by Cate Tiernan
“Coral!” Eugenia said, and did the double-cheek kiss with our friend Mrs. Barrett-Smith.
“Eugenia!” said Coral. “And dear Sarah. Thank you both for coming.”
“Thank you for inviting us. We’re most interested in this print you’ve found,” said Eugenia, and I knew she was telling the truth: Her husband worked for one of the city’s leading auction houses. If Coral had discovered a new source for previously unknown sixteenth-century European prints, Eugenia wanted to know about it.
“First may I introduce the man who has brought it into my life,” said Coral. She gestured gracefully, and an elegant man stepped out of the shadows of an alcove. “Mrs. Watson, Mrs. North—this is Louis Carstairs.”
And that was Incy. He was very handsome, beautifully dressed, somewhat foreign-looking, and, as I realized when he kissed my hand, immortal. The answering spark of recognition in his eyes went unnoticed by my friends.
Anyway. The print was fake, but no one told Coral that. She bought it and was intensely proud of it. She and Incy embarked on a torrid affair that lasted several years, and he and I became friends. We both liked living well, were amused by the same things, and generally got along like a house on fire. We had the occasional spat but would soon make up. Everything was more fun with Incy, more interesting, more outrageous. It was he who pushed me to be bolder in my personal appearance, and he who made me feel comfortable with increasingly outré behavior, both mine and his. I’d always loved traveling, but it was Incy who decided we should branch out of our comfort zones and go to Egypt, Peru, Alaska.
All those years I’d felt that being with Innocencio allowed me to be the real me, the full and complete me. It had really felt like that. How could I have been so wrong? We’d been stuck together like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth for a century. Could I really have been so misguided all that time?
And now here we were. And I’d been hiding from him for two months.
Seeing Innocencio’s silhouette coming toward me over the white field didn’t instantly put memories of all our fun times into my head. Instead my mind seized on all my devastating visions, my appalling dreams, my increasing fears about him. Were my nightmares coming true now?
My heart had slowed like a hibernating squirrel’s, but it now gave a couple of thuds, kicking itself into gear. I was an emotional and physical mess—in no shape to fight Innocencio or outrun him, too far away for my screams to be heard. I drew in a breath of searingly cold air and tried, creakily, to sit up.
Innocencio. Every time I’d imagined him lately, he’d been covered in blood, pushed over the edge into stark, horrifying madness. Now he was here, my worst fears materializing in the darkness, as if my memories themselves had created him, brought him to me.
Ideally I would have been able to leap up and assume a threatening fighting stance, but as it was, I projected more of a victim vibe. I struggled to a sitting position and leaned heavily against the fence post, my hands fluttering nervously on my pants leg.
“Incy?” It came out as barely a croak.
The tall, slim figure came closer, and my breath clotted in my throat when I caught the first ribbon of scent from his cologne. He’d been using the same one since the thirties—it was called 4711. Every cell in my brain recognized it.
“Nas—I can’t believe it. It’s really you. I’ve been looking for you.” Now he was upon me, and I pointlessly tried to throw my arms up to somehow protect myself. But my muscles were sluggish and cold and I could barely move. I tried to project strength, but every fear I’d had coalesced into a barbed-wire whirlwind that was shredding my ability to think.
At that moment, the heavy bank of clouds suddenly drifted past the moon, and the fingernail-thin crescent shone an anemic light on us. I looked up at him, my heart in my throat… and blinked. Incy seemed… amazingly normal. In my visions he’d been like a wild man, an asylum patient, his eyes too bright with anger and intensity. But he looked fine—well dressed, hair brushed back from his elegant forehead. He was clean-shaven, with calm, concerned eyes.
“I’ve been searching everywhere for you,” he repeated. “Then I was driving past, and I… just felt you.” He gestured to the great outdoors. “I thought I was going crazy, but the feeling was so strong—and now here you are.” He peered at me and frowned. “What are you doing out here? And what happened to your face?”
Freaking out and car accident didn’t seem like smart responses. But he didn’t wait for an answer.
