by E J Frost
I roll up onto my knees, keeping my broken wrist tucked tight against my chest, and vomit convulsively. Egg roll and poisoned wine and vampire blood. None of it tastes good coming up. I heave and heave long after my stomach’s empty.
When my body realizes it can’t actually turn itself inside out, the convulsions subside. I stay on my knees, rocking back and forth. Shaking. Trying to get a grip.
The sound of the vampire walking around, breaking things, finally focuses me. You said you’d help me. Can you get me out of here?
Sure. Where’d you want to go?
Out of her sanctum. Somewhere I can heal myself.
Light pressure on the top of my head, in my hair. When the pressure grows, turns painful, I start to protest, then there’s that sense of movement, the same as when I’m on the Squire’s horse. And a constriction that I wasn’t aware of until it’s gone falls away from me.
I reach for my churi, not knowing or caring where I am. I’m out of her sanctum. That’s all that matters. My churi is right there, the wooden handle cool in my palm. I draw a circle around myself, awkward with one hand. Nicking my thumb is easier, but I can’t see to seal the circle. I flick my hand, hoping some blood will spatter across the line I’ve drawn.
The protective circle snaps tight around me.
The vampire grunts. “You may be shit on the offensive, but that’s a strong fucking circle,” he says aloud.
Strong enough to keep out your garden-variety vampire, anyway. He probably can’t hear my thoughts when I’m encircled, but I carefully don’t think that at him, just in case. Instead I call to mind every healing thing I can think of. Sleeping deep and warm in my own bed. My Dala’s hugs. The dim, distant memory of my parents’ faces smiling down at me.
I reach into that Other Place. The bitter birchy taste of sarsaparilla fills my mouth. I swallow the potion, feel it burn its way down my abused esophagus.
The haze slowly clears from my vision. The agony in my jaw fades to a dull ache. I uncurl cautiously. Everything’s sore. My head, my back, my wrist. But they’re just sore. Not broken. I take a deep, cleansing breath, and let it out, exhaling a cloud of toxins.
“Neat trick,” the vampire says.
I look up, seeing my rescuer and would-be rapist clearly for the first time.
He’s a huge man. Tall, massively built. Wild, waist-length, blood-red dreadlocks add to the impression of his size. He watches me impassively, heavily muscled forearms crossed over a heavily-muscled chest. His skin’s a deep, rich gold.
He doesn’t look like any vampire I’ve ever seen.
He shifts his weight with a creak of his unbuttoned leather pants. Tilts his head to the side. In the bright fluorescent light, his eyes shine neon-blue.
“You’re not a vampire,” I say.
“Never said I was.” He smiles slowly, a smile that’s more of a leer. It makes the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Definitely no fangs.
“What are you?”
He chuckles. “I could tell you. But it’ll be more fun to let you find out on your own.”
I retrace the protective circle widdershins. To take back the power I expended drawing it. I’ve got nothing to spare at the moment. I rise shakily; I want to be away from here. Wherever here is. And I want to be away from him. Whatever he is. But I’ve still got some unfinished business.
“Where’s Rowena?”
“Which particular Hell?”
I shudder. He could mean literally. “Her body.”
“In there.” He nods behind me and I twist around to meet my own bedraggled, blood-streaked reflection in a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror.
“In the mirror?” I squeak. Did he capture her soul and trap it in the mirror? I’ve heard of some ghost traps that work like that.
“Behind it. In her sanctum.”
I sigh with relief. I can’t quite hate Ro, no matter what she did to me, or tried to do. The thought of her soul trapped in a huge mirror for eternity is . . . unthinkable.
“Is there a way in?” I ask.
“Sure.”
A firm shove sends me stumbling. Straight into the mirror. I throw up my arms, a last-ditch attempt to protect my face, expecting to feel the hard impact of the glass. Instead a shivery cold sensation runs over me as I plunge through the mirror. Twisting in surprise, I look back at the room behind me, reflected darkly in the mirror. A dressing room. Dominated by the huge not-vampire.
