Succubus Takes Manhattan (31 page)

“There are rituals where sex is central,” Marten countered, staring right at me. “As a succubus, you are at the center of one of them, but there are many more.”

“Yes, but not demon calling,” Meph said as he entered. “That has always required a period of celibacy that lasts from a few days to a few years.”

Meph looked amazing. He had not only showered and changed into jeans, but had changed his face and hair subtly so that he looked younger and more dynamic (and slightly less frightening) than he did in New York.

Marten shrugged. “I have said that I am ready. That should be sufficient.”

“What happens if he isn’t all, ummm, prepared?” Nathan asked me.

There was a lovely flower arrangement on the coffee table, huge orange and brilliant yellow tropical flowers that looked like exotic animals. I bent over to inhale their heady, overly sweet scent. “He could die,” I said, keeping my voice light and casual. “He could be eaten by the demon he calls, he could be torn apart by enemies in the World of Formation, he could fail to rise through the planes and be trapped in the illusion.”

“Which means?” Nathan was urging me on. I don’t think it was so much an academic interest in magic as it was a hope that this other strong, virile, vigorous man who had a great deal of my attention would be undone. Suddenly I felt embarrassed by Nathan and had a tug of tenderness for Marten’s maturity and compassion in handling my ex.

“Which means he would be locked in a lunatic asylum until Hell collected his soul,” Mephistopheles commented dryly. “Marten has been doing magic for a while; he knows the risks.”

“I thought we could work here instead of my place, if you do not mind,” Marten continued, his face carefully bland. “The incense, you understand . . .”

And the possible destruction of property. I understood too well.

“So when do we get started?” I asked with forced cheer. I wanted this done, I wanted it over with, I hated the way Marten and Nathan seemed to be sniping for advantage. I didn’t believe that Marten was an Interpol agent either. That was just more of Nathan trying to score against a rival.

“We can’t do anything until after dark,” Mephistopheles announced. “So we will go to dinner. I’m glad to say we were able to get a reservation at the best restaurant in town.”

I hid my smile. Trust Meph!

And he wasn’t joking. Bistro M used to be Chez Mathilde, always a favorite but now turned so elegantly modern that it would have gotten notice in New York. From the gravity fountain outside to the deep plushy seats in the bar, it was spare and modern but comfortable and even lush. In the dining room, framed flat-screens cycled through great works of classical art (heavy on the Dutch masters) in a blend of modern and postmodern that would make my head spin if I thought about it too hard. Someone should do that in New York and invite writers from
The New Yorker
to engage in some semiotic deconstruction. Which might be almost as delicious as the meal we were served.

So we ate. We ate extravagantly well. Crisp fried goat cheese with mango chutney and Asian duck salad, and an asparagus soup with hazelnuts to start. For a main course I chose the grouper because it came in a coconut sauce and Nathan had the same, Meph had the veal, and Marten had no choice at all—by the rules of high magic he was stuck with the vegetarian entrée. Which turned out to be a very tempting-looking wild mushroom risotto. He wasn’t about to get any sympathy for a meal like that. A bottle of Pinot Grigio with some slight effervescence perfectly complemented my fish, though Marten didn’t touch the wine.

The entire dinner had the air of being a last meal for the condemned. Still, it was not too shabby for being a ritual fast, and I had to admit that I found Marten’s restraint really hot, all the more so for being underplayed. Magicians are sexy. I always thought it was because I was a demon and there is something particularly delicious about the souls of those humans who spend so much of their lives studying and struggling to call—us. But it was more than that, I realized. Magicians talk a lot about discipline and focus, but I’d never seen it in quite such high relief. Marten the omnivore eating vegetarian dishes and avoiding alcohol without complaint was far more a turn-on than he was when he ordered what he liked and joined in imbibing the wine.

Though that was only the outward sign to confirm my knowledge that this very sexy man hadn’t had sex in—I didn’t know how long. But anything more than a few nights I thought would have required extreme will-power, beyond what I would have considered even reasonably possible. But he had done it, he must have in order to perform the ritual. He had not had sex—maybe since he had last seen me.

