An Incubus Only Calls Your Name Once

by A M Boone

  “I’m hanging in there.” I shrugged. “So I heard from Felix that you flipped shit when someone blew me up.”

  His smile faded to a scowl. “Felix and his big fat mouth. Anyway. Felicia’s going with us tonight.”

  “Where is she—”

  I screamed as she appeared in the back seat.

  “Good evening!” she chirped.

  “Don’t do that!”

  Vincent let out a quiet snort of laughter, while I smoothed my hair and clothes down and acted like I didn’t nearly piss myself. I was going to be a jumpy mess for a while.

  I took a deep breath, willing my heart to stop thumping against my ribs. “So, who’s the unlucky victim tonight?”

  “This is an… interesting job. One of my debtors died a week ago, and it turns out that he contracted with more people than just me. So his estate is being divvied up amongst us.”

  Oh, lovely. This was going to end in an all-out brawl or worse. I’d seen enough of these things on TV.

  “Where are we headed?” Felicia asked.

  “Down to the Carmel Highlands.”

  “Human or supernatural?”

  “Human.”

  “Why did you bring me along?” I asked. “This isn’t collecting.”

  “So you can get a taste of the bigger supernatural world.”

  The ride went on uneventfully, with me looking out the window, Felicia poking fun at Vincent, and him rolling his eyes and ignoring her.

  We finally pulled up at a massive mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was at least three times as big as Oliver Li’s house, and even that was enormous.

  “Is this safe?” I asked.

  He nodded. “As long as you’re under my protection, no one will bother you if they know what’s good for them.”

  Vincent knocked at the door, and someone answered in the demonic tongue. It was hissed, rather than said, with some clicks here and there. Weird.

  Vincent answered back. He knew the demon tongue? Well, of course he’d know the demon tongue, seeing as though he was a demon and all, but still.

  The door opened with a deafening creak, and Vincent took my hand. The three of us walked through the entryway, and I drank everything in.

  About thirty demons and… others were milling in the foyer and living room, talking amongst themselves and drinking alcohol. Some were giant, hulking beasts, and some were almost human looking, like Vincent and Felicia. Quiet classical music echoed throughout the house, and dust tickled my nose.

  I kept glancing around. Most people were giving us a wide berth. Was Vincent really that infamous?

  And, as Vincent said, there were others here besides demons. Giant furry beasts, skeletons… Even the Grim fucking Reaper was here? What the hell did Vincent drag me into?

  “So, when is the divvying happening?” I asked.

  “In about thirty minutes or so,” Vincent said. “Didn’t think he’d made this many contracts.”

  That created more questions than it answered.

  Felicia put her hands behind her head and sighed. “So, what do you think they’ll give you?”

  “Not sure as of yet. I’m not picky. Our contract was minor at best. Didn’t think he’d die so soon…”

  “How old was he?” I asked.

  “Ninety-five, but last I heard, he’d made a contract for eternal life. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for everyone else in this room, eternal life won’t save you from getting shoved in front of a train.”

  Yikes. What a way to go.

  I made eyes with a woman around my age. Nope. She looked way too normal to be here. Well, minus the bright pink wig. Well, at least I thought it was a wig. Vincent looked like he was wearing a wig half the time too, so you could never be sure. She sized me up and downed her drink.

  We finally settled down on the outskirts of the living room.

  “Do you know any of these people?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” Vincent said. “Felicia?”

  “Nope.”

  “The supernatural world is big, Miss Delacroix. Do you know every other black person you see?”

  “No.”

  Rude. He didn’t have to put it like that.

  “Did he make a contract with you too?” I asked Felicia.

  “Nah. Just felt like getting out of the house. Vincent said he wanted some more backup in case things went south, so…”

  “I got an email saying he’d died, and they were dividing his estate up to pay back who he owed.” Vincent shrugged.

  Suspicious. And all the way out in the boonies?

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “Isn’t this a bit suspicious?” I asked. “No body, and then rounding up all the people he owes in one place? What if it’s a trap?”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “That’d be too obvious. Don’t be paranoid.”

  Maybe, maybe not.

  Vincent flagged down one of the servants making the rounds and grabbed us some sparkling water.

  I sipped mine. Something about the energy in the room made my stomach a bit queasy. Maybe it was just all the ambient magic and demonic-ness around.

  I should have prepared some spells. Then I’d at least not be a sitting duck with a gun.

  We stood around and made small talk until a plump, middle-aged, white woman walked into the room. She was sweating bullets, but otherwise was keeping her composure.

  “My name is Clarissa Adams, and my father, Gilbert Adams, owed all of you a lot of things,” she said quietly. “He dabbled in the… supernatural, and it wasn’t until I found all his contracts after his death I knew it even existed.” She cleared her throat, her face pale.

  Yikes. She was going to get eaten alive. Possibly literally. A few of the creatures in here could eat her in one bite.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “therefore, I have my father’s last will and testament, along with what he owed, and what I decided he’d give up.”

  She read off of it, and people claimed their things. All in all, it was boring. Most of it was material things. Paintings off the walls, fine wine, jewelry, priceless vases… Did Vincent even need any of these things?

