The Succubus and her two Mates

44| The Mistake

The festival dinner was phenomenal, there were a dozen long tables for the feast, each fitting a hundred people with food up each table's center. A band played in the background, a jaunty tune spilling across the revelry. The air was filled with laughter and merriment.

Full of food and booze, the attendees headed over to the bonfire. The pile of wood was in a massive hole in the ground, the effect was like a giant fire pit. The crowd created a circle around it, keeping back- knowing the heat that would be coming off it as it was lit. There was a ceremony of sorts for the ignition. The fire caught fast, Ronnie assuming they had used some kind of accelerant.

The bonfire was symbolic of a new beginning and clans people stepped forward to discard things into it. Mainly paper with messages to passed loved ones, letters to the gods praying for their blessing, unrequited loves. Some people threw in objects- their reasons, their own. You didn't have to explain what you wanted to burn.

Brand had told her about it that morning, realising he hadn't explained its significance to her yet. She'd written a letter to her parents. It was mainly all the questions she had for them about what their life had been together. If they thought she was doing the right thing by disappearing from the two men.

She was returning from the fire, after dropping her letter into it, when she saw Mira running around frantically. The pregnant woman saw them and rushed up to them. "Would you all help me? The nanny just came and found me. Apparently Sharmi is playing a very very good game of hiding."

"Do we have a narrowed down area to search?" Brock asked.

Mira gave a frustrated sigh. "The other kids think she went to hide in the woods."

The four of them headed to where they thought she had gone. "Ronnie, maybe stay here, you can't scent her."

"No, but I should be able to feel her once she's close enough." She wanted to help.

Brock pointed the directions for everyone to go and they split up to search. Ronnie could hear the others calling for Sharmi as they sniffed the air - it seems the girl had run all around this area with some other kids so they were having a hard time finding exactly which way she went.

As the calls became distant she felt a buzzing excitement somewhere ahead. She walked with purpose, calling out the way she'd come that Sharmi was this way. She ran forward looking for the little girl. She spun around, finally looking up as she felt the excitement spike.

"Found you," she called.

Sharmi gave a high pitched squeal at being found, from her hiding spot up in a tree- 3 meters off the ground- out of reach for Ronnie.

"You cheeky miss." She smiled up at the girl. "Just stay there, Brand will get you down when he gets here."

The girl didn't listen though, so excited to have finally been found she tried to climb down. Ronnie saw the moment when the girl slipped and started to fall.

"No!" Ronnie cried out, and without thinking, she called her demon flame- the indigo fire creating a splice in space- and teleported the girl, diving to catch her as her meager portal dropped her the last half a meter - saving her from the bulk of the fall.

Sharmi gave a shaky laugh. "That felt funny."

"Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack."

"What's a Jesus?" She asked.

Ronnie laughed still splayed on the ground with the girl on top of her. She was about to make a joke about Jesus when she realised Brock and Brand had arrived. They looked at her in shocked silence.