Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  “Right here,” Isabella said. She opened the straps on the satchel attached to her front. It was one of the few places that had escaped the claws and teeth of the imps.

  Briar reached in and drew it out. She looked about the darkened shop. “Over there,” she said. She dashed across to one of the cleared benches and fairly threw down the huge tome. Bemused, Isabella watched as Briar drew with bloody fingertips on the top of the table. When she was done, she sagged, both hands pressed to the tabletop to stay upright. Exhaustion draped itself across her, then was gone as if it had never been. She pushed herself back up and dusted her hands together, then rejoined Isabella by the carriage.

  “Now, let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “Shouldn’t that have been the first thing we did?” Her own exhaustion and pain combined in a peevish tone that made Isabella wince when she heard it come out of her mouth.

  “If I hadn’t taken care of the grimoire, it’s likely we would have had company before too long. I expect there’s a locator spell upon it. I’ve placed the book under a protective shield, essentially. I had a similar inscription over the carriage which served to confuse the imps. You left the protective sphere for a moment. I hope they weren’t watching yet. If they were, we’ll know soon enough, but imps aren’t known for reporting their failures with alacrity.” She touched Isabella’s shoulder lightly. “I know you’re in pain. Let me help you.”

  “Very well.” Isabella stood with some difficulty. “Let’s go over there.” She pointed into the recesses of the workshop, to where her father sometimes stole a nap rather than taking the time needed to go into the house and bunk there. Althea usually scolded him for it. Apparently she missed his company when he was too deep in a project. Isabella shuddered. She did not want to think what her parents might do together.

  “Are you feeling feverish?”

  This was more like it, being fawned over by the woman she’d gone to such lengths to help. Isabella felt a bit like the conquering hero, returned triumphant from her quest. Pain lanced through her shoulder when she turned too quickly, and her feeling of accomplishment abated somewhat.

  “Not at all.” How to explain where her thoughts had wandered? Better not to even attempt it. Discretion was the better part of valor, or so they said. She giggled at the thought, then stopped, alarmed at the wandering direction her thoughts had taken.

  “Oh dear. You are not doing very well, are you?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Of course you will.” Briar sat her down on the cot. “Do you have bandages?”

  “In that chest. There is also alcohol and laudanum. But do not give that to me unless I ask for it. The pain isn’t so unbearable right now.”

  “I have better ways of taking care of pain. You should disrobe.”

  Isabella blinked at Briar, confused at the suggestion. She’d come to hope Briar might say those words, but these were not the circumstances she’d envisioned. Unbidden, a slow curl of warmth moved through her center, pushing aside some of the discomfort as it worked its way to her groin.

  “I will need to see your wounds to clean them,” Briar said gently. “I can’t treat them through heavy canvas.”

  “Oh.” That made perfect sense. Isabella blushed, wondering what Briar must be thinking of her, so slow-witted as to need an explanation for taking off her clothes.

  “I’ll turn my back, if you’ll be more comfortable.”

  “I’m all right.” It didn’t answer the question, but Isabella turned away and started carefully undoing the row of leather straps and buckles that marched down the front of the heavy jacket. She moved slowly, so as not to pull too much at the holes in her side. By the time she’d laboriously completed that simple task, Briar was setting all manner of medical supplies upon a low table next to the cot.

  Without saying anything, she took over undressing Isabella. Carefully, she peeled the jacket away. Where fabric edges had adhered to wounds that were starting to clot, she soaked them carefully with alcohol until they separated more easily from Isabella’s skin. She struggled to keep silent every time Briar started with another wound. The fire of alcohol in her cuts kept her from falling asleep where she sat. The silence between them stretched on and on as Briar worked and Isabella sat. Her eyelids would droop, then pop back open when Briar came to another tear in the coat.

  “You said you would explain everything,” Isabella said. Listening to Briar would keep her from drifting off only to be awoken by a spike of agony.

