“Hello?” I called out. When there was no answer, I ventured a few feet across the threshold. “Anybody home?”
Muffled shouts in Spanish echoed down the broad stairwell to my left, while movers pounded the floorboards above. From my viewpoint, I could see only a small portion of the main salon. Beneath my feet, the wide, ebonized plank flooring felt substantial.
I took a few more tentative steps inside. Packing crates had been stacked here and there, most of them nailed shut. A few, however, were open to reveal a hint of their contents.
“Hello?” The air was strangely still, and my greeting echoed in the two-story foyer.
Now that I was inside, it wouldn’t be such a stretch to imagine Dumbledore descending that grand staircase to remind me that: “Curiosity is not a sin, Austin, but we should exercise caution with our inquisitiveness.”
Seeing as I was already trespassing, why not take a few steps more?
Doing just that revealed a large portrait propped against a shipping crate at the far end of what turned out to be a truly massive living room. A young woman stared out at me through deep sapphire eyes. Alone on a grand terrace overlooking a dramatic mountain range, a hint of violet sky emerged through the storm clouds behind her.
Concentrating on the portrait, a shock of recognition rippled through me. This was one of the twelve women from my dreams! The one who’d tried to warn me before the Queen of the Damned intruded on us.
Coincidence? Not likely.
Fine and heavy cracks veined the canvas, yet the image remained vital. I could almost feel the wind dancing in the locks of her long, nearly platinum hair, lifting the heavy folds of her scarlet skirts that billowed out against the stone balustrade on which she leaned. Her pink lips, slightly parted, gave the illusion that she was about to speak.
I leaned in toward her pouty mouth. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“Getting her to speak,” a deep voice sounded from behind me, “would be some feat.”
I spun round to find a tall, striking man with stern green eyes staring back at me from the entrance to the parlor. His black, wavy hair fell away from a smooth forehead to brush the leading edge of his collar. A strong jaw and pronounced cleft chin drew me up to a pair of full, unsmiling lips. Everything about this man thrummed with restrained authority.
I took an instinctive step backwards. “You startled me.”
“Indeed.”
I found it nearly impossible to look away from the intensity of his eyes, contoured by thick, dark lashes that curled beneath full, well-shaped brows. The light played in their unusual color, like the insides of a ripe avocado ringed by a darker halo of green.
“The, uh, front door was open. I’m Austin Iverson. I live next door.”
The exotic quality to his olive skin contrasted handsomely against the crisp white dress shirt. His shoulders were broad, his thick forearms exposed from upturned sleeves, and his dark trousers tapered to stylish Italian loafers he wore without socks. The man also stood a good inch or two north of my own six feet.
I extended my hand, a gesture he seemed to consider, then ultimately accepted.
“You have excellent taste in art.” His words hinted at an accent I couldn’t quite place. “She is a rare find.”
She wasn’t the only one; and not just because my incubus hormones had kicked into high-gear. This man was at once fascinating and foreboding, and standing this close to him felt as if all the molecules making up my body had sped up at once, generating a low-boiling heat in my stomach and exciting every nerve ending. Somehow, I knew that he felt this, too.
“She looks almost…”
“Alive? Yes, she is exactly the way I remember her.”
His words didn’t register at first. I was too mesmerized by this striking man and his absorption with the portrait of the woman from my dreams. “But isn’t the painting old?”
“What is old?” he stated, taking a step closer to it. “When true love transcends all time.”
“Like reincarnation?” I said it with an easy laugh.
I’d clearly said the wrong thing, because my enigmatic neighbor shut down so fast it felt as if a physical barrier had dropped between us. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, gesturing toward the front door. “I have pressing matters to which I must attend.”
What had I done to bring on the sudden arctic chill? Oh right, I was trespassing.
At the threshold, I turned to attempt an apology, but found the space empty where he’d been standing only moments before. I didn’t know which felt worse, having angered my inscrutable new neighbor or not being able to study that compelling portrait any longer.
