A Demon for Midwinter

by K. L. Noone

  Ten-thirty, he thought. Hours to kill. They sprawled out like glass: flat and heavy and dangerous, clear as day and inexorable as eternity. And he was old enough to be Justin’s father, theoretically speaking at least, and no reason in the world presented itself for any hope.

  He meandered into the kitchen. He made more coffee. He added scotch to vanquish the dull throb behind his eyes. Clouds unfurled like streamers across the sky, beyond windowpanes.

  He didn’t know anything about love. How could he? He’d only ever loved fame: the high, the adrenaline rush, the flushed and giddy whirl of success. He’d never even found someone to settle down with, the way Reggie had not once but twice. Only music.

  Justin liked music.

  Clutching coffee, wearing yesterday’s clothes, he took a step toward his guitars. Drawn by some unnamed mysterious tide.

  I think I’m in love, he’d said to Reg. He’d meant it half in truth and half an exaggeration; when he shut his eyes and pictured Justin’s face he remembered how hollow he’d felt, how panicked, when he’d known those wide eyes had gotten hurt—and hurt because of him.

  He didn’t want to lose Justin, and that was selfish. But he didn’t only want that; he wanted Justin Moore to never be hurt, by him or by anyone else. He wanted to do whatever he could to make that true.

  His fingertips brushed the neck of the closest guitar. A classic: he’d played it at sold-out shows and in studios, conjuring bestselling records.

  The dreadful holiday album required a digital background track. He was only singing revised lyrics over previously recorded tunes.

  He caught a glimpse of his reflection in window-glass as he turned. He stopped, disconcerted for a moment, then recognized himself.

  Loose brown hair in shaggy waves, one or two stray grey flickers but mostly not. Eyes the kind of brown that was nearly black, which a few interviewers and roadies’d described as soulful, expressive, soft, and poignant, and on one memorable occasion puppyish. Tiny lines fanning out at the corners, but not too deeply so. The face of a man who’d spent a life touring and drinking and sleeping in hotel rooms, but he’d stayed in shape because that’d been part of the image: sex appeal and glamour on stage. Not unattractive, or not exactly; attractive perhaps to a certain segment of the population that’d be aging right along with him.

  Tired, he thought. Beaten down by time, back from a taste of godhood, shuffling around with mortals again. Definitely, yeah, mortal.

  Justin Moore, on the other hand, was twenty-eight and beautiful, the kind of beauty that turned heads and stole breath away, but up close became warm and inviting rather than intimidating or cold. Lovely from the inside out, and that’d be what passersby noticed, when they noticed, when their gazes landed on him on the street or in a café.

  He had known Justin for four years; he did not, he understood, know enough about Justin. He’d never learned to listen. Better at pushing. At pulling the world along with his desires.

  He knew that Justin had younger siblings, though he couldn’t recall how many or how old. He knew that Justin’s father was a Starrlight fan; he knew that Justin himself loved music history, especially rock history, and adored punk bands and classic rock and roll, and would find something nice to say about even the newest overproduced electronically-altered nightclub hit. He knew that Justin had a degree in journalism from a university with an extremely impressive name; he knew those last facts not because his manager went around announcing them but because they’d talked about media contacts once and on an entirely separate occasion an alumni association’d called about a fundraising drive. The name had shown on the screen; Justin had silenced the call and explained, “Sorry, it’s the alumni people, I’ll call them back later. You were telling me about songs you’d want on a compilation album, go on?”

  He stuck his head and then, when this was insufficient, himself into a very cold shower for a very quick few minutes. Tried not to picture that smile. That youthful brilliant eagerness gathered up and directed his way.

  They’d talked about a best-of collection, that day. It’d happened; it’d sold well and continued to sell. Kris hadn’t worried about money for years.

  Best of, he thought. Best of the past. What used to be. Has been.

  He put on jeans and a lightweight silky shirt and his leather jacket. He had an image. If anyone cared.

  Justin had told him he didn’t have to finish the dreadful holiday album. If he truly wasn’t happy.

  Justin needed a job, which meant he needed to work with artists who actually made money, which meant artists who weren’t seriously considering a rejection of the whole concept of Midwinter and holiday cheer and happiness in general.

