The Last Slayer Read online

  “What?” Her voice was rusty, as if she hadn’t used her vocal cords in a while. Or maybe she’d just been screaming in ecstasy too much.

  “Ashera del Cid.” I extended my hand. She didn’t take it, and after a moment I dropped it. Friendly. “You wanted to talk to a creatures of nightmare specialist?”

  Frowning, she pursed her lips. “I wanted a hunter.”

  “That’d be me.”

  “The best hunter.”

  “Still me.”

  She sized me up and finally stepped aside. “Come in.” She shut the door after me. “You look so young.”

  It never failed to amuse me that people assumed I must be older. I flashed her a quick professional smile. “If you want, I can leave and send someone who’s older but not as good.”

  She shot me a sharp look. Once I’d taken care of her demon, maybe we could start our own mutual admiration society.

  Her townhouse was full of wardings, the cheap variety like the one on her door. Why did she even bother spending money on that stuff? No consistent motif, no geometric precision… Just a bunch of pretty but pointless swirly silver medallions that wouldn’t have scared a fairy. She could’ve gotten the real deal from the firm. But then we were expensive. Really expensive.

  You get what you pay for.

  I held on to my bag of gear and scanned the living room. It was sparsely furnished—surprisingly so given that it was a woman’s place—with an ivory loveseat and a small oak coffee table the only furniture. I walked across the scuffed and scratched wooden floor. Selena did have excellent taste in electronics. A flat-screen TV hung from the white wall, complete with a surround-sound audio system. Maybe she’d let a gadget-crazed brother decorate.

  She noticed my look and said, “The stuff is my ex-boyfriend’s. He hasn’t come back for it yet.”

  Interesting. Why would a guy leave his prized possessions behind? Unlike everything else in the house, they were spotless.

  The kitchen was the same—a bare minimum of appliances. She hadn’t cooked in ages from the looks of things. The barrenness of the place left a sour tang of unease in my mouth. Something as intimate as a home reflects the owner’s personality, and incubi rarely go after sterile people. There’s nothing like a bit of eccentricity and spunk to heighten the pleasures the creatures of nightmare derive from their victims.

  She gestured around with a bony hand. “I’m thinking about moving.”

  I nodded and sniffed the air. It smelled stale and saccharine sweet and tasted of power. Someone had spilled Sex and left it for days.

  Another strange note. Sex is the most easily obtained magic booster on the market, enabling its users to perform spells beyond their natural ability. The Magical Enhancement Agency within the Federation of Mageship keeps the method of extracting and bottling Sex secret, but every practitioner knows it comes from copulation, and that time tends to lessen its potency. You can tell how stale it is by the way it smells—all sweet and cloying. Sex as old as the stuff in Selena’s home wasn’t good for anything except ruining your palate.

  Whoever stole Selena’s Sex hadn’t stored it or used it. That made me suspect the attacks were personal. Or maybe the incubus didn’t need a magical boost. It was just having fun.

  “How long have you been under the influence of the creature?” I said.

  She crossed her arms. “I already told your company.”

  “I know you did, but I want to hear it from you.” I kept my voice low and soothing. “It’s important.”

  I didn’t blame her for her defensiveness. After all, she had been getting raped in her dreams. Whether or not she enjoyed it didn’t matter. Giving away her vital energy hadn’t been part of the bargain as far as she was concerned.

  A long sigh escaped her, and her eyes slid sideways to look out her kitchen window. “It’s been about five weeks, I think. I bought wardings to keep him out, but he was too strong. He would come to me… I knew what he was, but I just couldn’t stop it,” she whispered. “The pleasure… It was unbelievable.”

  “I see.”

  Classic. Intense sexual high to make the victim unable to resist the dream invasion. Even when the woman wants to find recourse, it’s difficult to hire someone and admit she’s found pleasure in the unnatural coupling. Just like a rape victim who’s reluctant to cooperate with the police because she feels ashamed. And, of course, if the creature disappears, there won’t be any more highs.

  Hell of a dilemma for some.

  “Does it visit you in every dream?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “Is that important?”

