by Jessa Slade
His smile flickered out. “Well, let’s at least go inside the cabin where you won’t freeze.”
She snuggled up against him as they walked. He’d remembered that she’d said she felt the cold, felt everything, when she was with him. The thought warmed her from the inside, even more than the heat of his body beside her.
Yet he felt stiff against her shoulder. Probably he was more worried than he wanted her to know. To reassure him, she gazed up at him, focusing all her belief in her eyes, and squeezed his hand.
His answering smile looked a little seasick.
Inside, subtle pools of lights flowed around high tables, gleaming on the mellow woods. A handful of women circled with trays of glasses as tall, thin, and white-gold as the servers themselves.
Sidney snagged a glass and held it out to Alyce. “Champagne?”
When she lifted the fizzing contents, she sneezed, and her demon uncoiled a notch. “To drink?”
“Remember when I explained to you about cocktail parties?”
“The men drink too much and the women wear pretty dresses.” She smoothed her hand down her thigh. “But not much fun, you said.”
“And that was before a demon-revved metabolism made it impossible to drink too much. Still, a glass or two will help us blend in.”
“And if I break off the cup, the stem is long and sharp enough to be a weapon.”
“That too.” He stepped away. “It looks like there’s more room belowdecks; that’s where I’d keep the big games. And private rooms. Let’s look around up top until we sail.”
The upper level was smaller, with intimate low seating and even lower, more intimate music piping through the walls. Several couples already occupied the forward seats, so Sidney guided her to the back with a hand at the base of her spine.
Through the thin fabric of her dress, his hand warmed her. The silky stuff moved under his fingers so his palm shifted in slow circles over her spine. She wanted to dump the glass and return the caress, but that wasn’t their mission.
So instead, she took a sip and sneezed again. The demon spiraled higher as the dark heat of Sidney’s hand and the sparkling coolness of the champagne met deep in her belly in some sinful alchemy.
She liked it. It made her legs steadier while the boat, pulling away from the dock, rocked under her.
As they glided out to the lake, she drained the rest of the glass and set it aside, though close enough to grab if she did need a weapon. But now that her hands were free …
She threaded her fingers through his and tugged him to the back of the room. The lights of the diminishing city glittered through the tinted windows, casting highlights in place of shadow. Still, she could not read his eyes.
But the champagne made that seem unnecessary. Her demon flickered unsteadily, and her senses shimmered like the city lights. She drew their clasped hands down the outsides of her thighs, framing their embrace.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “It will help us blend in.”
He frowned. “I should have guessed your teshuva might not process alcohol as thoroughly as a stronger demon.”
“I am okay.” She was coming to like that word, almost as much as she liked champagne.
The boat tilted a little—or maybe that was just her—so she took the opportunity to pull herself closer to him. The silky scarf around her neck chafed at her sensitized skin, a reminder how there’d been almost nothing between them in the pool—and nothing at all between them in bed.
She tilted a bit more, angling against his chest, and gazed up at his mouth, so far away. If he was as tall as the other talyan, she wouldn’t be even this close. Still, the unyielding stiffness of his spine held him apart, though the thud of his heart rocked the whole world.
Again, maybe that was just her.
“Kiss me,” she urged, “so I don’t forget.”
“Alyce …” Her name surfaced from someplace in him deeper and darker than the lake around them. He pulled her closer—not that there was much closer to be had. His fingers, still tangled through hers, pinned her hands at the small of her back.
When his lips swept hers in a hot wave, she moaned and arched into him. The stiffness that had gone out of his spine reappeared elsewhere, and she reveled in the sweet heat that swelled through her in answer.
She would happily forget the world if she could stay in his arms forever. …
Abruptly, Sidney brought their hands together in front of them again, between their bellies, forcing them apart but putting them both within reach of some even more likable places. “Alyce, wait. I know the symballein bond has resulted in some metaphysiological connectivity that may inspire feelings in you of—”
“Feelings like making love?”