I had an unsettling feeling that both would soon begin to haunt me.
CHAPTER 13
I returned to my parked car with my metaphoric tail between my legs, and kicking myself for what had happened back there with—I hadn’t even asked the man his name.
Great. The last thing I needed was a pissed off neighbor, which would inevitably lead to a pissed off best friend. Mark had issues with my cozying up to the people who impacted his life, professionally or personally; Christie being the sole exception. He was fiercely private and I was his polar opposite. His fear was that my natural candor would lead me to say or do something to embarrass him, like stroll into a perfect stranger’s home, for example.
In any event, the man I’d just met was definitely the same one from the clearing last night. This went beyond supernatural insight. He’d sent a ripple of energy shockwaving across the surface of my skin simply by being in proximity to me. And while I may not have gotten a Shadow Walker vibe off him, our handsome new neighbor was decidedly unlike most men.
Ready to head down into the city, my cell phone exploded to life with Trina’s “Nasty Bitch”. I’d assigned that ringtone to only one person.
“Wanna come play with me?” the female voice on the other end asked.
Twenty minutes later, and wearing a big grin, I was back in the car with an overnight bag. Mark and Christie had already left for work, so I’d taped a brief note to their fridge to let them know that I’d be gone for a night or two. They still worried about me, despite the fact that I literally lived a stone’s throw from their back door.
Another reason I’d kept the note vague was Christie. She wouldn’t be pleased with my destination, or the person I planned to visit there. The less they both knew the better.
I turned the convertible’s engine over and was rewarded by a low, sexy growl. She was full of gas, her top down, and the Nine Inch Nails’ song “Closer” was giving the speakers a thorough work out. With one last, embarrassed look at the two moving trucks in the rearview mirror, I pointed the car’s nose toward Sin City. Given everything that had happened to me over the past year, I figured I deserved some harmless, irresponsible fun.
CHAPTER 14
Suzanne Donahue skewered a piece of Kobe beef from my plate with her chopsticks and offered me a flirtatious wink. “Unemployment looks good on you, babe.”
Actually, becoming an incubus looks good on me, I wanted to tell her.
While I was getting ready back in my room at the Aria, I couldn’t help staring at my naked reflection in the bathroom mirror. My tanned skin almost glowed, the muscles of my six-foot frame were firmer and more sculpted than ever. I’d never possessed much body hair, but what little had developed on my arms and legs was gone, as were the fine lines that had settled at the corners of my eyes after Laura’s death. Even their color had intensified to an almost-sapphire blue, with tiny flecks of green in them. I had to admit, I’d have sex with me.
“Thanks, Suzie. Guess you never noticed before.”
“Have you gone mental? I worked half a bloody semester to get you in the sack at university,” she said in her clipped, British accent. “The day I fail to notice a hot bloke is the day they put me in the ground.”
We both laughed, no doubt remembering the outrageous fun that was our UCLA experience together. Never a couple in the t
raditional sense, we’d been too sexually unbridled to settle down with any one person. We’d made a great team, though. My eagerness to explore her bisexuality was a huge turn on for Suzie. In fact, one of her favorite games was to lure respectable sorority girls into our bed. By the end of our freshman year, we’d been crowned “the Insatiables” by our fellow class.
If succubi existed, and I was living proof that incubi did, Suzanne Donahue was their human equivalent. Bewitching in the seductive sway of her hips as she walked toward a man to the subtle parting of her lips just before she leaned in to speak to him, looked at him—like the way she was looking at me right now—a man had no choice but to succumb to her charms.
I offered her a sly grin, and then glanced up at the enormous Buddha floating above an infinity pool close to our table. “You up for a little scratch at Olympic Gardens?”
She grinned back at me and rested her chin atop linked fingers tipped by glossy, fire-engine red nails. “So that’s your itch.” Her Cleopatra-bobbed hair shimmered blue-black in the restaurant’s dim lighting, the charcoal eyeliner emphasizing the upturned sweep of her eyes. She was all vamp all the time and Vegas loved her for it. Mark Gold had loved her for it once, too. They’d dated our sophomore year in college, until he met Christie Stevenson. “Dollar bills stuffed into sweaty girl crotches.” As an afterthought, she added, “If memory serves, you always did enjoy a nice wet crotch.”
