One Touch of Silver

by Elizabeth Cole

  He took a deep breath, as if the next words were going to exhaust him. “One day, I met this man. Baker. He seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. He knew so much about magic, about the whole hidden universe of it. I kept going back to him, eager to learn more. He never asked for anything. Not money, not favors. I thought he was going to be a mentor. I was young,” he added bitterly.

  “Then you can’t blame yourself for trusting other people,” Silver said.

  “Sure I can.” Coll’s grip tightened around her fingers. “My parents were going on a mission that even they were nervous about. They’d got word that someone in the West had invoked some very dark magic that was fouling up a whole region: the earth, the skies, the people, everything. They were going to meet up with some other shifters, find whoever was responsible, and defeat them. They knew it would be hard. They knew there’d be casualties.

  “I was terrified for them. And I didn’t want to lose them.”

  “That’s natural,” Silver said. As someone who’d lost both parents, she knew what she’d be tempted to give for the power to protect them.

  He went on, “I talked to Baker just before my parents were going to leave. They’d never met him—I never told any of my friends or family about him. Looking back, that was a warning sign. Some part of me knew he wasn’t to be trusted. But I didn’t listen…” He shook his head. “Anyway. I told Baker what was going to happen. He said he had an idea. If I made a bargain with a supernatural being he knew of, I could make a wish. Whatever I wanted. Fame, money, power. Didn’t matter. Or I could wish my parents safe.”

  “You made the bargain.”

  “Baker revealed himself to be a creature called Bahor. He didn’t call himself a demon, naturally, but that’s exactly what he is. He’s not even a he—since then, I’ve seen him look like a woman, or an animal, or whatever he wants. But he had power, and that’s all I cared about at the time. I thought I was being so smart, so clever. My parents would thank me and be proud of me. And it was easy! The bargain seemed like a good one. In exchange for one wish, I had to give Bahor control over my spirit. Wishes require a major sacrifice. But there’s a catch. I retain control of myself unless I committed a transgression. In the case of our deal, the transgression was murder, that is, the taking of an innocent life. Of course I’d never do that. The deal seemed too good to be true. Which it was.”

  “What happened?” Silver asked.

  “I made the bargain. I got my power. I made my wish.” He fell silent.

  “What was it?” she prompted.

  “I worded it carefully. Or I thought I did. But demons can find a loophole in anything.”

  “What was the wish?”

  “I wished for my parents to be made safe from all supernatural harm. Curses couldn’t affect them, magical weapons wouldn’t scratch them. They’d be safe, invulnerable. They’d be able to do what they loved without any fear, and evil would learn to fear them. It was the perfect wish. I was an idiot.”

  Silver held tightly onto his hand, waiting.

  “They died in a car accident, on the way out west. Nothing more supernatural than Detroit-made metal. But it killed them. Coincidence? Or Bahor playing with me, I don’t know. He’s never let on. But there was my great wish, rendered pointless within two days of my making it. And Bahor had a claim on my soul. He revealed his true nature quickly enough. My bargain was actually a curse. He hung close to me, just hovering. He said it wouldn’t be long. Humans never lasted long after they struck bargains with him.”

  “But he was wrong.”

  “He didn’t take my true nature into account,” Coll said, a glimmering of satisfaction in his words. “He’d never made a bargain with a shifter before. Even in the worst of my grief and all the disgust that covered me, I didn’t quite lose my mind the way he wanted me to. I spent weeks at a time in wolf form. My parents’ friends and family thought it was how I dealt with death. But it was also a way for me to hide my mind from Bahor. Wolves don’t think like humans. I was protected when I shifted. At least a little.”

  “More than a little,” said Silver, “since you’re still alive.”

  “I wanted to break the curse,” he said. “That became my one desire. I had to be human to do it—hard to stroll into a hidden library or sacred space as a wolf. But with the focus, I could ignore the madness Bahor kept putting over me, the madness that makes me angry in an instant, that makes me want to kill. I could fight him.

  “I searched for years for a way to break the curse, to end the bargain. Most of the scholars who would talk to me told me it was hopeless. I couldn’t even kill myself to get out of it, because that very act would allow Bahor to claim the clause was fulfilled. He would always pop up too. I wouldn’t see him for months on end, even a couple of years. But then he’d be there, smiling, waiting for me to fail.”

  “When did you get this spellbook?” Silver asked.

  “Early this year. My one friend—the priest in Italy—he was always on the lookout for me; he never lost faith. And he found the spell in this book that also discussed Bahor, among a number of other demons. The book was written by a demon hunter in the middle ages, and according to legend, she actually broke several curses successfully. There’s a shrine to her in a few churches, though she’s misidentified as a saint.”

  “Not necessarily misidentified, if she worked miracles.”

  “She worked spells, and they called them miracles,” Coll said, more intensely. “This is the first thing I’ve found that I actually think could be real, something that will free me. I just need to understand the spell so I can cast it. Your father was supposed to be the one who could help me. He was a mage who also understood the languages and the style of magic used in the book.”

  “Well,” said Silver, “you’ve got me instead. Sorry.”

