About the Author
J. Jefferson (aka Smokedawg) is a middle-aged editor and journalist manifesting his mid-life crisis with a flurry of fiction writing instead of a sports car and trophy mistress. He write erotica (mostly smoking fetish-related) at his blog “Better With Smoke” (http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com) but also writes stories for the Celis T. Rono Writer’s Collective, SmokingStories, Pillow Talk and elsewhere with erotic and non-erotic themes, in smoking and non-smoking forms. You can e-mail him at: pseudojeff@msn.com.
He began his “Poisoned World” stories with the “Venomous Passions” trilogy at: http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com/category/venomous-passions-trilogy/
This fictional near-future world also made an appearance in the a “Scenic Saturday” themed story on my blog at: http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/scenic-saturday-sweets-for-the-sweet/
Other stories in this setting (without smoking fetish overtones) have appeared here at the Celis T. Rono Writers Collaborative as “Tales of the Poisoned World” and you can find those others by clicking on the link to my stories here: http://celisrono.wordpress.com/category/smokedawg/
This is the third “Tales of the Poisoned World” story.
Tales of the Poisoned World:
Between Demons and Angels
Night in the city was never safe, not even behind the walls of a church—in fact, maybe less so some nights.
Having been born and raised in New Philadelphia, Reverend Jason Nguyen-Williams had seen a lot in his 27 years of life—hell, he had experienced his first encounter with a thrill-killer at the age of 6 when he and his mother were caught out on the street later than was wise. His mother had gotten him away from that intact, and the man had been captured soon thereafter, though Jason still had a little silver scar on his left thigh to remind him of the incident.
It still squidged him inside out that when he had gone to see that thrill-killer in prison several years ago as part of his forgiveness colloquium in seminary, the man looked into Jason’s eyes for all of three seconds, smiled, and asked, “So, can you still see your scar? Does it bring you back to your childhood, boy?” Just from looking into his eyes, the thrill-killer had remembered. Chilling, but good preparation for his current duties, which were dangerous simply due to his proximity to the Sprawls, and the hours that he was called upon to work.
Still, when straightening up the sanctuary after dark—alone—right on the border between the Gray Zion sprawlhood and the mid-strata neighborhood of Goldborough, there were some things a man of God just didn’t have preparation for. Things one just didn’t know how to react to.
A tall, nearly naked woman with ruddy reptilian wings and bright red eyes was one of those things.
Once Jason knew that someone had entered the room, his hand had immediately shot to the pocket of his long black preacher’s coat, where he kept a very expensive flechette pistol. A religious man who relied only on God to protect him in this city was a religious man who would be visiting Heaven long before he had earned any gray hairs. Or, in the case of most of the religious men in this particular church, they’d probably end up in Hell, but that was a whole other matter.
When he had turned around, he had guessed the unexpected visitor would be either a SilverScream addict on a rage-frenzy, a rape or robbery victim seeking sanctuary, a pimp looking for a wayward pedwhore, or a police officer asking questions. Those were the top four night-time patrons around here.
That was something well outside the normal scheme of things.
Jason removed his hand from the grip of the flechette pistol. He supposed part of that response might have been from the pheromones wafting from this vision of decadent and dangerous loveliness before him, but it was also the very conscious decision that if a top-tier Outlier was paying a visit from the Sprawls, you didn’t want to shoot that individual.
Outliers had a way of carrying out vengeance that could make the Spanish Inquisition look like a mere carnival sideshow.
More to the point, if he was being visited by such an esteemed Outlier, either he had been targeted for abduction—a prospect that held no small amount of attraction along with the headier and more insistent rush of terror and anxiety—or he was in some way useful to them for some task.
In any case, Jason was quite happy for the fact he wore an athletic cup at all times to protect his private parts in the random scuffles that could easily break out even during evening church services—because it was the only thing that might allow him to act like he wasn’t painfully aroused. Not that his visitor would probably have any confusion on that score, though. Succubi and incubi loved knowing they had you by the balls—literally and figuratively—and they could sense arousal pretty accurately. He supposed that if supernatural demons walked the Earth, and not simply genetically modified mortals like these, the paradigm might have been much the same.
But here, at least, with a “demon” of flesh and blood, only my body and mind are in peril, not my soul, Jason mused. I think.
“We may retire to your office, yes?” the succubus said in a voice that sounded to Jason like silk being pulled along a woman’s supple, warm thigh.
