Authors: Richelle Mead

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #General, #Fiction

Succubus Revealed (9 page)

BOOK: Succubus Revealed

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I shrugged, unconcerned. “This is Vegas, baby. No one’ll question it. Besides, weirder things happen all the time.”

Jamie was nodding along eagerly. “And that tacky holiday dress too? That was great. Really god-awful. You know, if you’re moving here, I could totally hook you up with a job as my assistant.” He chuckled. “People would probably get more out of seeing you than my tricks.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” said Bastien, straight-faced.

“Well, thanks,” I said, “but I think I’ve got more jobs than I need. Phoebe already set me up with something.”

“Poacher,” said Jamie.

The other succubus laughed as she stirred cherries around in her cocktail. “Hey, I can’t help it if I—”

A familiar aura spread through the room, and Phoebe fell silent. We all turned as one, watching as Luis entered the bar. Even mortals, who couldn’t feel him like we could, paused and watched him stride through the room. There was just something that powerful and compelling about his dark presence.

“Boss man,” said Jamie, holding up his glass in a mock toast. “You just missed my amazing performance.”

“I’ve seen your shows before,” said Luis, sitting down and beckoning the bartender over. “I don’t think I really
missed
anything.”

“Georgina was his ‘lovely assistant,’ ” teased Phoebe.

“Oh?” Luis paused to place his order and then turned toward me. “Pray tell, what did you do to wow them? Set some scarves on fire?”

“Just some run-of-the-mill shape-shifting,” I said modestly.

Jamie started in on his second gin glass. He’d ordered two when we sat down. I guess he didn’t want to risk waiting the extra few minutes it would take to pour another. “That trick is always best with succubi. Even with a plant and a prepped costume, it never goes off quite as well. I used to have this girl who worked with me when I lived in Raleigh, and she did okay, but you could tell people knew how the whole get-up worked.”

Alcohol was buzzing through me pleasantly, and I’d slowed down my consumption so as not to lose my head. Somewhere in that warm haze, Jamie’s words tickled a memory. “Raleigh . . . when were you in Raleigh?”

“I moved from there a few years ago. I was there about . . . oh, I don’t know.” He took a sip of gin, perhaps to help his math skills. “Not that long. Twenty years. I did some good soul brokering, but really, my talents were better appreciated here, you know?”

“When you were there, did you know a vampire named Milton?” I asked. Remembering my conversation with Hugh while I was in the middle of a cheap Vegas bar was weird—but no weirder than hearing Raleigh mentioned twice this week.

“Milton?” Jamie’s eyebrows rose, and some of his good humor dimmed. “Yeah, I know him. Scary son of a bitch. Looks like—”

“Nosferatu?” I suggested.

Jamie nodded solemnly. “How anyone as blatantly
vampire
as him got by as a covert operative is beyond me.”

Phoebe frowned. “Did you say ‘covert operative’?”

The waiter appeared then with Luis’s drink. Luis motioned for him to stay and glanced around at the rest of us. “Refills? Another gimlet or cosmo? Jamie? You’re drinking Tanqueray, right?”

Jamie looked offended. “Beefeater.”

Luis rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous and disgusting. Bring him some Tanqueray.”

“No!” exclaimed Jamie. “Beefeater. I’m a purist.”

“You have no discrimination,” countered Luis. He looked back at the confused waiter. “Bring one of each. We’ll have a taste test.” The waiter looked relieved and hurried off before someone else contradicted the orders.

“It’s a waste of time,” said Jamie. “No offense, boss man. You’ll see.”

Luis was unmoved. “Beefeater’s for peasants.”

“Jamie,” I tried, “about Milton—”

“Peasants!” I don’t think Luis could’ve insulted Jamie more if he’d called his mother names. “Beefeater is a refined drink, for a refined palate. You know I have infinite respect for you, but clearly, despite your years of worldly experience . . . well . . .” Jamie drunkenly groped for an eloquent way to finish his speech. “You’re wrong.”

Luis laughed, something I couldn’t help but think Jerome most definitely wouldn’t have done if one of his subordinates said he was wrong. “We’ll see, my friend. It’s a complex matter really, coming down to an analysis of both base ingredients and the distillation process.”

“Jamie—” I attempted again.

“That,” declared Jamie, “we can both agree on. And Beefeater is vastly superior in both.”

“Give it up, Fleur,” Bastien told me in a low voice, eyes twinkling. “You can’t compete with gin. Better luck tomorrow.”

I started to protest, but further listening to Luis and Jamie’s debate told me Bastien was right. Jamie was so fixated on defending his gin’s honor that I doubt he would’ve even remembered me asking about Milton.

