Ashes and Flame

by Aiden Bates

  I shrugged. “I think my peers were worried I would burn them to death in my sleep. Ivan wasn’t exactly scared to die, so… And, to be fair, I—”

  I swallowed the words, and found that it was very hard to look at Rez.

  The car jostled gently as he stood from where he’d leaned on the corner and came around to face me. He put a hand on my knee. “Hey,” he said, gentle and quiet. “I know what happened. Mikhail spoke with some of them. It’s okay. You didn’t mean to.”

  I couldn’t help a slightly bitter chuckle. “Right. Because that’s an excuse. It’s fine to kill someone if it was an accident, you can just say ‘Whoops, sorry, everyone!’ and it’s all fine because, you know, you didn’t mean to do it so you’re not really a killer. That’s how it works?”

  He took his hand away, but instead of backing off, struck by the realization that he was carting around someone who’d killed people whether by accident or not—he lifted his hand to my chin and tilted my head up. His expression was serious, but soft, and he held my eyes with his. “What I mean,” he said slowly, “is that you aren’t a killer. Sure, you may be a hazard. So is a hurricane. So is an earthquake. So is a wildfire.”

  “Great,” I murmured. “So I’m a wildfire, burning everything in my path indiscriminately. You’re really not good at—”

  He leaned in, and for some damn reason that I couldn’t comprehend, he kissed me. Full on, lips pressed to mine, the breath from his nostrils brushing over my upper lip and cheek, mixing with my own startled breath. Not a peck. Nothing cautious or tentative; a real fucking kiss.

  I was shocked and stunned. Part of me wanted to push him away and tell him that he was obviously insane.

  The other part, though, the part with the hard crust around it that had been grown by necessity, made up of a lot of scar tissue, and fear, and isolation—that part almost wept to feel softness and warmth again for the first time in so long. And it was starving.

  I parted my lips hesitantly, as if he might change his mind, and then tasted his tongue on mine. A thrill of need ran through me, and with shaking hands I tentatively touched his arm. It moved, sliding under my fingers until his hand found my fingers and interlaced them with his. A powerful hand drifted to my neck, and warm fingers slipped into my hair as he held me fast, his kiss becoming more insistent.

  Until I woke from the temporary spell and gently pushed him away.

  He was breathing faster. So was I. Heat flooded my body—not the dangerous, about-to-erupt kind, but the gentler, tinglier kind that pooled between my legs and suggested that it was fine to get hard on the back of a car in the middle of a trailer park where there were probably a dozen sets of eyes peering from porches and windows to see what was up.

  He moved a bit, and brushed against my knee. There was a hard mass there, and I looked down entirely by accident to see that he’d filled his jeans out very obviously. Not that I hadn’t.

  “Okay,” I breathed, trying to steady myself. “Uh…”

  “Was that okay?” he asked.

  “To be honest,” I admitted, “I… really don’t know, Rez.”

  “Shit,” he said, and took a small step back, his hands coming up. “I should have asked or something, I was just—you just seemed—I mean, I just felt bad—”

  My eyebrows rose precariously. “Wow.”

  “No,” he said quickly and came closer again, “not—fuck, I didn’t mean it was a pity thing, or even a sympathy thing, just… can I start over?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “can you at this point?”

  He sagged a bit, and hung his head. “Please let me start over.”

  It wasn’t like I had much else to do. And I was genuinely curious. I mean, who in their right mind would willingly make out with a small, unstable nuclear reactor? “Sure,” I mumbled. “Okay.”

  For a few seconds he seemed to compose himself. “You’re not a monster, Daniel,” he said when he finally looked up.

  “High praise,” I breathed. “Doing great so far.”

  He gave me a brief look of consternation but continued. “From the moment I saw you in the barn, I had this instinct to just… that you needed protecting. That I should keep you safe, and that instinct has grown since we’ve been traveling together. And last night, when you had your episode, I didn’t even think about the danger when I curled up around you—I just knew that I had to be there for you, and that I could take it, and… and this is going to sound just bat-shit crazy, I know, but there was something when your fire went wild, like a… like…”

  “Like a glow,” I offered.

