by Levi Black
I guess I don’t trust Ashtoreth after all.
She places her chin on his shoulder and breathes her words against his face. “It has been a long time since I learned something about you humans. Thank you, Javier.”
He blushes. He actually blushes.
It’s … sweet.
I bite my tongue to not remind him of her true form.
After a long moment, she sits back and turns to me. “Now you have to do what you have to do.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have to take us to your Daniel.”
I shake my head. “I don’t have it in me.”
I truly don’t. I feel better than I did, but if I wished all three of us across the country right now I’d turn inside out.
Stop that line of thought.
“Use the tool you brought,” she says.
What?
Before I can ask she slowly tilts her head sideways toward Javier.
Oh.
“No.” The word comes out sharp, harsher than I intended.
She frowns, her bottom lip curling out. “You brought him here.”
“Not for that. Never for that.”
“Now, child, you are simply being stubborn.”
My face goes tight, the ache setting up in the back of my teeth where they clench. “Not. Going. To. Happen.” Warm magick bubbles into my chest.
Javier slides off the table. “What’s going on?”
I don’t say anything, trying to calm down.
Ashtoreth isn’t having that struggle. “She is refusing to do what is necessary.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
Ashtoreth ignores me and keeps talking. “We need to travel to Daniel’s side—”
“Who’s that?” he interrupts.
“Her paramour.”
Something about her inflection of the word makes my cheeks burn. “We’ve never…” I stop speaking, not wanting to share personal information.
“I don’t know that word,” Javier says to Ashtoreth.
“Her lover.” I don’t try to correct her again and she keeps talking. “We need to go where he is; time is a factor.”
“She can just zap us there.”
“She has expended her magick. She doesn’t have it in her to spell us from here to there. She must have your help.”
He stands up straighter. “Anything she needs.”
Enough of this. “Javier, you don’t know what you are saying.”
“I’m part of your crew, Charlie. I’m not here to look around; I’m here to work. If you need me to do something I’ll do it.”
“I don’t have a crew.”
“You’ve got me and her and, apparently, this Daniel guy. And I think your coat is alive, so it might be part of the crew too. That’s a thing.”
The coat rustles in agreement to his words, filling my head with its cooing.
Hush.
The coat falls silent.
A crew.
It sounds weird in my head. People who choose to follow me? What?
I’ve been alone most of my life. In some ways what Tyler and his crew did when I was fourteen killed me. My body went on, but it was years, hard-fought and hard-won years, of therapy and martial arts and pain until I could live again. A lot of that time was spent separated from people, in the same room, the same public places, the same dojo as them, but always apart, always shielded in pain and anger and isolation. Even from my family who love me. I know now that my mom and dad had a tremendous load of guilt over my assault, pain of their own because I, their child, had suffered that, and anger at their own feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. They weren’t prepared to handle that on top of my pain and anger, such furious anger that I had no choice but to pour it out in the only safe haven I knew. And I was so hurt and so young, left broken and raw and destroyed but still alive to scream and cry through the pain of even living each day afterward, that I couldn’t articulate, couldn’t just tell them why I did the things I did, why I lashed out at them when they were trying their best.
And so I was alone even with them.
Separated from the world around me until the scar tissue finally softened and I met Daniel.
He found me, not healed but healed enough, and he was patient and kind and understanding and in his grace I finally found someone I could let in.
And so now the idea of people choosing to be with me, to follow me, is alien and strange. And it chafes.
“Why?” I ask.
“You saved me from doing something dumb,” Javier says.
“You’re my friend,” Ashtoreth says.
The coat whispers in my head that I set it free.
Well, I’ll be damned.
Okay.
“What do I do? How do I do this with Javier?”
Ashtoreth tilts her head, looking at me like an owl confused by the field mouse. “You do the same thing that connected you to your lover.”
Her choice of words, the tone of her voice, and the look on her face make me pause. “Wait, what do you think Daniel and I did?”
The word that spills from her mouth isn’t even human, much less English. It rolls off her tongue and hangs in the air between us, entwining on itself and rubbing syllable against syllable, consonants entering vowels, diphthongs squeezing and constricting. The word throbs at me and I feel it like a pulse against my skin and inside me, deep inside, there is an answering beat that nearly takes my breath away.
From the side, Javier says soft and low: “Whoa.”
Whoa is right.
“We didn’t do that,” I say. “I’m not even sure what that is and if humans could do that.”
She chuckles. “You can, but it is not for the faint of heart.”
I take a step back.
Sexuality, my sexuality, confuses me. It just does. I walled it off for so long after what happened that it still feels somehow dangerous. It took years of therapy to even talk about it and years more to separate it from the trauma and it still isn’t a clean break, it is messy and jumbled and some days more and some days less and logically, in my brain, I know that it’s kind of that way for everyone, even people who didn’t suffer violation or abuse.
But it feels like I am a freak sometimes.
I put my hand up. “Don’t screw with me, Ashtoreth. Just tell me the most … I don’t know what word I’m looking for.”
