Falling Snow

There are few things in life more terrifying than a woman's wrath. Not the quick spark of anger found in the passion of the moment but the slow boiling furor of a woman invested in her anger. Tom knew this better than most and for all the wrong reasons. Mortal women didn't have shit on a succubus's wrath. Not that Shyira's anger was directed at him, per se, because it wasn't. It was that her anger had a presence all its own, a roaring bonfire of intensity. Just being in the same room as that passion meant getting singed by the heat.

The succubus standing in front of him was naked. This was not something that was unusual in the slightest. Shyira tended to view clothing as a hindrance and went without most of the time. If she had her way, Tom would go without as well. Today, Tom had no desire to get naked with Shyira, only a fool would look upon her as anything but a cornered predator looking for an avenue of attack. Her hip was cocked to the side in an irritated manner. Her tail, which could normally be seen lazily swaying in her wake, was stiff with the tension in the room. Anyone but Tom would have been terrified at the look she was shooting him. Even he considered his own confidence to be idiotic, bordering on insane.

"Why not?" Shyira said, an edge to her voice.

"You honestly think it's necessary?"

It seemed like they had been rehashing the same argument for weeks. Shyira wanted him to do something, Tom was dead set against it.

"Yes."

"I don't see why."

"There are many things lurking in the darkness, Master. You must be able to defend yourself."

"That's why I have you, I don't need combat lessons."

"I won't always be there to help you and besides, warlocks are supposed to be ruthless." She stomped her foot as she spoke, an incredibly cute gesture under different circumstances. "How will you exterminate your enemies if you can't fight?"

"E-Exterminate," he sputtered. "Who said anything about that?"

"Ruthlessness, strength, a determined will; these are the hallmarks of warlocks everywhere."

"Well not this one," he said.

He was getting ready for class as they spoke. He found himself zipping up his bag with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

"I know violence isn't in your nature. I'm not asking you to start killing people left and right. Bu-"

"Good."

"But," she continued with more force, "violence

is

in the nature of other warlocks. Now that you've tapped into your powers it's only a matter of time until you bump into one."

"Why would they want to mess with me? I'm a nobody."

Shyira was quiet for a moment. "Oh baby warlock, you have no idea how wrong that statement is."

"Ya, sure," he said dismissively.

Shyira smiled a sweet confident smile. "You'll see soon enough."

Tom was tying his shoes and didn't catch her last statement.

"You're overacting, there's nobody coming after me. I'm just a student at a mediocre state college."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Look, I've got to get to class." Tom grabbed his bag and started walking out of the door.

"Tom," she called after him.

"Talk later?" He said, without looking back.

"Master," she said, "at least think about it."

She could already hear him walking down the hallway towards the staircase. Shyira pondered the empty doorway her master had just departed through.

"Oh baby warlock, what am I going to do with you?"

****

"Someone fucking shoot me," Tom murmured.

Tom sat in a lecture hall, bored out of his mind. The same lecture hall used for his summoning lesson weeks before. Only now it was filled to the brim with students. He was trying unsuccessfully to daydream, his eyes having long since left the old, tweed coat wearing man in front of him.

He almost wished he was sitting in an economics class, listening to the monotone recitation of facts from someone competent at their job. At least then he would be learning something. Instead, he was treated to the nasally, overexcited voice of a man who had no business shaping young minds.

The seats of the lecture hall jutted out from the stage, like spokes on a wagon wheel. Tom's seat was positioned at the far end of the semi-circle of seats. It afforded him a perfect view of his peers in the seats in front and to the side of him. From his vantage point, it was clear that most of the students were as bored as Tom. The notable exceptions were the students hanging on the professor's every word. They had the glazed over look you only find on college campuses and cult compounds.

True believers.

Faced with another quarter of an hour of mind-numbing boredom, Tom went looking for something else to do. He fell back on an old hobby of his, people watching. It was Tom's view that college campuses represented some of the best people watching around. Nowhere else could you find such a tangled, diverse web of cultures and nationalities. Languages and social norms clashed and comingled, creating new and wonderful things in the process. It was like watching a volcano spew lava into the ocean waves—a force of chaos and destruction creating something new and exciting right in front of his eyes.

