“Yes.”
“Is it because of the Booke?”
“Ye—”
“Is it just because of the Booke?”
Still he wouldn’t face me, and he hadn’t answered.
“Erasmus…”
Faster than I could blink he was right in front of me, closer than he’d ever been. His arms trapped me as he clutched the post above my head. I felt his breath on my face. I expected brimstone or something equally unpleasant, but it was soft and warm and slightly sweet. And much too close.
He leaned in. “No,” he breathed. And before I could take another breath, his mouth was on mine.
His lips explored timidly at first, then they became bolder and he leaned in further, opening, easing his tongue against my mouth. I took him in with a gasp. I didn’t know when my arms came up and encircled his neck, but I had pulled myself against him. He kissed like a man. He felt like a man from chest to knee, those parts that I was shamelessly pressed against. My fingers glided up into his thick hair and held on, even as his mouth released my lips and dragged down my chin, down my neck, and he flicked his tongue over the hollow of my throat.
With my fingers still in his hair, I pulled his head up again and fastened my mouth to his, feeling his lips pull at mine with growing intensity. I didn’t even want to stop and think about what I was doing. I just wanted to feel him, whatever he was. He didn’t feel evil. He felt like…
“Kylie,” he murmured against my throat, his voice dark and rumbling. His hands eased over my shoulders and traveled to my back, pulling me tight against him again. His hot breath scorched the tender skin of my neck, up behind my ear as he nuzzled my hair. The painful hammering in my chest was matched by the drumbeat in his own. His skin smelled like hot sand and his breath, gusting over my chin and cheeks as his mouth traveled, was almost like darkly steeped tea, slightly sweetened.
His hands had moved downward to the hem of my sweater, and were slowly pushing it up, fingers tracing over my skin.
Then he stopped abruptly and jerked away, staring at me. He took a step back and all the warmth fell away as his hands left me. His eyes were rounded, horrified. “What am I doing?” he whispered. “I swore I’d never…”
“You…you…”
He took another step back. “No.” He was panting, he couldn’t deny it. All my excitement turned to a panicked ache.
“What…?”
“Kylie…Miss Strange, I…”
I slumped back against the post. “You’re about to say this was a bad idea.”
He nodded, eyes darting, his face awash with confusion.
I tilted my chin upward, staring at the ceiling. I let my heartbeat slow, but I couldn’t stop the simmering anger beneath. I made such bad choices when it came to men. “Is this your idea of a joke? Toy with the human?”
He snapped his head toward me. “No. No…believe me, I…” He wrung his hands before curling them into fists. He stomped across the room, his duster swirling around his legs. From as far away as he could get, he stared back at me over his shoulder. He pushed his fingers through his hair. I had never seen him so discomfited, but I got no pleasure from it.
“This…cannot be allowed to happen.”
“Funny. I knew you’d say something like that.”
“Kylie…Miss Strange…” There was pleading in his voice. It tore at my heart.
“Okay. Message received.”
I’d never seen him so forlorn. It couldn’t be an act. Pretending with that face would surely send him straight to Hell. Oh, wait…
“We…we need to discuss this succubus,” he said finally.
I waved noncommittally at the desk. “I have books.”
“Which you have not looked at.” His old grouchy self was back. You don’t fool me. Not anymore.
“So…let’s look at them now.” If he could affect indifference, then so could I. I walked to the desk and spread them out. I sat in the desk chair, forcing him to pull another chair closer.
“These are less than informative,” he said.
“You haven’t even looked at them,” I said with a scowl.
