Diary of an Incubus

by Diary of an Incubus (lit)

  “Vincent had a relationship once with another vampire and his human servant.”

  “I know. His name was Luis. I knew this long before you wrote about the subject.”

  I looked back to see his expression and understood that he was simply stating a fact, not making a snide remark. I was learning that vampires had a way of doing things like that. They could make blunt statements without actually being rude. I guess there was no such thing as beating around the bush in their culture.

  I wasn’t really sure what to say after that. Finally, Alucard spoke. “I have never shared,” he said softly.

  I turned in his arms and looked up at him. “If you care anything at all for my feelings, you’ll consider it.” Surely something could be worked out. I needed to believe that. I took his lack of response for acceptance. I saw what I needed to see in his eyes and once we returned to bed, slept easily in his arms.

  * * * *

  After spending the night with Alucard, life went on as normal or what passed for normal these days. Before escorting me back through the mirror he gave me a charm to hang above my mirror at home.

  “So you can take a bath in peace without that sheet,” he teased.

  Apparently, he could not spy on me when the charm was in place. I slipped it into my coat pocket and we both went to meet Vincent. He greeted me with a hug and a smile, like I was returning from a shopping trip and not spending the night with another man. He and Alucard greeted each other with their usual curtness and shook once more on their agreement to honor my decision. I might understand vampires someday, but I would probably never understand men. It felt strange to leave Alucard behind, but we had to go home. Our flight left that night and I took a pill so that I could sleep the whole way. The less I thought about being in the air the better off I was.

  I wanted to talk to Vincent about what I’d discussed with Alucard, but I wasn’t going to do that where other people could overhear. On the drive back home from the airport, I started to fill him in. Since Vincent was alright with everything I told him we had sex, but mostly I wanted to discuss what we’d talked about. The sex part didn’t bother him. In fact, he seemed pleased. Even though I didn’t get into detail he seemed to know I had enjoyed the experience and this made him happy. But Vincent was also most interested in our conversations.

  Naturally I left out everything that had anything to do with Alucard’s true identity. That was between us, just like Vincent’s journals were between Vincent and me. I told him about bringing up the subject of his relationship with Luis and his human servant and about Alucard’s reaction.

  “I don’t understand why it has to be this way, why he has to be this way,” I said.

  “He would consider it a loss if you were to become my servant instead of his, and Alucard doesn’t like to lose.”

  “But why would it have to be a loss? Would you really make me break off all contact with him?”

  “Of course not. But he wouldn’t have the same connection to you that I would have. A vampire becomes a part of their servant. It’s almost like sharing a piece of their soul. He wants that for himself and I can’t blame him. You reminded me what it was like to feel things and to be human as well. I can’t hate him for wanting the same thing I want, but that doesn’t mean I want him to win either.”

  I sighed with frustration. How was I ever going to get out of this mess?

  “I still don’t understand why he’s making me choose. I get your reasoning and I get his reasoning … but it doesn’t have to be that way.” I ran a hand through my hair and stared out the window. We were almost home. “I never thought of myself as the kind of woman who would be in a situation like this, with two men.”

  Vincent laughed softly. “And what kind of woman is that? Because I see a woman who is in touch with her desire. There is nothing wrong with that.”

  “A few years ago I would have said I was a slut. But now I’m leaning more toward … lucky.” He laughed again. “Seriously. Most people never feel this way about one person and I’ve found two.”

  “So you do love him.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I still felt obligated to answer.

  “Yes. I do.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I didn’t feel much like sleeping. As a matter of fact, after resting beside Alucard I felt remarkably refreshed. So once Vincent was tucked away safely from sunlight, I decided to change clothes and make some breakfast. I selected a pair of gray yoga pants and a long pink top that came to mid-thigh. It was one of the outfits I worked out in and it was extremely comfortable. After pulling my hair back into a low ponytail and checking the bed curtains one more time, I headed downstairs.

  I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I got to thinking about food. I was positively ravenous by the time I mixed up some scrambled eggs and started cooking some bacon. I was just about to pour the eggs into a skillet when someone knocked at the kitchen door. I looked through the small window and saw Brea holding two cups of coffee and a doughnut bag.

  “Come on in,” I said, opening the door. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Brea to stop by sometimes on her way in to work, but one look said that wasn’t where she was headed. She was wearing a pair of gray sweat pants and if not for her purple sweater, we would have matched. Her spiky black hair stood out in ways I’m sure wasn’t on purpose and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. It just wasn’t like Brea to go around looking like that if she didn’t have the flu.

  I knew she was having a hard time with James’ death, but I didn’t realize how hard. I felt like a shit for getting updates on her second-hand through Matt. She had moved in with him temporarily so that he could help take care of her. It was really sweet of him to give up some of his privacy in order to watch over his sister for a while. Andy had started going with her to grief counseling. It was a service the police department offered to all of their employees and their family members. They figured Brea was close enough to meeting that description. To add insult to injury one of his colleagues let it slip that James had been planning to propose. I felt like I should have done more for her, but I’d had enough on my plate lately. Plates, shit I needed to take up the bacon.

