Query's first day at the Dalton Adventuring Academy for Monsters is not going as planned. After being mistakenly placed in the haunted tower with a Wraith for a roommate, almost run over by a Werebear, and already somehow behind on her classes, Query discovers that she just might be too broke to be a wizard. Not that Query is new to unsolvable problems. She has dedicated her life to crafting a spell that can cure her of all the things wrong with her body. All she needs to do is survive the most competitive school for the vilest creatures in the world while being seduced by her entire dorm thanks to her mother's Succubus heritage. If she can pull that off while sorting out why students are dropping out of school in record numbers, she just might be able to pass her freshman year.
Category: Lesbian, Science Fiction or Fantasy (The main character is a trans lesbian).
Queers & Queries Chapter 1 By Trixie Adara
Some people are just born wrong, and some people are cursed. That's what I tell myself as I stare at my lavender hand and bend magic to force its color to a rich ebony or a vibrant peach, but each time, my hand goes back to the same pale purple I've known my whole life. I imagine that's what would happen if I tried to hide my horns or shrink the curves of my body. Magic doesn't hold forever, but that doesn't mean I can't change my stars. I have to. I know my mom and dads would say to accept things as they are in their Zen and pious way. They'd say we don't get to change everything about ourselves. That at some point, the pain of being unable to change breaks us, and we are forced into acceptance.
I run my hands over the huge tome Bo gave me last night. One day, it will be full of spells. Sure, some will be the mundane things like teleporting small distances or crafting larger illusions. But those aren't the one I want. I don't even know if Dalton has it, but college is the first step on that path. I look in the mirror for the seventh time this morning, making sure everything is in place for the dozens of first impressions I'm about to make. I'm already dressed and ready for the day, but each strand of soft pink hair needs to be styled or braided before I leave. I'm in a heavy blue cowl-neck sweater that hides most of my curves. I've added black tights, a short black skirt to give me more modesty, and knitted socks to disguise the shape of my legs. I guess if I had boots I could finish my Velma impersonation with the thick glasses on my round face, but they don't make boots for hooved feet. Thankfully, my tail can navigate the world of skirts and tights, but I've got the only pair of shoes I'll ever need.
So many broken parts of this body.
Alma knocks on the door. It has to be her at this hour. One knock to make sure I'm awake, two in an hour when breakfast is ready. Three when she wants to ... but no. Not today. One knock for now. She doesn't know I've been up for hours, going over my bags and recovering from another nightmare: long black fingers on a body thin as smoke, a rabbit dragged into its own burrow, a bed covered in spider-webs, a hissing in my ear like a hateful prelude to a kiss, a girl with a long shining horn on her forehead. The same one for years that turned me into a morning person under protest.
With my spell book back in my bag, I look out the window. This will be the last time I take in the fiery crags of Hell. Mom always said I should be thankful we live on the second layer but not the first. The first layer is mostly dust and pools of twisted souls. The second layer is primarily the city of Dis, but we live on the outskirts — the Hell equivalent of the suburbs. Middle class Devils like Mom lay down their roots in a world that looks like the inside of a volcano. My understanding is that this is what most mortals assume Hell is, though I wouldn't know. The only mortal I've ever met is Dad.
My phone buzzes. Speak of the mortal, and he shall appear. Dad wishes me luck today and says he's excited to see me in DC. I don't know what luck has to do with anything exactly. I'm just moving in. My roommate is already assigned: Nita Strongclaw. She definitely sounds like an intellectual giant of our time. Probably College of Warriors. I imagine some Celtic Dwarf covered in furs and tribal tattoos like the berserkers in the fantasy stories Dad is obsessed with. Probably racist of me or something.
Fuck, I really have no idea how to person.
I end up scrolling through Instagram for the next thirty minutes, trying to numb my anxiety. This is some of my only access to the mortal world. I mostly follow ASMRtists and authors. Mom is more obsessed with celebrities and their gossip, but that's only because she's slept with half of them and contributed to their success. I don't think there's any rush to get to know them; if they bargain with Mom, they'll end up here one day.
