Demon Born

by Christine Pope

  “You ask a great deal of me,” he said heavily. “When we have shared very little so far.”

  “You’re right,” she replied. Her gaze met his, and she gave a rueful shake of her head. “Just a kiss, some time spent together…not much at all. I’m okay with leaving it there, if that’s what you want. But you can’t ask me for more when it’s obvious you want to have things both ways. I….” She let the words trail off as her fingers played nervously with the hem of her shirt. “I’ve made enough mistakes that I know I don’t want to make any more. Can you understand that?”

  Loc thought of her confrontation with Channing Ellis, the ugly things that poor excuse for a man had said to her. He had no idea how many other “mistakes” lurked in Cat’s past, and he truly did not care. If she wished to speak of them, he would listen, but nothing she told him would change his feelings for her.

  The real problem was that he still didn’t know precisely what those feelings were. He did not wish to see her hurt, but he also was not sure whether he could willingly let go of who he was. This body he wore now was a prop, nothing more, and he couldn’t be sure whether he’d ever be able to view it as truly his own.

  “I understand,” he said slowly. “But….”

  “But…?”

  “I am not sure whether I am able to make that sacrifice.”

  Cat’s lips pressed together, and a hurt, angry light showed in her dark eyes, but she did not snap at him, did not lash out with her anger. A long moment passed, and then she nodded, shoulders slumping. “Because I’m not worth it. I understand.”

  “That is not what I said.” Loc began to reach out a hand, but he saw the way she flinched, and guessed that touching her in any way would be precisely the wrong thing to do right now.

  “No,” she replied, although she sounded more tired than anything else. “But it’s exactly what you meant.” Another pause, and she added, “I’m going to work in my studio. I suppose you can conjure yourself something to eat if you get hungry.”

  And with that, she went over to the door that led from the kitchen to the patio outside and let herself out. She didn’t bang the door, however, but closed it carefully behind her.

  Loc watched her go. In a way, he wished she had slammed the door. An angry response he might have understood. But she had looked so defeated, so weary. He hated to see that in a woman with so much spirit, so much fire.

  Yet he still wasn’t sure whether he’d ever be able to tell her what she wanted to hear.

  13

  Cat wanted to cry, but crying wouldn’t change the situation. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to work if her vision was all blurry.

  Oh, who was she kidding? Did she honestly think she was going to get any work done?

  Luckily, she’d made sure the studio was a work space that could stand on its own, and that was why it had a little kitchen area with a sink and a hot plate and a mini-fridge, along with a bathroom and a comfy chair with a matching foot stool for those times when she needed to take a break and put her feet up for a while.

  She headed to that chair now after getting herself a glass of water. A glass of wine or a beer probably would have been better, although alcohol was most likely the last thing she needed right now. After all, she’d had way too many glasses of sangria the night before. If she’d been stone cold sober, she probably wouldn’t have allowed Loc to kiss her.

  Well, that was something she couldn’t change, no matter how much she might wish it. Right now, it seemed pretty obvious there wouldn’t be a repeat of that kiss, so she needed to put it out of her mind, focus on more important things. There was the problem of those damn books Simon Escobar had left behind, although it seemed as though Miranda and Rafe had the situation handled as well as anyone could. Maybe this Nicholas Toulouse character was someone they all needed to be worried about, or maybe not. Frankly, since Miranda had been able to defeat Simon, who was a more powerful warlock, Cat didn’t see why Toulouse would be that formidable an enemy. Besides, even if she and Loc were at odds right now, she knew he would step in to protect the Castillo clan, just as he had before. There was really nothing to worry about.

  Of more immediate concern was the art show. One of her pieces was already done, but the other one still required a good chunk of embroidery to finish it, plus a blanket stitch with silk floss all the way around the edges once she was done embroidering all the wildflowers and wild grasses, and that meant another seven or eight hours of work.

  If she was lucky.

  She looked up at the clock. It was a little past five. If she worked for four hours, then she should be able to creep into the house under cover of darkness and avoid any confrontations with Loc. Not that he probably wouldn’t know the second she set foot in the place, but she had to hope that he would get the message and leave her alone. What a ridiculous situation, to be creeping around in her own home as if she was the intruder. But, as upset as she was with Loc right now, she also didn’t want to banish him, to tell him he needed to go stay in a hotel or book a vacation rental or something. Tomorrow he would go off on his quest to find a way back to that hellhole he called home, and she’d have her house back again.

  Well, at least until he returned. Funny how he always managed to show up in time for dinner.

  Scowling, Cat went to fetch the silk floss she needed, then sat down in her armchair and got to work. The embroidery was probably more important, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to focus on it right now. Better to get the busywork done first, so she could space out and let her fingers move automatically. If the worst happened and she couldn’t complete all the embroidery she had planned, at least she had the other tapestry finished. Better that than nothing at all.