  He smiled hopefully. “Yeah. I know it sounds nuts, but I felt the heat of you, I felt your magic against my scales, against my body, and it was like part of you was everywhere. I can’t help this thing. I see you, I listen to you, and I just want to kiss you and tell you that it’s all going to be okay, that I’m going to take care of you, that you’re safe with me.”

  “Sounds like some kind of savior complex,” I pointed out. “Scoop the poor broken homeless guy off the street, slap some new clothes on him—he’s got nothing, right? So surely he’ll fall for the man who shows him just a little bit of kindness.”

  It was like I slapped him—but, just like if I’d slapped him with my comparatively frail human hand, he didn’t back down; he just sort of endured it, shrugging off the sting as if it didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. “I know. It has to look that way. I’m not asking for anything from you, Daniel. I’m just… telling you how I feel. That’s all. If all that means is that you at least know that I am not going to just abandon you, then that’s enough. I want you to know. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Fuck. I resented the swelling in my chest. All it took was someone saying a few nice words like they meant it, and what? I swooned? He’d known me for about two days. He probably had some fantasy in his head about who I was, what I felt, how tortured I must be. How without touch and kindness and love I had been for so long.

  I told myself that, warned myself that this was some situational thing. It would evaporate if we really did get to the point that I was ‘safe’ for at least a little while, because then I wouldn’t need a hero and he wouldn’t have any poor unfortunate victim to pine over. And if I never did get truly free? Well, then anything he felt for me would always be predicated on that danger.

  But, myself didn’t listen.

  I found my fingers reaching for his. I felt the fantasy of it all creeping into my own brain. And I mean… what the fuck, right? We were on the road, we had a quest. It would be a while. And I did like Rez. Stupid and well-intentioned was just a combination that was endearing. I had put up with way worse traveling companions. So I could play the part, enjoy the moment, and just plan for the worst, right? Because he would leave, eventually, once he had what he wanted. Or something else would happen. Something worse. And hell, it wasn’t like I wanted to be attached to The Book forever, so if he could set me free of it and run off to make it someone else’s problem, that was fine by me. I felt this… chance just at my fingertips. Maybe the only chance I had to feel something again. Even if it was just for a little while.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly as I tugged at his hand and pulled him closer. “I know you mean it. It’s just different to me, and a little scary. That’s all. I do like you. And you are an excellent kisser, so…”

  His lips curled, and he leaned in halfway, this time waiting for me to meet him. I did, because I wasn’t lying—he was a fantastic kisser, and his lips were a balm that I had definitely missed.

  And did it really matter in the long run? Because we were probably all going to die, anyway.

  “Hah!” Amy said from the door to the trailer. We parted hastily and I looked back to see her pointing an accusatory finger. “Knew it. See? I can always tell.”

  11

  Rez

  He’d let me kiss him. He’d kissed me back. We had kissed.

  Sometimes, people say that I’m a little dense. I don’t
let it bother me. I can be dense. And now that I had Daniel thoroughly on my mind, I kind of didn’t have a leg to stand on. The boy was trouble.

  Literally—killer djinn, kind-of-cursed book of Armageddon or something, ties to a fanatical legion—of indeterminate size—of followers of a psychopathic twice-dead necromancer; I mean, it doesn’t get more ‘trouble’ than all that. And yet, that kiss was still on my lips, and it made things very awkward in the car. For me, at least. I don’t think either Daniel or Amy noticed when I let my mind wander and accidentally got hard again.

  I had been careful how I thought of Daniel the past couple of days. Yes, he was cute; yes, I felt a powerful urge to just curl up around him and keep the whole world from touching him; yes, I had kind of hoped that I might kiss him at some point. But I hadn’t fantasized about him or anything like that. I’m a decent guy.

  That changed now, though. We didn’t talk a lot on the ride. Amy kept to herself, Daniel stared out the window and clutched at his bag periodically. The music was on. I was already tired from being up nearly three days already. So I tried to think of other things, but my mind kept slipping into dangerous places.

