“Anyway, nine months later he stole Martha from the estate in order to ‘save’ her unborn child from me, should it be a girl. It took less than an hour from the time he stole Martha for poor Deborah to die in the fire. My father descended into a complete frenzy. He told me he terrorized everyone on the estate—that he was like the devil incarnate—until he found someone who knew where Martha was. Then when he found her …” Tarmien paused and swallowed.
“Apparently,” he continued, “Martha was on the verge of giving birth anyway, so when my father ripped Lotta from the womb … You know she survived.”
His nerves jumping inside his paralyzed form, Stephen wanted to rage against his father for not telling him this before, but he had no choice. He had to lay there and listen.
“My father said he seduced Martha. She was willing, even as she was dying. It wasn’t until he realized she wasn’t breathing that he came to his senses. He saw Lotta to safety and kept the rest a secret. The truth has been obscured by lies and misunderstandings all these years. But he couldn’t die without letting me know what I might be capable of, or what I might have passed down to you.”
“What you have passed down to me. And now I have to live with the possibility that I could become a murderer.” He took a moment to breathe, to calm himself. “The incident this morning—I can’t risk it happening again. I have to keep Nina safe, at least until she has the baby. Can she come here?”
“Of course. She can serve the family here as well as she can serve us in Kingston. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Thank you. Now all I have to do is …” His hands formed claws and he ground his teeth together. “It’s like an irresistible itch that won’t go away until I get close to a womb. And I’m afraid of hurting whoever I get my hands on first. I don’t want to hurt Herman.”
“You could go to a prostitute.”
“Is that what you’d do?” he asked rather cruelly, his thoughts going to the hurt his mother had endured when she discovered the existence of Reed.
“I don’t know,” his father answered quietly.
“This means my children will be possessed of this thing as well.”
“Probably only the males. The old texts that we found in the attic when we moved here confirmed that my great-grandmother is the only woman recorded to have inherited it. She had the power to cast the curse. When she left Antigua, she left all the records here—journals and the like. I’m still working on getting the translations done, but I’ve discovered that the woman who was impregnated by the incubus in the first place was a Curry. They’ve been with us for centuries.”
Stephen’s mind spun through the implications.
“I think there might be a cure,” Tarmien said. “If so, you may be able to take it before you have a son.”
“A cure for being a demon?”
“It’s a long shot, but it’s all I have.”
“What is it?”
“I need a second opinion. I don’t completely trust the translation I’ve had done. But if it is right, the cure may be the menstrual blood of a Curry woman.”
“How …”
“You’d have to drink it, I think.”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t be with Nina again. I can’t do that to Herman. I’ve already put her through so much, and now I have to tell her I’m an incubus.”
“A cambion. That’s what we are. The product of an incubus and a woman is called a cambion.”
“That makes it better,” Stephen said, his voice laced with sarcasm. He focused on the muscles in his feet but found he could only move his knees.
“The incubus is said to have raped Mary Curry in the fourteenth century. The blood is so diluted in us that we have nothing of the demon left unless, as we’ve just discovered, there’s a threat to our children. And the magical powers. In generations past, the demon was much more apparent. Enough that our ancestors weren’t able to live within normal society. Because of that, the family tree has dwindled to only us, as far as I know.”
“And if I don’t drink Nina’s menstrual blood before she has her hysterectomy, there’s no one left to end the line of cambions. Unless it doesn’t matter that the blood is mixed with Dagmar blood. And even then, it will be generations before it can be done without the possibility of incest.” The thought made him want to vomit.
“That’s the part I want to have re-translated. There’s a question as to whether only the blood of a purebred Curry will purify our blood. I think it’s possible that when my great-grandmother cast the curse, she did us a favor by keeping the two families together.”
A morose thought came to Stephen’s mind. “If I did take the cure, would I lose my magic?”
Tarmien shook his head. “I don’t know, Stephen.”
CHAPTER 16
Herman opened the door to Stephen’s knock and kissed him quickly on the lips. She climbed onto Margaret’s bed and sat beside his best friend, then patted the space she left on her other side for him. The girls were well on their way to inebriation, watching City of Angels. There was an empty wine bottle beside the lamp on Margaret’s side of the bed, and another bottle and a half of Merlot on the table at Herman’s side. Without a word, Stephen sat beside her and held her hand, distractedly rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. He stared at the TV without watching. When a commercial came on, Herman got up to pour them all a glass of wine.
“How did it go with my dad?” she asked.
“He’s close to finding out things I’d rather he didn’t.” He turned to Margaret. “And he came across your girlfriend downstairs, so he knows everything that happened this morning as well.”
Margaret sneered. “Isn’t that just perfect.”
“I already know about that,” Herman said. “He can’t hold it over your head.”
“No, but I think he was able to pick things up from her about me that have led him closer to knowing some of the family secrets.”
“And about the color of your eyes this morning?” Herman asked.