  The silence seemed to press on her ears, but she ignored it, her head lowered over the piece that was her current focus. Part of her wished desperately that Loc would come over to the studio and knock on the door, tell her that he’d made a mistake and realized this world would be enough for him. This world, and her.

  Now tears did begin to sting her eyes, but she pulled in a hitching breath and blinked once, twice, doing her best to prevent them from hindering her work. Really, she was being stupid about this whole thing. So what if she’d never been quite able to banish the Lord of Chaos from her mind all these months, even though she’d known he was gone, and that even if he’d continued to hang around Santa Fe for some reason, it would have been stupid to keep thinking of him when he wasn’t even human, was this strange, hideous being from another dimension. Yes, he’d helped to save them all, and he’d been able to touch her mind when no one else, living or dead, had ever managed to do such a thing, but still….

  Goddamn it.

  She set the tapestry down in her lap for a moment so she could take a sip of water. That was a little better. And after the water, back to work.

  Eventually, the edges of the tapestry were all carefully bound. The clock ticking on the opposite wall told her it was a few minutes after nine. In all that time, she hadn’t heard from Loc, and her phone had likewise been silent, no calls from Rafe or Miranda to check on her, nothing from Tony, making sure they’d gotten all cleaned up after the party and there wasn’t anything else he needed to handle.

  Well, why should they call? she asked herself as she carried the tapestry over to blanket rack she used for draping her work over when she was done with it for the day. You just talked to Miranda and Rafe, and Tony has no reason to think everything isn’t just hunky-dory over here. They probably figure you’re a big girl and can take care of yourself.

  Which she was. Hadn’t she just overseen the retrofit of this property, pretty much all by herself? They knew she would reach out for help if the situation arose, and until then, they all had their own problems to deal with.

  Even so, she wished she didn’t feel quite so abandoned.

  As much as it pained him to do so, Loc did not follow Cat when she disappeared into her studio. Neither did he allow himself to go down there as the hours passed, ev
en though his mind began manufacturing scenarios of her weeping as she tried to work. Or perhaps he was giving himself far too much importance. For all he knew, she had been working diligently the entire time, focused on her art and not bothering to give him a second thought.

  That second scenario was even more worrisome, for reasons he was not sure he really wished to explore. Did he want to assume that much significance in Cat’s life? Possibly she was hurting now, but he reflected that maybe the best thing he could do for her was slip quietly away. He had promised that he would watch over the Castillos to ensure that Nicholas Toulouse did not attempt anything nefarious, but that did not mean he had to continue staying in Cat Castillo’s home. The city was full of hotels and vacation properties, and it would be easy enough for him to move into one of them. Then, once their current problem with the dark warlock from New Orleans was resolved one way or another, he could go back out into the world and resume his search.

  While this seemed like a practical enough plan, he did not find it particularly appealing. Loc knew he did not want to be separated from Cat for any length of time. And yet, he also did not want to give up all chance of returning to the place where he was lord and master. The two goals were diametrically opposed, and he had no idea whether he would ever be able to reconcile the two.

  At length he ate — worried the whole time that Cat was going hungry in her studio, but too proud to come up to the house and get anything for her own dinner — and some time after that, he retired to his borrowed bedroom, although he found sleep eluded him. He lay there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, and finally heard a faint creak from the staircase, signaling that she had returned to the house. A moment later, there came the slightest of thumps from the end of the hall, probably from her door closing.

  Well, she was back, but it seemed she had no desire to speak to him still. This realization was troubling, but Loc knew better than to go and knock on her door, attempt to talk to her.

  Perhaps the morning would bring some enlightenment.

  But unfortunately, even after he fell into a restless sleep and awoke feeling far from refreshed as new sunlight slipped its way past the curtains in his room, there was no sign of Cat. That is, it seemed she had awakened even earlier than he, because when he went downstairs, he found half a pot of fresh-brewed coffee sitting on its warmer, but no sign of the woman who had made it. Had she already fled to her studio?

  It appeared she had, because when he peered out the kitchen window, which allowed a view of one corner of the low building that once been the wine-tasting room, he caught the barest glimpse of one of the windows there being opened to let in the morning breeze. While Loc was vaguely reassured that she was up and about, he still had to wonder how long this current situation would last. He did not wish to be responsible for driving Cat out of her own home.

  However, since she had clearly left the coffee for him, he drank a cup, then summoned some bread and honey, which was all he felt like consuming right then. A shower and his regular morning routine — not for the first time, he shook his head at how much time humans spent on grooming their bodies — and then he decided it was time to go.

  Her comment about his savior possibly living in a small town spurred him on, and he visited several — Hagerstown, Indiana, and Ottumwa, Iowa, and Astoria, Oregon — and found no one, no local witch clans at all. In Astoria, he bought a hot chocolate, since it was cool and damp there on the seacoast, even at the tail end of July, and sat on a bench in a park and pondered what he should do next. The absence of any witches and wizards in these places puzzled him, although he knew that of course they couldn’t be found in every town and city that existed. It would be one thing if they mainly lived in big cities, to better hide their presence, but he knew that wasn’t the case, not when the McAllister witches lived in tiny Jerome, Arizona.

