Suddenly A Succubus

Their conversation was eventually disrupted when Chloé approached the table. “Hey, um, is this a bad time?” she asked.

“Not at all, Chloé,” Amara said, sighing with exhaustion. “C’mere, take a seat.”

“Actually, I was hoping you could all come with me. I’m still in the middle of trying to get a lay of the land, and Naomi noticed something interesting she thought you might want to know.”

“Okay? Why isn’t she here then?” Tessa asked.

“She asked me to come get you. I don’t think she wants to admit it, but I get the feeling she’s a little shaken. You did attack her, Tessa.”

“I already apologized for that!”

“Even if you did, that doesn’t mean she has to forgive you,” Vee said, a stern look in her eyes. “She’s perfectly within her rights to be hesitant around us.”

“Fine, whatever.” Tessa rolled her eyes, then stood up. “Lead the way.”

The four of them left the table, then walked to the back of the cafeteria. The entire back wall was a massive window that overlooked the quad, and while this normally framed a beautiful view of campus, today it served as a perfect vantage point for observing the reapers. However, as Amara approached the window, she noticed that the scene outside had changed dramatically.

The quad was still covered in unnatural fog, the three reapers still visible, but something far worse had appeared. A massive tear in space had formed in the center of the field, through which Amara could see the barren landscape of Purgatory. The tear was vaguely circular, and it loosely reminded Amara of the portal to Hell they’d seen at the Ritual, but this one was far less refined. Its edges were blurred and flickering, the air nearby warping with unnatural thickness.

In front of the portal stood a lone figure, his silhouette flickering with ghostly energy.

Brandon.

Amara clenched her fists, her breathing intensifying as she saw him again. She wanted nothing more than to charge him down and rip him to pieces, but there was no denying that he had enough power to stop her. Thoughts of every terrible thing she wanted to do to him crossed her mind, followed by all the chances she had to stop him earlier in the school year.

I could have prevented this if I hadn’t been worried about losing control.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she jumped in surprise. Looking to her side, she saw Vee cautiously smiling at her.

“Hey, deep breaths, we’re gonna stop him. Let’s put the fire out, okay?”

For a brief moment, Amara thought Vee was speaking metaphorically, but a quick look down revealed that wasn’t the case. Amara’s hands had literally caught fire, and her hair had even started smoldering.

“Fuck, sorry, I just… Never mind.” Amara closed her eyes and took a deep breath, in for two counts, then released it. She counted to four, then opened her eyes and looked around again.

Naomi and another girl were standing near the window but had obviously taken a few steps away from Amara. They each had looks of apprehension on their faces, and Amara did her best to give them a soft smile. “Sorry, Naomi, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ll be okay. You said you noticed something?”

“Uh… yeah,” Naomi said, hesitating a moment before continuing. “A few things, actually. One, the portal appeared about half an hour ago, and it’s been growing ever since. Brandon seems to be doing this himself; he’s been pretty focused on it ever since he showed up. However, more importantly, I noticed something about those monsters. What did you call them again? Reapers? Anyways, for the most part, they’re patrolling the area. What’s curious, though, is what happens when they wander closer to Brandon. Every time they do, he pulls his attention away from the portal and gestures at them, like he’s telling them to back off.”

Amara turned her eyes back to the quad, trying to separate herself from the anger she felt looking at Brandon. It didn’t look like any reapers were currently wandering closer, but she’d only been watching for a minute or two. “So, what, you’ve just been sitting here watching that creep for the last hour?”

“What else am I supposed to do? Check my socials? Pretend like some crazed lunatic isn’t breaking down the walls of reality just outside the window?” Naomi paused, looking around at everyone as she read their expressions. “That’s not what you meant, though, is it? You’re trying to figure out if you can trust me.”

“I didn’t say that,” Amara protested.

“I’m not an idiot, it’s written all over your faces,” Naomi said. “Look, I get it, okay? You’ve all got a lot of secrets, way more than I ever suspected, and I understand why you’d hesitate to trust the person snooping around the last few weeks.”

“Naomi,” Vee started, “we’re just trying to be careful. A couple of weeks ago, dozens of seemingly normal students sold their souls to demons at the whim of a power-hungry maniac. I’ve been trained from birth to keep everything I do a secret, Amara has spent the last few months being hunted and blackmailed, and let’s not forget that you tricked Chloé into showing you where Amara lived so you could break in for your little investigation.”

