Work Text:
She’s looking at him in a way that would likely be interpreted as interested if they had been at a nightclub. Scanning him from foot to head, taking in his appearance as she judges his value. If they were at just such an establishment, she might be trying to gauge his net worth or his intelligence or the size of his dick from his tall, lanky appearance. But this isn’t a club, it’s a rickety wooden porch, and the snow is falling, and the wind is whistling through the trees, and it is cold.
When she finally speaks to him, she tightens the pilling, terrycloth robe around her bony, undernourished body, and squints her eyes, dark shadows painting the top half of her face and affording her an unsettling, ghoulish appearance.
“Are you even out of high school yet, kid?”
“I’m twenty-one,” Parker retorts, shaking the camera in hand for emphasis. The light seated on top sends shadows flickering off to the side of the house with its peeling blue paint. The woman winces at the glare in her eyes, raising a hand to shield her face against the harshness of the bulb. “I’d like to make it to twenty-two someday, which, by the way, is the current temperature according to my car’s thermometer. Can you please let me in, Ms. Sheffield? I drove a very long way to see you and I’m freezing my balls off out here.”
Ms. Sheffield steps aside, looking unconvinced, but she had contacted him, and he had driven over three hours to reach her. Driving out in the middle of nowhere, especially in the winter, is a peril in its own right, and some common courtesy must be afforded.
However, she does seem to be doubting her decision now by the way she stands in the doorway, arms wrapped protectively around her sunken waist. Inviting a strange man into her house in the middle of the night probably does seem rather suspect, even with all the positive reviews on his Facebook page, and he gets it. Women always have to be wary of that sort of thing. He knows he isn’t dangerous, but she doesn’t. Even if he is just a “kid” according to her, he has over a foot on her in height and could easily overpower her if he decided to do so in her malnourished state. She must be about twice his age. Almost as old as his mother, evoking an almost protective sense of tenderness in his resolve. Maybe she has kids his age. Maybe she wanted them but never found the right man.
“Would you like a drink?” Ms. Sheffield asks, still keeping a good distance between her body and his. She’s dressed in her pajamas from the look of it and why shouldn’t she be? It’s nearly midnight. But there’s nothing provocative about her attire. Faded flannel bottoms and an ankle-length robe to protect against the chill in the air. Matching slippers. The entire house smells vaguely of smoke and Parker catches a glimpse of a wood stove in the corner of the living room, the red embers of a smoldering fire still glowing. Many of the houses in these parts use woodstoves in the winter. Cheaper than gas and easier to get hold of in a crisis. “I have some tea. Or hot chocolate. If you want, I could brew a pot of coffee.”
“A bit late for coffee,” Parker smiles reassuringly at the older woman. He slumps his shoulders a little, leeching some of the width from his general broadness. Trying to present a more boyish, less threatening image of himself. The only part of himself he goes out of his way to enlarge is his smile, a feature he knows can be downright charming in the right circumstance. “I plan on hopefully getting a little sleep tonight. Some tea would be nice, though, to chase away the chill in my bones.”
The rustic, wood-furnished kitchen is colder than the living room. Further from the fire. He’s thankful that the woman doesn’t request he remove his boots before entering further into the house because something inside him informs him that the cracked tiles would be like ice under his socked feet, and he’s already chilled to the bone from the frigid weather. The tea feels good between his palms as they sit at opposite ends of the kitchen table and begin to discuss the problem. A plate of peanut butter cookies sits on a cracked blue plate between them.
“It, it doesn’t come every night,” she explains in halting words, frowning. She’s also poured herself a mug of tea, chamomile he thinks by the smell though he has yet to taste it, and she chooses to look down at the steaming surface of the liquid rather than his face. There is something about her posture that implies defeat. Or perhaps merely embarrassment, but over what? “Only every third or fourth, usually. I haven’t seen it since Tuesday, so I think it will probably come tonight.”
“What does it do?” Parker pushes, keeping his voice kind but persuasive. She had given him some slight details through her numerous e-mails but had shared with him that she felt the information had been too sensitive to divulge entirely before meeting in person. “You implied it attacks you?”
“I wouldn’t say attack is the correct word, exactly,” she hesitates. Parker watches her lift the mug to her lips and take a small sip. He curls his own fingers tighter around his own mug. The His side of a His and Hers set, making him question where the Him in question disappeared to. The drink is still too hot to taste but just the floral scent of the steam is soothing. He can still taste the lingering sweetness of one of the cookies on his tongue and wonders if it would be rude to take a second in the middle of her speaking. “I don’t say no when it happens, but I don’t realize what’s really happening until after it’s over. It’s like, it’s like it’s controlling my mind. Making me want to do it. But I don’t want to. I swear I don’t!”
“Do what,” Parker asks, still not quite grasping what Ms. Sheffield is hinting towards. What could somebody as frail and timid as this woman possibly do that would worry her so? “Is it making you do something bad? Something criminal?”
She glances up at him furtively then back down at her mug. The fingers around the cup are shaking now, the knuckles white. She’s gripping the ceramicware so tight that for a second Parker is afraid she’ll shatter it into a hundred little shards. Then her grip loosens, and she appears to deflate, slumping down in her seat. He watches her hands go up to rub at her eyes, tiredly. The dark circles already there more prominent when she pulls away.
“Sex,” she finally gets out with a strange little laugh. “I’d say it’s non-consensual but when it’s there above me, looking down at me with those glowing red eyes, I want it, and I can’t even control myself. It never forces itself on me, only does what it does when it knows I want it. Then it just disappears into a mist and my mind returns and I want to throw up. I feel so disgusted with myself.”
