Omen of Rose

Succubus

Grimacing, she arched her back. Shrieking pain, her wings slowly expanded until they blotted out the twinkling stars behind her six feet to her left and six feet to her right. She rose from her crouching position slowly, her body aching acutely with every movement. Finally she stood, naked, on the soft dirt of a new grave. The night was dark; no moon illuminated the gravestones in the cemetery. She looked at her body. Her skin was a dark shade of red, with no arms and clawed feet. Her wings were massive, even when folded at her back, extending from her feet to a foot above her head. The skin that covered each wing was thin, and soft black feathers protected the outside of both wings. They were folded behind her now, and she slowly walked forward, a step at a time, her claws digging easily into the freshly turned dirt. She walked until she gained good balance, then, suddenly, she crouched and leapt into the air.

Succubus.

Her wings filled out and moved slowly to keep her in the air. She scanned her surroundings. The cemetery was located on the peak of a hill; lights from the town below blinked in the dark night. A large statue of an angel stood sentry over both the dead and those that still moved in the cemetery. His wings, forever extended, guarded the sleep of those he watched. He guarded the sleep of all around, except for one.

Succubus.

With one beat of her strong wings, Succubus was in front of the angel figure. She looked at him intently for a moment. His face was serene and peaceful in his watch. She neared her face to his until the cold marble almost touched her hot, dark red face. She opened her mouth and her long, forked tongue licked the cold cheek of that angel. She ran her tongue from his chin to his temple. Blood spurted in a gash where she had licked him. She stared at him longer, then, in a fit of rage, Succubus beat her powerful wings until the force of the gust created toppled the statue from his pedestal. She screamed as he fell, her screams carrying in the still night. She screamed until he hit the hard ground, his beautiful, white, cold wings shattering, pieces of marble scattering on the ground among the graves. She moved backward, facing her destruction, moving further and further away from her birthplace. She turned to face the town below. In the dark night she smiled, her instincts turning her toward her evil purpose now.

Succubus.

She took flight and slowly descended in circles into the town. In the quiet of the night she could hear the faint shouts of children playing in the street, of women gossiping together over fence lines, of men sitting on the porches together, smoking and talking of work and the weather. Succubus landed in a bare tree in the outskirts of town, and she waited until the streets emptied. Slowly, one by one, child, woman and man went into their respective households, to eat dinner and turn in for the night. And she waited. She waited through grace, and through dinner. She waited until the lights in the windows throughout the town turned off, one by one. When the town was dark, she moved from her perch. She slowly moved in the air over the town once more, circling, looking for her night's victim. As she glided, she watched the houses for something, though she did not know what. Finally, after hours of flying back and forth, casting her shadow over several houses at a time, she saw what she was waiting for. A faint blue glow shone out a window in a house on the East side of the small town. Succubus reached the house in no time, and she stood outside the window. The light came from within, and the window stood open. Thin curtains waved in the slight breeze, and through them she saw him. She stepped through his window, and saw that the blue glow emanated from him. Sleeping uncovered in the warm night, his form was clear to her. She walked nearer and nearer his bed, a smile playing on her lips, revealing fangs that gleamed in the strengthening blue light.

She walked nearer and nearer to me, my love. Her flowing red hair moved, free down her back in the soft breeze. Her long white gown billowed softly as well, outlining her figure. She walked slowly to me, and I was happy. I outstretched my arms to her, eager to hold her, to smell her, to taste her and touch her. She came into my arms soft and sweet, as eager as I was. She wrapped her arms around me and I was safe. I looked in her eyes, her eyes of pale gold, her fair face was flushed in her rapture, and she smiled. Her sweet smile enticed me further, and I kissed her. I kissed her passionately, closing my eyes and giving myself freely to my feelings. Soon our grasp on each other was no longer soft, but desperate. I reached to touch her hair, to brush it back from her beautiful face, and instead I found smooth, cold skin. My eyes flew open, the fair face of my pretty Annie gone. Instead an alien, wicked face smiled at me with fangs protruding. At the look on my face, she laughed a deep laugh that shook my very insides. I touched my face, and blood flowed from my lips, where I had kissed this daemon passionately not minutes before. I pushed her away in shocked silence, and she released me, floating in the air above me. With a final grin and no other sound, she escaped through my window...

