Lucy nodded. "You said a mouthful. Can you help me?"
"You want to know who or what could do this to someone?"
Lucy nodded again. "Do you know?"
Marvin frowned, then got to his feet and walked over to a bookshelf. Pulling down a weathered-looking book with yellowed pages, he flipped through. As he found what he was looking for, his frown deepened, carving deep black scowl lines in his forehead. He nodded to himself. "Mais oui. It is just as I thought."
"What?" Lucy asked in breathless anticipation.
"This is pure evil. Ancient evil," he said, his voice harsh with concern. "The monster you seek is called an incubus. A Ka incubus to be precise, one that feeds off a person's youth like vampires feed off blood."
"An incubus?" Lucy felt goose bumps up and down her arms, as if the universe was warning her away. "I've heard of incubi that feed off lust. But I thought they were extinct."
"Non. Not extinct, but very rare. And these are even more so. Few know about the Ka incubi. I had thought they were in the Big Sleep between worlds and shadows. But it appears that one is here in the Big Easy." Marvin shook his head. "Ma amie, this is very bad. Very bad magic."
Suddenly time seemed to slow, if only for a moment, and Lucy knew that she had crossed a line. She was nearing the dark side, hunting for this predator who stole a person's life-force. She could end up dead, or she could end up sixty-four, with lined skin and nobody to love her—and all in the next few days. Still, she wouldn't let the opportunity pass. Her mama didn't raise no fools.
Watching Lucy's reaction, Marvin nodded somberly, his green eyes fraught with some emotion Lucy didn't understand. An image of Serena thrust itself into her mind: Serena's misery, her lack of hope, the dying emotion and life in her eyes. "Can Serena ever get her youth back?" she found herself asking.
"Oui. If someone can capture the incubus fairly soon and submerge him in salt water for a day and night, then part of the life-force he has stolen will be given back to those whom he has robbed."
"How do you capture something like that?" Lucy asked.
Marvin stared at her. Then he explained how to capture an incubus with an ancient spell. It included chanting, some green powder, and unfortunately a dead chicken. Lucy had him write it down.
Before she left, Marvin warned her to be careful, and then he made her a protection gris-gris. It included some herbs, a small stone, and a few bones. The last ingredient, much to Lucy's disgust, was a small chicken foot.
Chickens, chickens, chickens. She hadn't liked the things since she was a girl, and had had to gather eggs in the henhouse on the small ranch her family owned in West Texas. She still had the tiny scars on her arms from chicken-pecking during her egg-gathering experiences. An irate chicken was damn mean—like an eighth-grade girl—and it pecked anyone who was stupid enough to go after its eggs. As Lucy got older, she'd given a wide berth to rampaging chickens, even going so far as to swear off fried chicken, her grandma's specialty. Now it seemed she was back in fowl territory.
Thanking Marvin sincerely for his help, she walked outside and fingered the gris-gris. Her thoughts were whirling around and around like a potter's wheel. She didn't really believe in lucky charms, but one couldn't hurt. Although, now she was stuck wearing a chicken's foot around her neck. At least it didn't peck and didn't stink. Her life, she mused wryly, was a feathery flap of a farce.
Chapter Seven
Hank Williams had it Right
Fingering the gris-gris that Marvin had given her earlier in the day, Lucy walked up the steps to the entrance of the Overbite Bar, DeLeon's supposed hangout. Marvin's and Serena's warnings echoed in her ear, ghostly whispers of dread. Still, Lucy knew that some stories had to be told. It didn't matter that danger lay hidden deep in the shadows, concealed behind smoke and mirrors; all that mattered was the story, and that she would be the one to expose the Ka incubus on her talk show. However, caution would be her word of the day. She didn't intend to go from being a talk show diva to queen of a nursing home all in one night.
At the door, two large signs read: VAMPIES DO IT WITH A PRICK AND WEREWOLVES DO IT WITH THEIR CLAWS ON.
Lucy frowned. That was too much for her. Still, paying her cover charge, she walked inside.
The Overbite Bar was a place where wannabes, a few real vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures sometimes stopped by for a drink or a quick bite.
The club was fairly crowded tonight, and it looked like everyone and their dog was here. Around Lucy, vampire wannabes were dressed in black capes and black pants, their dark shirts open to the waist, exposing their jugulars. Others were dressed in red.
For some strange reason, humans had gotten it into their heads that vampires only liked black and red. Vampires did love the color red, but mostly flowing out of bodies—to drink and not to wear.
And vampires apparently loved flowers. The male vampires here wore flowers in their buttonholes, and the vampiresses wore them in their hair or on their clothing, and it was clear each vampire was specific about which flower he preferred. Val must have preferred golden roses.
Choosing a table in the middle of the bar, Lucy glanced up at the open balcony above, noting where the true vampires were sitting. The tables they sat at had an array of night-blooming flora in vases. The vampires were dressed in an array of bright colors, skintight dresses or pants. Lucy caught a glimpse of disgust cross their faces every time the humans below vied for their attention in their Bela Lugosi costumes and faux vampire creations.
A waitress dressed in a skimpy black dress with almost no back leaned down and asked, "What's your poison?"
"Lone Star longneck," Lucy responded, scanning the crowd.
"Hey, aren't you that host for the Twilight Zone?" Lucy nodded, glad to be recognized, and the waitress continued enthusiastically, "I just loved that one show with all those Draculas in drag."
Lucy smiled. "It's one of my favorites, too. Kind of like a Victoria's Secret catalog meets Fangoria."
"I know! I'm just dying to know where that green-haired drag queen got that cute little leafy number."
Lucy laughed. The leafy number had just the right amount of strategically placed foliage, giving the drag queen a kind of Tarzan-meets-Dracula chic. "He told me he bought his outfit at the Yolanda G. store," she confided.
"Thanks!" The waitress looked thrilled, flashing a toothy smile—complete with fake fangs, of course. "Well, let me get your beer."
Two drinks later, Lucy still hadn't spotted her quarry, and had turned down four offers to dance and one to buy her a drink. She was getting antsy from sitting still for so long. Shaking her head, she sighed. She'd had no idea surveillance work was such a dull detail. No wonder cops sat around on stakeouts eating donuts and drinking tons of black coffee, with scowls on their faces; they were probably bored silly.
Glancing down at her watch, she noted it was approaching one in the morning. She was tired and she had been here for over three hours, hoping to use herself as bait, yet so far she had received no useful bites. She hadn't even spotted anyone that resembled the description of DeLeon, and certainly not anyone with violet eyes, a color no other supernatural predator she'd seen could claim.
"Well, well. Look who's here."
Turning slightly, Lucy found herself face-to-face with Detective Valmont DuPonte, and she choked on her drink. As usual, his presence was electric. Her pale blue eyes watering, she wondered what the coffin-hopping, fang-banging worm was doing here.