Cursed

by Sue Tingey

  We walked into the center of the cavern and on the count of three Jamie and Jinx began to chant and I closed my eyes and called for the entrance to the hereafter to appear.

  I opened my eyes when I heard the first voices of the spirits. They came from the roof, they came from beneath our feet, and they came from the tunnels leading into the cavern. Soon we were surrounded by hundreds of ghostly gray wraiths. This time, their cries of despair were silenced as they realized what was happening. My body began to tingle, and a nice feeling like I was floating upright in a warm, soapy bath flowed over and through me. I began to search the cavern for the dot of light I knew must be coming, and then there it was: a small, bright speck of gold dust within the red gloom. Within moments it was growing into a slit in the fabric that separated this world from the next.

  The tall demon, Dreyphus, floated over to stand before me. He smiled a happy smile that, had I been in human form, would probably have had my eyes misting up. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, you have set us free.” Then he turned and drifted toward the light. Unlike the spirits at the other temple or the great hall, these didn’t hesitate. They began to crowd toward the golden glow spilling across the cavern, not even pausing to bathe in its radiance before crossing over.

  This made me smile, and chased away the sadness in my heart for a few moments. Then I heard a voice; one that wasn’t joyous or happy to be given the opportunity to move on. In amongst the gray figures crowding toward the light, I could see one fighting against the tide, and any happiness I was feeling evaporated.

  “By Beelzebub’s balls, why did I not see this coming?” Jinx said.

  “What?” Jamie asked, and Jinx pointed toward the lone figure fighting to get away from the blinding light. “Why doesn’t he cross over?”

  “Because he can’t,” Jinx said, his tone bleak. “He’s like the Sicarii. He has done too much wrong to be welcome where they are going. He has been caressed by the fingers of evil and accepted its touch.”

  “Lucky, help me,” Philip cried. “Please, help me.” He broke free of the diminishing stream of spirits and ran across the hall toward me. “Lucky, please!”

  “Philip, I—”

  “She can do nothing for you,” Jamie said, his voice harsh. “You have brought this upon yourself, Conrad.”

  “Is there nothing I can do?” I asked them.

  “This is a matter over which we have no influence,” Jinx said. “Each person is judged upon what’s in their heart. Sadly, your friend has been found wanting and he knows it, otherwise he wouldn’t have run from the light.”

  Philip fell to his knees and tried to grab me around the legs. “Please.”

  The last of the Sicarii’s victims passed through into the land beyond and the slit began to close. Philip turned his head, and upon seeing the entrance disappearing staggered to his feet. He began to smile and any sympathy I’d had for him vanished. He wasn’t sorry for a single thing he’d done; he just didn’t want to pay the price.

  He turned to look at me. “Seems I’m not so bad after all.”

  “Scum of the earth is what you are,” Jamie said.

  Philip grinned at him. “Apparently not.”

  Jinx smiled his dangerous smile. “Well, I hope you enjoy it here for all eternity.”

  Philip’s own smile faltered. “What do you mean?”

  It seemed being “bitchy” wasn’t a purely female thing. Jinx gestured around the cavern. “This is your home for all eternity: you died here, you stay here.”

  “No,” Philip said.

  “Oh yes,” Jamie said, his smile equally mean.

  Philip glared at me. “Put it right. Put it fucking right.”

  I couldn’t quite believe this. “You what?”

  “Your pet ghost travels around with you, so why shouldn’t I?”

  “Pet ghost?”

  “Kayla, your friend Kayla, your pet ghost. I know all about her: your spirit guide.”

  “I cannot believe him,” Jamie said.

  “I think he’s in denial,” Jinx said.

  Jamie gave Jinx a sideways look. “Really?”

  “Nooo, just a f—” Jinx glanced at me, “just a bloody idiot.”

  “Philip, you either move on or you stay here,” I said.

  “But. Kayla—”

  “In our world Kayla was never a spirit, just a demon in disguise. In this world her dying wish was never to leave me and this is what keeps her by my side. What did you wish for when you died? What was your last promise?”

