by Amir Lane
Electricity crackled beneath my skin as I spoke. My body moved on its own, my mouth forming the words I hadn’t spoken in years. The familiar Arabic rolled off my tongue easily, fueling the light inside me. The flickering glow in my body grew stronger until I was lit up like a beacon.
I was in front of them now, close enough that I could once again smell the rancid stench of death, and Rowan’s root beer smell. The light radiating from my body was bright enough that Rowan squinted and Bromley’s eyes — Angelo's eyes — had returned to their usual green. I lifted my hands, my bloody lips trembling as I struggled to finish the passage.
“Every moment of this life is filled with your eternal radiance, my Beloved. You are the Beneficent One who endlessly showers all of creation with nourishment and blessings, and the One who generously rewards those who live in harmony with Your Divine Will.”
Then, words I had never imagined myself capable of saying, words I would never bring myself to believe came from inside me.
“I want you to die.”
I pushed my hands into him, not unlike the way he had done with Angelo, though my hands remained solid. No, it was him who went wispy, as he had so many times before, but unlike those times, it was not to escape. My fingers brushed something cold, something that did not belong in his body, something that was not entirely there. Something my own soul recognized as something like itself.
Bromley screamed, thrashed. He could not escape. I would not let him escape. I pulled each spirit from his body, cold ice following the path of their shadowy forms as they ran through me, escaping him. They entered me, stole the warmth from my body, and left.
I am not going to be your home, I told them. The familiar presence of Rachel Cherry, of Cerys Rees. Even of Wesley Cohn, though I had not known him. A fragment of Angelo. All dead by Bromley’s hand.
No more.
I tore a rib with my hand, surprising myself with the fact that I had the strength to do it. The space was enough to reach into. His heart did not beat. There was no blood when I yanked it out, breaking at least one other rib in the process.
“I wonder,” I whispered, my voice barely audible even to myself. “Will you regenerate without this?”
Bromley didn’t answer. He couldn’t. There was no life left in him. It wasn’t just the organs he had stolen to keep his life, but the spirits. Without them, he was a shell that crumbled into dust before my eyes and left me staring at Rowan.
He was weak. We were both weak, but alive. I couldn’t believe it. I almost didn’t believe it.
The reek of burning flesh interrupted my next thought. My hands flew up. Sparks ignited between my fingertips, but nothing more came from them. I moaned weakly and followed my second instinct. I threw myself over Rowan to protect him. He collapsed beneath my weight, and I could barely stop myself from crushing him. Heat burned against my back.
“The trees,” he croaked. “The trees.”
The trees were igniting. After all of that, after all of that, we were going to die anyway. I closed my eyes, and waited for the end to come.
The end, I thought, was much brighter than I expected it to be. There was no pain, only a fuzzy haze. The end was a hard bed and white walls, a small TV playing a rerun of Corner Gas. Was this what Hell was? An eternity of watching a man whose last name was Butt insult everyone who came into his gas station?
Was I imagining Ariadne beside me? The weight of her hand in mine certainly felt real. And the shouting down the hall certainly sounded like my mother’s.
“You’re awake,” Ariadne murmured.
Her fingers brushed my hair from my face. I reached up to scratch my temple, but her hand caught mine. I stared at our fingers touching. It was a beautiful sight.
“Why’s my hand heavy?” I mumbled.
“Your arm is in a cast, Fairuz. You broke your hand.”
I broke my hand? Why would I do something like that? I liked my hand. My rings went on my hand.
My rings broke my hand.
The memories came back to me, one by one. Angelo. Rowan. Bromley. Angelo again. Rowan again. Dead, all dead. I closed my eyes and covered them with my other hand. My palm became wet.
“You are not talking to my daughter while she is in the hospital!” Mama shouted. “You listen to me, Officer. I don’t care if you’re the Queen of England. You leave her alone or I’ll—”
I was expecting Vance. He was going to come in here and accuse me of starting the fire, of stabbing Rowan, of… Of whatever else he wanted to accuse me of. But it wasn’t Vance. It was Sabine. She wasn’t the Queen of England, but she was the only person who would be able to get past Mama, who was quick to follow her.
How long had it been since I had seen Mama’s face? Her expression softened the moment she saw me, and she smiled. There was relief in her dark, bloodshot eyes.
“If you want me to make her go away, I will make her go away,” she said, jerking her thumb toward Sabine. She would, too.
“It’s fine.” My throat itched. “Can we have a minute, Mama?”
