A Demon for Midwinter

by K. L. Noone

  “Thought I’d surprise my sweet boy,” David purred, and set one tea down and stepped in and grabbed Justin’s wrist and tugged him into a kiss that went on long enough to make Kris certain that it was a display. Justin kissed back and seemed willing enough to be manhandled, but Kris was watching; the now-named David caught his eye for a second, letting his captive go.

  David, upon extended inspection, was also older than Justin: not quite Kris’s own age, but late thirties, heading toward forty, he guessed. This answered at least three questions regarding Justin’s romantic inclinations, two of them promising but at least one in a way that utterly depressed his heart. Justin liked men, and older men; Justin was quite visibly not single.

  “Sorry,” Justin apologized once more, pink-cheeked and breathless. His hair was falling over one eye, tumultuous sapphire against cinnabar and acorn-dust. “David is my, um, well, he’s my—”

  “Boyfriend,” David cut in smoothly. If Kris’d possessed hackles, they’d be rising. “I brought you tea. I thought you could use a little pick-me-up, seeing as it’s likely to be a stressful day. Your receptionist remembers me.”

  Kris looked at his own praline mocha offering. Resisted the urge to hide both coffees behind his back; didn’t know what to do with hands, elderly guitarist hands, holding disposable Witch’s Brew cups.

  “Oh…thank you.” Justin looked from his boyfriend to Kris and back. Then took one of each beverage, set both on his desk, picked up the tea again, and took a sip. “That’s really nice of you.”

  “Looking out for you,” David said, all affable teeth and outward fondness. “And also this guy was in your office.”

  “Hey,” Kris said. “Kris Starr.”

  “Oh, yeah, you were in a band, right? Back in the day? And you’re one of my boy’s clients.” David dismissed him with a nod. “Justin, you ready to say yes yet? I’m waiting.”

  “No,” Justin said, expression shifting to mildly stressed, one hand running through hair. “David, this is Kris Starr of Starrlight; Kris, this is David, um, David Ross, he’s a lawyer, he does complicated things with corporate taxes for a living. David, I asked you to give me time to—”

  “I always tell you not to worry about understanding what I do, sweetheart,” David said, “but you know that’s why you need me, right, so I can help?” And then, to Kris, “He is adorable, isn’t he? We met down at Velvet, you know the club, right? And he was on the dance floor, wearing these absolutely sinful skin-tight pants, just begging someone to come up and grab his ass—”

  “I wasn’t really,” Justin said, in the tone of someone who’d long ago given up on this argument but would attempt it for Kris’s sake. “It was Anna’s birthday and she’d just broken up with her boyfriend and I was trying to be good company and I wasn’t looking for—”

  “You were, sweetie, and it worked. I had to have him,” David confided, “I’m sure you know how that works, right? Pretty little things on tour, eyes across a crowded room, all that? And you just have to take them home.” I took this one home, his eyes said. I made him mine. The spark of defensive malice glittered: David didn’t consider him a romantic threat but wouldn’t tolerate rivals for Justin’s attention. “And six months later he won’t move in with me. I keep asking, but he wants to be independent.”

  “That’s not—” Justin stopped, shook his head, gave up. “Can we talk about it later? Please. Kris is a client and we do have a meeting scheduled. I’m glad you stopped by, but I really am working.”

  “Anything you want, but you’ll make me happy as soon as you say yes.” David kissed him again before leaving: deep and possessive, a declaration. Kris would’ve put ears back and hissed if he’d had any feline genes.

  Justin came back and sank down on the corner of his desk, flustered, blinking, hair and jacket-collar mussed from the kiss. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know he’d be here.”

  “Since when,” Kris said, unearthing words around the gut-punch of shock and resentment and envy, “do you have a—a lawyer attached to you?”

  “Since six months ago?” Big autumn-daydream eyes gave him a wounded look. “When I was late to brunch and you said I looked like I’d just gotten laid all night and I said, well, actually, and you changed the subject?”

  Right. Yes. He’d not wanted to know any other details. Any hands on Justin, any other person sparking that delighted pixie smile. Unfamiliar lurching in his gut at the idea. In retrospect, should’ve been a clue.

