Chapter 3

Meeting the Order

The ride out of the canyon was uneventful, and Lily held herself tightly against Dana’s body as the zombie took them down the canyon. Whenever they rode together, Lily would reduce her weight to next to nothing to give Dana far more control over the bike, but that also meant having a good grip.

Not that she minded holding on so tightly. Dana’s body was particularly warm right now, and she was exuding an energy that reminded the succubus of Mike.

“So are you going to tell me about what happened yet?” Dana asked through Lily’s headset.

The succubus had formed a helmet around her skull that was decorated with vintage flames that stretched back along the sides. With her entire imagination as a palette for whatever she wore, it seemed like a shame to cop out and be boring without a reason.

Besides that, flaming helmets looked cool. She wondered if Dana would get mad if she added actual flames.

“Now that we’re actually out of the woods, I will. They call themselves the Order.” She frowned at the word. She hadn’t thought about the Order in decades, but was hardly surprised they were still kicking around. The bastards had been roaming the world for centuries now and there was no reason to believe that it would ever be different.

“The Order of what?”

“Does it matter? The Order of Zeus, Merlin, Oprah, it’s just a name at this point. The important thing to know is that we do not fuck around with the Order. In fact, if we ever encounter them again, we will do our best to run as far and as fast as we can.”

“We did pretty good for ourselves back there,” Dana replied.

“No, we didn’t.” Lily let out a sigh that became a growl. “They had no idea we were there and were totally unprepared. Even you could see how young and inexperienced they were. Don’t clap yourself on the back for getting one over on a pair of rookie monster hunters who were expecting a fight with a drunk. I can guarantee that both of them are just fine right now, and already looking to track us down.”

“Oh.” They rode another mile in silence before Dana’s voice came back through the earpiece. “Is that all?”

“Hardly. What do you want to know?”

“You saw something in Scotes’ mind. Care to share?”

Lily scowled. When she had opened up Ray’s head to take a look around, she had seen what amounted to an entire lifetime of being a low-grade piece of shit. The man had stumbled into Unearthly Delights after bar hopping and had spotted the flask under the glass of the front counter. His shit behavior had been one of the only reasons he had been trackable by sifting through the clerk’s memories, and he had loudly tried to barter the poor guy down until eventually buying the flask for the fifty dollars it had been marked.

The sequence of events that had interested her had begun with Ray’s initial excitement that the flask was still full. He had savored the whiskey over a couple of days and been puzzled when the flask never seemed to run out. Disbelief had turned into more excitement, and the biker had to wait until he sobered up to ride his bike into town. If Ray hadn’t believed in magic before, he certainly did now, and his mind had stuck to a single memory from his conversation with the clerk.

“C’mon, I can do thirty,” he had whined, though he was carrying almost five hundred in his pockets. He always carried enough cash to get him home, just in case, and most of it was stashed in his left boot.

The clerk had rolled his eyes. Though the guy was young, he clearly wasn’t going to be intimidated by the tough biker act, and he definitely wasn’t buying the obnoxious drunk act either. “Look, all of this stuff got appraised when we got it from the auction, and my boss never marks the good stuff any lower than he is willing to sell it.”

“Wait, are there other flasks that came with this one?” Ray didn’t care about how the flask looked, he just needed something that would fit inconspicuously in his vest pocket, and he had lost his last one somewhere. If there was a cheaper flask, he would buy it instead.

“Nah, the flask was in one of those unseen box auctions. Like, from a storage unit. All kinds of odds and ends, the whole store is full of them.”

“Bah.” Ray pulled out his money. He would just pay fifty for the flask, it looked like it was made of silver, he could always sell it later if he needed to.

“Ray was on his way back to Unearthly Delights to buy more magic. He had become hooked on what the flask could do. Borderline obsessed, really. If a flask could keep him drunk for free, what else was there? Magic does that to most people. It shows them a crack in the universe that they become hungry to explore.”

“So, what happened?” Dana asked.