  Kris looked at himself in the mirror, threw on a couple of leather bracelets and some eyeliner—he was seeing Justin, and he was vain enough to want to resemble the rock star he might’ve once been in those young eyes—and went out, yanking the door shut behind him.

  When he arrived at the recording studio Steve made an exaggerated production out of checking the calendar. “You’re not scheduled to be here today! What is this new ambition? Did you make a Midwinter resolution, did some other empath make you feel guilty, or what?”

  “You don’t know any other empaths.” Kris stole one of Steve’s donuts. Breakfast of champions. Of burned-out candleflame once-stars. “We’re rare and special. Like bloody unicorns, mate.”

  “Those are mine. And how do you know I don’t know another empath? I’ve seen a unicorn, too.”

  “You want it back?” Kris looked at the donut. Took another satisfyingly large bite. “We’ve all seen your American unicorns. They live in Central Park and fuck with tourists who don’t remember that unicorns have a sweet tooth. Cheeky bastards.”

  “Are you only here to eat my food and insult our proud New York City wildlife? I’ll feed you to the fairy alligators. Where’s your prettier nicer other half?”

  This hurt. Bruises over bruises, deepening. “He’s in meetings all day. And not my other half. Look, have you got a space I can use, or not? I want to get something done so I can show him.”

  “Ah, so it is about him.” Steve heaved himself out of his chair. It creaked wearily, relieved of bulk. “In that case, yeah. Love opens doors and all that.”

  “I’m not in—he’s not—” He gave up. Futile, apparently. “It’s not like that.”

  “Sure it’s not. Come on, you can use room three for a couple hours.”

  A couple of hours later, Kris was tired and mildly depressed but strangely exhilarated, like the letdown after a show that’d been good but not great, like a lyric recorded just before he thought of what more it could’ve been. He was doing this for Justin; he was doing something, and that set off pensive mutters of fulfilment and glum satisfaction along his bones. Martyrdom, he decided. To the tune of “Midwinter Looks Good On You,” and “Little Black Solstice Dress.”

  He hated himself briefly, except he didn’t, because he was trying to do this for Justin, which should make him a better person, which would make Justin happy, which would consequently make Kris happy, but then that swung around to being selfish again.

  “Not bad,” Steve called from the neighboring room. He’d been setting up the backing tracks, doing the behind-the-scenes engineering and mixing work, flipping switches and dials with and without physical hands. “You good, or you want to knock out one more? You’re doin’ something interesting with the projection, the empathic kind not the voice, it’s not empty like yesterday, I just don’t know what the hell it is. Did I say interesting? I’m interested, so that’s good.”

  “Um,” Kris said. “Right, interesting, whatever.” The clock informed him that two in the afternoon was rapidly approaching, and he did some swift calculations. Time to stop for coffee, time to get to Justin’s office, and he wanted to be early…

  He didn’t feel quite done; he didn’t feel satisfied. Some kind of itch, an emotion under his skin waiting to get out.

  Justin had, he was pretty
sure, worn a smoke-blue vintage Pictsies shirt a time or two. Pioneer punk. Classic.

  He started humming, quietly. And then singing, once he’d got the words yanked out of his brain’s storage crates.

  No instruments, no backing. No real plan. Flying with it. Himself and his voice and “Here Comes My Man,” and oh it felt right, it felt good, it felt—

  Even when he tripped over a verse, even when he started again, he wanted to laugh. Filled up by light. Radiant.

  He thought about Justin’s eyes, enormous and enthusiastic and richly textured as holiday treats. About Justin singing along with him, voices mingling and messy and matching, that morning.

  “Outside there’s a wind that’s blowing, inside a fire waits for you…” Steve, on the other side of the glass, opened his mouth, shook his head, said nothing and made a go on gesture.

  “Outside there’s a storm that’s growing, inside I’m looking out for you…” He wasn’t looking at Steve. Wasn’t looking at anything in the room. “You’ve been gone so long, so long…you’ve been gone so long, but now I say, here comes my man, oh, here comes my man…”

  He didn’t try anything fancy. No splashy embellishments or pirouettes. Sticking close to the original: to the tune, to the words, which were a vow and a hope and faith rewarded, a partner coming home at last.