A loud crack staggers me. Pain blinds me. I collapse against something hard and unyielding.
His wicked chuckle brings me back to groggy consciousness. “Now that’s a sight I never thought I’d see. A witch on the wheel.”
A hand closes on my injured wrist, pulls me upright. I whimper as merely sore goes back to blinding agony. “Stop,” I beg.
“No,” he says, his deep voice gone cruel. “You know how many days I lay howlin’ on this thing?”
Ice-cold metal closes around my wrist. Pins my arm against rough wood. He captures my other wrist, locks it over my head. I twist, kick futilely. He grabs my legs, forces them apart and steps between them. Leans into me. His hot tongue laps across my skin. Over my eyes, my forehead. Probing like a brand into a spot on my forehead that hurts a really-fucking-lot. I shudder, try to turn my face away. His big hand wraps around my jaw, holds me still.
Stop this! I scream into his mind.
He chuckles between wet licks of my face. Make me.
I scream aloud. The sound doesn’t echo the way it should. It’s deadened. Sound-proofed. No one’s going to hear me. No one’s going to save me. I’m on my own. Again.
He nuzzles my cheek, my ear. Still gripping my face, he growls, “Open your eyes.”
I do, blinking away my blood and his spit. Stare into my own reflection. The ghost-white oval of my face. A bright shock of blood down the side of my face from a head wound. The circles within circles of my wide eyes. His darker skin bracketing mine. Dreadlocks spill down his back like maroon snakes.
“See yourself?”
I nod. Watch that paper-pale face in the mirror bob.
“Think about lying here, day after day. Watchin’ them take off their clothes. Bare all that beauty. Prance around in lace and feathers. Think about lying here burning.”
I have no idea what he's talking about, but his rage is unmistakable. “I-I’m sorry,” I stutter, too frightened and lost to say anything more meaningful.
He growls. “You are, huh? Ready to make it up to me?” His hand drops away from my face, presses roughly down my body to my hip. He yanks at the waistband of my cargo pants. “Could take awhile. I’m starvin’.”
Fury flares, burning bright through the pain in my head and my wrists. Through the confusion and fear. I’m not going to lie here helpless and let him rape me. I’m not going to surrender to the Shadow Man. I’ll fight him all the way down.
“Are we back to this?” I ask bitterly. “You’re a bit of a one-note song, aren’t you?”
He freezes against me. His hand twists in the waistband of my pants so hard the button pops off.
Then he begins to chuckle. His chuckle builds and builds until he’s roaring with laughter, thunderous in my ear, his chest heaving against mine.
He releases my pants and unlocks me, one wrist and then the other. I slide out from under him and back away warily, not really knowing where I’m going but anywhere away from him is good. My Keds crunch on the strangely-stiff carpet. He leans against the wooden thing – it’s a huge wheel, propped in front of a wide one-way mirror – and watches me over his shoulder, through his dreadlocks, still chuckling softly.
I glance around, getting my bearings. Looking for exits. So I know which way to bolt when his mood changes. Small room. Smells atrocious. Dominated by a huge black table a few feet behind the wheel. Funny brown streaks on the walls. Door’s on the other side of the table. As is a small workbench like the one in my herbarium.
My eyes skip over something on the floor between the table and workbench.
Track back. It could be a pile of rags. But I know it’s not.
“Oh, Ro,” I whisper.
I take a step towards her.
A hot constriction around my throat stops me in mid-motion. “Uh-uh,” he whispers into my ear.
I swallow hard against his hand. I didn’t see him move, and no one should be able to move that fast. I hold myself very still. I don’t want to give him any reason to crush my throat.
“You thinkin’ about taking that ring?” he asks, his voice a dark caress, lips brushing my ear. “Seein’ if it’ll work for you?”
I shake my head carefully. There’s no point in explaining. Telling him about Manny. He wouldn’t care. Or believe me.
“Go on,” he says silkily. “Take it.”
