It could have been worse, I told myself repeatedly. Dad could walk, and he would go where he was led for the most part. He could feed himself, though he had to be repeatedly reminded to take the next bite. We were—as far as I could tell from my brief stay so far—safe here.
And given the events of the past few weeks, that last one was kind of a biggie.
Even so, once the red-hued sun went down, none of it was enough to keep me from wanting to cry. For a long time, I lay on my simple pallet bed—one of two such beds in the hut’s back room—and fought the urge. Eventually, though, I asked myself why I was bothering. Who was I trying to impress? Myself? Dad? Ha. What a joke.
Unable to hold back the tears any longer, I let them trickle down my cheeks as I thought about everything—everyone—I’d lost. Some pathetic part of me that was still six years old hoped Dad would magically snap out of his fugue state to comfort me, upon hearing the quiet hitching of my breath from across the room. Another joke.
In the last twenty years, my father had expressed concern for me on precisely one occasion. And it was quite possible that on the occasion in question, he’d either been under the control of, or in league with, the Fae. Unsurprisingly, there was no reaction from the other pallet as I dripped tears and snot all over my lumpy pillow. I couldn’t tell if Dad was awake or asleep, but at this point it hardly mattered.
He was sleepwalking through life, regardless. I needed to be careful that I didn’t end up doing the same.
* * *
The following morning dawned cool and dry, though the red sun already held the promise of heat. Despite my post-crying headache, I got Dad situated in his chair and went to draw a fresh bucket of water from the nearest public spigot.
When I returned, Myrial was seated in a second chair across from Dad’s, examining him as though he were the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
“Erm...” I said uncertainly, setting the bucket down inside the door.
Myrial looked up. “Oh, hello dear. Settling in all right, I take it?”
Her eyes took in my appearance in a single glance. This wasn’t the sort of place where one wore makeup, and I hadn’t even bothered to scrub a wet cloth over my face yet. I had no doubt that my puffy eyes and splotchy complexion advertised to the world that I’d spent last night blubbering like a little girl, but until this moment, I honestly hadn’t cared.
Suddenly, I did.
“Oh, yeah—we’re doing great here,” I lied. “Lovely place, I can see why the demons like it so much. So... um... what are you doing here, exactly?”
She looked surprised. “I told you I hoped we’d have the chance to talk more. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
There was no place for me to sit—she and Dad were taking up the only two chairs. I hitched a hip against a table set against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest. “Okay. What did you want to talk about?”
“Any number of things,” Myrial said unhelpfully. “However, the most important topic centers around your mother. How much do you know about her, really?”
“Not nearly as much as I thought I did when I was growing up, as it turns out,” I replied in a dry tone. “Though I’ve been filling in the gaps more recently.”
The demon nodded. “You might be wondering why I asked you about her maiden name, when we spoke in St. Louis.”
I hadn’t been, particularly. In point of fact, I’d been a bit more concerned with the people shooting at us at the time. Looking back, though, it did seem a rather odd choice of question under the circumstances.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll bite. Why did you ask me about my mother’s maiden name?”
Myrial rose, and it occurred to me that she’d kept her human-like form even though we were in Hell. Now, though, instead of high fashion, she wore a loose tunic and trousers with sandals.
“I asked because I needed to be sure,” she said... and just like that, her form shifted before my eyes.
I blinked, because all of the sudden I was looking at Grandpa Hawkins. The one who’d disappeared, leaving my mentally ill grandmother alone with a new baby. A half-demon baby. Because my maternal grandfather... had been an incubus.
Holy fuck.
“No,” I said stupidly, staring at a face that looked like it had stepped straight out of family photos from fifty years ago.
I hadn’t seen the resemblance before, and I should have. The figure in front of me was nothing more than a male version of the woman I’d been talking to moments before. Chestnut hair, dark brown eyes, average height, average build. The sharp bone structure that placed Myrial’s female form on the striking end of the spectrum rather than the classically beautiful one, now translated into hawkishly attractive male features.
I pushed away from the table, feeling my hands clench into fists at my sides.
“You did this,” I accused. “All of this. You’re responsible for everything that’s happened to my family in the last five decades.”
“Hardly everything,” said my grandfather, his gaze turning back to my father. “I think the Fae bear some responsibility for things, too—don’t you?”
But I didn’t want to talk about the Fae right now.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why would you come into my grandmother’s life, stomp all over the Fae treaty, and then just... leave?” I gestured angrily, my arm encompassing both Dad and myself.
Myrial regarded me steadily. “I did what I did because I was in love with a human.”
“Bullshit!” I flared. “You left Grandma a broken mess. She was a white woman whose white husband left her, immediately after she gave birth to a mixed race baby! Do you have any idea what kind of consequences that had for her? She committed suicide when I was thirteen!”
“I know she did.” Myrial’s brows drew together as though my words pained him. “It’s true I didn’t understand the implications of getting DNA from a man with a different skin color. But the only reason I left Joan was because if I’d stayed, my presence would have killed her before much longer. She was giving me too much of her animus. She couldn’t feed me while also providing for a cambion infant.”
