Incubus

by Janet Elizabeth Jones

  “I take it you’re Talisen and Ellory.”

  “Yes,” came a female voice in the dark. “We’ve come to help. Ellory, the lights, please.”

  “Certainly, love.”

  Caroline heard Ellory snap his fingers, and every light in the attic came on, and every light in the hall beyond, and as far as she could see with the spots in her eyes, every light in the house.

  She blinked at the gorgeous pair before her, took one look at their translucent skin and gleaming eyes, and for the first time since she’d pulled Meical out of the snow, understood why he and Neshi were so physically beautiful, so perfect and so impervious to the elements.

  Except for the sun.

  “We don’t have much time, do we?” she said. “It’ll be sunrise soon. I have to get to Meical before the sun comes up.”

  Ellory nodded and swept her up in his arms. “First things first. Neshi’s calling the shots for us this evening, and his orders are to wait for Dr. Calvin.”

  He floated out the door with her and down the stairs.

  “We can’t wait. Meical needs me now.”

  “Neshi was adamant. You’re going nowhere before Dr. Calvin has the chance to check you over.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for your help. I’m glad we have you to count on.”

  “Meical and Ellory are like brothers,” said Talisen. “Ellory helped Meical survive his fledgling days.”

  “So Meical hasn’t been completely alone?”

  Talisen shrugged. “Meical is Meical. He’s a loner by nature, and that’s a part of him that didn’t change when he was turned. He’s like family to us, but he has his secrets. He’s very much on his own.”

  Ellory settled her on the living room couch and put a hand on her forehead. Her stomach ceased its gurgling and settled down. She felt a calm slip over her, but when she looked up at the vampire, he was as white as a sheet and staring at her belly.

  She pulled a pillow over her middle. “Please don’t freak. I don’t think I can handle vampire hysterics. I have enough of the human kind, all right?”

  A smile touched his mouth, and tenderness shone in his eyes. He straightened and exchanged a glance with Talisen, who suddenly clasped her hands to her mouth and started crying. She sat down and pulled Caroline into her embrace and held her.

  “If it’s the last thing we do on this earth,” said Talisen, “we’ll see that you and Meical survive.”

  Ellory cut a glance at the door. “Ah, there he is now.”

  “Who?” asked Caroline.

  Ellory waved his hand at the door. It creaked open. John, physician’s bag in hand, stood on the porch with his free hand still poised as he reached for the doorknob. Caroline beamed at him. The sight of him was a balm to her nerves.

  He cleared his throat and strode in, shooed Talisen aside, set his bag on the coffee table and sat down beside Caroline.

  When he met her gaze, she saw something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Hectic night we’re having, isn’t it?”

  “Sorry we don’t have time to compare notes. I guess Neshi sent for you?”

  “Something like that—besides the surprise visit I got this morning from Talisen here. Let’s just say, thanks to Neshi, I’m now on the same page with you, give or take a couple of special instructions for me. Doctor stuff, you know.”

  He rolled the leg of her jeans up and examined her stump. Satisfied, he folded the leg of her jeans and safety-pinned it in place above her knee. Taking a pungent-smelling disinfectant and swabs out of his bag, he examined the place where Burke’s bullet had nicked her good leg. He cleaned and bandaged it, checked her blood pressure and finally turned his attention on the bite wound on her neck.

  Caroline half turned away from him and covered the bite with her hand. “It’s okay.”

  He pulled her hand away from her neck. “No, it’s not.”

  “Actually,” put in Ellory, “there’s no need to clean a vampire’s bite. We don’t carry germs.”

  “With all due respect,” John replied soberly, “Caroline is in no condition to take a chance on an infection.”

  After doctoring her neck, he disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a shot of seltzer for her. “Where’s your prosthesis?”

  She downed the seltzer. “Upstairs somewhere.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “If it’s all shot up, I’m going to cry.”

  “You and me both, kiddo.”

  John headed up the stairs.

  “So, where to?” Ellory asked.

