Demon Born

by Christine Pope

  Once again, he frowned. “I did not intend to put you to work.”

  “It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I actually have some salsa verde in the fridge, so all I need is fresh eggs and corn tortillas — I ran out the other day.”

  Almost before she’d finished speaking, the ingredients had appeared on the kitchen island. “Will that do?”

  “Perfect,” Cat replied, reflecting that it might be kind of handy to have a demon lord around if it meant avoiding trips to the grocery store. It was better to have slightly drier tortillas for the chilaquiles, but she’d make do.

  As Loc watched, she tore up the tortillas and fried them in oil, then drained them and added the salsa verde. At the same time, she got a batch of scrambled eggs going in a skillet, then assembled the cheese and cilantro and crême fraiche to use as garnish. Luckily, Cat had helped her mother make this meal many times, so the rhythm of the preparation came back to her quickly enough. In about fifteen minutes, she had two heaping plates of chilaquiles put together.

  She handed one to her guest and said, “We can take these into the dining room. It’s just through that doorway.”

  Loc took his plate and headed in the direction she’d indicated, while she paused to grab a couple of napkins. All the cutlery was stored in the sideboard in the dining room, so after Cat had set down her plate, she went and fetched them some knives and forks, then sat next to Loc, who’d already claimed the spot at the head of the table.

  He’d done so naturally, as though it was only expected that he would take the place of honor. She supposed he might see it that way, since he’d been the master of his particular plane of existence back where he’d come from.

  Their coffee mugs magically appeared on the table, and she shot him a quick glance.

  “I did not see the need to go back and fetch them,” he explained.

  “Well, thank you,” Cat said. “I hope you like the food.”

  Loc didn’t reply, but instead scooped up a forkful of chilaquiles, took a bite, and then another, this one observably more enthusiastic. After the third or fourth bite, he slowed down enough to say, “These are very good.”

  His comment sent a shiver of relief through her. It wasn’t that she’d feared what he might do if it turned out that he didn’t like the dish — after all, he could probably make whatever he wanted appear in front of him — but that she was glad he enjoyed something she also liked. The way he was able to communicate mentally with her seemed to indicate that they had some sort of strange connection, although Cat wasn’t sure she wanted to explore the ramifications of their unexpected synergy quite yet.

  “Thank you,” she said simply, and had a few bites, followed by a sip of coffee. After that, she set down her mug and added, “We’re going to have to come up with some sort of cover story to explain you.”

  “‘Cover story’?” Loc repeated. He still held his fork, but it was idle now as he sent her a quizzical glance.

  “To explain who you are and why you’re here.” She tapped her fingers against the rim of her plate, pondering the conundrum. If she’d only had to worry about Roberto and Miguel, the vineyard overseer and his son, then she could have simply told them that Loc was a Castillo cousin visiting from the southern part of the state. However, while Rafe and Miranda didn’t come up to the winery all that often, Cat knew that sooner or later their paths might cross, and so the “Castillo cousin” story wouldn’t exactly fly.

  “What’s wrong with the truth?” Loc’s voice sounded mild enough, but his eyes narrowed as he asked the question, so clearly he didn’t see any reason for her to lie about who he was.

  “Well, my overseer and his son are both civilians, so it’s not as though I can just casually tell them that my guest is a disguised demon lord.”

  A lift of his heavy arched brows. “‘Civilians’?”

  “Nonmagical people. Not born of witch-kind.”

  “Ah.” Loc was silent for a moment, appearing to consider what she’d just told him. “They come here often?”

  “Every day except Sunday,” Cat replied. Before this moment, she’d been grateful for Roberto and Miguel’s work ethic, knowing that they had everything handled, and that they would take as good care of the precious grapes as if they were their own. “In fact, they’re probably here already, since it’s after eight.”

  “You let them come and go as they please?” Now there was a slight note of disapproval in Loc’s tone, as if he didn’t think much of her handling of the situation.

  Well, he could disapprove all he liked. This was her property, and the grapes were her crop, and how she managed things was really none of his business. “Yes,” she said, her voice a bit sharper than she’d intended. “Usually, they get here fairly early, and then leave in the mid-afternoon. They don’t generally come to the house and interrupt me unless they have a specific question or concern.”

  “Ah.” Loc picked up his mug of coffee and drank from it again; he’d probably consumed enough already to have finished what she’d poured for him originally, although Cat guessed he could give himself a refill whenever he felt like it.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “it’s not Miguel and Roberto who’re the real problem. It’s Rafe and Miranda.”

  “Your brother and his prima wife.”

  “Yes. To be fair, I’m pretty sure Miranda won’t care if you’re here, but Rafe is a different story.”

  This remark made the demon lord’s brows lift again. “Why would he care? You offered assistance to me, nothing more. And he is somewhat indebted to me.”

  Well, that statement was true enough, but Cat doubted Rafe would enjoy having it pointed out to him. Of course, he’d been just as glad as everyone else that Simon Escobar had been defeated, but she knew it still rankled her brother to admit that he hadn’t been as able to participate in that final confrontation as he would have liked. In the end, it had been Miranda who’d taken down the dark warlock, with a very valuable assist from the Lord of Chaos. And it was probably because of his help that Cat hadn’t hesitated too much about allowing him to stay here. Witch families made sure to take care of those who had given them aid.

