Drained: The Lucid (11 page)

Riley observed the woman for a moment longer even though she was getting damp from the gloomy weather. She needed to know more about this mark. She needed to know how and why she was lucid. Why did Morgan’s dream default to the same dreary settings and why could she never phase directly into the home?

The succubus walked around to the front of the house and entered through the door there using the spare key under the welcome mat. Not wanting to startle the lucid dreamer, she made no attempt to sneak inside and closed the door solidly behind her. The sound of Riley’s heels on hardwood clicked down the hallway as she made her way to the kitchen. Besides the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock, the house was silent.  

“Why do you use the door?” Morgan asked, not turning her eyes from the back window. “I know it’s not necessary.”

“I don’t want to be rude.”

Morgan made an amused sound. “That’s funny, coming from one of you.”

Riley stood close to Morgan, nearly hovering over the seated woman. She placed her palm against the cool glass. “Why is it always so dreary here?” she asked, staring out at the same scene. The outside gardens were cluttered with bright, vibrant flowers and lush green grass, but the constant rain made the view anything but inviting.

Morgan turned her head and looked up at Riley. “You tell me,” she said. Tired, hazel eyes inspected the succubus.

Riley quirked an eyebrow. “Is there extra water?” she asked, choosing to ignore the way Morgan continually deflected her questions and attempts to dig below her surface.

Morgan nodded and turned her attention back to the window. “Help yourself,” she said, her voice quiet. “You know where everything is.”

Riley walked to the stovetop and lifted the stainless steel teapot. Her lips pulled into a soft smile when she realized there was enough water left for one more cup. She opened a side cabinet and pulled out a mug before pouring the rest of the hot water into the container. She rummaged around the top cabinets for a moment in search of the tea bags. As she moved around the kitchen like she belonged there, she was acutely aware of Morgan’s quiet gaze.

Riley sat down across the table from Morgan, still silent. She dipped her tea bag a few times in and out of her mug and watched as the herbs slowly seeped into the clouded water. “Rough day at school?” she asked, not looking up from her tea.

Morgan cocked her head and considered Riley. “Why are you doing this?”

Riley brought the steaming mug to her lips and blew across the water, watching the slight ripples her breath caused. “Doing what?”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Uh huh,” she deadpanned. “I’m on to you. You’re about as subtle as a water buffalo.”

Riley smiled over the rim of her cup. “Are you calling me fat?” she complained in mock horror. “Have we regressed to juvenile insults?”

Morgan set her cup down. The ceramic made a harsh noise on the wooden table top. “What are you getting out of this?”

“Besides the pleasure of your company?” Riley countered pleasantly.

Morgan said nothing. Instead, she returned her gaze to the picture window where rain continued to beat down against the pane of glass.

Riley took the opportunity to inspect the other woman. Morgan had asked a very good question. What
did
she get out of this arrangement? Obviously if she and Morgan were having sex, she’d be benefitting from the energy and working toward her quota. But they weren’t having sex, and she was wasting energy. In fact, Riley wasn’t even convinced Morgan wanted her around. Most meetings were spent with Riley flirting and Morgan glaring her down.

“How do you know what I am?” Riley asked.

Morgan’s features troubled. “Most people don’t when you barge into their dreams?”

“
No one’s
ever known,” Riley emphasized. “For as long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve never encountered a lucid dreamer. Not like you.”

“And exactly how long have you been doing this, Succubus?”

“I have a name, you know.”

“Why should I care?” Morgan snapped, the bite in her tone visceral. “I’m sorry,” she immediately apologized. “That was rude of me.”

“It’s okay,” Riley shrugged. Her femininely muscled shoulders rose and fell beneath delicate lingerie. A single strap slipped down her shoulder with the movement, and she felt a hopeful surge when Morgan’s gaze fixed on the lightly tanned skin and down to the slight swell of the cleavage that poked above the demi-bra cups.

The words that came next were unexpected. “What’s your name?” Morgan asked.

• • •

London, 1998

Rillea Schroder thumbed through the book of names. “Rachel. Rain. Raleigh,” she recited out loud.

“Keep looking,” Heather urged.

