Chapter 1: Suckers and Succubae

The big suit leaned against the counter at the far end of the bar like he owned the place. He wore a pair of sunglasses despite the fact that the room was dimmer than the street outside, and he held himself with a practiced nonchalance that seemed stiff in comparison to the other patrons of Blind Willie’s. Right away, Matias knew that he wasn’t hanging around for the booze or the smooth jazz band currently occupying the stage in the corner.

Whether or not this group was better than most of the bands that rolled through the club, Matias honestly could not tell; he wasn’t much of a fan either. He preferred people watching for his entertainment. Which is how he noticing a similar attitude from the suit. Shades seemed to like people watching too. Only, while Matias cleared tables and minded his manners with the occasional glance around the patrons, this phony sat there trying to convince everyone that he was one of the blues brothers, but his attention was on Nina. Even through the shades, Matias could tell the guy was watching her like a hawk.

Nina was probably the best bartender Blind Willie’s had to offer and certainly the most attractive one. She could have been a supermodel for her day job, and she moved with the grace of a dancer—someone who knew that their body was a work of art. That said, Nina was not unused to unwanted attention from men, but it didn’t seem like she had noticed the suit yet. Nevertheless, she was steering clear; Matias just hoped that Mr. Blues would be so considerate as to do likewise.

After having worked at Blind Willie’s for several months now, Matias knew that Nina could handle herself, but he didn’t want to be the one to have to clean up after someone got on her nerves. It wasn’t usually destructive, but it was never pretty. More than likely, there would be blood and bile and a least a little broken glass, and the busboy would get to mop it all up. Matias had already had a long, rough night for three nights running. He was looking forward to ending this one early. He thought longingly of getting back to his apartment in time to read with his baby sister and maybe even have time to catch up on the summer project for his honors English class.

That was when Kate the hostess walked up to him with her puppy dog eyes and said, “Hey Mat? Could you do me a favor?”

Matias shook his head. “Not if you are going to ask me to close again.”

“Oh please! I need this!” She cried shaking interlaced hands at him to emphasize her plea. “This time I really do have to go!”

“Why?”

“It’s a family emergency.”

“Oh, really?” Mat replied blandly as he moved to clear his next table.

Kate followed him. “Really, my grandmother needs me to pick her up from the airport. If I’m not there, the poor thing will be stranded, alone and confused!”

“If she’s that easy to confuse, how did she manage to find her way onto the plane?”

Kate opened her mouth to answer but paused. Her short blond hair fell in front of her face as she hung her head and sighed. “I know this is a big ask, and it isn’t fair to you, always asking you to cover for me. I’m sorry. I just never get to see her, and she won’t be in town for very long, and I promised I would pick her up.”

Mat eyed her with his hands now full of dishes. She looked sincere, and for once she was prioritizing something besides boyfriends and parties. Showing up for family was actually something he respected. He pursed his lips and moaned internally for losing yet another evening to this menial job. Still, he and his mom could always use the money.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

The squeal that came from the tall blond was earsplitting. Kate threw her arms around Mat’s neck, but the motion was made extra treacherous by the multitude of dishes in his arms. He nearly dropped a whole stack of plates.

“Hey, take it easy! You break it, I have to clean it up, remember?” he scolded.

“Right,” she took a step back, “I really appreciate this, Mat. I owe you one!”

And with that, the hostess skipped off to collect her coat and purse. I owe you. How many times had he heard that? Too many to count. And how many times had he collected on it? Not once. I’m a textbook sucker, he thought to himself, but no sooner had the thought entered his mind than it left again, and he got back to work. Over the next few hours, the joint swelled with customers who slowly trickled out until only a handful remained at the bar—a couple of regulars and… the suit.

After wiping off the last table, Mat took a short break to stretch aching muscles that had not rested all day. That’s when he noticed that the culo had started taking notes on a little pad. Mat also noticed that the man had no drink or meal in front of him. This guy was seriously starting to creep him out, yet Nina still didn’t pay him any mind. Mat decided that the time had come to see what the deal was with this well-dressed weirdo. He leaned over the bar, and asked in a low voice, “Hey Nina, do you know that guy at the end of the bar?”

Nina looked up from rinsing a shot glass and surveyed the length of the bar. “All I see are Phil and Ed, bro. You know them as well as I do. They practically live here, man.”

“No, the other guy, over there,” he jerked his head towards the end of the bar, “the one in the suit.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked directly at the stranger, but her gaze passed right through him. “Who are you talking about?”

Mat checked to make sure the creep hadn’t moved. Sure enough, he sat in the same spot, but now his shaded scrutiny seemed to have shifted to Mat. It was hard to tell for sure, but the guy might have been scowling. The busboy quickly looked away. “Are you kidding me? He is right there. He’s been watching you all night!”

Nina’s expression turned from skeptical to concerned. “Mat, there is no one there.”

