4.
Rogue cursed. She was up for auction. Again.
She was not that useful. After all, who wanted a succubus who couldn't control her powers? As a rule, most succubi just flat out wouldn't indulge in a bit of self-control. Whether to spite authorities, or just because of their insatiable appetites, they used their powers non-stop. But Rogue just couldn't. She physically couldn't turn them off, and that was not for want of trying.
She'd been shipped over at least one ocean and no longer knew where she was. Most of the people around her spoke German, but she'd learned from when she once visited the French Quarter that you could get bastardised versions of any language outside their country of origin. The odd one or two spoke English, some with an American accent. There were spatterings of other languages, too, and even a few demon tongues. No way you could mistake one of those once you'd heard it.
Damn it, she was human. Human – with the rights that went with it. They had no right to treat her like this; like some … object.
With little else to do but chafe – they never listened when she told them – her mind drifted back to when her curse first manifested and she had nearly been killed for sucking so much life from a local boy. A woman had rescued her right off the floor, beating a way to her truck through a mob of suspicious people who were mothers, fathers and decent in the daylight.
The woman had checked out her injuries, pronounced them mostly superficial, and then given her a blanket and soup from a thermos while her companion drove. As Rogue sniffed at the offering and pushed it away, she had shaken her head sadly and spoken of a great many things Rogue didn't understand.
"I've faced it all. I've been worshipped, found useful, hunted, thrown away again ... it depends both where and when I am. And it never ceases to amaze me what humanity is capable of."
She was a shapeshifter. She made no bones about it, though she kept the guise of an austere woman in her early-forties for simplicity's sake. She even brought out a pair of spectacles and balanced them on the end of her nose.
"My default form, which I find most comfortable, is rather Morrigan-like, actually," she'd said when Rogue asked for proof and was refused. "Red hair, blue skin – you know the drill. Not exactly inconspicuous, but it smoothes out the wrinkles some. Hell, I'm older than my driver here, and she's no spring chicken."
"I heard that," said the woman in dark glasses.
"Older than her?" Rogue couldn't keep the incredulity from her voice. The other woman, in addition to dark glasses at night, wore the careworn wrinkles of many decades and the type of ruched cardigan that just screamed 'advancing menopause'.
"Well, yes." She didn't elaborate much, but shifted the topic onto her companion's special abilities.
At first Rogue wondered what nuthouse they'd escaped from. Then, sinking into the realisation of what she'd become, it didn't seem so farfetched that they were being truthful. Then she began to wonder what the hell they'd rescued her for, since they'd revealed this much but still wouldn't give her their names. Not even an alias.
"The problem is that though some forms of magic practice are allowed – and even though fortune-telling is accepted – soothsaying isn't. Oh sure, get the right country and it may be legal on paper, but people claim demonic presences. It's like the abortion or euthanasia litmus test – right to some, wrong to others."
They travelled with babble for a short while, before Rogue hunched in on herself again at the subject matter.
"And you have it worse than us. I can hide from the world in a spare identity, and my partner is careful not to foretell the future too much."
She bit her lip and decided she had nothing more to lose. "Why are you helping me?"
The shapeshifter gave another sad smile. Her voice sounded sincere, but she was a shapeshifter. Deception was her specialty, surely. "Once, a long time ago, I gave birth to a beautiful boy. I was going to name him Michael. But he had what people consider a 'demonic' appearance. He couldn't hide the way I do. With my kind of life, doing the things I do and going the places I go, there was no chance of safety for such a child. So I gave him away to a trafficker I know – a good woman who knew good people in want of children and who didn't care about looks. She found a good home for him, though I don't know where, exactly. I never went to find out, either. Too dangerous. Even so, I've felt guilty about him all my life, and in people like you I have a chance to make up for that."
They had driven until Rogue could no longer keep her eyes open, and the faces of her attackers chased her into sleep. When she awoke, she was on a boat with a one-way ticket in her hand and an address in her pocket.
Her parents had been part of those who tried to 'expunge' her. She had no place else to go, so she had followed the directions, asked a few questions, and spied her way to the doorstep of one 'Muir Island Research Centre'.
She came out of her memories as she watched the furious bidding. She'd picked up on enough conversations to know that she was in real trouble this time – possibly even more than she'd been after Cody. Those waving their hands were those who wanted demon bits, rather than whole, live demons. Still, she morbidly supposed that it was better than being a sex toy, which was the original plan of the early bidders. Useful demons aren't pretty. Pretty demons are deadly, she repeated what Sean had often said. It was little comfort.
The hammer came down. "Sold to the man at the back."
Rogue considered spitting. She always hated the killings. She was surviving barely on energy drains right now, since food was unavailable. It made her fingers seek out exposed flesh even when she told them not to. The hunger was so fierce, and the man with the winning ticket was an early bidder. Lots of exposed flesh. Lots of chance. Another accidental killing on her head.
Some of the defeated bidders were leaving. They stopped and scattered when what looked like a man on a horse burst in and blocked their exit.
Moira looked carefully at the pattern-sheet she'd cobbled together and spread out in front of her team. "Look," she said clearly, since they didn't appear to be the shiniest bunch of grapes in the store, "the American Morrigan killings stopped here in Follery, this small Spanish town that I've marked with a red pin. The place was already noted down for succubi killings, and where the Morrigan trail went cold, this succubus one went red hot. Some witness reports say they saw the two together, which means we have some kind of basis for thinking the two trails are connected.
"Yes, Grinshaw, I realise it's a Christian succubi, rather than Celtic, but that's beside the point in this case. Anyway, the succubi reports for this particular hellspawn stop … here. See this blue pin? That's a little place called Winzeldorf, Germany. Near here is also where the Morrigan killings reappear. Based on reports and pattern-sheets the local police in that area have furnished us with, we reckon the rogue centaur attacks, the succubus trail and the Morrigan killings should be converging about … here. No, that's not Winzeldorf, Grinshaw. Please look closer before pointing out wrong facts.
