by S. M. Reine
“Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?” Betty asked, suddenly aware of Lincoln’s staring contest with the other guy. “I am so freaking rude. I haven’t introduced myself to the visiting priest, and I haven’t introduced the rest of you to my new friend!”
“My name is Thom Norrel,” the newcomer said smoothly, stepping into the midst of the witches to shake hands.
He offered his hand to Lincoln last. And when Lincoln didn’t shake, Thom just kept waiting with his hand out.
Lincoln did not like how this man was looking at him. His black shirt was unbuttoned so far down that it made him look gay, and Lincoln had gotten enough of being molested by gay man eyeballs at the bar.
Elise’s voice broke through the tension. “We were expecting Gwydion.”
“Gwydion fell ill, so I’m taking care of his commitments for the time being,” Thom said.
“The Carson Creek Coven never mentioned having a second priest.” Her arms were folded too, unconsciously mirroring Lincoln’s hostile posture.
The bland friendliness in Thom’s expression never faltered. “I joined recently, but I promise that I am fully capable of acting as high priest in this capacity. I brought my own car, if that helps.” He gestured at a black SUV parked at the end of the others. It was swank for the time. Chevy hadn’t come out with anything better since, if Lincoln were to tell the truth.
“As long as there’s plenty of storage room in the back,” Betty said cheerfully. “I’m not the luggage type, but James and Elise don’t go anywhere without ten tons of crap!”
James.
Lincoln hadn’t realized that man would be here too, but he should have.
Elise was still a kopis in this year. And that meant she had an aspis.
Kopides bound to aspides for life. Most kopis/aspis pairs were married or closely related by blood, like siblings. It was that intense a relationship. Elise and James weren’t related or married, but they were no exception to the rule of intensity. The man had betrayal in his blood. He was dangerous—an enemy to Elise as well as Lincoln.
She didn’t yet know that she was bonded to her greatest enemy.
“Speaking of which, I should see if James is ready for me to carry our suitcases of crap downstairs,” Elise said, giving a little laugh.
“I’ll do it for you. I’m happy to carry crap,” Lincoln said. “Where is this James guy?”
7
E lise insisted on going up to the apartment above the dance studio with Lincoln. “There’s enough luggage for both of us to make two trips,” she said without the menace she’d shown earlier. He suspected that she didn’t want him to be with James alone. He’d never known Elise to act friendly unless she was planning something.
Whatever the reason, Lincoln didn’t mind the company. He wished it would take them longer to climb the stairs outside the studio, just so he’d have enough time to muster the words he wanted to say.
What did he want to say?
What could he say without making the world fall apart around his ears?
“You coming?” Elise asked from the top of the staircase. She’d unlocked the apartment door and was waiting for him. The sun caught her from behind. With the backlighting, Lincoln could almost imagine her eyes were demon-black. He remembered how those eyes had smoldered for him, how she had nibbled at him, slid her hand between them, invited herself to take what she wanted out of his body.
Lincoln hadn’t been able to resist Elise. Her persistence. Her darkness. Hell, even the damnation that she’d represented.
He took the last couple of stairs in a single stride.
God, but the apartment above the dance studio smelled like James Faulkner. Everywhere that man went, Lincoln could smell burning hickory—an odor that was unpleasantly reminiscent of the Christmas hams his mom used to make.
Their furnishings were modest. The furniture was inexpensive but coordinated. There were Ansel Adams prints on the walls and a wine rack on the counter. James Faulkner stood over a gas range, taking a teapot off the stove. He turned at the sound of his door. “Elise,” he said, his eyes crimped into a half-smile.
Then he saw Lincoln.
James stepped forward and extended a hand.
To shake.
Every muscle in Lincoln’s body was taut. It was fight-or-flight to the extreme, and his body was dying to do both, simultaneously, before the most powerful witch in the world could nuke him off its face.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” James said. His grip was as inoffensively neutral as Elise’s expression had been. Not too tight, not too weak. Neither of them fell dead upon touching the other. “I’m James Faulkner. And you are…?”
