by Vicki Keire
A soft chill like ice and mint brushed my neck as I watched them kiss through the window of Whitfield’s only Italian restaurant.
Ethan pulled me back against him. I felt hands at my waist. Some distant voice deep inside warned me that I was being a nosy voyeur. “I’m his sister,” I hissed at it, watching as Amberlyn melted into the kiss, weaving her caramel fingers around the back of Logan’s fragile pale neck. Copper curls and long smooth arms melted into my brother like sunshine on frozen marble. “That explains why they didn’t wait for us,” I told Ethan, who had gone completely still against me.
“Should we… interrupt them?” He sounded strangely shy. I ripped my nosy eyes away from my brother’s love life and, with a slick quickness that reminded me of my own slowly waking Nephilim blood, spun in Ethan’s arms until my own rested around his neck. I pinned his blue green eyes with my own and saw wistful longing there. I knew it wasn’t just that Ethan wanted to take me to a restaurant. It was that Ethan wished Logan could have more: more time, more dates, more Amberlyn. I dropped my forehead against his throat so the top of my head rested just under his chin.
The winter will take him.
He’s the only one who doesn’t treat me like a walking corpse.
“No.” I groped for the warm rough fingers I knew were near. The warm rough fingers I wanted to claim for my own. Could claim for my own, for the rest of my life, if I wanted them. Unlike the two people in the restaurant inside. “If you can bear it, let’s let them be. I’ll text Logan to meet us at the fountain.” Ethan nodded. “Can we give them an hour? I don’t think they’ve even gotten their salads yet. Can you stand that?”
A tiny piece of a smile twitched along the corner of his mouth. “We’ll be close enough, I suppose. Is an hour long enough for…” he gestured to the deepening darkness and gathering crowds. “For whatever you have in mind?”
I shrugged, studiously ignoring friends and neighbors as they moved around us. “I don’t have anything particular in mind.”
“You keep promising to show me your town,” he murmured playfully, pulling on a lock of my hair.
“Mmm. I do keep promising something like that.” I stared down at my shoes. “It’s just…” I kicked the pavement. “I don’t feel like I know it anymore. If I ever did.” I huffed in frustration. I hated it when I felt a thing and couldn’t put it into words. I flexed my fingers, wondering if I could draw it instead. But there wasn’t time. “I just… know where things are.”
But Ethan nodded as if I’d made perfect sense. As if he understood me even when I did not. “Well, come on then,” he said, smiling. “I smell fresh cookies. Fresh cookies make everything better. And we’ll go from there.”
No debating that point.
Chapter Fourteen:
Extraordinary Circumstances
I balled my fists, shoving them deep into my jacket pockets. It had taken long enough, but it felt good to have identified the source of my vague discomfort. Whitfield itself. My town was a stranger. I cast a sideways glance around through strands of my dark hair. Everything looked the same, but I knew it wasn’t.
My hometown was a refuge for supernatural forces, and had been since before I was born. Some of my neighbors, and I had no idea who or how many, had the same kind of freakish abilities I had been born with. Or worse.
Some of them weren’t even human.
I’d always felt like such a freak. Like there was no one else like me in the whole world.
“You’re not alone.” Ethan nudged my toe. I glared at him, wondering for the hundredth time if he didn’t have telepathy or something.
“Are you going to be sweet and reassuring and follow that up with a ‘You’ve got me, sweetheart,’ or do you mean in general?” I asked sarcastically. I refused to be easily cheered up.
He had the grace to look confused. “Both?”
We’d begun to wander aimlessly, following our noses. Storefronts gleamed beside me. Ethan placed himself street side; my grandmother would have approved. She insisted a true gentleman placed himself between a lady and any traffic. There wasn’t any traffic, but I gave him silent points anyway. We stopped in front of Pepper’s Bakery. “I didn’t have to grow up feeling so alone, you know? Not when there were others like me.” A young mother stood right in front of the glass display case inside the store, refereeing her two offspring as they argued over their choice of cookies.
“But there are no others like you,” Ethan countered. “Not here. Believe me, I’d know. Whitfield remains a refuge precisely because it maintains a high degree of secrecy. A need to know policy, if you will.”
