Edward Lee: Succubi

“He’s served well, in his own way.”

Goodbye, Josh. Dr. Heyd inserted the needle into one of the pulsing veins of Joshua Slavik’s upper arm. Then he slowly depressed the plunger.

“Wîhan!” whispered the wifmunuc.

—

Chapter 27

“You two! Hey!” Sergeant Byron shouted.

The figures scampered away into the woods.

“Come back here! This is the police!”

Giggling fluttered up. They’d looked like kids, hadn’t they? Several tree trunks seemed pasty with some dark shine. Byron touched a trunk and his finger came away red.

Blood, he thought.

Chief Bard had dispatched him to search the woods around the edge of town, which made little sense to Byron. A lot of things didn’t make much sense lately. Bard wasn’t telling him much. Had he gotten a tip? It infuriated Byron that his own boss didn’t trust him with confidential information. What made Bard so sure Tharp would be hiding out in the woods?

And now this…these kids. Who were they? What were they doing?

Byron delved into the thicket. Fallen brush crunched underfoot. He tried to follow the giggling, and their sounds, but the brush grew so thick in places that he could barely pass without a machete. The late-afternoon sun drew mist up from the forest’s moist ground. He felt pricked, perspiry, and pissed off.

But then the thicket subsided. A trail seemed to etch a line through the woods. Byron followed it. He noticed more wet trees lining the way. Someone had painted them with something, something like blood.

Byron then stepped between a pair of gnarled oaks.

He stared down. What in God’s name…

He’d stepped into a small dell, a clearing. Three girls stood there as if they’d been waiting for him. They were grinning.

They were also buck naked.

“Who the hell…” But then he recognized them. Wendlyn Fost, Maedeen’s daughter. Rena Godwin. And the third, Josh Slavik’s grandkid. What was her name? Melanie?

Byron looked around for guys. A bunch of naked girls usually meant that a bunch of naked guys were close at hand. But there were none, he saw. There was only him.

“What the hell are you girls doing?”

They only grinned in response. They were passing something around, smoking. Pot smokers, he concluded. But this stuff didn’t smell like pot at all. It smelled light, cinnamony.

“We’re waiting for you,” one of them, Rena said.

Byron stared at them. They didn’t seem the least bit concerned that they were standing naked in front of a police officer. He gulped, though; he couldn’t help it. They were just teenagers but— Christ, he thought. Three pairs of breasts stared back at him, three pubes. Rena, the youngest, barely had any hair at all. The other two looked fuller, more shapely. But what were those pails on the ground? And brushes?

“Peow,” Melanie Slavik said. Her eyes looked bright but… funny.

Then Wendlyn added, “Let’s give lof.”

Rena giggled.

Give lof, Byron thought. It was a slow thought, slow like blood oozing from a wound. Something was happening.

The three faces—the three grins—seemed to reach into him, drag him down like drugs. They’re kids, he kept thinking. They’re just kids… I can’t…

They converged, laying him out. His vision seemed detached; he saw only in fragments, diced glimpses. Faces hovered over him, bodies, breasts. The little stone pendants swayed like pendulums as they eagerly clustered about him, unbuttoning his shirt and pants. Their giggling made him sick; soon it didn’t even sound human. It sounded wet, clicking, like voracious eating.

“The Fulluht-Loc is coming…”

“The doefolmon…”

“Give lof! To the Modor!”

“Wîhan!”

“Dother fo Dother!”

They had his penis out, which was already erect, pulsing. Melanie ran her hands up over his chest. Wendlyn was stroking his face, suspending a big nipple over his mouth. And Rena, whose own giggles sounded muffled, was fellating him.

This was all wrong, part of him knew. It didn’t matter that they’d come on to him. They were teenagers. He could lose his job for this, even go to jail. But that part of him faded. He lay there as if staked to the ground. He couldn’t move.

“Lots of muscles,” Melanie cooed, rubbing. “He’d make a great wreccan.”

“Shit on him,” Wendlyn said.

“He’s big,” Rena stopped long enough to say. “Look!”

They giggled, appraising his penis whose glans already shined wetly with a glaze of pre-ejaculatory drool.

Now Rena had his service piece out, a Colt Python. She cocked its gridded hammer, prodded his testicles with the barrel.

Byron was shivering, terrorized. He felt the cold end of the barrel poke into his scrotum, trace his shaft.

“Don’t worry, little baby,” Melanie said.

“We won’t shoot it off,” Wendlyn promised.

She and Rena traded places. Wendlyn mounted him. “Ooo, you’re right. He’s real big,” she commented, and inserted him into herself. Rena straddled his head, pushing the nearly hairless furrow against his lips. “Lick it, lick it,” she commanded in glee, then began urinating.

Byron felt pinned down, buried in madness. Hot urine streamed against his face, into his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. Wendlyn rode him ferociously, slamming her hips down against him. Both Byron’s heart and his genitals felt like they would explode at the same time.

Rena climbed off. Melanie was getting something out from under a log. Wendlyn rode him faster, harder, eyes turned up.

She shuddered, then shrieked—

Byron exploded into her sex—

As Melanie slid the sharpened cnif against his throat, cutting immediately and right to the bone.

“Wîhan!” Rena celebrated.

Byron’s blood spurted out of his neck precisely in time with his orgasm. He died a minute or two later, when they began to slice his belly open.

«« — »»

Erik scouted the woods. The sun was going down. He had pretty good bearings now. He could even see the Slavik house from here. He’d need to go in soon, but he didn’t dare yet. A big Fleetwood had pulled up as he watched. He didn’t want to go into the house when a lot of people were there. They’d have plenty of preliminary rituals before the actual rite. That should give him enough time.

He knew the cops were onto him; no doubt Bard had found the brygorwreccan’s body—they knew he was close. He went back deeper into the woods, to conceal himself until it was time.

But what was that he heard? Erik stopped, poised himself to listen. Voices, it sounded like. Quiet voices.

He followed, moving as lightly as he could. Soon he thought he detected movement, pale shapes in the darkening light.

He looked past some trees, into a dell. A girl, naked, was walking away. Two more stooped over something. It didn’t take Erik long to realize that what they were stooping over was a corpse.

A cop , he thought. They were eviscerating him, putting certain organs into a plastic bag. The thinner girl seemed to be sawing something. This, too, did not surprise Erik. He’d seen it all before. The slender girl sawed off the cop’s head and put it in the bag.

Wifhands. Younger ones. He thought he recognized them.

Then they rose. They turned slowly, grinning. Their pendants dangled. Their white flesh was smeared with blood.

“We know you’re there, Erik,” the older one said.

Rena Godwin giggled. “We can feel you.”

The other one was the wifford’s kid, Wendlyn. “Come here.”

“No,” Erik said. He raised the shotgun. “You bitches don’t have me anymore.”

The two girls laughed.

“We have you. You’ve been blessed.”