Drained: The Lucid

by E. L. Blaisdell

  Riley’s breathing shallowed. Her eyes fluttered open and she took purchase of an umbrella. She pulled herself into a defensive stance, ready to strike. If the intruder opened the closet door, she refused to cower in a corner, leaving Morgan vulnerable to another cubare.

  As abrupt as the intrusion had been, the noise settled just as quickly. Morgan met Riley’s eyes as they waited in silence. Riley took another breath and reached for the door handle to let them out of the closet. She slowly twisted the handle, grimacing at the metallic click that, to her ears, sounded louder than a gunshot. Gingerly, she pushed the door open, only sticking her head out of the closet when she was more confident they were alone once again.

  Riley’s brain couldn’t compute the scene before her. Morgan’s home had been torn apart, drawers pulled open and their contents scattered on the ground. Framed photographs had been knocked from their shelves, the glass panels cracked and spiderwebbed.

  Morgan carefully tiptoed through the debris to avoid injury from the broken glass. “Riley?” Her voice was littered with confusion. “What happened out here?”

  Riley leaned against the hallway wall and hugged herself. “Someone broke into your house.”

  Morgan bent at the waist and retrieved a stack of strewn papers. “How?”

  “Did you … so I would stop?” Riley’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  Morgan regarded her with disbelief. “You seriously believe my subconscious conjured a burglar so we’d be forced to stop having sex?”

  Riley folded her arms across her chest. “Believe it? No. But would it surprise me? Also, no. Your dreams have been anything but traditional from the beginning.”

  Morgan’s features crumbled. “It wasn’t me,” she quietly asserted. “At least … I don’t think I’d sabotage myself like that. Is there any other explanation for all of this?” she asked, opening her arms to gesture to the chaos around them. She scooped a handful of scattered papers off the floor. “Were they looking for something?”

  “Besides you?” Riley pointed out.

  “I don’t think I’m small enough to hide in a desk drawer.” Morgan scanned over the sea of broken dishes, displaced drawers, and paper that littered the floor. Even the vase from the hallway hadn’t survived the break in. Its broken pieces and the bouquet of yellow weeds was lying in the long corridor in a puddle of water. “Was this a warning? Intimidation? Are there creatures beyond incubi and succubi that can come into my dreams?” The questions rattled off her tongue as quickly as they came to her mind.

  Riley crouched and began picking up the debris. As she retrieved a blank envelope, something clicked. “I think they were looking for your name,” she said. “They were looking for your full name or an address—any kind of information that could bring them closer to you. Why else look in a desk?”

  “This is beyond creepy.” Morgan shuddered. “Oh God, this explains the other night.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The human’s arms wrapped snugly around herself. “A week ago I thought I heard a noise out in the yard.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well, you know firsthand how weird my dreams are.” Morgan gestured to their surroundings and thunder rumbled in the background. “The noise stopped, and I woke up. If I had thought it was serious I would have told you, but I honestly thought it was the weather acting up.”

  Riley bit at her thumbnail as her attention went back to the chaotic state of the home. “They can already access your dreams,” she said, thinking aloud. “They’re trying to find you in the waking world.”

  Morgan quietly gasped. “They can do that?”

  “About anything is possible with the Internet.” Riley offered a small, sympathetic smile.

  Morgan closed her eyes and shook her head. “I never thought about that. I guess I only thought I had to worry about my dreams.” The realization seemed to completely deflate her.

  Riley stooped and plucked the branch of mistletoe from the ground. It looked like someone had torn it from the archway and had stomped on it. “You need to cancel everything that links you to Trusics,” she said. “Profiles, mailing lists, anything where agreement and fine print exist. It’ll break the contract.”

  “Trusics? The dating-match empire?”

  Riley nodded and pushed a deep breath out of her lungs. “I work for them. The company’s a front for a sizable portion of the cubare community. Every human who signs up for one of their services gets entered into a database. When you click on that little button online that says you accept their terms, you’re actually giving consent for succubi like me to enter your dreams.”

  “I’m sure I never consented to that.” Morgan huffed and folded her arms. “I would have noticed that little disclaimer.”

  “It’s in there,” Riley assured her. “But no one actually reads the fine print when they sign up for those kinds of things.”

  “I signed up for a free account with one of their sites my senior year of college. It was research for my senior thesis.”

  “You have to delete your account. Whoever this is, they have access to you somehow.” Riley continued to assess the chaotic state of the home. “I’ve never heard of someone being able to break into dreams without consent. Have you … I mean, it’s not any of my business, but did you go to a club or a bar or, I don’t know, speed dating or something where you told someone your full name?”

  Morgan looked horrified by the thought. “Of course not. None of those are my scene.”

  Riley held up her hands in retreat. “No judgment from me. And even if you had, like I said, it’s not any of my business.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Morgan’s cheeks flushed.

  Riley chewed on her lower lip. This woman. Things were so complicated. “Delete your accounts, okay? This way, we can at least cut off all of my associates from access, in case the database is flawed.”