  He didn’t like David. He knew this was unfair.

  “He brought you tea,” he settled on, which was at least factual.

  “Um…” Justin now looked horribly guilty. “I don’t mind tea as such, but…”

  “But you like coffee better?”

  “He buys ridiculously expensive health-nut teas,” Justin defended weakly, “and so it’s not cheap, and it honestly is nice of him to bring me some, even if it’s not my favorite…they all sort of taste like grass in hot water…”

  “I won’t tell him if you won’t.” He nudged the praline-mocha confection across the desk. “Go on.” He was also sure that the boyfriend-gesture wasn’t anywhere near sweet. It had nothing to do with Justin himself, and everything to do with displays of dominance.

  Justin eyed the hot water and grass, then the gently steaming swirl of nutty chocolatey caffeine, and then dove for the mocha. “Thank you for this. Seriously. Like heaven.”

  Like watching you drink coffee, Kris thought. Like watching you smile. “Want to get out of the office? I’ll get lunch. My turn.”

  “Yes please.” Justin poked papers into a stack on his desk, considered his shut laptop in its bag, stretched, finished off half the mocha. “I’ve been inside all day. If I have to listen to one more person tell me that my bands should just be working harder on promotion, so we can take bigger cuts from their tour profits…”

  “Oh gods. Let’s go.”

  “Sometimes I miss being a journalist.” They took the elevator down. Justin waved at the receptionist; she melted out of ice and waved back. The nameplate on her desk said Anna Lyle, Kris noticed.

  Sun played tag with clouds on the sidewalk; frosty air nibbled fingertips and noses, making dragon’s breath out of exhales. “I mean, I like being able to afford food and rent, and I love working more directly on behalf of artists, especially new ones we can really do something for…”

  “But you miss being a writer?” He had paid attention enough to know that much: Justin’d started out as a freelance contributor to magazines from the extravagant punk-zine Spike to the magisterial Stone. He’d made a lot of contacts and a lot of friends; even Kris had come across his name a time or two in bylines. “Or not having to sit in on budget meetings?”

  Justin laughed. “Both. But I would’ve never gotten to work with you—with, um, all the artists I’ve—I love the organization part, I honestly do. Signing people, giving them that break…tour dates and venues and album promotion and keeping everything spinning, all the balls in the air, juggling…sometimes I wish I still had the time to write, though. Making something. Stories.”

  “You could take time off.” They wandered down the block, boots on pavement, crispness in lungs. Midwinter decorations danced in storefronts: holly, mistletoe, tinsel snowdrifts, and curious wrens painted on glass. “And if you went back to writing you’d have a ready-made audience. People’d be excited to hear from you again.”

  “No one’ll remember a kid journalist from the underground punk scene from four years ago.” Justin hopped out of the way of a pile of city slush, came back. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I’d read your writing. Your…David would.” Like poking a wound. Couldn’t help it.

  Justin huffed out a breath, too wry to be a laugh. Turned his face away. “He might.”

  “Why don’t you want to move in with him? Is it because he has appalling taste in tea?” Or because he brings you what he wants you to drink, instead of what you like, he did not add.
<
br />   “It’s….no, it’s not, but it totally is appalling, that’s a great word…there’re some things that I haven’t told—never mind. I can’t. That’s all. Can we move on from my love life? I did have news for you.”

  Kris wanted with his entire soul to say no, stay on this subject, what things haven’t you told him? Have you told me? Will you ever tell me? But Justin was asking, a hint of a plea in those eyes. “Go on, then. Tell me your news.”

  And that was relief, coming up like sunrise and sugared biscuits. “I don’t know if you know Brendan “Chaos” Alvarez, from Incantation? You must know Incantation, after that last album anyway, ‘Broken Pearls’ has been everywhere on the radio, but my point is that they’re going on tour after Midwinter and I called Bren, he’s sort of an ex, I mean we had a thing one time way back when I was writing that profile on them for Spike, but he’s also a Starrlight fan and he would love to have you open for them? At least for the East Coast leg?”