  But wow. At this rate, there’d be nothing left in the house. But you couldn’t get the soul, life energy, or work from a dead man, so there had to be something they’d take in return for what they gave him.

  “And for Mr. Vincent Aldana, who…” Her voice cracked, and she turned to the next page of her booklet. “Who took care of a few of my father’s political enemies… He left him two Rolex watches, charmed by a mage to never need to be wound, and one hundred thousand dollars by check.”

  “That’s it?” Vincent muttered. “This was a waste of gas. Oh, well. I was thinking about buying a new watch anyway…” But he rolled his shoulders and took the boxes and check from her, giving her a wicked smirk that showed off way too many teeth. She went even paler, and stumbled back.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Adams. It was a… pleasure doing business with your father. Felicia, Miss Delacroix, our time here is done, let’s go.”

  “All right,” she said.

  I nodded and stretched out.

  But before we could leave, someone cried out, and the three of us whipped around.

  Great. Of course, things would never be easy when it came to Vincent’s debt shenanigans.

  One of the guests, a hulking, older man with bright red eyes, was on the floor, choking and spitting up blood. The others merely watched and glanced at each other. Wasn’t anyone going to help him—dumb. So dumb. You couldn’t call an ambulance on a demon dying. If the EMTs were in that Mother of Light cult, we’d all die.

  I swallowed and put my finger to the bracelet. Was I going to have to shoot again? To kill?

  Vincent swore and pushed me back. “A trap. Because of course it was a trap.”

  Man, being right sucked.

  “What’s going on?” Clarissa asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s a trap!” one of the othe
rs cried. “She set this up for her father!”

  “What? No! I… I wouldn’t…” She trembled. “I’m only human…”

  I swallowed again, my throat thick and dry. Now what?

  “If you didn’t set this up, who did?” someone else said.

  The demon coughing up blood let out one last gurgle before stilling. Clarissa gingerly took their pulse, and shook her head. The demon’s illusion magic faded, leaving behind something that looked more like a dinosaur than a demon. She jumped back and let out a yelp.

  The grumblings going around the room increased in volume.

  You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. Everyone was glancing at each other suspiciously, as if everyone was going to jump each other right then and there.

  Vincent pushed me back again. “Not yet,” he murmured, and I pulled my hand away from the bracelet. He was right. Pulling out a gun after someone already died? Bad idea. Really bad idea.

  Then the room exploded.

  Who threw the first punch, or slung the first spell, I didn’t know, but someone did, and everyone lost their goddamn minds.

  Vincent swore and gave Felicia a look. She nodded and slipped behind him, they stood back to back, and summoned elemental swords out of thin air. Vincent’s was made of fire, Felicia’s ice. They could do that?

  I ran for cover, tapping the button on the underside of the bracelet. My gun appeared in my hand, and I kept running, my heart racing. What the hell did Vincent gotten us into?

  A bullet infused with magic whizzed by my head, and I bit back a scream. No one would have been able to hear me anyway, with the deafening sounds of sword fighting and spell slinging, but it was the principle of the thing!

  I tossed myself behind an overturned table and shot back. I could have died. If I was six inches to the left…

  I glanced over the table. It’d turned into an all-out brawl, with everyone in the room fighting. Vincent was fighting the Grim Reaper wannabe, while Felicia was just barely fending off a giant downy beast with a war ax. Pick? I didn’t know, and right now, I didn’t give a flying fuck. I just had to stay alive.

  Clarissa crawled next to me. “I shouldn’t have done this,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the din of the fight. “I should have never gotten involved.”

  “Tell me about it.” I shot at one of the guests creeping towards us in the leg. They let out a quiet cry and fell to the floor.

  “You’re one of them, right? A… a supernatural?”

  “Technically? Only a fourth.”

  “Oh.” She hugged her knees to her chest, trembling.

  “I’ll keep you safe, okay? We’ll get through this.”

  I shouldn’t make promises I might not be able to keep.

  “Thanks.”

  I shot again, my throat dry. Some skeleton thing summoned five billion rifles, and was gleefully shooting up everyone and everything he—it—who the fuck knew—could aim at.

  This was how I died. Not by someone trying to get to Vincent, not by Anthony’s parents tossing me under the jail, but shot to death by a skeleton. What a world.

  I pressed my back to the table and shot again, aiming for the skeleton’s head. Would a gunshot even work against… that thing? I missed, the bullet embedding itself in the wall. Fuck. He—it?—just stared at the table and meowed. It was a cat? What the fuck?

  Clarissa said, “Aren’t you a supernatural? Why are you using a gun?”

  “Only a fourth,” I said again. “No powers. Well, barely any powers.”

  Why didn’t Vincent given me an AK-47 or something? Something that could shoot more than one bullet every time I pulled the trigger? My heart pounded in my ears, and my hands grew clammy. I was going to die here—no! I was too young for this. I had my whole life ahead of me…

  I pulled the trigger again. Another miss. Fuck me.

  A bullet embedded itself in the wood of the table, and I flinched.