One knock. "Honey?" Mom leans in. I look up from my phone. It's taken nineteen years, but I've finally gotten used to her beauty. I know it's magical and genetically unfair. She's a Succubus; beauty is how she hunts her prey. It also means that how I see her is literally my brain's definition of beauty: long and wavy red hair, clear green eyes, freckles, pale skin, curves that go on for ...
It's not my fault I think my mom is hot. It's a spell.
So, this ridiculously stunning Irish version of my mom walks into my room. Her ram's horns are still visible, but it's hard for me to concentrate on them. They only exist in my periphery. Hooves and tail are gone (must be nice), and her wings are tucked away into whatever magic dimension her wings go to. Thankfully, I don't have wings of my own to deal with, though flying around could be nice. Not in Hell, but I hear other planes don't have toxic smog blocking out their sky.
"Need help packing?" she asks. Her voice also changes to that of my ideal partner — husky, thick, and ... Irish (okay, so I have a type).
I shake my head, and my thick braid swings back and forth in the way that always makes me giddy. "I finished packing like three days ago."
"Really?" She steps further into the room and closes the door behind her. "Everything?"
"Triple checked." I hand her my packing list — laminated and color coordinated. It has three check marks next to each item for each round of packing.
"Lucy's bush ..." She looks over the list in amazement. One day, I swear, Mom will look at something I've done and be impressed rather than shocked by its oddity. I blush.
"I don't know why I thought it, knowing you, but I assumed your stuff would be all over the room and you'd be panicked crying or something like that."
"No. That's you." I grab my packing list from her. I still have enough time for a fourth check if I hurry. "Remember when we went to the Shadowfell and you remembered to pack three different sets of lingerie and almost a dungeon's worth of sex toys but forgot soap and shampoo?"
"Well, it worked in the end, didn't it? We didn't bathe our way out of that Gloom Lord's clutches."
"Not in the usual definition of bathe."
Mom sticks her forked tongue out at me and paces around the room, sighing with nostalgic sentimentality as she looks at the two trunks of all my possessions. The admissions paperwork told us only to bring the essentials — and I did — but I don't think they assumed one trunk would be entirely books. One wall of my room is still lined with almost a hundred of my beloved beauties, but I showed remarkable restraint in the packing process. That one trunk is only filled with books pertaining to transmutation magic, a few favorite novels, and my smut collection.
A girl should never be far from her smut.
Mom picks up a picture of me, her, and my dads. It's from one of the few times we went to the mortal world. Mom took us to Russia, and the cold there was worse than anything Hell has to offer. A century or so ago, she had a fling with Alexandra Feodorovna, the Empress. Through a series of unfortunate events that she's never made clear to me, their affair led to the Bolshevik Revolution. A lot of the stories mix up Rasputin and Mom in the details, but Mom doesn't mind losing the credit. History forgets but Hell remembers. Mom got a big promotion, and Russia became her favorite vacation spot.
"Want anything special for your last breakfast?"
"I'm not on death row; I'm going to college."
"And then you'll have adventures. Friends." She puts down the picture and arches an eyebrow at me. "Lovers."
I roll my eyes. "I will get a degree in transmutation, find no jobs with it, and move in with my parents like every human girl is doing these days." I smile as sweetly as I can at her and tenderly grab her shoulders. I knew today would be hard for her. "You can't get rid of a Devil that easily. Contracts and all that."
"Daughters don't sign contracts." Her lips twist into a pout that I imagine has melted a thousand hearts across millennia.
"We do. In a way." I give her a kiss on each cheek. "But I would love biscuits and gravy." I say it in the thick accent of an antebellum Southern Belle. Mom and I always joked that we imagined that would be the natural accent of Hell's denizens.
"Right away," she says, mimicking my accent. "With a cold glass of sweet tea?"
"And a Georgia peach, just how I like it." Mom laughs and heads out of the room. To be fair, I wouldn't be able to find Georgia on a map, and I've only had a peach once in my life. I close the door behind Mom and lean my head against it. Mom has always been the way I made sense of the world. When I was seven, I read about peaches and asked her to describe their taste to me. She went to the mortal world and got one for me. Without her, a peach would just be a word on a page. My whole life, she has been the ambassador of the real world while I've wandered the Sulphur Wastes or tried to tame a flock of imps to be my pets.
