The Succubus

I can feel the worlds moving.  I can feel it in my bones, my pores, my soul. The subtle shift of magic, the monumental turn of time: finally my world is coming back to this one.  

I long to feel the air push against me, thick with power.  I crave that feeling of belonging.  I want to be with my own kind again; I want to be home.  But still, I’m scared.  As the worlds come closer and the magic quickens my blood, an unavoidable truth becomes clear: the magic doesn’t sing as it used to.  I can’t embrace it, as I should.  Something is wrong with me.

I have become too human.

*

This is the man I have been stalking: this brave, arrogant being.  How he can be so unaware of his own mortality I cannot know.  He thinks he can live forever.

I’ve only danced with him a few times at a club, to the grinding bass and with my clothing scandalously short, but I’ve visited his dreams almost every night.  I’ve been invading his mind and making him sweat, twisting his sheets and stealing his breath so that he can only gasp.  I’ve made it so he can’t think of anyone else - not his girlfriend, not any woman on the street.  He should be dying to have me.  

And yet, now that I’m before him again, in the flesh, he’s holding himself surprisingly well.  Maybe I’m losing my touch.  

As I get closer I can see the want in his eyes – marked by bloodshot threads through white and heavy purple bags, signs of sleepless nights.  Still he attempts a cocky smile.  

“Hello, you,” he says, trying to grin.  His voice is almost desperate.  

I wordlessly take a hold of his hand and lead him to the floor, and he’s already giving himself to me.  He wants this, yes, but he stills wants his life.  

He even loves his girlfriend, I think, in his own way.  Not that he was ever faithful to her.  I could tell that the first time I saw him.  But he liked her - wanted to protect her and provide for her.  He even wanted to live with her; he told himself that one day he’d settle down.  

He hasn’t talked to her for days, and his silence is tearing her apart.  I can see her fading, bit by bit, as he does.  Her skin is paler and her eyes are always worried.

I don’t understand her love.  I don’t understand any love.  How can humans be so free with it?  How can they give so much of themselves to one other person?  The likelihood of betrayal seems far too high.  For my kind, there is nothing such as love.  Even our lust is tainted with the desire to drain another’s life.   

Yet she loves him, unwaveringly.  And I’m going to kill him.  

*

I remember how easy it used to be - how guilt-free.  I thought men existed purely to feed me.  Even if I did notice how my mark was slowly destroying them, it didn’t affect me. Sometimes I even felt pleasure knowing I had that much power.  

I saved a small girl the other night.  I don’t even know why.  The sun was just setting, dusk falling by degrees, the grey like a thin film of dust over the world.  I was walking - no plan for the night.  I should’ve been marking a new victim, but I wasn’t.  I felt strong enough to last a few more days, at least.  

And then I saw her.  She was sitting on the curb, whimpering softly, her hair askew and tears smeared across her cheeks.  Her nose was running and she sniffled loudly.  I almost walked right past her.  I was going to; I didn’t plan on helping.  But at the last moment she looked up at me, and our eyes locked.  Hers were filled with tears.  Uncertain, my emotions warring, I stood still and looked down at her.  Her lip trembled, and I could tell she was scared of me.  Who wouldn’t be?  She could probably feel it - feel that my purpose in life was to kill her father or brother or future lover.  

“Are you okay?” I asked, maybe too disinterested.  I crossed my arms over my chest.  

She paused, still terrified – she had been probably been told never to talk to strangers.  Eventually, however, her desperation won out over her fear.  

“I lost my Mum,” she sniffed, her voice wavering.  She couldn’t have been more than six years old.

“Where?” I demanded.  My voice was too harsh.  

“At - at the shops,” she said, her body quivering as fresh tears spilled out of her eyes.  I knew they were because of me.  

I felt like swearing - both because the local shops weren’t close and because I’d made her cry.  Sighing, I forced my voice softer.  

“Okay, I’m going to help you find your house.”  I still don’t know how she got so far away from home.  

It took hours to find where she lived - hours of carefully keeping my voice quiet and trying not to scowl.  Hours of not knowing what to do.

I could’ve done anything if it involved a man.  I would’ve spoken huskily, or pouted, and he would have believed himself in love with me in minutes.  But a small girl – a child – this was a field I knew nothing about.  

