Familiar Demon

by Amy Lane

Under the shade of several of the trees in the orchard, by the pond, someone had laid a large quilt for people to sit on. As Edward parked the car near the entrance to the underground garage he counted three men, two gigantic wolfish dogs, two young women, and two children.

  Infants, actually, complete with car carriers set beside the blanket.

  One of the young women was nursing, talking to her companions freely, and as Mullins and his brothers disembarked and waited for Bel and Francis, Edward frowned.

  “Does that look… doesn’t that look….” The people were arranged in a loose circle, and the young mother was the focus.

  The much taller men on either side of her were part of it, but she was the one the others were deferring to.

  Even the big wolflike dogs.

  “She’s their queen,” Mullins said with no hesitation whatsoever. “And the men on either side of her—”

  “Are elves,” Harry said happily. “Look, Suriel. We’re going to meet elves.”

  One of them had butter-yellow hair, so long even the braid pooled next to his thigh as he sat. The other had dark hair just long enough for the sides to be pulled up into a partial queue. The dark-haired one was holding the other infant, smiling at it with complete attention, and Edward had another moment of trying to make sense of the scene.

  The woman nursing the infant looked up at them then, and from this distance it was hard to gauge her expression, but after a few words to the man with the butter-colored hair, he turned and beckoned them all to the intimate little picnic.

  They completely disembarked—Suriel carrying Harry more than supporting him—and Beltane and Francis trotted at their heels as they approached.

  When they drew near, Edward saw that the woman nursing the infant was not small just because she was sitting—she was small period. And she wasn’t just sitting on a pillow—she was sitting on a clever cushion, meant to shore up her back and give her arms support as she nursed. She smiled up at their group as they approached and then frowned as one of the dogs leaped up and trotted over to rub noses with Bel.

  And turned abruptly into a naked, glowering human with dark-blond hair, green eyes, a tattoo on his wrist, and various scars on his bantam-weight body.

  “What are you?” he asked Beltane, in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “You don’t smell wolf or shapechanger that I know, and you are not human.”

  “I am too!” Beltane snapped, abruptly six feet three inches of angry blond human. “And at least I wear clothes!”

  The werewolf met Bel’s eyes with a no-bullshit glare, and to Edward’s surprise, Bel’s head drooped in submission.

  “My apologies,” he murmured, and Edward half expected him to turn into a dog and roll over to his back. “You were rather abrupt.”

  “You are on our turf,” the werewolf said. “And we don’t know you. How did that happen? How did you even see the entrance to this place?”

  Behind him, the blond elf stood up gracefully, and the dark-haired one gave the infant he’d been cooing at to a young man with rust-colored hair and did the same. Together, blond one slightly in front, they approached Edward’s party, and Edward leaned his head back and tried not to swear.

  And they thought Beltane was tall.

  “And they’re still walking toward us,” Harry muttered. “Jesus.”

  “You can stop there,” the woman called behind them, and Edward was relieved to see the men smirk a little. They were being intimidating on purpose—that was actually good to know. “We don’t want to scare them off.”

  The two men were stunningly beautiful.

  The one with blond hair—it had to be Emma’s Green—had grave emerald-colored eyes, and the elvish features Emma had described: pointed chin, pointed ears, wide-set, over-large eyes. His skin had the faint greenish cast of peaches in the shade. The elf next to him had the same features—but his pale skin had a hint of tan, and his eyes were the colors of a pond in the shadows.

  Suddenly the blond one frowned. “There is… dammit.” His eyes unfocused, and Edward knew that look. Behind the Youngbloods, a set of stairs came down from the level with the wraparound porch, formed a landing, and then made their way to the ground. Another man—elf—trotted down the stairs and screeched to a halt next to the blond elf.

  “Who in the fuck are they?” he asked, and thank God he wasn’t as tall as the other two, but his eyes swirled with turquoise and copper, the same disconcerting sparkles that Green’s emanated.

  “That, Arturo, remains to be seen,” Green said quietly. “But this one is very, very ill, and we need to care for him first.” He approached Harry gravely and then looked at Suriel, his eyes widening. “May I?” he asked, and it was unclear which one he was talking to, but Suriel nodded unhappily.