He reached for one and so did I. Our hands touched for only a moment before I darted mine forward and clutched a book as if my life depended on it. And in all likelihood it did. Opening it, I scanned down the table of contents and found the chapter. “Okay,” I said. Erasmus was near. I could feel him, feel his breathing. I could also tell that he was looking at me, but when I raised my face, his eyes flicked down to the book. Was this normal demon behavior? “All I found in this book was this.” I began to read the passage aloud:
The succubus and likewise the incubus are ancient creatures, cited in clay tablets from the Sumerian empire. The succubus preys on men while the incubus preys on women. Because the succubus was blamed for male nocturnal emissions, modern scholars believe that a misunderstanding of biology and normal bodily functions created the notion of succubi, particularly in the Christian era when such emissions were considered sinful. To blame them on a mythical creature took the culpability away from the hapless victim. Likewise, the female version of nightly events or sexual dreams could be attributed to a beast visiting the woman in the night. But there were other instances where the creature is blamed for violence and even death. Deaths from dehydration have been reported in ancient Egypt, the early Roman Empire, medieval France, and Renaissance Italy. Even in the Americas there have been reports very like a succubus attack, which are cited from the Mayan and Aztec empires, up to the Jamestown settlement in the early seventeenth century, and various accounts in New England throughout the eighteenth century.
I sat back. “That’s uninformative. It just reports attacks, not if anyone did anything about them.”
“I doubt you will find that information in these texts. Nothing useful, at any rate.”
“Then what can I do?”
He bolted out of his chair and swept up the crossbow from the bed. He looked at it a moment and then sat down on my comforter. “Come here.”
I rose and walked toward him. He was examining the crossbow. Well, more like stroking it. I sat gingerly beside him, not too closely.
“Do you see these quarrels?” he said, fingering the bolts in their cavities.
“Yes. I was wondering why they all look so different.”
“For different prey, of course. You can’t expect to take down a succubus with the same quarrel as you would for a red cap.”
“A what?”
He pulled a quarrel free and turned it in his hand, holding it up to the light. The wood of its shaft was highly polished, more like an ornament than a dart for taking down a creature. The tip looked like silver and as I examined it more closely, I could see scrollwork designs on the small sharp point. The feathers were black and gleamed with iridescence. Raven feathers? I was about to touch the tip when Erasmus snatched it away from me.
“Beelze’s tail, woman! Don’t you know better than to touch things?”
“What now?”
He huffed. “The point is poisoned.”
“Oh.” I shrank back. I had planned on looking at the bolts on my own. What if I had and Erasmus hadn’t been there? “I’ll be more careful. Is that for a succubus?”
“Yes. See the carvings. Look, don’t touch!” He showed me the carvings on the metal tip, which looked like phases of the moon. “This is also appropriate for werewolves.”
“Werewolves? You don’t mean to tell me those are real, too?”
He looked at me askance. “Of course they are. Thank your gods we won’t have to deal with that.” He placed the quarrel in the firing groove and I watched as the string pulled back on its own.
“Wow. I thought I had to—”
“No, you don’t. It’s already become attuned to you.”
“It did load itself. Even the bolt was in place. I was wondering how it did that.”
“Really? It is quite attuned to you, then.”
I smiled. “It likes me.”
“You could say that.”
“It likes you, too, since once I knew who you were it disarmed itself.”
“And a good thing. I didn’t fancy getting shot with this.”
I took the crossbow from his hands and ran my fingers over the surfaces again. I didn’t look up when I asked, “Could it kill you?”
“Hmm. A good question. I’m not quite certain of the answer.” He smirked. “I do hope you don’t intend to find out.”
“No, of course not!”
His smirk turned to a tender smile. But even as I watched, the smile, too, faded. “Don’t be so sure,” he muttered.
I didn’t like what he implied and so to change the subject, I pulled another quarrel from its slot. “So what about this one?”
The shaft looked to be made of ebony, black and polished smooth. The tip looked more like pewter, and the feathers were a dark red and clipped to razor sleekness.
Erasmus frowned. “You don’t want to encounter the beast that can be felled with this.” He plucked it out of my hand and put it back in place. “You should only concern yourself with this one,” and he tapped it again in its sheath.
“But what if I miss? What if I lose it?”
“You can’t lose the quarrels. They return. Here.” He patted the little slot that held it.
“Free chances, then.”