I tremble. I know it’s a trap, but I don’t know how to avoid it. He releases my throat and I edge carefully around the high table. The carpet crunches underfoot. When I reach the pile of rags that was my friend, I stoop and stretch out a shaking hand, brushing aside the folds of singed cloth.
There’s nothing left of her. Just powdery ash and remnants of what was a silk ritual robe. The mate of mine. We bought them together, our first year at Bevvy. Embroidered them together, laughing when we pricked our fingers, bandaging each others’ hands so we didn’t stain the white silk. I search through the rags until I find the black and silver ring.
I pick it up gingerly, but as soon as I touch it, I know it’s dead. The huge onyx is clouded. The silver symbols fused to gibberish.
I stand and look across the dark altar warily. Because I’ve just realized what he is. And the one thing that could control him is sitting dead in my palm.
“You’re a demon,” I say.
“No shit.” He lifts a black eyebrow. “Took you long enough.”
I give him the best smile I can muster under the circumstances. “Well, you’re my first demon.”
“Not yet,” he says, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “But I will be.”
I swallow hard. Because I’m not sure what he means, but it doesn’t sound good. “So now you toddle off home, right? Her soul’s yours. Your work here’s done.”
He chuckles, and it’s a completely humorless, pitiless sound. “You wish.”
Oh, yes, I do wish. Because I’ve unleashed him on the world. And it’s just occurring to me that I have no idea of how to put him back.
I clear my throat painfully. “Then what now?”
The leering grin. “Now you toddle off home. And I clean up.”
“Cleaning up meaning?” I can tell I’m not going to like whatever his idea of cleaning up is.
“No jail time for you.”
I glance back at the pile of rags. That aspect of cleaning up hadn’t occurred to me. But there’s a pile of ash where a Newbury Street business-woman used to be, and Boston’s finest are going to want to know why.
“Okay, thanks.” It can’t be a good thing, being in a demon’s debt. But I don’t want to argue with him. Somehow, I think that would be a very bad idea. “And then?”
He tilts his head, eyes glinting through the fall of his dreadlocks. “Worried about putting the genie back in the bottle?”
“Something like that.”
That merciless chuckle. “Then you’re fucked, witchy-poo.”
My stomach sinks. He’s right. I have no idea how to force him back to Hell, or wherever he came from. “I don’t suppose I could appeal to your better nature?”
A bark of laughter. “You could if I had one.”
I sag against the table, recoil when a wave of cold slaps at me. Something horrible happened on that table. Or somethings.
“You don’t want to touch that, white meat. Or, should I say, dark meat? ‘Cause I can see some shadows on your soul.”
Better than dead meat, I suppose. I nod tightly. “Don’t we all?”
He stretches, showing off the huge muscles of his chest and shoulders. “Nope. Some of us don’t got one. Wouldn’t mind adding yours to my collection, though.”
I edge a step back. Time to go. I got what I came for. I can’t put the demon back in the box by myself and sticking around sounds like a good way to lose my soul. Sayonara.
“Okay, well, I’ll just be going now.”
He yawns, stretches again. “You do that. I got work to do.”
I back away, stepping carefully over the pile of ash and cloth. I jump when the door-handle bumps against my back. Twisting my arm behind my back, I fumble with the handle. My relief when it turns and the door swings open is so strong I nearly pee in my pants.
The demon leans casually against the black altar, watching my retreat, eyes glinting that eerie, electric blue. “Ciao, sweet meat.” He raises one huge hand, waggles his fingers at me. I almost have the door shut when he grins and says, “See you soon.”
I run.
Chapter 14
My dream again. Crows calling. The smell of wild garlic. The man on the edge of the woods. Tall. Still. Standing in shadow. Waiting for me.
Tonight he wears a halo of red dreadlocks.
I wake screaming. Thrashing my way out of sweat-soaked sheets. Witchlight flares all around me, lighting up the room like Fenway Stadium.
My Dala’s voice. “Beti, beti, turn off the lights. You’ll have the gavver and the power company breaking down the door.”
I sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees. The light flickers, dims. When I hold out a shaking hand, the witchlight wraps itself into a dim sphere on my palm. The soft glow illuminates the three ghosts sitting on the foot of my bed.
