by E J Frost
“Can you carry him? I think the potion will knock him out.” At the demon’s raised eyebrow, I say, “Without scrunching him up into that god-awful ball?”
He chuckles. “What was I sayin’ about you bein’ the world’s biggest softie? Yeah, I can carry him.”
The sound of claws scrabbling against the hardwood floor of my hallway distracts me from our conversation. I lean back in my chair so I can look down the hall. Izzy’s tail disappears around the corner into my parlor.
“What’s he doing?” I ask the demon.
“Chasin’ dust bunnies.”
“I’m surprised the cantrip left any. Mad half-hour?”
“Mmm?”
“Housecats do it. Usually just when everyone is getting ready for bed. They race around like they’re possessed, chasing shadows. Is this Izzy’s version?”
“Don’t think so. He’s been doin’ it all morning. Probably that potion you gave him.”
“Oh,” I say, chagrined. “I didn’t think it would hurt him.”
“He look like he’s hurting? He’s got more zip than he’s had in three lifetimes. Watch out for him humpin’ the furniture later.”
“Oh, great. He doesn’t, um—”
“Come fire? Yeah, he does. Better keep the extinguisher handy.”
“Wonderful. Could you send him home for a while? I really don’t want my house burning down while I deal with Peter.”
The demon rubs his chin. “We’ll take him along. Wiz and Giz, too. Blizzard can stay in your ice box.”
I glance at my refrigerator, half expecting an ice salamander to burst out of it. “All four of them are here?!”
“Yeah. Home’s not safe right now. Old man’s on the warpath.”
“Oh.” I swallow my objections to having my house taken over by various breeds of salamander. After seeing the face in the flames, I don’t want to leave anything to its mercy. “What about the others? Your harem?”
“Fulsome’s got ‘em on the move. The Zes are topside anyway.”
“The Zes?”
“Zippy, Zeifyr, and Zahira.”
“Zippy?” I ask. “There’s a demon named Zippy?”
Jou chuckles. “Ziporah. Do not call her that. She doesn’t like it.”
“And they’re here?”
He shakes his head. “They’re in New York. Livin’ the high life.” He finishes his first beer and opens the second with a flick of his thumb.
I give him a smile that manages to be only slightly bitter. “Sorry you’re stuck slumming with me.”
He looks directly at me, eyes dark. “What makes you think I’m slummin’?”
I pick up his empty beer bottle. “It’s not exactly Dom Perignon or whatever they fed you in New York.”
“They didn’t feed me anythin’ in New York, except the occasional junkie. You act like bein’ topside’s a field trip. It’s not. It’s just a break from battle. A chance to screw humans. Collect some souls. And it’s usually frustrating as all fuckout, ‘cause of the promise of somethin’ exactly like this.”
I frown. “Like what?”
“This. Bein’ free.” When I stare at him, uncomprehending, he elaborates, “You know what bedtime stories baby lemures’re told? Stories about the fiend that broke its chains and got to snuff the humans that enslaved it—”
“Oh, charming. No wonder you’ve turned out like you have.”
He lifts a dark eyebrow. “You’re missin’ the point. I’m living the dream, sweet meat. No one controls me. No one can command me to do this or fuck that. I’m free.”
I knew that. On some level. But I hadn’t internalized it. Not in those terms.
“And you’re using that freedom to make me quiche.”
He chuckles and takes a long swallow of the beer. “There are worse ways to spend my time.”
I tap the newspaper under our plates. “You could be manipulating the rich and powerful. Ruling the world.”
That’s what Rowena planned to do. She could have done something worthwhile with all the power she stole. Reversed global warming. Fed the starving. Cured AIDS. Instead, she just wanted to manipulate local politicians.
“Whaddo I want with human power?” he asks.
“What does anyone? I’ve never understood that.”
“Yeah, I got that. I’ve never seen anyone with so much power have so little interest in usin’ it.”
I scowl at him and get up for a glass of water. The glass is so clean my fingertips squeak against it. That’s a little too clean for me. Next time I’ll tone down the cantrip. “So what will you do with your freedom?”
