He raised an eyebrow. "Help you retain a normal life? Why would I wish to do that?"
I marched up to him and stood nose to chin against him him. He was a little taller than me, after all. "Because if you don't then I'm going to send your locket where it belongs, down the toilet. We'll see how well it comes back to me covered in all the foulness of the city sewers."
"The locket is tied to your being," he pointed out.
"What if I stuck an anti-me on it? I might be able to find some other supernatural person to get it off," I challenged him.
He frowned and his eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't risk losing contact with me."
I stepped back and crossed my arms. "Try me."
David scrutinized my face and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief when he sighed and held out his hand. "Give me the locket."
I scoffed. "And give away my only ace? No way."
"I only wish to modify its abilities," he explained.
My mouth dropped open slightly. "Modify a magical thingy?"
"To allow you to call me whenever you wish rather than whenever you are in trouble," he told me.
I snorted. "And see more of you? I don't think so," I quipped.
His blue eyes looked into mine with a steady, firm gaze. "You may need me," he warned me.
There was something in the depth of his words that caused my heart to thump a little quicker. After all, he had cursed me with a life as a creature of insatiable lust. That wasn't exactly territory I was familiar with. I narrowed my eyes, but pulled the locket from my pocket and held it out by its golden chain. "Fine, but no funny stuff or it'll learn how to swim."
David took the locket and bowed his head. "I give you my word." He grasped the locket in the palm of both his hands and closed his eyes.
My eyes widened when a bright, brilliant light burst from his hands. Whatever skin it struck glowed like the sun and covered the spring-like area in a warm blanket. The light vanished as quickly as it came and with it went the spring mirage. The flowers and grass faded out of vision and the snow returned. The fruitful leaves vanished, replaced by the sight of the skeletal limbs.
David opened his hands. The locket was physically the same as before. He held it out to me. "Now you may call me whenever it pleases you, but you must be careful. I cannot come to you at every hour of the day without exhausting myself."
I hesitantly took the locket and my eyes caught on the crack between the two halves. Once more I tried to pry it open, but it was still stuck. "How do I get this thing open?" I asked him.
"It can only be open when you accept my love. In the meantime, your curiosity will remain disappointed," he told me.
I folded my arms over my chest and glared at him. "Now that's just evil."
He grinned and shrugged. "You merely need to accept my love and the locket will open at your touch."
"Uh, no. You're not getting me that easily," I told him.
"Then the locket will remain locked, but I will be at your disposal," David replied. He stepped backward into the shadow of one of the larger trees, and his figure slowly faded into the darkness. "Keep care of yourself, my love."
"Wait!" I reached my hand out to him, but he disappeared. I rolled my eyes. "Just like a man to leave before I was done talking." I glanced down at the locket in my hand and sighed. "Well, Liz, it looks like you're on your own. Kind of." A wicked grin slipped onto my face and I clasped the locket in both hands. "Come on, David. Time to come to mama."
I rubbed the trinket like it was a magic lamp and waited for my genie. It took two seconds for him to reappear in the shadow of the tree. David crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "So soon?"
"You're late. I expected you a second ago," I scolded him. David strode from the shadows and stood tall in front of me. I sheepishly smiled at him and hid my hands, and the locket, behind my back. "I-I was just testing. You know, just to make sure it worked."
David stepped up to me and reached out his hand. He brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek and leaned down so his breath brushed against my neck. "You are irresistible when you control me."
I shuddered and turned my face away. "And you're not going to get my love, so stop it," I growled.
He chuckled and moved away. "Perhaps we might still have some fun, and the love will come in time."
"Uh-huh, don't bet on-" David slipped into the shadows and disappeared. I threw my arms up and sighed. "Men. Even the paranormal kind."
Chapter 6
I stood alone in the grove with the locket in my hands and questions in my mind. The fate of my existence hung heavily over my thoughts, all the more so after the conversation with David. He'd stuck to his story about my not being able to change my fate, and Madam Curie had said the same. I should have listened to them and enjoyed my time as a human, but I was a stubborn woman. If there was even the slightest possibility of escaping fate as a sex creature then I was going to try it.
