Suddenly A Succubus
Chapter 32.3

Soon enough, the girls were leaving the apartment and wandering back towards campus. Everything looked exactly the same, as it always did, the monotony growing more and more frustrating.

“So, yesterday,” Vee said, “that reaper attacked us closer to the Quad, right?”

“Yeah, I think we had just passed Lysander when we, um, started talking,” Amara said.

“You mean screaming our heads off at each other?”

“Screaming is a form of talking! And besides, I think I was doing more screaming than you were.”

“Yeah, but I started it. Plus, you have a lot to be angry about, you’ve basically been fighting the entire world ever since you started demon puberty.” Vee took the lead, gesturing for Amara to follow as they started circling campus, trying to avoid the Quad.

“Well, I hate the sound like I’m complaining, but it does kinda feel like that. First Brandon tried to enslave me, then Derek attacked me, then—”

“Hold on, what?” Vee said, interrupting Amara. “Derek attacked you?”

“Oh, yeah, did I not mention that part?” Vee shook her head, so Amara continued. “Yeah, I had a day where I had accidentally shapeshifted into you. I was trying to help Tessa research some circles, and on my way home in the morning, I ran into Derek. He was drunk off his ass, obviously thought I was you, and tried to force himself on me.”

“Wait. Were you at the Science Building that night?” Vee asked. She could practically feel the puzzle pieces clicking together. “In a small room behind a bunch of old plumbing?”

Amara seemed surprised. “We were, yeah. How did you know?”

“Because I was there. Early that morning, I went for a run, and I saw you leave the building. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew you were the succubus I’d been hunting.” Vee had a thousand questions running through her head, and wasn’t sure which one to ask first. “What happened with Derek? Is that when he got hurt?”

Amara nodded. “Yeah. Like I said, he was totally wasted, and he was complaining that he hadn’t gotten laid that night. I tried to run, but he… um, he pushed me against a wall, broke the bottle he was drinking from, and threatened me with it. He was in the middle of trying to get his pants off when I remembered that he wasn’t really attacking me, he thought he was attacking you, and I lost it. I got so angry that I manifested my hellfire for the first time, and it ignited all the booze he’d spilled on himself. I ran home, terrified because my hands were still on fire, and I didn’t know what happened with him until you came to me later that day.”

Holy shit, I saw that broken bottle. If I hadn’t seen Amara that morning, I would’ve just gone home; he would have attacked me instead of her.

“Amara, I… I had no idea. I’m so sorry, I should’ve tried to deal with him sooner.”

“Are you kidding? Vee, he’s the problem, not you. Honestly, as weird as it sounds, I was kinda happy it happened that way. I didn’t know you were an angel at that time, and I thought that it was better for him to attack me, because I was strong enough to defend myself. I thought I’d saved you, but obviously he went and reported you to the police. I just wish I could’ve gotten him to confess sooner.”

Vee was stunned. From her perspective, the succubus turning the school against her had just been more proof that the demon needed to be stopped. Now she was faced with the exact opposite; Amara had nearly taken a horrible bullet for her, and she was happy about it? Excited that she’d spared Vee the trauma?

Great, as if I didn’t feel bad enough for attacking her.

“How did you do that, by the way? Get Derek to confess?” Vee asked.

“After our fight, I started slipping into his dreams on accident. I learned I could control them, and we figured out that he was having repeated nightmares about an old girlfriend he’d accidentally killed. It wasn’t exactly the nicest thing I’ve ever done, but I started making the nightmares even worse. I followed him around campus, disguised as his dead girlfriend, and eventually it was too much, so he confessed to everything.”

“Oh jeez, I had no idea. After Tessa told me you were responsible, I just assumed you had charmed him or something.”

“Nah, my powers don’t work like that,” Amara said.

“What, you can’t use magic to charm people?” Vee asked.

“Nope. I’m slightly better at seducing people, since I can read their auras for hints, but I can’t compel anyone to do anything.”

“But then why do I—” Vee silenced herself as quickly as possible. That wasn’t a thought that needed finishing.

“Why do you what?” Amara asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“I-I meant, like, why did I see so many people buying your photos? I had initially assumed you’d used demon magic to get so much attention.”

Yes. That’s totally what I meant.

“Vee, I’m a hot girl that’s studying marketing. You think I need magic to convince strangers on the internet to buy naked pictures of me?”

Vee caught herself blushing with embarrassment. “W-well, when you put it like that…”

Amara started laughing, and despite Vee’s embarrassment, she soon joined in as well. They had just reached Vee’s intended destination, and had to steady themselves against the wall as they tried to calm down from their revelry. When their laughter finally subsided, Amara wiped a tear from her eye and looked around at their surroundings.

