Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 6 Higher Education By Amethyst

It was nearly nine-thirty by the time that we had gotten home to change from our Hunting gear and into some normal clothes. Since it was snowing and freaking cold out we hadn’t wanted to try finding a quiet spot to change and it wasn’t too far out of the way to come home between our two targets. The others were still out hunting it seemed, so we quickly changed into some casual clothes that we figured university students might wear, and then Ziralin and Elsaishe cast our glamours using the pictured from our fake ID’s as a basis so that once again I became Kiley Anderson and Ziralin and Ellie became Rebecca and Allison Pond.

It was damn cold out and since we might have to wander the campus a bit, I decided on a blouse and tight jeans combo. I chose a nice powder blue poet blouse with white lace frills on the hem and the cuffs and a daring V-neck that showed a lot more cleavage than I would normally be comfortable with. Resting in that cleavage was a silver pentacle on a chain that Ellie had made for me. The good thing about the blouse was that the billowing ruffled sleeves concealed a good half of my hands and the platinum hand flowers that adorned them. I just had to keep telling myself that Kiley wasn’t me, she was an outgoing university student.

Then there were the Pond sisters. Ziralin, or rather Rebecca, was wearing tight jeans as well, and a crimson halter top that looked really sexy on her and went well with the black hair she was sporting. Ellie, or Allison, though decided on a pair of white leggings and a really tight-fitting knit dress in an emerald hue. Since the duffel bag would be impractical, unless the Demons happened to be gym-rats, she made sure to carry a fairly large purse to store her fake ID, some of the stuff from her usual purse, and the paintball pistol with one extra clip and CO2 cartridge. She was also wearing a collection of simple silver rings and bracelets, just in case she needed the metal.

Once we had gotten our coats, boots, and other suitable cold-weather gear on we were back in my car and on our way to the campus. I had been tempted to get some driving practice in, but sadly it was still snowing fairly heavily and I didn’t have any experience driving in the snow. Not that Ziralin did, except for earlier that evening, but it was far more than I had and she also had her Faery reflexes.

Once we arrived we tried to wander around the main areas of the campus, but there were certain areas we couldn’t access because we didn’t have student cards, or TCards as they called them. The cards not only acted as ID cards but also provided access to various services and facilities. From what I’d seen and heard while we were searching, and talking to some of the students, if you wanted to use the libraries, athletic facilities, printing services, and other facilities or even take your exams, get on a meal plan, or use the online learning services you needed a TCard and a passcode to go with it. “This might complicate things,” I muttered as we left the area of the athletic facilities and took off in a random direction.

“Couldn’t you make a fake one like with the Driver’s Licenses?” Ellie asked, looking around warily as we walked. It was nearly eleven o’clock and we were all getting a bit cold and tired.

I shook my head sadly. “I would need to be able to see one up close to do that, and it would only make it look like the card, it wouldn’t be cleared through security to work like a real one and we wouldn’t have a passcode anyway.”

“Well, that really sucks,” Ziralin replied with a groan. “We’ll just have to keep looking in the areas that we can access. If we don’t find anything by midnight we’ll call it a night and head home. Maybe we can come right after school tomorrow and see if we can somehow get one of us a card.”

“I don’t know, maybe, but it’ll involve getting in people’s heads and I’m not very good at that. And I don’t really like the idea of using magick like that unless it’s absolutely nec…” I stopped speaking mid-word as I felt a very familiar Demonic presence at the edge of the range of my magick sense. Ziralin sensed it as well and we both stopped in our tracks and looked at one another in shock.

Ellie had gotten several steps ahead of us before she realized that we were no longer with her and quickly turned around. “What’s wrong? You both look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did you sense something? Is It Khinara?”

I quickly shook off the queasy feeling in my stomach and shook my head before answering her in a hushed tone. “We’ve got something, but it’s not Khinara. It’s something disturbingly familiar though.”

“Yeah,” my Familiar/girlfriend agreed with a grimace spreading across her glamoured face. “It feels almost like…”

“Aarianna,” I finished for her. “You killed her though and the flavor and texture of the aura aren’t quite the same. It has to be a different Succubus.”

“More than one from what I’m sensing,” Ziralin pointed out. Then she closed her eyes and her brow furrowed in concentration for a moment before she finally let out a sigh. “Yeah there are three of them, but they’re fairly close to one another.”

“We can’t afford to go easy on them, Succubi are strong, fast, and very capable at using magick, even if Aarianna couldn’t. We’ll leave one alive to question but we need to take down the others hard and fast if we can,” I said as I looked in the direction of the three Demonic presences.

“Well, at least they can’t put the whammy on us, right? Their charms only work on men, so all we really need to worry about is taking them down and not letting them use magick,” Ellie offered as we started off at a fast walk toward the auras. “Maybe we can wait for them and take them by surprise while they’re looking for a meal.”

