by D. M. Pratt
“Who is he?” Eve asked.
“Call himself Beau Le Masters but he ain’t been him for a long time,” Evine said.
“What does that mean?” Eve asked.
“Is he dead?” Cora asked.
“You stay outta dis,” Evine said to Cora.
“Well, is he dead? I mean he can’t be dead,” Eve said shaken to her core.
“Dat mean he ain’t dead and he ain’t alive and he wants you to save him from the in between,” Evine said and looked not only at Eve but, chillingly through her.
The blue of her left eye was almost white and in it, this tortured old woman held in her gaze a fear of something unseen and a compassion for Eve that didn’t make sense.
“Save him from what,” Eve asked softly.
“Death is comin’ for him, he knows it and wherever dey holdin’ him death shore nuf gon get him.”
“This doesn’t make sense. I touched him, talked to him. I made love to him twice!”
“Ya neva shouldn’t a done dat,” Evine said. “He needs your life force, your passion and now dat you give it to him he need your love to stay alive,” Evine said trying her best to explain. “But if da other dat got him find out he usin’ his dark powers to get to you, dat one sho nuf will kill ya both. Maybe you gon get one chance to save him. Maybe. But I tink you crazy if you try. I say cut da cord he got tied to you – or - you gon die.”
“What? How?” Eve asked.
“I got some grigri powders and a potion ya got to drink. Gonna cost ya.”
“How much?” Cora asked. “I tol ya ta shut up. Next time you speak I’m gonna turn you into a frog!”
“She can’t do that but just keep quiet until we get out of here,” Eve whispered to Cora. “How much?”
“For an incubus? A tousand dollars. An dats cheap.”
“A thousand dollars!” Eve said. “What’s an incubus?”
Cora went in her purse, pulled out the cash and handed it to Evine. The old woman smiled at her and stood up.
“I tinkin he might be a Nephilim and der ain’t enough money in the world for me to help you wit dat,” Evine said making a kind of sign of the cross around herself and the room.
“What the hell is a Nephilim?” Eve demanded.
“Don’t even say da name in my shop! Ya want ta save him from dat, ya on ya own. Ya want ta cut da cord maybe I can help ya. But right now best I can do is give ya a juju – a talisman - to protect ya until the moon is full… den the real work begins.”
“Cut the cord,” Eve said with a heavy heart. “I want to cut the cord.”
“Dis gonna take me a minute. Da both a ya go wait out front,” Evine said.
The old woman got up and left, heading through a back door deeper into the old shop.
Eve and Cora, grateful to get out of the cramped, smelly room walked back into the front of the shop.
“This is out of a fucking B movie! What’s an incubus? And what is a Nephilim?” Cora asked.
They started to look through the rows of books that lined the reading section of the shop. There were books on Voodoo and spells, rituals and potions. Finally, far in the back was a book on spirits and demons. Eve grabbed the book and flipped to the index and there, along with succubus, was incubus.
“Incubus, Latin verb, incubo, incubare meaning to lie upon, demon, shapeshifter or ghost,” Eve read.
“But she said he wasn’t dead,” Eve replied.
“You studied Latin?” Cora asked surprised.
“A medieval demon who would have sex with women, paralyzing them and putting them into violent states of orgasm usually for the purpose of fathering a child.”
“You’ve got to be kidding? I mean this is not real. Right?” Cora asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I and several of my girl friends would not mind this situation if it wasn’t so scary and if he was cute enough to make a good looking child of course.”
Eve just stared at the book. She had joked about the Vampire thing but something about this felt very, very real. She looked through the index for NEPHILIM but there was nothing.
“I don’t know what to think,” Eve said. “I’m in love with a medieval demon who needs me to find him and save him from something and I don’t know where he is or what to do and if I fail he’ll kill me?”
“He don’t want ta kill ya but he don’t want ta die neither,” Evine said as she strode in and placed several jars on the table.
There was a white powder.
“Dis one you spread around ya bed.”
A blue powder.
“Dis one go on the door frame and along the window sills.”
Six white candles and one red one.
“Light these white ones to clean the shadows out ya place. Light the red to warn you. It’ll go out when he’s near.”
Then Evine pulled a small, fat, leather bag dripping with tiny crystals, a few Ginny hen feathers and two tiny African beads from beneath the pile.
“Dis ya Juju. It a talisman to keep ya safe. Put it on and don’t take it off. Not till this is done. Not until the full moon is finished and he is gone,” Evine said. “And don’t touch that man or let him touch you. Ya hear me? Your life depends on it.”
She placed the cord that held the leather pouch around Eve’s neck. There was a terror in Evine’s eyes that made Eve feel as if she knew much more than she was telling.
“Now get outta here and try to stay alive. When da moon is full, de very first night, come back,” her gaze on Eve. “Alone.” Evine said, this time her gaze locked on Cora. “No sense both a ya dyin’.”
Eve and Cora watched as the withered old woman faded back into the shadows of her shop, vanishing into the blackness.
“Alone,” was the last whispered word that hung in the air around them.