The true believers aside, Tom saw a number of people all doing things related to the same central theme, boredom. A few were obviously having better luck at daydream than him, or they simply found the wall of the classroom incredibly interesting. The artists drew in the margins of their notebooks. A gaggle of foreign exchange students was, not so subtly, studying for a much harder class than this one. He saw the spray tanned popular girls eagerly tapping away at their phones, their minds already on tonight's social function. A perfect cross section of a run of the mill state college, he thought.

It was then that something interesting finally caught his eye.

In the back row, Tom caught sight of a flurry of unkempt brown hair framing a pair of thick glasses. The girl must have been looking in his direction because she caught his eye almost immediately. The look on her face said she knew exactly what he was doing and didn't appreciate it. Busted, Tom thought. He smiled awkwardly, trying to defuse the sudden tension that radiated from the girl. She only scolded in return. She looked at him before rising and walking out of the room. She had no backpack to be seen.

Why isn't the professor telling her off for walking out early?

Looking back to the podium, Tom could see that the professor hadn't noticed her abrupt exit. Odd, he wasn't the type to allow a poor, innocent student escape today's sermon. If walking out was that easy he would have already left himself.

Looking in the direction of the departed girl Tom managed to catch the eye of another girl. She was the polar opposite of her departed peer. Where the other girl's hair was tangled mess and fell to her shoulders, this girl's hair was short, held tight to head in a tomboy sort of way. It was also bright pink and a deep, blood red. Very few girls could pull that short of look off without coming off as masculine, even with her bright colored hair. She was one of them.

She had a runner's build. All tight muscle stretched over a thin frame. With a chest that was on the larger size for her body type, although she still didn't hold a candle to Shyira's ample bust. She was slouching in her seat. Her ass was almost hanging off the edge of the plastic chair and what an ass it was. Strong thighs helped frame what could only be described as the perfect bubble butt. Large and heart shaped, it was barely contained by the short skirt surrounding it.

She caught him looking. She gave him a small smile filled with a look Tom couldn't quite place. Reaching down, she hooked a finger on the edge of her skirt and began slowly drawing it up her powerful thighs. At the same time, she started to spread her legs in an inviting manner. She stopped right before Tom could get a good look at what lay beneath her skirt. It left him with only the suggestion of red material hidden in the shadows between her legs.

"Fuck me." Tom breathed.

The girls smile grew larger. She couldn't have heard that, Tom thought.

It said something about Tom that his first instinct at seeing the girl's smile was to look at the seat behind him, fully expecting to see someone better looking staring back at her. Except there was no one in the seat behind him. There was no one to either side of him either. He was the person she was staring at with such intensity.

With her hand now resting between her legs she closed her thighs, rubbing them together. A soft moan escaped her mouth. Her tongue circled her lips, wetting them. She reached up with her other hand and ran a finger down the length of her mouth, causing her lips to part.

Tom's breath quickened. She continued running her fingers down the length of her throat until her hand disappeared into her loose blouse. The whole time she never broke eye contact with him.

Tom was snapped out of his own little world as the professor dismissed the class. All around him students began to rise and collect their things. He lost sight of the girl as students shuffled out of the room. When he finally got another look at her chair, she was gone. Tom's eyes darted around the room looking for her. He caught a flash of her short skirt and long bare legs out of the corner of his eye. He made a beeline for the door she had just passed through.

He half ran out of the class.

As he passed through the doorway his vision was suddenly obscured by a sea of brown hair. He was so focused on looking for the her that he bumped straight into the girl from the back row. From this distance he got a much better look at her. She had a tangled mat of brown hair that framed thick black glasses. She was the type of girl that a guy like Biff would never give a second glance and yet Tom looked beyond the obvious. The extreme prescription of her glasses gave him a perfect look at her soft hazel eyes. She had the type of girl next door face that screamed cute, without jumping the line into hot. Her sweater and pants did a good job of covering her figure, but he still got the feeling she had the body to go with the face. In short, she was his type.

