Incubus (8 page)

“Sanctioned by whom?”

“Considering how many enemies the Alchemist has, it could be anyone. We can only be sure of one thing: If Meical is still with Neshi when Badru finds them, he won't survive.”

She wrapped her arms around him. “Then we'll find them before Badru does.”

 

Meical tried not to stare at Caroline's bedroom door while waiting for her to wake up. Dr. Calvin and the Hicks children had stopped by to visit, but he could scarcely follow their chitchat. His entire being seemed tuned to Caroline.

Last night he had kept her fast asleep while he washed the lovemaking off them both. She surfaced once while he was dressing her for bed and smiled at him like a sleepy child, then fell asleep again nestled against him. Even his second sunrise that morning couldn't match the thrill of the trusting, pretty smile she'd given him in that moment.

Fool that he was.

He'd come to a discovery about himself in the watch hours of the night, holding Caroline while she slept. He wanted to live, if only for a few weeks. He wanted all
the power Neshi's dark experiment could afford him, all of which he'd put to use for Caroline's sake.

Not that he'd hang around. He'd leave before she realized he'd told her the truth last night, that he was a danger to her. He wouldn't wait until she had to ask him to go. He wouldn't put her through that, knowing how tenderhearted she was.

This morning, he could hardly wait for her to wake up. Yet he dreaded it, too. She'd wake to her reality, pain and haunted past.

“Your friend Neshi is brilliant,” John Calvin spewed. “Most fascinating young man I've had the pleasure of meeting. We need more doctors like him.”

Of course Calvin had no recollection of the events of last night. Neshi had seen to that, just as Meical had done with Caroline. She would remember nothing but the dream.

“Tell me, Dr. Calvin,” he asked, “how much do you know about Caroline?”

Calvin hesitated. That was as it should be. He was a true friend to Caroline and could be trusted with her secrets.

“Hey, you two,” Calvin said to the children, “I'm sure Ms. Bengal won't mind if you get the toys out and play with them.”

The children went to a cardboard box in the corner and opened it. The box was labeled “Manipulatives” in orange crayon. Out came an assortment of playthings, families of little dolls, plastic soldiers, modeling clay and a dozen toy vehicles.

It seemed such a simple thing, yet so ingenious, that
Caroline could make use of the language of childhood to help her young patients with their problems. What had she called it? Play therapy.

Her world was so different from his. It had never mattered to him before, the abyss that existed between him and humanity. The only common ground he could hope to find with Caroline would be in her dreams.

Calvin lowered his voice. “I can tell you what I know, and I can tell you what I think. Which do you want first?”

“Let's start with what you know.”

“She showed up at my clinic one day,” Calvin began, “in a lot of pain. She'd run out of her prescription. She wouldn't let me send for her records. She wouldn't tell me who her surgeon was or even where she'd had her surgery. I wanted to start over on all her tests, so I'd have my own reference point for what she needed, but she wouldn't go for that either. So, I just picked up where her last doctor left off. It didn't take Millie and me long to realize she was hiding from someone. We keep an eye on her as best we can. She's the closest thing to a child we've ever had.”

Meical touched Calvin's mind briefly to confirm that he wasn't holding back anything. “And she's never discussed what happened to her?”

“I don't think it's all come back to her yet. I hope it never does. But even if it does, I don't think she'll risk putting us in danger by talking about it. Based on what I've managed to put together, she was attacked about eight months ago. She was doing her psychiatry internship at the time, and the attack had something to
do with an emergency case she was called in on, late one night. As for the severity of what she went through, the surgical procedures she needed to salvage her legs were bad enough that the shock alone would have killed most people.”

Meical fixed his gaze on the sunlight glistening through the window, recalling what he'd seen when he'd delved into Caroline's memory of her attack. Whether he lived a day or a thousand days, this was a score he wanted to settle before he left this world. By the time he was done, there wouldn't be enough left of her enemies to bury.