"What will I do without you?" I whisper to the dark.
"Suffer," the darkness whispers back. I whip around. Standing, holding the picture of me and my parents in Russia, is the slithering shadow of my nightmares. Something pools and ripples off them, something like smoke, but it's darker than the shadows. It's like heat rippling over the baking stones of Hell, but in reverse. I gasp. It's drinking in the light. The lamp by my desk is leaning in closer to it, the light bending up and into the shadow creature's body. Even the red light of Hell's flames outside my window is pulled into them, like a living black hole of thin, sharp lines.
"What are you doing here?" I ask. I pinch myself. I'm still awake. This isn't a nightmare.
"Time is running out." They turn to me. Their eyes — if they can be called that — have the same haze lingering over them where light is drawn in. Their fingers are obsidian blades carefully clutching a photo of my family. A photo I should have packed.
Three gentle knocks on the door. The shadow creature's head jerks up. The door tries to open, but I'm blocking the way.
"Query?" Alma's voice wraps itself around the crack in the door. "Is everything okay?"
I step away and open the door — partly to let Alma in but mostly so Mom can come here and —
"Wow, I've never seen it so clean." I look back around, and the shadow creature is gone. It's just Alma standing there with a steaming cup of Dwarven coffee — strong, black, with chai and cayenne pepper. Hells, I will miss her.
"And to think the one time I really wanted to clean it," she puts the coffee down on my bare desk. She's worked for us my whole life, but I'm not sure how old she is. She's a lovely Dwarven woman with thick blonde curls that she barely contains in braids and golden hoops. Honestly, it's a masterpiece of craftsmanship and design that she echoes with her rings, armbands, and my favorite — her large septum piercing that somehow makes her large eyes seem rounder and fuller and her full lips look more luscious and glossier.
Alma wipes something from her eye to save her carefully done cat's eye. "I wanted to do something nice for you, one last time."
"Oh, Alma," I say and wrap her in a big hug.
She wraps her arms around my waist. Her head only reaches my chest, and I pull her in tight. I know some people think of the staff in their house as a second mother or an aunt, but Alma has always been more of a peer. She isn't some bland maternal figure that loves laundry. She made a deal with Mom — she still won't tell me the terms — and this is her payment instead of her soul. I'm not even convinced she's much older than me, though I don't think she's aged a day since working here. More Devil magic at work.
"Hells, you smell good," she says as she nuzzles her face into my breasts. "I'm going to miss it."
"Yeah," I say, breathless. "I know." I hold the back of her head, not sure if I'm holding her head in place, comforting her, or bringing her head in tighter against my body.
"You packed without me."
"I'm going to be doing a lot of things without you."
"Too many things."
I kiss the top of her head. "I know."
"I just ..." She moans. On any other day, I'd be slightly annoyed — at myself, not her. While I don't have Mom's effortless glamour skills or soul-consuming sexual prowess, I did inherit her abilities to numb the minds of those around me with lustful compulsion. Not that I can control it, of course. That would be useful. Instead, people like Alma find themselves going tingly and giggly around me, wanting to get in my panties, and willing to do anything for it.
"I want to do one thing for you before you go." Alma rubs her nose against my nipples until they stiffen. My back arches, and I moan slightly.
"Just one thing?"
She laughs. "Maybe more."
She trails kisses down my breasts, over my tummy, and down to my skirt. I stumble back against the wall, leaning against the house to support me as my knees go weak. Alma is tender and loving; she always has been. We've never had to rush in this house — Mom would never interrupt or shame us. Many people come on to me, but Alma was the first one I let in. She's the first one I felt safe with, and she's been a comforting lover since the first time. She's never felt entitled to my body, though I know she aches for it whenever I'm around.
"Fuck," I say as she kisses the inside of my thighs.
"Yes," she says. "Let's." Alma's body shifts from nervous and desperate to predatory. This is the way it always goes whenever any woman finally caves to my aura, and it's that shift that finally melts me. It is one thing to be like a drug to another soul, but it is a far more delicious thing to be devoured, to have firm hands grip the rolls of your flesh, to feel an eager mouth look for any pleasure it can give me, to know that the shape and form of me makes them so, so happy.