“Platonic?” Javier supplies.
“Yes.” I nod at him in thanks. “The most platonic way to use Javier to power my magick.”
“Out loud it sounds weird,” Javier says.
“It does,” I agree.
“Not to me,” Ashtoreth says.
Javier and I look at each other and I know we both have the same thought: Your version of weird is way further out there than ours.
“Silly, reticent humans.” She sighs deep inside her lungs.
I shrug. “That’s us. Now what do I do?”
“Kiss him.”
Javier and I look at each other.
“That’s the only way?”
“No. But it is the most platonic way I know.”
“Is that because you’re a”—I stop myself before using the word whore—“love goddess?”
Her eyes turn up as she thinks about it. “Mayhaps.”
“Well, I guess we don’t have anyone to ask a second opinion of,” I say. Oh god. I’ve only ever kissed one person. “You okay with this, Javier?”
It takes him a long moment to reply. “Yeah.”
Neither one of us moves.
Ashtoreth is smiling when she says:
“I thought time was of the essence.”
24
WE ARE FACE-TO-FACE less than a foot apart.
I could touch him by barely moving and he could touch me, but we just stand looking at each other. He’s sweating. Not profusely, but a light glistening across his forehead. He has nice eyes. They hold shadows in them, but they’re a warm brown, like roasted c
hestnuts or good coffee.
He’s not bad looking, but my brain immediately begins comparing him to Daniel. Daniel’s broader chin, the slight crook of his nose from being broken, the bright emerald of his eyes and their tiny gold flecks.
The only person I’ve ever kissed.
Now it would be two.
It is just a kiss.
Just a kiss.
Why does it feel like so much more than that? Will it be more than that? I know my magick can make someone into my slave. I do not want that with Javier. Not at all.
Immediately I wish I had ditched him when I wanted to before. Then this wouldn’t even be an option or a risk. He’d be safe. Instead I am going to pull him deeper into this world of bloodthirsty gods who want to devour us all.
I can’t.
I won’t.
“Hey,” he says, “it’s okay. We can do this.” His hands close on the sleeves of the coat and it sings out. It pulls across the backs of my knees as its hem moves forward to caress along Javier’s legs. The coat likes him.
I look into his eyes and there is a determination there. He’s in this thing already. He’s been magicked across the country by me. He watched me fight the sand dweller. He’s seen Ashtoreth’s true form.
And he’s down to ride.
Okay.
Fuck it.
I reach up and his hands fall away from my arms. The skin on his face is smooth and warm under my palms as I pull his mouth to mine.
Our lips press together.
It’s … awkward. I can feel his teeth hard on the other side of thin lips, the fuzz of his baby mustache tickles my nose, and his breath is hot and moist in one small spot to the side of my nose.
And there’s nothing.
No spark.
No connection.
No thrill.
Just two faces smushed together.
I feel him start to pull away.
As I pull him closer, my lips part against his and he yields to me, opening to me. My tongue slides into his mouth and there is a click at the back of my skull and my brain begins to rattle and hum and I feel Javier in my hands as if his skull is a cup I can drink from. His life force pours down my throat and it’s thin and sharp like I think wine would taste and undercut with a herbal bitterness that only feeds my thirst for it. I swallow his energy down and it hits my magick like a cup of high-octane gasoline thrown on a fire.
The magick erupts, filling my body as it lights my blood on fire and paints the backs of my eyelids with white static. I could drain him, take all of his life and keep it in my belly. He would let me. He is limp in my hands, not moving, not fighting.
I could have him all.
I would never want again if I simply drink him down.
I push away from the lie of that thought and him away from me. The connection remains, stretched between us, but now I can think. The want to drain him is an echo instead of all I can hear. I concentrate and squeeze the connection shut. Javier sways on his feet but doesn’t fall. His eyes are glassy and his smile is slack. His lips still glisten with my saliva.
Understanding slides into my head. My magick is triggered mostly by contact with bodily fluid. That’s why the kiss worked so well.
I feel light and tight, magick tingling under my skin. The world around looks sharper, brighter.
Ashtoreth is smiling.
“Feeling better?” she asks.
Before I can say it Javier responds. “Oh yeah, mamacita.”
25
WE DROP OUT of the etheric realm, swirl to a stop on slick hospital tile, and I grab Javier around the shoulders. He feels thin and is already starting to shake. The room is dark, only illuminated by dim lights in a panel behind the bed in the center, the soft glowing displays of machinery that softly beeps and clicks and whirrs, and the spill of butter yellow light from under the door.
The room is exactly how I remember it from weeks ago.
Javier puts his hand to his mouth and his shoulders buck under my arm. I give him a push toward the bathroom and he stumbles that way, grabbing the doorframe and pulling himself inside as if the room had tilted up on end and he had to haul himself in or fall to his death. Light rolls out of the open door and then it shuts behind him and I hear the wet honking of Javier losing his stomach into the toilet.
Not so much with the mamacita shit now.
