~oOo~
When Nicky roused after making love to Gerry, he found her curled against his body, their legs entwined and one of her arms wrapped tightly around him. When he ran a finger along her cheekbone he saw her curl her head up against his shoulder. There was the faintest hint of a smile playing on her lips. Still, however, she remained asleep.
Just sleep, Nicky thought with great relief. She was no longer in the coma-like state. Now she was just sleeping. He touched the cross that had settled on her neck in the hollow at her throat.
She’s a believer, Mére Owa had said. It was true that she had been, and although he had never once been, he still muttered a simple, “Thank you,” just in case someone upstairs really did exist and was listening.
The cell phone Langston had given him rang, and he shimmied out from under Gerry’s arm so not to disturb her. He wanted to wake her fully, to hear her voice, to listen to her tell him she was all right, but something in him knew instinctively that she needed more rest.
“Yeah, hey!” he answered the phone, moving into the bathroom.
“Are you well, my friend?” Langston’s deep voice came through the receiver.
Heat seared Nicky’s cheeks and he groaned under his breath. “Yeah, man. Everything’s good. Gerry’s sleeping.”
The giant paused on the other line and Nicky figured he was trying to decipher what exactly he meant. “As in ‘sleep,’ Langston. She seems to be better.”
“I am pleased to hear that. I believe there may be a problem with Kent and Devan.”
“What kind of problem?” Nicky yawned, using one hand to step into a pair of boxers.
“I was to call them this morning. I have been trying to reach them, but I get nothing. There is something unusual about Devan, and I have not been able to decipher it. I believe I should go back.”
Nicky grunted. He knew there was something weird about the good-looking chick the moment he met her. She was cute enough, and he had suggested he was interested in her just to rile Kent up. It was obvious his leader had the hots for her.
“You gonna do that door thingy again?” he queried while he rummaged through the hotel for something to munch on. Now that Gerry appeared to no longer be in immediate danger, his hunger started catching up with him.
“It would be unwise to take the Grimoire through the golden door unless absolutely necessary. I will drive there.”
Nicky hesitated before he spoke. He was uneasy about the giant leaving them. He was going to be treading through unknown territory with a woman who was his wife. A woman he obviously didn’t know as well as he thought he did.
“If you need assistance, Mére Owa is still here. We have spoken and we believe Gerry should begin to improve. As soon as she is well enough, you can rejoin us.”
He hesitated a moment and looked over at Gerry. Her face was peaceful with renewed coloring in her cheeks. His relief was like a ball of emotion in his throat. She was better, and although the huge weight of uncertainty about their relationship bore down on him, at least she was going to be okay. He coughed and swallowed before speaking again. “Yeah, I’m good. Go on and get back to them. We’ll come as soon as we can.” He paused a moment. “Hey, Langston, you won’t say anything, right? About Gerry and me?”
The other man laughed. “My friend, you need not worry about that. I will say nothing.”
It took several tries for Gerry to force her eyes open. When she did, the first thing she saw was a small black woman with a scarlet-red wrap around her head. The woman cackled with laughter, and Gerry found herself pondering how old the woman was. She looked young and ancient all at the same time.
“I hate this fucking game. What’s the point?” It was Nicky’s voice, though it came from a place just out of her line of sight.
The woman reached across the table and took a huge bite of something, chewing with her mouth open. “You ain’t got no choice, boyo. You’re bored and I don’t play poker. Dominos is what I want to do. Now it’s your play or you gotta put your train up.”
Gerry saw that her hand was clutched around a pillow beside her. She squeezed it, tightening her muscles before lengthening her limbs out in a stretch.
“Seems someone is awake.”
Nicky was at her side in a flash, taking her to him in a gentle embrace as he helped her sit up. “Man, I missed those brown eyes,” he told her as he kissed her forehead.
“What–what happened?” Her voice sounded rough and croaky.
“Two wrongs, a right don’t make, so speak the truth for heaven’s sake. Drink, drink.” The woman pushed her way between them and placed a cup to Gerry’s dry lips. Gerry was tired and incredibly thirsty, so she took the offering as soon as the rim touched her lips. When the warm liquid touched her tongue, she flinched, the bitterness stinging her taste buds. She tried to pull back, but the woman placed a hand behind her neck, holding the drink to her lips and forcing it down her throat.
“Hey!” Nicky fussed, putting his hand on the woman’s arm to stop her. “Don’t be so rough about it.”
Gerry coughed when she was released. Pulling away and wiping a hand across her mouth, she asked, “What the hell is going on?”
Nicky shoved the pushy black woman aside and inched closer to her. “You’ve been out for days. Do you remember the hotel in Dallas?”
The memory of that day flooded back. Tylie, she thought. Then she said, “The box. Do you have the box?”
“Yeah, I stashed it…”
Gerry smacked both hands across his mouth and shook her head. “No, don’t tell me. As long as it’s safe. I’m not ready to know where it is.”
She could feel his intense frustration and anger bubbling just under the surface. Those emotions were there but temporarily held in check by his relief. He was relieved she was all right. His love poured from his eyes, assailing her heart in warmth. Why was he angry?
