“How long?” he asked, interested. “You mentioned something about three hundred years.”
“I was born in Ireland in 1701.”
He nodded, apparently finding nothing odd about that. “And you were cursed when you were . . .” He cast an appraising eye over me. “Not quite fifty?”
A laugh sputtered out. “Michael, never guess a woman’s age so accurately. It isn’t diplomatic. But no, I was twenty.”
“You are a very attractive fifty,” he assured me. “But you shouldn’t be. Fifty, that is. Your body should have been fixed at twenty.”
“We’re getting off the subject.”
“But if something is wrong, if you are aging when you shouldn’t be—”
“I did it on purpose, all right?”
He considered that a moment. “You can change your physical appearance?”
“Not exactly. I can grow older, if I choose. It isn’t easy.” A gross understatement, that. I prefer to avoid thinking about how I’d acquired the crow’s feet by my eyes. There’s only one way to age a body like mine. Starvation.
“Why did you want to look older?”
“You ask more questions than a two-year-old!”
“I want to know about you, Molly.”
Heaven help me, but he softened me in a way I couldn’t seem to fight. I sighed. “For one thing, I could stay in one place longer if I looked older. People notice if you stay twenty. They don’t notice so much if you always look middle-aged.”
“And the other thing?”
I grimaced. He was both perceptive and persistent—useful traits, even appealing at times. But annoying at the moment. “I wanted . . . friends. Women friends. I missed that rather badly.” I glanced at him, wondering if he could understand. “When I looked twenty and oozed sex, men wanted me and women disliked me. Now . . . well, I use a touch more power to get what I need from men, but not much. Half of seduction is simply wanting the person you’re with. So most women don’t see me as a threat, especially the younger ones. They don’t think of a woman of my apparent age as sexual.”
He chuckled. “The young always think the world was born when they were.”
“Oh, listen to the graybeard. You’re what—twenty-six? Twenty-seven?” I held my breath.
“Hardly,” he said dryly. “You ought to know better than . . .” His voice drifted into silence. I stole a glance at him. He was staring straight ahead, stricken. “It was there,” he whispered. “For a moment it was all there, but it melted away.”
Impulsively I reached for his hand and squeezed it. His fingers closed around mine tightly. “But that’s good,” I said gently. “That means your memories aren’t gone. They’re just hiding for some reason.”
He drew a ragged breath. “Yes. Yes, of course. And I have been remembering some things. Nothing about myself,” he said with a lack of emotion that, by its very dearth, revealed much. “But facts, concepts, theories—they float up when I’m not watching.”
“Then you’ll have to spend most of your time not watching, won’t you?” I gave his hand another squeeze and, reluctantly, let go. I needed both hands to drive.
“That makes sense, but it’s easier to decide than to do.”
“Like being told not to think of the number ten,” I agreed. “I’ve got a couple of ideas, if you want to hear them.” I paused long enough for him to object. He didn’t. “First, I wondered if I was wrong about you being a sorcerer. You know so much—”
“I am not a sorcerer.”
My eyebrows climbed. “You’re very sure about that.”
“I can’t be a sorcerer. It . . . isn’t allowed. And I don’t know why I just said that, so don’t ask. But it feels true.”
Interesting. “Well, what about a scholar?”
I felt more than saw his head turn towards me. “A scholar?”
“You said you were a good researcher, and I think you must be. You’ve picked up an amazing amount in such a short time. You read very, very fast. You know languages and theories of magic and odd facts, and just have that manner—as if you’ve always loved facts for their own sake, not for what you can do with them.”
“Truth. Not just facts—truth.”
I smiled.
“A scholar . . .” His voice was musing, but with a lift to it. He liked the idea. And that was all he said, but I was content to let him follow his thoughts. I had a few of my own demanding attention.
