by L.H. Cosway
Chapter Nine
I Always Hang Myself With The Same Rope
The rest of the drive to Sycamore Strand is strained at best, excruciatingly uncomfortable at worst. The tension between me and Ethan is even more heightened now that Edwards has pointed it out. We park as close to the cave as we can and then get out, assisting Edwards with the various bits and pieces he insists are required for the task at hand.
I use the flash light on my phone to light our way, though it seems I’m the only one who needs it. Both Ethan and Edwards appear to have perfect vision in the dark. I, on the other hand, am tripping over stones and getting my feet tangled in clumps of seaweed at every turn. The salty sea air fills my nostrils. The waves are high tonight, the sounds of them filling my ears.
Inside the cave I place my phone down on the ground, propping it up against a rock to light the space. Edwards pulls off the small satchel bag he’d been carrying and puts it carefully on the bed of the cave. Then he zips open his suitcase, and quite outrageously, begins undressing right there in front of us.
I shoot Ethan a questioning glance, but he just shrugs and seems like he’s holding back a grin.
“Um, why are you taking off your clothes?” I ask, seeing as Ethan has no intention of explaining what’s going on.
“They are unnecessary for where I’m going. The key is for me to fit in and go unnoticed. If I were to show up in human attire I would be spotted immediately.”
I keep my eyes trained on the upper half of his body, not feeling the need to see the private parts of a seventy year old man, half demon or not.
He pulls out a bottle of Lucozade, of all things, unscrews the cap and downs it in one go.
“The sugars speed up my change,” Edwards explains.
“Your change?”
“Yes, the change into my demon form.”
“Oh,” I breathe. When I see his face transforming and becoming abnormally long, I swear, “Oh shit.”
Extra skin begins to cover his grey hair and the back of his skull juts out into a horn. His chin elongates to a sharp point, his brown eyes go orange and his hands curl into claws. His skin is no longer the pinkish hue of a human, it’s now a speckled royal blue, contrasting starkly with his orange eyes. Instinctively, I shiver and step back, clutching onto Ethan’s arm. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, and all that.
When his transformation is complete, Edwards lets out a deep sigh. “Ah, it feels good to be in new skin. This body is younger than my human one; the only problem is that it ages the longer I stay in it. That’s why I keep from changing as much as I can. I only take my demon form in situations of great need, such as this one.”
My eyes are still wide, taking in the oddity before me. “Well, I can’t thank you enough for what you’re about to do. Really, I’m forever in your debt.”
Ethan coughs. “You may need to take back that last statement, Tegan.”
I glance at him in confusion. “Why?”
Edwards answers before Ethan has the chance. “Telling a demon you are indebted to them is a nasty business. It’s a good thing I’m half human and have a sense of right and wrong. Do not worry, my dear, I won’t hold you to what you said. Just be careful of what comes out of your mouth should you encounter any demons in the future.”
“Alright,” I mumble, feeling foolish. I thought humans could be sticklers for rules, but they’ve got nothing on supernaturals.
Edwards takes a step over to stand before me. He takes my hand into his strange, clawed one. His blue skin feels weird and scaly. “I am the one who should be indebted to you,” he says. “I have longed for a mission like this one for quite some time. Rescuing your father will be my final triumph.”
I blink back a tear, unable to do anything but nod at him. Even if Edwards does manage to save Dad, who will he be when he returns? Marcel said he would be changed, but how much? And in what way? Pushing these questions out of my head and making an effort to focus on the present, I take a deep breath and let go of Edwards’ hand.
“Okay, what now?” I ask.
“Now,” says Edwards, “I prepare to open the door.”
He picks up his satchel, swings it over his shoulder and then retrieves the digital clock I’d seen him with earlier. He begins pressing numerous buttons, as though setting several different alarms.
