by Stacia Kane
“Me, too.” She bent down to kiss his forehead; he closed his eyes and tried not to feel her hair tickling his bare chest or the warmth of her skin. Tried, too, to pretend he wouldn’t remember it later. He failed at both. For a second, just for one second, he thought about pulling her down onto the bed with him and holding her. About telling her how he felt, and seeing how she felt—really having that conversation.
Then he thought about what would happen the next time he came across some item that gave the beast enough power to break through, and what would happen if she was with him when it did. The thought made his blood run cold enough to quench the burgeoning heat in his gut.
She stood up straight. Studied him for what felt like a very long moment. He couldn’t figure out her expression: sadness, or disappointment, or regret, maybe?
Whatever it was, it disappeared. She smiled at him, a soft, quiet kind of smile, and headed for the door, where she paused and turned back. “See you around, Elvis,” she said, and was gone before he could muster up a reply.
—
Dealing with Laz was easier. They met at the bar at the Spyglass; not his choice, but Laz—wisely—wanted to meet him in a place he owned and controlled, and Speare didn’t feel like making the trek out to Laz’s house.
He arrived twenty minutes late, a deliberate fuck-you that he knew Laz interpreted correctly. The old man’s smile faltered when Speare approached, and faded completely when he ignored the outstretched arms and sat down without saying hello.
“How are you feeling?” Laz’s nervousness transmitted itself through the air. The beast growled. It hadn’t wanted to come to this meeting any more than Speare had. “You look well.”
Speare didn’t look him in the eye. “What do you want, Laz?”
“Why don’t we have a drink?” Laz started to turn to motion a waitress. “We can—”
“I’m not staying that long,” Speare said. “What do you want?”
“To talk,” Laz said, his smile still fixed in place. “To decide what your role will be now that we know the truth about you and me. To—”
“My role?” Laz hated being interrupted. Good. “How about, I don’t have one?”
“But you’re my son. I know I—”
“Your son?” He shook his head. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Lazaro.” Laz looked worried. Yeah, he should. “Lazaro, I didn’t know. I didn’t know, I swear.”
Fuck. He looked at Laz with eyes that he knew were too dark, eyes that he could feel burned with both the beast’s and his own anger. “You did this to me.”
“No! Not on purpose. It wasn’t like that. We thought—”
“ ‘We.’ ” Saying the word felt like punching himself in the mouth. “You and—and Mickey Coyle. Who else was there? Besides Nielsen. He knew the second I touched him. He knew what was inside my head, and he knew how it got there, and he was scared shitless. Are you? Maybe you should be.”
“You have to understand—”
“I don’t have to understand shit.” That was true, too. He’d realized, over the last couple of days while he lay in bed feeling like he’d died in a latrine pit, that it didn’t matter. Lazaro, Mickey, Nielsen…probably those other friends of Mickey’s, too, the ones Ardeth spoke so fondly of. All of them in on that first private attempt to put a demon into a human body to make themselves a powerful slave. The only thing knowing that did was make it more painful.
Except for one thing. “Did my mother know?”
“Nobody knew,” Laz said. “None of us realized. We were just trying to summon one of the Unholy, just experimenting, trying to make a connection with one to help us defeat Van Itre—it was Van Itre back then who we were at war with, not long after you were born. We just wanted some help taking him out. We thought it didn’t work, all these years. All these years I thought I’d failed to bind it to my blood, when it turns out I had….I just didn’t know I had, because it hadn’t happened the way I intended.”
Speare gave a harsh, humorless laugh. “Just an accident. Nice.”
“Please,” Laz said. “We can help you. Maybe we can remove it. I’ll do anything to make it up to you—you’re my son. My son, my blood. Let me—”
“Jesus.” He shook his head. “You know, Mom’s been saying for thirty-two years that I’m your son, and you’ve never once openly agreed. Now all of a sudden you act like, of course, everybody knows it’s true. How dumb do you think I am?”
“We both know I wasn’t the only man in your mother’s bed. She refused to have you tested, so what was I supposed to think? Haven’t I always treated you like a son?”
Almost. Almost like a son.
