A Succubus for Saint Patrick's Day and other tales Read online

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  A Succubus for Saint Patrick’s Day © Mar 2015 by M.E. Hydra

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

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  First Edition Mar 2015

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  A Succubus for Saint Patrick’s Day

  and other tales of Sinister Sirens

  By M.E. Hydra

  A Succubus for Saint Patrick’s Day

  On the fourteenth of March ‘Irish’ Nic May managed to lose his shirt twice in one day. That was impressive, even by Nic May standards of bad luck.

  He stared at the ten of clubs sitting on the green felt table. He didn’t see the dealer push the chips—his chips—over to the jubilant Chinaman on the other side of the table.

  Runner, runner, gutshot.

  There was running cold and then there was sitting on your ass in a frozen stream of piss.

  Earlier that evening he’d lost his shirt to Malcolm Waller. Well not directly, but it was Malcolm Waller’s fault. From a position of 183 for 5 he’d steered Zimbabwe to chase down 328 against New Zealand in a one day cricket international. Fucking Zimbabwe for fuck’s sake. They were barely a test-playing nation.

  Nic bet on cricket because it was a sure thing. In fact, he only bet on a game when he thought it was a sure thing. Nic didn’t play lotteries. He wasn’t a mug betting a tenner to win thousands on some pie-in-the-sky accumulator that came in never. He did it the other way—put down a couple of grand to win a hundred. There were plenty of hopeless romantics willing to throw their money away on lost causes. Nic was only too happy to sit on the other side and take their money. It was like earning interest from a bank, he used to joke, except the payout was better.

  And then Malcolm-fucking-Waller had come along and imploded his entire bankroll.

  It should have been a sure thing. Zimbabwe, the minnows, had lost their top five batsmen and were still well adrift of a hefty target of 328 runs. Nic wasn’t going to miss out on that opportunity for some easy money. And then he’d watched in horror as Malcolm-fucking-Waller had chipped away and dragged Zimbabwe over the line in the very last over.

  And, just like that, Nic’s bankroll, a full twenty thousand, was gone, evaporated into thin air.

  Nic didn’t have savings. Why lock money away in banks when it could be put to use earning far more than the interest the grubby banksters ever paid out.

  The second time he lost his shirt was to Mr Huan-Jiang Fu while playing Texas hold ’em poker. Mr Fu was the proprietor of a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Manchester’s Chinatown. Last month had been a good month for Mr Fu, and he and his chums were blowing off a couple of grand in the card room of the Ribchester. They were terrible players and drunk as well. Nic knew this because one of his contacts, a regular dealer at the Ribchester, had tipped him off. Nic always liked to know when the fish showed up at the tables.

  Unfortunately, as well as being drunk and terrible, Mr Fu and his chums were also very very lucky.

  Nic couldn’t catch a hand all night. Nothing, not a sniff. Fold, fold, fold and watch while the blinds slowly eroded his stack away. Nothing he could do but sit there and seethe in frustration, knowing the other players at the table were terrible, but not getting the hands to punish them.

  And they were terrible.

  Mr Fu and chums were terrible because they played any two cards, no matter how shit. They wanted to be in on the hand, wanted to see the flop, no matter how expensive or unlikely their chances were. Not that Nic could take advantage of it. He’d barely seen a face card all night and never two together.

  He’d sat there, still stewing over Malcolm-fucking-Waller and cursing Lady Luck for turning up blank after blank while the fat fish were floundering away on the other side of the table.

  He’d made a move on a king and jack of spades. Not exactly the best hand, but better than anything else he’d seen all night. He’d been happy to go all in with his chips when the three cards turned over for the flop had revealed another king and jack, and even happier when Huan-Jiang Fu had called him and revealed his hand was king-nine (or king-fuck’all as Nic liked to call it) when the cards went on their backs. Nic’s two pair of kings and jacks was a million miles better than Fu’s single pair of kings. There weren’t many outs from the remaining two cards either. Another nine from either the turn or river would also give the Chinaman two pairs, but it wouldn’t matter as his nines were outclassed by Nic’s pair of jacks. And a king would just make Nic’s hand better. Nic was feeling confident of doubling up his chips...

  ...and then watched in horror as the 4th card flipped up a queen and the 5th card the ten of clubs to give Huan-Jiang Fu a two-pair-beating straight of 9-10-J-Q-K.

  Nic felt like he’d been clubbed. He was still staring at the ten of clubs on the table even as the boisterous Chinese, yammering in excitement over tonight’s winnings, left the table.

  Nic had lost his shirt. Again.

  Only it wasn’t his shirt this time. It was a charity account he maintained for his niece. The money was supposed to fly her out to Canada for an operation to significantly improve her quality of life.

  And now it was empty.

  He wouldn’t have had to do this if it hadn’t been for Malcolm-fucking-Waller. He hadn’t been able to resist when he’d heard about drunken Mr Huan-Jiang Fu and chums. There wouldn’t be any risk. Take the money out, double it up off drunken Mr Huan-Jiang Fu and chums, and then put it back the next morning. Whatever extra he made would start his new bankroll. He’d bounce back.