  “More interesting than important.”

  “Why?”

  “Most creatures don’t suck their victims dry like this. Maybe you pissed someone off.” She could’ve been exaggerating, but it didn’t sound like it. “Badly enough to destroy your astral self.”

  “My soul, you mean.”

  “No. You can live without your soul. Plenty of people have sold theirs and gone on happily for the next several decades. You can’t do that without your astral self. It’s your ego, your psyche, your essential life energy.”

  Selena frowned. I guess it was too much for her to process.

  I tried again. “A Level One astral mage can kill you without spilling a single drop of blood by destroying your astral self, but he won’t be able to touch your soul. That’s between you and your god.”

  The mention of God made her even more tense, if that was possible. “I never invite the thing willingly,” she said defensively. “I sometimes fantasize, but that’s not a summons, right?”

  “Your fantasies don’t happen to include an incubus, do they?”

  Her blush was answer enough.

  “Sexual fantasies are beautiful things. But when they include an incubus as a prominent character, those bastards regard it as an invitation. Then you’re truly fu—uh…out of luck.”

  She turned even redder, which made her complexion look like salsa spread over cardboard, but I wasn’t going to apologize for what I’d said, even if it meant that she might bitch about my “unprofessionalism” to Jack himself afterward. If I could stop even one woman from getting victimized by those predators, it would be worth one of his you-have-to-be-nicer-to-the-clients talks. Demons are as bad as serial rapists or killers. Worse, actually—they leave no trail or forensic evidence. You have to catch them in the act, and there are only so many hunters in the world.

  “Why don’t you show me your bedroom?”

  It was on the third level of the townhouse. The master bedroom suite had a white ceiling fan, two large windows and enough mirrors to keep an international convention of narcissists happy. She must’ve liked to stare at herself. Either that or her ex was kinky.

  A king-size bed dominated the room, the emphasis almost vulgarly obvious. Crimson sheets, silky and opulent, lay tangled on the bed. At least the carpet was a neutral beige.

  I unzipped my bag and draped dark sheets embroidered with wardings over all the portal points—mirrors, windows and doors, including those in the master bathroom. A supernatural could enter easily enough. Leaving would be another matter.

  Selena watched me with an apprehensive interest. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready. You want the creature caught, right?”

  She swallowed, then nodded. Still a hint of hesitation even though the thing was killing her.

  I suppressed a sigh. Dealing with reluctant clients was my least favorite part of the job. Selena was an adult. Unless she was considered incompetent to make her own decisions by a court, she had to call us, sign the never-ending release forms and complete the contract herself. “Who asked you to hire a hunter?”

  “No one.”

  Uh-huh. Her answer had come a little too fast. But whatever. At least she would be getting the help she needed. Maybe the incubus would resist capture and I could kill it legally. I could only hope. Creatures of nightmare deserved to die, even if their deaths did create a purgatory of paperwork
.

  “Look,” I began, “two more nights and I can guarantee you won’t have anything left. Then the creature will move on. You’ll pine for the high and wither away like a plant starved for water.”

  She turned pale and nodded again.

  My watch told me it was 8:55 p.m. Early for sleep, but there were potions for that. Selena had already signed the release forms, which explained the procedure as required by law.

  “Get ready for bed,” I said. “I’ll do the rest.”

  “Okay.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

  I stopped and breathed deeply. This room also smelled of stale Sex. It was faint, but everywhere, like the smell of fruit in a tropical country. Whoever was dream raping her must’ve spilled at least a quarter of what he’d extracted from her here.

  I drew a circle with ashes of thyme on the carpet at the foot of the bed. This was where I would be—physically anyway—while Selena dreamed. The circle was big enough to accommodate my movements. It would be catastrophic if any part of my body went over the line. High dream magic does peculiar things to unprotected mortals.

  Selena reappeared in a slinky silk nightgown that looked even worse on her than it would have on me. She glanced at me nervously, and I gave her my Number One Winning Smile.

