The Incubus Job

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Was it crazy that I wasn’t even tempted to ask them? Suicide is insane, they say, and choosing not to feed the ghosts to the trap meant I could very well die or worse, depending what this So’la had in mind for us. All the same, I couldn’t do it. They were people to me—maybe not flesh and blood, but people all the same.

  I shook my head, bracing for the condemnation that was sure to follow. But Law surprised me.

  “You’re that committed?” Genuine surprise colored his voice.

  “They’re innocent,” I said with a shrug. “I can’t kill them just to save myself.” What about to save him? I couldn’t let myself answer that. The answer scared me.

  “Once our magic is spent, this So’la will be able to do anything to us,” he argued. “There’s a better than good chance we’ll end up like the incubus and the ghosts will get sucked up anyway. Nobody wins.”

  “Hopefully it won’t come to that. We’re a smart pair of sorcerers with a lot of experience in dire situations. We should be able to come up with a way out that keeps us from an early grave.”

  “Optimism in the face of sure disaster. I always did like that in you,” he said with a wry grin.

  I grinned back and my chest expanded. For a silver moment, it almost felt like the past six years apart had never happened. “I aim to please. Got any tricks up your sleeves?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” Law said, sobering. “These cones will leave us helpless in no time. Their pull on my shields is increasing. Can’t you feel it?”

  “You could drop them.”

  “I don’t think it’s wise. This trap was well planned. I’m betting our captor anticipated us doing just that.” He scowled at me. “Don’t even think about trying it.”

  “Yes, Dad,” I said. Then, because he needed to know my limitations, “Besides, it would be fatal if I did.”

  He stared, his expression going pale as my words sank in. He slowly slid his hands into his pockets as if he feared what he might do with them if they weren’t contained. “What exactly are you saying?” he asked in the same careful voice I’d used.

  “I’ve been spell carving.” I braced for his inevitable explosion.

  It didn’t come. Instead Law took a long breath and blew it out slowly, scraping both hands through his hair. He turned and paced across the room to the window, touching his fingers to the glass then down below the sill.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Figuring out how to get out of this mess.” He sounded choked.

  He went around to the other walls, touching each, then crouched to brush his knuckles over the floor. He straightened.

  “I’m cut off from Effrayant.”

  “I know. We’re in a trap.”

  “No, you don’t know. The place is an auberge.”

  “I do know that. It’s written on the sign outside.” I was beginning to feel like one of us had had a head injury, and I don’t think it was me, but then again, I was really tired and Law was right—the drain on my magic was growing stronger. We needed to figure out a way to get out of the trap soon. I wasn’t eager to knock on death’s door so soon after the lich-cat episode.

  He began pacing around the cones, examining them. “Not that it matters at the moment, but an auberge isn’t just a hotel. They are always anchored in a ley junction, and magic flows through them. My blood-bond lets me tap into that power at need. The trap is blocking me from doing that.”

  “Which means that the trap was meant for us in particular. Why?”

  “Because of the box, of course,” a young, feminine voice said.

  I spun around to face the door. Just inside was the young woman from the elevator who’d seemed so familiar. In her hands she held three chains attached to the three missing goats. The animals strained at the end of their leashes to get as far from their captor as possible, eyes sprung wide with fear. Ice clamped my bones as Tabitha dug deeper inside me. I felt her shaking. Her fear turned my mouth dry and made my heart explode. I breathed quietly, trying to calm my body, even as my own fear surged.

  That’s when I realized who the woman was. The incubus had killed her in Vegas. She was a corpse.

  Chapter 6

  “You are So’la, I presume?” I asked, ignoring the fear clenching my stomach. “You look good for a corpse. Law, let me introduce you to the woman the incubus killed in Vegas. I think her name was Kelly Langston.” Some of the pieces of the puzzle clicked together. “That’s why the incubus ran in Chicago,” I said to her. “You showed up.”