  “I did, didn’t I.” Briar said nothing else for a long time, long enough for Isabella to start drifting off toward sleep again.

  “So are you going to?”

  “Yes.” Briar hesitated, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “Yes, I will. But no matter what I tell you, you must promise be calm.”

  “Calm? About what?”

  Briar took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then launched into what she had to say. Words tripped over her tongue, and Isabella had to listen closely to make sure she understood.

  “I told you about my mother. She’s not human. My father was, or so she says. I never met him. My mother is a demon and I was raised in the Infernal Realm, but I’ve been living on the Mortal Plane for years. I’m sensitive to what you call demoniac energy, and since I know the language of demons, I can manipulate that energy. It doesn’t make me a magician, so much as…bilingual.”

  “That makes no sense.” Isabella tried to crane her neck around to look at Briar and received a tap on the back of her head for her troubles. “I thought demons were an old myth spouted by preachers to convince people that working with demoniac energy is evil.”

  “Dearest Isabella, of course demons exist. They attacked you tonight.”

  Momentarily distracted by being called “dearest” by Briar, Isabella laughed nervously. “Then how can you be one of them? For one thing, if you’re half one of those imp-things, then why do you look so human?”

  “For the first part, thankfully my mother’s people are not imps. Those are disgusting and vile little creatures. And for another, I don’t look human, at least not completely. Now stick out your arms.”

  Isabella automatically complied with the instructions. Briar pulled the jacket off her outstretched arms and carefully laid it to one side. She moved around to the front of Isabella and took a seat on the edge of the cot before undoing the top button on her shirt. Isabella looked down and marveled at the sight of staid and proper Briar undoing one button after another. Another curl of arousal sifted through her belly.

  “You look pretty normal to me.” Isabella placed one hand over Briar’s, pausing it in its task of undoing her shirt. “You look beautiful to me.”

  A visible shiver ran through Briar. “You don’t see all of me.” She closed her eyes. “Please remove your hand. I can’t work when you’re touching me.”

  “Oh.” Isabella pulled her hand back. She must have misread Briar’s intentions, though how she could have misunderstood the kisses they’d shared at the rooming house, she didn’t know. “Sorry.”

  “It’s not that.” Briar opened her eyes. They glowed red for a moment, then she blinked and they were her normal brown. “I can feel what you’re feeling when our skin touches. Your… excitement is quite distracting.”

  “Oh!” Isabella hadn’t been expecting that. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It is quite all right, Isabella.” Briar looked down at the buttons. She seemed to be having some problems with them. “The attention is not unwelcome, but I fear what will happen if you see me as I truly am. And if I am to be with you the way you want me to be, the way I want to be, you will see all of me.”

  “Isn’t that the point?”

  The question startled a low chuckle out of Briar, a sound that wrapped around Isabella and did more to stoke the flames of her arousal than the touches to her back had done. It was nearly as arousing as the kisses they had shared.

  The buttons conquered, Briar pulled the shirt down from Isab
ella’s shoulders, moving carefully to avoid hurting her. She needn’t have bothered being so cautious. Isabella burned for Briar’s touch, and each unintentional caress of her fingers along Isabella’s bare skin tested her control. The pain was as nothing to her now. It melted into the maelstrom of sensation building in her core.

  “It may be the point, but if you see me as I truly am, without the shroud that makes me look human, you won’t be able to control yourself. My mother is not an imp, she is a succubus. She is lust incarnate, and I share many of her traits.”

  “Briar.” Isabella captured her hands and held them. “If you truly can feel what I feel, then you know I’m practically overcome by lust already. I haven’t seen under your shroud, or whatever it is, but I want you.” She squeezed Briar’s hands hard. “I want you so badly I fear I may burst from it.”

  Briar’s cheeks were flushed. Isabella might not have been able to feel what Briar was feeling, but the telltale signs of arousal were there. From her parted lips, to the way her chest heaved for breath against her corset, to the pulse at her neck, Briar looked as agitated as Isabella felt.

