Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
SIN
“So that’s it then?”
My voice rang out loudly in the fucking vacuum of the billiards room. The four of us had been sitting here for hours in silence, no closer today than we were yesterday to coming up with anything constituting a plan. Not even a hint of one.
“What do you want us to say? We have no magic that can trace her. We aren’t omnipotent. Merri left us with nothing to help find her.” Grim’s usually fierce voice was subdued, defeated, almost.
“If you have any ideas, Sinclair, then by all means enlighten us.”
My angry gaze flitted to Chaos. “There has to be some way. A hint about where she ran off to. Something from a conversation, or hell, I dunno, a text message.” I pulled at my hair so hard a few strands came out.
“She took her phone with her.”
My glare was now aimed at Malice. “Don’t you have your fancy spyware or whatever? Can’t you ping her location even with the grid being down? You’re the tech wizard here. Do some wizard shit.”
“With what computer, Sin? What satellite? They’ve crashed into the ocean. Even if everything weren’t dead, the internet may as well be a thing of the past. Those avenues of investigation are closed to us.”
Frustration burned through me. I hated being so helpless. Merri was out there with God knew what chasing her down, and all I could do was sit here and stew. No way. That was not acceptable. “We don’t know how to find her, so we just do nothing? That’s fucking ridiculous!”
“What do you suggest, Sin? That we roam the city streets and call her name like she’s a lost cat?” Chaos asked.
“Maybe. It would be better than just waiting for the world to end.”
No one responded, and all I could do was sigh and flop back in my chair, staring up at the ornate ceiling of the billiards room.
“If we had another witch, we could try a locator spell,” I grumbled after a minute.
“And where are we going to find one of those? The supermarket? The yellow pages? We’re as likely to find a needle in a haystack,” Malice drawled.
“A needle would be easier.”
I shot a scathing look at Grim. He wasn’t helping either. “There have to be some covens around who can help.”
“Where?” Malice demanded, throwing his hands up. “Anyone sane has gone to ground. We don’t exactly have a well-established network to rely on for access to information. So how do we suss out someone who doesn’t want to be found?”
He could have been talking about Merri or the witches.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had a lot of experience with people wanting to have nothing to do with me. Usually I have to push them away.”
“Fucking incubi,” Chaos said under his breath.
“You’re just jealous.”
“I’m really not.”
“Stop fighting or I’ll send you to your room,” Grim snarled, fed up with all the bickering.
Frankly, so was I. I was crawling out of my damn skin just sitting around waiting for an answer to fall into our laps. And watching everyone around me sink further into their own personal pity parties wasn’t helping.
“Great idea. That sounds a lot more productive than staying here in this room looking at you three. At least there I can take a fucking nap.”
Without waiting for anyone to acknowledge me, I stormed out of the room and beelined for the stairs. Moving felt good; it gave my body something to do. A way to channel the excess energy pounding through my veins.
“Stop fighting or I’ll send you to your room,” I muttered, adopting a pretentious British accent for the full effect. “Fucking Grim. Who does he think he is, my dad? I’ll go to my room, but not because you suggested it.”
Did I sound like a petulant teenager? Sure. But it was warranted. Didn’t they miss her like I did? Weren’t they sick with worry over our girl being out there alone? Every second that passed was one more opportunity for Lucifer to get his hands on her.
“Fuck.”
Almost of their own accord, my steps slowed as I neared Merri’s door.
Without talking about it, the four of us all sort of decided to leave her room alone, like it was some sort of weird fucking shrine.
As if keeping the door closed would somehow make her disappearance less obvious.
Well, fuck that. It wasn’t working anyway.
I turned the knob and stood on the threshold, my heart aching as I breathed in her lingering scent. It was already fading, and that fucking hurt.
She’d left her bed unmade, the pillow still dented where she’d lain. Exactly as it had been when I first discovered she wasn’t there.
“Dammit, kitten, why didn’t you just give us time to get our heads right?” I whispered as I moved deeper into her space. “Did you leave any clues for me? Anything that might help me get to you?”
I wandered over to the bed, just wanting to be close to something that she’d touched.
