Soft, madam. I need to tell you where Grabian is and how you must help him. Are you ready to do the work of a revenant? She frowned. What have you done to him?
I’ll spare you the details. Listen carefully because I may not be able to communicate with you again. The key to Grabian’s survival is his mate. She blinked. Meical has a mate?
Yes, and at some point, you’re going to have to help her get to him because he’s going to do something very stupid, and she won’t be able to reach him in time to save him without some help.
Talisen sat up. Okay, I’m listening. What do I do first?
I knew I could count on you.
That seemed to surprise her. Neshi watched her expression soften. Hey…I think you should know…there’s an Ancient called Badru hunting you.
I know. We have no time to discuss it. The sun is climbing, and I’m weakening. This is what you need to do for Grabian. There is a human you must contact.
Okay, just show me.
He filled her mind with phone numbers, locations, faces and voices, everything she needed to know, everything she needed to do, everything she needed to tell Ellory when he revived, and a myriad of tasks only a revenant could do in a vampire’s place.
Who’s the doctor for? she asked. Meical’s mate?
Yes, and…there is someone else who may need his help before this is all over. I will explain everything to him. You just do what I have asked you to do.
Wait. What about Badru? Is there a way to get rid of him?
Neshi couldn’t help but laugh. You’re asking me, the one you regard as your enemy?
Better the devil you know…
Neshi laughed again. There is nothing you can do about Badru. But I can vouch for his nature. He is high-minded, but not evil. I know him well, and have, for a very long time.
Neshi, who is this guy to you?
He withdrew from her without answering. Sleep was upon him.
What were these “options” Neshi had mentioned? Meical wondered. His only way out was to strengthen himself.
Impossible.
The least he could do was warn Caroline. If he could pick up on her life force from here, he might connect with her long enough to do that much. He rested his head against the icy wall and closed his eyes.
There. Wrapped around his soul, a thread of her very essence vibrated between them. He had their oneness to thank for that. He followed the fragile trail, lost it and fell back into nothingness, then tried again.
The brilliant colors of a sunset filled his mind’s eye, and the image of a large, rambling edifice shimmered and firmed into gables and windows. Meical could sense Caroline’s presence inside the house. He clung to the vision, trying to ascertain its location. Woods. That was all he could see beyond the clearing that surrounded the old house.
A tainted cloud blotted out the sunlight, darker than the coming night, and Meical focused on its source. Her enemy was approaching, but Meical was too weak to discern how soon he’d reach Caroline. He focused his will on touching her mind.
Caroline.
He sensed the way she paused as though to listen. He could almost see her…touch her…
Caroline, you’re in danger. You must hide. I can’t get to you yet, but…I will…
The effort to push the words at her mind bled his strength from him and he had to let it all go. The image faded except for the darkness that crept closer to Caroline.
He had to find the strength to get to her, whatever the cost to him. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but seeing that she was safe.
A hushed whisper sounded from the darkness of the mine.
Meical fell still and eyed the blackness beyond the lantern. Suddenly the whisper rushed past his face. He gasped and jerked aside. Someone was here with him.
A warm fragrant breath touched his cheek. Here, sugar boy.
Meical found himself staring into a pair of glinting black eyes six inches away from his face. Beautiful, winsome eyes.
She glimmered from head to toe, not quite opaque, and slowly materialized, crouching beside him in a long lavender gown of wispy, nearly transparent material. Exquisite…an angel with chocolate-colored skin…and that fragrance…it lulled his mind into thoughts of…
Meical sucked in his breath and felt his head spin. “What are you?”
“I,” she replied, “am a succubus. Benemerut asked me to look you over and see if there was something I could do for you.”
“So, you’re like me, then?”
“No, sugar boy. I’m the real thing. You’re a conversion model.” She crossed her arms and gave him a meticulous once-over. Her gaze touched him as though her hands would follow in their wake. “I see Ben hasn’t lost his touch for the dramatic.”
Meical drew his legs together and winced. “Neshi mentioned two ways out of my predicament. You’re one of them?”
“Yes, and you’ll like me better than your other choice.”
“All I care about is saving Caroline.”
“You’ll have a chance to do that, no matter what choice you make.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “So, shall I fix you?”
Fix him? Meical cleared his throat. “Doesn’t that mean we have to…um…”
“Yes, doll, it does.” Her eyes glittered like gold for an instant. “But you can think of her every minute, if you like. It won’t hurt my feelings. I’m doing this as a favor for Ben.”
It was tidy. Smart. Foolproof. He’d be strong enough to save Caroline. He’d have the rest of his existence to protect her…love her…
Except for one problem.
He smiled slowly at the ethereal beauty before him. “I’m sorry. I can’t…be with another woman. Only Caroline.”
She quirked a brow at him. “You sound surprised.”
“I want to survive long enough to protect her. That’s all. But I have to do it with a clear conscience.”
The succubus tilted her head and looked at him with true sorrow in her eyes. “Are you sure? I am your chance to survive forever. Your other choice…” she frowned and stood up with an air of queenly impatience “…will make you unfit for her. And then you’ll die.”
