That’s what I like about her, he thought. She doesn’t judge me. She doesn’t think I’m a failure.
They parked on the street across from the Plaza and watched for a while. There was one sputtering streetlamp near the motel, and a single bare light bulb outside one of the units. There were old, battered chairs in the walkways, a torn-up sofa and the glint of beer cans in the parking lot. There were two rows of single units, stretching perpendicular to the street back to the railroad tracks. They could see everything, all the comings and goings. Of which there were very few.
Bobbie Jo reached back and snagged a couple of the small liquor bottles they’d taken from the hotel room’s mini fridge. They had stopped by their room on the way out, where Bobbie Jo had jumped up and down and on the big bed, giddy, and said, “I can’t wait to get back here and give the bedsprings a workout.”
“You want whiskey or vodka?” she asked now.
Adam shrugged and held out a hand. She gave him the vodka. They both downed two more of the bottles before speaking again.
“Do you believe what that lady Serena said?” Adam asked. “About those Succubuses?”
“Succubitches. Do I believe that there are women who suck men’s souls out through their dick?” Bobbie Jo said. “I sure as hell do.”
“There’s a male version too,” Adam said. “I looked it up on the hotel computer. They’re called Incubuses.”
“All kinds of buses,” Bobbie Jo laughed. “I think maybe I’ve run into that type too.”
“The others seem to believe her, though I think Cary’s in love with her. Jeremy and Lucinda…man, I could feel those two kids wanting to tear each other’s clothes off.”
“Yeah, these Succubitches are good for one thing.”
They fell silent at that. The sexual energy was so thick that Adam thought he could probably take out his pocketknife and cut it. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on their surveillance.
“Not much going on tonight,” Adam ventured. Bobbie Jo seemed to know a lot about the Plaza, and it sort of confirmed what he’d always suspected about her. She’d had a rough life, and she’d done some things that she wasn’t proud of—though he could almost hear her saying she wasn’t ashamed either. He wasn’t going to question her, though. He hadn’t exactly been stellar himself.
“Kinda weird,” Bobbie Jo replied. “Usually it’s a happening place. People hanging out by the doors, flirting and drinking.”
“Huh.”
“I mean, it’s really strange, ’cause there should to be all kinds of hanky-panky going on. Can’t you feel it?”
Adam grinned at her, then leaned over and sucked on her neck a little.
“I’m feeling a little frisky myself,” Bobbie Jo said. “What’s the back seat like?”
“Uh…if you get on top, we can do it.”
They scrambled over the front seat, and Adam pulled down his pants and Bobbie Jo jumped on. He struggled to get her shirt up and her bra undone, and then he was sucking for dear life.
Bobbie Jo came first, as usual. It didn’t take her long, especially when she was on top and she could grind down at just the right angle. Adam put his fists under his buttocks so that she could really come down hard.
Afterward, they lay sideways on the backseat for a while before Bobbie Jo sighed and said, “I suppose we oughta be watching.”
She crawled back over the seat into the front of the car. Before Adam could join her, she said, “Hey, I think I know that girl,” and opened the door and got out.
The overhead light came on. Adam was still hanging out of his pants. “Hey!” he cried, but Bobbie Jo ignored him and crossed the street. Standing there was a short, round girl with long black ringlets and pants that were about two sizes too small. They stood talking while Adam made himself decent. He was just about to get out and join them when Bobbie Jo started back to the car.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“A fucking massacre,” she said. “Howard’s Bar, a dive on the edge of town. Been there once. It was too low class for me.”
Adam blushed in the darkness. It had been his hangout before he’d lost his job and become homeless and too broke to buy bar liquor. “What happened?”
“They found everyone dead. Some joker put up a fumigation sign, so they didn’t figure it out for a while. Dozens of people, all bloated and stinking from having been locked in.”
“Do you think it was her?”
“It wasn’t no gun,” Bobbie Jo said. “Carrie said it was something sharp that cut them all, almost like an animal attack. Remind you of anyone?
“Jesus, what chance do we have against that?” Adam asked, dismayed.
“She cut their heads off,” Bobbie Jo said grimly. “Set them on the bar like some kind of Aztec bullshit.” She turned to Adam, and his heart sank. Up until this moment, she’d been wavering; he could feel it. After all, it wasn’t their fight. Why not take the reward money and run? He’d been planning to suggest it as soon as they took advantage of that fancy hotel room for a couple of days. But now Bobbie Jo had her anger flowing, and he knew that nothing less than finishing this would dissolve that wrath.
“Screw it,” Bobbie Jo said. “She ain’t coming tonight. Let’s get back to the hotel. I want to try that big bed out.”
Adam felt himself stirring at the suggestion. It’s the Blood of the Succubus, he realized. It’s making me horny beyond all reason.
He started up the Pinto, and they drove away from the Plaza.
***
Eisheth stood right outside the passenger side window, perfectly still. She could blend into the darkness when she wanted to. She’d been on the verge of opening the door and tearing out their throats when she heard the name Serena.
She’d heard every word of the young couple’s conversation.
How convenient, she thought. All my little birds in one nest.
