by Cori Vidae
He opened his mouth to ask, but the power of the circle restrained him. If asked a direct question, his only options were silence, or the truth; and he’d been alone, silent, for too long.
“I am called Cairn,” he answered, sidestepping the entire truth. “And I am an incubus.”
Her face drained of color. “A demon?” she said, more to herself than to him. “How is that helpful?”
Erzsébet always called the services he provided ‘help.’ They helped sustain him. They helped relax her. Help was their euphemism, or had been, once upon a time. This girl must have misunderstood. He couldn’t tell her that, though, or she’d send him back. “That,” he answered carefully, “depends upon the problem.”
“My brother is at war,” she said, after shrugging in a ‘what can it hurt?’ kind of way. Cairn was very familiar with the gesture and intimately, painfully, familiar with the answer. “Something big is going to happen. Something bad. I need to find a way to protect him. To get him out of there or… something.”
“Or something,” Cairn echoed, but relief filled him. Relief and hope. If he was clever, not only could he delay being banished, he might just find a way to escape altogether.
* * *
“I can help you.” Cairn’s smile filled his whole face, crinkling the corners of his eyes and showing his teeth clearly enough that she could see that his bicuspids were exceptionally long and pointed. A shiver shook her and she wrapped her arms around herself to rub her upper arms. Still, despite the unease he inspired, this man—demon—might be her only chance to save Michael.
“How can you help?”
“I can cast a spell of protection over him.”
“Tell me how and I’ll do it.”
He shook his head. To her surprise, Mary imagined running her fingers through his hair, and the butterflies in her belly took flight once more. Where did that come from? She pushed the image to the very back of her mind.
“My magic is not like a witch’s.” He gestured at the circle and symbols on the floor at his feet. “And so it cannot be taught, or learned. It does not come from without. It is a part of me.”
“But how can I know I can trust you?”
“Oh.” He laughed. “You cannot trust me. But I cannot lie to you, either.”
“Why not?”
“It is part of the spell you cast to bring me here.”
Mary puffed out her cheeks and blew. It was all too much to deal with. The mirror, this room, no sleep, the demon across from her.
She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t think straight, and to make it worse, her mind kept wandering to images of herself and Cairn. Intimate images. She didn’t know anything about incubuses—incubi?—but she seemed to remember they had something to do with sex. She could ask him if he was fogging her mind as some sort of demon magic, but that would require admitting to her thoughts in the first place.
She closed her eyes to think, to count, but the numbers didn’t come. Instead, she imagined what Cairn’s arms would feel like around her. Damn it, she thought. I’m lonelier than I thought.
“How do I know that’s true?” she finally asked.
“You do not,” he said.
“Great.”
“Do you want me to help your brother?”
“Yes,” she answered, after only a moment’s hesitation.
“Then I need something of his. Something personal.”
* * *
While the girl ran upstairs to get him a focus, Cairn studied the room. It was underground, small and dirty. He could see Erzsébet’s diary, he’d recognize it anywhere, sitting on a table against the wall, and a dusty paper stuck to the side of a bookshelf showed days of the month. It read July 1915, which meant 314 years had passed since she’d last summoned him; at least 314, probably more, judging by how neglected the paper seemed.
Incredible, he thought. He knew it had been a long time, but he’d never imagined it had been that long.
Erzsébet must be dead now. If not, they’d never have taken her journal from her. He felt a pang of remorse but slammed the door on those thoughts. He couldn’t afford to be distracted just now. He had to escape this circle.
As the light from the golden-haired woman’s lantern preceded her down the stairs, he spared one final thought for Erzsébet—despite everything, he hoped she died young and beautiful. It’s how she would have wanted it.
* * *
“What is the date?” Cairn asked as Mary reached the bottom of the steps and hung the lantern from the hook on the pillar.
“April 7th, 1917.”
“316.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “What did you bring?”
“I brought his pillow.” She felt silly as soon as the words left her mouth, and struggled to explain as she passed it over the barrier to Cairn. “I thought he might have left hair on it, and, well, he dreamed on it every night.”
“You have good instincts,” he said, taking the pillow from her, and Mary felt a disproportionate amount of pride at the words. What did she care what this stranger, this demon, thought of her instincts? Really, she chastised herself, you ought to be insulted.
Oh, he was talking. He was talking and she’d been so busy arguing with herself she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“Pardon?”
“I said—” His voice reminded her of black velvet, soft and rich. “—This will work perfectly. Now I need you to… join me.”
“What? I don’t know what kind of—”
He held his arms up, palms out, as if fending off an attack. “You are asking me to cast a powerful spell on a target far away. My powers are weak from centuries of banishment and disuse. I need to recover them.”
“Well, that’s very well and good,” Mary blurted, “but I don’t see—”
“I am an incubus,” he interrupted.
And suddenly she did see. She saw very clearly.
“You want me to have sex with you, or you won’t save my brother.”
“Or I cannot save your brother,” the incubus corrected. “Unless you know someone else who would join me?”