Laz seemed to take his silence as an agreement. He smiled. “And this, finally, is proof. That demon couldn’t have joined with you unless my blood was in your veins. My blood was used in the ritual. My blood—your blood—brought it here and gave it form. You’re my son, and you deserve to take your place—”
“Is that what you think?” He couldn’t help it; he leaned forward, genuinely curious. “That some blood in my veins means we’re family? That I’m going to forget what you did to me because of that blood? Bullshit.”
“We are family. We’ve always been—”
Speare glared at him. “Bull. Shit.”
Laz stayed calm. He was a pro at that. “I meant what I said. My son. My seventh son. You know I’ve always treated you like one of the family. I’ve always taken care of you and your mother. Who paid your rent, your school bills? I did. And I was happy to do it.”
Laz had a point there, he had to admit. It didn’t make a difference, but it was still a point. “Sorry, I’m all out of did-the-bare-fucking-minimum medals right now.”
“You can try to wound me all you want.” Laz did look wounded. Odds were that he actually was. It wasn’t exactly fun for Speare, either, and he was the one with reason to be pissed. “It won’t make a difference. You’re my son. Your place is with me, and it always will be. Whenever you want.”
This had been a mistake. He wasn’t ready for this yet. “I tell you what. You go home and get ready for me, and I’ll be there when hell hosts the Winter Olympics. Hell is a place I’m intimately familiar with, by the way. I’ve seen a lot of it. It’s one of the ways this thing you put in my head likes to torture me, showing me its memories. Thanks for that.”
“I’m so sorry,” Laz said. It was barely audible. The shame on his face almost—almost—made Speare want to crack. He might have cracked, if it weren’t for the new memories overriding the beast’s vicious and extensive library of hell experiences: Ardeth on her bed, Ardeth smiling at him, the look she’d given him when she walked out his door for the last time. That was what he’d lost. That, more than the goals and aspirations he’d had to sacrifice all his life or the things he’d been forced to do to keep the beast quiet, was what Laz was paying for. “I didn’t know. I would have done anything to help you. I’d do anything now to make it up to you. Please, son—”
“Don’t call me that.” He stood up, trying not to remember the last time he’d uttered those words, and grabbed Laz’s barely touched glass of Scotch. “Don’t call me, period.”
He tossed the drink down his throat, set the glass down, and left, not bothering to look back when Laz said his name. Whatever else the old man was going to say, whatever else he planned to offer him, none of it would be enough. Not then. Maybe one day it would be.
The beast shifted in his head, enjoying his unhappiness. Reminding him that it needed to be fed, too. Stealing a drink like that, from someone who would have given it to him if he’d asked, wasn’t enough to keep it happy.
That he could do. That he could do with no trouble at all. After all, the city of Las Vegas spread out before him, all neon lights and superstition, every foot of it drenched in avarice and selfishness and hopeless dreams. It was a hell of a place for a man alone to find a little sin—even a man avoiding sexual sins because he was an idiot could find some trouble to get into. Somet
hing to add to the wickedness in the world.
And if there was one thing Speare knew he could do, it was add wickedness to the world. Maybe he could even add enough that he could forget the pain in his chest, the loneliness that echoed inside him. He would sure as fuck try, anyway.
The beast growled at him. Right. Enough self-pity. Enough with the memories. He tucked those into the back of his head, far enough back that he might even be able to stop playing them over and over, and headed out into the pale city night. He still had that. He would always have that.
And that, at least, was something to be grateful for.
BY STACIA KANE
Downside Ghosts Series
Finding Magic
Unholy Ghosts
Wrong Ways Down
Unholy Magic
City of Ghosts
Home
Sacrificial Magic
Chasing Magic
Close to You
Megan Chase Series
Personal Demons
Demon Inside
Demon Possessed
About the Author
STACIA KANE has been a phone psychic, a customer-service representative, a bartender, and a movie theater usher, and she thinks that writing is more fun than all of those combined. She wears a lot of black, still makes great cocktails, likes to play loud music in the car, and thinks that Die Hard is one of the greatest movies ever made. She believes in dragons and the divine right of kings, and is a fervent Ricardian. Kane lives in England with her husband and their two little girls.
staciakane.net
Facebook.com/stacia.kane
@StaciaKane
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