Succubi

He turned on the night-light and got up, grabbed his robe. He couldn’t stand the smell of himself. He padded down the hall but stopped before the bathroom door. He heard water running. Jesus, who could be taking a shower at this hour? He peeked into Melanie’s room and found it empty, the bed unslept in.

She must’ve been out late too. Of course, Martin could not justifiably scold her, given his own state. He sat on the bed to wait for her to finish. The room was plush, full of antiques. He looked around, waiting, but felt distracted. Next, he found himself standing at the window.

Low in twilight, the moon looked back at him. It was nearly full. Its odd, bright-pink light seeped into his eyes, lulling him. The light seemed to show him things—indeterminate, yet absolutely awful things—beyond its fixed glow.

Blood. Flesh. Evil faces.

Words.

Husl, husl, husl.

Give lof…

And: You are wreccan now.

Martin felt lost, staring into the light. His consciousness felt wavering. What am I doing? he heard himself. He heard a distant hissing. The shower? Yes. Something was luring him away, yet the light remained like a ghost in his eyes.

Inexplicably, he turned away from the window and walked into Melanie’s closet. But why? The closet was dark, but toward the back he detected a point of light.

A hole in the wall. A hole of light.

He put his eye to the hole.

Melanie, standing in a suit of white lather. Eyes closed, she turned her face up to the torrent of cool water. Martin’s eye remained open over the hole. Something forced him to watch. Now Melanie was washing the suds off her body, the water sluicing. She shut the water off and stepped out.

What am I…

She towel-dried her fine, light brown hair. Martin stared at her perfectly formed rump as she bent to dry her legs. Then she straightened, patting the towel around her breasts and under her arms. She hadn’t shaved her armpits in several days; Martin found the sparse covering of hair, like fine fur, to be densely erotic. Even more erotic was the contrast of her large, dark brown nipples against the flawless whiteness of her breasts.

What…am…I—

Martin was masturbating as he continued to spy on his lover’s young daughter. It felt obscene, like incest, but he couldn’t refrain. Melanie’s skin was so bright in the bathroom light, so lustrous. Somehow, looking at it was like being on some drug. Her face, too, was beautiful, and her dark brown eyes, the mussed wet hair. Martin felt helpless against the urge to continue to stroke himself. It was this vision that spurred him, the sharp white clarity of Melanie’s beauty, of her flesh. Beads of water nestled in her pubic hair glittered like jewels. Martin considered what his lust had reduced him to at that moment: I’m a pervert, a peeper. I’m a thirty-eight-year-old published author masturbating in a closet.

The images he peeked at began to meld with his imagination; he imagined sliding his penis slowly in and out of Melanie’s fresh sex. He imagined that virginal tightness, and then flooding it with his sperm. The sperm would rush out of her when he withdrew and run down her pretty leg. Next, she’d be sucking him hard again, the hot friction so deft that his knees would wobble. She would suck him off like a practiced whore and at the last moment jerk him off all over those pert, perfect breasts…

No, Martin couldn’t help the unconscionable musings. He could only look on as Melanie continued to tend to herself, oblivious to the voyeur’s eye on the other side of the wall.

Oblivious? came the strange question.

Melanie stood with her front toward the wall. She was looking down, drying the muff of hair and the insides of her thighs. Then, very slowly, she looked up, right at the wall. She grinned directly into Martin’s gaze.

Martin felt locked in rigor. The grin struck him like a fisticuff. He nearly shrieked. The tiny pendant lay between her breasts, and in her eyes—her stark beautiful chocolate-colored eyes—he saw madness, ataxia. He saw death.

“You are wreccan now, Martin,” she said through her grin.

«« — »»

Erik could smell it even before he entered. He could feel it. Hustig, he thought automatically. Huslfek.

The door to the church basement was unlocked. He stepped into blackness and waited, listening. No one was here, he felt sure of that. He felt sure of something else: people had been murdered in this place very recently.

The hustigs always ended at the high moon. There were no windows, so he felt safe turning on the lights.

Here was the brygorwreccan’s chamber. This was where Erik used to live. He wondered about who had replaced him. There was the bed, the old dresser, the same bare, whitewashed cement walls. In the back was a large stereo system, but that was all.

The trunk.

The trunk had been moved to the side. He opened it and was not surprised to find several shovels and a box of heavy-duty plastic garbage bags, an ax, and a few knives. Erik had kept his money hidden in the trunk’s vinyl lining, but it wasn’t there. There were also a few flashlights and a few pairs of work gloves. Tools of the trade, he thought.

He went to the back of the chamber. The large wooden door faced him like an old nemesis. From under its crack, he could feel the giveaway draft of warm air. Erik didn’t need to open the massive door for the evidence; he could see it in his mind. He could see the fire pit and stoke rods, the blood-crusted dolmen, the chettles and the iron hooks high on the cement walls.

And he could see the nihtmir propped up in the nave.

But the door was locked.

He set down the shotgun and got the small hand-?sc out of the trunk. He began to dig around the bolt. He actually giggled as he worked. I’m gonna trash the entire cirice. See how they like that. Let the fuckers know that Erik Tharp is back in town.

The hard wood around the bolt plate was tough. The sharp ?sc-point dug out a splinter at a time. Soon he exposed the edge of the bolt plate. Once he got that out—

“Brygorwreccan,” announced a voice behind him.

Erik turned. A guy in leather and black hair hanging in his face stood before him. He smiled wanly, holding a double-tipped pickax at port arms.

“Welcome home,” Zack said. He lunged, heaving the pickax. Erik yelled and threw his hands up.

The pickax sank into Erik’s left palm, then slammed into the door, nailing him to the wood. He reached for the shotgun, felt a bone break in his hand. Not gonna make it, he thought, grimly frantic. He stretched, but the shotgun remained inches from his grasp.

Meanwhile, Zack came at him with a knife…

—

Chapter 22

“Dooer, dooer,” oozed the voice in the dream.

Ann strained against the turmoil of sleep. The nightmare replayed through her mind. Melanie’s birth seventeen years ago in the fruit cellar while the storm raged outside. The feminine chorus, firelight dancing on naked flesh. Soft hands caressed her, roving the gravid belly, tracing the sweat-slick thighs. Ann twitched in sleep. The emblem hovered, the queer double circle; it seemed to give off the faintest glow, and she thought she could see something in its shape, but what? Mouths sucked warm milk from her swollen breasts. Tongues licked fervidly up and down over her clitoris. Her sex began to spasm as her womb began to contract…