  “Quite right. He was dawdling, and I was in a hurry.” So’la gave a flourishing bow, something right out of The Three Musketeers. “I am delighted to meet you again, Mallory. You are always such a delight.”

  I frowned, adrenaline stampeding through my muscles. Fight or flight. I couldn’t do either. “What do you mean? We’ve never met, have we?”

  “Oh, so many times. Let me see, perhaps you remember this one . . .”

  So’la’s body blurred as if a flesh-colored wind spun around it, and in a disturbing lumping of flesh, bone, and hair, a man resolved where the dead Kelly had been. He was tall with black hair and a dramatic widow’s peak. The hair at his temples was silvered. His face was long and gaunt, with sunken eyes that reminded me of stagnant water. For a moment he stood naked, with a sagging paunch and bristling body hair. Clothes slid over him out of nowhere, and a pair of thin silver glasses propped onto his nose.

  “You’ve been masquerading as Turner Dempsey?” My voice squeaked despite my effort at control. The ground no longer felt quite solid. Dempsey worked for Ivan in international relations. He spoke eight or nine different languages fluently and another ten or twenty with passing skill. He also could fit like a native into just about any culture. I never liked him, but he’d been a useful resource for me ever since I started working for Ivan. “For how long?”

  “Years. One does wonder why he felt the need to travel so frequently.” He smiled and he had Dempsey’s crooked bottom teeth.

  “Tabitha knew you were here. If we’d run into you before, she’d have known,” I said.

  “Tabitha? Ah, one of your ghosts, I suppose.”

  I started and exchanged a speaking glance with Law. Nobody should have known about them. I hadn’t even told Ivan.

  The Dempsey look-alike shrugged and smiled at my surprise. “I have made a study of you, you see. As for why your Tabitha did not sense me, I am usually quite skilled at disguise. Being this close—” He broke off with a grimace. “Let us just say my control is not quite perfect at the moment.”

  “The box,” I said, putting two and two together. “The box interferes with you.”

  The being wearing Dempsey gave a happy smile that made me squirm. “You see? As smart as you are, this will turn out well.”

  “What will turn out well?” Law demanded.

  “In good time,” Dempsey said then shifted again, this time into a stunning Korean woman with waist-long hair and short bangs. She was slender and built like a boy. She wore a conservative pencil skirt with a white blouse buttoned up to her neck, white stockings, and four-inch spike heels.

  “Hana Dai?” I said, taken aback yet again. She was a researcher for Emily Beakman, a partner in Ivan’s firm. Researcher was one of those euphemistic catch-all terms for an investigator willing to do just about anything to find the dirt she was digging for. Hana was one of the best, and now I knew why. I always figured her elegant feminine exterior hid some seriously dangerous skills, though I never imagined she was a demon. But then, who does expect demons? Probably the same people who wear tinfoil hats and lead underwear.

  “Quite kind of you to help Hana’s sister out of that mess with the Sakoung clan. After their abhorrent behavior, I was quite tempted to kill them myself, but other duties called, I’m afraid. Perhaps when we are done with our business, I will make time. I truly do not care much for that sort of trash, and I always enjoy a good bloodbath.”

  The voice was Hana’s, but the words a
nd their cadence were alien.

  “What sort of business do you have in mind?” Law asked, coming to stand beside me.

  If he meant his presence to reassure me, he failed. Whatever So’la wanted, it was my fault it was here. I’d brought the demon parasite to Effrayant, and it was up to me to get rid of it. I wasn’t going to let Law or anyone else get hurt because of me if I could help it. I needed a plan. I needed to know more about So’la. I wish Tabitha had been willing and able to say more.

  “Don’t you know?” the creature said to Law.

  I couldn’t look away from the imitation-Hana’s pearly pink lips as she spoke.

  “The box, of course. I could not take it myself. I have tried for years to gain my freedom, but every plan has failed, until now. Now I am nearly free.”

  Her eyes turned a brilliant flickering orange, and several inches of shining needle-sharp teeth burst from her jaws, skewering her cheeks from within. The effect was unsettling for the lack of blood.

