by A. H. Lee
In the room beyond, a young man with an atrocious haircut and wispy beard stood gaping up at him, hands spread. The fox had plastered herself against the wall, bristling. Tod was almost certain that Jessica was the fox, but he bellowed her name anyway.
The fox’s ears perked up. It was not quite the response Tod had been hoping for, but it was enough to satisfy him. Tod whipped down the steps, snatched up the fox like a puppy, and flashed out of the basement just as the young sorcerer recovered himself enough to cast some sort of binding spell.
Tod’s legs locked.
But only for an instant.
That might have worked on a demon, he thought smugly. But I am not a demon. Turns out, werewolves are better at a few things after all.
Chapter 28
Lucy
Lucy had truly believed she and Mal would find a flaw in the trap. This dreamscape was too elaborate, too large, too solid. It was overambitious. Lucy was well-acquainted with the tendency of magicians to overreach themselves. This seemed like an overreach. Yet she and Mal found nothing except for endless hedge, foggy beach, and the malevolent fountain.
Mal’s babble of conversation ceased. He made disjointed remarks about Jessica and Azrael, but even those grew further apart. He had developed an alarming degree of transparency. He started to shiver, though he didn’t seem conscious of it.
At last, Lucy said, “I could try to light a fire on the beach. Everything is wet, but I could try.”
Mal didn’t argue.
The fire took some finesse with a combination of human and dragon ingenuity, but Lucy finally managed to coax a pile of branches into a blaze. It gave off a gratifying amount of warmth. Mal stretched out beside the fire with his head on his paws. Lucy chose to sit in her human form, warming her chilly fingers.
After a bit of thought, she transformed her ball gown into a cream-colored sweater and a full, dark blue skirt. She considered trousers, but discarded that idea. No need to become vulgar just because I’m in a demon-eating dream trap. She wondered whether it was possible to sleep in this place. She was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t.
They were quiet for a long time. At last, Mal said, “Why didn’t you let Jacob banish me?”
Lucy frowned into the flames. The truth makes me look weak. A lie makes me look weaker. “Azrael was so happy…that morning when he came out to send me into the city ahead of the rest of you. He was…glowing. I just couldn’t.”
Lucy had expected an oration on Mal’s abilities to produce glowing happiness, but Mal only raised his head to peer at her with fever-bright eyes. “Really?”
“You know it perfectly well,” snapped Lucy. “I don’t need to tell you what you do best.”
Mal licked his lips. “Well…good. I was happy. I’m glad he was.” Mal dropped his head on his paws again. “Jessica didn’t deserve this. Maybe Azrael and I had it coming, but she didn’t. She was kind to everyone, but she…understood me. Ren was mine, but he never understood me. And that was alright, because she did. She wanted some things I couldn’t give her. I wish she’d gotten to have those things.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “You really do not handle solitude well.”
“No,” agreed Mal, “I really don’t. I also don’t handle dying well; I realize I’m not doing it very gracefully.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Mal, I do not believe this thing will beat Azrael. I know it’s difficult to wait and not be able to do anything, but please have a little faith and a little patience.”
Mal didn’t seem to be listening to her. “I was happy, Lucy. I waited all my life for it, and then I had it for a few weeks. And it was worth everything…worth coming back from the astral plane, worth never going home. I didn’t know it would be so short, though. I suppose everyone feels that way in the end no matter how long they get to be happy.”
“Mal.”
He finally growled at her. “Can’t you let me mourn them for just a moment? I know you’ve never liked me, but can’t you listen for just a moment, since you’re the only one to hear?”
“Mal.” Lucy stopped trying to keep the softness out of her voice. “Come here, dove.”
He blinked at her across the fire.
Lucy patted her lap. “Come on.” When he still hesitated, she added. “I’m an old lady; lap cats are traditional.”
He came, then, slinking around the fire, and hesitatingly rested his enormous head in her lap. Lucy stroked his nose and ears. To her surprise, Mal heaved a sigh that broke into a desperate, ragged purr. “You never call me dove,” he muttered. “You call everyone else dove.”
