Page 82 of Succubus

He shakes his head. “We’ve never met.”

“Do you know where they are?”

He shakes his head again. “Far away, I think. I got the sense . . .”

“No one else is helping you?”

“No. But— ” He won’t continue. He breathes harder.

“But what? Tell me.”

He turns his head from side to side, a trapped animal, willingness to fight flashing in the pull of his tendons even as defeat flickers in his eyes. “I reached out. For help. The way my grandmother taught me. There’s a signal. If I ever need.” He says it in a rush: angrily, guiltily. “Damn it. Damn it.”

“When did you do that?”

“After the second time. When I realized I couldn’t kill you.”

“You reached out to this other . . . angel?”

He looks faintly startled at the term but accepts it without argument. “Yes.”

“Then where are they?”

“No one came,” he says. “Maybe they’re dead.”

“And you can’t cancel it or something?”

He shakes his head.

“Crap. This isn’t great, Joel.” Maybe he’s right and they’re dead. Just because his senile grandmother thought there might be another angel out there doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

But what if they aren’t dead?

For a moment, I can almost feel them behind me—a sudden looming presence, the night solidifying into the form of a person—I can almost feel hands reaching for my shoulders.

I shake this feeling off.

“How did you figure out you were like this?” I ask, moving on.

“I killed someone, by accident,” he says, muffled. “A patient.”

“Really? What happened?” I’m surprised.

“I didn’t know he was a . . . like you. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I didn’t believe her yet.”

“You tried to heal him?” It’s so satisfying, being able to ask him anything.

“I thought so. But I didn’t like him.” He takes his hands off his face, but he’s still talking as though to himself, not really to me.

“Why not?”

“He was cruel. To his family. He had them completely under his control. They acted like his servants. I’ve seen a lot of people. He was one of the worst.”

“You have to like the people you heal? Is that how it works?”

He shakes his head. “No. But I thought maybe it worked that way. I felt like I had killed him somehow, even though I didn’t know how or why. I wondered if it was because I didn’t like him. Later, I realized it was because he was one of you.”

“When did you realize that?”