  With Loc staring at her, depthless dark eyes fixed on her face, Cat found herself hesitating. The one thing she really didn’t want to say out loud was that Rafe would have issues because the demon lord now looked like a very attractive human male, and might present too much of a temptation to his long-single sister.

  God knows, she would be the first one to admit that her brother might be right about that. Cat had to keep reminding herself of the true nature of the being who sat next to her at the dining room table, because otherwise she might start to dwell way too much on the romance of the situation, the dark-eyed stranger taking refuge here at her home.

  “He does owe you a debt,” she said distinctly, reaching for her mug of coffee as a distraction more than anything else. “But…he’s my big brother. He tends to be a little over-protective.”

  This remark only made Loc frown again. “Why? You are a grown adult as your people measure such things, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Cat replied. A grown adult with her own home, her own responsibilities, even though she still had days where she felt like an interloper, as if someone was going to burst in and show her for the fraud she was, thanks to those times when she felt as if she was still only twelve years old. “But there’s not exactly a cut-off date for when older brothers stop feeling protective.”

  Loc was silent then, obviously thinking over her words. How much had he known of human society before he was called here? Did he have any frame of reference at all?

  Well, if nothing else, the eight months he’d spent stuck here had to have been highly educational.

  At last he spoke. “I think I understand what you are trying to tell me. If you prefer that your brother not know who I am, then what is this…cover story…going to be?”

  Luckily, she’d already come up with an idea last night as she tossed and turned in be
d, but at least it was something that sounded remotely plausible. “You can be a visiting fiber artist I offered to put up at the house. There’s a big show in less than a week, one I’ve been preparing for most of this past spring.”

  “‘Fiber artist’?” Loc repeated, clearly having trouble connecting the two words.

  Cat couldn’t really blame him for that, since her field was a little obscure to those who expected artists to work with paint and canvas, or bronze and stone. “I can explain it more after breakfast,” she said, then added, “Or now, I guess, since it looks like we’re both done.” She folded her napkin and set it down on the tabletop. “Let me show you my studio.”

  3

  Loc watched with interest as Cat led him out of the house and down a stone pathway, one which ended at a long, low building with climbing roses growing on almost all the walls. They bloomed in a riot of different hues — yellow, pink, red, brilliant coral — bright under the sun in its clear blue sky.

  The color of the sky was something that still mesmerized him. On his own world, it had always been a dark charcoal shade, one that might roil with clouds but never changed its overall hue. Here, though, the sky could be a brilliant sapphire as it was now, or flushed with rose in the early dawn, or soft gray or midnight blue. Sometimes it was hard to keep himself from simply standing still and looking up, transfixed by the glory of the heavens in this place.

  Cat did not appear terribly affected by the diamond-sharp beauty of the morning, although he did see her pause to admire a particularly lovely rose which drooped just above the doorway to the building that had been her destination. She put her hand on the door handle and turned it. Loc noted how she had no need of a key, but then, that peculiar skill was one all witches and warlocks seemed to share.

  Inside, the building appeared to be one large room, with higher ceilings than its low outward profile would suggest. Windows set high up in the south and north walls let in the bright morning light, which illuminated the two looms that took up most of the floor space. Both of the looms had been strung with yarn in deep, subtle hues, and appeared to hold pieces of fabric that were nearly complete.

  “You create fabric?” Loc asked. “This is what it means to be a fiber artist?”

  Cat nodded, although she said, “It’s more than just that. Come over here.”

  He followed her to an alcove where some of her finished pieces hung. Now he could see what she had meant when she said her art involved much more than weaving. True, the intricate fabrics in the swirling patterns she’d created formed the base, but laid on top of that were more pieces of fabric, embellished with tufts of woolly yarn or bits of metal or even smooth, polished stone beads, all working together to create a landscape that seemed to echo the world outside, from the rich tapestry of the earth to the outlines of tall mountains and dark forests and serene clouds.

  Loc could not recall ever seeing anything like it, and he began to reach out to touch the surface of the piece, then stopped. Cat seemed to understand the reason for his hesitation, because she said, “It’s all right. It’s meant to be tactile.”

  Thus given permission, he laid his fingertips against one of the tufts of wool, felt it soft against his skin. Next to it was a series of jade beads, and he trailed his fingers across them as well, noting their cool hardness, such a contrast to the woolly yarn. “I see why it is called art. The mixture of shapes and textures is quite pleasing.”

  Cat smiled, obviously happy to hear such praise. Although she’d been careful to stand several paces away from him, his highly attuned senses felt the way her heartbeat speeded up a little, how a warm flush touched her cheeks. This morning she had dressed simply, in the blue trousers humans called jeans and a top with embroidery that seemed to echo the tapestry in front of them, and yet she still appeared beautiful to him, in a way he couldn’t precisely define, except that he enjoyed looking at her.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I worked a long time on that one, and I’m going to enter it in the juried competition.”

  “Juried competition?” he asked, thinking that the phrase did not sound particularly inviting.