"Excuse me. I didn't see you there," Tom said, suddenly nervous.

"I know. I'd be careful if I were you, you might run into trouble," she said in a serious tone.

"Ya I'm sorry. I'll pay more attention to where I'm walking next time."

"That's not what I was talking about." The girl walked away without giving Tom a second glance.

"I'm Tom by the way," he yelled after her.

"I know," she called back.

Now what the hell was that about?

Remembering why he ran out of class in the first place, Tom swept his eyes over the crowd. He hoped to still catch sight of her brightly colored hair in the sea of students. His search turned up nothing. She was already long gone by now. Disappointed, he turned and headed home.

****

Tom was lying in bed shirtless when Shyira walked in the room. He was playing video games, trying to unwind from an unexpectedly exciting morning. A slow smile formed on Shyira's face at the sight of Tom lying on her favorite piece of furniture.

She walked over to him while seductively swaying her hips. With every step, she put a little too much force onto her heel, causing her breasts to jiggle as she walked. She made sure to show off her long pale legs as she did. Her clothing vanished along with the glamour surrounding her demonic features. Pale horns jutted out of hair the color of soft snow. Vast leathery wings jutted out of her back. It was amazing how quickly he had grown used to the faint smell of brimstone that always accompanied Shyira's magic. She went from sorority princess to snow white demon in an instant.

Tom grew more aroused with every step she took. Shyira always had this effect on him. She could make him hard from across the room with only a look and a wink.

When she was only a few feet from the bed she abruptly stopped. Her nostrils flared as her senses caught something in the air.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. In a moment, her entire posture changed. Tom could almost see the steel form as her muscles tensed. As fast as Tom could blink, Shyira went from Man's ultimate fantasy to the type of nightmarish predator songs of old used to be sung about. Not a word was spoken as she climbed on top of him and straddled his waist.

"Something interesting happened today." It was a statement, not a question.

"Y-Ya," Tom said nervously, "there was a girl in one of my classes." Actually a pair of girls but something told Tom it was better not to mention that little detail.

Her eyes ran down the length of his body. Yet her eyes seemed unfocused, like she was seeing more, something under the surface. He could almost hear the gears turning as she thought hard about something. Her eyes were glowing slightly, which was never a good sign. She seemed angry but her anger wasn't directed at him.

"You haven't fucked her yet."

Oh shit. She thinks I'm going to cheat on her.

"Shy, I would never-"

She put a finger to his lips, stopping whatever he was about to say.

"Hush, baby warlock." An amused smiled played on lips, "I'm your succubus, not your

mortal

girlfriend. I may get territorial but monogamy, as a concept, doesn't interest me. If you see a mortal girl you wish to ravish, tell me, I'll help."

"What then?"

The cold anger bubbling under the surface, resurfaced as Shyira's eyes clouded over in thought. She seemed to be on the verge of answering his question and then thought better of it. Her eyes refocused on him after a moment. She ran her hands affectionately up and down his chest. Her demeanor softened as she leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

Her expression was as unreadable as ever as she looked down on him. She was dead still a moment before her hands shifted into claws and plunged into his upper chest.

Tom was greeted, not with pain, but with icy cold, like the first frost of winter covering the last flower of fall. He could feel the cold encircling his heart as his skin went numb. His muscles spasmed. The rest of his body broke into a cold sweat. In the space of a couple of heartbeats, Tom found himself on the harsh edge of life and death. His breathing was shallow, as if his very lungs were turning to ice. If Shyira wished it, he would plunge into the dark depths of that cold and never resurface.

Tom looked at Shyira in shock. She only stared back at him, her expression as calm and collected as ever.

Tom's gaze was drawn to Shyira's arms. A dark, inky substance flowed down her arms, just underneath the skin. It stood in stark contrast to the milky white complexion of her forearms. He could feel her magic radiating off the substance. It pulsed, as if it had a mind of its own and was eager to get to him.

