Succubi Are Forever (27 page)

Down the small country road, a figure walked in an old-fashioned, plain black dress. I felt a bit of alarm for that woman—didn’t she know? Couldn’t she feel the threat in the air?

But she turned toward us, and I could see from my spot a safe distance away that her eyes were entirely red.

I swallowed hard and held my ground, my hand digging into that halo.

Her gaze focused on me, sitting in the field, and she paused.

I got to my feet and held the halo up and shook it like a tambourine. “Over here, demon.”

She raised a hand and the rickety fence collapsed. Neat trick. Wish I could do that sort of thing. A smile touched her face and she strolled toward me. With every step, I could feel the malevolent power surging off her.

“You amaze me, girl,” she said in a slow voice. “I don’t know how you managed to acquire so much power twice. They must love you up above.”

“I get around,” I said lamely and hugged my halo to my chest. “You stole something from me. I want it back.”

“Oh, child,” she purred as she approached, slinking toward me with menace. “This is going to be like taking candy from a baby.”

“So you say,” I said bravely, my hands trembling just a little.

She cocked her head, coming to stand in front of me. Her senses were alert, and her red eyes skimmed my form, as if fascinated. Camael’s power shimmered all over the meadow.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked, surprised. “When I could simply slip that ring off your finger and end all this?”

I felt my hand jerk and I gasped, stumbling backward. My hand curled into a protective fist and I dropped the halo, wrapping my other hand around it. How had she known? If I lost that ring… I’d gone so long without sex that I’d die instantly. Mae knew that, damn it, and she was going to take me out. Fear pounded through me.

Mae leaned forward and casually scooped up the halo I’d dropped. She picked it up with a pleased smile… and then frowned as it melted back to a chain in her grasp. “How…”

Power slammed into her, a fury of white light that pushed her across the field and slapped her into a nearby tree. It cracked under the force and she dropped to the ground. Camael appeared beside me, his hand up, white-blond hair whipping about his head.

“You have Azazel trapped inside you,” he said in a low, calm voice. “You cannot have him. He is
mine
.”

Mae looked at me, then at Camael, struggling to her feet. Then to my surprise, she began to laugh, hard. “Oh, this is too perfect. Too, too perfect. You set a trap for me? That’s so adorable. But here’s a tip for you both,” she purred. “I’m about to have two haloes, and this dumbass,” she gestured at me with a sneer, “is the one responsible. What kind of idiot makes a deal with a demon anyhow?”

Before either of us could respond, she launched herself at Camael, power pulsing out of her like a thunderstorm. She raised her arms and I recognized that pose—she was gathering power, just like when she’d destroyed the queen.

I screamed a warning for Camael. “Look out!”

The Serim rocked on his feet and stepped to the side, and that bolt of power blasted through the field, missing him. In the distance, a cow gave a cry of pain and I heard the rest of the herd stampeding away.

I didn’t blame them; I felt like running too. My hands went to my belt, feeling for the holy water there.

A chorus of snarls drew my gaze back to the demon. She held her arms outstretched, her body stiff as if she wanted to put her hands around Camael’s throat. He stood a short distance away, his eyes flashing silver, hair whipping. I could feel the power surging between the two of them. First a dark pulse like Mae was surging to dominance, only to have Camael’s silvery pulse of power take over.

They were evenly matched. But Mae was still smiling, her lips bared in concentration. Camael’s face was strained—a reflection of my own. The power here was making my stomach flip with nausea, my skin itching at the sensations. I crept a few steps backward, getting away from the two of them, the holy water in hand.

The struggle went on for endless minutes, the two of them locked in place, neither moving. I grew anxious and then impatient. These two were immortals—they had all the time in the world. Exactly how long was this standstill going to continue?

Even as I thought it, Mae dropped to her knees. She fell into the grass, her breath gasping in her throat. Triumph flickered over Camael’s face and he looked over at me before moving to place a hand on Mae’s head.

He was winning!

The demon’s eyes flashed white and to my surprise, her gasps turned into laughter. Choked, garbled laughter. Her power pulsed.