Parker blinks in surprise. That was not the answer he was expecting. Since he first dropped out of high school to document and exorcise supernatural manifestations, he’s dealt with his fair share of demons. Demons that drink blood, demons that steal souls, demons that steal children. But a sex demon? Well, that’s a whole other thing, isn’t it?
“A succubus,” he gets out, grabbing at his own tea. It scalds his tongue as he chugs it, his face hot and not from the steam. It’s not like he’s a stuttering virgin or something, he’s had his fair share of ladies and even experimented with a couple of guys, but this woman is a stranger, and she could be his mother given her age. Talking to her about sex is like talking to one of his mom’s friends about sex. The mug clatters, hot liquid spilling over the lip as he sets it down too quickly. “They, uh. They feed off of sexual energy. Not necessarily harmful, but they can be fatal under particular circumstances.”
“What sort of circumstances?” Ms. Sheffield asks with a quiver to her voice. Now that Parker is taking a good look at her, she does seem unusually pale, and the bags under her eyes, her thinness, it all makes more sense. It isn’t just stress or the hour of the night. Her lifeforce is being literally drained from her by this creature. “Am I in danger from this thing?”
“You might be,” he confesses truthfully, wishing he could deliver better news than the truth. “If it’s a young one. I’ve only read about them, but the young ones, they’re the dangerous ones. Like a baby rattlesnake. They don’t know how to control themselves. Or if they are ravenous enough.”
“I don’t know what to do,” the woman’s voice cracks this time rather than just shaking. She wipes a tear off her cheek. It shimmers under the brightness of the camera’s light. Parker thinks about turning off the camera, he hates capturing the image of women crying, but he needs it for evidence. It’s impossible to know what might come in handy eventually. “I’m so tired and nobody believes me.”
“I believe you,” Parker assures her, half rising from his chair as he reaches across the table for her hand. She jumps but doesn’t try to pull away. Her fingers are cold and clammy like a fish straight from a frozen pond. “I’ll be right next door all night. The cameras have a motion sensor so if it picks up any movement in your bed, it’ll turn on and I’ll be alerted and be there to stop it, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees, clearly uncertain, her voice thick. She wipes roughly at her eyes as if angry with herself. “Do you know how to stop it, if you catch it?”
“Yes, if the methods I’ve read are correct, I’ll be able to get rid of this thing by sundown tomorrow,” Parker says, patting the back of her hand one last time. He pulls back, grabbing at one of the cookies as he sits back down in his seat. “Just leave it to me.”
There are three cameras set up in the house. One in Ms. Sheffield’s bedroom, one in the hallway, and one in the guestroom where Parker is set up for the night. He would like to put up more around the house, to try to capture the demon manifesting if it does so outside the range of said cameras, but they’re expensive and he’s lost his share of equipment at other houses over the years. So, he sets them up in the best locations he can find, says goodnight to Ms. Sheffield with one reassuring affirmation of his close proximity, and checks the laptop screen to make sure all three of the lenses have clear, unhindered shots.
All looks good. The hallway camera picks up the entire landing at the top of the stairs and the only blind spots in Ms. Sheffield’s room are the corners near the door. Leaving the laptop plugged in on the bedstand, Parker turns off the light and crawls beneath the covers. They feel slightly damp, and the scent of mothballs is just short of gag-inducing. Straight from a storage closet somewhere. At least they’re clean.
It used to be harder, falling asleep at these gigs. Parker hadn’t been used to sleeping anywhere besides his own home. Even sleeping over at a friend’s house had been difficult as a kid and he had skipped out on the dorm experience by forgoing college entirely. But if you do something enough times it becomes routine, and he is tired from the trip and the tea, and it doesn’t take long for him to drift off under the sour-smelling blanket.
The laptop screen emits a low, one-second tone, reminiscent of an old computer loading screen, whenever one of the cameras is alerted to movement. It is this tone that awakens Parker, startling him out of a sound sleep, and he is up immediately, looking eagerly towards the screen, expecting to see either a feed from the hallway or Ms. Sheffield’s room activated. What he sees on the computer screen is concerning, to say the least.
The time in the corner only read a little after one, meaning he had barely slept more than a half-hour, but this lack of sleep isn’t what disturbs him. No. That would be what he sees on the recording itself. Staring back at him is the black and white image of himself sitting up in bed, head turned toward the side, facing the white blur that the camera translates the laptop screen into. The camera that had picked up movement is the one inside this room.
The live feed has only the scantest delay and there is the clear outline of a humanoid shape at the foot of his bed. One that Parker cannot see in the nearly dark room with his inferior human eyes, but the camera, with its high-tech machinery, can. The small light from the laptop is enough to create a picture of the scene.
A shiver of fear travels down Parker’s spine. There is somebody, something not quite human, in this room with him. Standing just mere feet from him, swaying slightly on its feet. And he can’t even see it.
“Hello?” Parker calls, stupidly, but he’s half-asleep and frozen with terror, he isn’t thinking. His throat feels scratchy. The sourness of the mothballs is being overpowered by the smell of smoke. “I, I know you’re there. Say something.”
Silence. He sits there for another minute, listening for something, anything, but only hears his own panicked-sounding breathing in response. The image on the screen appears more like a photograph than a video feed with its stillness. He moves his own hand up just to make sure it’s still recording, that the screen has not frozen, and sees the night-vision version of himself do the same. The creature still stands there at the foot of his bed. He leans over to turn on the light.