  “But first you must do me a service.”

  Hana’s voice had turned into a low, smoky growl. As if the demon could no longer tolerate her form, her scalp split apart and sloughed down to the floor like a skin sack. So’la’s body bubbled and expanded. I fell back a step, then several. Law held his ground a moment longer then retreated with me. The goats followed, bleating loudly, as the demon dropped their chain leashes.

  We were so screwed.

  Chapter 7

  “Did you know something like that could fit inside such a little skin?” I asked Law, backing up some more. I shoved more energy into my shields and reached down to fiddle with the chain on the nearest goat. I was hoping that once freed, they’d be able to escape.

  In the meantime, Hana—or So’la because, let’s face it, Hana was now just a skin suit on the carpet—swelled like one of those sponges that are the size of a postage stamp until you get them wet and they turn into a small car. Its skin was gun-barrel blue, and it appeared to be sheathed inside a thick layer of Vaseline. I was willing to bet that the goo would eat a person’s skin.

  I guessed the demon stood around seven feet tall, give or take a few inches. It was bony and looked vaguely anorexic. Its back curved sharply, giving it something of a hump. Two bony protrusions pushed up from its shoulders, one topped with a knobby growth, the other cut short as if it had been snapped off. Long tree-branch arms emerged just below. Even bent at the elbow, the demon’s talons brushed the carpet. A pair of folded wings rose high above its head, which reminded me of a buffalo skull, except it was gray and its horns spiraled up straight like an African antelope, only the demon had five, each about a foot long.

  It had so many teeth that they bunched and crowded, each about six inches long. Maybe there were no orthodontists in the demon realms, which really is ridiculous because I was fairly sure that’s where they all came from, along with dentists, gynecologists, and politicians.

  My ghosts fluttered and pressed tighter. I could feel Tabitha’s rising terror. Jolts of pain pulsed through my gut and down my legs. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t handle it—yet. But if she went wild like earlier in the day, we’d both be in trouble.

  Law eased in front of me. I didn’t know whether to be irritated that he thought could handle So’la better or gratified that he was willing to stand between me and harm. I took the opportunity to free the goats. The moment they the chains came off, they bolted through the floor. I wished we could do the same.

  “What do you want?” Law asked.

  “For you to open the box.” The creature still used Hana’s voice. Bizarre to hear it come out of tall, gray, and grotesque, and even more startling was the fact that it could make that sort of sound without also gnashing its teeth. In fact, I was surprised it didn’t impale itself every time it spoke.

  A cloud of white smoke spun out of nowhere and resolved into the box. It hovered in the air between us and So’la. It was maybe a foot wide and about four inches tall. Made of red-streaked black rock, every inch was inscribed with markings that looked vaguely like the bastard child of Nordic runes and Arabic. They glowed gold.

  “What’s inside?” I asked.

  “That which binds me. That which frees me. Open the box.”

  “Or what?” I had to ask, even though I was pretty sure the answer involved draining my blood, tanning my skin, and making a mural out of the rest of me on the wall. Or maybe the demon would just shove me down a garbage disposal. I could have been wrong, though. Maybe it would send me on a trip to Fiji.

  Trouble was, it wasn’t just me in up against the wall. All that shit would happen to Law too. I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted blood. No. I would not let that happen. If not for me, he wouldn’t even be involved in this mess. I had to stop the demon without letting Law get hurt in the process.

  So’la smiled and it was almost enough to make me pee my pants. Or maybe that was Tabitha’s terror. I fought down the panic.

  “Death,” it said. It took me a second to realize that was the entire answer to my question, though I had no doubt that it wouldn’t be so easy at that.

  “Piss-poor planning, don’t you think?” I asked. I was working on buying time, hoping that I’d come up with a way out of this, hoping Law would pull a miracle out of his ass. “I mean, you go to the trouble of having the incubus steal the box. Didn’t you think to get the key too?”

