Neon Blue

by E J Frost

  The demon strips off his pajama bottoms and steps into the bath. Steam billows up, dotting his golden skin with moisture. I can’t help but stare.

  He chuckles. “Glad you still like what you see. C’mere.”

  I shed my robe and slippers and climb in after him. I’m not really a bath person. I always feel in danger of slipping and ending up on my butt while I’m getting in, and there’s that old childhood fear of going down the drain. The demon doesn’t seem to share any of my concerns. He sits down easily and draws me into his lap. It should be awkward, but it’s not. He positions me until I’m cupped by his chest and hips. I relax back against him, sinking into the hot water and bubbles. My eyes slowly close.

  “This is nice,” I whisper.

  “Yeah, not bad.” His chest flexes under me as he reaches for something, then the gentle scratchiness of a bath puff slides along my thighs. “It’s not quite the pools of the Styx, but it’ll do.”

  It’s the first time he’s mentioned where he comes from without me asking. “Are you . . . homesick?”

  “Homesick?” He’s silent for a moment, then he chuckles. “No, I’m not homesick. The only thing waitin’ for me back home is a fuckload of trouble.”

  “Why?”

  He sighs and strokes the puff over my knees. “No reason.”

  I twist around to look up into his face. “Jou, please? I can tell something’s wrong. I’m not an idiot. Maybe I can help.”

  He kisses my forehead. “You can’t.”

  “How do you know? Maybe I could, if you’d just tell me what’s going on.”

  He stops washing me, puts his arms around me and hugs me, slippery-tight. “You’re the softest little thing—”

  “You keep saying that, and I’m not sure if you think it’s good or bad.”

  “It’s . . . surprisin’. I think you’d take on the old man if you thought it would help.”

  “Is he what’s wrong?” Because I’m definitely not taking him on. Not for anything.

  “Yeah.” He strokes my hair, soap bubbles crackling. “I’ve never been one of his favorites. An’ his bitch queen’s been poisonin’ him against anyone born to my dame for a millennium. But he’s mostly ignored me, and I’ve mostly returned the favor. Today I asked for somethin’. Somethin’ he shoulda granted me without thinkin’ twice. Instead he took it as a challenge.”

  “A challenge?”

  “Schizoid fuck sees conspiracies everywhere.”

  “You don’t sound like you like your father very much.”

  His dark chuckle vibrates up my back, through the lavender-scented air. “Nope. I’d be fine with someone taking him down. Ain’t gonna be me, though. I got better things to do.”

  I rub my hands up and down his knees, rising out of the pearly bubbles on either side of me. “He threatened you—”

  “Yeah, he always does that. Havin’ a conversation with him’s like tryin’ to talk to a scorpion. Fuckin’ thing just keeps trying to sting you.”

  I have to laugh at that. “Not exactly the paternal type.”

  “That an’ his thing for eatin’ his get.”

  “Charming. What did you ask him for?”

  “Mmm, nothin’. You heard him. It ain’t gonna happen. I’ll have to figure out somethin’ else.”

  The faintest thread of cigarette smoke sliding through the lavender-scented air warns me of my uncle’s appearance just before his ghost unrolls to perch on the toilet. “Lying beng,” the Billigoat spits.

  Jou shifts, draping one arm across my breasts. His other hand slides between my legs to cover my groin. “This one of yours?”

  I nod against his shoulder. Bemused by the Billigoat’s appearance and the demon’s reaction. “My uncle. Harman Faa.”

  “And I know your name, beng!”

  “Using it’ll get you a one-way ticket to the Flaming Tombs, so watch your mouth,” Jou growls, but his growl is laced with amusement. I don’t think he sees my uncle’s ghost as much of a threat. Particularly not after facing off against his father.

  My uncle puffs furiously on his cigarette. “If you don’t tell her the truth, we will.”

  “She knows I want her soul. I haven’t made any secret of that.”

  “But not that you plot with your master to make her one of you!”

  I glance up at Jou. His eyes have started to glow dangerously. “No one’s my master,” he growls, and there’s much more weight to that growl now.