“But then how do you know there are no others like me?” I argued back.
“We can sense our kind. Your Nephilim blood marks you out as plainly as a gold coin in a pile of silver to me and others of our kind. But other than some rather obvious signs, or outright declarations, Whitfield keeps it supernatural secrets close.”
“Obvious signs?” I asked, my interest piqued. “Like what?”
He sighed. “Like, for example, a neighbor who only came out at night, never ate or drank anything, had extremely pale, cold skin, and never aged.” He grinned. “Oh, and if you just happened to catch this neighbor drinking blood. That would be a dead giveaway. No pun intended.”
I rolled my eyes. “But other than guessing or being taken into someone’s confidence, there’s no real way to sense other’s… differences.”
“Right.”
“But why?”
Ethan sighed again. “Because there are a whole bunch of supernaturals with different magical systems running around. Like different gangs, or something. It’s simpler, more peaceful, this way. Everyone agrees to mind their own business, unless things get out of hand.”
“You make it sound like the supernatural Wild West.”
“That’s not a bad analogy,” Ethan admitted. “Those who take refuge here agree to certain rules, including minding their own business except in extraordinary circumstances.”
“Like being hunted by evil soul-stealing demons?” Warm baking smells blasted me straight in the face as the young mother chased her children out the door. I couldn’t help smiling. I saw an answering smile on Ethan’s face.
“I love the smell of fresh sugar cookies,” he explained, steering me forward with a familiar hand on my back. “Mmm. Imminent danger counts as extraordinary circumstances. So do developing supernatural gifts.”
I stopped to finger some beaded necklaces set up on a table outside the brightly lit bead shop two doors down from the bakery. “So really, if the forces of evil weren’t determined to have me, I might never have met you at all,” I mused, softly enough so that only he could hear me. “Or known about Whitfield. Maybe I should send them a thank you card.”
He gripped my hand, squeezing it. I happened to be holding a necklace made of polished rose quartz. The stones pressed uncomfortable against my palm. “Never think that, Caspia,” he almost growled, low and throaty, right in my ear. “Evil, real evil, should it ever show itself to you, will wear the most beautiful form you’ve ever seen and charm you as nothing ever has. It’s flawless perfection you must beware of; poor mad Asheroth was but a pale imitation of the kind of evil I fear stalks you now.” Suddenly my palm was spread open in his, my fingers flat and trembling like a starfish newly pulled from the water. He fingered the rose quartz necklace. “The lover’s stone,” he said, pushing it aside slightly to rub the marks it left on my palm. “I would buy it for you, if I could.” His smile was both tight and wistful; his eyes avoided mine entirely. “But my kind doesn’t exactly carry money around.”
“You can.” I tossed him my wallet, palm raised against any protest. “Just look at this jacket. Even if it didn’t stop weapons and supernatural wrath, there’s no way it’s worth more than that necklace.” Still looking doubtful, I dragged my lower lip out in a tiny pout. “Please?” I whined. “I really want a present. And you can pay me back.” I leaned in really close, right next to his ear.
“You know. Later.”
I didn’t clarify what kind of repayment, and he didn’t ask. As Ethan disappeared into the bead shop to pay, I spun around on the sidewalk of the square, giddy and slightly less angry at my hometown than I had been earlier. Neither one of us could help what we were. Let it go. The night wind pulled the thought from me and tugged playfully on my hair. Just for tonight. Let it all go, and come play. I felt Ethan behind me again, Nephilim-quick, lowering the necklace over my head. I leaned backwards, knowing without asking or being told that his solid bulk would be there to catch mine. I looked out over the square, at the torches and tables of food and bright trinkets scattered here and there, all backlit by the brilliantly lit, multi-colored fountain carved with fantastic creatures. I felt a fierce deep happiness.
“Like it?” Ethan asked.
“Love it,” I corrected, finding his hand by temperature alone. He pulsed warmth in the chill wind. I saw Erik and a few other musicians setting up in the grass off the cobblestone square in front of the fountain. A wild surge of recklessness throbbed and I was off, racing towards the gathering crowd. “Do you dance?” I laughed into the wind. “Tell me you dance. Oh, Ethan, please.”
