by E J Frost
You thinkin’ about slitting your wrists?
The demon’s thought makes me jump. No, I’m thinking about repairing my windows. If I wanted to kill myself, I’ve got plenty of poisons that would be faster and far less painful.
I’ll remember that. Before I can worry about what uses he might put my stock of poisons to, he sighs into my mind. Of all the things you humans have come up with in the last thousand years, I think I like indoor plumbing the best.
And ice cream?
Yeah. That stuff last night was amazing. Fuckin’ Ben and Jerry. I’m gonna look them up before I go. They definitely need a franchise down below. Speakin’ of which, we gotta make a detour today.
What sort of detour? I glance up at my shattered bedroom windows as if I could see him. And I almost can. He’s in the shower, eyes closed, head thrown back. The water carves glistening rivulets down his golden skin. Wet pathways that remind me of the way he wanted me to touch him last night, tracing my fingers lightly over his chest and belly. His faintly smoky scent fills my nose.
I shake my head. The last thing I need while I’m trying to repair the windows is to be distracted by the demon in my shower.
I was readin’ the back of that ice cream carton last night. They sell the stuff here.
At every CVS and grocery store. What’s the big deal?
The demon opens one eye and glares at me through the walls. Their outlet’s the real ice cream experience. That’s what it said on the box. I want the real ice cream experience.
Tourist. I sigh and Izzy licks my ear consolingly. Fine, we’ll detour for the real ice cream experience. I suppose you’ll want the real duck tour experience, too.
What’s a duck tour?
No! No way. Forget I said anything. We are not going on a duck tour. Take your shower and let me fix the windows before your poor lizard freezes to death.
The demon chuckles. Sure. By the way, what were you thinking about before we started talkin’ about ice cream?
Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Take your shower! I try to shut him out of my thoughts, but it’s impossible. The vision of him in the shower grows clearer, as though the house’s walls are dissolving.
He rubs shower gel over himself, lathering his skin slowly. Foam slips down over the heavy muscles of his chest, the tight washboard of his stomach. He reaches down and rubs soapy fingers through the dark, wet curls at his groin. Then slowly, so slowly, so teasingly, he soaps his penis, pulling and stroking the way he had me touch him last night, until he’s full and hard. My pulse begins to drum in my throat. He rocks forward and back, flexing his hips and thighs, stroking himself over and over. My eyes roll back in my head, remembering that motion when he was deep inside me.
C’mon, sweet meat, this is all for you. With a wicked chuckle, the demon closes the connection between our minds.
I stand on my dying lawn, clutching a piece of broken glass, with a fire salamander wrapped around my shoulders, and try desperately to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing. Anything rather than running upstairs and joining the demon in my shower.
Between me fixing the windows and the demon’s preening, we don’t make it into the city until the late afternoon. Guess driving down to Cohasset to visit the Hobomock is going to have to wait for another day. Instead, I take the demon to the Prudential Building, up to the Skywalk where he can see the whole city spread out below. The September sun’s already slanting golden over the buildings, setting the Hancock Tower aflame. The demon’s riveted, standing on the viewing platform and staring out the huge window at the glowing glass sliver as though bewitched.
I’ve seen the view before, and it’s a good view, but it doesn’t hold my attention the way it does the demon’s. I take several turns around the viewing platform while he stands and stares. The Skywalk is full of Saturday afternoon tourists and I have to weave my way through them. The finally-finished arch of the Zakim Bridge draws my eye. It’s striking, but I’m not sure if it’s really been worth fourteen gazillion dollars and a decade of construction. I stick out my tongue at a mixed flock of gargoyles and nethancs that peer back at me from the bridge’s upper struts and move on. Passing the windows that overlook Huntington Avenue, I see one of the amphibious trucks rolling towards the Charles. I glance across the platform at the demon. Maybe he really would like a duck tour. It can’t be any worse than the swan boat in the Public Garden, where I’ve gone with pretty much every one of my boyfriends at some point.
