Strange Epiphanies

Chapter One

She had escaped. Lydia paused in the dark alley, having just left the hidden doorway that was a back way into Baal's, no, Lorelei's palace in her former realm. She still couldn't believe she'd found it and it was due to her nemesis, Lorelei. A look of chagrin crossed her features as she realized the other succubus, whom she despised to all that was unholy, was in fact the one most responsible for her being freed from her century long sentence in Hell.

She'd been sentenced at the hands of that insufferable snot Vincent after being captured by that absolutely insane angel Rachel. Lydia had endured countless torments and indignities at the hands of her fellow demons in Belial's realm. And

he

, that Duke Bastard of Hell had let them! Encouraged and incited them as an "initiation" into his realm since her and Lorelei's former master had gotten his stupid life taken by that callow stripling, Alex Carlisle in that confrontation in Baal's realm.

Lydia's temper rose volcanically at the memory of the events that had led her to degradation and humiliation...she, who had brought so many lost souls to weigh on their side of The Balance! She'd been brought so low, and the way they'd used her body and mind...even now she couldn't stand to think of how many she'd been forced to take on and in multiples...and worse, forced to like it, to scream in rapture even as her mind shrieked in horror. Now that she was free she would visit such vengeance upon those...

...She stopped short. Free. She was free.

She was free!

She had no master, no obligation, no hellish consequence if she did not bring the damned to their final destination. She froze, feeling vulnerable and...and weak. She also had no purpose. With all her power, she knew she could wreak untold havoc in the mortal world, but with no compulsion to do so, she felt...adrift.

She still had the chunk of Baal's Iron Crown that Lorelei had melted and shattered in her battle with Azazel. There would be none likely to challenge her stay among the mortals. More chagrin tugged at her mind as she realized she would have to find shelter from both the Pit and the Hosts amongst the rabble of her former victims. The piece of the crown should be able to keep her powers from waning here but she did not know. How was she to function?

Her thoughts turned over her possibilities for success here in Seattle and beyond. She knew she couldn't stay here, Rachel would be on a rampage to dwarf the vigilance with which she'd cleared her Dominion previously and to find Lydia untethered here? She shuddered at the prospect, iron talisman or not. She would have to figure out a way to survive without raising suspicions. She knew she would not be able to contact her former allies...Rachel, Lorelei, Alex and those damned witches had seen to that. Not to mention those mortal cretin friends of his. Oh, that memory rankled.

But still, and another insult she'd endured from her fellow succubus came to mind, she did feel lighter now that she wasn't bound to any lord of The Pit.

Not

a whole cow as Lorelei had intimated, but definitely without the weight of so much oppression and obligation. The feeling was...delicious. Her mind began to run riot with the things she might do with her new-found freedom but then she reined herself in as she moved down the alley. She had to protect that freedom first and foremost. So...she would have to find a first victim. Luckily, she didn't have to go far. She found him at the end of the alley.

Chapter Two

Burton O'Hara pulled on the cigarette someone had given him that morning in lieu of money. Cheap bastard. Well at least it gave him something to do with his mouth besides cursing his lot in life. He dragged a last inhale from the butt before dropping it on the ground and grinding it under his foot. As he made to move off towards the

Subway

on the corner, a soft hand landed on his shoulder.

"What?!" He exclaimed.

A sultry voice admonished him, "You really shouldn't smoke those. They'll be the death of you." Lydia turned the vagabond easily towards her. She recoiled slightly at his stench but focused on him nonetheless. "You will help me."

"Uh, uh yeah, sure lady...ma'am." Burton had never seen a more beautiful woman in all his days and he'd seen a lot. It didn't matter that her clothes seemed as raggedy as his or that she looked disheveled as though she'd run from trouble. Suddenly he wanted to protect her at all costs and...and, Christ Almighty he wanted her like he hadn't wanted anyone since Maddy died. He stood looking at her, waiting for her to speak.

"I need shelter and money. You will get them for me."

Burton threw back his head and laughed, not noting the peeved anger that suddenly crossed the woman's features. "Boy, Missy, wouldn't we all like to have some of that!" he chortled. Wiping his eyes, he huffed out, "I ain't seen a dollar since last Tuesday, ma'am and if I still had it I'd sure give it to you." He dissolved into a fit of coughing, before he continued, "They won't let me in there, but if you tell 'em you're in trouble, they'll help you...." He pointed at a small storefront that had a banner strung over the door that proclaimed "Strength Through Diversity" and under it a number, 2030. "They help women in trouble, there, ma'am."

