Succubus Blues (7 page)

“Everyone? Everyone?” She spoke in this obviously faked, high-pitched voice, meant to sound like a whisper, albeit one that could reach loud volumes. So mostly it came out raspy, like she had a cold. “It's time to start.”

The masses—thirty or so, I'd say—moved toward the meeting room, and I followed, blending into the crowd. Some of the people around me looked like Helena: theme-dressed, in either all-black or too-vibrant shades, with a plethora of pentagrams, crystals, and ohms in attendance. Others looked like average people, dressed much like me in my work clothes, trailing along in excited curiosity.

With a frozen, fake smile plastered across her face, Helena beckoned us into the room murmuring, “Welcome, welcome. Feel the energy.” When I passed by her, the smile faltered. “I know you.”

“Yes.”

The smile diminished further. “You're that woman who works at that big bookstore—that big, commercial bookstore.” A few people stopped and listened to our exchange, no doubt the reason she refrained from pointing out the last time I was in here, I had called her a hypocrite pushing marked-up crap merchandise.

Compared to certain national chains, I hardly considered Emerald City commercial. Still, I shrugged in acknowledgment. “Yeah, what can I say, we're part of the problem in corporate America. However, we do sell all the books and tarot cards that you do, often at a discount if you're a member of Emerald City's Frequent Readers Program.” I mentioned this last part loudly. Extra advertising never hurt.

Helena's weakening smile disappeared altogether, as did some of her raspy voice. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I'm looking for Erik.”

“Erik doesn't work here anymore.”

“Where'd he go?”

“I'm not at liberty to discuss that.”

“Why? Are you afraid I'll take my business elsewhere? Believe me, you were never in danger of having it.”

She raised delicate fingers to her forehead and studied me seriously, eyes nearly going crossed. “I sense a lot of darkness in your aura. Black and red.” Her voice rose, drawing in the attention of her acolytes. “You would benefit greatly from some clearing work. A smoky or rutilated quartz might also help. We have excellent specimens of both for sale here. Either would lighten up your aura.”

I couldn't resist a smirk. I believed in auras, knew they were perfectly real. I also knew, however, that my aura looked nothing at all like a mortal one, nor would someone like Helena even be able to see it. Indeed, a true human adept, capable of perceiving such things, would notice that in standing with a group of humans, I would be the only person without a discernible aura. It would be invisible to all, save someone like Jerome or Carter, though some particularly skilled mortal might be able to feel its strength and be understandably cautious. Erik was one such mortal, which was why he always treated me with so much respect. Helena was not.

“Wow,” I crooned. “I can't believe you were able to deduce all that without your aura camera.” Krystal Starz proudly touted a camera that would photograph your aura for $9.95. “Do I owe you something now?”

She sniffed. “I don't need a camera to see others' auras. I am a Master. Besides, the spirits who have assembled for this Gathering tell me plenty about you.”

My smile increased. “What do they say?” I'd had little dealings with spirits or other ethereal beings in my long life, but I would know if any were present.

She closed her eyes, hands to her forehead again, lines of thought creasing her face. The onlookers watched in wonder.

“They tell me that much troubles you. That the indecision and monotony in your life force you to lash out, and so long as you choose the path of darkness and distrust, you will never find peace or light.” Her blue eyes opened, caught up in her own otherworldly ecstasy. “They want you to join us. Sit in our circle, feel their healing energy. The spirits will help you to a better life.”

“Like they helped you out of the porn industry?”

She froze, paling, and I almost felt bad for a moment. Adepts like Erik weren't the only ones with reputations in the immortal community. A crackpot like Helena was well known too. Someone who had apparently been a fan of hers back in the day had recognized her from a movie and passed on this bit of dirt to the rest of us.

“I don't know what you mean,” she finally said, face struggling for control in front of her minions.

“My mistake. You reminded me of someone called Moana Licka. You sort of rub crystals the way she used to rub…well, you get the idea.”

“You are mistaken,” Helena said, voice on the verge of cracking. “Erik no longer works here. Please leave.”

Another retort rose to my lips, but then, beyond her, I caught sight of Seth. He had wandered up to the edge of the crowd, observing the spectacle with the others. Seeing him, I suddenly felt foolish, the thrill of humiliating Helena turning cheap and shallow. Embarrassed, I still managed to hold my head high as I withheld my remarks and walked away from her. Seth fell into step beside me.

“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “Some people write the stories, and some people live them.”

“I think you can't help but make a sensation wherever you go.”

I assumed he was being sarcastic. Then, I glanced over and saw his frank expression, neither censuring nor snide. His earnestness was so unexpected that I stumbled slightly, paying more attention to him than where I was going. Having a much-deserved reputation for gracefulness, I recovered almost immediately. Seth, however, instinctually held out a hand to catch me.

