The Inferno Read online

  SUCCUBUS STUDIES: THE INFERNO

  Copyright © 2018 by L.L. Frost

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the writer, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by L.L. Frost

  Book design by L.L. Frost

  Printed in the United States of America.

  First Printing, 2018

  The (un)Lucky Succubus

  Succubus Bargain

  Serial Parts

  The Offer

  The Deal

  The Terms

  The Rules

  The Gain

  Succubus Studies

  Serial Parts

  The Torch

  The Blaze

  The Inferno

  The Vortex

  Table of Contents

  The Inferno

  Butterflies

  Punching the Gift Horse

  (un)Finished

  The Inferno

  For a moment, the entire room stands frozen in shocked silence as we stare at the door swinging shut behind the fleeing ignis demon, then everyone springs into action at once.

  Tally reaches the street first with me close on her heels, the rest right behind.

  Startled humans give our group a wide berth as they go about their night as if a flaming demon didn’t just run right past them. Lucky for us, ignis have a built-in look-the-other-way mojo; it’s the universe’s way of making up for their non-humanoid forms on this plane. But even that won’t protect us if he catches something, or someone, on fire.

  “Which way?” I peer down both directions of the sidewalk and wish the summer nights came sooner. If it weren’t so bright outside, even at eight at night, it would be a lot easier to spot his small body in the crowd.

  “Tally!” Reese pushes through a group of teenagers, and his old sedan becomes visible for a moment where it waits, parked at the curb before the gap fills once more. He hurries to the pink haired baku’s side. “Did something happen? I thought I saw...” He scrubs a hand over his face, his confusion clear. “Maybe my head’s playing tricks again...”

  Julian catches sight of the odd splash of brown across one of Reese’s blue eyes and hisses, “Hunter.”

  I spin in time to see Kellen catch my cousin by the scruff of the neck. “Settle down. He’s a friend.”

  Tally’s small hand grips Reese’s arm. “Did you see”—her voice drops to a whisper as she watches the surrounding humans—“a small fire creature?”

  Instead of joining our panic, Reese’s shoulders sag with relief. “Thank, God, I’m not crazy.”

  “Which way?” I demand.

  Reese points left, toward the busier side of town where Kellen’s club, Fulcrum, will be in full swing by now.

  Kellen swears loudly, then gives a half-hearted smile to the startled passersby.

  I turn to chase after the ignis and catch a flicker of red in my peripheral vision, followed by the scorch of fire against my nostrils.

  Shit! My bakery’s on fire!

  Through the front window, it becomes obvious the tablecloth Torch caught on fire already disintegrated, and now, the table itself looks ready to buckle. If I don’t get in there and put it out, my whole shop will burn down.

  My hands clench into fists. If I don’t go after Torch, the higher ups will execute everyone with me for exposing demons to the unsuspecting humans.

  Tobias follows my gaze to the burning bakery. “Adie, there’s no time.”

  Tally steps to my side. “I’ll take care of it. You go find the ignis.”

  “Thank you.” I turn my attention to my cousin, who looks entirely too happy to have Kellen’s hand still on his neck. “Julian, please get the kitchen staff to safety.”

  Without another glance, I force myself to abandon my dreams and chase after my demon.

  At the cross street, Tobias spots a scorched shrub leading in the opposite direction of Fulcrum and into the part of town filled with corporate buildings, most of which close by six. Fewer pedestrians fill this part of town, and even traffic is limited to those passing through, with barely any vehicles parked at the curb or in the parking lots behind the buildings. Torch could have gone anywhere from here.

  The same thought occurs to Tobias. “Kellen and I will take the opposite side, just in case he crossed.”

  Emil and I stay on our side, and we keep pace with the other two as we make our way down the street, eyes open for another sign. As we pass the third alley, a hint of smoke tickles my nose.

  When I freeze in place, Emil comes to my side. “Do you see something?”

  “No.” I draw in a deeper breath, but the grime of the city floods my senses. Rubbing my nose, I try again, then growl in frustration. “I smelled smoke, but I don’t know if it came from down there or up ahead.”

  Emil walks into the alley, his eyes locked to the ground. Halfway down, he calls, “I have ash.”

  I turn and wave to catch Kellen’s and Tobias’s attention before I join Emil. The dark of the alley closes around us, the building’s height on either side blocking out the sun. Emil tugs the legs of his slacks up and crouches to point at a fast food wrapper that lies on the ground. One side of it ends in a jagged black line, the edges still red as it continues to smoulder.

  Kellen’s and Tobias’s heavy footsteps sound behind us as they jog down the alley.

  Tobias reaches us first. “What did you find?”

  Emil stands and stomps on the wrapper to put it out. “He’s been by here.”

  “Fuck.” Kellen scrubs a hand over his vibrant red hair. “It turns into a maze of alleys farther in.”

  Tobias stares down to the first juncture and nods. “We may have to split up.”