  “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.” I pulled out my katana—the real thing, not a fake like some hunters carry—from my bag. The work I’d done to earn my blade was a secret I’d carry to the grave, but it was sensitive enough that the zaibatsu family had rewarded me with a daisho set and five tantos. “Can I get a little bit of your hair?”

  “Why?”

  “I need it to establish a link between us.”

  She shrank back a bit but nodded. I cut about two inches and placed it inside the circle.

  She gestured at the ashes on the floor. “Shouldn’t I get a circle around my bed too?”

  “If I put one around your bed, the thing won’t be able to enter your dream.”

  “So why don’t we just do that? Then you can leave, right? I mean, we don’t have to fight.”

  “It would probably decide to come after you in this plane, physically. Might take a while, but it would find you. Incubi tend to take things like that personally.”

  “Oh.”

  She slid under the covers and pulled them all the way up to her neck, as if she were a Victorian maiden. But the porn-star sheets and nightgown ruined the effect.

  “So I just go to sleep, right?” she said.

  “No. When it shows up, you’re going to ask me for help. I cannot use violence in your mind without your explicit permission. It’s illegal.” I hate lawyers, unless they work for me.

  Selena nodded. “That’s it then. I sleep and ask for help in my dream.”

  “Yep. Then stay out of the way. I don’t want you getting hurt, or worse, used as a hostage.”

  “And you’re gonna catch him.”

  “Or kill it.” I didn’t want her to give her tormentor any human qualities. “Whichever makes the most sense.” The courts allow hunters to kill if necessary. After all, incubi are deadly creatures.

  “What if you can’t?” Selena said.

  “I can.” The only way I wouldn’t get it was if it didn’t show, or if she screwed up. I somehow doubted the former.

  With the sword still in my hand, I stepped inside the circle, then let a bit of magic flow from me to the ashes and sealed it off. Eldritch power coursed along the line, and I took a deep breath.

  Burrowing deeper into the mattress, Selena stared at my weapon. “You know what you’re doing…right?”

  Too late to ask for references, baby.

  “Yes.” I gave her my best professional, I-know-what-I’m-doing smile. Most clients need a lot of smiles and assurance. “Now go to sleep.”

  It didn’t take much time for Selena to fall asleep.

  Her hair, brittle and dull, provided the link necessary for me to enter her dream and connect with her senses. Dreamlinking and delinking were the ickiest, diciest parts of the job. The subjective experience can be summed up as swimming through viscous, metallic-smelling gel until you hit a tough flexible wall, like a sheet of inch-thick rubber, that does its best to keep you out. This is the protective barrier of her psyche, and I had to approach Selena’s, like every client’s, with the utmost delicacy. Handled badly, psychic penetration can damage a mind forever.

  I breached the barrier with relative ease—it’s always easier with the victims of creatures of nightmare, especially when they’ve been weakened as much as Selena had—and entered the surreal landscape of her dream.

  Selena lay on a beach, her pale body bare under a lapis lazuli sky. Not a wisp of cloud marred the blue. Her breasts were the size of basketballs, her waist nonexistent, and her hips flared out like the bottom half of an hourglass.

  Typical.

  I moved silently and positioned myself behind a tall palm tree and a couple of wildly flowering shrubs so that I could hide and watch her. The link between us was so weak, I couldn’t feel anything she did. Blue-black waves roared and crashed into the fine white sand. The bright sunlight bouncing off of the foam made it scintillate like pale yellow diamonds. Of course none of this stuff made any sense, but hey—it wasn’t my dream. Selena could fly around on a carpet of green cream cheese if she wanted.

  A cool breeze stirred the tendrils around Selena’s face and pushed at the wax-stiffened tips of my braided hair. The wind carried the scent of the sea—salt, sand, sun, and the mystery of deep water. I felt like I was trapped in some Technicolor beach resort commercial.

  Tall waterfalls appeared just to my right, the spray splashing my skin. My hand tightened around my sword, and I took a deep breath. It isn’t uncommon for things to continue to appear in people’s dreams as they delve deeper into them. I just didn’t appreciate getting surprised by the additions. The falls could have just as easily appeared right over my head. Or it could have been a volcano spewing lava.

