The Vortex Read online

  From the background comes the low baritone of Jax’s voice. “Is that Adie? I’m almost done with the repairs.”

  Tally’s voice becomes distant, like she put her hand over the speaker. “I’m the one on the phone. I will tell her.”

  His response is too muffled to understand before she uncovers the phone.

  “Jax is amazing.” Happiness drips through the line. “The floor is almost back to new!”

  “That’s great.” My shoulders relax.

  “And the imps have the store practically sparkling!” Her voice lowers. “I want to kidnap them to clean my house. The men are terrible at house work.”

  I lean my head back against the chair and laugh. “Please don’t kidnap my imps.”

  “I wouldn’t really.” After a long pause, she adds, “Well, maybe just one. I believe Kelly is enamored by Jax’s handiwork.”

  “I’m glad to hear he’s interested in something.” The burly imp took on a form that looks more at place in a biker gang than a bakery. “I’ll have to tell Julian that he should look for apprenticeships for construction when our contract is up.”

  “I think that would be an excellent idea.” Tally’s voice picks up volume once more. “Did you get everything settled?”

  “Yeah, I should be back there soon.” I rub one bare foot over the other as I glance around the office for a clock. “What time is it?”

  “Almost six.” Tally responds instantly.

  “Well, shit.” I release a deep sigh. “Can you make sure the imps are ready for when Philip picks them up?”

  “Yes, I can!”

  “And can you confirm what time he’ll be dropping them back off tomorrow?” I really need to go to the store and replace my missing phone.

  “Yep!” Muffled noises come from the background. “What time would you like to come in tomorrow?”

  I swivel back and forth in the seat. “Can you be in at six?”

  “Are you sure you don’t need me in earlier to help with prep?”

  “That would make a really long day for you.” Being open from two in the afternoon to three in the morning means little time for sleep for me. I need to get Tally trained so we can take turns opening and closing. She’s confident in the kitchen already, but I need to see how she works with customers.

  “I can come in at three!” Her energy fairly vibrates through the phone. “It will give you time to take an extended break!”

  My shoulders sag with relief. “Thank you, Tally.”

  “Should I replace the bowl of milk and add a fresh cupcake?”

  “No, I’ll do that when I get back to the shop.” I lean my elbows on the desktop “Am I silly for hoping a Domovoi will move in?”

  “It’s a wonderful bakery. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming,” she reassures me. “If there’s an unhappy one nearby, it will come.”

  I sigh. “Thank you.”

  A quiet ping fills my ears and drowns out whatever Tally says next. Pulling on my earlobe, I frown. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Jax is almost finished. Should we wait for your return?”

  “No, just lock up. I won’t stay long.” The ping comes again, off to my left, and I swivel around to stare at the wall of Kellen’s office. “I gotta go.”

  “Have a good night!” she chirps brightly. “I will see you in the afternoon!”

  The ping comes again, and I disconnect before I blindly set the phone back on the desk. The sound rattles around in my mind, tugging at me to follow it to its source.

  “Adie, you okay?” Kellen’s voice makes me jump, and I whip around to stare at him. His brows pinch together with concern. “Did things go gray again?”

  “No.” I lurch to my feet and circle the desk to take the clothes from his hands. My shirt and clogs lay on top of a new pair of black slacks. He must have gone back up to the roof to grab them. I wobble a little as I balance on one foot, then the other, to tug the black slacks on. They sag around my waist, but stay up. Hurriedly, I tug my shirt over my head. “I need to go.”

  His hands cup my elbows to stop me. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “I just—” I spin as the ping comes again, then force myself back around. “I just need to go check on something.”

  “With the bakery?” He bends to set my clogs on the ground. “Did something happen again?”

  “The bakery’s fine.” Too distracted to worry about socks, I shove my bare feet in. “Jax is fixing the floor.”

  Reaching past him, I yank open the door.

  Kellen’s arm drops to bar the exit. “Adie, wait. I’m not sure you should be driving right now.”

