by Willa Okati
“You don’t have to,” a familiar voice said, stopping them both cold where they stood. Nicholas looked up to see Grey standing in the mouth of the alley, arms loose at his side but back stiffened with tension and eyes so wide Nicholas could see the whites of them. “Jimmy?” he asked, his voice careful. “Jimmy, is that you?”
Nicholas watched Jimmy’s throat work, unsure if the magic would stretch so far, but then the young man nodded. “Yeah. It’s me.”
“Nicholas?”
“I’m here, too.” Nicholas stepped out of the shadows. “And so is the Snake Man, so watch what you say.”
“Snake Man?” Grey frowned. “What do you mean—Sint Holo? Nicholas, that’s a fairy story, meant for kids.”
“Not so much,” Jimmy answered. He stood in front of Nicholas, hands on his hips. “He’s brought me back, Grey. The Snake Man is working his mischief double-time tonight. It was me in the basement at Café Noctem, and it’s me who’s come to find your new lover. What do you say to that, then?”
Grey walked forward slowly, as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes. His hand came out, ever so carefully, and touched Jimmy’s cheek through his mask. Nicholas closed his eyes, feeling a stab of hurt spike in his heart, still pounding with the rhythms of a long-ago fire and the sound of men crying out as they danced around and around the flames.
“Jimmy,” Grey said, his voice choked as if with tears. “I’m sorry.”
What? Nicholas’ eyes flew open, just in time to see Grey coming at him, arms open wide. He was enfolded into a hug warm as toast, solid and hard. Lips pressed against his temple. “I heard what you were saying,” Grey confessed. “I heard most of it, but it struck me dumb, Nicholas. I wasn’t able to move.”
He pulled back a little, thumbing Nicholas’ cheek. His eyes shone with something Nicholas couldn’t put a name to, but which warmed him clear through. “You need to know something, lover,” he said, his breath making plumes in the cold night air. “It was never a choice between you and Jimmy. Never a choice. You’re the one in my life now, and while I’ll always miss him, you’re the one who’s here to stay. And don’t you ever leave me too, do you understand?”
He leaned forward to kiss Nicholas, his lips warm and comforting and arousing. As his tongue played with Nicholas’ own, Nicholas couldn’t help but moan softly and grind against him, raising his leg just a little for a better angle. God, but he loved this man. Loved him so much. And if it wasn’t a choice…
Where did that leave them?
“Here,” Jimmy said, breaking between Nicholas and Grey. “This is for you,” he insisted, pressing one red rose on Grey, “and crimson stands for passion, don’t you forget it. This is in memory of what we’ve shared in the past.”
He pushed another flower at Nicholas. “This is for the passion that lies ahead, in your future, with the man I loved. You two had better take care of each other, do you hear me? If you don’t, Sint Holo or not, I’m coming back to knock some sense into both of your heads.”
Jimmy clutched the last flower, the one with the carved bone snake head embedded in it, to his chest. He grinned, the same bright Jimmy smile that Nicholas had once adored, and reached up to the edges of his mask. He peeled it off easily and stood there as they’d last seen him when he was healthy, sparkling with life and exuberant joy in existing. He cast the deerskin aside, letting it fall wherever it might, and laughed in what sounded like sheer bliss.
“Come here,” he ordered Grey, pulling up close to the man and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t forget me, but don’t take your eye off the ball either, eh? Nicholas needs some reassurance, or he’ll get lost again and pull another trick, and then where will we all be?”
“Nicholas,” Grey replied softly, reaching out to touch him. “You took a terrible chance. I thought these were all just stories, but…”
Nicholas arched into Grey’s caress. “I had to know,” he said simply.
“And do you now?”
“I think I do.”
“You’d better be sure,” Grey replied firmly, and then he was kissing Nicholas again, lips hot against Nicholas’ own, plundering his mouth with a lusty abandon that made Nicholas gasp into Grey’s mouth. Somehow managing to keep hold of his rose, he sank into his lover’s embrace, holding him tightly as he could.
They both heard a low ripple of laughter, as if Jimmy were amused, and both turned around to look at him, Nicholas wanting to know what he thought was so funny.