“I underestimated how hard this was going to be.”

“Why the name change anyway?” Heather asked as she removed another book from its shelf at the London bookstore.

“I’m ready for a change,” Rillea said, not looking up from the book. “What do you think of Raquel?”

“I think your age is showing, Ms. Raquel Welch.” Heather smirked.

Rillea shrugged, nonplussed. “Don’t you mock me. That deer-skin bikini in
One Million Years B.C.
?” She waved her hand like a fan in front of her face. “Totally hot.”

“Let’s think of this name change as an upgrade,” Heather suggested. “You’re not just changing your name, you’re also updating your identity.”

“What was your birth name?” Rillea asked.

“Sahana Malik.” The syllables rolled off her tongue like honey.

“Pretty.”

“Thanks. I didn’t get to pick it though; that was all my parents’ doing.”

“How many times have you had to change your name?” Rillea asked.

“I’ve lost track,” Heather stated with a dismissive wave. “When I was first sired, I changed my name all the time. It was like a new identity for every mark. But then your president made changing one’s identity a hassle when he decided to create social security numbers,” she remarked, making a face.

“
My
president?” Rillea snorted. “Social security numbers were invented, like, during the Great Depression. I wasn’t even born then.”

“Well he wasn’t my president,” Heather protested. “I’m not even American. Oh!” She kept her finger pointed at the open page. “What about Reagan?”

A small woman, hunched with age, approached the two giggling women. “A baby!” After the initial excitement, the stranger sighed, eyes crinkling until they practically disappeared beneath wrinkles. “What a blessing. When are you due, dear?”

Heather blinked, unable to form words when she realized the eyeless woman was staring at her.

Rillea recovered faster than her friend. “It’s a Christmas baby,” she announced. “Actually, it’s
twins
,” she gleefully lied. She placed a hand on Heather’s flat abdomen.

The woman clapped her hands. “How lucky!”

“What the hell?” Heather slapped Rillea’s hand off of her stomach. “Do I
look
pregnant?” she hissed when the woman was out of earshot.

Rillea smirked. “Time to cut back on the fish and chips, mate.”

“It’s only because I look older than you, that’s all,” Heather sputtered. “She just thought you were too young to have gotten knocked up.”

“Oh, if only she knew,” Rillea said with a chuckle. After a moment, she shut the baby book and slid it back on the shelf. “Do you ever think about it? About having children?”

Heather visibly flinched. “When I was human, sure. It was a different time; a different place. Getting married and having children was what my family had expected of me. But now … what’s the point?”

“Well, you’re practically married to James,” Rillea pointed out. “So you’re halfway there.”  

“I’m with James,” Heather agreed, “but as long as we’re both …” she dropped her voice, “… the way we are, babies are out of the question. What about you, Riles?” She turned the question on her friend. “You ever think about having kids?”

“Right,” Rillea snorted. “Like I’d ever be mom-material. You just want me to get fat.” Her lips twisted wistfully. “But to be serious, I don’t think I could do it.”

“You’re not that bad. I’m sure you could handle being a mom.”

“No, not that.” Rillea resisted elbowing her friend. “I don’t think I could sit back and watch my child grow older while I remained the same age. Watch them be vulnerable to disease while I remained impervious.”

“James’s mother is one of us,” Heather reminded her friend.

“Yeah, but look how well that turned out. James is the best,” Rillea quickly clarified, “but his mom is a total pill.”

Heather’s eyes glazed over as she scanned the titles of the other baby books in the bookstore section. “What do you think of the name Riley?”

Rillea let the name fall over her tongue a few times.

“It sounds like a boy.”

Besides Amber’s or Heather and James’s apartment, Josh’s home was one place where Riley felt the most at ease. At times it felt more like home than even her own apartment. She and the Trusics web guru had only known each other since her move to Los Angeles, but their mutual love of junk food and video games had made them fast friends.

Both had their laptops on Josh’s kitchen table. Scattered across the surface was an assortment of junk food: gummy worms, coveted cheese puffs, half-eaten candy bars, and empty cans of energy drinks. Even though they were by themselves and the walls of Josh’s apartment were well insulated, each wore noise-canceling headphones.

