by Megan Derr
Eros laughed again. "You're reckless because you're too smart for your own good, Johnnie. You're so busy examining trees, you never notice who else might be in the forest or what they're doing."
Johnnie freed himself enough to drive an elbow back into Eros' gut. In response, Eros only laughed again—then moved, pinning Johnnie face down on the bed, spreading his legs wide and settling between them. "Get off me," Johnnie snapped, even as his body reacted.
"No," Eros said in his ear, then bit it. Johnnie jerked, but could not move away. Eros put teeth and tongue and lips elsewhere, exploring Johnnie thoroughly from throat to ass, and Johnnie hated how easy it was to forget everything when Eros was touching him, fucking him. How had he allowed these nights to become a habitual part of his life? How had he allowed even one?
Eros released him, but only to move Johnnie so he was on all fours on the bed. Johnnie folded his arms to pillow his head, muffling his sounds in the bedding as Eros wasted no time, but simply shoved inside him. He was slower the second time, but still just as thorough, driving deep before pulling out and shoving back in. Johnnie suspected he would be spending the next day moving as little as possible, but he could not seem to make himself sorry about it.
Johnnie smothered his cries in the blankets as he came, only barely hearing Eros' much quieter cries above him. They collapsed on the opposite side of Johnnie's bed, and he was too exhausted to protest when Eros bundled him close, tangling them together. Their scents mingled in the air, on their cooling skin, and Johnnie noted irritably that he would never be able to smell myrrh and musk roses without getting hard. "So am I ever going to be permitted to see you? Spend time with you in daylight?" Johnnie asked when the silence stretched on.
Eros' only reply was more silence. Every night they went through the same conversation. Johnnie did not know why he bothered to bring it up over and over again, except that persistence was all he had. Whatever, whoever, Eros was he was beyond Johnnie's abilities to counter. "So does it thrill you?" he asked bitterly. "Does it thrill you to keep Desrosiers' son as your dirty little secret?"
The arms around him tightened, nearly to the point of pain, Eros' face buried in the cradle of Johnnie's neck and shoulder. "That—no, Johnnie. Never. I—that's not it at all."
"What then?" Johnnie asked. What was the point of a lover he had never seen, did not truly know, who did not trust him? Did not want or care enough to even let Johnnie see his face.
Eros sighed softly. "I can't have you in daylight. It's not allowed, or wouldn't be allowed, and now I'm afraid it's too late, anyway."
Johnnie was so very tired of the excuses, the cryptic answers. "So why can it not be our secret?"
"Because candlelight will not reveal an Eros, but quite his opposite," Eros replied. "I am no beauty, no noble—I am nothing."
"You are a coward," Johnnie snapped.
"I cannot deny that," Eros said. "If you do not want me to come—"
"I want you to—kiss me in broad daylight," Johnnie, furious with himself over what he had nearly said instead of 'kiss.' He twisted free, turned away, put his back to Eros, though he could not quite make himself pull entirely out of the arms that still held him.
Eros kissed the side of his neck, his cheek—then he was simply gone, and Johnnie sighed, staring bitterly at the orange-yellow light of the streetlamps now bleeding through the curtains. He had no idea how to be a normal, but he was still too normal ever to be a proper abnormal. His father had adopted him out of guilt, his brother—
Johnnie's thoughts faltered.
He had not thought of Elam in days—weeks, even. Between his new life, his new friends, his cases, his babysitter, and Eros … He balled one hand into a fist and pounded it into the bedding. He was furious and shaken and lost, because he had barely caught himself in time to say 'kiss' instead of 'love.' I want you to love me in broad daylight. Bad enough he kept begging Eros to stop keeping secrets. Bad enough he kept letting Eros fuck him, use him, night after night. Bad enough he only had a family due to guilt. Bad enough he was normal.
He would be damned if he begged for a cowardly shadow to love him. He was not yet that pathetic. Disgusted with himself, too awake now to sleep, Johnnie threw back the blankets and climbed out of bed. He grimaced at his state; sticky, sore, well and thoroughly used.
Refusing to think any more about it, he fetched a fresh towel and went to get another shower. Then he would read, study, investigate, because his father was lying to him, and Eros was a coward, and he would uncover their damned secrets if it was the last thing he did.
Case 005: Snake Leaves
Johnnie sunk another ball, then another, quickly and neatly clearing the pool table.
Around him, the bar was oddly quiet save for the empty noise of the TV above the bar. Outside, the rain poured relentlessly down in heavy sheets, the pounding, drumming sound of it seeming to drive out the energy of all who heard it, broken only by the odd burst of thunder.
Stepping back, Johnnie picked up the shot glass Peyton had brought him a few minutes ago and knocked back his vodka. He lifted the glass to Peyton, signaling for another, then motioned to Walsh. "Rack'em." Obediently Walsh fetched the balls from the pockets and set them up again. He stepped back and motioned for Johnnie to proceed. Returning to the pool table, Johnnie bent and began to sink the balls.
"I'm starting to think we should get a second one," Peyton said in amusement as he brought a fresh shot.