“Auntie Rupa,” I say, wiping my hand across the back of my dry lips, acknowledging the one-armed ghost who has joined my grandmother and uncle. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”
Probably a good thing, since she’s been dead for twenty years.
“Nor I you, chavi,” she whispers. Her voice echoes oddly, as though it’s bouncing off walls that are in different places, much more distant places, than my bedroom. “You’re all grown up. But you’ve gotten yourself in a heap of trouble.”
Oh, great. As if Dala’s lectures weren’t bad enough.
“I called Rupa back,” Dala says. “She’s the only one of us who has ever dealt with the beng.”
“It was a demon. Not the devil.”
“Same difference,” Uncle Billygoat interjects.
“No, it’s not,” I grit. Politeness and respect for my elders both go out the window at four in the morning. Especially after the night I’ve had. “The devil is a projection. He doesn’t exist. Demons are completely different.”
“That lady doctor hasn’t done you any favors, chavi,” Uncle Billygoat says.
I’m not up to arguing with him. Particularly not when I can still feel the raw ache of the wrist broken by my particular, very real demon. “Fine, Auntie Rupa, how do I get rid of him?”
The ghosts are silent. I sense a shuffling of ethereal feet.
“You don’t know,” I say flatly.
“The beng that came to me wanted something very specific, káulochírilo. I gave it to him and he went away.”
I lean forward. “Well, this beng wanted to rape me and eat my soul.”
The three ghosts glance at each other. Rupa draws a circle on the embroidered front of her high-necked night-gown, her version of twisting her hands together. “How would you feel about offering the beng a substitute?”
“A substitute?”
“Someone else in your place,” the Billygoat clarifies.
“Someone else the demon can rape and kill?”
“When you put it that way—” Dala begins.
Auntie Rupa shrugs. “Well, if it’s a gorgio—”
“No,” I hiss at them. “It’s not okay! Gorgio or Rom makes no difference. I’m not offering up someone else as demon-bait.”
“It was just a suggestion,” Rupa says, a little huffily.
“Please tell me you didn’t offer someone else to a demon in your place.”
The three ghosts
exchange glances again.
“Rupa!” I cry in exasperation. No wonder so many of my relatives ended up in Limbo.
“Enough talking,” the Goat interjects. “Let the girl get some sleep. I’ll watch the dream door, káulochírilo. You don’t have to ask.”
You know things are really bad when my Uncle Billygoat is the only one talking any sense.
Lin’s waiting for me at the reception desk when I drag myself in the next day, much closer to noon than nine. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. My half-healed wrist is taped, after the damage the demon did to it resisted all efforts at healing. My stomach’s still too rocky to throw anything but decaf at it. The gash on my head from crashing into Ro’s demon-wheel is going to leave a scar. As is the burn on my chest where the Squire’s priceless protective charm melted unnoticed at some point during my confrontation with the demon. And my jaw is aching like an absolute motherfucker from the temporary crown my dentist just put in.
“Hi,” I say blearily.
Lin pales and follows me into my office. “I take it things didn’t go well.”
“Which part?” I mutter while massaging my jaw. I wouldn’t let the dentist use anesthetic because it screws with my ability to reach the Other Place and now I’m going to spend the next several hours regretting it. I cough, focus on the only good thing that came out of the night, and the only thing Lin needs to know. “The ghost’s definitely at peace . . . and I got the ring.”
And Rowena’s dead. Which just leaves the little matter of the demon I let loose and don’t know how to put back. Details, details.
The intercom on my phone buzzes and I lean over to tap it. Stretching across my desk makes everything throb. I’ll be brewing an extra-strength painkiller along with the magic milk today.
“Tsara, there’s a gentleman here to see you. He says he made an appointment with you last night.”
My heart leaps. Peter. God, I could use a hug right now. Even if he is a null.
“That’s great. Send him in.”
Lin raises a dark eyebrow. “A gentleman? You don’t know any gentlemen.”
