Putting on an amorous smile, Catherine slid around her desk and walked up to him with a sway in her hips. She placed a single finger on his shoulder and ran it down his chest. Leaning in close, Catherine whispered in his ear.
“Adults are still on the menu, aren’t they?”
Leaving one light breath on the edge of his ear, she turned with a roll of her eyes and walked away. For a moment there, she had been considering licking his cheek. In the end, the breath of air had probably been the wiser choice. His face had reddened before she turned.
It had the added benefit of not having his disgusting taste on her tongue for the next who-knew-how-long.
He didn’t move a single muscle until after Catherine reached her desk, half-sat half-leaned against it, and blew him a kiss. And then, the only movement he made was to lean his head to one side and back again. As if dodging the imaginary projectile.
Pathetic.
Once he had thoroughly cleared his throat, Anderson said, “I’ll have you know that I am very happily married.”
“Ah,” Catherine said with a false wistful sigh, “a shame. I’m certain that I could have shown you things your wife could never have imagined in a hundred millennia.”
That was true enough, though Catherine didn’t have to imagine much. Such things were mere propensity for succubi. There wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that seducing a married man could prove to be even the slightest challenge. It couldn’t be that difficult with how he was acting.
Catherine suppressed a shudder. Disgusting thing. Just brushing up against him gave her an irrational desire to stick her hand in a boiling pot of water. As it was, she had to settle for a little jar of hand sanitizer on Baxter’s desk.
“Now,” Catherine said in her regular tone of voice, “if that was all you wanted, get out. I have to grade these foolish children’s exams.”
Rather than walk out the door, he approached her desk. Bringing himself to his full height, he towered over her slight lean against the desk. “Nice try,” he said as shadows darkened in the background. “I’ll not be so easily distracted.”
He wanted to be intimidating? Fine. Two could play that game.
Catherine’s eyes flared bright red and she didn’t care in the slightest. In fact, she allowed herself to go a step further. Her eyes lost the circular human-like pupil as they stretched into the full demonic slit. Two slightly curved horns sprouted from the edge of her hairline. Her wings and tail–
She had to suppress a wince. Stupid human clothing. Horns and eyes would have to suffice. And skin. Catherine smiled with sharp teeth as her skin turned to her beautiful pale violet. It was nice to feel like herself again.
No upstart human with a bound haunter was going to treat her like a fledgling.
“Zagan was here.”
“He was,” Catherine confirmed. “What’s it to you?”
“This school is missing students as you well know.” The lights flickered as he spoke.
Catherine didn’t even blink.
“We have managed to keep it quiet for the most part, but Christmas is fast approaching. Some students will be returning home for a few weeks and they will talk. I have an interest in seeing the missing students return alive and well before the flights leave.”
“So that the children will tell their mommies and daddies that everything is just dandy?” Catherine rolled her eyes. “Please. The brats don’t care. That class that just left? It was the class those missing students were from. Did they look worried or sad or whatever emotions humans are supposed to feel in situations like this?”
Anderson pursed his lips but remained silent.
“No they didn’t. Martina personally came in and told the class that they were simply ‘taking a brief respite after the hectic incident in November’ and something about how they would be back soon. I,” Catherine paused. For dramatic effect, she curled her fingers in front of her face as if she was inspecting her nails.
Actually, Catherine thought, they could use a sharpening. And a painting. A nice midnight black this time I think.
“I,” Catherine repeated, “may have been sowing some of my irresistible charms–”
He scoffed.
Asshole. “–to help keep the more troublesome students from caring.”
“Will they?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“Will they what?”
“Be back soon.”
Catherine shrugged. “Zagan said something about an experiment. Martina yelled at him a lot, but the only real responses he gave was that they were alive and that he didn’t intend to interfere with their current situation. She yelled harder after that.”
Mostly at Catherine. Zagan–that bastard–didn’t have the decency to stick around long enough for Martina to get her anger out of her system.
“What is their current situation?”
Again, Catherine shrugged. “How the hell should I know? If you are so interested, go summon him up yourself.”
Anderson stared at her for just a moment. Turning, he started towards the door. “Maybe I will,” he said before disappearing out into the hallway.
Catherine blinked, not quite sure she had heard him correctly. In the end, she shook her head. It didn’t matter to her one way or the other. Maybe if she was lucky, the idiot would actually summon Zagan. If she was really lucky, Zagan would be in a murderous mood for being disturbed.
Without Anderson hanging over her shoulder, she would be free to return to properly educating the ignorant mortals.
Sighing, Catherine turned to the short stack of papers on her desk.
“Now,” she mumbled to herself, “where did I put those dice?”
—
Sterile.
If there was one word to describe Zoe Baxter’s apartment, Sterile would be it.
The apartment building itself was of the seedier type. Probably the best one in Brakket despite that. There really were no good apartment buildings in Brakket. Most were half-abandoned at best.
But the difference between one step inside Baxter’s room and one step out in the hallway might as well be the difference between a desert and a jungle.
Someone had done a real number on the place. Catherine’s nose couldn’t detect the faintest trace of any sort of remains she had expected to find–from past tenants if not Baxter herself.
Catherine pressed the door shut behind her, cushioning the noise with a small bit of air magic. As much as the apartment was supposed to be empty, Catherine didn’t feel like taking too many chances. At the same time, she wasn’t exactly trying to hide her presence. She could have made a stealthier approach than walking in through the front door.
Still, since Martina had delegated the acquisition of the room to Catherine, getting a second key had been child’s play–human children at that.
Why the school had to buy her an apartment, Catherine never bothered to ask. She had learned enough about the mortal realm to understand that normal employees whose houses had burned down were essentially left to fend for themselves. There might be a community pot to chip in, but rarely more.
Dismissing the tangent, Catherine crept into the apartment proper. It was minimalistic. A table, two chairs, and a couch pressed up against the window were the only pieces of furniture in the room. The kitchen had appliances, though those had come with the apartment. No decorations, paintings, plants, or anything to suggest that the place was actually lived in.
She brushed her fingers across the top of the dining room table. Her fingers came off clean.
Ignoring the main room, Catherine moved into the bedroom–the only other real room in the place.
Much like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom was clear of most personal effects. Her bed had plain sheets–picked up in a hurry no doubt. The only thing that really stood out was the desk and the heavy-looking safe at its side.