“Cary?” Serena said.
It was easier for him, after hearing the others. It didn’t sound so crazy. And, well, it had really happened, and either they’d believe him or they wouldn’t. So he told his story in turn, adding more details as he became more and more certain that they wouldn’t reject it out of hand.
Finally, it was Serena’s turn to tell her story. Everyone paid particular attention to what she said, because all of them sensed that she knew more than the rest of them.
She told them how she had been unwilling to believe her son was guilty of a heinous crime. How she researched Kristen’s past and discovered that she wasn’t what she appeared, and how the more she explored, the worse it got.
“This I know,” Serena finished. “She is a creature from the dawn of time, preying on men’s sexual appetites, draining them of their life force. You mustn’t feel embarrassed about falling for her, any more than being put under the spell of a witch would embarrass you. It’s dark magic. No, it’s older than dark magic; it is the well from which dark magic flows.”
Bobbie Jo laughed. “Man, if I’d heard this story a couple of days ago, I’d have said you were full of bullshit. But I know what I saw.”
The others nodded, even Lucinda, who, though she hadn’t seen the Succubus herself, except in her human “sweet bitch” form, seemed convinced by the others’ stories. She cut to the chase. “What do we do?”
“She’s been weakened,” Serena answered. “She’s been frustrated twice now. It takes a good deal of magical energy to maintain her illusions. Neither Adam nor Jeremy gave her what she needed, thank God. And before that, I doubt she finished with Doug Johnson.” She paused, then leaned forward to speak slowly and clearly to Adam and Jeremy. “You must understand this: you would be dead now if you hadn’t interrupted her plans, both of you. If she succeeded, you’d be dead and she’d be gone, and we’d be back at square one, but as it is, she may not have the strength to leave the area.”
“So all we have to do is keep her from screwing someone?” Bobbie Jo asked. She cocked an eyebrow at Serena. “You do know what men are like, don’t you?”
Serena smiled. “Yes, but she’s probably no longer the attractive vixen you saw before. She’s been diminished. She’ll find it harder to attract a man now, but…you’re right, she can always find a willing victim. But simply screwing someone won’t gain her much. She needs for her quarry to be in love with her to truly gain strength, and that takes time. What she’ll do is look for prey that is easier to catch—probably men with lower socioeconomic status.”
Bobbie Jo frowned but didn’t speak.
“If her past is any indication, she’ll go places where she doesn’t have to try very hard or need to be too good-looking,” Serena continued. “Tomorrow, we’ll fan out with the flyers and see if we can’t find where she’s hiding.”
Lucinda stood up, straightening her skirt, looking uncomfortable.
“What is it, Lucinda?” Serena asked.
“I…believe you, I guess. But why do we have to do anything about it? Why us? Why not just let the…the Succubus leave town?”
“Yeah,” Bobbie Jo said. “What’s this ‘we’ business? You wanted information and we gave you information. That’s it. Give us our money and we’ll be on our way.”
Adam had been sitting quietly. Now he stood up, facing Bobbie Jo.
“We have to help,” Adam said. “We can’t let her keep doing this stuff.”
Jeremy also stood up, standing next to Adam. “I agree,” he said, turning to Lucinda apologetically. “You weren’t there. It was scary and horrible and irresistible. And it was wrong. It has to stop.”
Lucinda hesitated, then reached up from the sofa and took his hand. She nodded. Bobbie Jo still didn’t look convinced.
“What the hell?” she muttered. “Are vampires and werewolves next?”
Cary looked over at Serena, who said, “Listen, it’s dinnertime. Why don’t I take you all to a meal in the restaurant downstairs? My treat. We’ll talk this over.”
Adam and Bobbie Jo immediately agreed, but Jeremy looked hesitant.
Serena suddenly remembered how young her new friends were. “Do you need to call your parents?” she asked.
“Not me,” Lucinda said. “They think I’m at a cheerleader camp.”
Jeremy’s response wasn’t so quick. “My parents are out of town,” he said doubtfully. “But I probably should call my sister.”
“Why don’t you do that?” Serena said. “We’ll reconvene downstairs.”
***
“Hey, Marty, I ran into some friends,” Jeremy said into his phone, trying to keep a light tone in his voice. “I’ll probably stay with them tonight.”
“Are you with Cathy?” his sister asked suspiciously.
“No!” Jeremy exclaimed in surprise. “I’m…I’m done with her.”
“But you’re with a girl, aren’t you?” Marty said. “I can tell when you’re lying.”
Jeremy suddenly wondered why he was hiding it. “I’m with Lucinda, if you really want to know.”
“Lucinda?” his sister said. There was a long pause. Will she tell me to come home? Will she call our parents?
“Have fun, Jermy.” Marty hung up. Jeremy could almost hear the glee in her voice.
He turned with a half smile. Lucinda was standing close to him, so close that he wanted nothing more than to lean into her. The others had already gone down the elevator.
“Let’s take the stairs,” Lucinda said.
He banged open the door the stairwell, and a breeze came up toward them.