He laughed back. I felt him behind me, flowing easily as if his feet weren’t even touching ground. “For you? I’ll make a special effort to go slow, so you can keep up.”
And then he spun me, catching me up so my feet really didn’t touch the ground, and spun me with his hands under my forearms as if I weighed nothing at all. My silver skirt flared, catching the light so that it alternately glowed and pulsed with the greens and blues and golds and reds of the fountain. There was music: Erik’s fast familiar lead followed by at least two other guitars and layered vocals. Not his full band, then. I idly wondered why. Other instruments drew near: a shy percussionist, an indignant-fingered violinist. Erik played something softer, slower, to take their measure; all knew without speech who was architect here. As the walls of sound rearranged themselves around us, Ethan shifted uncertainly on the grass, and I discovered a new thing about him. “You don’t know how to dance slow,” I told the moon, half-covered by branches like fingers as if it was trying not to see what the mortals were doing.
“No,” he admitted, suddenly stiff and graceless in my arms. “I am almost always moving very fast, or not at all.”
“Well,” I said, after a moment’s thought during which the violinist performed a graceful sonic slide around Erik’s commanding lead, “Just pretend I’m feeling wobbly.” He laughed, and the curve of my spine under the pressure of his palm felt like a lock clicking shut.
Other dancers joined us, warm textured presences brushing occasionally against our orbit. The music sped, faster and faster, Erik riding his new acquisitions hard. I was dizzy, and the moon shone high against velvet dark through trembling tree-fingers. Through it all was Ethan, laughing, always laughing, refusing to put me down or let me rest until I begged and threatened. Even then he spun me in one impossibly fast last circle, collapsing with me on the grass just beyond the music and dancing.
“So,” I panted, flat on my back while clouds wove themselves like ribbons across the surface of the sky. “You can dance. If the music’s fast enough. Otherwise, you need me.” His laugh sounded more like a barking seal than anything else. I told him so, and he rolled right over on top of me, pinning me so that his wild dark hair and river bright eyes obscured the moon entirely.
“You’re not a terrible dancer,” he teased, his smile as big as I’d ever seen it. “What you lack in skill you make up for in sweat.”
I giggled. I never giggle. “If I didn’t know I’d hurt myself, I’d kick you somewhere very painful right now,” I told him between un-Caspia-like fits of snickering. “You’d better get off me. The whole town will talk.” I erupted in laughter so fierce I could barely breathe, let alone talk coherently. “If they can… stop casting spells and… drinking blood and… howling at the moon… and… stuff…” I held onto my stomach while tears leaked out of my eyes, unable to finish making fun of my neighbors.
Ethan sat near my head, watching me with the strangest expression on his face, as if unsure whether to stop me or join in.
“So her wits have not yet returned,” said a familiar, heavily accented voice from somewhere off to my side. “That is too bad. But I suppose she can still wash dishes.”
My giggling turned abruptly into choking. Mr. Markov? At the Festival on the Square? How much had he heard? Or perhaps he was here for the dancing. The choking turned right back into giggling as I pictured blind Mr. Markov dancing under the moon.
“Oh, leave the child alone,” chided yet another familiar voice I couldn’t quite place. Female. “She’s in love.” The voice sounded rapturous, then sharpened into a chiding tone I knew instantly. “Not that you’d know love if it bit you on your…”
“Mrs. Alice!” I sat up so fast the world temporarily resembled a carousel ride set on ‘kill.’ Ethan’s hand was there, supporting me, a firm familiar pressure against the small of my back, or I might have fallen flat again. I gave him a grateful smile that probably resembled a drunken leer more than anything else. “Mr. Markov?” I added, astonished to see my blind employer holding tightly to Mrs. Alice’s arm, his glass-topped cane loose in his other hand. As far as I knew, the two hated each other. I’d never once heard them say anything good about the other. “What are you two doing here?”
