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WRATH * III * WRATH

Succubus

On his way to work that glorious, mid-summer morning, Martin Luckhurst whistled
a happy tune. Now Martin was not an exceptional whistler, or even a man prone to
whistling, but that morning he whistled anyway, and he whistled well. Through his
puckered lips came the cheerful, heartfelt twitter of a man in love; trumpet of a mating
canary. Every second thought he had that morning returned him to his love. Tonight, at
dinner, he was going to pop the question. It had occurred to him last week, while lying
in bed with Jessica in his arms, curled up against him with her head pillowed by his
chest, that living the single life was just not as fulfilling as living the married one.

He supposed, in all self-honesty, that he was experiencing some kind of mid-life
crisis; coming to the point in his life where the downward curve into wrinkles, gray hair
and senility started; coming to the time in a man's life when he starts looking for security
and stability and reward for what he has accomplished, or failed to accomplish. The
time when meaningless sex with hundreds of women -- high on the aphrodisiac of
money and power -- loses its appeal and a man starts looking for one woman with
which he can share the rest of his life. The time when a man, though not morbidly
fixated on death, fully realizes his mortality and his thoughts turn to the idea of family
and the leaving behind of a legacy, so that some of him might live on even after all that
remains of him has decayed to dust and returned to the topsoil.

At any rate, Martin knew this: he was in love with Jessica Craft.

Jessica Craft was completely unlike any other woman Martin had ever known --
and he had known many, bedding a new one almost every other night for the past
fifteen years. There was always some new girl looking for a pay raise, promotion
and/or expansion of executive perks at his company, and none of them, it seemed,
were above sleeping with the president of the company if the end justified the means...
at least none of the ones he had ever propositioned. Maybe he just knew how to pick
'em.

No, Jessica was a different matter altogether. Jessica didn't want favors or gifts or
money. All she wanted was some of his time, and to be loved. Jessica listened to him
when he needed to talk, and she always seemed interested in what he had to say. And
she loved football, horror movies and Italian food, just the way he did. And of course
her looks (another thing that separated Jessica from the parade of women Martin had
had was the fact the her appearance and considerable prowess at love-making were
the last things to come to mind whenever he thought of her)... Well, let us just say
Jessica was not suffering from a chronic case of homeliness. She had long blond hair,
all the way down her back and to the top of her luscious, well-packed fanny. And her
eyes and lashes -- together they made a profound trap for any man's gaze wandering.
Her mouth was always set in a thoughtful-sad way that made her look, depending on
the circumstances, wise, interested, concerned, indignant, vigilant, righteous, aware,
seductive, coy, ecstatic... She was five feet six inches tall and of perfect proportions,
her hips and breasts, elements of a flawless, hourglass silhouette as offset by her tiny
waist, though her figure was usually not so apparent, as she, unlike most women who
have IT, dressed very modestly; bulky sweaters, or in layers.

Of course whenever Martin thought of her at length his train of ponderings would
eventually, inevitably, turn from how wonderful she was to what wonderful things could
be done with her. It made him horny as a high school boy to think in such a manner.

So it was that when he pulled into the space reserved for him as company president
on the ground level of the office parking ramp, he was uncomfortably erect, and
thinking he might bust a seam in his pants. And that reminded him of the time he and
Jessica had come to the parking ramp at around midnight when downtown was all but
deserted, the offices abandoned by everyone but the cleaning crews. They had parked
on level three, with the car's nose pointed towards the neon and the traffic lights
clustered about the city's whiskey district. They'd sipped and downed several Coors
Extra Gold between the two of them and then made love on the hood of the car until
two in the morning. Remembering this made Martin's discomfort grow considerably.

Exiting his car, Martin took extra care to arrange his suit so it would conceal his
obvious arousal.

Crossed the street and into the lobby of the towering skyscraper that housed,
among others, the executive offices of NeoCulture Technologies' marketing, research
and production departments. He was greeted as he strolled through the outer offices
by a chorus of "Hello, Mr. Luckhurst's" and "Good morning, Mr. Luckhurst's." Every
person he passed made the effort to use his name at least once, perhaps wrongly
expecting him to be impressed by the fact that they knew who he was. One unfaced
person actually called him Martin.