Jason’s first attempt to speak was a croak, but he found his voice after a moment and said, “I wouldn’t want us to spend too much time in such an enclosed space,” he said. “I would be concerned that your pheromones might overwhelm my senses and make me a poor conversationalist.”
In a moment, so quick that it should have started him—but didn’t because the movement was so graceful—she was in directly front of him, one hand stroking the side of his face. Jason realized he was leaning in her palm and moaning softly, then shook himself back to his senses. Almost. Mostly. He wasn’t sure anymore, but he was saying a great many silent prayers.
“What if I don’t want the conversation? What if I simply desire corrupting a man of God?” she asked huskily.
“Then I’d have to question your taste in men, madame,” Jason managed, with a tiny trace of steel in his voice, thank God. “I’m on the short end of average, both in height and penile length. And no one has ever seemed to believe that my African, Vietnamese and Caucasian genes ever really meshed right in my facial appearance, which I’m sure hurts your eyes to look upon. My face offends most women.”
The succubus smiled, and there was something faintly malicious under the seeming friendliness and flirtatiousness. “I am named Astarte sin-Lux, and I need to speak with you. I must determine if I shall burn this church down around you, while you lay in the middle of the sanctuary and your flesh sizzles, and the flames slowly burn away all delicious memory of my parting kiss to you.”
Astarte sin-Lux.
As close an individual to being ruler of the Vamp Outliers in New Philly as anyone could be. It was rumored that her control of Vamp clans extended far beyond the city limits, too.
This was going to be an interesting night.
* * *
And so they sat in the pews, the reverend at the end of one row and the succubus at the end of the row immediately across the center aisle from him.
“Might I ask why you think you may need to immolate me?” Jason asked evenly. Bad enough to have his desire known—he was going to do his damnedest to show little or no fear.
“Mayor Oswald Drummond.”
“Wrong church,” Jason said with an equal mix of politeness and abruptness. “He’s upper strata and even though his denomination worships here, his social class doesn’t. The other Holy Word Baptist church is Evangelion Christ Congregation in City Center. It’s been nice meeting you, Madame Astarte; I will return to my duties now.”
“You are both Holy Word Baptist, no?” she asked. There was a playful look in her eyes, but Jason thought it looked a lot like the demeanor of a cat playing with a mouse.
“He is. This church is. But I don’t know him. I wouldn’t want to. And I am not Holy Word Baptist myself. But I need internship hours as a practicing preacher to complete my certifications for my theology degree program. This was the only church with an opening for me. Frankly, the pastor here despises me. I have quaint notions of a merciful God who loves all people and a Jesus who preached tolerance and equality. I imagine the officials at the church in City Center would hate me even more. That is why I get the night shift, with my life in peril, being visited by demon-women in the wee small hours.”
“This is most disconcerting.”
“That I don’t agree with the Holy Word Baptist precepts, which are probably diametrically opposed to your own views?” Jason asked. “I would like to think that would make you nicer toward me.”
“No. It is not that. Disconcerting is that you have been talking to me this long and are not curled at me feet, hugging and stroking my legs and giving adoring gazes as you answer my questions.”
“While nothing would probably give me greater carnal pleasure, and while I don’t have a shock-baton up my ass like some preachers, I do like to maintain some decorum,” Jason said.
“My pheromones overcome decorum.”
“I’m saying a lot Our Fathers and repeating Psalm 23 in my head over and over,” Jason said, as deadpan as he could, wanting quite desperately to touch himself right now in front of Astarte—and more besides. So he fiddled with the fabric of his pant legs and coat instead.
“You have I hope not taken the chastity vow like those silly Catholic priests. Such would be waste.”
“No, I haven’t,” Jason said. “But after my wayward youth, I’m looking to save myself for marriage from this point out.”
“There are few virgins in this city you realize?”
“I don’t need a virgin, Madame—”
“Astarte is sufficient. Your respect is evident without need of honorifics.”
“Astarte, I won’t need a virgin. It will be quite enough to find a woman who has some basic decency and isn’t addicted to something like SilverScream. I’ve never had much trouble getting dates. But this isn’t getting us any closer to why you’ve threatened to burn me alive.”
“I won’t incinerate you. Even though you lied to me. You told me you were not handsome and that women do not desire you. Yet you have just contradicted that.”
