Succubus Blues CHAPTER 2

The c only back jolted me to consciousness the next morning. Dim, murky miniature filtered in with my sheer curtains, signifying some freakishly early minute of arc. Around here, however, that amount of light could have indicated anything from sunrise to high noon. After four rings, I ultimately deigned to answer, accidentally knocking Aubrey bring egress of the bed. She landed with an indignant mhew and stalked cancelled to clean herself.Hello? Yo, Kincaid? nary(prenominal) My response came swift and certain. Im non approach path in.You dont pull down strikeing know Im press release to ask that.Of descriptor I know. Theres no other reason youd be calling me this early, and Im non going to do it. Its my day off, Doug.Doug, the other subordinate manager at my day job, was a pretty nice guy, exactly he couldnt keep a stove poker face or voice to save his life. His cool demeanor now gave way to desperation. E actuallyone called in nervous now, and now were strap ped. You have to do it.Well, Im sick too. Believe me, you dont want me there.Okay, I wasnt exactly sick, save I was as yet sporting a residual afterglow from being with Martin. Mortals would not see it as Duane had per se, but they would sense it and be drawn to it men and women a alike(p) with out even knowing why. My confinement today would prevent any foolish, lovesick behavior. It was very kind of me, unfeignedly.Liar. Youre never sick.Doug, I was already planning on approaching back tonight for the signing. If I work a shift today too, Ill be there all day. Thats sick and twisted.Welcome to my world, babe. We have no alternative, not if you really care about the fate of the store, not if you actually care about our customers and their happinessYoure losing me, cowboy.So, he continued, the question is, are you going to come here willingly, or do I have to qualifying oer there and drag you out of bed myself? Frankly, I wouldnt estimation the latter.I did a mental eye ro ll, chiding myself for the billionth conviction about living two blocks from work. His rambling about the bookstores suffering had been effective, as hed known it would. I operated under the mis taken belief that the place couldnt go bad without me.Well, rather than risk any more of your attempts at witty, sexual banter, I suppose Ill have to come over there. But Doug My voice saturnine hard.Yeah?Dont put me on the registers or anything.I heard faltering on his end.Doug? Im serious. non the main registers. I dont want to be or so a lot of customers.All right, he said at last. Not the main registers.Promise?I promise.A half hour later, I stepped outside my door to walk the two blocks to the bookstore. Long clouds hung low, darkening the sky, and a faint chill touched the air, forcing some of my fellow pedestrians to don a coat. I had opted for none, finding my khaki slacks and brown chenille sweater more than sufficient. The clothing, effective like the lip gloss and eye fiel d of operationr Id guardedly use this morning, were real I had not shape-shifted into them. I enjoyed the routine nature of applying cosmetics and co-ordinated articles of clothing, though Hugh would have claimed I was just being weird again.Emerald urban center Books &038 Caf? was a sprawling establishment, occupying almost a full block in Seattles Queen Anne neighborhood. It sat two stories high, with the cafe portion dominating a second-floor corner viewing the Space Needle. A cheerful green parasol hung over the main door, protecting those customers defermenting for the store to open. I walked round them and entered through a side door, using my staff key.Doug assaulted me before Id taken two steps inside. Its about time. We He paused and did a stunt man-take, reexamining me. Wow. You look really nice today. Did you do something different?Only a thirty-four-year-old virgin, I thought.Youre just imagining things because youre so happy Im here to fix your staffing problem. Wh at am I doing? run?I, er, no. Doug struggled to snap out of his haze, still looking me up and brush up in a way I embed disconcerting. His interest in dating me was no secret, nor was my continual rejection. Come on, Ill show you.I told you Its not the main registers, he promised me.What it turned out to be was the espresso counter in our upstairs cafe. Bookstore staff hardly ever subbed up here, but it wasnt unheard of.Bruce, the cafe manager, popped up from where hed been kneeling behind the counter. I oftentimes thought Doug and Bruce could be twins in a mixed-race, alternate-reality grade of way. two had long, scraggly ponytails, and both wore a good deal of flannel in tribute to the grunge era neither had fully recovered from. They differed in general in their coloring. Doug was Japanese-American, black- bulled with flawless skin Bruce was Mr. Aryan Nation, all fair hair and blue look.Hey Doug, Georgina, heralded Bruce. His eyes widened at me. Whoa, you look bully to day.Doug This is just as bad. I told you I didnt want any customers.You told me not the main registers. You didnt say anything about this one.I opened my mouth to protest, but Bruce interrupted. Come on, Georgina, I had Alex call in sick today, and Cindy actually quit. seeing my stony expression, he quickly added, Our registers are almost identical to yours. Itll be easy.Besides Doug raised his voice to a fair imitation of our managers assistant managers are supposed to be able to fill in for anybody around here. Yeah, but the cafe is still part of the store. Look, Ive got to go open. Brucell show you what you motif to know. Dont worry, itll be fine. He hastily darted off before I could bend again.Coward I yelled after him.It really wont be that bad, Bruce reiterated, not discretion my dismay. You just take the money, and Ill make the espresso. Lets practice on you. You want a white chocolate mocha? Yeah, I conceded. Everyone I worked with knew about that position vice. I usually managed to take down three of them a day. Mochas that was, not coworkers.Bruce walked me through the necessary steps, showing me how to mark up the cups and find what I needed to push on the registers touch-screen interface. He was right. It wasnt so bad.Youre a natural, he informed me later, handing over my mocha.I grunted in response and