“No,” Mary snapped. Her sharpness surprised her, as did the sudden flare of—possessiveness? Jealousy?—his question inspired. Whatever it was, she clearly didn’t want to share Cairn with anyone else, even if she could. Given her farm’s current state of isolation, that wasn’t an option. “How do I know you’re not just trying to trick me? That you’ll keep your word?”
“The circle binds me. So long as it remains intact, even when I am at full power it will not let me lie, leave, or break my word.”
“So you say.”
“A test, then. Kiss me. Kiss me, and it will restore enough power that I can protect your brother a short time, at least until sundown. After that you can decide about the full spell.”
“And how long does the full spell last?”
“Until the next blue moon.”
As tempting as it was to pretend she knew what that meant, this was Michael’s life they were gambling with. “What’s a—”
“Kiss me,” he said low in his throat, his voice nearly a whisper, but containing the air of a command.
Unthinking, Mary stepped toward him, not stopping until her toes touched the salt circle.
“Kiss me,” he repeated and she felt a tug, similar to the one from the enchanted mirror, but deeper, and lower down.
She leaned forward and their lips brushed against each other, soft as dandelion fluff. His thumb caught her chin and tilted it upward. His tongue parted her lips and tangled with hers.
A murmuration of butterflies took flight in her belly and a flash of pure pleasure pierced her body like a lightning bolt. It set her nerves alight, pulled the air from her lungs, and weakened her legs. She grabbed hold of Cairn’s shoulders and clung, pressing her body hard against his.
When the kiss finally ended, it was him who pulled away, not her. Mary’s limbs felt languid, as after a
very long swim, and she didn’t want to open her eyes. Once she did, however, a fist of panic punched her out of her blissful lethargy—at some point she’d crossed the salt barrier. She was in the circle with the incubus.
“Oh!” she squeaked and leaped backward.
“You are safe on both sides of the circle. It only binds me,” he said. “And I will not harm you.”
* * *
He wondered if she knew her fingers were pressed against her lips. It was a very good look for her. Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils dilated, and her breasts rose and fell dramatically as she sucked in great lungfuls of air.
He wasn’t unaffected, either. His cock had sprung to attention and obscenely tented the robe she’d insisted he wear. After hundreds of years without, he felt his power pulsing through his body. True, it was only a taste of his true potential, but in time, he could return to full strength. Even now, he only needed to use a little bit. A tiny, minute amount, and he could have this woman begging him to take her. Begging. She’d set him free, and he could use her to regain all that he’d lost—
But no.
It would be so easy. She was right there, primed and ready. But no.
He wanted those things—power, freedom, and her—but not that way. Perhaps that was a side effect of the spell Ferenc had cast on him the night he’d discovered Cairn and Erzsébet together, but he thought not. It felt like something else. Something more.
“What is your name?” he asked, surprised to hear a break in his voice.
Color flooded her face. “Mary,” she said. Abruptly, she turned and clattered back up the stairs.
* * *
What is your name?
She was no prude—life on the farm took all the mystery from sex—and no virgin, either. She’d fooled around plenty with Pete, and given herself fully to him the night before he enlisted. They, neither of them, wanted to die a virgin. But still! To kiss a stranger like that! A demon! A demon stranger who had to ask her name. After. After he’d had that effect on her. Turned her into a wanton creature who pressed herself against his body, hung onto him like a drowning woman to a life preserver… and then asked her name.
Early morning light slanted through the curtains in her parents’ room as she stormed through it—milking time. The Chinook winds had stopped. The sky was the color of dirty snow and the air had teeth. Mary rubbed her arms for warmth as she tromped out to the barn to do chores.
“I’m just not myself,” she said to Eclipse when he met her at the barn door. “I mean, what other explanation is there for my behavior in the cellar, and for charging out to the barn with no coat on?”
It’s just a kiss, a voice in her mind whispered. You enjoyed it. There’s no harm, no shame in that.
And yet her embarrassment persisted.
But if it will help Michael, the voice persisted. Why were her emotions so twisted and turned all of a sudden?
Eclipse weaved around the legs of her stool as she milked the cows. She squirted some of the milk directly into his mouth, and he purred his thanks, but she only partly registered any of it. Her attention turned inward, to the way she felt around the incubus, to the effect he had on her.
It must be part of his magic. It must. She would march back into the house as soon as she had done her chores and demand he stop it, stop doing this to her, or she’d send him back. Back to wherever he came from.
Armed with a plan of action, Mary felt much better, and the twisting in her belly subsided. In the absence of that, however, the chill bit her even harder and she shivered through the rest of her chores.
* * *
Using the pillow as a focus, Cairn had little difficulty tracking Mary’s brother, even across the physical distance which separated them. Distance was a relative thing for a planar creature, after all. When he found him, the man sat in a mess tent, surrounded by other soldiers. Cairn couldn’t see them, not really, but he could sense them. Smell them. That particular oily, sweaty, fear-soaked scent all soldiers have. These ones were more weary than most, and the acrid smell of gunpowder clung to all of them, her brother included.
Mary hadn’t mentioned they’d shared a womb, but Cairn could tell the moment he fixated on the man. Twins had a connection which, in magic, was nearly physical. Had he known, he could have used Mary as the focus, rather than the pillow. Could have crushed her against him while he cast, could have—
Stop it, he chastised himself. Cast the spell.