The only problem was I had no idea where to start.
I took a step forward toward the walking path and my foot squished my jacket that lay on the ground. I'd forgotten David had slid if off my shoulders, and a cool breeze was a cold reminder that it was still winter. I stooped and picked up the coat, and something fell from the pockets. It was the tarot card, the one with the Wheel of Fortune, or fate. I raised an eyebrow and scooped it from the ground to hold it in front of me. The wheel looked back at me, and a slow smile slid onto my lips. This was a sign, it had to be.
I slipped into my coat, stuffed the card and locket into my pockets, and hurried back to my car. My destination wasn't home, but back to Madam Curie's shop. I knocked on the door and she answered it a few moments later covered in even more flour.
She leaned toward me and squinted. "You again? What do you want?"
I pulled out the tarot card. "I want to know if I have another fate."
Madam Curie frowned. "I told you the cards didn't show me any other way, so just accept you're fate and let me bake that cake!" She tried to shut the door, but I grasped the edge and kept it open.
"I met the guy again, the Emperor. He said there wasn't any way out of this mess, too."
"Smart demon, now if you'll excuse me-" She pushed against the door, but I pushed back.
"But when he left this card fell out of my pocket." I shoved the Fortune card in her face. "I think it was trying to tell me something."
Madam Curie stopped pushing and raised an eyebrow. "Did it?"
"Do you think that's important, or am I just doing some wishful thinking?" I asked her.
She straightened and rubbed a hand over her chin. "It may perhaps mean something. How much money do you have?"
"Enough to pay you," I quipped.
"Good, follow me." Curie led me to the tarot room and we took our seats from the time before. She grasped the tarot deck and held her palm out toward me. "Give me the card."
I handed her the card and she shuffled the deck. She pulled only one card from the deck and placed it face-up on the table. It was the Hermit card. My shoulders drooped and my face fell. "So that's it? I can't escape my destiny?" I asked her.
Curie scrutinized the card and her face slowly twisted into a look of disgust. "Worse. You must go see another."
I raised my head and blinked at her. "Come again?"
Her eyes flickered up to me and she tapped on the card. Her lips were pursed tightly together and her fingernail practically scratched the face of the Hermit. "I asked the cards if you could avoid your fate, and it answered with the Hermit."
"Yeah, you said that was the one where I was fighting my fate. Doesn't that mean I'm wasting my time?" I asked her.
She shook her head. "No, it means you should keep trying because there may be a way."
My eyes widened and my heart quickened. "Then there's hope?" Madam Curie turned away and mumbled something. "I didn't catch that," I told her.
She sighed and returned her eyes to me. "There is a way, but you must meet with an old coot who'll probabl
y just waste your time and money."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's what the card tells you?"
"Not in that many words, but I know of only one old coot who would fit the description of the Hermit," she revealed.
My face lit up and I jumped to my feet. "Great! Where can I find him?"
Madam Curie shuffled and reshuffled the deck as a dark cloud passed over her face. "I think you're better off changing into a succubus," she argued.
I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means the old coot you want to find isn't worth your time," she rephrased.
"How about I try him out and see if he is?" I suggested.
I jumped when she slammed the tarot deck down on the table so hard the legs of the chairs shook. "It's your funeral. You can find him at the back of Saunder Hill just past the cemetery. Ask the cat for directions."
I blinked at her. "'Ask the cat for directions?'" I repeated.
"That's what I said, now pay up and get out!" she barked.
I paid her another fifty dollars and scrammed to my car where I paused behind the wheel. Saunder Hill was a small, gentle crest of a hill situated in the older part of the city where the first settlers had arrived. I hadn't been there since I was a little girl, and even then I thought the old Victorian mansions with their high-peeked roofs and ancient trees were spooky.
