“But how did he find Carmen?”
“I can think of a dozen ways. He could have a spy at a cell phone company, or he could make random calls until he gets a target. He could even have snuck into Carmen’s school and written ‘For a good time, call this number’ on the bathroom wall. However it happened, once he made contact with Carmen, it would be awfully hard for an innocent girl to resist.” I couldn’t, and I wasn’t particularly innocent.
“And that’s what killed her. A demon.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I wanted to know, but I thought I’d be able to do something about it. What can we do to a demon?”
Carmen’s phone rang, and I actually reached for it, which was hardly normal from someone who’d ruined dozens of phones in her life. Fortunately, after a quick look at the screen, Rocha put it behind his back.
“It’s him,” he said. “I don’t think we should answer it. Especially not you.”
“You’re probably right,” I said, but resisting the temptation to try to grab the phone from Rocha got harder with each subsequent ring. After a dozen rings, it stopped.
“Did he leave a message?” I asked.
He checked the screen again. “No.”
I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed. Then it rang again.
“I’m turning the ringer off,” Rocha said. “Now what are we going to do about him?”
“My ancestor managed to kill the one she encountered, but she had an Affinity for demon fighting. Without that, she said the best thing was to stay away from them.”
The phone rang.
“I thought you turned the ringer off,” I said.
“I did.”
“Shit!” More magic.
“This time I’m shutting it off completely,” he said, and did so.
I picked up the book again. “According to this, once an incubus gets a taste of a woman’s essence, he tends to go back to her over and over again.” The phone rang again. I didn’t even know how much power it would take to use a phone that had been turned off. “I think he got a taste of me.”
“Jesus, Maura, what have I gotten you into? I’m going to take a hammer to this thing!”
“No! If you do, we’ll never be able to find him.”
He looked at me. “Do you want to find him because of what he did to Carmen, or because of what you want him to do to you?”
“Neither. I want him stopped from doing this to some other girl. I’m not saying he didn’t get a hook into me, but he didn’t get me that badly.” I sincerely hoped I was telling the truth—unfortunately witches can’t smell their own lies.
Rocha shoved the phone into his pants pocket. “So how do we get him?”
“I don’t have a clue.” The phone rang again. “I vote for more research.”
While I went back to the Kith reference library, Rocha borrowed the computer and hit the web. By mutual agreement, we did our best to ignore the phone, which kept on ringing. An hour later, we had a selection of facts and theories about getting rid of incubi, and we ran down the list together.
“There’s exorcism,” Rocha said.
“Does the Church still do those? And even if they do, how would they manage it by phone?”
“Good point. That eliminates enchanted weapons and a unicorn’s horn, too.”
“So much for offense. Defense is no better. The only recommendations are for various ointments around the windows and doors to prevent the incubus from passing over them, but that wouldn’t work for a phone, either. Neither would putting my bed up on bricks.”
“Bricks?”
“Some incubi are known to be short. But if Alejandro can make a cell phone work when it’s turned off, he could probably handle a step ladder.”
“Nothing else?”
“Women are advised to stay chaste.”
Rocha made no comment, which was probably for the best.
I slammed the book shut. “I know you don’t want to have to wait for my family to get back, but I don’t think we have a choice.”
“You can’t contact them?”
“I don’t think so.” From previous years at the retreat, I knew they’d gone deep into the woods to form the circle and, as Ennis had warned me, had left all cell phones behind. Plus they’d probably set wards to keep themselves hidden. To get to them, I’d need to find a practitioner who was both powerful enough to track them down, and trustworthy enough for me to point in the right direction, and I didn’t know one who wasn’t already at the retreat.
“Okay, then we wait. And the phone comes with me.”
“Agreed, but you’ve got to keep it away from anyone female.”
“I’ve got a fireproof safe back at my house, and I’ll lock the thing up until I hear from you.”
“He’ll probably keep trying to call.”
“I’ll stuff the safe with a pillow to muffle the noise if I have to—I’m not going to answer it.”
“It’s a plan.” I walked him to the door, and was about to unlock it when somebody knocked on the glass from the outside. I peered through the blinds, and saw a teenaged girl in a Salem State hooded sweatshirt with a pierced nose and too much eyeliner. My guess was she was a wannabe practitioner, and since the store gets a nice share of its profits from wannabes, I opened the door and politely said, “Sorry, we’re closed.”
“It’s her,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
She went on. “Dark red hair, black T-shirt, and jeans. But no way she’s five seven.”
“She’s got an earpiece,” Rocha said. “She’s on the phone with him!”
The girl held up her phone, snapped a picture of me, and ran down the sidewalk.
“How did she find us?” I demanded.
“Carmen’s phone has GPS!” Rocha went out the door in pursuit, and the two of them were quickly out of sight.
“Shit!” I said, slamming the door shut. The bastard had tracked me down. While we’d been trying to find a way to get to him, he’d found a way to get to me.
I wasn’t even surprised when the store phone rang a minute later. It wouldn’t have been hard to seduce directory assistance into giving him the number.
