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I turned away from Soheila’s grief-stricken eyes to face Fiona. “I can believe that Liam is an incubus—that he preyed on me—but I can’t believe he preyed on his students.”
“He’d have to if you weren’t enough to satisfy him.”
My hand was in the air headed toward Fiona’s mocking smile before I knew I meant to slap her, but Soheila and Diana grabbed me before I could make contact. A wind knocked the three of us back against the wall of the house and a white light blinded me. I heard Fiona’s voice inside my brain, piercing my head like an ice pick.Don’t you ever defy me again, little doorkeeper, or I will turn you into dust. I spare you now only so you can send your demon back to the Borderlands. I want him to know what it feels like to be rejected by the one he desires.
A high-pitched screech filled my brain—I felt sure my head was going to explode—and then it was gone, leaving an ache, a ringing in my ears, and a coppery taste in my mouth. I fell to my knees and threw up. Dimly I felt Diana holding back my hair and Soheila murmuring.
“It’s okay, she’s gone. She’s angry because he’s chosen youover her, but she knows she can’t destroy you. Even the Queen of the Fairies needs a doorkeeper to open the door to Faerie.”
“She said she spared me so I’d send him back, so he’d know what it felt like to be rejected by someone he loved…but she herself said that an incubus couldn’t love…and if Liam’s really the incubus…” Another wave of nausea rose from my stomach as the reality finally penetrated. Liam, whose body I knew so intimately, was not made of flesh and blood, but was a creature of shadow and moonlight, a golem fashioned from the clay of my own lust. “If he’s an incubus…if he’s lied to me and fed off his students…then he doesn’t love me. He can’t love anyone.”
Soheila winced but said nothing. Diana smoothed my hair back from my damp forehead.
“I think he must love you as best as he can,” Diana said. “But it doesn’t matter. You have to send him back. He’ll suck you dry if you don’t.”
Soheila nodded. “Diana’s right. He can’t help it. It’s how he’s made.”
“But then how am I supposed to make him leave?”
Soheila and Diana looked at each other and for a moment I thought—hoped?—they would throw up their hands and tell me they had no idea.Oops, sorry, once an incubus is made flesh there’s no way to disincarnate him. You’re stuck. You’ll just have to make the best of the situation. But instead, at a nod from Soheila, Diana took out her cell phone and punched in a number.
“She’s ready,” she said without greeting, and then hung up without a good-bye.
Across the street the front door of the Hart Brake Inn opened and Brock came out carrying a box. He crossed the street with the box held out in front of him, like a waiter carrying a tea caddy to a customer in a restaurant.
“Neither Soheila nor I can help you with this part, Callie, because we can’t handle iron. Brock will explain what to do.”
“Wait a minute,” I said as both women got to their feet. “If an incubus doesn’t like iron, then why are all his victimsdrainedof iron?”
Diana bobbed her head up and down. “Good question. It’s not fully understood, but apparently there’s a sort of symbiotic relationship that develops between the incubus and his victim that makes his victim shed iron so that the incubus can continue feeding. We think it’s why the victim eventually weakens and dies. If we understood it better then the incubi—and succubi—” She glanced at Soheila. “—could have normal relationships with humans.”
Soheila smiled at Diana but shook her head. “Casper van der Aart has been working on the problem for decades. I’m afraid there’s little hope for a solution. Meanwhile…” She glanced behind her at Brock, who had stopped midway up my front path. “We have to go. The iron that Brock has forged is especially powerful. Diana and I can’t be near it.” She took my hand in hers. “Good luck, Callie, and remember, he can’t help what he is, but if he truly loves you he doesn’t want to destroy you. He’ll be better in the long run banished to the Borderlands than living with your death.” She gave my hand one final squeeze and got up to go. Diana patted my shoulder and followed her. I got up, too—mostly to move away from the place where I had thrown up—and met Brock on the steps.
“I’m so sorry, Callie. I should have protected you better. I should have recognized him. I just never thought that he could become flesh—he never did all the years he haunted Dahlia.”
“I think she kept him at bay with her writing,” I said, thinking of the pattern that Mara had discerned in Dahlia’s handwritten drafts. “She gave him flesh—of a sort—in her fiction when he grew too strong and then she was free of him for a while. She must have had a strong incentive to keep him at a distance. She had a man in the flesh who was enough for her.”
Brock’s eyes widened and brightened with unshed tears. “That’s a generous thought, Callie. Thank you. I think Dollybelieved that he was her muse, that he enabled her to write. But I think she was wrong there. It was her writing that drew him to her. I don’t think he loved her, though, not the way he loves you. Still…” He opened the box. Lying on a piece of embroidered white linen were two bracelets made of cast-iron braided into intricate knot designs. At the center of each knot was a keyhole. An iron key attached to a chain lay between the two bracelets.
“You’ll have to slip these on his wrists.” He showed me how they opened and clicked shut. “And then you’ll have to turn the key in each lock. Keep the key around your neck and he won’t be able to touch you.”
“And you think he’ll stand still for that?”
“Once the iron’s on his wrists he won’t be able to move. Just make sure you turn the key to the right. If you turn it to the left, you’ll unlock the bracelets and he’ll be free. Then…Well, he’s sure to be angry and you saw what he did the last time he was angry.”
I shuddered, recalling the destruction of the ice storm—the acres of ravaged forest, Paul’s plane downed. Could that really have been Liam? Could I really believe that of him? A part of my brain—and my heart—still resisted the idea, but the evidence was overwhelming. My own doubts…Well, as Diana had said I was still under his power. I couldn’t trust my instincts.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“The dean agreed to keep him in her office until she got a call from me. If you’re ready I’ll call now.”
“Wait. There’s one other thing. If I do this…if I put these things on him, what happens to him?”
“He’s banished to the Borderlands between this world and Faerie. The iron will keep him from materializing in this world, but it will also keep him from being able to enter Faerie since nothing iron can pass through the door.”
“Does it…hurt?” I asked.
Brock didn’t answer at first. I could tell he was considering whether he could lie, but I held his gaze and he finally nodded. “Yes, it will hurt him. He’ll be bound in pain for all eternity. Imprisoned with all the other tortured souls who have lost their way between the worlds. My people call this place Niflheim, or Fog World, where dwells a goddess whose house is called Rain-Damp; her plate, Hunger; her knife, Starving; her threshold, Stumbling Block; her bed, Sickbed; her bedhangings, Misfortune. From her name, Hel, comes your hell. But there’s no other choice. He’ll drain you dry if you don’t banish him.” He placed the box in my hands and then turned around and left without another word, leaving me with the means of torturing my lover for all eternity.
