by E J Frost
“Yeah?” He sips his coffee while he considers. Slides his arm around my shoulders. “You humans hold on to too much shit. She was gonna go the way she was gonna go. Had nothin’ to do with you. An’ there was nothin’ you coulda done to stop it.”
“Do you believe that? I mean, are we really pre-destined? Don’t we have any role in shaping our own lives?”
“Yeah, you do. Destructive free-will’s your defining feature. But it was her nature. Only person who coulda changed her path was her, and she didn’t want to. Not for one second. She took every step down that road freely. Fuck, eagerly. She was sprintin’ down it. Reason she needed that ring was because her ambition exceeded her ability. She’d have gotten to that point on her own eventually, maybe in a couple more years, but that wasn’t fast enough for her. She was exactly who she wanted to be, sweetness. Only one who was confused is you.”
I lean my head back against his arm. “She wasn’t a bad person when I knew her, Jou. I can’t understand what she became.”
“I know you can’t. You ain’t wired that way. You don’t got one drop of ambition in you. I’ve come to like that more’n a little.”
“Really?” I put down my empty cup and look up at him. “I thought, I mean, you ridiculed me—”
He turns his head and kisses my temple. “I was wrong about that.”
Not something I ever thought I’d hear. “I don’t understand. What changed your mind?”
“Seein’ you at home. The way you melded our magics. It’s only ‘cause you got no, I dunnow, ego maybe. An’ I know you won’t ever challenge me. That’s a big thing. I appreciate it’s hard for you to imagine what it’s like to be with someone for a thousand years, but let me tell you, there’s a fuckload of friction. Don’t matter that you’re all pullin’ in the same direction. Or that there’s no way any of ‘em could take me in a real fight. They all got their own agendas and they let me know it every single fuckin’ day.”
I finally realize he’s talking about his family – his clutch, as he calls them. A thousand years of dealing with their ambitions is an extremely long time. “That’s exactly why the whole seggurach thing scares me, Jou.”
He nuzzles my temple. “Not me. I got no second-thoughts, sweetness, none at all.”
Because he believes I won’t challenge him. That I’ll always bend to his will. Because, so far, I always have. “Me being afraid of you isn’t the best basis for a relationship, Jou. Particularly not one that might last centuries.”
“You got no reason to be afraid of me, ‘cause I won’t ever hurt you. An’ I won’t let anythin’ else hurt you, either. Th’ reason we’ll get along is ‘cause you got no agenda. You just wanna be happy. I can make you happy, if you’ll let me.”
Could he? Everything in me wants to believe it, but not everything does.
“Bedtime?” he asks. He sounds so hopeful, like a kid asking for ice-cream, that it makes me laugh.
“It’s still light out,” I protest. I don’t think it’s even seven o’clock, although we didn’t rush dinner.
“So? I like fuckin’ in the light.”
“We both just had espresso. I don’t think we’ll be able to sleep for hours.”
“Good,” he says. “I wanna go to bed, but I got no interest in sleepin’.”
Despite what he says, we do sleep. With him curled tight against my back. He’s still inside me as I drift off, but he’s come this time, and remembered to look at the Wall, and settled down to sleep with just a few soft words.
I go down easy, warm and contented, in the arms of my demon-lover.
But I don’t come up that way. Because for the first time since I started sleeping with Jou, I dream of the Shadow Man. He has no face. No mane of dreadlocks. But he has a knife, which he uses to peel strips of skin off me while I scream.
I wake, shuddering, choking, in the hard prison of Jou’s arms. His hold on me gentles as I wake and stop thrashing. He pulls me against his chest and strokes my sweat-damp hair back from my face. “S’okay, sweetness. Turn off the lights.”
I do, pulling the witchlight blazing around the room back into me. I lean into him; rest my face on his shoulder. “Jou,” I whisper.
“That’s some nightmare,” he says, deep and soft. He gathers the blankets, tossed aside as I thrashed, and tucks them around me.
“Y-yes, it is.”
He holds me for a long, quiet time, while I try to stop shaking. “You wanna go back to sleep?” he asks finally.