“He ran across the Order.” Scotes had been surprised that the store was closed early, and decided to hang around until later. A little breaking and entering wasn’t that big of a deal, and he had parked his bike some distance away, camping out behind some bushes by the railroad tracks. It was in the middle of the night that he realized that Unearthly Delights was being raided by a group of people that he initially thought was the feds, but the feds didn’t burn places down when they were done. “They looted the place and burned it down, and Ray was convinced they would track him down and kill him.”

“And would they have?”

“Honestly? Don’t know. It kind of depends on the situation. If Scotes had put up a fight, then maybe. More likely that they would have offered him a sum of cash for the flask and tell him to shut the fuck up about it, or even wipe his memory after, make him think he sold something worthless for a profit.” She furrowed her brow. “I’m not a hundred percent on that last one, actually, but if anyone could do it, it would be them.”

“Wait, so why do they even want the flask in the first place?” Dana asked.

“The Order has one really big rule, and it hearkens back to the day when magic was sealed away by Merlin.”

“Merlin, like from King Arthur?”

“Yep. Merlin got tired of mankind fighting with and over magic, so he did the impossible. He found a way to pull down the veil on mankind. If you ever look at magic over the ages, it’s always shit like speaking with spirits, deities, whatever. He cut the cord on communication, and the world of magic and science have kind of coasted side-by-side since then. Over the years, magical creatures died off and mankind flourished, so what was already rare became rarer still.”

“So they want the flask because it’s magic?”

“Not specifically. They want the flask because it could upset the balance of things. Their task is to make sure that magic doesn’t make a comeback, that the magical world stays in the shadows. It’s not even because they’re trying to keep it for themselves. The world was nearly destroyed on numerous occasions because magic and humans simply don’t mix, or at least not without repercussions. Obviously, there are exceptions, but the motivation is in the name itself. The Order exists to maintain order, to prevent the mistakes of the past from happening again.”

They were now halfway through Laporte, which wasn’t saying much. It was a small town that had been gobbled up by the nearby college town. The bike rumbled beneath them when they stopped at a red light, and Lily closed her eyes and listened to the soothing vibrations.

“So, they’re the good guys?” Dana asked, her voice incredulous.

“Good is a matter of perspective and always will be.” The succubus scowled at the memory of escaping the cabin. “However, in general ... yes. They’re the kind of people who are raised on the notion that they need to protect mankind by preventing outside influences from disrupting it. They don’t interfere in human or monster affairs, but will if the two become mixed and it risks exposing the world to the truth. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

“What does that make us, then?”

“Truthfully? We’re just like every other miserable bastard out here, just trying to make ends meet. If we hadn’t just jacked this from under their noses and attacked a couple of their men, they wouldn’t even care. But now? I’m thinking we should cut this trip short and pursue other leads.”

Dana tensed beneath Lily’s hands. “But what if ... what if they got the other things on the list? There were five things that Ratu said were sold to the shop that she thought would help me. This flask is one of them, but what if they have the other four?”

“Then they have the other four. Think of those things as gone forever, and spend the next few centuries trying to find another way.”

The silence in Lily’s earpiece was deafening, so she pulled off her helmet and allowed it to become smoke in her hands as they rounded a corner. Just because Dana was pissy about the whole thing didn’t mean that Lily shouldn’t enjoy simple things like the wind in her hair. She had been stuffed inside her gemstone prison for so long that she had learned not to take the little things for granted, and she truthfully hoped Dana would learn the same lesson long before suffering a similar fate.

It was midday, and downtown Fort Collins was already bustling with activity. They took a couple side roads to avoid the worst of it, and were soon on the main road that took them to their hotel by the highway. Dana parked the bike in a spot by the front door and the two of them rode up the elevator together. Once in their room, Dana tossed her helmet onto the bed and then sat down and pulled out her laptop.

“Are you pouting?” Lily asked, breaking the silence. “Because it’s annoying.”

“I don’t pout. I’m just thinking. We have the flask. That’s one out of five. We actually have a lead, and you’re asking me to walk away from it. I’m trying to figure out how to argue my case here.”