As he did, I suddenly had a flash of…of something. Like that moment of connection back in the map aisle. Or the surge of fulfillment I got when I read his books. It was brief, fleeting, like maybe it hadn't happened at all. He seemed as surprised as I felt and released my arm tentatively, almost hesitantly. A moment later, a voice behind me broke the spell entirely.

“Excuse me?” Turning, I saw a slim teenage girl with cropped red hair and piercings up and down her ears. “You were looking for Erik, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I can tell you where he's at. He left about five months ago to start his own store. It's in Lake City…I forget the name. There's a light there, with a grocery store and a big Mexican restaurant…”

I nodded. “I know that area. I'll find it. Thanks.” I eyed her curiously. “Do you work here?”

“Yeah. Erik was always pretty cool to me, so I'd rather see him get business than this place. I'd have gone with him, but he doesn't really need any other help, so I'm stuck with Nutso in there.” She jerked her thumb back in Helena's direction.

The girl had a serious, practical demeanor different from most of this place's employees. I recalled now that I'd seen her helping customers when I'd come in. “Why do you work here if you don't like it?”

“I don't know. I like books, and I need money.”

I dug through my purse, searching for one of my rarely used business cards. “Here. You want a new job, come talk to me sometime.”

She took the card and read it, surprise filling her features. “Thanks…I think.”

“Thanks for the info about Erik.”

Pausing, I considered further, and dug out another card. “If you've got a friend—anyone else who works here and is like you—give this to them too.”

“Is that legal?” asked Seth later.

“Dunno. But we're short-staffed at Emerald City.”

I figured a specialty store like Erik's must be closed by now, so instead I turned toward Lake Forest Park to return Seth to his brother's house. I confess, relief flooded me. Being with one's hero was tiring, not to mention every interaction between us swung between wildly opposing poles. I'd probably be safer limiting our relationship to me simply reading his books.

I dropped him off at a cute, suburban home, its front yard littered with children's playthings. I saw no sign of the children themselves, much to my disappointment. Seth gathered up his haul of books, gave me another scattered smile as he voiced his thanks, and disappeared into the house. I was almost back to Queen Anne when I realized I'd forgotten to ask him for my copy of
The Glasgow Pact.

Annoyed, I entered my building and immediately heard the front desk attendant solicit me. “Miss Kincaid?”

I walked over to him, and he handed me a vase of flowers teeming with shades of purple and dark pink. “These came for you today.”

I accepted the vase with delight, inhaling the mingled scents of roses, irises, and stargazer lilies. They had no card. Typical. “Who brought them?”

He gestured beyond me. “That man over there.”

I
turned and saw Roman sitting over in a corner of the small lobby. He looked striking in a deep green turtleneck, his dark hair brushed away from his face. He smiled at me when I caught his eye, and I walked over to sit near him.

“Jesus, you really are a stalker.”

“Well, well. Aren't you presumptuous. I only came for my coat.”

“Ah.” I blushed, feeling foolish. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Not too long. I actually tried the bookstore first, thinking that might be a little less stalker-ish.”

“It's my day off.” I looked down at the riotously colored blossoms in my arms. “Thanks for the flowers. You didn't need to bring them to get your coat back.”

Roman shrugged, those blue-green eyes wreaking havoc with me. “True, but I figured they might induce you to go out for a drink tonight.”

So he did have another motive. “Not this again—”

“Hey, if you'd wanted to avoid ‘this,' you shouldn't have lured me in last night. Now it's too late. You might as well avoid the long, drawn-out pain and get it over with quickly. Sort of like taking off a Band-Aid. Or cutting off a limb.”

“Wow. Who says there's no romance left in the world?” In spite of my sarcasm, I found Roman's easy repartee a refreshing change from the halting atmosphere with Seth.

“So, what? Does that mean you finally concede, general? Truly, you've fought a worthy battle in eluding me thus far.”

“I don't know. You showed up at my home. I apparently didn't do that much eluding.” When he only waited expectantly, my smile faded. I sighed, studying him and trying to figure out his motivations. “Roman, you seem like a nice guy and everything—”

He groaned. “No. Don't start that with me. It's never a good sign when a woman says ‘you're a nice guy.' It means she's getting ready to let you down easy.”

I shook my head. “I'm just not interested in getting serious with anyone right now, that's all.”

“Whoa, ‘get serious'? Slow down there, sister. I'm not asking you to marry me or anything. I just want to go out with you sometime, maybe catch a movie, have dinner and drinks, that's it. Kiss at the end of the night if I'm lucky. Hell, if that still freaks you out, we'll just shake hands.”

