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

  The Dutchman noticed Nic’s succubus and Nic was happy to see his cocky facade was briefly cracked, enough for Nic to glimpse a little envy in the other man’s eyes. It didn’t last long.

  “I see you’ve come into some money,” the Dutchman said. “I hope she doesn’t charge by the hour. It’s going to be a long night.”

  That was another skill the Dutchman had picked up from his stint in the children’s card games—trash talking. Nic ignored the barbs and took a seat at the table. The other players were more reserved. Nic recognised some of them from the various late night poker shows that had grown in popularity on the smaller television channels. Nic wasn’t intimidated. He’d seen their play on TV and it had seemed loose to him. Someone had told him that was deliberate, that they didn’t want to scare the whales away from the more lucrative cash games like this. It didn’t matter either way. Nic had his ace up his sleeve.

  His succubus did her peek-a-boo thing and energy crackled across Nic’s eyes. She leant in close enough to give the lobe of his ear a little nibble. Her warm breath tickled through his hair.

  The dealer, a pretty young Polish girl with long black hair dealt out the cards and as before Nic saw them as clearly as if they’d been dealt face up. He smiled. This was going to be as easy as taking candy from a baby.

  And it was easy. It didn’t matter how good the other players were, their feints and bluffs were all completely irrelevant when Nic could see straight through them to the cards sitting on the table. It was simple. He danced out of trouble when they hit a better hand and dropped haymaker bets when they didn’t.

  It gave Nic especial pleasure to squash one of the TV celebs, Dave ‘the Octopus’. He was a tubby man with a face like a bleached moon and wore tiny round spectacles that seemed too small for his face. The Octopus had ace-queen suited, but after a garbage flop Nic had the slight lead with a lowly pair of fours. The Octopus kept raising to bully and Nic kept calling. The last card turned over a king and The Octopus bet big as though he had another in hand. Nic saw he was bluffing and came back over the top. The Octopus called and saw Nic’s winning hand of a pair of fours. There was a faint flicker of emotion in the other man’s face—a slight raising of the eyebrow.

  The Dutchman, not involved in this hand, was more expressive. “Wow Irish, that took some big balls.”

  Nic’s lips turned up in a shark-toothed smile. “What can I say, I had a feeling.”

  He scooped all the chips in the pot.

  The Octopus sat in his seat. The baby-smooth skin of his forehead was crinkled as he studied Nic. It looked like various gears and cogs were whirring behind his pudgy mask. He put up a hand before the dealer was about to deal the next hand.

  “Sorry gents,” he said. He looked again at Nic. “I’m going to call it an early night.”

  The Dutchman looked surprised. The Octopus still had over half of his original stack left.

  “Sure, no problem,” the Dutchman said.

  Nic had a gloating smile as he watched the other man pick up his chips and leave the table. So much for Mr Big Shot Poker Pro.

  The game carried on and Nic kept winning.

  “Saint Patrick must be looking out for you on his day, Irish,” the Dutchman said, although he pronounced it the Dutch way—“Sint.”

  “Luck of the Irish,” Nic said as he scooped up another pot. “It’s about time it changed in my favour.”

  “And it can just as easily change back,” the Dutchman said. “That’s why I don’t believe in luck. She’s too fickle a bitch.” He gave the table a rakish smile.

  Tonight Nic should have been beyond the influences of Lady Luck, but she turned on him regardless. How, he couldn’t explain. His succubus’s magic should have placed things beyond chance. Yet as the night wore on Nic’s gains began to slow down and then start to become losses. The other players turned into stone. Getting chips out of them became as impossible as wringing blood out of a boulder. Whenever he was ahead he couldn’t find anyone willing to get into a pot with him.

  Nic tried to play looser in order to get some action. He tried chasing straights and flushes in the hope of securing a big pot. They just wouldn’t come in, and when they did come in the other players were able to get away cheaply. On other hands he started ahead, but had to duck out himself as the river card made the other player’s hand. His chips started dribbling away.