“Uh-huh, I’m just going to get a glass of milk.” I haven’t thrown up, which is a bonus, but my stomach is still turning cartwheels, so some warm milk to settle it couldn’t hurt. I could also use a trip to the bathroom, because I feel decidedly sticky. I just hope none of my relatives decides to make an appearance.
I clean up a little and then return for my robe. Just as I’m sliding my feet into my moose-slippers, the doorbell rings.
I glance at the clock. It’s only five to ten. I’m betting it’s Shah, having locked himself out again. “I’ll get the door.”
“Tell whoever it is to fuck off. Come back to bed.” He puts his arms behind his head and flexes all that impressive infernal muscle. Then he reaches down and pushes the blankets down to bare his thighs. Showing off all that impressive infernal erection.
Damn, that’s an incentive.
“I’ll just be a minute.”
I shuffle downstairs, trying not to trip in my moose slippers, and peer through the stained glass lites to see who is ringing my doorbell.
I can only see the top of a dark head. Which rules out the Squire. But it could be Shah or any of a number of shifters who like to show up unannounced.
I open the door blearily. “Hello?”
A fresh-faced young man, buttoned into a long black coat that makes him look like an extra from The Matrix, smiles at me with white, white teeth and says, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”
Oh, God, a Jovie. They come around every year and I never get away without several copies of whatever pamphlet they’re pushing. Last year Shah threw a glass of beer over one of them. I’m a little surprised they’re back for more.
“Um, no, I’m not interested, thank you.”
He’s still smiling that buttoned-down, whiter-than-white smile when he claps his hand over my mouth, shoves something sharp under my chin, and pushes me back into the hallway.
I stagger, shocked. When did Jovies become so aggressive? The wall hits me hard and the young man, still smiling, shoves me again so my head smacks against the plasterboard.
“Relax, Miss Faa,” he hisses in my ear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Somehow I have trouble believing him.
“Be gentle with her, Denys.” A precise, faintly accented voice. One I recognize. I squint into the glare of light from my porch. There are two people standing in the doorway, both robed and cowled so I can’t see their faces. But I recognize the voice.
“Timmi?” It comes out as a squeak.
“Hello, Tsara. My apologies for the rudeness of our entrance.”
“Wha-what do you want?”
“The demon you’ve summoned, my dear. Would you be so good as to call him? Denys, I’d rather not conduct our business on the porch. Shall we proceed into the house?”
The man holding a knife to my throat fists his free hand in my bathrobe, pulls me off the wall and shoves me down the hallway. Never does the hard edge of the knife leave my throat and when I don’t move fast enough for him, I feel its bite.
I stumble backwards down the hallway and at another shove, through the doorway into my parlor. I stop abruptly when the coffee table punches my calf.
Timmi and her robed friend follow us into the parlor. Timmi folds back her cowl and gives me a small smile. “You have a lovely home, Tsara. Very clean and tidy. Just like your magic.”
I don’t smile back at her. I flex my hands, so tempted to show her how tidy my magic really is. A bolt of lightning would tidily fry h
er and her asshole, knife-wielding friend.
“Don’t even think about it.” The third member of their home-invasion squad says. He pulls open a leather satchel he’s carrying and takes out a silver canister. “Denys, over there.” He gestures to the open area between the coffee table and window.
The fake Jovie, Denys, tugs on my bathrobe and shoves me into the clear space, where the cowled man pours a circle of white powder around my feet. Salt.
“That is an heirloom carpet, you asshole,” I snarl at him. Denys is crossing the circle, so even if I could be controlled with a circle of salt – which I don’t think I can – he hasn’t accomplished anything other than ruining my Dala’s prize Persian rug.
“Call the creature,” Denys says with another pointless jerk of my bathrobe. I’m beginning to really dislike him.
“I can’t,” I grit. And I really can’t. When I feel in my mind for Jou, all I find is darkness. He’s closed the connection between us, which I know for a fact was wide open less than an hour ago.
“I tasted his taint in your blood. Call him!” He gives me a pointlessly hard shake that makes me feel like my teeth are rattling in my skull.
“No one needs to call me,” Jou says.
