Chapter 7 - Downtown

Evening arrived and after about 30 minutes of driving, we had finally made it downtown. I looked for a parking spot and finally found one. "Where to first Lamia?" I internally said. "Follow those strings.". Getting out of the car and shutting the door, I could see every single color that ever existed floating around. A big group of them led into a bar. Looking up at the sign with a few bulbs burnt out, the name 'Quirinus' was sprawled over a half dilapidated building. "How is this place even open?" I questioned. "Who cares, we're immortal." Lamia piped back. Heading my way in, I could see the strings connect to men standing outside and going through the door. Before even reaching the door, three men standing outside started catcalling and whistling. I rolled my eyes and still made my way towards the door but before reaching it, someone had grabbed my arm and started pulling me towards the alley to the right of the bar path. "Act meek" Lamia stated. So meek I acted. I let the one man drag me into the alley, but he was accompanied by two other men. The man who had grabbed my arm was tall, muscular, had brown hair, and had a red string right into his chest. The second was shorter, stockier, and had an orange string. The last guy was tall and lean. He was a dirty blonde and had a charred orange string. Lamia started getting excited. I could tell by the warmth starting in my hip. The red string penned me against the building barking "So you think you can roll your eyes at whoever you please without consequences?". I rolled my eyes again and Lamia made us smile. Red string got mad. You could see it all over his face. "We'll teach you not to be a tease. Aryn grab her arms, JJ grab her legs.". Mr. Orange string grabbed my arms while the charred orange pinned my legs. The red string started to try and take my clothes off when Lamia took hold. "If you know what's good for you Mr. Lover boy, you will step away from me.". "Oh so now you speak. I'm warning you, scream and you'll die." red string replied. Lamia started laughing quietly. He put his arm on our leg and went to pull it up when before I knew it, Lamia had him by his throat. "I said to get your hands off of me." You could see the fear that coated him. He saw that our face had gone from human to demonic in a span of seconds. She again kissed him and he had gone limp a burn started on the bridge of my nose right under my other mark. Before the orange string could react, Mia already had him by his throat bringing him to us. His futile efforts to keep our arm in place failed. While bringing him to us, the charred orange string popped up and smacked us. This only made Lamia wilder as she sped over to his face, bit his cheek and then smashed his mouth into hers. He was limp and pale within seconds and again a second burn coated the bridge of my nose carrying out under my eyes it felt like. Terror all over his face. The orange string guy started clawing our arm trying to get away. Lamia quickly brought him to us and again, his soul was gone in seconds and again, the burning sensation on the bridge of my nose spanning out across my cheeks. Lamia dropped him and I knew we had to leave before anyone saw our face. "Lamia, I'm taking control." "Car NOW." she said dripping with power. I made my way to the parking garage across the street trying to keep my head low. Crossing the sidewalk I saw a black string encapsulated with silver and stopped abruptly. "Lamia are you seeing what I'm seeing?" "Yes I am and I don't think that's a human string get to the car NOW.". Unease pulverized the both of us and finally seeing the car, I sprinted to it hurriedly opening the door and shutting it. I pulled down my mirror wanting to know what the heck was all over my face. Pulling it open, I now had four marks. My lone original vertical mark and three horizontal marks each one bigger than the last. "Lamia is this normal?" "Mia, I don't know but what I do know is that I am drowning in power right now. Check your senses, they are getting sharper.". Noticing what she said, I could feel it also, my hearing was tremendously better, I could see specks of dust floating in the air, and the dark wasn't all that dark now. "Whoa" I said out loud. "Yea this is awesome! I should've done this a millennia ago!" Lamia ecstatically said. She continued. "Let's follow that black string once we calm down.". I agreed and we sat there for about an hour, letting ourselves adjust to our bodily changes that we had just went through. Calming down and returning to normal after that was hard. For a few minutes I truly thought I was going to go feral and let Lamia have full control. Pondering on it, I guess that's how those women became so powerful and they were able to shift their marks. "We can hide them. We must hide them." Lamia interrupted. "Why do you think that?" I stated. "Because it's just like all those years ago Mia, you can never let them know just how strong you are until you absolutely have to.". I heard the sadness in her voice and I truly felt for her. I would have thought I was going to feel so guilty for doing that but after what those men attempted to do, I felt no remorse. There was no telling how many other women suffered at their hands. Pulling out of the parking lot, there was no