Weird.
The crisp lines and subtle shadings created an almost photographic reality in the portraits. But there was something wrong. Kate slid her eyes over the drawings, trying to find what it was that bothered her.
There. In each picture, blended in so well that it was almost hidden, a figure with a smooth body shaded entirely black except for tilted cat eyes seemed to be slinking after the man, trying not to be seen.
Very weird.
A shiver traced Kate's spine. The disturbing figure in the drawing eddied through the comforting sea of distance she'd put between herself and Ellie's suicide. Her stomach clenched. She smelled hot, old copper pennies. Her ears started ringing, just like they had after Ellie pulled the trigger...
Kate turned off the light and shut the studio door, leaned against it, breathing deeply. Maybe some of that wine.
She went back into the kitchen, found a glass sitting on the edge of the sink board. She rinsed it out, filled it from the bottle, and went to stand at the bottom of the stairs.
There was a small door on the opposite wall, probably leading to the basement. After the strange drawings, she felt no desire to investigate. Upstairs seemed like a better idea, so up she went.
A bathroom met her at the top of the stairs. She eased her head inside. A towel lay in a heap by the tub/shower combo. A toothbrush lay on the edge of the sink. Paul's toothbrush. She imagined him standing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror, wearing underwear—tightie whities, boxers, or bikinis?—while brushing his teeth. A tingle zipped up the inside of her thighs. The comforting distance between her mind and her emotions wavered. A flood of feelings—fear, anger, arousal—washed over her.
Kate whirled, put her back against the wall. She looked down the stairs, towards the comforting puddle of light spilling from the kitchen. She gulped some wine. Her hands shook, dribbling wine onto her shirt.
"Shit.” It wasn't her shirt. It was Gwen's. The stain would never come out. “Damn it."
It was a nice, safe problem on which she could focus and feel in control. She had to get out of the shirt and get it under some water.
Right or left, she had a door each to choose from. She tried the left door first, saw an unused guest bedroom with a brown leather suitcase beside the bed. When she opened the right door, she found Paul's bedroom.
Bingo.
She felt around for the light switch and flicked it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move.
* * * *
Still, still. Stay still.
Paul tried to will the demon to blend in with the shadows behind the bed. He had no heart that could be pounding, locked away in the prison inside the demon, but Paul felt the demon's own excitement race through his awareness like an electric pulse.
It had opened the door for Kate, followed her through the house while Paul watched, trapped inside and helpless. He'd seen horror contort her face when she ran from the studio. He worried that she'd seen the pictures he'd drawn of her. That strange panic had evaporated, and she'd started swearing over a wine stain.
What's wrong with her? He couldn't ask until the sun rose.
"Gwen's gonna be so mad,” Kate muttered.
The demon flattened itself and stretched underneath the bed. Tilting its eyes, it peered up past the old blue dust-catcher, into the room, and up at Kate.
She had his favorite chamois shirt in her left hand, and was pulling the wine-stained white shirt off with her right.
Not again.
It was worse this time, because he'd seen her skin flushed with excitement, felt the texture. Though the demon's eyes it looked polished and cool, like marble, but he knew it was soft and warm. He'd touched it. He'd do almost anything to touch it again.
Kate shrugged Paul's shirt over her shoulders, paused to turn her cheek into the old fabric and breathe deeply. It was the shirt he'd worn yesterday at breakfast. He'd just thrown it on the bedroom chair. She was smelling his skin from the fabric of his shirt.
Paul threw himself against the bars of his prison, desperate to get to Kate, to touch her, to do so much more than just touch her.
Look away, he begged the demon. Look away, damn it!
But it didn't. Fascinated, it stared as Kate turned toward the mirror above his dresser. She stopped, her fingers on the shirt's buttons.
"Shit, look at that."
Wine had seeped through the cotton shirt and left a dark red stain on the swell of the left cup of her bra. Her reflected face gave back a wry smile.
If she takes the bra off, I just quit.
