Lilith's Children

by Rachel Pudelek

  Once the bodies were loaded, a raven-haired succubus brought out a bucket of powder from one of the van’s side doors and a short-handled broom. She poured the powder onto every blood spot, waited a few minutes, and then swept the clumpy, red powder into the bucket.

  “What should we do about the stain?” I asked. Yeah, the substance of blood was gone, but traces of red remained.

  “We don’t usually work with blood,” the succubus responded as she heaved the filled and now cumbersome bucket to the van.

  Succubi may not deal with blood very often, but huldra most certainly had these days. I grabbed the open bottle of merlot we hadn’t gotten around to tasting yet and poured a little on each blood stain, letting the liquid splash and splatter the nearby areas.

  “Genius,” Olivia said as she walked to the counter and grabbed a stemmed glass. She held it out for me and I poured merlot into her glass.

  I shook my head with a laugh and went back to work.

  The blonde succubus reached her head around the corner to the hallway and eyed me making a wine mess. “Um, so this doesn’t fit with the story I gave them to remember.” She disappeared back down the hall and returned only minutes later. “Okay, the guys believe that you’d just started your tasting and the cat freaked out, saw a mouse or something, and accidentally knocked over a couple bottles of red wine. You guys helped them clean up the glass.”

  Within seconds of her hurried explanation, the owner and his adult son moseyed toward us without a care in the world, followed by Celeste, whose smirk filled me with questions. The blonde succubus must have gifted them with happy energy when she wiped their memories and gave them new ones. Did she also give Celeste a little energy hit? The owner didn’t seem to notice the blood stains a few of us carried on our clothing. He either assumed the stains were caused by spilled wine, which some were, or the blonde succubus had kept him from noticing somehow.

  “I am so sorry we were detained,” the older man said. He hurried to the tasting counter and began pouring full glasses of pinot noir as though it were a perfectly normal afternoon. “This is usually a favorite of guests.”

  Before the last glass sloshed with light red liquid, the succubi group were in their van and barreling down the gravel driveway. The winemakers behaved as if they’d not even seen the extra women. I wondered what would become of the Hunter bodies and made a mental note to ask Marie when I saw her at our upcoming meeting at the harpy complex.

  I took a sip of wine and decided this varietal was a favorite of mine too.

  Shawna held the cat in one arm and drank wine with the other. “It’s delicious!” she exclaimed, happiness filling her eyes in a way I’d yearned to see since she was taken.

  “I’m glad you like it.” The owner motioned to his son. “Grab some fresh oyster crackers for our friends here.”

  The son reached into a nearby cabinet and pulled out an unopened bag of little white circular crackers. I admired the tattoos covering both of his arms as he did so. He poured the crackers into the recently emptied—hey, I said I was hungry—wooden bowl and pushed the bowl toward me. Hint taken.

  Ready to go eat actual food, I finished my glass and expressed my thanks to the owner and his son for a delicious tasting. “How much do we owe you for the tastings?” I added.

  “Nothing. I appreciate you helping me clean up the place. We love that cat, she’s a great mouser, but sometimes she lets the hunt take over her mind.”

  I knew what that felt like.

  “Here,” the man said as he searched a shelf behind him. “Let me give you a gift, for your troubles.” He didn’t find what he was looking for, so he told his son to grab the magnum. Whatever that meant.

  The younger man returned with a 1.5-liter bottle of pinot noir. He handed it to his father, who handed it to me.

  “I appreciate it,” I said, feeling more than a little guilty that the winery owner was handing over a hundred-dollar bottle of wine to people who’d stained his cement floors with Hunter blood. I decided to send him a check in the mail for his troubles.

  I held the cool bottle and another thought pushed the guilt out with a swiftness. I wondered if Salem had any restaurants with bottle service. Another thought followed that one. I’d just promised Marie a favor, and knowing her, she’d call in a doozy at the worst possible time.