“Time doesn’t work the same in hell as it does here. In layman’s terms, it’s not linear. It’s a topsy turvy pattern that you need to keep close track of while you’re there. I’ve set alarms to let me know how much time has passed in this dimension so that I can accurately estimate how much time I have spent over there. I endeavour to return to this very spot by day break, but depending how difficult it is for me to find your father, it could take longer. It could also only take me a matter of minutes, there’s just no way to tell. That’s why I’d appreciate both of you waiting here for the night until I return. If I don’t come back by morning, then you can take it as a given that there have been complications. But marks my words, come hell or high water I will be back,” he pauses and rummages in his bag, pulling out a small copper coin. “Take this,” he says, handing it to me.
I silently take the coin, peering down at it before slipping it inside my coat pocket.
“That’s my token. It will allow me to open a door to wherever it is should I not make it back to this location, so keep it with you at all times. If I’m not back with your father by morning you may leave and I will find you by locating my token. Please try to keep it safe. It is highly precious to me.”
“I’ll guard it with my life,” I promise him.
“Thank you,” says Edwards, before turning to Ethan. “Mr Cristescu, it was an absolute pleasure.” The two exchange a handshake.
“Likewise. Good luck on your journey,” Ethan replies.
Edwards inclines his head, and then as though by instinct steps right into the spot where Marcel and his group had opened the black hole. With one clawed finger pointing out, he lifts his hand into the air and draws a circle. The atmosphere seems to crackle and spark, and then a gold coloured opening appears. Edwards turns to look at us one last time and gives a farewell salute, before stepping into the opening and disappearing from sight.
“Well…that was weird,” I say to Ethan a minute or two after Edwards’ departure.
“Demons are weird creatures,” he replies, leaning back against the cave wall, watching me.
“He looks so scary with the blue skin, but he was just himself inside a new body really,” I ramble, thinking out loud. When I look back at Ethan he’s still watching me. I rub my arms against the cold. Even in my thick coat I don’t feel warm. When the weather’s bad, beaches are always the worst places to be. Too windy and chilly.
“You don’t need to stay here with me,” I tell him, when he still doesn’t say anything. “I can wait it out on my own if you have somewhere you need to be.”
“I’m staying,” Ethan states, “so don’t bother trying to get rid of me. And calm the fuck down, will you? I can practically taste the nerves when I breathe in your scent. If Edwards returns with your father then he returns, and if he doesn’t he doesn’t. Stop fretting over it.”
“If I want to fret, I’ll fret. Oh, and stop smelling me you pervert.”
Ethan shows me just a hint of fang at this. Feeling confident, I do something I never do and call on my magic, raising my hand and flicking a few sparks his way. They don’t go far enough to hit him, and he looks at them in wary fascination. This gives me a little rush of victory. I pick the flattest rock I can find and sit down on it.
“I’m sorry about Dru and Will,” I say after a while, trying to lessen the tension between us. “I had no idea they’d just up and leave like that.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Ethan asks confrontationally. “Both of them have only been with me a year or two. That’s not a long enough time for them to have built up a proper sense of loyalty. Lucas stays because he has worked with me for decades.�
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“I just thought vampires were mad into the whole “loyalty” thing. Staying true to the elders, and all that jazz.”
Ethan laughs at me. “We’re not clones. We all have different codes and ideas the same as humans. Some of us are all about loyalty, yes, but there are also vampires who look out only for themselves.”
I don’t bother arguing with him. Everything we can think to say to each other these days seems to end in controversy. I mean, look what happened just now. I’d been trying to apologise to him and he’d gotten all defensive. Minutes tick by, but they take forever in this cold silence. Unable to take the quiet any longer, I whisper, “Do you think Edwards will come back?”
Ethan’s handsome eyes flicker to mine, as he considers it. “I have never been to another dimension, and therefore I have no way of knowing what kind of challenges he might face.”
Well, that topic went nowhere. I try again. “Ira’s started talking, you know.”
“The shapeshifter? Did he say why he hadn’t been able to speak previously?”
“He was able to, he just chose not to. He found it disconcerting to have a voice after so many years as an animal, so he decided to stay silent.”