“Oh God—look at your hair!” He chuckled softly. “I haven’t seen that color since—ever. But you’re freezing!” he said, and slid out of a thick cashmere overcoat that probably cost four thousand dollars. He draped it over me, and I was reminded of a time not too long ago when I’d been outside crying, and River had draped her coat over me. Like then, I was immediately shocked by its warmth.
“I was just going back in,” I said, and cleared my throat. “They’re expecting me at any second. So what do you want?” My voice was shaky and rough from crying.
He gave a laugh, slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, babe. Not to do the whole stalker thing.” He knelt down in the snow, beautiful handmade boots crunching on the frozen grass, and offered me his hand. I was leery of touching him and instead struggled to my feet, every muscle protesting and calling me bad names.
Incy stood also. I was more alert now, thawing under the incredible toasty warmth of his coat. I examined his face carefully, but if he had gone completely insane since I last saw him, I could find no evidence. Then maybe all my dreams and visions were, as I’d feared, only a projection of my own inner darkness—products of my deep, previously hidden well of self-loathing? The thought was crushing, and I almost groaned.
“The thing is, Nas,” Incy went on, “that, well, I was just really worried about you.”
“Worried? Why?”
“Nas—you disappeared without a word.” His tone was kind and infinitely reasonable. Of the two of us here in this godforsaken field, I was the one who seemed crazy.
When I didn’t say anything, he went on.
“Look, we’ve always taken little trips on our own. But I’d leave you a message. Or you’d call me from Bali or whatever. This time you simply disappeared, and no one knew why or where or if anything was wrong.”
An icy wind crept under the edge of the coat. I saw Incy shiver, and he rubbed his hands together.
“We’ve hung out, you and me, bread and butter, for a century, darling. If you’ve moved on, if we’ve broken up, okay. But tell me, you know? Don’t let me worry about if someone came and chopped your head off.” He sounded so rational. Confusion crept into my brain. It seemed unbelievable that he wasn’t as I had pictured him. I’d run away from him in fear and disgust because of the cabbie. But the Incy that night bore no relation to the man standing in front of me. Had I truly just imagined everything?
I licked my cracked, dry lips. “I just needed a little break.”
He held out his hands: a sane man dealing with a wing nut. “Okay. That’s fine. I accept that. But do you see why I was worried about you?” He exhaled, leaving a roiling smoke trail in the night. “I’ve been asking everywhere for you. I even tried scrying!” He laughed, showing even, white teeth. I remembered when he’d had them fixed, in the eighties. “Of course, that got me nowhere. But, honey—I’ve been so worried.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t rest until I made sure you were all right—saw you with my own eyes. Even if you’ve just wanted to go off and do a walkabout—I had to make sure that nothing horrible had happened to you.” He blew on his hands, rubbed them together. “If I’d just blown it off and found out later that you’d needed my help—I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“How could you live with yourself after what you did to that cabbie?” I blurted.
He cocked his head, thinking back, then his face cleared. “Oh, the cabbie,” he said, as if things were falling into place. “Why, Nas—were you upset about that?”
“You crippled him! For
ever!” I stood up straighter, my blood starting to run warm in my veins.
“I did,” he said slowly. “I did. I was so… furious. He hauled Katy out of the cab, and she was sick, and he was so hateful. I remember feeling that he was spewing venom at us. And I just—snapped.”
He didn’t make a huge protest of innocence or justify his action. He didn’t try to laugh it off. Instead he looked off into the distance, as if remembering the whole night. He sighed, making another cloud. “Babe, is that why you left?”
“It was a bunch of things,” I muttered.
He was silent, as if mentally reviewing. “Okay,” he said again. “I’m sorry to hear I was part of it. I wish you’d talked to me about it, then. Anyway. So you’re here—at this farm. Have you been here the whole time? Is it… going well for you?” He gestured in the general direction of River’s Edge.
“Well” was not how I would describe my stay here. I shrugged.
“Look, if I know that you’re healthy and happy here, and among friends, I can leave with a clear conscience,” he said, and smiled. “Because I’ll know my friend is fine.”
