Page 123 of Succubus

“No,” I say.

CHAPTER 41

Is it really gone? Joel texts me. Can you tell?

Yes, I write back. I can tell. I am loading the jangling breakfast dishes into the dishwasher; Ella is curled up on the couch, reading the second book of the Libby series. I should really make her help with the chores, but it’s easier to do them myself.

I flex my bare toes, stretch out a leg experimentally. Everything feels fine. There is no underlying ache or supercharge of strength. My body has quieted, has resolved to a pleasant norm. I reach automatically to touch my hair, which has been shedding itself back to thinness.

It isn’t just me, either. I checked the groups: Everyone is better. Just like that, in an instant, she cured us all. She took it away, the slavering darkness at the center, the eating away of our personalities, the sickness, the wasteful endless erosion.

Sometimes your dad pisses off an immortal, and your whole life is a train thundering downhill toward the jagged cliff’s edge where the track has torn away. Sometimes the immortal changes her mind.

A lot of the Dows are mad—they miss it, need it. But I’m offline, I’m done.

What about you? I write.

It’s gone. I’m taking a break from the hospital. I haven’t lost a patient in a long time, not ready for that yet.

Good luck, I type quickly, before my thumbs can make their own plans.

Thanks. You too. I know it’s trite but I really do wish you well.

I wish you well too.

And that is that.

For the best. For the only, I guess. After demons and angels and almost-gods and probably goddesses, after all those desperate nights, his hands spreading mine against the floor, after Mr. Button and even Ella, the truth is that I killed his brother. And he killed mine. Neither one of us was willing to relinquish our own brother so the other could live again.

There is no magic big enough to remake that, to mold it into something workable.

We both know that.

There is a knock on the door. I hurry to open it.

Alice is standing there, baby Bo on her hip. Her hair is freshly buzzed.

“Friend time!” she says with so much enthusiasm that I have to grin back.

CHAPTER 42

“Deep breath,” I say firmly. “Deep breath.” And then, “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.” I chant it, keeping my voice low and strong.

“Yes. Yes. Yes!” my wonderful client Tamar gasps.

“Nice and low,” I murmur.

“Yes. Yes. No!”

“Yes. You’re amazing. You’re doing an amazing job,” I tell her. She is clinging to my hands, kneeling in the puffy inflatable orange birthing tub, which is set up in her tiny living room with the couch pushed back. I’m in front of her, our faces close together. Her tightly curled hair is plastered to her forehead, and I want to brush it back but can’t free up a hand to do that. Her handsome husband, Rahim, is kneading her back with all his might.

It’s a perfect early April afternoon, sweet light washing through the latticed window. The old magnolia tree in the yard is just beginning to open tentative, velvety blossoms above the newborn green of the grass, and a full moon gathers itself behind the pale curtain of daylight. The air smells like wet earth and promises. A good time for a birth.

Lillian, my favorite home-birth midwife, is reading a book on the couch, engrossed, her ankles crossed in her worn jeans. Her socks have a cheerful pattern of brown, pink, and green wool. The birth is normal—she doesn’t have to do anything until the very end, when she’ll spring into action. Her stuff is set up in the kitchen, all the medical paraphernalia Tamar will most likely never even see: a surgical kit, oxygen, a fetal heart monitor. I helped Lillian wheel it in in a giant suitcase.

I’m guessing we’re pretty close to transition now, and after that, pushing will probably be fairly quick, since this is Tamar’s third. The other kids are with her mom.

“I’m opening up to meet my baby,” whispers Tamar. “I’m opening up to meet my baby.”