But where Jimmy had been, there was only an empty spot and a discarded mask.
The man had disappeared.
Chapter Six
Nicholas closed the cellar door to Café Noctem, waving the last of their visitors good night. “Belinda did some amazing work when it came to handling the crowd,” he said casually to the man standing behind him. “We really ought to think about making her an assistant manager.”
“She did a fine job.” A body nestled into Nicholas’, holding it close, chin burrowing into the crook of his neck. “You think she can handle the pressure full time?”
“Belinda’s a tough girl, and working hard on paying off her tuition loans as she goes. I say we give her the position. She can take the responsibility.”
“And give her the raise, too?” Grey’s chuckle thrummed against Nicholas’ back. “I notice that you, the one who doesn’t hold the wallet, is offering to up her wages by a couple of dollars per hour.” He paused. “And that’s something else we need to take care of, too.”
Nicholas craned his head to look back at Grey. “What, now?”
Grey held him tighter. “It’s another thing I’ve done wrong. Café Noctem was mine and Jimmy’s, and then just mine when he died. You’ve been working your ass off for me in the meantime without a say in what, where and why. It’s time to make you a partner, Nicholas, a full partner, and I should have drawn up the papers months ago.”
“You—me—a partner in the café?” Nicholas felt as if someone had pounded him hard on the back, knocking the breath out of his lungs. “You would do that?”
“I would.” Nicholas sighed as he felt Grey’s lips kissing him, tickling the edge of his jaw. “I will. First thing tomorrow, the both of us take a trip to see the lawyer.”
“This isn’t because of Jimmy…”
“Well, it is, in a way. You’re not replacing him, though. You’re just coming into your own. You’ve earned the position. Besides, I don’t want to be your boss anymore. We’re partners, right? So let’s be partners.” Grey gave Nicholas an affectionate shake. “Deal?”
Nicholas thought he could feel himself warming from the inside out. “Deal.” He paused, letting the ecstasy soak through his skin. Then, he added, “Speaking of deals, what do you say we let all these decorations stay up until tomorrow morning? The cellar isn’t that busy in the early hours, and the few people who do come down here won’t mind you messing around with the leftover trimmings.”
“Oh, mind me, huh?” Grey dove for Nicholas’ ribs and began tickling him. Nicholas giggled, then whooped with laughter as Grey hit particularly sensitive spots, and was soon begging for mercy.
He wiped tears out of his eyes and struggled for breath. “Yes, you,” he affirmed very definitely. “I’m night shift. It’s my job to sleep the day away.”
“Just the mornings,” Grey warned him in the curve of his ear. “When we’re both awake, I have plans for you.”
“Do you, now?”
“Oh, yeah. Definite plans. I think you can pencil in your calendar from now until, oh, the end of time. You’re booked up—with me.”
Nicholas sighed with contentment, then brought his hand up to caress Grey’s cheek. The bones beneath were hard, but the skin was silky smooth and soft. “Except for the lawyers’ meeting, I’d say I agree.”
“You’ll still be with me,” Grey countered. “Point, set, game, match.”
Nicholas laughed. Then, he sobered. “And you don’t have any regrets?” he asked quietly. “I know what you said in
the alley, but the chance to have Jimmy back in your life…in both our lives…”
“Hush.” Grey kissed Nicholas again, this time just below his ear. Nicholas felt Grey move, then the hard pressure of a cock against the crease of his ass. “Does this feel like I want Jimmy instead of you? I was too slow to let go of him, maybe, but I have. It’s you I want now. Just you.”
“Here?” Nicholas asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Now?”
“Not in the detritus of all this mess.” Another kiss. “You wait for me down here. Ten minutes. Then, come upstairs to the apartment. I’ll make sure the café proper is closed up tight on my way, so don’t you worry about that, hear?” Sharp teeth nipped at Nicholas’ earlobe. “What do you say? Will you meet me there?”
Nicholas hummed softly. “It’s a date.”
“Good.” A warm hand lightly spanked his ass, and then Grey was moving away. Nicholas turned to watch him go, admiring the way the cloth of the man’s pants emphasized one of his best features to the premium. “Ten minutes, remember!” Grey called back to Nicholas. “Not a minute less.”