A hand grabs him by the wrist. For a second, he sees a glimpse of claws in the glow of the laptop’s light. Then the laptop falls to the floor with a clatter, going dark, and now there really is no light at all in this room.
“You smell delicious.” The voice is unexpected. Not just because Parker was unaware that demons can talk so clearly, in his experience they usually can do little more than mumble out barely coherent phrases, but it is male. A male succubus? Does such a thing exist? The claws dig into his wrist, pricking him like a series of sharp thorns. “Who are you?”
“Not another meal for you,” Parker replies. But already he can feel his body starting to go warm. Just that one touch, the fingers around his wrist, is divine. His entire arm tingles. Every nerve in his body has been set aflame and even the smell of the smoke in the air cannot put it out now that it’s begun. “I know what you are, succubus.”
The demon laughs and moves, flowing onto the bed like steam. Or smoke, rather, might be a more appropriate comparison. Parker can feel it moving over him even though it seems weightless. It settles on top of him, the insubstantial becoming substantial. Solid, weighted but not heavy enough for its size. Like if something inside of it is missing. Bones or organs or blood non-existent. Maybe the demon is as empty inside as a piñata, nothing but a mirror image of humanity. It grabs Parker’s other wrist and pins it down beside his head. Two eyes stare down at him, glowing red through the inky darkness. The only light visible in the room beside the tiny blinking light of the camera still watching him.
“Oh please,” the creature drawls. Somehow, Parker senses the inhumanity in the way the demon speaks. It is a perfectly understandable voice. Nothing about it seems absurdly artificial like a monster would in a movie – it doesn’t growl, there is no echo to it. It even has a generic American accent. Yet there is still something not quite right to its timbre. “You fake Catholics and your lore. You sleep through one lesson on catechisms in Bible school and think you’re an expert on the Sacraments. I’m an incubus. The difference is the penis, you see.”
“I can’t see, actually,” Parker tries to joke but his voice trembles far too much to pass off such nonchalance. He tries to curl his fingers up, grabbing futilely at the hands holding him down, but his arms feel as weak as a newborn babe’s. The demon’s doing, or his own fear? “I can’t see anything about you except your eyes, as pretty as they are. Very Beelzebub-chic.”
“Mmm, I like you,” the incubus replies, sounding oddly calm. He’s moving a little on top of Parker. Or rather, it almost feels like something above him is moving, causing the bed to sway just the slightest. Parker catches a small buzz that almost sounds like a fan from behind him. Do demons carry around fans? “You smell so much fresher than that hag in the other room. I think you will be fun.”
“If you dislike the taste of her so, then why do you keep going after her?” Parker challenges. He tries to press up with his hips, thinking maybe the rest of his body will be strong enough to overpower the demon even if his hands are weak. But the demon has a very strong hold, despite its small size and light weight. It presses its own hips back down against Parker’s, pinning him to the bed. “Why not go bother somebody else instead of tormenting that poor woman?”
“You think I can leave this house?” The demon laughs. It’s a short, harsh laugh, more reminiscent of a dog barking than anything else. “I am a demon. You call us forth and we have to stay within thirty feet of you until we are released of our binding. Unfortunately, my last master is now buried in the front yard of this God-forsaken shack and I’m stuck here for eternity.”
“Your last master?” Parker asks. The incubus is still pressing his hips into Parker’s and the direct contact is causing some reactions in Parker’s body he is trying his best to ignore. He closes his eyes and licks his lips, willing his body to just obey him. This is his body, his mind, he has control of both, and they both need to do as he says, not whatever they want. It does nothing to dispel the growing erection between his legs. “He died here? In this house?”
“No,” the demon says, what sounds like anger cutting through the playful tone of its voice. “He died in that hospital in Florida. But his son brought his ashes up here and hid them beneath the roses in the middle of the night beside the crumbling bones of his childhood mongrel. And now I’m stuck here in this horrid place for eternity because he promised to set me free and never did.”
That sound in the air becomes sharper, almost like a belt going through air and Parker can’t help himself, he winces. More afraid of the memories of his own father than the present reality of being pinned down by a demon. The sound suddenly ceases.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” the demon informs him. The grips on his wrists loosen just a bit. Not nearly enough to break free from, but enough to withdraw the little claws from his skin and allow the blood to flow back into the digits. “I’ll make you feel things you never knew you could. Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.”
What does Parker want? To get out of this room? To get rid of this demon? To make it through the night alive?
“You want me to make you feel good,” the demon says, confirming exactly what Parker had already started to suspect. The incubus is a mind reader. Not that surprising. If it can control minds, then why not read them? Has it been reading his mind the entire time, then? Is it something it does consciously or casually, like breathing?
Does it really matter?
It, he, the demon is male, Parker reminds himself, tastes like char. Not in the way kissing a heavy smoker does. Less chemical, more natural almost. Like the smell of a campfire on a crisp autumn day. Still, such a taste shouldn’t be appealing. Who wants to kiss something that tastes like smoldering logs? Parker, apparently. The swelling mound in his pants quickly makes itself known and he feels the demon smile against him, long, sharp fangs pressing against his lips. They feel enormous, how long must they be?
“There we go,” the incubus breathes. The fingers on his wrists loosen completely and Parker reaches for him. Grabbing at him with newly returned strength. He hates himself for needing it, but he does so anyway, unable to control himself and half expecting to feel scales or maybe something slimy, snake-like. Instead, he touches soft skin and even softer hair flowing through his fingers as he grips at the demon’s head. His thumbs wrap around the smooth, rigid protrusions he finds buried in the locks, acknowledging but not quite registering that he is grabbing onto a pair of horns. He yanks the creature down for another kiss.