  I glance from his arm to his face. “No time. Gotta go.”

  Energy floods my limbs, and I hyper-speed beneath his arm and out to the hallway before he can stop me. The back door crashes against the alley wall, and I veer away from my car, heading east. It urges me to move faster, a persistent morse code of desperation inside my mind.

  All that new energy I took from Kellen floods through me, and the city passes in a blur of noise, light, and smells. The streets hold the clean scent of damp earth and cold concrete, of being washed clean by the storm. The gutters overflow with debris too big to be swept down into the city’s filtration system.

  As I near, the streets become familiar, and I realize I’m heading toward the local high school where the ping must resonates from.

  When I reach outskirts of the first building, I find it abandoned for the day. No cars fill the parking lot as I race through it on a trajectory for the gymnasium. There, I stop in front of the double metal doors at the bottom of three steps.

  The ping quiets, sensing me nearby, but I can’t see the little ball of energy that waits to be born into a succubus or incubus. It lives in the place between the human world and dreamland, half formed and waiting to be collected, to be nurtured into reality through time and regular energy feedings.

  I shouldn’t be surprised that Kellen’s storm and over-stoked teenage hormones would birth one of my kind tonight.

  Slowly, I creep up the steps, my wings shivering against my spine. Will one of my cousins follow the call? When I circle the top of the stairs, I catch a flicker of pale blue light before it vanishes.

  My hand lifts to brush through the air. It vibrates with energy, just out of reach. Fingers spread, I try to give it some of the power taken from Kellen, to feed it and help it grow, but the energy sticks to my skin like static. The new life can’t latch onto it, so the energy wiggles back beneath my skin, determined to stay inside me. I try again to force the energy out, but when I finally succeed, it only hangs in the air, unable to connect with the new life.

  It exists more in dreamland right now, not strong enough to break through the barrier into the human plane. And my own reckless desire to escape left me unable to cross over to help now.

  But others of my kind can.

  “I’ll be back,” I whisper to the air where I last saw the flicker of energy. “Don’t give up.”

  Turning, I push power back into my legs and hyper-speed to HelloHell Deliveries. Past the front entrance and up the stairs, I slam open the door to Julian’s business.

  At first, I think no one’s there. But as a heartbeat passes, and then another, terrified imps peek up over their cubicles, brown eyes wide with fear.

  “Julian!” I yell as I storm inside. The frosted door to his office lays dark, without a hint of red short-shorts in view. “Julian, where are you?”

  An imp scurries into the aisleway, hunched low to make itself smaller. Stringy brown hair hangs around its face, and the stripper clothes it wears have wrinkles, as if it’s worn them for a couple days, if not longer. Its long fingers curl and uncurl against its flat chest. One of the new arrivals that hasn’t taken on a human form yet.

  Its voice comes out squeaky. “Boss is out right now.”

  I glare down at it. “Call him.”

  It cringes. “Boss didn’t leave a number.”

  “Where’s P
hilip?” Then I check the clock and realize he must be on his way to my bakery right now. “Where’s Julian’s current job?”

  It crouches down on the floor, narrow arms over its head. “We don’t know.”

  Swearing, I hyper-speed out of there and go to the next logical place: my old apartment. I know my cousins wanted it. Surely, one will be there. But when I reach it and pound on its door, no one answers. Frustrated, I try the passcode for the lock, but it refuses to open. Of course, it was changed before to keep me out.

  My heart sinks as I consider going to Landon, but he’s too far away. I’d need to get my car, and by the time I reach his house, the sun will have set, taking with it the hope of a new life.

  I lean against the door, the hard wood cold against my heated skin. “Why isn’t anyone home?” I whisper to the empty apartment. Tears thicken my throat as I knock again, quieter this time, in the hope someone will open up. But no one comes.

  At a loss for what else I can do, I return to the outside steps of the school’s gymnasium. The little ball of energy feels fainter now, its presence on this plane weakening the longer it waits.