Neither of us spoke again until the sun was well down. We’d reached Houston’s greedy, spreading fingers—not the city proper, but Friendswood, one of the many small towns that lay in its path. People sometimes compare big cities to anthills, but I think they’re more like mold. Anthills will only grow so large, but mold keeps right on spreading.
I’d slowed to accommodate the heavy traffic when, out of the blue, he asked, “How did Erin figure it out?”
“What?”
“You said you didn’t tell Erin what you are, that she figured it out.”
“Good grief. You have quite a memory.” I winced. “I mean—”
“I know what you meant. And yes, I think I normally have an excellent memory.”
“Do you remember everything?”
“No, but what I do recall is accurate.” He paused, as if considering something new. “It seems that either emotion or intent can fix things in my memory.”
“Hmm. Works that way for most of us. I wonder if emotion or intent could also make you forget.”
He shifted in his seat, looked out the window, then back at me. “What an uncomfortable thought. Why would I do such a thing to myself?”
I didn’t know, either. “So, what was the first thing I said to you?”
“You hoped that I spoke English. Molly,” he said, and amusement ran through his voice, a silvery ripple in a dark current. “You might distract me, but I’ll remember what I asked, and ask again. In that way I am rather like that two-year-old you mentioned. They persist, too. Do you not want to tell me how Erin figured out about you?”
“Not really.” The habit of secrecy was strong . . . as was a sneaky little wish that he would think well of me. Foolishness. Both the wish, and the desire to base it on misdirection. I was what I was.
So why not tell him? “All right,” I said, signaling that I meant to take the next exit. I wasn’t hungry—well, not for food. But he must be. It was nearly eight. “I . . . used to know Erin’s great-grandmother. So when I moved back to Galveston—”
“You’d lived there before?”
“I was there for the Great Storm. Anyway, I knew about Erin and I was curious, so I sort of kept an eye on her. She liked to walk on the beach at night.”
“So do you.”
“Yes, but I’m hard to hurt.”
“She came into danger?”
“There were two of them that night,” I said, remembering. “Two pond-scum bastards who followed her, just as I was. One had a knife. He grabbed her, held the blade to her throat. The other ripped open her shirt.”
His breath sucked in. “Did you kill them?”
“You’re more bloodthirsty than I realized.”
“Perhaps you preferred to let the law kill them.”
He was certainly clear on how rapists should be treated. I couldn’t say I disagreed. “They had heart attacks. One lived, one didn’t.”
“How? What did you do?”
“Just a minute,” I said, easing the big Winnebago onto the access road. “I want to pull in at that gas station and top off the tank. The sign says they have diesel.”
“Are you avoiding my question again?”
“It’s easier to show than to tell, that’s all.”
“I’d rather not have a heart attack.”
“You keep asking questions, you can’t complain if some of the answers aren’t comfortable.”
Chapter 7
IT took some maneuvering, but I got my rig tucked up next to the pumps. I shut off the motor, unfastened my seat belt, and turned to Michael. “D
o you want something to eat?”
“I want you to show me what you did to Erin’s attackers.”
All right. No more delay tactics. I took a deep breath, got my focus, and reached out.
I was wearing a t-shirt—a pretty Caribbean blue, one of my favorite colors—so my arm was clearly visible. But as I stretched it towards him, my hand went fuzzy. Translucent. I kept reaching—and slowly, carefully, put my hand inside his chest.
He stared down at his chest, eyes wide. “A most peculiar sensation.”
That was it? That was his total reaction? I gave a shaky laugh, pulled my hand back, and let it go solid again. “It was more than peculiar for Erin’s attackers. I went a little more solid and tickled their hearts.”
“You showed great restraint. You could have ripped them out.”
“I’ve done that, too. But not . . .” My breath hitched. For a moment I could smell the smoke of the guns, hear the screams of men and horses, feel the shudder of the ground as the canons fired, and my own desperation as I hunted for the one soldier who’d mattered . . . but he’d already been dead when I started looking, my beautiful, bright-eyed Charlie, my son, lying butchered in the blood-soaked earth while I searched and searched. Too late.