“I want to see what you look like,” he insists, even as he’s struggling to pull down his own sweatpants, his body quickly being overcome with need. He barely gets them past his thighs before he is pulling the smooth, warm body against his own. No time to escape the confines entirely or to even think of removing his t-shirt. The demon is completely nude, nothing but an expanse of soft, hot skin available to be easily grabbed and caressed. “What if you’re revolting?”
“I’m not,” the incubus almost sounds offended. Otherwise, he is unusually passive for a demon. The creature allows himself to be rolled onto his back, Parker now on top. No need for role discussion when one is a mind-reading demon, apparently. What does it really matter to a being that subsists on pure sexual energy, anyway? Sex is sex. “I’m quite good-looking, I assure you. Gorgeous, even”
“By demon standards,” Parker objects, pushing up to see the glowing red eyes staring up at him. Just bright enough to illuminate the eyelids and nothing more. He can’t even see his own hands still buried in the demon’s hair. The irises of the incubus are cat-like, elliptical slits so unlike Parker’s own round variant. There is no way to look into those eyes and pretend there is anything besides a demon beneath him right now. Unless he was trying to bang a panther. A shaved panther.
“We’re born to make humans want to fuck us,” the demon points out. He presses his hips up against Parker, the hard erection prominent and large against his bare hip. “You don’t think we’d be hot if we have to fuck to survive? Admittedly, I do alter my appearance somewhat to fit particular tastes. Though my ability to do so is limited.”
“Come on,” Parker insists. He grabs at the skinny hips and presses the creature back down into the sheets. Wondering if the skinny hips are part of those “tastes” the demon was just alluding to. His body does seem uncannily fitting to Parker’s type. Skinny yet soft. Small but not overly delicate. Wiry might be a more appropriate term. “Let me turn on the lights and look at you. Just for a second.”
“If you feed me well enough that the light won’t harm me, I’ll let you see me after,” the demon compromises. “So, you better give me a good meal.”
He wants to object. He really does. Parker knows that he is going to have sex with this creature, he supposes he’s known it was inevitable from the moment the incubus grabbed him by the wrist, but the idea of fornicating with anybody, let alone a non-human entity, without knowing what they even look like? It truly does sound like a horror movie, and he keeps thinking, irrationally, of the bathroom scene of The Shining for some goddamn reason. This really is more of a Rosemary’s Baby situation.
But he’s so hard and the demon feels so good beneath him, and his thoughts seem to keep slipping away the moment they appear and there are fingers down there grabbing at him, pulling him towards…
One shove and his mind goes empty. He’s hot inside, hotter than any human could be, and dripping with need. Self-lubricating, prepared, and ready to go. How convenient. None of the women Parker has been with have been able to figure that one out yet. Not for that hole, at least. He kisses the demon again, his head going completely empty now as all he can think of is his need for this creature and how good it, he, feels beneath him. Legs wrap around his waist, locking him in place. Like Parker has any lingering thoughts of trying to escape as he finally gives in completely.
The bed shakes beneath them, the frame hitting the wall hard enough that Ms. Sheffield next door must hear them. There is no way in the world a person could sleep through the sound of monster sex right on the other side of their wall. The creature makes a high-pitched wailing sound like the yowling of an ally cat. Somehow, this isn’t a determent. Parker enjoys the sounds, and he enjoys drawing them out of the incubus. Experimenting with speed and angles of his thrusts as he drives his cock deep inside the hellspawn. Parker doesn’t even realize how loudly he’s moaning until the demon pulls him down for another kiss and the keening suddenly cuts off. The absence of sound is the only clue to its existence in his mind-altered state.
Yet despite the fuzziness of his mind, at no point does he forget that he is in bed with a servant of Satan. The experience is far too strange to forget such a thing. Every kiss is like sticking his head in a fireplace. Any time he comes close to coming, the incubus clamps down around him like some cursed cockring, cutting off his premature orgasm, again and again, prolonging it as he hisses over and over again, not yet. The fingers digging into the muscles of his back are not just topped with fingernails but claws, honest too God claws, and the demon knows how and when to use them. As Parker begins to tire, sweat dripping down his forehead, chest burning, his thrusts begin to slow and this is apparently something the demon cannot abide by as he digs those claws into his skin, just short of piercing his flesh, and hisses at him to continue.
He shouldn’t tire so quickly. He’s always had pretty high stamina in these sorts of situations, but, well, he has also never had sex with a demon. The incubus is literally feeding off his energy and it’s almost like he can feel it, a pull that starts in his mouth, pulls down through his throat and stomach, and out through his cock. The only reason he hasn’t finished yet is because it won’t allow him to. Every time he thinks he can’t go on another second, those claws dig in and the angry voice threatens.
Even pain and threats only go so far. He thinks he may be about to have a heart attack. Or merely collapse from exhaustion.
The next time the claws dig in and he just can’t continue, the demon takes control, rolling Parker onto his back, not once letting him out of his grip, and rides him. Depleted, Parker lies there, waiting for it to be over. Something snakelike slithers around one of his legs, grabbing onto his ankle, but he can barely even move, let alone try to escape whatever this new horror may be. Is this about to turn into some weird, kinky tentacle-porn-like situation?
The demon is a merciful demon, at least. Or maybe it just knows its limit. The orgasm is the most potent source of its energy and if he pushes Parker to the point where he’s so exhausted he can’t even cum, it would be a missed opportunity.