  The demon smiled again in that horrifying way. “My master held the key, but it was necessary that he die.” Its voice took on a creamy texture, tongue flicking over its maw in remembered delight. “No matter. You will open it for me.”

  I frowned at its words. Killing its master had been necessary? To what? Why?

  “What makes you think we can?” Law said.

  The demon smiled again. “You are tied to the power of the auberge.”

  That sounded a whole lot like I wasn’t necessary to the process. A hollow sound began to fill my ears. Had I led the demon to Law? Had that been the whole point of this job? I prayed that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t live with it if it were. “If he can do it alone, then why bother with me?” I asked in a strangled voice, my heart pounding.

  So’la’s orange eyes gleamed at me. “His strength, your creativity.”

  “My what?” Not the answer I’d been expecting, though fuck if I knew what I thought it would say.

  “I have watched you. You don’t think as most sorcerers. You almost always do what I don’t expect. I always expect you to fail, and yet you succeed over and over.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. Thanks was obviously off the table. Plus there was the whole expected-failure thing, and what sort of nutjob got irritated with a backhanded compliment from a demon, anyhow?

  So’la waved its knotted fingers, the deadly talons clicking together. “No more wasting time. You must begin.”

  “Not here,” Law said. “We need ritual space, and I am cut off from the power of the auberge in this room.”

  I didn’t for a minute think he was really going to do it. Apparently So’la thought his agreement came a little too quickly also. It shook a bone finger at Law and made a tsking sound.

  “I am not a fool,” the demon said. “I have planned this for longer than you know.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that we need ritual space, and you said yourself I need the power of the auberge,” Law said. “Or we can stand around here, pissing into the wind. Your choice.”

  “Very well.”

  The demon turned into a blur. Its bony fingers circled my neck. I didn’t have time to even try to scream before Law and the room vanished. The air turned hot. Acid ate my skin. So’la’s fingers tightened. I kicked and beat my fists against its arms, trying to get it to let go. A moment later we emerged into a broad room I hadn’t seen before. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of slate. On one side near the door was a set of wood shelves well stocked with candles, chalk, and other ritual necessities.

  I sprawled on the ground as the demon loosed it
s hold on my neck. I was a good two feet up in the air when he did. My breath exploded out of my lungs as I thudded to the floor. I lay there, blinking, trying to clear the gray from my vision. My throat ached and my head felt like I’d cracked it.

  “Breaking me into pieces isn’t going to help me open the box,” I said. Kind of whispered. I started to cough, turning onto my side to catch my breath. The stone was cold against the heat of my cheek. After a minute or so, I managed to control myself and sat up.

  My head spun and I braced my elbows on my knees and held it until the spinning slowed. I looked up at So’la. “Where are we?”

  “Still in the auberge.”

  I could have guessed that. Probably its lowest level. I didn’t see any windows that might open to the outside. My guess was this wasn’t Effrayant’s only ritual space.

  “What did you do with Law?”

  The demon’s buffalo-skull face managed to looked surprised. “He remains where he was.”

  A tightness inside me released. He was safe, then. I didn’t think So’la was lying. It still needed Law to bat cleanup. It wasn’t going to hurt either one of us until it got what it wanted. I touched the knot on the back of my head where it had cracked on the stone. “Hurt” being a relative term. It was probably more accurate to say it wouldn’t kill us. Unless, of course, we died trying.

  “Begin,” it ordered.

  That’s when I noticed the box had come with us and sat a few feet away on the floor. I crawled over to examine it.

  “What can you tell me about the spells on it?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You aren’t very helpful.”

  “You’re smart and resourceful. I have faith in your abilities.”

  I’m sure the demon meant that to be supportive. Actually, that isn’t true. I’m not sure it even knew what supportive was. Anyhow, the words twisted my stomach into knots. What if I could open it? So’la was a demon, and a powerful one at that.

  “You’re strong. Why don’t you open the box yourself?” I knew the answer. Obviously it couldn’t. But why not? That’s what I wanted to know.