002

Cole arrived at the morgue. He threw on a lab coat and entered Vince's examination room. The bald pathologist was busy autopsying Travis Dunham's shriveled body.

"Please tell me you have something, Vince," Cole said, greeting the reed-thin, middle-aged doctor draped in a worn lab coat.

Vince turned towards Cole and adjusted his glasses. "Seventeen years on this lousy job and I've never seen anything like this. Come here, take a look."

Cole approached the body, or rather what somewhat resembled a body. The corpse was desiccated as if entombed for millennia in Egypt. But the clothes piled on a steel table beside the body were the same ones he saw Travis wear last night, without so much as a stain on them...

"Now, look at this," the pathologist pointed.

Vince lifted a scalpel and punctured the corpse's arm. A fine red powder spilled from the opening, like he had poked into a bag of rusty sand.

"What is that?" Cole asked.

"That is blood, my friend. Extremely dehydrated blood."

"What could possibly do that?"

"That certainly is the million dollar question of the day, now isn't it? For blood to turn to a powder like this would take a sizable heat source or be freeze dried. The outside of the body would start to burn at such a temperature -- but as you can see, no burns."

Vince turned to Cole. "You say there was a naked woman in the room when you busted in?"

"That's right. So?"

"Was she hot?" Vince snickered.

"I didn't have time to assess her attractiveness, smart ass."

Vince laughed. "Okay, okay. But here's something else interesting."

He pulled down the sheet to reveal the lower half of Travis' dead body.

"Notice anything?"

It was obvious, even to Cole. Travis may have been dead, but he sported an extreme erection.

"Why isn't it decayed like the rest of the body?" Cole asked.

"I have a hypothesis," Vince said. "The only time a dead man has a hard-on like this is if he was extremely aroused the moment he died. Whatever this mystery girl of yours did to him, they where having sex when she did it. Pretty hot sex, it looks like." He grinned at his own joke.

"Makes sense," Cole thought. He did see her on top of him when he entered the room. The wings, tail, and horns were at the front of his mind, however.

"Let me know if you figure out anything else. The captain put me on leave for a few days."

Vince shook his head. "I think you're fine. We've known each other since college. After what happened to Maria, no one would be able to handle it well."

Cole smiled. "Thanks, Vince."

*****

Cole came home after sunset to his empty apartment. He hung his trench coat on the hook on the kitchen door. The kitchen lay in shadow; only a small bulb above the sink provided light. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of beer. Maybe he could relax.

He had just popped the cap and taken a swig when he noticed the unusual chill in his apartment. This wasn't the first time he had thought to call the landlord to fix the heater, but the temperature outside wasn't all that cold before he came in.

Cole stepped toward the thermostat, and then stopped suddenly. A foreign scent tickled his nostrils. He recognized that smell, but it shouldn't be in his apartment - a mix of lavender, cherry blossom, and cotton candy. It was the same odor in the room where he found Travis' body. Cole's mind stirred uneasily.

He looked around his untidy quarters. Case files and evidence photos lay messily on every available surface. Nothing seemed out of place or missing. The windows appeared to be shut tight -- that was a relief. He glanced into the pitch-black living room and saw two small red lights in the corner. It all clicked in his brain at once.

He wasn't alone.

Cole quickly drew his service revolver and aimed at the lights.

"Who's there?"

The two beady lights began to move towards him. The sound of clopping heels could be heard against the hardwood floor. A womanly figure stepped from the shadows of the living room.

"Is that how you greet all your guests? By pointing a gun at them?"

It was her. The woman from the night club. The one that killed Travis. And now she had come for him.

Cole walked backwards into the light of the kitchen, his pistol still aimed at her.

"Guests are people I invite into my home," Cole retorted.

"There's no need to be snide," the woman said, and extended her arm. In a flash, Cole's pistol flew from his hands and into hers.

"This wouldn't do you much good anyway."

She reached into her coat pocket and threw three slugs from a handgun at Cole's feet. He realized these were the bullets he fired at her the night before. Cole's heart raced in fear, his adrenaline coursing through his veins. He was defenseless and unsure of what the creature wanted with him.

"What are you?" Cole asked, his voice trembling.

The woman stepped up to Cole, standing in the light.

"Have a seat."

The woman twitched her index finger slightly. One of the dining room chairs slid from under the table on its own and stopped at his side. Cole reluctantly sat. She scooted onto the table in front of him, leaning forward slightly, crossing her long legs.

Cole's vision involuntarily wandered from her knee-high leather boots to those toned legs covered in black silk stockings that disappeared under a black cocktail dress -- a dress very similar to the red dress she had worn the night before. The jacket, also made of leather, was unzipped. Her abundant cleavage looked ready to spill from her dress.