The snake-creature around Parker’s ankle tightens as he ejaculates inside the incubus. The wailing cat sounds morph into something closer to a purr of satisfaction.
Then nothingness.
When he comes to, it is dark out, but just barely visible light is beginning to shine in through the window. Dark blue, bleeding through the inky blackness of the night. The very earliest moments of dawn making themselves known.
People often talk about how they awaken in new, strange places after new, strange events and how it takes them a few seconds to remember where they are and how they got there. Disoriented, they struggle to recall the previous night’s happenings.
This is something that has never happened to Parker. The second he opens his eyes, he recalls last night’s actions, and his hand comes up to slap across his mouth to hold back the scream that wants to escape. Part terror, part disgust, part something he can’t even identify – how does one explain fear for their mortal soul? Tears trickle at the corner of his eyes. What has he done?
He didn’t want that. Fornicating with a demon is akin to signing your very being over to the devil himself. He feels soiled down to the tattered ends of his soul.
If he were to step into a church this afternoon, would he just burst into flame?
Can he still be saved?
Does he want to be saved?
The pressure around his ankle is still there and for a second, Parker thinks maybe he was marked somehow. Some sort of possessive signal burned into his skin like cattle branded by an iron. Wouldn’t that just be perfect? A physical reminder of his sin, forever visible on his body? But when he goes to sit up, reaching out one hand to prop himself up more easily, the tips of his fingers touch skin. Not his own skin. The demon is still here. Too dark to see still, even with the first hint of dawn's light visible through the window, but what else could it be? Ms. Sheffield wouldn’t crawl into bed with him and unless she has a son or daughter lurking around that she failed to mention there is only one other sentient being in this house besides the two of them.
Grabbing for his phone on the stand, Parker touches the screen to turn on the backlighting and turns it around to look down at his ankle. Afraid to use the flashlight in case it burns the incubus, and the creature lashes out in response.
What is that around his leg? It’s skinny and leathery and red. The strap of a purse? It has a small, pointed part sticking out and-
It’s a tail.
Once it occurs to Parker what it is, he realizes he should have realized that hours ago. The incubus has a tail. That was probably what he had heard last night moving in the air above him. The demon lashing its tail like a playful cat. Just like a feline does when hunting its prey.
Cat eyes, cat sounds, cat tails. Are incubi just catboys?
Does it have cat ears, Parker wonders to himself. He follows the length of the tail with his phone and notes where it meets what would be the tailbone on a normal human – makes sense. Then he follows it up further. Fair skin. He had half-expected it to be red, perhaps the same color as the tail. But no, it looks normal enough. Paler than Parker’s own skin but not something you’d see in a Tim Burton movie or anything. A fine layer of fuzz covers the body, barely visible, again completely natural. No human is completely hairless. No goat legs or anything either. Smooth chest, lithe. Pink nipples. All completely normal.
“Anything you’re looking for in particular?”
Parker jumps. The phone drops out of his hand, hitting the incubus square in the chest. He scrambles for it, not even thinking until he’s touching the creature’s skin and instantly regretting it because already, he’s tingling all over. But the tail was still touching him, if just touching an incubus is enough to cause such a reaction, shouldn’t he already have been feeling it?
Maybe that only applies to the human skin. Maybe the demon skin doesn’t work the same way. Maybe six thousand years ago, God didn’t understand how humans and fetishes work.
“You can turn on a light,” the demon says, sounding very much like it had just awoken which is a little surprising. Parker wasn’t aware that demons could sleep. None of the ones in the other houses ever did. “I promised, after all, that I would allow you to have a glimpse of me. I only stayed because I always keep my promises.”
“Are you sure?” Parker asks. He turns off his phone’s screen absent-mindedly and instantly regrets it. He fumbles with the phone again, trying to find the button. “It won’t hurt you?”
“Maybe a little,” the demon confesses. The bed shifts beneath them. It sounds like the incubus is sitting up in the middle of the bed. It makes a sound very reminiscent of a person stretching. “I’m still a little hungry. But I feel a lot better than I have in a good while. Young men are the best meals, you see. They have the most sexual energy.”
Parker can’t say he’s surprised to hear this. He leans across the bed.
The light flashes on. Parker blinks, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and then turns to finally get a real look at the incubus. He looks…well.
Not completely human.
The eyes are the biggest giveaway. But then there are the fangs. And the horns. And the pointed ears. Not cat-like, sadly. Too long. But distinctly non-human. All these little details seem almost costume-like in their absurdity, and he otherwise looks like a handsome young man with pale skin and dirty blond hair. His complexion is smooth and his lips unusually full for a young man.
“Satisfied?”
“Yes,” Parker replies.
“Good,” the incubus says. Parker feels the tail loosen and then it’s gone, removed from his ankle entirely. The fangs reach almost to the demon’s chin when his mouth is fully closed. What does an incubus even need fangs for anyway? They suck out sexual energy, not blood. “Then I fulfilled my promise. The sun is coming up so I must go. Artificial light hurts me, but the sun will kill me.”
“Wait,” Parker objects, holding up a hand as if he could just block the demon from escaping. “I, I was hired to get rid of you.”
“Yes, I am aware,” the demon smirks at him. The fangs are not as foreboding as they should be given their imposing size, but he does look almost like some overblown vampire parody with them. “However, you’re just a two-bit ghost hunter. What are you going to do, shake some holy water at me?”
“No,” Parker says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His pants are still halfway down his legs, and he pulls them up to cover his half-hard penis. “You’re going to show me where those ashes are buried.”