Even just using a smidge of his life force to teleport us he’s going to be feeling it for a while.
I stay facing the door to leave the room.
Ashtoreth looks at me. “How long has it been since you’ve been here?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Face your fear, Charlie.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“It is naked on your face.”
“That’s just my face. It looks like that.”
“Charlie, turn around.”
I do.
Daniel lies on the bed, covers pulled up over his chest. I move over to him and Ashtoreth follows. Daniel looks peaceful, sleeping, but he’s not.
He’s in a coma.
A tube circles his face, pushed into his nose, and more tubes and wires run from him to the bank of machinery on the side of the bed. They look like a tangled mess, knotted up and twisted, but I guess they do what they are supposed to. The machines just keep beeping and humming along. He’s thinner, his cheekbones sharp as razors, his brow and chin showing more than they used to, and his eyes have dark circles around them.
But it’s still Daniel.
Still the face I fell in love with. Under those waxy lids are still the green eyes I fell into with trust and hope to not be hurt again. Those lips are on the mouth that laughs so full and rich and wholeheartedly that it makes you smile until you feel it all the way down into your chest.
My chest.
Right now my chest feels like a closed fist and my eyes are hot and if I blink tears will push out of them. I’m angry, angry all over again. This is the Man in Black’s fault. He did this.
“Do the thing,” I say to Ashtoreth. “Track down that son of a bitch so I can kill him.”
She doesn’t move.
I turn toward her.
Her mouth is turned down, her eyes soft. “Charlie…” Her voice trails away, but I can hear the excuse underneath it.
The anger flares inside me. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry but—”
The anger roars. “No buts. Don’t give me any sorrys and don’t you dare say any buts.”
“He is no longer connected to Nyarlathotep. I cannot use him.”
“Shut your lying mouth!” I scream. I want to smash her face in. My fists clench at the ends of my arms and I want to drive them through the back of her skull. The coat goes hard around me, forming spikes of darkness along my shoulders and arms. Ashtoreth cringes and I see the fear in her eyes. It’s raw and naked and the sight of it makes the rage in me surge.
I push off the bed rail and throw myself back before I can tear her limb from limb.
Spinning away, I stalk to the door, seething. Javier comes out of the bathroom and I shove him out of my way, slamming him against the wall. My hand falls on the door handle and I feel like I could rip it off the hinges. I have to go, I have to leave, or I am going to hurt someone. Yanking the door open, I stalk out into the hospital hallway.
And come face-to-face with the skinhound snarling and dripping saliva on the gleaming white hospital tile.
I feel my lips pull back on my face so hard it hurts.
Not a smile, but a snarl of my own to match.
Boy, did you pick the wrong time for this, Fido.
26
THE DOOR SHUSHES closed behind me. The wide hospital hallway is empty and dim, the lights taken on a blue-greenish underwater tone. Shadows gather along the ceiling and where the walls meet the floor, giving the entire scene a filtered effect. Everything looks off, slightly stretched and coated in dirty Vaseline.
There’s spooky shit happening.
I spe
nt nearly two weeks in this hospital at Daniel’s side before leaving on this … mission. It’s a busy medical center in the downtown of a major U.S. city. There was always someone around. Nurses, people visiting their loved ones, pastors giving comfort, janitors mopping, doctors on rounds.
Now the place feels empty.
As if me and the otherworldly monster in front of me are encapsulated in our own little bubble of unreality.
I feel the spell the second I recognize its effect.
The skinhound cocks his head, looking at me with the one eye he has left, the one eye I had left him with. Loose slabs of raw muscle vibrate on his shoulders and chest as he growls low and long through clenched teeth. The noise of it rolls down the hallway, rumbling against my skin. Strings of ichor hang from his jaws, swaying to and fro, to and fro, to and fro until one breaks and slings down to splat on the floor.
The coat ruffles around me, the hem of it stretching along the floor and spreading to make me look bigger than I am.
You would think in a situation like this it would be singing in my head, but it doesn’t. When the shit gets real the coat shuts up and lets me work.
I reach inside it. It tightens around my arm, slowing me just a touch. I’m reaching into the left inside pocket. The one with the sword. I know what happened earlier, but I don’t care right now.
Right this minute me and Oathbreaker will see eye to eye.
27
THE SWORD PULLS free from the darkness of the coat in one smooth motion, chiming out as if released from a scabbard. The feel of the handle against my Mark gives me a surge of energy and I feel stronger with it in my hand. More confident. More capable. I sweep the black blade in a semi-circle to hear it slice the air around me. Its thirst comes pouring down my arm, making my throat tighten in anticipation, but it’s like it was before Ashtoreth. There, but not driving. I am in control. Perfect control.
Don’t get cocky; cocky gets you hurt.
I hear that in the Irish honey rasp of Sensei Laura.
She’d say it to me right before doing something that put me on my back tapping the mat in submission or trying to desperately pull air back into lungs that somehow had stopped working.
Or coming to from something I never saw happen.