As I watched, the golden cuff on Camael’s arm fell to the ground, broken neatly in half.

Camael choked. His hand fell away from Mae’s head and he held it up, watching the skin wither. He looked over at me and his eyes grew hollow in his face, his cheekbones more pronounced.

His curse was kicking in. He was going to die.

Mae’s laughter grew louder and she struggled to her feet. “You stupid idiots. Why not paint a target on your back that says kick me? You leave a demon an opening, and she’s going to take it. Fools.”

With that, she threw her arms around Camael’s withering form and planted her mouth on his.

Power went haywire around us. The skies grew dark, lightning crackling from the ground. My hair thrashed around my face and the air felt heavy, as if a storm was coming, but there was nothing but Camael and Mae slowly draining his life force from him.

I was about to lose everything.

I quickly unscrewed the cap of the holy water and tossed a bit of it on her, trying to distract her away from Camael. Her skin sizzled at the contact, but she ignored it, continuing her draining kiss. As I watched, Camael seemed to bend at the knees, collapsing in on himself, and Mae went with him, her skin gleaming with power, her eyes glowing like beacons. She was absorbing the other archangel, sucking away his life force and pulling it into her own body.

“No,” I cried, pulling out my knife and pushing forward, only to slam into some sort of force-wall. The air was so thick around them that I couldn’t get closer than a few feet. I had to do something.

I needed another archangel—a strong one.

With a gasp, I pulled out the holy water again and began to shake it in the grass. I had to do something. This would either work or just piss the demon off, but I didn’t care. I was about to lose everything. I forced myself to concentrate on the task at hand even as Camael’s power grew weaker all around me and Mae’s malevolence grew stronger.

One could call demons by consecrating ground to them and calling their names—I hoped that it’d work for an archangel as well. I’d done it in the past to call Mae… but there was no reason why I couldn’t turn the tables on her now.

I poured the holy water in a circle around the two locked in the awful embrace, and then to make sure that I’d completed my circle, went around them again. The Serim had always prayed before calling the angels. I babbled off a hasty prayer and then touched the word etched in my wrist.

“Gabriel,” I shouted to the heavens. “I’ve got your two haloes. Come and get them.”

Power surged all around me, knocking me flat once more as the Heavens opened up.

“Have an end game. What’s your goal in this career? Is it to make the Guinness World Record for the most dicks in your vagina in a twenty-four-hour period? Is it to be a millionaire? Is it fame and fortune? Have a plan and don’t deviate from the plan.”—
Porn and the Art of Business,
by Remy Summore

~*~

Birds chirped somewhere overhead. My entire body ached, but that didn’t register as much as the awareness that the field was supremely, supremely quiet. The heavy, oppressive air was gone.

I opened my eyes and sat up, grimacing. My head throbbed like I was on the south side of a drinking binge, and my muscles ached. Camael was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Mae. I squinted at the late afternoon sky, then at the cows in the distance. They’d returned.

A shadow fell over me, quickly followed by the familiar scent of sunlight and vanilla. Angels—true angels—were always accompanied by soft, comforting scents. This particular scent was as clean and crisp and sweet as anything I’d ever smelled.

My stomach clenched and I turned to stare into the hard, beautiful face of the Archangel Gabriel. Naked bronze skin covered the biggest, smoothest, most muscled torso I’d ever seen, topped by a pair of fluffy white, oversized wings. In contrast, the face adorning that perfect body was cold and severe in its perfection.

I scrambled to my feet. “Oh, crap. Hi.” I brushed off my clothes and glanced around, but the field was utterly quiet. “Uh. Where’s Camael? And the demon?”

He watched me with fathomless eyes, his expression neutral. “They have been returned from whence they came.”

That was good, right? “So… Azazel and Camael are back in Heaven? That means Mae has gone back to Hell?”

He inclined his head.

“Is… Camael okay with that?” Because judging from Gabriel’s expression, the other archangel was not coming back.

A hint of arrogance curved Gabriel’s hard mouth. “Camael has been reunited with the Host. He is quite content. For him, living in dirt and squalor amongst humans became wearying quite some time ago.”