  “An abandoned house on the outskirts of El Paso.” She ran her hand over her half leg. “This is part of what happened to me there; Meical is the reason I survived it. He’s gone there because he thinks I don’t have the courage to follow him. I just don’t see how we’ll get there in time.”

  Talisen gave her a half smile. “You won’t like our method of travel, but it works really well when you have to be somewhere in a hurry.”

  John hollered from upstairs, “Found it. And it’s in one piece. Now get going.”

  He appeared at the top of the stairs and lobbed Caroline’s prosthetic leg down to Ellory, who caught it and handed it to Caroline. She put it on, and Ellory picked her up again.

  “Deep breath,” he warned. “It’s better if you close your eyes.”

  Caroline filled her lungs with as much air as she could hold and kept her gaze on John, who stood at the top of the stairway, looking down at her with a world of worry in his eyes. He disappeared in a shower of gold and silver.

  For a moment she felt as though she were being sucked through a straw. Then the entire world blurred together, collapsed around her as though it would crush them all, and she found herself looking down an endless tube of color, light and deafening sound. She thought her lungs would explode.

  Neshi stood atop a barren desert mesa, five miles away from Meical’s location—close enough to keep Badru away, if necessary. He had no doubt that Badru would come. It was only a matter of how fast his little brother could replenish himself and get there. Badru would also have reckoned—and rightly—that the only way to get to Meical was to go through Benemerut.

  His little brother appeared almost within reach of him. He looked so young and impetuous. It was as if he’d come to goad Neshi into a wrestling match in their father’s vineyard. He sprang like a young lion, but Neshi caught him and held him at arm’s length.

  “Let me give you back the sun, Badru.”

  “I can’t let them survive. You know that.”

  Whispering an incantation, Badru vanished. Seconds later, he dropped out of the dark and slung Neshi to the ground. Neshi turned himself into sand and whisked himself away on the wind. When he materialized, his brother locked arms with him again in midair.

  The bloody tears in Badru’s eyes caught his gaze. He wanted to clasp Badru in his arms and hold him until his rage was spent, just as he had done so many times when his little brother’s temper had gotten the best of him.

  Badru’s slashing blow caught him by surprise. Blood spurted from his belly, and he plummeted out of the sky. Badru caught him before he hit the ground and wrestled him down, murmuring an enchantrex.

  Neshi felt his strength drain away with every ancient word.

  Too late, Neshi felt his brother’s nimble-fingered divination spell exposing the one secret he’d resolved to take with him to the afterlife.

  Badru’s eyes widened, and his voice sounded hoarse with disbelief. “How could you do this?”

  Neshi made a weak attempt to catch him by the throat. “Where is your mercy? We speak of a child’s life!”

  The pain and weakness of the enchantrex eclipsed everything, striking him mute. Neshi lay motionless while his brother opened the earth beneath him. He felt himself fall backward, as though he would fall forever. The last glimpse he had of his brother was to watch him shoot off in Meical’s direction.

  The earth closed over Neshi, bringing darkness. The incant
ation wove through every vein, threading every sinew with numbness as hard as concrete. Icy fingers reached deeper into his body and soul than the day-death. His heart stuttered, jerked and stuttered again. One beat. Two.

  Meical…Caroline…forgive me…

  The icy dark consumed him.

  Caroline gulped down the desert air, feeling like she’d been trapped underwater.

  “Sorry. It’s hardest on the stomach, I’m afraid.”

  Caroline looked up at Ellory, who was still holding her. “No, I’m okay.”

  He set her on the ground and held her up until her legs quit wobbling. “Just breathe for a minute and get your bearings. Are you sure this is the place?”

  Her legs felt like sponge cake. No time for that. Taking a deep breath, she switched on her flashlight and turned in a circle—slowly—to take in her surroundings. “This is it.”

  Her feeble gold beam made little peepholes in the darkness, revealing bits and pieces of an image terror had burned into her mind. The house looked so much the same, she thought for a moment she’d stepped back in time.