There was a beat of silence between them. Then Phil and Ed both called for more beer, and Nina reluctantly went to refill their glasses. Matias stood frozen hunched over the counter for a few moments longer as his mind raced. He slowly turned once more to look down the bar, and he saw… nothing. Nothing but a vacant seat. He quickly looked around the rest of the room to see if the man had moved, but there was no trace of him anywhere.

Furrowing his brow, he tried to make sense of the situation. Had the man left? Was he hiding behind the bar? Was this some kind of practical joke, or was he seeing things? Nina had always seemed too mature to be messing with people this way, but he was certain that someone had been there. He remembered the guy in detail—dark hair, broad shoulders, and a fair amount of stubble growing about his prominent jaw.

Before he seriously started questioning his own sanity, Curiosity drove Mat to take a closer look, so he walked to the far end of the bar. The stool was a simple thing, wooden with four long legs supporting it just like every other chair in Blind Willies. If someone had been sitting there for hours… he held his hand a centimeter or two above the seat.

Nina returned and asked if he was feeling okay.

“It’s still warm,” he replied, “Someone was here, I’m telling you, and they haven’t been gone long.”

Nina frowned, “Mat how much sleep have you been getting?”

He paused, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Look, I’m just going to say it. This sounds crazy, and you aren’t the crazy type. But you do work way too hard, you know. Sometimes people have weird delusions and stuff from exhaustion.”

“Maybe.”

“What did he look like?”

“Huh?” Mat tore his eyes away from the empty stool to refocus on Nina.

“The guy you thought you saw. You said he was wearing a suit?”

“Yeah,” Mat snorted, “a black suit, and he was wearing sunglasses too. He was watching you and writing in a little notebook. Weird thing to hallucinate about, right?”

Nina’s eyes widened a bit and she tensed. “Right.”

“Hey, don’t worry. He was probably just a figment of my overworked imagination like you said.” He still wasn’t sure about that, but he didn’t want to make Nina worry about him. Then it occurred to him that Nina might be concerned for an entirely different reason. He coughed, “And I mean, I don’t fantasize about stalking people you know. I’m not… Well, you are… I’m not like secretly obsessed with you or anything, I promise.”

Nina hesitated before smiling, “Of course not! How about you let me drive you home? We don’t want you to sleepwalk off a bridge or something, do we?”

Relieved, Mat smiled back slightly. “Thanks.”

The jazz band packed up about a quarter-hour later, and the two regulars stumbled into an uber together singing a song rendered unrecognizable by their combined lack of sobriety and sense of tone. Nina and Matias finished cleaning up the place and locked up on their way out. Nina’s car—a little red Honda—was parked out back. Mat was very grateful not to have to deal with public transportation at this hour. Once they were on the road he said as much.

“Yeah, the buses are never on time and always filled with sketch ass people.”

Mat laughed, “I guess I wouldn’t feel quite so out of place tonight. Having just realized I am a paranoid schizophrenic.”

“I told you not to worry about that.”

“Wouldn’t you be worried if you started seeing things that weren’t there?”

Silence.

Nina stared forward, and Mat turned to look out the passenger window. It was almost pitch black outside as the passes through tall pine trees and the occasional one-story house, but he could still see about 20 feet into the woods with Nina’s headlights illuminating the road. He could see the thick blanket of pine needles, the tall trees, and the occasional nocturnal rodent. The one advantage to not owning a car was that it gave him an opportunity to really appreciate the scenery such as it was in the dead of night. Suddenly, a man on a motorcycle pulled up close beside them.

“Shit!” Nina yelled as she swerved away from the biker, “Where the hell did he come from?”

Maintaining his position abreast the little red Honda, the motorcyclist turned his head, and though it was difficult to see through the black visor of his helmet, he seemed to be peering directly at Mat as he pulled out a gun.

Time slowed as Matias opened his mouth to shout a warning, but before he had the chance, there was a loud bang! And the car spun off the road and hit something. The impact shattered the passenger window and part of the windshield. Glass went flying, and just as Mat got his hands up to protect his face the airbags deployed. It shoved the back of his left hand into his cheekbone. Pain exploded through Mat’s head, and everything went dark.

Sometime later, he came to with Nina shaking him and screaming. The only other time he had felt this kind of pain was when he took a baseball to the face in the 6th grade. The memory washed over him like wave. His mother had run out on to the field crying and calling his name, and when a medic tried to take him away from her, she had snapped at him in Spanish. Don’t you dare, she cried, don’t you dare come between me and my boy!

Mat tasted copper and spit out blood as reality began to reassert itself. Nina was still screaming at him, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. Mat blinked away involuntary tears and tried to look at her, but his vision wouldn’t clear and every second he was becoming aware of more pains in his chest and neck. He tried to speak, tried to ask if she was okay, but a sudden wave of nausea came over him as he choked on more blood. There was so much blood… Where was it coming from? The terrible sound of shrieking metal assaulted his ears. Then he felt someone lift him out of the car, and a few seconds later he was on the ground.