  “I just wanted the pain to stop.” His expression twisted into a snarl. “Help me or I’ll make you sorry.”

  Jinx laughed. “And how exactly are you going to do that, you pathetic little man?”

  He glanced to where the entrance to the other side had been. “I’ll find a way. It may take me a very long time, but I’ll find a way, and when I do you’ll wish you’d helped me.”

  “The only thing I can do for you is to help you pass over,” I said. “Why can’t you understand that?”

  “He doesn’t want to,” Jamie said. “He’s been a greedy, conniving little shit who betrayed his wife, his daughter and you, but to him it’s everyone’s fault but his own. Don’t waste another moment’s thought on him.”

  Philip launched himself at Jamie, fists flailing, but it was an empty gesture. He fell straight through my angel and ended up in a heap on the ground. And that’s where we left him, screaming abuse at us as we walked across the cavern, along the ruby red passageway and out into the sunshine, his vitriol still ringing in our ears.

  “Can he hurt us?” I asked. “Can a spirit full of so much hate and vengeance somehow find a way?”

  “Do you want me to go back and make sure he’s gone forever?” Jinx said.

  “You can do that?”

  “Never had to before, but in his case I’m willing to give it a damn good try.”

  “We could all go back, and Lucky could open the door to make him pass on.”

  I shivered. I couldn’t do it. I would be condemning him to being whisked away to some terrible place by those black shadowy things. “No, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.”

  So we trudged back past the piles of bodies and squawking birds and away from Dark Mountain and all its horrors until we were breathing fresh air and our bones began to lose the chill that had sunk into their marrow. And it was during this walk I felt myself change back into a human, almost as though my misery had driven her away.

  Amaliel was out there somewhere and Philip’s murder was a message—he would be coming for me; maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week or next month, but hell, he had waited twenty-five years, so he was patient if nothing else. My men might try and tell me otherwise, but I knew it to be true.

  Eighteen

  Jinx and Jamie decided between them that we would take that little holiday Jinx had been talking about. At first my heart wasn’t in it; I was too anxious. But gradually, between the two of them, they wore me down.

  “A small cottage, on a beach next to the ocean where we can swim, fish and lie in the sun,” Jinx said.

  Having seen the size of some of the creatures that lived in the seas of the Underlands, the idea didn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm.

  “Come on Lucky, it’ll be fun.” Even Jamie was up for it.

  “Just the three of us. We’ll do nothing but eat, drink and make merry all day.”

  “How about me?” Kayla said.

  “You can’t eat and drink,” Jinx pointed out, rather unkindly I thought, “and you certainly can’t make merry.”

  She frowned at him for a moment then glanced at me and began to smile. “I’ll promise to keep out of your way,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

  “Then it’s a deal,” he said.

  “What’s a deal?” Jamie said.

  Jinx reached across and tousled his hair. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

  Jamie shrugged him off. �
��Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  “It will be brother, believe me, it will be,” and he gave Jamie a wink when he thought I wasn’t looking.

  And it had to be said, the spot they had found was idyllic: a small villa surrounded by lush, rust-colored palms on the edge of an amethyst lake, Jinx eventually conceding to my reluctance to dabble my toes, or any other part of my anatomy for that matter, in the ocean.

  There was a small village within walking distance where we could buy most of our provisions, and if we needed to travel further afield Pyrites was very obliging.

  I had tentatively asked whether we should invite Vaybian along for Kayla’s sake, but even she wasn’t keen on that idea. “Three’s company, four’s a crowd,” she said. “Though you can’t count me as I’m a ghost and Pyrites is more of a guard dog.” It was then that I got it.

  So, “making merry” was what they called it, and it was what finally sold the idea of the holiday to me; if Amaliel were to come calling I didn’t want to die a virgin. Jamie had promised me that special moment together, and Jinx with all of his innuendos, some subtle, some not so much, had made his intentions quite clear.