  “You lie like your beng dadrus, the Prince of Lies—”

  “He doesn’t like that name, and after this morning he’s probably listenin’.”

  The Billigoat takes several draws on his cigarette before he responds. “We won’t let you make her one of you.”

  “It’d be her choice,” Jou responds. I shiver despite the warm water and the heat of his body. I didn’t have any idea he wanted to make me a demon.

  “I’m not damned,” I say weakly.

  “Don’t have to be for what I had in mind. But it’s a waste of breath. The only way to the Pillar is through the old man an’ he says no. So forget it.”

  “Tell her why you wanted it, beng,” the Billigoat says mulishly.

  The demon chuckles against my ear. “You in the mood for a history lesson, sweet meat?”

  I’m in the mood for anything that keeps him chuckling. Particularly since I’m naked and he’s got his hands on some very critical parts. “Okay.”

  “Three ways to make a demon. The birds ‘n’ bees way. The severe fuck-up way. An’ the third way. We don’t talk about the third way.”

  “Why not?” I ask breathily, because he’s started to stroke my breast. Probably just to piss my uncle off. But whatever the intent, it has the predictable effect. My body tightens. A familiar ache begins between my legs. My hips rise a little against his hand and he rubs his thumb over my inner thigh.

  “’Cause it’s a big dark secret. Whaddo you think nasty little warlocks like your dead friend would do if they found out you didn’t have to be damned to have the strength and power of a demon? They’d be fallin’ over each other t’get downstairs. An’ we got enough problems as it is without bein’ overrun by those power-hungry little fucks.”

  “Oh.” I decide in that moment that I don’t want to know what the third way is. The less I know about something diabolists desire so badly, the better.

  My uncle, however, doesn’t share my reservations. “What’s the third way?”

  “Bathin’ in the Pillar of Fire.”

  That doesn’t sound so bad.

  “After havin’ your veins filled with demon blood and your womb with demon seed.”

  I gulp. “You, you—”

  He nips the rim of my ear and speaks into my mind. I haven’t done anythin’ yet, sweet meat. I’m just enjoyin’ you.

  But you asked your father—

  Yeah, I’ve been thinkin’ about it. But I haven’t done anythin’. Nothin’ has to happen yet.

  Nothing except me sending him back to Hell as soon as possible.

  I don’t want to become a demon.

  How d’you know?

  I just know!

  You don’t know anythin’ about it. Lemme show you what it can be like before you make any stupid decisions.

  Wanting to retain my humanity isn’t stupid!

  You don’t know that, either. Anyway, the old fuck’s barred me from the Pillar, so right now it’s all a waste of breath.

  Then why are we talking about it?

  Your uncle started it. I told you to forget it.

  “Káulochírilo,” my uncle-who-started-it says, and there’s a note of pleading in his voice.

  For a moment, I see what he must see. Me lying against the demon, his arms around me, his mouth so close to my ear that it must look like he’s whispering to me. Like I’m completely in his thrall.

  “It’s okay, Goat. It can’t happen against my will.”

  “Your will? What will have you in the face of this archere?”

&n
bsp; “Archere? Come on,” I complain. “At least use words I know.”

  It’s old English, the demon supplies. Means seducer.

  Well, that fits.

  He chuckles inside my head and licks my ear in a way that sends hot shivers up my spine.

  “The beng will destroy you, káulochírilo,” my uncle says in his best voice-of-doom. I scowl at him.

  “Yes, I got that, Uncle.”

  Not destroy. What’s the fun in that?

  Can we talk about something else? And can we have this conversation somewhere else? Somewhere other than my bathtub? Being caught between my uncle and the demon – naked – is beginning to really get on my nerves.

  He started it. I just wanted a bath.

  Oh, yes, Mr. Innocent. Aloud, I say, “Okay, truce. Now I know what he was planning and everyone knows how I feel about it. End of discussion. Can I finish my bath, please?”

  “The longer you linger in the beng’s embrace, the less you’ll be able to resist him, chavi. You have to break free of him now. There is another—”

  “Another what?” I ask suspiciously. Is he about to offer the demon a substitute? I sit up, not caring what I bare. “You’d better say another way, Goat. If you offer him a substitute, I swear I’ll make sure you never leave Limbo.”