“Do I?”
Mal started licking her fingers. His tongue was strangely soft for a cat—wet, muscular velvet. “Enough of that,” said Lucy, and Mal subsided at once.
After a while, he said, “Lucy, does your bottle have an inside?”
We’ve known each other for over a decade, and you’ve never once asked me that. “No. It’s void, but it’s easy for me to sleep there. It doesn’t frighten me like it used to.”
Mal shuddered.
“I’m a dragon,” continued Lucy. “Avarice is not a social creature. Not like Lust.”
“I would rather endure anything than be alone,” whispered Mal.
“I know,” said Lucy. You’re so desperate for closeness right now that you’re willing to admit weakness even to me.
“Lucy, do you love Jacob?”
Lucy was caught off-guard again. She hesitated. “I don’t know, Mal. I met him a long time ago. We’ve been on opposite sides in the past, but that’s just because my masters were at odds with him. He’s…complicated.”
Mal smiled, and Lucy felt strangely relieved. Mal in a state of grief was such an alien creature that Lucy wasn’t sure how to respond to him. “Terrible taste in men?”
“Unequivocally.”
“You’re not keeping him around just because he could banish me?”
“No, Mal. That is just an added bonus.”
He snickered. “Why do you hate me, Lucy? When we’re telling jokes, it almost seems like we’re friends.”
“I don’t hate you, Mal. You may infer this by my reluctance to see you killed.”
“Yes, but you don’t like me.”
“I worry about Azrael. He’s a well-intentioned young man with a lot of power. You are uniquely positioned to destroy him.”
She’d expected a flurry of protests: I love him. I would never hurt him. Haven’t you noticed all the sex we’ve been having, and I haven’t eaten him yet? He’s happy. You said so yourself.
But Mal didn’t say any of that. Instead, he whispered, “Do you still think he would have been better off if he hadn’t summoned me?”
Lucy shifted on the sand. “You are feeling morose.”
“I’m dying.”
“Stop saying that.”
“But do you think he would have?”
Lucy screwed up her face. “If he’d summoned something else—something he wouldn’t have fallen in love with, something he could easily dismiss when he no longer needed it? I don’t know, Mal. I’d like to think he would have found human companionship, that he wouldn’t have spent years pining for something that was all but unattainable, that he wouldn’t have been so terrified of intimacy, so lonely. I’d like to think he would have had more friends—ordinary friends—because he wouldn’t have created such immense emotional barriers to protect himself from you.
“But truthfully? I don’t know. Azrael was a poorly adjusted teenager with a vengeful streak, no mentors, and more power than he knew what to do with before he summoned you. Maybe he would have become something worse if he hadn’t known what it was to love another creature…even a dangerous, inhuman creature.”
Mal had been honest, and Lucy was doing her best to be honest in return. Perhaps that was why she added, “I suppose I don’t trust love. Love doesn’t always save you. It doesn’t always lead you in the right direction. It isn’t always enough.”
Mal’s eyes flicked up
from her lap. He didn’t say anything, just watched her face. Lucy took a deep breath. Then she told him the story that she never told anyone. Because they were sitting beside a fire on a beach in a dream world from which she might never escape, and suddenly she wanted someone else to know.
Chapter 29
Tod
Tod’s euphoria vanished when he realized that he didn’t know where he was going. He ran until they flashed through the sagging gates of the gutted circus. At that point, the fog became thicker. Tod felt grass beneath his paws, but it quickly thinned into something like clay. He didn’t see any shapes in the fog—nothing at all beyond the circus walls.
What happens if I go past the edges of the dream?
In his mouth, the fox whined. Tod stopped running. He went back to the wall of the circus—a high wooden structure—and followed it in the fog for a while. He listened for footfalls or voices, any sound of pursuit, but all was quiet. At last, he set Jessica down. She hadn’t struggled or made any noises apart from that whine. Her silence was beginning to bother him.