Lydia followed his arm point and then turned to look at Burton. She pulled him close and whispered. "You will forget me and forget this. But I will remember you helped me."

She pressed her mouth onto his and drank deeply of the desire that sparked through him at her touch. He stank of the cigarette but she did not care and drew out the kiss long enough to send a revitalizing bolt through him. He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply before letting go. Lydia blinked, as did Burton, strange changes going through the succubus and her prey. His eyes cleared, he straightened and took her hand boldly.

"I'll take you there," he said gruffly, leading her on the short one block walk. She let him, still marveling at how she'd taken from him and yet seemed to have given in return. They crossed the street. and stood awkwardly at the entrance to the women's shelter. "I don't know why, but I want to thank you, ma'am." He began. "I don't know what just happened, but it's like you've made me see things clearer than I have in years. Thank you, thank you...." he trailed off shaking her hand. "Right in there. You go on now." He urged, then turned and walked off back the way they'd come.

He mumbled, talking to himself and she caught the name "Maddy" and "go to my daughter's house..." before he slipped away from even her keen ears. So strange. In all her centuries of walking the Earth she had never let prey go to anything but their deaths. But she had helped this one as he had her. So strange.

Lydia pushed through the glass door as a redheaded young woman looked up from her place behind the counter. First checking the street outside warily, then bringing her eyes back to Lydia, she gave the disheveled succubus a quick practiced assessment and asked immediately, "Is he following you?"

Lydia blinked. "Who...the man I was with?" The young woman nodded. "No... he just brought me here. He said you help women," and Lydia's teeth gritted on her next words, "in trouble." She stepped closer. "I am in a great deal of trouble," she dropped her voice to the seductive whisper she'd used so often to turn her prey's wills to her own. "I need shelter, a place to hide, until I can leave this city." She was tempted to command as she had with the apparently homeless man, but then swallowed her pride and asked, "Can you help me?"

Karen Bixby regarded the blond woman before her carefully before speaking. She was a looker all right; had Karen not been happily married to the love of her life, Mia, she might have...no, she would have sought to get to know the alluring beauty standing before her better. So much better. She even felt a tingle sneak down through her core along with a jolt of surprise. Her radar instantly went on high alert as she felt that there was something going on with this woman that she neither understood nor liked. She hesitated a moment, before her training took over, wondering at the same time if she shouldn't trust her gut instincts and tell this woman she would have to seek help elsewhere.

The next moment her apprehension dissipated and she was left wondering what she had been thinking. This woman had asked for help and that was her mission, her calling. Karen smiled warmly, then gathered her tablet, a clipboard, forms and a pen and motioned for Lydia to follow her through a curtain covered doorway. Gesturing to a table with chairs she said, "You'll have to fill out these forms for us, mainly so we'll have information for other agencies. Do you have any identification? I noticed you don't have a purse...." Karen trailed off as Lydia returned her gaze with incredulity that soon morphed to desperate entreaty.

"Please...no. I can't give you that. I-I... he...he'll find me, I know he will," Lydia lied to cover up the fact that she would not know what to put down on the forms...she certainly hadn't re-established a residence and cover and to seek out her old haunts would be folly. "I-I just need to leave the city. Is there a way you can help me?" She grasped Karen's hand and concentrated on the young woman who stiffened then relaxed in her grip as the succubus trained all her powers of persuasion on her now pliant prey. "I need transportation out of this city, perhaps down the coast. Los Angeles should be fine."

Karen stared at Lydia with surprise bordering on incredulity. Los Angeles? Did she know what she was asking? She opened her mouth to say such an expense might tax the modest bank account Noel House had to work with, but Lydia's look of desperation gave Karen no choice but to relent. "You'll need identification to even get through the screening lines at Sea-Tac," she said gently. "How will you do that?"

It was if she had already acquiesced to Lydia's needs and stood ready to help. Lydia returned the young woman's steady compassionate gaze and felt more shifts in her centuries long embrace of evil and the machinations of The Pit. Strange new thoughts surged unbidden to the forefront of her mind, questioning the ways she had always connived and manipulated and rendered forfeit the soul of nearly every mortal she had ever encountered.

