Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Belhaven House

Saturday night

Pip was in bed after his nightly story. Grayson was reading from an ancient manuscript about the succubus Lilith, who, it was written, had seduced more men and led them to their destruction than any other of her kind. There was a light knock on his study door. He realized he'd been waiting.

He called out, "Come."

Haddock opened the door a crack and slithered into the room, closed the door behind him. He looked a bit white around the mouth. "Sir, there is a strange gentleman at our front door, and he asks—no, he demands—to see you. I saw no horse, no carriage. I must say there is a repellent coldness about him that quite puts me off. He is arrogant, and worse, he is slovenly."

Grayson's heart began to pound. He'd hoped Prithius would come to him since he'd left himself wide open. And even better, it meant Lily was holding control. "Did he give you his name, Haddock?"

"He said he is Viscount Fielding, but he did not present a card as a gentleman must if he is indeed the gentleman he claims to be. Shall I call Mary Beth? We would undertake to remove him. She would enjoy that."

Grayson slowly rose to face the door. "If there is a removal to be done, I will do it. Show him in, Haddock, and go to bed and stay there."

A slender older man slowly navigated his way into Grayson's study, a snake-head cane in his hand. Haddock was right, he did indeed look slovenly, his clothes wrinkled. His curling grayish-blond hair was thin and lank. He had a sharp chin covered with straggly gray whiskers. But it was his eyes—they were so colorless they appeared silver, not natural those eyes. They were another's eyes, flat and shining like mirrors.

He stood in the middle of the room and announced in a tinny voice, "I am Lord Reginald, Viscount Fielding. And you are Grayson Sherbrooke."

Grayson said slowly, "No, you are not Viscount Fielding. You are Prithius, the incubus who took over his body. Is the viscount still alive?"

Prithius threw back his head and laughed, wild, unrestrained, not quite a human laugh, and it echoed all around the room. Grayson remembered Lily saying he loved to laugh, but he certainly hadn't perfected it.

Grayson waited. He'd seen many drawings of incubi and succubi, ranging from horned devils with forked tails, like Satan, to elongated twisted bodies with blood-dripping mouths, giant phalluses on the incubi and large breasts on the succubi. He remembered too well the succubus at Ravenstone, occasionally wondered what had become of that particular demon. Had she found a witch to accept her? Probably so. Now he was faced with an incubus. He wondered if the incubus looked like any of the drawings he'd seen when he shed Fielding's body at night. Now it was up to him. Grayson had to engage the demon, learn his weaknesses, learn how to destroy him.

When Prithius finally stopped laughing, he said in a contemptuous voice, "That pathetic human? Of course he is alive. I have to keep his human heart beating else I could not use him." He paused. "I know of you, as many of my kind do, and when they speak of you, it is with respect, even some fear." His long white fingers tightened around the snake-head cane. "But I see you clearly. My brethren are wrong. You are merely a mortal of little account. You are nothing to me and my kind, less than nothing. Even if you are a wizard, it makes no matter since you are still human and thus not worth spit. I read one of your absurd books. I found it amusing." He laughed.

Grayson merely smiled, waited.

His laugh cut off suddenly, leaving only the echo of a hollow sound. He closed his mouth, frowned.

"Does a human smile scare you, Prithius? Have you tried to smile yourself and failed?"

"Do not be ridiculous."

Grayson leaned back against his desk, crossed his arms. "Where do you come from, Prithius? Hell?"

"I come from a magnificent place, a place above and below and beyond, a place a mere mortal could never comprehend. Not hell, hell is another place entirely."

"Then why did you leave this magnificent place and come here? Why did you take over Viscount Fielding's body?"

The incubus stood stiff, silent.

"Tell me, were you forced to leave this magnificent above and below and beyond place?"

"All of us go where we please. All of us are strong. We can defeat any paltry human."

"I know you can enter our realm for brief periods of time and only at night, but unless you can attach yourself to a witch, unless a witch accepts you, you cannot remain." Grayson prayed it was also true of an incubus. That it was his potion that enabled him to stay. What was in it?

"You speak nonsense. I have no need of a paltry witch. I can roam your benighted land as long as I like."

Grayson saw the lie in those demon eyes, a sort of a flash over those flat silver mirrors. He said, "What is the name of this magnificent place? Is it some satellite of hell Satan rules?"

Prithius said nothing, walked slowly toward the front bowed windows, looked out over the still winter-bare gardens Miranda had laid out for him. Could he see the row of hemlocks, some bowed from the ferocious North Sea storms, but stout and unbreakable? Could he also see the curving cobblestone walkway? Since he was a night creature, probably so.

Prithius said without turning back, his voice pensive, "This is an ugly, barren land. But I will accustom myself. But that hideous sea—ripping, thundering, destroying. It is too close and angry, always angry, eager to kill."

His voice had deepened, the echo darker, and Grayson heard fear—of the sea? It was true a North Sea storm was something to behold, but tonight the water was calm and flat. He said easily, "It is March. Did you not know in two months everything will turn green, trees will be laden with leaves and plants will flower, and there will be beauty everywhere? You came here too soon, Prithius. It is still winter. Do you still go out at night to seduce women in their dreams, leave them wondering why such a dream came to them? And you set mind traps to drive women mad?"

Prithius turned to face him. He looked sly. "It is fine entertainment for my kind to cover your females, make them moan and thrash about. Ah, and the screams of pleasure, it is exhilarating. And you stupid males, you don't even know your wives compare us to you and find you lacking. If the pleasure is too great, the female could scream her way into madness." He frowned. "I only wish we could impregnate them. My kind would rule the world."