“Do you really believe Serena?” she asked. “I mean, about the Succubae?”
He nodded. “I do. You had to be there. There was something really weird about Cathy. I mean, nothing that could be explained by the natural world. I was bewitched…” He looked over at her. I need to let her know. “I didn’t see her for what she was until too late.”
“I knew she was a sweet bitch,” Lucinda said. “Maybe not a literal monster, but there was something really strange about her.”
“A sweet bitch?
Lucinda shrugged. “You know, a girl who is nice to your face and terrible behind your back.”
“Well, she was that.”
Chapter 23
Gasper Gerhard’s Journal
How ironic that the Guardianship has been passed down from son to son. Daughters are ignored, kept in the dark, or if told anything, consigned to being mere helpmates. It is the patriarchal thing to do. I might be the first one in my family to even question it.
And yet, who better to confront the Daughters of Lilith than women, most of whom are immune to the seductive charms of the Succubae?
I do not know how such a thing could happen, or what would be the results. But it should be tried. Perhaps it is up the male of the species to put an end to the Succubae, since we were the ones who created them, who transformed Goddesses who gave us their blessing into demons who want our destruction.
But women could help us understand, perhaps. Women could give us strength.
For what force could stand in the face of the sexual power of the Succubae but the love of women? Who else could turn a man away from his base desires?
The generations of women growing up now, who are demanding equality, will change the equation. Perhaps they will even help us finally win.
***
Crescent City, 1995
Rick was going to kill the Daughters of Lilith. He didn’t care how long it took or what it cost.
He would have approached the shadow Guardians, except for two things. The first was that he was pretty sure that he’d been tracked down in France because their emissary had been followed. At the least, the American hadn’t been careful about using the name Gerhard in his search.
The second reason was the shadow Guardians wanted to capture, not kill, the Succubae. Rick doubted that was possible, but even if it was, it wasn’t the right thing to do. The Succubae had to be dest
royed, removed from this world once and for all. The sisters and their Blood were a thing of the distant past, before history, before science, from a time when myths and legends were real. That time was over.
The three sisters were never together again after the Summer of Love, at least not as far as Rick could tell. He read all the newspapers and magazines he could get his hands on, but for a time, it was as if the Daughters of Lilith had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Being that they were immortal, he doubted that.
It turned out that they were just getting better at hiding. There was evidence of each of them—alone—in various parts of the world, and that was vaguely reassuring. That they stayed separate was a good thing, for it was when they were all together that the world seemed to bend to their wishes and bad things began to happen.
Rick got so he could recognize each of the sisters individually.
Agrat Bat, for instance, tended to spend her time among the rich and powerful, who had their own reasons to hide their sex scandals, even (or especially) if they resulted in death. Still, rumors emerged: such and such a hedge fund manager hadn’t died from a heart attack—or rather, he had, but only after a night of gymnastic sex. Or a princeling in some small, inconsequential country hadn’t really died in a car accident, but had been found, a dried-up husk, inside a sports car parked in some vacant garage.
Naamah, the youngest sister, spent most of her time among the down and out, where the missing and the dead were hardly noticed.
The easiest to track was Eisheth, who lived among the middle class and had difficulty hiding her more frequent crimes. But even for her, evidence of her crime was diminishing.
By the middle of the 1990s, Rick knew roughly where each of the three sisters were. Naamah was in South America, Agrat Bat was in the Middle East, and Eisheth was in Europe.
It had taken him decades to get over the death of Adele and his children, and then Claresa. He’d sworn to never again become close to another person, especially a woman. And he’d reluctantly once again come to the conclusion that he was not going to be the Guardian who put an end to Succubae.
He needed an heir.
He chose the last name of Carr and drove his old hippie van to Crescent City, a small town in California near the Oregon border. He rented a small house, and one night took half a sip of the Blood to see what would happen. He felt a stirring, but it wasn’t quite enough. He took two more sips, and he was restored.
This time, he left the knife in its sheath.
Then he proceeded to systematically date all the eligible women in the small town, with the intention of procreation. He had money, and he spent it publically, and it wasn’t long before many of the single females in town made themselves available.
Love wasn’t necessary, only that Rick convince his intended it was there.
He encountered a sweet, good-natured woman on the beach one day, and to his great surprise, they were soon talking up a storm, as if they were old friends.
Susan was newly divorced and informed him that she had no intention of marrying again. Ironically, she seemed to be the only woman in town that didn’t know he was rich—or care.
Three months later, after a quick ceremony, they were husband and wife. Three months later, she was pregnant. For the next nine months, Rick kept a watchful eye out for any sign of the Succubae. The child was a boy. They named him Richard, because Susan thought that was the origin of Rick, and he didn’t disabuse her of the notion.
As soon as his son was born, Rick had an “accident”—or so he told his wife. In reality, he had resumed the Cutting.
It was his plan all along: procreate, in the most cold-blooded way possible, and then disappear. When his son was old enough, he’d come back and teach boy what he needed to know.