  “Am I in danger? Don’t sugarcoat it, Riley,” Morgan said, her voice firm. “This has happened to me before, and I was terrified of my dreams. Caffeine turned to amphetamines so I could stay awake. I don’t want to go through that again, not with it nearly destroying me the first time.”

  “I’ll protect you.” Any pretense Riley had entertained about muting her feelings for Morgan were now tossed to the side when she thought about this woman being in danger. She’d tried to be pragmatic about their situation, to obey her brain, common sense, and the Trusics employee manual. But Morgan made it nearly impossible for her to suppress what she felt.

  “We both know you can’t do that.” Morgan ran a hand roughly through her hair, visibly frustrated. “You can’t stay unless you feed on me. And I’m going to need a little more than an hour’s sleep every night.”

  “I’ll find a way, Morgan.”

  “But if I cancel my Trusics account, doesn’t that mean you won’t have access to me either?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Riley admitted after a pause. “You gave me your full name, but you said it in here—in the realm. I don’t know if it’ll work the same. But you can’t take any chances, Morgan. You have to get out of the Trusics’s database.”

  “What if I gave you my phone number, and you called, and I told you my name over the phone?” Morgan proposed, grasping for a solution.

  “The rules of the cubare world didn’t account for technology. It doesn’t work that way. It has to be face-to-face.”

  “Chicago,” Morgan blurted out.

  “What about it?”

  “That’s where I live.”

  Riley blinked and shook her head. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to ask Morgan where she actually lived. She’d overlooked the low-hanging fruit. “I’ve never met a mark outside of the realm.”

  “I’m not a mark. Am I?”

  “Never were,” Riley admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat before speaking again. “But let’s hold off on your address. We don’t know if I can or can’t access you in t
he realm without Trusics. If I can’t, I’ll have my buddy find your address.”

  Riley had teased Morgan about wanting to be intimate with her in the waking world, but it had primarily been pillow talk. Now that the actual scenario was playing out, she balked. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be with Morgan in real life. She wanted it too much, and getting her address like this felt like cheating. She wanted Morgan to freely give her that information when her life wasn’t in jeopardy.

  “Are you sure?”

  Riley grabbed the other woman’s hands and brought them up to her parted mouth. “No matter what, I’ll find you Morgan Ambre-that-ends-with-an-E Sullivan. And I won’t rest until I know you’re safe.”

  Hazel-green eyes narrowed and despite their circumstances a small smile crept onto Morgan’s face. “You’d better, Succubus.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Riley stared at the two-by-three-inch piece of thick paper stock that she’d centered on her desk. The glass vials that Darren had sent were long gone. The reserve energy he’d provided had been clean, nearly as potent and untainted as energy drawn from a mark. Energy this woman could provide was anything but pure. Their one encounter had left a lasting impression. After absorbing the questionable contents, Riley’s eyes had refused to return to their regular grey-green color. What was normally a simple task had taken her hours to regain control over.

  But she couldn’t go back to Darren, proverbial tail between her legs, asking for more reserves. He would ask questions she wouldn’t want to answer. Her role in finding Liam that night had been the price of his silence and six vials of energy. Who knew what kind of demands he’d make if she went to him again?

  She picked up the business card and ran her thumb over the slightly raised text. As an independent, a succubus would need money. And money was something Riley had plenty of. There was no name on the white paper stock. The card listed a phone number, along with a kind of logo or brand that Riley didn’t recognize. A simple web search had produced no helpful results either. Her only resource for the bottled vapor was certainly careful. Riley picked up her cell phone and punched the numbers into her keypad.

  “Hello?” A woman answered after one ring.

  “Hi. It’s …” Riley stopped short of giving the woman her name. “It’s that girl from the Red Sea Tavern.”

  “You’ll have to be a little more specific, Sugar.”

  “From the bathroom,” Riley supplied, hoping it would be enough. She really didn’t want to have to name herself again.

  There was a short delay on the other end. “Oh. You. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?” The words were a nicety, but her tone lacked any genuine warmth.

  “I was wondering if you might have more of that thing you showed me. The pick-me-up.”

  Riley could almost hear the slow, calculating smile. “So the good little Trusics pet is back for more,” she purred.

  Riley was losing her patience. As much as she needed what this woman offered, she refused to be taunted. “How much?”

  • • •

  Riley took off her watch and carefully set it on her bedside table. Without it, there would be no more one-hour failsafe to flash her out of the realm when she required energy. It was an annoying safety mechanism, but it also kept the wearer from becoming too invested in a single dream experience. Too much time in a dream without sexual energy was a death sentence, and there were plenty of stories about cubare that lost themselves to the realm. Lore existed that if a cubare was strong enough, they could keep their mark in a permanent sleep state.

  But she’d have to trust that the watch her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday would keep reliable time and keep her safe. It didn’t have a fancy face with multiple dials or a timer, and the ability to sync with messages was out of the question. But it worked. It was how she used to track her time in the dream realm before her company-issued timepiece.

  She lied on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Without the help of her company watch, she would have to find Morgan in the realm on her own. If Morgan had done as she’d requested and had closed out her Trusics’s account, it would be a revocation of consent. Being an active member was key to the company’s method of maintaining open access for all their agents. She could only hope that Morgan’s full given name would be enough to find her in the realm.

