. 02

Nikolai floated alongside Lora as they wended through the attic. "Problems?"

Lora offered a shrug, wincing as a sharp pain zinged down her arm.

"What's wrong?"

"We had a run-in with the spider. I must have landed on my shoulder wrong when the spider jumped on me." She lifted her good arm to rub the back of her skull. "My head hurts, too."

Nikolai had arranged some spindle chairs in Damia's room. Lora headed for one and sat heavily, suddenly exhausted.

Oliver held out his hands, but stopped short of touching her. "Let's take a look."

Lora slid her shirt off one arm.

Two red puncture wounds near the strap of her tank top explained the sore shoulder. Angry lines radiated from the wounds.

"Looks like the spider got his fangs into you."

Seeing the injury made it throb. "I'll take some antibiotics." She could see her supply of medicine disappearing quickly.

Nikolai hovered, brow furrowed. "You should be able to use your magic to heal yourself. Who knows what poison might be in that bite? Human antibiotics might not do it."

She suspected Nikolai was trying to get her to feel comfortable draining him. "I don't know how to do that."

"You'll need a surfeit of energy. Take some from me. It'll be good practice."

"Uh." Lora had no desire to put on a show for everyone.

"What do you mean, her magic?" Lelo demanded, as she shot from her chair and rounded on Lora. "You have magic?"

Too weary to argue or defend herself, Lora tried to make it sound uninteresting. "Apparently, this place has activated something dormant in me. It's all new and Nikolai's helping me figure it out."

"Take energy from me," Nikolai insisted. "You can save the naked stuff for when you need big amounts of power. Healing that bite shouldn't take much. Since I'm a willing donor, it should be an easy transfer."

Lora closed her eyes and sent her magic out. With so many people crowded into the room, their energies mingled. It was tempting to grab all that power. Then she wouldn't feel tired at all. Nikolai's was easy to distinguish, feeling a lot more chilly than the others. Her magic slid over him, drinking energy in.

True to his word, he didn't fight. Power flowed to her, rejuvenating her flagging energy. Unsure what to do, Lora pictured her shoulder and the spider bite. A sated tendril curved away from Nikolai and slid over her skin. The magic crackled, but the bite remained unchanged.

"Imagine it healing." Nikolai's voice sent a ghostly whisper over her ear.

"I'm trying."

"Try smaller steps. Pull the venom out."

That made no sense, either. Telling her

what

to do didn't explain

how

to do it. Maybe Nikolai didn't know. There was a demon who knew more.

Help me out here. It's good for both of us to not be sick or hurt in this place. It will make us weak and easy to take advantage of.

A sense of begrudging acknowledgment brushed over her consciousness. The magic latched onto her shoulder.

Something cold and sluggish slid down her arm.

"That is disgusting." Lelo's voice neared, and a cloth dabbed at Lora's arm.

"It's also good." Nikolai sounded excited. "That's the venom. Now imagine the punctures sealing."

Like fixing a flat tire. Sure.

The demon laughed. Energy heated on Lora's arm to the point of searing. She bit her tongue to stop a cry. The demon was doing as she asked, but clearly it wasn't happy about being controlled and pushed the boundaries. Maybe even though they shared a body, the demon didn't feel pain.

Or, perhaps she liked it.

Nikolai was right. Healing the bite took hardly any power at all, and she was flush with extra magic when she wrested her hunger away from the ghost.

If she could heal herself, maybe she could heal others. Lora directed her magic toward the sick woman. Her magic refused to attach. She pushed, trying to determine if it was the demon refusing to help, or if it was something she genuinely couldn't do. The fingers of energy she envisioned curved to form an arch that wouldn't bend.

She frowned. "It's not working."

"You've already healed." Lelo touched Lora's arm. "What are you trying to do?"

"Heal Damia."

"Take more from me," Nikolai predictably volunteered.

Lora opened her eyes and studied the ghost. "You're already faint. I could kill you."

"I don't mind dying if it saves her."

La Croix shook his head. "That is noble, but futile. Damia is too far through the door to the other side. Lora, you can heal, but not bring someone back from death. Years ago, when she was first injured, maybe you could have saved her, but you should not blame yourself for not saving her now. This is not your failure. Her body is too damaged to repair, no matter how much energy you give her. You can't reverse such damage or grow new organs. What you do is more of a boost, allowing someone capable of healing to do so faster."