“I promise,” Nicholas said with a grin in his voice, not taking his eyes off Grey’s ass and his long, strong legs. He got a pretty good view from the front, as well, when Grey began climbing the spiral staircase. His last glimpse was of Grey peeking down at him, giving him a wink, and then Grey was gone.
Nicholas sat on one of the chairs, where he could keep an eye on the clock, and sighed to himself. “What a night,” he murmured, tracing patterns in some spilled sugar with one forefinger. “Lord help us all, what a night.”
“It’s not over yet, you know,” a familiar voice said at his ear.
Nicholas nearly jumped a foot. “Jimmy!” he yelped, pressing his hand to his chest. “What the hell?”
Jimmy leaned back, eyes sparkling and mouth laughing. He crossed his arms over his ribs. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Nicholas’ mouth felt dry. He tried to form words, but gave up trying, as the task seemed to be hopeless. Instead he gestured helplessly—Why? How?
Jimmy shrugged. “Hell if I know. I think, though, this isn’t Sint Holo’s doing. I think something else brought me back.”
“For what?” Nicholas asked, his mouth finally working again.
Jimmy paused for a bit, his “thinking” face on, until his mouth quirked in a half-smile. “I believe it’s to say my goodbyes.”
“Say your—”
“Grey and I, we said it long ago, when I was in that hospital bed. And tonight in the alley.” Jimmy leaned forward and caught one of Nicholas’ hands in his own. Sugar gritted between them, tangible and real. Jimmy’s flesh was cool, but not uncomfortably so, and his grip tight. “I never did give you a proper farewell, though.”
Nicholas blushed. “I—I don’t know what you mean, Jimmy. We had our own goodbyes in the hospital.”
“Yeah, yeah, but those were just words. I need to give you a real bon voyage, and something else. My blessing.” Jimmy shook his head before Nicholas could protest. “I know, I know, you don’t need one. Well, you’re getting it anyway, so you listen to me, hear? I want you and Grey to have a happy life together. You’ll have to do it without me, which is my one big regret.”
He winked. “Think of how deadly we’d have been as a threesome. Can’t you just see all of us sprawled out on the bed, making the kind of daisy chain they only feature in blue magazines?”
Nicholas blushed, but had to laugh. “Jimmy, you were always…”
“Full of the devil,” Jimmy agreed. His face grew thoughtful. “I wonder if that’s not why the old devil Sint Holo took to me so well when you summoned him up. Like calls to like, after all.”
To that, Nicholas had nothing to say. Then, he did. “I owe you some words, too,” he admitted, taking off his glasses to clean them. “An apology. You were at peace and I disturbed you.”
“Ah, rubbish.” Jimmy waved that aside, careless as if Nicholas had been confessing to a broken mug. “I was a bit pissed at first, sure, but what’s life—or death—without a little excitement?”
“Jimmy…”
“If it’s forgiveness you want, you have it from me,” Jimmy said, bringing Nicholas’ hand to his lips for a brief kiss. “But I can’t apologize for the regrets.” His eyes twinkled at Nicholas. “The more I think about it, the more tempted I am to test the waters.”
Nicholas felt the beginnings of a strange eagerness grow within him. “Could you? Do you think?”
Jimmy sighed. “I don’t expect so. I’m already feeling a bit pulled-after, like something’s wanting me to go back to rest again. And I don’t think I’ll have a choice when they finally snap my chains tight. But give Grey my regards, eh? Maybe we’ll meet again in another life and the three of us can give things a try.”
“Are there other lives?” Nicholas asked, suddenly curious—and wistful. “Will we ever meet up again?”
Jimmy’s eyes sparkled. “Hell if I know. But won’t it be fun finding out?” He let go of Nicholas and stood, dusting sugar off his dark suit. He lifted one finger to his mouth and took a taste. “A taste of sweetness to go with all that is bitter, just like the best coffee. It’s how I always drank mine, anyway. Black, one sugar.” His grin was tip-tilted. “Your ten minutes are almost up, Nicholas. Grey’s going to be waiting for you.”