“He will make a good fighter, that one.”
“Mm-hmm. Pamphrock’s already got him doing a little work with Finn. I imagine he’s grooming him to join the DOH.”
“Of course he is. I’m no admirer of Pamphrock’s, but any leader with a decent head on his shoulders would see the potential that man holds. He has the build of a warrior, and I sense a wisdom about him.”
Ethan’s words make me feel sad. Ira’s already suffered enough in his life. He doesn’t deserve to be pushed into spending the rest of his days fighting for a cause that has nothing to do with him. Shivering against the cold, I pull the collar of my coat up around my neck.
Seeing this, Ethan leaves his spot by the cave wall to come and sit down beside me. With no effort at all, he scoops me up and places me on his lap.
“You’re cold,” he says in a low voice. “Let me warm you.”
“Sure,” I say, raising an eyebrow at his unexpected chivalry. I’d thought that was reserved solely for Oxford professors and generally anyone who isn’t me. His moods are changing like a yo-yo tonight.
Being so close to him makes my heart pound like it always does at his proximity. No matter how much I try to stay strong, one touch from Ethan reduces me to a quivering mess. I want to stay away from him, yet that very fact makes me want him so much more. It’s almost like the fact that I once had his love means I’m forever cursed to crave getting it back. The problem is, being with him makes me weak, vulnerable. He’s the piece of rope that I’ll always end up hanging myself with.
He wraps his arms around me, takes my hands into his and begins rubbing them. Contrary to popular belief, vampires aren’t cold at all. They actually tend to be a little warmer than humans. Not dead, remember? Just another species.
“Is there something between you and the slayer?” Ethan asks, after a few quiet moments of warming my hands with his own. His breath lingers against the back of my neck.
“Would you care if there was?”
“That’s not an answer, Tegan.”
“No it’s not, but it’s a relevant question. You’ve made it clear that you no longer have any interest in me, so why would you even think to ask about Finn?”
“I was making conversation,” he grits out the words, his hold on me tightening.
“Yeah, making conversation about a pretty specific topic.”
“Your evasiveness leads me to believe there is something between the two of you.” I didn’t think his voice could get any colder – I was wrong.
I shrug, deciding to drop the evasiveness. “Finn’s been a great friend to me. I like him. He makes me feel good about myself – most of the time.”
I hate that he’s brought up Finn. My emotions are spread out between these two men. One side of my heart says pick Finn, he will love you as need to be loved, while the other side says go to Ethan; he is beautiful, dangerous, addictive, you want him.
“And how do I make you feel about yourself?” Ethan questions.
Oh my God, he is so clearly jealous. This is brilliant, but also unsettling. I can’t believe we’re talking about this. I can’t believe stoic, reserved Ethan is letting his feelings trickle out. I had very recently written off the relationship we might have had, and now he throws this spanner in the works.
“These days you make me hate myself,” I tell him honestly.
“That’s a very extreme reaction,” he observes.
“Yeah well, you’ve been extremely hostile. In fact, you’ve gone out of your way to make me miserable.”
“How so?” he asks, not with curiosity, but more with the intention of seeing himself through my eyes. It’s almost like he wants to know that I’ve been suitably punished for “betraying” him. That I’ve been feeling sufficiently shitty under his icy hatred.
“Well, let me see. You wouldn’t speak to me up until recently and would barely even look at me, for one. You’ve been trying to get Rita on your side and you know how that irritates me. She’s my friend, not some pawn you can use to your advantage. Not to mention you moved yourself in right across the street so that I have to live under your constant disa-fucking-proval. Quite frankly, it’s been depressing and exhausting.”
“I see.”
“And that! Do you know how much I can’t stand those reserved, unemotional responses you give to things? It’s like you don’t even feel anything inside that inhuman body.”
“I feel everything. I am simply old enough to practice some self-control and not expose my feelings for the world to see.”
“Oh, so you’re saying I don’t know self-control?”