“Yes,” he said. He glanced at Margaret, wishing he could talk to her about what might be the fatal wound in his relationship with Herman.
“Is there more I need to know about you?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck, Stephen,” Herman whined. “Well, not now. I’m watching the movie.” She crawled over his legs to return to the middle of the bed. They drank their wine, and when the film ended Herman turned to Stephen with tears streaming down her cheeks. Without warning, she backhanded him lightly across the chest.
“What was that for?” He sounded irritable even to his own ears.
“You’re not crying.”
“I’ve seen the movie before. For that matter, I knew what was going to happen the first time I saw it.”
“I’ve seen it before too. But I still cry every time I do,” she said, hitting him again.
“I’m not the crying type. I don’t cry.”
“Insensitive bastard.” She reached for the bottle of wine. It was too far away so she climbed on his lap.
“Would you like me to get that for you?” he snapped.
“No, fuck it. I have to pee anyway.” She crawled off the bed and staggered to the bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said, sitting up to face Stephen as soon as the door closed behind Herman.
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
“Are you okay now?”
“I don’t think so. It’s this thing … I’m still on edge. I have this agonizing need to fuck.”
Margaret sat back, wincing as she did.
“I’m afraid of hurting Herman. I’ve …” He bit his fingernail. “I’ve always been gentle with her.”
“I like it rough,” she offered, staring down at her hands on her lap.
“Thanks, but I couldn’t live with myself if I fucked around on her.”
“Right,” she said. She looked up at him thoughtfully. “Wait, what did you mean
when you said ‘this thing’?”
Just then, Herman emerged from the bathroom. He sat up, cross-legged, and waited for Herman to sit facing him.
“Okay, talk. What’s the latest devastating news?”
Stephen took a deep breath and held her hands to steady himself. He was surprised to find himself calmed a fraction. “It started when your father threatened Nina and the baby. Then, when I talked to my dad we figured out what it is.” He squinted, his eyebrows drawing together as though maybe by doing so he could keep the thought from revealing itself. He forced the words out. “I have something living inside me. It’s what gives me my powers.”
“You make it sound like you’re possessed by a demon.” Her eyes widened. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why your eyes changed color.” She let go of his hands and sat straighter.
“It’s a special type of demon. It’s an incubus.”
“An incubus as in the thing that lures women into having sex with them?”
“It’s far removed from the original demon that corrupted the men in the family, but yes, that’s what an incubus does.”
“So what does that mean? Now you’ve discovered it, you’re permanently possessed? Because I know you’re still not yourself.”
“I’m not, and there are two ways to deal with it: one for the short term, and the other is a possible cure. I don’t want to hurt you, but I need …” How could he explain it? He clenched his fists. “Help me, Margaret.”
“No,” Herman breathed. She stood and backed away from the bed. “I saw this. I saw when I touched Margaret earlier, her ‘helping’ you.” She put her hand to her face and fell to her knees.
“What in the fuck are you talking about?” Stephen demanded.
Margaret got off the bed and staggered to the middle of the floor between them. She put her hands in the air. “Okay, let’s all calm down, take a breath, and figure this out.
“Stephen. You’re telling us you have demon blood in you.”
“Yes,” he barked.
“And there’re two ways of dealing with this?”
“For now, all I want to do is fuck the hell out of someone,” he said.
“And what might the cure be?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Go back to Nina and take her blood.”
“Oh no, no, no, no. Not Nina. That’s even worse than what I envisioned.”
“And what the fuck was that?” Margaret asked, swiveling to face her.
“I had a vision.” Herman looked up at Margaret. “Of you and Stephen making love. It was like I didn’t exist anymore.”
Stephen looked around Margaret. “I have no intention of having sex with Margaret.” Even as he spoke, he remembered what George had said to him on the phone.
“Except, what if I’m dead?” Herman said, her eyebrows raised, her voice reduced to a squeak. “What if my dad’s right and Nina manages to kill me? Wouldn’t the two of you end up together?”
“Herman, that’s not going to happen,” Stephen said. “I’m not going to let her hurt you.”
“Bullshit! You couldn’t stop her from hurting me before, what makes you think you can stop it from happening again? Hell, from the look on your face right now, I think you want to hurt me!”
“What I want isn’t to hurt you …” Stephen growled. He rose, and Margaret held her hand out in front of him.
“I wouldn’t get between us right now if I were you,” he said to her evenly. He caught the heady scent of her menstruation, and he knew by her expression as she backed away that his eyes had started to change again.
“I’m not going to let you hurt her,” Margaret said, moving closer to Herman.
He stared down at her. “Fine,” he said. He reached around her and took Herman by the collar, all but lifting her up off the floor. He grabbed Margaret’s hand, and dragged them both to the bed.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
It took everything human in him to walk away for the second time from what the blood flowing through his veins screamed out for. Herman’s ministrations had made him ejaculate earlier, but he’d known right away that it wasn’t enough just to orgasm. His balls ached and his erection throbbed, along with every muscle in his body. He needed to be inside a woman. His mind and his heart wanted Herman, but the demon in him didn’t care.