“I was being sarcastic before, and you knew that. It seemed better than prostrating myself at the juncture of your thighs.”
“Why? That seems a most appropriate place for you.”
Jason realized he was sweating a little now, and that Astarte had unfurled her wings just a little. He could smell something in the air like honeysuckle—sweet and musky both—and he suspected she had increased her pheromone output. Or added a new one to the air around them.
“I’m still curious…why you threatened me…before,” he stammered. “Why you seek Mayor…Drummond…I…whoa…”
Jason swooned and fell face-first toward the aisle and the floor.
“You have over-much self-control,” Astarte said, as she caught him in her arms, and he found his face between her breasts. Then he realized he was kissing and licking her flesh. “Such things are not good for a man’s health, no? Resisting a succubus’ pheromones. Tsk tsk.”
She said a lot of other things after that, but he couldn’t make out very much, with her thighs clamped against his ears while he worshipped at the altar of her cunt in the house of God.
* * *
Jason wasn’t at all sure how long had passed before he regained his senses—only that his face was sticky and wet and his clothes covered in all manner of fluids that gave him far too much delight to behold than he found comfortable. The succubus was sitting calmly in the pew again, smiling wantonly.
Jason picked himself back up off the floor, and sat back in his own pew.
“As nice as that must have been, judging by the pool of fluids swirling around in my athletic cup—”
“You will remember things in bits. Beginning later tonight or tomorrow I should think—”
“Be that as it may, please have some respect for this church, even if it is run by the Holy Word Motherfuckers.”
“Most men of the cloth are not so stalwart as you. I must put more of my pheromones out?”
“No, damn it!” Jason exclaimed, and fished into one of his pockets, withdrawing a pack of CrimsonCloves, then pulling one of the dark, brick-red cigarettes out and lighting it.
“Oh!” Astarte said. “I have a pheromone that is so nicely synergistic with clove/tobacco blends. Allow me to—”
“No!” Jason barked. “No,” he said again more calmly, taking a deep inhalation and blowing smoke, not caring how much of a faux pas it was to smoke in the sanctuary. “Would you explain why you are here already? Or are you going to leave now that you’ve proved you’re irresistible and that I cannot help you with whatever grudge-roll you have with the executive mayor?”
“Of course you can help. And you will. Because you will not like if I resume thinking thoughts of burning you.”
“I told you that I’m not one of the Holy Word—”
“I know,” she interrupted him. “I know about you fully. I knew before I left the Sprawls. It is why I come to you. You know, there are delicious things I could do to your genes and endocrine system. You should visit me one day in my labs.”
“How can I help you? And can we please get it over with so I can start working on forgetting all about you.”
“You will never forget I think. Not even if you suffer dementia in old age,” she said with absolute conviction, and a salacious sneer.
Jason sucked on the filter of his cigarette, exhaled a thick cloud of sweet smoke, and sighed. “All right, you’ve marked me forever. You’ve proved whatever point you want to prove. What the hell is it that you’re here for?”
“Forces allied with your Holy Word Baptist order and with the mayor are implicit in one of my kin going missing in past days.”
“Since when does a top-tier Outlier go out personally looking for a clan member?”
“Huang is not simply clan. Not just thin-family. Not simply imbued with genes of our clan. He is true blood to me. A cousin, in your circles. He had been a champion of City Administrator Danica Peters. He is insistent we must support her to unseat the Drummond pig.”
“And this has gotten him abducted.”
“He was sloppy. Unusual for Huang, but even Vamps make mistakes…sometimes.”
“What am I supposed to do? Remember, I’m not actually Holy Word Baptist. I’m actually Reform Congregational. They don’t like me. I’m their scut-boy for as long as my internship lasts, and they give me one service to lead every two weeks—the least-attended one, I might add.”
“But you are in their employ in manner of speaking,” Astarte pointed out. “You can get into the church in City Center?”
“I can make some excuse or reason. But if I bring an Outlier with me, I’ll be a smear on a morgue-table somewhere by the next day.”
“I do not need you to escort. Simply to carry this,” she said, handing him a small device. “So that their security codes will prove less a problem, yes?”
“And if I don’t?”
“Sweet, soul-searing kiss to make you forget all other kisses that you have known, and then you will be a part of blazing inferno.”
“My, but you have such a way with your negotiation skills,” Jason said tartly.