“Jessica?” said Tod the moment she was out of his mouth. “Jessica, it’s Tod. I’m sorry I had to carry you that way. I’m sorry I haven’t let you see me like this before. I’m sorry if I scared you. Are you alright? Where are you in the real world?”
The fox looked up at him. In most respects, she looked like any other red fox with a white mouth, chest, and tail tip. She had black ears and black socks, thick fur, a flame-red coat. However, the fox’s eyes were a startling blue. Jessica’s blue.
Tod wanted to hug her. “Jessica, what happened to you?”
She just looked at him.
Fear crept in to smother Tod’s relief. “Jessica?”
Her ears perked. She made another whine—one with far more vowels than any dog’s. It was a noise peculiar to foxes. But no words.
Tod swallowed. “Jessica, has something really bad happened?”
She cocked her head, listening to him with keen attention, as though the sounds he was making were fascinating nonsense.
Tod kept talking to her. She kept listening. He couldn’t tell whether any of it got through. At last, he leaned down and just licked her face—doggy comfort that might at least be understood. The fox leaned into him at once, her tongue flicking over his muzzle. She scooted forward and curled up against his front legs.
Tod wanted to weep. “Oh, Jessica, what’s happened to you?”
He kept telling himself that this was just a dream. Perhaps Jessica always turned into a fox in her dreams. Perhaps she turned into a wild fox who couldn’t understand words. Perhaps.
But Tod didn’t believe it. Something is horribly wrong. He felt alone, inadequate to the situation, helpless.
Tod sat there for what seemed like an eternity with the fox snuggled against his legs. At one point, his vision blurred and he felt, for just a moment, the sensation of a comforter under his paws, the smell of paper beside his nose. No! Don’t wake up! He stood very still and focused on his breathing. The sensation subsided.
Tod didn’t think he’d be able to remain asleep come morning, though. “Jessica, if I disappear, you need to stay here. Stay where I can find you. Don’t go wandering around the circus where that sorcerer might see you. Do you understand? Stay right here.”
She looked up at him. He could not tell whether she understood.
Damn it. “How do I take you with me? Where are you, Jessica?”
At that moment, Tod heard a sound—the first new voice he’d heard in what felt like days. Someone was calling at a great distance. Tod didn’t think he would have heard the voice at all without his canine senses. The voice was coming, not from the circus, but from the rolling fog. Tod pricked up his ears and concentrated.
He got to his feet. “Jessica, I think you should stay here.” If something bad happens, I can wake up. But I’m not sure you can.
He turned to her and gently pushed her against the wooden fence with his muzzle. He held her there for a moment. “Stay here,” Tod repeated. “I will come back. I promise.”
Tod tore himself away before he could lose his nerve and loped into the fog towards the voice. He looked back once and was relieved to see the fox still sitting beside the fence, watching him.
Tod focused his entire attention on tracking that thin sound through the gray emptiness. The ground beneath him changed from clay to something smoother and slicker. Soon, he was running on what felt like air. Another sound joined the voice—a sighing noise. Tod’s nose registered salt. Then he hit the water.
Chapter 30
Azrael
Azrael came to himself, walking along a foggy beach. He had a vague sense that he’d been here before. Something was wrong. He needed to remember something.
He slid his hands into the pockets of his coat. A mink cape. Lucy!
Azrael stopped walking, running his hands over the cape, turning around, trying to see the whole thing without taking it off. This is Lucy’s. This is part of Lucy. How did I end up with it?
“You need an anchor.”
Azrael clapped his hand over his mouth.
“It’s going to get me, too. Because my bottle is open, and the moment I disappear, you’ll forget I exist.”
He crouched over, breathing hard.
“Now listen to me: you are being played, master-of-mine. Someone is using memory magic on you. But nobody yet won a game of memory magic with Azrael of the Shroud. You are going to beat this thing. I have complete faith in you, dear boy.”