Perhaps John knew who it was who had reached Caroline that night, in time to frighten her two assailants away. “How
did
she survive it, John?”

“She calls it a miracle. They were closing in on her, and she thought they were going to finish her off, but they turned around and hightailed it out of that basement. She blacked out, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in a hospital.”

Meical remembered from Caroline's recollection how the two men had run for their lives. They had looked straight through him—at whom? The only person he'd seen in that room, besides them, was Caroline. Of course, considering he'd been half-dead from hunger himself when he'd gleaned that memory from Caroline's mind, there was no telling what he'd failed to notice.

“Physically speaking,” John went on, “she's been a fast healer, but emotionally? It takes a normal person a long time to come out of a trauma like hers, let alone someone who's special like she is.”

“Empaths are very special, yes.”

“Caroline has blown my mind so many times, I don't rule out anything anymore.” Calvin's gaze softened and he looked at the Hicks children. “Before she started working with that little guy over there, he wouldn't speak a word. He just made noises. But the two of them came up with a game, a language actually, using nondisruptive sounds and some hand signals. Mrs. Hicks and Sandy have been able to really interact with Ray for the first time in his life. Caroline says when he feels safe enough, something will click for him and he'll start really talking.”

She knew this, of course, because she could speak to one's heart and mind the way only empaths could. There was nothing a person like Caroline couldn't accomplish. Perhaps even with him.

Meical caught the sound of the bed creaking beyond Caroline's door. He tuned out everything around him and listened to the swish of the sheets against Caroline's skin as she sat up. The sound raised a fire in him that went straight to his groin. There came the sigh of her yawn, followed by the scrape of her crutches as she dragged them to her and stood, and the soft shuffle of her small bare foot on the wood floor. When she opened her bedroom door, the crisp soapy scent of her pajamas reached him, and he clenched his teeth.

John grinned at her. “G' morning, sleepyhead. Hungry? Millie sent me over with breakfast, along with a coat and some clean clothes for Meical.”

Meical sensed Caroline's glance in his direction as
she sat down beside him and set her crutches aside, but he kept his gaze fixed on the children. She might be a bit embarrassed after her “dream” and the least he could do was not ogle. The better to preserve his lie, of course, to say nothing of her modesty.

The husky contentment in her voice was most gratifying. “Just coffee for now, Doc.”

Meical made an illicit probe of her emotional state. Her heartbeat was swift, her spirits serene, but she was irked by his silence. Meical smiled inwardly. Oh, yes. She was all curiosity this morning. Perfect.

The soft undertone of intimacy in Caroline's voice drew at his heart. “Meical, I haven't seen you eat since we found you. Have some of Millie's oatmeal.”

Meical looked up and smiled at her. “Last night I helped myself to your pantry.”

Her face became rosy, and he caught the scent of Caroline's sudden rush of arousal over his choice of words. Her breathless half smile made her mouth intolerably tempting. The longer he regarded her, the deeper her blush, until he felt a flush of warmth pour out of her, and she looked down at her plate.

“Well, that was last night,” she said. “It's a brand-new day.”

She got up, hobbled into the kitchen and returned with a bowl and spoon. Pulling a casserole dish closer, she opened it up and scooped a cup or two of the oatmeal into the bowl and set it in front of him. “Eat.”

Meical smiled again. “I'd better not.”

A small, hesitant voice filled the silence. “My mom says oatmeal's real good for you, Mr. Grabian.”

He thought at first it was Sandy who'd spoken, but when he looked, he found Ray looking up at him like an owlet.

Caroline's exuberance flooded his being. She, John and Sandy beamed at him as though he were a ruddy saint. Hope shone in their faces, the hope that he wouldn't waste this opportunity to coax Ray a little further out of his shell. He returned their gazes, inwardly aghast that he, of all people, should be someone who made Ray feel safe.