He exhaled, willing himself to see the strands of magic that permeated the world, weaving in and out and through everything. As the last breath left his body, they blinked into existence, becoming as physical as anything else he could touch, but only for as long as he wasn’t breathing.
While his lungs ached and burned, he grabbed at the magic, twisting and tying. His fingers were long out of practice, but still they knew the motions and he worked quickly. Plucking some luck from the soldier on her brother’s left, he added it to a handful of strands he snagged from other men. Luck, and life, and time, he wove together to create a shield, and dropped it, like a net, over Mary’s twin’s shoulders. It lay there, strands of gold and silver twisted together, glittering with magic, for two heartbeats, but softened on the third. It sank into him, fusing with his core.
He would be safe now. At least until sundown.
Cairn inhaled. The sudden influx of air made him dizzy and the magic vanished from his sight.
His fingers shook, and his face felt hot. Pins and needles raced across his skin. To be able to use magic again after so long was like comparing a pencil sketch to an oil painting. He hadn’t realized how much it pained him to be powerless until he wasn’t any longer.
* * *
Mary opened the barn door onto a spring blizzard. It hadn’t picked up its real force yet, but even so, giant, wet, snowflakes pelted her, plastering her hair to her skin and weighing down her clothes. She raced across the yard, but by the time she reached the kitchen, her teeth chattered and her dress was as damp as a poorly wrung-out dishcloth.
She lit the stove and fed wood into it until the sound of the fire roared through the metal chimney pipe. Rubbing her palms together and holding them toward the warmth eased the numbness from her fingers.
I need to get out of these clothes, she thought, and so, though reluctant to leave the heat of the stove and the comfortable ticking sound of the heat expanding the chimney, she dashed to her bedroom.
Eclipse purred on the bed, dry as a bone. Mary blinked. He hadn’t dashed across the yard with her, so she had no idea how he’d gotten into the house, especially without so much as dampening his fur.
Mary pulled the top drawer of her dresser open and was sorting through it when she felt the pull in her belly and lifted her gaze. The mirror ran like a waterfall so she pressed her palm against it and watched the surface clear.
Michael’s collar badge, a bronze-colored maple leaf sporting the number 50 and the word Canada, came into focus first. Then he shifted. His face was filthy and blood-spattered, his eyes wide and unfocused. Mary’s heart leaped to her throat. What had Cairn done? Had he harmed Michael rather than help him? Had she?
“Mary? Mary!” When he spoke, the change in sound was as abrupt and instantaneous as striking a match in the darkness. At first, there had been silence, but now a tumult of shouting men, whinnying horses, and cries of pain rose around him.
“Are you okay, Michael?” She leaned closer to the mirror, as though that might help her see better. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “Not my blood. Not my—” Michael’s gaze darted over his shoulder and Mary’s view shifted and bobbed while he walked. She stared, once again, at his collar badge while he kept talking.
“Whatever you did,” he said, “keep doing it. There was an accident, an explosion, in the mess tent. Men all around me gone, but not me. Not me. It was like I was in a bubble, and I swear—” He stopped walking and once again she could see his face, as wide-eyed with sincerity as it was lined with exhaus
tion. “—I swear at one point, I felt the hand of God surround me and guide me through the flames to safety.”
“Perhaps luck?” Mary asked, though her heart beat against her chest at the lie in her words. If Cairn’s spell had worked, there was only one course left to her, and she couldn’t tell if the vacuum in her chest came from dread or desire.
“Not luck. Not just luck, at any rate. Did you do something?”
“I found Mom’s magic stuff. I cast a spell I hoped would help,” she said, dropping her gaze to the surface of her dresser.
“Well, it did. Whatever you did, it saved my life.”
She blushed, partly in pleasure at having saved her brother, and partly in remembrance of the price she’d paid to do it. “Did your bad feeling—?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The fight is coming soon, and rumor is my division will be taking control of German-held high ground so our southern flank doesn’t get cut to shreds by crossfire. I’m scared, Mary. I need your help.”
“I promise.”
“I need to go. If they catch me talking to my mirror—”
“I love you,” Mary said.
“I love you. Thank you, Mary.”
The mirror shifted and Mary saw her own reflection once more. She’d never appeared more bedraggled. Her hair had begun to dry but was becoming frizzy. Her face was pale and her wet dress clung uncomfortably to her. She ought to try and make herself more presentable, but if she did, if she stopped to think for even a moment, she might lose her nerve.
* * *
Mary descended the stairs toward him like a woman walking to the gallows. Her spine was as straight as the Sword of Attila, her fingers curled into fists, and her eyes looked like a spooked pony’s. Her hair was damp, and curled tendrils clung to her cheek, framing her face. Her skin was white as porcelain but for her lips, which had a faint blue cast. Her dress clung to her, emphasizing each curve and valley of her body.
She stepped into the pool of lantern light near him.
“You are shivering,” he said.
She met his gaze and, as though he hadn’t even spoken, said, “It worked.” She paused. “You cast your spell?”