Still, I felt true empathy for her.  I knew what it was like to be lost, and without a way back.  I had felt that pain every day for hundreds of years.  

When we finally found her house, I pushed her towards the door, my hand gentle and reassuring at the small of her back.  It was only when she finally rang the doorbell that she turned back to thank me, but by that time I was already gone.  

I watched from the shadows as her parents answered the door, shocked and worried and thankful and grateful to God; my throat constricted.  

To feel that - to be able to form that kind of connection with a person, to be able to feel that love – I didn’t know how it was possible.  I had never had that.  

I melted into the darkness, tired beyond belief.  My heart ached as it had never ached before.  

*

He is starting to tire, my victim.  

He was sent home from work today, his boss both concerned and angry.  How was it possible that a star employee could suddenly fall to pieces? Why wasn’t he doing his work?  Was he okay?

And he couldn’t give them an answer.  What could he have said?  ‘I can’t get a girl off my mind.  I think about her night and day.  She is consuming me.’  

And I am.  I’m taking his energy.  I’m sucking everything that makes him - him.  I’m feeding off his very soul.  

And as it gives me life, the knowledge kills me inside.  


*

So I rescued a small girl from being lost.  That I could ignore.  That I could forgive myself for.  Until I did it again.  

It was dark – pitch black – and I stumbled out of the club right into it.  I couldn’t believe no one else had seen it, or tried to stop it.  The noises came from up the alleyway, bleeding through the shadows, and the pale, flickering figures were as menacing as demons.  

There was a girl crying, pressed up against the wall, her skirt riding high on her waist.  There were far too many men for it to be a lover’s drunken fuck.  Her whimpers were so soft they were almost inaudible, but I heard them.  And I recognised them because it was the sound of something being taken away - the sound of something forced.  It ran through my ears and hooked in my head, amplified in the darkness, and it wouldn’t leave me alone; it chased me because it was a sound I’d created so many times before.  

The men hooted - a harsh, cruel laugh – guttural and from somewhere so deep inside it must have tasted of bile.  And they kept on laughing as one tore her shirt and another unbuttoned his jeans, the third leering, and I felt their need for power as heady as the scent of sex.  

My eyes locked with the girl’s, hers unseeing but pleading, and I recognised in her face what I saw in all my victims before they died.  There was desperation and despair in the tilt of her head, and defeat in the lines around her lipstick-stained mouth.  

It was a familiar scene, but I was angry.  The magic in the air started to move.  I could feel it rushing across my skin and sinking into my flesh, gathering and ready to use.  My hands shook, my knuckles turning white.  

Before I knew what was happening I was halfway there, and still they didn’t see me.  The magic roared in my head and glamour and guises shifted until I wasn’t sure what I was.  I could feel my wings one second, tendons ready for battle, and then they were gone; even now my need for secrecy was still instinctive.  One moment I was human, the next a she-devil.  Sometimes I think my very bones must have changed until that I resembled the Old Ones.  Pheromones mixed with magic radiated out of me, stronger than I needed, and crackled in the air.  My eyes darkened with anger, with lust, with need; with all the things that go hand in hand where my species are concerned.  And all this time the anger was building, building, building.  I wanted to kill.  

And then I was upon them.  

My hands tightened around the first one’s neck, pulling him away from the girl even as my nails dug into his throat, almost drawing blood.  The other two were slow to react, their brains clouded with drink.  I could see the colours in the air - the waves of their lust dissipating then rising as they saw me. Everything was swirling, and my entire world shrunk to those moments - that hunt.  

I was draining all three of their lives before I even touched them, my body aching for their energy.  The first man was gone with a kiss, and the second could do nothing but fall to his knees as I approached him.  My hunger grew – I was ravenous as I snapped his neck.  The third was unconscious on the ground.  

I was about to take the last, when a loud, keening wail distracted me.  Something about the horror – the sorrow – in it must have struck me, because I looked from the man to the girl.  She was sitting there, knickers around her knees, one hand covering her mouth.  She was finally allowing herself to cry.  I felt my heart go out to this girl, and what she had just been through.

But then I realised she wasn’t crying about the rape at all; she was looking at me – scared and disgusted and distressed – and she was sobbing.  I took a step towards her, my hand outstretched, but she shrunk against the wall and her crying grew louder.  She thought I was going to kill her.  She thought I was some kind of monster.  