The budding erection I was struggling to conceal beneath my dinner napkin gave a twitch of appreciation. “Memory does serve.”
Suzie shot me a lewd grin. “I haven’t been to the O. G. in ages. But it might be nice to take in a man-candy show instead.”
Not what I’d expected, I nonetheless agreed. Suzie was clearly jonsing for a pre-show before I took her back to my hotel room for the main attraction. Besides, after my encounter with Mr. Lone Star, I was no longer a stranger when it came to sampling man-candy
And was there ever a lot of man-candy ready to be sampled!
The large, dimly lit second floor (female strippers did their thing on the floor below) was filled to capacity and contained a lounge area with a sea of club chairs and tables. But it was to the low, L-shaped platform dominating the space for live performances to which Suzie led me now. A row of chairs bordered this showy, strobe-lit coliseum for sexual gladiators and their throngs of adorning female fans, all eager to scream, cream, and turn over their hard-earned cash.
“You gonna be able to handle this?” Suzie yelled above the roar of the music.
“I’ll suffer through it!” I shouted back with a smile.
No sooner did our asses hit the pair of chairs she’d managed to reserve for us than Suzie fell prey to the charms and gyrations of a sexy cowboy wearing a black Stetson and not much else. Why were they always cowboys?
I might not be able to hear her pleasure over the pulsating beat, but her parted red lips and tilted-back head, as the cowboy gave her one of the hottest lap dances known to God and man, told me that she was in Man-Candy Heaven.
That was where the fun abruptly ended.
Over the blaring music and flashing strobes, Suzie’s stripper turned to leer at me. His expression chilled me to the bone, his dark eyes glittering like evil jewels in the intense chromium flashes. I could never forget that face, every aspect of it forever burned into my memory. The shaved head and pale skin, the cruel set of his mouth within the Van Dyke beard.
“I see you, little incubus!”
The monster’s silent words screamed inside my head and I jerked back in my chair, nearly toppling it and falling into a group of bachelorette partiers behind me, before shooting to my feet.
I steadied myself, shaking my head several times to clear my vision and loosen what felt like a boa constrictor crushing my brain. Suzie stared up at me from beneath the stripper with an expression that was a cross between concern and wondering if I were a strung-out junkie. From the uncontrollable trembling in my extremities I no doubt looked the part.
As for the stripper, he no longer looked anything at all like the Prague rapist.
Jesus! The hallucination had been so vivid!
A tanned, athletic blond straight off the pages of one of those glossy catalogues that pushed the sexual youth exploitation envelope approached me and leaned in close to ask, “You suffer from seizures?” He placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. I was so rattled by the phantasm that I was having trouble making sense of his words. “The strobes. They can trigger seizures in people. I’ve seen it happen.”
Refocusing on Suzie and the stripper, I saw that they were once more lost to his pornographic gyrations and the whooping cheers of the women seated around them.
I blinked at the hunky blond a few times and nodded. “I’m good.” A boldface lie, but one which I hoped would end his questioning me.
He gave me a pat on the back before moving off once more into the energized crowd. On his next pass, we locked eyes and a familiar energy sparked to life inside me.
For the love of God, what was my problem? From all out terror in one moment to an overwhelming desire for hot, naked flesh in the next. Being an incubus certainly came with an unpredictable set of emotions.
This latest one gripped me with such force that I reeled from a need to satisfy it. The paralyzing fear and confusion from before were gone, and I fixed on the stripper now the way a bird of prey zeroed in on its target. I took in the expanse of his impressive bare chest and lean, rippled stomach, in the way that his silver breakaway basketball pants flowed teasingly over muscular legs and other, more tantalizing, parts.
