Moon Rise Ch. 05

"And then I grabbed all of my shit, and came the fuck home!" I wailed into the phone.

"Wow." Angelina curled up on the couch, her chin on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs a she regarded me. She skewered a smoked oyster with tip of a very sharp nail and popped it into her mouth. I tried not to make a face. She fastidiously licked her finger like the pampered housecat she was. "And you just... bailed?"

"Lina, the boy was glowing."

"And, Tempi, you wanted to eat him. In more ways than one." I shut my eyes tight and tried not to let the very graphic image of what she was insinuating enter my mind. Me on my knees, lips parted... unbuttoning his pants... I gave myself a full body shake.

"Damnit, Lina!" She skewered another oyster on a claw and smiled at me serenely, like the proverbial canary-fed cat. She was my best friend and she knew full well what she'd caused to happen in my malleable little mind. She nommed the little smoked crustacean and continued to watch me with her emerald green eyes as only a feline can.

"When was the last time any Crypti, man or woman, did it for you, T? How long? A few hundred years?"

I felt myself immediately crawl inside my emotional walls, because I knew full well how long it had been. And it had not been the best experience. "I was very young" I admitted softly. "And it was a bad relationship from the go. I should have known better than to think it wise to get involved with someone too much like myself."

"A demon of depravity and an incubus are not synonymous, T," Lina said seriously, all pretense of lightheartedness leaving her eyes. "And call him what you want, but he was a demon. He wasn't even raised entirely on this plane. But when you have dual citizenship in Edom..." She stopped suddenly, realizing what she had just said and I arched a brow at her. "Sorry, T."

My mother literally lived between this plane and Edom. I often questioned how much of the demonic existed in her from how long she spent off-realm... whenever she came back, she seemed less and less compassionate, less... well, human. Her concern for seeing to the safety and wellbeing of humans definitely was secondary to the needs of her own people. Humans were, as far as I had ever understood, food first, pets second, but never anything of equality. It was never a viewpoint we agreed on, and often caused tension. My sisters had all agreed with her in varying degrees. But now that it was just me... and I was the furthest afield from how she believed, our relationship was... well, strained was polite. But I was a succubus... and I honestly didn't know much about my Dad's family. I mean, I assume he was human or some generic form of Crypti. Potentially a magic user, given my penchant for spellwork and potionmaking. But Mother wasn't known for her monogamy. And mostly, I had been raised by my sisters until I was old enough to strike out on my own.

"It's fine, Lina." I said softly, making a shooing gesture, as if to sweep it away. "I have to ask you... when we were at The Nest the other night, did you remember the band that played?"

"Sure! I was shocked that they let them play on a Mix night. I mean, it's one thing when it's Closed, and just the Crypti patrons, but with humans!"

"That was my thought, too," I said softly, pacing about my small living room. "So, when they played, were you watching anything else?"

She laughed out loud and shook her head. "No, that Siren was good at her craft! I couldn't see anything but her! And you know me, T, I'm as straight as an arrow, and even I was wondering what she looked like without her clothes on!" I gave a small chuckle and smirked at the memory, fully acknowledging I had no reservations about wanting to see it, being not at all straight, myself. I got up and grabbed the file and handed it to her without a word. She opened it, and looked them over, her eyes going wide. She shuffled through them more than once, her snack forgotten as she tried to puzzle out the same things that I had come to realize earlier than day when I had first discovered this package waiting for me on my doorstep.

"Yeah," I said finally into the silence. "And I have no idea who I should talk to about this... it just appeared at the door this morning. No note about who to contact, no information whatsoever. Just this..."

"Well... Shit..." Lina stared at me eyes wide, looking stunned. I gave a wry twisted smile.

"So, I thought I'd go to game tonight and just try to get out of the crazy head space I've been in since I found that... and then this happens. And glowing boy or not, it's pretty damn coincidental he appears in my path on the same day as I get this... don't you think?"

"T, you sound super paranoid," Lina said in disapproval, returning to munching on her seafood hor d'ourves.

"And even if he's completely a coincidence," I said, citing my earlier justification for bailing on his offer of drinks. "My life has literally deteriorated into the insane. If he's really a nice guy, I don't want to bring this sort of crazy into his life!"

"Fair," Lina conceded. She got up and threw away the empty oyster can and stretched, yawning. "So what now? You gonna tell your mom?"

The noise I made must have been something, by the look on her face. Mostly, it felt like a scoff so epic that both my nose and throat got in on the action of making a noise halfway between a snort and a laugh. "Fuck no. Give Lilly a reason to interfere in my life? No, thank you. I'd rather have a bikini wax done with hydrochloric acid." Lina gave an appropriately horrified wince at the idea. "I plan to talk to Arachne tomorrow about her choice for that band. And see if there is any sort of cameras in the club that might help me find out where this person was taking pictures and see if I can find them."

"Sounds like a plan, T." Lina said. "I'm gonna crash. I have the early shift at work tomorrow." I nodded and watched as she shapeshifted into a massive ball of orange fur with a delightfully smooshed face. She padded over to the cat tree where she occasionally crashed, and crawled into the kitty hammock there and promptly fell asleep, snorting tiny little kitten snorgles of sleep. I sighed and went into our kitchen to open a bottle of wine, and stare blankly at those pictures until I finally trudged into my own bedroom and flopped into my freshly made bed and passed out, cold and alone, trying to forget the last time I had slept here with Keith.