His hand was suddenly on mine over the crossbow. The pressure was solid. “You will not get that many chances. Tonight the moon is almost full. You may not get a better chance.”
“W-what do you mean? Now?”
“Yes. We must hunt. If we do not catch it, it will kill again.” He tugged me to my feet but I held back at the foot of the bed.
“How come it isn’t the friendly little sucker you read about in those books? How come it just doesn’t”—I waved vaguely—“just create those nocturnal emissions and be done with it?”
He sighed. “Because the people who write these books don’t know what they are talking about. They get their information second- and third-hand. You can’t translate a Sumerian scroll literally. And your medieval sources cannot be relied upon at all. Most of the writers were monks. They didn’t have the least idea what was happening.”
He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the doorway. “Wait! I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“That’s why I’m going with you.” He pulled and I stumbled after, nearly losing my grip on the crossbow.
“I don’t understand. Why can’t you just do this? Why do you need me?”
He didn’t stop even when we got to the stairs. I lurched down the steps, his hand gripping my arm like a steel band. “Because you are the Chosen Host. The book chose you.”
“Stupid Booke.” I pulled up short when we got to the front door. “Let me get my coat at least.”
He grunted his answer and reluctantly released me.
I pulled my arm into my jacket. “What about my purse? Won’t I need my car keys?”
“We aren’t taking your conveyance.” He heaved an impatient sigh. “Will you hurry up!”
“Suddenly we’re in a hurry,” I muttered. When I’d buttoned up my coat, he pulled the door open and yanked me after him. “Do you have to drag me around like a caveman?”
He released me and stepped back, rolling his shoulders indignantly. “I am doing no such thing.”
I shook out my arm. “That’s better.” The cold night air hit me and I immediately longed for the dying embers of my fireplace. “Lead on.”
The moon had crested the nearby hills and cast silvery light over the road. The trees splayed a cross-hatching of shadows over the dried grass of the verges. Erasmus crossed the street without looking, but it didn’t matter. The village was quiet. There were no cars along the road. I could see golden rectangles of light from distant houses, their windows covered with flimsy curtains. Blue light, too, flickered on their shades as people settled in for the night in front of their televisions. But those were only distant comforts. It wasn’t until the night lay heavy over us that I noticed how lonely my little shop was all by itself at the end of the road. There wasn’t another building within fifty yards of me.
Erasmus moved quickly and I had to trot to keep up. He leapt up the grassy verge and plunged into the woods, moving as if he could see perfectly well in the dark. He probably could. “I should have brought a flashlight,” I muttered as I tripped for the third time over a root I couldn’t see. And I had forgotten my stupid phone. The moon cast a lot of light, but it did no good under the canopy, even when most of the trees had cast off their leaves. The empty branches shivered overhead, moved by the soft breeze. They clattered like old bones and made a maze on the ground that effectively camouflaged all the traps for my feet.
I tripped again and stopped, nursing my sore foot. “Erasmus!” I hissed. “Will you slow down!”
He stopped. All I saw was a dark shade blocking the path of moonlight. Just the edge of his hair was lit, glowing a little. He was looking back at me but I couldn’t see his eyes.
“How do you expect to hunt when you make all that noise?” he said.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Are you telling me your eyes haven’t adjusted yet? I was led to believe that humans could see very well in the moonlight.”
As I rubbed my toe through my shoe, I glanced about. I did start to see better now that my pupils had dilated enough. The details of the forest came to life under the muted light. Enough to make out the stumps and rocks that tripped me up.
“Fine,” I muttered and caught up to him. When I looked up at his face I could see the details. The moonlight edged along his patrician nose and his lips. Lips I had kissed only a few minutes ago. Maybe I stared at them a little too long because when I lifted my gaze to his eyes they were glittering, scrutinizing. “Where are we going exactly?” My voice seemed to ride on a cloud of breath between us. His usual stiff posture relaxed and he leaned a little toward me. I thought he was going to kiss me again, and I was ashamed to say that I would have let him. I turned my face away to avoid it, pretending instead that I was looking around.
