Then again, that had been weeks in his time. It might have been eight months in hers.
Clarissa extended her arms out to him. “Lucifer, won’t you come in?” She waved to Clyde, who ignored her and continued to munch on bushes.
Clarissa’s swollen belly bounced into him as she hugged him. Lucifer tolerated Clarissa’s embrace before drawing back. “I can’t stay. I’ve only come to bring you a potential student for your school.” Lucifer pushed Jimmy forward.
The boy turned his face away shyly. At least he wasn’t kicking and biting. Lucifer was certain they would have thrown him out if he had.
The woman behind Clarissa whispered. “Open enrollment for admissions has closed.” Her face was austere and thin. The dark hair sliding down her shoulders resembled waves of water.
Her height and lean features suggested she might be related to Vega Bloodmire.
“He’s an orphan and needs a home safe for a Witchkin child,” Lucifer said.
“Of course. We haven’t ever turned a child away.” Clarissa kneeled down and took the boy’s grimy fingers in hers. “Hello, my name is Clarissa. What’s your name?”
“Are you a witch?” He looked to Lucifer. “Is she going to chop off my fingers and toes and eat them?”
“I am a witch, but not that kind of witch.” Clarissa gave the boy a smile full of kindness and patience. There was something of Abigail in that smile, even if the two weren’t related by blood. Clarissa smoothed hair out of the boy’s eyes. “We try to do good magic here. Magic that doesn’t hurt people.”
Lucifer thought about Baba threatening to chop off Abigail’s fingers and toes if he dawdled. Maybe it was an idle threat. With Baba, there was never any telling.
“I think I should be going now,” Lucifer said.
“Wait.” Clarissa stood. “Do you have any news about . . . my mom?”
He hadn’t wanted to see Clarissa. Moments before, his reasoning had been spite. Now that he was here, gazing down at her imploring expression, new emotions churned inside him. He had vowed he would help Abigail, but he still hadn’t revived her. Clarissa would see him as a failure. He saw himself as a failure.
“I made a bargain with Baba Nata.” Lucifer couldn’t meet her eyes. “If I serve as her apprentice, she’ll teach me how to revive Abby.”
Clarissa’s brows furrowed. “But if you revive her without a soul, her body will be empty.”
“Baba has possession of Abby’s soul.”
She placed a hand on her heart, her face drawn. “I’m not certain that’s possible.”
He wanted to hiss at her but managed some control over his vocal cords. “You’re an expert on souls, then?”
Clarissa’s lips pressed into a line. “No. I don’t think anyone in this realm can be an expert. But I do know a soul can’t be kept from a body for long. It’s been two years. The longer the ties have been severed, the less likely it is that you can unite a soul with a body. It’s going to atrophy.”
“I will find a way to revive her.” Lucifer forced confidence into his voice that he didn’t feel. “It may take time and training, but I will do it.”
“Yes, but hopefully it won’t take too much time.” Clarissa nodded slowly, unconvinced. “Would you like to come in and see your brother?”
Not one more person Lucifer had to see that he didn’t like. “No. I need to be on my way.”
“Ahem,” said Clyde from the garden. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“One small request before I go,” Lucifer said. “I promised my ride an apple.”
* * *
Lucifer didn’t give Clyde the apple right away. “I don’t suppose you could take me to a portal to the Morty Realm. I would like to go to Eugene, Oregon.”
That was the city in the Morty Realm Lucifer was the most familiar with, followed by Portland and Oregon City, all places Abigail had once lived. She had taken Lucifer with her so many times in her purse, he would be able to find one of her former doctors to convince someone to give him the proper medicine.
Clyde’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t really a virgin, are you?” Clyde led Lucifer along a trail in the forest, away from the castle.
“Why do you say that?” Lucifer tried to concentrate on feelings of chastity again.
Clyde inhaled deeply and sneezed. “I can smell it. You must be using some kind of glamour. Impurity smells like rotting garbage and rancid donkule breath.”
