Suddenly A Succubus

Chapter 64.6

Amara closed the switchblade, shoved it in her pocket, then grabbed her keys and did the same. Lastly, she eagerly picked up her phone and held down the power button. As it slowly cycled through a series of brand logos and operating system symbols, she rose to her feet and began heading for the exit. Just before exiting, she removed the bouquet of flowers from her shirt and set them down on a nearby dishwasher to keep them safe.Unease set it as she approached the quad. How long had she been gone? Was she too late? Had Vee beat her home?

After leaving the storage room containing the magic circle, Amara entered the bistro on the bottom floor of the cafeteria. Heavy darkness shrouded all the seats, and through the large windows on the far wall, she saw night had fallen on Aurelius University. Worse still, there seemed to be quite a bit of light drifting down from the moon above.

Her phone started buzzing. A barrage of texts, calls, and notifications flooded her screen, and she looked back down in hopes of figuring out what day it was. Unfortunately for Amara, knowing the date didn’t help; she didn’t actually know when the next full moon was.

However, as she stared at her screen, she noticed that the most recent messages had been sent from Tessa to the AV Club group chat.

Tessa: CODE RED

Tessa: WERWOLF LOOSE ON CAMPUS EVRYON STAY INSIDE

Amara’s stomach dropped. Nick had already shifted and he was loose on campus. Was this the first night? If it was, they still might have a chance. Setting her sights on the exit door, she threw caution to the wind and sprinted outside.

A stiff wind and pleasant, Earthly air greeted her as she walked outside. Looking around, Amara didn’t see any signs of Nick, Tessa, Chloé, or anyone else with the AV Club, and she began nervously tapping her phone as a million different thoughts raced through her mind. After a brief moment of panic, her mind began reacclimating to the logic of her home world, and she remembered that all she needed to do was call Tessa.

The phone only rang once before she picked up.

“Amara!! We had Nick chained up in the central chamber, but it wasn’t strong enough!” Tessa shouted in a panic.

“Is this the first night?”

“It is! Did you get the cure? We might still have time!”

“I’ve got it, Tess. I just need to find Nick, where did he run off to?” Amara asked, still looking around for any signs of werewolf activity.

“I-I don’t know, Amara! I had to run when he broke out, and the next time I saw Chloé, she said she’s lost track of him.” Tessa took a deep breath, then continued, her words spilling out a mile a minute. “I’ve practically memorized Ruby’s notes about werewolves, and Tadghán told her that new werewolves often try to get a lay of the land by finding tall cliffs or trees or something. If that’s right, he’s got to be heading for the football stadium; it’s the tallest place on campus. I’m meeting Chloé there; how fast can you make it?”

Something about Tessa’s train of thought didn’t make sense. Amara racked her brain, thinking of everything she knew about Nick, when it clicked.

“He’s not going to the football stadium!” Amara turned south, towards the Arts Campus, and started sprinting. “He’s going to the chapel!”

“What?! Why?”

“According to him, it’s the tallest building on campus! Just meet me there as soon as possible, okay?”

“Shit. Fuck! Okay, Chloé, we need to—” The phone went dead as Tessa hung up, and Amara redoubled her efforts to get to the Arts Campus.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she sprinted south. Her injured leg protested the intense activity, and Saoirse’s relatively thin clothes did nothing against the brisk, winter chill. The running helped somewhat, but as someone who’d spent months completely immune to cold, it felt uncomfortably close to the artificial winter Féith had induced to try and break Amara’s spirit.

After minutes of running, she finally saw it.

A tall, immaculately designed spire rose high into the sky, and Amara practically heard Nick’s breathless enthusiasm as she remembered him saying that it was the tallest building on campus. A series of elegant columns and smaller spires surrounded the centerpiece, which also proudly held a single, massive bell. High above the chapel, its light illuminating the way, was the nearly full moon; a grim reminder of what Amara was running towards.

The D’Ambray Chapel.

The front doors of the chapel were wide open, knocked off their hinges by some incredibly powerful force. Taking the damage as proof that Nick was here, a pang of regret overtook her for a brief moment at the thought that Nick was so far gone he didn’t care about damaging this beautiful building.