Alma puts her head beneath my skirt, and I sink into her touch, my anxiety about the coming day floats away. Alma's tongue knows each curve and crevice of my body, and she treats it well. I know that she is saying goodbye to it in a different way than she'd say goodbye to me. When we part, we will hug each other and cry silent tears. But when our bodies part, we will be hot and sticky with sweat and all the yummy bits that our love makes.
"I just got dressed," I say, still worried about how I'll look on my first day. "And my hair."
"Then I'll be the only one between legs today, Mistress." She hooks her fingers onto the waistband of my tights.
"Lucy's tits," I say. She kisses the soft hairs of my mound, taking her time. It wouldn't matter if the sky was falling around us, Alma never rushes her kisses. She places each one tenderly with the gentle wet sound that drives me crazy. This must be what it feels like when people are lured in by my aura. A kind of irresistible bliss. This is the lack of control that every drug user signs up for, and I wouldn't be surprised if Alma's kisses were just as addictive.
My hips move and pulse, rolling against Alma's face as her tongue works. Flames dance over my fingertips. If I let myself go, my whole body could erupt in flame. The walls of my room hiss as my hands singe them.
"Fuck," I hiss as Alma adds a finger to help her tongue. The warm breath of laughter on my thighs and wet lips melts my brain.
Two knocks on the door, and for the first time in nine years, Mom doesn't wait for me to tell her to come in. "Breakfast is — Lucy's tits!" I can't see her with Alma sitting on my face, but the door slams, and Alma rushes to climb off of me.
"No," I say. I grip her thighs tight, the claw-like nature of my nails biting her soft flesh. "One more time. Please."
"As you wish," Alma says with the smirk that started our affair in the first place. The are-you-going-to-stare-at-me-all-day-or-sink-to-your-knees-like-a-good-girl stare. She cups my cheek and says tenderly, "Not worried about your braid anymore?"
"I just didn't want you to have to do it again."
"I'll take care of you." She bends down and kisses me sweetly. Then, with a laugh, she tosses the braided bouquet of her hair to one side and climbs back on top of my face. As she sinks down, I let my tongue wish her body goodbye.
We stumble out of the room, but Alma trails behind me, rebraiding my hair. She makes sure my outfit is smoothed and on straight before she lets me walk away.
"I will never get over the taste of you," I say.
"No, I don't suppose you will." She winks, and I almost pull her back into my room. I could spend all day in there with her. Classes don't start until tomorrow. Who cares if I miss move-in day?
But Alma doesn't give me the chance; she rushes into the kitchen where Mother is sitting on her tablet, scrolling through all the updates from the Lowerarchy and scanning social media for yummy snacks. I know her focus is all on me today, but I can't imagine she doesn't want a mortal to devour while she's in DC.
"Have fun, you two?" Mom asks without looking up.
"You already know the answer," Alma says as she pours me a glass of milk. "Did the sentimentality of the day make you forget how to knock, Mistress?"
"I did knock. Oh, he looks yummy." She takes a screenshot of a young senator. "And good contacts, I bet."
"Too young," I say. "He'll be some junior senator on shit committees."
"I can make sure he doesn't stay junior for long. Well, not me. But I bet Beezlebub could." Mom has suppressed her slut-chic style today for the porn version of a businesswoman. Her black lace bra is obvious beneath her thin white shirt, which doesn't even matter because it is buttoned low enough that her neckline meets her underwire. She has a cream blazer with black lace detailing at the cuff of the sleeve, and pants pressed so cleanly they must have cost three souls.
"I'm surprised you don't have a regular meal in DC." Alma sets the biscuits and gravy in front of me, and I drown it in red pepper flakes. It takes a lot of heat to sting a Devil's tongue.
"Don't shit where you eat and all that. Oh." She looks up at my meal from her tablet. "Crass saying for mealtime, apologies, darling."
I shrug. "Too many Devils in DC?"
"Exactly. I never know who's toe I'm stepping on."
"Hence a junior senator."
"Fresh meat. I might be able to stake my claim first." She grabs her phone and shoots a text to Lilith. "I'll have fourteen forms to fill out just to talk to him."