“Right. Well, you want this apple, don’t you?”
Clyde lifted his nose up at Lucifer. “Not after those hands touched it. Who knows where those hands have been?”
Lucifer wasn’t used to sustaining his magic for this long. Fatigue tugged at his stamina. He sank back into himself, shifting the energy inside him to a more palatable resonance. He swept away impurities and cleansed the anger and turmoil from his soul.
Clyde eyed him warily. “You’re like Clarissa, aren’t you? One of those weird affinities that can masquerade as something else? I’m not going to be tricked into performing favors for you. And I most certainly am not going to let you ride on my back.”
Lucifer sank his awareness back into his center, pushing his will into radiating more innocence and virginity. “I heard you let Clarissa ride you.” After she’d married Lucifer’s brother, Felix.
“Yes, well, that was different. It was an emergency.” Clyde kicked at a clump of dirt. “Also, she’s prettier than you.” He squinted at Lucifer. “Maybe if you shaved that beard off, you’d be easier on the eyes.”
“Not happening, but I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just find my own way there, then.” Lucifer tossed the apple up in the air and caught it, using it to taunt the unicorn. When he brought the fruit to his face and inhaled the scent, his mouth watered.
Longing filled Clyde’s eyes. Lucifer opened his mouth, grazing his teeth against the apple.
“No! Stop! That’s my apple.” Clyde shifted from foot to foot in agitation. “You promised me that apple.”
“No. I said I’d see what I could do. I’ll promise you this apple if you give me a ride to the Morty Realm.” Lucifer felt the façade he was projecting weaken as he walked.
Clyde stomped his foot. “You’re a big pegasus butt, you know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Lucifer thought of Abigail, asleep in her bed of flowering strawberry blossoms, the flowers not yet ripe. He grasped the essence of springtime and untouched flowers and pushed that into his aura. “If you give me a ride to the Morty Realm, I will give you this apple now. And when we arrive, I’ll brush out your mane and whisper sweet nothings in your ear.” Lucifer stroked the steed’s neck and caressed Clyde’s horn.
Clyde shivered. “Promise?”
Lucifer liked having magic. He fed the unicorn the apple and mounted his back. He had never ridden an equine species before, much less one without a saddle, but Lucifer managed. It took all his concentration to stay on top, so his façade of virgin armor crumbled.
Clyde turned his head over his shoulder to eye Lucifer, almost walking into a tree in the process. “I know who you are now.”
“Do you?” Lucifer attempted to cloak his affinity, but he was tired from keeping up the illusion.
Clyde snorted. “You’re that unscrupulous donkule monger who cuts off virgins’ fingers.”
“I think you have mistaken me for Baba Nata, the Witch of Nightmares. Just because I’m her apprentice doesn’t mean I eat children or cut off their limbs. I freed Jimmy so she wouldn’t eat him.”
“Right. You expect me to believe you after I saw the evidence of what you did to Sleeping Beauty. I smelled your scent all over that girl. I saw what you did to her fingers.”
Lucifer’s heart lurched, fearing what this unicorn might be implying. “Do you mean Abby?” He was so distracted, he almost missed a low branch that would have struck him in the face if he h
adn’t ducked in time. “Do you mean the woman with the red hair outside Baba’s hut? Was something wrong with her fingers?”
“She’s a maiden, not a woman.”
Lucifer didn’t mention that Abigail had been married for twenty years. But she didn’t look old enough for that. And it was possible her transformation into a tree had been so complete that when she’d returned to being human, her body wasn’t actually the same body anymore. She might be a maiden now. At the moment, she certainly didn’t have the soul of a woman close to fifty years old.
Lucifer cleared his throat. “Has someone hurt her? Is she . . . missing fingers?” She hadn’t been missing fingers when he’d last checked. Then again, her hands had been folded over each other holding flowers.
“Not anymore. We healed her,” Clyde said.
“No!” Lucifer’s breath caught in his throat.