I gaped at him. “You mean my mother was draining Grandma, too?”
Myrial gave me a grim smile. “It’s what incubi and succubi do, as you’re no doubt beginning to learn.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Hard. “This is insane.”
A hoarse whisper sliced through the tension. “You...”
The word didn’t come from Myrial. I dropped my hand and whirled toward my father. He was frowning absently, looking up at Myrial, who still stood a few steps in front of him.
“Dad?” I was on the floor, crouching in front of him in a blink.
He continued to look past me, staring at Myrial as though trying to figure out a puzzle. I gently cupped his chin, tilting his head down so he was looking at me instead. His frown deepened.
“Tha’s not right,” he slurred. “Can’t both be here.” His hazel eyes flitted between my face and the demon behind me several times, then started to lose focus again. “Dreaming...” he murmured, before slipping back into his fugue state.
“Dad!” I gave his shoulder a sharp shake, but it was too late. He was gone again.
I slumped forward, resting my forehead against my father’s knee.
“Zorah—” Myrial began, but I cut him off.
“No. Stop talking. In fact, I think you should leave. I can’t do this right now. Come back later.”
Or don’t, I silently added, because I’m really not sure how much more of this shit I can take.
But Myrial wasn’t done. “I might be able to help your father. He obviously recognizes both of us, so his mind isn’t completely gone. If I bound him to me, I could send him healing energy—”
“Leave,” I said. “I told you I’m not having this conversation right now.”
“I can see that you’re upset,” Myrial tried.
I turned my puffy, tear-stained face toward him
. “You fucking think? Yes, I’m upset! So please... get... out.”
Myrial frowned, and a moment later I was alone in the hut with my father as the demon disappeared between one heartbeat and the next. I turned back to the man who had raised me, giving him another small shake.
“Dad?” I asked.
There was no response.
NINETEEN
I HADN’T BEEN kidding when I said I wasn’t up to dealing with this new revelation on top of everything else. Not sure what else to do, I did my best to put it out of my mind. Instead, I focused on the fact that my father had shown a flash of relative clarity not just once, but twice now.
Without giving the details of the exchange that had led up to Dad’s apparent recognition of both of us, I told the elder who was visiting us that afternoon what had happened, using general terms. I privately thought the ‘elder’ part was a bit misleading, since the man who’d knocked on the door and asked to see my father was perhaps in his early forties.
Still, he seemed kind and knowledgeable. He also seemed much more interested in helping Dad than in prying up gossip-worthy details about my background and presence here in Hell. That alone was enough to earn him serious brownie points in my book.
Li Wei was Chinese, and while no one in Hell was in the business of handing out advanced degrees in psychology—or anything else—it was clear from his manner and the questions he asked that he’d made quite a study of the human condition during his life. Or, more specifically, the titheling condition.
“I find it encouraging that he has shown recognition on two separate occasions,” he said. “I think it may be beneficial for you to speak to him as often as possible, asking questions and reminiscing about the past.”
I nodded, since that made sense. I’d heard the same thing about coma patients and people with traumatic brain injuries. “All right. I can do that.”
“Perhaps we could also get him out of the hut for a little while every day,” Li Wei continued. “A change of surroundings may help to draw his focus outward.”
“I can do that, too.” I’d noticed that the people here used the word ‘we’ a lot, when talking about projects or things that needed to be done. It was different enough from my experience living in the human realm that it still tended to throw me.
Li Wei tilted his head, considering me. “With all this focus on your father, may I ask how you are faring here? I may not have lived on Earth in a very long time, but I gather it’s quite a different place than our little corner of Hell.”
The question warmed me. Something about Li Wei just seemed to inspire confidence, so I decided to ask a couple of the questions that had been burning holes in my mind.
“I’m... hanging in there, I guess you’d say,” I told him—mostly truthfully. “I’ve got a couple of questions, though, and I’m not sure if they’re offensive or not.”
Li Wei’s eyebrows went up, and amusement crept into his tone. “Intriguing. Go ahead and ask, in that case. I’ll do my best not to show any affront.”
“Right,” I muttered. “First question. The demon that visited us this morning. She... he? Argh. Succubus pronouns.”
Li Wei snorted at my verbal floundering.
“Anyway,” I went on, “this demon has... a history with my family, as you might have gathered. He offered to try to help Dad by forming a soul-bond with him and pushing healing energy on him, whatever that means.”
At that, Li Wei looked surprised. “Indeed? That’s a rather unusual offer.”
I nodded. “I wondered if it might be. Nigellus said demons didn’t generally bind tithelings. He made it sound, if not taboo, then at least as if it was frowned upon.”
Li Wei made a yes-and-no gesture with one hand. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. It just doesn’t really come up very often. With limited exceptions, the demons mostly let us be. They help us when we need assistance with something, and they provide us some extras like textiles, and metal, and blood wine, but there’s not a lot of contact beyond that.”