Tom felt it, even through his numbed skin, when the substance reached his chest. It sank into the very fiber of his musculature. It was almost boiling in comparison to his frozen chest. His skin tingled where ever it touched, as it thawed his frozen skin. Tom found that he could breathe again. He could feel the warmth as the substance rose to the surface of his skin in the form of dark tattoos. They covered the entirety of his chest, from neck to the bottom of his ribcage. From what he could see they consisted of a dizzying array of runes, symbols and equations. He wasn't familiar with the languages present and doubted anyone outside Hell was either.

Shyira pulled her claws from his flesh with a sickening pop. Tom could smell the faintly metallic smell of his own blood.

Just as quickly as she had climbed on top of him, she was gone. He felt her weight disappear as she got off of him. She was off the bed and walking back towards the door before Tom had time to register what had just happened.

Looking down he could see that his skin was whole again. Small pinpricks of blood were the only indication of where her clawed fingers had dug into his chest.

"What the fuck?" Tom said, exasperated.

"Hmm, nothing" she said innocently. "Don't you have class? You should get going before you're late, lazy bones." She flashed him a mischievous smile before walking out the room, as if nothing had happened.

Before his very eyes the black tattoos, marring his chest, began to fade. By the time they had stopped fading they were nearly indistinguishable from his normal skin tone.

Tom sat and stared at the empty doorway.

"Well," he said to the empty room, "that can't be good."

****

Tom stepped out of his apartment building a few minutes later to begin his walk to class.

It was a beautiful day. The harsh winds of winter had finally given way to calm seduction of a spring day. Everywhere Tom looked, life seemed to spring anew. The birds chirped, the flowers bloomed and the whole of campus seemed to be out and about. Couples lay sprawled on blankets in the common areas, laughing the day away. The various clubs were out in force looking for new members. Tom had to fight off a few people trying to hand him flyers. There was a youthful energy in the air, an uncertainty, like anything could happen. The weather was cool and calm. It was the very picture of a perfect spring day.

The heat would come soon, it always did. Spring and Fall were a welcome respite but they always passed in moment. It was the other two seasons that were the forces of nature that dominated the survival of humanity. It was winter that they barred their door against, huddled next to the fire to ward off winter's bite. It was summer they prayed to their deities for mercy from, desperate for enough rain and good weather to keep their crops from being scorched and burned underneath a summer's sky.

But not today. Today all seemed to be well in the mortal realm and none of this distracted Tom from what was consuming his thoughts.

Every time he thought he had Shyira figured out, she went and did something to throw him completely off balance again. Despite often referring to him as "Master," Tom was hardly the one calling the shots. She seemed to be the one shaping the direction of his destiny. He wasn't sure what he thought about that.

He had no idea what the incident in bed was about but one thing was clear—Shyira never did anything without a reason. She was up to something and Tom hadn't the slightest clue what it was.

The rest of Tom's walk was relatively uneventful, despite the familiar feeling of eyes watching him from a distance. Just like his time in the forest, he found pinpointing where the feeling was coming from almost impossible. There were to many people around him. Too many faces to search for recognition.

Tom's walk led him to the older parts of campus. Sleek buildings of steel gave way to the run-down masonry structures of decades past. Tom always got lost here. The layout of the streets made no logical sense. The whole area was a twisted mess that resembled more of a maze than a college campus. It made him wonder what the architects of the campus were thinking.

At last, Tom entered the particularly run down building where his lecture was being held. The building was a mess of peeling paint, grimy windows and the type of musty smell only found in older buildings. The state of repair of some of these buildings had always amazed him. He was spending a small fortune to be here, yet the university's facilities and educators left much to be desired.

Kind of like public school, he thought, only more expensive.

He was walking through a mostly deserted corridor when a door to his right opened. Hands shot out of the darkness and grabbed his arm in an iron grip. Tom found himself being pulled into a dimly lit bathroom. Before he had time to react the door was slammed behind him. He was shoved roughly against the opposite wall as a light switch was flipped on.