“Wait, you did what?” Amara asked, stepping towards Naomi.

“I overstepped, okay? I get it!” Naomi said, nervously backing away again. “The official story about the cult seemed too clean, and I wanted to learn what really happened for myself. Yes, I wanted a good story, but it’s not like I expected to get caught up in this fucking nightmare! You think I’m not scared? That I’m not freaking out about everything I’ve learned today?”

“You didn’t seem very freaked out when you posted those photos,” Tessa said, putting a hand on Amara’s shoulder to hold her back.

“So I panicked a bit, sue me. I woke up today thinking that, best case scenario, I might be on the trail of a mildly interesting school scandal. Then a monster falls out of the sky, and Amara shows up with her exploding hands and tackles it to the ground, and I just… I feel like I stared death in the face and barely escaped. I pride myself on being able to think quickly in a crisis, and perhaps I reacted poorly. I understand why you want to keep this a secret, I really do, but don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not desperate to walk out of this alive.”

Amara turned to look at her friends, briefly taking a moment to wordlessly confer with all of them. No one seemed to be raising any objections, so she took a deep breath and said “I’m sorry for blowing up at you earlier, Naomi, I really am. My demonic blood makes me a little… aggressive at times, but that’s no excuse for taking it out on you. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

“Just… don’t do it again, please. I get the feeling you don’t know how scary you are.”

“Deal,” Amara said, hoping a big smile would put Naomi at ease. “Now, Tessa, do we think Naomi’s observations might be helpful?”

Tessa had walked closer to the window at this point and was carefully watching Brandon. “If she’s telling the truth… I might have an idea. Based on what you said earlier, Amara, it sounds like his power only extends so far. If he wants to magically paralyze you, he gives up his direct control over the reapers. Here, if he focuses too long on the portal, the same thing happens again. What if they don’t like being subjugated?”

“You think we can, what, overload his powers?” Vee asked. “Trick him into overextending long enough that the reapers take him out for us?”

“If nothing else, I think that gives us a solid plan of attack for whatever plan we put together. The fact that the reapers don’t like him, however, is interesting. Your original theory was that they’re some kind of guardians of Purgatory, constantly patrolling to make sure nothing stays alive there. If that’s true, that might be why they’re posturing at Brandon; they can sense he’s not entirely dead. What if I can amplify that separation between life and death? Create a temporary schism between himself and the source of his powers?”

“Tess, you’re starting to veer into theoretical magic again. Any chance you can dumb it down for the rest of us?” Amara asked.

“It’s… hmm…” Tessa paused for a moment. “I might be able to enchant an item that can cut off his powers.”

“That’s great!” Vee said. “What do you need? And how fast do you think you can get it up and running?”

“That’s the tricky part. Ideally, I would be able to inspect the runes that were applied to him, but I doubt he’s going to give us that chance.”

Naomi spoke up next. “But we have other cultists here, don’t we? The two guys and the teacher? If they’re as reformed as they say they are, maybe they’ll be willing to help with this.”

“Shit, that’s right!” Tessa said excitedly. “Fuck yes, okay, that’s great. The only other way would be to introduce an element of Brandon from before he transformed into this thing, but we don’t have time to search his place. Ugh, I wish we still had his hand, but Amara burned it up…”

Vee’s eyes lit up, and she started rummaging through her coat pockets. “What about his blood?”

“That would do it. Why?”

After a second, Vee found what she was looking for; Tessa’s knife, still covered in Brandon’s blood. “We found your knife in the Purgatory version of the ritual chamber. I meant to give it back to you earlier, but, well, obviously we got a little sidetracked.”

“Vee, this is perfect!” Tessa’s tattoos started glowing, and the knife floated closer. “Fucking sweet, we might be able to pull this off. If I get the chance to study the runes on the other students, I can apply a set of magical counter runes on this knife. In theory, that will be enough to split the human and ghost parts of Brandon apart, buying us enough time to either finish him off ourselves, or for the reapers to exact their own revenge.”

Tessa started muttering to herself, spinning the knife around in midair as she examined its every crevice. As she walked away, Vee looked at Naomi. “Thanks for your help, Naomi. I’m sorry Tessa is… well, Tessa.”

“I’m mostly used to it, but thanks. Just do me a favor and get our campus back, will you?”