Chapter 22
My thighs stuck together after I removed all my clothes.
The drying stickiness made me wince as I slipped under the shower spray.
Steam billowed around me, scalding water pelted my body and reddened my skin, but a persistent chill lingered in my bones.
Unmoving and stunned, my mind flashed through the events of the day.
My movements were restrained and stilted as I washed my hair and scrubbed the tenderness between my legs.
An unwanted despair took hold of me. I wanted to ignore it, to chalk it up to exhaustion and disbelief, but those swelling emotions refused to be overlooked.
Even as I scrubbed my skin raw, I felt like a sparking live-wire on the cusp of starting a house fire.
Every little twitch and memory dancing behind my eyes brought me closer to the verge of tears, and I fought to contain the sense of vicious turmoil growing and growing into something malevolent.
The chaos of my thoughts worried me. I’d always had issues with racing thoughts and a restless mind, but it had turned detrimental.
Ideas and thoughts snapped and fluttered around in the cage of my skull, all zipping out of reach or slipping through my fingers like loose paper scattered in a hurricane.
Eyes closed and forehead resting on the tile, I wondered why I wasn’t crumbling into complete hysterics.
Demons?
I snorted.
Did he seriously expect me to believe that?
My eyes opened, and I sighed.
Oh, who am I kidding?
Something had chased me. Strange things were happening. Dreams and monsters. Odd books and an even stranger professor. I had become a prey animal in a den of predators.
God, what had my life become?
Wrapped in my fluffiest robe, I double-checked all the locks and ensured all the curtains were closed.
As satisfied as I could be with my safety, I locked my bedroom door as an extra measure then flicked on the lamp.
Too restless to climb into bed and not interested in drowning in my thoughts, I turned my focus to my laptop and opened a search tab.
“Stolas.” I repeated the word as I waited for the screen to load.
A dozen images popped to life. I swallowed hard.
Fucking goddamn bird monsters.
A demon that took on the appearance of an owl. Some depictions on the screen were nearly identical to the sketches in my grandpa’s notebook. That was indeed the creature making appearances in my life. And that revelation only opened a pipeline of more questions.
Why did my grandpa have a secret notebook about demons? Were they haunting me? What did Professor Quinn know about them?
And why did I keep fucking him?
I slammed my laptop shut and groaned.
Sleep. I needed sleep.
Maybe that would help clear up the madness taking root in my brain.
Coffee kept me afloat the following day, and the one after that.
I hadn’t seen Professor Quinn since I stormed out of his office, and he hadn’t reached out about the missing assistant hours.
Considering how we parted, he likely wouldn’t.
Which was for the best. Not that I was avoiding him exactly.
Part of me desperately wanted to see him again, to demand answers, and it took all my energy to refrain from reaching out.
The anomalies had ceased since that night.
No demon sightings, no nightmares, and nothing misplaced at home.
My paranoia only shot higher the longer time stretched without a glimpse of some unnamed horror.
Those incidents hadn’t been a dream, nor some fucked up figment of my imagination.
And the more I stewed on my last interaction with Professor Quinn, the more I questioned… everything.
I felt so untethered and alone.
All my assignments were caught up and despite the extra time to research, I still couldn’t decipher my grandpa’s notebook.
Late nights and little sleep would only carry me so far through the semester.
And if the professor’s warnings were true, then I didn’t have much time before another incident occurred.
With classes running full steam ahead, I had so little time to myself. Each hour spent on campus reminded me I was blatantly ignoring the way I’d abruptly left his office.
Only because I still had questions, I lied to myself.
It had been terribly shocking to come out of one of the best orgasms of my life and remember that getting intimate with an instructor was explicitly forbidden.
Not only had he fucked me in his office, but he had used sex to bring me down from the asphyxiating terror of seeing something paranormal in the dark.
No one had ever managed to pull me out of a panic attack, and certainly not like that.
Ignoring the fact that he made my overactive mind quiet and turned my body into willing putty, I couldn’t avoid him forever.
And I certainly wouldn’t think about the feeling of his cock throbbing inside me. Or how warm he was with his body fully pressed into mine. Or the captivating scent that clung to his skin. Or how I wanted to run my tongue along the veins in his…
Those thoughts almost unnerved me more than the skin-deep itching anxiety of running into another monster.
I couldn’t understand why I wanted to run back to him.
He was a monumentally arrogant bastard at the worst of times, but there was something about him that was absolutely enthralling.
It was bad enough that his proficiency as an instructor and his connection to my favorite subject caught my attention.
He impressed the bookish, intellectual side of me and had from the start.
It didn’t hurt anything that he was beyond conventionally attractive. I mean, the definition in his hands and forearms when they flexed alone was enough to make me drool.
Regardless of my bludgeoned equilibrium, hadn’t he been the only person to give me any answers? Perhaps he would have told me more if I hadn’t fled the scene of our illicit encounter.
And he’d helped me—saved me. Then he tried to take care of me.
He’d told me to eat something.
But if I was meant to come to terms with demons being real, then I needed a way to protect myself. Would Professor Quinn be cordial or resistant if I went running back to him like a kicked dog with my tail tucked between my legs?
I was halfway across the quad to my next class when figures emerged from the afternoon mist and crowded me. Fear skittered across the back of my neck and down my spine. I was seconds from screaming when a friendly face emerged, smirking as usual.
