Page 24 of Demon of Dreams

I couldn’t tell if he meant to be condescending, or if he just always sounded like that. All I’d figured out was that my life suddenly made no sense, and that I had no idea how to set it to rights. And here he was telling me I was a…

“I’m sorry, awhat?”

“An incubus. A demon from the realm of sleep, who enters the dreams of others in order to copulate and bring forth a surge in life force, both the dreamer’s and their own.”

“A surge in—wait a second, did you say copulate?”

“Do you need me to explain to you what that means?”

“No, that’s not—of course not. I know what the word means. I’m just trying to understand. You’re telling me I’m some sort of…sex demon?

“I wouldn’t use that terminology myself, and there are nuances, but broadly speaking, yes. That’s what you are.”

“But that’s impossible!”

He had to be wrong. It just didn’t make sense. Even allowing that there were such things as sex demons, which I still wasn’t sure I believed, I was positive that I wasn’t one of them. I was the least sexy person on the planet. Just trying to wrap my head around it made me feel woozy.

“Really?” the dean said mildly. “Let me paint you a picture of the past few months, and you can tell me how far off I am. It started when you turned eighteen—October twenty-fourth, in your case. A week later, the changes were already manifesting, but it was easy to ignore them at first. Mornings where you felt exhausted, no matter how much you’d slept the night before. Nights spent in dreams you couldn’t remember later, dreams that left you restless and aching for something you couldn’t put into words.”

His tone was affable, even relaxed, but my stomach clenched as he spoke.

“You brushed it off as long as you could, but the exhaustion kept growing, and the dreams grew more powerful as well. Soon, you remembered them in the morning. Dreams that felt uncannily life-like. Too vivid, too real. Dreams full of desire. Dreams that left you yearning for more when you awoke. Your waking life became a tightrope walk, your desire ever closer to the surface, your dreams ready to pull you under at a moment’s notice. Am I wrong?”

I stared at him, my mouth open. He knew. How could he possiblyknow?

“I thought—I thought—” I broke off, my voice cracking. “I didn’t know what was happening. I just wanted the dreams to go away. But they wouldn’t. They kept coming, and coming, and I thought—I was starting to think that I was…”

I trailed off, but Dean Mansur filled in the rest of my sentence.

“Losing your wits?”

I nodded. “I was going to say ‘crazy,’ but that’s the gist of it.”

“If you had any idea how many times I’ve heard that. Many of our students react similarly to the awakening of their powers.” His voice was almost gentle now. “I know you might wish you were crazy—whatever that actually means. I’ll be honest with you, your life might be easier if you were. But you’re an incubus, Cory, and it’s imperative that you accept that. It’s the first step to gaining control of your powers.”

“But why? Why does it matter if I control my powers or not?”

“For your own safety. And for that of the people around you. Ever since you turned eighteen, you’ve been in danger, and putting those near you in danger as well.”

“Why? How?”

“Because you’re only part demon, Cory. The other half of you is human.”

I couldn’t control a shiver at his words. If the dean noticed, he gave no indication.

He kept sayingdemonso casually. Maybe that was how he meant it, but I kept thinking about those monsters that had attacked me. Worse, I kept thinking of my recurring dream, of my mysterious partner who seemed to be everywhere at once. It wasn’t so easy for me to use the worddemoninnocuously.

“Your human half reached its age of majority at eighteen, which triggered your demon half to manifest. Your powers, undirected and uncontrolled, began to emanate wildly in the world of dreams and the waking world around you.”

“What do you mean, undirected?”

“An incubus in control of their powers is able to visit the dreams of others. To observe undetected, if they wish. To manipulate events as needed. To remain in control of themself. An incubus who’s not in control gets sucked into the dreams of others and experiences them as though they’re real. They may end up subject to the whims of the dreamer. Does any of that sound familiar?”

It sounded too familiar, but I didn’t want to think about that right now.

“An incubusneedsdreams to survive. Since you turned eighteen, you’ve needed the dreams of others the way you need food and shelter. An incubus takes their sustenance from dreamers. If they go too long without entering a dream purposefully, they’ll be sucked into one the moment they go to sleep. They won’t be able to control whose dream it is. And it may be difficult to nudge it in the direction they wish. It can be…unpleasant, to say the least.”

Oh, God. I didn’t want to think about that, either. The dreams I’d been having—there were parts of them that were unpleasant. Or, at least, parts thatshouldhave been unpleasant, but that I’d enjoyed more than I should have. It was all a mess, and the more I tried to sort it out, the wispier my thoughts got.

---