“Lucy!” bellowed Azrael. “Lucy, I’m here!” He started running along the beach, calling as he went. Gods damn it, how big is this island? Azrael stopped moving. It’s not an island. It’s a dream space. The coast looks a little like the Shrouded Isle. The hedge maze, too. That means the details have been filled in by me. Or someone else who lives with me. Lucy, maybe. Or… Or…
Azrael clenched his fists. He remembered the book, the gate he was building in his garden. It’s all a trap.
His thoughts were interrupted as something answered his call—not a voice, but a kind of bark. Azrael heard splashing in the rolling fog. He had no idea what to expect, but he took a chance and called out anyway, “Over here! Lucy?”
An animal paddled into view. It was not a dragon. As it reached shallower water, Azrael saw that it was an enormous red-gold wolf. The creature bounded out of the surf and ran towards him. “Lord Azrael!”
Azrael was profoundly confused. “Tod?”
Tod stopped in front of him, dripping and panting. “Lord Azrael,” he gasped. “Are you…are you in your right mind?”
“I’m not sure,” said Azrael cautiously. “I’m clearly being practiced upon with memory magic. You’re not a demon. How did you end up here?”
“I came looking for Jessica,” said Tod. “She’s been missing for days, and you don’t seem to remember her or Mal.”
Azrael’s chest constricted. It was difficult to breathe. “What did you say?”
Tod’s golden eyes scanned his face. “Jessica. Mal.” His voice sounded pleading. “They’re your demons, your…lovers.”
Azrael licked his lips. “That’s impossible.” He felt sick. It was as though his body was responding with emotions in spite of the fact that he had no connected memories.
Tod’s tail drooped. “You don’t remember them.”
“I…” Azrael passed a hand over his face. Focus on what you know. “I remember Lucy. I have an anchor to her—this coat. She doesn’t have an anchor to me, though, so it’s not perfect. I remember her, but I’m still missing pieces of myself.” He hugged the coat around him, drumming his fingers against his shoulder, thinking furiously. “Tell me about this demon you came looking for.”
Tod licked his lips. “She’s in another…dream, I think. It’s a burned out circus. There’s a sorcerer who is trying to hurt her. She’s in the shape of a fox. She never had an animal shape before. She doesn’t remember who she is.”
Azrael scowled with concentratio
n. “She’s an earth-born demon?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s… Wait, did you say she’s my lover?”
The wolf looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”
Azrael’s confidence in his grasp of the situation felt suddenly tenuous. “I am quite certain I am not in bed with a woman.”
“I am quite certain you are,” snapped Tod. He raised his head and they glared at each other.
What a conversation to have with my ward. Azrael cleared his throat. “Have you purged your inhibitor charm?”
Tod’s flash of defiance vanished, and he turned his head to the side in a placating gesture. “I didn’t know how else to find her. You are acting like a madman.” An instant later, he thought to add, “In the real world, I mean. My lord.”
Azrael screwed up his face. “Alright. First things first. Did you recognize this other sorcerer?”
Tod shook his head. “A young man, looks like he might be from the desert states, nobody I’ve ever seen before.”
Azrael waved a hand. “He’s dream-walking. He could have altered his appearance. I need to meet this Jessica person. If I see her and take some of her magic, it will probably trigger my memories of her—perhaps all of my memories if we really were…uh, as you say, intimate. It won’t work if she’s lost her mind, though. A creature of pure magic, running around in the dreamlands… She can’t do that for long or she won’t have any ‘self’ to return to.”
Tod flinched. “Anything,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll do anything. Just tell me what.”
Azrael looked at him narrowly. “Who is Jessica to you?”
Tod stared at him as though he were asking a supremely complicated question. “She’s my friend,” said Tod at last. “She’s also a succubus. She has to…feed.”
Azrael opened his mouth. Shut it again. You and I are in a stranger relationship than I realized. His curiosity nearly overcame him. “And you say that I’m…?”