As he walked past the elevator, the door opened and two middle-aged women dressed as though they were getting home from a wedding reception stepped out, chatting. Beneath their heavy perfume Stephen could smell their skin, their slight perspiration, and deeper down he caught the intoxicating fragrance of their vaginal secretions. He paused to gaze at them and they stopped talking. For one fleeting second in which time seemed suspended, they recognized what he was and began to gravitate toward him.
It was like a hunger that consumed every part of my being … It was like being in the middle of an orgasm.
The words he had used to describe his feelings to his father came back to him as he experienced it again. Demanding self-restraint, he forced his feet to move.
In his room, with the door between himself and the demon’s temptation, he sat on the bed and buried his face in his hands, at a loss. Angry sex was nothing new to him; there were enough women in his past who had craved it, who thrived on the pain. In time he knew he would test Herman’s limits, but while the demon controlled him, he had no more compassion than an animal.
He reached down to rub the hardness that had aggravated him since he walked into Margaret’s room. He thought about George’s, and then Herman’s prediction that he would have sex with Margaret again. It seemed more and more plausible.
CHAPTER 17
Dozing on Margaret’s shoulder, Herman heard a knock at the door. Thinking it best to leave Stephen alone until he was ready to come back to get her, she had changed into one of Margaret’s favorite over-sized t-shirts, prepared to sleep where she was if she had to. Margaret got up to answer the door, and Herman flopped down onto the vacated pillow. She listened for the lock to turn and expected to hear Stephen’s voice. She looked up when she heard Margaret’s shocked exclamation.
“George!”
“Where’s Herm’n?”
Rolling over, she whipped the blanket over herself to hide, but not fast enough as her father barged into the room. He ripped the cover out of her hand. She lay curled up in a ball looking up at him.
He dropped the blanket. “Ge’ dressed. You’re comin’ wi’me,” he slurred.
“No, I’m not,” Herman said, pulling the sheets tightly over top of her.
“Ge’ dressed or I’m takin’ you outta here naked.” The fumes wafting from his mouth were almost enough to make her eyes water.
She took a quick glance over at Margaret. Cell in her hand, the older woman headed for the bathroom, leaving the door open a crack.
“At least turn around so I can have some privacy?”
He did, executing a drunken pirouette that almost knocked him over.
Herman rustled the sheets while she looked in vain for her jeans—she knew they were in the bathroom—wishing Stephen would hurry up. After a few seconds her wish came true. Stephen appeared in the chair by the window with a sharp whistle, much shorter and quieter than the one that had preceded his trip from Antigua. Luckily, George didn’t notice the sound; it took Stephen a moment to come around. Herman watched his head roll, then he blinked, struggling as though he wasn’t used to the light. She shook the sheets furiously and bounced on the bed in an effort to make it squeak while Stephen recovered.
“Are you almos’ ready?” George asked. He swayed precariously, but he didn’t turn around.
“Almost,” Herman said.
Stephen gave her a thumbs-up. He was in his jeans but shirtless. Herman thought seeing his muscular chest and arms might be enough to make her dad change his mind about taking her by force. She covered herself again and regarded Stephen as he stood to assure himself that he really was okay.
Herman’s dad attempted to spin around, forgetting to move his feet with his body. He had to grab the edge of the bed to keep himself from falling.
“Where the fuck di’ju come from?”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
George mumbled something incoherent and turned his focus on Herman. “Get up. You dressed yet?” He reached out to grab the sheet. Stephen leaped onto the bed to hold it up.
“Get out, George.”
“I’m not leavin’ wi’out my daughder,” he said, swaying heavily.
Stephen looked at him, considering. He pulled the sheet out of the end of the bed and handed it to Herman, who wrapped herself in it and moved to the chair. Then he looked at Margaret, who had emerged from the bathroom still wearing only a long t-shirt.
“Push him,” he said to her.
She stepped forward and gave George a shove between the shoulder blades, landing him facedown on the bed. He groaned once and was out like a light.
“Great, now where am I going to sleep?” Margaret asked.
“In our room?” Herman said, shivering with nerves that had come upon her suddenly.
“What about all my stuff? I’m not leaving him in here alone with all my clothes.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Stephen said. “Both of you close your eyes.”
Herman heard the strange whistling noise in reverse; instead of going from high and loud to soft, it went the other way.
“Okay,” he said.
She opened her eyes. Not only were all of Margaret’s things gone, the room was neat and clean, apart from the bed beneath George and the sheet she was still wrapped in. “Wow,” she said. “You don’t even need servants.”
Stephen grimaced. “No, I don’t.”
“Why did we have to close our eyes?” Herman asked.
“It makes me dizzy to watch.” He reached into his back pocket and swore. “Forgot the key. I’ll transfer myself …”
“No!” Margaret said. “Let me go. I’ve never done it before.”
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