“That is assent, no?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
* * *
It was hard for Huang to wrap his mind around how Drummond’s people were able to apprehend him. But what was harder to process was why they had spirited him to this place, and why they had done nothing to him. No charges. No physical harm. No interrogation. Simply brought here, to a very well-appointed safe house of some sort. He had wine, food, plenty of fresh inserts for his belt hookah, music—even a computer. Granted, it had no connections that would allow him to communicate with his kin, but still, it was rather generous treatment from a man who hated Huang so much.
After all, I was instrumental in stealing two of his children away, and I’ve been backing his chief adversary, Danica—with the election now a mere three months away, Huang considered. They have not harmed me, but clearly they mean some harm, somehow. So how is it that will achieve harm and achieve their ends by kidnapping me and leaving me in comfort?
* * *
Jason and Astarte had agreed that the following afternoon would be soon enough to safely make their move. She seemed uncertain as to whether Huang still lived, but she seemed absolutely convinced of his location, which was somewhere underneath the Evangelion Christ Congregation church in City Center.
That gave Jason enough time to do some poking and prodding for personal reasons, before he walked into the church in City Center. He didn’t have deep access to the church’s computer files—officially at least—but he was privy to the passcodes of one of the church’s more trusted prefects, someone who shouldn’t be trusted with much of anything, since he sucked down tri-X and Rapture as if they were water. That bit of access to the church’s inner workings was something Astarte didn’t know about.
If she had, she would have expected even more of me in this endeavor.
It was dangerous to use the passcodes now. Not to him personally—they wouldn’t be traced back to him. But if their inappropriate use was pinpointed, and they likely would be within the next week or two, they would be cancelled and that would royally screw up his plans to leech a few K of funds from the church at the end of his internship to establish his own small congregation.
Jason had considered that plan less embezzlement than he considered it taking from the raving hypocritical bastards to support the humane spiritually faithful.
But it’s a moot point now, though, he thought. Having funding would have been nice, but it would be nicer still to know what I’m getting into now.
What he discovered didn’t make a whole lot of sense at the time. It did make sense well after the point that Huang was located—and after Jason had used his pistol for the first time in anger—though by then it was too late to act on the realization.
* * *
Huang was not terribly surprised to see his kinsman Jano burst through the door, a man’s severed arm still in his grasp. Of all the Vamps Astarte would have sent for him, the clan’s most martially skilled and physically most intimidating ghoul would be the best choice. Still, one had to maintain appearances.
“What took you so long?” Huang asked him irritably.
Jano simply grunted. He could speak eloquently when occasions demanded, but he didn’t like words as a general rule.
“Well, I suppose it’s only fair that my sloppiness be rewarded with a tardy rescue.”
Jano frowned as he looked at the room in which Huang had been held, then shot his kinsman a questioning look.
“I don’t know why they treated me this well, either. Astarte is going to be very upset, I imagine, to see that I haven’t been beaten or tortured.”
As Jano and Huang worked their way toward the exit, and met up with a pair of wights and another ghoul from their clan, Huang had to admire the artful carnage his kinspeople had left in their wake. It was troubling though, how ill-equipped and poorly prepared the dead normals seemed to have been.
And how few of them there seemed to be, if one was holding an Outlier of no small repute and one anticipated that there might be repercussions.
* * *
Jason didn’t like getting involved in shit.
Not shit like this, anyway.
Helping a street mongrel who was running from a pimp, against his pastor’s policies. Great.
Handing out food or a small amount of money from petty cash to someone in need and covering it up so that the church accountant wouldn’t implode? He was fine with that.
Secretly finding a way to get some poor girl in the congregation who’d been knocked up by some preening sociopathic golden son to a social worker who could keep her from a forced marriage? Fantastic.
But helping one unsavory group—the Outliers—against another unsavory group—the upper strata zealots—well, that was something else entirely.
Then again, even with the threats of burning him alive if he didn’t help, Jason had to say that Astarte was far more civil than anyone in the Holy Word Baptist movement had ever been to him.
Also, shit like ambushes just didn’t sit well with him, which was why part of why he was still involving himself in this, after having already completed his assigned task. He still wasn’t sure what was up after his research, but this was clearly a trap, and if it in any way impinged on the ability of Danica Peters or someone else to unseat Drummond in the upcoming election, it was a trap that needed to be unearthed and dismantled before it could trip.
Besides, it would get him out of that stuffy-ass church for a while. Perhaps forever if he got himself killed tonight.
