To Lucian I said, “Find Mescaline Mike and make him turn off the camera in Room Three. Vincent, join me at your earliest convenience and bring a clean bar towel if you can manage it.”
The room’s one chair wasn’t suitable for restraints, so I had to make use of the floor-to-ceiling pole. I subdued the man long enough to zip-tie his wrists behind him. His dress slacks were stained with blood, but the cut wasn’t so deep that I’d need to tie off the wound.
You and Lucian joined me soon after. It was a tight fit for the four of us. The man cowered in fear and began reciting a litany of admissions, none of them useful to me.
“I don’t know what you want with me, man, but I didn’t take the cash. I found it on me. I just wanted a night out. No harm, no foul. I think I still have some left.”
“What is he blabbering on about?” Lucian asked while you sniffed the air, having caught the scent of fresh blood.
“Left upper thigh, outside,” I told you. You may as well feed while we were at it.
“What’s he doing?” the man asked in a panic and tried to scoot away from your stealthy advance.
“Don’t worry about him,” I said to the man.
You freed your knife deftly and sliced open his pant leg so that the wound was accessible. The fabric tore like tissue paper, and I was satisfied with the blade’s sharpness. And your precision in avoiding cutting the man’s flesh.
“I promise I won’t hurt you,” you said in your seductive coo. Your hand was already squeezing the man’s thigh to make the blood pool.
Meanwhile, Lucian was seated comfortably on the chaise and sifting through his wallet. “You said you had money,” he said snottily. “Where is it?”
“I spent it,” the man said.
“On this?” Lucian held up a baggie of white powder with an eager grin.
“And women,” he said plaintively.
As if on cue, the man’s nose started to bleed. Was he trying to tempt us into a blood binge? Meanwhile, you crouched on your hands and knees with your haunches in the air like an animal and began to feed. Seeing you in that beastly posture was extremely distracting. I glanced over at Lucian, tapping out powder onto the chair’s vinyl armrest. I needed to take control of this interrogation.
“What’s your name?” I asked the man.
“Maxwell Weir.”
Lucian confirmed it by holding up the man’s driver’s license between his two elegant fingers before going back to cutting lines with it. At least we weren’t molesting the wrong man.
“Do you know if you are currently being possessed by a demonic being?”
Humans seldom took this question well. Their first instinct was generally to deny.
The man’s brow furrowed and he considered it. “It’s possible,” he said with surprising objectivity. “There are gaps in my memory. I woke up a few times with wads of cash on me. And in a strange place, not knowing how I got there.”
“How long has this been going on?” I bent over and gripped your hair at the scalp, peeling you off Maxwell’s wound. Your lips were bloody and still puckered like a leech. You’d not yet learned when to stop, or you were relying on me to make you.
“A few weeks,” the man said in response to my question.
It fit with my timeline. I’d encountered this predicament a few times in my career, when I’d captured a demon with the human fronting. Was Seneser unable to take control of this human vessel or was he hiding?
“We’re going to have to force Seneser to surface,” I told you and Lucian both. You were still trapped in a soporific stupor, and I was surprised you hadn’t begun masturbating, as was typically part of your feeding ritual. Perhaps you were feeling shy with Lucian around.
Lucian snorted his lines, then rubbed his nose aggressively. “Fantastic,” he said with gusto. This was not our first time forcing a demon to the surface. “Are we going with pain or arousal?”
“What do you mean?” Your eyes slid toward Maxwell, worried on his behalf.
“Imagine Seneser as a tick on this human host,” I explained. “His head is buried right now, and we’ve got to dig him out. Pain and arousal are the most effective ways.” There was a third option, a little less reliable, and it was fear.
“I choose arousal,” Maxwell said.
“We don’t have time for that,” I answered. “I apologize, truly.”
Lucian, already anticipating my next move, crouched above Maxwell’s lap and unceremoniously