The Succubus's Silver

Author's Note:

So, this was supposed to be out at the tail end of February. However I had a major, major surgery and about 6 weeks (so far) of recovery, so this didn't get finished or posted... I'm going to try and get it done here soon, but I figured I'd try to keep posting stuff.

This might not get finished until the middle of May, but I /will/ have it finished.

-Tammy

*****

Chapter 2

Liverpool, New York

Evening

Chi hated villages in general, and Liverpool in particular. It was a quiet township spread out over a lot of hilly terrain with mostly single and two story buildings and a couple highways running through it like shoelaces that'd been dropped on a map. The place was an afterthought compared to downtown.

But more than anything, it was the quiet and diffused nature of people's living situations that bothered the half-succubus. When packed closer together and forced to interact, people's uneasiness and misery coalesced but out here there was none of that; if downtown was a concert, Liverpool was the sleepy after party at an old folk's home.

So when the secretary got on the NY-370 freeway leading to the town, Chinnamani started to pull off the road. Of course, no sooner did she do this than that damned nagging compulsion hit her full force- there would be no deviation, she'd set her mind to this and come hell or high water, she was going to be forced to carry it out.

She knew the rules, she knew the consequences, but that didn't stop her from chucking the coin out the window every few miles or so as she trailed behind the secretary's civic. It was her own brand of petty revenge and something that- in some tiny way- felt like she was reclaiming her life. Of course the damned thing always wound up in her pocket again.

"Sisyphus is a bitch," she muttered and threw it out the window.

The 370 followed the rough outline of Onondaga Lake, snaking down its mile long coast in the same way a lover might caress the gentle swells of the feminine form, if that form belonged to a druggie prostitute. Uncle Sam may not have given a shit, but the local government eventually wised up that maybe having a crack addict in their back yard was bad for property values and got into rehab mode.

Sure, it was a lengthy process, almost a hundred years all told, but between the new sewage treatment plants and hard dredging worthy of any back alley gang bang, the lake came healthier than it had been in a century. There was work to do, but at least now people could spend some time around it without risk of growing a third eye or something.

For the common resident, it was a pretty mirror to reflect the maroon sunset that carried the scent of shrubbery and trees along its coast, something Chi was all too happy to drink in for the moment. A reminder that in the grand scheme her struggle wasn't all that important, that there'd be a time when she got rid of this fucking coin for good.

All she had to do was get through this investigation, condemn the guilty party and get it back into circulation. The steering wheel groaned in her grip. It wouldn't take long. A day or two, then she could be on her way.

She was due for a vacation as it was, and getting it back into circulation meant she'd have the ability to leave the region for a while as the coin figured out its new owner. It was a small thing, but getting a week's head start was important to getting as far away from Syracuse and her silver as possible. Two clients ago it'd taken the coin an entire year before it tried to call her back to it, if not for the drug addled brain of the man she'd 'helped' it probably would have been just as long this time, too.

Drug addicts were less than reliable clients, though, and her vacation had been brief this time. Janet, though, she'd hold on to it for a good long time. She was just the sort of person Chinnamani needed- arrogant, proud, willing to hide things she knew better than mettle with. Janet was her key to freedom, maybe forever. All Chi had to do was ride this mess out to its conclusion and all would be well.

In the meantime, though, she followed the civic until it pulled into an apartment complex nestled in among a row of cookie cutter housing. The building was long and boxy with windows every few dozen feet and the kind of boringly predictable lawn care that one would expect from corporate owned real estate. Safe, sanitized, and absolutely banal.

The sign outside advertised the place as Calm Acres. Chinnamani scoffed and pulled her station wagon and trailer along the building up the road from the parking lot. At first it sounded simple, check for the apartment number and come back later when the secretary was asleep.

Life, it seemed, had other plans. The parking spaces for residents were sheltered by the second story of the building and none of them were marked, the gated doorway had a buzzer panel on the side and plenty of windows overlooking those cars. Chi frowned. "Guess that's that-" was as far as she got before her skin started itching all over. The coin asserted itself and the itching grew worse as she tried to walk away.