That thought was more delicious than our dessert.

Marten refrained from joining us in splitting a crème brûlée and a chocolate cake with a dark liquid center. He made do with a fruit cup, with a show of enthusiasm that made it appear this was his free choice and not a requirement. On top of the celibacy, that was so sexy that I wanted to rip his clothes off immediately.

Meph, as always, ordered the cheese plate.

It was dark by the time we finished and we walked the few blocks between the restaurant and the hotel even though I was wearing four-inch heels. Meph puffed on a cigar as we took the short stroll, and no one talked. We’d run out of chat and really no one wanted to discuss what Marten was about to do.

As we walked, Marten seemed to retreat into himself. He didn’t look at me, didn’t give the appreciative glances that I had come to expect from him. He didn’t accept one of Meph’s cigars, didn’t respond to any of Nathan’s remarks.

Finally we got to the suite and Nathan turned directly to Marten and asked, “Okay, what do we do?”

Marten told us to clear the living room, get the furniture out and make things open. He directed that we set up one of the side tables just to the north of center of the room, cover it and lay out his magical weapons. That seemed rather interesting since magicians usually do not like others touching their tools. On the other hand, Mephistopheles probably knows more about setting a ritual altar than any four ceremonialists put together.

“And what will you be doing?” I asked softly.

“My job,” he answered.

But I knew what he was going to do. Demons have to know the basics of the rituals in which we can be summoned, if only to know if that magician has the right to call us and when we can break the hold. If a magician has not observed the correct fast, has indulged in any of the pleasures of the senses, or has not prepared every element of the ritual with full focus and intent, then he is fair game.

So I knew that tonight Marten would start with a bath in still water, infused with demon-specific herbs (in this case, I would expect vervain, nettles, maybe dragon’s blood root and possibly belladonna or poppy or cacao leaves) and sealed with magical sigils. After the bath he would anoint himself with ritually prepared oil specific to the working and possibly the astrological conditions, and then dress in only a simple robe tied with a cord around the waist.

I thought of this as I heard the bath run and smelled incense. Nathan had done most of the heavy lifting and Meph had set up the altar. The long embroidered gold gauze cloth lay over shimmering white satin. These must have come in Marten’s bag, probably wrapped around the long sword and the chalice that Meph had arranged. I found a bottle of Perrier in the mini fridge and poured it into the elaborate silver goblet covered with repoussé roses and lilies. I studied it for a moment; it was beautiful, and if I remembered my lessons correctly roses stood for desire and lilies for knowledge. A very small brazier held a charcoal already lit and turning slightly gray at the edges. With what must have been a demitasse spoon I scattered fragrant resins and herbs—myrrh, balm of Gilead, cedar—over the coal.

Meph set up another much smaller altar in the north. This one he covered with a white pillowcase, and on it he laid a book and another candle. This was the demon altar, where we hoped Raven would materialize.

At that point, Marten came in, fully prepared in his robe and insignia. And even though there was nothing designer about it, he cut a dashing figure. The robe itself was silk in a blue so dark that it looked black except where it rippled and caught a stray photon from the candles. The silk was very thin and clung enough to accentuate his athletic build. Around his waist was a dark silvery-black cord, and a pewter lamen hung around his neck. His hair, still damp from the bath, clung to his neck and the ends, which had started to dry, curled over his shoulders.

In a word, yum. Marten was quite a delicious specimen in street clothes. Robed and ritually intent (not to mention ritually pure), he was irresistible. What is sexier than this already very sexy man who has gone for weeks without any sex—just for me? Who has fasted? Who has concentrated his will? Devastating. No Hellspawn could resist him.

I think I was quivering with desire when I saw him clothed in the power of his will. Because the center of all ceremonial magic is the trained, focused will of the practitioner. I’m not even sure if he saw us—nothing could break his concentration.

“Can we watch?” Nathan asked.

Marten did not react at all. Perhaps he hadn’t even heard the question.