Nicky placed his hand atop her wrists and pried her hands away from his mouth. “It’s time for you to tell me what happened.”
She wasn’t prepared to tell him anything. Her mind was a mishmash of thoughts, feelings, and questions with no answers. Instead of responding to Nicky, she turned to the black woman. “Who are you?”
“Me? I am leaving. You two lovebirds don’t need me here. You’re recovering, you’ve taken the potion. It is now time for you to finish your mission. Remember, it must pass your lips to make what’s yours, yours again.”
Gerry tilted her head, trying to discern what the woman was talking about.
“Mére,” Nicky said, putting a hand up, “you don’t need to leave. We need to explain to her…”
“Ahahaha!” she laughed. “You don’t need to explain anything to her. She’s the one with the answers.”
Gerry watched as the woman left before turning back to Nicky. “Where are the others? Where are we?”
He stood up from the bed and began pacing in front of her. A hard edge built steadily in his voice as he went through a dissertation of the events over the last several days. He skipped any details about hiding the silver box.
“By the time Langston showed up, Mére Owa had figured things out.” He paused, locking his black eyes with her brown ones a moment. Her brows pulled together in a tight frown, and she watched his chest rise and fall with a long sigh.
Gerry closed her eyes. Shame poured hot over her, and her insides started to tremble. There had been a surge of strength and power in her last mental battle with Dysis. She realized only one thing was to account for the unexpected increase of her abilities: Nicky had made love to her. There was only one reason he would do that. “So you know what I am now. I suppose that changes things for you.”
He stomped to her and raised his hands as if he wanted to grab her. Then he slapped them back to his sides and shook his head. “What changes things, Gerry, is that you didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, yes. By the way, everyone, I’m a succubus. I can read your emotions and exploit them to my own means. I can shift into any for
m I want or that you desire. Oh, and I feed off of your sexual energy. It isn’t something I wanted people to know.”
Her acerbic tone caused him to retreat from her and approach the window, shifting the shade aside. She saw him following some movement, probably watching people moving along the street below. When he dropped the shade, it was with a huge shuddering breath. “I’m not people, Gerry. I’m your husband.”
He turned quickly on his heel and grabbed his jacket from a nearby chair. He looked at her long and hard before heading toward the door. “You should move slowly. Langston said you’d be uneasy on your feet for a few days. I’ll get you something to eat. I don’t imagine Mére Owa’s leftover Boudain balls sound very appetizing right now.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her. The sound of the door closing was like a punch in the stomach. Nicky wasn’t one to back down from anything; he was tough, strong, and impetuous.
When they fought–and arguments were common for them–they did it with force and passion. After, they would make love with equal measures of that same strength and ardor. To have him walk away like this was terrifying. Part of her was worried if he would really ever come back at all.
The silence over the next several days was sickening. Gerry wasn’t one to bend. She expected Nicky to come to her; he always had before. Why can’t he understand my secrecy about my true identity? Even as she considered the question, she knew the answer. She knew the doubts and questions he likely had about her now.
Her body had felt heavy and sluggish since she woke. It seemed to take forever for instructions to travel from her brain to her limbs, and her frustration level with her own healing time made her grumpy. Still, her recovery time was just a minor blip on the radar compared to the distance that had developed between her and Nicky. The betrayal was like a wall between them. She hoped time would loosen the stones, but his resolve was stalwart and painful to experience.
“I’ll be back in about an hour with the rental car. Langston says it’s a pretty long haul up there to Arkansas. I’ll grab some snacks, too.”
Gerry sighed as she stepped out of the bathroom dressed in dark jeans that hugged the curves of her hips and her legs and a loose, pocketed tunic on top. She dropped her fists down into her pockets as she faced Nicky.
“I can get the snacks. I’m going down to the square anyway.”
He opened his mouth as if to object but snapped it closed and nodded. His expression was surly as he once again fled the room and left her alone.
Before she and Nicky had gotten together, she was perfectly fine with being alone. Even after they began their relationship, Gerry found herself enjoying the breaks from him that their jobs provided. He would make her crazy with his incessant attention to the point of her feeling smothered. Being apart was always easy for her too because she could feel him by reaching out with her mind if she needed him, making her never truly alone. The wall between them now completely shut her out and she was alone again, but this time she was not fine with it.
Her old cell phone was on a charger beside the bed. She yanked the cord out of the end and turned it on, waiting for it to start up. Since the Company had cut off ties with them, Nicky used the funds Langston provided to get her a new phone.
Gerry might not have any family to keep contact with, but there was one phone number she needed to get out of the old phone. She scrolled through the list and punched the number into her new cell, hitting the send button as she discarded the old cell on the bed.
“Scott’s Nursing Center, how may I direct your call?” a bubbly female voice answered.
“My name is Gerry Hinton. I need to update my contact number in one of your patient’s files.” The sun was bright and glaring when she made her way outside. Flinching, she held a hand over her eyes as she looked left then right to get her bearings.
“I’ll be happy to help you with that, Miss Hinton. What is the patient’s name?”
She took a right toward Jackson Square before speaking. “Scalia. Benjamin Scalia.”