  Instead he was flat broke. No, he was worse than flat broke. What was he going to tell his sister? He’d know what his family would think—degenerate gambler. But that wasn’t how it was. It was so unfair. Under any kind of normal circumstances it would have all worked out fine. How could one man run so cold?

  He was waist deep in the Cocytus and ugly green imps were pissing in his open mouth.

  He was about to sidle away from the table to lick his wounds, preferably with the help of a bottle of the hard stuff, when his toe scuffed against something under the table. At first he thought it was a book or file, but it felt heavier, harder. Like stone.

  It was stone. He picked up a square tablet carved out of black stone. There might have been some kind of lettering on the back, but age had rendered most of it illegible even if Nic could read the language. Some kind of demon or grotesque fertility fetish had been carved on the front. The figure was female and had been given highly exaggerated breasts and sex organs. That’s what made Nic think it was some kind of fertility fetish. But the figure also had features that tended to the demonic—bat wings, horns, tail, cloven hooves for feet. It was even armed with a fearsome spiked whip.
>
  Charming piece of tat, Nic thought.

  “Any idea what this is?” he asked the dealer, an air-headed girl from Eastern Europe with long straight black hair.

  She shrugged. “Maybe one of Mr Fu’s party left it. A lot of our Asian clients bring in good luck charms.”

  Well it had certainly been worth its weight in gold tonight, Nic thought sourly.

  “I can drop it off in Lost and Found,” the dealer offered.

  “No, it’s okay, I know Mr Fu,” Nic lied. “I’ll drop it off at his restaurant when I see him tomorrow.” Another lie.

  Fuck them for cleaning him out with some of the filthiest luck Nic had ever seen. He planned to take this out of spite. Maybe it might raise a few pounds on eBay. Failing that he could always take a sledgehammer to the ugly thing and smash it to powder. Nic shoved it into the inside pocket of his jacket and walked over to the bar to drown his sorrows.

  The bartender, who knew Nic, recognised Nic’s downcast expression as one he’d seen on many punters before.

  “Luck of the Irish, eh, Irish” the barman said as he poured Nic a commiserating shot of whisky.

  Nic wouldn’t know. He was born and bred in the home counties. The closest ties he had with Ireland was a grandmother from Dublin he hadn’t seen in over a decade. Nic had a knack for accents and after travelling the casinos of Europe he’d noticed everyone loved the Irish and hated the English, especially plummy-voiced Southern boys.

  The Irish accent also worked much better on the ladies, not that Nic was in the mood for anything other than getting drunk and moping. Just to rub it in, this would be the night one of the hottest girls Nic had ever seen came up and sat on the stool next to him. Nic didn’t know the Ribchester did shows. The girl was dressed up in bright green top hat and tails like a cabaret dancer. Vivid red hair spilled out from beneath her top hat and cascaded onto her shoulders in shimmering waves. She had the delicate elfin face and high cheekbones of a model, but rather than being cold and haughty, her large eyes and warm smile gave her the expressive features of a girl that looked fun to hang out with. She also looked like she had quite the figure hidden beneath that waistcoat judging by how the material bulged and was stretched taut at the chest.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi?” Nic said.

  Normally this would be the point he’d turn on the fake Irish charm and see how far it took him. He wasn’t really in the mood. Not after losing his shirt—twice!—in the same night.

  Besides, she was probably a working girl and there was no way he could afford her.

  on account of losing his shirt—twice!

  She was wearing an odd choice of clothes for a hooker, though. And normally they liked to get their claws into some shmuck on a lucky streak. There were no mirrors nearby, but Nic suspected he looked like someone who’d just watched their favourite puppy get run over by a lorry.

  “I’m your succubus,” the highly attractive girl said while flashing him a smile that’d give a butterfly diabetes.

  “My what?” Nic said.

  “Succubus,” the girl repeated. “The stone you have in your jacket pocket is a succubus tablet—my succubus tablet. Whoever owns a succubus tablet is master of its succubus. You own the tablet. That makes you my master.”

  Nic shook his head and took a gulp of his whisky.

  Hooker, waitress, showgirl, prankster; as hot as she looked, he really didn’t need this nonsense.

  The girl tilted her exquisitely beautiful face to the side and gave him a quizzical frown.

  “Master doesn’t look very happy,” she said.

  Nic wondered if she was high.

  “Master just got fucked in the ass by Lady Luck wearing a foot-long strap-on,” Nic scowled.

  He took another gulp and looked at the girl more closely. She really was a looker. Big bright eyes, sweet little smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Nic said. “It’s not been a good night. I’m not going to be good company. You’re better off sitting with someone else.”

  The girl didn’t take the hint. She sat perched on her stool and stared at him like an inquisitive bird. Gorgeous, but definitely high on something.