Meical crossed one leg over the other and regarded the little guy with as gentle a smile as he was able to manage. “I'm sure your mother is right. Mothers always are. But I'm not sure I'm supposed to eat oatmeal.”

“You probably just don't know how to make it taste right,” the boy said sagely. He came to the table, squeezing close to Meical and reached for ingredients. “First, you put in the butter. Never put your milk in first.”

Meical eased his arm around the boy's waist. “Okay. Why?”

“'Cause cold milk keeps the butter from melting.”

“Good point.”

Of course, the idea of refusing to eat the sticky mess was out of the question. He'd eat it, and he'd act like he liked it even if it killed him. After all, it wasn't as if he could actually taste any of it. He'd just slip away in an hour or so and rid himself of the noxious mush. But for Caroline's sake, he would do this.

While Ray reached for the sugar bowl, Meical lifted him onto his lap. He'd never held a child before. Ray was light and small and warm, covered in a mixture of scents. Mostly life and youth and crayons, the syrup he'd eaten on his pancakes and the milk mustache on his upper lip. A tiny pink lip that looked like it belonged to an infant. It hurt to feel the boy's utter defenselessness.

“That's enough sugar,” Sandy said in a big sister voice.

“No, it's not,” argued Ray. He heaped half the contents of the sugar bowl onto Meical's oatmeal. “It's gotta taste good if he's gonna like it.”

Caroline covered her laugh with a cough. Meical glanced at her. The admiration in her eyes left his heart in pieces. It seemed criminal to let her feel that way about him, and yet it felt so good.

“There you go,” said Ray. He sat back against Meical's chest. “You can eat it now. It'll taste real good.”

Meical nodded grandly and reached for his spoon, ready to make a to-do out of Ray's culinary accomplishment. Before he could scoop up a little dab to taste, Ray giggled and grabbed the spoon out of his hand.

Ladling up a glob, most of which dripped down the front of Meical's shirt, the boy held the spoonful of oatmeal up to Meical's mouth, making circling motions with it while he recited, “Buzzy, buzzy, buzzy bee, open up your mouth for me.”

Meical complied and opened his mouth, braced himself to swallow the tasteless toxin, and closed his eyes in complete surrender.

The first thing that startled him was the sweetness. Then there came the taste of the milk and butter, and the undertone of grain. It took him back to his mother's kitchen hearth where the two of them shared a bowl of barley porridge for breakfast every morning. Freddie was hard at work on his studies with Father. Father was working on his next sermon. The girls were playing on the floor with the kitchen cat's latest brood.

Meical was there, if only in spirit, in that golden, safe place, enjoying the treasured company of his mother, the one person who had ever understood him.

“Well?” asked Ray.

Meical squished the bite of oatmeal against the roof of his mouth to get every nuance of taste. Stunning. What had Neshi done to him? He swallowed the bite, murmuring “Delicious” before Ray poked another into his mouth and patted Meical's lips with his soft little hand.

Meical waited for the nausea to set in, made ready to counter it with his very will to keep from ruining this moment for Caroline. Instead of nausea, he felt a strange rumbling in his stomach. It was sharp and vaguely familiar. Rather like hunger, but…

“Your stomach's growling,” Ray said with a squeal. “Miss Bengal's right. You
are
hungry.”

Meical took the spoon from Ray and took another bite. Maybe he'd pay for it later, but for now, he wanted it. All of it. It was as though he'd never eaten. Well, he hadn't. Not like this. Not in two centuries.

And the more he ate, the better it tasted. The growling
ceased and a feeling of contentment settled into his belly. A nice full feeling, rather like when he'd been all vampire and had a decent slaking.

Meical set the spoon down in his empty bowl and lifted his gaze to Caroline's. “I think I'd like some more.”

T
racking one's prey meant figuring out their particular mixture of preconditioning and habit.

