by Debra Dunbar
Instantly he was across the room in a heap, smoking slightly. I, on the other hand, was shaking with anger.
“You fucking rude son of a bitch. Don’t you ever assault me in that fashion again or I will kill you outright. I don’t care what our relationship is; you do not put yourself inside me. Even if I accept your breeding petition, you will never be allowed that privilege. No one is ever allowed that privilege.” Actually, only the angel had been allowed that privilege to date, and I intended to keep it that way.
Dar scrambled to his feet and had the grace to look somewhat ashamed. “I do apologize Mal. I don’t know what came over me to take such a liberty. I only wanted to examine the brand, not show you disrespect or violate you in any way.” He paused for a moment. “I still sometimes see you as a little sister, unable to take care of herself. You take great pains to mask your ability and level. I know you can take care of yourself, and this deal you’ve made with a sorcerer is none of my business. I’ll send over a member of my household to your Steward for the next five years to compensate you for this affront.”
That was very nice of him, and beyond what would have been expected. I was also glad that I’d managed to avoid the potential inquisition regarding my brand.
“I accept,” I told him. “I’ve got the box you came for in the house. I’ll get you a beer and a shirt to cover your injuries on the return trip, too.”
Dar’s face brightened at the thought of finally getting the artifact and I felt that twinge of guilt again. The feeling was most unpleasant. He drank a cold beer and updated me on the latest gossip while I tried to bandage him up with gauze and tape. He was going to return via the Columbia Mall gate and I doubted he’d be able to make it past mall security let alone the gate guardian ripped to shreds and bleeding all over the place. He’d managed to stop the oozing and begin basic repairs by the time I finished. I’d found duct tape worked better than the medical tape. I warned Dar that it would hurt like a bitch pulling it off, so he might want to just do a full body conversion when he returned. Or he might possibly enjoy that sort of thing.
“Then he said ‘I wonder what this button does?’ and pushed it launching a green fireball across the street into his residence. Blew a hole right in the side of the building and killed a third of his household!” Dar roared with laughter.
I chuckled, but wondered why it wasn’t really funny? I didn’t feel sorry for the dead household. It’s not like I knew any of them, or cared about their lives cut short. Heck, I would have pushed the button, too. That’s what buttons are for. This should have been hilarious. Maybe I was still feeling guilty about Dar’s box. How much trouble would he be in with Haagenti?
Dar then went on to tell me a story about a couple of young who’d gotten caught sneaking around one of the Elven woods by the High Lord’s scouts. They’d been dipped in honey and hung from the trees along the border of our lands. By the time they were found, they were covered in ants and other insects. One was actually being licked by a raccoon. Everyone thought it was so funny that they left them hang there for a few weeks. People took to coming out and picnicking by the spot to enjoy the view as they ate their meals. I laughed so hard at that story that tears came to my eyes. Feeling much better, more like my old self, I went to get Dar his box.
“Here.” I tossed the box at him and wincing at the familiar rocks-in-tissue-paper sound it made as it flew into his hands.
“This is it?” He looked at it, doubt written all over his face.
“Yep.” I watched him rip off the paper. “I hope Haagenti doesn’t mind. I ate a couple of them. They actually tasted pretty fresh. Not what I’d expected from an artifact, but you know how much chemical preservatives humans put in stuff.”
Dar tore off the lid that announced “Greetings from Atlantic City” with an air of doom and stared down inside the box at the colored pieces of salt water taffy.
“Try one,” I urged. “They’re pretty good, although I don’t know why they had to get them from Atlantic City. They make the same shit in Baltimore or even Ocean City. No need to leave the state to get decent taffy.”
He looked up at me, a mixture of fury and desperation in his eyes. “You bitch! I risk myself to come here and you don’t even have the artifact. Fucking bitch.”
He threw the box of taffy at me. It hit me square in the face, raining the pastel pieces around me onto the floor. I laughed.
“Dar, you always underestimate me. You order me around, badger me to death about this stupid thing. You’re the one who made the deal with Haagenti, not me. You don’t even tell me what the artifact is, what it looks like. Do you seriously think I’m going to run all over the country like a fucking courier while these vampires laugh at me behind my back?”