  She drew back one hand and slapped Isabella smartly on the knuckles. “I must finish tending to your wounds.”

  Isabella relinquished her hold and caressed the back of her hand with the other. Heat from the smack joined the conflagration of her arousal. “I don’t care.”

  “I do. I will not be the cause of further injury to you.” Despite her words, she moved much more quickly now. When Isabella didn’t complain at her rough treatment, Briar practically ripped the shirt from Isabella’s body, then stopped. “I am so very sorry,” she said when she could fully behold the wounds the imps had inflicted upon Isabella.

  “They look worse than they feel.” At the moment, they were little more than tender spots keeping her from what she needed.

  “I certainly hope so. They look quite painful indeed. They will be even more painful while I clean them. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you permit me to inscribe some runes upon you for the pain and to accelerate your healing. I won’t do it without your permission.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “No. I’ll use the blood from your wounds. All you should feel is my fingers moving over your skin.”

  “Very well.” Isabella gripped the edges of the cot and closed her eyes. “I trust you.”

  “Clearly.” Briar had noticed Isabella steeling herself and drawn back.

  Briar had misinterpreted the reason for her actions, Isabella realized. She was not in fear of her; she was trying to keep from being swept away by the strength of her response to Briar’s touch. “It’s not that, Briar. Truly.”

  There was no response to her reassurance, but after a moment Briar’s fingers moved over her back. True to her words, Isabella felt nothing more than fingertips tracing an incomprehensible design on her back. When Briar removed her fingers, Isabella experimentally flexed the muscles of her back. There wasn’t even the slightest twinge of pain.

  “Be careful,” Briar said. “You may not be able to feel the pain, but you are still injured. Some of the punctures are deep enough to reach muscle, and if you move too sharply, you may damage them further. The rune of health accelerates your natural healing abilities, but you must be careful for a time yet.” Her voice had lost some of its previous sharpness. If she really could read Isabella’s emotions, then she would have felt no fear when she drew the runes on her back.

  Briar returned to the task of cleaning the multiple punctures and cuts with brutal efficiency. It certainly would have been painful without the effects of the runes. Then again, the pain would have been a welcome distraction from her aching loins. Instead, she sat and endured her own excitement, until at last Briar no longer touched her.

  She opened her eyes and beheld Briar gazing upon her body with open need on her face.

  “Isabella,” Briar murmured. “You are the beautiful one.” She ran her eyes down Isabella’s chest. Isabella looked down also. It was nothing special, as far as she could tell. Her proportions were not overly large, and her chest was sprinkled with freckles, no matter that she was almost never in the sun. Briar’s skin was flawless, that she could tell, though she lacked Briar’s current advantage.

  “Hardly.” Isabella gently stroked Briar’s face, caressing her cheekbones and trailing her thumb along the bottom of her jawline.

  Briar’s lips fell apart and her eyes lightened, changing color as Isabella watched from the brown of tea with a hint of milk, to auburn, to a brick color, then shifting to brilliant red.

  “Are you certain you want to proceed?” Briar whispered. There was fear in her eyes, fear and the desperate hope that Isabella would say yes.

  “There is nothing I want more,” Isabella croaked back, her throat dry. It was the truth. Isabella had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted to be with the woman in front of her. The infuriating, demanding, never-wrong woman who somehow managed to be more alluring than the most compliant of her bed partners. “Please, Briar. Show me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Isabella stared up at her and Briar tried to believe the entreaty she saw on her face. The problem was less that she worried Isabella would find her repulsive but that once she saw Briar’s true form she wouldn’t be able to resist her. Briar wasn’t her mother; she had no wish for anyone to worship at her feet. Would she be able to trust Isabella’s attraction to her once she was before her without the shroud?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Briar stood and moved away until she was out of Isabella’s reach. She turned her back and let go of the shroud. Her hands bled pearlescent grey through the cream of her flesh. It was a color both darker and more luminescent than the human flesh she covered it with. It didn’t glow from within, not like her eyes would, those seemed to collect the light and reflect it back at the viewer. She’d avoided the glowing gaze in the mirror often enough to know she shared her mother’s eyes, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

  “Briar?” Isabella was at her shoulder, hands sliding around her waist.

