Incubus Awakened by Kitty Thomas

17

Cecelia Townsend had gunmetal gray hair, which she held forever captive in a loose bun. She was pushing in on seventy––if she wasn’t already there––and though her face was lined with wrinkles, she gave off the kind of youthful glow most young people couldn’t successfully pull off.

Everyone in town wanted to know her secret, as if she’d somehow found the fountain of youth. Her fountain of youth was living. She did it very well.

“Get on in here,” Cecelia said, pulling Anna into a hug as she crossed the threshold. The older woman’s grip was still strong as ever.

When they reached the dining room, Charles was already seated at the table.

“I thought we were going to have drinks first,” Cece said when she saw him. It was clear she’d wanted everything to be perfect.

Charles just grunted. Anna couldn’t determine exactly what the grunt was meant to convey, but she kind of wanted to smack him for messing up an evening Cece had taken so much time to put together.

She had never disliked Charles, but she’d never much cared for him either. He was the most monosyllabic man she knew. Maybe it was asking too much, but she preferred a man who could string together full sentences.

“Cece, I used to spit out the raisins from the cookies you made onto the back table when I was a kid. No need for formality on my account.”

Cecelia just laughed at that, the darkness lifting from her expression. “And then when I told you to eat them, you slipped them to the dog. That mutt would eat anything.”

The cook came in then. “I apologize, Mrs. Townsend. I should have waited until Ms. Worthington arrived to announce dinner.”

“It’s no problem, Hannah,” Cece said. “I wasn’t very clear. Since we’re here, we may as well sit.” She shot Charles a glare, but he didn’t seem to notice or else had become impervious to her disapproval after so many years.

The rest of dinner went without incident with the best pot roast and vegetables Anna had ever consumed. She didn’t remember Cece’s last cook being this good.

They went through the obligatory how have you been since your father passed questions, as well as the polite platitudes about what a good man he was. Anna regretted how she and her father had parted and was glad when that portion of the conversation was over.

Inevitably the discussion turned to Anna’s new house.

“I can’t believe you forgot about the ghost stories,” Cece said, leaning forward in her seat.

Anna shrugged. “I think I was practicing selective memory techniques since I wanted the house so much. You know how much I loved it.”

The old woman chuckled. “Indeed. I wasn’t surprised when you bought it. I was just thinking the other day about a dream I had about that house when I was in college. You’ll never believe what a party girl I was.”

Anna somehow doubted Cecelia Townsend had ever partied a day in her life. Seeing her expression of doubt, the woman became more animated.

“No, I was! There was this one time I remember. I was a senior, and I met these two girls at a bar. They were seniors too, except in high school. They’d snuck in and had been getting older men to buy them drinks. We got hammered and danced on a couple of tables.” She blushed and let out a girlish giggle at Anna’s expression.

“I must have passed out because when I woke up, I was in my dorm, and the girls I met were gone. I was just thinking about that because I still remember this odd dream I had. A lot of it’s fuzzy, like it started out a nightmare . . . I think . . . The girls were in it and they died or something. But then there was this gorgeous man and . . . ”

Charles cleared his throat, and she blushed again. “Well, that’s not really the point. What I was going to say was . . . the dream was inside your house. Or well, you know Beatrice’s house back then. And ever since then I’ve always wanted to know if the house looks the same on the inside as it did in my dream. I mean I know it’s a silly thing to wonder, but we used to talk about going in there and checking it out when you were little.

“I should have gone by and looked at it myself one of those times it was up for sale, but I never did work up the nerve. It was hard back then with Bea gone. Anyway, curiosity has finally won out, and I’m rudely inviting myself over to get a look at your house.”

Anna had dropped her fork the second the older woman mentioned dreaming. Once she was sure Cecelia was talking about what she thought she was talking about, she almost choked on her roast.

“Are you all right?”

Anna coughed before finally swallowing enough sweet tea to cause the food to go down. “Fine. It just went down wrong.”

* * *

“Luc!”Anna bellowed, as soon as she got through the door. “Luc!”

Karen was curled up on the couch watching TV. “He’s in the library,” she said, not taking her eyes from the screen. “He’s been holed up in there ever since you left.”

