Son of a Succubus Series Collection

by Dorie, Sarina

  When he handed the books to Baba, she flipped through them before passing the ancient tomes back to him. “I cannot see in such darkness. You find me spell for seeking essence.”

  His Old High German needed more work, and it took him several minutes to locate the spell.

  Baba readjusted her shawl around herself. “You read to me. I translate.”

  Lucifer read, Baba correcting his pronunciation. He didn’t understand most of what he was saying, but she did.

  She nodded decisively. “You must stitch together quilt made of Abigail’s essence.”

  “Do you mean a literal quilt? Like sewing?” He glanced at her knitting needles on the table, stabbed into a ball of yarn like torture devices.

  “You will make blanket. It is like golem.” She shook her head. “No, that is not right word. Like symbol. Embodiment of spirit that will act like mirror so she sees herself.”

  “Like an avatar?” Too late he forgot that was a word from the Morty Realm, not one Baba was likely to know. “How am I supposed to do that? All I have is her hair.”

  “Before you make search for Abby again, you will make blanket. Before you make blanket, you must gather items to spin straw into gold.” She grinned as though this were a joke.

  Already this sounded like an impossible task.

  “Tomorrow, you must make list of everything that made your Abby who she was.” Baba ran her fingers over the vivid blue yarn on the table, nearly as bright as Kelsie’s hair. “All her loves and desires. Then you will find item to represent each aspect of personality and her soul. You will go on quest for items you do not have.”

  He couldn’t wait until tomorrow. He lay in bed that night, mulling over what he could collect to represent each facet of who Abigail was. He would collect ripening strawberries still attached to their vines, to symbolize the time he had shown her plant magic when they were young. Oak leaves and bark smeared with pitch were a given, as that tree was her affinity. She had once been adept at gardening and using those herbs in her kitchen potions. It would stand to reason that he should collect those herbs.

  He considered seeing if he could lure unicorns to borrow a few of their hairs. That might represent her innocence. It would connect with her wonder and joy at riding them. Then again, that was the new Abigail, the child she’d woken as, not the woman he had once known. That Abigail had never gotten to ride a unicorn.

  Sometimes it was easy to confuse the two Abigails in his head.

  * * *

  Lucifer made his list and collected all the flowers Abigail had loved, her favorite herbs to plant, and soil from the garden as well as the forest. He added the ring he’d made from her hair and an eyelash from her pillow that he’d found the day she’d left with her daughter, Clarissa. How strange it must be for Clarissa to raise the mother who had once raised her. Clarissa was a woman in her twenties with her own children. Lucifer felt mildly guilty for adding to her responsibilities by giving her a four-year-old trapped in a sixteen-year-old’s body.

  Lucifer placed the items in a wooden box that Baba gave him. It took him days to gather everything that represented Abigail. He didn’t know how long he had to make this quilt to snare her soul. If he took too long, her soul might be gone by the time he finished.

  He showed Baba the items he had collected. Kelsie sat at the table peeling potatoes, looking as grouchy as ever. Her blue hair stuck out every which way, shorter than his, but not by much.

  Baba peered into the box. “It is a start. You need more. Fetch pen and paper.”

  Lucifer did so, settling down at the table, ready to write more items to make a patchwork quilt of her soul.

  “She liked to stroke kitten. Or perhaps just you as kitten.” Baba nodded to her other apprentice. “Have Kelsie pluck some of your hair next time you turn into cat.”

  He only resorted to turning into a cat when he couldn’t charge his affinity in another way.

  “Right. And get all scratched up in the process.” Kelsie lifted her nose up at him. “No way.”

  “I’m not going to scratch you. When have I ever misbehaved as a cat in your presence?” He threw a potato peel at her.

  Baba’s lips curled around her toothless gums. “Lucy behaves better as cat than man.”

  “What about the hairs of other people she loved?” Kelsie set down a potato. “Wouldn’t they be part of who she was as well?”

