The People with Useless Power

Chapter Thirty-seven

"Can you see her?"

Mara moved her hands just a little, trying to find any power that could help her with vision, but eventually she shook her head and sighed heavily.

"No, she's closed her window. Can we just... can we just go?"

Vera, one of the most well-known succubuses in... everywhere, sighed and took Mara's hand, leading her out of the prickly bushes, down their daughter's driveway, and up the street to the cemetery.

The walk was long. Long enough for Mara to say, "Why is she so confused? It's so simple."

And long enough for Vera to respond, "you got a little carried away with her parentage, Mara, love."

"I only gave her three."

"You gave her five, doll."

Mara huffed. "Why, again?" They were almost to the cemetery, and the flowers in Mara's hands were beginning to wilt.

"Because... we're poly... and in love..." Vera sucked in her cheeks, chewing on the inside of her mouth and staring at the ground. "Do you know which one's Emma's? Which grave?"

"Listen, I'm just directing you here, I'm not staying," Mara hissed fiercely. "When you've decided to resign, you'll be with us forever. Same goes for Gwen and Jinx."

They got to the small, cracked gravestone covered in roses, and Vera helped Mara tear away the thorns to place lavenders on the dirt.

"Where's your grave, Mara?"

"I don't have one."

They stood in silence for awhile, just holding hands and trying to breathe, but both women were interrupted by the sound of boots crunching on rocks and a shriek coming towards them.

Mara whipped her head to look down the road. Emma was flying down the path, her hair flying out behind her and gashes up and down her bronze legs. "Emma?! What're you-"

"No time to explain!" She grabbed both of their forearms and dragged them away from her own grave. "We shouldn't have even visited. Elise, Cicero, and Ophelia are here, Mara, they found me and Gwen and Jinx spawning the siblings."

"Where are they?!" Vera snapped, picking up a large branch and handing it to Emma. She immediately dropped it.

"Gwen and Jinx are gone, in the forests. They left me so I could get you guys. We need to go."

"You realize it takes more than two seconds to go back down to Hell," Mara deadpanned her, and Emma gazed at her wearily, making her immediately feel bad.

They heard the sound of a motorcycle engine whirring softly in the distance, but within seconds it was deafening. Ophelia was driving it, her younger twins hanging off of her and her own cape flying behind her. Her expression was one of mania, her red eyes dilated and gleaming and her red eyebrows arched.

"Run," Mara whispered, using her only power left to stop time for just a second as the three took off in a sprint through the woods, eventually returning on the street after that second was over.

"We need to get back to where we came from!" Vera yelled as Emma tried to burn the road behind them. Mara screamed something neither of them could understand in French and pulled them over to a two-story house covered in trees twice the size of it.

"Emma, your sunglasses!" Mara hissed, and Emma threw them at her. "Put up your hood. She shouldn't know what we look like."

"She?"

"What about me?" Vera asked, putting her hands on her wide succubus hips.