Lily sighed and then sat next to Dana. “Okay, let’s talk about it. What other things are on the list?”

“A pendant, a hammer, a knife set and a bag of marbles.” Dana frowned. “I’m not sure what she intends to do with them, but each of these things has a magical property that Ratu needs.”

“Did she tell you what they did?”

“Most of them. The knife set cuts your food for you if you speak the word engraved on the handle. The hammer knocks in nails with a single hit every time, no matter how hard you hit them.” Dana frowned at her computer. “The bag of marbles is weird. When the marbles clack into each other, they change places. Not sure what she wants with that. The pendant though ... she wouldn’t tell me what that one does.” She showed Lily her screen. On it was a drawing of a necklace with a large pearl entwined in metal wire. “She told me it was one of a kind and I would know it when I see it.”

“Ooh. Mysterious. Did you ask her why she wouldn’t tell you more?”

“Of course I did.” Dana shut her laptop. “Apparently, it’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t be asking around for, because if people know you’re looking for it, they’ll come looking too. She told me to imagine it as a winning lotto ticket lost in a box of sand. The moment I ask if someone has seen it, others will show up with shovels in the hopes of finding it first.”

“Oh, how fun!” Lily hopped up and down, her breasts bouncing under her shirt. She was hoping it would make Dana smile, but it didn’t work. “Okay, well, let’s talk a little bit about what we’re up against. If the Order has any or all of these things, it would probably be the necklace and the marbles. The hammer’s owner might not even realize it’s magic, and the knife set will probably just sit in a block for decades and nobody will ever be any wiser. Even if they tracked those objects down, they pick and choose their battles on purpose.”

“So, you think we should go after them?”

“No!” The succubus groaned. “It’s the worst thing we could do! You shot one of them point blank with a shotgun, remember? It didn’t even scratch him. If we try to chase these people down and pull the whole ‘hunted becomes the hunter’ bullshit, I’m going to be doing all the heavy lifting, and will probably get my ass smoked all the way back to Hell.”

“Can they do that?”

Lily shrugged. “Kind of. Nobody is better at hunting demons than these guys. Most of what the Vatican does during exorcisms is loosely based on what these guys actually do. Can they kill me? No, not really. I’m tied to Mike now, and that means they would have to go after him. But they can hurt me, and they can certainly hurt you.”

The zombie sighed and tossed her phone onto the bed. “I guess we’re out of our depth then, aren’t we?”

Lily nodded. Dana had no idea what fresh hell she would bring down on the both of them if they actively went after members of the Order, and she really didn’t want them learning about Dana. As a zombie, she posed a tremendous risk and would likely be dispatched with extreme prejudice. Nobody knew if her condition was contagious, and the Order wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

Dana removed the flask from her pocket and examined it closely. “It’s stupid, but this feels really disappointing. One in five is a shitty success rate.”

“I know you hate hearing this, but there’s an eternity to correct it.” She sat next to Dana. “The Order will take this stuff and put it under lock and key, but forever is a long time to keep these things hidden away. It might not be anytime soon, but someone is bound to make a mistake. I don’t like talking about it much, but some time ago, my former master got some good intel on one of the Order’s vaults and broke in to take some powerful things from it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Some of it was pretty innocuous, but they got their hands on some pretty amazing items. There was even a rumor that they stole the head of Medusa, but I got locked away before I could see it.”

“Wait, Medusa, really?”

She nodded. “It was just a bag that hissed a lot. My ruby got shoved into a safe next to it for a couple decades, so I would usually see it on my way in and out. No idea what they would ever use it for. Something that powerful would be hard to use without getting noticed. But the point is that time is your ally now, and I need you to see the positive. You’re at the beginning of a very long journey, and you need to remain optimistic if you hope to survive.”

“Coming from you, that’s pretty rich.” Dana closed the laptop. “Aren’t you the eternal pessimist?”

“Hey, I’ve got some of the finest therapists and philosophers rattling around in here.” She tapped her head for emphasis. “Again, I’ve had a long time to accumulate my collection. Getting the flask today just means you won’t have to get it thirty years from now.”