Gee. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

Gabriel then turned his back as if to walk away.

“Wait,” I said sharply. “What about our deal?”

He turned to look at me, his face hard. “Our deal?”

I raised my wrist and showed him the word etched on my skin. “You promised me. Two haloes for a boon. You can’t take that back. You gave me your word, remember?”

He turned back toward me, his eyes narrow and ice cold. He moved so quickly that I thought I’d imagined it and then he was looming over me again, the power blasting off him making my hair ruffle in a nonexistent breeze. “Your thoughtless pursuit of my ‘favor’ caused the destruction of half of the fallen, and you nearly let a demon take not one halo but
both
of the remaining ones. And you feel you should be rewarded?”

He was furious with me. Utterly, coldly furious as only an angel could be.

“That’s right,” I said, getting pissed off myself. “I fucked up and I fixed it. You didn’t say how I had to get the haloes back to you, just that they had to come back. Well guess what? They’re back.”

“And in the meantime, you let a demon kill countless humans—”

“I didn’t let her do anything,” I yelled. “She did that of her own free will. And I stopped her.”

“And yet you did not stop her before she wiped out the vampires.” A dangerous muscle clenched in his jaw.

Realization dawned on me. “You… You’re upset that they’re gone? Not at me?”

“Of course I am
upset
.” He sneered the word at me, his gaze blasting fury as he stared down at me. “Even if my brethren have chosen the wrong path, they are still part of the Host. Each of them is still one of mine. While they lived, there was a chance for redemption. There was hope. Now they are all destroyed, thanks to your ineptitude.”

Hope began to flare through me and I clamped my hands together tightly. “You may not want to give me my boon, but you should hear me out.”

A sneer cut his face, cold and marvelous in its beauty. “And what shall you ask for, little one? Freedom? Riches? You already have immortality and beauty.”

Yeah, I’m so damn lucky aren’t I?
I had immortality without the man I loved. “I want them back. The vampires, the succubi who were destroyed when the vampires were killed—I want them
all
back. I want them restored. Here, on earth. Just like things were before I got involved and messed everything up.”

He regarded me with what might have been a hint of surprise, if Gabriel allowed himself to show human things like emotion. “You would wish back the fallen?”

“I would,” I said, my throat aching with the need of that. “Oh, I would. Please. Please give them back.” Give Zane back.

He was silent for a long moment. “What you ask for is impossible.”

Anguish rocked through me. “You said I could ask for anything. That’s what I want.”

The archangel’s jaw clenched. “The queen has been destroyed. She cannot be restored. What she was cannot be re-created—she was a perversion, an unholy union of a demon’s power and dark magic. I cannot bring that back, nor do I wish to.”

I refused to budge. “You promised.” I held my wrist up, practically shoving it under his nose. “You promised me I could have whatever I wanted if I got this for you. Well, I got it. Now bring back my vampire and skip that queen business.”

“You do not understand. As long as the queen lived, they lived. If she cannot come back, then neither can the vampires. They were tied, their haloes bound to her.”

No, no, no
. I pressed my fists to my temples, thinking. It was either that, or start screaming. I didn’t go through all of this for nothing. Zane was the goal. I forced myself to remain calm. “There has to be something,” I said, my voice wobbling. “Please. I don’t want to live forever if I can’t live with Zane. I don’t want to live another
day
if I can’t have him back.”

A hesitation. Then, the archangel spoke. “Their lives are tethered to an anchor. When the queen existed, she was their anchor. There must be another anchor for their souls to be connected to. Another queen. Do you understand what it is I am saying?”

I did. I stared up into his blazing eyes, hope flaring. “You need an anchor. Let me do it.”

“What you ask is not an easy task,” he said, his tone contemplative. “The weight of their sins will weigh upon you. My brethren have not lived chaste lives since they fell. Some struggle for their humanity, and as they do so, it will affect your own.”

“I don’t care,” I said quickly, lest he change his mind. “I can handle it.”

“The tether would have to be… adjusted. I cannot replace the demonic bond they had with the queen, but I can construct one given by me. And I will expect you, little sister, to bring them back.”