  “Please. He was exposed to… to unknown bacteria. We… we should have left him at home but—”

  “I wanted to see elves,” Harry said wistfully. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they, Suriel? How are the brownies? We missed them.”

  Arturo and the elf next to him burst out laughing. “That was you?” the shadow-eyed one asked. “Oh, they were so sad for a while. They adored your household.”

  “Our fault,” Harry said, smiling faintly. His cheeks were alarmingly pale. “We wanted to reward them with pie. But they got drunk, and we could see them, and it just didn’t seem right anymore.”

  “Well that’s one mystery solved,” Green said, laying his hand on Harry’s brow. Harry shivered, and Green nodded at the other two. “He needs me,” he said softly. “Arturo, Bracken, could you stay out here and entertain our guests? Suriel, was it?”

  “Yes, sir—I’ll come with—”

  “Please do,” Green said. With a simple movement, he scooped Harry into his arms like a child. “And after he’s asleep, some of your brethren up in the Goddess Grove would love to visit with you.”

  “Oh!” Bracken said, palm to forehead. “Of course! That’s what’s missing. They practically leave a void in the sky! Oh, my brother—what happened to your wings?”

  “He gave them up,” Harry said, unhappy. “He gave them up for me.”

  “Mm.” Green nodded to Suriel. “Come with me, my children. When we’re done with you, we can attend to everybody else. That includes you, little brother,” Green said grimly, not even looking behind him. “We need you to be yourself for this meeting, no matter how uncomfortable you are.”

  “The hell!” Francis suddenly stood, indignant, on the edge of the quilt, where he’d been batting at one of the baby’s hands with a sheathed paw.

  “The fuck!” said the young woman on the cushion, and then, as Edward turned to exert some control, he watched as the other young woman on the quilt turned into a cat.

  Not a small housecat like the Youngblood brothers did.

  A giant housecat, like no housecat Edward had ever seen in the world.

  Her sundress puddled around her back end, and she began to methodically clean her paw, gazing at Francis with smug eyes.

  Harry let out a weak chuckle, and Green kissed his brow. “So hot,” he murmured. “And brave too. Teague, you and this one will be fast friends, I think.” Abruptly the naked man who had greeted them was a wolf again. He let out a woof and placed himself at Green’s heels. “The rest of you, have fun. Learn about each other. Arturo, Bracken, make sure to keep the defense system strong—there is something out there beating at our periphery, and I’m not in the mood to fuck around.”

  “I am,” said the young woman with the infant at her breast. “Can I kick some ass, Green? Just a little? It’s been over a year.”

  “Not without company, beloved,” Green called, and even as he turned back to the house, Edward saw the small, grim smile. Apparently he knew about warriors who ran headfirst into situations without backup.

  Not fun for anybody involved.

  Edward smiled hesitantly and extended his hand to Arturo. “Hello. I’m, uh, Edward Youngblood. That’s my brother Francis over on the quilt, my brother Harry who
just got carted into the house, and our brother Beltane behind me. And this is Mullins, my….” He bit his lip and caught Mullins’s eyes. “My beloved,” he said. “We’re… well, we have a boon, of sorts?” The antique word embarrassed him. “We have a huge favor to ask the guy who’s about to do us a huge favor and hopefully save Harry’s life.”

  Arturo broke the awkward silence after the speech with a rich laugh. “That’s amazing. I can’t wait to hear this story—you bring an angel and a shapeshifting half-elf to our place—”

  “Don’t forget whatever is beating at our shields,” Bracken said, frowning.

  “Yes, Goddess forbid whatever the hell is beating at our shields. And you just drive up our driveway like it’s no big deal? This is going to be the most entertainment we’ve had in a year.”

  “Entertainment is good,” Bel said, nodding.

  Arturo glared at him. “The last entertainment we had was not good. People died. Many. Many. People. And the entertainment after that was when the twins were born, and that was not good either.”

  “Many people died?” Bel asked with a wince.