“We are hunting a succubus,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I got that. But where?”
He loosed a sigh, breath pluming around his face. “I forgot. You are human. You can’t smell it.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What does it smell like?”
He smirked. “Sex. And death.”
“Charming.” I adjusted the crossbow at my hip. “So…does that mean that the succubus is having sex with the victims first?”
“Not necessarily. But the scent usually attracts males of your kind. That allows her to get close to them.”
“What does it look like? The pictures in the book weren’t very helpful.”
“It looks like a woman…and not like a woman.”
“That’s not very helpful either. Any more words of advice?”
“Stay close.”
He turned and stomped into the woods again, though his tread was muffled. I couldn’t hear one twig he broke, or any leaves crunching beneath him. “Hey,” I stage-whispered. “How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” he hissed over his shoulder.
I came up right behind him. “Not making any noise as you walk.”
“I try to behave as if I weren’t a limping herd of elephants.”
I muttered something that I hoped he didn’t catch…or maybe I hoped he did. He didn’t acknowledge it in any case, and he still hadn’t told me where we were going. It seemed we were wandering aimlessly. And as I looked back at the tangle of brush and low-hanging boughs to the path we had traveled, I couldn’t actually see a path. And it struck me with a hot jolt to my chest that if Erasmus left me now, I’d have no idea how to get back out of the woods.
The scarier scenes of The Blair Witch Project loomed in my mind.
Over his shoulder, Erasmus said, “It is best to capture the creature in a glade in the moonlight.”
“You’re kidding
me.”
He frowned. “I don’t ‘kid.’”
Come to think of it, I didn’t believe he did.
I stuck close, listening to the comforting sound of crickets as we moved through the scratching branches and dark columns of trees, and suddenly came upon a clearing. Dew clung to the expanse of dried grass and glittered in the moonlight like thousands of tiny diamonds. The moon was higher now and its remarkable light painted only one side of the rough bark of the alders and maples. The trees seemed to shy away from the fully lit clearing, veering back into the shadows of the woods around us. Stay out of the shadows, I remembered Jolene’s possessed voice saying. What has begun cannot now be stopped. I should tell him about that. I should…
“And now we wait…” His voice trailed off and he held a finger to his lips.
The crickets stopped.
I held my breath. My eyes were wide, searching the clearing. I licked my dry lips and clutched the crossbow hard. It had armed itself with the correct quarrel again. Good ole chthonic crossbow.
Erasmus hadn’t budged. The only movement I saw was his hair lifting with a breeze. It was a stupid careless moment reminiscing about my fingers in that hair, how soft it had felt, because I wasn’t prepared when a shadow swept down over me, knocking me off my feet and whooshing the breath out of me with a harsh thud.
Chapter Thirteen
I smelled it this time. There was something trailing over my face, like lace or silk, and it smelled like turned earth and decay. I was on my back in the wet leaf duff while shadows swirled above me. I caught a glimpse of a white arm gleaming in the moonlight before it disappeared into the shadows again. Remarkably, I still had the crossbow in my hand, but I wasn’t about to fire, in case I hit Erasmus.
I turned, struggling onto my hands and knees. Something slammed into my head and pain exploded in a shower of stars. I flopped down on my stomach. The edges of my sight were darkening. No way was I going to let myself get knocked out and at the mercy of a succubus. I shook my head—and stopped when that made it worse. I just lay still, letting the darkness slip away and the light come back to my sight. I stumbled to my feet with the butt of the crossbow in my shoulder. Something was happening in the center of the glade but I couldn’t quite tell what I was looking at. Swirling shadow with flashes of pale skin and hair, which flew outward like flowing seaweed. It, too, was pale and captured the moonlight. But there was also darkness, and they intertwined like some strange bolero. A tornado of leaves surrounded them and the grass was mashed and muddied beneath it.
Booke of the Hidden Page 16