He stepped into the executive elevator and in hushed, hydraulic silence it bore him
to the thirty-eighth floor. The NeoCulture Technologies building has forty floors. The
two floors above him were all executive lounges, the executive cafe (when you're an
executive cafeterias are below you), and the executive libraries. There was one other
office on his level, Mr. Devin Claymoure's, the man who was vice-president. Devin's
office had the less appealing view of downtown: the industrial zones, and low-income
housing. Outside Martin's window stretched away a panorama of the other high office
buildings, gleaming, clean, mirrors; phallic against the sky.

Out of the elevator and down a short hall to his secretary's office. His secretary
was sitting behind her desk filing down a rough edge on her thumb-nail with an emery
board. Martin asked if there were any messages and she said "No sir, none yet," so he
proceeded through to his own office without pause.

Martin had already stepped into his office, closed the door and hung up his suit
coat before he realized there was someone else in his office with him. In his reclining
chair, behind his desk, sat a stranger wearing a trench coat buttoned up to the throat, a
gray, wide-brimmed felt hat and dark glasses.

"Who --" Martin began to say, but then he saw it wasn't a stranger after all -- he
should've placed the lips immediately. "Jessica," he said.

Jessica removed the hat and dark glasses. She shook her head and wild, gold
waterfall, her hair tumbled around her shoulders. "Hi, lover," she said.

"What're you doing here?"

She put a finger to her lips, "Shh, not so loud. Someone will hear."

So he whispered his question, "What are you doing here?"

She stood, crossed the distance between them with three graceful steps. Martin
saw that beneath the hem-line of the coat she wore, her calves were bare, and further
down her lovely, smooth legs, he saw there were tufts of wine-colored carpet sticking
up between her bare toes. Putting her arms around his waist and leaning inwards to
kiss his neck, she said, "You know I get so lonely when you're not around." And she
kissed him again. A soft, warm, open-mouthed kiss planted delicately on his throat like
a blossom. Martin shivered; goosebumps came to his arms.

"I've got work to do," he said quietly, without conviction.

"You mean you're too busy for me?" she asked. Her voice was a mixture of
wonder, playfulness and dismay. Another kiss.

"Well," Martin closed his eyes, Jessica's affections having robbed him of his will and
desire to say no.

"Haven't you got time for me?"

Martin could feel Jessica's fingers at his belt.

"But," he started to say.

"I promise this wont take long at all," Jessica whispered in between kisses. Martin
felt the pressure of the belt around his waist release, heard the stealthy buzz of his
zipper like a short-lived mosquito. And then her hands were on him, and his will was
thoroughly dissolved, and all he wanted was her.

"But what if someone comes in?" he barely managed to finish saying.

Instead of answering him, Jessica backed him across the room, step by step, until
he was up against the door to his office, barring any unexpected entrance with his body.

Jessica's mouth was still on his neck, but now she began to loosen his tie and
unbutton his shirt, abandoning her work in his pants, satisfied with his response. As
each button came undone her kisses progressed further and further down his body.
When finally his shirt was parted she was down on her knees before him. She took his
pants and boxer shorts down... he sprang up... and she took him into her mouth. Her
hands caressed the backs of his thighs, his buttocks. He was shivering, his body
rocking with tiny tremors of pleasure. He began to slide down the door, and she
moved with him.

"Stop," Martin said weakly. He really didn't want her to stop, but he was going to
explode if she didn't, and an orgasm was always better when delayed for as long as
possible -- and even if that wasn't always necessarily so, he thought it was. And
besides, Jessica would be disappointed, him climaxing from less than a minute of felatio.
"Stop," he said again.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh no," he gasped. "No."

"Then what do you want?"

He gestured for her to come hither with a curling index finger.