Mama scowled at me, though there was still that relief, and she turned out of the room. An instant later, I heard her shouting at Dad for wandering off. They had come all this way for me. I wouldn’t even be able to cook for them.
“I’m staying,” Ariadne said quietly, tearing my attention from the door.
Sabine didn’t say anything, only moved to take the seat on the other side of me. Her stony face was either more or less stony than usual, I couldn’t tell. For a long moment, she stayed quiet. I almost fell asleep until I heard her voice. I tried to force my eyes open, but I just couldn’t manage it.
“I’m awake,” I mumbled. “Keep talking, I’m awake.”
“I don’t know how much of this you will remember anyway, but I thought you should know. Rowan has confessed.”
I frowned, my eyes still closed. What had he done? “To what?”
There was a rustle of fabric on the other side of my eyelids and the tap of fingers on a phone screen.
“My name is Rowan Oak,” Rowan’s voice said, crackly through speakers. “My real name is Rowan z-Barony. I am a detective with the Toronto Police Special Crimes division. I was recruited by someone affiliated with the Black Birches gang to suppress information regarding murders in the city. I blackmailed superior officers to make sure these crimes would not be investigated. When my partner, Fairuz Arshad, started to find out what I was doing, I had her suspended from the police force. Then I tried to kill her.”
That wasn’t right. None of this was right. But when I opened my eyes, it was Rowan on the small screen. The angle of the camera suggested he was holding it up over him like he was taking a selfie. His face was blurry through my tears, but definitely him. He sniffed and rubbed his mouth before continuing.
“I am confessing because… Because people died because of me. I almost killed my best friend. I don’t want to be this person. This isn’t… I didn’t want any of this. The Black Birches are going to come after me, now. You won’t be able to find me, so don’t try. I’m sorry for everything.”
Those last words were directed at me, I knew it. All this time, I had been pushing to try and be Rowan’s friend. It turned out I didn’t have to try so hard. The video ended, and Sabine tucked her phone back into her pocket.
“His apartment’s been cleared out. It looks like he left in a hurry. We’re looking for his girlfriend, but nobody’s seen her since.”
I squeezed Ariadne’s fingers as best I could with my broken hand.
“What happens now?” I asked.
Sabine sighed and rubbed a taloned hand over her face. “Life goes on. Everyone in the city is looking for Rowan. We’ve started alerting other cities, the Provincial Police, and the RCMP. There’s a chance he might try going back to Belarus.”
“He won’t,” I murmured. “His family will kill him if he does.”
The silence that followed was heavy. His words wound through my head again. You won’t be able to find me,
so don’t try. He had to know I was going to try, not to bring him in but to make sure he was alive. With an injury like that, he couldn’t have gotten very far without medical attention.
“Inspector Vance admitted to being… coerced to pushing for your suspension. His story doesn’t quite match Rowan’s.” She paused, and I knew his confession had included Bromley. “But it is enough for Internal Affairs. You will be allowed to resume work when you are cleared medically.”
With that, Sabine gave my hand a squeeze and left.
Chapter Twenty-One
I had never thought I would miss having my house to myself. As much as I loved my parents, which was a lot, a month of being treated like an invalid by them was more than I could handle. By the time Ariadne managed to usher them out the door, I thought I was going to go out of my mind. Not only did I finally have my precious Turkish coffee maker, I could get myself a glass of water without them acting like I was going to break in two from it. But to be fair, infection had gotten into the wounds on my temple and shoulder that left matching scars, and I had spent most of the first half of month fighting fevers.
My hand had healed fine. The cast came off after three weeks. I didn’t quite have my full range of motion, and I was still getting used to writing again, but it could have been much worse.
Sometime between fever-induced hallucinations, Ariadne moved in. I hadn’t noticed it at first, not until I was trying to find a sweater that would fit over the cast and found my closet much smaller than it had been.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she’d said.
I hadn’t minded one bit. I still didn’t. Every now and then, I looked at the ring box Dad had left at the bottom of my dresser drawer, and I wondered if it would be too soon.
My hope was that returning to work on a Tuesday meant nobody would notice. I was wrong. When I walked into the corner of the second floor, light applause and a banner made of printer paper that read, ‘Welcome Back Fairuz’, greeted me. I laughed, and accepted Indira’s hug. Kieron, who seemed to share Mama’s opinion that food solved everything, offered me a tray of cookies.
“I made brownies first, but my nephew was over, and he… helped. I figured you’ve been out of it enough, you don’t need that.”
