Incubus Awakened by Kitty Thomas

15

Anna reached the coffee shop before she spotted Bitsy and Mimi. The two women turned away like they hadn’t seen her. If she’d known that was all it would take to get rid of the Baker sisters, she would have gotten herself a gaggle of live-in hookers from the start.

As she continued down the sidewalk, a few people looked at her, then away, while others smiled and nodded, some of them giving her a thumbs up. Apparently the sisters had been hard at work making the rounds, and now the town was divided into two factions: those who supported the wearing of matching puce suits, and those who did not. Maybe it would make the paper.

She looked up to see Father Jeffries blazing a rapid trail in her direction, not paying attention to where he was going. She sidestepped quickly, managing to get out of his path just in time. He stopped on a dime and turned back to face her.

“Anna, I’m sorry, I was on my way to your house.”

Frazzled didn’t begin to describe the priest. His previously well-groomed hair shot out in all directions. The robes he wore had deep creases as if he’d slept in them.

“Come with me. I need to speak with you. It’s of a most urgent nature.” His eyes darted from side to side.

When Anna just stood there, he grabbed her by the arm and manhandled her back to the church. Every time she tried to speak, he shushed her. Whatever he had to say was either so sacred or so terrifying that it couldn’t be spoken out in the open.

“Have a seat, please,” he said when they finally reached his office. He shuffled through a pile of books on the desk until he found what he was looking for.

The book was thick with yellowed, uneven pages and bound in dark brown leather with gold leaf detailing on the edges. It looked ominous. Maybe it had come straight from the Vatican. Anna tried to picture Father Jeffries somehow getting the Pope to part with a secret volume they’d held hostage for centuries.

He opened the book to the proper page, and Anna was surprised to find it was painstakingly handwritten in English.

“I’ve been searching for something to help you since I left your house the other day. I happened across this book.”

“How does one happen across a book like this?” Anna asked skeptically.

A sheepish look crossed his face. “Since you know about demons, you may as well know about the rest. It’s not official orthodoxy, though the clergy know. We’ve been sworn to secrecy, but your soul is a trifle more important than my oath.”

Anna braced herself in her seat. She felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. This was a whole different Father Jeffries. This was a whole different world. She kept waiting to wake up. Two weeks ago she hadn’t believed in anything. Now there were demons and witches, and priests with weird, magical-looking books.

Father Jeffries sighed. “There is more than one dimension.”

Well, that was anticlimactic. “I thought the church was pretty clear on that already. There’s supposed to be Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Limbo, and here.”

The priest shook his head. “No. Purgatory and Limbo we made up. Well, not really. Purgatory and Hell are the same, but they aren’t what you think. This is Hell. Where we are right now. There’s here, Heaven, and then several other dimensions with different rules and regulations. This realm was once all there was. There were many gods, and they fought. The Hebrew god won and took over. The other gods created other dimensions that live alongside this one.”

Anna was still too stuck on the this is Hell concept to bother with any of the rest. “Huh?”

“Many demon breeds have their own dimensions as well. This book wasn’t available here. I got it from a contact in a neighboring dimension.”

“Why is it in English, then?” Anna started looking around for pill bottles. She decided it was either a side effect from a prescription or ’shrooms. Maybe Father Jeffries did ’shrooms. Or there could be a bong involved.

“Magic. Certain books translate themselves into the native tongue of the portal point when they jump dimensions. It’s as if they are, in a sense, alive. We don’t have those books here. Information originating in this dimension is quite limited.” He glanced furtively around the room as if he expected God to strike him down for revealing secrets.

“And we needed this book because . . . ?” She really needed him to get all the insane commentary out of the way before she had some kind of fit. She was starting to long for the days of Bitsy and Mimi stalking her. Back when life was simple.

“Because it speaks of the incubus.”

Anna’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know he was an incubus? I only told you he was a demon.” She never would have told him it was an incubus. That was a conversation she didn’t want to have with a priest. Demon was bad enough. Sex demon was just out of the question.

“The mark on your hand, child. That mark is specific to that breed, for lack of a better term.” He indicated a picture in the book. “And the mark is why we’re here.”

Anna felt the mark in question tingle to life as if it knew it was being talked about. “What about it?” She ran her fingertips over the scar. She didn’t like the priest knowing about it, nor did she like what she thought he might suggest next.

“We have to undo it. You don’t know what this demon could do to you now that you’ve allowed him to mark you.”

“Excuse me? I didn’t allow anything. He just came at me with a knife all snarly and was like here, this will protect you. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. It wasn’t like I said, hey, let’s be blood brothers.”

Father Jeffries looked a little flustered. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have assumed. But the fact remains that he can make you feel sympathy for him through dreams. Anytime doubt sets up in your mind, you have the dreams, don’t you? It makes you more vulnerable to him. He doesn’t just want your body, Anna. He wants your soul.”