Father Ben never forgave himself for his indiscretion with Dysis all those years ago. Gerry watched him lose his parish, his faith, and eventually his mental faculties. Still, if he couldn’t find absolution for his sins, Gerry certainly couldn’t either. It was true that Dy was the one to tempt him, to bring him to his knees and destroy him, but Gerry felt responsible. Her self-imposed penance was to care for the ailing priest.
“Oh, I see a note here for you, Miss Hinton. It seems someone called for you yesterday. Says here the company, but it doesn’t say which company. That’s odd.”
A chill rolled up Gerry’s spine, and she narrowed her eyes as the wheels began spinning in her mind. Why the hell would the Company cut us off and then go to the trouble of contacting me through Father Ben?
“The message?” she asked with a sharp tone.
“It just leaves a number to call. No name, no message.”
Gerry mentally replayed the number the receptionist gave her until hanging up and then dialed it into her new phone. She saved it but didn’t hit send. It was true that she had been with the Company for a long time, but her allegiance these days was to Kent. He and Langston and Nicky had become her “people” and she wasn’t going to jump to the Company’s bidding right now.
Her thoughts about the Company halted immediately when she reached her destination. The striking cathedral stood imposing before her. Stepping through the ornate doors was like breaching the constraints of one world to reach another. Each footstep was difficult for her, like walking through molasses. She was glad to see the place was empty of people as she headed for a pew to the left.
It was second nature for her to place a hand on the front of the pew so she could genuflect on one knee and cross herself. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. She wondered at their meaning as she seated herself to stare at the altar. Amen.
Amen? I believe? Did she? She chose not to think about it anymore. Not since the night she saw Dy in the cemetery with the nasty, rotten man speaking gibberish. Nor when she discovered that the man was a demon and that Dysis had taken the final step to claim their succubus heritage.
Dy had pledged herself to the Prince of Darkness. In joining forces with him, she became his minion and had worked from then on to bring Gerry along as well.
My God, I am sorry for my sins: in choosing to sin and failing to do good… Gerry thought the words but not in a prayer, as there was no emotion in her mental ramblings. She said them in her mind with as little relevance as if she were a foreigner reciting the American Pledge of Allegiance.
Gerry almost took the vows to join her sister. She remembered that day, the hands on her body, and the elicit sexual responses he invoked. He wasn’t the nasty old man she had seen when Dysis committed to him. The demon in front of her was transformed into her fondest school girl crush: River Phoenix. Despite his appearance, she was disgusted by her feelings of arousal as the stench on his breath reminded her of the awful demon he was. The ugly, festering foulness pervaded his sexy words and his knowing fingers on her body. He had begun the words to meld her to Hell when she vomited at his feet then tripped over herself as she tried to get away.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee… She remembered the teachings of the catechism. Mary pledged herself to her Lord and forsook relations with man so that she might remain pure. If she were the model of grace, what did that make Gerry?
She cringed and reached into her pocket to clench the rosary Mére Owa had left around her neck. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Why had heaven touched her with its light when she was blessed not by it but by Hell? How could they, whoever “they” were, allow her to believe she was good, that she was Christian, and a daughter of Christ, when she was exactly the opposite? Perhaps it wasn’t their foolery but her own. She wondered if maybe she had taunted them by pretending to be chaste.
It didn’t matter now. She might not have taken the
vow to be a minion of Lucifer, but she was succubae just the same. She couldn’t run from herself and was learning that lesson the hard way now. No matter how hard she tried to be something else— a simple shapeshifting witch— she was still a demon spawn. Unholy.
Unlovable?
She bowed her head, not in prayer, but in misery.
Opening a single eye, Gerry watched as Devan stepped through the golden door and into Eden Stowe’s parlor. She was lying on a couch along the far wall, and luckily the witch materialized into the room facing away from her. She twitched her nose to activate her magic and blended her appearance into the cream and black patterned cushions. It wasn’t a perfect camouflage, but Devan only gave the room a cursory glance before she called out to Kent and left the parlor.
Gerry took a deep breath and tightened her hands against her breast in a protective gesture. A set of glass rosary beads was clutched in one palm, though she wasn’t really praying in the true sense. She was pleading within her own mind for clarity even as she absorbed comfort from rolling those faceted beads along her fingertips. She needed to figure out the riddle of what was going on before the others did, and she was sure the keys to that riddle were locked somewhere in her memories.
She heard a noise like heavy steps running down the stairs, and she presumed Devan had located Kent. The silence that followed likely meant they were engaged in an embrace.
Sitting up and slipping her beads into the pocket of her tunic, she approached the door but didn’t exit the room. Instead, she touched her fingers to the doorframe and listened as Devan spoke in a breathless rush. “My father wants to meet you, and the Women say you can come through the golden door with me and still keep your powers. Apparently the rumors are right and I am some sort of keeper of the gate. You won’t believe what happened… Where is everyone?”
“We’ve made a rescue. I know we agreed to wait for you to get back, but when we started looking through the papers, we found out a little girl was living not far from here. We thought it best to take advantage of that, and I sent Nicky and Gerry there.”
The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Page 43