“Same thing I’m doin’ now.”
“Hanging out with me?”
“You say that like there’s somethin’ wrong with it, sweet meat. Something missing? Somethin’ you want to make you happy?”
I lean against the sink and sip the water thoughtfully. “No. I’m pretty happy.” Or I was before the demon came barrelling into my life. “I feel like I help people.”
“The fertility thing.”
I nod. “It’s better than what I was doing before.” Freelancing. Working for Manny Goldberg and others like him. “I was never sure what my clients would ask for. A lot of the time I wasn’t sure I was helping.”
The demon watches me. Listening. By now Saul would be analyzing my ‘problem,’ taking it apart like a network error. The demon just listens.
“Sometimes . . .” I twist my hands around the glass, trying to put my concerns into terms that he’ll understand. “Do you ever wonder if people actually know what’s good for them? I mean, I’d get women coming to me for love charms to get back men who hit them. Or this one time, a father came to me wanting me to track down his youngest son, and when I found him hiding at a friend’s house, it turned out that the kid ran away because his older brother was molesting him. How could I give them what they wanted? I was just adding to their misery.”
The demon continues to listen. There’s nothing judgmental in his gaze. He simply listens.
“Helping my clients make babies is less complicated.” And it makes up, in some small way, for what I can’t have.
He nods. “You don’t gotta deal with the consequences.”
I frown at him, not sure he understands. “My life works . . .” Or it did. “But it isn’t very glitzy. It’s just my life. I guess . . . I thought you’d want something more glamorous.”
“D’you? Mmm.” He shrugs.
“You’re not impressed by glamor.”
“I’m impressed by you in that.” He nods at my top, the black leather halter that’s so comfortable I’ve forgotten I’m wearing it, and, as advertised, doesn’t show a spot of what must have splashed on it while I was brewing. It’s still beautiful, and it makes me feel beautiful. Something I don’t feel very often. “You know what’d be even more impressive? If you wear that out dancin’ tonight. There’s a little glamor for you. You like to dance?”
I love to dance. Usually in the context of spellcasting. When Ro and I were still speaking to each other we used to go clubbing in Harvard Square and dance until we passed out. It was the best time I’d ever had.
Until I caught her summoning the first of what must have been a long line of demons.
“We need to take care of Peter first,” I say. Jou nods, and when he doesn’t argue, I continue, “And I’m not getting drunk.”
He chuckles. “We’ll see about that.”
I don’t want to watch as Jou unwraps Peter. Just seeing him bring the horrible, multicolored ball in from the car makes my stomach jittery and my heart hurt. But I need to get the memory potion down Peter before he comes back to himself. Before he remembers who he is and what’s been done to him. So I force myself to watch as Jou shakes out the ball into a long shadow. I watch Peter’s form fill in slowly, gaining dimension and contour, until he stands in front of me. Here but not here.
“Is his soul really in my sugar jar?”
“Yeah. Think I’d make that shit up?”
“Sure.” The demon takes the ceramic sugar jar off the counter and unseals the top. As soon as he does, a golden glow spills out of the jar. It lights my kitchen, turning the air thick and sweet as honey.
I take a deep breath, feel that radiance fill me. Feel those elements that make up Peter’s core. Decency and kindness and a deep intellectual curiosity. Something in my chest leaps in response. Pressure grows in my throat as my soul calls to Peter’s.
Nothing answers. His soul glows, but doesn’t respond to the call of my magic. There’s nothing in him to respond.
My throat grows tight. I blink back tears. “Please put it back,” I say.
The demon’s eyes meet mine for a moment, glimmering with soullight. The light flies down, down, down into the velvet blackness of his pupils, as though he’s swallowing the light of Peter’s soul. I shudder, in fear, but also in sympathy for the terrible longing I see in his eyes.
“Please, Jou.”
He dips two fingers into the sugar jar, scoops out a tiny spark that shimmers like a firefly and blows it into Peter’s face. It winks in the air and then seems to sink into Peter’s shell. Peter blinks and I see consciousness, personality, self, soul, begin to fill his eyes.