"Wait," she said. She stood up before him then and began to unbutton her coat.
When she had undone the top four buttons, she shrugged and the coat slipped off her
shoulders and slid down her body to a puddle at her ankles. She was clad in a red
satin and lace "bedroom mood" ensemble that gave an elusive glimpse of all her
erogenous zones through a curtain of sheer, transparent white with embroidered
flowers.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I love it," Martin said. He stood up, slipped off his shoes so he could pull his feet
free from his pants and shorts, and crossed over to her. "I'm even more intrigued to
see what you've got on underneath it though."

"Silly boy, I haven't got anything on underneath this."

"I know."

He slipped the red-ribbon straps down off her shoulders.

* * *

Jessica left the office half an hour later, once again clad in her hat, dark glasses and
long coat. As she walked past Martin's secretary, Mrs. Nash, she was asked, "Was he
surprised?"

"Shocked to death," said Jessica. She was almost to the hall door when she
seemed to suddenly think of something. She turned back to face Mrs. Nash. "Give
him a few minutes of privacy so he can get himself presentable again," she said. Then
Jessica left.

* * *

Now Mrs. Nash was not one of the women who had achieved her position through
the careful doling out of sexual favors. She was secretary to the president on the merit
of her secretarial skills and nothing else. She was an attractive young woman, but that
was just a fringe benefit to her employer; she made it known to all that she was a
married woman who would never even so much as contemplate unfaithfulness... except
maybe through the course of reading a romance novel.

She read the kind of romance stories where the characters not only think of love,
and the joy of being in love, but make love, for as many pages as possible whenever
given half the opportunity. Stories by Penny Jordan and Jackie Collins. Mrs. Nash
conducted all her secret affairs between the pages of such stories, many times flushed
with the thoughts that her graphically accurate imagination could provide her with.

So it was that Elaine Nash sat behind her desk after Jessica's departure, fantasizing
about what it would be like to have a lover surprise her at work. How romantic! she
thought. In her mind's eye she conjured up a man with the upper body of a
Chippendale's dancer sweeping her desk clear with one smooth, muscular gesture, and
laying her down on it with her legs spread, and his...

And about that time it occurred to her that Mr. Luckhurst was taking an unusually
long time to get his pants back on.

She buzzed his office, "Mr. Luckhurst?"

No answer.

Figuring on a simple answer to explain his lack of a reply, she waited another half a
minute and then tried again. Still no answer. She walked over to his door and rapped
on it -- three quick taps, and called out, "Mr. Luckhurst?!" but again time passed with
no response.

Treading the line somewhere between curiosity and concern, she opened the door.
Mr. Luckhurst was spread-eagled, naked on the floor. He made no move to conceal
himself as Elaine entered. He didn't even blink, he just laid there gazing euphorically at
the ceiling, a smile a mile wide stretched across his face.

Her worry now grown to obscure her curiosity, she rushed forward. She could see
no sign of respiration. Thoughts of her high school first-aid and CPR training ran
through her mind. She knelt by his side, consciously averting her gaze from his
nakedness; focusing on his face. She felt along his wrist hoping to detect a pulse, but
his veins and arteries were stone still.

"Oh, my God." She took a deep, cleansing breath; forced herself to calm down.

"First things first," she said. somehow the sound of her own voice was a very
reassuring thing. "I should make sure his airways are clear." That sounded good.

She took hold of the back of his head and his chin and tilted his head back and to
the side. There was a crackling sound. A dry crunch -- a boot on gravel, a mouthful of
potato chips.

Spreading across Mr. Luckhurst's throat was a line, a black crack in his skin. As
Elaine watched, she saw the crack widen and the edges crumble inward; and the crack
kept getting longer, now branching out, now snaking downward across his neck and
shoulders, and always expanding.

And Elaine sat, terrified yet hypnotized by the sight of the rapid decay of her boss.
She could now see new cracks starting, at his armpits and at the joints of his fingers.
He was crumbling like a cookie.