"I-I wouldn't have to...to fly, would I? I," and she shuddered at the thought, "I could take a bus. Couldn't I?"

Karen brightened. "You could. It would be much cheaper, although longer. How would you eat? That's almost thirty hours of travel time versus about three. Oh, honey, you'd need an I.D. for that too." Both Lydia and Karen's faces fell as Karen pulled information about bus fares and regulations from the internet with her tablet. "Uber? Lyft? I don't think either of those services cross state lines. I don't want to even think about renting a car..." She peered at Lydia, "Do you even have a license?"

Lydia flushed uncharacteristically. "No." she said an edge creeping into her voice. Typically, the mortals she targeted had taken care of all those sordid little details. She couldn't very well say her last foray in to Seattle had ended in disaster. Again, anger surged through her at the thoughts of her capture at the hands of those snotty friends of that mortal Lorelei had bonded with.

But again, the strange path she'd found to freedom from The Pit and the oppression of some Duke of Hell wormed its way past her ire. Had they not, she would still be under some demon-lord's thumb. Foot. Cock. Whatever. So that sniveling little...she shook herself mentally and tried to concentrate on what Karen was saying....

"Can you at least tell me your name?" Karen broke in on Lydia's reverie.

"It's...it's Lydia." the succubus admitted.

Karen waited for more but when nothing else seemed to be forthcoming she rolled her lips inward and went lost in thought as the disheveled but Hollywood level beauty sat, seemingly dejected at the table. "Well," she finally mused. "I could take you home with me after my shift is done here. Do you want to wait?"

Lydia nodded.

Chapter Three

Agent Doug Bridger seethed silently. For a month he'd felt out of the loop, all but ignored by Special Agent Nguyen and Agent Maddox after the latest big blow-up with Alex and the witches and...and Lorelei. He closed his eyes and saw her again, her lithe form handcuffed, writhing on his lap,

on his cock

!

Her eyes drinking in his soul as a feral grin played across her lips leaving no doubt as to who was in charge. And she'd left him in a heap, unconscious,

snoring for Christ's sake

!

...

to be discovered by his fellow agent and the kids who knew way the fuck more about the supernatural than he, he quietly acknowledged, had ever been able to wrap his head around.

Colleen...excuse me...

Special Agent in Charge Colleen Nguyen

...had the two witches, Molly and the goth chick...Onyx

,

yeah,

Onyx for fuck's sake

...to call on whenever there was supernatural or occult information she needed on a case, expertise that Doug used to provide. He couldn't even be upset with the two serious and seriously hot,

stop right there Douglas Bridger,

he admonished himself...young witches because they never failed to give him pointers or advice, however snarky at times, on how the supernatural

really

worked, and the background for all the things they showed him about their Practices. At the same time, he was out of his element and he knew it. How did a grad student in astronomy feel like talking to Dr. Hawking? Probably better than he did, Doug admitted to himself, talking occult things...god, did he still think of that world as filled with

things?

Maybe that was most of his problem. Molly had bluntly told him as much. The redhead had blazed at him after he'd made some dumb remark about being fascinated with the rituals and the power he could wield with them but still not believing that it all had that much effect on the real

world. "This IS the real fucking world!" She'd snapped at him when they were working together on the case with the wanna-be Satanists in San Diego who'd called a demon and then ran like rabbits when they'd lost control of the ghastly beast they'd unleashed down near the border. Luckily, it had been out in the desert and no one had gotten killed, for all that some of those stupid idiots would bear scars for life. Well, better to lose a leg or an arm or two than your life. Why couldn't all the cases be more like George-the-wanna-be-

la Chupacabra

?

Well, maybe not, since that had been about the time everything had gone to shit up in Seattle all over again. On top of that, their task force had been forced to relinquish the case to the normal channels as all those kids had been

human.

Not a supernatural in their midst. And being rich hadn't hurt either, so the whole case had turned into another shitshow that got covered up by Daddy's money. He shook his head.

That

, right there was the

real

, real world, no matter what Molly and Onyx thought. For that matter it applied to Lorelei and Alex and his friends too. Nguyen had said to overlook just

how

Lorelei managed her finances, but Bridger didn't entertain any illusions there, either. He knew it wasn't by exactly legitimate means but her value as an asset was too high to go strictly by the book over.