“It’s not like that.” But wasn’t it? Hadn’t he already tried to take Beatrice’s soul? “He’s not like that.”

“Think about this for a moment. How do you know anything you think or feel about him is real? Break the bond and you can know for certain. You can separate your own feelings and thoughts from his.”

“I . . . ” It wasn’t like the priest wasn’t making sense. “He said he did it to protect me from the others. If you think Luc is bad, Cain is worse. The bond protects me from Cain.”

“Who will protect you from Luc?”

Hadn’t she asked herself the same question? Hadn’t she seen the mask slip with Luc? This was her life, her soul on the line. Would she feel for him if not for the dreams?

The priest picked up a second book and thumbed through it. “There is a ritual here. It won’t take long. Stay and we’ll perform it. The church has many resources. We can protect you. You don’t have to make a devil’s bargain to stay safe.”

The door opened then, and a brunette slipped in. Her gold wedding ring glinted off the light. “Father Jeffries?”

Anna watched the brief, unspoken sexual exchange between them, and it reminded her of what Luc had told her. Father Jeffries wasn’t a righteous man. But Luc had killed thousands of women. He wasn’t exactly all bright and shiny either.

“Anna?” the priest said, catching her gaze. His voice was level when he spoke. “My sins may be great, but his are far greater. Think about that.”

“I’ll think about it.”

* * *

When Anna got home,the sounds of Luc and the harem talking and laughing drifted out from the kitchen. He poked his head into the foyer. “Would you like some dinner?”

“I’m really tired. I think I’m going up to bed.”

He looked like he might try to stop her, but instead nodded and went back to the kitchen. She suspected he thought she was having issues with the earlier kissing episode. She wished that was all she was having issues with. Had he been manipulating her and trying to play on her emotions? Just because there was a book about it didn’t mean the book was true.

.. . A boy was crying in the next room.

“But there’s monsters in the closet!”

“There are no monsters in the closet. We’ve been through this a hundred times,” an elderly man said. “Now, go to sleep. I’ll leave the door open.”

The man left, and Luc stepped out of the shadows. His jaw tightened as he warred with himself. It was one thing to care about killing, it was another to care if some stupid kid cried himself to sleep. Luc rationalized he’d never get to go downstairs and feed if the adults of the house were awake.

Who was he kidding? He felt bad for the kid. The boy had just lost his parents and was in a new house. His grandparents didn’t know how to deal with him and were treating him like a miniature adult. Something about the child pulled on a part of Luc he’d long ago tried to bury, memories from when he was human and innocent himself, as fleeting as those moments had been.

Finally, he materialized. “Don’t worry about the monsters, kid. I’ll keep them away.” His voice was more gruff than he’d intended. He was such a pathetic excuse for a demon.

The boy swiped at his eyes and settled down. “Are you an angel?”

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling, “an angel . . .

Anna sat up in bed.She’d thought Luc had always been a demon, assuming he’d been created with leftover evil floating on the ether. Had he lost his soul? Been bad as a human? She wanted to go back to sleep and find out, but her body rebelled against not being fed.

She got up and crept down the stairs. To get to the kitchen, she had to pass Luc’s room. He’d chosen to take up residence in what was once probably servants’ quarters. A room under the stairs, next to an alcove. She heard a moan through the cracked door and cringed.

“Shhh. Hush now,” Luc said.

“I’m trying to be quiet,” a female voice responded. It was Renee. She let out a soft sigh, and Anna heard the bed creak.

“Bite a pillow if you have to.”

“Why? What does it matter if I’m loud?”

“I don’t want to rub it in her face.”

“You care for her, don’t you?”

Anna waited, holding her breath, wanting to hear him say yes, but unsure she’d believe it, even if she overheard it. Her earlier visit with the priest still had her shaken.

There was no answer. He’d never specifically said it to her, but Anna suspected if he could sleep with only her, he might do it. He didn’t seem to get the same kind of thrill out of his nature that Cain did.

It was wrong to keep punishing him for something he couldn’t help. What did she expect? He was giving everything he had to give. Just the fact that he wasn’t using thrall on her and taking what he wanted anyway should mean something.

It should mean everything.

“Why can’t she just sleep with you, too?” Renee said. “It’s not like we won’t share.” So he had answered? Maybe just with a look or a nod.

“She can’t share,” he said.

“Well, that’s silly.”

Anna barely heard his quiet reply.

“No, it isn’t.”

She slipped past the door, to the kitchen. He’d left a plate for her in the fridge. These weren’t the actions of an evil demon. Whatever Beatrice had done had changed him. Anna trusted him. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t still be in the house.

It didn’t matter what the priest said. She didn’t want the bond broken. Somehow the thought of losing that connection with Luc scared her more than anything else.