"Liz, what are you getting yourself into now?" I muttered as I started the car.
Saunder Hill was on the opposite side of town, and by the time I arrived in the neighborhood of the hill my adventures had swept aside most of the day. The weak winter sun showed the time as mid-afternoon. Only a few more hours until dark. I drove through another old business district similar to the one occupied by Curie's shop and soon found myself in the bowels of a forgotten era. Low brick business buildings gave way to the towering heights of the Victorian mansions. Their tall, narrow windows glared down at me as I drove through the ice-covered roads created by a lack of plowing and enough traffic to pack down the snow.
Many of the mansions were still in good shape considering some were well over a hundred years old. Others were that were boarded up and their covered porches leaned to one side. All of them had ancient trees who's branches reached over the road and created a tunnel of skeletal shadows. I shrank down in my seat and wondered if Madam Curie hadn't been right about this not being worth my time, or at least worth navigating these terrible roads.
The hill was gentle, but rose a hundred feet over most of the city. The top had the best view of the city, but was given to the dead in the form of a cemetery founded at the town's inception. Tall gravestones stood as silhouettes against the skyline and ancient shade trees rose over them, silent sentinels of the dead. Even from the base of the hill you could see the stones that honored the old and forgotten dead.
The road that led up to the hill was paved, but that modern convenience stopped at the rusted iron gate that led into the graveyard. I parked the car in a small parking lot beside the gate and stepped out. My breath came out in white puffs and there was a distinct chill in the air I hadn't noticed in the park. Maybe it was the towering graves that stood off to my left. Each stone angel and curved slab marker seemed to watch me with suspicion as I trudged through the gates and into their domain.
"I'm not here to vandalize anything," I muttered as I wrapped my arms around myself.
Never was I so reminded of Madam Curie's vague instructions as I was then. I was to go past the graveyard and search for a cat to show me the way to the house of an old coot who might be able to help with my incubus problem.
"How did my life get so weird?" I whispered to myself as I walked down the lonely, snow-covered path that led through the graves.
Chapter 7
It wasn't a straight path. It wound its way among the grave markers and headstones like a drunken sailor, but without all the swearing. I was in a graveyard, after all. Decorum for the dead and all. Mentioning the dead brought up a few tidbits David had told me about the life of a incubus, or in my case a succubus. Immortality specifically came to mind. I could live forever and not have to worry about taking a dirt nap like the many others who's graves stood around me.
A chilly wind flitted by me. I shuddered and wrapped my coat closer against myself. "Don't speak ill of the dead, Liz. They're liable to get angry at you," I muttered to myself.
"These ones usually rest easy."
I yelped and spun to my left towards the source of the voice. Nothing there but a statue of an angel over a pedestal of granite. The angel's stone eyes glared down at my hint of unnaturalness and I couldn't help but remember the incident with the holy water. Perhaps the angels were come to destroy me.
"W-who's there?" I called to the lonely air.
"Not your grandma, if that's what you're worried about." My eyes widened when a slinky black feline slipped around from the rear of the angel's head and stared at me with moon-yellow eyes. It bent its lower half down so that its tail swished high in the air behind itself.
I pointed a shaking finger at the feline. "D-did you just talk?" I asked it.
"It isn't the statue," the cat quipped. It hopped to the tall granite pedestal and stood at eye-level to me. The cat stretched its neck towards me and its eyes narrowed. "You've got a big problem, girl. Come to see the old coot?"
I stood as still as the statue on whose feet the cat trod. "Y-you really did just talk, didn't you?" I rephrased.
The cat sat down and tilted its head back with a distinct air of disgust. "You're new to all of this, aren't you?"
"All of what?" I asked it.
"Me. You. The one who put the curse on you. All of it." The cat leaned its head to one side and its tail twitched. "When'd it happen?"
"It?"
The cat sighed. "When did the curse get put on you?"
"Oh, um, a couple of days ago," I told him.