"No bureaucrat like Lucifer," I say, and Mom nods while taking a bite of her overnight oats. It's a common saying around here. Better than the mortal saying: "The Devil's in the details." Though to be fair, we're there too.
"Nervous about today, Q?" Alma asks as she joins us with her own plate that is ninety percent gravy and only ten percent biscuit. The biscuits are basically the spoons for her breakfast stew.
I look at Mom and raise an eyebrow. She sighs and buttons her top up one button. I would never make her hide the beautiful detailing of her cleavage, but I'd rather she give MILF energy on move-in day than look like she's about to blow the pizza guy.
"What?" Alma looks back and forth at us, confused.
"I told you she couldn't resist," I say with a mouthful of spicy sausage and fluffy biscuit. "She's a nervous chatter."
"I just thought she'd avoid cliche, y'know?" Mom locks her eyes with Alma. "I thought you were better than that. Of course she's nervous."
"You made a bet that I would ..." Mom and I both smile. We don't use money down here, and I won't trade in souls, so modesty is the only thing I can wager with Mom. "I was just making conversation!"
"Nervous chatter," I say.
"I feel like I'm being punished for —"
"Not at all, hun." Mom wraps Alma in a side hug. "The conversation helps your nerves and the bet helps Query's."
"And what about yours?" Alma asks.
"I'm a mother; nothing helps my nerves." Alma smirks and slinks out of Mom's hug. A cozy breakfast silence settles over us for the last time as Mom and Alma read. It's hard to believe we'll ever have this again. I don't know who I'll be when I graduate, and I plan to do summer semesters. I have to if I'm going to double major in transmutation and conjuration, which I have to if I want to be the kind of wizard who gets what she wants in this world.
If I'm going to change.
The cozy is off this morning. I suppose that's because I don't have anything to read myself. Normally Bo has given me some homework, and I'm cramming at the last minute or reading far, far more than was assigned. I could review the reading list for my upcoming classes — again — but everything is packed away. There's nothing to do but respond to whatever quips Mom has about tonight's prey or watch Alma sigh whenever her romance novel spouts another cliche line.
The warm red light of Hell pours in through the massive windows that surround our breakfast nook. It looks like it's going to ash today. It doesn't do that on the mortal world. The closest they get is snow, which is somehow the opposite of ash. There was plenty of it in Russia, and I wasn't a big fan. Sometimes, when I imagine living in DC, I imagine a painfully bright sky and freezing ash all the time. A world drowned in white and blue, light that stabs your eyes and land that bites your fingers.
And they call this Hell.
But the mortal world has the latest discoveries in magic and technology. Hell is great if you want consistency, but Devils don't go crazy for innovation. They still do contracts on paper, for crying out loud. You'd think they'd give DocuSign a chance after the pandemic, but no, the Lowerarchy doubled down on paper contracts. "Paper can't be hacked," was the slogan around here for a year. No, I won't find what I need in Hell. I'll have to brave the cold and rooms choked with people and too much noise and billions of women who will be driven to lusty drivel just by being around me. I mean, the last one sounds alright, but not if it distracts me from —
"We need to get going," Mom says. "Can't be too sure about the time change when planeswalking."
"Right," I say. "Can I give one last walk through and —"
"You did that last night."
"I know but —"
Mom reaches out and grabs my hand. Her touch is always warm, which is bizarre when I can stick my hand into fire without feeling much more than a tingle. "Query, love of my life."
"Mother."
"This is going to be here whenever you need it. Weekends? Nightly dinners?" She snaps her fingers. "You're here."
"But that costs —"
"Don't let the costs —"
"You know I can't do that."
Mom takes a deep breath and sighs. "I know. But still. You matter. Those souls are already lost. They're just sitting in —"
"Mom, no." I take a deep breath. "I know I'll be back, but I need to do this, okay? I will visit. I promise." I give her hand a squeeze before letting go. "But I need you to be brave for me today and kick me out of the nest, alright? Otherwise, I'll never leave, and neither of us want that."
"We'll be brave together," Mom says. She raises a finger to the corner or her eye and scalds away a tear, turning it to steam before it can ruin her makeup. "Okay?"
