I looked down the darkened main street of Miltonvale Kansas at the end of a warm spring day and wondered if anyone back east had ever suspected my journey would bring me here.
It was a small town, off the beaten path, a few hundred residents and surrounded by farms. I half expected to see Clark Kent walk by.
I walked down the street, the sun had set hours ago and the quaint little stores that lined it were dark and lonely. It looked like the locals had rolled up the streets as soon as the sun had set so there was no one to be seen, nor did I expect to find anything tonight. I'd just arrived and my search would have to wait until morning.
Thinking back to when the council had "requested" I take the assignment, I wouldn't have expected to be here either. I didn't have much to do with the council, they saw little value in my services usually, but I guess they had run out of options and need to look like they were doing something and so here I was.
But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, I should go back and fill in some details for you before I get too far along in my story.
Twenty years ago, give or take a few months, Lilith, the queen of the Succubus escaped Hell and came to Earth. Her power had been fading for decades, having peaked in the 60's, AIDS in the 80's and 90's had put an end to much of the free love the she drew power from and she was desperate to change that.
Coming to Earth and dropping in to Richmond Virginia had caused quite a stir, both in the human world and the shadow world. For the human world, it was a few hours of unbridled passion as every fertile man and woman copulated non stop.
Well at least until Lucifer tracked Lilith down and dragged her back to Hell of course.
I'm still not sure which was more disturbing for the council, Lilith's little orgy or Lucifer walking the earth. Afterwards things went back to normal, Lucifer had no intention of interfering with mankind, apparently his plans were moving along just fine without any help. As for Richmond the mini baby boom raised a few eyebrows but no one could find any other ill effects and the children born 9 months later seemed healthy and normal.
That was at least until the first children of that night reached puberty. Then the council took notice.
Most of the children were just normal humans, but a few, those girls born to mothers who had accepted Lilith in to their hearts that night, had a gift.
They were unnaturally beautiful and each had an ability to induce a trance on to others. They weren't like Lilith, able to trance someone with just her voice, or eyes or just about any other body part. No the children were more limited. Their power was focused on just one part of their body. Some could use their eyes, others their lips, some their breasts and the options included just about any other body part you could imagine.
The first of them had been found using her power to become a pop star, her focus was her lips and she tranced her fans in to loyal obedience with her music and videos.
The council dispatched an enforcer to take care of her when they found out and once she had been removed from the public eye the investigation revealed the scope of the problem.
That was six years ago and since then the council had been tracking down each spawn from that night and checking them. There were just a few left, those that no one had been able to find thus far, and that was what had brought me to Miltonvale.
My own story is a sad tale of mediocrity and apathy. I was born in the human world to ordinary parents that had never heard of the shadow world. It wasn't until my own coming of age that I realized something was different.
I could see things others could not, feel things that no one else felt. It was only by accident that I bumped in to a mage and he recognized my talent.
Well, talent may be too strong of a term for it. You see few have a true talent for magic, mages, witches and the like wield the power and command respect throughout the shadow world. The few like myself, who can sense the talent but not actually wield it, well we're the gophers of the shadow world.
Able to do some the mundane work a mage would otherwise have to do but without any respect or power.
And that is why the council had handed me this assignment. They had spent enough of their time on the task and now it was time to push it down to those less qualified, in their mind at least, to handle it.
I really didn't mind though, getting a request from the council was almost an honor, if a backhanded one. And in this case there was no downside, they already expected me to fail. If I even found a little bit of new information it would be a success and if not, no one would blame me.
But if I got lucky, then there was a lot of upside. Coming back to the council with Lilith's offspring would bring a little fame and fortune my way. With a little good word of mouth I could increase my rates, more than making up for the time and effort spent on the request.
Of course I hadn't expected to be traveling half way across the country when I'd started out.
A trip down the coast to Richmond had led me to many of the same dead ends those before me had run in to. The child had been born a little premature but healthy, to a young girl ill prepared to raise her.
She'd tried to have an abortion, even scheduling the appointment but never turned up. When she was in the hospital delivery room, she was alone. She didn't know who had impregnated her, his name and face lost in the haze of Lilith's powerful presence that night. Her parents had died years before and she lived alone, working three jobs to try and make ends meet.
She'd signed the adoption papers a few days prior and had refused to even look at her child before she was taken back to recovery and that was the last record he had to work with.
Other's had tried to get the details from the adoption service, but using magic on humans was frowned upon and so they had little choice to be return with nothing to show for it.
Perhaps it was fortuitous then that the task had finally come to someone like me, someone still aware of my own limits. I'd interviewed the adoption clinic staff but it wasn't until I found the retired secretary that I'd hit pay dirt.
Oh, at first she'd refused to tell me anything, but it didn't take long to notice the condition of her apartment or a dozen other little things that told me she was in financial trouble. After that it was a quick negotiation, which ended in a surprisingly low figure, to get the information I needed.
The child had been adopted by a couple from Baltimore and lived there for a few years until the mother's parents had started to have trouble maintaining the family farm. The three of them had moved to, you guessed it, Miltonvale to help run the farm.
The grandparents had passed a few years after that and then when the large corporation had offered a tidy sum to by the farm, they'd sold it and moved in to town.
And here's where Elise still lived, an offspring of Lilith living out her life in a small town in Kansas. I walked down the main street back towards my car to catch a few hours sleep before the town awoke and my real work started.
******
Elise stretched out in bed and rolled over, the bright rays of sun falling through her window and on to her face as she smiled.
Her perfectly white teeth sparkled as she let out a sigh and closed her eyes again for just a second before getting up and heading to the shower.
As she passed the mirror she checked her reflection, her thin frame, long legs and large breasts were the envy of the entire town and she knew it. She ran her hand through her long blonde hair and gave a half smirk, life was good.
A quick shower later she applied a little lipstick and checked her reflection, her perfect skin needed nothing and so she put on a low cut sun dress over a bikini and headed downstairs.
"Oh, your up honey, do you want anything for breakfast?" her mother called.
"No mom, not today." She said as she walked by the kitchen towards the front door. A quick checked confirmed her mother was exactly as she expected. Dressed up like a 50's housewife, frilly dress, apron and all. A vapid smile on her face as she waved to her daughter.
"I'm taking the car." She called out as she grabbed the keys from the bowl by the door.
"You be careful young lady." Her father said. She turned towards the living room, he was seated in a big easy chair reading the paper. He'd lowered it and she could see the sweater vest he was wearing and the pipe clenched between his teeth, a large bubble forming at the end of it, ready to pop and be replaced by the next one.
She opened the door and headed towards the car, everything was perfect, just the way she liked it.
She drove through town on her way to the lake and passed the diner where she saw a car she didn't recognize. It was a rental and no one came to Miltonvale in a rental car, heck no one came to Miltonvale period if they didn't have to.
