you call it, are infertile, but once they steal from a human, she can change the seed inside her by altering her body, shifting her form at will. Her body alters the semen, taints it with her DNA to see the continuation of their kind."

"That's confusing," I said.

"And fascinating," Rosalin added. "Who needs a turkey baster? Order a succubus!"

"Horrible, Rosalin." I laughed. "You should probably steer clear of writing infomercials."

She smiled, but her eyes were still haunted.

"Zaphara, is that possible?"

"Is what possible?"

"Could the summoner have summoned a succubus to steal a man's seed for her? Ceres, the mother, the full moon, fertility. Could a succubus, or whatever it is, get a woman pregnant?"

"In spite of being none-too-fruitful themselves, it is possible.

Once their bodies alter the fluid they've obtained, they're potent."

"Have to make it count, right?" Rosalin asked.

Zaphara nodded.

"What are you thinking, Kassandra?"

I turned to Lenorre. "Arthur said the neighbor knew the Blevins were looking to adopt. Obviously, as much as I hate to say it, the whole pagan thing opens the doorway to the possibility of one of them creating a spell to summon this kind of thing. What I don't understand though"-I turned to Zaphara-"is how this happens? Surely, if succubi can reach beyond the astral realm there would be more cases of this happening? How are they able to manifest, and can a human actually carry a succubus child to term?"

"With that title, it would be an incubus child," Zaphara said. "A succubus requires blood sacrifice to manifest. A human woman can carry a child to term, but she will not survive its birth."

I sat back down on the couch with a flop. I didn't want to ask her how or why a woman wouldn't survive giving birth to the child of an astral being. When I considered the possibilities, none of them were very comforting or pretty.

"In the dream," I said, "the creature wore Lenorre's guise. When I realized it wasn't Lenorre, it tried to kill me?"

"Yes," Zaphara said point-blank, not bothering to tender her words. "Though it was probably going to try and kill you anyway. Its intent was to seduce and destroy."

"Peachy," I said. "But why? How would it have known to attack me?"

"Because it knew you had seen what it had done."

"How could it have known that though?"

"In order to understand that you must first understand what I meant when I told you I am not speaking of the demons of Christian stories. The incubi and succubi are fey, albeit a much darker breed. Many years ago, they lived alongside the Daoine Maithe, until the rise of the current queen who saw them as the filth they are and cast them to the realm of Oíche, the land of eternal night. You are part fey and wherever you go, Kassandra, your energy leaves its mark to anyone else that is fey. That is how the night hag sensed you."

"I was shielding."

"Lenorre said there was some trouble between you and another police officer, a were-fox, if I remember correctly. She felt your shields slip, if Lenorre felt it, so did the succubus."

I sighed heavily. "If the succubus has murdered, there's no way in hell the cops can do anything about that. This becomes a cold case. It's unsolvable."

"Ah," Zaphara said, lips spreading into a cat-like grin. "It is not. You see, for the blood sacrifice, the succubus cannot reach beyond the realm of Oíche to kill. A human must do it."

"So in some way, it is officially a murder? Because a human had to make the kill?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "It is a murder because your human had to make a kill, a sacrifice. He or she had to use a blood sacrifice to summon the hag in the first place to give her the ability to manifest in our realm."

"Okay," I said. "Let me see if I get this straight. What you're saying is that, initially, the witch summoned the succubus thing with a kill?"

"Yes."

"What about the crime scene where the woman was strangled? The odd prints around her neck, was that the succubus's doing?"

"Yes."

"I'm confused, Zaphara."

Zaphara made a frustrated noise. "The succubus was summoned the first time with a human or not so human sacrifice, Kassandra. If the sacrifice is large enough, then the succubus gains energy from the sacrifice to manifest. She grows in power each time she gains the gift of blood or life. If she can manifest, she can cause physical damage in this realm."

"But how do we prove that? Arthur obviously still hasn't found the Blevins's car or he would have told Lenorre. A dog was missing from the scene that I still haven't heard any word of."

"A dog?" she asked.

I nodded.

Zaphara shook her head. "If it did not happen to get out and run away, chances were the dog was used as a sacrifice. If the first sacrifice was large enough, the witch would only require a smaller sacrifice the next time he or she summons the succubus, in order to take the seed and create a child."

"A Great Dane being a smaller sacrifice?" I asked. She nodded. "How do we prove this? How do we find the summoner or succubus? And if we can prove this, how do you handcuff or hogtie a succubus that has a condo in the astral plane?" I was thinking aloud, asking myself more than Zaphara, but it was Zaphara who answered.

"I will rewrite the spell."

"And do what?"

"The succubus is a lesser fey," she said, a bit haughtily. "I will summon her and bend her to my will."

"Um, what?" I asked. Rosalin sat up beside me, and I didn't have to turn to her to know she was suddenly very focused on Zaphara. "Are you confident in this, Zaphara?" Lenorre asked.

"I am," she said. "I will set about rewriting the spell to suit my needs."

"I'm not sure I'm too keen on this."

"I will use her to find your murderer, Kassandra. That is what you want, isn't it?"

"And what am I supposed to do, call Arthur and say, 'Hey, we used a succubus to track the killer. Go get 'em, boy?' I'm not sure that will fly."

"But if your forensics can prove there was indeed a victim and a human murderer at the initial scene, it will fly."

I still wasn't sure. "I guess we'll find out."

"We will," Zaphara said.