Pogue didn't have much of a taste for New York. It wasn't the crowds, it wasn't the buildings for miles in every direction. It was the smell, and the traffic—though the latter didn't really matter since he didn't have his bike. He'd left Alexei's apartment without waking him, it was late, the doctor was sleeping, and he didn't feel much in the mood for admonitions, questions or advise. He didn't even know if he'd get any of those things from the doctor but his blood was high and he needed to rove, and the only way to quell the restlessness was to beat it out of there without a word to the Doctor.
He walked the streets, block after block after block, and there were some people out and about but most of the city did seem to be asleep despite the popular phrase. He longed for some fresh air to think with, or at least a moist cool pure wind to whip around him better than a lover's arms would, that is to say he missed his bike. He was thinking vaguely of the phone conversation he'd had with the other Sons shortly after he arrived. They were apparently clamoring from what Pogue could tell when Caleb answered, the background noise indicated the sidewalk in front of Nicky's.
Caleb said "Where are you man?" Reid could be heard in the background squawking irritatedly about how he'd left with that guy.
" The guy says he can help us Caleb, maybe stop the aging."
Pregnant silence crossed the airwaves on both ends, thoughts of prices that could not be negotiated versus the infinity of possibility. Then there was a scuffle for the phone in Ipswich apparently and Reid's voice broke the silence quick and accusatory. "Just don't do anything stupid out there by yourself, like break the Covenant!"
Caleb apparently took the phone and somehow silenced Reid. In his usual fashion, he'd done a fair bit of thinking and came up with a reasonable response,"Just don't tell that guy anything he doesn't need to know and call if you need help."
"Later."
"Later."
It was always weird on the rare occasion when anyone outside of the families knew what they were, recognized them, actually believed in their powers. And now the doctor was studying him, trying to separate their potential from their bodies so that the two things did not have to be linked together, the Power feeding on their life-force. They had never considered it, but Dr. Dreisofv made it sound like there was a possibility. A tempting enough risk to bend their rules of silence, and practical. Nearly irresistible to a cavalier youth.
He had been walking several blocks thinking vaguely about the phone conversation, about the acrid-piss smell of the air, thinking sharply as he could about the Covenant. Letting a stranger examine him was directly opposed to the secrecy they all took so seriously, by rote. Each pace Alexei put him through was strange, because the clandestine magical acts had been intimate, and without Caleb around at least, he felt somewhat adrift. He thought about this too, but again vaguely, the thoughts refused to firm up, refused to lead to conclusions.
He continued his wandering. He had been heading in a direction that unbeknownst to him led him towards Riverside Park. Once he saw the park not too far in the distance, he felt a twinge that led his easy bootsteps rhythmically in that direction. He slowed his pace and ran a hand through his hair. Something about his trajectory gave him pause. But there was a vibration, a pulse, that drew him on. Just before entering the park, he vaguely regretted not having found a bar that would serve the underaged, after hours. He would have liked being able to think, the way Caleb probably was over a pilsner at Nicky's. He grinned a wolfish grin about the sour face his friend was likely making. Caleb's girlfriend was out of town, which left him far too much time to brood alone.
The momentary hesitation sparked two oppositional reactions—instinct had him perk his ears because perhaps the pulse had seemed tainted in the last crest that passed through him. The bravado of his age and his birthright bade him go forward. He went on; the Sons of Ipswich walked without fear. The supernatural was familiar to them and they knew they could defend themselves.
Pogue found himself on a path and was drawn down it without thinking, something akin to instinct led him in that direction. So he thought. There was a bench, no a large flat topped rock that had a faint gleam to it. He went to it, intending to perch on it and think, but no sooner was he on it than he was transfixed, entirely.
Starbursts of electricity flew though his nerve endings, lit up his veins, destroyed the capacity for thought which would lead to flight. His eyes were open, visual perception was uninterrupted. He saw nothing to explain this, no live wire, no clouds overhead. The pulse wracked him again, this time he was close to the source. He called on The Power but felt his own frequency weak against the wave that rocked him: a ripple on the surface of a puddle against a tidal wave. The pain subsided in the ebb of the attacking force. He looked down at his hands, splayed flat, gleaming with the unnatural glow of the stone they rested on. The force of his will was not enough to move them.