The demon snags me as I make my next circuit of the Skywalk and draws me against his side.
Look, he thinks. I do. The Hancock is a burning pillar among the duller marble and brick buildings of Boston’s skyline. It glows crimson at the top, gold along its massive length, and the bottom is swallowed in a bright white glare. Reflected clouds create swirls and eddies in the play of color.
It’s gorgeous, I agree.
It’s a Pillar of Fire.
I was just thinking the same thing. I frown up at him. Am I picking up stray thoughts from him? But you think it like it’s in all caps or something.
The Pillar of Fire is the heart of Hell. If demons have a collective soul, the Pillar of Fire is it.
Oh.
He drapes an arm around me and nuzzles my ear, his dreadlocks spilling around us. That all you got to say?
Well, I’ve seen it before.
He lifts his head and looks at the brilliant tower again. Yeah, you’ve seen lotsa things I haven’t. Bet you’ve ridden the wind, too. His dark eyes track upwards to where a jet’s contrail burns a white scar across the sky.
I slide my hand under his leather jacket, around the muscled firmness of his waist, and look up into his face. He’s watching the airplane, wonder and hurt and a terrible desire combining in the neon glow of his eyes.
Jou . . . I’ll take you on a plane. It’s an inadequate promise in the face of the need in his eyes. But it’s the best I can do.
He smiles slowly and looks down at me. You’re such a soft thing.
I shrug uncomfortably. No, I’m not.
Yeah, you are . . . He turns his head, a movement that I know is whip-flick fast but seems to stretch out as time slows. Stutters to a stop. The people filling the platform blur into ribbons of colored light. In the kaleidoscope that swirls around us, a man and a woman stand absolutely still, staring at us.
“Sire, how come you to be unbound—?” asks the woman, all dark hair and dark eyes in a face so pale she could be a ghost except that I can see energy flowing off her in icy spikes and ghosts never kick off that much juice.
The demon growls at her.
The man beside her, slate to her chalk, and strangely not quite there despite the solidity of his skin and very ordinary clothes, falls to the floor and prostrates himself, forehead pressed to the scuffed gray carpeting. “Forgive us, sire. Forgive us. Do not punish us, sire.”
I feel heat wash off the demon like I’ve opened a furnace. My hair fans in the hot breeze. I don’t need to look at him to know that he’s gone psycho-demon, horns recurving above his head, the black scythe gripped in his hand. I draw away from him with a shiver.
“You don’t deserve the glove you’re wearin’ if you’re stupid enough to ‘front me in the middle of all this meat,” the demon says. His voice is a burning lash. I can feel it flick across my skin, and I draw away from him further.
Something wraps around my wrist. Something hot and feeling almost – but frighteningly not – like his fingers. I glance down, and give a little scream when I see that it’s a long, prehensile tail. I cringe away from him.
Stay still, sweet meat, the demon thinks, without looking at me. Don’t fuck up the stitch. His tail tightens around my wrist like a lasso and the flanged tip strokes my inner wrist. The sensation races through me, leaving me shuddering uncontrollably.
The man, or whatever he is, grovels. “Please don’t take this flesh away from me, sire, I beg you.”
“Whaddo you think, Tsara?” the demon asks and I jump. I can’t
remember him using my name before; I can feel the power of the simple naming race over my skin. “Should I punish this piece of shit Smoker?”
For what? I think shakily.
They broke the rules. Never out another demon in front of the meat.
Meat meaning humans. Me. I flex my hand against the constriction at my wrist, trying to calm down enough to stop twitching. Okay, they broke the rules, but it didn’t do any harm, did it? I already know what you are.
He glances at me, a dark, amused flick of his eyes. Do you? Thought you hadn’t figured me out.
I’ve figured out you’re some kind of incubus. Embarrassment outweighs my fear and I flush. How stupid do you think I am?
His laughter roars through my head. Lust demon, sweet meat. Incubus is so last century. Say it out loud. I want them to hear.
Say what?