  My wings rustle against my spine as anxiety rushes through me. “How will we get him back to the shop? He won’t fit in the oven anymore.”

  “Adie.” Tobias’s voice fills with soft patience. “At this point, we need to send him back to the demon plane.”

  “What?” I twist to stare up at him in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ignis demon’s have a size restriction over here. Otherwise, they put us at too much of a risk. You know that.” Tobias waits for my acknowledgement, but I keep my lips clamped shut.

  I don’t care what the paperwork said when I registered Torch with the demon clerk’s office. Ignis are like puppies. They have no self-control, and they can become too dangerous if they’re allowed to grow. But that doesn’t mean Torch is dangerous. He just needs a bigger house until I figure out how to shrink him down again.

  Emil’s hand touches my shoulder. “You should go back to the shop and help Tally clean up. We can handle this for you.”

  “I’ll take you shopping for a new ignis tomorrow,” Kellen offers.

  “You guys are just giving up on Torch?” My head swivels as I look at each of them. “Just like that?”

  “I told you not to name it,” Tobias reminds me.

  The ground seems to shift under my feet. “No.”

  “Adie.” Kellen reaches for me, and I skitter away from all of them.

  “I won’t let you destroy Torch!” Energy spindles out of my core to flood my limbs, and I hyper-speed down the alley, determined to reach the little ignis demon first. They can’t kill his corp
oreal form. I won’t let them.

  Their shouts chase after me, but I block my ears, opening the rest of my senses.

  At the end of the alley, instinct pulls me right, and I leave them behind. I find another scorch mark on the side of a dumpster where Torch bounced off it as he fled. The little guy must be terrified right now. The human world is so much larger than what he’s used to.

  Time passes in a blur of searching and backtracking, and the sky darkens into nightfall. At one point, I think I have a line on Torch only to find myself at a burning barrel, surrounded by homeless people. I move on before they register my presence.

  Once, I lap past Kellen who followed the same lead as me. He tries to catch me, but I zip past, his fingers a bare scrape against my arm. The energy in my stomach slowly depletes, and I worry I’ll use it up before I find Torch and get him into hiding. If that happens...

  Am I willing to take down one of the homeless people and devour their life force to save the small demon?

  When I weigh his existence against the nameless humans who fill our city, my resolve to protect them from myself wavers. I care for Torch, even if that makes me weak.

  I stumble to a stop and lean against a nearby wall, my legs shaky with expended power. Either way, I can’t keep this up much longer. Why is it so hard to find one small fire demon?

  The delicious scent of ozone tickles my senses, bringing with it a tickle of lightning. Did I lap Kellen again? I shuffle to the next split in the alley and peek around the corner to find an empty corridor that leads to another split. Dumpsters line one wall, set between the back doors of two businesses. Kellen wasn’t kidding when he said this area turned into a maze.

  About to backtrack the other direction, a flicker of orange catches my eye. It spills across the ground at the next juncture, spreading fast to fill the alley with light. The smell of ozone returns, accompanied by hot metal and burning garbage.

  Wind whistles past me, blowing my hair into my face, and I peer up at the sky in surprise. Storm clouds rush past overhead, and the stars seem to move with them at a dizzying speed. While summer storms have increased over the last few weeks, the weather report predicted nothing but sun and open sky for the week.

  Apprehension rattles my bones, followed by full-on panic as the first drop of rain splashes against my cheek.

  No. No, no, no!

  “Stop!” I shout as speed once more floods my limbs, and I zip down the alley.

  I take the turn fast and almost slam into the wall. In less than a heartbeat, I take in the scene before me.

  A flaming dumpster sags against one wall, the metal red-hot. Fire licks at the building, the bricks not yet catching. Torch cowers in front of it, almost invisible among the other blaze. But his little body stands out as a yellow ball of fear.

  Tobias and Emil stand to either side of the alley to form a barricade, while Kellen stands in the middle, his head back as he lifts his face to the sky. The ghost of storm clouds rise from his back, a flicker of lightning hidden in the darkness.

  He’s calling the storm to put out the fire. To kill Torch.

  I fly through his wings, mist stinging against my exposed skin.

  “Adie, no!” Tobias shouts.

  I fall to my knees, concrete ripping through my slacks to the skin beneath as I slide the few feet that remain between me and Torch. He must see me coming because he flares bright blue once more.

  A wall of heat engulfs me as I near the flaming dumpster, and then my body folds around Torch’s much smaller one. For a moment, happiness rushes through me, knives of emotion that cut through my skin and sink deep. Torch’s tiny arms wrap around my waist.

  My succubus nature senses a ready supply of food and opens wide, greedy to consume, and Torch doesn’t fight my draw. The energy that makes up his corporeal form finds the holes made by his happiness and sinks deep.

  A scream rips from my throat as the inferno takes me.

  ***

  Someone jerks me away from the dumpster, icy hands adding a new level of pain to the agony that engulfs me.