  Jerome. Of course he had never visited there, for he knew that none of the witches in that clan possessed the skills required to send him home. However, he had studied the town a little, since he was curious about a place that could produce a witch as strong as Miranda Castillo. But as Loc sat there on his park bench and slowly drank his hot chocolate, he suddenly realized there was someone in that former ghost town who might be the only other person in the world who could remotely understand his current situation. He’d known of the man’s existence, but until he’d begun wrestling with his feelings for Cat, Loc had seen no reason to pay him a visit.

  Now, though…Jerome it was.

  Loc finished off the last few sips of hot chocolate, then disposed of the cup in a nearby trash can. Because the day was damp and not very hospitable, no one else was currently visiting the park, which meant it was safe to disappear, even out there in the open.

  The contrast with Jerome could not have been more different. A bright sun blazed down from the Arizona sky, which was a deep, deep blue, studded with white, downy clouds that looked close enough to be touched with an outstretched hand. Loc had materialized in an alley next to a ramshackle apartment building, knowing he wouldn’t be noticed there. However, his destination was farther up the hill.

  In this part of the world, front yards were something of a scarcity. However, the house Loc approached now had a little postage-stamp lawn bordered with exuberant hollyhocks, which also grew in the flowerbed in front of the white-painted porch. The home had clearly been built during Jerome’s copper-mining boomtown days, since the wood-frame structure with its wraparound porch stood a proud two and a half stories tall and commanded an astonishing view of the Verde Valley and the red rocks of Sedona off in the distance.

  A man with flaxen-pale hair was using an electric mower to cut the grass of that tiny lawn. He wore khaki-colored shorts and a blue T-shirt, along with a pair of grass-stained sneakers. To anyone else, he would have appeared completely ordinary, although handsome enough, with his bright blue eyes and regular features.

  Loc knew better, however.

  “Hello, Levi,” he said, and the man straightened and turned off the mower.

  His gaze met Loc’s, and for a moment he said nothing, only stared at the man who stood by his front gate, before he gave a knowing nod. Then he said, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you here, Lord of Chaos.”

  “Loc,” he returned, since the title seemed a bit unwieldy for normal conversation. “I had never expected to visit this plane, either, but sometimes the universe enjoys a joke on us.”

  “That’s true enough.” Levi pushed a sweaty lock of hair back from his brow and made a silent appraisal of his visitor’s appearance. “You look different.”

  “My actual form is rather conspicuous.”

  “True.” Another of those appraising glances, and then Levi said, “If you’ve come here to ask me to send you back to your own plane, I fear that’s something beyond my powers.”

  Even though he’d been expecting that sort of comment, Loc couldn’t help replying, “Are you so sure of that? You’re no more bound by the constraints of this world than I am.”

  “Oh, yes, I am,” Levi said. “Because to reach across worlds in such a way is to ignore the natural order of things, and you know I have never walked that path.”

  That much was true. Still, it was frustrating to know that Levi possibly could have helped him, but wouldn’t.

  “Why don’t you come inside?” Levi asked. If he’d noticed the way his response had evoked a frown in his guest, he didn’t show it. “Hayley is up in Flagstaff for the day — she and my daughter Brianna are scouting apartments. Bree’s starting at Northern Pines University in August,” he added, with some pride.

  “You have offspring?” Loc responded, startled despite himself. For some reason, he hadn’t thought that a being such as Levi would be able to breed with a human woman.

  Levi chuckled. “Yes, Brianna, and my son Jason. He’s down in Cottonwood today — summer job.”

  “Of course.” The words sounded calm enough, but Loc was still feeling somewhat shaken. The thought of such unions produci
ng children had opened up a whole world of possibilities, possibilities he wasn’t sure he was ready to acknowledge quite yet.

  Without speaking, he followed Levi into the house, which was furnished with such care and precision, Loc thought it must have been decorated by a professional. The impression it gave wasn’t stuffy at all, though, but light and breezy and welcoming, from the linen-covered sofas to the watercolors of local landscapes on the walls.

  “Would you like some water?” Levi asked. “It’s a hot day.”

  Since Loc’s throat did feel somewhat dry, he nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Go ahead and sit down.”

  Loc took a seat on one of the sofas while Levi left the room and disappeared down a short hallway. Within the next moment, he was back, a tall glass of water in each hand. After giving one of the glasses to Loc, he sat down on the couch opposite him and cocked an inquiring eyebrow.

  “What brings you to Jerome?”

  “I’m in need of advice.”

  This response prompted a slight tilt of the head, as if Levi was inspecting him a little more closely to determine whether he could detect the reason behind requesting such advice. “About?”

  Loc gestured with his glass toward the room around them. “How do you do it?”

  “Well, Hayley’s the decorator, but I assume that’s not what you meant.”