The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  He thought for a second. “I didn’t have a dad either when I was growing up. When I was young, I swore I would never leave a kid of mine like that, but here I am. I guess it’s a hazard of the trade,” he sighed. “And there’s nothing for it. Nothing I can do. I have a lot of power, but I can’t turn back time. All I can say is if I knew you existed, things would have been different.

  “You’re kind of a miracle. We don’t have a lot of kids. We don’t actually . . . finish with humans. We’re there for their energy, not our own pleasure. We don’t climax unless we’re with our own kind. That’s one reason why I never looked back, I thought I would keep this Nephilim stuff to myself. But you’re here now, and I’m glad.”

  I looked at his face then down at my hands. I had been mad at my dad for so long, but I couldn’t stay mad at Lance. I believed him. At least now I understood why he was never there, and it wasn’t because he didn’t care like my mom said. But now I wanted to know why I looked the way I did. I wanted to know who I was.

  “Lance?”

  “Yep.”

  I tried to figure a way to say it delicately but couldn’t, so I forged ahead, “Where is your . . . our family from?”

  “Oh, you mean race? We’re mixed.”

  “How? With what?”

  “Well, on your Gran’s side African, English, Native, and Scottish. Now my dad, as you know, I don’t know. Most probably European with a thing for brown sugar.”

  I tried to grasp it all. It was like I had suddenly grown an arm and leg that looked like Lance. I had a father, a history. Wow. “Do I have aunts or uncles or cousins or a grandmother?”

  “Sorry, Baby, no. I had a . . . They all passed. It’s just me.”

  “Oh,” I said, a little disappointed. The hazy picture of a big family reunion that had filled my head faded away. My mom’s parents were dead, and she was an only child. So, I still had no extended family on either side, but I was now connected to a not-so-good part of American history.

  “So, I’m black?” I blurted out.

  Lance stared at me a long moment, “I never let anyone in my life make me a color. I suggest you don’t either because that is when they start forgetting you’re a person. You’re Alexa like you always were, except now you’ve got me on your side.”

  I took Lance’s words like they were father’s milk. I was still me? Nothing had changed? Some people might not think so. Some people would say it was a big deal, one’s race or the color of one’s skin. But I didn’t think it shouldn’t be any more important than the color of the car I was driving. It was the inside that counted, the person, the pure spirit, the soul. It was how I was taught God judged everyone, by the inside, not the outside. Any person who thought otherwise or only liked me if I were one color or another didn’t really like me or anybody for that matter, not really, not deeply.

  I wanted to be loved unconditionally, no matter what. What I appeared to be on the outside shouldn’t matter to anyone real and true because no matter what shell I hid in, I was always me.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he told me, “but that’s life, you know? No sense in getting crazy. It wastes good energy you could use to help you adjust to the situation. You got to roll with it, Baby. Make the best out it.”

  I agreed, then tried to imagine calm and gentle Lance and my mom as my parents. I almost laughed out loud.

  “You and my mom would never have gotten along,” I told him, shaking my head. I could not even imagine them not at each other’s throats or her at his throat while he tried to get away. “You’re like ice and she’s like fire. She’s always mad.”

  He shrugged. “Opposites attract they say. I heard once that it was because you’re trying to find what you lack in yourself in the other person so you can achieve balance or some shit like that.” Then he turned a scrutinizing eye toward me. “I think you got a little bit of both us. I’ve seen you cool as the North Pole and angry as Hell.”

  “Yeah, I tend to pendulum. But I don’t think Cristien is my opposite,” I said. We had so much in common.

  “Are you joking?” Lance asked brows high. “He’s rock steady, reliable as a minute. The man barely moves, and you’re a whirlwind.”

  I really didn’t see us that way at all. Cristien was the most exciting person I knew, always interesting, always changing. It was funny how people perceived you. I mentally shrugged and then realized I was wasting time. I had gold mine in front of me.

  “Lance,” I said, brightening, “you once threatened to tell me all Cristien’s secrets. Are you willing to spill the beans now?”

  He laughed. “Cristien’s an open book now.”

  “His only secret was that he’s an eight-hundred-year-old incubus? How boring.”

  “That’s our Cristien.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Lance shrugged. “He’s a good guy. I let him marry my daughter without too many reservations. And that’s saying a lot.”

  I sat up. “What reservations would you have?”

  “Well, nobody’s good enough for my little girl,” he said, winking at me. “Even if the President showed up, I’d still give him the once over, strap him to a lie detector and then torture all his secrets from him before I threw him out. But Cristien’s okay.”

  I fished some more, since the last question came up empty. “You said I would be scared if I knew how much he loved me. Why?”

  “He nearly died for you,” Lance said, his lively face serious. “Isn’t that scary?”

  “What do you mean ‘died’?” I cried.

  “Oh.” Lance licked his lips. “I guess he didn’t tell you.”

  “He didn’t tell me what?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t say any more,” he hedged.

  “You already started. You might as well finish. If you don’t, I’ll have to ask Cristien about it. Then he’ll really be mad at you. Now, it’s just between us,” I countered.

  He heaved a breath, “Well, it happened after you broke up with him.”