consumed my caffeine, approximateing I could handle anything so long as the mochas kept coming.Besides, this really couldnt be as bad as the main registers. The cafe probably did no business this time of day.I was wrong. Minutes after opening, we had a line of five people.Large latte, I repeated back to my first customer, carefully punching in the information.Already got it, Bruce told me, starting the beverage before I even had a chance to label the cup. I happily took the womans money and go on to my next order.A large skinny mocha. Skinnys just other word for nonfat, Georgina.I scrawled NF on the cup. No worries. We could do this. The next customer wandered up and stared at me, momentarily bedazzled. Coming to her senses, she shook her head and blurted out a torrent of orders.I need one small drool coffee, one large nonfat vanilla latte, one small double cappuccino, and one large decaf latte.Now I felt bedazzled. How had she remembered all those? And honestly, who ordered drip anymore?On and on the morning went, and patronage my misgivings, I soon felt myself perking up and enjoying the experience. I couldnt help it. It was how I worked, how I carried myself through life. I liked trying new things even something as banal as ringing up espresso. People could be silly, certainly, but I enjoyed working with the public most of the time. It was how I had stop up in customer service.And once I overcame my sleepiness, my inborn succuba charisma kicked in. I became the star of my own personal stage show, rag and flirting with ease. When combined with the Martin-induced glamour, I became downright irresistible. Whi le this did result in a number of proffered dates and pickup lines, it also saved me from the repercussions of any mistakes. My customers found no wrong with me.Thats all right, dear, one older woman assured me upon discovering Id accidentally ordered her a large cinnamon mocha quite of a nonfat, decaf latte. I really need to branch out into new drinks anyway.I smiled back winningly, hoping she wasnt diabetic.Later on, a guy came up carrying a copy of curing Mortensens The Glasgow Pact. It was the first sign Id seen of tonights momentous event.argon you going to the signing? I asked as I rang up his tea. Bleh. Caffeine-free.He studied me for a pregnant moment, and I braced myself for a pass. quite the guy said mildly, Yeah, Ill be there.Well, make sure you think up good questions for him. Dont ask the same ones everyone else does.What do you mean?Oh, you know, the usual. Where do you suffer your ideas from? and Are Cady and ONeill ever going to abide to contributeher? The guy con sidered this as I made change. He was cute, in a disheveled sort of way. He had brown hair with a reddish-gold fall to it, said gleam being more noticeable in the shadow of facial hair crossing his lower face. I couldnt quite decide if hed intentionally self-aggrandizing a beard or just forgotten to shave. Whatever it was, it had prominent in more or less evenly and, when combined with the bug Floyd T-shirt he wore, presented the image of a sort of hippie-lumberjack.I dont think the usual questions make them any less meaningful to the one doing the asking, he decided at last, seeming shy about contradicting me. To a fan, severally question is new and unique.He stepped aside so I could wait on another customer. I continued the conversation as I took the next order, unwilling to pass up the opportunity to discuss Seth Mortensen intelligently.Forget the fans. What about poor Seth Mortensen? He probably wants to grip himself each time he gets one of those. Impale is kind of a sac rosanct word, dont you think?Absolutely not. The guys brilliant. Hearing idiotic questions must bore him to tears.A bemused smile played across the mans mouth, and his steady brown eyes weighed me carefully. When he realized he was staring so openly, he glanced away, embarrassed. No. If hes out touring, he cares about his fans. He doesnt mind the repetitive questions.Hes not out touring for altruism. Hes out touring because the publicists at his publishing house are qualification him tour, I countered. Which is also a waste of time, by the way.He dared a look back at me. Touring is? You dont want to meet him?I tumefy, yes, of course I do. Its just, that okay. Look, dont get me wrong. I worship the ground this guy walks on. Im elicit to meet him tonight. Im dying to meet him tonight. If he wanted to carry me off and make me his love slave, Id do it, so long as I got advance copies of his books. But this touring thing it takes time. Time that would be better fagged writing the ne xt book. I mean, havent you seen how long his books take to come out?Yeah. Ive discover.Just then, a previous customer returned, complaining hed gotten caramel sirup instead of caramel sauce. Whatever that meant. I offered a few smiles and unfermented apologies, and he soon didnt care about the caramel sauce or anything else. By the time he left my register, the Mortensen fan guy was deceased too.When I finally finished my shift around five, Doug came to meet me.I heard some interesting things about your performance up here.I hear interesting things about your performance all the time, Doug, but you dont hear me qualification jokes about it.He bandied with me a bit more and finally released me to get ready for the signing, but not before Id made him humbly accommodate how much he owed me for my kindness today. Between him and Hugh, I was accruing favors all over the place.I practically ran the two blocks home, anxious to grab some dinner and figure out what I wanted to wear. M y exhilaration was growing. In an hour or so, Id be meeting my all-time favorite author. Could life get any better? Humming to myself, I took the stairs two at a time and produced my keys with a flourish that only I noticed or appreciated.As I opened the door, a hand short grabbed me and pulled me roughly inside, into the darkness of my apartment. I yelped in surprise and fear as I was shoved up against the door, slamming it shut. The lights burst on suddenly and unexpectedly, and the faint spirit of sulfur wafted through the air. Although the brightness made me wince, I could see well enough to recognize what was going on.Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off demon.