Jillian Cade

by Jen Klein

  He flinched.

  I blinked.

  When he pulled his hand away, he held it over his drink, squeezing his thumb. A drop of blood fell into the vodka cranberry. I must have pulled The Ultimate Grimace of Ultimate Disgust, because Sky looked amused. “Your earring,” he explained at a bellow.

  Now it made sense. Really gross sense.

  Sky had impaled his thumb on my earring post.

  “Yuck,” I said. He cupped a hand over his ear and leaned closer. “Yuck!” I yelled louder.

  Before I could stop him, he dripped blood into the two glasses I held.

  Well, that’s one way to prevent underage drinking.

  I turned and continued threading my way through the dancers, leading Sky by the neck belt tucked under my arm. Toward the rear of the club, the crowd began to thin out. It was even darker back there—if that was possible—and the torches lining the wall seemed even further away. Too far away. The temperature dropped, and everything became a murky shadow.

  “Does anything look like a red throne?” I shouted at Sky.

  He shook his head. I was about to give up when I felt the belt tug in my hand, making one of the drinks slosh. I turned. Sky was squinting into the distance. I followed his gaze.

  There, several tables over and beyond a dark column, was a raised platform. It was outlined by a string of dim lights. A heavy, carved wooden object loomed atop it. The object was definitely chair-like in shape. From where we stood, it was difficult to make out almost any other details, but one thing was certain: it was blood-red.

  Seventeen

  Her skin wasn’t pale in the way people usually say someone’s skin is pale. Not like a Caucasian baby’s or a redhead’s. It wasn’t even pale the way milk is pale. It was luminescent, a glowing white, like the moon on a clear night, when it is full and low and seems too close to be real. Unreal and otherworldly. And way, way too close.

  Sky and I stood at the foot of the platform, staring up at her. She was seated on the wooden throne—the bartender hadn’t lied; it was definitely a freaking throne—staring down at us. I couldn’t get a read on her expression. Maybe I didn’t want to. My eyes roved over her outfit: very black and very shiny and very tight, especially her shirt. She looked like her naked body had been painted with ink. Her hands were splayed on the armrests, and her fingernails were long and red. Carvings of wings rose up by the sides of her head. Beside her, on a high side table, was a vase of flowers.

  Black calla lilies.

  I took a step closer, Sky lagging behind me on his neck belt. Misty, the fake succubus, whoever or whatever she was, leaned forward. Her eyes were very dark. I couldn’t discern the pupils. I felt as if I were looking into wells with no bottom. Her lips were as red as her fingernails. When she spoke, her voice was the purr of a giant panther. “This is new,” she said.

  Poser or not, I had to hand it to her: she had the succubus act down.

  Sky nudged me from behind. I held one of the glasses up toward Misty. As she accepted it, I caught a glint of a thick gold ring she wore on her left hand. “Am I to consider this an application?” she asked in that throaty animal voice.

  Was there a correct answer?

  “It’s more like a conversation,” I finally managed.

  I felt those dark eyes scan me. “You’re not as deferential as most,” Misty said. She held her glass in my direction. “Trade with me.”

  She wasn’t stupid either. She knew we could have put something in her drink. But Sky was sharp too and had foreseen this: the same thing was in all the drinks. He poked me in the back, and I raised my glass. A smile flashed over Misty’s face, and instead of taking the drink, she clinked her own against it. “To conversation,” she said, raising her vodka-cranberry-blood cocktail to her lips.

  A test then.

  I paused with my glass held out before me. If I actually drank this, it would be the single most disgusting thing I had ever done . . .

  In that moment of indecision, Misty’s face changed. Her eyes narrowed to slits and became even darker than before. Her spine straightened. She seemed to grow larger on her throne.

  For the first time, a coil of true fear tightened around my abdomen. It occurred to me that it actually didn’t matter what I believed; Misty herself may have very well believed that she was a real, live succubus. And that made her dangerous. Sky jammed his finger into my back again. I managed a sickly smile. “Cheers,” I said, and drained my glass.

