by K. L. Noone
“Wine would be lovely,” said Ylse. “What are snowball cookies?”
Over drinks, holiday desserts, leftover egg rolls, chicken, and bread—Kelly kept finding more food—the family council reconvened. Space got made on benches and chairs, around the table; the twins watched demons consume vast quantities of food and nodded as if this explained some things about Justin. James said, “When you said you were stronger, is that quantifiable in terms of energy, because we’ve been working on applied otherworld portals for a while, and also how do house-wards actually work, is it like a pixie-mound signature or more like perpetual motion—”
Aunt Raissa looked at him for a minute, and said, “Would you like government funding for some sort of research project?”
“It depends on the demon,” Mara said. “I could demonstrate, if you’d like.”
Kris said, “Justin.”
“I’m okay.” Justin was holding his hand, and because of the closeness practically sitting on his lap. “Or, you know, not completely, but enough. Mel says to call her back after I do the interview. She thinks I should go ahead with it. The hair was her idea.”
Of course Melinda Fielding would take demons in stride. He was surprised—and a bit upset—that she’d suggested Justin disguise himself, though. “And you’re feeling up to it?”
Justin waved a hand, nibbled a cookie, got powdered sugar on fingertips. “I’d rather disappear into bed and, what did James say, fall apart, for a week, but I can do that after. I’m being human for a reason. If I start the interview like this, and it’s live, everyone can see me. They’ll see me when I switch aspects. We’ll lose focus, it’ll go all blurry, but it should be obviously me and not fake, I’ll keep talking, and that way we can avoid any accusations of having thrown something together with an actor. And…”
“And?”
“And I get to very literally come out. Of hiding.” Justin gave him the kind of grin worn by young scared warriors before battle. Raindrops danced with tree-leaves, rustling, tapping windows with ghostly glee. “Cathartic, Mel says. Reclaiming agency, or something.”
“But do you want to?”
“I think I do.” Justin broke the cookie in half, toyed with pieces. “I think I like the idea. Being myself, for the world. Maybe changing some minds. I keep wanting to ask you if you think I should, and right now I’m having a hard time figuring out whether that’s because I want you to tell me it’s okay, or if it’s just that I honestly trust your opinion. This is going to be hard, isn’t it? Us. Me.”
“It’s not like I’m easy,” Kris pointed out, “and you’re putting up with me—” and then heard what he’d said when Justin started laughing. “Fine. Yes. I gave you that one, didn’t I.”
“So easy,” Justin said, snickering. He sounded almost like the person who’d organized tour dates and venues and track sequences for new albums, tidy and passionate and making plans; he sounded like himself again, or nearly so. “Oh, Kris…”
The family threw glances his way. Collectively opted not to interrupt fragile happiness.
“I think you should,” Kris said. Justin’s thigh was warm against his. “I think so because of what you said. That you like the idea. Your words, not mine.”
Justin, gazing at him, drew a breath, let it go. Nodded.
It might be hard, Kris thought. It wouldn’t be easy. But worth it. Worth holding on, every day. Days of laughter, and smiles, and learning.
His mobile rang. The universe, in the form of impending publicity, plunged in.
Kris answered first, but handed it over to Justin. Who, though white as an urban-legend specter behind eyeliner and hair-dye, took it with steady fingers. “Hi. Yes, I’m here, what were you—video chat, yes, I can do that—give me a minute to get to the office—”
He got up from the table. Multiple bodies followed: a family of ducklings clustering in concern. Justin gave them a faint smile, summoned his laptop out of thin air, and shut the study door.
The twins promptly produced another laptop, opened up the main Randolph Broadcasting Company website, and caught Wilhelmina Randolph herself mid-sentence: elegant and refined, pale blonde hair swept up, pearls and presence on a live broadcast from what Kris knew was Reggie’s balcony, California hillsides framing timeless style. She was introducing Justin Moore, the New York Demon, for an RBC exclusive interview; she was also making a call for openmindedness, for tolerance, for responsible use of media and verification of rumors before letting discussions of, say, demonic seduction run wild. She managed to imply, without batting an eye, that any reputable person—a lawyer, for instance—should know better, and should perhaps not be trusted by clients.