  Three

  Salem, Oregon did, in fact, have a restaurant with bottle service. Marcus and my coterie made quick work of the magnum-sized bottle of pinot noir. While finishing off the last drop of red deliciousness, we decided to head home after dinner. Yeah, we’d forfeit the amount we’d paid for our hotel rooms, but it was a small price to pay to avoid another unprepared Hunter run-in.

  Marcus wiped his mouth with the white cloth napkin and placed it on the empty plate in front of him. “We need to figure out how they knew where to find you.”

  I automatically looked at Shawna to gauge her reaction to the topic. Nothing. She took a bite of mashed potatoes and gave me a closed-mouth smile when she noticed I was staring.

  “You’d know better than us. You’ve spent more time with them,” I said.

  “I do have a couple ideas,” Marcus answered.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Marcus looked around the table and then leaned in. “I don’t know a whole lot about the other complexes. I did a short trip with my father, before going to the police academy, and toured the complexes of the United States. But we only spent a day or two at each location, so I can’t tell you anything about their tactics or training.”

  “Then what can you tell us?” Celeste asked. She pulled lipstick from her purse and slowly applied the color like an expert—no mirror needed.

  “Our women don’t work outside the home,” Marcus started.

  I bristled at the term “our women,” and he noticed.

  Marcus grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed. His way of giving a tender apology without letting the coterie know. They accepted him for Shawna’s sake. Not for my sake. “Sorry. The women of Washington Hunter families don’t work outside the home. And the men usually take jobs that suit the brotherhood. But what if the Oregon Hunters don’t operate that way?”

  “What are you suggesting?” Celeste asked. She pushed her glass of water away from her. After a new coat of lipstick, smudging was not an option.

  “What better way to monitor the coming and going of out-of-town visitors than to pour wine at one of the many local wineries? Especially a popular one?”

  He had a point. The first winery we visited was huge. It sat atop a hill, overlooking rolling hills covered in vineyards. The open tasting room, complete with a fireplace, brown leather couches, and water stations, led to a terrace where people ate meals from the winery kitchen while taking in the spectacular view. A definite tourist stop. Hell, we’d made sure to stop there. The front desk woman at our hotel suggested it, said they’d just finished a multi-million-dollar remodel.

  Renee called the waiter to our table and asked for the check. He took a few plates and left to follow her request.

  The dark wood walls and floor-to-ceiling windows gave the restaurant the feel of fancy meets relaxed, if that was even a thing. Upside-down wine bottles filled with twinkle lights replaced chandeliers. Framed cork art decorated the walls.

  “You think we were served by a Hunter or a female from a Hunter family?” I asked. “Did any of you talk Wild speak at that place?” I canvassed my coterie.

  Wild speak wasn’t a scientific term, exactly. More like my own way of explaining the act of discussing topics that aren’t appropriate to be mentioned around humans. Stuff like back bark, and finger vines, and oh I don’t know, burning down the Hunter complex.

  I received a bunch of noes and head shakes. Someone must have said something without realizing.

  As though on cue, my phone rang.

  I didn’t want to look at it.

  “You going to get that?” Renee asked.

  Bossy pants.

  “It�
�s probably Marie,” I answered.

  “Then answer it. She may have hit a snag with the bodies or something.”

  I doubted it. Marie had a pretty tight handle on things, which was probably why she was calling.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket, and sure enough. I cringed and swiped the screen. The woman was going to hit on me, I just knew it. The more I had to talk to her, the more inevitable it was. She didn’t care that I’d made it clear I wasn’t interested or available. No wasn’t in her vocabulary. “Yes?”

  “You aren’t very good at hiding your excitement,” Marie responded.

  “Excitement?”

  “No one will know. You can admit it.”

  “Admit what?” I asked, knowing full well Marie was pulling me in like a fish to a worm-covered hook.

  “My voice. It calls to you. I assure you, my moans are better.”

  Ah, yes. Sexually free succubi leader. That’s Marie.