“Mat! Listen to me!” It was Nina. Her face hovered mere inches above his. His arms and legs flailed weakly as he tried to roll over and throw up, but something held him in place. “Mat, you have to kiss me.”

He was momentarily distracted from his misery by this strange proclamation. He coughed and managed to croak out a “Whah?”

“Kiss me.” Nina restated firmly.

Everything was spinning. Kiss her? That couldn’t it. For one thing, he could barely move his lips, for another who would want to kiss someone that was spitting out blood? A little voice in Mat’s head piped up and said, I think I have a concussion, to which another voice replied, No shit, Sherlock! He tried to express these thoughts to Nina, but the nausea finally overcame him and he vomited. Fortunately, whatever had been holding him down allowed him to roll over in time that he didn’t asphyxiate. His mind cleared a little after that. And he got up on his hands and knees.

Nina grabbed his chin and yanked his head up to look into her eyes. Only, they weren’t her eyes anymore. They were a bright red and they almost seemed to glow. She snarled, “I said, kiss me!”

For one brief insane moment, he considered it. She was gorgeous with her high cheekbones, long jet-black hair, and her deliciously curved body. She was a goddess. Who was he to question her? Mat leaned in and closed his eyes. He had always been attracted to her, and wondered what her lips would feel like… thoughts of desire and lust streamed through his mind one after the other in rapid succession. Foreign thoughts… Not his thoughts. With a jolt, Mat’s eyes shot open, and he pulled away from Nina. Only, it wasn’t Nina. The thing that stooped before him was some kind of hellish bastardization of the beautiful woman who had been there moments before.

It wore Nina’s clothes and had all the attractive features as her, but it also had a crown of horns growing from its brow, wicked claws on its hands, and a long snakelike tail swishing around behind its crouched form. Her skin was gray and translucent. Mat could see the veins pulsing blue and black under her skin. He thought he might throw up again. Apparently, surprised by his reaction, and she fixed a questioning crimson gaze upon him.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but his right leg wasn’t working properly, and the world was still spinning. He collapsed only a few feet away. When he looked again, Nina had replaced the nightmare once more. What the hell was going on? “Nina, you were a… some kind of—thing and—” His eyes flitted around wildly, and that’s when he realized that they were in the middle of the woods. The car, the gunman, the road—they were nowhere in sight. He coughed again. “How… Nina, what happened?”

The bartender watched him for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “You are dying. If I’m going to heal you,” she said, “I am going to need you to trust me and sit still.”

Exhausted, frightened, and confused, Mat simply stared. His head was pounding, and it was getting difficult to breathe. His thoughts trailed off, becoming sluggish again, but he was able to reason out one thing; trusting Nina was his only option at the moment. He nodded once. Slowly, she walked up to where he sat on the ground and knelt in front of him.

“Now, before you lose consciousness, I need you to kiss me. Don’t ask why. Just do it.”

Now breathing in rasps, Mat wiped his mouth with his sleeve, it came away red. The edges of his vision were fading out. I’m dying anyway, he thought, there are worse ways to go than kissing a beautiful woman, I guess. He would have laughed if he had the energy. Disappearing people, gunmen, crashes, and moonlit kisses. This had to be a dream. Yes, it must be. Already, he felt the pain from his injuries dissipating. He would wake up soon.

“Mat! Kiss me now!” Nina’s voice sounded muffled and far away. Sure, why not. He smiled and kissed her as the dream finally ended.

Title: (Undecided)

Genre: Urban Fantasy, possibly Young Adult

Age range: 16-26

Word count: ~2885

Author name/(Pen name): Josie Lilac

Why your project is a good fit: I think this book will be an interesting reinterpretation of the urban fantasy trope with engaging characters on either side of the Good vs. Evil dynamic that will converge as the plot unfolds.

The hook: An unsettling mixture of mystery and magic in the modern world.

Synopsis: Young Matias Gil discovers that his friend and colleague is a succubus being hunted by a secretive and powerful coalition of mages sworn to protect humanity from ‘dark’ magic and demonic influences. Matias himself draws their attention when it is revealed that he possesses abilities and immunities to magic that have never been seen before in the supernatural world.

Simultaneously, teenage outcast Desdamona LaFey is forced to confront her newly manifested powers as a medium between this world and the next when the hundred-year-old ghost of Josephine Morgana appears as her spiritual guide and introduces her to a local eccentric witch who recruits her to fight evil.

Both Desdamona and Matias are hard-pressed to keep their involvement in the underworld separate from their lives in the non-magical one as they struggle to find their place in the ancient and unrelenting war between Good and Evil.

Target audience: Young Adult

Your bio: In the daytime, I am a student who works at an outdoor rental office for minimum wage, but I’ve always been a reader and a writer at heart.

Platform: NA

Education: Bachelors of Computer Science major, English minor, (In progress)

Experience: Amateur

Personality / writing style: Humorous Sarcastic Dramatic (Like Jane Austin but in English!)

Likes/hobbies: Writing, Rock Climbing, Coding, Teaching