Kris whistled soundlessly. Justin’s father raised eyebrows. Everyone huddled around the laptop and elbowed each other for room.
“I believe,” Willie said to her camera, confidence effortless and iron-clad, “that it’s important to hear both stories, for you, our public, to decide. Which is why we’ve brought you this interview as quickly as we could—why I felt that it deserved my personal attention—and so, for the first time, meet your New York Demon.”
Justin waved, video feed switching on cue. Overflowing bookshelves became a literary backdrop for that fuchsia hair; he said, “Um, hi?” and managed to endear himself to the entire world in the span of two hopeful courageous syllables. “I don’t normally do this, I mean interviews, being on this side of them anyway—oh, does that even make sense, it won’t if you don’t know who I am, I should probably explain, I was a journalist for a while!”
“Oh, look at him,” Mara sighed, “he’s precious.” Both other aunts nodded in agreement.
Precious and nervous, Kris thought. Justin had always been good at talking to people; the anxiety lay in those eyes, in the swipe of a hand through hair.
“You were, yes,” Willie agreed, running with this opening. “With impressive credentials. Underground punk concerts, on the ground reporting, one of the best voices on the scene, but you also contributed to big names like Stone and Apex, correct? And then you went to work over at Aubrey Records, until today, that is.”
“I did, because I love writing but being freelance is a really good way to not afford food.” Bright, engaging, even funny: gods, he was good, Kris thought. Unpracticed but experienced as far as good back-and-forth: Justin knew how to talk to people. “And I liked being able to do something for bands, besides exposure. Actually having the chance to offer initial contracts and signing agreements.”
“Yes,” Willie said. “Shall we talk about you and signed contracts? The large pink elephant in the room, as it were.”
“And I’m a demon,” Justin said. “Well, half. I’m half human. Yes, I’ve heard the joke about how many demons it takes to screw in a light-bulb.” He said it lightly, as a joke; after a beat, he leaned in and added, “The problem is I don’t fit in a light-bulb.”
Even Willie laughed. Kris’s heart hurt with pride and love.
“You know the stories David Ross has been telling about you.” Diving in, no safety net, no turning back. Stories, and stories. “You’re admitting you are a demon, so that part at least is correct. Would you like to respond to any of those other allegations?”
The rain held its breath. Balanced on a tightrope.
“Yes,” Justin said. And nothing, now, would ever be the same.
Justin told his version of events calmly, with only a small fracture in his voice when first mentioning David’s name. He even conceded that he’d been wrong to lie about himself, and he apologized for that—the twins muttered darkly—but said quietly that he didn’t think he’d deserved the response. That he hadn’t deserved to be hit with a book, and beaten, and scared, and publicly outed, such that he’d lost his job.
Bill turned, at this. Kris nodded—yes, the book part was true—and watched Justin’s father visibly grapple with this revelation.
Justin added that if verification was needed, he’d talked to a therapist that same night. “Of course she won’t
disclose anything, but she is a professional, with credentials, and she can tell you that she did talk to me, then. I don’t know if that matters, but if you need to know. I’m not making this up. I stayed with a—a friend, after.”
“Are you formally pressing charges?”
Justin hesitated. Let fingers go still, arrested on the desktop, no longer in motion. Answered no. “I understand why he hates me. I even understand why he thinks he needs some sort of revenge. But I’d ask him to think about my family. My colleagues. About everyone else who might get hurt because of his actions, and his…exaggerations. Honestly I’d like him to talk to someone, too. If he’s having a hard time dealing with this.”
“Oooh,” James said. “Nice.”
Yes, Kris thought. And Justin even meant it. Sincerity in every syllable.
“Were some of those exaggerations involving your sex life?” Willie inquired, lightening the mood, turning the question into humor alongside gravity. “Because a few of those stories are a bit difficult to believe.”