  Kris paused mid-step. Processing. Caught out of motion.

  “I know it’s an opening act,” Justin hurried on, clearly thinking the silence meant some apology was required, “I’m sorry, you deserve better, of course you do, but we can get you second billing and it’ll be great exposure, Incantation’s huge right now, and they’re fans of yours? And Bren’s a good guy.”

  Incantation’s latest release had gone platinum. Beyond. Record-shattering. They were young—relatively young, Kris mentally edited; they’d been around in the underground scene for a decade before hitting the mainstream—and attractively pretty, all four of them, and had a reputation for hardworking solid musicianship as well as stellar pyrotechnic live shows.

  They were a bit too new-wave pop-punk for his usual tastes, but “Broken Pearls” had been inescapable, and he’d concluded it wasn’t half-bad, angry and melancholy and introspective at once. And being on tour with them would be a massive boost to his career: visibility, relevance, an audience that wasn’t county fairs and shoebox venues and aging die-hard desperation.

  And Brendan “Chaos” Alvarez was evidently Justin’s ex. Or something. A one-time thing. While writing a profile piece. And Justin missed being a journalist sometimes.

  “I mean, if you don’t want to,” Justin said. “I mean I could call him back and say no? I mean I thought you might—but if you’d rather not, or you don’t like them—”

  “No! I mean yes! Yeah, sure, I’d—yes, I would. Um. Tour. With them. You—” Justin had called an ex and asked for a favor. For Kris’s career. “Thanks.”

  “Oh, that’s an easy one. No problem.” Justin peeked into the window of a clothing shop as they passed, momentarily interested in holiday purses. “That shade of green is frightening, isn’t it? I had green hair for a while. Before I met you, I think. Not that kind of green, though. Do you actually know Incantation? I’ll get you some of their records if you want.”

  “Purple.”

  “What?”

  “Your hair. When I met you. Pink and black the week after that.” It’d been a delicate pink, a sunrise-and-springtime pink, around the edges: midnight-waterfall black fading to a fringe of roses. “I listened to the Enchantresses, too. Found ‘em online. Not bad.”

  “Oh!” Turning to him, Justin was breathtaking: youthful eagerness and beauty. Kris forgot to exhale, pinned like a trophy on a corkboard by lust and love and hopeless adoration. “Oh, that’s awesome, they’re so good, they deserve to be so much more famous, did you like—”

  Traffic skidded. Brakes squealed. A scream rang out, shrill and sharp.

  They both spun toward the intersection. A stroller rattled, running away, sliding in front of a truck. Green light glowed; the mother dropped packages and ran, but—

  Justin caught breath, flung out a hand, made a tugging gesture—

  The baby landed in his arms, yellow duck-patterned blanket, wailing face and all. It took one look at him, and screams turned into astounded hiccups.

  The world stared too. Equally astounded.

  That hadn’t been simple telekinesis. Might’ve been, but hadn’t.

  Justin, cradling the baby, said, “Shh, you’re fine—” and then looked up, and looked at Kris, and went utterly pale, insofar as that was possible under the smoke and brimstone of demon-skin.

  Justin mostly looked like himself, even as a demon. That much was true.

  Justin also had a flickering shimmering aura, the sizzle of heat over pavement on a hot day, distorting the air around him; the afternoon tasted of fire and barbecue. His eyes had turned even redder, and his skin had an eerie sheen; the blue highlights in his hair had vanished, burned off. The strands curled and coiled: still partly black, but black and red and gold and rippling, coals burning low and hot and kissed by wind. He even had a tiny ephemeral suggestion of horns.

  His lips moved. The words might’ve been no, or oh fuck no, or Kris’s name.

  No one else moved. A frozen tableau: café patrons, window-shoppers, pedestrians, gawking motorists on city streets.

  The mother ran: across the street, up to Justin, up to the demon holding her baby; and she staggered and trembled and held out arms and pleaded, “Please—”

  “Demon,” whispered a man at the corner café.

  “Demon,” breathed the girl next to him.