"So buy it," Johnnie said dismissively, sinking three more balls. Outside, thunder ripped through the sky, crashing and booming, then fading away slowly while the rain continued tirelessly on.
Peyton laughed. "Going stir crazy, Johnnie? You do nothing but read and write and shoot pool."
"I am bored out of my mind," Johnnie replied, and sank another ball. "I am tired of trying to find something that does not exist." He sank the last ball, then accepted the shot Peyton still held, tossing it back in one smooth motion. He handed his cue stick to Walsh, then returned to the pile of books and papers he had left on one of the tables.
"What are you trying to find?" Micah asked from where he sat at the bar steadily working through beer and nachos while he chatted with Nelson about whatever sports game was on the TV. Johnnie shook his head, not willing to discuss either Eros or the riddle of rebounding spells. Micah smiled in understanding and said only, "I think you need a break."
Nodding in agreement, Johnnie flipped open his latest bestiary; it was a joke, a ratty old thing full of nonsense and wishful thinking. Even in the supernatural world, some things simply did not exist—birds with tears that could heal all wounds, ghosts which could wander freely, horses with wings; the list went on and on, and every word of it was useless. He did not know why he bothered. If he was this desperate for a solution, it was time to stop. Shutting the book again in disgust, Johnnie stared angrily at his pathetic one page of notes. There was precious little about Eros which he actually knew and really, most of it was educated supposition.
Powerful. Fearless. Myrrh and musk roses. Was able to bypass most if not all wards. Lower to middle class. That was a strong supposition, but Johnnie was confident about it. Not beautiful. Another supposition, but Johnnie had a very strong hunch that Eros hated that name because he was not beautiful. 'Quite his opposite' had been the exact words. What was the opposite of love? Hate? That made no sense. So it must be a matter of beauty.
He believed one hundred percent that Eros must be a half-breed of some sort. Given how unpredictable the results of such things could be? There was no telling who or what had combined to give birth to Eros. Johnnie was beginning to despair of ever solving the mystery. He could solve others, but he could not solve the mystery of Eros.
Neither could he seem to solve the mystery of the rebounding spell. Rostislav had confirmed there were no spells upon him, and his parents had wanted to live a normal life, so they would not have cast spells upon him. Ontoniel would have told him if he had done it—yet Ontoniel was keeping a secret.
"You look as gloomy as the weather," Peyton said, pulling him from his thoughts. Glass clinked as Peyton set another shot on the table.
"Thank you," Johnnie said, and tossed the vodka back. "I do not like secrets."
Peyton nodded. "Secrets always cause more problems than they solve."
Johnnie grunted in agreement.
Thunder cracked and boomed, hard enough to shake the bar. Lightning lit the place up clear and bright as the middle of day for the span of a heartbeat. Then the bar returned to normal, lit only slightly by a few old lights overhead and the lurid brightness of the TV screen. Outside, the rain fell harder than ever, and even Johnnie began to wonder if it would ever stop.
He had not seen Eros in nearly a week, too stubborn to give his secretive, cowardly lover—fuck toy—an opportunity to visit. But there was no use denying privately that half his tension was purely for want of a fuck. Sighing at himself, Johnnie slammed all his books shut and stacked them neatly to carry back upstairs later. Though he had absolutely no desire to go out in such foul weather—
The sound of the door banging open drew his attention, and everyone else's, and they looked up to see Heath step inside amidst a torrent of rain. He looked like nothing so much as a drowned rat, and oddly somber as he removed his things and hung them up.
Peyton slid him a glass of blood wine without a word, and Heath murmured a silent thanks. He drank half of it, then walked to Johnnie's table and sat down across from him. "Ever heard of these?" Heath asked, and reaching into his pocket, pulled out a small, clear plastic bag in which were three small, long, sharply-pointed, dark green leaves.
Taking them, Johnnie examined the leaves, then recited, "After a while a second snake crept out of the corner, but as soon as he saw the other lying dead in three pieces, he went back and quickly returned with three green leaves in his mouth. Then he took the three separate portions of the snake, placed them together and laid a leaf on each wound, and no sooner were they joined, than the snake raised himself as lively as ever, and went away hastily with his companion."
Heath rolled his eyes.
Johnnie drew one of the leaves from the bag and twirled it in his finger. "But they are only legend. No leaf can actually bring the dead back to life. Nothing can. Dead is dead."
"Tell that to my friend Carrie," Heath said. "Her father died last year. About a week ago, she received a plant in thanks from one of her customers—she doesn't know who, but that sort of thing happens a lot. She planted it in her garden. Just a couple of days later, she woke up to noise. She went downstairs and saw someone ransacking her father's study. Only when the intruder turned around, she saw it was her father. He came toward her, and Carrie fled. She's refused to go back to the house since. I only just learned about all this a couple of hours ago."
Johnnie nodded. "Did you go to the house yourself?"
"Yes," Heath said. "I think her father wasn’t the only one to ransack the place."
"Did you linger long enough to see her father? Did he bear all the marks of the draugr?"
Heath smiled and shook his head, chuckling softly. "You knew the moment you saw the leaves."