CHAPTER TEN
The ride home was in silent disbelief of what had just happened. Cora offered to come up when they arrived outside Eve’s New Orleans apartment. Eve declined, saying she was exhausted from the restless night at the hospital and drained by the encounter with the wrinkled old woman named Evine. All she wanted to do was take a bath and go to sleep.
Cora made her promise to spread the powder, and not take the talisman off as she stopped the engine, took her keys out of the ignition, pulled off her ornate little key ring and pressed a ruby button. A small silver switch blade flicked out.
“I want you to take a blood oath with me,” Cora said.
“What?” Eve shook her head. “No, I refuse to take a blood oath. This is already the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. Put that away.”
“Then cross your heart,” Cora said.
“We are not six,” Eve insisted.
“Promise!”
Eve crossed her heart and promised she would follow all the instructions the old woman had given her. She hugged Cora.
“I’ll pay you back the money, I promise,” Eve said.
“What money?” Cora asked with a wry smile.
Eve smiled lovingly back at her friend, grateful that she was always there for her, slipped out of the car, turned around and went inside.
It took more than an hour, just to place all the powder, light the candles, and get everything she needed around her bed so she felt safe. Sort of.
She ran a long hot bath and stepped into a very needed soak. She was too tense to fall asleep in the cocoon of the warm water and her eyes stayed on the candles that burned in her bedroom. Occasionally, she watched the ghostly steam rise from the bath and rubbed her hands in the clean water that enveloped her body washing the stain of all that had transpired. She got out, dried herself and put on her favorite lotion looking at her body and the tiny bite above her nipple before she slipped into her favorite nightgown. Teeth and hair brushed and braided, she crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her head. Wrapping both hands around her talisman she relaxed. Sleep took her quickly. She fell into a dreamless blackness, with only the faintest sound of the wind rustling the vines that grew around her
window.
It was about 4 AM when she heard a thump! The low thud pulled her from her sleep. Eve felt her heart racing even before she was fully awake. She felt her hand reach up to the talisman around her neck. There was another thump, this time closer. She refused to pull the covers back and look. She had carefully placed a circle of white powder all around her bed. Whatever it was, if Evine was right, it wasn’t getting in.
Again and again she could feel something move first to the top end of the bed then back to the bottom of the bed. It felt like a huge panther, trapped, hungry, pacing back and forth in front of the five inch thick circle of white powder that surrounded her bed, unable to cross its line. It was him. She knew it with every fiber of her body. He was there. Waiting. Wanting her. Demanding that she acknowledge his presence. Eve refused. There was something in her that would not allow her to move. Her body ached for him. She could feel her nipples getting hard, and she could feel herself getting wet. Her mind began to fill with images of him coming to her, taking her in his arms, kissing her neck or face or hands. She could feel his hands folding around her breasts. His mouth working its way up her back, down her shoulders, down her stomach. She felt the pressure of his body pressing against hers. She felt his hand reaching down her stomach, pressing her legs apart, and two fingers slipping inside her.
“I will not let this happen!” she shouted out loud.
The illusion of this imaginary rapture dissipated from her mind. Her body still quivered, wanting him. The pacing started again, back and forth. Finally, unable to stand the pressure of energy that wafted across the room Eve ripped back the covers. He was there, naked, stunning and fiercely erect, pacing like a wild desperate animal anxious to get across the barrier to touch her. His feet never made contact with the white powder. His eyes never left hers.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Let me in. Let me be inside you,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I am all you have ever needed in a man.”
“Beau, I need you to tell me where you are?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“If you want me to help you it does.”
Beau stopped. A calm came over him taking with it the intense, desperate passion that reeked from his pores. He looked like a helpless, lost child.
“I… I don’t know.”
He moaned in pain, threw his head back and grabbed himself as he grew visibly larger. He stared at her, as did the one eyed monster of animal desire that jutted from between his loins.
“Dear God, how can I help you,” she asked.
“Let me make love to you,” he replied.
Eve looked at the magnificent man before her, pacing in obvious pain and desperation.
“Are you dying?” she asked.
Beau stopped. The ferociousness in his eyes and in his amazing hard-on softened. In the dim candlelight she could see his eyes well with tears.
“Yes. I think so. I don’t understand why. I don’t know why they want me dead,” he told her. “I don’t want to die, I want to be alive and free. I want to know you and walk with you. I want to love you. Please, Eve, let me hold you.”
Eve was torn. Besides the tense erotic attraction that pulled at her body and the horrifying knowledge that she had fallen into some metaphysical phenomenon, he had touched her heart.
“Look, I want to help you,” she began.
“Then let me in. Please. I must have you or I will die,” he said, the fierceness returning to his eyes.
“Not here Beau, not like this. Help me find the real you. Maybe I can save you from whoever is hurting you.”
“How? How can you help?”
Eve pulled the covers back and rose from the bed. She stepped forward. She now stood an arm’s length away behind the line of white powder. The light from the candles was almost gone but it flickered enough to show the silhouettes of her body through the thin, cotton night shift. It made his erection come back in full force.