“Wow, Vee, I really needed that. Is this Whitmore Hall? Are we here on purpose?”

Vee nodded. “We are, yeah. I want to check out the ritual chamber, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s a good idea! Gimme a sec, though, I want to peek around the corner to see if anything’s happening at the Quad.” Amara pushed off the building, then walked until she was just about to round the corner. She shifted her wings to make sure they didn’t peek around the corner, then poked her head out. “Oh. Shit.”

Nervous, Vee ran closer. Before she could round the corner, Amara reached out and stopped her. “Amara what is it?”

Amara took a step back, her eyes wide. “Take a look, but be careful.”

Vee nodded, then nervously leaned out to look at the Quad. It was immediately obvious what had Amara so spooked; a small collection of reapers were perched in the Quad. Some were on trees, some were circling in the air, and all of them seemed as imposing as the ones they’d fought earlier. Vee counted four in total, but there was no way to know if more were hiding elsewhere.

Additionally, in the center of the Quad, Vee saw a strange circle of dull light on the ground. She was too far away to make out any details, and she didn’t want to further drain her abilities by enhancing her vision.

“Fuck!” Vee said, moving back towards Amara. “What are they doing? Why are they gathering there?”

“No idea.” Amara started pacing, her tail twitching nervously. “I visited the Quad when I first got here, even tried to fly again, but I never saw a reaper until I was under Lysander with you. And I didn’t see any traces of that circle.”

“I don’t like this one bit. Could this mean there’s something else happening?”

“What do you mean?” Amara asked.

“Like, we’ve been thinking we got sucked here on accident because the planes were all out of whack. What if our presence here is no accident?”

“You mean someone brought us here on purpose?”

“I don’t know, maybe? We still don’t have any clues about what’s going on here, but we should at least entertain the possibility.” Vee moved up to Amara, placing a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down. “C’mon, let’s take a look at the Ritual Circle and then get back home.”

“Agreed.” Amara nodded, then jogged over to the entrance of Whitmore Hall. Vee followed closely behind, and they began weaving their way through crowds of student remnants while they made their way to the basement. Just like under Lysander Hall, the illusory wall here had vanished, and they had easy access to the strange tunnels that ran under campus.

Vee was trying to think of possible explanations for the reapers’ presence, as well as anything that might explain the strange circle, when Amara spoke up again. “So, what are we looking for? Full disclosure, but I’m not all that great at looking for things. It helps to have an idea of what we might find.”

“I wish I could say. Based on what Tessa told us the night of the ritual, the portal to Hell is what broke everything. Until then, the Gate was weak, but stable. Opening the portal, and then reversing it, is what caused the Gate to break down. Maybe we’ll find tears between the planes, or weird residual magic, but we’re basically going in blind. Thankfully, that whole basement was pretty empty, so hopefully anything strange will stick out.”

“I was afraid of that. Make sure you’re double checking behind me, just to be safe, alright?”

Vee looked back at Amara and nodded. They continued walking for a few minutes, doing their best to avoid getting lost in the labyrinthine tunnel system. Thankfully, between the two of them, they soon found the main chamber.

Interestingly, it looked shockingly similar to the real chamber back home. Not in a magical sense, everything was just as gray and washed out as the rest of campus, but more because the chamber had always been dull and lifeless. Vee clocked a few differences immediately; for one thing, there weren’t countless blood stains covering the chamber. Their fight had left quite a mess, and Vee had been too preoccupied with school to return and clean up. She also noticed that, while the circle was visible, it didn’t appear any different than the other mundane circle she’d seen at Brandt Hall.

“Well, should we start looking around?” Amara asked.

“Might as well. Give me a holler if you find anything, or if you think a reaper is nearby,” Vee said. They split up, with Vee heading left while she started looking around. While she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, she was trying to be as thorough as possible. She swept her eyes up and down walls, across the floor and ceiling, hoping to get lucky. She was looking for strange cracks, hints of color, anything they might use to get home.

Other than briefly passing Amara, she didn’t find anything on her first pass. She made her second loop smaller, to no success, and her third loop had her circling just outside the large structural pillars. Before long, she’d reached the center of the chamber and was now looking at the circle.

Although she knew she was here to look for a way home, she was unable to fight the memories of their fight that wanted to resurface. In particular, she remembered the moment she chose to save Amara’s life, and a sense of pride welled up inside her. For all the pain she’d caused, it was hard not to see that moment as the first step in her road to making things better.