I quickly tip the contents of the bowl into his mouth. Stroke his throat until he swallows. Watch his eyes glaze and the light die out of them again.
I squeeze my own eyes closed. I can’t stand to watch this, to do this to him. To take away part of his life.
“I’ll dump him somewhere. Someone’ll find him.”
I blink and focus on the demon. He’s watching me. Eyes dark, cool, impassive. He could dump Peter somewhere without a second thought. Without remorse.
“Don’t you ever feel guilty about anything?”
“Nope,” he responds. “You gonna do this or you want me to cart him off?”
“I’ll do it.” I square my shoulders. It’s easy to be courageous when all the options suck. “I need to know how far back to go. When did Ro first call you?”
The demon shrugs. “Coupla months ago. Told you, time moves different down below. I don’t have a good sense of human time.”
“Great. What month was it?”
“Fuck if I know. She didn’t hand me a calendar after she yanked me topside.”
“Okay, what season was it?”
“Whaddo you think, she took me out for walks?”
“Sorry.” I blow out a breath in frustration, try to think of something that will give me an idea as to when Ro first met Peter. First began to interfere in his life. “What was Ro wearing? When she first summoned you, what was she wearing?”
The wicked leer. “Nothin’.”
She always did prefer to cast skyclad. “What about . . . when she had you . . .” I hesitate, not really wanting to remind him of his time on that terrible wheel. “When you could see the women through the mirror, what were they wearing? Coats? Scarves?”
He shakes his head, dreadlocks rattling musically. He’s threaded silver clasps onto some of them. I want to touch them. Run them through my fingers. Rub them over my skin.
How can I be distracted by him at time like this? I scrub my hand over my eyes. Try to focus. “What were they wearing?”
“Sexy little dresses. High heels.” He adjusts himself through his jeans, a movement my eyes track avidly, even though I try to look away. “There a point to this or are you just tryin’ to turn me on? ‘Cause you don’t need to talk dirty to me for that.”
“I’m trying to figure this out. Stop distracting me. They weren’t wearing coats?”
“Nope, no coats.”
Spring this year was warm, but even on Newbury Street, it probably wasn’t warm enough for sexy little dresses until May.
“Did Ro give Peter to you right away?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Coupla weeks.”
“After she exhausted herself?” It comes out nastier than it should. Why am I jealous?
He shrugs. “Yeah.”
I shake myself and try to focus. “So maybe late May. That’s a hell of a long time.” The potion I’ve given Peter could regress him to babyhood, but I want to leave as much of his memory as I can. If I’m going to take him back that far, he might as well not have any memory of Ro.
I don’t know exactly when they met, but I know it was sometime after Peter’s birthday in February, because he mentioned being dateless for his birthday dinner. That’s a point of reference I can fix on.
“Peter, can you hear me?”
“Yes.” The dreadful monotone. It makes me shudder.
“Peter, do you know who I am?”
He frowns. No, he doesn’t know. The potion’s already started eating at his memory. Chewing away the days and weeks.
“Peter, it’s your birthday. Do you remember your birthday?”
He nods. “The big three-oh.”
“Peter, you had a family party, do you remember that?”
“At Aunt Willa’s place.”
Before Ro killed her for the inferiarcus that she’d been hiding in her safe. “I want you to focus on the birthday party, Peter. Hold it in your mind. It’s the last thing you remember.”
He nods again.
“You’ve been in an accident, Peter. You hit your head. Your birthday party is the last thing you can remember. Hold onto it. Are you holding onto it?”
“Yes.”
“Picture each detail. Was there a cake?”
“Had an elephant on it.”
“Good. Picture the cake.” I nod at Jou and he scoops Peter up effortlessly.
I keep Peter talking all the way to the car. Focusing on the details of his birthday party so that it remains clear and fixed in his mind. Jou returns to the house for the three salamanders and unceremoniously dumps them in the back seat. Their claws scrabble on the leather as they jostle to look out of the windows.