Lincoln didn’t have a voice.
“This is Betty’s new special friend,” Elise said.
James’s eyebrow lifted in a graceful arch, like arms in first position in ballet. “What happened to the other special friend? The one who was supposed to come with us this weekend, despite having no relationship with the coven outside of Betty?”
“Mark’s an asshole,” Elise said, elbowing the fridge to shut it.
It was strange to watch them move through the kitchen. Even this looked choreographed—James twisting for a pot holder, his arm stretched over Elise as she effortlessly stepped behind him for a water glass, the moment she yielded ground to him so that he could get to the honey. It was a quiet, well-practiced tango of absolute trust.
“Mark is an asshole?” James asked. “Surely you don’t mean the man who threw a Corona at me when I told him not to smoke in the studio?”
“I’m shocked too,” Elise said. “Where’s the stuff you wanted in the Jeep?”
“In the corner. But I was just pouring tea. I thought you’d like some before we go?”
“I’d rather get shit done.” She nudged him with her hip and smiled—a real smile, softer than the one she’d given Betty. Lincoln had never seen Elise like that, not even once. The ability to smile like that had been beaten out of her years before they met.
Lincoln’s numbness was fading to anger, and anger calcified to resolve. “I’ll take a cup of tea.”
“Typical.” Elise snorted. “The guys drink tea while the ladies do the heavy lifting.” She slung a suitcase over her shoulder. It was obviously effortless, though she feigned grunting, like she wasn’t super-powered.
She headed downstairs, leaving the door open behind her. Warm summer air blew through the studio.
James poured a second cup of hot water. The curlicues of steam traced warning symbols through beams of sunlight. “You can choose your tea from the box on the end there.”
“Thanks.” Lincoln searched for Lipton, but there wasn’t any. All the tea had weird names. He picked one and stuck it in his water.
“I told Elise that I wasn’t going to hurry to the lake today,” James said, settling in a chair by the window. He was a tall man, mostly made of legs, and they stuck out into the kitchen when he sat. “I don’t know why she’s in such a rush to load.”
Don’t criticize her. You don’t deserve to criticize her.
“Once she’s got her eye on a target, she never takes her focus off of it,” Lincoln said, the syllables sticking harshly in his craw. “Or so she seems. I don’t know her well.” He’d only been dreaming of her obsessively for months and mistaking old gods for her in his waking hours.
“Sorry, what did you say your name was?” James asked.
“Lincoln,” he said. “I’m Lincoln. Betty’s special friend.”
“Betty’s special friends never get near Elise. She’s not your problem.” He managed to make it sound friendly, but the hair on the back of Lincoln’s neck stood up.
“Are you and Elise ‘special friends’?” he asked.
“Not in the way that you mean. We’re partners, in both business and competitive dance, and she manages the coven’s finances. That’s why she’ll be accompanying us to the lake.” The light caught a single silver strand of hair at his temple. When Lincoln first met James,
only a couple years into the future, all his hair had been bright-white. “Drink your tea before it gets cold.”
Lincoln took a sip. The complicated flavors reminded him of hide tents in temporally distant deserts, where nomadic warriors dressed in bone and bathed themselves in tinctures of steaming blood and amaranth. It still surprised him that everything tasted real. That he wasn’t dreaming.
Either James or Elise had chosen to put an oversized cartoon cow pillow on their couch—the single detail that threw off the rest of their classy decor. Lincoln couldn’t imagine either of them picking it. It was so weird as to drive the authenticity home, deep in his breast. He’d never have come up with that detail on his own. He couldn’t imagine Elise’s fondness for cartoon cow pillows.
“You guys live together, though?” Lincoln asked. Both of them filled the studio, and they did it without a single weapon on display. It was in the casein isolate tub by the recycling. It was the cow hide stretched in a picture frame down the hall. It was the careful arrangement of furniture, creating clear paths to multiple exits in case of attack.