  My whole coterie overhead Marie, but only Celeste laughed. I covered the receiver. “Wait ’til she hits on you. Then tell me how funny it is.”

  “I hope she does,” Celeste quipped. Did not see that coming.

  I returned to my phone conversation. “What can I do for you?” I waited for her to make a joke, or maybe not a joke, about doing me.

  “You owe me a favor,” she said, which happened to be the other response I was expecting.

  “For earlier today?” I asked.

  The waiter handed Renee the check and she promptly gave him the total in cash.

  “And for the help we gave your coterie last week,” she answered.

  “No, no, no. We’ve already discussed this. All of us came to an agreement.” I looked around the restaurant and then lowered my voice. Marcus’s theory made too much sense for me to ignore. “They’ll be expecting us to hit the Hunter complex in your area next. Probably why they were so quick to catch up to us today. Thought we were here to attack them. The east coast complex won’t be expecting us. We go there next. We rest and regroup. Just like we planned.”

  The waiter gave Renee the receipt and removed an armful of dirty dishes from the table. My coterie pushed their chairs out and stood. I followed them out of the restaurant and toward the minivan we’d rented. Hunters would never look for a group of Wilds in a minivan. Also, that’s all Enterprise had on short notice.

  “Come, stay at my home tonight,” Marie offered. “We can discuss it here.”

  I waited for Renee to unlock the van. “Absolutely not,” I said. “After what happened this afternoon, we’re heading home.”

  I sat on one side of Marcus, on the middle row bench, and Shawna sat on the other side. So, she was feeling better, but still needed Marcus. Good to know. This last week I’d noticed myself taking Shawna’s emotional temperature on a nearly constant basis. I hoped she didn’t notice. I couldn’t begrudge her needing him. He was the first person she’d seen when we came to, her rescuer in her eyes. And if it made her feel more secure to have him close by, I was good with that.

  “Put me on speaker,” Marie insisted. And I did. Not because she told me to, but because my coterie deserved to have their say.

  “Welcome to Portland, Oregon, huldra coterie,” Marie announced like she hadn’t just demanded a return favor.

  “Thank you for sending help,” Patricia responded. “We owe you.”

  I gave her a hard head shake. Not the smartest thing to say to a succubus.

  “I was hoping you’d feel that way,” Marie said, a smile in her voice. “I realize we had a plan, and I am still willing to continue with it, but in the meantime I need your help here.”

  “What kind of help?” Olivia asked.

  “I’d prefer not to discuss it over the phone,” Marie responded. “In person is better.”

  “You offered your home to us earlier when you spoke to Faline,” Patricia said in an even and assertive voice. “Which was very kind of you, but I fear that may be dangerous for you and your sisters. Five Hunters were sent to detain a group of possible Wild Women and they never returned to their complex. I wouldn’t want your local authorities to think your kind had anything to do with it.”

  Marie snorted. I didn’t even know Marie was capable of snorting. “Returning to your home would be the bigger mistake, much more so than visiting mine.”

  Patricia rubbed her temples. I kept my I-told-you-so to myself. “Yes, we’ve already thought of that. But all our records were destroyed in the fire. And as far as them locating us by our last name, we’ve already begun the process of getting that legally changed; one of my aunts knows a guy. Also, where would they detain us? Their complex is gone.”

  A long moment of silence hung in the air. The name thing was a big issue for us. Legally changing it would take weeks. Weeks we didn’t have. And the only way to keep this change out of public record was to count on an ex-lover of Renee’s, who happened to be in the FBI and able to pull a few witness protection strings, which was tricky in and of itself. But Marie didn’t need to be privy to our concern.

  Marie let out a long sign. “Your coterie isn’t the only non-human visitors in the Portland area.”

  “Other Wilds?” I asked.

  Marie answered on a heavy breath as though her façade had slipped and she was finally leveling with us. “No.”