Usually Burke found his targets predisposed toward behavior that was easy to follow and therefore easy to infiltrate. Routine was always their downfall. It opened up pathways into their personal lives—invitations to become a new friend, a regular face at their favorite pub, an innocent bystander in the background of their lives.

Burke sat at the table in his roadside motel room, sifting through the intel he'd gathered since he'd accepted the job of killing Caroline Olek—or Caroline Bengal, as she preferred to call herself.

In the months since he'd been on her trail, she'd taught him just how exceptional her survival skills were.
She never made mistakes. She never left a dent in her surroundings. She left no paper trails, paid no bills, received no mail and owned nothing. She had no habits. She maintained no predictable behavior whatsoever.

The flawless prey.

He turned to the copy of a newspaper clipping his associates had faxed to him.
Missing Child Found by Anonymous Psychic,
the headline read. After skimming the first paragraph, he reached for the phone and dialed his contact in Rivera's organization.

“Burke here. I have a lead. Pennsylvania.”

After hanging up, he thumbed through the file Rivera's people had sent him. Most of this he'd already seen. The transcripts from Rivera's trial were nothing to him. Water under the bridge. Caroline hadn't even been there. The list of all her old contacts was useless as well. She'd cut her ties with all of these people in her naive notion that she could stay safe as long as she stayed hidden. Her hospital records? He'd already memorized the nature, seriousness and location of the injuries she had sustained from the attack by Rivera's men.

Burke curled his lip. Where was the art in bludgeoning someone to death? The fools Rivera had sent after Caroline had no feeling for sportsmanship. They had no reverence for life. The sanctity of the kill was squandered on them. To make their failure worse, they'd concocted a lie about some kind of demon who'd chased them away from the scene before they'd finished with Caroline.

Fear was the real weapon. Fear was foreplay. His bullet was just the parting kiss.

But it would take a great deal to make Caroline afraid. He pulled his photograph of her out of the pile of papers on the table and studied her pretty, trusting face. He'd flushed her out of her hiding places again and again, but this time he wanted her to stand her ground and meet him on her own terms.

 

When her Adonis finally discovered his appetite, he gave new meaning to the idea of being eaten out of house and home. Meical left no survivors in her fridge or pantry. For some reason he found the box of Count Chocula cereal especially funny.

For as long as she lived, Caroline would never forget the sight of Ray perched on Meical's shoulders, hysterical with laughter, waiting to see what Meical would eat next. Meical was still scavenging when John left.

She drew the line at asparagus and jelly sandwiches.

“Meical, stop now unless you want it all to come back up again,” she cautioned, trying to drag him out of her kitchen nook, with Ray bobbing on his shoulders like a parrot. “Come on. You can walk it all off on the way to the Hickses' place.”

Meical relinquished the asparagus and set Ray on his feet.

The boy grinned up at him. “Don't worry, Mr. Grabian, there's more food at our house.”

While Sandy helped Ray into his coat, Caroline strapped on her ski boot and got her slalom out of the closet. She felt Meical watching her. The man made her feel like a magnet this morning, with everything in him
pouring out, rushing in her direction. After the dream she'd had about him last night, it wasn't exactly smart to indulge herself, but she loved the feel of his vibrations. He felt just like a Jacuzzi.

They left her cabin and trudged through the snow along the path that led to the Hickses' trailer. Caroline appreciated the fact that Meical didn't hang back and try to help her along on her slalom. He seemed to know she didn't need that or want that kind of help from him. So what
did
she want from him? More than she dared to consider, with a psychopath on her trail and a dismal future on the run.

As she scooted along on her slalom behind the three of them, with Dash running circles around them all, she couldn't take her eyes off him. She admired his interaction with Ray—along with the graceful way he maneuvered through trees and snow. And his fine set of shoulders. And his articulated derriere. And the deep, gravelly sound of his voice. And his—

He stopped short as though she'd just spoken to him and turned to smile at her. He looked as though he'd just won the lottery. What was that about?