He swallowed, and he looked as if he might sneeze even though he hadn’t had any champagne. “For example.”
She nodded. “It is a nice feeling, isn’t it? As though all is good with the world.”
Despite the soft sway of the boat, unlike her own soft swaying, he went utterly still. “After everything … with everything, how can you say that?”
“Because I’m with you.”
If she’d driven the words through his heart on the stiletto of a broken champagne glass, Sid would not have been more shocked.
Oh, he’d guessed—maybe even said to himself in the privacy of his own head—she was feeling something for him. But most people were too careful to expose themselves with such vulnerability, to say what they felt without a defense, without a fail-safe. The weakness of her demon and the loss of its talisman somewhere in the centuries had left her without those. Now the truth was clear; this was not a bonding he could observe safely from a distance—or even up close with asbestos gloves and a polycarbonate face shield. At the bright gleam in her eyes, his thoughts went instead to vastly more personal protection.
Was his heart trying to get away … or get to her?
Despite all his studies, he didn’t have an answer, so he did what any good researcher would do.
He took a step back. Their linked hands stretched between them awkwardly.
“It’s hard to say what we’re feeling,” he started.
Her steady gaze pinned him like a petrified insect to corkboard. Even though he was a scientist, those had always seemed sinister. “It’s not. Don’t use so many words.”
“This isn’t the time or place—”
“Does that matter?”
He didn’t think he could brush her off with a relativistic joke about time/space and matter, about how if it mattered, matter would change the geometry of space/time and inevitably—gravitationally—draw them together. … Yeah, that was not the direction the conversation needed to go.
“A crisis relationship seems more intense because the situation escalates so quickly—”
“I’ve been waiting three hundred years.”
“And emotions are under such pressure—”
“Because that never happens anywhere else.”
He frowned. She didn’t do sarcasm very well. “Do you want me to explain or not?”
“Not. You came to Chicago to delve into the symballein bond, but you won’t even talk to me.”
“I talk,” he protested. “All the time, or so you’ve said.”
“At me.”
That wasn’t true; he’d told her things he’d never said aloud to anyone. Over her one bare shoulder, the lights of the city blurred with distance and the dark glass—disappearing, like his escape options. “I came here to write a paper, not become the subject of one.”
She released his hands, and the abruptness set him back a half stride. “Is that what I am to you? A question for you to study?”
“Of course not.” This time his protest wavered. Because she had been that, in the beginning. “But I was taught all along, a Bookkeeper needs the detachment, the distance to see clearly.” He tried to smile. “Even if he wears glasses.”
She didn’t reflect the smile, and her eyes were darker than the night behind her. “Then your father
must be very proud of you.”
A champagne glass stiletto twisting in his chest would be less painful. “I came to Chicago because my father has doubted me since I got engaged.”
Her hands went to her throat but stopped short, tangling in the white scarf instead. “Engaged.”
“To be married.”
She took a long breath, but her question was short. “Why?”
“The usual reasons. Because I thought I loved her. Because I thought I knew better than my father, thought I could do what he hadn’t done: be a good Bookkeeper and a good husband.” He hesitated, then added, “Maybe that last part isn’t quite a usual reason.”
“What happened?”
“A year ago, Maureen and I had a fight about where I’d been all night. I was behind in my records because the horde had been unusually active. …” He frowned. “I wonder how that corresponds to Corvus’s first attempt to rupture the Veil—” He cut himself off. “Anyway, I stormed out. I was on the street outside league headquarters when I stopped swearing long enough to realize she had followed me.”
Alyce’s voice drifted, thin as the scarf. “Like your mother.”
“Nowhere near as bad. The feralis killed my mother. Maureen just asked me to choose.”
“And you chose Bookkeeping.”