I was.  

I could feel my wings shrinking and the magic fading, weariness coming over me.  The shock – the revulsion – in the girl’s face hit me, and I felt bile rising in my throat.  I felt tears forming in my eyes.

I didn’t cry at death or killing.  I didn’t cry at what I had to do for survival.  I didn’t.  

The third man still lay on the ground.  A groan escaped – something between agony and ecstasy.  

“I’m sorry you had too see that,” I said.  My voice was thick.   

The girl cried harder.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” I snapped, meaning to sound harsh, but it came out as a plea.  “I’m sorry.”  

She didn’t say anything back – just closed her eyes as if I were a bad dream that could be wished away.  At that moment, I wanted to be anything else than what I was.

I left.  There was nothing else to do.

*

He is almost gone now.  There is so little left of him that I can barely recognise the strong, overconfident, conceited man I began with.  His face is wan, his cheeks ashen.  His voice, when he speaks, is rusty and thick, but it never fails him when he calls out in his sleep.  

His girlfriend left him, but her presence lingers.  I can still smell her in the house, and know that he can too.  Occasionally he will pause, as if remembering, and it’s moments like these when I think that he might be strong enough to break my spell, if he tried a little harder.   

I should finish him tonight.  It would be a mercy killing.  It is cruel to keep him in this state – neither living nor dead.  He wants to die.  He wants nothing more than for me take him, to have him completely.  Tonight I will visit him in his sleep, and I will end it.  I want this to be over.  

*

The world of magic is coming closer and closer, and the humans are not even aware of it.  I am conscious of this, but also of the changes in my heart.  I think of all but understand none; empathise with everyone but feel nothing.  

I am an expatriate and an accidental exile.  Soon I will have to make a choice: choose where I belong.  But I belong nowhere.  

*

I am in his room.  I have been here many times before, hidden, but soon he will be awake.  He is tossing in his sleep, his face flushed, his lips parted in a silent sigh.  I am in his room, his dreams, his bones.  I have claimed him so completely there is almost nothing left to take.  I might be able to finish him with a kiss.  I hope that I can.  

And now I am above him.  I don’t bend down – I don’t begin.  I don’t want to do this. He squeezes his eyes shut, and I am reminded of the girl in the alley.  I know how much he wants me, but deep down – deep, deep down – I think he still wants to wake up.  

I feel nothing.  I don’t feel the magic or the lust or the power that comes with a good kill; I only feel the strong pull of the inevitable.  There is no other way.  

I pin him down and lean in slowly – slowly – watching his eyelashes flutter.  He’s beginning to wake up, and draws a sharp breath.

Please let this end with a kiss.  

I press my lips against his – softly, so softly – and his eyes open.  In an instant he is awake.  He looks at me, lust in his eyes, but he doesn’t understand.  I haven’t left enough in him for that.  For a moment I think that I also see fear – maybe defeat, but it passes and the next second he is kissing me back.  He is forcing his body upwards, his back arching, tangling his fingers in my hair.  He is pouring himself into me, giving it all away, and he just keeps on giving.  

I kiss him back – sadly now, stronger now – desperately.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper into his mouth, moving my lips down his neck.  “I’m sorry.”  And those words become a prayer against his skin.  

He doesn’t hear me.  He can’t.  It’s too late now.  

Let this be over.  Let this be just a kiss.  

His lips are on mine again, and his breathing is heavy, laboured.  Each breath catches in his chest and his lust grows, but he is still dying – even with his hands in my hair, on my back, on my body.  He grows weaker every second.  His touch falters; his body trembles.  

I kiss him harder still, forcing myself into him.  I want him to die.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe into his lungs, and draw the air back out as my own.  

His eyes are open in rapture, and sweat covers his brow.  Tears are forming in his eyes – and my own.  My tongue meets his, my body meets his, and my tears meet his.  

“I’m sorry,” I say again, my tongue meeting his, my body meeting his, my tears meeting his.  

He’s almost dead now.  Let him die.  

“I’m sorry.”  I can feel his life, his energy – his soul rushing into mine, and I can feel his body stilling.  His lips are still on mine, unmoving.  His fingers twitch once and stop.

I sit up and look down at him.  His skin is grey, his eyes are sunken: he is empty.  I am sick with the new life rushing through my veins.  

“I’m sorry.”