Page 22 of The Succubi's Choice

He’s dressed like he was the first time she saw him, with a rumpled t-shirt and frayed jeans, but the line of his shoulders is almost completely different. Thomas stood as if he was trying to diminish his height, not quite hunching, but now...now he stands as if trying to be the tallest in the room and make sure that everyone knows it.

The light turns, finally, and she steps down into the intersection, the pavement hot even through her state-authorized tennis shoes and…

His eyes flash red, he turns his head to the side, and, like an exhale, he disappears, leaving her stopped dead in the crosswalk.

“What the fuck,” she whispers, before she slowly steps back onto the sidewalk, but he doesn’t reappear. After a long moment, with the air seeming to sizzle around her, without believing, she pivots, away from the crosswalk and back to the table, her hand slipping on the smoothie cup.

The moment she sits down, Katya raises an eyebrow at her, all traces of the grumbling gone from her face, instead replaced by her sharp look, the look that sometimes Miri swears can look into someone and read their secrets.

“Thought I saw someone, it wasn’t them,” Miri says, collapsing back and gingerly setting down the cup before it falls from her fingers and wastes the entire smoothie. “Got closer and it was weird.”

Katya sits back, placing her pen carefully on the paperwork so it doesn’t blow away. “Miri.” She uses her patient voice, the one she uses for scared people trapped in situations they shouldn’t be in. “Miri, I don’t need to call Lundy, do I? Cause I really, really don’t want to call Lundy.”

It feels like she can sag with relief, right through the plastic little chair and the hard concrete and right into the ground. “Oh no you’re fine,” she says, feeling the adrenaline of the last few minutes drain through her toes and leave her exhausted. “I’m gonna text him all about this, it’s a thing through him.”

After a beat, Katya closes the wedding planning binder, in her practiced way of appearing sympathetic. Miri has seen it work on so many people. “Miri,” she starts, and it’s going to be a disappointing doozy if this is how she’s acting, “I am absolutely not trying to be judgmental, but...”

The but says a lot, and it says a lot of things that usually Miri and Katya avoid speaking about. About some of the policies that Katya disagrees with and yet doesn’t have the ability to change. The simmering difference between them, where Miri has to exist within a system and Katya has to legally enforce it.

Katya scowls at the smoothie. “If you are associated with unknown ‘others’ then they might fire you and I don’t want to train a new person.”

That’s as close to a statement of friendship and affection that Katya will ever say, so Miri nods and pulls out her phone.

“Here,” she says, showing her screen, “I’m texting him now.”

MIRI (4:20 PM) : You know that person we were talking about? Ran into him on the street and his eyes flashed red and he disappeared. Katya saw.

She shows the text to Katya, then sends as she’s watching. “I swear I’m not doing anything he doesn’t know about.”

She hides the relief well, but Miri knows how to read it on Katya’s face, before the calculating look comes back. “So the teleporting was new?” She asks.

“New to me,” Miri says, knowing Katya with information doesn’t let go. “I’m sure they knew about it, I just didn’t.”

Katya looks back to where he had been standing. “I thought they didn’t let succubi have that much contact with others.”

Her phone beeps, so she flips it up.

LUNDY (4:22): Are you and Katya safe?

At reading the text, Katya’s hand drifts down to her side, where her hidden holster still rests.

MIRI (4:23): We are at a smoothie shop. Leaving soon probably.

Katya sighs, putting her binder in her briefcase. “I take it we should do this inside the carefully warded office?”

And Miri doesn’t know what wards cover protections against demons, but it certainly can’t hurt. “Sure. I think.”

In the car, Katya turns her head to watch her drive. “They shouldn’t be putting you in extra danger,” she says, voice gentle. “I know it's not my business but...don’t let them make you feel like you have to.”

Miri swallows past the sudden lump in her throat. “I think it’s more complicated than that.”

“It usually ends up being that way, I think,” Katya says, and Miri lets her familiar voice flow over her, like a balm or a warm breeze on a frigid day. “It’s something we say all the time, but you don’t have to do anything that puts you in harm’s way.”

* * *

As she pullsoff the freeway on their oft familiar exit, Katya puts a warm hand on Miri’s arm, her callouses rough against her skin. Unbidden, the hairs on her arm rise at the simple touch, as if it is much more significant than just that.

“Take care of yourself,” Katya says, her voice as small as it was in the hospital, as tiny and as scared as a child. “Make sure...make sure you can defend against whatever the hell they’re having you do.”

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