  If I said I hadn’t thought about me and Jamie, and me and Jinx together—alone—I’d be lying. Some nights I lay awake thinking of nothing else, but the three of us—how was that going to work? Demons didn’t apparently have the same hang-ups as humans about a lot of things. I had found that out very soon after arriving at the villa.

  It was hot, very hot and definitely too hot for leather trousers and boots. I’d collected some clothes from my wardrobe at the palace before we left—with the boys’ help—though when I opened my bag when we reached the villa there were several, shall we say, rather skimpy items I didn’t remember packing. I had included several long shift dresses and some loose fitting skirts and blouses, which were perfect, I’d thought, for this holiday.

  I had wondered at Jinx and Jamie’s rather limited amount of luggage, though it wasn’t until I walked out onto the veranda to join my men for a celebratory holiday drink that the reason for them traveling so light became apparent. Fortunately, they were looking out over the lake with their backs to me.

  “I think you may find you’re a little overdressed,” Kayla whispered in my ear with a giggle.

  “What do I do?”

  “I would say ‘close your eyes and think of England,’ but that really would be a shame; they both have incredibly good bodies. I should’ve had a taste of the Deathbringer when I had the chance.”

  “He said you had history.”

  “History? A line on a page; a sentence worth if that.”

  I don’t know why, but Kayla confirming it made me a lot happier. “I think I’d better …” I was about to turn and go back inside when Jamie glanced over his shoulder.

  “Come on, your drink will get warm,” he said.

  Jinx turned to face me and I swear my heart stopped for a second. I was certainly finding it hard to breathe. He grinned at me and he did that thing with his tail where it crept around his thigh and waggled at me.

  I forced myself to take a breath, lifted my chin up and walked over to join them, hoping my cheeks weren’t glowing as red as the burning sensation prickling my skin suggested.

  “Jamie said you’d be embarrassed,” Jinx said, handing me a goblet of wine. “You’re not embarrassed are you?”

  “Humans do have quite a few hang-ups about their bodies,” Jamie said.

  “She’s not a human.”

  “She’s been brought up in their world.”

  I took a sip of my wine and looked out across the lake as it was probably safest. “Actually, a lot of humans go to nudist beaches and holiday resorts,” I said.

  “I bet you haven’t,” Jamie said and couldn’t quite stop himself from smirking.

  “I’ve never really been on holiday except when I was a little girl with my dad, and he would’ve hardly taken me to a nudist beach.”

  So we drank, they swam—I still wasn’t particularly keen to find out what might be living in their waters—and we drank some more, and ate, and by the time the sun went down I’d grown comfortable with their nudity—well, maybe comfortable isn’t quite the word; accustomed is probably a better term.

  It was a temperate, balmy, perfect evening. The moons were rising in the sky, the stars were beginning to twinkle and the gentle breeze was as warm as an angel’s breath. Although I’d relaxed by then over the wine, food and companionable conversation, it suddenly dawned on me that when it came to bedtime I would be crawling under the covers with not one, but two naked men, both of whom had promised their bodies to me. They had also professed to love me, albeit that Jamie hadn’t actually used the word and neither had either of them actually said “Lucky, I love you.”

  They weren’t in a hurry to go to bed, so by the time came I’d worked myself into a state of nervous anxiety, which I knew would totally blow any chance of this being a good experience for any of us.

  While they took turns using the bathroom down the hall, I locked myself in the one in our bedroom and after stringing out everything I had to do for as long as I could, flopped down on the side of the bath and tried to fight down the growing tide of panic, which was in danger of engulfing me. Despite copious amounts of wine I was now stone cold sober, when I could have done with feeling a little drunk.

  “What’s the matter?” Kayla asked, floating through the door and across the room to sit beside me.

  I sat staring at my hands. “I’m scared,” I said eventually, and glanced up from under lowered lashes, waiting for the hoots of laughter. She surprised me.

  “Do you love them?”

  I nodded, feeling downright miserable. “Too much, I think.”