It was time to put an end to Serena once and for all. And while she was at it, she’d finish off her other targets, men and women both. She’d walk away from this town a winner after all.
She followed the Pinto, which was making a turn toward downtown Bend. She dropped her human shape and ran as she had of old, before she’d ever met a human, before they had corrupted her.
We should stay like this, Eisheth thought as the energy surged through her long limbs. My sisters and I should find a place far away from here and never take on human shape again.
I will tell my sisters.
But even as she thought it, she knew they would never agree. They’d forgotten the old ways long ago. They were as much addicted to sex as the humans were addicted to them.
I will go off on my own, she decided. Just as soon as I have killed these last few humans.
Chapter 29
Gasper Gerhard’s Journal
A man is not meant to live more than a century.
My son sees me as cold, uncaring. Perhaps I am. Perhaps all hope was drained from me long ago.
When I was young, I had all the hope in the world. Being a Guardian seemed important. I thought it meant something. I truly believed the Succubae could be defeated with the Blood I guarded.
There have been rumors of other Guardians out in the world. I call them the shadow Guardians, though the histories say no other families survived except ours. But we wrote those histories, so I don’t know if they can be trusted.
There must have been survivors, for how else would the name “Guardian” even be known?
But my hope has slowly faded. I was at my most despairing when Heinrich was born. I fear I have filled him with my hopelessness. I pray not. I pray he can find the strength to continue to fight—perhaps even to win it.
***
Rick was watching football, as the Americans called it, and not understanding anything that was happening on the screen.
“Look at that stupid bastard celebrating for getting three stinking yards,” Gary said, throwing up his arms in frustration.
“Yeah, but he
ran right through Jared ‘The Moxie’ Billings,” Pete said. “Moxie my ass.”
None of it meant anything to Rick. He watched his two guards, wondering if maybe he could surprise them while they were arguing. Each of them had at least twenty pounds on him, and both had guns and no apparent reluctance to use them. Harrison might have preferred that Rick still be alive when he returned, but tellingly, he hadn’t specifically ordered it.
Harrison isn’t coming back, Rick thought. I wonder when these two idiots will realize it.
Serena would be trying to contact him, he knew. If he didn’t answer, she would try to confront the Succubae on her own, which would be a mistake. She wouldn’t wait long, for of all the people in the world, perhaps only Rick hated the Succubae more than she did.
Did she understand the implications? Had he made it clear to her that only a man—a man who could resist them—could destroy them once and for all?
At the same time, he needed Serena and her friends. While it was true that the final battle would be between man and Succubus, he hoped the women and their boyfriends would be his secret weapon. After all his research, he realized that there was one thing that had never been used against the Succubae.
Love.
The love between a man and a woman.
If it came down to a battle of sex and lust and temptation, the Succubae would win every time. But if love were introduced, maybe it would be different. Maybe love would be enough to draw the men away from the Daughters of Lilith. If love could weaken them at just the right moment, then there was a chance that he could face them down. He practiced that moment in his mind every night. He would be rock hard, and they would be bending every ounce of their willpower upon him. But he would resist. He would remain steadfast. He would reach out and take them by the neck…
No man had more reason to resist them than Heinrich. He’d lost his loved ones and his friends to the Daughters of Lilith; he’d spent decades preparing to fight them. He knew what the Daughters of Lilith were, and he knew the stakes. He had nurtured his hate. He was ready.
But here he was, when it mattered most, stuck in a motel with a couple of goons. Serena waited on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. He cursed himself for waiting too long to start out. He’d had so many false hopes over the years that a feeling of futility had overtaken him. He hadn’t really believed that Serena was capable of doing what he’d failed to do so many times.
I’ve become my father, he thought. Making plans and doing nothing.
There was a soft knock on the door.
Gary sprang up from the end of the bed, pulling his gun. Rick almost laughed. A Succubus wouldn’t knock politely. She’d be through the door as if it was paper and tearing out their throats before they could pull their guns.
“Hey, Pete,” said a woman’s voice. “Care if we join you?”
“We’re watching football, Abigail,” Pete answered, as if that disqualified the woman.
“Cool. Patriots and Packers, right?”
“Jesus, Pete,” Gary called out. “Let them in!”
Two young women walked in. They seemed like children to Rick, though on closer examination, he saw that they were probably in their early twenties. It had gotten so any woman under the age of forty looked young to him.
They were dressed in black leather skirts, dark nylons, white blouses and black vests. Both were blonde, one slightly taller and heavier than the other. Both had striking blue eyes and noses that, examined alone, looked too long, but when added to the overall effect of their faces were just right. They weren’t twins, but had probably been mistaken for ones all their lives, especially when they dressed the same.
“Hey, Brittany,” Gary said to the taller girl. There was a shyness in his voice that was surprising coming from such a big man.
She smiled and walked toward him, holding up a six-pack of beer. “Want to try some local brew? When in Portland, drink as Portlanders do.”
Gary got up and took the beer to the mini fridge. Brittany looked over at Rick and winked. “Hold on,” she mouthed. Or so it seemed.