“It’s a sword,” he fumed at me. “The artifact is a sword.”
“Of course it is.” I sighed. “It’s never a magical macramé plant hanger, or a rice bowl of the gods. Why is it always a sword? I’m done Dar. I’m not getting your fucking sword, or Haagenti’s fucking sword. The vampires clearly don’t want to give it to me. Time for you to think about plan B and leave me alone.”
Dar glared at me, and the trickle of guilt was back as I saw panic flash in his eyes. “You bitch, Mal. You of all people. I thought I could rely on you, and you fuck me over. Don’t call me if this sorcerer ends up putting you in a bottle. I’m not helping you one bit.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left, dramatically spinning tires in the driveway with his rental Honda Accord. The trickle turned into an ache. I frowned and rubbed my chest, hoping that would make it go away. It didn’t. I was such a bitch. Dar needed me and once things got inconvenient, I kicked him to the curb. I looked down at the taffy pieces scattered on the floor. It didn’t seem so funny now. I felt ashamed. What would Haagenti do to him? Dar seemed tough, but he wasn’t really. Not tough enough to hold up to Haagenti’s torture.
No. I refused to feel guilty about this. It was his fault, not mine. I’m not responsible for his bad choices and the repercussions of those choices. I’m here to enjoy myself and have fun, not pull his ass out of the fire. Fuck him, fuck Haagenti, fuck the vampires. And fuck that stupid sword, too.
Wyatt was just as pissed. I found him in his house surrounded by take-out boxes with buffalo sauce smudged around his mouth. He glared silently at me. I stifled a laugh because the glare looked really funny with the hot sauce-covered lips. Laughing at Wyatt right now would be a really bad thing.
“I’m so sorry honey.” I mopped at him with a napkin. “You don’t understand how things get with my kind, and Dar had taken a liking to you. It was easier to deal with him and send him on his way without you there to distract him.”
“I ate three dozen hot wings,” Wyatt thundered. “It’s bad enough that you dismiss me like I’m some flunky, like some toy, but I drove to three different places to get different styles of hot wings, then came back here to eat them. I still want more. There is no way I can possibly fit more in my stomach, but I can’t shake this need to eat more of them.”
I must have put too much into it. Maybe when someone cared about you and was open to pleasing you, there didn’t have to be such force behind the suggestion. I wondered if I could have driven him to eat himself to death. I think it was possible to do that. I think I saw it in a CSI episode once.
“I’m sorry, Wyatt. I was trying to get you out of there as quickly as possible so you’d be safe. You don’t know what Dar is capable of.”
That made him pause. “Are you okay, Sam?” He looked me over for damage. “Is he so much more powerful that you need to let him rape you to keep him from killing you or me?”
I snorted, unable to hold back a laugh at that one. “No, we’re fairly even on the power scale. It’s not rape, Wyatt. It’s like when you kiss or hug close friends and family to greet them after you haven’t seen them in a while.”
Wyatt looked disgusted. “I don’t greet my sister by yanking on her hair and having sex with her. That’s. .
. It’s just gross. I know he’s probably not your genetic brother, but you guys still grew up together.”
“Our relationships are very different. I don’t expect you to understand, or approve, but you need to know when to get out of the way for your own safety. We get caught up in things, and you are very fragile.”
Wyatt clearly didn’t like the idea that I regarded him as “fragile,” but too fucking bad. He needed to take this seriously. Humans might be hesitant to kill, Ted Bundy aside, but my kind wouldn’t bat an eyelid. They’d rip him to shreds with great glee.
“I’m sorry I did this to you, treated you this way,” I murmured, gathering him close. “Let me show you how sorry I am.”
Wyatt stiffened, and not in a good way. I pulled back to look at him and saw a mix of revulsion and anger on his face.
“No, Sam. I’m still mad at you. You do this all the time to me, shunt me off to the side with some excuse of how fragile I am. I’m sick of it.” He pushed me away.