Everyone jumps at the sound of his voice. He’s circled through the house and is standing in the open doorway into the dining room. He’s barefoot, bare-chested, wearing only a pair of leather pants which, for once, he’s buttoned up. He hasn’t manifested his horns, or that burning whip, but heat ripples off his golden skin like sunlight off asphalt. He may just look like a big, muscular man, but there’s no question what he is.
Behind him, there’s a clear exit route out the back of my house and to my hearth room, where Timmi and her friends would never get through my circles. I’m tempted to lunge and see if I could break Denys’ hold. But I can already feel sticky wetness on my throat. I don’t think he’d take much provocation to really cut me.
“Back, demon!” The cowled man drops his salt-shaker and pulls an ornate cross out of his satchel.
Jou snorts. “Holy symbols only work if you’re a true believer.” He leans forward and blows. A violent gust of air blasts through the room, scattering the salt across my carpet and knocking Cowled Man over. Denys shudders as the blast hits him, and a glamor shreds away from him in a dark mist. He turns his head as the wind subsides. Dark hair, dark eyes, long horsey face, heavy double-chin pinched by his buttoned-up coat. The man from the Museum, the demon-expert, Mr. Leroy. But Timmi and Cowled Man have been calling him by his real name tonight, and I place him, Denys LeConie, Justinian Fryer’s former partner and torturer of demons.
And knife-wielding asshole, I’m reminded, as he yanks on my bathrobe and presses the knife into my throat again. “Kneel, demon, or your whore dies.”
He did not just call me that.
I gather power, summon Air into my hands, and punch him in the chest.
It’s not a good punch. I can’t swing. Not with him holding me like this. But Air makes up for my lack of momentum. Denys staggers back and finally, finally, the knife falls away from my neck.
But he doesn’t let go of my bathrobe. The terrycloth tears and gapes open across my bare chest, but holds across my back and drags me down with him. We both end up on the floor, with me on top of him. I try to scramble back, but between the robe and moose-slippers – which I’m never wearing again – I’m hopelessly tangled, and after a moment’s tussle, Denys rolls on top of me and pins me down with that damn knife again.
“Get off me!” I shout in frustration.
“Denys, for the love of the Lady, let Tsara go. You’re hurting her,” Timmi appeals from where she’s crouched on the far side of the couch.
“Shut up and control the creature, woman!”
Timmi shakes her head, but stands, and faces Jou. She holds out a little golden globe in her hand, and for all my fury at what she and her cabal are doing, I feel a second’s sympathy when I see her hand shaking. She told me she wasn’t a practitioner. She doesn’t have any magic to wield, just the power of whatever objects she’s brought with her. She must be so scared.
Jou turns his head, heavy as his massive horns manifest, and looks at her. His eyes fill the darkened room with hard blue light. “Oh, look,” he sneers. “The holy hand grenade of Antioch.”
“I command thee, demon—”
“Thee? You really think throwin’ around some thee’s and thou’s and your fuckin’ bauble there are gonna keep me from ripping your soul out and feeding it to my hound?”
Damn, he sounds really pissed off.
“Timmi, please, please, stop,” I whimper. “Making him angry is such a bad idea—”
“Shut your mouth!” Denys pulls the knife away from my throat, balls the hilt in his hand and back-hands me across the face. White-hot pain shoots up across my cheek. Stabs through my right eye. All I see for a moment is blackness. Hot copper floods my mouth, followed by a cold metallic taste. I swear, if I’ve broken another tooth, I will kill all of them.
I should be scared. I should be blinded and deafened by fear of this man and betrayal by a woman I thought was my friend. Instead, I’m angry. Coldly angry.
“Get off me before I fry your ass,” I spit, spattering Denys’ face with blood.
He sticks the point of the knife under my chin. I stop talking, to avoid impaling myself. He’s not listening to me anyway. I reach and start calling power.
Timmi’s voice cuts over the low buzz of magic in my ears. “I command thee, demon. I command thee, kneel!”
Jou crosses his arms over his chest. Doesn’t kneel. Whatever relic Timmi’s holding seems to be keeping him at bay, but it’s not compelling him to do anything.