  “Clock’s gone past midnight,” the Dutchman said. “Looks like Sint Pat has gone to bed.”

  Nic scowled at him. The Dutchman had nothing this hand, just a lousy pair of tens. Nic had ace-king, but neither an ace nor a king had shown up and Nic had to throw them away. Another bite out of his depleting stack.

  A couple of hands later and Nic saw an opportunity for revenge. This time he needed no ace or king, the aces in hand came ready paired. Now if only he could get some action.

  The Dutchman obliged, putting in a button raise with a paltry ace-eight. Nic called, along with two other players. He really hoped the flop would hit an ace so he could wreck the cocky git. It didn’t, but the nine, two and six didn’t help anyone else either. The hand was checked all the way to the Dutchman, who promptly raised. Nic, still playing possum on his aces, called while the other two players dropped out. He had the Dutchman right where he wanted him. Even if he picked up his ace, it would just result in him walking right into Nic’s three of a kind.

  The turn wasn’t an ace. It was a seven of hearts. Nic checked and the Dutchman raised.

  The seven was a little irritating, Nic thought. It did give the Dutchman a potential straight draw. Better to make a move now, he decided. He raised back over the top, pushing all of his remaining chips into the centre.

  The Dutchman sat back and sighed.

  “Damn,” he said. “I had a feeling you were slow-playing something big.”

  He studied his chips and the cards on the table.

  “Let me guess. Kings? Aces?”

  Nic said nothing, kept his face completely blank.

  “Damn, damn,” the Dutchman said. He counted the chips in the pot and then the chips in his stack. He shifted position in his chair. Sums and calculations whirred behind his bright eyes. He tapped a finger against his lower lip and frowned.

  The dealer politely reminded him he had to make a decision. The Dutchman nodded his head.

  “I think you’re a big favourite,” he said. “But there’s too much already in the pot. Guess I have to hope to get lucky.”

  He called and turned over his ace-eight. He nodded when Nic turned over his pair of aces.

  Nic would have rather he folded, but it was probably still good for him. He was a massive favourite and it meant he’d be able to double his chips back up again.

  The dealer turned over the ten of clubs, completing the Dutchman’s straight.

  The other man’s frown turned to a broad grin. He put a finger in his mouth and made a popping sound.

  “Looks like the fisherman got swallowed by a shark,” he said.

  He turned and high-fived one of the other players.

  Nic slumped back in his chair.

  No. No. No! How could it happen again?

  It felt like the floor had fallen away beneath him to reveal the roiling abyssal expanse of a black hole. The gravitational pull took hold of his body and crushed him to the floor. He saw the ten of clubs lying on the table as if watching this all in crisp, high definition. The card lay on the green felt like the death card turned over from a tarot deck. The only other thing he saw was the empty space where his stack of chips had been.

  “You’re looking a little green, Irish,” the Dutchman said. Then his tone became more sympathetic. “Hey, let him get some air.”

  Still in shock, Nic was numb to all feeling as the Dutchman and another player helped him over to the fire exit. Nic stumbled outside into a service alley behind the casino.

  What had just happened?

  He slumped against a wall and spewed vomit over the bricks. In his head he replayed a
ll the major hands of the night. What had gone wrong? Was there something he could have done differently?

  He turned and saw the succubus standing in the centre of the alley. She had a hand on her hip and cold rage radiated from her form. In the sky above her a white moon glared down.

  “Are you going to let them get away with this?” she said.

  Nic didn’t know what to say. Even though she had horns and looked like a devil, this was the first moment she’d seemed truly fearsome.

  “They cheated you,” she said. “Are you going to let them get away with it?”

  Yes, they’d cheated him. They must have manipulated the deck. That’s what had happened. How else would the ten of clubs have shown up like that. Again.

  He shook his head.

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you what you can do,” the succubus said. She pressed a cold metallic object into his hand. “You can go back in there and get your money back.”

  Numbly, Nic looked down at the object in his hand. It was a gun. He wondered how she’d managed to sneak that in past security, or even where she’d concealed it. Her lime-green dress hugged her curves like a second skin.