  Misty did the same.

  My drink definitely tasted a lot more like vodka than cranberry. Luckily I couldn’t taste any hint of Sky’s blood. I didn’t know what to do with the now-empty glass. I just held on to it, but Misty flicked hers out in front of the throne. I jumped when it shattered. Behind me, Sky set a calming hand on my lower back.

  Misty snapped her fingers toward Sky’s drink, then pointed at me. “Indulge,” she said. I took the glass from Sky and obeyed in three fast gulps. She leaned toward me. “You would become my disciple?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. It was also suddenly hard to hear her. I searched my muddled brain for an answer. “Your lair,” I finally said.

  Damn you, vodka!

  “You would learn at my lair?” she asked.

  I nodded, satisfied I had gotten the right answer.

  Misty cocked her head again. Actually, it was more like she flopped her head to one side. It seemed like there was something sloppy about it, especially because all her other movements had been so controlled, so precise. Was Sky right? Was that tiny drop of blood taking effect? Or was it the vodka? It was a little difficult to tell when I was so woozy myself.

  “Presumptuous,” she said, but she slurred a tiny bit. Her eyes traveled past me to fix on Sky. “However, this one is tempting.” Her voice now sounded less like a purr and more like oil being poured. Liquid. Thick. I turned to Sky—desperate for any hint about what to say next—but his gaze was locked on Misty. His green eyes were focused and clear, but his lips were slightly parted. I saw him swallow.

  Something was wrong.

  I edged in front of him, hoping to break his line of sight, but he was much taller than me. His eyes stayed fixed over my head.

  “Stop looking at her,” I whispered.

  “I’m not,” he said in a voice that had become flat and dull like a robot’s.

  And yet he was.

  I spun back to Misty. She oozed forward in her seat and slowly dripped from the throne. Her eyes slid over to meet mine. I clung to the sobriety I had left, which was enough for me to realize that she looked as wobbly as I felt. “Normally I only accept at my lair in Leimert Park,” Misty told me. “But this one appears to be an excellent gift.”

  Except she said “thish” instead of “this.”

  “Just the right size.” I meant it in a joking way, but my comment made Misty’s dark eyebrows knot.

  “What do you mean?” she demanded. “Have you befouled this gift?”

  “No!” I thought I knew what she meant, but now I was legitimately scared, so I babbled the first thing that came into my head. “Of course not! I wouldn’t dream of it. I meant that he seems like someone you would be into. All tall and young like . . .” I paused, not sure if pushing further—while drunk, no less (and why the hell did people get drunk, anyway?)—would help or hurt our cause.

  Misty drew herself up to her full height and glowered down at me. “Like who?”

  Here goes nothing.

  “Like Todd Harmon,” I whispered.

  In a pounce, Misty was off the platform. “Todd Harmon is mine now.” She trained her eyes on Sky, fusing her gaze to his. The spark in Sky’s eyes winked out and was replaced by something I couldn’t identify. Maybe because the spark hadn’t been replaced. There was . . . nothing. Emptiness.

  My fear rose, making my skin tingle. Becoming panic. If Misty really
did believe she was a succubus, maybe she knew all sorts of tricks to convince everyone else she was too. Hypnosis. Brainwashing. Mind games too twisted to imagine. Why had I even come here? It was the kind of bad choice made by a seventeen-year-old who lived alone. But what was Sky’s excuse? He had parents, didn’t he? Maybe I should have moved in with Norbert and Aunt Aggie and Uncle Edmund. Maybe I was in over my head . . .

  Misty took a step toward us, her eyes never leaving Sky’s. “There is an energy I am sensing here.” She moved closer to him. “Something different.”

  I should have bolted at that moment. I should have dragged Sky right out of there on his leash. We’d found what we’d come for: this freakish woman had admitted to knowing something about Todd Harmon. We could tell Corabelle we’d made progress. But I couldn’t seem to will my body to move. Misty’s nearness was terrifying in a way that made no sense. I felt ice in my temples. Electricity crackled down my back. More frightening, Sky seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

  I tugged on the neck belt, but he didn’t react. Not even a little.