Oliver examined Damia and shook his head. "We don't have anything to deal with this condition in the lab. It's all sedatives and stimulants. But a sedative could help her sleep. And there is the possibility of an overdose, if that's really what you want to do."

"So, we need to go to the tower." Lora said the words as much to make them real to herself as to let the others know the plan.

Ankhta sat on the bed and took Damia's hand. "You go. I'll stay here. I don't want to see that place, or that man, ever again."

Lora didn't want to, either. But she had to face what she'd done and get her tears back.

They shifted furniture to unblock one of the doors and peered into the stairway. Spiderwebs filled the downward stairs. Lora stood at the stairway leading up to the tower.

Lelo gripped Lora's shoulders and shook her. "Don't you dare feel bad about what you did to that man. He deserves to be tortured. Worse. Who knows how many women he's done the same thing to? Do you think he'd stop or keep going if you let him go, even after he's got a taste of it?"

Keep going. Lora had no doubt the doctor would renew his experiments as soon as he had another woman in his clutches. "He'd probably be worse now."

Oliver joined them. "We can put him in the cell. It's safer for everyone if he's locked up. We can use the stunners to move him."

"He deserves to die. But locking him up is the best we can do." Lelo sounded so positive.

He might deserve death, but with the clarity of a little distance, who was she to be the one to kill him? To decide he deserved torture?

A tiny part of her shouted, yes. Yes. Yes! She imagined a tiny red-winged demon who perched on her shoulder, clapping her hands, jumping up and down with glee. She wanted to see the suffering of the man who'd dared restrain her. Performed tests on her. Humiliated her. Used her body against her.

Try as she might, Lora couldn't conjure an angel on her other shoulder to counteract those urges. Maybe demons, by dint of who they were, didn't tolerate angels, even imaginary ones. She'd have to be careful not to fall into that side of herself. What if she became a monster?

Yes. If you're the monster, no one can hurt you. You'll be strong. Feed on him. Feed on them all.

A tear slipped down her cheek. Nikolai touched a ghostly fingertip to her face and held it up. "Tears of a succubus? Those are rare, and must be guarded. Be careful who you let have them. Not everyone is worth crying for."

"Why are they so precious?"

"Because of the demon part of you. Demons prefer to have revenge. Make others suffer. Succubi don't cry, about anything, ever, making your sorrow extremely rare."

Lora gulped. Was that why she'd done what she had to the Doctor? She'd never hated anyone before, or wanted revenge to this extreme. Was that a new side of herself because being here was waking her magic up? The Doctor had collected her tears. She had to get them back if they were dangerous.

Her feet moved automatically, climbing the steps behind Oliver and Lelo and walking into the laboratory.

The sexbot had stopped moving.

Oliver shrugged. "He must have run out of power."

The Doctor lay strapped to the table, one arm almost free. He snarled when he saw them.

Lelo and Oliver headed straight for the stun sticks.

Lora moved to the table and loosened the straps around one of his legs, then the other. She tried to find something within herself to forgive him, or at least not hate him. But the raw emotion was still there, boiling up within her like a witch's cauldron. It wasn't so intense when she wasn't around him.

Him. This was his hate. His presence was everywhere in these rooms, just like the fear she'd experienced with the vampire.

What she felt were their emotions.

She'd somehow absorbed them without knowing. The demon inside her felt smug.

The Doctor yanked a foot free and would have kicked Lora in the face had she not dodged out of the way. She supposed she deserved that much.

A blast from Lelo's stunner put a stop to further retaliation since the Doctor was busy thrashing and screaming.

Lelo handed Lora one of the prods. "Don't hold back."

Lora nodded, but needed a moment, and knelt to go through the Doctor's discarded clothing, retrieving the swabs he'd used to take her blood and tears when she'd been the one strapped down.

When the Doctor recovered, they herded him down the hallway and into the room Lora had recently occupied. Lelo gave him a shove that sent him sprawling onto the dirty mattress.

He sneered at them. "You cannot mean to leave me in here."

"It was good enough for me." Hatred threatened to boil over inside Lora again. It was good enough for her prison, but not his? Her hand rose without instruction from her, aiming the stun stick at the Doctor. She wanted to see him writhing at her feet. Twitching in pain. Knowing he was helpless to whatever she wanted to do to him. Hurt him. Torture him. Feed.