“We’ve been partners for quite some time,” James said. “I knew her parents. There was some trouble, and I came here to help her through college.”
“Oh, so you’re like a father figure.” Lincoln sipped the tea again.
“Not exactly.” James sipped his too. “Should I bother asking how you met Betty?”
Lincoln would never admit he’d been to a gay bar. “Nah.”
“You must have become fast friends if you’re replacing her boyfriend on a weekend trip.”
And you’re going to hurt Elise. Lincoln was white-knuckling his teacup. Probably gonna shatter it. He tried to make himself relax. “We got talking about the coven, and my family’s got witches in it. I’m having a real bad summer anyway. Thought it was time to try something different. Might as well acquaint myself with the local witches, right?”
“You’re a witch?” James’s face brightened. The man had a reputation for charming people into his coven and into forging alliances with other covens. He’d never turned that charm on Lincoln before.
“Not me,” Lincoln said. “My family.” Just his mother, who’d turned out to be so strong that she could animate gargoyles with her hatred. And his cousin, who would be in James Faulkner’s debt within a handful of years.
“If you have family who practice, it’s likely you have some latent power,” James said. “You could explore it.” It was uncomfortable being so closely observed by the high priest, with those silvery eyes that seemed immune to the privacy of flesh. “Do I know you?”
Lincoln had to set the teacup down. “I don’t think so. I’m not from this side of the country.” Or this timeline.
“I travel a lot. What did you say your last name is?” James asked.
He’d know the Marshalls, so Lincoln said the first name that came to mind. “Keyes. Lincoln Keyes. And Betty said you’re James...Faulkner? Interesting. Isn’t that a name based on a profession, like Smith or Tailor?”
“Yes, it means ‘falconer.’” James’s put one foot up on a chaise, elbow on his knee. Daylight shined warm on the ice of his eyes. “Names hold little significance. I can’t say I’ve ever owned a falcon in my life.” He was watching something outside the window.
Lincoln shifted to the right, and he spotted Betty laughing under a tree. She was dancing on her toes, hands clapped over her mouth. One side of Elise’s mouth was lifted fractionally, suggesting that some part of her wanted to smile too. Her gaze on Betty was much more telling. She looked so fond of the woman.
It wasn’t fondness that Lincoln saw in James. It was nearly disinterest. As if he were looking down at the women as a neutral observer, and not, in fact, terrifyingly obsessed with Elise. So obsessed that when she tried to leave him, James would hire people to stalk her.
Lincoln’s skin had never crawled before like it did now. Shouldn’t he have been able to see the lies he knew lurked inside James? How could there possibly be no outside sign of deceit?
“You ever thought about becoming an actual falconer?” Lincoln leaned his hip against the table and folded his arms. It gave him a view of James and Elise alike. “Nevada’s got a lot of open land. Plenty of room for you to fly a bird.”
“Space has never been a hindrance,” James said. “I was raised in the foothills of the Rockies.”
Foothills was a generous word for a cult enclave. “Then I’m surprised. Guy like you, he strikes me as a man who’d enjoy controlling a predator like that.”
Elise shifted a duffel bag into Betty’s arms. When Elise handled them, they looked light as pillows, but the blond nearly fell onto the grass when she took their weight. Betty’s laugh was so loud that it came through the closed windows.
“Control doesn’t describe the process involved in training a bird of prey,” James said. “You can’t control a falcon. You can only build a minor degree of trust and show the falcon that it’s always more rewarding to return to the glove than to leave.”
Lincoln’s jaw got so tight it hurt. “Sounds like you know a lot about something you’ve never done.”
Betty’s squeals grew louder. Elise had stooped to pick her up—duffel and all. Now the Godslayer was jogging toward the Jeep while her best friend giggled wildly in her arms. Elise showed no sign of exertion.
She popped Betty easily into the Jeep’s back seat. Elise hung off the door, and now there was nothing subtle about the rare grin slashed across the Godslayer’s features.
