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THIRTY-SEVEN
“Aren’t you the clever one!” Fiona said. “It took you long enough to realize.”
“That’s not fair,” Diana pointed out. “You didn’t know either.”
“Well,” Fiona huffed, “he wouldn’t let me get close to him and he was so verysolidI thought he couldn’t really be my incubus. You made him incarnate, Callie. It’s very impressive, actually. In order for an incubus to become flesh his love object has to have a strong mind and strong desires. You must have wanted him to become flesh.”
I shook my head. “I tried to vanquish him. You saw me do it!” I turned to Soheila and Diana. Soheila, who hadn’t spoken a word yet, looked stricken but remained silent. Diana looked unhappy, too, but she answered me. “We saw you go through with the ceremony, Callie, and I’m sure youmeantwell, but we couldn’t see what was in your heart. No one can see that…” She glanced at Fiona with a nervous but determined look. “No one is saying you brought him to life intentionally.”
Fiona glared at Diana, but reluctantly agreed. “No, I suppose not intentionally.”
“But,” Diana continued, turning so pale under Fiona’s disapproval that her freckles stood out, “if you had just the teensiest bit of hesitation when you performed the rite…if just a little bit of you wanted the incubus to stay, then it might have been enough to allow him to become flesh.”
I stared at Diana, remembering the night before Thanksgiving when we’d vanquished the incubus. Had I harbored a small desire to keep him with me? “But,” I said, noticing a look of triumph pass over Fiona’s face and one of even greater sadness over Soheila’s. “How did he do it? Liam has professional credentials…degrees from Trinity and Oxford, publications in magazines…a Facebook page, for goodness’ sake. I Googled him!” And fell, hook, line, and sinker, for the persona he created.
Diana and Soheila exchanged looks. Fiona just laughed.
“Yes, I have, too!” Fiona crowed. “It’s all quite cleverly done, isn’t it? The degrees and the residencies at writers’ conferences…Did anyone think to call any of them? And the poetry—it’s lovely, isn’t it? He always did have a way with words.”
“He created a web identity using the Lindisfarnes’ computer,” Diana added, “much like an identity thief would…”
“But his whole identity couldn’t have just beenvirtual!” I cried.
“Did you ever find any of the actual print magazines that carried one of his poems?” Fiona asked smugly. “No, I didn’t think so. Neither did Dean Book, I’m afraid.”
“She was ill,” Diana said defensively. “He bewitched her and compromised her judgment so that she didn’t look into his credentials thoroughly.”
“You’re telling me she didn’t call any of his references?” I asked.
Diana flinched at the anger in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. It was easier to be angry at someone else than to face my own blindness. “She read his résumé, his letters of recommendation, and then met with him. She emailed a professor at one of the colleges where he taught and tried to call another professor, but couldn’t get through. In hindsight, she says that all his credentials were digital and therefore could have been faked.She should have realized that, of course, but she was charmed by him and happy to get a replacement for Phoenix so she didn’t investigate as much as she should have.”
“And you…” I said, turning to Fiona. “You seem to be suggesting that Liam is the incubus you knew hundreds of years ago. Didn’t you recognize him?”
“I suspected it was him, but I couldn’t be sure. I have to have actual physical contact in order to tell and when I lured him into the cloakroom to kiss him you interrupted us.”
“But he didn’t want to kiss you, did he?”
“No…he probably knew that it would give him away.”
“Or he just didn’t want to kiss you because he liked me better.”
Fiona’s eyes blazed and she seemed to grow three inches taller.
“Remember she’s still under his power,” Diana told Fiona in a small voice. “She’s not responsible for what she says.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. You have no proof that Liam is your incubus, do you?”
Fiona and Diana remained silent at my outburst, but Soheila finally spoke. “No, Callie, we don’t. But we do have proof that there is an incubus-like creature sucking the life force out of students on campus. All his victims—Dean Book, Flonia Rugova, Scott Wilder, Nicky Ballard, and Mara Marinca—had the same symptoms: fatigue, troubling dreams, and anemia. I should have seen it earlier, but I never like to think that one of my kind would behave so…so indiscriminately. Preying on young people!” She made a face. “Even my sisters are more principled. But when I visited Nicky Ballard and held her hand, I could feel the signature of the incubus.”
“Before you said incubus-like,” I pointed out.
“There are a number of creatures who prey on the life force of humans—incubi, succubi, love talkers, lamias, lidercs, undines…They’re all related. I can feel the presence of acreature feeding off the life force…” She reached out her hand to grasp mine and I took a step backward…right into Fiona. It was like stepping into a wall of ice.
Soheila reached for my hand. I tried to pull it away, but Fiona held me steady with a touch on my arm that was light but compelling. I was powerless to move away. Soheila took my hand in both of hers. She closed her eyes and stroked my skin. Her eyes moved rapidly back and forth beneath her eyelids as if she were dreaming…then flicked open, releasing a tear that slid down her cheek.
“I can feel him, Callie. His presence is strong in you. I can feel his love…”
“An incubus is incapable of love,” Fiona hissed. “And if he did love her why would he prey on all those students? Does he love them, too?”
