Page 4 of The Succubi's Choice
“Lundy probably wouldn’t like it if Katya told him what to do,” she deflects, twisting her hands around her steering wheel as if it would stop this conversation. “Last thing I want is him deciding I couldn’t be trusted to work with Katya.”
“Lundy wouldn’t do that,” Gabriel protests, right as her phone lights up. He picks it up, flicking her password and thumbing over to her messages. “Speak of the devil, Katya wants you to pick up an extra shift.”
She groans into her steering wheel, jerking the car into a sudden turn. “Sorry, no bookstore ride from me.”
He shrugs, rolling his eyes.
* * *
Miri meetsKatya outside their work building, in a dusty little strip mall in Sherman Oaks. Katya leans on the little pillar outside their office door, one of her arms still in a sling, the only physical mark that she almost fucking died just around a month ago.
Miri still feels a bit of bile about that day whenever she thinks about it too head on, so she generally doesn’t.
“Hey,” Katya says, pushing herself up off the column. All injuries aside, Katya’s still one of the most strikingly beautiful humans that Miri has ever met, with her black hair cut in a severe bob and her blue eyes on the extreme side of bright. “Sorry for the day off call.” She eyes Miri’s tank top and shorts, then spots the bag with an obvious change of clothes. “Wanna use the office?”
Miri searches for her keys. “Yeah, that’d probably be smart. What do we have?”
“A nest of something, and reports they kidnapped a co-ed and are keeping her in the house.” Katya follows her in, her suit unwrinkled.
Once the door closes, Miri immediately strips, tossing off the tank top and buttoning on a blue blouse. “Any earlier and I wouldn’t have been able to come,” she says, then wrinkles her nose at the pun that Katya wouldn’t get. “Just finished hunting.”
Katya looks studiously away, but not in a judgmental way, in more of a professional distance sort of way. “During the day?” She asks, rubbing her injured shoulder with her good hand.
“Lundy got tired of me filing reports at 4 AM about me boning guys at clubs,” Miri jokes, stepping into some khakis. Her work uniform is designed to make her look as non-threatening and as non-seductive as possible, and it really works.
Miri loves it.
Katya studiously tucks in her pistol into her shoulder holster, despite the fact that it’s legitimately difficult for her to draw it now, before handing Miri a small copper folding knife to put in her pocket. Which is all she’s actually allowed to have, despite the tiny little revolver Miri keeps locked in her apartment.
The tiny little revolver she’s most definitely not allowed to shoot and most definitely not allowed to own and most definitely not allowed to practice with. Because everyone thinks that the tiny little succubi would be dangerous with real weapons.
“This nest has taken over two abandoned houses in the Valley,” Katya says, spreading out a few pieces of paper on the desk next to Miri. “The Organization thinks there must be a tunnel between the two, based on surveillance, but we haven’t had any reason to intervene.”
So this was an established nest, with lots of time to build up and explore the area around. “What is it a nest of, though?”
“That’s the thing,” Katya says with a frown, “they don’t know. Or won’t tell me.”
“They just won’t tell you,” Miri says, with a sinking pit in her stomach. “Trust me, if they have some years of surveillance, they know. They just don’t think you need to know.”
Because the Organization prides itself with keeping people in the dark, even people who work for part of it.
“Well, at least it means it probably won’t be too dangerous.” Miri busies herself by securing her work boots. “So, nest, social creatures, not dangerous, underground tunnel, probably not vampires or werewolves, maybe nocturnal dryads?”
“I was thinking maybe Brownies? Goblins?” Katya says, her business face firmly on. “We’re just going in and assessing if the human is there against their wishes, then get out. No disrupting the nest, no violence. Unless they start it.”
“Great.” Miri clips the little tiny copper knife into her pocket. “Just great.”
* * *
It’sdusk by the time they pull up to the rundown neighborhood with more empty houses than full ones.
“Wow, great area,” Miri says. “Simply pick the best, don’t they.”
Katya gives her a look, and it’s the look that says she’s judging her because Miri lives in a cheap as hell apartment with a roommate, but thinks that it’s rude to bring up.
“Cause really, all they’d have to do is run the sprinklers and people wouldn’t think anything of it.” Miri says, as her boots crunch on the dead grass.
“Tunnels, remember? Not good to water over them.” Katya shuts the car door, wincing a bit, because that’s an unconscious movement that pulls against her injury.