“You are fragile,” I protested. “One blast, one rake of a claw and you’d be dead. I can’t stand the thought of losing you. You have no idea how horrible it is to worry about someone’s safety all the time. It’s not very demonic of me. It’s very unsettling. I have this terrible need to make sure you’re not killed.”
Wyatt stared at me for a moment. I could see the anger draining from him, but the sadness that took its place didn’t make me feel any better.
“Sam, I do know what it’s like to worry about someone all the time. I worry about you. I did all through the incident with the werewolves this summer and I still do. It’s what happens when you care about someone. It doesn’t mean I try to wrap you up in cotton and protect you from life. I trust that you’re competent enough to take care of yourself. I wish you felt the same about me.”
I didn’t know how to reply to that. I had a bad feeling things weren’t good between us right now and it scared the piss out of me.
“Go home, Sam.” Wyatt ran a sauce-smeared hand through his hair. “It’s okay. Really. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow sometime.”
I went home, feeling shitty. I just wanted to crawl in to bed, but there was a horse to train.
At least the training with Diablo went well. My other two horses were grazing in the pasture where Wyatt had turned them out prior to walking in on Dar and me. Diablo still stood in his stall. He eyed me nervously as I came in. I ignored him for a while, cleaning and putting away the tack from our morning ride, then cleaning out the other stalls, placing fresh hay and water in each. By the time I finished, Diablo was staring at me intently, following my every move with his gaze. I walked over to him and placed a hand on his nose, letting my energy trickle through him in a caress.
“I’m proud you stuck up for yourself with Dar,” I told him. “Dar likes to mess with mine. It makes him feel like he has a closer tie to me than those in my own household. See how Boomer took off? He knows better than to stay around and let Dar torment him. You could hardly have avoided him, trapped in this stall. In cases like this it’s acceptable to use as much force as you need to defend yourself. I’ll jump in to bail you out if you truly need it.”
Diablo flicked his ears and pushed his nose against my hand.
“You need to learn though. There are bigger demons then Dar, and they won’t hesitate to rip you apart one tiny piece at a time. You can go back to the way you were before, a nasty horse destined for slaughter at human hands, or you can put yourself in my household and be so much more.”
The horse swished his tail. I could see he was nervous, that he didn’t trust easy. I didn’t blame him, it was hard to trust a demon, even with a household bond.
“I will reward your loyalty. If you don’t show me loyalty then I won’t be there for you when you need me most. You don’t mean that much to me right now. Show me loyalty, show me how amazing you really are, and I may begin to care. Over time, I may care a lot.”
The horse’s eyes registered comprehension. He nudged my hand again with his nose.
“Good. Let’s get to work then. I need you to know what I expect from you.”
By early evening I was beginning to think Diablo was a valuable acquisition. I’d lunged him and he’d proven to be sound in all his paces as expected. Then I saddled up, hoping Wyatt didn’t see me riding this monster out alone, and headed through the fields. Diablo was easy to stay balanced on with the chunks of raw energy driven into him. He shifted their anchor points as we moved, ensuring that I remained in optimal position during the ride.
We flew over coops and downed trees, launched over four foot fences, and rocketed through the countryside. Diablo’s hooves tore up huge chunks of the wet ground, but he never slipped once. He was sure-footed as we raced through the leaf-strewn woods, and pivoted around trees. I suddenly knew how the Elves must feel, so connected and at one with their horses. I’d spent so much time falling off, that I never realized how wonderful the experience of riding could be. True, I Owned a horse and it was very enjoyable to race around on four hooves, but being carried was amazing. It was a kind of sharing that I hadn’t experienced before.
Done with the equine part of Diablo’s evaluation, I began putting raw energy into him to store. He gladly accepted it, but didn’t seem to know what to do with the stuff. Reaching in, I showed him how to increase his muscle mass, change his physical self for optimal speed. I could feel his joy at his increased ability.