  While not an expert, Nic had some familiarity with guns. He’d fired a few at ranges out in Eastern Europe. He checked the magazine and saw the gun was loaded.

  Yes, they’d cheated him. And now he was going to get his money back.

  “Rebuying?” the Dutchman said as Nic re-entered the room from the fire exit.

  Nic’s answer was to brandish the gun. The other players ducked for cover. Joviality fled the Dutchman’s face.

  “You cheated me,” Nic said. “I want my money back.”

  The Dutchman looked back at Nic with clear blue eyes. For once he looked his true age rather than the boyish persona he projected.

  “Everyone knows my game is fair,” he said.

  “No, you cheated me. That’s the only way I could have lost.”

  “You lost because you played badly,” the Dutchman said. “It was your decision to stay in on that straight draw even though the math didn’t add up. It was your decision to slow play those aces and let me back into the pot. Bad luck or cheating had nothing to do with it; you made poor decisions and people who make poor decisions always lose their chips in the end.”

  “Shut up!” Nic said, jabbing the gun in the Dutchman’s direction. “I need that money,” he said, more plaintive now. “My niece... she needs twenty grand for an operation.”

  “Twenty grand?” the Dutchman said. He was not moved to sympathy. “You were up more than that at one point tonight. You could have cashed out then.”

  Nic said nothing.

  “Even if I did give you the money back it wouldn’t go to your niece. I know your type. You’ll find another ‘sure thing’ to lose it on. Your kind always do. You’re a loser, Irish.”

  “Give me the money!” Nic yelled.

  “No.”

  The Dutchman refused to be intimidated. Still staring at Nic, he walked close enough for the gun barrel to be pressing against his forehead.

  What was wrong with him? Nic thought. Nic had a gun. Why wasn’t the Dutchman frightened of him?

  “Put the gun down and go home, Irish,” the Dutchman said. “I’ve been watching you play all night. You’re as easy to read as a book. It’s obvious when you’re trying to bluff.”

  He stared right into Nic’s eyes.

  “You’re bluffing.”

  Nic continued to fall into the big black hole roiling away beneath him. What the fuck did he do now? He hadn’t seriously considered shooting anyone. He didn’t think he’d have to. He thought pointing the gun at them would be enough to scare them into giving him his money. What now?

  He lowered the gun. The asshole was right. He couldn’t shoot him. What would that achieve? Any money he ran off with would be lost when the police caught him. Then he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars.

  “Go home, Irish,” the Dutchman said contemptuously before turning back to the table.

  Sheepishly, broken, Nic retreated out through the fire exit.

  He said nothing on the taxi ride back to the hotel. The succubus sat next to him on the back seat. He felt the disapproval radiating out from her.

  What else could he have done? The Dutchman had called his bluff. Shooting him wouldn’t have achieved anything. Fuck. Why did Lady Luck always have to fuck him in the ass?

  No. The Dutchman was right. It wasn’t luck. It was him. He was just another shmuck loser.

  The succubus pounced on him as soon as they walked through the door into the room. This took Nic by surprise. She hadn’t said a word during the drive home and he didn’t think she was in the mood for sexy stuff.

  Neither was Nic, to be honest. All he wanted to do was sit in the dark and lick his wounds, maybe with the help of a strong bottle of spirits.

  The succubus had other plans. She pushed him back onto the bed, climbed on top and started to fiddle with his belt.

  “I don’t think I’m in the mood,” Nic said.

  The succubus looked up and bared her long fangs in an animalistic hiss.

  Nic recoiled. What had gotten into her?

  She ripped open his trousers and exposed his genitals. Claw-tipped fingers tickled up and down his flaccid cock. There was a crackle of warm energy and Nic was erect with a suddenness that made him gasp in shock.

  The succubus was fully naked. Nic wasn’t sure how that had happened. She’d been wearing a figure-hugging, lime-green dress mere moments ago. She straddled Nic and the plush labia of her sex parted like lips about to accept a tasty morsel.