That you wouldn’t punish them.
“Yes, I mean, no, you shouldn’t punish them. There’s no harm done.”
“So you’d just let ‘em walk, huh?”
I glance at the two in front of us. The man still prostrate on the floor, fear making his illusory skin shift and swirl in a way that no human skin should move. The woman standing small and pale beside him. Her aura has shifted from icy spikes to a shivering nimbus of terror.
What are you threatening them with? What does punishment mean that they’re so afraid?
Stripping them of their gloves an’ sendin’ ‘em home. The Halya’s a front-liner. She probably won’t last long enough to make it topside again.
I don’t follow him, but their fear is answer enough. It echoes my own. I desperately want this to be over, to be away from these creatures and this terrifying aspect of the creature I had sex with last night. “Yes, I’d just let them walk.”
“That’s where you an’ I are different.”
The demon moves, fast as a snake striking. The scythe licks out, but it’s not a scythe, it’s a flaming sword, a burning whip, a blur of killing fire, and I realize it’s all and none of these. It’s his will shaped into a weapon, and the shape doesn’t matter. What it touches it will destroy, if he’s strong enough, powerful enough.
He is. The fiery weapon slashes through the smoke demon, leaving only a pile of clothes that slump to the floor. A few cinders roll from the empty shirt collar, like ash from a stubbed-out cigarette. Watching, I can’t control a scream.
The demon’s standing still beside me again. Like he never moved. The tip of his tail moves in a slow caress over the skin of my inner wrist. Holding me still.
“You can stay,” he says to the ice demon. “For now. Don’t fuck up again.”
She bows very low. “Yes, sire. Thank you, sire. Your mercy is very great.”
“You bound?”
“Yes, sire. Summoned and circled.” She nods at a blur of color behind her.
The demon chuckles and puts his arm around me, drawing me close, his tail a gentle tug on my wrist. I shiver in his embrace. “Find yourself a nice witch an’ make her an offer she can’t refuse.”
Puzzlement swirls green and black through the ice demon’s aura, but she doesn’t ask. “Yes, sire. Thank you for your wisdom, sire.”
The demon nods. Look away, he thinks to me. Look at the Pillar.
He turns me so I’m looking out the windows again. The whole length of the Hancock Tower has turned brilliant crimson, so bright it hurts my eyes.
A woman and two children come up next to us and lean on the observatory railing. The woman begins to scold one of the kids when he tries to duck under the rail, to get closer to the glass, and I realize that whatever strange time-warp we were in is over.
The first gasp rises behind us. I glance back over the demon’s shoulder to see a crowd gathering around the figure of a man, collapsed on the floor. A man with dusky, unhealthy-looking skin, wearing very ordinary clothes.
You killed him.
Naw, just sent him back. Smokers are a liability anyway. All they’re good for is feedin’ off meat that’s already sick. What’s the fun in that?
I shake my head, staring at the still figure in the middle of the crowd.
C’mon, let’s go get some ice cream.
He drags me away as the crowd thickens around the fallen man.
Chapter 22
I lead him to the Ben and Jerry’s outlet in silence. I haven’t been to the store before; it’s on the other side of downtown from my office and even though I like Ben and Jerry’s, I’m not that much of a devotee that I’m willing to trek across Boston for a fix. So it takes me a little while to find the store at the far end of Park Plaza.
The store’s size and emptiness is a surprise. I peer through the window at the long counter and couple of tables squeezed into a little store-front no bigger than my parlor. There’s someone sitting at one of the tables, but after looking through the window for a moment, I realize it’s not a customer. It’s the bored-looking girlfriend of the heavily-pierced slacker behind the counter. They’re both clearly counting down the minutes until five.
“I think they’re closing,” I say to the demon.
Too bad. I want the real ice-cream experience.
Fine, fine. It’s not even quarter to five yet, so I push open the door and walk up to the counter, scanning the list of flavors posted on the back wall. They all look good, but one catches my eye.
“Butter Pecan,” I decide with a glance at the demon.
