Succubus on Top (Georgina Kincaid 2)

I expected him to go home and sleep, but he went with me to the bookstore. Its coffee shop was his favorite place to write. As we walked into Emerald City Books andCafe,I breathed a sigh of relief that neither my manager Paige nor Warren, the store owner, appeared to be around. Still, business had already opened for the day without me, and my chipper, morning-people coworkers made it impossible to sneak in without notice.

"Hey, Georgina! Hi Seth!"

"Georgina and Seth are here!"

"Good morning, Georgina! Good morning, Seth!"

Seth left to take up his writing station upstairs, and I made my way to the back offices. All of them were dark, which I found odd. No managers at all. Someone should have opened before me. I flipped on the light in my own office.

I was so fixated on figuring out what was going on that the demon took me completely by surprise.

Red-skinned and multihorned, he leapt out at me, waving his arms and making unintelligible grunting sounds. I yelped and dropped the things I'd been carrying, recoiling.

A moment later, my senses returned, and I walked over and smacked him on the side of the head as hard as I could.

CHAPTER 3

"You're such a dork, Doug!"

"Fuck, that hurt!"

Doug Sato, the other dysfunctional assistant manager here and one of the most entertaining mortals I knew, pulled off the rubber mask he'd been wearing, revealing the beautiful features he'd inherited from his Japanese ancestors. He rubbed his forehead, giving me a wounded scowl. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the mask was not that of a demon but rather Darth Maul from The Phantom Menace. I should have known. No self-respecting demon would have had that many horns.

"What are you doing?" I leaned down to pick up my scattered belongings. "Halloween was, like, a week ago."

"Yeah, I know. Everything's on sale. I got this for three dollars."

"You got ripped off."

"Boy, you're one to nag, Miss I-Show-Up-When-I-Feel-Like-It. You're lucky it's just me here."

"Why are you here?"

Doug and I held the same position. On days when we overlapped, we usually worked different shifts, not identical ones. It was for the best. We usually distracted each other enough to accomplish the work of one person. Sometimes less.

He grabbed the back of the rolling desk chair and impressively flipped his body into it, the impact of which caused the chair to roll half-way across the office. "Paige called me in. She's sick."

Paige, our manager, was about six months pregnant. "Is she okay?"

"Dunno. If she gets better, she'll come in later."

He spun around the room a few times, then rolled up to the desk and beat out a fast rhythm on it with his hands. I presumed the cadence was from one of his band's songs.

"Jesus, you're wound up today. You get lucky last night?"

"I get lucky every night, Kincaid."

"Whatever. Your demon mask was more believable than that."

"Okay, maybe I'm not getting lucky every night right now, but that's going to change. The group's getting f**king amazing."

"I've always thought you guys were f**king amazing," I stated loyally.

Doug shook his head, dark eyes almost feverishly bright. "Oh no. You can't even believe it now. We got this new drummer, and suddenly...it's just like, I don't know...we're doing things we've never done before."

I frowned. "Because of one drummer?"

"No, I mean, it's all of us. He's just one of the good things that's happened. It's like...everything's just clicking into place. You ever have days like that? When everything is perfect? Well, we're having weeks like that. Songs. Gigs. Style." His enthusiasm was palpable, and it made me smile. "We're even playing the Verona."

"Seriously?"

"Yup."

"That's a major venue. I mean, it's not like the Tacoma Dome or anything, but then, they wouldn't let you play there anyway if you didn't have a monster truck worked into the act."

He spun the chair around again. "You should come see it. A bunch of the other staff is. It'll be the greatest night of your life."

"I don't know. I've had a lot of great nights."

"Second best then. Unless you're thinking of joining my groupies. I'd let you be their leader, you know. You could always have first dibs on me."

I rolled my eyes, then turned pensive as the sex jokes reminded me of my recent Seth issues.

"Hey Doug, do you think men and women can date without having sex?"

He had been tipping way back in the chair and suddenly snapped forward. "Oh my God. You are thinking of joining the groupies."

"I'm serious. Two people dating without sex. Fact or fantasy?"

"Okay, okay. For how long? A week?"

"No. Like, months."

"Are they Amish?"

"No."

"Are they ugly?"

"Er, no."

"No."

"No what?"

"No, they can't do it. Not in this day and age. Why do you want to know?"

"No reason."

He cut me an arch look. "Of course not." He didn't know about Seth and me, but he did know me.

Our phone's intercom came to life just then, asking for backup on the registers.

"Paper rock scissors?" Doug asked, spinning the chair around again.

"Nah, I'll go. I should make up for my tardiness. Besides, I think you need to come down from your caffeine high. Or your megalomania high. Not sure which."

He flashed me a grin and turned to the paused game of Tetris on our shared computer.

Truthfully, I didn't mind going out anyway. I worked for the fun of it, not the money. Immortality was long, and vocation and daily work sort of regulated human existence, even if I wasn't technically human anymore. It just felt right to be doing something, and unlike so many other unfortunate souls in this world, I actually liked what I did for a living.

I checked in on Seth a few times as I worked throughout the day, drank a lot of white-chocolate mochas, and dealt with what was becoming a heavy flow of business as the holiday season grew ever closer. At one point, I finally did have to pull Doug out with me. I found him in our office, still playingTetris.

I opened my mouth to make a joke about his work ethic and then caught sight of the computer screen. He played Tetris on a regular basis, so I was familiar with the game and his prowess, but what I saw now blew my mind. His score was the highest I'd ever seen, and he was at such an advanced level now that the pieces zoomed down the screen. I couldn't follow them. Yet, he caught and placed them all, never missing a beat.

"My God," I muttered. There was no way his hands and reflexes could be responding like that. The computer would probably implode at any moment. "I guess everything really is clicking into place for you lately. "

He laughed, either at my pun or my astonishment. "Need me out there?"

"Yeah...though it seems so wasteful now compared to this...mastery. Like interrupting Michelangelo."

Doug shrugged obligingly, shut down the game, and followed me out. I think the computer was relieved. He and I worked together cheerfully for the rest of my shift. His good mood over the band's success kept him chipper and lively, making the day fly by. When it was time for me to go, I offered to close for him since he'd had to come in unexpectedly early. He waved me off.

"Forget about it. Go do something fun tonight."

As I was leaving the store, I passed a rack of magazines and saw a copy of the latest issue of American Mystery. In big letters, one of the headlines read: Cady and O'Neill Return! Seth Mortensen gives us an exclusive novella.

Eek. What a bad girlfriend I was. Seth had told me about this story's upcoming appearance, and I'd completely forgotten about it. It had just come out yesterday. Apparently being with him regularly was distracting me from his art. Before the publication of his last novel, I'd literally marked off days on my calendar until its release. Longing washed over me, but I knew I couldn't read this story tonight. Bastien had left me a cell phone message saying he'd stop by my place later, and I had a feeling he'd distract me for most of the evening.

Tomorrow, I promised myself. I'd read the story tomorrow.

I'd just settled in back home when Bastien showed up bearing Thai food.

"How was the literary world today?" he asked as we had a picnic on my living room floor. Aubrey watched sharply from a discreet distance, her eyes fixed covetously on a container of green curry. Pad Thai did nothing for her.