"Fuck

off

, will you?! I'll find another way!" She muttered under her breath. Between her toes a fire rippled over her skin, a thousand tiny needles of poison sumac sparking up like lighters at a rock concert. "Fucking- quit it! Dick!" The half-succubus groaned as she clawed at her jeans. But it didn't stop.

Another step back towards the car and it got worse; diamond sand paper grinding between her generous ass cheeks. She spun on her heel and ran back to the apartment. Fucking figured.

She stood there for a moment, considering her options. Just waiting for the woman to come out again would be a massive time sink, and the coin would make damn sure Chinnamani waited. Just hitting buttons at random on the buzzer might get her the woman's name but. . .

Breaking into her car would solve all of that.

Chi glanced at the civic, then the windows overlooking the parking spots. She made a surreptitious inspection of the corners and overhang for cameras, relaxing some when she didn't find any. Maybe it wouldn't be

so

bad, then.

Her soul wrenched against the temptation of the easy path in front of her. Nothing actually

said

she shouldn't, but her heightened state of awareness made her wonder if she

should

. It wasn't just the risk of getting caught, but the danger that she'd actually be hurting this innocent bystander. The secretary had to know she was boffing a married man- if she was at all- and if Chinnamani started digging around her stuff, then she might actually do some harm.

There was a word for people like that. That word was 'asshole' and while she might occasionally enjoy a romp in someone's own- or even

her

own- being an asshole to someone who was ostensibly innocent felt wrong.

So Chi stabbed the buzzer at random.

"Hello?" An older woman's voice chirped through the speaker.

"Oh, uh. Hi. So, hey this is going to be a little awkward, but you wouldn't happen to own a blue Civic? The lights are on, and they're pretty hot."

A brief pause. "No, I don't."

Chi motioned for her to hurry up and get to the point, more by habit than anything; any second now the natural inclination to help someone would ping and-

"You want apartment twelve."

Bingo.

"Thanks so much!" She thought it over for a second before poking the button. Even when the answering beep came she had her line of bullshit planned out. "Hi there. You don't know me but I'd really like to talk to you. . ."

The young woman on the other side of the buzzer sounded rightly skeptical. "About what?"

"I was hired by Janet Gomez." Chi said, stepping back enough so she could get sight of the various windows overlooking the parking area. "Normally I wouldn't come to someone's house, but I'm just following up a lead looking to put this case to rest."

The silence stretched out for several seconds. When the woman spoke again there was a cautious undercurrent to manner that hadn't been there a moment before. "What

exactly

are you investigating?"

"I think it'd be easier to discuss face to face- you're familiar with the concept of client confidentiality, I'm sure."

Another bout of silence cut into their conversation.

"Show me your license," she said.

Chi eased back, watching the windows- sure enough the one just left of the central door shifted some. Just enough that it couldn't be wind. Chinnamani reached for her wallet, held it up showing her license left and right pretending she hadn't seen the movement. She doubted the woman could see it was her driver's license, she just needed a

few

words out of her target anyway.

After a couple moments of acting like an idiot, Chi stabbed the button again. "Dunno if you saw it- look, I'll just cut this short. I'm near the end of my process; missus Gonzalez thinks he's been cheating on her but three weeks on and I've not found anything that says he's been unfaithful. . . .I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but I just want to know if you've seen him leaving with anyone. Unusual calls, private emails he doesn't want you to read or anything like that?"

Another pregnant pause. Chinnamani smiled privately. This may just be easier than she expected.

When the secretary finally replied her tone was firm, rehearsed and direct. Someone had been practicing for this eventually. "Not to my knowledge, no. The office is an open place, and he works too hard to even have

time

for an affair."

"That's what everyone I've talked to said, too. . ." She pulled her notepad out, going through the motions of making notes. She made sure she was visible to the window and scribbled as she talked. "If I could ask you a couple more quick questions? I had a talk with a mister-" Chi flipped a few pages back to look as if she was checking her work. "Porter? He's a local divorce attorney handling the divorce. He wasn't sure whether or not the Mercedes was kept at the old address or the new one. Do you happen to know if he takes it out to the house or if he parks it somewhere else?"