  “Yes.” Coll looked at her in a way that made her warm all over. “I’m not sorry at all.”

  * * * *

  After learning the truth behind the spellbook and Coll’s reasons for needing it, Silver found the translation work went like lightning. She thought about reprimanding Coll for concealing such important facts from her, but decided he’d been through enough already. So instead, she worked from the moment she woke up to whenever she had to sleep. Coll brought her tea, he brought her food. Once he carried her down to her bed after she fell asleep at the desk. The hours flew by, and Silver raced against time to get the translation done.

  When she finally achieved it, she stared at her notes, too tired to properly appreciate the accomplishment. But she had a spell…though it looked difficult, dangerous, and quite possibly deadly.

  She walked downstairs in a daze. It was late morning, and Coll was in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled delicious. Silver couldn’t actually remember a thing she ate since she’d banished Bahor from the house.

  “Coll? It’s done.”

  “No,” he disagreed, looking over at the stove. “It’s got another ten minutes at least.”

  “Not lunch. The translation.” She held up her papers. “I did it.”

  He turned toward her, a delighted smile spreading across his face. “You did? Really? This is amazing. Why aren’t you happy?”

  “The spell…” Silver huffed in frustration. “It might be impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible.” Coll crossed the room to join her. He was so excited that he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “If you translated it, I can cast it. Show me.”

  Silver went over the basics of the spell, Coll nodding along.

  “That’s fine, Silver,” he said. “What are you worried about?”

  “See this passage here: written with a knife. Someone needs to carve the symbols on your body, deep enough to draw blood. That’s what this phrase means: the writing will draw what is inside out.” The triumph of getting the proper meaning warred with the horror of what it actually meant.

  “Don’t worry,” he said grimly. “Carving a few symbols on my skin will be nothing com
pared to what I’ve gone through. I can do it.”

  Silver shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. How many months have you been cursed? How many moons, that is?”

  “I was fifteen and change when it happened. I’m thirty-six now. There are thirteen full moons in a year. That’s 21 years, eight months… so 281?”

  “That’s how many symbols you need to carve.”

  “Oh.” He looked a little uncertain. “That’s a lot.”

  “You can’t just scrawl them anywhere, either. There’s a pattern. I think you’ll need your whole back as the surface, and that’s if the symbols are written small.”

  “On my own back.”

  “Which you physically can’t do. And you need to recite the spell as you carve each symbol.”

  “I can…do that,” he said hesitantly.

  “In Aramaic. Or Latin.”

  “Um.” He spoke neither of those languages.

  “You can’t do this, Coll. You’d be woozy from pain or blood loss or both by the time you got halfway through the spell. It’s not meant to be performed on oneself.”

  “Then you can do it,” he said.

  “What?” Silver squeaked. “I’m not a mage. Or a witch. Or an anything.”

  “You can work spells, you have a cat familiar, and you banished a demon. If you’re not a witch, Silver, you’re doing a damn fine imitation.”

  “That was a basic home protection spell! A child could do that.”

  “Silver, please. I need you.” Coll took her hands. “You’re right. How the hell am I going to carve hundreds of symbols on my own flesh? But you can do it. You can speak the spell. If I pass out, you can complete it.”

  “I can’t cut you!” she protested.

  “You have to. Please. I’ll give you anything, Silver. Anything you ask.”

  “Don’t make a promise like that,” she hissed. “Isn’t that how you got into trouble in the first place?”

  “Well, yes, but I wasn’t making the promise to you back then, was I?”

  Coll’s logic was suspect, but Silver could only nod. How could she leave him now? “If I do this, you have to listen to me, and do everything exactly as I say.”

  He smiled. “Count on it.”

  Oh, Lord. What had she got herself into?

  * * * *

  The new moon would occur the night before Halloween. Silver woke early that day. She and Coll would have to work together to make sure everything was ready for the spellcasting.

  Unfortunately, fasting was part of the ritual. Silver could only drink water until the spell was completely cast. Coll was the subject, not the caster, so he technically didn’t have to fast, but he said he had no appetite.

  Silver began to set up the third floor for the ritual, sending Coll on little errands to get what she would need: chalk, salt, candles, a goblet of water, a very sharp knife.

  “Here,” he said, offering her a small leather case. “For later. You asked for a knife, but this might work best for the actual carving.”

  Silver opened the case to find a collection of medical implements, including a few scalpels. “Why do you have these?”

  “Sometimes I get wounds that would be hard to explain to a doctor,” Coll said. “I mean, I could tell them the claw marks in my side happened while I was in wolf form fighting off a pack of feral dogs. But then even if they stitched me up, I’d still get thrown in an asylum.”

  “You keep this in the basement?” she asked. “Is that why I saw blood on the floor one night last week?”

  “I usually spend my nights as a wolf. That night, I had an altercation with some smugglers who were crossing my land. Neither of them died, but I convinced them to go elsewhere. One shot at me and hit. I thought I cleaned it all up,” he said with a frown.

  “You did, but not before I saw it that night.”

  Coll reached out and touched her arm. “You didn’t say anything.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to say, in case…”

  “In case I was a murderer keeping bodies in my basement?”

