Chapter 9:

Succuba

The old-fashioned office phone rang. Syd picked it up. “PI Office…Yes he is…Who may I say is calling?” She turned to me. “It’s Delle.” She did not say Witch, because landlines were not regarded as secure. Actually neither were cell phones.

“I’ll take that call,” I said. As if I were busy and had to make a choice.

She handed me the phone. “Hello, Delle. Are you all right? I know you and your brother are in grief because of the death of your boyfriend.” Because theoretically the Warlock Standish had been dating Delle, cover for his real relationship with her brother.

“We are tiding through,” she said. “I—I wonder if Mena could visit me? I think I need some advice on a personal matter.”

My mind whirred. That might relate to the Goblin Burket, that Nonce had artfully set up. Nonce was away, so Delle couldn’t ask her. That left me. Well, why not? We were stymied on the murders, figuratively twiddling our thumbs. I could spare the time. “I believe Mena’s calendar is clear,” I said. “I’ll send her over in half an hour.” Because I needed time to Change as well as to get there.

“Thank you.” Her gratitude suffused the words.

I Changed, and Syd touched me up to be properly feminine. “I think it’s sweet that Mena has a friend.”

“I do like her, as a friend. She’s a sweet girl.”

I drove to the cottage by the lake. Delle greeted me with a hug at the door. “I’m so glad you could come, Mena! I hate to impose, but I’m all aflutter and don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll help if I can. But you know, I’m not a really experienced woman.”

“Well, I think I need a male perspective. My brother’s not much on heterosexual nuance.”

“I’m not much on anything these days,” Donald said. “Standish’s death hit me hard, and I can’t discuss it with anyone because theoretically we barely knew each other.”

“I understand that gay relationships are much the same as hetero ones,” I said carefully. “Apart from the genders.”

“They are.” He shrugged. “But you are here to talk to my sister, and I will leave you to it.” He retreated to his bedroom.

“He is discreet,” I said. “I’m definitely not gay, but if I were, he might be the kind of man I would prefer.”

“Yes. I can’t help him, but I suffer with him. Standish was good to us. But the reason I called you is me. Nonce set me up with a date with Burket Goblin, and though I was doubtful, he turned out to be excellent company. He gave me a wrist corsage.” She fetched it and showed it to me.

I tried not to stare. Nonce had not been fooling. This was a small bouquet of flowers, only the flowers were artificial. In fact they were intricately supported diamonds formed to resemble flowers. It was about as beautiful an object as I had ever seen. I could not begin to estimate its value.

“Fabulous,” I breathed. As a man I might or might not have noticed its nature, but as a dawning woman I was awed. What a gift for a date!

“I told him I couldn’t accept it, but he insisted. So I put it on, and he took me to such a fancy restaurant where the personnel were so solicitous I was embarrassed. But I must confess I had a wonderful time pretending to be upper class for a while. Then we danced, and he wasn’t clumsy at all. My preconceptions about Goblins took a bad beating; he was a perfect gentleman throughout.” Her mouth quirked. “He’s not exactly handsome, but the way he treated me made him look very good.”

“I have learned more about Goblins recently than I ever knew,” I agreed. “It’s one thing for mundanes to have ignorant prejudices, but we Supes shouldn’t share them.”

“He brought me home, kissed me, and departed. And I liked it. Maybe it was that he had this aura of upper class. The few men I have known just wanted to—to—”

“To get into your pants,” I said.

“Yes. Their crudity turned me off. But Burket never uttered a crude word. I was floating. Now we have another date tonight, and I know he’ll want to—I mean, it’s expected, especially of Witches—”

“He will want sexual intimacy,” I said. “Men do. However polite they may be at times, that’s always their objective. I’m in a position to know.”

“Yes. So maybe you can tell me. I’ve never done it before, and I’m afraid I’ll be clumsy and make a mess of it.”

I laughed. “I had sex just once, as Mena. I’m sure I was clumsy and made a mess of it, but the man was so drunk he didn’t notice.”

“But in your other form?”

“Many times. But if I was clumsy and messy, and maybe I was, my dates didn’t tell me. I think—I think it’s up to the woman to make it seem good, even if it isn’t for her. To leave the man with the impression that he’s a great lover, regardless of the truth.”