“Dad couldn’t give Mum what she needed. She followed us partway down the Bookkeeper path, and she died. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Maureen.” Again, he hesitated, longer this time, but the unsaid truth ate through his heart. How did Alyce do it? With a few words and her quiet stare, she dredged up secrets he’d buried even from himself. “Honestly, I wasn’t going to let that happen to me again either.”
“I understand.”
“I saw the light on in Dad’s office. It must have been painfully obvious what was going on. When Maureen left, I went up to see him. He told me I’d done the right thing, that he wished he’d left Mum before. …” He dragged one hand through his hair. “I am—was just a Bookkeeper. I don’t have it in me to survive that again. Look, we can talk about this more—”
“But we don’t need to,” she said.
“—when we aren’t facing our possible deaths.”
She never even blinked. “Okay.”
He hesitated. “Okay. Okay as in ‘all is good with the world’?”
“It doesn’t just mean that, though, does it? It also means you don’t want to say anything else.”
He studied her opaque gaze. If being with her was like heading into an Arctic adventure, he was definitely standing with a foot on two different ice floes. That couldn’t end well.
To his vast relief, the other couples had risen and were heading toward the stairs, which would break up their little chat. “I think it’s action time. We should get down there.”
“Okay.”
He ground his teeth. “That’s why we’re here. And don’t say okay.”
She didn’t say anything.
They followed the other couples down and found most of the guests drifting toward the lower deck with soft murmurs and expectant laughter.
Could there be any fewer lights? Only the glow of rope lighting under the treads kept the stairs from being a death trap. Once he’d thought death trap, the hairs at Sid’s nape prickled. As he’d told Alyce, he suspected Thorne wouldn’t blow up his golden geese just to roast a couple talyan. Even djinn-men had expenses.
In the main room, the green felt tables glowed like emeralds under the pure lights, and the cards shone with the matte gleam of pearls as the dealers opened fresh decks and began to shuffle. The usual blackjack and poker tables were set around the larger roulette and baccarat areas. There was even a table set with a stark chessboard, though no one seemed to be interested.
The crowd seemed to know where they wanted to be, which edged Sid and Alyce to the outside of the milling group. They paused along one wall beside a large recessed fish tank. The tank housed only two gorgeous yellow fish. Just a few centimeters long, the fish patrolled the middle of the tank like soldiers on parade. Sid realized a thin sheet of glass separated them.
“Betta splendens,” he said. “Siamese fighting fish. I wonder if Thorne bets on cocks and dogs too.”
Alyce leaned closer, one finger hovering near the glass. “He would not hurt these. He is vain, and they are the same color as his eyes when his djinni ascends.”
Sid scowled, but he had to admit, the fishes’ flowing, rounded fins were unmarred and beautiful. He turned away. “What’s at the back there?”
Alyce followed close behind him as he made his way across the room. “Are there basements in boats?”
“Probably not. But back rooms …” He pushed at the closed door, the same dark wood as the rest of the wall.
No one turned their way, but Alyce and he both flinched at the sudden belling wave of etheric energy.
“Waving the white flag, are you, Anglo?” The drawling voice held no amusement. “Surrender her, then, and maybe I’ll let you go.”
CHAPTER 19
In the presence of Thorne’s djinni, Alyce felt her demon shiver, as if someone had shaken the champagne bubbles in her stomach and the deflating fizz had exited through her bones. But she stood straight against the internal quaking. Just because she felt the cold now didn’t mean she had to respond. “Don’t shoot.”
Thorne lounged in his hard-backed chair. “Save it for someone who might listen.”
“Just trying to save you the inconvenience, the blood, the screaming. …” Sidney tipped one hand palm up.
Thorne smirked and echoed the gesture: They were two friends sharing a wry amusement. “And I admit, I’m too curious to shoot you yet.”
Alyce winced at the “yet.”
“Plus … ,” Sidney continued. He held out his other hand, and this one pointed a gun. “I’d have to shoot back.”
“Sidney,” Alyce whispered.