  That strange tingling went through my head and hands again, and my vision dimmed. No! I couldn’t be having a panic attack here. I wasn’t joining Anthony. I wasn’t going to die.

  I took a deep breath and counted to five. I could survive this.

  Clarissa gave me a concerned look. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I choked out. “Are there any secret passageways out?”

  “Not that I know of,” she said, shrugging. “I—”

  She slumped over, the light leaving her eyes.

  “Clarissa?” I shook her lightly. No response. I pulled her closer, and she fell over into my lap, a gunshot wound oozing at the back of her head. What the—how did that even happen? If I was in her position, I would have died.

  I got myself into this mess, and now innocent people were dying. She didn’t deserve this, she was just trying to clear her father’s debts—

  The tingling intensified, and lines of magic crawled up my arms and legs.

  I screamed. It was all I could do.

  Chapter Nine

  I was floating. I opened my eyes slowly. Everything hurt, and my body was cold. So, so, cold.

  I glanced around. Even that hurt. Voices echoed around me… Vincent’s voice? Felicia’s?

  Where was I…?

  Oh. I was in Vincent’s bathtub, in an ice bath. Okay. I wasn’t dead.

  But that created more questions than it answered. How did I get to Vincent’s apartment? How long was I out? What happened? All I could remember was—

  I lost my breath as visions from the past day—week—month—fuck if I knew—went past my eyes.

  Vincent’s voice again. He was screaming at Felicia.

  I tried to push myself out of the ice bath, but my arms were like lead-coated jelly. Water sloshed over the edge and spilled onto the tile.

  “Vincent?” I said. The words came out barely audible. “Vincent, I’m okay, it’s okay.”

  The two of them burst into the room.

  “Miss Delacroix?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

  Something about him seemed wrong. Like he was on the edge between human and inhuman. Was this what Felix meant by him “losing it?”

  “I’m… alive. What happened? The last thing I remember is being at that guy’s house. His daughter… Clarissa, she died and it was all my fault…”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  “When Mrs. Adams died, you turned yourself into a magical bomb and exploded. You should be happy you’re alive right now. You nearly died.”

  I blinked at him a few times. I exploded? What the hell?

  “What?” I choked out.

  “You managed to destroy Mr. Adams’ house and blow most of us off the cliff and onto the beach. That was fun to clean up.”

  But Gloria said I was barely a witch. How did I destroy a house?

  “That doesn’t make any sense…”

  “Magic rarely does, especially wild magic,” Felicia said, shrugging.

  “We need to figure out how to weaponize it.” Vincent crossed his arms. “I knew you had to have something. Or Gloria messed up the spell. I don’t know. She’s on her way now.”

  She messed up the spell? Now I was some ticking time bomb, and—

  Felicia took a step back, her face pale. “Stay calm, okay? I don’t know how you managed to do that, and by the memories, I don’t want you to do it again.”

  I glanced at myself. I was covered in bruises from head to toe, and there were patches where my skin just disintegrated, showing off bone, fat, and muscle.

  He was right. I should be happy to be alive right now. But I didn’t feel anything.

  “Can you tell me what exactly happened? I don’t remember anything after she… after she died.”

  Vincent nodded. “After Mrs. Adams died, you stood up, screaming. I rushed to your side to make sure you weren’t injured, but you were fine. Well, ‘fine.’ Everyone could feel you pulling in wild magic
from the ley lines, more than should be possible for a fourth. I reached out for you, but you blasted me across the room with magic. Well done.”

  This still didn’t make any sense…

  “Your eyes were glowing with magic, and everyone stopped to look at you. Your body was pulsing with magical energy, and was disintegrating… But you were silent. You walked into the center of the room, and blew up.”

  “Did I kill anyone?”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” He shrugged. “Most of us survived and were just shocked. Felicia and I can fly, so we were fine, some teleported back to their home realms before they hit the ground, and others were just durable or incorporeal.”

  At least I had that. No one died—minus Clarissa. God, she didn’t deserve that, no one deserved that…

  “Oh.” It was all I could really say.

  “We went back up to what was left of the house to find you. You were stuck under a beam, we got it off, loaded you into my car, and drove back to my apartment.”

  “Vincent nearly lost it,” Felicia cut in, and he glared at her.

  “I did not.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I called Gloria, and she told me to put you in an ice bath to keep you stable until she could get here.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “About a day. She’s visiting family in Lagos.” He gave me a small smile. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  “No. Can I get out of the bath?”

  “Frankly, Miss Delacroix, you’re not in the position to do anything right now.”

  “Just relax,” Felicia said, resting her hand on my shoulder. I flinched as red-hot pain shot down my arm.

  I closed my eyes and drifted off again.

  * * *

  When I woke up, Vincent was sitting in a chair, watching me intently.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Cold. Really cold. Kind of thirsty…”

  The ice in the bath was melted, and the water was lukewarm.

  He got me a shot glass of water and put it to my lips. It tasted like ambrosia. My throat and tongue were dry and sandpaper-y, and my lips were cracked and bleeding.

  “Felix is on his way with more ice.”

  “When’s Gloria going to get here?”