  Shit.

  Misty was now standing right beside me, staring down at Sky. Yes, down. The chick was that tall. I heard a sound like bees buzzing, thousands of them. Panic turned to terror.

  She raised her hands to her head and pulled them slowly through the inky strands of her hair. Sky’s eyelids were at half-mast, his mouth slack. I could hear his breath. It was coming out hard. Fast. I edged closer to him, and my drunken brain tried to think of a way to distract Misty, to draw her attention back to me and away from him.

  “I don’t think you should take . . . uh . . . the gift now,” I said. That was my line. I clung to it, hoping against hope that we were all just actors in a really screwed-up fantasy, playing parts that should not have been conceived. “A last-minute change of operating procedure is never a good idea.” I tripped over the last words.

  Misty didn’t seem to notice, or even hear me. Her hand shot out with inhuman speed. She caught Sky by the neck belt and jerked him closer. Her mouth twisted into a grinning snarl. There was a flash of gleaming, bone-white teeth. They were model perfect but too big somehow. I grabbed Sky’s hand and tugged it, but it was like pulling on a boulder. He didn’t budge.

  Misty slowly parted those awful white teeth, and I dug my fingernails into Sky’s palm. At that moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised if smoke had billowed from her mouth.

  It wasn’t smoke. It was her tongue.

  Her long, black, forked tongue.

  Time screeched to a standstill. Sky didn’t move. He was paralyzed. Frozen. Lost in her spell. Maybe there wasn’t a difference.

  Something invaded my nose. An unnatural, inhuman stench. The breath of a Jurassic dung beetle. A bomb exploding in an outhouse. A million rotten eggs burning in a dirty oven. And no, it was nothing I had ever smelled before, but I still knew exactly what it had to be. Only one word did it justice. Sky had used it himself.

  Hellfire.

  Misty leaned down, that horrifying tongue reaching out for Sky, and everything that he had said flashed through my mind—all the crazy things about succubi and addiction and danger. There was only one thing to do, and so I did it. I launched myself between them. I grabbed Sky by the hips and yanked his body into mine, tilting my face upward and sliding one hand up the back of his neck. I pulled his head down and pressed my mouth against his.

  Without allowing myself to think, I kissed him. Hard.

  And it worked. I felt him respond. I felt his lips open against mine, his hands traveling up my back, folding me into the embrace, entangling me with him . . .

  From behind me, I heard a hiss. A loud hiss, loud enough to be heard over the thumping music. I jerked away from Sky. He blinked, as if waking up, and his eyes found mine. They cleared. His mouth formed a word, but I couldn’t hear it. I choked for air, trying to steady myself. He said it again. This time, I heard it. This time, it made sense.

  The word was “run.”

  Eighteen

  The dance floor was even more mobbed than before. Trying to escape was like hacking through a living jungle, a dense tangle of sweaty, writhing vines. Every time I tried to speed up, I found myself caught against another naked torso or glistening bicep or thrusting hip. I kept my legs moving and my eyes on the door.

  Sky darted forward and kept a tight hold of my hand as he twisted through the crowd, pulling me with him. We were almost to the edge of the dance floor when he glanced back. I started to turn my head, but he pulled me along. “Come on!” he screamed over the music. We broke free of the crowd, blasted through the tiny antechamber, and shoved open the heavy wooden door to the alley.

  It was dark, all shadows. My senses took a moment to readjust. From outside, the music was thankfully muffled, back to a low thud, though that might have been because my ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton.

  The security/bouncer/dark-shape person was gone, the stool abandoned. Before I knew what was happening, Sky grabbed it, flipped it over, and smashed it against the ground. The seat broke off and rolled away.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  Sky stomped against the stool legs, breaking them apart. He slid two of them between the handles of the door and grabbed my hand again. “Buying us some time.”

  We started up the darkened alley at a run and were halfway to the street when we heard a giant crashing sound. I whirled to see the club’s wooden door fly apart in a hail of splinters. Two impossibly huge men lumbered out through the wreckage and cast their heads about, as if smelling the air.