  “Which time?”

  “Second or third. I’m not sure,” he said looking, puzzled as he counted on his fingers.

  “But where does the dying come in?”

  “He’d been living off your love. Then you left. Without you, he’d starve to death. He didn’t eat for four days.”

  “Oh my God,” I gasped. I could have cost him his life.

  “I told you it was scary,” he said, reading my expression.

  I sat struggling to understand the idea of Cristien’s dying because of me. I might be without him now because of a misunderstanding.

  “That’s why I know he’ll always be good to you,” Lance told me. “He does love you a lot. He’s a little crazy about it. But he loves you.”

  “I didn’t even think he cared anything for me then.”

  “When he realized you two had a future together, he was a changed man. He was actually happy.” Lance went on to tell me about taking Cristien to Chandraswami’s. He finished with, “I should have known something was up that first night.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He danced with you.”

  “So?”

  “He never dances,” Lance told me. “It took me twenty years to teach him the two-step. He’s the up-tightest man I have ever met. It took forever to pull the scone out of his butt. And even when he knew how, he rarely ever danced. Then he saw you and got up and started grooving like he was a snake and you were the charmer. It was a sight to behold. The man finally got soul. I was actually proud.”

  I had to laugh. He went on.

  “And it took me forever to teach him real English. It was ‘God’s bones’ this, and ‘by the Holy Rood’ that. I was ashamed to go out in public with him. And after a fight, people were willing to kill themselves to get away from his long-winded chivalric rants on mercy and duty. But now he curses pretty decently and briefly. Not like a New Yorker, but what can I do?” he asked. Then he shook his head. “Me and Cristien have been through some shi
t together. He’s loosened up a lot. He’s almost a twentieth-century man.”

  “It’s the twenty-first century,” I reminded him. He grinned at me.

  “It’s your turn. I’m tired of dragging him through time. He was a real,” Lance laughed, then his mouth changed position and he said, “piece of work when I first met him, but he was always a good guy. He always had my back. Nowadays, we don’t fight as much as before. The city has really grown, and there is enough for everyone here. We let everybody in: incubi, succubi. But if we see something we like, everybody else better back down or it’s fly time.”

  “Fly time?”

  “You know how you pull the wings off a fly?”

  “Oww. No,” I winced in empathy.

  “Yeah. They grow back, but it hurts a lot and people tend not to forget to be polite after and wait their turn.”

  “You guys are really touchy, huh?”

  He smiled. “We’re actually very liberal.”

  “Really?” I didn’t want to know what conservative was like.

  “Anyway, how are you enjoying being one of the night crowd?” he asked me.

  I felt weak, jelly-like and feverish. “So far it hasn’t been a blast.”

  “It gets a lot better,” he told me, leaning forward. “When I first changed, it sucked too. El took care of me and stuff. I was lucky to have her, the way Cristien tells it.”

  “El?”

  “She’s the succubus who lit me up. That was a wild time,” he said, smiling. Then he met my eye. “You’d like her. You two’d probably get along great. Like water and wine.”

  “Which one of us is water?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Elizabeth is sweet like you, but she likes to mix it up. She was a British suffragette. I should call her. I think she’d make a special trip out to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to be legend, child. The girl who broke Cristien and on her first flight. You know how many succubi have wanted to . . .”

  He stopped. Perhaps, he could see by my expression I was not having fun with where this was going.

  “Well, anyway,” he went on, “She’s gonna want to meet you and maybe get your autograph and few pictures for her website.”

  “Did she want to . . . with Cristien?”

  “Oh no,” he said, as if it were a ridiculous question, “not her. She and Cristien are friends. She leaves him alone, and they get along. Some other succubi have tried only to get the door slammed in their faces. Cristien comes off very old-fashioned. The old-fashionedest guy ever.”

  “But he’s English,” I joked, only because Cristien hadn’t wanted any of those succubi. If he had, I don’t think I could have mustered much of anything but depression. And yet it was strange that he had been alone for eight-hundred years. I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t fathom what it was about me that had finally opened the door to his heart.

  “He was born at the height of Catholic guilt,” Lance informed me. “He always thought being an incubus was kind of a curse. So, he really didn’t enjoy it like most of us. He goes about it kind of grimly, most likely because of Lily, may her name be erased.”

  “Isn’t that a little harsh?” I asked.

  “No, not really,” he told me. “Trust me.”

  She didn’t seem that scary. She was kind of small but a little creepy with that high forehead.

  “The stuff she did to him,” he told me, shaking his head, “I didn’t think he’d ever get over it, especially with her turning up now and then to twist the knife and freshen the wound, so she could toss a little salt in it. I thought he’d never let another woman get close to him or ever be able to trust one.

  “Then he met you and got all fixated, forgot all about Lily and everything else for that matter. I’d never seen a man so focused. If you moved right, he moved right, if you moved left he moved left. Light near a black hole has more freedom. El told me about Compulsion and stuff. How it gets you hot on the trail for the person. It’s more than what we feel for humans, for sure, but I didn’t know what came over Cristien.”

  “Compulsion?” It sounded like disease.

