Carmilla
“ M agda, you are too good with your power already,” I said with a shaky smile. “ Tirer les vers du nez à quelqu’un … Your use was so effortless.”
The silence in the room following my announcement of their coupling was deafening, and although I knew they would overwhelm me with questions any second now, I took the moment to recover from the force of Magda’s demand. Her order—there was no question as to what it had been—had pulled the words out of me before I’d even finished truly piecing the situation together myself. I chewed at my thumbnail—a horrible habit I’d had since I was a girl, who even knew how many centuries ago now—nerves jangling in fear. Fear… a sensation like this one, truly staring into the unknown, was something I hadn’t felt for many, many years.
That slimy bastard. He’s had a hand in this.
Only Benedict would have been able to piece together what I was doing and tell the archdiocese. I wasn’t certain how many of those cultists within the organization knew about cambions in the modern age. When I had flung myself from the cliff beside the Monastery of Gethsemane more than one hundred years ago, there had been only two: the Archbishop Osbert Benedict… and me.
Caleb’s arms were crossed tight against his chest as he stood, staring down at the floor, and Magda had paced toward the opposite corner, her hands against her face, stifling tears.
“I know this must be overwhelming to you both,” I began, “and I don’t have nearly all of the answers you’d like to have right now… But you’re going to have to believe me when I say that we need to go. This place isn’t safe anymore. They are probably searching for us even now.”
“So, let me get this straight,” said Magda, swiping at the tears in her eyes as she spun to face me, “you convinced my friend to send me to you for ‘therapy,’ where you intended for the two of us to have some kind of fucked-up demonic meet cute ?”
She took a step toward me, her demonic visage rippling over her as fury crested through the room like a wave. Horns sprouted from her temples; eyes glowing purple, feet and hands extending into claws as her wings practically exploded from her back. Her tail whipped angrily through the air and she stabbed the tip of it into the mattress like it was a blade. It pierced through the bed frame and into the floor with a profound amount of force.
“Do you really think needing to suck someone’s dick to survive is how I pictured the rest of my life?” she screamed. “All I wanted was to have sex without throwing up, and now I have to be like this ?!”
Her rage was like a thick presence in the room with us; I turned to Caleb, but he only stared at me, his eyes glowing that fierce blue as his claws extended from his fingertips. While his was still only a partial transformation, I swallowed hard. Neither one of them was under control. One I could have handled, but in this circumstance, it was going to depend on how fast I could talk them both off the edge. Otherwise…
Shit—shit—shit ? —
“Magda, listen,” I said, lifting my arms in placation, “when you and Caleb met, you were feeling… a little out of it from our interaction, but you knew what you wanted, right? You wanted him, didn’t you?”
Magda narrowed her gaze, then looked over to the incubus. “Yes,” she said, quietly.
“Caleb—you wanted Magda from the moment you saw her.”
His gaze softened; he looked away from me, slowly returning to his own senses. “I… yes.”
“Did either one of you ever wonder why? ” I asked.
The two of them shrank back into themselves; I took in a nervous breath. One awakening cambion was hard enough to deal with on my own, but this…
“It was because of what you did,” Magda said, touching her mouth with her fingers. “You kissed me and?—”
“That was only a kiss, dearest,” I said. “Albeit one that would enhance your desire—but nothing more.”
“What about whatever you did to me?” Caleb demanded. “I can’t remember Friday night, then I suddenly got a mysterious case of beer?—”
“Listen, all I gave you in those beers was a little… liquid enhancement, to ensure you were a bit more on your game for the following day—that’s all. Either way, the feelings you have for Magda—I didn’t give you those. If there was no compatibility between you two, aka, had you not liked one another, you wouldn’t have come charging in to save her. The attraction you feel for each other has nothing to do with me, and that I can assure you of.”
The two of them exchanged looks, then looked down at the floor.
“Magda,” I continued, “I’ve been trying to piece a few things together, all right? Now, your parents worked for Acolyte Seminary, correct?”
She nodded.
“Which,” I continued, “was also where Caleb has been a ward of the school’s shadow cult since he was a child. Have you ever been allowed to set foot in the university?”
Magda thought back; frowned. “No… only a building on the far side of the campus—the health clinic. My father refused to let me go anywhere else closer to the school.”
“And Caleb.” I turned to him. Have you ever been allowed outside of the university grounds without an escort—I mean past the gates?”
“Sure, I’ve—” He paused, then shook his head. “No. If I was leaving on a mission, I was always with my team. If I went anywhere to party or even to shop, someone like Jax or Harry or one of the other guys was always with me.”
“Until now. When you were picked to be put onto a reconnaissance team to monitor me,” I said. “Am I also correct in assuming that?”
Caleb froze and went white as a sheet. “They said you’ve never taken their bait before, but you did with me. Why?”
I sighed. There was awful defeat in knowing the archdiocese had guessed my hand, manipulated me into playing it anyway, and then gotten closer to capturing me than ever before.
“Because I got overly confident. I’ve been successfully outmaneuvering them for so long that I let my guard down. I spotted you from day one, convinced they’d made a mistake, because surely they wouldn’t let a cambion as powerful as you within a five-mile radius of me. When your team assaulted the building, I assumed it was Magda they were after, but I think they were there for you as well.”