Succubus Dreams Page 0,94

when it happens. Vincent will be around, out in the living room. She won't suspect him of anything; she'll figure he's an ordinary human. But when he senses her feeding off of you, he'll let us know. Then, we'll show up and bind her."

I didn't like the sound of any of that - neither the feeding nor the binding. "What's that mean?"

"We'll pull her out and trap her," said Carter. Presumably "out" meant out of me. Yikes.

"Then we'll take her away, back to her prison," added Yasmine.

Their confidence inspired confidence in me, and I suspected I was being influenced by angelic charisma. But there was no way out of this, not if I wanted to shake my nighttime visitor.

"All right," I said. "Let's do this."

The angels left. It was still early evening, so I hung out with Vincent. We played a couple games of cards and watched bad movies. Hanging out with him in such a casual way made it easy to forget he was a nephilim. When midnight loomed, I stood up and stretched.

"I don't think I can sleep," I remarked. "It's like trying to go to bed on Christmas Eve. Too jittery to settle down. Except...it's not Santa I'm waiting for."

He smiled. "Well, try. If we need to, we can probably give you a sedative or something, but this whole thing will be more efficient without."

It took a long time - lying in bed for almost two hours - before I fell asleep. It wasn't easy to relax when you were inviting a creature of chaos to come feed off of you. And yet, as I drifted off, I couldn't help a small flicker of eagerness. I'd be dreaming the dream again.

And I did.

It started from the beginning, like always, running all the way to the part where the little girl fell and my dream-self comforted her. The girl's tears were drying when we both heard the faint sound of a car door closing. My dream-self straightened up. A smile blossomed on her face as she regarded her - my - daughter with the kind of over-exaggerated excitement adults often use with children.

"You hear that?" my dream-self asked. "Daddy's home."

Mirrored excitement showed on the girl's face as my dream-self stood up, still holding the girl and balancing her on one hip. It was an act of some coordination, considering how small my dream-self was.

They walked to the front door and stepped outside onto a porch. It was nighttime, all quiet darkness, save for a small light hanging on the porch. It shone onto a long stretch of unbroken white snow on the lawn and the driveway. All around, more snow fell in a steady stream. I didn't recognize the place, but it certainly wasn't Seattle. That much snow would have sent the city into a panic, putting everyone on Armageddon alert. My dream-self was perfectly at ease, barely noticing the snow. Wherever she was, it was a common occurrence.

In the driveway, a car had just pulled up. I felt my dream-self's heart swell with happiness. A man stood behind it, a non-descript dark figure in the faint lighting. He took out a rolling suitcase and slammed the trunk shut. The little girl clasped her hands in excitement, and my dream-self waved a hand in greeting. The man returned the wave as he walked toward the house, and my waking self tried desperately to see his face. It was too dark. I needed him to get closer, just a little closer -

I couldn't get any closer because just then, I felt my soul get ripped out of me.

I sat up in bed, nearly screaming in agony at the pain coursing through me. All four angels, plus Vincent, ringed the room. The power pulsing around us felt like smoke. I could barely breathe.

And there, beside my bed, was Nyx.

She looked a lot like Erik's description: an old, emaciated woman. Her skin and hair were white, her dark eyes sunken and inhuman. A tattered, gossamer dress wrapped around her body. She had an almost translucent look, like she wasn't entirely solid, and a sparkling aura shone around her.

I couldn't see the forces being wielded, but I felt them distinctly. The angels temporarily had her enclosed in walls of power, but she wasn't bound, not yet. She pushed back against their restraints with considerable power of her own, and I gaped. Any one of those angels dwarfed my own power - yet, their combined force was still an even match for