This was pushing. It was pushing way too hard and way too fast, but maybe. . .

"I wouldn't know anything about that, sorry."

Chi looked at the speaker, trying to transmit how stupid this woman sounded through the air. "I'm not

accusing

anyone of anything, but surely you've stopped by the new place during the last annual cookout." Chi gnawed her tongue, hoping she'd read the social media pictures right. He'd hosted a lot of events for the office before the divorce crap started and the newer pictures showed a different place, suggesting that he wanted to keep up appearances- or didn't care in the first place.

"I. . . .if he's been cheating-"

"It's just a formality, I promised I'd ask after the car just for the sake of making Mister Porter's life easier. Completely unrelated to my case but-"

"Then maybe you should stick to your case."

Smarmy little bitch. "Listen, as someone who's been down this road and 'lost the ring' before, you'd be doing him a huge favor by helping us all get through this mess just a little faster. If I can help Janet get the paperwork done faster, Mark can put this crap behind him sooner. . . .now, please, I'm just asking where you think the car is."

The woman on the other end sighed. "What address do you have?"

Chinnamani made another show of rifling through her notes. "Ah, I have one in East Syracuse and another in Dewitt. . ." She lied.

At least one of those was a real thing. Sort of; Mark's social media profile said he lived in Dewitt. Chi held her breath as she waited.

"East Syracuse? That's not right. . ."

"You sure? Ridgewood drive doesn't sound familiar?"

"No, he lives in Manlius."

Chinnamani groaned inwardly and flipped to a new page. "Happen to know the address?"

After getting it, the itchy feeling began to subside. Triumphant, Chi stuffed her notepad away and thanked the woman for her time before she trotted off back to her car. She made sure to take the long way around the building so she couldn't be seen- just in case- and started the long drive to Manlius.

If only everything could have been this damned easy.

#

Easy was a subjective thing, it turned out.

Chinnamani compared the social media picture of the cookout to the house she was standing in front of. Third time in as many minutes and they were no closer to lining up; the pale blue shutters of the upper end town house weren't going to spontaneously go brown to match the picture. The two car garage and beautiful pond in the back weren't going to morph into the open grass field of Mark Gonzalez's place.

"That bitch. . ." Chi muttered as she crept around the garage. She wasn't going to let a little thing like trespassing stop her from making the forty five minute drive out here worth her while. As silently as she could manage, she crept up and checked the windows of the garage. Surprisingly there were two cars- two vans.

Neither of which looked particularly sporty or like they were covering for a mid-life crisis. But one didn't park a Mercedes out in the elements, even in the richest part of the city. This wasn't going to work.

Almost as if karma was kicking her in the ass, a man from next door called out to her. "Excuse me!"

Chi had her keys in her hand, she casually slid them between her fingers and put on a placid smile. "Hm?" He was approaching with a purposeful stride and squared shoulders like he was going to make himself look more intimidating- if he was actually bigger, it might've worked.

"What're you doing?"

She looked at him like he was stupid, then backed up as he drew closer. "Easy, easy. I'm doing my job."

"Your job involve looking into people's windows does it-"

"When I'm investigating a stolen vehicle, yes!" Chi lied, holding up her left hand. "Look, I was given the wrong address and I'm leaving, don't read too far into this."

He paused just briefly, glancing at the station wagon and her cart then back to her. "Do a lot of investigating between selling pizza, do you?" He gave her another once over. "You get out of here, and don't come back."

Chinnamani rolled her eyes, suppressing the urge to give him the finger as she dropped into the driver's seat. He slunk up to the car, she grabbed her revolver from under the seat and sat it in her lap. By the time he was at her window, the massive hunk of nickle plated compensation was fully visible. Chi slid her hand around the rosewood grip and feathered the hammer. "Help you?"

He paled visibly.

"Whatever bullshit threat you were gonna make against me you can stuff right up your butt, yeah? I'm not in the mood and neither are you." She smiled at his discomfort. "Now, make like a tree and leaf."

