Golem in My Glovebox by R. L. Naquin Read Free Book Online Page B

gone back to their mushroom house at the far edge of my backyard. The fawn/dryad family, Tashi the yeti and a tribe of fairies had disappeared to their homes in the woods that surrounded my property. Sara had gone home to Sausalito and took Andrew and his partner Daniel with her.
    Somewhere out back a centaur with a broken leg convalesced in a tent. A gryphon with a nasty mite infestation stayed in a corner of the yard under self-imposed quarantine. A family of gnomes hid out under my porch, but they’d been there for a month and a half and still hadn’t told us why they were there.
    For the moment, it seemed, nobody was in dire need of my help. As long as the sanctuary of my house held, they didn’t really need the Aegis.
    If I didn’t go now, I’d probably never get another chance. “Okay.”
    “Okay?”
    “Yes.” I nodded my head with vigor. “Let’s do this.”
    * * *
    To my surprise, Maurice took the news in stride. It was Sara who threw a fit.
    “Dammit, Zoey.” She tossed her glasses on her desk and rubbed her eyes. “We can’t keep this up. I’m exhausted. You’re down to two days a week as it is, and now you’re running off for a week?”
    Her frustration blew across the room in soft, rolling waves. Even her emotions felt tired and worn. The fact that she was wearing glasses instead of her contacts said everything.
    “I know. I’ve been putting way too much on you since all this Hidden stuff started. I’ll cancel the trip.” I meant it. I couldn’t keep putting so much on Sara.
    She sighed and picked up her glasses. “No, don’t do that. It’s the first time you’ve had any clues about your mom in awhile. You have to go. It’s not even especially busy here lately. I’m just...I’m just tired.”
    I frowned. “You’re still not sleeping.”
    She shook her head. “Nightmares nearly every night. And I’m beginning to remember bits and pieces of them.”
    I crossed the room and settled into the loveseat by her desk. “Tell me.”
    “It’s nothing really solid. Chased down a dock by a pirate who turns out to be a vampire. Eyes staring back at me in a dark mirror. Uncomfortably erotic dreams that start out nice but I wake up screaming. I don’t know, Zoey. I think I’m losing my mind.”
    My throat locked up, and it took me a minute to answer. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me all this? You were supposed to tell me if you started remembering.”
    Not that I knew what the hell to do about it if she did start remembering. The previous autumn, a nasty incubus named Sebastian had come to town. He fed on emotions, and my empath abilities had not only targeted me, but also all the women I came in contact with. Several women died an agonizing death in which he forced them to orgasm repeatedly while he sucked away their life essence.
    It was metaphysical rape.
    As bad as that was, Sara had it worse. He’d been making frequent visits to her house, feeding off of her slowly. I was pretty sure he wanted me to catch him in the act. He’d been taunting me with his kills. When I found him, Sara was nearly dead, and the metaphysical rape was also very much a physical one.
    With Andrew and Riley’s help, I’d saved Sara, banished Sebastian, and funneled energy back into Sara’s psyche so she would live. When she woke up, she had no memory of Sebastian or anything else that had happened. We didn’t know if the memory loss was demon related or the self-preservation of a wounded mind. Once she found out about the events, she counted herself lucky not to remember and hoped she would continue to forget.
    And then the nightmares started. Sara insisted she didn’t remember the dreams at all. Nor could she explain her compulsion to cover all the mirrors in her bedroom so she could sleep at night.
    So, it looked like the memories Sara so dearly wanted to stay gone were coming back. For anybody else, it would be a no-brainer. She was a rape victim. The nightmares were probably due to