"Yeah," I say. I was clever enough not to put makeup on today. I don't know how I'm going to get through the day without bawling my eyes out.
"Oh, you two," Alma says. Tears and mascara run freely down her cheeks. "Dammit to Hell, I love you so much." We all stand, and Alma wraps me in a tight hug. "I love you to Khazador and back," she says.
"I know." I put my hand on the back of her head. She's never going back to Khazador, but that's the point, isn't it? Her love goes on and on and on. I kiss the top of her head. She tightens her grip around my stomach and lifts me into the air. I yelp in surprise, and she laughs as she twirls me around. I laugh with her, and the weight of the moment slides off my shoulders.
When she puts me down, I kneel in front of her and look her in the eyes. "Until your face blesses my eyes again," I say. It's a Dwarven goodbye saved for lovers. I know it's in her books all the time, but I've never said it to her before. I've never been away from her long enough for it to matter.
"That I may drape it in kisses," she says, finishing the saying. She kisses me, and I press back into her. The kiss melts into a hug, and then I'm standing, and Mom is pulling me down the hallway to the teleportation chamber.
"Don't stay celibate on my account," Alma hollers back to me.
"Wouldn't dream of it," I shout back. "Make sure you practice so you're in good form for me when I return."
Alma laughs, and I turn away. My body tingles, and I try to fight back the wave of tears coming for me. But instead of tears, there is the strange peace that this will be the last time I see Alma's face, but that is a good thing. Good for me, and even better for her. I brush it off as the kind of twisted hyperbole of grief and grab my bags as Mom fiddles with the teleporter. She hates this thing, even though it doesn't have anything to do with technology. The room is a perfect circle with a rune inscribed in the floor. In the center of the room is a bowl of sand where the corresponding rune to where we are teleporting is drawn.
"What are their names?" I ask as Mom looks up the proper rune on her phone.
"Query, please. I'm trying to make sure —"
"Mother."
She sighs. "I'm trying to figure out the —"
I brush past her and draw the rune for the Washington, DC teleporter station into the sand. The rune at our feet glows, and the walls spin around us. Before the spell can activate, I scratch out the rune and the spell fizzles.
"Names," I say. "Please."
"This is a morbid fascination, you know. It's like wanting to know the names of the cows you eat."
"I wouldn't compare mortals to cows, but if you insist, I would love to know the names of the pigs we ate today. Or maybe the plants that became grain for our biscuits."
"And the name of each atom of sulfur you —"
"If you want to get pedantic, I can —"
Mom lifts up a soul coin. It is a black and charred circle with the face of a man in agony on one side with his name and sins on the other side. "Jacob Marley," she says. "There? Happy?"
"There is no way in Hell his name is Jacob Marley. Was he a crooked and shrewd money lender?"
"Yes. And the other one is Ebeneezer Scrooge."
"Mother ..."
Mom sighs and clenches her fists. Her eyes are shut tight in the way that tells me she's counting to ten. "These are worse than cows, Query. Cows aren't punished because —"
"Just tell me."
Mom holds the first coin higher. "This is Samuel Carmichael. The other is his partner. They took advantage of elderly people with deteriorating mental capacities in order to not only rob them of their savings, but to steal the identities of their family members."
I close my eyes. "These are the people I'm going to." It's my turn to count to ten. It doesn't help.
"No. You're going to a school of Vampires, Dragonborn, Satyrs, and Werewolves. You'll be much safer there."
"The other name?"
"Miguel De La Vega."
"Thank you." Mom doesn't hold up the coin, but I can see him clearly in my mind's eye. He is a man in his early fifties with a sleazy goatee but a charming smile. His face has few lines, but his salt and pepper hair make him attractive. He stands in a sharp suit with a tie covered in cogs and clockwork, like he has a not-so-hidden fascination with steampunk aesthetics. He laughs, and something deep in me wants to laugh along with him.
Mom puts the soul coins back into the sand. "Could you please —"
I draw the rune and activate the spell. The world glows and spins around us as magic bends time and space to take us from the second level of Hell to a hidden castle in Washington, DC.
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