I glance up and down the street to make sure my neighbors aren’t watching this strange performance. I should have thought to grab a bag of faerie dust.
Peter’s battered Toyota, parked a little way down the street, catches my eye.
What about Peter’s car? Maybe I should drive it. I don’t want to. Doing it once was risky enough. Doing it again is asking to get caught. I probably would end up in Bridgewater State if I got caught driving someone else’s car without a license. Someone who has no memory of me.
It’ll get towed.
I nod and climb into the back seat with the salamanders.
The cream and gold lightning salamander turns around from staring out the side window, blinks his tiny black eyes at me, and jumps into my lap.
All the hairs on my body rise. Power flushes through me like a fever. Something warm and gritty wells up in my throat. My blood thickens and each heartbeat slows, thundering in my ears.
The little salamander looks up at me. And purrs.
My hands close around him gently, reverently. Sparks jump from his scales to my skin, closing the tiny gap. Sealing the pact between us.
I look up, blinking, and meet the demon’s glowing eyes in the rearview mirror.
Tasty, sweet meat.
He’s—my familiar.
Yeah? Thought you two might be a good fit. The demon chuckles. Now I know how pimps feel. He starts the car, lets the engine turn over for a moment.
I reach forward over the salamander and touch Peter’s temple. Drawn to him for no reason I can name. Power runs down my arm in a hot pulse. The power to heal, to cure, but also to wound, to kill. I never knew they were two sides of the same coin before. Never felt so clearly the connection between light and dark.
A bruise spreads across Peter’s skin from my fingertips. I draw my hand back quickly.
Good idea, the demon says into my mind, pulling away from the curb. No one’ll doubt he hit his head.
I stare at my handiwork in horror. I’ve never hurt anyo
ne with a touch before. In my lap, the little salamander turns several circles, claws prickling through my jeans, and settles down with a growly purr. He looks up at me with unblinking eyes, impassive as the demon.
Chapter 26
I cry all the way to Peter’s apartment, and all the way home after the demon takes Peter inside and leaves him on the bathroom floor so it looks like he slipped getting out of the shower. Small, hard, bitter tears that roll cold down my cheeks and make my nose run.
The demon and the salamanders let me cry. Jou says nothing. Offers no false platitudes. Wizard purrs at me and Izzy gives my tears a curious sniff, but otherwise they leave me alone and let me grieve.
I’m not totally sure what I’m grieving for.
Back at home, I ignore the demon and his pets and throw myself into rectifying the damage done to my house. I do everything by hand, without magic, as penance. Spackling the deep scrapes on the dining room ceiling from the demon’s horns. Gathering and stacking the books that still lie scattered across the table and floor. I leave them on the dining room table, glancing at them as I move between dining room and kitchen, washing down the walls, hoping that an answer to my problems will suddenly leap from their pages.
I have no idea of how to send him back. No one I can ask. Everyone I’ve drawn into this has gotten killed. I’m on my own with no idea of where to start. Even in this modern age, warlocks don’t usually post their secrets for banishing demons on the Internet. Unless I stumble across another weakness, I’m going to have to make it up as I go along. I hate making it up as I go along. I like recipes. Instructions. Focal points for summoning and directing the energies I call. I’ve been afraid of wild magic since I was twelve, and now I’m reduced to it again.
I scrub at the bloodstains furiously.
While the floor and walls and ceiling dry, I change into even older jeans and a shirt that I don’t mind ruining and dig through my basement to find the left-over cans of paint from when I painted my kitchen and dining room. The fresh paint covers the burns and bloodstains and soon there’s nothing left of the damage done to my house, except the burned kitchen table, which the cantrip has left so highly polished that it looks kind of trendy. Only the dining room floor stubbornly resists my efforts: first to smooth over the splinters with sandpaper and when that fails, with magic. I stare at the ragged mess for a few minutes before climbing up to my attic again and digging out an old latchhook rug that I must have made at Wydlins. I toss it over the hole resignedly. I can’t afford a new floor. The pink kittens on the rug stare back at me. They’re only slightly less ghastly than the memory of the demon eating Justinian in that spot.