  “You stupid girl.” Tobias’s angry voice holds the weight of volcanoes, and I whimper at the added heat.

  “Shut up, Tobias.” Emil’s arms carefully fold around my ruined body, and he lifts me off the ground. “It’s already done.”

  “Is she going to lose this form?” Kellen sounds worried, and I try to open my eyes but see only blackness.

  I’m not even sure I have eyes anymore. Torch’s energy rushes through me, eating up my insides, even as my body struggles to absorb it and use the new power to heal myself.

  “I’m not sure she can recover from this level of damage.” Emil’s ice creeps across my body, and I struggle to lift my arms, to protect Torch from the cold.

  Kellen’s voice falls like soothing rain. “It’s okay, Adie, I have him. He’s safe.”

  “Don’t.” My voice crackles from a throat filled with charcoal. “Don’t send me back.”

  “We might not have a choice,” regret fills Kellen’s voice.

  Terror slices through me. “Won’t— Return.”

  “Stop scaring her.” Emil’s arms cradle me closer to his frozen chest. “Tobias, make yourself useful, and go get the car.”

  “Don’t—”

  “We’ll try, Adie,” Emil’s voice slides like glaciers against my mind, bringing darkness with it. “But, the cost will be high.”

  “Butterflies.”

  Emil shifts me closer. “What?”

  “I think she’s delirious,” Kellen says.

  I struggle to get them to understand. “Butter—”

  Darkness takes me.

  Butterflies

  Darkness and pain become my existence, one switching out for the other in a shuffle of red and black. At some point, Emil’s naked body wraps around mine, his energy struggling to help replenish mine, to help me heal. When he becomes warm, he moves away and static electricity prickles at my back as Kellen takes his place. Next comes Tobias, his weight infolding me in an earthy tomb of quiet that eases me back to sleep.

  When I wake again, worried voices whisper over me.

  Kellen: “She’s not healing. If she was going to, it would have started by now.”

  Emil: “It’s only been a few hours.”

  Tobias: “A normal succubus would be almost whole by now.”

  “Fuck. You.” My groan sandpapers against my throat. “I. Am. Normal.”

  Emil laughs quietly. “At least she’s still fighting.”

  Kellen: “Did you get ahold of that cousin of hers yet?”

  Tobias: “He’s MIA.”

  My lips split as I whisper, “Butterflies.”

  Kellen: “Why does she keep saying that?”

  Sleep folds back over me.

  ***

  “Let me through, I know she’s in here!”

  Landon’s angry voice yanks me out of the darkness once more, and my lips crackle as they stretch into a smile.

  “How did you even get in our house?” Tobias growls and the bed beneath me shakes.

  “The front door wasn’t locked.” Landon sounds unimpressed. “Now tell this hell cat to get out of my way.”

  “I don’t see how you can help her more than we can.” Emil’s soft voice carries the death of ice ages.

  My bones splinter as I reach out a hand. “Butterflies.”

  Tac lets out a pained yowl, followed by Emil’s furious shout, and the bed dips beneath me as Landon climbs onto it. “Oh, Boo, what did you do to yourself?”

  His leg brushes my fingers, and I curl my fingers into the soft material of his pants. “Fix.”

  “We’ll get you sorted.” The bed bounces as he moves around, then my mentor pulls me into the cradle of his arms. Bright yellow light fills in the blackness of my vision, and for a moment, I can see the beautiful arcs of his monarch speckled wings as they fold around me. “You never like to make life easy, do you?”

  Gray pushes back the bright color, a rolling mist
that curls around my mind and I become weightless, the ties that bind me to my corporeal form cut free. The instant release from pain makes me cry. At least the pain let me know I still lived.

  My vision clears, and I find myself on the gray sidewalks of Dreamland. Humans pop in and out around us as they pass from sleep into wakefulness, bright flashes of color in the monotone landscape.

  Yellow light emanates from around Landon’s body, almost too painful to look at. Instead, I glance down at myself. Where blue light should shine, only brittle gray remains.

  My arms drop to my sides. “I really fucked up this time, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you really did.” Landon’s wings, large and white feathered, with the black and yellow pattern of a monarch butterfly, fold back into his back and vanish. “You’re too young. I warned you about transitioning to the human plane so soon.”

  I glare at him from the corner of my eye, his shine still too bright. In dreamland, he registers as a powerful food source, but I don’t feed on my kind. “You didn’t give me much choice.”

  He points at me. “I gave you an outline. It included the appropriate timeline for taking on a physical form.”

  My hands move to my hips, and relief floods through me that it doesn’t hurt. “You left me starving half the time!”

  “It’s called letting you learn to hunt for yourself!” He throws his hands up in the air. “There’s a process for learning! Why are you so impatient with everything?”

  “I was already here for seventy-five years!” I yell as I round on him and squint through the glow. “I wasn’t learning anything new!”

  “That’s because you needed more power!” Anger fuels him, and he grows in height until he towers over me. “Which you would have gained if you’d waited!”