  He let the last repeated chorus fade. Opened his eyes, unsure when he’d closed them. Looked up, looked over at Steve: coming back to earth, faintly embarrassed, knowing it’d been unpracticed and spontaneous and likely ludicrous, himself deciding to put on an impromptu a cappella show on the spot.

  “Holy shit,” Steve breathed, hushed. He was gazing at Kris as though they’d met for the first time. They’d known each other on and off for fifteen years. “Tell me you’re putting that on the album. Tell me that. Please.”

  “It was just a…” He waved hands about vaguely. “Thing. Idea. We’d have to see about permissions and get copyright people involved and I’d have to sing it properly, no, come on, nobody’d even care—”

  Steve was staring at him.

  “What?”

  “You,” Steve said slowly, “you don’t think anyone would care? If they heard what I just—what you just—I barely even have a heart, ask my ex-wife, but you made me fuckin’ cry, Kris.” His eyelashes were damp, leaving wet patches on big cheeks. “I’m not sure whether I love you or hate you, but it’ll sell.”

  “I didn’t do it to try to sell it.” He came around into the other room. Equipment batted digital eyes at them, electronic recording flirtation. “I didn’t—”

  “No,” Steve interrupted. “No, you did it for him.”

  That truth went through him like a spear of rainbows; he stopped, staggered by the impact, overjoyed and lost simultaneously. “Yes,” he said, and he knew that Justin could never know, because Justin Moore did not need the unrequested weight of Kris’s love on those cheerful uncomplaining shoulders. “You can’t share it.”

  “Oh holly and oak,” Steve said, and not in a flippant way, either; Kris had never known, in fifteen years, that Steve swore by the old-fashioned sacred groves when seriously shaken. “You can’t ask me that. You can’t ask me to take that and just sit on it. I love this business as much as you do, and that—”

  “As a friend. Please.”

  “Kris…” Steve sighed. Given the bulk, this was a long slow ripple of a process, the surrender of continents. “Not forever. Until you say so. Or until you die or something, and then it won’t matter. Okay?”

  “Fair enough, mate.” They shook on it, an impulse; Kris nearly hugged him instead, but they’d never been the hugging sort of friends. The moment quivered on the brink but did not bleed over.

  The afternoon wrapped itself around him as he left, clear and bracing as autumn diamonds. Sunbeams bit like glass underwater: transparent, inviting, pointed. Kris tucked himself further into his jacket. He didn’t mind walking—he generally had an undefined submerged shark’s-fin of worry about his empathy and strangers on the subway—but he wished he’d brought gloves. Or a thicker shirt. Less style, more substance.

  Which was the problem, wasn’t it, he sighed; and ducked into Witch’s Brew, where the sympathetic girl behind the counter did not recognize Kris Starr in any way other than as a loyal customer. She had a swirl of tattoo running up one arm, a suggestion of earth-magic under a university-logo shirtsleeve and the apron; she asked him where Justin was, and cooed happily when Kris explained that he was on a quest to bring coffee, in fact, to Justin. Her expression suggested that this was an act of vast and magnificent romance. Kris sighed once more, internally. If only. If it could be.

  He collected two holiday-flavored pecan praline mochas, and braved the pointy sunshine again.

  As always, the Aubrey Records offices made him feel shabby and inadequate. Tall walls sniffed at his jeans and leather with glass and steel disdain; spiky modern lines pulled color out of the universe and turned it grey and white. Kris resisted the urge to check for footprints behind himself; he knew the snow-blank flat floor bore a dirt-resistant charm, but he could never shake the sensation of having tracked in unwelcome boisterous emotion, trailing guitar-strings, untidy make-up, fraying-at-the-edges jewelry.

  The receptionist, pale and chilly and designer-smooth as her desk, called Justin’s office for him. No answer. “Did you have an appointment, Mr. Starr?”

  “Yeah. Yes. Um. Sort of. He said he’d be done around three?”

  Her gaze went on a fraction too long: taking in his jeans, his age, his leather bracelets, his eyeliner, both coffees. “You’re free to wait down here.”

