Succubs on Top

As soon as the door closed, I passed out.

CHAPTER 21

I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover of my life, and that's saying something.

It was actually the cold air that woke me, blowing in through the shattered windows and whipping the curtains around. Seattle had mild winters, but it was still November. I shape-shifted on a heavy sweater and then noticed that Sol's blood had not disappeared from my skin during last night's transformation, the blood had dried to fine, glittering red crystals on me and everything else. I picked up his discarded silk shirt and discovered it did a pretty good job at wiping them off.

The previous night was a blur, and I had trouble remembering the fine details. I supposed I could blame whatever mystery liquid I'd drank for that. Looking around at the wreckage brought a lot of the events back to me, and the rest I pieced together. Not wanting to linger in this place, I found my cell phone and called for a cab.

As I rode back into Seattle, I decided I wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep some more. My shift didn't start until later; Doug was opening. Wait. No, he wasn't. Doug was in a hospital bed. Sighing, I directed the driver to take me to the bookstore.

Three voice-mail messages waited for me when I arrived in the office. One was from the author we had doing a signing that night, E. J. Putnam. All was in order with his flight; he expected to be here as scheduled. The second message was Beth calling in sick. Jesus. Couldn't anyone stay healthy anymore? That put us down two people now. Warren wrapped up the messages, saying he'd be back from Florida later today and would stop in tonight. I decided to be mad at him out of sheer principle. I'd spent the last week dealing with chaos; he'd been golfing in eighty degree weather.

I got the store running and then staked out a register. Short-staffing will keep a person busy, at least. It gave me little time to reflect on last night's events. Or Doug. Or the fact that Seth hadn't come in today. Or my fight with Bastien.

'Are you Georgina?'

I looked up into the face of a pretty Japanese-American woman. Her face and build just barely crossed over into plumpness, and she wore her black hair in a high ponytail. Something about her smile seemed familiar.

'I'm Maddie Sato,' she explained, extending a hand. 'Doug's sister.'

I shook her hand, astonished. 'I didn't know Doug had a sister. '

Her smile quirked a little. 'Lots of them, actually. We're kind of spread out around the country. We all sort of do our own thing.'

'So you came to…see Doug?' I hesitated to bring up such a delicate subject, but why else would she be here?

She nodded. 'I've been with him this morning. He's doing great and said to tell you hello.'

That was the best news I could have received. 'He woke up.'

'Yes. He's grumpy and punchy but otherwise fine. He said he has some CDs in your office he wants. He asked if I could pick them up.'

'Sure, I'll show you,' I said, leading her toward the back. Wow. Doug's sister. 'How'd you find out about Doug?'

'Seth Mortensen called me.'

I stumbled and nearly walked into a display of gardening books. 'How do you know Seth?'

'I write for Womanspeak magazine. Seth had some questions about a feminist organization that he needed answered for his book, and Doug gave him my e-mail address about a month ago. So, we've been in touch a couple times. When Doug…got sick, Seth tracked down my number in Salem and called last night. '

Part of me felt a little jealous that Seth had an e-mail correspondence with her that I hadn't known about, but I immediately quashed such feelings. What he'd done had been terribly considerate. And typical of him. Quietly efficient and kind. I led Maddie into the office and found the CDs in a drawer.

'Did you drive up last night or this morning?'

She shook her head. 'Actually Seth picked me up.'

'I…what? In Salem? That's, like, four hours away.'

'I know. It was really nice. I don't have a car, so he drove right down after he called, got me in the middle of the night, and then brought me to Doug.'

My God. Seth had made an eight-hour round-trip last night. No wonder he wasn't here; he'd gone home to crash. That also meant he hadn't necessarily taken off from the hospital to get away from me. He'd done it to help Doug. A pleasant flutter spread through me at this, half of it relief, half of it a response to still more evidence of Seth's continuing decency and consideration of others.

Maddie left me her cell phone number and promised to send my good wishes to Doug. As she was leaving my office, Janice entered it.

'Hey Georgina, Lorelei Biljan's here.'

'Oh, okay. Wait.' I did a double take. 'You mean E. J. Putnam. '

'No. It's definitely Lorelei. E. J.'s a guy.'

'I know that,' I said. 'But her signing's a week from today. Putnam's is today. I had a message about it and everything.'

'I don't know. I just know she's here.'

A horrible sinking feeling built up in me. I followed Janice out and shook hands with a small, solidly built middle-aged woman. I'd seen Lorelei Biljan's pictures in her books. Everything was the same from her brown pixie haircut to her characteristic black clothing.

'I'm going to see some sights today but wanted to check in first,' she told me.

'Oh. Okay. Great.' I smiled thinly, willing myself to keep breathing.

We chatted a little bit more, and as soon as she was gone, I tore back to Paige's office and ransacked her desk. Sure enough, her schedules showed both authors coming in today. On the master staff calendar, however, she'd put them on separate days. Our own in-store posters also had them on separate days, but checking newspaper ads, I saw them again scheduled for the same day. Our website declared both appeared today, which meant we'd have fans of both here tonight.

Good grief. This was like some bad, clichéd sitcom. We had two dates for the dance.

I sat at Paige's desk and rubbed my temples. How had this happened? How had perfect, efficient Paige messed up? I quickly answered my own questions: because she had other things on her mind. She had an increasingly complicated pregnancy on her hands, one that had kept her out for almost three weeks now. A distraction like that would let anyone make mistakes. Unfortunately, I had to deal with them.

Andy stuck his head inside. 'Oh, hey, there you are. Bruce said to ask you if any of us can help in the café. They're short. And Seth just called the store's main line. Said to tell you he can't do the thing tomorrow. '

'Seth called?' I asked stupidly. So he wasn't asleep. And the 'thing' tomorrow had been a date to see a local Celtic band play at a pub. But he was cancelling. The noble reasons I had attributed to him for keeping away from me suddenly seemed less altruistic. 'Okay. Thanks.'

I stared into space. My world was falling apart around me. I wasn't speaking to the two men I cared about the most. I was in charge of a bookstore that didn't have enough people to run it. Two authors were coming tonight, each expecting to have center stage to promote their books. We didn't have room for that. And to top it all off, I felt like shit. The residual effects of that drug had left me with a wicked headache, and I hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep. Killing a god will really wear you out.

I had too much to do and not enough energy or willpower to do it. Let alone the means. I needed a miracle. Divine intervention. And as feasible as that might seem in my line of work, it probably wasn't going to happen. Unless…

Divine intervention?

I found my purse and pulled out one of the packets of ambrosia. Those weird crystals pulsed out at me as I