  “Something like that. I’m sorry.”

  “God, Silver. I’m surprised you didn’t leave the next morning. Any normal person would believe me a murderer before believing me to be a poor cursed werewolf.”

  “Lucky for you I’m not at all normal.”

  “No, you’re exceptional.”

  “Don’t flatter me.” She held up a fountain pen. “Let’s take care of the next step.”

  She had the excellent idea of inking the symbols on his skin before they began the spell itself. That would help her tremendously, because she’d merely have to trace the lines, and she wouldn’t have to remember how to carve the symbols while also reciting the spell in a different language.

  “Got it.” Coll took off his shirt, which made Silver’s heartbeat double. Then, without any warning, he reached for his belt.

  “What are you doing?” she squeaked.

  “Be practical, Silver. You might need the real estate.” He added wryly, “I’m not letting a few inches of fabric get in the way of my salvation.”

  Oh, God, Silver thought, as Coll stripped to absolutely nothing right in front of her. Every inch of him was gorgeous.

  “How do you want me?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I could lie down, sit in a chair, or whatever. What’s the easiest way for you to write?” He smiled. Was he enjoying her embarrassment? He had to be.

  “Oh. Um. Sit in a chair, I think. So you can rest your arms on the back of it, and I can, um, see you.”

  And she could see him perfectly. The bright lights she put on so she could work from the faded text of the book left nothing to the imagination. Coll straddled a wooden chair, facing the back of it, with no evident sense of modesty. Maybe spending half his life as a wolf meant he simply didn’t think what his naked form would mean for her.

  So her excellent idea now meant that she had to be tantalizingly close to a naked Coll for the whole time she was inking the symbols in.

  She drank in the sight of him. His broad, smoothly muscled back, the narrow waist, the body she could barely look away from. Not to mention his bare legs, and his arms, all covered with a layer of dark hair and muscled perfectly, a beautiful machine. Her hands shook at the thought of touching him, and she was grateful he was facing away from her.

  “You going to start?” he asked, after what must have been an embarrassingly long time.

  “I’m…figuring out where to begin,” she said faintly. God, she’d start anywhere he’d let her. “The symbols have to be in order. Not like modern Western script, but vertical from top to bottom, and right to left, because it’s a banishment spell.” She touched his right shoulder. “I’ll start here.” She then touched his lower back by his left hip. “And end here. If there are 281 symbols, that means a 12 by 30 array should work…” Ah, bless mathematics. The simple problem helped her focus on the work instead of Coll’s amazing body.

  She swiftly marked out points that would serve as a grid, so her writing would be legible and orderly. She glanced at the ancient pages, and gripped the fountain pen.

  Just as she was about to write the first symbol, a horrible thought occurred to her. “You’re not ticklish, are you?”

  Coll laughed. “Not on my back.”

  “You can’t squirm or anything, either. These need to be absolutely correct.”

  “I’ll be good,” he said. “Take a few seconds between symbols. I’ll warn you if I need to stretch or something.”

  “Ok.” She began to work. The repetition of the task helped her concentrate. She checked each symbol in the book, drew the symbol in a stroke or two, then declared it done. Coll knew the pattern and took a few opportunities to move when he needed to. When the first column of writing took her all the way down to his backside, she felt incredibly shy, but managed to get things done without embarrassing herself.

  As she worked, she almost, almost forgot that her canvas was Coll’s skin.
She wrote with one hand, and steadied herself by bracing her other hand somewhere on his body: his shoulder, his chest, his stomach.

  Coll remained still and silent, only his breathing making a sound.

  She had just muttered “done” after a symbol on the base of his spine, when he said, “Wait for the next one. I…I need a minute.”

  “Why? Did I do something to you?”

  “Yes. No,” he corrected quickly. “Never mind.”

  “Well, what is it?” Concerned, she stepped around to look at him. His face was unusually flushed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Don’t look at me.”

  Of course she looked. It was instinctive.

  He was hard, showing unmistakable arousal. Silver glanced away as quickly as she could. “Oh.”

  “I said don’t look.”

  “Too late,” she muttered. She shouldn’t have looked. Well, what was one more shocking image to burn into her memory? Coll was the most gorgeous human she’d ever seen. The Greek nudes in ancient temples had no chance against him.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said.

  She was quite certain that was true. Silver knew how attractive men found her—they didn’t. She had learned that lesson more than once.

  Coll explained, “It’s just that…you’ve been touching me. And it feels…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It feels so good. Just being touched at all. It got me, um, thinking.”

  “I wasn’t trying to…”

  “God, Silver, I know that. This is my problem, not yours.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You’re helping me. I don’t mean to offend you.”

  “I’m not offended.” She took a nervous breath. “Should I leave?”

  “No. Just give me a minute. And ignore me. My reaction to you, that is.”

  His arms were crossed over the back the chair and he laid his head down on them, letting out a sigh.

  Silver waited, pen in hand, uncertain what to do.

  “Do you miss it?” he asked, his voice a little muffled.

  “Miss what?”

  “Sex. Since you were on your own after your marriage ended.” He raised his head again. “Or maybe that didn’t stop you. I suppose…”