  It could have been the same pile of tumbleweeds crowding around the front door. The broken-out windows stared back at her. The desolate, silent desert stretched to the horizon around them. In the distance, the yellow glow of El Paso’s lights and the blue twinkle of Juarez’s street lamps sparkled. The only other light was the white gleam of the moon.

  Caroline tried to block out the panic that assaulted her and concentrated on searching the area for a hint of life. What she picked up on was a force of will, rage, anger and old, old hunger. Where was her Meical in that maelstrom? She had less than an hour to save him.

  She drew a tremulous breath and opened her mouth to speak, but Ellory beat her to it.

  “He’s here,” he whispered. “But he’s definitely not right. I’m coming in with you.”

  She turned and shook her head at him, mortified. “You can’t. I have to do this myself. Sunrise is coming. You’ve done what you can.”

  “He’s not himself. I’d be a fool to let you do this alone.”

  Caroline turned a beseeching gaze on Talisen. The revenant studied her face for a minute, then tugged Ellory’s hand. “She understands Meical better than we do. And she’s right. The sun will be up in a few minutes.”

  Ellory caught Caroline’s hand in his. “You carry our hopes with you. Save him, if you can. If you can’t, you needn’t mourn alone. For love of him, we’ll watch over you for as long as you live.”

  He kissed her hand, and in the next instant, the two of them vanished.

  Caroline curled her fingers around her flashlight, closed her eyes and sent her entire being into the house, straight to the pocket of misery seething in the dark, somewhere within.

  Neshi was right. Meical wasn’t ready to know about the baby. It could push all the wrong buttons inside of him.

  Meical flinched and grew still. She could sense how stunned he was that she’d come to save him.

  And how angry.

  The clouds boiled overhead. The air around her grew heated. Lightning roared over the mountains in the distance. Meical’s energy seemed to convulse, and for a moment she thought she caught the sound of his groan.

  His voice poured into her mind, deepened by pain, dark with warning. I didn’t think you’d have enough courage to come here.

  At least he could still speak to her. I don’t. But I have enough love. That’s how we learn to live in this world, Meical. Your world or mine, it works the same.

  She heard him sigh. He seemed so close she could almost feel his hot breath on her cheek. I’ll give you one chance to rethink this, Caroline.

  You’re mine, Meical Grabian. I’ve come to claim you.

  She took a slow step forward, watching her footing on the rocky ground. Suddenly the house spat a tongue of scalding energy out the front door. It wrapped itself around her, touching her everywhere. In the shock of feeling her feet leave the ground, she dropped her flashlight. The next thing she knew she was hurtling toward the closed door. Caroline covered her face and braced herself for impact. Just before she would have smacked against it, it flew open and slammed shut behind her.

  She landed in his arms, with her face inches from his. The red glow that had emanated from him earlier now seemed confined to his eyes. Madness shone in his gaze, as clear to her as the feverish heat of his skin and the soft growl deep in his throat.

  She steeled herself against an onslaught of tears. “I’ll take that as a ‘Hi, come on in.’”

  He moved like a specter, suddenly gone, suddenly there again, and caught her from behind. He pulled her back against him until she felt the heat of his skin through her clothes.

  Meical pressed his mouth to her ear, and she gasped at the dry heat of his breath on her skin. “What do you think is going to happen here? That we’ll make love? In this place?”

  She drew a ragged breath, already throbbing inside. “If you’ll stop playing hard to get.”

  He vanished again, leaving her swaying on her feet, almost mute with her need for him. He was still there. Still listening. She cast a glance out the window. She could see the outline of the mesas against the sky now, where the black of night had begun to lighten to deep blue.

  “I know what you are,” she murmured to the listening dark. “I know you were trying to explain what Neshi did to you.”

  His words echoed around the room. “A miserable failure from start to finish.”

  “If that were true,” she returned, “I wouldn’t be here. I’d be dead. Rivera’s men would have killed me, right here in this very house. You stopped them. I think you knew, in some part of your mind and heart, exactly who I was and that I needed you. With all my heart, Meical, I believe you came here to save me that night because we belong together.”