The day he’d seen the unicorns, they had insulted him. He hadn’t realized their anger hadn’t just been about him not being a virgin. Their words made more sense now.
Lucifer’s belly churned. Baba had threatened to take Abigail’s toes if she didn’t have a child to use for her magic. What Lucifer hadn’t realized was that she already had been sneaking bits of Abigail into her potions. Here he was now, off on an errand that had been his idea. Abigail was left alone and defenseless.
No matter how long he took, Baba might claim he had dawdled. Anger at his foolishness swelled in him.
“Bro, if you start projecting that kind of magic, I’m going to buck you off,” Clyde said.
Lucifer didn’t have enough energy to mask his emotions, let alone his affinity. He wrapped Clyde’s hair around his hands more securely. “If you think me such a horrible person that I would chop off my true love’s fingers for fueling magic, I’m surprised you haven’t already.”
“Well, that’s the problem. You did make me promise to bring you to the Morty Realm.” Clyde slashed at the air with his two-foot horn, opening up a new portal. This one was flashier than the first one.
The portal was a swirling vortex of colors, like being inside a rainbow candy cane. Lucifer stared in wonder as they passed through it. He wished Abigail could have seen it.
The moment Clyde exited the tunnel, he plopped his rump in a patch of clover and shook himself. Lucifer tumbled off the unicorn’s back.
“I can’t believe I let you touch my horn.” The unicorn wiped his horn against a tree as if trying to rid himself of Lucifer’s filth. Apparently unsatisfied with the effectiveness, Clyde stabbed at the ground. It was comical to watch.
“Don’t expect a ride back, pegasus breath. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times, shame on me.” Clyde lifted his head. “Though, you’d better hope there isn’t a next time. If there is, you’re going to have a run-in with my horn.”
* * *
Lucifer didn’t mean to dawdle. He wanted to be quick with the errand and return to Baba’s before that pervey duke molested Abigail or Baba got any ideas about using her fingers or toes in spells.
Unfortunately, Lucifer was so exhausted from suppressing his magic and projecting an illusion of himself, he didn’t have the energy to rise from where Clyde had dumped him in a cluster of ferns.
The sun was high in the sky, and the day was muggy and warm despite the golden leaves on the trees. Lucifer leaned against a tree to rest and promptly fell asleep.
Morning sunshine greeted Lucifer when he woke. He didn’t know how much time had passed. A day? He needed to get the medicine and return to Baba’s. Everyone was waiting for him. Even if time passed more slowly where Baba’s cottage was located in the Faerie Realm, one day here might be hours there.
Baba wasn’t a patient woman.
The unicorn hadn’t deposited Lucifer in Eugene, or even Oregon, but the accent of the locals placed him somewhere in the United States, so he felt some familiarity with the Morty culture and how their medical system worked. He walked out of a park into a city, asking directions along the way until he found a doctor’s office. It took several hours, and he was hungry by that time. He knew he looked like a wild man, his hair unkempt and his beard untamed. He brushed the leaves off himself the best he could.
Lucifer walked into the first doctor’s office he found, noting the names of the two doctors on the door were William Hansen and Todd White. Lucifer had to be careful about using magic in the Morty Realm. Glamours, illusions, and enchantments could be detected by Fae. It was safer to use spells in buildings with electricity so that Fae wouldn’t follow him, but the only kind of magic that would work near electronics used electrical magic, his affinity.
That meant he had to use incubus magic. It wasn’t so much that he cared about it being forbidden, though there was a reason it was illegal. More it was that Lucifer always felt guilty bending unsuspecting Morties to his will. Less scrupulous Witchkin would have used such powers to gain riches, but Lucifer just needed to retrieve a few necessities before he returned home.
Lucifer sauntered past people seated in the waiting room and leaned against the reception desk.
A middle-aged woman greeted him from the other side. “Good morning. Do you have an appointment?” Her cheerful expression wavered as she looked him up and down, one brow raised inquisitively.