Jason was amazed at both how quickly his military training came back to him, and also at how woefully inadequate he suddenly found it to be in terms of quelling his mounting fear. Perhaps if he had been special forces, or even in the general infantry, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But he had served as a triage attendant and later a supply officer.
Still, there was something to be said for all those hours of crawling through mud and under razorwire while lugging a duty-pack and tac-rifle in training sessions, years before seminary beckoned. Apparently, as with swimming and riding a bicycle, you just don’t forget some things.
Of course, the problem was that Jason didn’t know how well-trained Drummond’s people were —or perhaps they were the Holy Word Baptist church’s people. If they were seasoned mercs, he might be doomed. In fact, they might already know he was here and be circling around behind him. If they were thugs, he might just have the upper hand entirely.
Regardless, though, the one advantage I have, no matter who they are, is that they’re watching for Huang and whomever came to rescue him, Jason considered. They’re not expecting someone to know about them. Or care.
Jason was very quiet as he approached, and the communications he had read while using the prefect’s passcodes were very detailed. He found the ambushers where he expected them to be. They were at the only logical place one would leave the church from, if one wanted to remain undetected and spirit away a captured kinsman—in the rear, at the top of a large hillock at the edge of a park.
He thought about doing something now, but too early would be worse than doing nothing at all. As he waited, though, he became increasingly aware how much more wise it would be to just leave now, and go back to the church to which he was supposed to be attending.
God, I need a fucking cigarette, but all I have at the moment are Bible verses in my head. Great for the spirit, but pitiful for the desires of the body.
Jason was mere minutes away from panicked flight away from the scene when he saw the Vamp Outliers approach, and saw the hired guns shift and tense. Then he was committed.
He didn’t think any more after that. He saw men rising with weapons to perform a cowardly act as part of some deviant plan that would likely mean nothing but woe for the already downtrodden of the city. He saw wicked beings trying to escape wicked men. There were no angels here around him. Only demons.
He chose which demons to side with, stood up himself, and fired the flechette pistol twice at the back of one man, earning a dark spray of blood against the moonlit night, and then swiveled to take aim at another. As he fired that third shot and watched that man go down, he heard men off to his side. The flechette pistol was about as quiet a firearm as one could have, but it wasn’t entirely silent, and certainly, his movements weren’t.
Jason had felled two men, and now the Vamps were alert and aware of the trap. They moved and fired and slashed. Jason turned toward the nearest sound of adversaries, saw a man facing him—saw a weapon trained on him.
Though I travel through the shadow of the Valley of Death, I will fear no evil…
The other gun fired before Jason could swing his flechette pistol into anything approaching a good shot.
He decided to hold onto the memories of Astarte’s juices on his face and the memory of her kisses upon his lips as death approached him. He figured God would understand. Certainly, Jesus would, and probably could put in a good word for him…
He felt a wicked impact, and then awareness fled.
* * *
“I am going to assume that you are not simply a man with bad aim who was shooting at me and hit his comrades instead,” said a calm male voice.
Jason felt strong arms lifting him from the ground. His ribs hurt. It had taken a while to realize he had been hit, but not by the gunfire intended for him. Someone had tackled him to the ground.
“This is the god-man Astarte recruited to help us penetrate security,” said the Vamp who had done the tackling—and the subsequent lifting. He was a wight, Jason was pretty sure—pale, tall and thin, but quick and strong. His amber eyes regarded the preacher closely. “But I was not aware she had hired him as a watcher for us.”
“That was a special added service,” Jason croaked. “You can feel free to owe me one.”
The wight laughed and slapped Jason on the shoulder. “Astarte certainly knows how to pick the unlikelies.”
Huang looked Jason up and down with his golden eyes. “Well,” he said, “my thanks. “You really should get going. I know we will be.”
As he heard sirens in the distance, Jason saw the wisdom of that plan.
* * *
The next day, it was reported that an attempt had been made on Mayor Drummond’s life. Miraculously, the news reports noted, he hadn’t even been wounded, but his personal security detail was dead to the last man.
Shortly thereafter, video was released showing Huang’s movements at some remote location where he had been plotting the attack—or so the reports said—after dropping out of sight days before.
There were the expected threats of reprisals against the Outliers, and the promise that FedCops and military would be invited to join in the fray. Hints that Danica Peters’ campaign would be investigated, given her financial support from the Outliers. And more depressing things.