“That is exactly what I’m saying. Look at yourself right now, for example. At the tiniest hint of criticism you lose the plot, raging at me like a teenage girl. Have you not matured enough to conduct yourself as a lady? Have you no sense of decorum?”
Oh, the little shit. “You’re not living in the 18th century anymore, Ethan. Women are actually allowed to speak their minds nowadays. And if I want to lose the plot, I’ll lose the fucking plot. I treat people in a way that mirrors how they treat me. So if I’m raging at you like a teenage girl, maybe that means you’re criticising me, oh and calling me a whore, like a teenage boy.”
Before the last word has even left my mouth Ethan has picked me up and flung me against the cave wall. His mouth practically obliterates mine, his tongue plunging inside without tenderness, all he gives me is hard passion. He pulls back a little to look at me. I’m finding it hard to breathe.
“Fuck, the only way to shut you up is to stick my tongue down your throat,” he swears, before shoving his hand inside my coat, under my top and bra. He squeezes my breast to the point of almost hurting me.
“Get off me,” I hiss.
“No. You want this just as much as I do,” he says, his hand moving from my bare breast, down my stomach and slipping inside my pants. Before I know it he’s shoving his fingers inside of me. It’s a pleasurable invasion and I cry out.
But he’s wrong when he says that I want this. This is absolutely not what I want. I don’t get off on being forced or hurt. I enjoyed being with the Ethan who took me into his bed and touched me with gentle reverence. What’s happening now is so far away from that I feel like crying.
With his hand still inside me, he uses the other one to push up my t-shirt. His tongue licks up my stomach and takes one of my nipples into his mouth. He bites down on it, hard.
My heart is hammering and I’m sweating with unexpressed rage. Deep in my stomach my magic surges through me and seconds later I’m shoving my hand into his gut, bright sparks flying from my fingertips.
Ethan practically jumps off me, slapping at himself to get the burning sparks away from him.
“Why did you do that?!” he shouts.
“I told you to get off me and y
ou wouldn’t.”
“You burned me,” he says, pulling his t-shirt away from his skin to reveal angry looking red marks.
“Yeah, I did,” I reply, unapologetic.
He runs a hand through his hair and visibly tries to calm his temper. A few moments later he seems to come to his senses and he apologises, “I’m sorry. I went too far.”
“Way too far, Ethan.”
He turns away from me and his fangs spring out as he bites down on his own wrist. He smears some of his blood onto his stomach and the red marks instantly heal up.
“Oh, attractive,” I comment with derision.
“If you allowed me to bite you, you would find the sight of blood on my skin extremely attractive,” Ethan shoots back casually. His flaring temper has died down to an ember.
“Ha!” I spit out, all high pitched. “I’ll never let you.”
“We’ll see,” he says, pulling his t-shirt back down and strolling out of the cave.
“Where are you going?” I call in annoyance.
He stops and turns back. “To bring the car to the cave entrance. I have no intention of sitting out here with you all night. At least in the car we’ll be more comfortable.”
As if I’d be able to feel comfortable alone in a car with Ethan. I’d probably be safer staying in the cave. A minute or two later his headlights illuminate the space before he shuts them off. I walk out and Ethan flings open the door on the passenger side.
“You’ve probably destroyed your tires driving over all the rocks,” I comment.
“They’re replaceable,” he replies. “Get in.”
I hesitate and look back at the cave. You can see right inside from where Ethan has parked his car. If Edwards and my dad do turn up before daybreak we’ll spot them right away.
“Only if you promise to behave yourself,” I say, unable to disguise the quiver in my voice.
“I won’t touch you again,” says Ethan, without feeling.
I nod, acknowledging his promise. This is as close to a truce as we’re going to get. All the same, I slam shut the passenger side door and instead climb in the back. Ethan lets out an irritated growl at my decision not to sit beside him. Checking the time on my phone, I notice that it’s not even midnight yet. We’ve got a long few hours of waiting ahead of us.