Johnnie twirled the leaf he held again. "This plant is largely believed to be extinct, but abnormal records reliably prove that it is still around, if extremely hard to find. Something about the scent of snake leaves calls to the dead and raises them from their slumber. Alchemists and magic-users find them useful in necrotic workings. The reason for calling them snake leaves is lost, though theories abound. The most popular one is that the man who first discovered their peculiar ability bore a white snake as his crest."
Heath laughed again. "You're a piece of work."
Shrugging, Johnnie said, "If you are here, and telling me about it, you did not destroy it."
"Oh, I destroyed it. I also destroyed the snake leaf bush. See, it's not that which is bugging me. I told you—someone else has been in there. They were looking for something. I think they hoped raising ol' Mike as a draugr would lead them to it. I don't know if they got what they wanted or not, but I do know Carrie is still too terrified to go home. She's a good friend. I need you to figure out who did this and why."
Johnnie nodded. "Address?"
Heath reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card that had somehow managed to stay dry. "Her father was an alchemist; this is their home. I told Carrie that I would get someone to help, and that you might be stopping by to see her. She's staying with a friend, that address and phone number are on the back."
Taking the card, Johnnie tucked it away in the pocket of his black, blue, and silver striped vest. Then he returned to staring at the snake leaf he held, once more twirling it back and forth, pondering it.
"You're already thinking hard," Heath said. "Do you think it's that easy a case, or that difficult?"
Johnnie did not take his eyes off the snake leaf as he quoted, "Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home."
Heath sighed. "And that means?"
"It means—" Johnnie was cut off by a resounding sneeze from across the room. He looked toward Bergrin and called out, "You are to be seen and not heard."
"Get rid of that damned snake weed, then," Bergrin groused. He stood up and crossed the room, and took the other empty seat at Johnnie's table. He scowled at the snake leaves. "I'm allergic as hell to those damned things."
Johnnie quirked one brow, but put the leaves back in the bag and sealed it. "You are allergic to a rare, imported plant that most believe to be extinct?"
"Yes," Bergrin snapped. "My father is an alchemist, too."
"Ah," Johnnie said, then added with exaggerated politeness, "As we will be likely running into more of them, perhaps you should remain here."
Bergrin smirked in that way Johnnie hated. "Nice try, Highness, but no dice."
Making a face, Johnnie stood and went to go get dressed for going out, already dreading the rain that would ruin his clothes and leave him feeling wet for days. It took him only a few minutes to pull on a plain black blazer to match his slacks, hiding the smooth gray of his shirt save where it was visible behind the striped vest. He shrugged into a long, heavy, weather-proofed trench coat and pulled down a black fedora with a gray band. Lastly he pulled on his rain boots, grimacing again as he thought about what the weather would do to his clothes. Still, he would endure it for a mystery; anything to distract him from the difficulties of Eros and rebounding spells.
Returning downstairs, he saw that Heath was nursing a full bottle of wine, and Chuck and Nelson had reclaimed the pool table. Bergrin leaned against the wall by the front door, patiently waiting. Normally, he wore browns, greens, blues—muted colors and shades that blended in, went unnoticed. Bergrin was very good at being invisible, as much as Johnnie hated to admit it.
Today, though, he seemed as dark and gloomy as the weather, as everyone else who was sick of the unending rain. He wore dark denim jeans and black work boots, a tight-fitting, long-sleeved, black t-shirt, over which he had pulled a black leather jacket. Even his baseball cap, usually blue and white, had been exchanged for a rather new-looking one. It was all black, the front stitched with a cartoonish looking grim-reaper, complete with flowing robes, scythe, and bright red eyes. It was ridiculous looking.
"Nice hat," Johnnie said. "Is that new?"
"Yes," Bergrin said, scowling, looking defensive. "My mom gave it to me for my birthday."
Johnnie had prepared a taunting response, but the unexpected words drew him up short. "Your birthday? When was your birthday?"
"Yesterday," Bergrin replied shortly.
"Hmm," Johnnie said. "I suppose it is better than knowing you picked it out yourself."
"Shut up," Bergrin said, "or I'll shove you into a puddle and ruin all that pretty, expensive silk you're wearing, Prince."
Ignoring him, Johnnie retrieved his umbrella from its hook on the wall and said, "Shall we, babysitter?"
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"After you, Highness."
Bracing himself, Johnnie threw open the door and dashed for the car Peyton had called while Johnnie got dressed, Bergrin close on his heels. Throwing themselves into the car, Bergrin pulled the door shut while Johnnie told the driver where to take them.
"About an hour drive, sir," the driver told him.
"That is fine," Johnnie replied. He glanced at Bergrin and said, "So what do you know about draugr?"
"The after-goers, those who walk after death," Bergrin replied, tugging on the brim of his cap. "The draugr wake when those things and persons they love are threatened. They also wake when forced to, most often by a sorcerer or magic user of similar caliber. Death-black and corpse-pale; the longer they wander, the stronger they grow. One of the few creatures which can naturally shape-shift, if allowed to grow that strong, though their forms are limited to cat and raven. To destroy a draugr, one must decapitate it and then burn the remains. The normals have a popular story that recounts the defeat of one terrible draugr, called Hrómundar saga Gripssonar."