Chapter 22
“A succubus,” said Mo. “It makes sense.”
It was early the next morning, before assembly. As soon as she was able after Melisande’s departure the night before, Joy had tracked Gail down and ordered her to call Mo. The three of them were in Mo’s office now. He switched on the desk lamp to dispel the gloom; not enough early-morning light struggled through the high ivy-choked windows to permit him to read from the volume of the Compendium Maleficarum that he had drawn from his shelves. He had just been consulting its information on succubi.
Joy’s terror had begun to recede in the comfortably messy surroundings, and she was intrigued to see that not all of the books and papers that crammed Mo’s office were related to music; he kept some of his supernatural reference books there as well. Apparently he was unconcerned about anyone noticing them in the general chaos.
“She doesn’t even really try to make it a secret,” said Joy. “Look at this.” She passed him a printout she had made earlier from a web page on succubi. It was illustrated with a nineteenth-century painting of a snake coiled around a voluptuous naked woman. “This is practically the same picture as that famous poster of her with the snake. It’s like she doesn’t care if we know.”
“I wanted Joy to go to Dr. Aysgarth with this,” said Gail, “but she felt that Eleanor wouldn’t listen to her. I’m afraid I agree, Mo. I wasn’t happy with the way the last council meeting left things.”
“Neither was I,” he admitted. He set the book on his desk with a thud, sat back in his leather office chair, and clasped his hands across his broad belly. His blazer was still missing the two sleeve buttons.
“Is Dr. Aysgarth the head of the council?” Joy asked. “At first I thought she was, but at the last meeting it seemed like Dr. Fellowes was in charge.”
“That’s actually a tricky question,” said Mo. “Eleanor is nominal head, as the current principal. But in practice she tends to defer to Michael if he has strong feelings about an issue. She’s not usually prone to waffling, but I think she’s still a little intimidated by Michael, since he was principal when she was a student.”
“So the whole council will fall into line with him?” asked Gail in dismay. “Even when it’s a matter of a young man’s life?”
Mo sighed. “It’s possible they’d come around, but I suspect Dr. Fellowes will take the position that this is a private dispute between Tanner and Melisande, and that no one else has the right to interfere. He can be a real tight-ass sometimes,” and Joy, worried though she was, half smiled at his bluntness. “They may also suggest that Tanner is a willing participant—that he’s benefiting from this arrangement. His liaison with Melisande has certainly brought him publicity, money, business connections—”
“You mean they’ll say that he asked for whatever happens to him?” Joy couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Mo held up his hands. “Whoa, I’m just looking at possibilities. But you have to see it from their side. The council is a pretty conservative group, after all, and they’re wary of involving Ash Grove in anything that could damage the school’s standing or otherwise put it at risk. Their responsibility is a fairly narrow one. They may even feel that with Melisande’s attentions all focused on Tanner the school is perfectly safe.”
“Until she kills him, and starts looking for new blood,” said Joy bitterly. “Isn’t there any way we can break her hold on him?”
“Not as such.” He put his reading glasses on—they magnified his already prominent eyes to an alarming degree—and riffled again through the book. “There aren’t really any foolproof devices for separating a succubus from her victim. Once she seduces a man, he pretty much stays seduced. I’ve only found one incident that offered an antidote, and it may not apply here.” He read aloud:
A handsome youth made it known to the Bishop of Aberdeen that for several months a succubus had been visiting torments upon him. This demon, who possessed beauty surpassing that of mortal women, came to the youth at night despite his locked doors. She then enticed him into embracing her and lying with her. At dawn she silently departed. The youth said that he had sought in vain for a means of ridding himself of this terrible madness. The Bishop immediately counseled the young man to remove himself to a different place, and to apply himself to fasting and prayer. The young petitioner having done this, he was freed from the vile embraces of the creature.
He clapped the book shut and removed his glasses. “Not much help: fast, pray, and get away from her. Also, that assumes the succubus is a demon and is bound by Christian tenets, and we don’t know that that’s the case with Melisande. From what she told you, Joy, it sounds like she’s a different sort of being—not one who found her way here from hell or from, say, another dimension, but one actually created by human desires and rites. That means she’s an unknown quantity.”
“Either way,” said Gail, “it sounds like Tanner’s best bet would be to put physical distance between them.”
“Which is what I tried to get him to do,” said Joy miserably. The painful thought that maybe he still found Melisande too alluring to leave her would not stop swimming into her mind. Maybe that was the real reason he’d returned to her.
It was a thought that the others had as well. “He may be too deeply in her thrall to leave her voluntarily,” said Gail. “At this point about all he can do is somehow find the will to resist her—but I gather you already told him that,” she added to Joy.
For all the good it will do, she thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Tan wanted to be faithful; it was just that she had seen how powerful an effect Melisande had on him. And when he was to all intents and purposes Melisande’s prisoner, she had every opportunity to put the whammy on him.
She thought again of the black nothingness she had seen behind the succubus’s eyes, and shivered with a cold that went straight through her soul. This was what had Tanner in its grip. A thing with no conscience, no mercy. There had to be a way to get him out of her clutches. “What if we called the police and reported child endangerment?” she almost begged.
Mo made a dubious face. “They would probably be too intimidated by Melisande’s celebrity status to follow up on it. And even if they did, would they remove Tanner from the household? I don’t want to be the doomsayer, Joy, but it’s exactly the kind of situation that could spend months tied up in red tape, without any move to extricate Tanner from her household.”
“It’s worth trying, though,” pleaded Joy. “Even just on the off chance.”
Gail gave a short nod. “You’re right. I’ll call during morning assembly. And now that we know what Melisande is, the council will want to keep a close eye on her at the very least and run her off if possible. Don’t you agree, Mo? This is essentially the same as a pedophile moving in next door to a kindergarten.”
“I’ll talk to Eleanor.” He got to his feet, signaling the end of the conversation. “I’ll approach her alone and see if I can get her to be more proactive. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, Joy.” His hand rested heavily on her shoulder for a moment. “If I think of anything that might be useful I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” she said dismally. It looked like she and Tanner were still on their own.
As predicted, the police were no help. At Gail’s insistence, they went so far as to send a patrolman out to the house with a social worker, but they evidently saw nothing to worry them. Joy begged them to make a second visit, but they dismissed her out of hand. She didn’t know if they had been snowed by Melisande’s celebrity or simply assumed Joy was trying to involve them in some teenaged drama.
It was hard for her not to let her father see how depressed and anxious she was when they visited on Skype. He picked up on the fact that something was bothering her, but she just said, “Boyfriend troubles.”
“With Tanner? He hasn’t been stupid enough to break up with you, has he?”
She tried to smile. “Not exactly. It’s complicated. But you don’t want to hear
all this. I know you want me to work things out on my own.”
He was silent for a minute. “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t have it both ways. Just… be careful, okay?”
It was a little late for that. “I’ve got it all under control,” she lied, keeping her voice brisk. “He’s in kind of a complicated situation is all, and we decided not to see each other for the time being.”
“I wish I were there and could get a proper look at you,” he said. “I can’t tell if you’re just fobbing me off with half-truths.”
“Dad, you know I’m not a fobber,” she said lightly. “When have I fobbed you before?”
His smile was wry. “Like fobber, like daughter,” he said, but he let it go.
Perhaps the only good thing in her life right now was that her dad’s health was stable. He said he had a new research project to keep him occupied between treatments, and he seemed to be stronger and more optimistic than she’d seen him in a long time. Joy was relieved beyond measure—especially since she knew she’d be giving him quite a shock in the not too distant future.
The Shadow and the Rose Page 23
