Completely nude, she slid onto the bed. Despite his lack of clothing, Jack’s temperature soared. Playfully, Crystal twirled a finger in the silk sheets.
“I love being naked,” she said, her gaze roaming across Jack’s chest. “It makes me think wicked thoughts.”
“Uh, what kind of wicked thoughts?” asked Jack, gulping. He was not accustomed to aggressive women, even in his dreams.
“You know,” said Crystal, crawling closer. Her huge breasts swayed with her every motion. “The very wickedest ones.”
Reaching over, she cupped his chin with one of her hands. Crystal’s skin burned hot against his flesh.
“You’re a handsome man, Jack. A very handsome, very desirable man.”
“Jack,” whispered the same familiar voice in his mind, louder this time. Angrily, he forced it away. Crystal needed all of his attention. She demanded it.
The dream girl was very close now. Her body exuded warmth. She radiated pure, unadulterated lust. Bending forward, she covered his mouth with hers.
The kiss seared his lips. Crystal’s tongue slipped between his teeth and darted about like a snake. One hand caressed his cheek while her other searched anxiously through the sheets. Crystal moaned passionately when she found what she wanted.
“I need you, Jack,” she whispered huskily, pushing him back on the bed. “I need you right now.”
Jack was in no position to argue. He had never felt so aroused in his entire life. Crystal’s naked body covered him like a sheet. She straddled him, her thighs pressed against his, her breasts jammed to his chest, her hot lips inches from his own.
“No more talk,” she declared, her eyes glowing with passion. “I’m ready for action.”
“Protection, Jack,” whispered the persistently annoying voice in his mind. “Protection.”
Hundreds of hours of TV ads, flyers, health lectures, and stem parental warnings worked their own sort of magic. “I need protection,” muttered Jack. “Can’t take chances with disease.”
Instinctively, he wriggled an arm free from Crystal’s embrace and over to the nightstand. Groping about, his fingers touched the familiar metal foil of a condom. Jack howled in unexpected pain. It felt as if he had grabbed a live electrical wire.
“Drop it,” snarled Crystal, lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace of hate. “It’s not necessary.”
Jack squeezed his eyes shut. He never experienced pain before in his dreams. Nor was he able to pause and reflect on what was happening. Things were not as they seemed.
Opening his eyes, he stared at Crystal’s face. Even with her features contorted in anger, she was beautiful. Much too beautiful to be true. And, dream or not, she had no aura.
Swinging up his arm, Jack poked the dream girl in the hip with the condom.
With a shriek, Crystal sprang completely off the bed and onto the floor. Catlike, she landed on her feet. Eyes fixed on the foil package in Jack’s hand, she hastily backed towards the door.
“Stay away from me,” she said, her voice ice cold and barely human. “I’ll scream.”
“Go ahead,” said Jack. “Scream all you want.”
He pinched the flesh of his neck. It hurt. “I’m awake,” he declared, sighing. “This wasn’t a dream. You’re real. And working for Dietrich von Bern.”
“Crystal doesn’t work for anybody,” the woman declared angrily. “Word’s out on the street. Ten thousand in gold for your head, attached or not. I saw you come in and thought I’d earn myself a quick bit of change.”
“What are you?” asked Jack, holding the condom in front of him like a sword.
Crystal snapped her fingers. Instantly, she was fully clothed, the red dress smooth and unwrinkled against her skin. “Old habits are hard to break,” she said, smiling. “Only now I get paid for sex. Consider yourself lucky you found the one object that destroys my spell. I’m a succubus, Jack.”
Snapping her fingers a second time, she vanished. Only a lingering trace of perfume indicated she had ever existed.
“Thanks, Megan,” murmured Jack, finally recognizing the voice who had brought an end to the seduction. “I think.”
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering what would have occurred if Crystal hadn’t been stopped, when a key grated in the lock. It was Simon.
“Feeling better?” the changeling asked.
“Yes and no,” replied Jack.
He related his encounter with the succubus. After he finished, Simon smiled and shook his head.
“Yield yourself to a succubus and she controls your passions forever after,” said the faerie. “According to most accounts, they possess insatiable sexual appetites. It would be a sweet life, my friend, but a very short one. You’d be dead within a week or less.”
“I can believe that,” said Jack, remembering the look of raw passion in Crystal’s eyes. “She mentioned ten thousand in gold for me dead or alive.”
“They’re scared of you, Jack,” said Simon. “Each time you evade a trap, it frightens them more. That’s a nice-size treasure. It tempts me, and I’m on the side of the angels.”
“So much for my news,” said Jack, starting to get dressed. “What’s the scoop on campus?”
“Nothing you want to hear,” answered Simon. “The disaster at the math complex has the whole school buzzing. Nobody’s saying much, but the word is out that Anderson blames you for the whole mess.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Jack.
“The hottest rumor circulating the cafeteria paints you as a major drug supplier for Chicago’s south side. According to five different co-eds I spoke with, the fracas last night was the first battle between your gang and the Border Redcaps over disputed territory. Neat, huh?”
“They pin the Kennedy assassination on me yet?” asked Jack.
“No,” answered Simon, “but give Anderson a chance. He’s probably working on that theory right now.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “No use worrying about school when modern civilization is set to collapse. I’ll deal with Benny after we’ve saved the world.”
“That sounds reasonable to me,” said Simon. “You prepared to head uptown and meet the relatives?”
Jack checked his watch. “It’s close to two o’clock. Thank goodness Crystal allowed me to sleep a few hours before trying her tricks. I’m starved. What’s in that refrigerator? No reason to leave before lunch. After all, we paid for it.”
Simon rummaged through the icebox. “Along with eight containers of whipped cream in various yummy flavors, three bottles of cheap champagne, and a six-pack of beer, there’s hearty portions of roast beef, turkey, and cheese. Mona provides a nice spread for her clients.”
“Any bread?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” said the changeling. “A packaged rye. If you’re willing to take a chance, I also see big bottles of Miracle Whip and mayo. Though who knows to what ungodly and immoral uses they’ve been subjected.”
Picking up a kitchen knife from the bar, Jack waved it in the air. “Lay on, Macduff, and damn’d be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’ ”
“I knew him, too,” said Simon, stuffing a slice of cheese into his mouth. “Macduff, that is. Rather dull fellow, actually. But a good swordfighter—damned good.”
19
They decided to take a cab north. Jack experienced no second thoughts about the subway, once Simon described in garish detail a few of the supernatural monsters lurking in the dark tunnels. Worse things than will-o-the-wisps had crossed the ocean in the past few hundred years.
“America’s free and open,” explained Simon as they waited outside the motel for their cab to arrive. “There’s room to wander. Not much of that left in England. Or most of Europe, to be perfectly honest. A majority of supernatural were created in an age of rolling meadows and untamed forests. We’ve adapted pretty well to urban life, but we all need the woods. That’s why so many of my kind live in Chicago and the Midwest, where nature is always less than an hour’s ride away.”