“Hey, Blondie. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Moth pulled his hands from his pockets then went about his refined performance of lighting a cigarette. Thin snakes of smoke coiled in the air before dissipating into the ever-present fog coating the campus.
“Sort of,” I answered before thinking twice.
Moth’s expression twisted with a puzzled chuckle. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Oh,” I realized how bizarre I must be acting, “nothing. I think I’m just overly tired.”
Niffy and Talon materialized into view the way statues split through the mist in a horror film. Neither spoke, only watching the interaction before them as if nothing more than passing observers. Talon smiled tightly. Only Niffy’s eyes flickered, catching the yellow glare of a nearby lamppost.
“Hey, ‘tis the season for ghosts and ghoulies. Half the faculty are monsters, and I’m pretty sure a good chunk of the students are possessed.” Moth took a long drag, and the red glow mesmerized me. But the smell wasn’t rich and sweet, it was sharp and acrid.
My nose wrinkled, and I cleared my throat. Foreboding darted through me as comprehension of his throwaway statement landed.
“Possessed?” Composure escaped me as nervous laughter won.
Moth opened his mouth to speak, smoke billowing from his mouth and nose like a dragon on the exhale.
Niffy cut him off, stepping in to answer first.
“It’s the fall season. Almost Halloween. Haven’t you seen the decorations going up downtown? There are pumpkins everywhere.”
I wanted to smack myself in the face. Of course, they meant the time of year. The season for beasties and creatures to walk around with none the wiser. Moth didn’t mean anything sinister, but my anxiety had wrenched up to impossible levels in the past week.
“How could I forget?” I shrugged my bag higher on my shoulder and offered a meager smile.
“Assignments getting the better of you, eh?” Moth snickered.
“And I thought you were the know-it-all,” Niffy added smugly, lifting her head higher.
“Not when it matters, I guess.” Certainly not lately.
I knew less than I needed to. That alone was enough reason to seek out Professor Quinn and hound him for answers.
Not knowing everything and struggling to understand what my grandfather wrote was quickly eroding away at me.
Like a brutal wave chipping away at a cliff face until there was nothing left but pebbles on a sandy shore.
“You need a break then.” Talon finally spoke, and the sound of their voice almost startled me. Their eyes avoided direct contact, and they shifted restlessly from foot to foot. Yet their grin split wider, nearly reaching their ears. Too wide.
“Right, the party!” Niffy clapped her hands. She reached into her bag and pulled out an orange flyer. “They call it the Fall Festival these days, but it’s always been a Halloween party.”
“Something about the school board trying to dissuade the hedonistic ritual of the more excitable students. All that talk of the undead and hair-raising antics gets the rowdier crowds into trouble,” Moth said. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his combat boot.
Niffy handed a flyer over, and I accepted. If she noticed the slight tremor in my fingers, she didn’t speak of it.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it. This is all anyone is talking about,” Niffy added.
I scanned the bright orange flyer, taking note of the cheesy pumpkins and bats scattered across the page.
It looked like something a kindergarten teacher would send home to parents about a class party, and not an invitation for a university-level event.
The creator might not have a passion for graphic design, but it got the point across. Costumes and booze.
Perhaps a break from the otherworldly was needed.
A chance to shed the skin of a cowed victim and spend time with company who didn’t shun me.
Alcohol wouldn’t hurt either. In fact, the idea of getting a little drunk appealed to the overworked part of me desperate for a break.
Getting buzzed had always eased the strain of racing thoughts and fractured my personal chains of social awkwardness.
“I’ve been trying to keep my head down and focus on my work.
A thesis doesn’t write itself.” And everyone would think me insane if I started blabbering about studying demons or attempting to decipher cryptic notebooks left behind by my grandfather.
I shoved the flyer into my bag, and a single corner of bright orange stuck out, flapping in the insistent breeze.
“Isn’t that what nepo rich kids are supposed to do?” Moth leaned in, tone silken. “Pay off some other nerd to do all the hard work for them.”
“I would never!”
Even the idea of asking another person to do any of my coursework for me had a sickness rolling through my core. I took pride in my research and writing. Not to mention that reading the lore and history of the world was half the fun.
The three of them snickered at the same time. Ice slipped down my spine from the sibilant, almost practiced sound.
“Know-it-all and a goody-two-shoes,” Niffy snickered. Her nose scrunched as she shared glances with Moth and Talon.
Good girls didn’t let their professors fuck them in bar bathrooms. That wasn’t something I would correct them on. If I had to maintain an image around them to remain palatable, then I’d take on the mantle of the smarty-pants saint. Anything to abate my loneliness.
“Just say you’ll be there,” Moth encouraged.
Talon’s grin split until their teeth appeared. All white and perfectly symmetrical in a way that stood out. “It’ll be a killer time,” they said.
I blinked, and they changed—morphed. Sharp and glistening inside a beak-shaped mouth.
My heart skipped a beat, and I held my breath.
I took a step back, clutching my bag tighter.
“Blondie?” Moth’s voice plucked me out of the horrifying singularity. As if I’d blipped out of existence into another dimension and plopped back into my own too-tight skin.
“Right,” I huffed, struggling to breathe even as I nodded my assent. “Of course, yeah, I’ll be there.”