“Not a good idea,” Meph replied. “If an angry demon gets out of the triangle, she could tear you to pieces.”

“But it’s not supposed to be an angry demon. We’re saving her,” I said. Truth was, I wanted to see, too.

“Hmmm,” Meph said. And then he whispered very softly and herded Nathan with me back into a corner of the dining room. The table acted as a barricade and I felt safe when Meph threw up a wall of energy between us and the ritual space Marten was creating. So even if the demon did get out (always a possibility) and breach Marten’s defenses (which, given the way I was reacting to what he was creating would take a whole lot more power and training than someone studying in the Third Level could have achieved), it wouldn’t be able to get to us. Or maybe would find refuge here behind this wall with the ever-protective and -powerful Mephistopheles.

Marten began with the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, the first thing every apprentice and wannabe magician masters (or attempts to master). Only performed by a true Ritualist, it was powerful and elegant. The chants vibrated and called the protective presences for each of the cardinal directions, sealing us from harm. The pentagrams blazed from his fingers in each quarter, the entire space quivered and became something different, something set apart.

Then Marten began to set up specifically to call a demon. He drew a triangle around the small altar with a fat piece of yellow chalk. Then he picked up the sword and drew the triangle again, etheric brilliant violet energy pouring from the sharp blade. He followed with the censor and the chalice in turn, binding the holding area not only with the four elements, but in all four Worlds of Creation as well.

Truth was, I was just a little bit impressed. He’d not only mediated the Worlds but created a reception for a demon that would be a prison as stout as Alcatraz. I shivered a bit, thinking of how it could contain me as easily as Raven or any other demon who might manifest itself.

Then Marten cast the circle of protection that almost touched but did not actually abut the triangle. The magician does that to protect himself in case the demon does break the bonds, when under most circumstances the first instinct of the demon would be to tear the magician into as many bits as a shredder in a casino. So the worker stays behind two barricades and never bridges the gap. Never never never. They are all taught that a cunning demon will play docile and wait until the magician invites him or her into his circle and then wreak havoc.

Protections completed, he raised the sword in salute and began a long summoning in that particularly bad, archaic Latin beloved of Hell. I never liked invocations and this one was particularly long and a bit over the top with the sycophancy. I had to work really hard not to giggle.

Nathan, beside me, was saucereyed. He had never seen actual magic before, not like this. He’d seen what we’d bollixed up in my apartment, but this was something different, and it was in a language I didn’t think he could understand.

“What’s he saying?” Nathan whispered so softly that I could barely catch his words.

“It’s an invocation, and a really long one. Lots of flattery. They think that demons like a lot of flattery,” I told him.

“You don’t?” he asked, half teasing.

“Only when it’s sincere,” I replied. And I meant it.

But the restraint of the practitioner, oh the restraint—that smelled more enticing than thick steak sizzling on the grill in September, sweeter than two dozen roses, more irresistible than a private sale at Barneys. As he chanted the words of invocation it was not the silly statements that flooded my consciousness, but the desire behind them. A desire so deep, so powerful, that this ridiculously good-looking hunk had not had sex, had not even masturbated, for weeks. Just in anticipation of this moment. Of
me.

Well, it felt like me.
Down, girl.
That was the point. The whole ritual was geared to create precisely this effect in any demon in the area, any demon who could hear the summoning. Which, supposedly, was pointed to only one demon in particular, but I was here in the background and I couldn’t help it.

Nor could Meph. Glancing over I could see him quivering, his face taut with anticipation. He had to have known that it would hurt like this to watch. Meph wanted to throw himself at the magician, into his circle, into his prepared prison even, for the chance to touch and savor that yearning soul. And Meph is mostly straight.

Magic is made of the material of the soul. That they, the humans have, that we, the demons, desire to touch with all the aching agony of eternity. We serve On High, we serve forever, and yet we are always waiting outside. And here, offered before us, is the whiff, the taste of that which all Creation desires.

The center of the ritual is the Offering. Because Marten didn’t do things halfway, he didn’t stint. If he put something on the table it would be something of value, something that I would be insane to refuse.