“But I have no experience!”

“That may not matter. Delle, you’re a virgin. That’s a phenomenal positive in a situation like this. Just be honest. Tell him you have no idea what to do, and ask him to show you. I can’t think of any man who wouldn’t be flattered to obey. Your very inexperience is the biggest turn-on.”

“But my body isn’t—isn’t buxom like yours. He might not like it.”

I studied her with my internal male eye. “Your body is fine. It’s slender and delicately shapely, and you have a nice face. Believe me, you have no problem there.”

“Then you think it will be all right?”

“I know it will be all right. When he asks, express some doubt, but let him persuade you. You know it won’t be perfect for you, the first time, but the larger point is the relationship. This is how you repay him for his monetary generosity.”

“That seems so—so—”

“So tawdry. I know. But it is the unvoiced subtext of male and female relations. So don’t discuss it, but do go along with it.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, clearly relieved. “Even though the thought of money in this context does still bother me.”

“Your attitude is refreshing. I suspect your niceness is as appealing to the Goblin as your virginity.”

“Well, I’ll still be nice, after, I hope.”

“Yes you will. And—”

My cell phone rang. It was Syd at the office. “There’s been another murder,” she said. “An I.” I stood for Incubus; another word she could not say on the phone. “You need to get over there immediately.”

“But I’m in the other mode,” I protested.

“This can’t wait. I promised Ingraham your assistant Mena would be there in twenty minutes. Here is the address.” She spieled it off.

“Got it,” I agreed. “I’ll be there.” I broke the connection.

“An emergency?” Delle asked.

“Another murder. This time an Incubus. I have to go.”

“Of course. Thank you so much for your help.” She kissed me on the cheek. Damn, I liked that! She was treating me just like a female friend, though she knew my nature, and with her I felt comfortable in that role, as I did with Syd and Nonce. Mena was indeed becoming her own person.

I drove to the address. This was CIRCUMSPECT DATING SERVICE. I suppressed a smirk. The clients did not know they were dating sexual demons.

A handsome man met me as I entered. “I will be happy to be your date for the evening,” he said, eying my bosom. “I am Incomer.”

Such hope! “Forget it, Outgoer. I’m here on business. I need to see Ingraham.”

His lips quirked. “The Chief does not see walk-ins.”

“He’ll see me. Get your donkey in motion.”

He puffed up angrily. “I’ll have you know—”

“You idiot Incubus, can’t you smell me? I’m the Were he asked for.”

Now, startled, he sniffed, literally. “Oh. This way.”

He led me to a private office. “You asked for a Were?” he asked the occupant, a portly older Incubus. The desk plaque said INGRAHAM/SYMMETRIA. That would be the Incubus and Succuba names.

“Mena Were,” I said.

“Oh, good. Come in, Mena.”

I entered the office as Incomer departed, out of sorts. “One of yours has been killed?”

“Last night, as far as we can tell.”

“You don’t know whether he’s dead?”

“We don’t know exactly when he died. Or why he was murdered. We fear it is part of the series of Supe extinctions your boss is investigating.”

“That could be. I’ll need details.”

“I will turn you over to his friend Suzy/Innis. She discovered the body.”

“Do that.”

He conducted me to a chamber buried in the bowels of the building. A lovely young woman was primping before a mirror. “Suzy, this is Mena Were, the investigator I mentioned. Bring her up to snuff.”

“I can’t take time right now,” Suzy said. “I’ve got a double load of clients to service, until you get Increase/Succula’s ones reassigned.”

“I am working on it. We’re shorthanded this week. This is a matter of murder of one of our own. Make time, if you value your career.” Ingraham departed.

“Oh, piss,” she swore. “I’ve been all day without a connection. I can’t wait hours dickering with you. There’s a window of opportunity I have to catch.”

This was interesting, apart from the murder. “You have a desire to service clients? It’s not just a business?”

“Of course I do. We’re sexual creatures. Without regular sex we’d soon sicken and die. We need at least ten clients a night to maintain our health. But tonight I’ve got thirty. I’ll have to average four an hour. That would be fun if it weren’t for the logistics.”

“Logistics?”