The handsome young man approached me again and leaned down to press warm lips against my ear. The contact sent an electric thrill through me.
With a nod in Suzie’s direction, he said, “For a hundred bucks, you can watch.”
The clean, male scent of his warm skin pushed me over the edge. I tilted my head back to meet his expectant gaze. “How much if we both get to party?”
The stripper pulled back and scowled. “Sorry, man, not my scene.”
The hell it isn’t. Instinct told me his macho bluster was an act. The guy might be young, but he was also shrewd…and hungry. All I had to do was sweeten the pot.
The thought of bringing this male stripper into the fun I had planned for Suzie and I later that night sent another hot, electric jolt through me. He smelled so damn good, like something raw and delicious to eat. I could even hear the blood pumping through the chambers of his heart, feel it pulsating through his veins.
The tangy scent of all that delicious blood flowing just beneath the surface of his skin made me want to reach up and sink my teeth into his neck and let all that warm, delicious spice flood my mouth. Do it now. Take him!
That voice. The cruel ring of it. The monster was still here with me, inside me, and he wanted me to hurt this young man.
Cold, metallic laughter echoed through my head.
“Get away from me!”
The stripper jerked back and stood up “What the fuck’s wrong with you, dude?”
“Austin?” Suzie was on her feet now as well. “Babe, what’s goin’ on with you?”
“I’m sorry, Miss,” the first of two bouncers who’d arrived announced, “but your friend here needs to leave the premises. Right now.”
I clambered to my feet and the bouncers nearly pounced. I held up a hand in a gesture of compliance. “It’s fine. I’ll go.”
Suzie made to follow, but I didn’t want her anywhere near me. With what I’d almost done to the stripper, who knew what might happen if she and I were alone together.
Outside the strip club, I tumbled into the rear seat of an idling taxi, “The Aria.”
The driver nodded, started the meter running, and exited the parking lot out into heavy Las Vegas Boulevard traffic.
I couldn’t shake the cold, insidious feeling taking root inside me. The monster in Prague had somehow infiltrated my mind, assumed control of my body, and he wanted…blood. What kind of creature cr
aved human blood?
My mind flashed back to what Psychic Joy had warned me about over the phone. She’d said evil was coming for me. Well, she couldn’t have been more mistaken.
Evil wasn’t coming for me. It was already here!
CHAPTER 15
I reached Hollywood as the sun was slipping behind Pacific Palisades. The fall sky held a magical quality to it that only this time of year afforded; a vibrant canvas of burnt reds and oranges that bathed the City of Angels in rich, dramatic light that reflected off the many terracotta-tiled roofs and mirrored skyscrapers dotting Wilshire Boulevard all the way from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean.
The idyllic setting was of little comfort in light of the shocking events of the previous night. The worst, I knew, was still to come—and it was waiting for me at home.
Cars lined our narrow, hillside street for blocks, with valets hustling to park and retrieve upscale automobiles. At first, I assumed Chaz Hartford, the hunky soap star who lived a few houses down from us, must be having another one of his mega bashes. The Range Rover and shiny Bentley Continental GT parked in our driveway painted a very different picture.
Mark hadn’t mentioned anything to me about a party.
An hour later, my freshly showered, uninvited self entered the main house through the front door, where I was greeted by the jaunty rhythms of South American music and animated party chatter. If the sea of tailored suits and pretty cocktail dresses were any indication, the black jeans and graphite sweater I’d thrown on were sorely out of place.
Ironic that I could feel chaffed at being excluded from my best friends’ party and also gave a rat’s ass about fashion rectitude when some Big Bad was out to get me.
With my priorities in place once more, I made my way from the foyer into the bustling living room. There was no time to waste. I had to find Mark and Christie.
I was surprised to spy a famous pop/rock star amidst the partygoers, her signature platinum hair and tattoos as sexy as her gravelly voice and fuck you attitude. She gave me a chill nod and little half-smile from within the safety of her entourage, and then turned back to her conversation with none other than Chaz Hartford.
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