Page 11 of The Prospect's Succubus
The ritual was tiresome, but I played along. Cooper was the talker; he’d die before he let a silence go unfilled. Travis was a smirker. He’d already sized up my ass, measured it against the competition, and come up short, but was too polite to admit defeat. Brooks was the sleeper, the quietest, always drifting a second behind everyone else. His smile was off, like he’d already written his own obituary and found it hilarious.
“We’re all seniors,” Cooper said, puffing out his chest. “Except for Brooks, he’s a super—uh, extra-senior.” Brooks did not appear to mind. He tipped his head and bared a canine in my direction.
The music from the main tent thudded harder, closer now, and the crowd shifted, squeezing us together within the beer haze. I let them angle me toward the Gravitron line, and for a second, the motion almost felt orchestrated. We moved as one, a four-pointed star of stupidity and lust. A lesser succubus might have snacked on the whole cluster right there; I wanted to watch them crack under pressure, see who’d snap first, who’d run, who’d try to make a move. Then I got bored, froze the whole fucking group, and summoned a lookalike in my place.
I moved next to the midway games, each booth a study in rigged physics and human desperation. The ring toss was manned by a gray-haired man with a tan so deep it looked painted. His smile was pure lemon, his eyes pure vacuum. He watched every movement in the crowd with a hunger I recognized in myself, the way you watch for a dropped wallet or an open wound.
A man in a windbreaker played alone, his focus absolute, his hope visible in the tight set of his jaw. The carny watched him with a condescension that bordered on erotic. I lingered for a moment, savoring the tension of man vs. machine, prey vs. predator, all mapped out in the flick of a wrist. When the last ring missed, I caught the man’s eye, let my sympathy reach him, let him see the understanding. He smiled, grateful, then turned back to his empty hands, the sadness radiating off him like heat from a dying lightbulb. I filed him away as lonely, low self-esteem, zero support system. He’d go quietly. But I wanted noise.
Past the games, the rides loomed. The ferris wheel, tilt-a-whirl, spinning machines named after natural disasters and ancient torture devices. I skipped them, preferring ground level, and instead watched the pulse of people moving between them. The patterns were easy to spot as families stuck to the well-lit paths, teens darted for the shadows, and older men hung back, eyes scanning for something they could afford.
The carousel was where I let myself slow down. It stood at the center of the carnival, the lights all frosted over and the paint chipping off the horses’ backs. The music was warped, the calliope stuck just out of tune, every note bending downward until it barely resembled a melody. I watched the carousel turn, the animals’ faces caught between joy and agony, mouths open in a permanent scream. The kids riding looked half-terrified,half-hypnotized, their parents taking selfies and pretending not to see the chipped teeth and splintered ears.
I touched the nearest horse as it went past, fingers sliding over the cracked lacquer, and felt a deep, familiar pang. Monsters making monsters, round and round, never stopping, never getting off. I almost laughed, but then the prickle hit, the sense of being watched, not by the usual lust or boredom, but by something cold and precise.
I turned slow, scanning the edge of the crowd, filtering for the familiar tingle. At first, nothing. Then I saw him, standing exactly where the shadow met the lights, face like a slab of carved intent. The biker from the other night, my dream intruder, Torch, I reminded myself, though that wasn’t the name I’d put to him. He was just as I remembered. He was taller than I remembered, broad, and every movement minimized to throw off a hunter. His eyes found me, held me, and for the first time in decades, I felt the goosebumps stand up on my arms.
He didn’t look away. He didn’t check me out, didn’t scan for weaknesses or tally up the kill count. He just watched, like a man who already knew the ending and wanted to see if I’d figure it out before it was too late.
For a split second, I almost bailed. Almost. Instead, I met his stare, matched it, let the fear spike, and then turn. The air around me changed, jumpy and electric, the rest of the carnival fading to a dull roar. I smiled, a tiny flash of teeth, and saw the answer in his eyes.
I’d hunted a thousand men, but none had ever made me want to run.
The moment of fear didn’t last. Fear never does, not when you’re built for appetite. What came next was the real danger. The thrill. It shuddered up through my thighs, up my spine, until my lips tingled with it. He’d seen me—really seen me—andinstead of hiding, I wanted to strip off the rest of the mask and let him stare. If he wanted a show, I’d give him a private one.
He stood at the edge of the midway, boots planted, arms folded, eyes locked on mine as if measuring the precise amount of force needed to snap my neck. I licked my lips and let my tongue linger, a promise written in spit. He didn’t flinch, didn’t glance away, not for a second. For someone that scarred, he sure didn’t carry himself like prey.
I took the first step, pivoting on my heel so the dress flared, then started toward the far end of the carnival where the lights thinned out and the crowd got lazy. The ghost train. Of course. He wanted a haunted house, I’d give him something to haunt for the rest of his life. Or the rest of mine, if it went that way.
I put a little more heat into my stride, crossed the midway as the crowd parted for me, and aimed straight for the mouth of the ghost train. The line was longer than I’d have liked, but the ride operator, a spotty youth with a green mohawk, couldn’t keep his eyes off my chest. I leaned in, gave him a wink, and said, “Is this the line for the best ride in town, or do you have a better suggestion?”
His mouth fell open, and I watched him try to reboot his brain. “Uh. Uh, yeah, I mean, this is it, but if you want, you can, like, go next?”
I let my hand brush his as I dug in my clutch for a bill, the touch lingering just long enough to make his head spin. The rustle of the cash felt deafening. I peeled off a twenty, handed it over, and watched his hand shake as he fed it into the register. When he handed me the ticket, the heat from his palm made the stub curl just a little, a fragile, perfect gesture.
I stepped away from the booth, ticket clutched between two fingers, and circled the loading platform. My heels clicked against the plywood. The air around the ride shimmered, not from heat but from the expectation of what came next. I pausedby the plastic skull at the entry arch, traced a finger over its teeth, and looked up just in time to catch his eyes again.
He’d closed the gap, now only a few feet away, but he didn’t move closer. Instead, he watched, waited, arms still folded, like a man willing to see how far I’d go before I broke. The scars on his arms were visible even in the carnival lights, rivers of blue-white that pulsed with every beat of his heart. It would have been terrifying if it hadn’t been so fucking hot.
I grinned, slow and sharp. I was the bait now, and I liked it.
The ride operator waved me forward, eager to get me out of the line and probably into his own personal horror story. I handed over the ticket, felt the brush of paper on my palm, and let the moment stretch. It felt like a contract, a deal with the devil—one I was happy to sign.
I glanced once more over my shoulder. Torch had moved at last, stalking to the base of the ramp. He didn’t look at the operator, didn’t look at the train, just at me, eyes burning with the kind of focus that makes lesser predators drop dead on the spot.
I flashed him a smile, not a real one, but the kind that shows all your teeth, and stepped inside the ride. The car was waiting, painted in lurid greens and blacks, the seat still warm from the last victim. I sat, crossed my legs, and waited for the game to start.
If he followed, it would be a bloodbath, one way or another.
I traced the edge of the ticket stub, the rough paper digging into my fingertip. I let myself savor the anticipation, the awareness that for the first time in centuries, I didn’t know what would happen next. The carnival sounds faded, replaced by the rush of my own pulse, the taste of adrenaline sharp on my tongue.
This was it: the last soul, or the last night. I’d never wanted anything more.
As the car jerked into motion, I pressed my palm to the cold steel bar and whispered, “Let’s play.”
Then I shut my eyes and let the darkness take me.
Torch