  We slid to a halt. A semitruck had backed into the narrow alley, blocking our exit. My heart jackhammered in my chest. The trailer door was open, the inside compartment filled with boxy silhouettes, but there were no people to be seen.

  We were trapped.

  “Get behind me,” breathed Sky.

  The two giant figures swung in our direction. Their heads were large, almost too large for their bodies.

  “Descendants of Asterion,” Sky said, as if answering my unspoken question. “I’d put money on it.”

  I glanced at him, suddenly wishing I’d paid more attention to Dad’s work, that I’d interrogated Sky more thoroughly about his beliefs—that I’d done a lot of things differently up until this moment. “What does that mean?” I whispered.

  “Wait until they charge.” He edged backward toward the truck, pushing me behind him as he went. “If we split up before they hit us, they might not know which way to go.”

  “What do you mean ‘charge’?” I whispered.

  Sky didn’t have to answer. The two huge figures lowered their oversize heads and began thundering up the alley. Actually thundering. The ground shook. When one of them tilted its head back, the roar that came out of its mouth was a volcano erupting.

  We were too far from the semi to try to get inside and shut the door. There were no convenient fire escapes in the alley. Even the dumpsters’ lids were closed. There was no way out. There was only me, Sky, and two giants crashing toward us. When Sky shouted, his voice was far away. I vaguely registered that he was telling me that I should run to the left and he’d go right, but I was panicked and horrified and two vodka-cranberry-and-bloods deep.

  Instead, I broke free and ran in the craziest direction of all: straight toward the giants.

  In retrospect, I think my feverish plan was to surprise them. Maybe they’d be so shocked that they’d be stumped. Or if that didn’t work, maybe once they saw me close up, they’d realize I was just a scared teenaged girl. And I’d see that they were just two ordinary guys with exceptionally large heads and bodies. They’d take pity on me. On us. Maybe even escort us back to my car and check our GPS to be sure we knew how to get back to the Valley.

  Or maybe I was hoping that by running toward them, I’d wake up from a nightmare and find myself back in my apartment, gasping
for air in bed.

  Instead, my foot hit a patch of gravel. I skidded and went down hard on one knee, feeling a sharp twist in my ankle. Behind me, Sky screamed something unintelligible. There was no time to answer. I was about to be trampled. The two terrible shapes blasted straight toward me, on course to shred my body beneath their pounding feet. I tucked my knees into my chest and braced myself against the asphalt. I threw up my hands—as if they could offer any protection—and I . . . pushed.

  It was instinct. The last desperate move of the condemned. I didn’t even know what I was pushing. Air. Energy. My impending death.

  Of course, neither giant slowed down at all. The one in front whipped right past me, but I was directly in the path of the other. Its feet hit me—at least, they must have hit me, though I didn’t feel anything—and it lost its balance, flying over and beyond me, slamming into a concrete wall in a bone-breaking thud.

  Then it was still.

  I started to scramble up, but everything had turned to jelly: my joints, my muscles, my brain. I was too weak to move. I could only watch as the other giant skidded to a stop at the semitruck’s entrance. When he turned around, I finally saw the contours of his face. He had wide, flaring nostrils and eyes that were tiny and focused . . . and furious. As I stared at him, his huge head lowered. One of his immense boots lifted and then dropped, slamming into the ground and scraping across it.

  He was preparing to charge. Directly at me.

  A gasp formed in my throat. My hands flew to my hips, feeling for anything in my pockets that could help: a key, a lighter, lip balm, anything at all—

  And then the beast disappeared in a deafening crash of jangly chords.

  I blinked. My brain scrambled to process the miracle that had just occurred: a massive shape had fallen onto the beast from the semitruck, crushing him into the pavement. A shape that was . . . musical.

  Sky jumped out from the truck in the wake of whatever had tumbled out of it. He ran to me. “Come on,” he panted with a glance back down the alley. “We don’t know who else they’ll send after us.”