The zombie grunted. “I guess. Well, there’s only one thing to do now.”

“What’s that?”

Dana stood up. “Take a shower and hit the road. Put some miles down before it gets dark. Maybe go camping on the way back.”

Lily smiled. “Ooh, you wanna help me pitch a tent?”

Dana rolled her eyes and walked into the bathroom, then closed the door behind her. Once the shower was running, Lily let out a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted to do was spend her afternoon arguing with Dana about the Order. She would much rather go back to Mike’s house and come up with another plan than put Dana in harm’s way.

When Lily originally agreed to come along, it was partially to help the poor girl out. She had been thrust into a world far bigger than she realized, and Lily knew from experience that it was a hard world to live in.

There was also the prospect of helping someone. Her demonic nature aside, this was the first time in her existence that she had ever had a semblance of a choice, and she relished the idea of doing some good to balance out the bad. How many people had she killed for the Society? She supposed she could count, but why bother? It was an endless parade of faces she could pull up on a whim, but why spend all day thinking about a meal from years ago?

There was also Mike. The man who became her master, and sort of set her free. Other than the rule against killing innocent people, she was free to do as she chose. Upon gaining her freedom, she had been pulled back into his world once again, knowing they would come for him. After the dust had settled, he had given her a gift.

The necklace materialized on her neck and she lifted it up. She kept it stored within her body like a talisman, a reminder that her new master said he was different. He had shown her kindness when all she had given was spite. Maybe he was broken in the head, or maybe there was something there worth pursuing. Either way, she had needed some distance, and this trip had provided it.

“See you soon, Romeo,” she whispered, then absorbed the necklace back into her body.

She grabbed the remote to turn the television on, but paused when she heard a distant buzzing sound. Her first thought was maybe someone was using tools out in the parking lot, but when she checked out the window, the sound wasn’t coming from out there. Struggling to hear it over the shower, she walked into the hall and looked around. The sound was coming from everywhere at once, and it immediately set her on edge.

It felt like magic.

“Shit,” she muttered, and walked into the closest stairwell. The buzzing here was just as loud, and she debated pulling Dana out of the shower. But then what? It was probably better to try and see what was happening first, and if anyone was a master of sneaking, it was a shape changing succubus.

She walked down the stairwell and adjusted her form. She started as a black business woman, then decided to go with something a bit frumpier. Her skin tone lightened just a bit, and her clothes became loose. When she stepped out of the stairwell, she was a slightly overweight soccer mom with short hair that had been clipped in place and a bitchy look fixed on her face that demanded to see Life’s manager.

The buzzing sensation vanished when she walked into the lobby, and she was stunned to see that life in the building had been put on hold. The bellhop was frozen at the check-in counter, and he was holding a room card in his hand. The couple standing at the counter were frozen as well, the man reaching out to take the card while the woman was sticking her sunglasses in her purse.

The couple of people in the bar were staring at the television, but nobody was reacting.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” He stepped around one of the columns in the front of the lobby. It was the man with the scars on his face that had ridden the elevator with them this morning. In one of his hands was a watch on a gold chain.

“Cute trick,” she told him, then shifted back into her regular form. “I’m guessing that only works on humans, so I totally outed myself.”

“Indeed. Though they aren’t frozen, merely lost in thought. It’s very similar to hypnosis.” He stuck the watch in his pocket. “When the effect ends, they may realize they’ve lost a few minutes of their time. Most likely, they will go about their day and never know any better.”

“So now that you’ve found me, what now?” Her tail appeared in slow motion, section by section, followed by her wings unfurling dramatically. She let her horns burst forward from her forehead with a loud crunch, hoping to scare the bastard. “Do we destroy this place trying to kill each other? I wouldn’t mind a good rumble.”

“Nothing like that, I’m afraid.” He leaned on his cane and took another step toward her. “I don’t have it in me for a physical encounter. In fact, I don’t really have it in me for a magical one either. It’s taking most of my energy just to hold these people in a trance.”