With those words, Jimmy began to fade, turning into a misty shape, curling away at the edges. “Wait,” Nicholas cried, reaching for his friend in vain. “Is that it? Is this the end?”
“Of having me in your lives?” the ghost answered. “Yeah, I believe it is. But not for you and Grey. Ten minutes are up, my friend. Now go and blow his mind before I get someone with a harp and halo to come and spank your ass.”
“There really are harps and haloes?”
“You’ll soon find out if you don’t hustle, won’t you?” Jimmy winked one last time. “Goodbye, my friend.”
Nicholas touched his heart. “Goodbye, my friend,” he said, and watched Jimmy dissolve into nothingness.
Saddened and somewhat wistful, he dusted off his own black shirt and headed for the staircase, flipping off light switches and unplugging the fairy lights as he went. He snagged a mini-croissant and popped it thoughtfully in his mouth.
His eyes closed in bliss. He had just happened to pick up one of the special kind with bittersweet chocolate in the center. It seemed somehow appropriate, everything else considered.
Time to go meet Grey, then.
Time to face the future with his partner.
Nicholas wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see when he entered the apartment bedroom—Grey laid out naked, as he himself had been before?—but what he found wasn’t at all what had been on his mind. Still fully clothed, Grey stood by the foot of the bed, turning something over and over in his hands. As colorful stitching came into view, Nicholas’ heart sank. It was Sint Holo’s mask, as dangerous a thing as ever.
“What would happen if I put this on?” Grey wondered aloud. “Would I turn into a ghost, myself?”
“Don’t even think such a thing!” Nicholas made a grab for the mask, but Grey was too quick, and turned to the side, continuing to examine the spirit creation. “Where did you find this?”
“It was lying on the bed when I came up.” Grey flashed Nicholas a half-embarrassed grin. “I’d had a few other plans in mind, as I guess you can imagine. But once I found this, I sort of lost track of the time. Look, come here.” He held out his free arm, and Nicholas snuggled into it, gazing at the mask. “Did you know, really know, what you were doing when you called on the Snake Man?”
“No…and yes,” Nicholas admitted. “I didn’t think things would turn out like they have, but I was aware that something big might go down.”
“And so it did. And now we have this to remind us.” Grey held out the mask, balancing it on his palm. “So, Nicholas. You’re the one who called it into being. What should we do with this dangerous thing?”
“We could try to burn it,” Nicholas ventured. “Except somehow, I don’t think it would catch fire.”
“Bury it?” Grey suggested. “Somewhere out in the woods, where no one will find it for years and years, if ever?”
Nicholas relaxed muscles he hadn’t even realized were tense and nodded. “Yes. It’s a good plan. Let’s do it tomorrow, after the lawyers.”
“You’re in that big a hurry to get rid of the mask?”
Nicholas nodded. “My great-grandmother was right about many things,” he said, huddling close to Grey’s side. “She said it didn’t matter who I loved, as long as I truly loved them, and she told me Sint Holo was evil. I believed her about everything else, and I shouldn’t have gone against her word now. Let’s bury it tomorrow, Grey, and be done with everything.”
“What do we do with it until then?”
Nicholas glanced around himself. “The trunk,” he decided, pointing to a woven pine box in the corner. It was empty, being a recent purchase, one he had picked up at a crafts fair. He’d thought he might put some medicine items in there, and he could think of no better place. “We’ll bury it in there, too, so we don’t have to look at its face again.”
Grey inclined his head in assent. He tilted his face down to Nicholas’ for a kiss. “Agreed. Do you want to put the thing in there, or should I?”
Nicholas gave Grey a look. Grey signified his agreement. “You called it, but it’s for me to put it back,” he decided. “Time to end this thing.”
Crossing the room, he stood briefly by the box, eyes closed, then reached out and untied the braided leather thong that held the lid shut. Carefully, with reverence, he lowered the mask into the interior, and then quickly, as if the box now held a real snake which might strike, slammed the top closed and backed away. As they watched, the box shook with an angry buzz and a rattle, but Grey refused to be intimidated. “No!” he ordered. “Your games are done, Sint Holo. No more of your tricks for us tonight. You’ll be gone from our lives tomorrow, and for tonight, you sleep. Are we understood?”