Page 40 of The Prospect's Succubus
“Don’t,” she said, voice suddenly brittle. “Last time you touched it, I saw the ceiling come alive.”
I waited for her to relax, then did it anyway. My fingers hovered a centimeter above the skin, catching the heat, the tremble, the faint hiss that sounded like old radio static.
“It’s spreading,” I said, quiet.
She forced her face neutral, but the muscles in her jaw jumped. “Of course it is. It’s a Hellfire chain. It never stays put. It’s just… faster now.”
I leaned closer. “What did she do to you?”
Jasmine laughed, and it came out as a bark. “What didn’t she do? But you’re not talking about the fun stuff, are you?”
I shook my head.
She sat up, slow, as if moving through broken glass. Her eyes met mine, purple and rimmed with red, shot through with the kind of pain that only works when it’s real.
“Alright,” she said. “Here’s the full infomercial. Not just the brand. There’s the soul contract I signed when she built me, the original recipe, first batch. That’s one chain. The brand, that’s two. And then there’s the quota. I promised a certain number of souls, on time, or I get repo’d. That’s three. And until all three are broken, Lilith can drag me back with a single thought.”
The words hung in the air, heavy as concrete.
I knew about the brand. The soul contract, sure, every demon had one of those. But the quota? I’d never heard her say it out loud before. I watched her hands, saw them go white-knuckled.
“How many left on the clock?” I asked.
She shrugged, as if it was trivia. “Technically? None. I hit quota last night. She wants me for the victory lap, and then it’s curtains.”
I ran a thumb down my jaw, thinking. The three chains weren’t just metaphors; they were literal, if you had the right eyes or the right kind of curse. Breaking one was possible. Breaking all three at once? No one had ever managed it, at least not without a mass casualty event and a citywide blackout.
I tried to keep my face blank, but she saw right through me. Jasmine always did.
“Don’t look so tragic, Torch. We had a good run. And you’re still alive, which is more than most can say after fucking with me.”
There was nothing to say. Every plan I’d made was now three steps behind the curve, and Lilith would be moving faster with every hour.
I glanced at my phone, then the clock, then the window, where the black outside was starting to thin into a sickly morning blue.
“They’ll be here soon,” I said.
Jasmine nodded, her hair plastered to her forehead. “Good. Maybe she’ll bring donuts.”
She slumped back into the cushions, hands folded over her chest, face set in that weird, stubborn way that meant she’d already made peace with her next death.
I watched the veins creep another millimeter, watched the sweat bead and fall, and told myself this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
But I could see it in her eyes. Jasmine knew how endings worked.
So did I.
***
The sun hadn’t made it over the horizon when the front door rattled, three sharp knocks in a pattern that screamed “cop or club.” I peeled myself off the wall, checked the peephole, and caught Kane’s shit-eating grin on the other side, Sera beside him looking like she’d stepped out of a different universe entirely.
I unlocked the deadbolt, and Kane pushed in first, boots tracking grit across my wards like he owned the place. “Hope you made coffee,” he said, and then spotted Jasmine on the couch. His voice softened a full octave: “Hey, Queen.”
Jasmine gave him a one-finger salute and tried to sit up. The brand on her shoulder flared in protest, but she forced a smile anyway.
Sera followed, and the whole apartment went cold. She was thin, wiry, with a shock of white hair that looked spun from spiderwebs. Her eyes were milk, no pupil or iris, just the suggestion of something watching from behind the frost. She moved through my mess like she’d already mapped every obstacle, not a single misstep. Her nose wrinkled at the coffee smell.
“Jasmine Fairchild,” she said, and her voice was all consonants—crisp, clinical. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