They’d been losing all day at their latest game selection for first-person shooting, and Riley was livid. “He’s making his character dance over my corpse!” she complained into her microphone.

“He’s probably twelve. What do you expect?” Josh returned.

Riley keyed in a complicated series of moves, but her soldier died almost as soon as it had been respawned. She tossed off her headphones in frustration and grabbed a licorice to gnaw on while Josh continued to play by himself.

“I hope your clients never see this side of you,” Josh remarked, pulling off his own headphones. “It’s honestly scary.” The tip of his tongue made an appearance between his top and bottom row of teeth as he concentrated on taking out a sniper.

Riley furrowed her brow and chewed on the candy. “Heather’s marks might like it though.”

Josh cleared his throat uneasily, eyes still trained on his computer screen, and Riley smirked. For someone who worked where they did, Josh was innocent. If she wasn’t convinced it would break him, she would be tempted to corrupt him, even if it was only a little.

Riley reentered the game with renewed vigor.

“Hey, if I wanted to do some research on the company’s history, is there like a library or something we have access to?” She tried to keep her tone even so as to not arouse his suspicions.

“A library? Like with books? People still read those?” Josh’s entire body shifted in his chair as he rapidly tapped on his mouse. “I showed you how to use your e-reader once; do you need me to do it again?”

“Josh, I’m serious.”

Josh hazarded a brief glance in Riley’s direction. The succubus lost interest in the game again, and her character was quickly vanquished. “Okay, I’m listening.”

Riley pushed some candy-coated chocolate out of the way and leaned her elbows on the kitchen table. “I’ve been curious about our history—where we came from, why we do the things we do, and Trusics’s part in all of it.”

“I’ll see what I can find out, but you know I’m more of a computer guy. If it’s not powered by batteries or a cord, I’m not an expert.”

An obvious retort about battery-operated toys sprung to Riley’s mind, but she bit her tongue for Josh’s sake. “I appreciate it.”

Josh’s character fared no better than Riley’s, and after getting shot in the head, he shut his laptop and sighed. “We got our butts handed to us by tweens.”

“Old school?” Riley suggested instead.

Josh nodded.

Riley grabbed another handful of candy and popped something chocolate covered into her mouth. “Dust off the NES.”

• • •

Riley parked her car on the street as there was no proper parking lot adjacent to the nondescript brick building. She double-checked the address that Josh had procured for her. He hadn’t found a library, but he did find Trusics’s corporate archives. The collections were housed in an annexed building across town in a transitioning neighborhood. Riley gave her vehicle a withering look as she locked it; her surroundings gave her little faith that when she returned it wouldn’t be gutted or propped up on cinderblocks, not that her car was anything special.

After being so accustomed to the clinical, sterile ambiance of Trusics’s Los Angeles headquarters, the understated entryway of the corporate archives was a surprise. Pushing through two sets of glass entry doors, Riley was met with a blast of air conditioning and carpeting that had seen better days. The central lobby was poorly lit—unflattering halogen lights buzzed and flickered above. She examined her surroundings for confirmation that she was in the right place; she could have been at the DMV if not for the eerie silence. The room was vacant but for a reception desk against a far back wall. No one sat behind the desk to greet her. The only signage was a computer printout taped to the front of the faux wood paneling of the welcome desk. “No Public Bathrooms” it read. The reception counter itself was bare. No “Ring Bell for Service” or even a courtesy phone. Riley swiveled her head, on the lookout for even security cameras, but none were in sight.

“Hello?” she called out. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and waited.

In the background she heard the sound of a toilet flushing. A few moments later a door that Riley hadn’t noticed because it blended in with the wood paneling, opened. A squat woman who looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties waddled out. Her dress was ill-fitted and constructed of a stiff, blue material. It was more of a shift than a tailored dress, like one of those shapeless Parisian sack dresses so popular in the early 1960s. The woman adjusted her narrow glasses on her nose, looking unimpressed by Riley’s presence.

“Yes?” Her voice was gravelly. Riley imagined her name was Marge and that she was a smoker who bowled in a league on Thursday nights.