"You are ready to listen now, I think." The voice emanated from a form that had suddenly materialized in front of him. A female form that shared the preternatural radiance that was now surrounding him, with a new pain. The sting of ice had travelled up his hands under the sleeves of his leather jacket, and invaded his body. He was rigid with it. The woman, if so she could be called was beautiful, darkly.
The ice had travelled down to his toes, keeping him fused to the rock, but had only travelled up to his neck. He kept his eyes, black and blazing on her. She gave him a slow appraising look with slanted black glass eyes.
"I was saying that I wanted to talk with you,"a smile played on the cruel but generous mouth whose lips were stained dark, but never parted. The voice was clear, "I have not seen one of your kind in far too long." There was music in the voice, a dirge-like rhythm, with tones too clear to be heard by ears alone. The voice resonated through Pogue like the pulse had.
"It seems you have forgotten us…" The smile widened and she drew closer, her feet didn't need to touch the ground. Jet hair, impossibly long and untangled cascaded about the bare shoulders, far past her waist. "But we had such times as would burn a blush into your schoolboy's cheeks for days."
She leaned her face close enough to him that their cheeks were a hair's breadth apart and he felt her cool misty breath in his ear. He shuddered, not yet realizing his revived mobility. She drew a spectral finger behind his ear and held his eyes. For long moments her eyes pierced him, and they hit home deep inside him, somewhere past his heart. And from the inside he started warming, tingling, as if the frost was thawing. She pulled her head back and moved her face in front of his, he could see that his eyes were reflected in hers, no longer black.
She kissed him and all at once the rest of the ice was gone, and her hands found his head and closed one on either side of his scalp. He threw his arms around her, wanting her too, and the arousal was suddenly all important. He needed release. His eyes flared black and hers went blue.
Without a word, without effort she undid his burdensome zipper and climbed onto him. He held her, she rode him, he worked her, until they climaxed simultaneously.
She leaned into him and offered his ear a warm whisper that was truly audible this time. "What he didn't tell you was that in his laboratories you could lose The Power altogether," and she laughed. He threw her away from him with a burst of The Power she'd spoken of.
And he woke up—found himself bolt upright on the couch at Dr. Alexei Dreisofv's apartment. He was covered in a very cold sweat. He picked up his phone right away and called Caleb, but got voicemail. His message was succinct. "I think it was a succubus, call me back."
Four hours later Pogue answered his phone groggily. "Hello."
Caleb sounded concerned and that usually would have been enough to wake Pogue up in a hurry, but he couldn't shake the exhaustion. "What did you see?"
"Caleb, its Pogue, I was sleeping." He must have meant to call Tyler or Reid.
"You said something to my voicemail about a succubus at 2:37 this morning." Dead silence.
"I must have been dreaming, I don't remember."
More silence. "Do me a favor Pogue, and call tonight before you go to bed."
"O.k." And he fell promptly back to sleep.
That morning at the coffee shop on the corner, Pogue accidentally bumped a woman who was holding a pile of fruit atop a newspaper. A banana, an apple and an orange fell to the ground and the woman looked down at them at a loss. She seemed confused. Pogue felt like an asshole for not looking where he was going, he had been yawning when he ran headlong into her. He knelt down and picked up her things, not immune to the shapeliness of her legs in heels and black hose. He looked at her face when he stood up, "Sorry."
She smiled with full pink lips and dark blue eyes ringed with the thickest black eyelashes he'd ever seen. "The fault was all mine, I'm sure." And she walked away.
He turned to watch her go, she was wearing a grey business suit that had to have been tailored to fit so close. The skirt tapered in at the knee and flared out again and the uneven hem that had hit her knee in front draped to her mid-calf in the back. The jacket was likewise tailored and between her shoulder blades swung a single gleaming black braid that had been looped three times to a manageable length.
She turned and smiled at him again, and he smiled back with a little wave. Can't wait til I see her again.