  Brea took a seat at the island bar while I took up the bacon before it burned.

  “You taking the day off?” I tried to sound casual. Sure, I was worried about her, but I didn’t want it to sound that way.

  “Why, because I look like shit?”

  At that I turned my back to the stove and answered bluntly, “Yeah, because you look like shit. What’s going on?”

  She shrugged and her sweater fell off one thin shoulder. “I had like three months of leave time. You know, cause I never take off to have a life. Well, my boss insisted that I take some personal time. He said it was to grieve, but I just think he doesn’t want me around. Fucking asshole.”

  I stirred the eggs and Brea asked, “Can you cook some more? I’m starving.” I gave her a questioning look. “Please?”

  “Alright.” I took a couple more eggs out of the fridge. “So, your boss is an asshole because he cares about your mental health? That doesn’t sound like any asshole I’ve ever met. It sounds like he genuinely cares about you. You’re lucky.” I started mixing the eggs together with some milk.

  “Lucky?”

  “Yeah. If you want to talk about dick bosses I could give you a list that would run down this counter,” I said, slapping the bar lightly.

  Brea laughed. “Okay, so maybe I’m overreacting.”

  “Just a little. You want extra bacon too?”

  “Please.”

  Once we were both seated at the bar Brea said, “Shouldn’t I be doing better than this? I mean, shouldn’t I be coping or something?”

  I put down my orange juice and reached over to take her hand. “Brea, you are coping. It’s barely been two months.”

  “I know it’s a fucking cliché, but I really didn’t know how much I cared until he was gone.” For
a moment I thought she was going to cry, then she seemed to reign in her emotions and offered me a weak smile. “Is Vincent upstairs?”

  “Yes, all safely tucked away from the daylight.”

  Vincent was surprisingly cool about Brea knowing what he was. I think that since he trusted her he thought of it as extra protection during the day. So far she hadn’t asked about the council meeting, which surprised me. I wasn’t going to offer up any details until I had to. It’s not that I wanted to keep secrets from Brea, I just wasn’t ready to talk about it. I had one month to decide who would share a part of my soul for all eternity. Then it hit me, I was going to live forever. That’s pretty heavy stuff no matter how you want to look at it.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why I came by like this?”

  Not really. Since she hadn’t asked about the meeting I just figured she needed someone to talk to and since I had a mouthful of egg I couldn’t really respond so I shrugged.

  “Well, I was thinking that I would feel a whole lot better if I had something to look forward to. You know, something to live for?”

  “Brea …”

  She waved her hands emphatically. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not suicidal. That came out all wrong. I mean an event or something, something to get my hopes up. I know I’ve got things to live for. I’ve got Matt, I’ve got you, I’ve got a great job when my boss isn’t being a dick. I just … want to know what the future holds.”

  I got up to refill my coffee cup. The future, that word held new possibilities for me now and I wasn’t ready for any of them. “Honey, nobody can know what the future holds.”

  “Fortune tellers do.”

  I snickered. “You’re not serious.” After looking at her face again I changed my mind. “Okay, so you are serious. Still, I’m not a fortune teller you said you wanted to talk about why you came here.”

  “I want you to go with me.” She sat back and crossed her arms in a way that said she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  “You want me to go with you to see a fortune teller? Have you lost it? Those places are nothing but rip offs.”

  Brea stuck out her chin in a defiant gesture. “Vampires and werewolves are real. Who says we can’t find a real psychic?”

  I sat back down and started adding sugar and cream to my coffee. I never should have told her about Vincent confirming that werewolves were real. Of course, I left out the fact that wererats had attacked me in my back yard. But back to the subject, we were talking about fortune tellers.

  “Something tells me you’ve already found one.”

  Brea smiled and leaned across the counter conspiratorially. “Rumor has it that there’s a really good one about twenty miles out of town.”

  “Twenty miles out of town, in which direction?” Brea pointed toward the opposite end of Savannah from where I lived. “Okay, but what about Vincent? I can’t just leave him here unprotected.”

  “That’s what deadbolts are for,” she said. “Make sure he’s locked down tight and leave the cat to guard him.”

  Upon further insistence, that’s what we did. Brea helped me to double check all the locks, windows and doors before leaving Vincent with Tang as his guard.

  “Don’t let anything happen to him,” I said to the cat.

  I was really creeped out when he nodded. Surely that was just my imagination.

  Since Brea knew where the place was she drove. Savannah in March is really beautiful, even if I am more of a winter person. The leaves were bright green, the sky was blue. If it wasn’t for the heat it would have been even better. That was the one and only complaint I had about living in the South. I had never liked the heat. Even this early in the year, the weather was quickly approaching miserable. It was only in the low eighties and still reaching the fifties at night. But I preferred sixty degree highs and thirty degree lows. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind a drafty old castle or two.