  Another smile as she explained, “It’s just a fancy way of saying that it’s a panel of judges who inspect and rate the entries in a competition.”

  Genuinely curious, he said, “What do you get if you win?” Because it seemed to him that Catalina Castillo already had many of the items mortals seemed to value — a large and beautiful home, a piece of land to call her own, the wherewithal to indulge in her art without having to worry about earning a livelihood.

  Her smile stretched into a grin. “There’s a small cash reward, but it’s mostly about bragging rights, about being able to put the award on your CV.”

  “CV?” Every time he thought he’d mastered most of the intricacies of human existence, along came something else to mystify him.

  “Curriculum vitae,” Cat explained. “It’s kind of like a resume, but it’s something artists use a lot. Also, the more awards I win, the more the asking price for my work goes up. The gallery owners like that.”

  “But surely how much you earn is of no real concern, is it?” Loc stared down into her face, watched as her dark eyes wouldn’t quite meet his. “That is, I will admit that I am not entirely familiar with the workings of your witch clans, but it seems that most of you have no need to earn any real income.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you saw how much this house remodel cost,” she said, her expression now slightly rueful. At least, that’s what he thought it was; he still was not always entirely accurate when it came to reading human reactions.

  “My apologies. I thought the Castillo clan was quite a wealthy one.”

  Now she actually chuckled. “It is. And that means I am, too. I guess it just didn’t feel that way as I was signing the checks for all those contractors. Anyway,” she went on, clearly ready to move on to a different topic of conversation, “because fiber arts is such a big field, and it can be interpreted in a whole bunch of different ways, it’ll be easy enough to pass you off as another artist.” A pause as she gazed up at him, and then she nodded. “You look like you could be Spanish. So…you’re Loc de la Cruz, a noted fiber artist from Barcelona. You work with…metal threads and stones, making fiber art that’s almost like jewelry. Sound good?”

  “I suppose so,” he replied, amused despite himself by the genuine delight she seemed to take in weaving a tale just as intricate as the piece that hung on the wall before them. “Although, since it seems you do not work with metal threads, I am not sure why this fictional person would be staying with you.”

  “But I do use a lot of semiprecious stones in my work,” she argued. “That should be enough. If Rafe does come by, we’ll just explain to him that we met in an online forum and communicated there for a while, and that I offered to put you up when you came here to Santa Fe for the show.”

  “You seem to have figured out everything,” Loc said. Some people might have been dismayed by her apparent talent for prevarication, but he found it more amusing than anything else. Besides, when all these fabrications were being created for his benefit, how could he disapprove?

  “Probably not,” she said. “Something always seems to slip through the cracks. But at least it’s better than telling everyone I have a demon lord sleeping in the guest room, right?”

  Loc couldn’t really argue with that logic. Since he’d been hiding his identity for many human months now, he knew it was better to remain discreet. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  Someone knocked at the door to the studio, then called out, “Cat, are you in there? I need to ask you something.”

  For a second, she froze. Then she seemed to relax slightly, and a certain glint entered her dark eyes. “All right, Loc — time to see if our cover story holds water.”

  She opened the door to the fiber studio, all too aware of how she was holding her breath. Silly, really, since Roberto worked for her. But even though she wouldn’t allow herself to lo
ok back, she knew that Loc stood only a few paces behind her, would be all too obvious as soon as Roberto had a second to focus on the interior of the building.

  “Hi, Roberto,” she said breezily, knowing the best thing to do was balls her way through this and hope for the best. “This is Loc de la Cruz, a fiber artist from Spain. He’s visiting right now.”

  Although she’d noticed the way Roberto’s eyes had narrowed as soon as he caught sight of Loc, he seemed to relax a bit as he heard her explanation for his presence. “Ah, from Spain?” His gaze moved to the demon lord. “Buenos días, encantado de conocerlo.”

  Oh, hell. Despite her clan’s origins, Cat’s Spanish was limited to a few words and phrases, and she had no idea whether Loc had picked up any other languages during the months he’d spent scouring the globe for someone who could assist him.

  But then Loc said smoothly, “Mucho gusto, señor,” and it was all Cat could do to prevent herself from collapsing in a relieved heap right there on the doorstep. As far as she could tell, his accent sounded perfect, and really, she didn’t know whether Roberto would be able to detect anything off about it anyway, since she knew his family had emigrated here from Mexico in the 1960s and so he probably couldn’t detect a true Barcelona accent any better than she could.

  Then Loc went on, deftly switching back to English, “Yes, Catalina was kind enough to open her house to a fellow artist. Your vines are very beautiful, by the way.”

  Smooth operator, aren’t you? she thought, although she had to be grateful for the way Loc had deflected the conversation away from himself.

  Roberto beamed. He was a slender man just a shade under six feet tall, his olive skin deeply tanned from all his work outdoors. “Yes, it was the vines I wanted to talk to you about, Cat.”

  Although nothing in her vineyard manager’s expression or posture showed anything particularly alarming, she couldn’t quite prevent the flash of panic that went through her. “Is there something wrong?” she asked. “Did those last two rainstorms get some fungus going on the vines or something?”