Bryan Smith - Soultaker

She stopped at a table and poured herself a glass of vodka-spiked punch. She tossed the drink back and poured another. A pleasant warmth began to suffuse her. Of all the sensory pleasures available to her in the human form, the effects of alcohol ranked a close second behind sex. This made her think of Jake McAllister, her favorite human in recent memory. And also her best object lesson. Her relationship with him during her time as Moira had been intense. Lots of booze. Lots of sex. Lots of reckless behavior in general. He was the closest she’d ever come to losing control. And that time was the closest she’d come to losing sight of her real purpose, which was simply to perpetuate her existence throughout the ages. She had felt something for him. Something almost like human love. And it had frightened her. She’d had to fight to reclaim her true nature. She eventually succeeded, of course, but by then an incredible, impossible thing had happened-Jake had impregnated her. In all the many thousands of years of her existence, it had never happened before. She’d thought it couldn’t happen, but there’d been no denying the nature of her condition.

Drastic measures had been called for.

An accident was staged. Moira “died.”

And Michael McAllister died for real.

Lamia retired to the shadows for a time and eventually gave birth to a baby girl. Half human. Half demon. And, as far as Lamia knew, an absolute one of a kind. There were many other demons. None of them had ever procreated, as far as she knew. The mystery of how and why it had happened had troubled her. Was it a sign of decay? A signal from the gods that her natural cycle was at long last near an end? She knew demons could not die. But the arrival of her child was unusual enough to spur many wild musings. For a brief time, she considered killing the baby, but could not bring herself to do it. She instead recruited an ostensibly normal family to raise the girl, whom they christened Jordan.

And now a reunion was in the offing. Jordan and her father were on their way to the auditorium, were perhaps outside the building even now.

Lamia couldn’t deny it.

She was looking forward to seeing them again.

A young woman approached her at the refreshments table. “Hello, Bridget. Where’s Angela? I thought she’d be with you.”

Lamia spooned more punch into her glass and looked at the woman, a plumpish brunette named Megan. “Why did you think that?”

Megan smirked. “You’re lovers, aren’t you? Least that’s what I’ve heard on the grapevine.”

“We broke up,” Lamia said. “I don’t know where she is.”

Megan assumed an expression of pity. A not-so-subtle mocking quality was just beneath the surface. “Oh, that’s too bad.” Then her expression brightened and she flashed a phony smile that dripped venom. “I’m sure you’ll find some other dyke to lick your rancid twat soon enough.”

Lamia’s smile never faltered. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

“How did you guess?”

Lamia sipped punched and stared at the woman over the rim of her glass. The temptation to snap the woman’s neck was strong, but she’d hoped to hide in her new host a little longer. She lowered the glass and smacked her lips. “Go away, Megan.”

Megan laughed. “Why? Did I hurt your feelings? And what have you done to yourself? Those clothes look like you dug them out of a time capsule. And what’s with the Bon Jovi circa 1989 hair? Somebody not tell me about a costume party after the Harvest?”

She had wondered when someone would comment on her new look. It was something she had cooked up solely for Jake McAllister’s benefit. Bridget’s familial resemblance to Moira was strong to begin with, but she’d realized there were some things she could do to emphasize it. Some quality time in front of a mirror with a can of Aquanet went a long way toward painting the proper picture. The rest of it was a matter of selecting the proper clothes and applying the right makeup. She wore a denim jacket over a frilly blouse and a tight black miniskirt. The whole outfit screamed ’80s groupie slut, an impression completed by a dramatic application of eye shadow and a thick layer of mascara that emphasized her cheekbones.

Jake would look at her and think immediately of Moira.

Exactly as he remembered her.

She couldn’t wait to see his shocked expression.

“Are you even hearing me?”

Lamia blinked. She’d been vaguely aware that Megan was still speaking, but she’d tuned the woman out. “Excuse me?”

Megan rolled her eyes. “Idiot. I would say all that hair spray has scrambled your brains, but you didn’t have a lot going on upstairs to begin with, did you?”

Something cold and filled with an ageless hatred flexed inside Lamia. It was an instinct she was helpless to quell once it asserted itself. An imperative delivered straight from the primal center of her psyche. She finished the last of her punch and set the glass on the table.

Then she gripped Megan’s wrist and snapped it.

Megan’s high-pitched scream silenced all backstage chatter and temporarily quietened the collective rumble of voices from the auditorium. Lamia kept a grip on Megan’s broken wrist with one hand and slapped the other over the woman’s gaping mouth. She twisted the mangled wrist and Megan dropped helplessly to her knees. Lamia forced the trembling woman to meet her gaze. There was an immediate spark of recognition in the woman’s eyes. She began to whimper.

A man nearby said, “Oh my God. It’s her.”

A breathless female whisper: “Lamia.”

Then there was silence again. Lamia surveyed the faces of those present. Some averted their eyes. Others dropped to their knees and bowed their heads. The chief of police put a hand down his pants to stroke a sudden erection. A few minutes passed and the roar of the crowd began to build again. The building was alive with anticipation. The students would have their show soon. It wouldn’t be what they were expecting, but it would be memorable. Too bad for them they wouldn’t be around to remember it.

Lamia smiled. “I believe this cunt’s husband is present. Correct?”

A tall, slender man in a cheap blue suit stepped forward. “Um…that would be me.”

“Elliot, correct?”

The man licked his lips. He was nervous. Scared shitless. For good reason. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand and nodded. “That’s right.”

“I’m about to kill your wife, Elliot. You have anything to say about that?”

The man’s eyes danced nervously in his sockets. He was sweating. He looked at his trembling wife and a shadow seemed to pass over his face. He shuddered. “Nothing.” He coughed and straightened his tie. His composure returned and he even managed a small, shaky smile. “Nothing at all, really. Other than wishing it’d happened a long time ago.”

Lamia’s smile broadened as she forced Megan to look her in the eye again. “Hear that, Megan? You’re about to die. On your knees at my feet. And no one in the world gives a damn. Not even your pedophile husband. Oh, yes. It’s true. He’s a baby raper. Carry that pleasant thought to hell with you.”

Megan whimpered again.

Tears spilled from her eyes in a hot rush.

There was a collective gasp from the others in the room as Lamia pushed her fingers through Megan’s pliant flesh and began to peel her face off. That was only the beginning. Megan remained alive for several more minutes as Lamia plucked her eyes from their sockets and pulled out her tongue. She only finished off the woman as she began to go into shock. Lamia then tossed the corpse aside and grinned at the thunderstruck expressions of her acolytes.

“So much for the warm-up act. It’s time for the main event. I’ve waited long enough. A hundred years, to be exact.”