Bewitch(2)

One of those leads had landed him in trouble.
One had refused to speak to a half-breed. That had pissed Payne off no end. He had told the shapeshifter that he was a vampire but the male had focused on the incubus side of his genes. Payne had felt like killing him but had let it go. Dead or alive, the man wouldn’t have been any help.
The final lead had brought him here, to a whole fae town hidden beneath the grounds of an elegant palatial mansion in the English countryside. Fae lived in the mansion too, the elite of the light side of that world. Everyone down here were merchants, plying their wares to make ends meet, or workers and travellers. Payne had thought witches had higher standards but there were probably hundreds if not thousands of them here, trading with other creatures, selling spells, ointments and god only knew what else.
A group of three young females reached the top of the stone steps to his left and passed him, dressed in the traditional garb of witches, long black featureless dresses that swamped their bodies and concealed their curves. They tittered amongst themselves, their eyes on him, blushes heating their cheeks. His incubus side rose to the fore and he shot them a smile, earning giggles and a few sultry smiles in return. The incubus in him loved every second, lapping up their desire, draining it from the air around him.
Payne tamped it down and his vampire side took control again. The witches’ looks turned dark and he knew they had seen the red in his eyes. Strange how they would toy with an incubus, one who wanted them purely for sexual gratification, but they would scowl at a vampire. His incubus nature was more likely to kill them.
He took the steps on the left down to the cavern floor, his eyes on the town, studying it. There were larger buildings near the edges of the town. Banners hung on their walls. He recognised a few. Not just covens. There was a shapeshifter pride. A wolf pack. Ogres too. There was even a succubus clan. He didn’t need to recognise the banner on that particular building to know what type of creature lived within its dark red walls. There was a steady stream of men coming and going, and some succubi were hanging out of the open windows, calling to them and teasing them with flashes of flesh. The fae equivalent of a bordello.
He shook his head and focused back on the witches’ district. He was shit out of luck if the street signs were in fae. The fae language was extensive and his knowledge of it was limited. He knew the basics but names were often written in a special way. He had never learned those characters. He looked down at the line of markings that tracked up the underside of his forearms and disappeared beneath the charcoal grey rolled up sleeves of his shirt. The swirls, dashes and spikes shifted in hues of dark blue and burnished gold. Not a sign of his incubus side. His markings shone bright gold and cerulean when that was in control. No, this was apprehension.
Understandable considering he was about to enter a world that prided itself on bloodlines and purity.
An abomination like him was liable to end up deep in shit. He wasn’t sure which role to play. The vampire or the incubus? They were more likely to accept his demonic lineage and most of the creatures in the area he needed to head into were unlikely to be able to sense the vampire in him.
Incubus it was.
He hated that.
He reached the bottom of the stone steps and the crowd immediately swallowed him. Women dressed in very little tossed provocative looks his way and his incubus side purred from their attention. He wanted to tamp it down but his vampire side had a tendency to show when he forced it to the fore to obliterate his incubus hungers. He couldn’t risk them seeing he had a dual personality.
Payne preened his long fingers through the dirty blond spikes of his hair and the women hissed at him and disappeared in a flash, teleporting out of his presence. Fairly standard behaviour for a succubus when it saw an incubus. He grinned to himself, remembering how Chica had reacted to him in such a way when she had first come to the theatre. Succubi were weaker than incubi, and it had led to the incubi taking advantage of them more than once, and trying to kill them too. It seemed both sides of his genes had trampled on the feelings of other species without remorse.
He found his first street sign at a junction between four shops all selling herbs that stung his nose. Each plump female owner stood outside, trying to outshout the others. Payne covered his sensitive ears and glared at the wooden post in the middle of the busy crossroads and the boards pointing in different directions.
Just as he had expected. He was shit out of luck.
He didn’t recognise any of the symbols on the wooden boards. He jammed his hands in his jeans pockets and not just because he was frustrated. He had been bumped more than once and he was damned if he was going to have his wallet nicked. That would be the turd icing on a crap cake.