"My name is Zafira, and I am a succubus. You should feel honored. I haven't told anyone my name in centuries."

"Why tell me then?"

She grinned. "Well, most do not live long enough to say it, so why bother?"

Cole gave her a puzzled look. "So you're not here to kill me?"

Zafira smiled and ran her fingers lightly through Cole's short dark hair. "I always did like the smart ones -- they get me so antsy in my panties," she smirked. Zafira uncrossed her legs. "...if I were wearing any."

Cole could not help but look. No panties were visible under her short dress, only a glistening sheen of her inviting pussy, beckoning him to touch it.

"S-s-so, what is a succubus, exactly?" Cole asked, trying not to stutter.

Zafira sighed in disappointment. "Perhaps I spoke too soon." She crossed her legs again. "A succubus is a demon, a unique demon who brings vast amounts of sexual pleasure to weak-willed men." She leaned forward, lightly rubbing her foot against Cole's crotch and putting the deep valley of her cleavage inches from his eyes. "And consumes their souls in the process."

"A demon? Like, a demon from Hell? You can't be serious."

Lowering her jacket from her shoulders, two large wings spread out from behind Zafira's back, stretching the width of the table. "I'm very serious," she smiled coyly.

Cole felt a shiver down his spine. This was not a dream and he was not going insane. She claimed to not want to kill him, but her advances suggested she did. He was uncertain and anxious about his fate by the end of tonight

"What do you want with me, then?"

The wings folded behind Zafira's back, disappearing inside her body. She slid fluidly off the table and walked around it to the wall covered in crime scene photos, police documents, and news articles. Everything piled throughout Cole's apartment was related to a single case. She plucked a photo from the wall and stared at it intently....

"It's a shame what happened to your poor wife Maria. You came home from a night of boring police work to find her bound to your bed where she had been raped, then shot three times -- two in the stomach, and one in the head. Why, just that morning, she told you she was pregnant."

Cole felt his blood boil as Zafira retold those hideous events.

"How did you know all that? No one knew of her pregnancy but me!"

Zafira turned to him. "I can read minds. I knew everything about you the moment your eyes met mine last night. Your name, your past, every secret and every kinky desire you ever had."

Cole was mortified. He felt violated of his privacy, his most intimate thoughts.

"But I digress. Let's get to the point, shall we?"

Zafira glided back around the table. She sat on Cole's lap and wrapped her strong arms around his neck. He tried to hide his arousal, and then realized it was an exercise in futility if she could read minds.

"You see, I care about only one thing: survival. For centuries, I've been able to exist among you morals, feeding every now and then, all because I remain otherwise unknown. Your barging in on me last night before I could dispose of that poor man's body has resulted in my being in the news. This is quite an inconvenience for me because there are certain entities that would, to put it lightly, put my head on a pike if they found me."

Sounds like these 'entities' would be good to befriend, and soon.

Zafira heard his mind working. She was slightly amused, and not at all worried.

"I'm assuming you want me to fix this somehow."

Zafira smiled. "You catch on quick."

"How?"

"How about we make a deal? I could very easily skip town to dine elsewhere but I rather like it here in Chicago. This town is so full of fun and exciting things to do, so many corrupt souls to claim. But I dare not spend too much time outside my lair now. Scanning the minds of men until I find a corrupt soul for my exquisite tastes can be very time consuming. You, being an officer of the law, should be able to bring me plenty of bad guys for my needs."

"And if I refuse?"

Zafira pouted her lips. "Then I will have to skip town, and that would make me very sad."

That doesn't sound too bad. Better than being an accessory to murder.

"On the other hand," Zafira said, staring into Cole's eyes, "if I were to skip town, you'd never find the person responsible for killing your wife. You know this case has gone cold; no leads, no witnesses, and no chance in hell you'll ever figure out what happened that night. It will forever be on your mind until you die an old man in an insane asylum. Sounds like a fate worse than death to me."

Cole thought about what Zafira said. It was true -- the casewas cold. He wracked his mind over Maria's death every night before passing out at this very table. It tore at his every waking thought. He wanted justice, but at what cost? Could she actually help him?

Zafira climbed off his lap and walked toward the door. "You can take the night to think about it. Meet me at Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park tomorrow at midnight with your decision. Don't make me come find you."...

She opened the door, and then turned back toward Cole. "Oh, and Cole. If you decide to try to disclose my existence to anyone, I will kill you, and not in a pleasant way like Travis."

Zafira held the palm of her hand to her luscious mouth and blew Cole a kiss. A pinkish mist floated through the air and landed on Cole's lips like something straight from a Saturday morning cartoon. The mist felt exactly like a woman's lips and bore the taste of that sweet aroma. His body responded instantly -- and then the sensation quickly dissipated.

She winked at Cole and vanished into the night...