Succubus

Chapter 36: Go Back to Hell!

"Paimon!" Someone shouted from behind the wheel.

A tall man with long black hair stepped into view. Even in agony Tara had to admire how handsome he was. He was attractive out of time. He could have been in a tunic or jeans and he still would have turned heads.

Paimon didn't relax. She was too focused on the enormous wheel. The wheel also seemed excited. Its eyes were wide open, like a kid in line for a rollercoaster.

The handsome man put himself between Paimon and the wheel. She blinked and the tension slowly eased out of her.

"Pithius, what are you doing here?"

"The kids sent me a message that you were here. You're not supposed to be on earth for another hundred years."

"Vine and Erlik ran away, so I had to come get them," Paimon said simply.

Hearing it put like that made Tara angry. It also made her want to laugh. She was in too much pain for either.

"Well they seem ok. I'd heard from Mags that they'd gone to the mortal realm, but Tara was getting close to when she would have been going anyway."

"But these kids tried to fight me," Paimon said as she pointed her bug finger at the teens.

Pithius looked around the gym. Tara and Peter weren't getting up any time soon. Barb and Charles were comparatively unharmed, but they still weren't in a rush to get back into the fray, especially now that someone was talking sense.

"So you had to accept their challenge?"

"Yes, I've explained that to you many times."

"Well it looks like you won."

Paimon looked around the gym and frowned. "They're not dead though."

"Winning doesn't always involve killing. We found that out when we met, right? I won the bet, but it didn't kill you."

Paimon blushed again. "Don't talk about that in front of the kids," she mumbled.

"Dad, how was heaven?" Erlik asked.

"Really clean," Pithius said. "Zaqiel was showing me around when I got your message. I've been staying at his place."

They stared up at the enormous mouthless wheel. "How does that work?" Vine asked.

"We have to read between the lines when we're talking to each other. I've been trying to learn the divine language, but it hasn't been easy." Pithius mumbled something that vaguely sounded like the noises that Zaqiel made. Immediately his family grimaced.

"Don't do that dad," Erlik said.

"Yeah, it's giving me a headache."

"Well, you give me a headache when you run away without telling anyone. What if something happened to you?"

"I was fine," Vine said. "Tara did a good job keeping me safe."

Pithius turned to look at Tara. She'd managed to pull herself into a sitting position against the gym wall. Peter was also starting to pull himself together.

Tara looked up and saw Vine's father looking back at her. "Thanks for taking care of my daughter," he said. "Paimon and I weren't even sure we could have kids, so we tend to be a little overprotective."

"Thanks for showing up when you did," Tara managed to say. Her midsection felt like she'd been hit with a bus.

Pithius moved on to check on Erlik. Vine took his place. The demon stared down at Tara, then crouched down so they were at eye level.

"You really came through for me. I couldn't have done it without you."

"So you're really leaving?" Tara asked.

"Yeah, staying would be a mistake. But I'll leave you a thank you present."

"That's okay."

"No, I insist." Vine put her ring finger in her mouth and bit down. She spit the finger out into the palm of her hand and held it in front of Tara's face.

"Eat this, you'll get a piece of me."

Tara looked at the finger. She thought about going out on the weekends and always having a spot to eat at lunch. Her thoughts turned toward the nights alone in the abandoned house, and she compared them to the nights alone in her own house.

"Not right now," Tara said. She took the finger and put it in her pocket. "I don't know if I want to completely turn it down, but I definitely need a break from demon stuff."

"I'll come visit you when I have to come to earth to feed."

"Just make sure you come after you've eaten."

Tara and Vine smiled at each other, then Vine turned to rejoin her family.

Zaqiel the wheel hovered over Peter and made more strange noises. A tall bearded man seemed to step up out of Peter. Tara recognized him from when Peter had first attacked her.

"I also must leave," the man said.

"Because the demons are gone?" Peter asked.

"Yes. And they realized I came here without permission. I have a lot of explaining to do." In a very eastern European way, Daumantas did not seem that nervous about whatever punishment was waiting for him.

"Best of luck," Peter said.

"The same to you," Daumantas responded. The saint bent over to pick up Peter's sword. He returned it to an empty scabbard on his waist and went to join Zaqiel on the side of the gym opposite Vine and her family.

Erlik had gone over to Charles and Barb. They were doing a little better than Peter and Tara. Both of them had managed to get up and were sitting on the lowest row of the bleachers.

"You'll have to take it from here," Erlik said to Charles. "But I want to thank you for helping me get my sister back."

"What do I get?" Charles asked.

"If you ever need advice, look into a puddle on the full moon. I'll come talk to you."

"Oh," Charles said. He looked over toward Tara and her new finger. "Thanks."

Paimon found June still unconscious on the bleachers. She leaned down and whispered something in the history teacher's ear.

All obligations were now met so the otherworldly beings decided to depart. The demon family began drawing symbols around the three point arc while Daumantas and Adriel prayed beneath Zaqiel. They had to keep starting over because Vine would blow Adriel kisses and his Latin would get flustered.

The angels finally managed to finish their chant. Adriel and Daumantas' feet left the floor. They hovered up below Zaqiel, and together they slowly drifted toward the ceiling. The rain clouds parted and a beam of sunlight came through the window. It caught them as they ascended.

The demons finished drawing symbols. They stood on the foul throw line and waved as the symbols began to glow. The floor beneath them changed into a large set of interlocking teeth. Some enormous thing just below the gym floor opened its mouth and the demons fell inside. The mouth snapped shut and the floor was just a floor again.

Up above the angels disappeared in a flash of light.

Barb was the first person to get up. She hobbled toward the gym door and unlocked it.

"Where are you going?" Charles asked.

"Home. Someone else can clean up the dance," she said.

Everyone else shuffled out after her. Parents needed to know that their children were no longer missing, and bruises needed ice. Hours later June would wake up to find the police there with a laundry list of questions.