Heading out of the woods, I urged Diablo to use the energy I’d put in him. “Let’s blow something up.” I gently guided the energy he held into a blast that exploded a nearby boulder. He leapt to the side in momentary panic as chunks of pulverized rock filled the air. In seconds I was on the ground and my horse was gone. Vanished. I must have momentarily blacked out, because I didn’t remember him running anywhere. It was like he just disappeared.
I looked up at the sky for a moment, wondering how many miles I’d need to walk to get home, when a nose appeared before my face. I really must have hit harder than I thought. I hadn’t even heard him coming back. I was grateful that I wouldn’t have to hoof it back on my own though.
It took me a few moments to find another rock to stand on so I could climb back in the saddle, which gave Diablo a chance to calm down. He took some convincing before he was willing to accept that the rocks were not going to suddenly explode, and that the destructive energy was something he could control. I helped him blow up a few small rocks, then urged him to do it on his own, thinking that the log ahead of us would be a good target.
The horse shot out a bolt of energy, but instead of incinerating the log, he arched it around a tree and exploded a hiding buck. Deer bits flew everywhere. I laughed and patted Diablo with approval. At least this part of my day had gone well. I could leave Diablo with a small store of raw energy, in case he needed to defend himself. Hopefully he wouldn’t blow up the barn with it.
It was dusk by the time we returned to the barn. I gave Diablo a good rub down and some extra grain in his bucket, then brought in the other two horses for the evening. My improved mood was fading with the day’s light. This was the first time I’d done the barn chores in months. Wyatt had always done them for me, but he was nowhere to be seen. I wondered how long he would avoid me. I hated when we fought. Hated him being mad at me. I felt guilty about Wyatt, guilty about Dar, and all the amazing demon horses in the world couldn’t erase that guilt.
Chapter 12
The plumber grunted like an irritated pig. I didn’t blame him since the bathroom was rather small and he was balled up on his side, wedged in the tiny space between the toilet and the sink. I watched from the hall along with three other sets of interested eyes. There was more grunting, and the guy wiggled on the floor like a fat caterpillar, his buttocks and crack bursting from his pants in a stereotypical fashion. Mrs. Perez winced. I wasn’t sure if she was wincing because of the unavoidable eyeful of ass she and two of her four children were receiving, or if she was contemplating the doubtful cleanliness o
f her floor. With four boys living in the house, I was sure the plumber was squirming around on at least a few days buildup of urine from careless aiming.
“I’m so sorry to bother you with this Ms. Martin,” she apologized again. “I kept plunging and even snaked it out, but it just isn’t flushing properly. This is our only toilet and with the kids, well, you know.” Her voice trailed off, embarrassed.
Yes, I’m sure the kids shit blocks of cement. Kids do. There was a bent hanger strategically placed beside the plunger next to the toilet to assist in reducing excrement to a manageable size and forcing it down the sewage system. As much a fan as I was of modern plumbing, things were easier when everyone just crapped in a hole in the ground. At least you were sure the shit was going down. Now you had to eyeball it and do quick mathematical calculations to determine whether it was going to narrowly squeeze through the toilet opening, foolishly designed for rabbit turds, or spill out all over your floor in a flood of sewage while you frantically tried to turn the fucking water off.
“Batman clogged the toilet,” the youngest child told me confidently. He’d made this claim several times. He looked to be about five or six. I wondered if Batman was a nickname for one of the older boys or his imaginary friend.
“Shut up Angelo,” said the older boy. “I think it was Miguel,” he told me, referring to one of his older, teenaged brothers. “He never eats his vegetables, and Mama told him this would happen.”
Mrs. Perez looked mortified and hastily sent the boy into the kitchen on an errand. She and the four boys had lived in this two bedroom apartment for five years now. When she’d first moved in there had been a husband. The adults had slept on a fold out bed in the living room and the kids doubled up in the tiny bedrooms. The husband had been gone for a few years now. I wasn’t sure if he was in jail, deported, or just run off to escape the responsibility of four growing children. The matriarch of the family didn’t seem to even notice his absence. I knew she worked three jobs, and although she was occasionally late on her rent, she always caught up quickly and paid the fees. I rather liked her and her gutsy children. Especially this little one who looked at me with such bold, dark eyes.