  “I can make you happy,” she said.

  Gorgeous, high and on the game.

  “You picked the wrong mark,” Nic said. “I’ve just been cleaned out. I don’t have any money.”

  The girl’s face brightened. “Oh money, I can help master there.”

  She grabbed the first man that walked by, a slick piece of shit in a suit that wasn’t as fancy as he believed it to be. At first the man was taken aback. Anger piled up on his face like thunderheads as he turned to give the girl a piece of his mind... and then that anger blew away the moment he saw her face. His lips turned up in a guileless smile and his eyes became vacant as the girl took his hand and batted magnificent lashes at him.

  Nic was astonished. Her mark looked besotted, creepily so.

  “Do you have two hundred pounds on you, cash?” she asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Could you give it to me? A gift. It would make me very happy.”

  She stroked her hand against his.

  “Sure,” the man beamed. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a fat wallet, opened it and handed over a quad of fifties to the girl in the lime-green cabaret outfit.

  “Thank you,” the girl said. “You’re such a sweetie.”

  The man smiled vacantly. He turned and walked away and seemed to forget he’d ever saw them. The girl placed the notes on the table and pushed them over to Nic.

  He looked at her incredulously. “How did you do that? Did you just Derren Brown him?”

  The girl briefly looked puzzled, as if the name of the famous hypnotist was unknown to her.

  “I’m a succubus. I have certain... magical... talents,” she said.

  She lifted the front of her hat to reveal two little red horns poking up out of her temples. She blinked and for a brief moment her glittering green eyes were replaced with empty black pools.

  Whoa.

  Nic nearly fell off the back of his stool in shock.

  “There’s no need to be afraid,” the girl with devil horns said. “I’m your succubus. My talents are yours to use as you see fit.”

  “This is a practical joke, right?” Nic said. “One of those television shows.”

  He looked around for a hidden camera.

  “You need more proof? Come with me.”

  She took his hand and led him back to the card tables. He felt a pleasant warm tingle where her skin touched his. He could hold her hand all night.

  He was less enthusiastic about her tail. It was red, slender and terminated in a devil’s point. It emerged just above the delicious rump of her ass and swayed from side to side as she walked. No-one else appeared to see it.

  This was fucked up, Nic thought. He must have snapped and lost his marbles.

  They arrived at the poker tables. Another group of degenerate East Asians were throwing their money around. Mostly to each other, Nic thought mournfully. The girl slipped behind him and he felt the soft bulges of her considerable breasts against his back as she pressed up close against him. She placed her hands over his eyes as if playing a childish game of peek-a-boo.

  “How about this for proof?” she whispered.

  She took her hands away and... nothing. Nic hadn’t felt anything—no tingle, no crackle, no spark of magic.

  That’s because she’s a crazy drugged-up whore in cosplay, he thought.

  No, wait. Something was different, but it took a while for his brain to catch up. It was the cards. The players’ hands should have been facedown, but instead they were face up. The other players didn’t seem to see this. They raised, called and folded as before. The game was also Texas hold ‘em. Nic watched the action back and forth as the dealer turned over the flop, then the turn, and then finally the river. There were only two players left in the hand—a corpulent man wearing opaque shades and a gormless-looking man with t
hinning hair and a garish shirt that didn’t fit him very well.

  The last card was the nine of spades and the corpulent man bet it aggressively. Nic saw it was a bluff. The man had stayed in on the strength of a second pair and a straight draw that hadn’t panned out. He was obviously trying to represent he’d hit a flush with that third spade being turned over. Unfortunately for him, the fidgety man on the other side of the table was holding the five and six of spades and was the one with the flush.

  Despite this, the skinny man agonised and took an age over the call. At one point Nic thought the man was about to fold and if he had Nic would have beaten him to death with a chair leg. After how his night had panned out, watching someone flub such a piece of good fortune would have been more than he could take.

  The man paused, dithered and deliberated before finally pushing his stack of chips into the middle. His relief was obvious as the cards were turned over and revealed what Nic had known all along. The man’s friends patted him on the back and the corpulent man laughed. They continued to yammer at each other in Chinese as the dealer dealt fresh hands.

  And Nic saw all of them. He watched the corpulent man fold five-three off and the player on the button raise a pair of eights.

  Nic paused. What the fuck was he doing watching? He had to get in on this game!

  Too late. He blinked and saw the cards had returned to normal.

  “How did you do that?” he hissed to the girl. “Make it come back.”

  She looked apologetic.

  “I can’t,” she said. “You need to recharge my magic.”

  “Oh, how do I do that?”

  The succubus leaned close and whispered in his ear.

  Nic’s eyes popped wide. “Really? Sure, I can do that.”

  As they walked to the lifts after picking up a room at the front desk (again the girl in green had only needed to bat her eyelashes to get the room for free), Nic wondered if she’d got the costs and services columns mixed up. What she wanted from him sounded a lot more like the latter than the former.