Page 12 of The Succubi's Choice

“We think an Archdemon is trying to wind its way into the Los Angeles community to fill the power vacuum left by the death of Vanya.” The calm one says bluntly

She blinks at him, waiting for his words to make sense. “Uh.”

So while a lot of people consider succubi to be under the loose category of demon, those people generally got that idea from religious upbringing and not from any actual genealogy. Actual demons, actual hellfire and brimstone demons who possess people and wreak havoc, those are fucking rare.

And fucking out of her league.

She twists in her chair and looks at Lundy. He doesn’t meet her eyes, and instead looks over her head at the place where the ceiling meets the wall.

The two suits just watch her, patient, until she shakes herself again.

“Archdemon?” She repeats, her skin goose-pimpling up. “I didn’t know they had, you know, a society to structure?” It’s too cold in the room, especially for her, and the fact they chose to do that rankles her, feeds into the little fissure of panic in her stomach.

With a knowing glance at each other, one pulls out some papers, and it’s like every information packet that Katya puts together that Miri has to print. “This particular demon is traceable from roughly the sixteenth century, though he’s been very quietly living in Norway for at least a century.”

“Right, cause demons live forever,” she quips back, her mouth feeling numb.

“Exactly,” he says, which doesn’t help things. “Imagine our surprise when he first showed up in Vegas, then again in Silverlake.” He hands her a list of addresses, as if she would know what they mean. “He has mostly been paying a lot of money to a lot of people who were once associates of the Demigods, and not doing anything else.”

Again, way over her head and way out of her league. “Why....why tell me this?”

“Because tomorrow your boss Katya is going to get a wellness check request to check in on a young man in Silverlake, and you’re going to write a very nice report about him and send it into us.” The one with the zen face says, as if explaining to a small child. “We need to know what he’s planning, and someone with a nice face could get it better than we can.” He gestures at all of her. “And then...and then fill out a perfectly normal report to Katya, so she thinks there’s nothing wrong.”

It’s so quiet Miri can hear the air conditioner kicking on and off down the hall. “And why not tell Katya?”

The two men look at each other, one glances up at Lundy, before straightening back to look at her. “Because he’s possessing a human. And, if things go wrong, she’s going to want to save him.”

* * *

It’s nearlytwo AM when Miri crawls back into Lundy’s car and he lets her turn the heat up way too high.

Without a word, he reaches into the backseat and hands her a scratchy wool blanket, which she curls up under as he pulls out of the parking garage and gets onto the empty freeway.

“I think this is wrong,” Miri says, after a few minutes of silence. “I’m not...I’m not the person who should be brought into this.”

No one should be really brought into something like this, but she’s just a standard succubi, no extra powers, no extra gifts, just a semi-cushy job and an understanding roommate. Not someone who, if necessary, might need to charm an Archdemon. If they even could be charmed.

“Well,” Lundy starts, gingerly, rubbing his eyes like an entirely non-nocturnal chump. “I don’t disagree.”

“That’s comforting.” She shrugs the scratchy blanket up around her chin, nestling as deep as she can into the minivan’s seat.

* * *

Sure enough,before Katya is even in the office, there’s an email in their shared inbox about checking out an apartment in Silverlake for “suspected activity,” and Miri breathes hard out of her nose at her ancient work computer until Katya opens the door to their office with a nod and a cup of coffee.

“I don’t know about you, but my head still hurts from that banshee.” Katya puts the extra cup of coffee on Miri’s desk and, while coffee isn’t exactly good for her, they could pry it from her cold dead hands. “My ears didn’t stop ringing for hours.”

“Sure,” Miri says, out of a lack of anything else to say.

Katya all but collapses into the folding chair next to Miri’s desk, rubbing her injured shoulder. “I can’t get over his word choice,” she says, thoughtful. “I read up, banshees don’t get possessive.”

“Lundy says that particular banshee likes fountain pens.” Miri tries to will the email to disappear, but even if she deletes it from her inbox, Katya will have a duplicate in her own.

She glances up, and Katya’s giving her the single raised eyebrow of skepticism, and somehow Miri missed how it began. “Lundy called you after that?” She asks, her face slipping into the ultra-professional mask it gets when she thinks someone isn’t being too honest. “Why?”

“He had to take me down for some paperwork, no big deal.” Miri tries to keep as much of her paperwork shit from Katya, for the sake of their working relationship. “I might be able to start hunting at nights again, that’ll be a relief.”

Katya would be shit at her job if she didn’t doubt everything. “Well that was a quick change.” She pushes herself up to go to her office, just a door away from Miri.

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