"Lora?"

A gentle touch on her arm made her blink. She focused on Lelo's warm green eyes.

"Girl, we need to get you out of here. You're about to lose your shit."

They backed out of the cell, shut the door, and locked it. Lora leaned on the door as the enraged doctor pounded on it from the other side.

"Unlock the door this moment!" he bellowed in his accented English. "When I get out of here. I'll --"

Lelo banged on the door with the end of her stunner. "Not helping your case, you psycho."

"We can barricade the door to the stairs. Even if he gets out of the cell, he'll be trapped in his tower. It's just a bigger prison. He won't be able to hurt anyone anymore. After we help Nikolai, I'll come back up here and disable all the computers. He won't have access to his research."

Lora struggled to make that good enough. To make her demon understand revenge was the way into darkness.

But that was the way the demon wanted to go. Images of the doctor chained down while she used him for pleasure and food flooded her mind.

"I don't know what you're thinking about, but this place is toxic for you. Let's get out of here."

Not feeling entirely in control of herself, Lora focused on moving her feet away from the door. "We need to destroy all the samples he took."

Oliver led them into a room full of cabinets and long tables full of microscopes and other equipment she didn't recognize. He headed for a tall cabinet and pulled open the door to extract a rack of tubes containing blood.

"Smash them." Lora's skin itched at the number of vials. There were more of them on the shelves.

"No, wait." Lelo held out a hand. "Maybe we can use the blood to track the missing women."

Lora turned a shocked look on her friend. "Can you do that?"

"Not me, but everyone knows not to leave blood behind because it can be used in spells. There must be someone in this place who can do it." Her face shuttered. "We just have to figure out if we can trust them."

"We'll take everything with us." Anything to deprive the doctor of benefiting from his sick games.

Needing a moment alone, Lora stood in front of an attic window overlooking the back of the property. In the distance, when the drifting fog turned patchy enough, mausoleums, statues, and headstones stood out against the flat landscape. Was Eve there? Somewhere better? Somewhere worse?

Chilly ghost fingers ran down Lora's arm. "How's your shoulder?"

Lora rotated the joint. "All better."

Nikolai tapped her head. "And in here?"

She sighed inwardly. Having resisted killing the doctor, now she had to come to terms with two people who wanted to be murdered rather than live here. "I'm okay. I'm sorting everything out, but it feels like I'm two different people sometimes."

"In a way, that's true. One theory about demon heritage is that an ancestor would have been fully possessed, and two separate entities. When children were born, part of the demon was also born into the baby. So descendants aren't human with demon traits, but human with part of a demon inside them, which would make you two people."

It was easier to accept that way. If there was another conscious being inside her, what that part of her did really wasn't her fault. It... the succubus... She would have her own motivations and desires. They weren't Lora's.

"You know about succubi. What happened to me up there? I wanted to hurt the Doctor. I hate that man."

Nikolai sat next to her. "When I came here, I was a spirit attached to an object. I don't remember what it was. Just that I couldn't leave it. Over time, I don't know... grew, I suppose you could say. I took over a room, then two. I learned to move things by will and took more of the building. Now I have the entire fifth floor and the attic. I'm a poltergeist, I guess you would call it. That's what this place changed me into."

He nudged her with his shoulder. "Like it or not, you are part demon. It could be the same thing will happen to you if you use your power too much. You start out as part succubus, choosing who and how you feed that part of you, but if this place changes you, maybe you become a full demon who wants to feed on others not because you need to or for self defense, but because it just gives you pleasure to do so."

"I don't want to become a demon, but my new powers, whatever they turn out to be, might be the only way I have to defend myself. I think I have to figure them out."

"I'm not saying don't explore the limits of what you can do, but be careful. If you feed on too much negative energy, you could turn full demon faster. You said you didn't feel lust from the doctor, but you did feel hate. Maybe you're feeding on what he felt without knowing it. If you set rules for yourself, like only feed in self defense, or on those who are willing, it could be you don't lose yourself as quickly."

"Maybe I shouldn't do this thing with you while I have this hate inside me."

"Do you feel hate toward me?"

"No." She smiled at him. "I think you're a friend, and a good man."

"Nor do I hate you. I think there will be only positive emotions between us. Maybe feeding on me will help dilute or get rid of the negativity you've absorbed since you arrived here."