  When I lift my hand to skim through the air where I last saw it, my skin barely tingles. “I’m so sorry. I can’t find anyone to help.”

  It gives a quiet ping that makes my eyes water.

  Unable to do more, I drop onto the top step and fold my arms around my knees. Cold water seeps into the seat of my slacks, but I don’t care. Over the bleachers in the football field, I watch the sun creep toward the horizon as the ping becomes quieter and quieter.

  No one else comes.

  When the sun finally disappears from the sky, the last of the energy that created a new life dissipates, and the ringing in my mind stops.

  Muscles stiff, I stand and scrub the dried tear tracks from my cheeks. My spine stiffens as I make my way toward the football field and the equipment shed that waits there. Innocuous to humans, it acts as a portal to the demon clerk’s office, which also holds the library.

  I’m done with playing at being a demon. I need to figure out what’s wrong with me so I never again have to sit and watch while another of my kind dies.

  Choices

  Tingles from the portal course over my skin as I walk through the open library doors. I’m glad I didn’t have to swipe my card for entry because I don’t have it with me. It waits at the bakery with my purse, where I left it when I ran to Kellen’s aid. I find the library once more changed. Tonight, it looks like the set of a noir movie, black and white with deep shadows, and bright slashes of dramatic light.

  The checkout counter, a reflective black stretch of plastic, bars my entry to the bookcases beyond. The only color in the room comes from a little red scooter, propped up against one side of the counter. The librarian swivels away from her computer monitor to study me from beneath the winkles of her sagging eyelids.

  My heart pounds with trepidation as I walk up to the desk. “Hello, Librarian.”

  “Adeline Boo Pond.” Her acknowledgement comes with the rasp of gravel, hard and unpleasant against my ears. “What can I do for you today?”

  “My studies aren’t going so well.” I reach for the edge of the counter, then flinch back at its icy, slime covered texture. Tendrils of ooze string from my fingers in sticky strands.

  Her razor sharp talons click together. “You don’t say.”

  Surreptitiously, I wipe my hand on my borrowed slacks. “The translations are hard to understand.”

  “Well, of course they are.” She smiles with sharp, pointed teeth. “The books here aren’t meant for humans, and you’re not quite a demon, are you?”

  “Excuse me?” My spine stiffens with affront. No matter how lacking my education may be, I still came from the same plane she did, though many many…many years after her.

  “You’re looking too much with your eyes and not enough your mind.” She reaches out and gently taps my forehead. It feels like the light press of knife against my skin, and when she pulls back, a drop of crimson hovers on the tip of her talon.

  My hand lifts to my face and comes back smeared with black blood. “Does this have to do with being able to read people’s desires?”

  “Yes.” Her black tongue flicks out, and she licks the blood away. “And no.”

  My wings rustle with irritation. “Can I get a more solid answer than that?”

  “Lovely weather we had today, don’t you think?” She reaches beneath the counter and pulls up a thick tome.

  As she thumps it down on the slime covered desktop and flips it open, the leather binding creaks with age. On the inside cover, the sigil of rolling clouds gives off a subtle white light. Kellen’s book. She flips through the pages until she reaches the back, then spins the book around for me to see.

  A new, etched image fills one entire page. The top of a building surrounded by spinning clouds and lightning. At the vortex of the storm, two small figures struggle on the rooftop.

  “This could have gone a completely different way today.” She snaps the book closed. “You’re on the right path, but you’re moving too slow. The higher-ups are going to take notice soon.”

  I swallow thickly. “What happens if the higher-ups take notice?”

  “You’re playing with destruction demons. If Kellen wrecked the city today, the higher-ups would have decided to call them home, and they won’t return to the demon realm quietly.” She hops off her stool with a grunt and disappears from view. A moment later, the scooter hums to life, and she comes zipping around the counter.