  “I’m so sorry,” Justin said, trembling—a demon shaken by notice—and pushed the baby into its mother’s arms, and took a breath—

  Kris didn’t think, didn’t stop to process, only moved. Instinctive. Grabbing Justin’s hand.

  They rematerialized in a back alley: the one immediately behind the café, in fact, complete with Dumpsters and a scruffy tomcat, which hissed and fled. Justin tripped over an apple core, shook Kris’s hand wildly, and demanded, “What the hell were you thinking—you could’ve—” His hair crackled, distressed.

  “What the hell was I—what the hell were you—you weren’t going to leave me behind!”

  “I could’ve dropped you into a brick wall! Or—or that Dumpster!”

  “But you didn’t!” They were shouting. More shouting was happening down the street. Demon rumors spreading. Justin had faded back to mostly human, with a tinge of crimson under skin and eyes and fireflower hair; Kris was still holding his hand. Neither of them had let go. “Is your hair on fire?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  “It’s an important question! I care if your head’s burning!”

  “It does that on its own—” Justin risked a quick peek down the alleyway. “I can probably only teleport us both one more time. Two, maybe, but I might pass out.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Justin stared at him. Opened his mouth, shut it, shook his head. “How are you not concerned about the whole demon part?”

  “You didn’t answer the question!”

  “I’m only half! Everything’s harder!” Justin had carried on staring at him. “Shouldn’t you be turning me in? Or asking whether I’m about to abduct you to the demonic underworld?”

  “Are you?”

  “No!”

  “We’re good, then!” Kris yanked his voice down to a reasonable level. Some part of him was shrieking and gibbering in terror—demon, oh fuck Justin was a demon, a real demon, scourge of legends and gruesome cautionary tales—but a much larger part was taking a shockingly rational and simultaneously romantic view of the situation, in which he and Justin were in this together. And Justin was holding his hand. “We should get out of here.”

  “Yeah, but—” Justin flung helpless glances around the alley. The Dumpster shrugged at them with last night’s Chinese food: no assistance. “I don’t even—where would we—and I just showed everyone my face—Kris, they all saw me, I can’t breathe—”

  “Yes you can!” Hands on Justin’s shoulders. Support. Firm even while terrified. Justin felt human. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing more so than panicked gulps of air, that light body trembling in his arms. “You’re fine. You’re okay, I’ve got you, come on, nobody
’s here yet, I’m here, you can breathe. With me. In and out. Please.”

  He didn’t think about a demon having an anxiety attack in an alleyway amid Dumpsters and rubbish-heaps. He saw Justin, breathless and clinging to him, while yells about search parties and undertones of pitchforks clattered in the background. “Please. You can breathe, I know you can, one more time, come on, in and out…”

  Justin, shivering, managed to draw a breath. Then another. “We should…I should get us out of…I can’t think…”

  “You said things were harder? But you can move us?” At the nod, he continued, thinking fast, “You can get us to my place?”

  “I…think so.” Justin had continued leaning on him, but seemed marginally steadier: given direction, given assistance. “I’m usually okay getting to anywhere I’ve been, or anyplace I can see…oh fuck, Kris, I’m so sorry about…yes, I think I can drop us in your living room. I’ll try.”

  “Go on, then—”

  The world swirled. Vertiginous and rushing, melting and merging and falling away. Kris had once liked teleportation—he’d had one or two friends with minor telekinetic talents that extended to location-hopping—but had in later years decided that lurching disorientation, even if brief, wasn’t worth saving five minutes of travel. Most people had extremely short ranges, so there wasn’t much point to it other than showing off.

  Justin evidently didn’t have a range limit. But then: demon. Right.

  Justin stumbled over nothing. Caught Kris’s shoulder for support. White-faced under the wavering heat-flare that surrounded him, disturbing penthouse atmosphere. I might pass out, he’d said; Kris grabbed him and eased him down onto the sofa. His abandoned scotch-and-coffee cup from that morning wobbled at them when he bumped the table. “Justin? Justin! Say something!”

  “I’m fine…” But trembling. Shock. Reaction. Kris snatched a blanket, some designer gift he’d resolutely ignored, off a chair. “Thanks.”