I hadn’t realized just how much I missed Kieron’s stories about his nephew, or Indira’s constant cheerfulness, or even Sabine’s scowl. When I turned to her, the scowl softened just slightly.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said. “Some nymphs are protesting bottled water companies, you’re going to need to round them up.”
That was more than okay with me. After everything that had happened, I couldn’t wait to get back into pointless cases. It wasn’t that I had abandoned all ambition of rising through the ranks, I just wanted to take my time with it.
I settled into my chair and adjusted it back to the way I liked it. Somebody had upgraded my computer to Windows 7, which only put us one operating system behind. None of my icons were where I wanted them. Right now, I wanted this to be the biggest problem I faced today. In a few days, I would be ready for more.
My eyes shifted to the empty desk in front of me. Not only was the chair unoccupied, the desk had been completely cleared. For the first time, I could actually see the top of Rowan’s desk. Gone were the stacks of paper, the assorted coffee cups, the plant, and the pictures of Rowan’s cats. It was as though he had never been here. Indira caught my gaze and tried to smile. For once, it didn’t reach his eyes.
“There’s still no sign of him,” he said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. He could have hopped a border. He’s changed his identity before, I’m sure he could do it again.”
I was sure too. In fact, I hoped he had changed his identity. Whatever it did to keep himself safe.
There was no sign of Angelo, either. I had tried finding him, but even with access to police resources again, he was nowhere to be found. In my mind, he had returned to wherever he called home and started a life for himself. Was that even possible for someone like him? Even I could barely remember what normal life was like.
I left early, citing exhaustion. I was tired, and my doctor told me not to push myself, but the truth was, I hadn’t realized just how hard it would be to look at Rowan’s empty desk all day. Every time I looked up, I remembered… I remembered too much. I’d finally managed to stop blaming myself, most of the time, but it still hurt to think of him, to think of everything he had lost. He had fought so hard for his life, even if it wasn’t perfect, and now it was all gone. Whether he was dead or alive, Rowan had made sure that, in the end, I would be back in my rightful spot here. Whatever he had or hadn’t done in his life, I would always remember him for that. Not the lies, not the betrayal, but that at the end of the day, all he’d wanted to do was make things right.
The tradition of Wednesday date night had continued, even when I had been delirious and couldn’t see two feet in front of me. The routine had brought me comfort, and I had enjoyed feeling Ariadne next to me, even with Mama coming in every two minutes to ask if we needed anything. It had also been the only reason I’d known what day it was without work to keep track.
“What do you want to watch?” Ariadne called from the living room.
“You pick,” I called back.
I didn’t care. I never did. It had always been an excuse to spend time with her and away from the rest of the world. I reached into the bottom of my dresser and found the black velvet ring box, a new habit I’d picked up.
The ring had belonged to my grandmother on my father’s side. She had died when I was only seven, and I didn’t have many memories of her. Dad didn’t talk about her much. He didn’t talk about anything much, really. If I was honest, part of me had always wondered if he was actually okay with me being gay. He had never given me any reason to think he wasn’t, but I couldn’t help it. Mama was so loud about her approval, his silence made me wonder. But I didn’t wonder anymore. He was giving me his mother’s ring to give to her. That said more than words ever could. I hoped the sentiment made up for how un-Ariadne the ring was.
There was no other way to say it: it was big. A white gold band, three rows of tear-shaped diamonds, and one last diamond sticking out in the middle. It was definitely worth more than three months’ salary. Even I wouldn’t wear something like this.
Okay, I might wear something like this. Ariadne wouldn’t. But this was the ring I had. If she hated it that much — which she would — I would find a way to give it back without hurting Dad’s feelings. For now, I tucked the ring into the pouch of my hoodie and made my way downstairs.
If you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it, reviews are always appreciated.
The story continues in Gift of Curses coming October 2019.
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About the Author
Amir Lane writes supernatural and fantasy books with LGBT+ characters. From the frigid and mysterious land of Northern Canada, Amir is obsessed with loud music and black magic. They spend most of their writing time in a small home office or doing the circuit of local coffee shops. They live in a world where magic is an every day occurrence, and they strive to bring that world to paper.
When not figuring out what kind of day job an incubus would have or what a necromancer would go to school for, Amir enjoys visiting
the nearest Dairy Queen, getting killed in video games, and watching cat videos.
Amir loves to connect with readers online. They can be found on their Facebook page, and at their website where you can find out more about their work.
For more information about Amir, check out:
www.amirlane.com
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