He didn't need to be told twice. Chinnamani slumped back as she watched him run back to his house, irritated. Her lead had dried up, no sooner than she'd fucking got it either! Here she was trying to be nice and-

"You know what, I got something for you." Chi slapped the key in and jacked the car into gear. She'd tried to be nice and keep innocent parties out of things they had no business in, but no the silly girl decided she wanted to be a hero?

Didn't she know the mongoose in a snake pit tended to get eaten eventually?

#

Chinnamani was careful to take the back roads on the return trip, chewing through a lot of gas and time to get back just before nine but somehow managing to avoid any police as she snaked her way down the secretary's street. She cribbed a parking spot several blocks away, changed clothes and dug out the tool kit she kept in the back seat. The crunch of its leather strap felt warm as she slung it, ensuring it slid between her breasts. If someone caught her, she'd need every advantage she could get, she couldn't run fast or far; she'd have to rely on her other charms.

Ten minutes later she was crouched down in the shadow of the overhang beside the Civic with a long metal slim jim in hand. Another half minute to shift the locking rods and she had the Civic open. She started with the glove box- rewarded for her efforts with a spray of paperwork, old mail and a strip of pictures of her and Mark together. They were both smiling, she noticed. Nothing for Mark, though, nothing indicating another address.

It turned out the secretary's name was Tanya Bower, she'd been late on several credit card payments and at least one of them was being charged off- if the big 'Final Notice' stamp was to be believed. If Chi was the type, there'd have been enough to open a line of credit- maybe at a 'toy' shop. . .

But then, there was being spiteful and just being an asshole.

The half-succubus stuffed the credit card mail into her bag and slid the slim jim along the strap of her bag, tying it down to make it look inconspicuous. She relocked the car and slid up to the gated door, taking a quick glance around before she got to work on it with the lock picks.

She was in practice, religiously so, but the keyway on the gate saw more insertions and removals than her on a drinking bender at a frat house, each one leaving a bit of dirt and grime in the way of the pins. What normally would take her five minutes or so ground on for fifteen, until she finally got the pins up and tensioned the cylinder enough to allow it to open. Triumphant, she dumped her pick kit into the bag and jogged up the steps in search of apartment twelve.

There were a lot of ways to handle this- the infernal part of her nature wanted her to break in and tear this bitch apart for daring to defy her. How

dare

she lie. But the mere thought made Chi want to vomit, even before the various ways she'd accomplish it began to filter in.

The girl wanted to be a hero? Chinnamani would give her a reason to, then. She snaked her way to the end of the hall and dug a box cutter from her bag. Normally she'd use it to scrape stickers from things or cut police line tape, but it served its purpose when she drew the razor across her finger from palm to tip.

She didn't even feel the pain as she ground it down into the guard, splitting the flesh like the red sea right down to the bone. Blood ran fresh from her wound even as it sealed up with an inferno of pains from the re-forming nerve ends. It tingled and pulled at her all over her hand like her fingers were going to join together to form some kind of mitten. Chi grabbed her hand, intertwining her fingers and spreading the blood over her face with gritted teeth.

The healing hurt like hell and her body revolted with every twist and turn of her mangled finger, screaming about how it was so much worse than it was. She couldn't let it think she needed to see a doctor, though, the fucking coin would probably think she was trying to help her

client

instead of her and then compel her to the damned hospital or something.

By the time she'd finished with her 'makeup' the inferno had faded to a dull roar of numbing pain and ache. She wiped the blood off on her jeans and smeared her forehead to look more bruised and battered. A couple deep breaths and she tightened her wings under her hoodie, working herself up to the performance she was about to give.

She started by throwing herself from half way up the stairs to the landing.

Her body landed with a satisfying crunch that stung like shit but put her in the mindset to scrabble away, whimpering and mewling like a wounded doe. "No! No-no-no!" She exclaimed as she made a beeline straight for apartment twelve, smacking her palm against the door. "Open up, please, please." Chi cried out pathetically.

Silence.

"Fucking, hurry up!"