Quietly I said, “Not for a long time.”
“You don’t like killing.”
“No one should like killing. There’s nothing brave or glorious about it.”
“No. Yet sometimes it’s the only way to stop a great evil.”
“You’re sounding more like a warrior than a scholar.”
“Is it not possible to be both?”
“Maybe.” My heart was beating hard. I didn’t know why. His eyes were luminous, intent on me . . . I wanted so much to touch him. I pulled my gaze away. “You’ve seen what I can do. Most succubi—those who started out that way—are naturally insubstantial, and take on form only with effort. It’s the other way around for me, but . . .” I shrugged. “Other succubi are from Dis. Hell, in other words. I’m originally of Earth, even if I do partake of hell now, too.”
“Molly, you aren’t of hell.”
My eyes flew to him. “But—you said that I was. That the curse made me of both realms.”
He shook his head. “Your memory is faulty. I said you were inherently of two realms. I can’t tell which other realm claims you,” he said apologetically. “I can’t read that deeply. But it isn’t hell.”
“But succubi are from hell. You saw what I did, going fuzzy that way. That’s what demons do.”
“There are other realms where matter and energy aren’t as sharply divided as they are here. I . . . I think I come from such a place.” He smiled slowly, sweetly. “So do demons, yes, though that’s not my realm, or yours. And so do angels.”
Without my willing it, my hand reached for him, to touch his face—and a car honked right behind us. I jumped. “I-I’d better get filled up.” In more ways than one, but there wasn’t time to hunt now. Soon, I promised myself, and opened my door and climbed down. “Want to learn how to pump gas?”
“Yes.” He didn’t move, though. “One more question.”
I waited.
“Where are we going?”
“I wondered when you’d ask that. We’re going to see an acquaintance of mine. You need help I can’t give you.” I closed the door and moved to the pump, selecting the “credit” option. My wallet was in my pocket. It’s too easy to be separated from cash and other important items if you carry a purse. The credit card I used, like my rig, belonged to NMN Corporation. That was my little joke. NMN stands for Not My Name.
Michael got out and came around the front of the rig, frowning. “You said acquaintance, not friend.”
“I call very few people friend. Cullen is . . .” I shrugged and took out the nozzle. “Among other things he’s one of those who study the nature of magic. The two of you should have a lot to discuss.”
“He’s a sorcerer.”
“Yes.”
“No. No sorcerers.”
“Go buy yourself a Coke,” I said, handing him a five. “When you come back, we’ll talk about it.”
MICHAEL loved Coke. He bought a six-pack and drank three. He did not love the idea of seeking help from a sorcerer. He had the idea that he wasn’t supposed to do that—but of course couldn’t say why.
It’s hard to argue with someone who has no reasons, only feelings. I did my best. We debated it off and on all the way around the loop—when he wasn’t asking about engineering, building codes, the water supply, and all sorts of other things I couldn’t answer. He was desperately curious about the city, and looked wistful once it had receded behind us.
“Maybe you can go back later,” I said. We were on I-10, headed west. Headlights chained the highway on either side, orderly fireflies lighting the dark at seventy miles an hour. “There are a lot of other cities to see on our route, though. Big ones, little ones, all sorts.” San Antonio, El Paso, Las Cruces, Tucson . . .
“This sorcerer of yours lives where?”
“In California.”
“That’s on the west coast.
“Yes.”
“A long drive for little purpose, since I can’t go to a sorcerer.”
“You can’t go home until you know where home is.”
“I’m not sure I want to go back.” He slid a long, level glance my way. “I like it here. Besides, we know someone there wants to capture me. We don’t need a sorcerer, Molly. We can wait for my memory to come back on its own.”
“And if the Azá find you first?” I shook my head. “Someone here wants to find you, too, and I can’t protect you from them.”