Assets...

Ass-

ets

.

He found himself guffawing over his inability to get the raven-haired succubus out of his thoughts for even an hour or two at a time. That fucking Alex. He shook his head again, inwardly groaning at himself for feeling and acting like some jealous suitor to the Homecoming Queen. But still...who could forget someone like Lorelei? He looked up as Colleen Nguyen poked her head in his door.

"Everything all right, Doug?" she inquired. "There's something I want you to look into. I need information on what is going on down on Hollywood Boulevard. Rumor has it that all the old pimps have been getting busted on set-ups, but none that LAPD Vice has any hand in except collecting them after being caught with their pants down. Rumor also has it," she fixed him with a pointed look, "that there's a new player in town who's taken over and that the new "madam" if you will, is running the girls with a much more even hand. So much so that there's grumbling in the sex traffic underground. Rumors that this new

player

can sweetheart every, yes, I said

every

deal she's making with the bosses who run those streets." Colleen paused.

"Oh, did I mention that this new player is supposed to be

the finest piece of ass I ever seen, she just brushed me with her hand and I got sucked into those green eyes. And that blonde hair? I wanted to wrap it around my dick like a blanket. I wanted to fuck that bitch so bad it made my teeth fuckin' hurt, man..."

Colleen quoted an excerpt from an interview she must have reread more than a few times to have it flow out like some rap verse.

"Tell me Doug. Does that sound like anybody we know?"

Chapter Four

Lydia walked down the cacophony that was Hollywood Boulevard, marveling again in the changes freedom had wrought in her circumstances. She pulled the long coat tighter around her, noting it still didn't seem to help with the open stares and lust drenched catcalls she received from both local denizens of Los Angeles and tourists alike. She never minded them, she was after all, a creature of lust. But her passions were channeled in ways she could not conceive of even a bare month ago.

Karen and Mia had both driven her down the long trip from Seattle to Los Angeles, much of it spent meandering about the venerable Pacific Coast Highway. The two young women had proved to be amiable travelling companions, especially at night when it had only taken the second night of hearing their furtive groping on the other bed to draw Lydia from hers and into theirs, first to startled surprise, and then to breathy moans and later on much quiet shrieking. She'd worked her magic on their bodies, firming, lifting smoothing various areas until they both would gape every time they saw themselves or each other in mirrors.

They questioned her relentlessly but Lydia told them both it would be better for all if they did not know and just consider their new bodies as gifts. She also brought other powers into play, teasing, touching, exploring them both until they were invariably left slack-jawed and sated well into the morning hours at each bed and breakfast they'd stayed at. Karen had furrowed her brow at Lydia's effortless way of securing the best of these accommodations at little or no cost, but the hosts invariably waved away her offers to pay. Lydia had always been amused at the younger woman's fruitless attempts to pay her and her wife's way and would punish her at night by taking Karen to the edge of insane levels of pleasure only to pull her back from the precipice over and over, often with Mia's wicked participation. Soon enough, Karen had shaken her head and just opened herself to the enjoyment.

Lydia smiled as she passed under the long vertical sign that spelled out "CHINESE" in pseudo Asian lettering on her way towards the corner of North Highland. She approached a small group of provocatively dressed young women, gathered around a good looking goateed man in blue jeans, a white pocket t-shirt and a dark blue ball cap with "LA" embroidered on the front. The women didn't seem distressed or fearful, but it was clearly evident that they had a problem with him. He did not appear threatening, if anything he seemed to be trying to reassure the young ladies of the night.

Lydia, of course, knew exactly which profession they plied on this bright and garish ode to mortal dreams of fame and fortune. She had taken them quickly under her wing once she had determined that Hollywood Boulevard would be the best place for her to make her way in this city. She could have gone into the employ of any of the upscale escort services and quickly taken over any or all of them, but those women did not need her help.

Her

help. The young streetwalkers had most certainly needed the advice and enhancements that only a demon of Lydia's experience could provide. That she did it willingly without any expectation from her new charges had played strangely in her head. Most shocking had been the realization of how good it felt to do so. The charity left no bitter taste in her mouth as she'd feared it would.