Lily scowled at the man. He was clearly trying to lure her into making a mistake, but she couldn’t figure out how. “So, where’s your backup? Shouldn’t your buddy with the sword make an appearance any minute now?”

“Oh, it’s just me these days. I was just wondering if we could have a little chat.” He moved a bit closer, and then leaned forward on his cane. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to do about you, so figured I would start with a couple of questions.”

“Have you checked my Tinder? I like to be choked and the safe word is chucklebunny.”

“Why did you take the flask from Ray Scotes?”

It was a direct question, which meant she had to answer truthfully. She could choose to keep her mouth shut, or even dodge the question, but it was often better to tell a half truth and let the perceived deception play itself out then to say nothing at all.

“I didn’t take a flask from anyone.” Technically, Dana was the one who had taken it.

The man nodded his head. “Okay, I’ll give you that. Why did your master take the flask from Ray Scotes?”

Oh. Now that was going to be much harder. If he was asking that question, it meant he knew that someone else was with her. She could easily say that her master didn’t take the flask, but then he would know that someone else was technically in control of her, and this mess they had fallen into would become even bigger.

“Are you talking about that sexy blonde I’m with? She took the flask because she’s always thirsty.” Omit a detail, let the mind fill in the rest.

“Really? She took it just because she wanted it?” He shook his head in disappointment. “I get the feeling that you’re hiding something from me.”

“Well, it is our first date after all, and I don’t even know your name.” She pouted, then mentally judged the distance between the two of them. If he knew about Dana, then she was in danger as well.

“My name is Cyrus. What’s yours?”

“I’m called Lily.” She turned to one side and put her breasts in her hands, then jiggled them. “I’m a Sagittarius with a heart of gold, and a pair of C-cups to die for. I like long walks on the beach and hate mean people.” When she turned to face him again, she was able to hide the small step she had taken toward him. “Oh. And I love puppies and being spanked.”

Cyrus laughed. “Your kind sure do love to run your mouths, don’t you?”

“Aw, now that’s not nice.” She pouted and hugged herself. “If you’re just gonna hurt my feelings, maybe I should just leave.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere.” He slid the tip of his cane forward another inch and a large glowing rune appeared on the floor. It was almost twenty feet across and Lily was stuck in the middle of it. The familiar buzzing sound returned, and she recognized the magic as a sealing rune. Ancient letters swirled around the outside of the circle, and she knew from first-hand experience that trying to escape would be very painful.

“Clever little demon hunter,” she snarled, then looked at his cane. The rune had been prepared in advance, and Cyrus had used the cane somehow to complete it. “Looks like you’ve got me trapped in here. At least, until you run out of juice.”

“I only need a couple more minutes.” He let go of the cane and it stood on its own. He pulled a small vial from his pocket and anointed his hands and face.

“Wow, an exorcism. How original. I warn you, I had a big lunch, so ... might want to stay out of the splash zone.”

“A one-way ticket to Hell, actually. As much as I would love to smite you into dust, I just need to trap you here long enough to find and kill your master. You can get in line and wait a few millennia before someone manages to summon you again. But I want you to know that it isn’t personal.”

“No, of course not, you pock-marked asshole.”

He chuckled, then started speaking in Latin. Not only was his pronunciation perfect, but very fast. Already, she could feel the walls of reality softening around her, ready to give her the boot to another plane of existence. Even if he sent her to Hell, she could easily return in a few hours, but would be forced to come back to Earth at the Radley house where Mike was. It would be a very long time before she could return here where Dana was, and that was if the Order didn’t get to her first.

She walked around the edges of the circle and examined the swirling words. Cyrus kept his eyes on her as she drew close to him, speaking from memory. He was clearly experienced at this, and she could feel her skin starting to burn. A sealing rune was a powerful tool, but it had its flaws. For instance, the more that was known about the demon being sealed, the better. She saw that the words described her physical appearance, which further confirmed her theory that they had been watching somehow. It also described her role as a succubus and how she was created in the depths of Hell.