His eyes met hers. He looked only at her face.
“Talk to me. Tell me the last thing you remember about where they have you?” she asked.
He stood silent. She could tell he was struggling, trying to remember something…anything.
“I remember a long plane ride…a family trip. The people didn’t speak English,” he started.
“Do you remember what language?” Eve asked.
“I hear it from my…cage but I don’t recognize it,” he said.
“Cage? What kind of cage? Tell me what else,” Eve said.
“There was a large house. Bigger than Gregoire manor, but it was in the country with orchards and vineyards all around its pink walls. We were a family, enjoying life happily. Going places, doing things and then there was a car accident,” Beau said and then he stopped.
“Go on. Please try and remember more,” she said.
“Don’t let me die. Make love to me tonight. It’s the only way I can stay alive. I’m sure of it,” he said.
Eve could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted to reach for her. She stepped back. It was all she could do to control herself from ripping off the talisman, opening her arms and letting him take her. Real or spirit he was the best, most complete lover she’d ever known in her life. But there was something else that stopped her. There was another kind of intensity that came through his eyes and hovered around his body that frightened her.
“Beau, please, let me go tonight. Let me help you. I’ll figure this all out. Can you do that?” she asked.
There was a rush of pain that filled his eyes, as if her words stabbed him in the heart. She saw a wave of emotion crash into him. He could have let it turn to rage and anger, but he didn’t. He wanted her help, that part was genuine.
“If I don’t make love to you tonight, I don’t know if I can stay alive. I can see you’re afraid of me. I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, Eve. Whatever this is, this thing that’s happening to me, I would sooner die than harm you. Please know that,” he said.
“Don’t die. I promise I’ll do everything I can to find and set you free. Believe me, please,” Eve said in a pleading whisper.
The candles began to glow brighter, more intense as a soft breeze moved around the room. Then, he disappeared, as if he’d been a column of smoke caught in a breath of wind.
Tears welled in Eve’s eyes. She released the talisman and placed her hands over her heart. She truly cared for this man. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, she only knew that she felt a unique kind of love for him. And that she would do anything for him. Well, almost anything. She certainly wasn’t gonna die for him. At least not right now. She had until the full moon to find and help him; after that, she promised, she would cut the cord …whatever that meant.
Cautiously, Eve stepped over the white line of powder, grabbed her laptop and ran back across the safety of the powder to jump into her bed. She was a reporter and an investigator. She would look up all the information she could find on whatever an incubus was, whatever a Nephilim was and of course, whoever Beau Le Masters had become. She would learn what happened to him and his family and do her best to discover where on earth he could possibly be. That this bizarre set of circumstances was happening was beyond explanation. Hell, the absurd and insane reality or unreality for that matter of what was happening was beyond explanation. A thought echoed in her mind, What if you find him and set him free and he doesn’t love you back? she asked herself. No answer came, only the empty silence and fear of loneliness that lives inside a woman who had tasted passion, wanted more, and stood at the precipice of the possibility that life would deny her. But Eve didn’t care. If there was one chance for her to have a perfect love, she had to explore every corner of it. If he wasn’t real or human she didn’t want to know it - at least not right now. All she knew was that in her heart, something compelled her so deeply that she wanted to help him and
that was enough… at least for now. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the time the sun crested over the old roofs of New Orleans, she’d made herself a second cup of coffee. She stretched listening to her joints pop like an old rocking chair, creaking and snapping as it rocked back and forth on the wooden floor.
“That will not be good in ten years,” she said of herself rubbing the muscles of her aching body.
Eve stretched again and slipped off into her bathroom to take a shower.
She had to go into work, at least to make a cursory appearance. She dressed for the day, applied a thin line of sable eye liner, a wisp of blush and a hint of lipstick so people at least thought she cared. Her reflection stopped her as she studied the face in the mirror. She looked pale. Maybe it was the stress of what was happening. Maybe.
Eve grabbed up her note pad that in the wee hours of the morning she’d filled with a plethora of information about the Gregoires dating back to the 1700’s. Most of the information tied to the fascinating history that detailed her favorite place on earth – the spectacular Gregoire Mansion.
She’d decided to take the trolley to work this morning. The quaint piece of antiquated machinery, with its turn of the century mechanics ran down the middle island of her street and cut west through the residential area, rambling into downtown New Orleans. Large, wonderfully old, well kept mansions lined the street, proudly keeping their southern grace and the deep secrets from all the eons gone by; magnificently hidden behind majestic wrought iron fences, white wooden gates, and the grandeur of each solid oak door.
Eve read over her notes. It gave her a profound and very special connection to Beau Le Masters and that gave her hope. Hope she could do something before it was too late.
She called Cora and begged her to meet at their favorite coffee place. She still had time for another cup before she slipped into work.
Twenty minutes later, Cora sat eating beignets and drinking coffee until the last sordid details of him vanishing into thin air made her stop chewing and listen with her mouth agape and her fingers delicately pressed to her lips.