by Reine, SM
She didn’t hesitate to drag the point of the knife up her arm, from the inner seam of her wrist to the joint of her elbow. The metal was sharp, and all she felt was a hot sting. A red line swelled on her pale underarm.
The pain took a moment to follow. A cold wave washed across her flesh and left goosebumps in its wake.
Elise handed the knife to James, and her arm dripped onto the circle. She put a hand under her elbow to catch it.
“Let it fall,” he said.
She flicked the blood to the pentagram. It puddled in the carvings like a slick red channel.
He hesitated, considering the bloody tip of the blade. Second thoughts?
“We can stop,” she said, gently flexing the fingers of her left arm to distract herself from the injury.
James’s eyes flicked to hers. His irises were the same shade of blue as the frozen ocean beyond the line of the beach, but they were darkened with thought. “That’s not necessary. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
She shook her head.
He slashed a matching line up his arm.
“Quickly,” he said, trading the knife for a roll of bandages.
Elise offered her arm. He gripped her elbow, and she curled her fingers around his upper arm. He quickly wrapped the bandages around both of their arms, then uncorked another bottle of oil with his teeth and spilled it over the cloth.
James spoke a word of power.
Elise folded inside out.
Power settled around her midsection, like a thick chain connected to her breastbone. She could see the line form between her and James, strengthening and thickening with every beat of her heart.
Their shared blood burned inside of her. It opened her skull and spilled her thoughts through the circle, dancing on the clouds of smoke.
And she could read James’s thoughts.
His arm ached and his pulse thudded in time to hers. He worried about her; he didn’t like asking her to spill blood. He was also totally certain that binding was the right thing to do.
So many feelings. Elise didn’t know what to do with them.
The circle sparked with colors she had never seen before. It swam with power, like a swirling bubble of energy around them that built in intensity by the second.
She felt dizzy. She was going to pass out.
“James…” she began, but he had already seen the thought.
He tugged her forward, careful not to break their grip, and moved behind her. It made him twist his arm uncomfortably. He didn’t really care.
James’s voice spoke directly through her mind.
I have a lot of work to do on the spell, but you can sleep.
Elise sagged against him, but she didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to watch the lights spark and cascade around them. She wanted to explore his thoughts and mind. But the dizziness overwhelmed her; her vision darkened at the edges, and it felt like the strength was pumping out of her arm.
“I don’t want to fall,” she mumbled, and she wasn’t sure if she said it out loud or not.
Relax.
Her eyes drooped closed, and the magic carried her into oblivion.
After he finished the incantations, James drifted in and out of sleep for hours.
When he finally awoke, he became aware of three things simultaneously: first, that he was laying on a very hard floor, somehow having missed every single pillow; second, that the spell was complete; and finally, that they were not alone.
He opened his eyes. Malcolm was prowling around the circle’s perimeter.
James lifted his head enough to see Elise resting on his chest. Her face was tilted up, her eyes were closed, and she was snoring softly.
“How cozy,” Malcolm said. “Sleeping like precious babies.”
His voice was enough to make Elise stir. She shifted and sighed. Her eyes opened a fraction, and when she saw James, she smiled.
As soon as she saw Malcolm, the smile vanished.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, feeling a hand around in the air as though searching for a wall of power. He wouldn’t have known if there was anything there, but the sight of it irritated James.
Sitting up was complicated and required cutting open the bandages. James’s shoulder was stiff from keeping his arm around Elise for the length of the spell—according to the clock, a good eleven hours. He inspected his arm. The cut had already healed into a raised red bump.
“Did it work?” Elise asked, ignoring Malcolm.
James closed his eyes. He could feel her as a new presence in the back of his mind. “Yes. It worked.”
They were bound.
The dizzying mix of worry and euphoria was overridden by Malcolm stepping into the circle. “You lovebirds might be interested to know about what happened to all the pig farms in Denmark this week,” he said, picking up a crystal and rolling it over in his fingers.
Elise plucked it from his hand. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You lost the trail?”
“No. He just didn’t bother with the pigs this time.”
He tossed a digital camera to Elise. She paged through the pictures, and her expression darkened in increments as she saw each one. James stood over her shoulder to look. His stomach churned when he saw the too-familiar bodies of infants. “Where did you take these?”
“All over the island,” Malcolm said. “The killer has gone mad. There are new bodies every day or two, and each cluster is centered on Copenhagen. I think it’s sticking around here.”
“He,” Elise said as James dampened a towel in the condo’s sink and wiped the blood off his arm.
“Pardon?”
“The killer is a ‘he.’ Not an ‘it.’”
Malcolm lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. “However you like it. Something’s changed. If you two are done casting epic magic and snuggling up for naps, we have some hunting to do.”
When Elise didn’t respond, James stepped in. “We both need a few hours and some fresh air in order to recover. We’ll have to ground ourselves after magic of that enormity.”
Malcolm nudged the bowl of salt with his toe. “Right. What were you doing, exactly?”
“I’ll meet you at the central station in Copenhagen tonight,” Elise said. “Eight o’clock.”
“Fine by me.”