Caroline coasted down a little dip in the path, breathing in the morning air and the jubilance of the children. Maybe this whole arrangement of counseling Meical was going to be as good for her as it was for him. As long as she kept it quiet and didn't draw attention to herself, no problem.

She came to a sliding stop beside Meical and only vaguely noticed that the children had run on ahead with Dash, because the gleam in Meical's eyes was just about
all she could take in at the moment. He had looked at her like that last night in her dream.

She felt a hot blush coming on and turned her head away to look up at the trees and the crystalline blue of the cloudless sky.

Pushing past him, she dug her poles in and shoved herself along. She was way too in tune with him this morning. She needed to pull in a little, put the brakes on. She could actually feel him looking her over, knew exactly where his gaze was wandering…a slow, meticulous and deliciously lusty gaze.

She smiled. Guess it was his turn to eyeball
her.

But where was it headed, all this checking each other out? She didn't have the wherewithal for a relationship. She couldn't begin to contemplate intimacy. And even if she could, it would be the most stupid mistake she could make right now. It could get Meical killed if Burke found her again. And he would.

Well, why shouldn't she just enjoy the moment? She swallowed hard, feeling Meical's gaze linger on her behind. The wave of desire that emanated from him made her feel weak in the knee.

Time for some conversation. Definitely. “Hey, Meical, has anyone ever told you that you have a way with kids?”

He laughed. “Not once.”

“Well, you do. I'm not a bit surprised at how Ray is opening up to you. He sees you as a safety zone.”

Meical was quiet for a moment. Caroline listened with her whole being. But a door closed between them. He could be so silent, and not just on the inside. The
whole time they'd been walking, she hadn't heard him as much as snap a twig underfoot.

“Does he really?” Meical asked.

The door opened a bit, and a pall of darkness slipped out of him to nip at her heels. Darkness. Sadness. Loss.

“Yes, and why shouldn't he? You're big and strong, you exude a reassuring sense of being in control of everything in your environment and you defended us all from Mr. Hicks like a real hero.”

She eased herself around a fallen log and waited for him to open the door a little wider. The forest hadn't felt cold this morning until now.

“As long as you're pleased,” he murmured. “It doesn't matter why.”

What did he think he was, some kind of curse? She wanted to ask him that very thing but knew better. Keep it light. He was sensitive. If he was feeling defensive, challenging him was only going to drive him back into his own hole. It was remarkable how like Ray he was, in fact.

She laughed. “You could be handy to have around.”

“But do you dare keep me?”

“I can handle you, Mr. Grabian.” She glanced over her shoulder and gave him her best don't-mess-with-me look just to drive the point home. “Just watch me.”

His amusement with her response was as genuine as the warning in his eyes. Caroline's next verbal parry, which would have been sassy enough to cover up the sudden chill she felt, was preempted by their arrival at the Hickses' trailer. The children ran inside with Dash,
and Caroline sat down on the front steps to take off her slalom.

Meical retreated to the picnic table under an elm. She glanced up just as the sun emerged from behind a cloud and cast him in gold. Beautiful.

Except for the sudden wince that crossed Meical's face. His jaw tightened as though he'd just cut himself with a knife and was trying not to let on that it hurt. He scooted farther down on the bench, into the shade of the elm. Sensitivity to sunlight could be a psychosomatic ailment brought on by posttraumatic stress.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

The door between them slammed shut. Not that it mattered, because there was enough fear and self-doubt etched on his face to tell her that something had just happened that he hadn't expected.

But when he lifted his gaze to hers, the only trace of emotion she saw was a come-no-closer warning. “I'm fine.”

Caroline backed off, giving him a placating smile and went inside to help the children gather the things they wanted to take with them to the Calvins'. Once inside, she watched Meical from the window.

He rubbed his arm, where the sun had touched him a moment ago, and covered his face with his hands.

 

Meical forced out a sigh and watched the sun glisten on the snow in the yard—light that he had borne painlessly only a few hours ago.