The smile suddenly drops from the demon’s face. What is that exactly? Panic?
“What are you going to do with them?”
“What do you think?” Parker asks, reaching down to feel for his discarded boots. “Come on, show me the damn ashes.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Parker says to the exhausted woman standing before him. Behind her, the sun is just peaking out through the trees, painting the sky shades of purple and pink. The snow crunches beneath one of her boots as she rocks from foot to foot in the morning chill. “Just know that it’ll never bother you again. It follows these ashes so if they’re not around you, it can’t get to you.”
“Thank you for doing this,” she says, her voice tired yet flush with relief “I don’t know how I can repay you. You saved my life.”
Standing up with a groan, Parker wipes some of the snow and frozen dirt off his knees. He’s holding the rusted metal Superman box under one arm but it’s biting cold, fresh from the icy ground. Quickly, he grabs at the handle, moving it to his opposite hand. Inside, the contents clunk heavily as the ashes adjust inside. They must be frozen solid inside and they move together as one lump mass rather than a cloud of tiny particles.
“Just spread the word of my services,” Parker says honestly. He doesn’t mention the part about paying the bill, that seems a little too vulgar in these circumstances, and she knew the cost when she had hired him on. “Anywhere in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. As well as Vermont for special cases.”
“I will,” Ms. Sheffield promises, nearly gushing as she grabs at his hand in gratitude. His own hands are covered in muddy gloves from digging through the dirt, hers are bare, clean until she grabs at his. But she shakes his hand enthusiastically anyway. “You have my eternal gratitude.”
The drive back home seems double the length it had been the day before. He thinks about shoving the ashes in the trunk but decides to keep them in the front seat beside him just in case something happens. A car wreck or a highway robbery, anything that could upset his safe and predictable journey home. He had promised the demon that he wouldn’t deface the ashes in any way.
“I don’t want to die,” the incubus has pleaded when he had pointed out the spot of earth where the ashes had been buried. “Please. Don’t exorcise me. Show a demon some mercy.”
“I won’t destroy you,” Parker had sworn. “I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”
Winter in New York means short days and long nights. The sun sets shortly after five in the early winter, yet it is nearly seven before the incubus makes an appearance. It doesn’t seem surprised to see Parker there waiting for him and it doesn’t seem surprised to find itself somewhere new.
“Nice house,” the demon says as casually as if he were a neighbor stopping by for a barbecue. It walks over to one of the doorways and touches the wood paneling framing the opening. “You bought it on a ghost hunter’s salary?”
“I’m pretty good at playing the stock market,” Parker corrects lightly. He nods his head towards the single lamp on the living room side table. “Is it bothering you?”
“A little,” the demon admits, glancing at the light. It turns to the side, away from the light. “Do you have any candles instead? I usually do better with candles.”
Only an old Yankee candle that has been collecting dust for years on his bathroom cupboard. Parker wipes the dust from the surface before lighting it. The thing is so old that it has lost nearly all of its Apple Cinnamon scent. The light flickers, barely illuminating the space around them, but still providing enough of a glow for his eyes to settle on the incubus across from him. The demon has plopped down in front of his bookcase and begun to peruse the selection, making snide little comments on the quality of some of his reading material.
“Beloved? Sounds like a chick book,” the blond-haired incubus scoffs, tossing the paperback to the side.
“It’s about the ghost of a dead baby,” Parker corrects mildly.
“Vile,” the demon says with a fake shudder. “How can you read that sort of stuff? Doesn’t it scare you?”
“Says the literal demon,” Parker replies. Turning, he picks up the lunchbox that until now has been sitting on the floor by his feet. “Are we going to do this?”
“I suppose we must,” the demon replies with a sigh. “Hey, did that lady say she was going to miss having me around? I bet she was disappointed. Did she ask how you liked it?”
“She was glad to have you gone,” Parker informed him, ignoring the latter question because that entire experience had been awkward enough to deal with the first time, he doesn’t want to relive it. Of course, she had known what had transpired between Parker and the demon, he had shown up at her bedroom door reeking of smoke and sex. “You were driving her insane with your presence, you realize that? She didn’t want you feeding off her. That was tantamount to rape, what you were doing to her.”
“I’m an incubus,” the creature replies with a shrug. He climbs to his feet, unfolding his legs as he does so. The shadows of the candle make the dips in his hips seem deeper. It’s distracting and Parker wishes that it would manifest with clothing like a proper monster would have had the decency to do. “I’m a literal demon from Hell. Am I supposed to politely tip my hat and ask for the pleasure of her company at the local church social?”
“Church social?” Parker asks, arching an eyebrow at the incubus in amusement. “Just how old are you, bro?”
“Four-hundred and seventy-three, give or take a decade,” the incubus replies automatically. It picks up a picture frame and inspects the photograph for a second before tossing it aside. “Most of those are in Hell years, of course. Hey, I’m hungry, do you have any cheese?”
“Cheese?” Parker asks, startled by the request. Not just because he didn’t realize that demons could eat anything besides a person’s life force, but why cheese? He shakes his head then, dispelling the confusion. “Dude, we need to do this first. I’ll make you a grilled cheese after, okay?”
“Fine,” a roll of those glowing red eyes. “Where’s the circle?”
Parker points to the chalk outline on the floor as if it weren’t obvious. He doesn’t know everything about demons but he’s pretty sure they’re better at seeing in the dark than humans and this just feels like stalling. The incubus walks over to the circle and sits directly in the center. Parker follows after him, carrying the Yankee candle by the bottom so as to avoid being burnt. He sets the candle on the ground beside the circle.