She rolled her eyes, pushed him outside, and shut the door very solidly.
Elise and James walked along the frozen beach outside their condo, bundled tightly in multiple layers. The fjord was frozen solid, and the occasional snap filled the air as a new crack appeared. Their footprints left a wavering line in the snow behind them. “Remind me to never visit the Arctic Ocean during winter again,” James said, voice muffled by his scarf.
“Why? It’s nice.”
He glanced at her. Elise’s hair was frozen at the tips, but her eyes were bright, and she looked happier than he had ever seen her. “You actually like this?”
“It’s peaceful. I feel… good.”
“Are you certain that’s not the fresh bond speaking?”
“Maybe.” She hugged her arms around herself. “But the ice is pretty. It’s sparkling.”
James couldn’t help but smile. “Sparkles. In the two years we’ve traveled together, you have never struck me as the type to appreciate sparkles.”
“Only the pretty ones,” she said, her lips spread in a thin smile.
James turned to walk backwards for a few seconds, watching the frigid ocean retreating behind them. It reminded him too much of the Russian tundra. “I would give anything for sunshine and a drink that has an umbrella right now.”
“We’ll do that next. Maybe the Caribbean…after we find Samael.” The words fell flat in the cold air.
“We will find him. Nobody else is going to die.”
“What do I do when I find him?”
He didn’t think it was a question she intended for him to answer, so he didn’t.
They wandered on in silence for a few
minutes, passing a dock with icicles the size of James’s arm glistening in the dim sunlight.
“I don’t think anyone understands me,” she said suddenly, surprising him. “Other than you, anyway.”
“I’m not sure I would say that I understand you. Your layers of mystery are one of your greatest charms.”
Elise snorted. “You’re also the only one who thinks I have any charm whatsoever.”
“Malcolm seems to find you very charming.”
“He’s a moron.”
“We’re of a mind on that subject.” James cast a sideways glance at her. “What brings this up?”
She shrugged. For once, she was so relaxed, so emotionally open, that it was almost like spending time with a normal person. The distinction was probably cruel—it wasn’t Elise’s fault that she was terrible with people and emotions, and as she said, nobody really understood her anyway. The fact that they had been able to share moments of companionship with her inability to communicate on a level that didn’t involve fists and blade was nothing short of miraculous.
But a pleasant walk along the beach was a world away from their usual dire situations. He could almost imagine life being normal.
“My arm itches,” Elise said.
“Mine as well. I imagine it will do that for some time.” He laughed. “Actually, I have no idea. Witches in my coven never bind to kopides. Your mother was an anomaly.”
The mention of her parents wasn’t enough to dampen her mood. Elise only rolled her eyes. “No kidding.” She sighed. “My dad would be angry if he heard I got an aspis. He didn’t want me to rely on anyone.”
He hooked an arm around her shoulders and hugged her against his side. “Regardless, I can’t think of anyone better to watch my back,” he said, giving her a tight squeeze and dropping a kiss on her forehead.
Elise stopped walking. Before he could let go, she stretched onto her toes, pulled down his scarf, and kissed him on the lips. Her face was chilly, and so was his. He could barely feel it.
The shock of it was so powerful that he completely froze, unable to respond or register any kind of rational thought. After a half-second of utter brain failure, a single thought rose to the surface, which was along the lines of a less coherent what the hell?
His lack of response was apparently as good as a refusal. She dropped back. Cocked her head to the side. Her brow was furrowed, like she was only just giving thought to what she had done, and attempting to decide what James’s reaction meant.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “How—uh, what…?”
The corners of her mouth drew down. Even Elise could tell he was not pleased.
“Forget it.”
Once he was thinking again, a thousand things whirled through his mind: the fresh bond, the fact she had just turned eighteen years old (good God, I’ll be thirty this month), how difficult it had been to earn her trust, the enemies at their back, the enemies in their future, and how that particular line was not one that he would have ever, not in a hundred years, have expected Elise to attempt to cross.
She stood out of arm’s reach. He hadn’t noticed her back away.
“I’m sorry, Elise,” he repeated. “It can’t ever be like… that… between us.”
Her expression shuttered. The glorious moment of openness was gone, and Elise was dead-faced and distant again. “Sorry,” she said. He wasn’t sure if she was apologizing or echoing him.
“Elise—”
She walked up the beach toward town with long strides, putting more distance between them. Disappearing was her favorite way to end conversations, and he thought he had gotten used to it, but it suddenly filled him with powerful annoyance.
James ran both of his hands over his hair, cupped them behind his head, and blew out a long breath. He could still feel the surprising softness of Elise’s lips on his.
“Damn it all,” he said.
Malcolm wasn’t the kind of bloke who got hung up on dead people. He had seen a lot of bodies since he had claimed his territory at sixteen—it was just one of those things a kopis had to deal with. It was easier to laugh about it than get upset.
Sometimes, though, those annoying, niggling feelings of fear and regret and grief crept up on him, and he found that beer helped get rid of them. Good beer helped even more. And after all the tiny bodies he had covered with blankets that week, he found himself suddenly very, very thirsty.