Friend. We had been friends, for such a long time. My relationship with him seemed to be the definition of friendship. I called him in emergencies, and he always came through. When he needed help, I was glad to pitch in. We went shopping, influencing what the other wore. For so long, my endless days had been bearable because Incy had been there. When I was down, he would do anything, crazy things, to cheer me up. I mean, the male-stripper-gram hadn’t been a good idea, but still. We sent each other candy and flowers and little gifts we’d seen that had reminded us of the other. He’d given me a Studebaker once. I’d given him a Corvette. He’d wrecked it.
We simply… always preferred each other’s company to any other. I looked up into his eyes, so dark they looked like part of the night sky. I’d looked into those eyes a million times, right before falling asleep, over a dinner table, on countless ocean liners, in an emergency room.
Who could I call my friend at River’s Edge? With uncomfortable surprise, I realized there wasn’t anyone. No one hated me, but no one was really a good friend, not anything like Incy and I had been, or even Boz and Katy. I thought of how Anne and Amy walked arm in arm, how Brynne and Rachel studied together, their heads close. I would have thought Brynne’s flamboyance would be a bad foil for Rachel’s natural studiousness, but in magick, it seemed, they were more alike.
I’d been an outsider when I arrived, and I’d remained that way for more than two months. And maybe that had been my fault, I admitted, thinking of the overtures I’d rebuffed, invitations to walks, to movies—once, to spend the afternoon making cookies. I’d never accepted, usually heading up to my room instead.
I remembered River telling me that I’d never be able to love anyone else until I loved and accepted myself. That still seemed just as unattainable a goal as it did when I’d shown up like a hungry mongrel.
Oh God—I’d screwed up so bad, wasted the last two months. I’d been kidding myself. All of my sincere attempts, my stupid, pathetic job, my bumbling struggles to learn, to fit in—it was one painful memory after another. What had I been thinking? Why had I even tried? I recalled the patient smiles, the measured explanations of basic, A-B-C stuff that every immortal in the world knew except me. They must have been laughing themselves sick.
Incy let out another breath and stood up. “I don’t remember Massachusetts being this cold,” he said. He glanced up as a fine snowflake drifted down, swaying back and forth like a tiny feather. Another flake joined it. Perfect. Because I needed to get snowed on, on top of everything else. I still had nowhere to go, nothing to do with myself. And I would have to give Incy his coat back.
Then what? Yep, I had really thought this through. Was making great choices. Had learned so much.
Incy smiled suddenly and looked at me. “Do you remember that time in Rome—when was it? Like the fifties. Late fifties? We were at that restaurant, and Boz was telling a story, and the waiter put down that huge platter of spaghetti, and we were so hungry?”
I could see it at once and smiled involuntarily, knowing what was coming next.
“Of course Boz was three sheets to the wind,” Incy said.
“Montepulciano,” I said, remembering the wine we’d been drinking.
“And he was waving his arms around, telling that stupid story about the sheep,” Incy said, starting to chuckle. “And then he slammed his fist down on the table to make a point—”
“And the plank of the table flew up, launching the spaghetti platter,” I said, grinning. “Oh my God, spaghetti everywhere. Jeez, what a mess.”
“But we wouldn’t know,” Incy said. His smile seemed to light up the area around us.
“Because we sped out of there, leaving Boz to take the blame,” I said, snickering.
Incy tilted his head back and laughed, and though I had seen him laugh a bazillion times, it was still fun. The crazed, blood-drenched Incy of my visions seemed almost incomprehensible right now. Yes, he had crippled the cabbie—but now I wondered if it had been Incy’s own inherent darkness bursting out of him without warning. As mine had. Or had my own darkness even made him do it? It was a nauseating possibility.
I shivered as I contemplated giving Incy his coat back. I was so deliciously warm. Without thinking I slipped my arms into the big sleeves and wrapped it around myself.
Incy gave me a sweet, loving smile. “I’m so glad—relieved—to see you’re all right, babe,” he said. “I was worried, but you’re doing fine. So… give me a call, next time you want to hang out, tell stories about Boz.”