Amara headed for the stairs, taking them three at a time as she raced to the top. All around her, intricate clockwork ticked loudly between a series of large chimes, but she ignored all of them. She thought of Nick, of how badly he wanted to be human. She wondered how terrible it must have been facing this transformation without any idea of when his friends would return with the cure, and tears of regret slid down her cheek as she cursed herself for taking so long.

Against her chest, the cure for Nick’s lycanthropy hummed in excitement; no doubt further proof that Amara was in the right place.

Once she reached the top, she saw a series of thick claw marks around the latch that led to the landing above. The trapdoor had been destroyed, scattered into pieces, and similar damage affected much of the rest of the landing, which was normally covered with thick planks of wood. Amara climbed the ladder, and as she stepped onto the landing, she found it difficult to find her footing amidst all the destroyed lumber.

Worst of all, she didn’t see Nick anywhere.

“Nick?” she called out, her voice shaking from fear and cold. A piece of crumbling floor snapped under her feet, and with nothing to grab onto, she braced for impact. Her fall, however, scattered a few more planks, and another shattered edge rose to meet her as she fell. It pierced her side, causing her to scream out in further agony.

Blood quickly stained her side, and she rolled over to try and pull the plank from her stomach. As she grabbed its rigid edges, another piece of flooring cracked, but this time it wasn’t underneath her.

Across the landing, slowly lowering himself down from the outside of the roof, was a massive beast standing close to nine feet tall. Its thick brown fur shimmered in the light of the moon, and its muscular chest inflated as it took a deep, snarling breath. Intense, guttural growling seemed to surround Amara, the sound far louder than it had any right to be. Thick, viscous saliva dripped from the beast’s jagged maw, of which nearly all its teeth were exposed due to its malicious, animalistic snarl. Its eyes, tainted though they were by this horrible curse, were every bit as green as Amara had come to expect from her closest friend.

“Holy fuck, Nick…” she whispered.

Nick stepped closer, even more lumber snapping beneath his hulking frame. As he approached, Amara managed to pull the piece of wood from her side, and she tossed it aside while struggling to stand up. Nick’s next step seemed to shake the entirety of the chapel, nearly knocking her over again, but she managed to stand tall in defiance of this curse.

Grabbing the cure from around her neck, Amara yanked it free by snapping the cord. Inside this bottle were all her hopes and dreams for curing Nick, as well as an untold amount of magical power born from her demonic hellfire, and its magic nearly burned her hand in excitement.

“Nick, I know you’re still in there,” Amara muttered. She swallowed nervously, then uncorked the bottle. “You need to drink this. It will end the curse; you can be yourself again!”

Amara hoped desperately that Saoirse was right. Not just about the cure, but about talking to the curse. She’d learned so much during her time spent in The Wilds, and she firmly believed that she might be able to connect with Nick if she spoke with enough confidence.

Magically potent, predatory eyes flicked towards the cure in Amara’s hands, then back to her. She stared directly at Nick, hoping beyond hope that he would be able to take back just enough control for her to administer the cure. She took a step closer, and as she did, flickers of humanity appeared in his deep green eyes. A hint of fear and vulnerability, the magic of the moon briefly held at bay. With one last step, Amara was now within arm’s reach of Nick, and she began to raise the cure higher.

With an impossibly quick blur, Nick lashed out. A single, monstrous swipe raked across her arm, knocking the cure from her hands as she shrieked in pain. The tiny glass bottle shattered against one of the columns, and Amara shrieked in pain as she watched all her efforts disappear in an instant.

“NOO!!”

Nick lunged forward, attempting to grab Amara, when he briefly stumbled on the same uneven flooring that had been tripping Amara up since she arrived. The moment of confusion was all she needed to back away, and she tried to put as much space between herself and Nick as possible. She clutched her arm tight, the intense pain disorienting her as she backed up, and soon she felt the cold concrete of the stone railing. She reached behind herself and gripped it tight, trying to steady herself, but Nick regained his balance and leapt at her once more.

Flinching backwards, she barely managed to duck underneath his thick claws. He landed in front of her, his incredible weight sent another shockwave through the chapel. The spire surrounding them shook, and several large planks of wood flew upwards, carrying Amara with them. Her stomach dropped as she fell backwards, her feet leaving the floor entirely as she tumbled over the stone railing at the top of the spire.

With nothing beneath her, Amara began to plummet to the ground below.