Page 102 of Succubus

Two angels, arguing over whether I should be dead.

I should have questioned him more. I should have pressed. I told Al I needed to find out more about the other angel. I was right. Only I got distracted, I didn’t follow my own advice.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he says. “I thought you didn’t get the message.”

“I know. I wanted to check it out for myself.” She snorts. “Good thing I did. This is a mess. You’re weak.”

“Let’s talk,” he says. “I don’t even know who you are. Your story. We’re supposed to meet each other, right? Aren’t we supposed to get to know each other?”

She snorts again, dismissive. “First we do the right thing. Then we can talk. The succubus dies first.”

“Are you talking about killing Titi?” Ella sounds like she is shaking.

“Ella, go down the steps,” says Joel, his voice turning gentle. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

“You kidnapped a child!” he growls, seconds later.

“I did what I needed to do. I went to find the succubus and the girl was in the street. I took advantage of the opportunity to control the situation. I wasn’t going to hurt her.” She sounds steely, utterly unrepentant. “You are new to this, you’re a baby yourself, but you need to grow your skin thicker. You are too soft now, and if we are soft, we put ourselves and the world in great danger. Your grandmother must have taught you that much.”

“It’s more complicated— ”

“It’s not. She has seduced you. That’s what they do. That’s her purpose, you stupid man.” She hisses the last part.

“Go, Ella,” Joel urges. I hear her moving past me. I think I feel her hesitate. Then her hands are on my hands, feeling the zip tie. I know she won’t be able to remove it, and she only has a second before the kidnapper tries to stop her. I bob forward, and she understands, pulls the bag from my head. My brain erupts in fireworks of relief at the return of my sight. Ella’s eyes are huge as they take in the tape.

“Stop!” the woman yells, lunging. I have the blurry impression of long blond hair, long limbs, a long white coat. Joel is already there, catching her, shoving her back.

Ella tugs at the tape. I grunt, trying to get her to pull harder. She winces, yanks. I cough out the gag. “I love you, baby. You need to go right now. Run to the middle of the field!” She throws her arms around me, I lean against her, then she separates and hurries down the steps.

“Get out of my way,” the woman commands Joel. She barrels into him, tries to elbow him aside, but he’s too big, and he hardly wavers. She is wearing a calf-length, belted cream wool coat, like a movie star from another time. Like an angel, maybe.

“I want you to leave!” I yell. I don’t actually know how to do Dick Face’s power-of-suggestion stuff. I don’t know what makes it work, why certain people have responded automatically to my needs or desires while others have acted normally toward me. It did work over the phone, though, with that scam caller. And the blond kidnapper didn’t want me to speak. So I should definitely speak.

“Shut up!” she screams. And something flashes. Joel gasps, lurches back. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she tells him, “But you need to get out of my way.” She kicks him aside and he stumbles. He’s holding his stomach, his pale shirt darkening—he’s bleeding. I can’t tell how badly. He’s silent.

I don’t have any time to react. The woman is coming for me now, reaching. When she touches me, her power will flow into me, the way Joel’s did. But I am not seducing her, I am not replenishing myself at the same time. I realize, I feel with a wild certainty that precedes knowledge, that I am in terrible danger.

I dodge, flinging myself to the side. I’m off balance—I can’t use my hands, which are still pinned behind my back. I wish, uselessly, that I had figured out some clever way to loosen the zip tie while putting it on, but instead I did what I was told, and did it well, apparently.

She misses me by half an inch. She swings around, I wrench away, and for an instant, I am clear, but then in the next one my heel hangs in open air; I’m teetering at the edge of the top step and I can’t regain balance. I hurl myself forward, trip, collapse against a column, my shoulder hitting hard. My knee cracks on the stone as I fall, pain lancing through me. I am kneeling, I can’t move. In movies, when someone is about to be killed, when they are badly injured, they always somehow manage to keep moving, to fight one last fight, to scramble aside. But here I am, felled. One knock to the knee and all my newfound strength is meaningless.

And here she is, looming pale and ferocious, her face clarified by its nearness: the flare of her cheekbones, her pale eyes, her beauty almost computer-generated in its specificity, a throwback to a time when models were always Nordic, always extremely white.

I hear my own intake of breath.

I’m vaguely aware of Joel behind her, trying to get to her, but he’s too slow.

She reaches out.

And then something slams into place between us, and her hand connects with that thing instead of me. Her face contorts into a frustrated snarl.

It’s Ella. Ella has thrown herself onto me, knocking me onto my back, and is shielding me with her body. She can’t possibly know what will happen if the woman touches me. But somehow, it seems, she does.

“Titi, Titi, please get up,” she begs against my neck.

“Don’t touch me!” I gasp at the woman, my hands twisted under me, one wrist throbbing. “Don’t touch me, don’t— ” I’m panting.

She hesitates fractionally. Is it working? I think—or maybe it’s more a frantic prayer than a thought—that I am reaching her.