Jason got a sinking feeling as he put the pieces together. Huang had been abducted only to create the illusion now, in retrospect, that he had planned a terrorist action on behalf of the Outliers.
Drummond couldn’t make any headway against the Outliers with just his police. He needed to brand them terrorists, so that the federal authorities would lend their might. He had done just that with this ruse.
And what a joy that I’m assigned to a church right between the Sprawls and so-called civilized society, Jason lamented.
* * *
Some official-looking people came to visit Jason at his apartment a few days later, and strongly suggested that he would like to take a ride with them.
There didn’t seem to be much value in trying to run, so as they ushered him to the vehicle, Jason kept his mouth shut and tried to figure out a good story that would keep him out of prison and prevent him from incurring the wrath of the Outliers.
What he hadn’t expected—and why was it that he was getting so many surprises involving women these days?—was to see City Administrator Danica Peters, mayoral candidate and thorn in Drummond’s side, in the back seat.
She didn’t have binders on her wrists, so Jason was guessing she was his host, not his fellow prisoner.
“Hello, reverend,” she said pleasantly. “I hope your evenings have been more peaceful as of late.”
“You’ve known about all this?”
“Only recently, and I wanted to make your acquaintance after hearing about it from Astarte—and God, it’s going to be hell having to meet with her more often now, thanks to Huang’s situation. I don’t like spending extended time around such powerful predators, no matter how rich or attractive they may be. It upsets that delicate balances of autonomy and heterosexuality that I try to maintain.”
“Sorry about your campaign,” Jason said.
“What? Why?”
“You must be cycler-shred by now, thanks to none of us figuring out what Drummond was up to—and I should have been able to figure it out sooner,” Jason said. “Now you’ve got no chance in hell of winning.”
“Preacher,” Danica said with a chuckle, “you clearly don’t understand politics much, and haven’t been watching the news.”
Jason looked at her quizzically.
“Look,” Danica said. “first of all, plenty of people hate Drummond by now after years of making a mess of the city and relations between Norms, Fringies and Wyldthings. So, plenty of folks who think I was involved in the so-called attempt on his life are secretly cheering for me and plan to vote for me because of that. Plenty of others simply will vote for anyone who isn’t Drummond, even someone with such heavy funding from the Sprawls. My lead over Drummond has narrowed, yes, but not enough to matter. Chances are that I will win, unless he has a better and more dastardly plot in the works before election.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Clearly not. You also don’t apparently realize how happy the Vamps are with you or that you single-handedly saved the fucking day,” she said, pulling out a Femmeboro Citron and lit it up, filling the back of the groundcar with citrusy smoke.
“Do you mind the smell of cloves,” Jason asked. “I think I may need a cigarette for this.”
Danica smiled, motioned for him to go ahead, and he took out one of his Marlston CrimsonCloves to smoke. He found that the smoke of her Cirton and his CC mixed quite well in the air.
“What Drummond planned was good,” Danica admitted. “Huang was kept in a healthy and unthreatened condition for days, after disappearing, so that they could capture time-stamped video of him going about activities that looked totally natural and claim it was random feed-catches or confiscated security vids. All they had to do was fake the attempt on Drummond’s life and then shortly thereafter capture Huang and the other Vamps, and kill them in a scuffle. A scuffle that would have been made to look like it had happened elsewhere at a supposed secret Vamp lair, which coincidentally looked exactly like the place under the church where they had kept Huang.”
“So why won’t that work now?”
“Because Astarte immediately repudiated the attempt on Drummond’s life and expelled Huang from the clan. Without Huang, and most importantly without any other Vamps having been caught to show that there was some organized effort, it’s just one lone gunman: Huang. I’ve repudiated him publicly as well and vowed to begin hunting him down even before I’m executive mayor. I already have half the investigative corps on the task.”
“And how does Huang feel about all of this?”
“Fantastic. It’s the most fun he’s had in ages since maneuvering me into bed against my better judgment. He’ll get to run the most shady of the Vamps’ operations and be as devil-may-care as he likes. Drummond’s request for federal forces to invade the Sprawls has already been denied, and now he looks foolish instead of like a victim.”
“All because I was foolhardy enough to go help a bunch of genetic criminals.”