That was strike one. Her birthplace was far more complicated than the Pit. The words moved faster as time distorted around her, but she was able to make out a few more words that described how she preyed on innocent and guilty alike.

Not anymore. That was strike two. If she tried to go through the rune now, she might make it, but would be severely weakened. The words were moving very fast now, and she took them in, hoping to find what she needed that would ensure her escape.

She caught the final mistake she needed, then walked up to Cyrus and faced him with a huge grin on her face. What was about to happen would hurt like a bitch, but would be way more entertaining than Hell, and he wouldn’t see it coming.

The rune described how she was bound to a female master. Technically, she was bound to two masters, and that was all she needed.

“Strike three, fucker.” She shoved her hands through the runic ward, which sent a painful surge of electricity through her entire body, and grabbed Cyrus by the face. His exorcism broke off when she hooked her fingers in his mouth and pulled him into the rune with her.

He was surprisingly strong, and tried to push her away, but all it took was a few strikes of her tail and his eyes got all dopey. She stuck her fingers against his temples and pulled his face close to hers.

“Oh, I am going to have so much fun eating you,” she said, then forced her way into his mind.

Unsurprisingly, his Dreamscape was anything but peaceful. Storm clouds threatened to strike her from the sky as she dove through the clouds, and tornadoes made of fire and light chased after her, threatening to pin her down until he could wake up.

His memories appeared before her as broken images, memories that slammed shut to avoid her perusal. Even in those quick moments, she saw pictures of his life, and of his hunts. The more recent ones came up first, and she saw a small group of hunters in the woods where they had been. She saw herself and Dana in the elevator from his point of view.

She also saw the moment that he had watched Unearthly Delights burn to the ground. Every moment was only a couple of seconds long, and then the memory would change. Clearly Cyrus had training in the Dreamscape, which meant this would be more difficult than she had expected.

That was fine, though. She had gotten plenty of information already, and would have all the time in the world to examine his thoughts in detail after sucking out his soul. Below her, a large church appeared surrounded by gravestones, and she crashed dramatically through a stained-glass window depicting the tree of life. The floor was made of marble, and she tucked and rolled on impact, coming to a stop about thirty feet from the dais. She was surrounded by pews, and the church was lit by torches. The whole thing was very 16th Century, and a bit cliché if she was being honest.

Before her stood a younger version of Cyrus. It was how he saw himself in his dreams, but he still had those nasty scars.

“How did you break the runes?” he asked.

She was surprised that he was already waiting for her, but it made sense. The Order weren’t to be messed with for a reason, and this guy really knew his stuff.

“I’ll tell you all about it after I share my evil plans for world domination, you jackass,” she told him, then grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. She needed to trap him in a dream and trick him into sex, but it would be very difficult with him in his current state. He was fully aware of who and what she was, which meant she needed to change the venue, perhaps break him apart mentally for a while.

She shoved her hand into the floor of the church and pulled. The marble ripped apart to reveal a door, and she pulled it the rest of the way out of the ground with her tail. If she cast him into a nightmare, it was possible to trick him into thinking he had woken up, and then go from there. She had enough info now that she could make him think he dozed off outside of Ray’s cabin, maybe finish hunting for magic in Colorado, and head back to headquarters. It would take some time but it would be doable.

Of course, now that he was asleep, she could sense the trance of the people in the lobby breaking. Even though she could accelerate time in the Dreamscape, it would be difficult to just hold the man up in the lobby while he was out cold.

Cyrus, upon seeing the door, began kicking in her grasp, his face turning red.

“Oh, do you have something to say?” she asked.

“Chu ... chucklebunny,” he gasped.

This elicited a genuine laugh. At least he still had his sense of humor. “I take it you know what’s behind this door, don’t you?” Doorways were a dangerous thing in dreams, and this one was covered in glowing eyes and fangs. “What does a demon hunter have nightmares about, anyway? Are you a virgin who’s afraid of a little pussy? Or cock? I don’t judge. Oh, I know! Is it taxes? I bet it’s taxes.”