Was he reverting? Was this one day all he would have? Or was it like Neshi said, and he was just having a difficult transition?

He didn't have himself under control. That much was certain. For that reason alone he shouldn't risk remaining here with Caroline. It would be easy to disappear from her life, right now, while her focus was fixed on the children.

Meical's heart ached to think how hurt she would be to find him gone. She really needed someone. But it was better to leave now than risk becoming a monster in her eyes.

He stood up and edged backward toward a trail, keeping his gaze on the trailer. He focused on her thoughts, her scent, her serenity.

A movement in the underbrush behind him made him turn. He narrowed his eyes and searched the shadows there. A pair of feline eyes glowed for a moment, and a small black cat sauntered out of the greenery to study him. The golden charm on its collar twinkled in the sunlight.

A whisper of a presence bloomed on the breeze, very close to him, then dissipated, leaving behind a voiceless plea.
Stay.

Who was this lady who had the power to reach him, asleep or awake, the power to hide herself even from Neshi?

Whoever she was, he could no more resist her plea than he could resist the call of Caroline's blood and pleasure.

 

Four hours into the evening and not a twinge. Not even an ache. She must be healing, really and truly. Caroline sat back in the warm bath water and let her
gaze wander over her candlelit bathroom. Beyond the door, Meical's rhythmic footfall made him sound like a guardsman on duty. She heard his footfall pause, as though he were listening, as though he could see exactly what she saw in her mind.

It had been that way all day between them. They were in perfect syncopation. How awesome to experience that with someone. They'd gotten the Hicks kids settled over at the Calvins' place, and John had given Meical the key to their other extra cabin so he'd have a place to hang his hat for however long he needed it. The cabin was just a stone's throw up the trail from Caroline's, and Millie had supplied Meical with clean towels and sheets, a couple of blankets, a sack of groceries and a spare set of John's scrubs to sleep in.

On the surface, Meical had been appreciative and charming, but underneath, Caroline could feel the aching restlessness that drove him. It was eating at him, that hunger she'd felt in him from the start. And then there was that horrendous dream he'd had—or past-life memory?

She needed to get to the bottom of his psychosis. Tomorrow she'd begin her sessions with him.

Low murmurs reached her ears. Meical and Neshi? Funny. She hadn't heard Neshi arrive. Dash, who'd been asleep on the rug beside the tub, lifted her head and whined plaintively.

“Yeah, you didn't hear him come in either, did you?” Caroline whispered.

And Dash never missed anything.

Caroline pulled the plug to let the water out of the
tub, grasped the safety rail and levered herself onto her foot. Balancing, she pulled the towel off the shelf close at hand and wrapped it around herself. She'd scarcely dressed when the voices stopped, and Meical resumed his pacing. Neshi seemed to have gone.

Meical's footfall became more agitated, and when she tried to discern the nature of his agitation, she felt the door close between them. That wasn't the first time he'd done that today.

Exasperating man.

She joined him in the living room.

“Had a good bath?” he asked.

Caroline studied his face before she answered. He still didn't look like he felt well. His eyes were as big and bright as a full moon next to the pallor of his skin, and so very intense.

“I sure did. Was that Dr. Neshi I heard you talking to?”

Meical pulled a chair up to the fire for her, and when she sat down to towel dry her hair, he sat down at her feet. “Yes. We had a talk about my progress. He seems to think you can fix all my problems, if I let you.”

She hung her head to one side and admired the ripple of muscle under his borrowed turtleneck as he scooted closer to the fire. He was so deliciously strong.

“So, are you going to let me?”

“I am. And I will perform to all your expectations.”

Expectations? That sounded like a guy who'd been put through the psychiatric mill more than once. “I have no expectations. We'll just talk and share. Okay?”

He eyed her with a mixture of good humor and sheer
lust that turned her to jelly. “It takes two to ‘share' anything.”