  A growing feeling of disquiet—an atavistic sense of danger—rose in Nic. It warned him entering her this time would not give him the same pleasant sensations as before. He tried to rise up from the bed.

  The succubus snarled displeasure in his face. She planted a claw-tipped hand on his chest and shoved him back down. Her other hand enfolded his erection and steered it beneath her. She lowered her hips and—in one smooth motion—engulfed the whole of Nic’s cock.

  His sense of disquiet had been correct to be concerned. It was not the pleasant sensation he’d experienced before. Her pussy was tight—too tight. And muscular—far too muscular. That was before he even got to the heat. It felt like fires raged within her.

  Nic was a long-lapsed catholic, but right there and then all his childhood terrors flowed back into him. It wasn’t a cute little girl with a knockout body and Halloween-costume horns, but a devil riding him. An actual devil. She used one hand to pin him to the bed while the other groped and squeezed one of her overripe breasts. Her pussy squeezed him as well. A little too hard.

  “You’re recharging, right?” Nic said.

  “Better than that,” she replied with a smile that chilled Nic’s blood. Her voice tailed off in a sibilant hiss like steam escaping a hellish engine.

  “You’re being a little rough,” he said, still praying his fears were wrong and this was just another of her sex games.

  The succubus paused her rapid up-and-down thrusts and settled in Nic’s lap.

  Oh good, she’d realised she was—

  Nngh!

  Needle-sharp teeth sprang out of the walls of her vagina and impaled his member. The pain was intense but also weirdly ephemeral, as if it was the spectral impressions of teeth. The part of him they’d impaled also felt weirdly ephemeral—less part of his flesh and something... else.

  “The fuck!” he protested.

  The room darkened around Nic. He caught a whiff of something unpleasant—burnt meat. He thought he heard far-off voices carried to him on a burning wind.

  Black lips curled up in a cruel smile, the succubus shushed him with a finger on his lips.

  “You’re a loser,” she said. “You try to tell yourself it’s bad luck, but you know the truth—it’s you.”

  “No, no,” Nic protested.

  The darkness was deepening and expanding, as if th
e room had been washed in stygian ink. Those far-off voices sounded closer. They sounded like screams.

  The succubus’s breath came out in erotic pants as she rose up and down on top of him, fucking him. Her ass slapped against him with each bounce and with each bounce he felt a pressure rising in his balls. This was a different feeling than the usual pleasant precursor to ejaculation, and one that filled him with terror.

  “And now you realise that...”

  The succubus increased the intensity of her fucking. Her swollen breasts bobbed and swayed with the motions of her body. The ephemeral fangs within her body caught on that ephemeral part of Nic. He felt weird inside, like some inner elastic lining was detaching from his body.

  “...you’re mine to claim.”

  Nic tried to protest, to plead, but all that emerged was a strangled sound—part terror, part uncontrolled bliss.

  The succubus’s head tipped up. Her wings, blacker even than the dark fugue surrounding them, extended behind her. She rose up and came down in a final stroke. Her vagina clenched; the fangs gripped.

  Nic couldn’t hold back. His hips bucked and his cock erupted inside her. The succubus’s vaginal teeth gripped the torn remnants of his soul and reeled that out of him along with his semen. Nic was dead and cooling even as the succubus drew the last dregs of cum out of his body. Murmuring contentedly, she lay down on top of his corpse, her black wings covering both of them like silk sheets.

  She lay like that for a while, basking in the aftermath. Then she cast her mind out amongst the sparkling constellation of souls moving around her.

  She picked up the stone tablet and traced long fingers over the grotesque image carved into the surface.

  Who would be the lucky one to receive it next?

  Her mind slipped from star to sparkling star, looking for imperfections, seeking flaws.

  Oh yes. You.

  The High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency

  Everyone knows how the story goes.

  Boy meets Girl. Boy makes fun of Girl. Girl calls Boy a jerk.

  They get older.

  Boy falls in love with Girl. Girl falls in love with Boy. They don’t tell each other because they’re terrified of the other laughing in their face.