Susan was very understanding about his “accident,” though he knew she was disappointed. She was younger than him, and she still wanted physical contact, sex and cuddling, and though he tried to satisfy her in other ways, it wasn’t surprising to discover she had taken a lover. She tried to make it up to Rick, but he decided it was for the best.
He took a hard line, and they divorced. Rick gave her a nice settlement, and he moved away. It was all part of the plan. And yet, it surprised him how much he missed her and his son.
Susan remarried, and when Rick visited ten years later, his son didn’t even know him.
Richard was a handsome boy, maybe a little small for his age, with dark brown eyes and short-cropped hair. He seemed interested in his birth father, and certainly wasn’t averse to letting Rick buy him presents from the pricey downtown stores. He even seemed OK with just walking on the beach and talking. But Rick noticed something.
“Why doesn’t he ever smile?” he asked Susan after bringing the boy home from a movie.
She gave him an odd look. “Because he’s like his father?”
“What do you mean?”
Susan shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. He’s a serious boy, but he’s happy. It’s just that he tends to think about things more than most kids his age.”
There was an unfamiliar tightening in Rick’s chest, and he was flooded with warmth, leaving him breathless, unable to speak. Love. He’d almost forgotten the emotion. This is what it feels like to love someone.
He decided to leave and never come back. The longer he was there, the more chance the Succubae would find his family. It terrified him to love someone as much as he loved his son.
Before Rick left, Richard finally spoke to him. It was the first time he’d opened up without being spoken to first. “When you come back, I want to know…” he began, then stopped.
“Know what?”
“Why we’re different,” Richard said. His dark brown eyes stared into his father’s, and Rick had the sudden sensation that he was talking to himself at the age of ten, with the same mysteries and the same questions.
“I promise,” Rick said, amazed that he could lie so well.
He started to walk away. He was overcome with emotion. He wanted to turn around, grab his son, and take him away. But he didn’t dare.
“Dad,” Richard said.
Rick turned, and the look of earnestness on his son’s face almost made him break down then and there and tell him the truth.
“I really want to help you,” Richard said. “With whatever it is.”
Before he knew it, Rick had strode over to Richard and clasped him in a tight hug. It was the first time, and perhaps the last time, but it felt right.
“Next time I see you,” he said, “I’ll explain everything.”
That seemed to be enough for Richard. He went back to playing with the remote control car Rick had purchased for him that morning.
Rick packed up Gasper Gerhard’s journal and a bottle of the Blood in a box and gave it to Susan. They were still friendly. Rick paid his child support on time, and he usually added something extra.
“Give this to Richard when he’s sixteen,” he instructed her.
“This has the answers?” she asked.
“What answers?”
“To the mystery of Rick Carr,” Susan said. “Never mind. I’ll make sure he gets it. I won’t even open it myself. I owe you that much.”
“Thank you,” he said. “See you soon.”
“Rick?”
“Yeah?”
“Goodbye.”
***
Rick bought an old farmhouse in Nebraska with a deep cellar. He sat in darkness for month after month. When he felt himself fading, he took a sip of the Blood.
He Cut himself almost every day, punishing himself.
Drink the Blood, restore his body, Cut it away. Again and again, the pain took him away from everything else. The pain was his companion. It was better than being alone. Better than being whole. Better than remembering…
Too many people had died for him.
But no more.
When he finally emerged, it was because he was using up the Blood of the Succubus.
He decid
ed to allow himself to grow older.
Years went by without him restoring himself. His limbs crabbed up and his face aged, furrowed with wrinkles; his hands became arthritic knobs. Another way of punishing himself, he supposed. He had enough time to be self-reflective, but it was distant, as if happening to another person.
As the years passed, Rick made halfhearted efforts to track the Daughters of Lilith, but in truth, he had given up.
He posted messages all over the Internet and got some good leads, but always a little too little and a little too late. There were hints of their presence, but he could never be sure. The Succubae were careful to leave their hunting grounds as soon as they had fed. He was always playing catch-up.
And then he met Serena online.
She revived his faith. She’d lost her son, and seemed as committed as he was to the destruction of the Succubae. He had had others respond to his website, but most of them were flakes and poseurs. The Succubae left few witnesses.
He followed Serena’s travels, and then one day, the signs pointed to a town not far away from where he was hiding. She messaged him:
Serena: She’s here. In Bend, Oregon. And she’s injured.
Rick: You’re positive?
Serena: There is no doubt. I have more than one witness.
Rick: Wait there. I’m coming.
He logged off and then had second thoughts. He turned the computer back on.
Rick: Whatever you do, don’t confront her until I get there.
He loaded up the old hippie van with its eagle and its peace sign and drove it out of his garage, somewhat surprised that it still ran, and headed west to Oregon.
Chapter 24
The Daughters of Lilith crawled from the caves beneath the mountains as little more than animals. Agrat Bat was nearly incorporeal. Naamah managed to retain the form of an old woman, while Eisheth looked like a small, withered ape.
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