  “What do you think?”

  Isabella pulled her back against her, molding their bodies together or trying to. The bustle somewhat ruined the attempt. She nuzzled Briar’s neck, her lips shockingly warm in the cool air of the workshop. At the touch of Isabella’s lips on her bare skin, Briar was swept away by the lust that poured from her. Was there more than there had been before? Briar couldn’t tell, and at that moment she found she didn’t much care.

  She turned in Isabella’s arms and pulled her in for the embrace she’d craved since their time together in the hotel. Their lips fit together perfectly, as they had before. Briar kissed Isabella with everything she had, with the passion she felt now and the terror she’d felt when the imps had pursued her back to where she waited. Desperation edged into her and she bit down on Isabella’s lower lip. She had to be certain the other woman was really there, that this wasn’t simply a dream and she’d soon awaken in her own bed, bereft and wanting.

  Isabella moaned into her mouth at the nip and Briar smiled against her lips. She ran her hands over bare shoulders and down to where a brassiere covered Isabella’s assets. She needed to feel as much of Isabella’s skin against hers as possible.

  “Help me,” she whispered raggedly.

  “With pleasure.” Passion stained Isabella’s pale cheeks soft red. She leaned forward for another kiss while her hands sought out the long row of buttons down the back of Briar’s dress. They kissed again, tongues dueling around each other as Isabella fumbled with the buttons.

  Finally, Isabella drew back. “To hell with it.” She turned Briar around, much to her disappointment. Isabella grumbled to herself as she tried to shed Briar’s dress. The faster she tried to undo the fasteners, the longer it seemed to take her. When she could take it no longer, Isabella grabbed either side of the dress and pulled. Buttons flew every which way, bouncing off the floor
in a short-lived ivory hailstorm. The dress sagged immediately, and Isabella drew it down and held it there while Briar stepped out of it.

  Briar stepped back when Isabella reached for the laces of her corset. “I think I’d better attend to that,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of her refusal.

  Isabella’s lower lip protruded slightly in an adorable little pout that Briar doubted she even knew she was doing. She said nothing but pulled on one lace where it was tied at the top. The knot came open in her hand, the corset loosening noticeably already. With practiced fingers, she unlaced it, then stood before Isabella in her petticoats, chemise, and knickers, the corset gaping open.

  “Oh, Briar,” Isabella whispered. She pulled the corset from Briar’s nerveless fingers. She shivered as cool air touched her skin. With Isabella’s help, she stepped out of the petticoats, leaving them in a large heap on the floor. With gentle fingers, Isabella lifted the edge of the chemise, exposing Briar’s body to her gaze. The touch of her fingers injected a new cascade of lust into her. Heat filled her from Isabella’s caresses until she wondered why smoke wasn’t rising from where their skin made contact.

  Briar couldn’t tell where her arousal left off and Isabella’s started. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Isabella naked and beneath her, with all possible haste. She skimmed her knickers off and kicked them away before turning her attention to Isabella.

  At her sudden aggression, Isabella backed away toward the cot. She bit her lower lip so hard Briar was surprised when her teeth didn’t break the skin.

  “May I?” Briar asked, skimming her fingers under the edge of Isabella’s waistband. She didn’t wait for a response before popping open the top button of the fly.

  Isabella gasped and shuddered. When her knees seemed ready to give out, she grabbed Briar’s upper arms. The last thing they needed was Isabella falling over and injuring herself further. Briar firmed up her grip at the waist of Isabella’s pants and steered her all the way back to the cot. She pushed Isabella down but stopped when she heard Isabella’s hissing intake of breath. Briar had been the one with the lecture on Isabella being prudent, and here she was treating her with no care whatsoever.