  “It’s what attracts us to an Innocent, a young supernatural like yourself. So, we can ignite you. You were feeding off Cristien’s love though. He must have loved you right off the bat.” Then Lance stopped suddenly and asked, “But what drew you to Cristien? I know why he’s into you, but what hooked you?” he asked, studying me.

  “You know why he’s into me? Tell me,” I stammered, dying to know.

  “Nothing makes a man crazier than being told no.”

  “That’s it?” I asked, disappointed. “Not my dazzling intelligence, my wry sense of humor, my piercing insight?”

  “All that and the ‘no’ makes you one knockout punch especially with a man who is used to hearing ‘yes.’ You’re an old soul like him, plus innocent, sweet and sexy. How could he resist?” he said. “Especially the sweet part. You’re the total opposite of Lily. She’s the black hat. You’re the white. You’re everything he always wanted, everything he thinks he used to be.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “but, you know, he still is all those things too.”

  “I know. He doesn’t,” he said, glancing at me, “You still haven’t said why you love him.”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I love him because he’s brilliant, poetic, handsome.” Lance cut me off.

  “Yeah. Yeah. I’ve known him longer than you, so you’re boring me. Tell me why? What attracted you to him? What can’t you live without?”

  I blinked, not knowing what he wanted. I started to say something and stopped. Then I said it anyway: “Because he loves me. He looked at me and said I was magical.”

  He nodded quietly, and I went on.

  “There's nothing that drives women crazier than being loved by the one we love. It's like two mirrors facing each other, reflecting endlessly. It's forever,” I told him. Then I added, “You asked what I couldn’t live without. I couldn’t live without him.” He smiled, but I was still confused about something he had said before. “I thought you said Cristien was attracted to me because of the Compulsion?”

  “No. No. With us, when we see a human, it’s a like guy seeing a nice looking girl who makes him want to whistle. We see an Innocent, and she makes us want to howl and get her number. Cristien was so beyond any of that.” He shrugged. “He was on you like white on rice. He was counting your heartbeats. When he wasn’t in the room with you, he wasn’t anywhere. He was wherever you were. His mind was gone.” He laughed. “Oh man, I really gotta call El. Mr. Cool had a meltdown. She’s going to laugh her ass off after she gets over the heart attack.”

  I didn’t think it was that funny. “So, Cristien said he can change the lights on the traffic signals. Are there other things? What am I going to get?”

  “Well,” Lance said thoughtfully, “the older you are the more gifts you get, the faster, and stronger you get. But at first all of us can open doors of any kind—that’s a gimme—make people sleep, and forget stuff. Cristien’s older, so he has more control over energy than most. He can fix shit that gets broken, make it look like it did before. El, on the other hand, can do this wicked levitating thing. I see auras, the colors around people.”

  “Is that genetic too?” I asked.

  “Why? Can you see them?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s my girl,” Lance said, then turned suddenly toward the door. “Cristien’s home.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, hearing nothing.

  “Shhh.” He leaned back, pretending to sleep. Cristien opened the door, walked in with two little bags in his hands. He looked from me to Lance and then kicked Lance’s chair, nearly turning it over. Lance was on his feet before the chair fell over. He then calmly righted it.

  “I heard you two talking in the hall. And I could hear her laughing in the underground garage.”

  “Never talk to anyone on a phone near him,” Lance informed me, “and hide
nothing when he’s in the room. He can see an ant crawling up the top of the Empire State Building and hear the moment it farts.”

  “Do ants fart?” I asked, picturing his words.

  Cristien leaned down and kissed my forehead, then my lips.

  “You look better,” he told me, putting one brown bag on the bed. He kept the second one, made of white plastic, in his hand.

  Lance stretched his length, yawning. “Day, guys. See you tonight.”

  He stumbled off and closed the door behind him. Cristien got into bed beside me and kicked off his shoes.

  “He didn’t keep you up did he?” he said, stroking my hair.

  “I think I was keeping him up.”

  “You were talking about me, eh?” he asked, raising a brow.

  “My favorite subject.”

  I kissed him again, but he pulled away. “Don’t tempt me. You need your strength.”

  “But I’m a succubus,” I began.

  “No, you’re a demigoddess,” he interrupted, “and a sick one. So, for a little while at least I’ll have to wait. But after this, nobody is going to see you for months.”

  “Promise?” I said.

  “Promise,” he answered and proffered a paper bag, “Here. Chandraswami says imbibe one vial, three times a day.”

  I looked inside. It was full of little rainbow colored bottles. I picked one out.

  “Bottoms up,” Cristien advised.

  “Salut. To your health,” I said, unstoppering it and bringing it to my lips. Then because I knew how medicines tasted, I pinched my nose, but it was sweet and fruity.

  “What does it taste like?” he asked, eagerly.

  “I don’t know. Gum,” I said as bright orange smoke wafted on each word.

  He looked disappointed as he took the vial from my hand. He put it and the bag on the bedside table.

  “I brought you something else,” he said, pulling the white bag out from behind his back. “A book.”

  “A book?” I cried, clapping my hands.

  “It’s called the story of Layla and Majnun. I’ll read it to you.”

  “What’s it about?”