Lucifer smiled and turned on the charm. It was like turning on a light switch inside himself, easier than masking his essence and projecting a false façade of energy as he had with the unicorn.
“Do I need an appointment? Don’t you ever do walk-ins?” His grin widened.
Her lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “Um. . . . Well, usually that isn’t the way we do things.”
“Is that the way we have to do things?” He winked at her. “The way you and I have to do things?”
A flush of heat rose up the woman’s neck. Lucifer sensed the flutter in her belly as keenly as he could sense the sore throats of a mother and her child in the office, as sharply as he could feel the migraine from another.
The receptionist wet her lips and leaned forward. “The doctor is so busy today.” She unfastened the top button of her collar and fanned herself, grinning. “If only I could examine you instead.”
Lucifer returned her smile, attempting to look confident and easy despite the way his stomach roiled with shame at what he was doing. Thirty years ago when he’d been a teenager, the allure of incubus magic had tempted him. He’d worked hard to keep control on his affinity so that he wouldn’t drive Abigail mad with pining.
Despite his misgivings, it felt good to unleash his magic now.
Another receptionist came out from the back, wobbling in her high heels. “Well, hello. Have you been helped?” Her voice came out breathy. “I can help you.”
“I’ll bet you can.” Lucifer waggled his eyebrows. “I need to see the doctor.”
“He’s all booked up this morning, but I’m sure we could squeeze you in somewhere.” Her gazed roved over him, her eyes settling on where she wanted to squeeze him. Desire pulsed inside her, waves of it rolling off her body like mist.
“Is there any way I could just see the nurse. I have a pressing question. I won’t take long.” He rubbed a hand over his chest, stirring up more magic locked under his skin.
The first receptionist bit her lip. The second one nodded mutely.
He leaned closer to them over the counter. “How about I just pop around to the nurse’s station back there and ask a quick question?”
They both nodded. A breathy sigh and a wave of yearning came from behind Lucifer. The mother with a sore throat stared at him longingly. He wondered whether he had turned on too much incubus magic.
There were two nurses in the back. One wore a wedding ring. Lucifer stayed clear of her. He already felt bad enough seducing a nurse into giving him drugs. He didn’t want to ruin her marriage too. The second nurse had short blond hair. She was older and plumper, mature enough to be his mother. Her name tag said “Wanda.”
“Good day
to you, Wanda.” He flashed a smile. “I wondered if I could trouble you for some medical advice. Do you have a minute?”
She stared at him quizzically. “Are you a patient?”
The younger nurse giggled. “I like your accent.”
“Can we discuss this matter privately? In exam room three?” he asked.
Wanda resisted his magical influence. Her will was made of iron. “This is highly unorthodox. Who gave you permission to come back here?”
Lucifer touched her arm. “It’s all right. The front desk sent me back.”
The stiffness in her spine melted away at his touch. The suspicion left her eyes. A spark of yearning replaced her businesslike attitude. She grabbed him by the arm and practically shoved him into the exam room, kicking the door closed behind her. She pushed him against the wall and kissed him.
That was how Lucifer knew he had radiated a little too much of his natural self. He attempted to dim the sexual magic pouring out of him, but it was like a trying to rebuild a dam while the water was gushing out.
Lucifer said against her lips. “I need some medicine for a friend.” The term “friend” was being generous, but he didn’t have the time or inclination to explain who Godric was. “You’ll have to advise me which medicine is best.”
“I’ve always wanted to play doctor in here.” The nurse untucked his shirt from his trousers.
His affinity was all-consuming. He’d forgotten about this part. It had been so long since he’d use it for seduction.
It was difficult to tear himself from Wanda’s lips, but he did. “Right. Playing doctor. Okay, nurse. Let’s pretend I’m a patient who has a sick friend. What kind of medicine would the doctor prescribe for a venereal disease?”
“You mean an STI?”
Lucifer paused, trying to remember what that term meant. “Indeed.”
Son of a Succubus Series Collection Page 23