Unfit for her? What did that mean?
“Life or death?” she prodded.
Meical let his gaze fall and eyed her brown bare feet. His gaze caught on the silver ankle bracelet she wore. It twinkled in the light of the lantern like Caroline’s eyes.
Life or death? Neshi was right. He’d existed between the two for centuries, and all the while, honor had seemed so far from him. Once it had been as important to him as his very soul. He had let it go over these long years past, as though it were merely some earthly vestige.
Until Caroline. She had brought out the best in him.
But saving himself at the cost of what little honor he had left seemed the coward’s way out.
“She’ll be all right without me,” he murmured. “She’ll be all right. She just needs my help now, in this moment.”
The succubus crouched again, her eyes alight with a fire almost too robust for Meical to bear. It seeped into his mind, his body—but not his heart.
She flattened her hand on his chest and leaned closer. Meical felt her sift through his thoughts, memories, feelings…his very soul…as delicately as a surgeon with a scalpel. Whatever she was looking for was a mystery to him, but she nodded, as though she’d found it.
“Listen, sugar boy, this girl is your heart’s song. No matter what happens, you just remember, you’ve saved her once already.”
“I have?” Meical swallowed hard. “When?”
Her eyes twinkled, but she shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. But this I know. If things go badly for you tonight, don’t lose hope. You won’t always be without her. The two of you are meant to be together.”
Meical’s heart ached to believe her words. “Thank you.”
She looked him up and down again. “I told Ben I wouldn’t toy with you. And I won’t. Bu
t I didn’t tell him I wouldn’t help you along a little. It won’t be enough to get you out of this, but it might help you with your second choice.”
Before Meical could draw his next breath, the succubus pressed her lips to his and poured an ancient flame into every inch of him. Fire and power. In an instant, he was fit to burst. He gasped in an exquisite heat that boiled his blood.
All for Caroline. Only for her.
His strength flooded into his muscles and bones so fast that his head spun. He was still gasping with relief when he realized the succubus had gone. Satiation brought restful sleep he couldn’t escape. His eyes closed, and he laid his head back and drifted in and out of gossamer mists, fragrant with Caroline’s scent. He didn’t know how long he slept, but when he came to, he wasn’t alone.
“You thought you were tough. Now look at you, freak.”
Meical’s senses cleared enough for him to recognize who that voice belonged to. What was he doing here? He peered through the half light. Before him swam a trio of human-looking apes. He concentrated on the one in the middle, and a moment later, his triple vision cleared and he could see.
“Hicks, you have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Hicks snorted. “You’re the one who’s chained to a wall. I’m working for Neshi now.”
Neshi wouldn’t. Not Hicks. What was he thinking?
“The Alchemist doesn’t make servants out of vermin; he dines on them.”
Hicks curled his lip up at Meical and swaggered closer—close enough for Meical to see the glint in the little snake’s eyes. The flushed face, the gleaming gaze, the bounce in Hicks’s tread…he nearly floated off the ground with every step he took. But it couldn’t be possible.
How many centuries had come and gone since the Alchemist had created a revenant? His staunch determination to guard the power in his veins was the one reassurance the vampire community had that he was still sane, unlike others who had lived longer than a millennium. Like every revenant, Hicks was now a dangerous weapon against vampires, a deadly hybrid with a human’s imperviousness to the sun and whatever power and abilities his maker had bequeathed him. Even if Neshi had withheld most of his power from Hicks, it was madness to choose such a vessel for that kind of treasure.
Or was it?
Neshi never did anything without a reason. Hicks was somehow part of his endgame, here to serve a purpose in Neshi’s plans for Meical, a purpose he could only serve as a revenant.
When the realization hit him, Meical smothered a bitter laugh. This was Neshi’s plan B. He’d said that pure human blood would kill Meical, but the blood of a new revenant was both human and that of his vampire creator. With that potent mix, Meical could survive to save Caroline.
But only until sunrise. This was what the succubus had meant when she said his second choice would mean his death. The Alchemist’s fail-safe would be inescapable. But at least he would die as he lived. As a vampire.
It was just like Neshi to leave his wayward lab rat a morsel, something to tempt him to gnaw and claw his way out of his cage, even though it could end only in one way. It was no less than the proverbial “gentleman’s way out”—a loaded pistol that provided an honorable death.
Hicks, then, was his loaded pistol.
He followed the revenant with his eyes. “I see you’ve been recruited. Congratulations. You have a stunning, if brief, existence to look forward to.”
Hicks pounded his chest with his fist. “No way. I’m going to live forever. He said so.”
Meical watched the beads of sweat on Hicks’s face glint under the lantern light. “He lied.”
Hicks’s face contorted with rage. “He wouldn’t lie to me! He needs me. And after I’m finished helping him, I’ll help myself—to anything I want. Nobody can stop me. Things are going to change around here.”
Meical gave his chains a subtle pull. He could feel them give way a little. At least some of his strength had returned, thanks to the succubus’s kiss. “If Neshi needed you, he would have made you an incubus like me.”
Hicks looked petulant. “He refused to.”