“Will he be sober tomorrow?” I asked skeptically.

“No,” said Phoebe. “But he’s usually a little less drunk during the first half of the day.”

The gin arrived, and Luis and Jamie became totally consumed with conducting “scientific” examinations on it, involving scent and surface tension. I didn’t really see how the latter made that much of a difference in a taste test, but they seemed to think it was a pretty serious matter.

“Dear God,” I murmured, amazed.

Bastien finished off his cocktail. “When things turn serious, it’s time for me to leave. What do you say, ladies? Would you like to go search out the clubs for some companionship ?”

“I’ve got an early day tomorrow,” Phoebe said with regret. “I should probably just go home now. But you’ll be at practice tomorrow, right?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I told Matthias I would.”

Despite ostensibly being involved in liquor analysis, Luis glanced over at the sound of the company manager’s name. “Oh? Did you arrange the introduction?”

I nodded. “Phoebe got me signed on.”

Luis looked pleased. “Excellent. Are you happy with it?”

The question surprised me, but then I remembered his earlier comment upon my arrival, about how he wanted happy employees. “I think so. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

“Good. And what did you think of Matthias?”

That one was
really
a surprise. “I thought he was nice. Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation,” said Luis. I was about to use the interruption to ask Jamie about Milton again, but before I could, Luis effortlessly slipped back to gin science, effectively blocking me from the imp’s attention. Tomorrow, I decided.

“You know,” said Phoebe slyly. “I could help you find Matthias if you wanted to see him tonight.”

Even afloat on vodka gimlets, I still knew the right and wrong surrounding any sort of casual romance with Matthias. If I was going to hook up with anyone while I was here, it wasn’t going to be anybody I would ever consider seriously.

I flashed her and Bastien my best saucy succubus smile. “Nah, too tame. I’m not here to settle down yet. Let’s find something wilder and do this Vegas weekend right.”

Bastien whooped with joy and caught hold of my hand. As he led me away, telling me about “this perfect dance club,” I caught sight of Luis’s face. He was nodding at Jamie, still seemingly interested in their debate . . . but there was something about the satisfied, knowing smile on Luis’s lips that made me think it wasn’t just the gin he was so happy about.

Chapter 9

I
t wasn’t until I landed in Seattle on Sunday evening that the full surreal nature of my weekend in Las Vegas hit me. Being there had felt so . . . natural. I suppose part of that was just having old friends like Bastien and Luis around. Yet I’d been pleasantly surprised at how easily I got along with my newer acquaintances, like Phoebe and Matthias. I’d even grown to like Jamie, though I never did see him after that night. Despite my efforts to find him and ask him about Milton, the imp had remained elusive for the rest of my trip.

And the show . . . how had that happened? I couldn’t even get a solid job here in my current hometown, yet hours after walking off the plane in a strange city, I’d landed what was, in many ways, my dream job. By the time we’d finished our second practice, Matthias was already talking about a special part he planned on creating for me, and several of the other dancers were so disappointed at me leaving for a month, you’d think we’d known each other for years.

It had, in spite of my misgivings, been a fantastic weekend.

Reality set in when I walked into my condo. Roman was out, with only a note reading
Bowling practice tomorrow night
to mark his passage. Naturally, the cats were as happy to see me as always. Scratching their heads in turn, I began to think about the logistics of moving both of them with me across state lines. I’d be taking them away from Roman, whom they loved, but there was nothing to be done for that. He couldn’t come with us. As a nephilim, he was in constant danger of being hunted down by other immortals, and it was only Jerome’s protection that allowed him to have a seminormal life in Seattle. Roman certainly wasn’t going to give that up, and besides, Las Vegas was probably the worst place in the world for him to attempt to hide out.

A vase of pink-tipped white roses sat on the kitchen table, filling the air with sweetness. I opened up the card and read Seth’s scrawled writing:

Welcome home. I’ve been counting the minutes.

—S

I texted him that I was back and received an answer urging me to come over to Terry and Andrea’s for dinner. After leaving a note for Roman assuring him I’d be at practice, I headed out, my mind still spinning with more of the consequences of moving. The condo. I’d have to sell it. Unless I wanted to rent it to Roman? Hell would likely compensate any moving costs, but it’d be up to me to start making the actual arrangements now for things like movers and whatnot.

I was good at making plans and organizing things, but all of my skills were useless against the one thing I wanted to bring with me to Las Vegas the most: Seth. I still had no solution for what to do with him.