Thorne laughed. “That won’t kill me.”
“Not kill you, no, only incapacitate you with a hollow point bullet I’ve stuffed—like a very small lead and gold Christmas turkey—with shavings from an angelic sword.” Sidney smiled back at the djinn-man. “Then I’ll kill you.”
Thorne’s expression blanked. A thin ring of virulent yellow glowed around his pupils. “You didn’t find that in your archives.”
Sidney shrugged. “I found the sword fragment in Alyce, disrupting her demon. And I’m guessing—just guessing, mind, but I’m willing to explore opposing viewpoints if you’re so inclined—it’ll do the same to you.”
Thorne sat up straighter in his chair. “A sphere relic in her? I wondered why …” His smile returned, but twisted. “I knew you were special, Alyce, with that glow around you. But you weren’t my redemption; you were just fucked up. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and two outcasts still can’t find an in.”
Alyce froze. His mouth was distorted in the lying smile, but the words between his lips were straight and true. “I found a place. You could too—”
“No.” He surged to his feet. The force of his djinni heaved in answer, but it didn’t break free as Sid lifted the gun. “I won’t be part of the misguided, hopeless few again. Unlike most of my ancestors, I’ve lived long enough not to repeat my mistakes.”
Sidney’s gun never wavered. “You’re not part of the gathering djinn?”
Thorne slowly sank to the chair again, not in defeat, but with infinite weariness, one elbow hooked over the back. With a flick of his fingers, he indicated the casino beyond. “Forget the ahaˉzum; I have all this. What more could a tribeless Indian want?”
Alyce stood against his glowering regard. “If you don’t want more, give me back my teshuva’s talisman.”
Though he didn’t move, Thorne’s sprawling stance became more of a lie. “I needed nothing of yours, ever.”
“Then give it back.”
He sat straighter and rephrased, emphasizing the words. “I never stole from you.”
Alyce considered his tone. He sounded bore
d, which worried her. Was he telling the truth this time?
Without the restraint the teshuva should have given her at possession, she would never have the confidence of the other talya women. She’d live out her immortal life with constant fear of drifting back to rogue. She tamped down the rapid thud of her heart, but it thumped back like a body that wouldn’t stay buried. “The teshuva’s memento was all I had.”
Thorne shook his head. “You had only the rags on your back when they dumped you out of the asylum.” He leaned forward again, his arm still hooked over the back of his chair as if he tried to hold himself back but couldn’t. The yellow rings of his eyes expanded. “I saw you that first night, stinking of the hospital and stumbling from the benzos; do you remember? You attacked me.”
She pursed her lips. “The teshuva must have been starving.”
“I hit you hard enough to knock you out of your shoes—no loss—but you kept coming. You were fearless.” His fingers splayed across his desk. “To the djinni, you shone like …” Abruptly, he pushed himself back. “Just as well I never found my inner light if it’s so damn crippling. But that was the angel relic in you. It’s gone now. It was never meant for either of us, and here you are, on the path laid out for you from the beginning.”
The realization froze her. What other path had he yearned for? Whatever it had been, he was right; it was closed to them now.
If she hadn’t been so still, she wouldn’t have heard Sidney’s infinitesimal sound of agreement. He refused to meet her gaze.
“But there is a new path,” he said. “The doorway leading into the demon realm. Why were you there, Thorne?”
Thorne gave him a lazy smile. “You want answers? So do I. Let’s bet on the flip of a coin.”
“I’m not a gambling man,” Sidney said.
Thorne scoffed. “Alyce would bet me.”
“I’d fight you again.”
“Alyce.” The warning in Sidney’s voice trembled through her.
She lifted her chin. “What do you want to know, Thorne?”
“The verge was Corvus’s doing. Why?”
Sidney stared at the djinn-man a long moment, then shrugged. “Corvus’s djinni wanted to unleash hell on Earth. Corvus wanted to be free. They both got what they wanted.”