“It’s a good idea Ellie, but you’re wrong about them not being able to whammy us,” Ziralin supplied with a frown. “They only feed on tantric energy of men, but they attract people through a combination of really powerful pheromones and a hypnotic gaze, like Vampires. Remember how that Vampire bitch whammied Annie? It could work on me and Shannon since we’re attracted to girls. They may not think of that though, Aarianna didn’t.”

“Yeah, but Aarianna hadn’t been a Succubus for long when we fought her, she wasn’t exactly well-adjusted, and you had her too angry to think straight,” I quickly pointed out.

“Okay, let’s be extra careful then,” she agreed. We were almost off-campus now and it felt like we were really close. “We’ll find them and pick them off one by one once they’re alone if we can, I mean it’s not like they’re all going to be staying in the same place… oh hell!” the last was spat out as Ziralin stopped short and I nearly slammed into her back.

I looked at the massive house in front of us with Greek letters over the main entrance as Ellie gave a curse of her own. “Shit. It just had to be a sorority house didn’t it?”

“Of course it did, why wouldn’t it be?” I grumbled. “Ziralin, my love, you really have to learn to stop tempting Murphy’s Law.”

The lights were all on and it looked like there were a lot of people inside on the ground floor from what we could see. “Some kind of party?” Ellie suggested.

“Seems like it,” I agreed. “Maybe we can go inside and blend in while we track down our Demonic friends.”

“It’s worth a try,” my Fae Familiar said with a shrug. “Just be careful and don’t drink or eat anything unless you’re absolutely sure of what it is and that it’s safe.”

“If we have to interact with a bunch of people we’ll need to keep our stories straight,” I quickly added in a whisper. “We should keep the backgrounds as close to our own as possible too, so we don’t get tripped up. Graduates of a prestigious private school, good grades, Kiley is looking into getting into fashion or modeling, and she and Becky are both here on a volleyball scholarship. Hopefully, we won’t run into anyone who actually plays volleyball here. Allie is here because she wanted to study economics for when the two of you take over the family business.”

Both of the Fae nodded and Ellie said, “That should be easy enough to follow. If people want to know more than that we’re probably talking to them more than we should be.”

“Well, here goes nothing,” I muttered, as I took a deep breath and led the way to the door to ring the doorbell. I was a little worried about this. We would have to make sure not to get too close until we were ready to take them down. I wasn’t too worried about the hypnosis portion of their powers. I seemed to have some protection from mental attacks when Khinara tried, and as my Familiar Ziralin was resistant to any magick but my own, but if we got too close those pheromones could be a problem. I was a bit concerned about Ellie too. She had told me that she wasn’t sure what her orientation was yet, but she had also admitted that most of the Faery seem to be bisexual to some degree. Ziralin wasn’t, but she wasn’t exactly born a Faery either.

I was almost ready to call the whole thing off as we waited until the door opened and a very pretty brunette appeared. She wore a cheerful smile, a short pleated white skirt and white heels that really showed off her legs, and a pastel pink crop top with the same Greek letters that were over the door sprawled across her large chest. She gave the three of us a quick once-over with her eyes and greeted us. “Hi, are you here to rush?”

“Rush?” Ellie asked, a bit uncertainly.

“You know, for the Informational?” she asked, then she didn’t even really give us much chance to reply before cheerfully chattering on. “This is your chance to get to know some of our members, ask any questions you might have, and find out if Alpha Kappa Phi is right for you. And we can find out if you’re right for Alpha Kappa Phi. You’re a bit late, things got started like ten minutes ago.”

“Oh yeah!” I quickly responded once she came up for air. “Being an Alpha Kappa Phi girl is, like, totes my dream! I’m Kiley, and this is my BFF Becky and her sister Allie.” I felt ridiculous acting like a perky ditz, but I had a persona to portray.

“Yeah, sorry for being late, we live off-campus right now and the streets are like crazy with all of this snow,” Ziralin, or rather Rebecca offered with a shrug.

“I’m Selina, come on in and get out of the cold,” she offered, opening the door wider and stepping aside so we could pass through. Once we were all inside with the door closed behind us, she led us to what seemed to be a large coat-room. “You can leave your jackets and stuff here, and then come mingle in the main room,” she said.

I mentally cursed as I removed my scarf, gloves, knit cap, and coat. “Shit. Why in the hell would a bunch of Succubi want to join a sorority? They don’t usually need help attracting men and if they have a taste for frat boys then all they really need to do is show up on campus and their looks and abilities can take care of the rest. It doesn’t make any sense. Now a frat party, on the other hand, that would make sense.”

I could sense similar uncertainty coming from Ziralin’s mind, but we didn’t dare talk openly about it with Selina standing there waiting for us. Once we had all shed our outerwear and had rejoined our guide she looked us over once again, taking in our glamoured personas this time without the heavy winter coats and stuff in the way. “Nice, you girls definitely have potential. If you’re lucky maybe one of our sisters will take an interest in you and take you under their wing.”