But she didn't. She put her finger to the little bit of lace above her cleavage, smiling sadly at her reflection in the mirror. Even without color, Paul could see the shades of regret and self-reproach in that smile. He would recognize those emotions at a hundred yards. He'd lived with them for a hundred years.
As he watched, Kate's smile melted and her eyes froze into a thousand yard stare. Reflected in black and white, she looked like a classical statue, a study in marble. Then her chest heaved. A fire flared behind her eyes. Her fingers closed around his wristwatch on the dresser and she flung it against the mirror. The glass cracked, and she screamed.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!"
The demon recoiled under the bed. Glass broke against the wall. Red wine splattered on the floor.
"Why-why-why-why-why would you do that?” Her voice rose up into a screech. “Why?"
The plug of the bedside lamp jerked from the socket and whipped over the floor like a snake. The lamp crashed against the far wall. The demon scuttled back into the corner, pressing its liquid body against the wallpaper.
"What am I supposed to do?” Kate fell to her knees, her head bowed and her fingers clenched in her curls. “What am I supposed to do?"
Her forehead came to rest against the mattress as her words dissolved into heaving sobs.
Inside his prison, Paul watched in shock. What had happened with her client? Something very, very bad. He couldn't ask, couldn't find out, until dawn gave him his voice back. He couldn't even hold her while she cried.
The demon raised its arm. Slowly, the limb stretched and thinned, reaching out across the rumpled bedclothes.
Paul's’ frustration turned to terror. No, no, no, no...
The demon's inky fingertips hovered above Kate's curls.
No, no, no. Stop!
One finger extended. Paul watched it thin into a tentative point at the tip. He looked down the unnatural length of the demon's arm and saw its finger slide gently into one erratic corkscrew curl.
Kate gasped. Her head jerked up. The demon's arm snapped back. Paul stared into Kate's face for an instant, the tears glistening on the skin of her cheeks.
She pitched backwards, her heels coming out from under her, her arms windmilling. Like a crab she scuttled away. Her high, shrill gasps sliced through the room.
The demon flowed from under the bed. It reformed in front of the bedroom door, pushing it closed and blocking Kate's escape.
"Holy fucking shit ... shit...” Kate scrunched against the far wall, crouched over her knees, stuttering through exclamations. “Jesus God ... holy ... shit."
Paul floated in a vacuum of shock, watching as the demon took the last good thing in his life and drove it into a brick wall.
Kate came to her feet.
The demon lengthened itself to keep them eye to eye.
"Shit.” Kate covered her mouth with one hand. The other hand flexed in and out of a fist. Her breaths, ragged, fast, filled the room.
Then she gasped once. Silence.
Her eyes closed. Her hand dropped. “It's you, isn't it?"
Bodiless, Paul hung in his prison. Me?
Slowly, Kate slid down the wall to rest on her heels. “I couldn't help you before you shot yourself. Why are bothering me now?"
Without the distraction of physical sensation, Paul's floating mind put it together instantly. Her client committed suicide. Everything made sense. The violent rage had been her
coming back from the shock, the sobbing a release of grief. She thought the demon was the ghost of her dead client.
What else could she think?
Kate picked up a shard of the broken lamp base. She came to her feet and threw it at the demon.
Paul experienced the impact as a far away ripple.
"Leave me alone!” Kate sank down again, plopping into a cross-legged heap of tears and curls and soft, lost sounds.
The demon looked down. Paul looked with it. At the center of its body, the black surface puckered. The porcelain shard pushed through, inch by inch, and came loose with a sucking plop. It shattered against the floor.
The demon looked back at Kate. She stared, revulsion on her face.
Just leave her alone. Please.
The demon ignored him. It watched Kate. Paul could sense its fascination. It wanted something from Kate. He couldn't begin to guess what.
He remembered his relentless erection. Could his desire have been transferred into the demon while it was trapped in his body?
The demon took a small, smooth step towards Kate.
She flattened her back against the wall.
Leave her alone!