“I have to assess the most efficient route to pick them all up rapidly, get there on schedule, and catch them in the right gender and orientation. Any mistake, and we lose a client. The sex is fine and necessary, but the organizing is a pain.”

Gender and orientation? I could see the first, because a Succuba had to service a man, and an Incubus a woman. But what was the other? “Why don’t I just tag along, and you can update me as you work.”

“Tag along! Weren’t you listening? I’m going to be busy.”

“I have some skill at organization. If you give me the list, I should be able to help you get a feasible route. It’s a variation of the traveling salesmen challenge, one of my favorites.”

Suzy looked appraisingly at me. “You can be silent when you need to be? I can’t afford to wake up clients; I’d lose them. We can’t risk losses; it’s already tricky to break in new ones.” Her mouth quirked. “Some idiots think sex is sinful, especially with our kind; it casts a pall.”

I was getting new insights. I had never thought of sleeping sex as a profession. “Yes. Just signal when it’s time.”

“Okay. Here’re the lists. We have to integrate them efficiently.” She handed me two plasticized notebooks. “Alternate genders.”

I perused them rapidly. Each name had salient facts: gender, age, address, plus some incidental notes of likely complications, such as a spouse sleeping in the same bed, or irregular sleeping hours. Some were close to our present location, others some distance away. They were already in geographic order; I just needed to integrate the two lists. That helped. I took a pencil and marked numbers, starting with the closest. “I’ve got the organization started.”

“Good enough. This way.” She led me out of the chamber and the building to the parking garage. “You’d better be able to ride double on my moped.”

A moped! That was a motorized bicycle with pedals for low-speed travel. Maybe that was what she could afford, since she didn’t have paying customers. It was bound to be awkward. “I’ll try.”

She tooled out the machine and got on it. I climbed onto the long seat behind her. It was precarious, but feasible. “How is it you’re heading out by day?” I asked. “Don’t your clients have to be asleep?”

“I have some early sleepers. Gives me a nice head start.”

Live and learn. Of course some folk did sleep by day.

She started the motor, put it in gear, and we started moving. “The two closest, male and female, are your regulars,” I said. “Then comes a male on Succula’s list.”

“Got it.” She guided the moped out of the garage and along the street. Mundanes were about, but they didn’t pay much attention. Apparently they were used to seeing girls of that dating service making house calls, and of course some men liked to tackle them in pairs. One man we passed took a good hard look at the pair of us, then changed course to walk toward the CIRCUMSPECT DATING entrance.

We came to an apartment complex, parked, and headed in and up to the third floor. There was a woman in the elevator, but Suzy made a gesture and the woman ignored us. I recognized the magic: a tune-out spell, probably bought from a Witch. The woman saw us but we didn’t register in her consciousness.

The apartment door was locked, with a DO NOT DISTURB sign hung on the knob. Suzy touched the knob, focused, then turned it, and the door opened. More incidental magic: an unlocking spell. Why struggle with heavy magic, such as walking through walls, when mini spells sufficed?

We went to the bedroom. A middle-aged man slept on the bed. “Damn,” Suzy muttered.

Now I understood the “orientation” problem: how could she engage him in sex when the operative part was buried under his body? To try to turn him over physically would likely wake him, and waking sex was not the business of a Succuba; the client had to be asleep.

She tackled it. “Turn over, dear,” she whispered in his ear. “Turn over. Turn over, handsome.” About the eighth repetition it seemed to register: he turned over and lay on his back.

Now Suzy hoisted up her skirt. She wore no underclothing. She opened the man’s pajama fly, lifted out his limp penis, and gently kneaded it. It responded immediately; I realized that her touch was magic, causing instant arousal. Soon he had a formidable erection. Then she got on him, fitted him slowly into her, stretched out on him, and kissed his mouth.

The effect was dramatic. His body hunched, thrusting deeply into her and ejaculating immediately. I saw her buttocks flex, and realized that she was squeezing him internally, milking the last of his semen. “Good boy,” she whispered, kissing him again. Then she drew herself off him, closed his fly, and let her skirt drop back down as she stood on the floor. She hadn’t even taken off her shoes.

She walked to the bedside desk and picked up the two-dollar bill on it. Then we departed the apartment, leaving its occupant still sound asleep, but with a smile on his face.