  “Only one,” said the girl on the cushion. “But he was trying to be my obstetrician, so that was fun. Come over here, you guys. Are you hungry—”

  “Starving!” Beltane said eagerly. “Do you have food? We like food!”

  “A big yellow dog?” she said, tilting her head. “Why of course you were a big yellow dog. I don’t see why you wouldn’t have been a big yellow dog. It all makes sense now.” She turned to the other werewolf next to her. “Jack, honey, could you go ask Katy if she can throw together a big plate of food for everybody? She can have the sprites or brownies send it down. I know she’s busy.”

  Jack woofed and nodded, then looked around, grimacing.

  “You don’t have to change until you get to the house,” the woman said, but the wolf shook his head in resignation.

  He changed form. Not nearly as smoothly as the giant cat—who remained a giant cat—or as fast as the other werewolf. It was a slower process, not a magical instantaneous shift. Edward realized that, in this matter, it was the difference in the magic.

  In the wolf’s place, a tall young man stood, with dark hair framing blue eyes from a part in the middle. “Nice to meet you,” Jack said with an awkward little bow. “You’ve met Arturo and Bracken. This here is the Lady Cory, her uh, consort, Nicky”—the young man with rust-tipped black hair and freckles who was now holding the other infant nodded—“and her lady’s maid, Renny.” The giant cat turned her paw over and spread her claws. “I’m Jack. I’m naked, and I’ve learned not to care anymore. This is what I get when I go on a run with my husband and we decide to come see what’s doing on the big quilt, and I swear to Goddess, next time we’ll just be rude and run back to the house and put on clothes.”

  Cory and Nicky burst into laughter and leaned against each other, chortling. “Oh my God!” Nicky burbled. “Jack! That was amazing! We’re gonna make you open the fucking door like Lurch the butler from now on!”

  “Fuck off,” Jack said resignedly, starting for the stairs. “I give up. There is literally not a soul in this place who hasn’t seen my balls.”

  Cory and Nicky continued to chuckle as he started up the stairs, and Bracken grunted and came to sit next to Cory again.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “Sit.” He glared at Francis, who was looking around wildly, as though trying for an escape. “You too, little brother. If he took away your cat, he took away your cat, and you’re going to have to be human for a while. We’d really like to talk about that as well.”

  “How’d he do that?” Francis asked almost desperately, and Beltane threw his arms around Francis’s shoulders and held on tight until they both sank down on the edge of the quilt.

  “How’d you become a shapeshifter without going totally batshit insane?” Cory asked, no longer the little earth mother. “Because we’re really curious about that.”

  “That’s a problem?” Beltane asked, frightened.

  “Has been with us. How long’s he been like that?”

  “A hundred and forty years,” Edward said levelly, and to his relief Bracken and Cory both laughed.

  “You’re probably safe, then,” Cory said, looking soothed as well. “So you can settle down, little brother.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” Francis snarled.

  “Because you’re half-fey. You didn’t know that?” Bracken arched dark eyebrows, looking skeptical.

  “We only just now began to suspect.” Edward swallowed, feeling the onus of being the leader with Harry out of commission. “It’s been a lot of years since we all became familiars—we figured he would be okay.”

  Cory tilted her head, suddenly compassionate. “He’s not okay,” she said softly. “But it’s not because of you. Family isn’t defined by blood—believe me, this hill knows that lesson very well. But there are things about elves that it helps to understand. Between physiology and software, life can be very difficult in the human world.”

  “We’re not precisely human,” Edward reiterated.

  “Neither am I,” she said amicably. “Come. Green’s going to be a while—your brother’s going to need some healing there. And I’d really like to know what keeps beating at our shields.”

  Mullins made an unhappy sound. “Would you believe the forces of hell?”

  “No!” Cory clapped the hand not holding the infant to her mouth. “Fucking seriously? You hauled the forces of hell to our doorstep so your brother can see elves? Oh my God. You guys have got to tell us this story!”

  “And quickly,” Bracken muttered. “Aren’t we going to have company soon?”

  Cory opened her mouth to answer, and then looked down at her breast in surprise. “You little shit,” she murmured happily to her baby. “You just popped off there and fell asleep, didn’t you, little lady?”