  I took the phone off speaker and pushed it against my face. “What do you mean, Marie? What type of creature outside of Wild Women and Hunters exists?”

  Marcus closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “What?” I asked him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I can’t say more over the phone,” Marie answered.

  “Fine,” I said. “I can’t speak for the others, but I’ll have them drop me off on their way home.” I’d figure out the next step from there.

  I ended the phone call, anxious to hear what Marcus had failed to tell me earlier. I leveled a gaze at him. “Fess up.”

  He rubbed his barely-there five-o-clock shadow and let out a groan. “You remember the front door to the cabin where your sister was kept?”

  I thought I saw Shawna shiver. She scooted closer to Marcus.

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember how it had symbols for all the different Wild Women and then some extras you couldn’t quite place?” he went on.

  “Mmhm.”

  “Yeah, there’s more out there than just the Hunters and the Wild Women.”

  “Who? What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Too many to know. We didn’t regulate the male species, only the female.”

  My chin dropped. “There’s males out there, like Wilds?”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “I don’t know. We had like a day or two of training on them, at best. And it wasn’t something we discussed. We just knew they were out there. We left them alone and they left us alone.”

  His exposure baffled me. So many questions ran through my mind. “But what about what you told me in that hotel room before I met with the harpies?”

  “Excuse me?” Renee cut in. “You two shared a hotel room?”

  I held back a groan. “Not what’s important right now,” I commented, and got back to business. “Marcus, you said the Hunters have always wanted power, and controlling the most powerful kind, Wild Women, gave them that power. So there’s others out there like us, who are just as powerful?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. You’re assuming I lied to you.” Marcus turned his body to face me and took my hands in his. The cat was out of the bag now anyway. “I know that look. You’re building walls against me as I speak.”

  I ground my teeth and looked away. I hated that he studied me so well, sometimes.

  “I didn’t lie,” he continued. “Wild Women are the most powerful non-human species. Period. They create life. They grow baby Wilds. The males can’t do that, males of any species. They need a human woman to carry their offspring, which weakens the bloodline in a way. Some aren’t even sure, when they impregnate a human woman, if their o
ffspring will be human or not. Wild Women have the purest bloodline and are most powerful.”

  His ego-boosting words knocked down any semblance of an emotional wall I’d unconsciously tried to build. “Okay,” I said. Because that’s all I could think to say. “Okay.” I allowed him to lean his chin onto my head, despite my coteries’ stares.

  I ignored Renee’s gasp.

  I pressed my hands into his thighs in resolve. “Okay,” I said again. “Let’s go see what type of male, non-human creatures can rattle the leader of the succubus galere.”

  Four

  Our goodbyes outside the succubi’s apartment complex didn’t last long. By the time my aunt pulled the minivan to the curb in front of the white brick apartment building everything that needed to be said had already been said. Some good. Some not so good.

  On the drive from the restaurant we’d decided throwing Shawna into a building “infested” (their words, not mine) with succubi, would likely pull her two steps back. Of course, during this decision-making session Olivia blew up my phone and Marcus had a few things to say via text too.

  Olivia worried that Shawna’s response to the Hunter was a bit over the top—not exactly a step in the right direction as some of the others voiced during the drive. She was definitely pro taking-Shawna-home. But she also didn’t want to accompany her.

  Shawna had no input to share as we spoke of her. She sat contently with a half-smile on her face, or maybe a smirk—I couldn’t tell. I assumed she was still riding high from her earlier attack.

  Marcus didn’t want to return to Washington without me either. He sat beside me, our arms touching one another, not speaking audibly, but rather through our phones. His texts were fewer and farther between compared to Olivia’s. If he had an opinion about Shawna, he didn’t say so. One thing he did make very clear, though, was his desire to stay with me. A desire I had no say in and I told him as much through text. Shawna didn’t seem to need him too terribly the last couple days, but she was only a week out of her traumatic experience and susceptible to losing ground on her recovery.