It stretched and flowed, covering half the room in one curving motion.
Kate whimpered, pulling his shirt tight around herself. She rolled her head away from the demon. A tear slipped free from the corner of her eyes. “Oh, Paul, where are you?” she whispered.
A frisson electrified the demon. It drained down towards the floor, pooling itself in front of Kate. She stiffened, but didn't pull away or look at it.
Paul felt the first faint light in the sky like a trumpet note from miles away.
The demon took Kate's right hand and lifted it. Kate's eyes followed the motion. It pressed her hand against its center. Paul felt another jolt of excitement eddy through the demon's substance. The demon looked down at the place where it held Kate's hand: white flesh pushing against blackness. Then it looked up at Kate and with its other hand, pointed to her lips.
Anger and fear bloomed across Kate's face. She pushed the demon away . “I'm not going to kiss..."
Paul felt a ripple, like when she'd thrown the lamp shard. The demon looked down. Paul saw Kate's hands penetrate the surface of the demon's skin, the smooth white marble sliding into the slick oily blackness.
Kate screamed. The demon whipped back. Paul felt its anger, its frustration, its disappointment.
She's mine, not yours! The prison walls wouldn't crack, no matter what he threw against them. Leave her alone!
The demon slunk back.
"Get away and stay away!” Kate was on her feet, panting for breath. “Stay away!"
The demon lifted its hands. In the colorless sight they seemed to swirl like oil just under the surface. The demon put its hands against its middle again, looking down so that Paul could see. It looked at Kate, raised its hands, and again bowed its head, folding the black fingers over where its heart might be. Veins of light pulsed beneath its surface.
A bolt of understanding hit Paul. It's trying to explain that I'm inside. It hadn't been trying to lure Kate into kissing it. It had put her hand above Paul's prison, and pointed at her lips because his name had been the last thing she'd said. It was trying to make her understand. And it was taking more risks than he had, to show her the truth.
Kate straightened her spine. “I'm leaving. Get out of my way."
No!
The moment Paul shouted the thought, the demon moved to block the door.
Keep her here until dawn. He could feel the sun growing closer. Gathering light still invisible to a human eye tugged at his awareness like the moon at a tide. Dawn was less than an hour away. Keep her here until we change. Then she'll understand.
"Oh cut me a break.” Kate lowered herself to Paul's bed. “Just let me go home, please? Do you know what kind of day I've had?” She dragged her fingers through her curls. “You're probably some stupid stress hallucination. That's it. I freaked out at the Good Shepherd and right now I'm in some lockdown ward, pumped full of anti-psychotics that aren't working."
She drew her knees up to her chin. “Do you know what I should be doing right now, if there was a God in Heaven?” She turned her exhausted eyes to the demon.
Paul, through the demon's eyes, stared hungrily at her face. The courage of her humor outshone the teary blotched cheeks. She was the most beautiful woman Paul had ever known.
"I should be just waking up right now in this bed.” She tapped her fingertip against the rumpled covers. “Paul should be walking in right now with a big chocolate milkshake, and graham crackers with strawberry jam.” She closed her eyes. “Which we could eat after we made love again. For the fifth or sixth time.” She looked back at the demon. “Is that too much to ask for?"
If Paul had a throat, he didn't know if he'd cry or laugh.
Kate squinted at the demon. “You could bring me a chocolate milkshake, at least. Useless hallucination."
Moving very slowly, the demon pointed at the pillow.
Kate shoulders shook in a chuckle that ended in a sigh. “Okay. That way if you want to kill me, I'll sleep through it."
Still curled up, she flopped onto her side.
Let her sleep, God, please. Paul imagined the lines of horror and exhaustion smoothing from her face. He and the demon could watch over her until dawn. And then after, he and the demon could slide into bed beside her and hold her while she slept. Is that too much to ask for?
Downstairs, the front door banged.
Kate sat straight up. Her lips formed a word: Paul.
It was Sander's voice that boomed it through the house. “Paul!"