  A moment or two passed. Caroline held her breath; she could feel his confusion, his frustration as he tried to remember and his desperation to believe it was true. She cast another glance out the window. The sky had turned to a grayish-blue. A swath of pink lay on the eastern horizon.

  “I remember flashes of things,” he murmured. “I wasn’t all in one piece.”

  He became visible slowly, standing just six feet away from her. Caroline began to edge her way closer to him.

  “Neshi was working on my body,” he went on, staring at the floor. “I saw myself on his lab table, but only for an instant. Then there was nothing. I was trying to remember who I was, or where I was, or how I’d come to be there. There was silence. And then I heard you scream.”

  She took a step closer, just as he looked up. But he didn’t back away.

  “I didn’t even think,” he murmured. “I just knew I had to get to you, or I’d lose everything.”

  He covered his face with his hands, and Caroline closed the distance between them and held him close. “Nothing can keep us apart now, just as nothing could keep us apart then. I’m here to see you through this, or die trying.”

  “You’re bound to know, it won’t be like the dreams.” He nuzzled aside the shoulder of her cotton T-shirt. His burning tongue glided up the nape of her neck, and then he nipped her. “I need too much.”

  Caroline closed her eyes. “It’s my turn to make our dreams come true.”

  “Oh, Caroline…I do love you so…”

  He lapped at her neck, waking a wave of desire in her, then locked his fangs on the side of her throat. The dance of emotions that enveloped them eclipsed the pain. Caroline lost herself in the river of life and light that was Meical. The whole world, the stars in the sky, the sleepy moon, the very ground beneath her feet, even the rising sun that she mustn’t let reach him…all of it was Meical, and only Meical.

  She scarcely felt it when he lifted his head. He dropped to his knees in front of her. She felt him pushing her shirt up and his hot mouth on her belly. Languid and weak all over, she looked down at him. He’d tossed his shirt aside. She ran her hands over his muscular shoulders and arms, touching as much
of him as she could reach.

  A glistening bead of light caught Caroline’s eye on the periphery of her vision. She turned and stared at it, as though in a daze. It gleamed, trapped and reflected in a jagged point of glass that still remained in the windowsill. Her gaze rose from the tiny dagger of light to take in the room, which filled with the blue-pink of a new dawn.

  “Meical, the sun. We have to get you somewhere dark. Now.”

  He searched her gaze. “There’s nowhere to go.”

  She fought down the memory that rose in her mind, beat back the terror. “Yes, there is, and we both know it.”

  He shook his head. She hated the sound of resignation in his voice. “I won’t finish this down there. Not there.”

  She caught his face in her hands. “Can you think of a better place for me to save you than the place you saved me?”

  She saw it then, the love in his eyes she so needed to see. No monstrous aura, only the gleam of his devotion.

  Even as he nodded his consent, smoke began to rise from his skin. He let go of her and held up his hands, staring at the tendrils that wafted from his fingertips.

  “Funny. There’s no pain.”

  Chapter 16

  Caroline grabbed Meical’s arm and dragged him to his feet, nearly tripping over her own. She shoved him toward the doorway that led into the hallway. “Remember the trapdoor. Straight ahead. That’s where the basement is. Go.”

  He took three steps and fell, laboring for breath. Pale gray light followed them, streaming in through the living room window. She grabbed his arms and tried to drag him farther into the shadows that lingered in the hallway. Meical gasped, shaking, and rolled onto his back.

  His eyes were solid white, his pupils gone. “I’ll never forget…”

  “Meical, honey, stay with me.”

  She caught him under the arms and half carried, half dragged him a few feet farther down the hall. She slipped down and skidded under him, but kept pulling him along, scooting on her backside and dragging him by inches.

  The trapdoor was just a few feet behind her. She let go of Meical and scrambled to it. Wrapping her hand around the withered pull rope, she gave it a tug. It creaked open, and the gaping, black hole below belched a cloud of dust and odors Caroline remembered all too well. Oil and old gasoline, dry rock and rusty metal. Anxiety unwound in the pit of her stomach.