Following the events related in the series "Incubus", the succubus named Kat goes into voluntary exile. This is her story.
***
"Why me? I'm at the end."
The elderly man was half asleep and his words -- thin, dusty syllables -- seemed to come from a great distance.
What could she tell him? That she hoped that her stain on him might be less than on someone younger and with more of a future? That a merciful god might overlook this recent taint. If God weren't merciful, there wasn't much she could do about it other than hope that his transgressions were more numerous than a moment with her. Let damnation come to those who truly deserved it.
"Surely there are those more willing and better able."
"You were more than able. And willing." Kat winked.
The old man smiled. "Surprised the hell out of me that I still could at my age."
Kat placed her hand on the man's cheek and it reminded her of waxed paper. She left it there for a long moment.
"You're so pale," the man said.
Kat was surprised that his rheumy eyes could distinguish her pallor in the darkness of his room. "I don't get out much."
The man closed his eyes and Kat couldn't bring herself to remove her hand. The man smiled at this simple contact or perhaps at the memories it evoked of other hands that had rested there in the distant past. His memories swirled in Kat's mind. A French girl during the war who'd foolishly fallen in love with a young German soldier. What had happened to her after he'd been sent back to the fatherland when it was certain that the war had been lost? Had she lived? If so, how long had she been shunned by her countrymen for obeying her heart over her brain? Other lovers, better times. Wraith-like memories like milky photographs. And finally a wife, his rock for over five decades, now gone. He longed to be with her again. This cheek had felt many hands, some in anger and others in tenderness and love.
"Why me?" he asked again.
"Your energy is like watered wine."
The man regarded her again, this impossibly young wisp of a thing whose name he didn't know, who had given of herself in a way no one had in far too long. A gift she'd given him, a recollection of vitality and life and of an intimacy so profound that it had momentarily robbed him of his breath.
"I don't understand, but I thank you."
He won't make it through the night, thought Kat. I hope that he thinks of his loved ones when he breathes his last, rather than of me. I don't deserve that.
"Sleep," whispered Kat.
"You'll be back? Tell me you will."
"I'm sorry."
The man sighed, having already lived through so many exits and recognizing the signs. He knew that the gift would have to be enjoyed in memory. Like all gifts in the end.
"Sleep."
The man soon did and Kat finally removed her hand.
***
She exited the building that housed the palliative ward with less furtiveness than she'd entered. She stepped into a warm summer night. The moon rode high above her, accompanied by the same stars with which it had shared the heavens for time immemorial. This part of town was quiet. Here the city slept. But for the distant hum of a lone automobile in the distance, all was silent.
Kat took a deep breath. She was tired and still hungry, though the old man had taken the edge off the latter.
"Ah, so here is my dark angel of the palliative ward. I can just imagine their surprise -- expecting the reaper and getting you instead. I bet they think they've died and gone to heaven."
It was a voice that Kat recognized instantly. She soon found him. Jean-Paul leaned against the wall. A shadow among shadows. He disentangled himself from the darkness and approached her with that lazy, shoulder-rolling walk of his.
"How did you know where I was?"
"When geriatric lust is in the air, I know that you can't be too far away."
Kat punched him hard on the shoulder, but he only laughed. Jean-Paul was tall and solidly built, a poster-boy for square-jawed Nordic types. Kat tucked her arm in his and fell into step beside him. In the confusion and upheaval that marked her first meeting with Jean-Paul, she had instinctively disliked him. Brooding and gruff, Jean-Paul had seemed unapproachable and dangerous. She saw in him an old-world demon against whom she could no longer measure up. Over the subsequent months, Kat had revised her first impression. The veil of animosity had gradually lifted, revealing an affable and generous spirit. She now counted him as a friend.
"Come with me. I'm about to feed."
"I'm not hungry."
For all of his lightheartedness, Jean-Paul took his duties of incubus seriously. His was a single-minded devotion to his master. When hungry, Kat knew that Jean-Paul could be cruel and terrifying, reveling in the gradual debasement of his prey. Kat had no interest in seeing him feed.
"Come on. You can't tell me that your husk of a friend satisfied you."