  My uncle puffs on his cigarette in glowering silence. I glare back at him, getting so angry I’m surprised the water doesn’t boil.

  “You’re disgusting, all of you!” I shout at him.

  “We’re only thinking of you,” my uncle mutters around his cigarette.

  “Right, thinking of me. Just like you’ve always thought of me, hauling me from place to place. Never giving me a home. Never letting me have any friends of my own. Keeping me isolated and afraid of anyone who wasn’t just like me. You know what?” I plant my hands on the rim of the tub. Hear the ceramic crack. Smell the ozone that overpowers the sweet scent of lavender. “There is no one like me! I’m a freak! Even in my own family, I’m a freak. And I’m glad! Because I’d rather be a freak than be like you!” I raise my hand and spit through my outstretched fingers.

  My spittle tears through the ghost, shredding him into flakes of ectoplasm that spatter across my toilet.

  I haul myself out of the bathtub, slopping water onto the tiles. “Another goddamn mess in my house!”

  I stretch out my hands, call and feel the earth under the foundations, the wind blowing beyond the windows, respond. I twist my fingers together, winding and knotting the energies I’ve called, flick the spell off my fingertips, and shape the mother of all cantrips. It roars around me, drying the water on my skin instantly, blowing silky strands of my hair around my face, sweeping up the gooey remains of the ghost into a funnel worthy of a Dyson. The whirlwind brushes past me, twisting across the hall into my bedroom where it sucks the sheets off my bed, gobs of demon seed joining the blue ectoplasm swirling around in the cantrip’s cyclone.

  I watch it twist its way downstairs with grim satisfaction before I stalk into my bedroom and pull on jeans and a tee I bought in college that proclaims, ‘Thunderbirds are Go!’ When I turn from my closet, the demon’s leaning in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his hips, watching me. His eyes are still lit with neon and the corners of his mouth are twitching like he's having trouble suppressing that wicked leer.

  If he thinks we’re having sex now, when I’m this pissed off at him and my family and the world, he can think again. “I’m going to brew,” I snap.

  He nods. “Might come watch if there’s nothin’ on the box.”

  “Try to stay out of the cantrip’s way. It’s not selective about what it cleans.”

  “Sure.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Your family’s a bitch, sweet meat.”

  I grab a scrunchie off my dresser and twist my hair up into a knot. “You’re telling me?”

  He pushes away from the door and crosses the room to pull a pair of jeans out of a drawer that’s been empty since Saul left. Seeing the neat pile of men’s clothes the drawer now holds makes my throat tight. Makes my eyes burn. I blink furiously, trying to hold on to my good, clean anger.

  He pulls the jeans on, leaving the fly unbuttoned. His dark pubic hair curls through the open vee. For some reason, that brings my anger rushing, roaring, spitting back.

  “Don’t you ever turn it off?”

  He grins. “Nope.”

  I turn on my heel, intending to stalk away from him. He catches my shoulders and pulls me back against his chest. He breathes warmly in my ear, brushes his lips against the lobe, before he says, “Just so you know, I don’t accept substitutions.”

  I blow out a breath that’s thick with the toxins of fury. “Because I’m the main event, right? What’d you call me, the entrée?”

  “’Cause no human’s asked what I like before.” He runs his hands down my chest. Smoothing my tee over my breasts. Under his hands, it becomes a leather halter. Sleek and black and beautiful. “Or taken me for ice cream.”

  “It’ll get ruined,” I choke. Just like everything else in my life.

  “You could soak it in salamander spit an’ nothin’d happen to it. I’m gonna make quiche for lunch. Come back inside when you get hungry.”

  “Jou—”

  He swats my butt, a sharp smack even through the denim of my jeans. “Go put that anger t’good use.”