  “Like her daughters?” Lucifer supposed he could gather something from Clarissa—if Baba gave him leave to go to her castle. It was the others from Abigail’s life who would be more difficult. “Her husband is dead. So is Missy, her oldest daughter. And the woman who adopted her.” Aunt Grace, the woman who had taken care of Abigail when she’d first gone to the Morty Realm, had been a good woman, the mother Abigail had needed. “Her parents and brothers are dead too.” Abigail had experienced so much loss in her life. It was only him and Clarissa left.

  “You know where graves of kin are?” Baba asked.

  He knew where some of their graves were. “You want me to dig up their bodies to rob their graves?” Abigail would be horrified if she learned that he had done so. Then again, he couldn’t allow that to stop him.

  “Hair or bones would not be bad. It makes good strong magic, but decay and death might repel fragile soul.” Baba drummed her fingers against her pointed chin. “Flowers growing on graves might be better, nyet?”

  Abigail had tended to the calla lilies she’d planted on her late husband’s and daughter’s graves in the spring. With her plant affinity, those would resonate more with her than bones. She’d grown orchids too. He smiled as he remembered how she’d often jokingly called them her familiars. Those would call to her soul, perhaps more strongly than cat hair.

  “Perhaps Abigail have keepsake, an heirloom she kept.” Baba sucked on her remaining teeth. “That knife of her brother’s she always wanted with her because of cold iron to protect against Fae. Where is that?”

  Lucifer had forgotten about her brother’s knife.

  Kelsie scooped her peelings into a pile and pushed them into a metal bowl. “Won’t the cold iron ruin the magic in the spell?”

  “Pah! I forget.” Baba shook her head in disgust. “I am tired from last night.”

  That was an important detail to forget. Lucifer wondered just how old Baba was—not that she would ever tell him when he asked. Kelsie left the cottage to throw the peels outside into the compost pile.

  “I should see what’s left of her home in the Morty Realm,” Lucifer said. “There might be other items there.” The garden would remain, even if Clarissa had sold her house or it had foreclosed. And if it hadn’t, he knew where she kept the spare key. “Will you give me leave to perform this errand?”

  Baba inclined her head. “If you do not dawdle.”

  Considering the way she threatened to turn him into a cat again each time he even thought about disobeying her and sneaking off to visit Abigail at Clarissa’s castle, he hadn’t expected Baba would allow him to go to the Morty Realm. But perhaps this task was different.

  She knew he had a reason to return.

  Perhaps he was pushing his luck, but he had to try. “What about if I collect a lock of hair from Abigail at the castle?”

  “Nyet!” Baba snorted. “You will dawdle.”

  Lucifer dipped his quill into the ink and listed the items he should search for in the Morty Realm.

  Baba leaned forward, her voice so low he could scarcely hear her. “What about leshi tears?”

  “What about it?” Lucifer’s voice came out sharp and raw. There was no way to mention leshi and not think of Coinneach, the man Abigail had once loved who had been a Fae leshi. The rogue had collected lost children in the forest and eaten them before Abigail had shown him the error of his ways. Those memories of what Coinneach’s kin had done to Abigail’s family had been a burden on her soul. He didn’t want her to have to relive that anguish.

  “Abby is part leshi
, nyet? You will need something of her lineage and something of her past,” Baba said.

  Lucifer flinched to hear Baba call Abigail a leshi. Kelsie dropped the bowl in the doorway, the clatter ringing through the air.

  “What do you mean ‘she’s part leshi?’ Are you saying our Abby is related to that rogue Fae in the forest killing children?” Kelsie’s voice rose, and with it a wind whistled into the cottage.

  It didn’t take much for Kelsie’s breezy temperament to bluster.

  “No. She’s not leshi. Abby is Amni Plandai.” A flare of indignation burned in him. Not every person with a plant affinity was descended from carnivorous tree people. Just like not every Red affinity was descended from a succubus. It just happened he was. “Abigail might be part meliae, lauma, or wood nymph.”

  “Is that so? She tell you that?” Baba’s lips pressed into a line.

  The shrill shriek of wind seeping through cracks in the cottage rose. Lucifer couldn’t tell whether Kelsie was angry at Baba for insulting Abigail or her sisterly affection for Abigail was souring from the idea she could be related to a plant monster.