The cat raised the eye whiskers over one eye in a mimic of a raised eyebrow. "Well, well, I would have guessed it was yesterday with how little you've changed."
"Changed? You mean into a succubus?" I guessed.
"Well, you're not changing into a cat, that's for sure." The cat jumped down and rubbed its lithe body against my leg. "You know, I never could resist a good succubus, and you've got the makings of a good one."
I stumbled away from its slinky body and frowned. "But I don't want to be a good succubus, I want to be a good human."
The cat sat down and shrugged. "There's no accounting for tastes."
I sighed. "Listen, Madam Curie told me-"
"Madam Curie?" the cat repeated.
"Yeah, she told me to find an old coot, and to ask a cat where he lives. You're that cat, right?" I questioned the feline.
The cat chuckled, or choked on a small hairball. "You're not going to find another one like me in this city. I'm the only one."
"What exactly are you?" I asked it.
The cat strode over to the statue and rubbed itself on the stone. Its shadow grew over the pedestal and completely covered the entire statue. "I'm a phantom. Well, the phantom of this city. A ghost of its past, a manifestation of its present, and a glimpse of its future."
I blinked at it. "Come again?"
The cat rolled its eyes. "I'm the city's spirit. Its one and only, by the way. I'm the one who keeps its dark secrets tucked away in my thoughts, and lets all the good ones out for families to enjoy."
"I'm still not following you," I told it.
The cat narrowed its eyes. "Have you ever wondered what makes a city come together, instead of tear itself apart? Just think about it. Hundreds of thousands of people tucked into a tiny space, and somehow it's not complete and utter chaos. I'm the one who keeps that from happening. Without me the city would be a hell on earth."
"So you're like a guardian angel to the city?" I guessed.
The cat sighed. "Close enough, but I prefer to work in the shadows. Angels aren't good at hiding, not with all that light stuff they like to throw at people."
r /> My eyes widened. "So angels are real?" I asked the cat.
"Weren't you told anything about this world?" the cat returned.
I shrugged. "Nope, not really. Well, except that my human life is slowly ticking away and the only person who might be able to help me is this old coot who lives past the graveyard. Do you know where he lives?"
"I do, and I'll even take you there," the cat offered. He sauntered past me and up the path.
"Really? Why?" I wondered as I followed him.
"Because you're attracting the attention of the dead, and I don't want my city in a panic because there are zombies wandering the streets looking for your booty," the cat explained.
I froze and my eyes flickered to the graves on either side of me. My voice rose to a high-pitched squeal of fright. "You mean these guys know I'm here?"
"Yes, and if you don't get your butt moving they're going to get theirs going, or what's left of them," the cat warned me.
"Coming!" I quipped as I hurried after him.
We walked through the cemetery and I couldn't help but stare at my feline guide. It looked like a cat, but it didn't meow like a cat. I cleared my throat. "So, um, do you have a name?" I asked him.
"Lucifer," the cat replied.
I choked on my spittle. "What?"
The cat chuckled and looked over its shoulder. "Just kidding. The name's Morpheus, but you can call me Mo."
"My name's-"
"Elizabeth Monroe," he finished for me.
I raised an eyebrow and strode forward so we walked side-by-side. "That's right, but how did you know?"
"Oh, I know everybody who's been born in the city, but it's a little harder to keep track of the living than it used to be. Lots of people here, you know. That's why I was surprised to find you as you are," he commented.
"And what am I?" I asked him.
"A human that doesn't know whether to go left or right, death or immortality," he replied.
My shoulders slumped and I sighed. "The story of my life these last few days."
"Tell me the details later. We're here," Mo announced.
I looked at our surroundings. We stood at the far end of the cemetery where the rusted iron fence stopped, and the last bit of wilderness within the city began. The wilderness was comprised of tall, ancient oaks that stretched into the darkening sky. Thick brush crowded around their trunks, and a few animal paths wandered under the bushes. I saw nothing that I could navigate, nor any place I'd call a home.