A Ghost of a Chance Read Online Free PDF Page B

parts of Italy, of course, but they don’t travel over the pond much. You are quite lucky.”
    “Lucky?” Keenan hollered. When Patrick and the other man shot looks at him, he lowered his chin and tilted the beer toward his chest. “You call this luck?” he mumbled.
    Light shone from the pale face and that spark ignited a second time. “Are you telling me you didn’t enjoy it?”
    Keenan opened his mouth, but shut it just as quickly. Fact of the matter was he had enjoyed it…very much. He wasn’t going to tell his misty friend that, however.
    “So, if she’s not a ghost and she’s not a demon, what exactly is she?”
    When Reggie pulled the equivalent of air into his lungs, the cigarette fumes disappeared into his nostrils and came back out as fog. “I’m not an expert, mind you, but I’ve heard things here and there.” He made a show of steepling his fingers and looking intellectual. “The myth tells us the original succubus was Lilith, Adam’s first wife…”
    “Adam’s first wife? Adam’s wife was Eve.” Keenan wanted the words to be adamant, but they came out plaintive instead.
    Reggie leveled a condescending leer at him and raised one eyebrow. “Honestly. The ignorance of you modern living could drive one barmy. In a nutshell, God created Lilith when He created Adam. She decided that since she came out of the same clay, she had the same rights as her husband. Apparently someone disagreed since she was turned into a succubus by Lucifer.”
    “All right, so what exactly is a succubus then?”
    Reggie leaned back into the bench and floated his arms over the worn red leather seat back. “As I said, it is a hapless creature that lives off of sexual energy, i.e. the arousal of men. The incubus is the male counterpoint and seduces women…and sometimes men, depending. Think sexual vampire, and you’re halfway there. They must roam the world in search of new prey to stay alive. Most hate it; it goes against their natural instincts, but there is nothing they can do about it. The only difference between a succubus and say, a demon, is she is not endemically evil, despite all that two centuries of Christian propaganda have convinced people otherwise. These poor creatures are usually a seraph enslaved by a demon and then forced to become what they are.”
    “A what?”
    “Seraphim angel…part of the choir of angels. Pretty close to the Big Man, from what I’ve heard.”
    Keenan blinked at Reggie. “You trying to tell me this…thing is an angel?”
    “Well…” Reggie tapped his fingers against the backrest and gazed up at the murky faux Tiffany light above the booth. “Not anymore.”
    “So what does it want with me?”
    Reggie shrugged and rubbed his nose with a long forefinger. “They are drawn to powerful men…psychics.”
    “That’s horseshit, Reggie. I’m no psychic.”
    Reggie nailed him with a cold gaze and chuckled under his breath. “Let’s see…you see dead people. Not only do you see them, but you talk to them as well. As a matter of fact, some of your best friends are dead. Sounds rather psychic to me. But what do I know?”
    Keenan licked his lips. “Oh.”
    “May I continue?”
    Keenan nodded miserably. He had never considered himself psychic and the idea left his chest tight. But it made a certain kind of sense; he had to live with the fact that his whole life had been a magic bag of paranormal bullshit. Wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Psychic was as good a word as any.
    “Anyway, given your history, it’s not surprising she would select you. Maybe she wants a child…”
    “Angels can have kids?”
    Reggie drummed his fingers twice against the greasy oilcloth. “Not in the strictest sense. The succubus seduces a man, collects his seed, and transfers it to an incubus who changes it and delivers it to a human female. Seems to me that would just produce your garden-variety human offspring, but apparently not. The child born to the woman is called a cambion.” A