  And by dangerous, I mean dangerous.

  “Rez,” Daniel said calmly.

  I was staring off at the end of the road north, part of my attention on driving, the other part on the feeling of Daniel’s slender shoulders under my hands. Of the scent of his skin. Of the sight of his naked body, wreathed in flame that I covered and contained and took into myself, except this time he smiled and stroked my scales and—

  “Rez,” Daniel snapped, and the next thing I knew he was pulling the wheel of the car like a crazy person.

  Because I’d drifted into the other lane, and a car was headed our direction.

  I corrected, pushed his hand away and shot an arm out to cover him on instinct as I swerved back into the right lane.

  “Close,” Amy muttered from the back seat, seemingly unperturbed.

  “Shit,” Daniel breathed. “Gods, Rez, what the hell? Did you fall asleep at the wheel?”

  I pulled over, one hand gripping the wheel, the other still pressed to his shoulder. His hands came up and gently pried my arm down.

  “Sorry,” I said, and blinked away what I realized was exhaustion. “Uh… fuck. Amy, what’ll it cost for you to take over driving?”

  She clucked her tongue. “So… I grew up in New York City.”

  I looked back at her. “Okay…?”

  She spread her hands. “I never learned to drive, sweetheart. Never needed to.”

  Daniel gave me a serious look. “It’s another four hours to Loup City. Maybe I should drive?”

  I shook my head. “No. You get pulled over, and we’ve got a new set of problems. I can make it. I’m fine, I was just… preoccupied. It’ll be all right.”

  “Do I get a vote?” Amy asked. “Because if so—I would like to vote that you don’t run us off the road because you’re taking a nap. There’s a motel up the road, two exits. Hourly. You can get a nap, and we can get something to eat. I become a very cranky mage when I’m hungry.”

  That sounded like a bad idea. “We don’t have time to stop that long,” I told her, and Daniel when he looked almost like he agreed with her. “The djinn could catch up with us, and if I can’t even drive straight then I definitely can’t trust myself to fight it off again.”

  Daniel rubbed his neck. “I mean… it will be at least another day before I’m at risk of burning something down. And I’ve got enough chalk left to ward one more place. It’s not a bad idea—and for the same reason. When we get where we’re going, if you’re still sleep-deprived, it could be worse. Now is kind of a good chance to catch some rest.”

  I closed my eyes, and almost couldn’t open them again. I did, with a powerful effort of will. “You sure?” I asked Daniel. “We can’t afford to make a big mistake right now.”

  “I know,” he assured me. “But we might, if we push you too hard.”

  Well, I’d been outvoted. It was an odd time of day to check into a motel, but usually those kinds of places didn’t ask many questions. I looked back at Amy, though, frowning. “You’re from NYC?”

  She nodded.

  “You don’t sound like it,” I pointed out.

  “Mind your own fuckin’ business,” she said, her voice now very much the anthem of the city that I only knew mostly from television. “Better?”

  Daniel bit his lip, barely hiding a quiet laugh.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “Motel. Warding. Rest. Uh… maybe just remind me when we get to the exit.”

  “Wow,” Daniel remarked when we found the place without dying in a fiery car accident and got checked in to two rooms. He put his bag down on the corner of the bed as he looked around. “This place is actually really nice. Compared to most motels, I mean. I’ve seen a lot of them. Check it—no plastic sheets on the beds. That’s always a good sign. Or a really bad one…”

  I’d gotten us two beds, even though there was only one room left like that and therefore it tacked an extra twenty bucks on the bill. I sat on the other, and even if it wasn’t the nice comfy bed I was used to at home, it still practically sang to me. I lay back, arms outstretched over my head. “I don’t smell anything gross,” I muttered. “But honestly, at this point I wouldn’t care.”

  Daniel shuffled through his bag and produced his last bit of chalk. He looked around the place for a while, and then started scratching out glyphs on the walls. He used the chair and table to mark the ceiling, and moved the bed aside to mark the floor last.