Her memories were interrupted, however, when she kicked something on the floor. Pulled back to reality, she crouched down to see what she’d found. She was immediately taken by surprise when she saw something full of color.

Just next to the circle, lying on the ground, was a small switchblade. Its handle was made of metal, and a dull rainbow effect had been added for decoration; it almost looked like the refraction of light off an oil spill. The blade of the knife was extended, and a clear coat of blood covered the tip.

“Amara! I found something!” Vee shouted.

The dull sound of footsteps echoed around the chamber as Amara ran closer, then kneeled next to Vee. “Holy shit, is that—”

“Yeah, it’s Tessa’s switchblade.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! It got sucked through the portal, but the portal was connected to Hell! How could it have ended up here?”

Vee went quiet, replaying the last moments of that fight in her head. This time, instead of remembering the look on Amara’s face, she tried to recall what the portal had looked like. “Alright, I’m not a witch, so this is just a guess, but didn’t the portal kinda spaz out at the end?”

“Um, I think so? I was mostly looking up at you, and I only looked down when I was trying to kick Brandon off me.”

“Well, Tessa said that reversing the portal is what blew the Gate open. What if the connection to Hell broke before the portal closed?”

“Are you saying the portal tried to connect to other planes?”

“Maybe? We know that all the circles worked together to create the Gate, so what if the portal tried to latch onto something else? Maybe Purgatory was already in sync with our world, or maybe the Lysander Circle was close enough to pull the portal’s attention.”

“But, that would mean—” Amara stood up, taking a step back from Vee. “That would mean Brandon might be here; this knife was in his hand when he got pulled through. Fuck! If he’s still alive, I swear I’ll rip him to pieces myself!”

Amara screamed with frustration, then lashed out at a nearby pillar. Just before her fist landed, its chitinous gauntlet returned, and a loud thud reverberated through the chamber as her strike landed. She was breathing heavily, and Vee swore her eyes turned black for a moment.

Vee stood up, gently placing a hand on Amara’s arm. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. What’s the one thing we know about Purgatory? It’s a place of entropy. Even if he ended up here, that was practically two whole weeks ago. There’s no way he survived that long.” As Vee spoke, she watched the material of Amara’s gauntlet slowly recede. It was a strange process, watching plates of exoskeleton slowly phase into her arm, but Vee tried to stay focused on comforting Amara.

“Okay. Right, yeah, that makes sense. We’re only alive because we’re not human, and we have your little pocket of reality,” Amara said. Her breathing started to calm down, and she looked up at Vee. “Um, sorry about losing my temper there. Still not used to being this quick to anger.”

“Hey, no one’s hurt. Look on the bright side, we have more information now. For all we know, maybe this knife will help Tessa somehow. If it can’t, well, at least she gets her knife back. Maybe it’ll make her hate me less.” Vee forced a smile, trying to put a positive spin on things to cheer Amara up.

Amara shook out her hand, then smiled back at Vee. “She’s pretty good at holding a grudge, if nothing else. You want to head back to your place? I don’t want to stick around here any longer.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.” Vee kneeled again, grabbing Tessa’s knife and closing the blade. Confident that they’d found everything they could, Vee happily followed Amara out of the main chamber. They backtracked their steps as best they could, and after several minutes of wandering, they found the basement of Whitmore Hall again.

They were climbing the stairs when Vee decided to speak up again. “What’s the deal with him, anyways? That Brandon guy.”

“Uh, bit of a long story, but he was stalking Tessa for a while, which led to him discovering she was a witch. He tried to blackmail her, but she promised she could teach him to summon a succubus to use as his own personal sex slave. Unfortunately, she didn’t know about me, and I ended up trapped in that circle. Do you remember that night I went missing for a bit? That was why.”

“Fuck, he’s been after you since then?”

“Yup. He started stalking me, doing anything he could to get in my pants. He offered his soul to me, then tried to blackmail me with pictures he took of me cleaning up the Palace. That’s actually why I made my own pictures, I was trying to pull the teeth out of his threat. After that, he joined up with the cult, told them about me, and was one of the guys that… well, let’s just say he got his wish before we tossed him in that portal.”

“Wow. What a bitch.”

“Right?!” Amara groaned, then continued complaining about Brandon for another few minutes. Vee ended up learning more about Amara’s gangbang than she’d intended, but she was just happy Amara felt comfortable opening up to her.

Ever since their conversation yesterday, things had been steadily improving. Even thinking back to this morning, their conversation had felt a bit stiff, but now Vee felt like they were starting to rediscover the friends they had once been. They kept talking all the way back to her apartment, and Vee was thrilled to have a distraction from the cold.