James started awake from his nightmare, and woke to an empty room. The window was open, the curtains billowing in the breeze. All was quiet. Beads of cold sweat rolled down his naked body and he shivered as the air touched him and chilled him. His breath was short and ragged, and his heart would not quiet its wild beating. He stared straight ahead; his sight fixed on a small rent on the curtains that had not been there before. The bile formed in the back of his mouth, and he felt it rise quickly. He closed his eyes tightly as he threw up, not wanting to see the reality that stained his sheets. Mixed with the putrid stench of his vomit, the metallic smell of blood was evident. Spent and drained, James dropped asleep, not caring any longer what he slept on.

She sped out of town as dawn peeked rosily over the mountainous horizon. She flew toward the sunrise, knowing that the mountains would be the only place she would find refuge and bide her time. She found a dark cave just as the shadows were shortening across the land and the sun bathed all in its light, chasing the night's terrors into still dark corners. And she waited. For a week she saw the sun rise and set, time meaningless to her. Her only measure of time was the bulge that was becoming her belly. The seventh night after her birth and conception, the pains of her labor started. Her stomach swelled a final time, to the point that the flesh started to tear. Black liquid began to spew from the gash that was ripping across her stomach. She arched her back in pain, her screams echoing off the cave walls and bouncing, multiplying, repeating, the resulting pandemonium maddening, as a creature clawed itself out of her womb. Dark red flesh ripped from side to side, sharp claws shredding tissue. Her black blood began to pool around her in an ever-widening circle, flowing freely from her growing wound. Soon Succubus fainted from the pain, her offspring still working his way out of her. Now he not only used his claws, but the sharp horns on his head as well. He crawled out of her stomach entirely, and he rested next to his unconscious mother for a moment. He breathed rapidly, the exertion of his birth having taken its toll on his young body. The cave was eerily quiet after the shrieks and howls heard not only moments before. Soon the newborn daemon stood and glared at his mother. After staring at her for a spell, he sat on the cave floor and licked up the black liquid that was pooled around her.

He was neither human nor animal, but a frightening mix of both. His eyes were huge in his head, the eyes of a horse in a human head. They glowed with a bright red heat, with no pupil or iris, and he did not blink. His head, though human, was abnormally large for his body. He was bald and had no ears. Instead, straight sharp horns grew from the top of his head, reaching several inches in the air. He had coarse hair that covered his entire body. His body was of a goat, and he stood on two legs. His four hooves were not; instead he had the powerful claws of a grown lion. His tongue was long and it lolled slightly out of his mouth to the left. He drank of the blood that was drying on the floor of the cave until his hunger was satiated. When he had finished, he walked to the mouth of the cave. With one last look at the being that had conceived and carried him, he snarled and bared pointy teeth, then jumped out of the cave, high into the night air, disappearing in the shadows.

An eternity later Succubus stirred on the cave floor. She moaned softly in her suffering and drug herself to the opening of the cave as well. A quarter moon shone dimly from among clouds in the dark sky. Succubus slowly rose to her feet. By instinct, she knew her duty was done, and that she would soon rest once and for all. As she stood at the mouth of the cave, she spread her wings and slowly, agonizingly, rose in the air. She returned to cemetery, the journey taking the entire night, her wings beating tiredly. Exhausted and deathlike, she crawled to the grave that was now a week old, the grave from which she had risen. The earth was patted down now, and flowers decorated the tombstone. She stared at it all, not understanding why she was standing in front of this grave, no longer recognizing her own name carved on the stone. Instead, she dropped to her knees, then fell headlong onto the ground. Even as she fell, she began to dissolve, her dark red skin dripping unto the earth, and the soil that was Annie's grave was now moist with human blood