  It was meticulous work, and I watched him do it through half-lidded eyes. He held a look of concentration the whole time, the tip of his tongue barely poking out of the left corner of his mouth. His movements were precise, and he turned the tiny bit of chalk over and over as he made new corners to write with on it, until, when he was finally done, he had barely a grain in his hand. He stared at it for a long moment. “Well. There goes that. Until I can make more.”

  “How do you make it?” I wondered as he tucked the sliver away into his bag.

  “It’s a mix of plants and wood that I have to burn down to ash and draw another glyph in, then mix together with a paste that gets made more or less the same way,” he said. “Mixed with a bit of blood. Then I pack it down into a hunk like that and dry it out over a few days. We won’t be able to do it again soon. So, it’s best if you get plenty of rest now, while we can.”

  “Agreed,” I muttered.

  He crossed the room, and in my exhaustion-addled brain I almost thought he was coming to the bed.

  Instead, he walked past me to the bathroom. “I’m gonna shower,” he said. “You need the bathroom?”

  I waved him off. “Nah. I’m fine. Just gonna rest my eyes for a while. Don’t let me sleep too long.”

  “Okay,” he said. Simple, quiet. Disappointed? Or was I reading into it?

  I was too damn tired to tell.

  I heard the water come on and rush through pipes, and heard the shower curtain sliding over the rod. But that was about it. I unbuttoned my jeans just so they weren’t so tight while I rested, and didn’t even bother to get under the covers or lay my head on a pillow. I drifted off right there, my legs still hanging off the edge of the bed.

  On my way, I thought of the kiss again. Of Daniel’s scent. Of the way he trembled just slightly as his lips met mine. Again, I thought of the fire. How it had made him look… like some kind of avenging angel, almost, with a brilliant halo of flame swirling around him. How it had warmed my scales, gotten into my muscles. Like a little star that I’d somehow managed to capture from the night sky.

  I groaned in my half-sleep, and reached down in my jeans to readjust myself as my swelling cock pressed uncomfortably against the inside of my jeans. My body grew heavy. My heart slowed.

  Something grazed my stomach. Dream sensations as I slipped from one world to another. The phantom sensation traveled down my stomach, found my hip. I sighed, and let myself slip
into it further. Warmth seemed to fill my hips. My cock strained. Air moved over it, exciting me further.

  Then I groaned, and came drifting back into the waking world as something that was undeniably a tongue trailed up the length of my dick. I craned my head, a mix of enchanted, curious, and worried to see Daniel bent over me between my knees.

  “Huh?” I grunted.

  He looked up, eyes wide, frozen. “Ah… I… you were… I’m sorry, I—”

  “No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “Just, uh… you sure?”

  His bottom lip disappeared briefly behind his teeth. He was shirtless, just a towel around his waist. His wet hair was a tangled mess, and down now so that I could see it hung past his shoulders. He brushed it back out of his face. “Might help you sleep?”

  “It might,” I agreed. “You don’t have to do anything just because I’m helping you.”

  “I know,” he said defensively. “You were just… making noises, and obviously, you know—aroused. And after we kissed, I just thought—”

  I chuckled, and sat up on my hands, then leaned forward to brush his hair behind his ear. “I’m not offended,” I promised. “Come here.”

  He crawled onto the bed beside me. “It’s been a long time,” he said softly as he settled. “I maybe got a little overeager.”

  “This might shock you,” I said as I urged him further up the bed with me and leaned against the headboard, “but I am the kind of person who is sort of never not in the mood? Just wired that way. I just prefer to be awake for it. Call me an old romantic.”

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “In the mood?” I wondered back. “Yeah, definitely.”

  “No,” he chuckled. “Are you a romantic?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. Kind of. Is that okay?”

  He nodded. “It’s refreshing. Um… why don’t you just… sit back?”

  I did, and he came in closer to me, snuggling against me, one leg draped over my thigh. The feel of him against me was nice. He fit perfectly, his body conforming like a long-lost puzzle piece against my side and chest. I draped my arm over his shoulder, and he nuzzled against my chest for a moment before he looked up and sought out my lips.