That idea held some appeal.

"I am no longer bound to the original thing that brought me here. When Damia found me, she wasn't afraid. She appealed to who I was once, and I learned control to be around her. She brought me back to myself. It's easy to lose yourself here, but it's also possible to find yourself. I am bound to Damia now. If she stays, I stay. But I think if she can go, that I could go with her."

"Then can't we just get her over the fence somehow?" Lora turned to face him fully, anxious to hold onto this small strand of hope. "She can get medical help, and you can follow her. There must be a key or some tools we can use to open the gate."

Nikolai shook his head. "If she was healthy. Perhaps. But she can't move. You've seen her legs. The others would catch us. And there's no way to know when or where we'd come out. Just because we leave where you came in doesn't mean we'll end up in your time and place. Maybe we exit in the sane time and place we came in, or somewhere else random. Better if we leave from here."

Lora snapped her fingers. "Maybe you don't have to die. I have a book on exorcisms. It's meant for my friend Eve, but I don't think she'd mind if we used it." They rejoined the others in Damia's room. Lora pulled the book from her backpack and opened to the Table of Contents. "What kind of ghost are you? It looks like there are several types of exorcisms."

Nikolai shrugged. "I'm not sure what kind of ghost I was matters now. Anything for Russian ghosts?"

Lora ran her finger down the page. "No. It seems to be based more on type of ghost. How did you die and end up here?

"I was drowned by a Vodyanitsa. A village hired me to hunt the Vodyanoy who was causing floods. The Vodyanitsa was his wife. After I died, they had Baba Yaga work some magic on me, and next thing I knew, I was here."

"So, maybe a vengeful spirit? I guess we can go through them one by one and see what works. Looks like we need a few things. Candles. Holy water. Chalk. Salt."

La Croix stood. "I can help with this. There are candles on every floor. Salt in the kitchen. Chalk in the cafe for the menus. Holy water... I know there's a chapel. Maybe the water there is like the food in the pantry. If you clear some space for us to use here, I'll go downstairs and acquire the materials we need."

Lelo placed herself between La Croix and the door. "Wait. How do we know we can trust you? Maybe you're going to tell everyone about what we're doing."

"If this works, it means there's a way out -- and if one of us can go, the rest could. I will do nothing to jeopardize that possibility."

Lora believed him. Apparently, Lelo did, too. She stepped out of his way.

He inclined his head and flashed a grin. "I will return soon. And not speak a word of your sanctuary or what occurs here."

While he was gone, they set to work clearing trunks, old furniture, and boxes to make an empty space on the attic floor. When La Croix returned, Lelo accepted the chalk, studied the book, and drew a huge pentagram on the floor while Ankhta lit squat candles and placed them on the points, then they took seats next to La Croix.

"Okay. I think we're ready now."

Nikolai paced, his feet making actual sounds. "We should wake Damia again. She will want to see what happens. An exorcism will probably be easier if I'm less powerful, and you can practice. Night is coming, and I'm gaining strength. Take energy from me and give it to her."

Lora closed her eyes and set her magic free. Purple-pink tendrils unfurled from her and extended into the air. She hardly had to think about what she was doing as she fed on Nikolai. Her hand lifted without her instruction and pressed her palm flat to Nikolai's chest. She pushed energy to him, making him feel more solid. His smooth skin warmed under her touch.

A predatory mood came over her, and she rose to her feet, walking forward as Nikolai floated backward.

Full to bursting, Lora wrenched her magic away, the demon battling her for control as they lurched toward the bed. She leaned down and pressed her lips to Damia's forehead. The magic resisted, recalcitrant to her wishes. She imagined the tiny demon, arms crossed, shaking her head. The more Lora fought to release the energy, the harder the demon fought.

A chilly touch cupped her breast. Her nipple hardened to a tight point. The demon perked up, relaxing her hold on the magic as she paid attention to the new sensation. A second hand stroked a thumb over her other nipple. The demon arched into the touch. Pleasure surged through Lora.

With the demon distracted, Lora seized the magic and directed it toward Damia in a rush. The sick woman stirred with a gasp, and Lora let the magic go.

Damia took in everything as Nikolai explained what they were going to do. "Put me in the pentagram. I want to go wherever Nikolai does."