He grins. “Mint Chocolate Chunk.”
I’m for leaving once the slacker hands us our dishes, but the demon strolls over to one of the little tables and sits down. The chair creaks under his weight and the table looks like it will collapse if he leans hard on it. C’mon, savor the real ice cream experience.
What is it with you and the real ice cream experience?
He rests his leather-clad elbows on the table, which wobbles dangerously. I’m enjoyin’ this. Don’t fuck it up.
I sink into the chair across from him. Sorry.
He watches me for a moment, his eyes dark and as soft as Saul’s ever were. You okay? You were pretty spooked comin’ outta the tower.
I take a spoonful, move the cold, rich ice cream around on my tongue. Watching you go all demon . . . it’s not a nice thing to see.
You said you knew what I am. You busy foolin’ yourself thinking I’m human?
No, I mean, I know you’re a demon. It’s just not . . . it’s not obvious all the time. I’m not thinking about it constantly.
An’ you don’t like to be reminded.
I glare at him. It’s frightening.
You defended yourself pretty well last night. You know, if you’d called lightning on the dead bitch, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I hunch over my ice cream. I’ve never done it offensively before.
Yeah, I figured. The demon stretches his legs under the table, rubs his booted toe along the back of my calf. Lesson one in teachin’ you how to use your power. If you got it, flaunt it.
I take another mouthful of ice cream, crack a pecan between my back teeth, avoiding the temporary one. I don’t want to learn this. I was happy the way I was.
The demon gives me a grin that manages to stay just this side of wicked. Sweet meat, face it, you’re a fuckin’ target. What the dead bitch did to you was inevitable. An’ if I hadn’t been there to pull your ass outta the fire, she’da killed you. Stop bein’ a victim an’ learn how to master what you got.
I’m not a victim! I flare at him.
Better. A little healthy anger’s useful.
I shake my head. Look, I—
Give in gracefully.
I roll my eyes. Oh, you’re one to talk about giving in gracefully. You’ve never given in on anything.
Think not? He doesn’t elaborate. Just looks at me, one dark eyebrow raised, until I look away, remembering that he’s had very few choices before now.
Listen, I’m not the only thing that’s gonna find you tasty. You’re startin’ to flower, and that’s gonna attract a fuck-
load of attention you don’t want. So learn what I’m tryin’ to teach you. It’s for your own good.
My own good? How could anything you have to teach me possibly be for my own good? As you’ve just reminded me, you’re a demon. And you’ve killed how many people since we’ve met? Five in three days?
He shrugs and eats more ice cream. Given who they were, some would call that community service.
I snort aloud.
There’s no satisfying some people. He grumbles into my mind. Anyway, lesson over for today. What are we doin’ next?
I thought you wanted to savor the real ice cream experience?
Been there, done that.
I shake my head ruefully. If you really want to go on a duck tour, we could do that. I think there’s a sunset cruise.
Do we get to eat the ducks?
What?!
After the tour, do we get to eat the ducks? I love duck.
I laugh a little, despite myself. No, we do not eat the ducks.
The demon frowns into his ice cream; it melts around the edges. That’s false advertising, that is. We should get at least one duck. How about some roast duck after?
What if I said I was vegetarian?
The full wicked grin finally appears. I wouldn’t believe you. You like meat too much.
I roll my eyes and refuse to rise to the bait. I’m sure we can find you some roast duck.
What about sushi? I’ve missed sushi.
Plenty of good sushi in town. There’s good sushi near where I live, too. Porter Square is known for it. And there’s a terrific place about a mile up on Mass. Ave. that has amazing sushi. If he doesn’t mind driving – or taking a brisk walk before dinner – that’s where I’ll take him. When did you get to like sushi?
When I was encircled in Japan.
I raise an eyebrow in surprise.
What? The demon asks.
It didn’t occur to me . . . you know, that you’d have been summoned in other countries.
Why? Warlocks ain’t unique to the good ole U.S. of A.