  She cruises past me and down a long hallway to the right I hadn’t noticed before. Uncertain, I jog to catch up. Doors line the hallway, wooden on the bottom, with large windows on the top. Some have scrollwork etched into the glass, names of businesses I don’t recognize.

  She screeches to a stop in front of an unlabeled door, her head swiveling around on her neck to stare back at me.

  I point at the door. “You want me to go in there?”

  Her head tilts to one side. “It’s where you should be.”

  Hesitant, I grasp the gray knob and push the door open. Wisps of gray fog creep out of the opening to circle around my ankles. Beyond, a heavy moon hangs in the sky, illuminating a city that mirrors the human one, only made from thick mist. Bright pops of color light the way to sleeping humans, ripe for feeding.

  I stumble away, my back slamming into the wall. “That’s dreamland.”

  “So observant.” Her scooter spins around until she faces me from the front once more. “Go on, get back to where you belong, and finish growing up.”

  Tears sting my eyes. “I don’t want to go back to dreamland.”

  “Such a cry baby,” she hisses. “You don’t want to be in dreamland, you don’t want to feed on humans, you don’t want to feed on demons who are begging you for it. What do you want?”

  “I want to be left alone to live.” More gray fog pours out of the open door, and I scurry away from it, worried it will drag me back whether I want it to or not. “I want to run my bakery and make humans happy.”

  Her head lifts as she drags in a deep breath through her hooked nose. “Your selfishness let one of your own die tonight.”

  My shoulders hunch. “I know.”

  “Not that you’re ready to be a mentor.” Her fingers curl and uncurl around the handlebars of her scooter. “You have too much to learn to be tasked with training someone else.”

  “I know that.”

  “But you came anyway.”

  My spine stiffens. “I couldn’t leave it to die alone.”

  “You’re soft.” She tilts her head to the waiting doorway. “Go become a proper demon. Feed and kill and lose that pesky spark of humanity.”

  My hands curl into fists. “No.”

  “You’ll never be like your cousins, then.” She smacks her lips. “You’ll never be completely demonic.”

  My selfish cousins who suck humans dry then move onto their next conquest without any guilt. The demons
who leave a newborn succubus to die, when everyone within the city felt the ping of life. “I don’t want to be like them.”

  “Last chance.” Her grip tightens on the handlebars. “I won’t offer this again.”

  I lift my chin. “I’m not going back.”

  “Suit yourself.” The door slams shut without either of us laying a hand on it. “You lot are a pain in my ass.”

  Surprised, I stare down at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You sex demons that want to be different.” She spins her scooter around and zips down the hall, farther away from the front desk. “What happened to being happy with being evil?”

  I sprint to catch up. “Others of my kind have done the same?”

  “Enough to be annoying,” she grunts.

  “Who?”

  Her head swivels around, and her glare heats my skin. “Mind your own business.”

  “Then don’t bring it up!” I huff back.

  The wall curves, the doorways becoming fewer and farther between, until she comes to one that says Boo’s Boutique Bakery on the glass front.

  I stumble to a stop at her side and stare at it in confusion. “Is that my shop?”

  “No, it’s the museum of natural history,” she mutters. “Kids these days.”

  Arms loose at my sides, I continue to stare at the curling letters. “You brought me back home?”

  “A thank you will suffice.”

  “Thank you.” Numb, I reach for the gray handle, then pause to glance back at her. “So that’s it?”

  Her arms fold beneath her saggy breasts. “What, you want some words of encouragement?”

  “I don’t know…” I bite my lip, and my gaze drops to the charcoal carpet. “I still don’t know what to do.”

  “Don’t die.” Under my fingers, the knob turns on its own, and the door swings open. “And enjoy your party.”

  “Par— Wait!” I shout in panic as a large force picks me up and tosses me through the door.

  I bounce off the wall of the hall and crumple to my knees. When I lift my head, I see through the screen of my hair that light outlines the doorway to the attic stairs. As I watch, it fades back to normal.