He hadn't. Kat still felt hollow and listless. How long had it been since she'd truly sated herself? She couldn't remember the last time. Not since she'd left Damian and Britt. Now she snacked on those whose souls had already been sacrificed, or those so old that it really didn't matter anymore.
They turned onto the main street. The Heidelberger Schloss -- Heidelberg Castle -- loomed on the hill to the right. A great brooding ruin, twice struck by lightning and partially destroyed by the resulting fires. No wonder the court had decamped to Mannheim, not wanting the finger of God to point to them a third time.
Bars did a booming business in the old town, even at this late hour. Tables spilled out onto the street. In contrast to the quarter they'd just left, here was life. Laughter, music, and the clinking of wine glasses and beer mugs assailed them from every side. She was transported back centuries to when she'd also walked these streets. Here was life, now as then, despite its fragility, brevity, and occasional meanness.
"It might whet your appetite for younger fare," said Jean-Paul, continuing their conversation as though it hadn't been interrupted, bringing Kat to the present.
Kat shrugged.
They passed the Hostel-Pension-Sudpfanne, a hostel with a few tables out front. A few students, arguing in English, occupied them. He squeezed her arm. "Don't look now, but you're being ogled."
"I doubt it," Kat lied. In fact, she'd felt the sudden interest like a prickling wave of heat. It wasn't like the way people normally responded when an incubus or succubus projected. Kat hadn't been projecting, for one thing. This reaction had come unbidden and intensely focused as though someone had homed in on her. The response was filled with the usual yearning and tension, but at the same time imbued with purity and an unexpected knowing.
"Give yourself some credit; you're hot, even among the non-geriatric set. You walk as though the world is your runway."
Kat ignored him and scanned the crowd for anyone paying her more attention than usual. She couldn't identify the source. Frustrated, she walked more slowly, guardedly reaching out with her mind, a fine tendril that probed here and there for the source of this sudden interest. She couldn't get a good fix. This was a student town, after all, and it was late at night. Fuelled by alcohol and hormones, there was enough carnal expectation in the air to make it difficult to get a read on anything.
She and Jean-Paul turned the corner and the feeling dissipated. Kat shook her head to dislodge the sense of unease that had settled over her.
"Where are we going?"
"One of my pets," said Jean Paul. A pet was his term for someone he'd visited more than a dozen times. Kat pitied them. They'd feed him until they were useless to themselves or anyone else, worn and hollowed out by temptation and fear and a hunger that could never be sated. At best, they'd become the perpetually dissatisfied, absorbing the energy of those around them like black holes, until they found themselves bitter and alone. At worst, they'd become the prostitutes and junkies, the mean and dispossessed, the dark army that lurked in the shadows and spawned their own flavor of temptation and debauchery.
But a demon had to feed.
***
They entered a building that had once been the home of some successful businessman or minor nobility. The building had long since been gentrified and converted into flats. They climbed to the third floor.
"I may need your help tonight, Kat."
"Sure. Whatever." She didn't want to be there.
"She's getting used to me. Having you there might spice things up a little."
Kat shrugged.
"And who knows," continued Jean-Paul, "maybe you'll get your appetite back for fresher fare."
She seldom hunted with another demon and wasn't particularly interested in women, but she didn't have the energy to argue. It seemed that whatever sustenance she'd derived from the old man had been spent already. The hunger gnawed at her again, but by now the hunger was an old friend.
"Her husband is away most nights, drinking with his buddies."
"Alright already. I'll ride shotgun."
They entered the silent flat. Jean-Paul already looked wraith-like and insubstantial, bleeding at the edges. A phantasm.
She caught her reflection in the mirror. She'd similarly shed much of her physical being. She looked like a figure in an old photograph, time having robbed it of definition and vibrancy. She could just make out dark eyes that seemed to float over pale but firmly-defined cheeks. No doubt her pallor derived partly from the thin gruel she'd permitted herself over the last months. In this state, her full lips bore little of the deep red lipstick she'd applied before setting out. However faded, it was still the only splash of color on a monochromatic canvas defined by luminescent flesh, raven-black hair, and dark, haunted eyes.
Even in his insubstantial form, Jean-Paul looked vital in comparison.
They eased into the bedroom.