I was met with the usual outpouring of love from his nieces when I arrived, just in time for a chaotic family dinner. With the additional family members, they’d given up any pretense of eating at the kitchen table and had simply taken their paper plates and homemade pizza off to the living room. The casualties of food and furniture were ones Terry and Andrea were long since used to, but Margaret couldn’t focus on her dinner for fear of constantly watching the girls and what she perceived as imminent tomato-stained disaster.

I was happy to see Andrea out with the family, which wasn’t something that happened very often lately. She looked tired but was in good spirits, and from the way the girls vied for position next to her, it was clear they were delighted to have her up and around too.

“Seth says you were out of town,” she told me. “Anywhere fun?”

“Las Vegas,” I replied. “Visiting friends.”

“Man,” said Ian. “I wish I had friends in Las Vegas.”

“I figured it’d be too commercial for you,” said Seth, deadpan.

Ian swallowed a bite of his pizza—it apparently wasn’t a vegan day—before responding. “Only if you stay on the Strip and their overpriced luxury hotels. If you poke around in some of the out-of-the-way places, you could find some really cool and obscure dives.”

It took nine-year-old Kendall to say what the rest of us were thinking. “I’d rather stay in luxury. Why would you want to stay in a dive, Uncle Ian?”

“Because it’s nonmainstream,” he told her. “Everyone stays at the nice places.”

“But I like nice things,” she argued. “Don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” he said, frowning. “But that’s not the point—”

“Then why would you want to stay at bad places?” she pressed.

“You’re too young to understand,” he said.

Seth chuckled. “Actually, I think she understands perfectly.”

Andrea decided to rest shortly after that, but not before extracting a promise that someone deliver her dessert later on. After doing dishes (which was pretty easy with paper plates), our group dispersed into separate activities. Kendall, Brandy, Margaret, and Terry started up a game of Monopoly while Kayla and the twins settled down to watch
The Little Mermaid
. Ian joined them, excited for the chance to show how the movie was an example of capitalism destroying America. Seth and I curled up on a nearby loveseat, ostensibly to watch the movie, but instead used the time to catch up.

“How was it, really?” he asked me in a low voice. “I’ve been worried about you. Was it as bad as you thought?”

“No,” I said, leaning my head against his chest. “It was actually . . . pretty good. Would you believe I have a job already ? Like . . . one that’s not on Hell’s payroll.”

“You can’t even get one of those here,” remarked Seth.

“Yeah, the irony’s not lost on me. I’m going to be a Vegas showgirl, complete with sequins.”

Seth trailed his fingers through my hair. “That’s actually kind of awesome. And hot. If you want to practice, I’d be more than happy to give you some constructive criticism.”

I smiled. “We’ll see.”

There was a long pause. “So . . . it’s real. This whole thing.”

“Yeah,” I said in a small voice. “It’s real.” I felt him tense and sensed the worry radiating off of him. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. It’s still a month away.”

“I know we will,” he said. “You and I have overcome crazier things than this, right?”

“Crazier doesn’t always mean harder,” I pointed out. “I mean, when Peter tried to make a ‘retro candle sconce’ out of a Pringles can last month, that was pretty crazy—but it was also pretty easy to deal with once we found his fire extinguisher.”

“You see?” said Seth. “This is what I love about you. I don’t even consider that crazy. I consider that ordinary life with you, Georgina. You change all the definitions.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead. We fell silent and watched the movie, though I suspected Seth was paying as little attention as I was. We were both lost in our own thoughts, and I didn’t really snap out of it until I heard Ian telling Morgan, “I like the original fairy tale better. It’s pretty alternative, so you’ve probably never heard of it.”

I glanced at the clock and sat up. “I’m going to go check on Andrea and see if she wants her dessert.” Both Margaret and Terry were quick to offer to do it instead, but I waved them off, assuring them I was fine and that they should return to their game.

Andrea was awake, propped up on pillows and reading a book when I came in with the pie. “You didn’t have to do that,” she told me. “You should’ve asked Terry.”

“He’s busy buying and selling property,” I told her, helping her settle the plate on her lap. “I couldn’t ask him to interrupt that. Besides, he does plenty.”

“He does,” she agreed, smiling wistfully. “They all do. Even you. It’s so strange, having others take care of me. I’m too used to looking after everyone else.”

I settled down on a chair near her bed, wondering how often it must be filled lately. Andrea always had someone watching over her. “It’s just for a little while longer,” I said.

That got me another smile as she chewed a bite of pie. “You’re very optimistic.”

“Hey, why shouldn’t I be? You look great today.”