Denys rears back, still holding the point of his knife under my chin, and pulls open the torn flap of my robe, baring my chest. Asshole. I glare at him.
He looks down at me. Not a flicker at seeing my breasts exposed. There are red points in the blackness of his eyes, but it’s not lust. It’s greed, and hatred. He wants Jou’s power, and he doesn’t care who he hurts to get it. In that moment, I realize we’re all expendable to him: humans and demon alike.
He leans over me, pinning my shoulder to the floor with one heavy hand, and pulls the knife away from my chin to draw a line of fire across the tops of my breasts.
I scream.
“Denys!” Timmi yells.
“Shut up, old woman.” Denys leans further down, his face inches from mine, blowing his sour breath right into my nose, and cuts me again. I howl into his face.
“Call your lord and master, whore. Call him by his true-name and beg him to save you,” the Cowled Man crawls over to crouch next to Denys.
I glance frantically at Jou. My chest is burning, my throat is burning, and power is trembling, pushing, heaving inside me. I need to do something with it before I explode.
Jou meets my gaze; that hard neon light seers my eyes. There’s nothing there. Nothing in his eyes. Nothing in my mind. A few hours ago, in this very room, he told me he’d never let anyone hurt me. Now he’s letting this asshole cut open my damn chest. He’s abandoned me, thrown me to these wolves, and I don’t know why. I only know that he’s not going to save me. I’m expendable. He only wants my soul and it doesn’t matter if I’m alive or dead. He’s already bound me.
Denys cuts me again, maybe an inch above my nipples, deep into the soft tissue of my breasts. I buck under him and Cowled Man grabs my other arm to hold me down.
But I don’t need my arms free. Just my hands. I flatten my palms against the hardwood under me, and reach.
I sink into the Earth. There’s a moment of weightlessness, and then I’m enfolded, enveloped, in the warmest, most welcoming blanket. It holds me close, closer than Jou’s ever held me. There’s a soft thump in my ears: the Earth’s heartbeat. Pressure against my skin, but it’s not smothering and I’m not afraid. This is the essence of my magic; there’s nothing to fear. The burning of my wounds eases, fades. There’s just warmth, jus
t safety. I don’t want to ever leave.
But there’s coldness around my wrists. A sensation that works its way inward, down into my bones. An itch that becomes unbearable, like a million insects running over my nerve endings. It yanks me out of my Element.
I struggle against the pull. I want to stay. But after a moment of flailing, cold night air claws across my exposed skin. I roll, feeling the slide of wet grass and the bite of twigs and small stones under my hands and knees.
There’s light and movement behind me. I twist, and watch in the light of the moon and the hot blue spilling from Jou’s eyes, as he beheads Denys with his scythe.
Denys falls, his head rolling to land against that golden orb Timmi was holding, lying in the grass. Timmi’s head rests nearby. Her eyes are closed, but her mouth is open in a silent scream. Denys’ eyes are open and I stare at those dark voids for a moment before shutting my own eyes.
Shutting my eyes opens my other senses. Stupid with violent death so close, and I immediately pay for it. Pain. Horrific pain, and shock, and rage. All the things that Timmi and her friends felt as they died. I cower down into my lawn, digging my fingers into the damp soil, but that only makes it worse. The Earth has absorbed their spilled fluids, and the power those fluids carried. They were magi, warlocks and diabolists but magi all the same, and their power, spilled here on this ground I call my own, overwhelms me.
A heavy foot-fall near my head. A thump of wood on dirt as Jou rests the butt of his scythe on the ground. I snap my head up and open my eyes.
“Get up,” he says harshly.
I meet his eyes, still glowing brighter than the moon. There’s no softness there. No love. He let Denys torture me. What kind of man does that? The answer’s obvious. He’s not a man. He’s a demon. And I’ve let him into my life, and this is the price. It will always be the price.
“You killed them,” I say, and flinch at the emptiness in my own voice.
“Too fuckin’ right.”
I close my eyes and bow my forehead to the ground. Dig my fingers further into the soil, reach down into my Element. The ground, already softened by the dew, liquefies, and slowly swallows all of us. Bodies, demon and me.