“Okay,” he says, opening up the PDF document on his phone. “It says to put the remnants of your old master to the opposite of your dominant hand. Are you right-handed or left-handed?”
“Right,” the incubus says, holding up his right hand and waving his fingers. “Like God intended.”
“Okay then,” Parker says, shaking his head. Wrinkling his nose, he unsnaps the little latches on the lunchbox and empties the contents in the miniature circle to the creature’s left. It’s chunkier than he had assumed it would be, and there appear to be something like teeth scattered throughout the ashes. He holds back a shiver of disgust and steps back to look at his phone again. He’s dealt with worse than this, but it is human nature to be horrified by the remains of a fellow human. “So that means I have to put some of my DNA on the other side. I think just cutting off some of my hair would work?”
“The old book says essence, not DNA,” the demon informs him very matter-of-fact. It has its knees pulled up under its chin and there is something charmingly juvenile about the position. It’s off-putting in its own way. “They didn’t know what DNA was back then. You should probably use your blood, just to be safe. Or you can just skip that part of the ceremony entirely, if the idea makes you squeamish.”
“And set you free in the world?” Parker asks, looking at the incubus with a little smirk. The way its chin is resting on its knees is honestly so damn cute, it’s not right. Demons shouldn’t be cute. Sexy, sure, but not cute. “I don’t think so, dude. I’m not afraid of a little blood. Here, I’ll add both hair and a little of my blood to make sure.”
If this were a movie, there would be this intricate yet gory scene where he pulls out a sharp, silver knife and slits a line down his inner arm before squeezing the blood out over the floor. This thought in mind, it comes off pretty pathetic when Parker instead picks at an old scab on his elbow from a snowboarding accident last week and rubs a lock of his hair against the oozing wound. The blood continues to flow out slowly, and he covers it with a pre-used Chinese-takeout napkin as he checks the PDF again.
“Now we need some of your DNA…er…essence. I’m not sure if demons even have DNA, to be honest.”
“We don’t,” the incubus says stubbornly. It’s refusing to even look at Parker now, pouting like a child.
“Do you, uh,” Parker stumbles over his words because there’s just something disturbing about them. He doesn’t like saying them. “Do you want me to cut you, or do you want to do it yourself?”
“Just use some of my hair,” the demon replies. “That will work fine.”
“But you just said-” Parker begins to object.
“I was lying, hoping you would wimp out on this,” it says, scowling. “Besides, I don’t even have blood. Not the normal kind, anyway.”
What is the “normal” kind of blood, and what does the demon have instead? Sex demon, sex blood? Does this thing have semen flowing through its veins instead of blood?
Parker doesn’t ask.
“Now I just have to say this chant a bunch of times and I think that’s it,” he says, scrolling down on his phone to reread the instructions one last time. “It doesn’t say how many times exactly, just somewhere between twenty and sixty, on average. We’ll know when you start to glow. It, uh, it might take a while.”
“You could still change your mind and just do the unbinding spell,” the demon suggests with a little purr. Batting its red cat eyes in Parker’s direction seductively. “It’s so much more simple than transferring ownership. You could have it done in time to catch Jeopardy.”
“Good try. Alright, are you ready?”
It blinks like a bored cat in Parker's direction.
He reads the chant directly from his phone, stumbling over the unfamiliar Latin, knowing that the more he repeats it, the easier it will become. It isn’t the longest chant in the world, only three lines long and none of the lines are unnaturally lengthy. Yet he doesn’t even make it through the first go before he’s interrupted.
“That won’t work,” the demon informs him, a mocking tone to its voice. “You’re just saying a generic demon-binding chant.”
“It won’t work on a pre-bound demon?” Parker asks, lowering the phone. “Is there a special one for demons already bound? Or do you mean there is one special for incubi?”
“No,” it shakes its head, the little horns gleaming in the candlelight. “I mean, you didn’t fill in the placeholder name of ‘demon.’ That’s like going to a wedding and being all, we’re here to bound human and human in boring-ass matrimony. You need to replace daemonium with Chester.”
“Chester?” Parker asks, incredulous. He stares at the incubus, trying to figure out if this is another trick. What does Chester mean in Latin? Is he trying to set himself free with a simple turn of phrase? “You’re telling me that your name is Chester?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
He blinks at the creature. The demon. Chester.
Chester?
What kind of four-hundred-year-old demon is named Chester?
Parker doesn’t even know if he’s even known a single Chester in his life that wasn’t some sort of feline. Probably all named after Chester Cheetah, yes, but still. Chester? Aren’t demons supposed to be named stuff like Damien and Malachi and Baphomet?
Chester?
“Stop laughing at me,” the admittedly cat-like demon pouts. “Chester was a great name in the sixteenth century. Very refined, very virile.”
“I’m sure it was,” Parker grins. “Alright, let’s try this again.”
“Well?”
The red-slit eyes look up then narrow, eyeing Parker with a judgmental stare.
“It’s pretty good,” Chester relents, turning his head away as if to feign disinterest in the topic at hand. “Not as good as sex, of course, but it’s pretty good.”
“I’ve heard a lot of people say that same thing about a good grilled cheese sandwich,” Parker chuckles. He picks up his own sandwich and takes a bite of it. Some of the cheese oozes out of the bottom, dripping onto the plate below. “So, is this a thing I need to do? Feed you real food?”