Her friend grabbed Elise by the biceps, fighting to drag her into the back seat too. Elise was much too strong to be pulled if she didn’t want to be. She willingly kicked off the side rail and slithered into the seats with Betty, where they exchanged friendly blows.
James took a slow sip of his tea, then lowered the cup back to the saucer. Porcelain clinked against porcelain. “I’ve read a fair amount about history. I’ve a particular interest in the wide array of martial arts, as it’s a hobby of Elise’s and I try to be supportive.” As supportive as a leather glove clutched within inches-long talons.
“I’m not real learned, so you’ll have to be patient with me.” Lincoln exaggerated his drawl, watching for the flash of disdain that fancy boys like Faulkner usually had for men like him. “If you’re just trying to lure the falcon back, then that doesn’t ever mean the falcon likes you, does it? Means you might get your face gashed off at any time.”
“There is always a risk in working with wild animals,” James said. “But one does not pursue a lifestyle like that of a falconer out of idle interest. It takes passion and dedication.”
“I bet the falcon would still rather be with other falcons than with the guy who steals all her rabbits.”
James sipped his tea again—longer, slower. He finished the cup. He rose from the couch and set it in the sink. When he turned back to Lincoln, he was smiling again. “Let’s get the rest of these suitcases downstairs, shall we?”
Lincoln ended up riding in the Jeep with Elise, James, and Betty—a group that obviously knew each other far better than they knew him and communicated in half-sentences punctuated by laughs. There was no need for them to complete their thoughts. Lincoln felt near invisible, seated over the right rear wheel of the Jeep, buffeted by the mountain air.
“And then Mr. Perez, you know how he was,” Betty said.
Elise laughed. “When he brought in—”
“Another one of the dogs! I know!”
“Such a shame what happened to him,” James said. “He seemed like a good man to have around.”
“Heart disease,” Betty said. “It’s such a bitch.”
“I think Mario would have appreciated that comparison,” Elise said.
And they were all laughing again, though Lincoln still had no clue who Mario Perez was, or how they’d known him, or why he liked dogs.
“You must feel left out, sorry,” Betty said, bouncing across the rear seat to halfway sit on Lincoln’s lap. James took a corn
er and she tumbled against Lincoln, chest to chest, teeth gleaming in the summer sunshine.
Lincoln held her close with an arm hooked behind her back. “You should be wearing a seat belt, ma’am.”
“I’m not worried. James is a great driver.”
“I’m sure he is,” Lincoln said, careful not to let his anger into his voice, “but nobody can control all factors on the road. Even the best driver can have a deer jump in front of him.”
“Clearly you haven’t figured out that James is always in control of the entire universe at all times,” Betty teased. She poked him in the ribs.
Lincoln felt like his skull might shatter under the effort it took to keep quiet. “Nonetheless, wearing seatbelts is the law.”
“Ooh, listen to Officer Lincoln over here,” Betty said. “You’re going to be a great judge someday. I might break a few laws to end up on your bench, if you catch my drift.”
“Everybody catches your drift, Bets,” Elise said. “Your drift is basically a magma floe. He’s right, though. Buckle up.”
Betty rolled her eyes and flopped into her seat. “Just for you.” She buckled her belt.
“Thanks,” Lincoln said, catching Elise’s eye in the mirror.
She put on blackout sunglasses and sat back so that he couldn’t see her reflection.
Betty flung her arms over her head, as if to embrace the wind thrashing through the Jeep. “God, I need to be at the lake! After I graduate from college, I’m buying a house up there with all of my fat microbiology cash. It’ll overlook the water, and I will have the coolest parties with all the hottest guys.” She grinned and nudged Lincoln. “That means you’re invited.”
He didn’t answer. He was listening to Elise and James speak in the front seat.
“Why’d we get a check from the IRS?” James asked.
“I overpaid taxes last year,” Elise said. “Thought we’d earn more. Didn’t. It’s because you cut back on preschool ballet.”
“I hate preschool ballet.”
“It’s your most popular class,” she said.