Anna ran down the hall, not slowing as she slammed into the library. “The dreams have to stop.” Her eyes narrowed when she saw him working his way through a bottle of brandy. Something on the grocery list he hadn’t mentioned?

He put the alcohol down on the side table and closed his book. “What happened?”

“Cecelia Townsend happened. You know the dream I had the other night?”

He didn’t have to be told which dream she was talking about. He took another drink.

“Well, take a wild guess at who you managed not to kill.”

His eyes lit up. “Cecelia? Really?” He let the name roll over his tongue as if testing it. “So she’s okay, then? Alive and not crazy?” His voice was so hopeful, for a moment Anna forgot about being mad.

“Are you kidding me? She’s a bastion of mental health. This is the best, kindest, most together woman I’ve ever known and I’ve seen her twenty-year-old self naked. Cece has been like a mentor to me. Like a second mother or grandmother or whatever . . . and now I’ve seen her naked! The dreams have to stop.”

She knew the naked part was the wrong part to focus on, but she couldn’t bring herself to think about the fact that Luc had put Cece under a thrall, had sex with her, and nearly killed her. Suddenly the things the demon had done were coming into sharper focus. They weren’t abstract notions and random women she didn’t know anymore. They were friends.

“I knew she was strong,” Luc mused. “Cain didn’t kill her. I’d always wondered but was afraid to ask.”

“Can we please focus on my problem here? I can’t deal with this anymore.” Anna didn’t say that what she couldn’t deal with was the fact that everywhere she went, Luc was there in one form or another. Infecting her dreams, seeping into her fantasies. She needed a break from him. She felt smothered.

“How did you come to discover this?”

“She remembered part of the dream,” Anna said, making air quotes with her fingers. “She was curious about the house, which she recognized, by the way. And she wants to come over and see it.”

Luc visibly paled. “Surely you told her that was impossible.”

At least his thoughts on the matter meshed with her own. “I sort of choked on my pot roast. After that I changed the subject. So I’m safe for a while. But we need to figure out how to make the dreams stop.”

“I’ve been looking into that.”

She hadn’t expected him to actually be searching for something to help her.

Luc led her to the large oak table on which he’d laid out several books that looked eerily similar to the volume Father Jeffries had shown her. She wasn’t surprised they were all in English.

“It might be hard for you to accept this but these books come from . . . ”

“Other dimensions,” she finished for him, not sure she could handle a re-run. She’d been fighting back the nervous breakdown the first time she’d had it all explained to her.

Luc looked at her oddly.

“What? I know stuff. Tam’s a witch.” No sense mentioning how she’d really learned about it.

“That makes this easier to explain, then. Cain used to bring me copies of the books from the libraries where most of the information about our kind is housed. I found a footnote mentioning the bond a few days ago but I didn’t have enough information to bother you. While you were out, I found more in another book.”

Why did she feel like he was stalling? “How do we make the dreams stop?”

He hesitated as if judging whether he should tell her anything at all. “This is the part you aren’t going to like. I promise when I did it, I didn’t realize. It wasn’t as if I had an ulterior motive. I just wanted to protect you from Cain and knew a simple mixing of blood would do that, would temporarily mark you as mine and protect you.”

He was pacing now. The act made the hairs on the back of Anna’s neck and arms stand up in agitation.

“Well?” she said.

“The mark. It connects us, gives you dreams about me, makes you more sympathetic to me. Although, it’s very uncommon for an incubus to start having dreams about someone he’s marked,” Luc said thoughtfully.

“Maybe we’re soul mates,” Anna quipped. She didn’t like the soft look Luc got when she said it. Like he wished it could be true.

At least he wasn’t lying to her about the purpose of the dreams. If he had, she might have had to bludgeon him to death with one of the musty old books.

“It makes you more likely to want to complete our mating ritual . . . the soul transfer.”

“No! Absolutely not. Undo it. Make the dreams stop.” Her voice was shaking with rage and a bit of fear. She didn’t like what this was doing to her. Father Jeffries had been right.