“Well, you aren’t required to,” the incubus admits. He takes another bite and makes a satisfied moaning sound as he chews. The bite he swallows is much too big for a normal human to take down so easily. It’s like watching a snake devour its prey. He’s pulled his fangs up into his mouth to avoid biting his own lip. “I just like to eat, sometimes, it’s fun. But I have to do whatever you say now, don’t I? So, if you tell me I’m not allowed to eat food then I’m not allowed to eat food. But you can’t starve me of sex energy, that’s part of the contract.”
“You can eat food if you want,” Parker says, internally hoping that he didn’t just set loose some Monkey Paw situation where he will be eaten out of house and home. “You can do what you want, within reason. I want you to be happy. You’re mine to take care of now, right? I plan to take good care of you.”
“I’m not your pet,” Chester objects. He glances up at the kitchen’s overhead light. It’s on a dimmer switch and Parker has lowered it to the lowest setting he could but Chester still seems uncomfortable with it. He promised he’ll get better once he’s well-fed and stronger. “I’m your servant. You’re supposed to use my magical powers to your disposal. That’s the point of binding a demon to you, to take advantage of their powers.”
“Oh, I will be using your powers,” Parker assures him. He pops the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth, chews it a few times, and then swallows. The burn of the carbonation as he washes it down with a sparkling water is uniquely satisfying. “I plan on taking you along on my gigs. Fight demons with demons, you know?”
“What?” Chester’s face appears to go paler in the bad lighting. He pushes away his plate, jumping to his feet in horror. The chair he had been sitting in clatters to the ground. “No! I’m not that kind of demon! I can’t- you don’t- No!”
“Bro, you’re my servant,” Parker says, quickly pushing his own chair back. He goes to grab Chester by the wrist but catches himself at the last minute. If he touches him, it will probably end up turning to other things and he doesn’t want that. Not right now, anyway, though he realizes it is inevitable that it will happen again and again in the future. He has to provide his new pet demon more nourishment than mere cheese sandwiches provide. But there are other things to concentrate on right now. “Going after these things is my job, of course, I want you there helping me.”
“You don’t understand,” Chester protests, shaking his head. There is a tremble to his lips as he explains. “Demons like that, the bad ones, they eat demons like me. We’re like their favorite snack food. They can absorb our power so they’re just like, drawn to us.”
“Oh,” Parker says, his voice going quiet. “I never read about that anywhere. Yeah, I see the problem. But, dude, I’ll be there with you, you know? I won’t let them get you.”
“How would you stop them?” Chester demands to know. “You’re just a human. What do you know about getting rid of demons?”
“Well, I was successful with my last client, wasn’t it?” Parker quips, giving him a smile. Throwing caution to the wind, he pulls the small demon close for a reassuring hug. “Listen, you belong to me now, and I’ll always be here to take care of you. Just trust me.”
“But, dude-”
“Trust me.”
The incubus doesn’t say anything after that. Just stands there, leaning into Parker’s arms, breathing erratically at first until he begins to calm. Parker runs his fingers through his soft hair soothingly, then grips the side of his head, holding it in place against his chest, allowing his incubus to listen to his heartbeat. The sleek little horns are hard and cool against his lips.
“We’ll have to get you a hat or something,” Parker admits after a few minutes pass in tender silence. “I don’t think any of my clients would appreciate me bringing another demon into their home. Probably accuse me of trying to start a circus show of them or something.”
“Oh, I can shrink them,” Chester informs him, his voice sounding dazed and sleepy. “Not get rid of them entirely, but make them small enough that nobody will spot them through my hair, as long as I wear it longish.”
“Yeah?” Parker asks, smiling against the little horn. Pity to hide them. They’re cute in their own way, like a little stumbling calf. “What about the eyes? You can change those to look more normal, right?”
Chester shakes his head. The horn nearly knocks Parker in the teeth, and he pulls away quickly on reflex. The horn brushes his nose.
“I can make them stop glowing but that’s all,” the incubus admits. “I can’t do anything about the shape or color. My old master, he, um. He had me wear contacts. But he had to order these specialty old-fashioned glass ones because my body temperature melts the soft ones. And they kind of hurt. So, yeah, there’s that.”
“Hmm,” Parker frowns. He grabs onto Chester’s shoulders and pushes him back a step, needing to remind himself if his eyes are really that strange. Would it be possible to just have him avert his eyes from the client? Hide him behind the camera where they might not get a good look at him?
No. The eyes are just too weird. They aren’t just a little red-brown or a little narrow. They’re fire-engine red and the thinnest of slits.
“Oh,” he says suddenly, getting an idea. He turns and looks for where he had set his keys when he had first arrived home this afternoon. They’re on the counter beside the bread as usual and right next to them is what he’s looking for.
“Here,” he says, holding out the little plastic present. “Put them on.”
Chester looks down at the gift and frowns. But he does as Parker says and unfolds the accessory before sliding them onto his face. The glow of his eyes is still barely visible behind the dark tint but if he can turn that off, they should work.
“Sunglasses won’t protect me against the sun,” he informs Parker, slumping back against him. He seems to enjoy being held by him, despite his earlier protests about not wanting to be owned by another human. Especially one as “annoying friendly” as he claimed Parker had been.
“We’ll just make sure to meet with the clients after sundown,” Parker reassures him.
“And you don’t think anybody will ask why I’m wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night?”
“We’ll tell them you have glaucoma, like Bono,” Parker says with a small shrug. He grins at Chester and reaches up to push some of his hair out of his face. The bangs fall back over the edge of the glasses, giving him an almost 80s vibe. “Or we’ll just say you’re so cool, you wear your sunglasses at night. Your pick.”