I felt like Sarah was consciously ignoring me. She said nothing when I met her at the motel, barely looked at me when she pointed at her pick-up and we piled in, and then grunted at the questions I attempted to ask.
An example: "Where are we headed?"
Her murmured reply: "You'll find out soon enough."
Eventually, I gave up. I figured she was too afraid of a situation like the night before, when she had become so horny that she had made like a water grenade all over my face. Instead, my thoughts turned to Stephanie. Whatever was happening was beyond rationality. I had witnessed my best friend's girlfriend's life-force being sucked into the head of my cock, and that reached a level of fucked-up shit past comprehension.
The strange part was that it made me feel powerful. Literally powerful. I felt more alert, more aware, and more alive than I had ever known. I wanted to be disgusted by this, but instead, I was fueled. I wanted to know what was happening, so I could understand it, not stop it. At that moment, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to stop it.
It felt too good.
Eventually, Sarah took us into the city. She seemed to know her way around, taking side-streets and back-streets that I hadn't ever used or known existed until we pulled to a hasty stop in front of a weather-worn shop front. The awning held no lettering, and no sign sat propped in the window. Apparently, the owner felt no desire to advertise.
"Here we are," Sarah stated the obvious. As we exited the pick-up and approached the door, I peered through the store windows. I saw books, jars of herbs and spices, and a few candles- nothing particularly interesting. It seemed to be more or less a knick-knack shop.
"I thought you were taking me to an expert, not the Salvation Army," I said, hoping to annoy Sarah. It worked. Her eyes narrowed as she twisted her head to glare at me. Her pupils were like the points of twin arrows aimed at my soul. I resisted a shiver.
"Just keep your mouth shut, and your ears open," she commanded. Then she pushed into the shop. I followed, admiring the old-fashioned tinkling of a bell hung over the door. It reminded me of pharmacies in movies from the 50s, and I felt a little like the Beaver. Not that I'd ever seen an episode, way before my time, and Nick-at-Nite was something I was aware of but had no interest in.
Once inside, I gave my surroundings a quick looking over. The interior of the shop looked as indecipherable as the exterior, old crap piled on old crap piled on old crappy shelves. Behind a shoddy counter, a gremlin with Coke-bottle glasses gave us a crooked-toothed grin.
"Ms. Tasker, I presume?" the gremlin spoke with a voice that made me think of tortured kittens. Its teeth wobbled like loose piano keys stained yellow with age. It had a hairdo like Yoda: white, sparse, and wild.
Sarah nodded, and the gremlin turned to open a door behind it. Without looking back at us, it waved its withered hands and said, "Let us speak of demons."
***
"What do you know of the succubus and incubus?"
We were seated around a small, round table covered with a purple cloth. At its center like a pale, melting finger, a candle flickered and dripped wax. It reminded me of a gypsy scene in a werewolf movie, and I supposed that made me Lon Chaney Jr.
The gremlin apparently had a name, but it was a low, garbled greeting. All I had caught was Madam G...rubble-grubble-blarf, but I didn't dare ask her to repeat it in fear of the handgun I noticed protruding from the jeans at the small of Sarah's back. Hereafter, I will refer to her simply as Madam G.
"Female and male demons that come to you at night and force you into intercourse, or so that's the myth," Sarah replied to Madam G's question.
"So we're not talking vampires?" I said, momentarily forgetting the threat of Sarah at my side. I felt the heat of her glare at the side of my face, but I kept my attention focused on the gypsy/gremlin, Madam G.
"None of these labels fit the being you're dealing with, but these are terms familiar to you and possibly helpful to your understanding," Madam G said. "Vampires are said to possess a certain irresistibility but do not live on sex. Succubi and incubi are not generally irresistible, but they are essentially sexual. These are all inventions of man to explain what cannot be understood by the natural world."
"And so what are they?" Sarah asked in a breathless voice. Madam G leaned forward in her rickety wooden chair, a sharp creak echoing through the room in response to the slight movement.
"The creature, call it what you will, is an urge. It attaches to your soul and spreads like a disease. Nymphomaniacs, sex addicts, they are infected with it. Of course, these are lesser, sometimes controllable forms of the demon."
Madam G looked directly into my eyes and held me there.
"What you have inside of you..." "How do you..." I began, but Madam G cut me off. Her eyebrows squished together like touching wisps of clouds as her forehead furrowed. Her gaze bore through me.
"... is a seed, planted. A seed that grows from one thing and one thing only. Lust. Lust is what feeds it; lust is what makes it grow. It cannot survive without it. It is a parasite that grows, eating lust, growing larger until it wears the skin of its host, and the host becomes nothing but a shell."
"Does it move from host to host?" Sarah asked.
"It plants seeds, but it is incapable of leaving a host once planted," Madam G said.
"Can it be killed without killing the host?" I said, almost afraid to ask, but I had to know. My mind flashed to Stephanie. I remembered how her skin had become transparent; I had seen the blood pumping through her veins. I didn't want that happening every time I fucked a girl.
"If you catch it in time." At her words I thought of the desiccated corpses Sarah Tasker had described finding in her neighbors' home. Were they examples of those who had not purged their demons in time? Madam G continued in her thin, harpy voice.