“Some of them, yes.” Justin tossed her the smile, grateful. “For one thing, I never cheated on him. Much less with five musicians at once. I don’t know when we’d’ve all found the time; and anyway Brendan Alvarez is on tour at the moment, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in my bed, but, hey, Bren, if you were, sorry I didn’t notice.”
Comments were appearing on the video. Encouraging ones. Justin was sweet and likable and generous, and more importantly believable. The general tone of replies seemed to indicate that the internet thought David Ross had been a dick, that supernatural creatures who didn’t harm anybody without consent should be as deserving of equal rights as anyone else, that Justin hadn’t deserved to be hurt and was handling this with class, and that of course demons had improbable sex lives.
They covered musicians and contracts and signings; Justin pointed out that other people had to finalize the details of any initial offers he made, and that if he’d been making bargains and granting wishes then more of his bands would’ve been overnight successes. Willie pointed out that he’d signed Ruth Moran and Incantation and The Enchantresses; Justin said, “Yes, because anyone would, have you heard them? And they had multiple offers. It didn’t have to be me.”
“You simply happen to have good instincts regarding multi-platinum artists?”
“It’s my job,” Justin said. “Or…it was. But that really all comes from spending a lot of years loving music and artists and wanting them all to make it. If I could magically do something for every one of them, believe me, I would.” That was honest too. Audibly so.
Willie asked about the hair, about looking human. “Is that because you are? In part?”
This was an obvious soft toss of a question, a set-up; Justin grinned, gave the yes, explained about magic and electronic distortion. “But, hey—I can show you. In person.” He did.
The shape of him, slim and pretty, became a thin flame-tinted blur. The bookshelves in the background did not blink, unaffected and stoic.
Comments this time ranged from impressed to skeptical of special effects to corroboration from someone who claimed to be a folklorist and otherworld specialist at a university. Kris looked at Justin being himself for the world and held back a cheer.
He wanted to let it out, though. Flag-waving. Pennants held high.
Willie kept the interview short—it’d be enough of a bombshell, and Justin started sounding a bit more tired, emotional toll sneaking in—and ended by promising updates as the story unfolded. Justin waved—at least, a shimmery hand made a motion—and thanked her for letting him talk to everyone and thanked everyone for listening. This went over even better than the sex jokes. The New York Demon was compassionate, attractive, had a sense of humor, and expressed gratitude. The world fell head over heels.
Justin came back out a few minutes later, drained and lovely, slender and worn and graceful as bone, a treasured artifact of ruby and gold surviving against all odds. His hair threw fire-gleam on the wall; he’d let the wispy insubstantial horns and more eerie eyes stay in place, even less human than normal. He was still wearing his I heart gingerbread lattes shirt from that morning, though he’d thrown on his black jacket, fashionably asymmetrical and young, as armor; he had on pink-and-violet striped socks, and Kris loved him unquestionably, immeasurably, beyond words.
Justin hesitated at the kitchen threshold, lingering over the boundary, regarding the family huddle from the outside. “Was that—”
Bill got up, came over, and hugged his oldest son very hard. Kris had meant to do this too, but didn’t mind waiting; they’d have time.
He and Justin would have time. He knew they would. The knowledge spread like sunlit honey under his skin.
“Dad,” Justin said, “I’m fine, I’m safe, I’m—” and gave up and hugged back, and after a minute patted his father’s shoulder in reassurance. “I know. I know, I’m sorry, I know. But I’m going to be fine. Was that okay, though? As far as not saying too much, or what you’d want or not want. I tried not to bring you guys into it.”
“It was great,” Kelly said fiercely, and got up to hug him too, and so did the twins and James and even Belle, a collision of family limbs and cuddles and clinging right there in the kitchen entrance.
Justin, through this pile of affirmation, caught Kris’s eye. Mouthed, thank you.
Kris held his gaze across all the hugging. Let every drop of emotion he was feeling tumble outward: streamers of awe and love.
Justin was feeling a little unbalanced, and admitted as much; he’d said he’d call Mel back, and did, and ended up spending two hours on the phone. Kris did not push; no one did. Kelly made hot chocolate, and James took a small spinning gear out of his pocket and put it in Justin’s hand, and Justin took both of these things and went upstairs.