I leaned my head back against the wall, and we stayed like that a moment, each of us sizing up the other. I knew it was perfectly possible for men and women to go out on dates without automatic sex, but my dates generally didn't work that way. My instincts drove me to seek sex out, and looking at him, I realized that urge might be strong independent of any sort of succubus need to feed. I liked the way he looked, the way he dressed, and the way he smelled. I especially liked his goofy attempt at courtship. Unfortunately, I couldn't turn off the destructive succubus absorption, even if I wanted to. It would happen of its own volition, probably strongly with him. Even the kiss he joked about would still steal some of his life away.

“I don't know anything about you,” I said finally, realizing I'd been quiet too long.

He smiled lazily. “What do you want to know?”

“Well…I don't know. What do you like to do? Do you even have a job? You must have lax hours to be able to hang around me all the time.”

“All the time, huh? You're being presumptuous again, but yes, I do work. I teach a couple of community college linguistics classes. Short of when I'm there, I get to make my own hours with grading and stuff.”

“Okay. What's your last name?”

“Smith.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“That hardly goes with Duke Roman.” I tried to think of another appropriate screening item. “How long have you lived in Seattle?”

“A few years.”

“Hobbies?”

“I've got some.” He paused and cocked his head toward me when no more questions came. “Anything else you want to know? Should I dig out my college transcripts perhaps? A full curriculum vitae and background check?”

I waved a hand of dismissal. “I have no use for inconsequential information like that. I only need to know the really important stuff.”

“Like?”

“Like…what's your favorite song?”

The question obviously caught him by surprise, but he recovered immediately, just as he had last night. I loved that. “The last half of the Beatles'
Abbey Road
.”

“The last half of
Abbey Road
?”

“Yeah, there are a bunch of songs, but they sort of blend into one song—”

I cut him off with a quick gesture. “Yeah, yeah, I know the album.”

“So?”

“So, that's a pretty good answer.” I tugged at my ponytail, wondering how best to navigate this. He nearly had me. “I—no. I'm sorry. I can't. It's just too complicated. Even the one date. It'll turn into a second date, then another, then—”

“You really do jump ahead. What if I gave the super-secret Boy Scout promise to never bother you again after one date?”

“You'd agree to that?” I asked skeptically.

“Sure, if that's what you want. But I don't think you will once you've spent an evening with me.”

A suggestive tone in his voice did something to my stomach I hadn't felt in a very long time. Before I could fully process this, my cell phone rang.

“Sorry,” I apologized, digging it out of my purse. Glancing at the Caller ID display, I recognized Cody's number. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Georgina. Something weird happened tonight…”

Lord. That could mean anything from another death to Peter shaving his head. “Hang on a second.”

I stood up and looked at Roman, juggling the vase of flowers as I did. He rose with me, looking concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I mean, no. I mean, I don't know. Look Roman, I need to go upstairs and take this call. I appreciate the flowers, but I just can't get involved right now. I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me. Honestly.”

He took a few steps toward me as I started to walk away. “Wait.” He dug in his pockets, pulled out a pen and piece of paper. Hastily he scrawled something and handed it to me. I looked down and saw a phone number.

“For when you change your mind.”

“I won't.”

He simply smiled, inclined his head slightly, and left the lobby. I watched him only a moment before heading upstairs, anxious to hear Cody's news. Once inside, I set the flowers on my counter and put the phone back to my ear.

“Still there?”

“Yeah. Who's Roman and why'd you use the old ‘it's not you, it's me' line on him?”

“Never mind. What's going on? Is someone else dead?”

“No…no. It's just, something happened, and Peter doesn't think it's a big deal. Hugh said you thought there might be more going on than we think.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I think we were followed last night.”

Cody related how, not long after leaving my place, he'd kept hearing footsteps following him and Peter on the street. Whenever he'd turned around, no one was there. Peter had written the matter off, as they had sensed no other being present.

“Maybe you don't know what a vampire hunter feels like.”

“I'd still have felt something. And Peter certainly would have. Maybe he's right, and I was imagining things. Or maybe it was just a regular mortal, wanting to mug us or something.”

I doubted that. We couldn't sense mortals the same way we could sense immortals, but one would be hard-pressed to sneak up on a vampire.

“Thanks for telling me. You did the right thing.”

“What should I do now?”

A strange, anxious feeling played through me as I thought about some freak stalking Peter and Cody. Dysfunctional they might have been, but I loved them. They were the closest I had to family anymore. I couldn't let anything happen to them.

“What Jerome said. Be careful. Stay with others. Let me know immediately if anything happens.”

“What about you?”

I thought of Erik. “I'm going to clear things up, once and for all.”