“I don’t need your protection,” he snapped. “Your help, yes. I don’t know this world. But I can protect myself.”
“Now you sound like a typical male.”
“I am male.”
I’d noticed. Oh, I had noticed. . . . “The FBI thinks the Azá’s goddess doesn’t exist, and that they only use animals for their death magic. I know better.”
“They won’t kill me. I am . . . valuable.”
“I think so, too, but will they?”
“I don’t know what I am,” he said, his voice low and tense. “I don’t know my name, or where I come from. But I know this much: they will not want me damaged.”
“What if they don’t know what you are, either?”
He was silent for several minutes. “An unsettling idea,” he finally said. “One that should have occurred to me. It would depend on this goddess of theirs, wouldn’t it? On what she knows and where she is.”
“She’s certainly not from these parts,” I said dryly. “Nor does she have a strong connection here, thank God. Her followers have been trying for three centuries to find an avatar for her. I’m happy to say they haven’t had much luck.”
“For three centuries, Molly?”
I glanced at him, nodded. “They had me picked for the honor, yes. I didn’t know it, though I’d, ah . . . dabbled a bit with their rites. I was a wild child for awhile, or thought I was. I’d been raised in the Church, but God and I had a falling out after my parents died of smallpox. I thought He should have handled things differently. Well.” I shrugged. “I was young.”
“What happened?”
“They were trolling for converts, and they had a good spiel. The idea of worshiping a goddess appealed to me—seemed like men had had things all their way too long.” I’d been in London by then, a little lost . . . make that a lot lost, but sufficiently insulated by the arrogance of youth to pretend otherwise. “They put on a good show, too. Magic was a major crime back then, so it didn’t take much to dazzle, make it seem like they knew what they were talking about. And what adolescent doesn’t like a secret society? Wisdom hidden from the masses, with a select few admitted to the mysteries.” I snorted. “I was easy for them. Easy.”
“But you got away.”
“At pretty much the last minute, and not through any planning on my part. They’d tested me, though I
didn’t know it, and I fit Her. That’s why avatars are hard to locate, I found out later—body and mind have to be matched up in some arcane fashion to Her. I, ah, got myself unmatched.”
He nodded. “Just as with crossing between realms, so must an avatar be congruent with the entity wishing to posses it. How did you unmatch youself?”
“Well . . .” I smiled. “Accidentally. Mostly I was just doing what came naturally. The night before the big ceremony—which I thought was to initiate me into their mysteries—a sweet boy named Johnny McLeod performed another sort of initiation. Her avatar must be a virgin, you see.”
He laughed.
“She was royally pissed about Johnny, though.” A little shiver travelled through me.
They’d brought me to Her when they realized what I’d done—brought me weeping, cursing, fighting. They hadn’t been gentle in their disappointment, and I’d learned what they’d planned. Then I saw Her . . . or, rather, what was left of her old avatar. Centuries old, it was, kept more or less alive by Her power. It—I’ve never been able to think of that husk as female—had looked like a mummy. Dead everywhere but the eyes . . .
“She crumbled,” I said. “After She cursed me. That little temper fit cost Her.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached for my hand and held it. “I’ve called up bad memories.”
The contact was good. Steadying. For a few minutes, I let myself enjoy holding hands. But as memories faded, that simple pleasure was lost in the rise of hunger. With a sigh, I pulled my hand back.
He was silent a moment longer, then said,
“You were right to warn me. These Azá may not know why their goddess wants me. She won’t be able to tell them much.”
“Why not? She is a goddess—or one of the Old Ones who calls herself goddess, which amounts to the same thing. Can’t she tell them whatever she wants?”
“Communication across the realms is chancy.” He sounded distracted. “And yours is so distant from most . . . I doubt she can convey actual words. Images, perhaps.”
“Visions.”
“Yes, and it’s devilishly hard to get precise information across in a vision.”
Cravings Page 18