Before going he leaned in, tentative and resolute, and left a fairylike imprint of a kiss at the corner of Kris’s mouth: a sprite of a kiss, a glimpse, a glimmer. The tingle sank all the way through Kris’s body and soul; he touched the spot, amazed.
Justin’s demon-aunts insisted on being allowed to summon pizza. They even paid. Mara said this was because Justin would want them to. Justin’s stepmother seemed to be momentarily considering a discussion over paying them back, but this objection got outweighed by the staggering amount of pizza that turned up, enough for eight humans and three demons and one person balanced in the middle. Justin emerged shortly after this, no doubt conjured up by food, and curled up next to Kris and nibbled at slices, withdrawn and contemplative but not, Kris thought, upset.
Justin said, “Yes,” at this, and put his head on Kris’s shoulder. Kris found a napkin for pizza-fingers and put an arm around him.
They’d go back to the city in the morning. Justin had agreed to bring Kris and come to dinner with Willie and her husband, he said, and she’d mentioned that mysterious other proposal again. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, but she was on their side; he could always say no. He glanced at Kris as he said this, a ghost of a question; Kris said, “Of course you can,” and then wondered whether this’d been the most appropriate response. But Justin smiled more and ate the rest of the pineapple-covered slice James slid in front of him.
They were, he decided, just fine. Him and Justin.
And the world, their world, would be fine too. No rush. No forcing of steps. Nothing too soon. Whatever Justin felt ready for. He could wait; he had that smile, that kiss.
It made him quiver all over again. That same feeling. The feeling he’d had so many days ago, standing outside a recording studio, watching sundown winter light tangle itself into Justin’s hair, struck wordless by the kindness beside him. Out of the blue, unexpected; and yet it’d always been there.
It’d been there in every way Justin had fit into his life seamlessly, finding tea and scarves and lost phones, managing his career and his days. In the way Kris had never questioned that fit, because it’d felt so right, it’d worked, and then he’d somehow glimpsed Justin as if brand
-new, and he’d known, and he knew.
Justin picked up and ate a fallen pineapple fragment. Kris said, “Eating enough?” and meant I love you.
Justin licked a finger, and met his gaze. “Yes. I am.”
They spent that night, like the previous one, entwined in Justin’s bed in Justin’s family house. Murmurs of nighttime rituals, footsteps and house-creaks and pattering rain, built themselves brick by brick into sturdy towers. Susurrations formed patterns, wove tapestries, shaped a scene: enclosed and dry under blankets, under dripping eaves.
They had not outright kissed, and Kris wouldn’t be the one to ask; but Justin settled into his arms, and after a moment lips brushed Kris’s collarbone, and made his heart trip over itself and its own newfound joy.
Chapter 7
Tuesday evening. That tomorrow. It’d come. Kris stared at his outfit—grey trousers that weren’t jeans that he’d found in the closet, a black button-down that at least fit and didn’t make him look like a boy forced into playing dress-up, no tie because he couldn’t find one and wasn’t sure he owned any—and yelled, “Justin, help!”
His demon emerged from the bathroom. Kris froze. His fingers slipped on a button. The button did not fly off. It was busy staring at Justin too.
Huge eyes, outlined and made even bigger. A bashful smile. That height and that waist, highlighted by the cut of his suit, which drew attention to the shape of him, the lines and curves and elegance. The suit was purple—the twins must’ve meant this one, Kris’s brain remembered foggily—and should’ve looked dreadful with flame-hair and spice-gilded eyes, but it didn’t. It was a deep mysterious hue of purple, plums and amethysts in a love-tryst at midnight, lush and voluptuous and nearly black, and it brought out every bit of contrast with pale skin and smoky red and threw it all into artistic relief.
He’d done his fingernails to match. Kris very nearly whimpered aloud.
Justin blushed. “Decent? The twins like this one and I didn’t want to hide anything and I thought I should be as much me as I could but if you think it’s too much I could—”