Soul Sucker
You're Mine Now

Frances Dortmund’s POV

Near Wick, Modern Day Scotland

Tuesday, August 4, 847 A.D.

I stood alone on the shoreline as the sun rose over the Viking encampment. The smell of death and decay surrounded me. The early dead didn’t have the rank to merit a funeral pyre, and the men had far more on their minds than funerary arrangements. The dead had been left where they fell outside the camp, and inside, they had been piled at one end for eventual burial. Soon, no one remained alive to do anything with them. With the bodies up to three weeks old, the stench was nauseating.

“It is the scent of your revenge,” my Demon Master told me. “All who wronged you are dead. What will you do now?”

“What can I do,” I said with tears falling down my cheeks. “I am your slave now. What I want doesn’t matter.”

“Keep me fed once a fortnight or more, and I don’t care what else you do.”

“Why is it so important to feed?”

There was a pause before he told me. “It keeps me in the human realm. I gain energy with each soul, but that energy fades with time. I’ve feasted enough that I’m easier for the angels to see, and that isn’t good. Without the energy I obtain from harvesting souls, I would weaken and fall again.”

“What happens to me if you fall?”

“Your fate is mine, my temptress. You would be cast into Hell for eternity.”

I could feel his fear. “What kind of creature are you?”

“You are right in that I am a demon. I am the spirit of a fallen angel, thrown down with Lucifer from the heavens. The angelic horde locked most of my kind into the depths of Hell, but I evaded them.”

“Why pick me? Aren’t the angels men?”

“God created us neither male nor female, but my kind functions in this manner. Others jump from host to host, inciting violence and madness. As demons go, I think I’m reasonable and easy to get along with. The benefits are there for you to enjoy; as much sex as you want, immortality, and the ability to change your form at will. Give me what I need, and you can have a good life.”

A life where I seduce men and take their souls? I didn’t see how. “Show me your life,” I asked.

I didn’t have a lot of education, but I had the demon’s memories and knowledge. As I sat on the rock, he showed me what he was in the beginning, then the battle that cast them out and imprisoned his brethren. The sun was high in the sky by the time he finished. “How many are you?”

“We are Legion, but we must be careful,” he told me. “Attracting the wrong kind of attention could cause the Angelic Host to come down and remove me. I am inside a voluntary host, which gives me a right to dwell among the humans. As long as my activities do not attract undue attention, my presence among you will be tolerated. God’s Angels don’t leave the heavens without cause and fervent prayer.”

“What kind of attention?”

“Death, like this,” he told me. “Their brothers may return to replace them and seek the one who killed them.”

“Good.”

“Deaths bring attention, and attention brings priests and angels alike. We should move on.”

“No. We are not done here.”

“Look around, child. All the invaders are dead!”

“Not the ones who sailed back with the captives. They attacked my village and killed my husband. One of my rapists was not here. As long as one of them lives, my revenge is not complete. We are not done yet.”

“We leave this place today,” he told me. “I’ve reaped more than I need. You never stay in one place long enough for the people to realize what is among them.”

“If we leave, the agreement is broken,” I answered angrily.

He didn’t say anything for a while. “Search the camp and plunder what you can carry. Take only the gold and silver you can pack on a single horse. We need to go inland before any of your people come looking.”

That ended up being easier than I expected, as the survivors had looted the possessions of the dead for themselves. The tents closest to the fire yielded hundreds of coins that I packed into sacks and placed on my horse. With that accomplished, I set off upriver to make camp in the woods.

The first to discover the empty camp were horseback riders from the south. I watched from the woods as they checked the landing site, looting much of what I’d left behind. A larger party returned two days later to get the rest. They didn’t understand what had happened; clearly, there had been a battle, but only the Viking dead remained. And why would an army leave the spoils behind?

The only conclusion was that the land was cursed. They grabbed what they could and left again.

The Viking longships appeared a week later. They didn’t land immediately, sending only one boat with twenty men to scout out the remains. I watched them leave an hour later, but they weren’t getting away.

I’d prepared skins filled with whale oil. Holding one in each hand in succubus form, I flew over the waters to their anchorage after nightfall. Their torches lit the targets, and a few gallons of dropped oil created a huge fireball when it smashed into the deck from above. The fires lit men and ships afire. I glanced back as I flew away, seeing them leap from their flaming longboats to escape the flames.

If they wanted to drown instead of burn, that was fine with me.

The other ships set sail and tried to escape from the fate of their brothers. They couldn’t sail fast enough to escape me. After two more trips, the war party was no more.

Only three men escaped the burning ships and made it to shore. Cold and exhausted, they thought they had escaped death. I laughed at their celebration before landing.

No, they had only delayed death. Each man was bitten, then ridden to climax before my demon took their souls. “That is all of them,” he told me. “Do you agree I’ve kept my bargain?”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Then return to your horse. We must get far away from this place.”

I could not escape the hollow feeling in my stomach as we flew into the woods. I’d sacrificed my soul, and for what? As much as I hated them for what they did, those men tonight died horribly. The smell of burning flesh was one I’d never forget. “You humans are so foolish,” the demon laughed from the back of my mind. “How could God love such imperfect beings so much? You sacrifice your life and your soul for what? A revenge you don’t even enjoy.”

“I had nothing but revenge left to me,” I objected.

“When someone offers you something that is too good to be true, it’s because it is. Why would that woman want you to take her place? You saw what happened after I moved into you.”

I had, and it was horrible to watch as she aged to an old woman before dying and turning to dust. At that point, it was too late to save herself, but she welcomed death. “You killed her.”

“No, I moved out of her and into you. All of the things I’d done to preserve her youth were reversed. She’d served me for two hundred years, but she desperately wanted out of the deal. I told her I’d allow it if she found another willing host for me.”

“I know why she wanted to die now,” I said. “I want it too.”

“Oh, now that my part is done, you want to die?” We were flying hundreds of feet above the ground, the moonlight and my senses guiding my way.

“I’ll kill myself.”

“Let’s see how that would work.” He took control, shifting my body from my succubus to my original human form. Without wings, I plummeted to the ground in seconds, unable to do anything to stop the impact.

I hit with a terrible crunch, feeling my bones break and my flesh split. The demon gave my mind back, letting me feel every bit of the pain that resulted from my decision. It took hours for my body to knit itself together so I could move again. By sunrise, I was up and walking.

He’d made his point. There was no getting out of my side of the bargain.