one in sight. I hoped we would find the end of the string by morning but there was no telling quite honestly. We followed it for hours. The city lights disappearing long ago. The strings were also getting more scarce out here. It took us through winding roads and finally up through a mountain road ending at a quaint cottage. "Should we get out?" I asked Lamia. "Yes. I don't get any bad intent coming from this place.". Getting out of the car, the moonlight glistened off my skin. I don't know what Lamia had done but it looked absolutely gorgeous glowing even. "You're welcome. It's a trick I learned with Lilith long ago." she spouted. The small walk way was lined with flowers and had a river brick running along it. Before I could open the door, it was pulled open by a Godly being. If talk, dark, and handsome had a picture, this would be it. I was smaller framed standing around 5 foot. This man had to be over 6 foot. He towered over me staring at me with emerald green eyes. His face and chest chiseled to perfection. Internally Lamia was screaming she wanted to eat him and that she wanted to "toy with him" first. I rolled my eyes internally. "What can I help you with?" he asked in gruff voice. "Oh yes my car broke down and I noticed the house. I wondered if I could borrow your phone?" I replied. "I don't have a phone but you can stay and I can take you into town tomorrow to get someone out here to check the car." "That'd be great! Thank you so much!". "Come in. Have you eat?". "I haven't eaten in a while but I'm not very hungry.". "Oh that's too bad. I'm starving." he said and before I knew what happened, I was lifted into the air once again. His face has contorted but his markings were much different than mine. His whole face was black except for small slivers of skin peeking through across his cheeks and chin. His forehead had a swirling mark that matched my torso pretty closely. When I didn't react, he cocked his head to the side and asked "Why aren't you scared?" furrowing his brows together like he was utterly confused. "Cool marks bro, wanna see mine?" I responded and Lamia brought them all forth. My eyes and fangs were out in seconds. His eyes widened and while dropping me, he let out a very high pitched "AHH". Kind of how I used to react to spiders. Once he dropped me, he got right in my face studying me. "How are you hiding your succubus being so young?". He reached out and gently touched my face leaning it to the side. "I don't know" I said shrugging my shoulders. "Even so how did you find me?" he asked even more curious. "Your string. Let me right to you." I said pointing to the string that I saw going straight to his chest. "My string? What string?" he prodded more. "You know the strings that connect to people. You have a black one with silver and it gave us a weird feeling so we followed it.". He got kind of frustrated at that and reflected it. "Succubus or Incubus don't see strings I don't know what you are talking about. Did your soul get fried during transition?! Never mind it. Who is your creator?" "Lilith" I said with a half smile. Again his eyes got big and he immediately fell to the floor bowing. "Whoa Whoa man, calm down. Why are you bowing? Get back up!." I said as I pulled on his arm, while motioning him to get back up. He sat on the couch pulling me along with him unexpectedly. Flatly he continued as if he was in a far away place, "I never thought in all my years, I'd ever meet a Lilith succubus." "Is this dude for real right now?" Lamia said. "I think so" I responded back internally. After his far away stare disappeared a smile broke on his face. "So what are you?" I asked. "You can't even tell your own kind yet?" he said raising an eyebrow at me. "You're a succubus? But you're a boy?" I replied pointing at him up and down. "No, of Course I'm not a succubus. I'm an Incubus." He said rolling his eyes. "Well you didn't know that I was a succubus when I first came in here." He pondered for a moment on that. "How did you cloak your succubus so well?" he asked. "I don't know" I said again shrugging my shoulders. Sunlight started peeking in through the kitchen window and I became nervous. "What's your name?" I asked. "Balthazar and yours?". "I am Mia. Balthazar, I need to sleep. Do you have a dark room I could go to? You should be heading there soon yourself. The sun is coming out." He began laughing. "Are you tired or scared of the Sun?" "Both" I replied. "You can go out into the Sun you know. We aren't vampires." "Well I still need to sleep. I need to see Lilith." His face dropped and his eyes became wide again. "You get to visit Lilith? What does she look like? How does she act?" he continued on with questions until I cut him off. "I will answer all of those when I wake up. But right now I need rest.". "Yes your majesty". "Please call me Mia". "Yes Mia." He led us up the stairs to a quaint little bed and pulled the curtains. "I will make sure to keep watch over you Mia. If you need me please call and I will be here as soon as possible." "Thank you Balthazar. I will see you when I wake up." Lamia internally being quite this whole time started up as I laid down and closed my eyes. "I like him. We should make Cambions with that one." I was to tired to even ask her what that was and drifted off to sleep.