  “Come on,” Kris attempted, “you know me. I’ve been here. It’s five to three. Can I go up?”

  “I shouldn’t let you without confirmation.”

  “I told him I’d bring coffee.”

  She considered this. Her hair was so tightly wound, platinum-blonde and flawlessly pinned up without a ripple out of place, that Kris wondered whether it was real. “He’s been in meetings all day.”

  “So coffee would help?”

  “He did tell me you’d stop by, but he didn’t think you’d come up, he said you’d likely rather meet him down here and go out…”

  Knife to the ribs. Scalding coffee over bare ungloved skin. Other anguished metaphors. But of course Justin would think so. Justin knew he hated the building, and had no reason to think Kris would be any better behaved than the day before.

  He swallowed past the cracked lump of heart in his throat. “I’d like to apologize to him properly.”

  “For what?” She studied him with professional interest: not unintrigued, but undisturbed. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

  “Look,” Kris said, “I’ll wait down here if you say so, but you do know me, I’m a client, he told you I’d be here—”

  “Very last-minute.”

  “—and I’m trying to make it better.”

  “What are you trying to make better?”

  “What? Things. Us. His day. I don’t know. Please.”

  Something in that plea must’ve worked; she relented. “He’ll appreciate the coffee. I’ll unlock the doors to the elevators for you.”

  “Thank you,” Kris said, and meant it, and even gave her a smile because he meant it. She batted long eyelashes as if unsure what to do with this expression, but buzzed him through the glass doors to the elevator bank.

  Justin’s office sat partway up the tower and peered out over bustling cityscapes; it wasn’t one of the largest, given his relative position in the hierarchy, but wasn’t the smallest either. It possessed standard windows and comfortable chairs and what Kris assumed was exactly the permitted amount of punk-kid decoration, enough for personality, nothing offensive. A signed Black Sun poster, the one with the simple eclipse logo, hung behind the desk; Justin must’ve taken his laptop, but Kris knew it had Phantom Fighter and Girl Fawkes stickers on the back. A pen with orange troll hair lay sideways on sturdy corporate walnut; a sticky no
te that Kris shamelessly read upside-down said remember to ask Mike about merchandise at the Buccaneer Festival!

  He hoped Justin hadn’t needed the sticky note.

  He checked the clock. Three exactly. Well, Justin had said around then; might be a few minutes.

  He wandered across to the windows. Watched New York City at Midwinter for a while: twinkling lights, grey sidewalks, vent-steam, tourists and shopping-bags and big coats. Tapestries of humanity on the move, in and out of each other’s lives. This area was upscale; he couldn’t read labels this far up, but in a few cases certain shades of blue or pink wrapping proclaimed the expensive origin of purchases.

  He realized belatedly that he could’ve left one coffee-cup on Justin’s desk. They were warming and also occupying both his hands.

  A shadow landed at the door. He turned and discovered a shiny polished example of human affluence: tall and broad-shouldered and built of well-dressed muscle, with blond hair and a heroic jawline and two white tea-scented to-go cups dwarfed by a large grip.

  “Hello, then,” Kris said, because he had a reason to be here and he refused to be intimidated by towering successful Americans in fitted executive-style suits. His battered leather and jeans hugged him reassuringly. “Are you looking for Mr. Moore? He’ll be in in a few, he said.”

  The new arrival cocked his head, took effortless possession of the situation and the office and the faded rock star waiting there, and laughed. “Mr. Moore. Doesn’t suit him, does it? Not that boy.”

  Kris felt his eyebrows shoot up. Prickles down his spine. Instant sizzling dislike, and he couldn’t even say why. “He’s a professional acquisitions and repertoire manager. You’re in his office. Who’re you, again?”

  “I’m his—”

  “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you waiting—” Justin came flying through the door, a whirlwind of ruffled blue-black hair and official-looking agendas and enthusiasm. He’d dressed up for the day’s meetings: still stylish dark jeans, doubtless acceptable in the music business, but topped with a simple blue button-down shirt and a slim-fit blazer with sleeves rolled up. Rock and roll with a day job. Punk music putting on a corporate show. “Kris, if you want—oh, David!”