“Well, that’s a forward question, my dear.” Mrs. Alice sounded smug as she settled herself onto one of the wooden seats that ringed the cobblestone space around the fountain. She sat carefully, brushing her skirt straight as she did so with the same precise neatness with which she measured and labeled herbs in her shop. Mr. Markov, his familiar scowl never changing, held her shawl out to her. By miracle or coincidence he managed to hold it exactly above her arm. Mrs. Alice nodded sharply, in thanks or because she expected such treatment, and swathed her crisp white cotton blouse with a blue cashmere shawl that matched the deep indigo of her long skirt. “That’s better,” she said with a sigh, leaning back against the wooden slats. “I swear my bones feel the chill more this year than they did at last year’s festival.”
“Nonsense,” Mr. Markov contradicted gruffly. I’d pulled myself into a cross-legged position on the grass next to Ethan. His hold on my back had turned from necessary to merely reassuring. I moved one hand to his lap and squeezed his knee to show him I appreciated it. “It’s a little colder this year; that’s all. Of course, this is nothing like a full-on Russian winter. This is more like early autumn along the banks of the Volga.” I watched as he began the familiar motions of setting up his chess set.
“You’re playing chess.” I sounded flat and dull even to myself. “With Mrs. Alice.”
“Every week,” she agreed. “Why so surprised? Don’t you think I can hold my own, Caspia dear?” I looked blankly at Ethan for help. He looked blankly back.
“No! Of course not!” I said quickly. “I mean… of course you can. Um. It’s just that I’ve never seen Mr. Markov play anyone else and lose. And you two… well, I thought you…” I slammed my lips together, suddenly very interested in the silver ribbons of my skirt. I couldn’t think of a single diplomatic thing to say.
The chessboard gleamed between them. Somehow, impossibly, the glass pieces glowed faintly, as if lit from within. A sudden image superimposed itself on all the others in my head: Mr. Markov, on the night Ethan came for me, the night Asheroth took me, holding a glass piece in his curved hand. What had he said? Black and white don’t exist…shades of gray… prefer the lighter spectrum… And yet, the chess piece, made entirely of clear glass, had flashed red in his hand, as if he’d been holding living flame.
Several long moments of silence later, when laughter, shouts, and music from beyond my immediate circle bled into my reverie, I realized I had spoken aloud. Mr. Markov nodded slowly. He wore a tiny, unfamiliar smile. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen the broken husk of the man who emplo
yed me smile. “You listen and remember. This is good. So is plain speaking, my Caspia. But you have much on your mind, and many burdens not of your own making, so I will do it for you this one time. You wonder why I meet to play chess with someone who, at every other occasion, treats me as a bitter enemy.” He inclined his head graciously towards Mrs. Alice. “No offense meant, Madam.” She nodded just as graciously back. “And, to be fair, I often treat her the same way.”
“Well, yes,” I said, startled. I glanced swiftly sideways at Ethan. What was the protocol here? I knew Mr. Markov was a magician of some kind, and I’d heard the word “witch” applied to Mrs. Alice. None of that surprised me. Little could, since meeting a creature like Asheroth, or walking hand in hand with Ethan daily. But what was the procedure? Was I supposed to know? Could I, should I, bring it up? Did I want to?
Then Ethan’s gentle pressure against my back reminded me that there was something I wanted to know, very badly indeed.
“Oh, tell the child,” Mrs. Alice said at last, studying the board intently. She leaned forward and touched one finger to the top of her queen’s head. All her pieces turned a deep and instant black. I forgot to breathe. Ice froze the breath in the back of my throat, chilling my neck as it held it trapped there.
Beside me, Ethan hissed. He was up and in front of me, one knee to the ground, the other tensed to spring, both arms carefully blocking me.
“Easy,” Mr. Markov barked. “My colleague has offered no insult and poses no threat.”
“I see you don’t prefer the lighter spectrum, yourself,” I said to Mrs. Alice, weakly.
She smiled briefly at me and moved a piece, ignoring Ethan, who was positively bristling in front of me. “It’s not for everyone,” she said. “Will you call off your… gentleman friend? He’s being quite rude.”