“Great ‘ironically,’ as Ian would say.” She ran a hand through her limp blond hair. “But I do feel better than I have for a while. I don’t know. It’s deceptive, Georgina. There are days I feel confident I’ve beat every cancer cell in my body and others when I can’t believe I’m still managing to walk this earth.”

“Andrea—”

“No, no, it’s true.” She paused for more pie, but her eyes took on a vast, knowing look that reminded me eerily of Carter. “I’ve accepted it, come to terms with the fact that there’s still a good chance I’ll die. No one else has. No one else will talk about it. I’m okay with that. If that’s what God wills for me, then so be it.”

I felt a knot clench in my stomach. I couldn’t say much about God, but I’d seen enough of Heaven and Hell to get angry when I heard humans accept their fate as part of some higher purpose. Half the time, it seemed to me the divine powers were making up this game as they went along.

“I’m not worried about me,” Andrea continued. “But I am worried about them.” That serenity faded, replaced by very real human concern, a mother’s fear for her children. “Terry’s strong. So wonderfully strong. But this is hard on him. He can’t do it alone, which is why I’m so glad Seth’s here. I don’t know what we would have done without him. He’s the rock supporting us all right now.”

The anxiety inside me eased for a few moments, replaced by a spreading warmth as I thought about Seth. “He’s wonderful.”

Andrea set down the fork, finished, and extended her hand to me. “So are you. I’m glad you’re part of our family, Georgina. If something happens to me—”

“Stop—”

“No, listen. I mean it. If something happens to me, I’ll rest easy knowing the girls have you in their lives. Seth and Terry are great, but the girls still need a strong woman role model. Someone to help them through growing up.”

“I’m not that good of a role model,” I said, not meeting her eyes. I was a creature of Hell, someone full of weakness and fear. What could I possibly have to offer such bright, promise-filled creatures like the Mortensen girls?

“You are,” said Andrea adamantly, squeezing my hand. “They love you and admire you so much. I know they’re in good hands.”

I swallowed back tears that were threatening to overwhelm me. “Well,” I said. “They’re in even better hands with you, since we all know you’re going to get well soon.”

Andrea nodded, giving me an indulgent smile that I suspected she’d perfected after weeks of listening to others insist she was on the verge of recovery. A yawn soon betrayed her, and I carefully took the plate away and asked if she needed anything else. She assured me she didn’t.

I crept back downstairs and returned the plate to the kitchen, where I found Brandy and Margaret eating pie of their own. I did a double take back toward the living room. “What happened to Monopoly?”

“Kendall bought us out,” said Margaret.

“Man, I hate playing with her,” grumbled Brandy. “No one her age should be that good.”

“Don’t knock it,” said Seth, strolling in. “She’s going to be supporting us all in fifteen years.” He rested a hand on Brandy’s shoulder. “Did you ask Georgina?”

Brandy looked at her feet. “No.”

“Ask me what?”

“It’s nothing,” she said.

“Clearly it’s something,” I replied, exchanging looks with Seth. “What’s up?”

“Is this the Christmas dance you were talking about before ?” asked Margaret.

Brandy flushed. “A holiday dance. It’s nothing.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m a big fan of dances. But isn’t school out?”

“Yeah, but this is at church. It’s a formal they have every year.” She was using a
It’s no big deal
tone, but her expression betrayed how interested she was.

The church part surprised me, since last I knew, the Mortensens didn’t attend one. But obviously that had changed. Maybe Andrea’s illness had played a role. Whatever it was, I could see faith wasn’t on the line here, so much as a teenage girl’s simple desire to participate in something fun with other people her age. It was a normal rite of passage, one I was guessing she didn’t feel worthy of, in light of everything else going on right now with her family. No wonder she was hesitant to mention it. I wondered if maybe there was a boy involved too but certainly wasn’t going to ask. She looked mortified enough to be having this discussion in front of her uncle and grandmother.

“You need to shop for a dress?” I guessed. People always called me for shopping. I used to be bothered by that but then figured I should accept what I’m good at. Brandy nodded, still looking embarrassed. “When is it?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tuesday . . .” I frowned, thinking of my schedule. Tomorrow, Monday, was taken up with work and bowling practice. That didn’t leave a lot of time. “We might be cutting it close.”

“If you don’t have time, it’s fine,” Brandy assured me. “Really.”

“No way,” I told her. “We can do it Tuesday morning.”

Brandy looked down again. “My dad can pay you back.... I’ll ask him how much we can spend.”

“Forget it,” said Seth, rustling her hair. She squirmed out of his reach. “Send the bill to me. You know where I live.”

BOOK: Succubus Revealed

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