The phone continued to ring. “Some things never change,” I said to nobody in particular. “Here I am, afraid to answer the phone. Of course, this time I’m worried that I’ll get fried instead of the phone, but—” I stopped.
Could it be that simple? Alejandro used a telephone to absorb life force or vitality or whatever you wanted to call that kind of energy. And whenever I talked on a phone, I destroyed it with some sort of energy. The more emotional I was, the more energy I produced, and I didn’t think I’d ever been as scared or as pissed as I was that minute. Maybe it was that simple!
Resolutely I answered the phone. “What!?”
“Why did you abandon me, Maura,” Alejandro asked with tones of velvet. “Weren’t you enjoying yourself?”
“Can’t you find a real girl to play with?” The phone popped and crackled loudly.
“But you are real. I’ve seen your photo. You’re even more breathtaking than I imagined. Not a callow child, but a woman with experience and passion.”
The way he said “passion” went right to my groin, but the idea of him having a photo of me from his minion’s phone scared the sex appeal right out of it. “Jerking off to a photo—how lame is that?”
Crackling filled the line, and I heard a sound of surprise from Alejandro. I hoped it was because of pain. Pain would be good.
“What are you?” he snapped, no seduction in his voice at all.
“Somebody you shouldn’t have pissed off!” I said, and for the first time, I actually wanted to send static through the phone line instead of trying to hold it back. It was as if a dam had burst, with something pouring from me instead of leaking out like water through a cracked glass.
Alejandro groaned.
“How’s that for passion, asshole?”
There was a pause, then he croaked, “More.”
“What?”
“Give me more! It’s like nothing I ever . . .” His voice reverted to sexy huskiness. “You’re the one I’ve been searching for. No woman has ever brought me such pleasure.” It went on from there, hokey and cheesy, and I came so hard I slid to the floor to keep from falling. The burst of power I’d sent toward Alejandro hadn’t weakened him—it had strengthened him and I was overwhelmed.
He kept talking, and everything he told me to do, I did. With each orgasm, I sent another wave of magic through the phone to him, and I could hear his moans of pleasure as he took more and more. Then he did it all over again. Power in and power out. Even though I could tell he was draining me, or maybe I was draining myself, I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t.
Then suddenly there was a mouth on mine. At first I thought it was illusion, or that Alejandro had managed to insinuate himself through the phone. Then I realized it was Rocha. The kissing was real enough, vital enough, that I could pull myself away from Alejandro’s voice, but I could tell it wouldn’t last long. Kissing wasn’t going to be enough.
My clothes were already in shreds, and I pulled at Rocha’s with the hand that wasn’t still clutching the phone to my ear. I got his pants unzipped and ground myself against him. He responded, but not enough, so I pulled him down onto me and into me. He took it from there. I was gratified to learn there was something about Rocha that wasn’t medium. At Starbucks, he’d have been a venti.
Alejandro was still murmuring in my ear, but it was Rocha’s body that brought me off that time. As I lay there panting, he wrenched the phone from my hand and threw it across the room.
I wriggled under him, but he wrapped himself around me so tightly I could barely breathe. Minutes passed, and I finally said, “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. But don’t let go.”
I could hear Alejandro calling for me, growing increasingly more demanding.
“What happened?” I asked Rocha.
“I ran after the girl who ratted us out, but she gave me the slip. Then four other girls came out from nowhere and started pushing at me, yelling and blocking me from getting back here. Distractions, I guess. I went the other way, then doubled back. The door was still unlocked, and I found you—”
“That was some good finding, too.”
“Look, I wouldn’t have . . . I mean, I—”
“Hey, I’m the one who unzipped your pants. I knew what I was doing.”
“That’s good. I didn’t want to take advantage of you. I did try to take the phone away, but you wouldn’t let go. So I unplugged it from the wall, and that didn’t help. Then I yelled at you. I even splashed cold water on you.”
“Is that why my hair’s wet?”
“All that left was hitting you or . . . or what we did.” He gave me a small grin. “My mother taught me I should never hit a woman.”
“She might not have approved of our approach, either.”
He grinned more widely.
Alejandro was getting more strident.
“What do we do now?” Rocha asked. “Can I let you go?”
“If you did, I would crawl over broken glass to get to that phone.” I explained as best I could how Alejandro had reacted to my attempt to fry him through the phone. “I keep throwing energy at him, but he likes it.”
“Throwing energy? Like magic? Does that mean you’ve got an Affinity after all?”
“I guess it does.” I hadn’t stopped long enough to realize it. “Hell of a way of finding out.”
“How does it usually work?”
“It depends. Ennis made a rose bush bloom in December.”
He nodded, and I decided it was the weirdest pillow talk I’d ever participated in, particularly since there was no pillow. But I needed distraction from Alejandro’s voice.
Then there was blessed silence. “Did he hang up?” I asked.
“Maybe he gave up,” Rocha said, but I noticed that he didn’t get off me, which was just as well.
The voice started again, louder than before. “I need you, Maura. Let me pleasure you.”
“Shit! He’s turned on the speaker,” I said.
“He can’t get at you from a distance, can he?” Rocha asked.