  Lucifer kept his voice calm, trying to appeal to Kelsie’s rational side. “Abby isn’t like the Fae who killed your little brother and sister. I told you, they hurt Abby’s brothers too. She has a tree affinity, and that’s in her lineage, but you know how she is. She wouldn’t want to hurt a ladybug.” It was true she didn’t go out of her way to hurt people, but she was completely indifferent to other people’s feelings. She didn’t even care about plants in the way she once had.

  Probably that was the problem with only possessing part of a soul.

  Kelsie’s wind affinity wicked away. “Even so, you could have told me. You just said she was tree and plant.” She glared at Baba now.

  Lucifer was glad she hadn’t. Kelsie’s bias would have affected how she treated his charge.

  “That stop you from helping Lucy? Or will you put prejudice aside?” Baba picked up a new skein of yarn. The essence of raindrops and fresh stream water wafted from the blue threads. “You collect leshi tears. What is better reminder of who she is and who she is not than something from leshi?”

  He raked his fingers through his beard, fighting the urge to clean himself like a cat. “It would be easier to collect cuttings from one of the Venus man traps, or cultivate a twig snapped off of a limb from one of their bodies, or even the nectar wine they drink than one of their tears.”

  “Their wine is poison. The acid will eat at other ingredients. That will hinder more than help.” Baba lifted herself from the table, grunting with the effort. “A start of plant will be like invasive weed and choke out all other life. Leshi tears are not toxic, and they will represent Abby’s feelings on the matter.”

  He didn’t know any leshi personally. The only one he’d encountered in the forest had been a trickster who had wanted to capture him.

  “How am I supposed to collect a leshi’s tears?” Tears of joy? Tears of pain?

  “That is your problem to solve. Not mine,” Baba said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Quest for Tears

  For months Lucifer had avoided the leshi. If he hadn’t uprooted and then burned the plant that had followed him home, he might have been able to find the leshi more easily to trace it back, but he’d been more concerned about how such a plant might hurt Abigail.

  This was the task Lucifer dreaded the most. He saved that task for last.

  Lucifer used ley lines to find portals to the Morty Realm. He was better at using portal magic than several months before. Instead of allowing the portal to take him wherever it wanted, he used one of the Celestor spells that relied on magic of the sky and stars to direct him to his destination. There were more powerful spells Witchkin used to transport themselves whenever and wherever they liked, but it was a start.

  Lucifer was careful to disguise his magic with wards while traveling in the Morty Realm to avoid detection from Fae. He first went to Oregon City, to the graves of the deceased, and collected flowers. Next he traveled to Abigail’s home in Eugene.

  From the cars in the driveway that weren’t Abigail’s, he could tell someone else now lived in her home. He crinkled up his nose at the gas-guzzling SUV, wondering what they had done with her Prius. He gathered up as many plants from the garden in the backyard as he could before the new owners spotted him.

  Once he reached Baba’s cottage, he stored these plants in his box to keep safe. With the spell Baba had cast on the box, all the plants remained fresh and supple. He didn’t want to delay in quilting it together.

  Baba used her cane to hobble over to the table. She nodded at his collection. “Good. You are almost there. Now it is time to collect leshi tears.”

  Apprehension rattled through him. He still didn’t know if these were tears of joy, sorrow, or pain he was to collect.

  Kelsie wiped her hands on her apron. “I’ll go with you.” Her eyes sparkled bright with grim eagerness.

  Baba waved her cane at Kelsie. “Nyet. If you go, it will be your tears Lucifer is collecting, not leshi’s.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Kelsie placed her hands on her hips. “Do you think I’m going to be a baby and cry when I see that monster? I’m stronger than I was before. I can help Lucy make that leshi cry.”

  “You are too young. You will get hurt.” Baba clutched at her heart. “I will not have you suffer same fate as Abby.”

  Lucifer felt the pain in Baba’s chest, radiating through the air and making his own heart ache. He hadn’t felt this pain in her before. It singed the air like regret and loss, burning into his awareness. His skills were improving if he could taste the flavor of her pain.