“OMG that would be so awesome!” I enthused, playing my part to the hilt.

Apparently, we had missed the big introduction, so Selina made the rounds, taking us around and introducing us to some of her sorority sisters, all of whom were wearing shirts similar to her own. At least that made it easy to tell who the sorority girls were and who the guests were. I was carefully looking at each of the guests, but none of the ones I passed by or gave an overly cheerful “hello” to, seemed to be our Succubi. We made the minimum of small talk. but I was beginning to lose hope of finding them in the crowd at all when I felt it. My head snapped around in the direction that the uneasy feeling was coming from almost at the exact same second that Ellie and Ziralin did the same.

Three incredibly beautiful young women were descending the stairs from the second floor of the house, an Asian, a brunette, and a blonde. They all wore those pastel pink Alpha Kappa Phi crop tops but the Asian wore a black leather micro mini skirt, the brunette wore a similar skirt in what looked like white latex, and a blonde had on the tightest skinny jeans I had ever seen. Seriously, if she had a dime in her pocket I probably could have known the year that it was minted without her having to take it out. I didn’t need to feel their demonic auras to realize that they were our targets, they were just too gorgeous to be regular human beings. I was actually a bit jealous and, given my confidence about my looks, that was saying something. I couldn’t help but stare a little.

“Who are they?” I heard Beth cautiously ask Selina.

I could hear the envy in Selina’s voice as she replied, “Oh, the brunette is Danica, she’s our chapter president. The blonde is Lily, one of our recruiters, and we call the Asian girl Kari since none of us can pronounce her real name. Kari is a new member, she just joined us at the beginning of the year, but I guess that she, Danica, and Lily really hit it off because they made her a member so quickly, she hardly had to do any pledging at all. Most of us thought they were closet lesbos when she came and wrapped them around her little finger, but now they’re as bad as she is with the frat boys, it’s like they have a new one every night. God, I get so jealous of them sometimes, I wish that I looked half that good. Hey, they’re coming this way, I’ll make the intros. If they like you, your chances of getting in are pretty good.”

Nobody needed to tell me that they were coming toward us, as soon as they were halfway down the stairs Kari stopped and seemed to sniff the air before whispering to the other pair for a moment and looking directly at us. As soon as they hit the bottom of the stairs they came straight at us like a homing missile. That told me two things; first, they had probably detected our glamours. Second, Kari was the one in charge. The others were either newbie Succubi, or she had given them a Demon Brand. I suspected the former since I couldn’t sense the presence of a Brand and the aura that they gave off was just too similar to Kari’s. She wasn’t trying to join the sorority, she already had and now she was trying to control it, but why?

The three practically glided across the floor toward us, gracefully navigating the crowd and smiling like a pack of wolves with a nice tasty deer in their sights. This was not a good idea, we needed to get out of here. We knew who they were and where they were, and that should be enough for the moment. I grabbed Ellie’s hand and sent a mental distress signal to Beth and was turning to leave when a soft hand tightly gripped my shoulder and a wonderfully musical voice asked, “So Selina, who do we have here?”

“This is Kiley, Becky, and Allie. Girls, this Danica, Lily, and Kari, the girls that I was just telling you about,” Selina said smoothly giving us a wink as I tried to keep smiling and not grind my teeth or inhale too deeply. I could sense that Ziralin was fighting it too, but a look to my right showed Ellie gazing adoringly at Lily, fully caught under her spell. This was the worst possible time to confirm that Ellie liked girls. I reached into my purse for my phone, I needed to text Sarah an S.O.S. I wanted to cast a spell, but my brain felt fuzzy and I couldn’t really focus.

“It’s nice to meet you girls,” Kari said, flashing me a smile that seemed to light up the whole room. “Danica? Lily? What do you think? They look like Alpha Kappa Phi girls to me, maybe we should give them an interview?”

Damn was she gorgeous. “NO!” I told myself, “I already have someone that I’m in love with… wait, what was her name? Oh, yeah, Kari. How could I possibly forget that? She’s everything to me.” I was suddenly giddy, my heart pounding in my chest as I asked, “An interview?”

“Of course, you want to be Alpha Kappa Phi girls don’t you?” I think it was Lily who asked that, but I only had eyes for Kari. She was an Alpha Kappa Phi girl though, and if I were too I could spend so much more time with her.

Wait, why was I gripping my phone so tight? I shook my head and giggled. It probably wasn’t anything important. Nothing was as important to me as Kari “I’ve never wanted anything more,” I finally answered with a dreamy sigh.

Somewhere to my right, I heard Danica’s voice say, “Let’s head upstairs for some privacy then, I’ll take Becky here and, Lily, you can interview Allie. Kari, do you think that you could interview Kiley for me?”

Kari gave me that beautiful smile again and my heart took flight as she said, “I’d love to. I can’t wait for you to join the sisterhood, Kiley.”