“Two dollars?” I asked when we were clear.

“Traditional gratuity. It hasn’t changed in a century, at least not for us. The fact that it’s a two-dollar bill is a signal that he’s expecting me. Now let me Change.”

She invoked her magic and shifted to male form, becoming Innis. It happened much faster than my own Change; this form of Supe specialized in it. He reached down to zip up the skirt, which I now saw was more like culottes, convertible to a man’s shorts. The shirt needed no adjustment; it now covered wider shoulders instead of a full bosom. I made a mental note to get a similar outfit for myself; it was efficient.

“Now the next,” he said.

“Your Change,” I said as we rode down in the elevator, the two of us alone. “How soon do you have to do it, after sex?”

“There’s no time limit. It’s just that we can’t have sex twice in succession the same form; we have to Change. Since we have to have sex frequently, we generally Change immediately after a tryst, to be ready for the next. My last client last night was female, so I did her then Changed and spent the day female.”

The next client was just down the street, in another complex, on the second floor. She was married, but the two of them seemed married in name only. He was still up watching TV football, but she was not with him. We slid by him with another tune-out spell and entered the bedroom. There she was, spread out invitingly, sunny side up, naked. She was well formed; it seemed a shame that her husband was more interested in the game than in her.

“Hello you gorgeous creature,” Innis murmured appreciatively. He sat beside her and stroked her full breasts, then kissed them. She made a little moan of pleasure as her nipples swelled. Then he stroked her vulva, and I saw it too expand, stimulated.

He mounted her and touched his member to her vagina. Her breath quickened. He pushed in half an inch. She began panting. It was apparent that his touch turned her on, making her eager for the culmination. He advanced a little farther, and she practically rose up to meet him. Finally he thrust in fully, spread his body on hers, and kissed her.

She erupted like a volcano, her whole body shaking with the rapture of her orgasm. He thrust repeatedly, not because he needed to, but because that magnified her pleasure. I could almost see the ejaculate pumping into her, pulse after pulse.

Then he withdrew, slowly, leaving her shuddering with aftershocks of pleasure. “I wish I could stay the night with you, you phenomenal creature, but I must be on my way,” he said with regret as he picked up the two dollar bill. She just lay there, in fading bliss. Was she really asleep?

Innis Changed, becoming Suzy and adjusting her clothing. “She’s always fun,” she said. “She really appreciates our visits.”

We walked past the husband, still locked in the game. Did he have an idea what he was missing? It seemed like such a waste.

We rode on to the first client on the other list. “This will be a little different,” Suzy said. “Because I don’t know him. He may recognize the difference.”

As it turned out, there was no such problem. The man was dead drunk. Not only was that sloppy, his penis remained determinedly limp. “Crap! I can’t afford to take time. I’ll have to suck him.”

“Oral works?” I asked.

“No. It has to be traditional penis/vulva.” Suzy got on the man, fed his limp member to her vagina, and closed it around him. Then I heard a faint humming. “Vacuum,” she explained. She got him hard, then kneaded him peristaltically until she drew his ejaculate from him.

Succubi had powers I had not thought of.

Between clients we had a chance to talk. “How exactly did Increase/Succula die?”

“We spent much of the day figuring that out. Increase had been dead several hours before we located him. He had gone out on his route, but not returned. I had a duplicate of his client list, so I followed it, and discovered him dead on the floor in the client’s apartment, pale as a mask, no mark on him. We brought him home and had the doctor examine him. He had bled out internally. He had been dosed with enchanted red squill, normally used to kill rats. It thins the blood to the point where clotting can’t occur.”

“I didn’t realize you folk ate or drank when on your tour,” I said.

“We don’t. He didn’t eat it. As near as we can tell, it was in the ejaculate of the client. Succula took it in, Changed, and that activated it and took her out within an hour. Had she known, she would have come home before Changing and we could have cleaned it out of her with minimal damage. But the Change affected every part of the body, and the squill spread though the whole of him and took him out before he knew. He just lay down and died.”

“In the ejaculate! And it didn’t affect him?”

“It would have, had he done a Change or equivalent. It was inert until then. He must have injected it into his prostate, and let the ejaculation carry it on out. Then he departed while Increase died. It was a brutal, ugly scene.”