I filed that information away. “All right. So—don’t get me wrong. I’ve got no reason to suspect this demon of anything more sinister than wanting to help. But, just so I have a better grasp on what he was offering, could you tell me a bit more about soul-bonds? Specifically, with someone like my father who has some mental... issues, could a random demon just swoop in one day and bind his soul?”
Li Wei laughed softly. “No, no, my dear. It doesn’t work like that. Not at all. A soul-bond requires the genuine consent of a mentally competent human. Now, to be fair, mental competence in this instance is judged magically, rather than by some set of arbitrary tests. But the short answer is that your father would have to agree to the binding and truly mean it, or it couldn’t happen.”
I relaxed marginally. Without meaning to, I found myself thinking back to that hazy, pain-filled day in the Fae Court when Rans had stormed in like an avenging angel and swept me into a life-bond.
If you want to get out of here alive, trust me and swallow, he’d said as he pressed his bleeding hand against my mouth. And... I had. There’d been a choice, of sorts—I could have turned my head away and spat out his blood. But I’d also had no idea what I was agreeing to. As genuine consent went, that seemed pretty iffy to me.
“How sure are you about that?” I asked.
Li Wei looked taken aback, but to his credit he appeared to give his answer serious thought. “I’m... not quite certain how to answer you. It’s the understanding I’ve always had, and I’ve never encountered anything to make me question it.”
I could’ve pressed him further, but it didn’t seem like there would be much point. Besides, I had another question that needed an answer sooner rather than later.
“Okay, let’s leave that for the moment,” I said. “My second potentially offensive question is about sex. Specifically, about the attitudes toward it here.”
The older man raised an eyebrow. “Well, we’re in Hell, so...”
I snorted. “Right, but I’m going to need a more detailed answer than that. I’m guessing everyone here knows what I am by now, since gossip seems to travel at the speed of light in this place.”
I could feel my cheeks heating, but Li Wei gave an ‘ah’ of understanding.
“You are speaking of feeding as incubi and succubi do?” he asked.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said in relief, since he at least didn’t seem to be angry. “Except there’s a complication.”
“Oh?”
I’d thought about this a lot over the past couple of days. The conclusion I’d come to was... well... completely ridiculous, really. But it was also the solution that worked for me—my conscience, my self-respect.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “My grandfather may have been an incubus, but I grew up as a human, and I have no interest in meaningless sex with no emotion behind it.”
I swallowed the ache that stabbed through me at those words, but even if our sexual exploits had only been a bit of fun and a temporary escape for Rans, they’d meant more than that to me. I wasn’t about to turn into a tramp with no standards, just because it was the easy way out.
Li Wei shrugged. “Many of the older humans here share a similar outlook. What are you asking me, exactly?”
Taking a deep breath, I began to outline what I’d come up with. “I’ve noticed there aren’t many women here, compared to the number of men. I’m guessing that’s because most of the Fae changelings have been male, so they took male human babies in exchange?”
I still wasn’t completely certain, but my impression on Dhuinne had been that Unseelie Fae were male and Seelie Fae were female. If so, it made sense that the Unseelie changeling presence on Earth was male, and so were the human tithelings they’d replaced.
“Yes, that’s right,” Li Wei replied. “With a very small number of exceptions, our women and girls were all born here. And with so few women to start with, there aren’t many natural-born children in Hell.”
I nodded. “So,
the question is, what would the attitude be toward some kind of public display with erotic overtones? Would men come to watch, knowing that I’d be drawing a small amount of animus from each of them, but that I wouldn’t actually be having sex with any of them afterward?”
Li Wei snorted. “I assume you were actually acquainted with some human men on Earth, yes?”
“Uh... yes?” I answered.
He shook his head at me, clearly amused. “I think it’s a near-certainty that many of the younger men here would flock to such a spectacle.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “In fact, I’ll send someone here later today who I believe might be interested in helping you with such a thing.”
“All right,” I said. “Thanks. I honestly wasn’t sure whether to expect orgies in the street, or the threat of stoning.”
He laughed aloud. “Neither, I’m afraid. People here get up to whatever they like behind closed doors. The women tend to have their pick of partners, for the most part, and many of the men seek relief with other men, even if it’s not their natural preference, because of the population imbalance. But I daresay you’ll be able to work something out. As long as everything is aboveboard and you don’t drain enough energy from any individual person to weaken them, no one here cares what you get up to. And as I said, I suspect gaining an enthusiastic audience for whatever you have in mind won’t be a problem.”
Well, at least that was something.
“Thank you,” I said.
The temptation to ignore my need for other people’s sexual energy and the issues that came with it was strong, but I had a very practical reason for wanting a top-off. I needed to know as soon as possible if I was going to be able to get through the portal to Earth under my own steam, and my best chance of doing so was to strengthen my inner succubus as much as I possibly could.
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 47