The demon's surge of terror and Paul's shock of horror formed a circuit around one thought: What will he do to Kate?
Kate looked to the demon and whispered, “Who is that?"
Do something! Paul screamed at the demon. Then Kate's eyes went wide and filled with fear, as the demon rushed her.
Chapter Thirteen
Kate tried to scream around the shock of cold, oily fingers pressing over her mouth. The thing pushed her past the bed. Kate stuttered her feet, trying not to fall. Her back hit wooden louvers. Light flashed inside the thing's inky form. Kate reached behind her, opened the closet. The thing pushed her inside and flowed in to follow, pulling the door closed behind them. Kate collapsed against comforting cotton and denim, her heart hammering. The thing squatted like a guard dog at the closet doors. Ripples moved over its slick surface.
Outside the closet, the stranger was on the move. Kate heard shoes tapping against the floor, fast-stop-fast, a rhythm of searching.
"I know you're here.” The stranger's voice came from the bottom of the stairs. Kate tensed, almost jumped up. She thought he meant her. “Paul! I know you can hear me."
Paul isn't here. It's just me, you, and ... She didn't know what to call it. The fact that its form blocked the light filtering through the louvers told her that either it was a real, physical thing, or her hallucinations were better than most. Would Mr. Mystery Man see it, too?
"This can't wait for dawn, Paul!"
Paul is going to be under the maple tree at dawn, Kate told him silently. He's going to explain everything. She looked at the black thing, scrunched into a wad and definitely trembling now. He's got a lot to explain.
"I was thinking about our chat this afternoon.” The stranger's voice softened into a gentle, reasonable tone, like an adult talking to a skittish child or colt. “You were surprised. I can understand that. I am even willing to forgive your reaction. If you agree."
"Agree to what?” Kate whispered.
The black thing's quivering increased visibly. Clearly it and the stranger were enemies, just like Paul and the stranger were enemies. But what the hell was that black thing?
"It wants you to reject me, Paul. It wants to win."
Kate's eyes fixed on the shivering bit of darkness huddled against the louvers.
"What's it like at night, Pa
ul? Does it let you feel anything? Taste anything? I would."
In Kate's mind, a shining triangle formed. Paul at the top point. The stranger outside on the left base point. And the quivering black thing on the right base point. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but at least she grasped the pattern of it: a three-way struggle between Paul, the man outside, and the inhuman creature that seemed to think the worst thing that could happen to Kate would be to fall into the hands of the man outside.
"It wants to feel the warmth of the sun on its back, just as much as I want to see the glow of the moon on your face, Paul."
The stranger's words fell in Kate's mind like raindrops in a pool. Ripples fanned out, gathering up memories. The car was a gift from a man Paul said loved him. Of course! The stranger had bought Paul the car. And probably sent the flowers she'd seen in the kitchen. And he wanted to see Paul's face in the moonlight, just like she had when she knocked on the door tonight. The hair on her arms and neck stiffened as she fell through the tunnel of her own memories. In her mind she stood again on the porch in the rain, waiting for Paul to answer the bell. Twice, now, she'd done that. He never explained why he couldn't come out at night...
"I don't want to hurt you anymore, Paul. Believe me."
Kate focused on the black form shivering beside the closet doors. She saw the shimmer of connections, as if against its inky surface. Her mental triangle folded up into a straight line. Holy shit...
"An eternity of days is more than most people get, Paul. How you live them is your choice."
The thing had tried to communicate with her, had been willing to watch over her while she slept. Willing to hide her from the man outside. She didn't want to believe it. Her rational mind rejected it. But she couldn't deny what her eyes could see and her heart could sense.
Slowly, she reached out and put her hand against the black thing's quivering flank. “Paul?"
The creature's sulfur-yellow eyes swam through its inky form and focused right on her.
"This is why you didn't come out that night.” She didn't make it a question. She knew.
The thing compressed itself, trying to escape her touch.
Bonds of Darkness Page 14