“I hate to say it, but that does seem to fit the pattern of our serial killer. He took out a Demon by putting his bottle in the freezer and leaving.”

“Well, catch him! Torture him. Kill him. He deserves it all.”

“But if each of you have a regular client list, wouldn’t this man have been vetted before?”

“Yes, of course. All Innis’s clients were safe. But we discovered that the regular client had had an accident and spent the night in the hospital unexpectedly. The killer came in to take his place, we think without his knowledge. So he was there, sleeping in the client’s bed, when Succula came. She must never have thought to verify his identity; it was routine, one of many. One horny sleeping man is much like another. She milked him and died.”

Another fiendishly clever murder plot. “If it was an intruder primed for murder, was he really asleep?”

“He could have been. But it might not have mattered. We do it with sleeping folk, but can do it with a wakeful one if he plays the part, making the motions. Most men aren’t good at that; they get near a hole, they want to jam into it. But if he let Succula stimulate him, mount him, and take him in, it would work. We do think it was a Supe, because no mundane would have the wit for such a sophisticated ploy, or the ability to accomplish it.”

“Wouldn’t Succula have recognized a Supe?”

“Certainly. But there are occasional Supes on our client lists; they sleep too, and hunger for more sex than they get by day. Some like to do it with us, especially females, because we always make them climax. Males tend not to care much whether the females get theirs, and some females may get tired of sex entirely so leave their males hungry. I’ve had sex with Supes, both ways. If they play the roles, they get the services.”

“Supes take care of Supes.”

“Exactly. If I’m male when we finish the night, and you are worked up, I could do you.”

“Thank you, no,” I said quickly, without explaining further. Had I been Phil, the chance of sex with a Succuba might well have turned me on. But perhaps fortunately, I wasn’t.

We continued the rounds, and did manage to complete them by dawn. One of them was the man who had been hospitalized; he was back home, a bandage around his broken arm, sedated, but clearly happy to enjoy his nocturnal dream. He was obviously not the killer.

All of which left me pretty much where the other murders had: with no viable suspects. I had verified that Suzy/Innis hadn’t done it, and really no one else could have, without that client list.

I thanked Suzy for her help, and she thanked me for mine; I had enabled her to make it through on schedule.

Next day I described it all to Syd. “So it’s a mystery how the killer knew where to do it,” I concluded.

“I wonder.” She did some spot research. “Hospital admissions are an open record. If someone knew that a particular patient was patronizing a Succuba…”

And that of course was it. Our killer had been alert for such an opportunity, and struck when it presented itself. “But that means that these killings are truly crimes of opportunity, not passion. No way to run them down by motive.”

“I wonder,” she said. “I am thinking that one could be passion, and the others opportunity, done to conceal the real one. What they have in common is their randomness. If we can run down one with genuine motive…”

“Queue!” I said. “Demon Damne dumped her.”

She nodded. “But there are problems.”

“She has an alibi,” I agreed. “And I know she’s innocent.”

“About that innocence: I have a notion you may not like.”

“Let’s have it regardless.”

“Your secondary power is to read inner minds when folk are doing their magic. That’s invaluable. She’s similar to you as a Were. Suppose she has a similar mental ability?”

“Similar?”

“Only different. The ability to be completely, telepathically persuasive. At least when a person’s mind is open because of Changing. Projecting rather than reading.”

“Oh my,” I breathed, seeing it. “While we were both Changing, and I was reading her, she was giving me the certainty of her innocence.”

“Can you accept that intellectually?”

“Intellectually, yes. Emotionally, no. But maybe I had better trust my intellect, this time. It does make sense. But there’s the matter of her alibi for the Demon murder.”

“I’m still working on that. It is suspiciously convenient, doubling your satisfaction that she is innocent. Almost as if planned.”

“Almost as if planned,” I echoed. “We need to study that situation and that alibi again, in case there’s a hole in it.”

“That’s what I’m working on. So far I’m balked. That timing is not just your belief; it’s real.”

“Still, it may give us a viable suspect, for a change.”

“That could be. But proving it is another matter.”

That, indeed, was the problem. We finally had a suspect, but without proof, we were still helpless. However, it was progress.