I ran my fingers over the cool linens, a heavy sigh escaping me as I did.
Even though I knew better, that Merri wasn’t magically going to waltz into the room or just appear beside me, I climbed into her bed and pulled her pillow into my arms, squeezing my eyes shut and breathing in as much of her as I could.
I’d hoped she might visit my dreams last night, that subconsciously she missed me enough to seek me out. Sadly, no matter how much I wanted it, she hadn’t appeared. Who would feed her now? Some random prick who was none the wiser?
The only silver lining was that I was pretty sure Merri wouldn’t break her No Sex With Humans rule.
Unless she gets so hungry her succubus forces the issue.
A shudder of pure revulsion rolled through me. I fucking hated the idea of Merri with anyone but us. It was wrong. Like pineapple on pizza wrong. But she had no choice in the matter after a certain point. Her hunger eventually would take over. That was where we differed.
Though I was going to have to feed eventually. And without her here, my options were bleak as hell.
I’d never invaded someone else’s dreams to get the sustenance my body required.
Until Merri’s nocturnal visits started, I hadn’t even known it was an option.
I simply siphoned from the people around me.
Bustling cities were always full of lust-addled creatures I could snack on without leaving a trace.
The apocalypse changed the rules of the game, though. Cities were no more. Any large groups of people would be in hiding, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure lust was the last thing on their minds. If push came to shove, I might have to test out the dream thing.
“Oh, fuck. Sinclair, you idiot.” I smacked my palm against my forehead.
“You’re an incubus. You can dreamwalk with her.
She doesn’t have to run the show all the time.
And the ladies appreciate a man who takes initiative.
She’s probably been waiting for me to shoot my shot, and I’m over here totally fumbling the ball. ”
Closing my eyes, I burrowed deeper underneath the covers and took a few centering breaths. Then I waited.
And kept waiting.
Okay, how did she kick-start these things? Should I think of her? Think of her naked? Think of us naked?
All that did was make me hard.
Fuck.
Come to think of it, I probably should have asked her some technical questions about how the dreamwalks worked.
I’d been more wrapped up in reaping the benefits than trying to recreate them myself, and now it was too late.
She was gone, and the only other succubus I knew familiar with the practice was Lilith.
And it wasn’t exactly like I could call her up for an assist.
Why didn’t anyone send me to incubus school? There was a lot to learn, and apparently no one taught me anything useful.
I adjusted my position in the bed a few more times and tried to calm my racing thoughts. Those couldn’t be very conducive to conjuring a line to my Merri. If she was out there—which she absolutely was—I’d find her. I didn’t have any other option.
Somewhere between my spiraling thoughts and my getting comfortable, my breaths evened out and my mind started to drift.
Instead of falling into a dream, like I assumed I usually did, this time I just sort of floated in this hazy pink cotton candy type realm.
It wasn’t clouds per se, but it wasn’t not clouds. It was like a veil, maybe?
A flicker of lavender lightning flashed in the distance, calling my focus there. Someone was in the mist, I could feel it, feel them calling to me.
“Merri?” I whispered, following the pull of their consciousness.
Time and distance had no meaning here. I simply thought about going to the lavender flicker, and I was there.
Or I guess here.
In the middle of a . . . tea party?
An enormous stuffed octopus sat at the head of a long table, which was decorated with an array of cupcakes and cookies, jars of Skittles and gummy worms, and a tureen filled with what looked suspiciously like tomato soup.
That was quite the combination. My stomach hurt just thinking about it.
Before I stepped any closer, a small child’s voice floated through the air.
“Mister Wiggles, don’t ignore our new friend.”
As one, the half a dozen other stuffed creatures at the table turned and locked eyes with me. But not human or animal-like eyes. That would be acceptable. These were creepy glass and, in some cases, overly large button eyes. Then Mister Wiggles turned and reached out for me with one long tentacle.
I sucked in a horrified breath and noped myself the fuck out of there.
I don’t know what the hell that was, but that was no dream. That was a damn nightmare.
Shuddering as I blinked my eyes open, I took a moment to pull myself together. Kids had the most terrifying brains.