“When you don’t have the luxury of a choice between angels and devils, preacher, always go with the lesser of two evils. Now, let me buy you lunch. I have an offer for you. I had been hoping to have my pastor be my spiritual advisor when I take office, but it might create problems for him with the Archbishop if he did. How would you feel advising a Catholic when your internship with those Holy Word Bastards…oops, I mean, Baptists…is done?”
* * *
Three weeks later, Jason was presiding over the evening service. As he handed out communion bread to the handful of congregants, one of them lowered a pair of sunglasses slightly as she took the blessed bit of stale honey wheat. Amber eyes. The kind you tended to see on Vamps. Then the gorgeous young lady smiled briefly, just for him, and he saw the flash of twin fangs amongst her other teeth.
Jason shivered, and finished the service on a rather unsteady note.
* * *
He wasn’t surprised that the strange woman lingered long after everyone else had gone. He supposed he wasn’t even surprised when she walked up close to him. Or when he felt his erection grow and realized that she smelled almost—though not quite—like Astarte.
“My name is Melody,” the woman said, and Jason realized her voice was as musical as her name. “Astarte sent me to show her appreciation.”
“I don’t need a gift like that,” Jason said, wanting her more than he could admit. Her pheromones awoke memories of Astarte that he was struggling to submerge these days. “No offense. It just wouldn’t be seemly in my position.”
“Oh, but you won’t be in this position forever,” Melody said, running the back of her hand across his cheek. He smelled the perfume of her even more intently, and groaned softly. “We understand you lost a funding source helping us, and Astarte would like you to know that we can help with that. And I can help ease your loneliness.”
“I’m too busy to be lonely,” Jason stammered.
“Sweet liar,” she said, wandering away from him a little. “You likely will be busy when you start your new church in a several months after you have all your hours in. We have a wonderful spot picked out a mile or so inside the Gray Zion border, with easy access to Goldborough. I have visions of a mixed congregation of Norms, Fringies and Wyldthings. The Fringies and the Wyldthings and the Outliers are the heirs to this poisoned world, aren’t we? And we’d rather like to think God will appreciate our future stewardship when your Norm descendants have all died off. Besides, you’d be surprised how many in the Sprawls, even Outliers, find comfort in ritual and prayer.”
She was fondling the edge of a bible behind one of the pews as she said this, and Jason felt very guilty at how aroused that made him.
“I haven’t really given much thought to what kind of congregation—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I can do that kind of thinking for you.”
“I suspect you have other—”
“—things to do? No. Being a true-niece of Astarte’s gives me much too much leisure time. I could spend in luscious pursuits with clan members and Norms in our harems, but I’m a bit of a deviant among my kind. I’m a serial monogamist.”
“I’ll be happy to preside over your wedding should you find a beau to settle with,” Jason said dryly, hoping to usher her out before he lost his mind. His brain was swimming and his cock was throbbing.
“Oh, I think I might have a candidate, preacher,” Melody said, licking her lips, and showing her fangs. “I have a thing for uniforms. And the color black. And Astarte spoke so highly of your oratory skills. Imagine, a church with a Norm pastor and an Outlier first lady. Wouldn’t that be something to incite the media for months and months?”
“I’m not really in the market for—”
“Shhhh,” Melody said, approaching him again, with her hips sashaying softly. “In my experience, few Norm men can resist being actively wooed by a woman. Fewer still a feratu Vamp. And I’m in line to become a succubus. Someday. But I suspect I will have won you over long before then.”
She smiled and brushed her cheek against Jason’s throat. Her hair smelled like maple, wine, smoke and incense.
“Well, I’ll leave you with your desires, preacher-man,” Melody said with a wicked glint in her eyes as she pulled away. “And I’ll be back often to plant more of them. You’ll come around eventually. I’m very persistent. And Astarte hasn’t really given me failure as an option.”
The Lord’s Prayer flashed through Jason’s mind as he watched her ass during her exit, and he thought, Father, aren’t you supposed to deliver from evil…rather than into it?
After a few minutes, he stepped out onto the front stairs of the church, smelled the chemical tang of a recent light rainfall, and looked at the dirty sky. And off in the distance, the Vamp femme who had visited him, crossing back into the Sprawls. He thought about her words and how her kind likely would supplant “normal” humanity one day. Evolution wasn’t always gentle.
Perhaps I simply need to update my notion of what evil is, he thought, and wandered back into the church, already fearing he would come to look forward to Melody’s attentions.
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