  Riley sucked in a deep breath. It was time to find out.

  She flashed herself into the dream and found herself outside of Morgan’s ranch-style home. The lights were off in the front and the curtains were drawn closed. So far, the knowledge of Morgan’s name had gotten her to the same place as the database. She hefted the sizeable bag slung over her shoulder. Instead of Christmas supplies, she brought a messenger bag full of books in hope of an answer. They needed to protect Morgan in case the sleep intruder returned.

  The usual spare was still under the welcome mat, and Riley made a mental note to tell Morgan to get rid of it. She would also make an effort to remember to phase directly into the house from that point forward. Riley reached for the doorknob and went about unlocking the door. A silent prayer fell from her lips as she braced herself for what she hoped would be a pleased reaction from Morgan. With the simple twist of her wrist, Riley pushed at painted wood, but the action didn’t get her far. She strained against the door, shoving it open only a mere few inches. It felt like something was pressed against the other side of the door.

  Unsure of what to do next, she knocked on the jammed door. There were no sounds coming from the inside of the house, no movement of drapes, no lights turning on or off.

  “Morgan Ambre Sullivan,” she called out. “What did you do?”

  “Flash yourself inside the house, Succubus,” Morgan’s voice filtered through the barely ajar door.

  “Why can’t I open this door?” Riley yelled through the narrow opening. She futilely pushed her body weight against the jammed door.

  “Hurry up.” Morgan’s tone became impatient. “You’re letting all the warm air out.”

  With a defeated sigh, Riley concentrated and phased herself to the other side of the barrier. She nearly tripped over the loveseat that was usually in the living room. It had been shoved against the door, one extra precaution against unwanted visitors.

  Morgan stood before her, looking poised in her usual cardigan and yoga pants. “You made it.”

  “I said I would,” Riley replied. She felt shy standing in the front foyer like she was picking up the other woman for a date. “What’s with the couch? Is that some new feng shui cure?”

  “A girl can never be too careful,” Morgan shrugged before walking past her. “Although I have a feeling whoever broke in last time isn’t going to be deterred by furniture.”

  Riley stepped further inside and took in the familiar smells and sights. Behind her she heard the front door shut and the lock slide into place. “I brought you some books. They came in the mail today.” She patted the bag at her side. “I haven’t been able to figure out a way to block incubi from dreams, but I figured you might since you’re the brain.”

  “Is it wrong that I’m excited to read?”

  “Not wrong, but definitely a little nerdy.”

  Morgan stepped in front of Riley, and her eyes raked over the succubus. “No lingerie tonight?”

  Riley looked down at her ensemble of jeans and T-shirt. She’d attempted to dress it up with a scarf. “I didn’t realize this was a business trip.”

  “No, it’s different, that’s all,” Morgan quickly recovered. “I guess I got used to you always being in … intimate outfits.”

  Riley followed the other woman to the living room. Morgan hovered in the archway where they’d shared their mistletoe kiss. “Music? Tea? Are you hungry?”

  Riley ran her palms over the tops of her thighs. The dynamic had changed because of their last encounter, but with more pressing matters at hand, it didn’t seem like an appropriate time to discuss topics such as feelings. They had research to do for Morgan�
��s safety.

  “Tea would be nice. Thank you.”

  While she waited, Riley set her bag on the coffee table and produced a stack of books from inside. A few minutes later Morgan returned with two cups of mint tea. She sat down next to Riley on the couch and looked over the collection of books. A slip of lace was sandwiched between two of the texts. She fished up the delicate undergarment with the tip of her forefinger. “Does this double as a laundry bag?”

  Riley snatched the garter away and shoved it back into the bag. She felt the blush spread across her face up to the tip of her ears. It was one thing for Morgan to see her in her lingerie, but it was something of an embarrassment to see the garment separated from her body. “It’s for later,” she mumbled.

  “Wishful thinking,” Morgan teased.

  “No, I still have work to do tonight,” Riley explained. “I still have a quota to meet this month.”

  The light in Morgan’s emerald-tinted eyes visibly dimmed. “Oh. I didn’t realize.”

  “It’s just work, you know? It pays the bills.” She liked that Morgan appeared jealous. It gave her hope that what they shared wasn’t simply a lustful tryst.

  “Are you attracted to them all?”

  “Sure.” Riley shrugged. It was true that she found a beauty to many of her marks. “I get to pick them from the database. I choose them, not the other way around.”

  “So that means you thought I was attractive. When you chose me, I mean.”

  Riley licked her lips and quirked a smile. “Honestly, I didn’t know what you looked like.”

  “No?”

  “You didn’t sign up through one of our dating websites so you didn’t willingly upload a dozen profile pictures. But the person I saw on paper, the girl that filled out every single question in the survey as if she were writing a novel—which for future reference, you shouldn’t disclose so much to any company.” Riley locked her gaze on Morgan’s stare. “That person, piqued my curiosity. So I rolled the dice on what you looked like, and lady luck was on my side.”