“Yes, he can,” I said, writhing under him. “He’s pulling power from somewhere so he can keep draining me.”
“How?”
I was too busy climaxing to answer, and I heard a low chuckle of satisfaction as my magic flowed to Alejandro.
Rocha pinched my arm hard—apparently his mother hadn’t taught him not to do that. “Maura, stay with me! Where is he getting the power?”
“How would I know?” I snapped.
“If phones are your thing, use them! Damn it, are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
If I’d had a hand free, I’d have punched him, but as it was, all I could do was try to concentrate as Alejandro sent waves of eroticism into me. “It’s different this time. Somebody else . . .”
“Another incubus?”
I shook my head before another orgasm ripped through me.
It took a much harder pinch to get my attention the next time. “More people. He’s pulling power from more women!” Of course Alejandro could draw from more than one at a time. Hadn’t Rocha said he’d been delayed by a quartet under the incubus’s spell?
“Can you pull from them, too? Bypass his circuit?”
“Maybe . . .” I tried, but I was trying to do something for which I didn’t even have words other than Rocha’s electrical imagery—I would have to get the Kith to help me develop a new vocabulary if I lived long enough. “There!” I said in momentary triumph as I managed to go directly to the women. Only they were sending sex, too.
Another orgasm, another pinch. My arm was going to be black and blue. “That’s no good. They’re as turned on as I am.”
“Can’t you pull something else from them?” Rocha asked.
“All they’re thinking about is sex!” Another five minutes, and it would be all I ever thought of, ever. I was building toward another climax, and the climaxes were becoming so intense they were nearly painful. I could tell that not only was Alejandro draining me, he was draining the other girls as well. Already one of them was nearly unconscious.
“Forget them,” Rocha said. “Find somebody else.”
“What? Who?”
Rocha managed to pull a black cell phone from his pants pocket without giving me a chance to squirm free.
“No more phones,” I moaned.
“This one’s mine,” he said, pushing buttons. “And Alejandro hasn’t got my number.” When I came out of the next orgasm, the phone was next to my ear and a sublimely bored voice said, “This is Wanda in technical support. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Maura. Don’t hang up,” I gasped, and used my newfound Affinity to pull that boredom right out of her. Then I pushed it toward Alejandro, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the arousal abated.
“What’s the nature of your problem, Maura?”
“Hold on! I dropped something.” I pushed past Wanda, through the lines, and I could sense an office building full of people, all in various degrees of intense boredom. I pulled and pulled as much of it into me as I could, then shoved it at Alejandro. He screeched, the least sexy sound I’d ever heard, and I felt the other girls he was draining dropping out of the circuit.
But Alejandro wasn’t giving up. After just a few seconds to recover, he started after me again, and I could feel my body starting to react.
“Hello, Maura,” Wanda was saying. “Are you there?”
It was Rocha who said, “She’s lost her warranty certificate. Can you explain how it works?”
Wanda sighed, and more boredom wafted from her. I sucked all I could from her, but I’d already taken all I could from the others in her building. So I went on through the networks and wires and whatever it was that carried voices throu
gh the air. I found the people who were waiting for an overdue bus or stuck in traffic, who were complaining about spreadsheets and proofreading at work or tedious homework assignments, who couldn’t find anything worth watching on TV or any books to read. So much boredom, and I grabbed every bit of it and shot it at Alejandro as hard as I could, ignoring his entreaties and shrieks and then . . . Then there was nothing to hear but Wanda, who must have been reading the third page of text by then.
Rocha asked me, “Did it work?”
I waited, and then the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard came from Carmen’s phone: a dial tone. “It worked!”
Rocha said, “Thank you, Wanda, that’s all we need. Please tell your boss you’re doing a terrific job.” He hung up on her surprised thanks.
We stayed there a little while longer, just to make sure. Then slowly Rocha levered himself off me, pulled out Carmen’s purple cell phone, and pressed redial. He grinned, then held the phone up to my ear.
A mechanical voice said, “The number you have called is no longer in service.”
Only then did Rocha and I realize that I was practically naked and he still hadn’t zipped his pants. It made for an awkward few minutes before we decided it was late and time for him to go.
A few days later, I was alone in the shop watching the clock. The Kith was due to shut down the circle at twilight, meaning that they’d be accessible by phone again. I was still waffling about who to call first. Was it going to be Aunt Hester, so I could tell her she’d been right about me all along, or Ennis, so I could tell her she’d been wrong about me all along? I hadn’t heard from Rocha, and had decided I wasn’t going to. It wasn’t as though we’d had an actual date—screwing to save me from a rampaging incubus didn’t really count.
Then the bell over the door tinkled, and Rocha stepped in carrying a dark blue gift bag with gold stars on it.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“I brought you something. I thought about flowers, but I figured with your sister . . .”
“Yeah, flowers aren’t my favorite thing.”
He handed me the bag, then shuffled his feet as I pulled out what I could only assume was a top-of-the-line cell phone, all gleaming and shiny.
“It’s beautiful. But you didn’t have to—”
The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge Page 9