“The dreams will stop if you give me your soul.” At her stormy look, he rushed to continue, “Or . . . it’ll just wear off. If the ritual isn’t completed it will wear off. The scar will eventually fade and the dreams will cease.”

“How long?”

He looked away.

She moved in front of him, forcing him to meet her eyes. “How long, Luc?”

He sighed. “Five or ten years. There isn’t an exact time given, but that’s the average.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ll be tied to you and these psychotic mind-fucked dreams, possibly for the next decade?”

“Or there is the other option . . . ”

“I’m not giving you my soul.” She held her hands out like scales. “Hmmm, five to ten years or eternity. Which sentence is less? Math was my worst subject, but even this isn’t hard for me. I’ll take the five to ten, thanks.”

A tiny voice in her mind reminded her of the third option Father Jeffries had presented. Luc didn’t have that book, but there was a ritual that could end it, and she wouldn’t have to be stuck with him for another confusing several years. She pushed down the flutter in her stomach at the idea of being with Luc forever. That could never happen. She couldn’t give him her soul.

Her hand started itching. She scratched furiously around the scar. “And what is up with this? The scar tingles, it burns, it itches . . . ”

“It is dependent on your feelings.”

“So my hand is a mood ring now? Unbelievable.”

Luc moved to her, taking her hand in his. The itching stopped. She looked into his eyes, fathomless pools of bright green. No man had eyes like that. She could feel herself falling into them.

She looked up helplessly at him. “What are you doing to me?”

“Nothing. You want me. But you fight it, and I don’t understand why. Why is giving your soul to me so frightening? You know me. You’ve seen who I am––more than anyone else has. You know I would never harm you.”

She pulled her hand away and tried to look bored, something difficult to accomplish with his primal maleness hovering right over her, smelling dark and delicious.

“Try to get over yourself. Have you ever stopped to consider that I’m just not ready for that type of a commitment? I mean, come on. I’m young. A lot of women my age aren’t even ready for marriage. I’ve known you a week, we haven’t even slept together, and you’re talking eternity.” It had to be the bond making them both feel this way.

His face fell, but he shook it off quickly. “No,” he said, his eyes so assessing and intense she almost lost her breath. “It’s something else. I don’t know what, though. And I’m not sure you do either.”

“Luc, put yourself in my position. Your kind is known for deceiving women, telling them what they want to hear and then killing them. I’m supposed to believe that a demon wouldn’t turn on me once he had my soul?”

“No, but I wouldn’t. And you know that.”

“Do I?”

She pulled a pack of cigarettes and lighter from her pocket. Her hands were shaking. She hated that. She didn’t want him to see how nervous he made her.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said.

“Are you my mother now?” She cringed at how she was snapping at him, unable to stop the bitch train once it pulled out of the station. She tried unsuccessfully to flick the lighter, but her hands were shaking too badly.

Luc took it from her, and Anna leaned in, thinking he was going to light the cigarette like some gentleman in an old Humphrey Bogart film.

“Take it outside if you must smoke it. Not in the house with the antiques.”

She wanted to argue. It was her house, no matter who had been there the longest. But she gave in because being in his presence another second was likely to end with her flat on her back, feeding him.

She grabbed a pack of matches from the kitchen junk drawer on her way outside. Somehow developing a chain smoking habit seemed like the least dangerous thing she could do right now.

Anna savored the nicotine as it curled into her lungs, and the artificial calm washed over her. She wanted to push the rewind button on her life and redo it all. This house was going to be the death of her. She just knew it.

The sound of boots crunching over gravel jolted her out of her self-pity. She looked up, startled to find five smarmy-looking men standing in front of her. She wasn’t big on profiling, but you knew these were thugs from two hundred yards away. The ringleader stood out in front, pointing a gun at her.

“Where are our girls, bitch?”

Anna let out a hysterical peal of laughter. She was snapping. She could feel the little places in her brain that held her sanity together bending and buckling under the strain of the past week.

“Are you laughing at me?” the ringleader asked. “We’re here for our girls. You took them. We’re here to take them back where they belong.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Anna said. The pimps couldn’t have picked a better time to arrive.