  “You can never love someone too much if they love you back.”

  “Yeah, but do they?”

  “You’re kidding—right?”

  I looked up at her with a frown. “What do you mean?”

  “They marked you. They both marked you, and neither one of them is willing to let you go. Do you know how unusual that is?”

  “I don’t even really know what it means other than Jinx telling me I was their ‘slave’ or maybe even ‘sex toy.’”

  “That was before he realized how he felt about you. I think Jamie has always cared for you very deeply, and Jinx marking you brought out the green-eyed monster in him like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “You think?”

  “Yep—and the Deathbringer actually used the ‘L’ word, and I can tell you one thing: for all his laughing, joking, drinking and womanizing, love is not a word he uses lightly.”

  “What do I do?” I said. “I’ve never done this with one man let alone two.”

  “You lay back and let them look after you. They care for you, and in time you’ll learn how to care for them and make them feel good.”

  “I won’t be a disappointment to them?”

  “Don’t be silly. They will love taking care of you. Trust me, by tomorrow morning you’ll be wondering why you were so scared.”

  “Wish me luck,” I said, getting up from the bath.

  Ghostly lips brushed my cheek. “You, my darling, won’t need it.”

  I had put on my favorite dusky pink, long, satin nightgown. It looked better on my demon self as it suited her coloring, but it didn’t look at all bad on me either. I wasn’t brave enough to go to them naked. It would have been too brazen and I was too shy.

  They had been busy while I’d been away. There was no orange lamplight for the occasion, instead the room was alight with a dozen or more flickering white candles and to my consternation they had both put on their trousers. Maybe I’d read the situation all wrong? Instead of being relieved, I was more disappointed than I could have possibly imagined.

  It didn’t go unnoticed. Jinx burst into gales of laughter and Jamie’s eyes twinkled, though he did try to suppress his humor. Now I was dead grumpy. I stomped across the room, threw back the covers and slid into be
d, which made Jinx laugh harder and Jamie, unable to restrain himself any longer, joined him.

  I glared at both of them. “I hope for your sakes there’s a spare bedroom,” I said.

  Jinx danced across the room and jumped up onto the bed and knelt down beside me. “We are your guard and would therefore not be doing our duty if we didn’t protect you, even if it is from yourself.” Then he took hold of my hand and raised it to his lips and kissed the back of my knuckles.

  Jamie climbed up onto the other side of the bed, getting up close so he could put a hand on each of my shoulders, his fingers massaging my tight muscles. Despite myself I began to relax. “There’s no need to be scared,” he said. “We’ll take care of you.”

  Jinx moved in close, his lips brushing my neck. “We will be so very gentle with you—this time.”

  And he didn’t lie.

  Jamie was laying on his front, his right wing covering me from my right shoulder down to my left hip. Jinx was pressed up against my left side and I could feel the weight of his arm resting across my waist. I shuffled around a bit and Jinx rolled onto his back and Jamie’s wings closed behind him.

  I wriggled up the bed and climbed out from between them, stepping over Jamie and hopping down to the floor. I glanced back over my shoulder, worried I had woken them, but no: Jinx rolled onto his other side and Jamie began to snore. I found my discarded nightgown on the floor and, slipping it on, wandered out into the quadrangle in the middle of the villa to sit on the edge of the ornamental pond.

  It really wasn’t a surprise to me when I looked down to see I was a shimmering rose pink, and my hair, blowing in the gentle breeze, was a glossy aubergine. You could say they had brought out the demon in me. It was almost as though I had been freed from my frail human body. I felt stronger and more powerful than I’d ever felt before, even in my demon persona. More importantly, I felt loved and cherished, and had I been human I think I may just have cried, the feeling was so bittersweet. Kayla had been right—now I couldn’t imagine why I had been so afraid.

  I wasn’t even sure it was my demon self that made me feel so strong and liberated. I think maybe it was my demon lovers. Lovers—the word made me shiver, but not in a bad way.