Fortunately, the alcohol in Copenhagen was plentiful, and there was plenty of beer to be found. But three exceptionally large drinks later, he was still thinking much too clearly.
Bloody fucking hell. Babies should have been flopping uselessly on blankets, kicking at very bright dangly toys, and getting kisses from their mums—not having their organs sucked out their noses.
That was a bad place for his thoughts to stray. Not funny at all.
Beer. He needed more beer.
He waved down a bartender with his empty mug. “Got another?”
Someone took the stool next to him. “And one for me.”
A slow smile crept onto his face as he gave Elise a long look, from the melting snow on her boots, up the curve of her stockings to a loose skirt encircling her trim waist, and the blush of freckles on the back of her neck.
“Took you long enough to find me,” he said. “Come to regale me with stories of being a noble, wandering force of good against evil at long last?”
“I just want a drink.”
“You came to the right place for that, too. Bad day?”
She stripped off her scarf and dropped her forehead to her hands. “You have no idea.”
The image of tiny bodies came to mind again. “You’d be stunned at the ideas I have,” he said, tipping his glass back to try to find a few more drops. He slammed the mug on the bar. “Tell me, my beautiful lady friend—how much alcohol does it take to drown the sorrows of two very disturbed demon hunters?”
She fished around in her pocket and dropped a wad of cash on the bar. “Let’s find out. This round is on the blood of my enemies, long since burned and dead.” She kissed the second fistful of change before scattering it. “Thank you, Mr. Black. Hey! Bartender!”
“I fucking love Americans,” Malcolm said.
They did beer for a while, and then switched to shots of akvavit. Malcolm seemed to recall the liquor having a very powerful and very offensive flavor of black licorice, but his tongue was so numb that he couldn’t taste it.
Elise loosened up as she drank. She removed her sweater, which let him get a lovely peek at the impressive cleavage she usually hid under layers of clothing. But she didn’t quite relax, not like most women did. Her gaze remained fixed on the door and the people around her, as if she expected an attack.
He couldn’t even get her to talk to him. Of course, he didn’t really care if her tongue was loose, and he didn’t really care to hear what was on her mind. Mostly, he cared about her cleavage. And her legs. Definitely the legs.
The bartender kicked them out after a few hours. Or maybe they drank all the alcohol. Either way, the two of them ended up on the snowy streets of Copenhagen, gripping one another for support, and attempting to find a train station. It really shouldn’t have been too difficult, but Malcolm didn’t read Danish, and Elise didn’t seem to care.
“Why babies?” he asked as they stumbled down the docks. How had they reached the docks anyway? Something about seeing the boats had triggered that nasty thinking thing again.
It was snowing, too. He didn’t remember it starting to snow.
“Because it’s what he fears the most.” Elise’s face was red, and her eyelashes sparkled with melting snowflakes. “He’s fallen, and he’s hungry. He tried to satisfy himself with the pigs, but he’s been damned, and Samael can’t resist the infants.”
She was talking. Malcolm was sure she was talking. He focused on her lips and didn’t pick up half the words.
“Who in this whole bloody world is Samael?” he asked, pulling her between buildings, where it w
as more sheltered and the snow was replaced by slick ice.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t fucking care.”
“Fantastic. I don’t, either.”
Malcolm pressed a sloppy kiss to her mouth.
She punched him across the alley, his feet slipped, and he sprawled against the brick. He was so drunk that it took a moment for his face to explode with white-hot pain, but his eyes watered when it finally did.
Elise had good aim. He wiggled one of his loosened incisors with his tongue. “Feisty,” he said, unable to repress a grin. “God, I love feisty women.”
The finger she pointed at him wavered in the air. “Why did you do that?”
“What, kiss you? Again?”
“Yeah. That.”
Malcolm pieced his thoughts together before responding. He liked to think of himself as a well-spoken drunk. “It might have escaped your attention, but I’m aiming to fuck you.” Well, maybe not that well-spoken.
She stalked across the alley, and he braced himself to get hit again. Maybe—with enough head trauma and all the sweet alcohol flowing through his veins—he would forget everything he had seen. He could bleach every one of the infants’ unmoving fist and pale, wrinkly face from his brain. Maybe he wouldn’t have any new nightmares to add to his cold nights.
But instead, she seized his shirt in both hands, slammed him into the wall, and mashed her lips against his.
It wasn’t graceful or all that sexy, really—or at least, it wouldn’t have been if Malcolm had been a few points more sober. The number things he found arousing when he was inebriated jumped from “almost everything” to “absolutely everything,” and he wasn’t going to argue with even the clumsiest attempts at seduction.
He flipped them around, crushing Elise into the corner of the alley. Her hands were everywhere, on his neck and shirt and face, like she didn’t know where to put them.
Malcolm thought he copped a feel of a very nice breast—two of them, in fact, as one always hopes for in the middle of a spontaneous drunken hook-up—but he wasn’t really sure. He lifted her weight, which was heavier than he expected, and set her on a trashcan. He occupied the space between her knees and pulled down her leggings.