  His manhandling reignites my rage and I cling to it the way I sometimes cling to him. With a curt nod, I walk away, through my house, following the path of the cantrip, which is leaving everything cleaner than even my efforts with the bleach and scrub-brush before the Squire’s visit, out into the yard and to my hearth-room. The pentacle and circle and ley-line flare like supernovas when I cross them. Nethancs flap among the branches of the oak tree. Under my cauldron, a fire roars to life. I call rosemary and pinecone-shaped hop umbels to my hands and toss them into the cauldron. A moment later, my blood spatters down over them, courtesy of the sharp edge of my kama. I pick up the long-handled, horn spoon I use for brewing and begin to stir the base of the potion that I hope will make Peter forget he ever knew me.

  Chapter 25

  When I return to the kitchen, I’m sweaty but calm. A rich egg smell greets me and the demon glances up from the newspaper he’s spread over my charred but gleamingly polished kitchen table.

  “Quiche is almost done,” he says. “How’d yours come out?”

  I place a bowl full of glistening red liquid on the table. There’s no point in bottling it. I want Peter to drink it immediately. So he can get back to his life. Without any memory of my disastrous interference in it.

  “It smells right,” I say.

  He sniffs, nostrils flaring. “So d’you. You smell like pure sex after you’ve been doin’ your greenwitch thing.”

  I flush and wish it didn’t bother me. Because he’s right. Magic has always been a big turn on for me. I get aroused even when I’m just brewing. And I’ve always felt vaguely guilty about it.

  “Nothin’ to be ashamed of, sweet meat. Sex is the oldest magic there is.”

  I know that. And I know that tapping some of that sexual energy makes my charms and potions particularly potent. But after years of doing it under the watchful eyes of my family and teachers, it still feels slightly dirty. Like getting caught masturbating.

  “What’s happening in the world?” I ask, to avoid any further discussion on that unhappy topic.

  “The dead bitch’s boyfriend imploded.” He holds up the edge of the paper so I can see the headline. ‘Sex, Drugs and Andy Smith,’ it says. I don’t have to read the article underneath. No matter how modern a city Boston’s become, any time a gubernatorial candidate is associated with extramarital sex or illegal drugs, Boston’s Puritan roots come screaming out of the political closet.

  “What happened?”

  “Got caught with coupla hookers and a baggie of somethin’ that wasn’t talcum powder.”

  I lean against the sink. “Was Ro—” I pause, because I don’t really
want to know. She’d enslaved a demon and was using his power to fuel her political ambitions. What could be worse?

  “A cokehead?” The demon shakes his head, dreadlocks swishing softly over his bare shoulders. “She was too afraid of losin’ control. Didn’t even drink. Not like you.” He gives me a speculative leer.

  I rub my hand over my eyes. Feel the remnants of my hangover throb behind them. “Thanks.”

  “She would’ve eventually. Humans who’ve been demon-touched usually do. Gotta find something to replace the lust-rush.” Before I can ask if that will happen to me, he says, “That quiche is smellin’ done.”

  He rises in a smooth roll of muscle and pulls a pan out of the oven with his bare hand. He sniffs at it, tests the browned top with one finger, and nods to himself. He pulls out two plates and cuts the quiche into portions with a black talon that he extends from his forefinger. Licking crumbs off the talon, he carries the plates to the table.

  “That’s handy,” I observe.

  “For all kinda things. You want a beer? Nothin’s better with quiche.”

  “No, I do not.”

  He chuckles and collects two bottles of Sam Adams out of the fridge.

  “I said no.” I’m not spending the rest of my weekend drunk just because he wants to come again.

  “They’re for me.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I get two forks out of the silverware drawer, squinting against the mirror brightness they’ve been polished to, and sit down across from him. He takes a bite of quiche, washes it down with a swallow of beer, and belches contentedly.

  “That’s charming,” I say.

  “In some cultures, it’s considered an insult to the chef if you don’t.” He eyes me.

  I swallow the quiche I’m chewing, rich with Gruyere cheese and wild mushrooms, and shake my head. “It’s very good, but I’m not burping just to satisfy your ego.”

  “You do other things that’re better for my ego.” A flash of the wicked leer.

  I roll my eyes. To think I felt even marginally contrite over snapping at him about the beer. “I want to give Peter the potion after we’re done. Then we’re going to have to get him home.”

  “Yeah, okay.”