"Now, they may not all be connected, but that's one bloody fiery cocktail to have in any one spot, right enough." She sucked in a breath between her teeth. "And so we enter, stage right, with as few casualties as possible – got that, Esterhazy? Keep that trigger-finger of yours under control."
Esterhazy let go of his firearm.
As the troops dispersed, Moira's second in command whistled. "Yanking you off your holiday was a good idea. You found the trails and a possible link."
Moira smiled grimly. "Xavier thinks I'm in Scotland. He won't be best pleased when he hears all the fun I had without him."
"No time to contact him and pull him from the case he's already working just for moral support. Besides, there's your personal stake to consider. You did ask us to tell you about anything like - "
"I know, I know." She also knew she could get into a lot of trouble about conflict of interests over this. Personal matters were not supposed to encroach on police work – even that of the Demon Division.
Her second jabbed a finger at a small yellow pin – the mark of a suspected demon auction site. "We're raiding this one. It's closest to the point of convergence you indicted, and statistics say it's our best shot of tempting the Morrigan and the centaur out of hiding at the same time. It's got traits of sites they both like to hit. And we believe your foster daughter could be there, too." He sighed and ran and hand through his hair. "There are others. We'd prefer to raid them all before word gets out, but we'd never get there in time with our recruitment rate. Besides, this is the biggest."
"The biggest and the baddest." Moira turned away from the board. "Let's roll."
Helicopters whirred overhead as adept mages warded the entire area from escape. Just because the Demon Division was experimental didn't mean that authorities the world over failed to see the inherent usefulness of some things. 'Borrowing' officers and their expertise was becoming more and more common.
Combat-armoured men rode ropes down into the warded zone. Most of them focussed on apprehending people fleeing the building. Some barged past, knowing that the fleeing culprits would be rendered unconscious by the wards.
Moira entered when most of the scene was 'pacified' - meaning that all those prone to fight and cast nasty spells had been taught the true meaning of the reflective curse. Men in the field dubbed it the 'Rubber-Glue Blues'.
There was a Centaur in the centre of what could initially be mistaken for a blast zone; but then, angry Centaurs tended to make blast zones. Scattered around were several cages of imps, demons and djinns, which had apparently been tossed aside in the mad rush for the exits. There were a couple of were-creatures, too – one wolf, one tiger, each partially shifted. In one of the few remaining upright cages was a very scantily clad thing, being calmly questioned by an unknown and rather ugly male in black fatigues.
"He's not one of ours," said Moira, indicating to the man.
"No, ma'am," said Esterhazy. "He's apparently working for a Count Von Reissig. Missing persons case, ma'am."
"And the Centaur?"
"With him, ma'am. He's the missing boy's brother." Esterhazy made a nervous face. "After that, it gets complicated, ma'am ..."
Moira narrowed her eyes. She hated when politics got involved in this stuff. Added to all the bureaucracy that went with demon stuff anyway, it made her head ache. And there was something about that girl in the cage that irked her, too.
Her brain whirred. Thoughts clicked. Memories slotted into place, wiping away the dirt and blood and bruises.
Oh God... Moira's heart dropped. "Marie? You're the succubus?"
She remembered Marie. She was a close friend of Rahne's. They had gone missing together from Muir – same day, same hour, same second, same place. At least, as far as they could tell. She'd thought it was some childish prank until they stayed missing. Then she'd dared to hope they had just got into some scrape or other and would be back when it was over.
If Marie and Rahne had been caught by traders right off the island, then what did that say for their security? And how many other humans were being passed off as demons by these illegal rings?
The first thing they would have to do would be to explain just how lucky this ring was. Sooner or later they'd have made a worse mistake than catching unlucky humans. Any demon from the Upper Hell dimensions that got loose by masquerading as an imp would make the secretive Hellfire Club look benevolent.
The truth struck Moira with such force that she wondered why she was still standing. Marie was obviously was the succubi murderer. The trail of killings was the trail she been taken along from America to Germany after she was kidnapped from the outskirts of Scotland. They had started up again in Mexico, mere weeks after she and Rahne went missing. And the killings were not necessarily deliberate, either, as previously thought by the Division. Unlike real succubi, they had learned early on that Marie couldn't tone down her siphoning. It was obvious what some of the male victims – and in some cases women – they'd been using to track her were trying to do, and since the dead people were neck deep in this illegal ring business it explained the demonic auras they'd found at each scene.
Moira strode over and tried not to take in Marie's concave cheeks. "Have you seen Rahne, Marie?"
"My name's Rogue," Marie said angrily and out of habit. She blinked when she realised, and saw who was speaking to her. "Moira?" It didn't take long after that for the real implications to sink in. "Oh shit, not her, too. I thought she was on Muir with you. She can't be… in these places. She'll have worse problems than me. Her protection isn't automatic like mine…"
Moira could do nothing but watch as the girl broke down crying.
"You did good, boss." Her second sauntered up. "Got 'em all. Lock stock and barrel."
"No. No, I didn't. Rahne isn't here." Moira looked at Marie and saw the truth through the hope she'd held to before. "I don't think she ever was."
"Uh, right. But we got a lot of information though. And we solved the succubi murders." He whistled, having been filled in on some of the details. "A human with a succubus's touch? Nasty."
Rogue stared hard at him. "You got no idea." Her gaze was unnerving.
"Uh … but we know it was probably self-defence. So you won't be arrested. Just taken in for questioning. Y'know, just in case, and to pacify the legal types."
She gave a humourless chuckle. "Why don't you ask 'em? I wish I could say the dead don't tell no tales."
To Be Continued...