  While I took in the view and let my mind wander, Brea maneuvered through traffic and out the other side of town. We had driven way more than twenty miles out of town and our surroundings didn’t look very familiar.

  “We’re lost.”

  “We are not lost,” she insisted. Brea pulled a piece of paper from between the seats and glanced at it again. Then, to my horror she flipped the paper upside down and took another look. “I just got a little off course.” She turned onto a dirt road that looked more like an old wagon trail and rode about as smooth.

  I put my hand against the roof to keep my head from bouncing into it as we drove down a hill and over numerous potholes.

  “You’re worse than a man. Just stop and ask for directions.”

  “Did you see anybody to ask, smartass?”

  At that we both laughed and I answered, “No, I didn’t.”

  I was beginning to worry that the transmission was going to fall out of Brea’s car when we finally came to a stop.

  “This is it,” she said, pointing down a narrow driveway. Brea checked her map again to be sure. This time she didn’t flip it over.

  “Where did you get those directions?”

  “From a Hoodoo shop downtown.”

  I rolled my eyes. I knew what Hoodoo was, what I didn’t know was why Brea was messing around with it. It is primarily an African form of root magic. I say primarily because it has also been combined with some Native American botanical knowledge as well. From what little I knew, it was nothing to be trifled with. The look I gave her must have said enough.

  “I was just looking for some incense and herbs. That’s the best place to buy them.” I kept giving her that look. “Honestly, I wasn’t dabbling in anything.”

  “Good, because now that we know vampires and werewolves are real, then magic has to be real and I don’t think you should fuck around with it.”

  “Your Indian name should be Dances with Vampires and you’re giving me advice.” She laughed as she got out and walked around to my side of the car.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She pointed down the driveway. “We’re hoofing it from here.”

  I looked at the long driveway again. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  Brea opened my door and made a grand gesture with her hand. “After you Madame.”

  “You’re lucky I think of you as family, cause I wouldn’t do this crap for a friend,” I joked.

  All I could hear were the sounds of the woods around us. Leaves were being tossed about by the warm breeze, birds chirped and squirrels jumped from limb to limb. But there were no sounds of people. No neighbors talking, no children playing. It was creepy. As the house at the end of the driveway came into view I wondered if my next book should be about a witch. What inspirations I got from this place. It was an old two story Victorian style house. Plants were growing from everywhere. Roses climbed up one side of the porch and I could see what looked like an herb garden to the left. All of this was neatly contained by a black iron fence which surrounded the home and the garden. It was charming, but I couldn’t shake the thought that a witch must live here.

  The heat was minimized by the steady breeze, but I was still breaking a sweat by the time we reached the garden gate. A small patch of rosemary was growing just inside. I wasn’t that great with herbs, but this patch of growth had a nice neat label telling me what it was. Brea reached for the gate and before her hand could touch it, it opened.

  I got a chill, but she shrugged and said, “Could have been the wind.”

  It could have been, but I seriously doubted it. I had been in the presence of magic before and I felt it in this place. Whoever had given this address to Brea knew what they were talking about. Still, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be there. I had always been a little bit afraid of someone knowing the future. What if I was going to die tomorrow and they just blurted it out? Or what if I was going to live forever … and they knew it? But, we were here for her, not me. I didn’t have anything to worry about, right?

  As we approached the door I notice
d an abundance of lavender growing around the front porch. Its sweet scent was like a friendly greeting. We had just set foot onto the porch when a woman opened the front door. She wasn’t tall, about my height actually and she was pretty. She looked to be in her mid thirties-early forties and in good shape. Her long dark hair was pinned up on top of her head and from the way she was dressed I guessed she had been gardening. She was wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts, a t-shirt and cowboy boots. The boots were odd, but other than that she seemed normal. I guess I was expecting an old hag.

  Her smile was friendly and she extended her hand in greeting as if she had been expecting us.

  “My name’s Angela Campbell,” she said. “But you ladies can call me Angie. Won’t you come in?” Brea and I exchanged a look before accepting her handshake and her invitation inside. “It’s getting awfully warm out there. Would either of you girls care for some iced tea?”

  “I would, thank you,” Brea said. I gave her a look and she shrugged as if to say she didn’t want to be rude.

  “You must be Brea,” Angie said, turning toward her with a glass of tea. “Don’t be alarmed. They called me from the shop and said they’d referred you. I didn’t just read your mind or anything.”

  “Oh.” Brea looked relieved. “Yeah, that’s me and this is my friend Jewel.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Please, have a seat.”

  Her home was lovely and so was the table she motioned toward. The place looked relatively normal except for some jars of herbs here and there and the deck of tarot cards sitting on the table.

  I sat beside Brea and Angie took a seat directly across from both of us.

  “May I see your hands?”

  She reached for Brea and they held hands across the table. Angie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Brea remained motionless and looked a little nervous. After several minutes I was starting to wonder if anything was going to happen or not. Then, Angela looked up and released Brea’s hands.