Rick froze, then tried to cover up his surprise. It didn’t matter. The guards weren’t paying the slightest attention to him. Their eyes were on the women, who were doing everything in their power to keep it that way. It was so obviously seductive that Rick marveled that the men didn’t see it.
A few minutes later, it was Abigail’s turn to look over at him. She pushed her hand down flat, as if to say, “Wait.”
Two beers later, they had coupled up. Abigail was practically sitting in Pete’s lap, while Gary had only gotten as far as holding Brittany’s hand.
Pete suddenly stood up, nearly dumping Abigail to the floor. “Your father will kill us,” he said.
“Daddy isn’t here, is he?” Abigail said. “We’re big girls. We know what we’re doing.”
I was wrong, Rick thought, watching them, this is exactly the way a Succubus would do it.
Pete sat back down and Abigail soothed him, then put her hand on his neck and pulled him toward her, and their kiss put an end to all his resistance.
The men had started drinking the beers from the bottle, but when the girls got up to replenish them, they brought back red plastic cups. Pete and Gary didn’t even notice the switch.
The football game went on into overtime, but neither couple seemed to be paying much attention.
“Hey, pal, do you mind moving to the chair?” Pete asked suddenly. He was standing near the bed, glaring down at Rick. Abigail was at his side, leaning into him. She raised her eyebrows, as if to say, “Go ahead.”
Rick rose without a word, moved to the chair in the corner of the room, and watched the rest play out.
The two couples started making out on the bed. Pete got as far as trying to slip his hand under Abigail’s blouse, but she laughingly removed it. Then he lolled backward onto the pillow.
“Wow, strong beer,” he muttered. Within seconds, he was snoring.
Gary didn’t seem to notice. He was on top of Brittany, nuzzling her neck, both of them fully clothed. Suddenly, the girl rolled him off her, and he kept rolling right off the bed, landing on the floor with a thud.
By then, Rick was up and halfway to the door.
“Stop,” Abigail’s ordered.
He froze and turned. She had one of the guns trained on him.
“I know how to use it,” she informed him. “In fact, I’m a better shot than either of these bozos.”
“What do you want?” Rick asked. He stared her in the eyes and realized with a start that she was Harrison’s daughter. She had the same long, resolute gaze.
“I want you to take off your pants,” Brittany said.
“What?” he said.
“She’s right,” Abigail said. “Take off your pants.”
Rick dropped his pants and stood there, blushing.
“Your underwear too, idiot,” Abigail said.
Rick complied.
“Wow,” Brittany breathed. “It’s really true.”
“You did that to yourself?” Abigail asked.
“I am a Guardian,” Rick said.
“Yeah, well, our Guardians don’t do that,” Abigail muttered. “Thank God.”
“Then they are doomed,” Rick said.
“Doooooommmed…” Brittany mimicked in a deep, hollow voice.
Rick didn’t crack a smile, and her laughter faltered.
“They are probably already dead,” Rick said.
This seemed to penetrate their ironic detachment. They fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” Rick said. “I tried to warn him.”
“I told Daddy that he shouldn’t do it,” Abigail said. “I also told him that he needed our help. We weren’t going to be…distracted…the way the men are.” She looked over at the other girl, and they seemed to come to an agreement. She gestured to Rick. “Pull up your pants. We’re letting you go.”
“Why are you helping me?” Rick asked.
“Well, there is a pric
e,” Abigail answered. “We want some of the Blood.”
Rick zipped up his pants, trying to keep from revealing anything with his expression. “What make you think I have any more Blood?”
“Oh, come on,” Brittany scoffed. “You’ve got a secret stash, I know you do.”
“I know I would,” Abigail added.
“What will you do with it?”
“Same as you, Mr. Gerhard. We will confront the Succubae.”
“Call me Rick. Why is it your business?”
“We were raised as Guardians,” Abigail said. “Maybe that wasn’t what my father planned, but Brittany and I were there at every stage of the game; we learned the same things as the men, and we realized early on that they were going about it all wrong.”
Brittany broke in, “The Succubae tempt men, right? Well, why the hell leave women on the sidelines? Why not use us?”
Abigail continued, “Daddy wouldn’t hear of it, of course, but we undertook the same training as the men. It didn’t take much to convince the guys. We just batted our big blue eyes at them. So we’ve been ready for a long time. And then…Daddy just leaves us here. Not a word. Just gone.”
Rick nodded. He resisted the urge to be gallant, to try to talk the out of it, to treat them as “ladies.” Women were just as capable as men—he’d learned that much in his long life. The Guardians—and apparently the shadow Guardians as well—were shortsighted not to let women help them. Hell, women probably should have leading the mission all along.
“Follow me,” he said.
His backpack was missing, but he’d taped a spare key under the bumper of his van and was able to unlock the back doors. “Got a knife?” he asked, after the two women scrambled into the back with him. As he suspected, this wasn’t a problem. Abigail immediately produced a wicked-looking bowie knife from somewhere under those tight clothes.
Rick pried away a side panel of the van. He had six bottles of the Blood left, cushioned in foam rubber, dusty and tarnished from years of being hidden. But the Blood was still good; it always was.
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