At length she stood, went to her desk, and dialed 9-1-1. She never did scream
until the paramedics arrived; when the medics tried to hoist Mr. Luckhurst's body into
the stretcher for transport and his head and legs, below the knee, broke free of the rest
of his body. They finally got his brittle, dried body out in seven pieces.

Elaine had screamed then, and then one other time, after the medics had already
left, when she found a piece of Mr. Luckhurst that they had missed and forgotten. At
first she thought it was a finger -- but it wasn't.

* * *

The security guards on staff at NCT scoured the building from top to bottom but
never did turn up a woman fitting the description of Jessica Craft. They did find one
woman, approximately the same height, wearing a long dark coat, but that was where
the similarities ended. The woman they found was heavy-set and had short, curly dark
hair. A scan of the people seen exiting the building, as recorded by the security
cameras, also proved to be a fruitless procedure.

The chief of in-building security was over-heard saying it would take an act of the
supernatural to escape the building completely undetected. That was as close as
anyone ever got to understanding the nature of Jessica Craft.

* * *

She was known by many names, and many faces, not all, but certainly most of
them, the names and faces of women. Amanda Rosenthorpe, Christina Sellars, Kelsea
Vilander, Rebecca Moore, Diana Culfeld -- they were really all the same person.
James Calmer, Richard Paliser, Dominick Mennington, more of the same.

Some cultures thought of her in terms of a supernatural parasite. Some cultures
thought of her as a vampire. She preferred to be called a succubus, but by one name
or another it was all the same: she was a leech that sucked life.

Way back, in the beginning, so to speak, it had been a matter of quantity for her. It
was a challenge to see how many people she (or he) could kill in a week... a day... an
hour...

But with eternity spread out before her, it became, quickly, with the realization of
how mundane the business of death was, an issue more of style. She decided to try it
different ways. She killed in front of witnesses; she killed in horrible, dramatic fashion;
then she became interested in different kinds of victims. She sought out, for a while,
only the especially powerful or famous or righteous.

She had gone through one phase, now nearly six centuries past, when she had
taken to completely draining her victims' bodies of blood. It had been somewhat of a
thrill for her to see all the terror she could inspire in mortals by creating such varied
methods of demise.

Now, style had almost become pass�. Of increasing importance to her now was
craftsmanship. The hunt, the seduction, the relationship, the manipulation, all elements
of her new and deadly game. Her favorite weapon as of late was the orgasm. To see
her victim ecstatically and joyously cross through into her master's realm, all the while
thrashing in the heat of passion -- it never failed to bring a smile to her face. Not that
she ever derived any physical pleasure from it. Being a powerful spirit entity, matters of
the flesh meant nothing to her.

She would've liked to have sustained the relationship with Martin for at least
another month, maybe two -- maybe even going through with that marriage thing. That
would've been new... different if not exciting. But her preferences were insignificant
when compared to the desires of her master.

When Death talks even E.F. Hutton listens.

And Death had spoken to her.

Death had given her a name and a mission.

The name was Greggory Clefferts. The mission was to take the life force he had so
cleverly sealed up inside himself away from him. Take his life away and bring him face
to face with inescapable destiny.

It was the first time she had ever been called. It was the first time she'd ever been
assigned a specific task. Up until now she'd just done as she pleased, never expecting
there to be a time when she would take orders directly from Him, the Big Man himself.
She'd always just thought she would go on; loose cannon, freelance. Now she had a
job.

So she tied up her loose end, leaving Martin Luckhurst behind just as she had
countless thousands of others, and set out looking for Greggory Clefferts. She had no
particular idea who he was or where to find him, but she had a strange, confident notion
that he would simply turn up sooner or later if she kept her eyes open.

So she picked a new name.

And picked a new face...

Just like magic.

Then she flagged down a cab right outside the main doors of the NCT building.
She was pulling on the handle to open the back door when a security guard happened
by and asked her if she'd seen an attractive blond woman with a long dark coat and
sunglasses leaving the building.

She said, "There are a lot of people in the city, man. It would take more memory
than I have to remember them all."