  Deftly she tucked herself back into her bra and her T-shirt one handedly, and held the baby up to her shoulder.

  “Barf rag,” Bracken muttered, grabbing a square of flannel from the car seat next to him and repositioning the baby on it. “You know she’s gonna need it.”

  Cory nodded and spoke to the Youngbloods. “Almost a year old, and her stomach’s too delicate for anything not me. C’mon, Silver, let’s have that burp so you can go sleep under the trees.” She smiled happily at them as she patted the baby’s back, and Edward got a chance to see her up close.

  By conventional beauty standards, she was really very plain—freckles across a broad peasant face, that tumble of blonde/brown/red hair pinned over her crown, and a wide, generous mouth—but her smile as she talked about her daughter was… lovely.

  “How’s Drian?” she asked Nicky.

  “Asleep, thank Goddess.” Nicky leaned forward and placed the child he was holding into the car seat. As he did so Edward realized the baby seemed much longer than Beltane had at ten months, although his face seemed just as mature—and that he had pointed ears and the triangular features of the elves but, oddly enough, freckles across his delicate little nose.

  He looked up at Cory, who was still patting her daughter on the back, and realized that Bracken was sitting intimately close to her, and so was Nicky.

  Green had called her beloved.

  Green, Bracken, Nicky, Cory—these children were theirs.

  He blinked hard and had a thought to his brother in Green’s care.

  “What healing methods does Green use?” he asked, and Cory tilted her head back and laughed softly. The laugh did more to transform her from simply lovely to stunningly beautiful, and Edward swallowed.

  This was a woman like Emma—a woman to be reckoned with.

  “None that those being healed would object to,” she said cryptically. “Don’t worry, Edward. We have few laws here, but sensual and consensual is one of them.” Her mouth twisted. “Now about those demons from hell—we’ve got a guest coming. Is he going to have trouble getting here?”

  “O
h shit,” Bracken muttered. “I completely forgot about Sam.” He banged his forehead gently on her shoulder while Nicky groaned.

  “Because the son of chaos and man is going to do so much to help this situation,” he said. “The other. Fuck a bird, people—we were just having a goddamned picnic.”

  “The other better not be fucking you,” Bracken snapped back. “You’re taken.”

  Nicky grinned. “Yes, husband, yes I am.”

  Cory rolled her eyes. “You two flirt all the damned time, but do I have twenty-four seven live porn in my room? I don’t think so.”

  Edward felt heat wash his face, and he couldn’t even look at Mullins. Next to him he knew Beltane’s eyes had grown really large, and Francis was practically catching flies.

  Across from them, the cat who used to be a girl let out a feline snicker.

  Cory put her hand over her mouth. “Oh dear. I’m sorry. You guys, I think we’ve sort of… I don’t know. Short circuited their brains. Edward, are you okay?”

  Edward swallowed hard, not sure how to tell her that in his day, orgies were private affairs. “We’re… we’re sort of a monogamous bunch, my lady,” he said after a moment. “Sorry—”

  “No, I’m sorry,” she murmured graciously. “Most people who can see this place, enter this place, they’re not put off by sex in any of its forms. We were being rude.” She let out a sigh. “And off topic. We really do have the son of chaos and man on his way, and we’ve got about four or five hours before he gets here because that little shit learned how to drive, and I’m betting he’s going to make San Diego to Foresthill in record time—”

  “We could tell him not to come,” Nicky said reluctantly, and Cory shook her head with some violence.

  “Are you shitting me? He woke up this morning and said, ‘Oh, hey, I have to be at Green’s Hill right the fuck now,’ called us, and stole his mother’s car. When that kid’s got a pull under his breastbone you don’t fuck around. Does everybody remember Redding?”

  Even the cat groaned.

  “Fucking Redding,” Bracken said with feeling.

  “So I’m thinking it’s time for us to stop blowing the guest’s fucking minds and start listening to how we have the forces of hell pounding at our shields.” She shuddered for a moment—a full-body, visceral shudder—and Bracken and Nicky responded immediately by putting a hand each on her arm. Bracken leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck, and Edward saw the subtle glow of power around her and made a connection.