Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.
The vibrating phone continued buzzing with irritating persistence. Peter reluctantly opened his eyes and was confused. His phone was on the floor a few inches in front of his face. Renea was calling him. Without thinking, he reached out and tapped to answer the call and then tapped again to put it on speakerphone so he could answer without having to move.
“Hi love,” he tried to say. His mouth was so dry that only a groan escaped his lips.
“Peter? Are you alright?”
After trying and failing to swallow a few times, Peter shoved himself into a seated position. Looking around with a baffled expression, Peter realized he was in Sarah’s office at Club de Tac. A dingy blanket fell from where it hung around his shoulders to land on his lap.
“Yeah,” he said, not sure whether it was a lie. “I’m good. How, uh, how are you?”
She laughed good humoredly. “I am quite well. Thank you for asking. Judging by your texts, followed by radio silence for a few hours, and the sound of your voice right now I’m betting you’ve earned yourself quite the afternoon hangover. Day drinking are we?”
Is that what happened?
“Texts?”
Peter did not recall sending Renea any texts. There was a booming laugh coming from the bar area that could only have burst out of Greg Van Helsing.
“You’ll see when you look at your phone,” she said delicately. From the speaker on his phone, Peter heard someone knock at Renea’s office door. “Uh, crap. I gotta go. You go have a hair-of-dog shot. I’ll call you back in like a half-hour.”
“Love,” was all he could think to say.
“Love,” Renea agreed. The call ended.
Peter found the idea of another shot of vodka unappealing at the moment. He tried tracing his steps back to how he ended up asleep on the dirty, ugly carpet in Sarah’s little office. He’d had a few shots with Tina and Sarah and Greg. He remembered ordering pizza, but not whether it ever arrived. He remembered singing with the karaoke machine, Tiny Dancer by Elton John, and had a faint recollection of Greg recording it with his phone. He cringed. After karaoke, nothing…
Where is my cat?
Throbbing at his temples and pressure in his bladder convinced Peter it was time to stand up. Wobbling slightly, he got to his feet, folded the dinghy moth-eaten blanket, and set it on the desk. Someone, he realized, had brought his drunk ass into the office and tucked him in for a snooze.
Greg? He wondered. No way. Right?
When he exited the office, Peter saw Greg taking a shot out of Tina’s very exposed cleavage with Sarah cheering him on. He paused for a moment, turned, and entered the men’s room. Like all club men’s rooms, this one smelled of urine - only barely masked by the smell of cheap soap coming from the little disks in the bottom of the urinals. He checked his outgoing texts while relieving himself.
As luck would have it, the most embarrassing thing about the many, many messages he sent his wife were the selfies he took with Greg, Tina, and Sarah. And the repeated misspelling of words he’d never misspelled in his life. He cringed slightly when he saw the photo taken with his phone of himself, topless, and dancing on the bar.
Feeling like he needed a bleach-bath after sleeping on Sarah’s office floor and then peeing in the dirtiest restroom he’d seen in years, Peter spent more time washing his hands than he really needed to. He looked at himself in the mirror, noticed the way the skin on his face looked to be hanging from his skull, and forced himself to smile.
It didn’t help. He needed a gallon of water and a good night’s sleep to once again look or feel like his usual beautiful self.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Standing between Sarah’s office and the restrooms, Peter looked over the dance floor. Omacatl was perched high up on the liquor shelves behind the bar, looking down on the three drunk non-humans with unreserved judgment. She noticed him approaching and flicked her tail irritably. The mental image projected into his mind of Omacatl scampering around, trying to avoid being picked up by the two part-demons put the pieces together for Peter. She was mad at him for leaving him alone with these people.
“There’s our sleeping beauty,” Tina said, drunkenly approaching Peter as he crossed the dance floor. “How you doing, guy?”
Peter beckoned her closer. She leaned forward, turning her head so that one ear faced Peter. Then she stumbled, and fell. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around Peter’s waist, her ear pressing against his lower abdomen.
“Not quite that close. I was just wondering who to thank for tucking me in,” he said, removing her hands from his butt and helping her back to a standing position. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, leaning into him for support as they started walking to the bar.
“Guess,” she said, smiling mischievously with lidded eyes.
“Not Greg, right? It had to be you or Sarah.”
Tina laughed raucously. “Sarah? Yeah right. It was your boy, GVH. He told me to tell you I did it, though.” She looked at Peter, confusion clear. “But I forgot. Whoooops.”
