Bethany sighed, her years showing in the near translucence of her pale skin. “I simply don’t know, David. All we can do is try.”
I nodded. Regular criminals might be scumbags, but they were scummy in human ways. Metaphysical threats like succubi were largely unknown quantities. If either of us survived tonight, we’d have new information for the database on magematrix.net. The deep sense of dread I was feeling suggested that survival was a very open question.
I escorted Lady Beth outside to my car. As we belted ourselves in, I studied my companion’s profile. She looked calm, relaxed.
She looked like a woman who was prepared to die.
Once again I fought down the impulse to protect her. We were equals, and she had as much right to face danger as I did. The excitement of the hunt was beginning to rise in me, and from the brightness of her eyes, the same was true for my companion. We hunt because warrior skills are always needed, and we’re careful how we use them. But there’s nothing wrong with enjoying ourselves in the process.
I started the car, then closed my eyes to tune into the demon’s exact location. “Brooklyn, right?”
“Right. Near the waterfront.”
It was late, after midnight, and the streets were mostly empty. But the city pulsed with life still, crazy and exciting and unmistakably New York. My town, and I was sworn to protect the people in it.
We sped over the Brooklyn Bridge, city lights sparkling ahead and behind. I turned north when we reached Brooklyn and headed into a rundown waterfront area of old industry and warehouses. By the time we reached a looming warehouse that backed right up to the water, I knew our destination was a huge and infamous after hours club. The place had been shut down repeatedly, only to reopen with a new name and what was officially new ownership.
The club’s current incarnation was called “Bizarro.” At this hour on a weekend night, it would be packed with dancers, most of them young and high on drugs, alcohol, dancing, or all three. A fertile field for a monster who craved human life force.
My parking magic held. The streets around the warehouse were lined with the cars of clubbers, but one pulled away in front of the building just as I arrived. I glided to the curb.
The name Bizarro was a scrawl of red neon over a plain door flanked by two bouncers. The demon was inside—I could feel her. I glanced at Bethany, and she nodded confirmation.
Hoping it would all be over in a few minutes, I climbed from the car. After I helped Bethany out, I locked the doors and we headed to Bizarro’s entrance. Bethany gestured with her right hand and one bouncer took out a pack of cigarettes while the other’s bored gaze slid over us. Though magic couldn’t make Guardians invisible, a good don’t-look spell means people tend not to notice us.
The pounding bass beat was audible even on the sidewalk, and when I opened the door music exploded into a paralyzing bludgeon of sound. Even more overwhelming than the music was the fierce, sexually charged energy radiated by hundreds of intoxicated, gyrating young bodies. Instantly my mental shields clamped down to protect me from the intensity.
The black painted entryway led into the vast, high-ceilinged club. As the floorboards vibrated underfoot, we moved to the edge of the dance area to study the crowd. The writhing mass of humanity looked surreal under coruscating lights of crimson, violet, and electric blue. Smoke of the illegal variety drifted toward the ceiling of the warehouse.
The don’t-look spell was still in effect, and no one took notice of us as we scanned the crowd. Somewhere in that bubbling stew of lust and feral hunger was the demon. It was hard to pin down her location in such psychic chaos.
Warily I opened my senses to search. Even without Bethany’s mental link, I could sense that demon growing ever more exhilarated as she fed off the massed energy of the other dancers. She was taking her time, savoring the slow build up of lust, but soon she’d move on to the ultimate kick—consuming death energy. She would become a ravenous killing machine, sucking down young lives until we stopped her.
Where, where….?
Bethany squeezed my hand and nodded to the left. There.
She was too short to see over the crowd, so she must have used her psychic link to the demon. I followed her gaze and spotted our quarry.
The creature was turned away from us, but that was enough to confirm that she’d acquired the body of an irresistibly desirable young woman. Waves of pale blond hair cascaded down her back, swaying to the beat of the music as she ground her pelvis against her partner. Her skimpy black dress looked sprayed on, and the skirt barely covered her great ass.
Her sensual gyrations were enough to arouse any straight man who saw her. I was no exception, but hunters are trained to control lust, at least until after the mission is accomplished.
I clamped down on my lower nature and studied the demon’s partner, a tall young man with dark floppy hair. Since I was running hot psychically, I had a swift flash of knowledge: he was Midwestern, a student in New York to interview at a grad school, and having the time of his life in the wicked big city. A lamb for the slaughter.
The succubus whispered something in her victim’s ear. He nodded with dazed enthusiasm and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they pivoted and headed toward an exit at the back of the ballroom. She was taking him outside for sex and death.
I beckoned for Bethany to follow me as I forced my way through the buffeting crowd of dancers. There were advantages to having played football in college. I moved fast, Bethany in my wake as I cleared a path. But the demon had a head start and she vanished outside with her prey before I could catch up.
I reached the exit door maybe fifteen seconds after the happy couple. “Stay inside!” I ordered Bethany, knowing she’d be safer here.
She took my hand. I felt the surge of her power flowing between us, blending with my magical talent to create a force that was more than the sum of our individual abilities. “Don’t touch the demon,” she warned. “Her sexuality is a powerful weapon.”
Touch always intensifies the transmission of power, as Lady Beth was proving now. Being male, I’d be particularly vulnerable to a succubus. “I’ll be careful.”
I strengthened my shields and opened the door. It led directly onto a cracked slab of concrete that covered the strip between the warehouse and a battered wharf that pointed across the East River to Manhattan. That opposite shore blazed with lights, the Big Apple in all her beckoning glamour.
In this shabby backwater, the only illumination came from a lamp behind an adjoining warehouse. Just enough light to reveal that the demon and her victim were locked in a feverish embrace, her hips grinding and one raised leg wrapped around his. His life force was surging into her like orange flame. Soon that flow of vital force would end and the poor sod would be dead.