“That’s because you’re not cut out to replace me. But you make a useful slave.”
Grumbling to himself, Hicks came nearer. There was too much caution in his face, for Meical’s comfort. He sank down on his haunches and leaned in close—but not close enough—and his face flushed red-blue with a sheen of new sweat. “I don’t have to wait on him to give me what I want, freak. I can do whatever I want.”
“Except make an incubus out of yourself.”
Hicks eyed him with less confidence.
Meical closed his eyes and said no more. At the moment, the only thing keeping Hicks’s greed in check was his spinelessness. That wouldn’t last long. A revenant’s natural inclination to test his limits would lead the idiot right over the edge.
“Ouch!”
Caroline gasped as she hit the hardwood floor. Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the shadowy vaulted ceiling of the living room in Millie’s old family home.
She sat up with a wince and scowled at her prosthetic leg. One screwup like this while facing off with Burke, and she’d be dead. Her only hope was to stay out of his reach long enough to use his fear against him. And she couldn’t do that on crutches.
The attic. That was her only high ground. She eyed the long stairway that rose from the living room upward to the second story. There was a third story above that. And then the attic.
The last time she’d climbed stairs, she’d had both legs.
She’d have to slow Burke down, weaken him somehow, if those stairs were going to be as hard for him as they were for her.
Dragging herself to her feet, she held her hands out in front of herself and took a few careful steps, trying to ignore the pain in her swelling half-leg. It felt so weird to trust her weight to a foot she couldn’t feel.
The sound of her cell phone ringing nearly made her fall again. So soon? She needed more time.
She plucked her phone from the table by the couch and answered it. “I’m here.”
“I must say,” Burke murmured, “you’ve chosen a strange place for us to do this. I’d have thought you’d want to spare your friends the heartache.”
He must have tailed her from John and Millie’s cabin. Of course. He wouldn’t risk losing her by letting her out of his sight for even a minute.
Time to sharpen her ax.
“No one comes out here,” she coaxed. “There will be no interference. Nothing to mar our moment. You’ve scanned the area by now. So you know I haven’t got anyone watching for your arrival. No tricks. No surprises. Just you and me, Burke. One. On. One.”
Caroline was quick to pick up on the fleeting trace of fear in him. What chord had she struck? Was it the thought of being alone with her?
She tested him. “You aren’t walking into an ambush.”
His fear morphed into icy rage, and his whisper sliced through her. “Better not be.”
Was that what he was afraid of? An ambush? She dug deep, absorbing the sickening fear that drenched him. She could practically feel him sweating. Trauma, old and deep, provoked the rage in him. She followed it to its source, to a memory from a time before Burke saw himself as someone powerful.
A little boy ran through a jungle, dodging rubber bullets. Faces covered with camouflage paint peered at him through the bushes as he ran past them. Guns rang out. A bullet nicked his ankle, and he screamed but ran on.
Caroline let the boy’s terror suck her into the memory just long enough to catch a panted whisper of his thoughts, and then she recoiled from the scene as quickly as she could claw her way out of it.
She had a way to fight him now. “Trying to ambush you would be a mistake.”
“One you’d pay for.”
“Just like they made you pay for your mistakes.”
His silence was both scary and satisfying.
She pushed him. “Little boys who made mistakes were used for targ
et practice, weren’t they, Burke? You were fast enough to survive, so they let you live. Then they made you a killer.”
He was close to exploding, barely hanging on to his balance. “They made me a warrior, strong enough to deserve the right to live.”
“But you aren’t strong. You depend on guns. I don’t. I’m going to beat you my way.”
He recovered his composure way too quickly. “I don’t know how you know these things about me, Caroline. You really understand me. I won’t enjoy killing you.”
“But you never enjoy the killing. You have a panic attack seconds before you pull the trigger. Panic, pleasure and pain. Yours. Your victim’s. It doesn’t matter. It feels the same to you, and you crave it. But as much as you want to be powerful, you’re not. You’re just scared and angry.”
“You have until sundown. To show you how lenient I am and how fair I can be, I won’t wear my night gear.”
“I tried to warn you. I won’t kill you because I’m not like you. But I’m going to make you wish you were dead.”
Even as he laughed, Caroline felt the tendrils of fear twisting around his throat. She pressed the phone closer to her mouth and shoved her anger at him, “I’ll be waiting for you.”
She slammed her cell phone down.
Sundown. What did that give her? Three hours? Maybe four? She glanced out a window and then at the mantel clock and eyed the stairs with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She had to slow him down and make him feel vulnerable. That was the only way to make him susceptible to his fear.
She began by raiding the kitchen.
The pantry yielded a few canned vegetables, a cracked glass vase and an empty fire extinguisher. The cabinets revealed two place settings of chipped china and some plastic forks. She rifled through the silverware drawers, hoping to find a carving knife. No luck.
But she did find a screwdriver, along with a rusty, Y-shaped cheese cutter missing its cutting wire, and a huge rubber band that still had some stretch to it.
Caroline dragged her finds into a heap in the kitchen floor. There was a garage out back. What would she find there?
Incubus Page 17