“How is Boz?” In pieces somewhere? I still couldn’t shake that frightening image.
“He’s fine.” Incy shook his head: silly Boz. “He, Katy, Stratton, and Cicely are all waiting for me back in Boston. They’ve been worried about you, too. Anyway—we were thinking of hanging out there for a while, and then at the end of the month catching the new sixty-day cruise that Halliday just announced.”
I love cruises. No driving, no looking for hotels, no finding restaurants. Plus, you can get drunk and the worst thing that could happen to you is you fall overboard. Which is really hard to do.
“It goes to the Far East—China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam. Then down to India—all around in there. It has some great day trips.” He shrugged. “Sounded fun.”
It sounded like freaking paradise.
“Huh. How much does it cost?” Not that cost was ever an issue for us.
Incy snorted. “Practically nothing. Twenty-two thousand for a suite. For sixty days.”
“You’re all going?” I remembered other cruises with the gang. They had been so, so fun.
Incy nodded. “Stratton’s still on the fence—depends on this girl he’s chasing.”
“Oh. It sounds fun. It leaves at the end of January?”
He nodded and put his hands into his corduroy pockets. He must have been freezing and was shifting from foot to foot. “Yeah. Like January twenty-fifth or something. Katy says she needs all new resort wear.” He rolled his eyes. “But we can do some shopping in Boston, and then take the red-eye to LA in time to catch the boat.” He gave me another sweet, somewhat wistful smile. “They’ll be so glad to hear that you’re okay. Just hiding out in the backwoods, chilling. Literally.”
I gave a tiny laugh. “How did you get here?” I asked.
He gestured vaguely over one shoulder. “I have a sweet ride, a Caddy. The latest Incymobile. The road isn’t too far from here, actually. I concentrated on you, seemed to feel your energy. I thought I must be crazy, but something told me to stop there, get out, and walk. And then there you were.”
“Oh.” I licked my lips again. My car was totaled, of course.
Incy looked at me. “Honey—you’re happy here, right? You’re fine? I can leave and be happy for you?”
My eyes filled with tears again, and Incy looked alarmed. I was not known for being a big crier, and he hadn’t b
een around for the last two months of waterworks.
I didn’t know what to say. My mind was splitting in two. There was no way I could go back to River’s Edge, face all those people, look like such a failure, and have them realize how inescapably dark I was. But would being on my own be any better? I’d have to come up with a whole new life for myself. What would I do? Where would I go? While I’d always had my own apartment or house—Incy was a huge slob—still, I’d known who I would be with every day. Knew basically what I would do. Being at River’s Edge had, in some ways, been more of the same: a pattern.
If I left River’s Edge, and I wasn’t going to be with Innocencio, what would I do? The thought filled me with panic as I pictured myself living in a new place, maybe knowing a couple of other immortals I wasn’t close to. It was the last thing I felt like doing.
But what choice did I have? After all, I was still kind of afraid of Incy—wasn’t I? I didn’t even know. He seemed so… himself. Totally himself. Easy and fun and really, sincerely concerned about me, and oh yes, sane. Because obvious insanity would be a deal breaker for sure.
I rubbed my hand across my eyes, which burned and felt gritty. Snow was falling more heavily now.
“Nas. Now I’m worried again. Was anyone mean to you? Do I need to kick some ass?”
That thought alone was hilarious; he would never risk ruining his outfit. I gave a leaky smile.
I was frozen, not with cold but with indecision and utter confusion. If I’d been lost, not knowing who I was two months ago, I was doubly so now.
“Listen,” said Incy, really looking concerned. “Do you want to just get out of here? You could come get in the car. I’ll crank the heater; we’ll be in Boston in two hours. You can take a nice, hot bath with a brandy, to warm you from the inside out. We’ll get room service. You’ll feel like a new woman. And tomorrow you can decide what you feel like doing next.”
It all sounded so intensely appealing that I almost whimpered. But how could I possibly just hop in his car like I’d hit a reset button? I’d spent the last two months going to extreme lengths to hide from Incy. But I know I couldn’t stay here.