  The cascading water seemed to reflect the golden sun until I looked closely. Each tiny particle of water was actually a droplet of sunbeam, the kind only found in the Solar Garden, the dragonhold of Armisael. Or so the reporters claimed, but who knew for sure? The media always gets supernatural stuff wrong, and no one had ever actually been to a dragonhold and returned to tell the tale. Rumor had it that even the Pentagon had given up looking for them. Guess their super-duper satellite spyware wasn’t good enough.

  Come on, come on.

  I wanted to get this over with and salvage what little was left of my “evening off.”

  Finally, the sound of a horse galloping echoed down the beach.

  Echoes. On a beach.

  I took a firmer grip on my sword, squinted against the sun and saw a centaur coming fast, the sand churning under its hooves. It was entirely black, and I couldn’t tell where its human torso ended and the equine part started. Not very creative, but then creatures of nightmare aren’t known for originality.

  My client began to touch herself…which was weird. Normally the incubus initiates sexual contact, not the other way around. The air smelled faintly of musk and lemon—in other words, fresh Sex—but that couldn’t be right. Sex can’t be created from a solo act. Maybe it was just me hallucinating after tossing down that vial of vomit inducer earlier.

  The centaur stopped in front of Selena and looked down at her, its face taut. “You’ve been disobeying my orders again.”

  Selena dropped her gaze. “Master.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What good is a disobedient slave? I should sell you.”

  “No!” Selena rose to her knees and stretched her arms out. “Master, please don’t cast me away.”

  The centaur shoved her to the sand and began whipping her back. Hard. I winced. I’d seen a lot of sexual fantasies on the job—it’s more or less required in my line of work—and some of them were pretty hardcore. I’d never enjoyed any of them, mainly because the things abusing my clients were real d
emons.

  “What happens to a disobedient wench?”

  “She gets punished!” Selena cried.

  The ground rose around her in ropes and tied her to its gritty surface. With each crack of the whip, her pelvis jerked and rubbed against the sand. Her breath grew jagged and fast.

  Impatience gnawed at me. What was Selena waiting for? One last high before surrendering the damn demon to me?

  As the punishment continued, the centaur’s cock started to stiffen. Crimson welts crisscrossed Selena’s body, but she didn’t shrink away. Rather she begged to service the thing.

  I pushed down a desire to go out and rip the demon’s face off. Interfering in someone’s dream without explicit permission is never a good idea, and I didn’t want to get stuck in jail until somebody from the firm bailed me out.

  The centaur hissed, “Yes,” and suddenly Selena was free. She knelt and took its penis into her mouth, playing with her hard nipples at the same time. Sweat and blood mingled and coated her skin.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered to myself. “Say ‘help.’”

  The sun started to sink into the ocean and limned the centaur in orange. It threw its head backward as Selena’s mouth moved faster over its cock. The scent of musk and lemon grew stronger. Her face contorted, turned into something raw and full of Sex, and I cursed.

  Without bothering for permission, I stepped out from behind the tree. There was no incubus. And this wasn’t a mortal woman bent on fulfilling her exhibitionist fantasy privately and safely.

  She was the demon. And she—no, it—was messing with me.

  I drew a dagger and threw it; a gust of wind suddenly came up and pushed it off-course.

  Hissing, Selena turned. Its face was human only by a technicality. “Mortal.”

  “Demon,” I said. “What kind of game are you playing?”

  It laughed, a screech as shudder-inducing as nails scraping down corrugated tin. “No game, no game! You are marked!”

  Marked?

  The centaur vanished and the demon straightened to its full height. The gaunt human façade melted off its tall frame like heated wax. Scraggly red hair covered a freakishly small head. Tiny crimson eyes, too many to count, remained unblinking and focused on me. Instead of a nose, it had three thin slits. What an ugly bitch. The thing I hated the most, though, was its midriff—it didn’t have one. It was as if there was an antigravity gap between its bust and hips, which meant disembowling “Selena” was going to be out of question. Talk about unfair.