  “I won’t suffer the same fate as Abby. I’ll have Lucy with me,” Kelsie said, defiance molten in her tone.

  Lucifer sensed the tightness in Kelsie’s body, the fire in her muscles wanting to lash out and punch something. It was a struggle to breathe with all the pain and emotions raw in the air. Lucifer stepped back from them both, attempting to clear his head. He erected his wards to insulate himself against the currents in the air.

  “Do you not know who was with Abby before? Or do you forget?” Baba’s voice rose. “Abby’s magic was drained because Lucy had to use electricity to protect her against Fae.”

  The barbed hooks of guilt opened the wounds in Lucifer’s conscience. Just when he’d forgotten that mistake, he had to be reminded yet again.

  “Lucy doesn’t need to protect me,” Kelsie shouted.

  Energy crackled between the two women.

  “I’ve already had one good apprentice turned useless because of impatience and lust for revenge. Must you be the next?” Baba placed a hand on the table for support. Her arms shook visibly. “Do you know what it is like to have gift of divination but to be surrounded by fools who do not listen?”

  Lucifer edged closer, careful not to take on the sensations in her body. He placed an arm around Baba’s shoulder and eased her into the chair.

  As a child, he had craved to be touched—and petted as a cat—but when he did so now, he felt every aching joint and sharp pang of arthritis in the old woman’s limbs. Her ankle was throbbing again, her old injury from falling down when he’d used his “good luck” charm that had ended up being bad luck for everyone else.

  He kneeled beside her chair, but he was careful not to touch her again. “We will listen to your wisdom.” Or at least he’d try to. “Kelsie, I can take you with me another time. At least let me figure out if this is the same leshi who hurt your family. If he isn’t, there’s no use going after him, anyway. Right?”

  “It doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t.” She crossed her arms. “A good leshi is a dead leshi.”

  “You know, that’s how Morties used to feel about witches, in the days they still believed in witches,” he said.

  Kelsie stomped out. “Whatever.”

  Lucifer looked to Baba. “I assume you have a spe
cial vial for me to collect leshi tears in.”

  She patted his head. “I thought you would never ask.”

  * * *

  Finding a leshi was just as difficult as staying away from one. Lucifer practiced his scrying skills to locate the correct portal in the forest where he’d last seen the leshi. The Fae was no longer there. That didn’t surprise Lucifer. The leshi had tried to follow them to their new home. It wasn’t bound by a curse like Coinneach and his kin had been.

  Lucifer didn’t have a seed or vine any longer, but he had been practicing using the essence of a spirit to find Abigail in the underworld. He attempted to replicate the feel of the leshi and used his awareness to match traces of dark-bright magic in the forest. He felt like a hound sniffing out a fox.

  Baba gave Lucifer exercises to hone these skills in tracking. Each time Lucifer went out, he armed himself beforehand, fueling the electricity of his touch magic by turning into a cat and coupling with other cats in the forest on nights when he felt felines near. When that didn’t work, he found wood nymphs and vilas who weren’t opposed to a tryst with a Witchkin—so long as it was an incubus like him, whom they couldn’t resist.

  Lucifer had grown more comfortable expressing his animal urges as a cat, but he still felt guilty about the times he did so as a man. I’m doing this for Abigail, he told himself. She could hate him later, but there was no time for reluctance now. He could regret his decision at a future date if he failed to heal her soul.

  It took several weeks before Lucifer followed that threat of magic into the correct portal and found a higher concentration of the dark-bright Fae magic that he recognized as leshi. In all that time, anxiety haunted him. He was taking too long. He needed to get back to the land of the dead.

  The forest Lucifer found himself in was cool and gloomy. He should have brought a winter coat, but he hadn’t realized he would be traveling into winter. Occasional leaves clung to the otherwise barren boughs overhead. A heavy mulch of brown almost hid the clusters of burdock or chicory growing on the ground. There were no birds singing in this forest or squirrels chattering. It was eerily silent.