Page 41 of Succubus

I am utterly alone.

I should turn around now. I should run.

I think of Ella and the skateboard. She is finally brave enough to try.

I think about what might happen if the demon hunter has my address, if he comes to the brown house.

Can he sense which of us are cursed?

He has already killed a child.

I need to protect Ella.

I’m wearing black yoga pants and a charcoal sweater with a cowl neck. It seemed like the right outfit for this type of thing when I put it on. Now the very idea of a right outfit for a meeting with a murderer seems patently absurd, and also the sweater is too frumpy. These women going in ahead of me are so stylish, wearing tall leather boots. Why am I noticing anyone’s shoes right now? Will one of my last thoughts be about whether DSW would even carry those green suede ones? What a misleading representation of who I am, what my life has been.

What the hell has my life been?

And it’s not like God is screenshotting my last thoughts. Or maybe God is doing exactly that.

“Can I help you?” the bouncer/host by the metal door is asking.

Witnesses. There are plenty of witnesses. Will he really try to kill me in front of everyone?

No, I remind myself with a burst of confidence. No one has died in public, that I know of. He has a different MO. He will try something else, and I will not fall for it. Because I am the only one who sees this coming.

This is my advantage.

Everyone else was caught off guard.

Even Grub?

Yes. Even Grub. He would’ve said something to me otherwise.

“Ma’am?” says the guy at the door. “Did you need help?”

I realize I’m standing there staring at him. “Uh, I’m meeting someone inside.”

“Right down the stairs,” he says, and down I go. Down and down. It’s a steep staircase that descends into what feels increasingly like the underworld.

A server in suspenders is waiting at the bottom.

“I’m meeting someone,” I explain. “In the—um, the last booth on the end of the row?” These are the instructions I’ve been given.

“Oh, your party is already here,” he says, and one or more of my organs seem to lose all their heat; I am much too cold inside.

He is already here.

“Right this way.”

Right this way to the end of the story. To the horrible truth. Right this way to meet your fate.

I take a step after the server. Another. It’s a 1930s fantasy in here: Someone is playing ragtime piano, gold light glows on amber bottles behind the long bar, the floor is stained deep brown, everything is dark and sexy and cozily warm after the cool night air. We brush by some people coming the other way. They’re laughing. They have their whole lives ahead of them.

My stupid father in the loud bar in South Beach, and now this—another crowded, dark space, another bar. For someone who doesn’t drink, I’m certainly spending a surprising percentage of my life’s most pivotal moments in bars.

My phone dings in my hand. I look down. That’s not a sound it usually makes. Decryption Complete! announces a little red bar in the middle of the screen. Access File?

I’ve somehow forgotten again about this little project of Grub’s. I click Yes. The message opens suddenly, text in a blocky font.