Surprised, touched, Peter cocked his head at Greg - who had definitely heard her misstep. “Thanks, buddy. I think I need the hair of the dog. Sarah? Got anymore of the good vodka?”
Greg said nothing, but patted Peter hard on the back when he sat next to the big man. Greg’s drunk smile was toothy as he looked at Peter welcomingly. Sarah slid a shot glass across the bar. Greg caught it and poured a shot from the bottle. The bottle that he appeared to have been drinking directly from. Peter downed the alcohol and Greg poured him another. He looked at it for a moment, checked the time on his phone, and decided against drinking it. It was almost 5:00PM and he needed to retain the ability to drive. Greg, clearly, would not be driving them home.
And then the throbbing in his temples chimed in and Peter felt as though a second shot wouldn’t horribly affect his judgment or motor functions. Scrunching up his lips in preparation, Peter plucked the shot glass from the bar and downed its contents. He sat down and took a deep breath.
“Better,” Peter said more to himself than anyone else. His headache was slowly subsiding. “Hey, did I sing Tiny Dancer?”
Nobody said anything. He looked at each of them questioningly. Sarah was looking back at him with immense pity. Tina was snoring, her arms folded over the bar with her head on top of them. Greg just sat there, smiling at Peter like an idiot.
“You…” Sarah said, finally. “Tried? It was… it wasn’t good. You did a little better with Dancing Queen, but not much.”
“I love that song,” Peter said.
“We know.”
Peter reddened. “I was thinking, before we started drinking, that the guy… what was his name?” Peter’s brows drew together in frustration. His memory had always been exemplary. How could he already have forgotten the name of their prime (and only) suspect?
Vodka. That’s how. A lot of vodka.
“Tyler.”
“Right, Tyler. I was thinking that, since he came onto Tina and potentially drugged and kidnapped Alyson, he might have been targeting succubuses specifically. Do either of you know how he would have been able to identify them as such, though? A succubus looks like any other woman to me, except the ones I’ve met have all been super pretty.”
“How do you know Tina’s part-succi?” Sarah asked, one brow raised at Peter.
“I have magical powers,” Peter said as though it were nothing. “Well, power,” he corrected. “Magical power. I have one.”
“Interesting.” Sarah looked him over appraisingly, eyes narrowed.
“I can identify some non-humans through their smell,” Greg said. He burped. The smell of vodka on his breath was so strong that it alone might have just pushed Peter over the legal driving limit. Peter waved it away, leaning back. “Sorry,” Greg apologized.
“Are there other ways to be sure whether or not someone is a succubus?” Peter asked.
Greg visibly considered the question, his heavy brow creasing with the effort. “There are a few ways. I know vampires have a sense of smell stronger even than mine. An older vamp could probably tell you what percent succubus someone is with just a sniff.”
“We ruled out vampires,” Peter reminded him. Though he realized it might have been premature to rule anything out entirely.
“Could always use a find disk,” Sarah offered.
“I’m not familiar with that term,” Peter said. “How do they work?”
“I’m no expert,” Sarah admitted. “But I’ll tell you what I know. It’s a small thing that fits in your palm. They’re usually disc shaped and have lights around the edges. The lights turn on in the direction of its intended species if there are any within its range and get brighter as you get closer.”
“That could do it,” Peter thought aloud. “Are these find disks hard to come by?”
“The magic involved is actually pretty simple,” Greg said, nodding with almost comical slowness. He took a pull from the bottle before setting it down heavily on the bar, shocking Tina into a short-lived state of consciousness. “You just need a bit of blood from the species you want to find and someone capable of performing the ritual to activate it.”
Peter wondered if perhaps that was the purpose of the catch and release victims. To get the blood of one succubus in order to give himself the ability to find more. It seemed like a logical conclusion to Peter, but it was impossible to be sure. If he was right though, he had a feeling there were going to be more missing succubuses in Portland. Soon.
If Tyler was in fact using a find disk to identify his victims, holding a disc in one hand and following the light indicators like a pervert’s compass, he would be easily noticed even in a crowded club. With an idea brewing within his mind, Peter pulled his phone from his pocket to dial Renea. Before he even unlocked it, an incoming call caused it to begin vibrating.
“Hello, beautiful!” he greeted enthusiastically.
“Hey, love. Feeling better?” she asked.
“So much. There have been some developments. First, cancel any plans you have this evening. Second, you’re probably going to have to call in sick tomorrow. Third, when you get home I need you to squeeze into that little black dress I love. We’re going clubbing.”