by E J Frost
“I know.” I lean towards him and whisper conspiratorially. “Me, too.”
The boy goes so pale I think for a moment he’s going to faint. He looks over both shoulders, then scrambles back through the door like I’ve set a hell-hound on his heels. “I wish my father had never gotten me this freaking job!”
I chuckle at the trials and tribulations of wealthy high-school interns and let myself out the front door into the overcast afternoon.
When I get back to the office, Evonne hands me a message slip that reads, “Wednesday, my office. Coffee and Edward’s viscera will be served promptly at 2 pm. Timmi.”
I laugh so loudly that I have to apologize to Lynn’s four o’clock, who is sitting in the reception chair, before I beat a retreat to my own office.
Chapter 33
The house is dark when I get home. I sit in my porch swing, turn up the collar of the leather jacket that the demon’s made my coat into against the evening breeze, and stare into the unlit windows. Jou’s home. I can feel him, faintly. The way I’ve been able to feel him all day. A slumbering ember in my mind. A faint compulsion that I’m sure emanates from the binding around my wrists.
I swing, rocking back and forth, heel to toe, toe to heel. The floorboards squeak a little. It’s a homey sound, to go with the rustle of fallen leaves on the pavement and the faint smell of woodsmoke. I want to go in and make myself a cup of coffee to complete the scene, but I can’t motivate myself to move.
Instead I sit, and swing, and take deep breaths of the scented fall air. Smell the magic. A faint animal musk, which could be a distant, disturbed skunk, or a wet shapeshifter running the Arlington bike path. A syrupy berry sweetness that I’ve smelled many times before and now can place: Lilliwhite. A slightly ascorbic herbal smell that I realize is fae lantern-jack which I’ve tried to cultivate for years and has blithely seeded itself under my front step; the round orange seed-pods lie concealed by the shadow of the porch until I hunt around for the source of the smell.
And under it all, the hot, sweet note of ginger from the demon sleeping in my bed.
A burst of sound from down the street heralds the arrival of my tenant, the windows of his aging Ford rolled down to share his musical preference with the world, despite the cool night. He’s listening to Pink Floyd, for which I can’t really fault him. After he has an obligatory grumble about the door lock, and I remind him that he’s going to have to go halfsies on a tank of heating oil soon, he disappears inside and I sit and hum the first line of “Wish You Were Here” to myself.
Do I think I can tell heaven from hell?
I’m not sure anymore. Hell wasn’t anything like I expected. There was beauty and wonder along with the terror. Jou’s feelings for his home are stronger than anything I’ve ever felt about any of the places I’ve lived. And together we made something more amazing than I could have imagined. Something I’m proud of.
But is it somewhere I could live? Could I trade hot ashes for trees? And what would my life be like there? Do I really want fiends for neighbors? Do I want to be one of the people Jou stretches over the stones when he decides to remodel? And what about his harem? Passionate Nevida, raging Fulsome, chilly Zeifyr. What about them? I can’t really see me fitting in and playing nice with Jou’s family. Particularly if I’d have to share him with them. What would we do, set up a rota? I’ve never been in anything but strictly monogamous relationships. I’m not sure I could cope with having to share.
I glance down the street, at the dark porches and bright windows of my neighbors’ houses. This is where I’ve imagined living. A suburban street. Not too far from the city. Close enough to go to the museums on the weekends but far enough out to have trees and good schools. A place to raise a family. Two point four children and matching Subarus.
Only I’ve lost my license permanently, so I’m not going to make much of a soccer mom, even if I could have kids. The only museum I’ve bothered to go to since moving to Boston is Timmi’s. My family dog is more likely to be a werewolf. And the only man in my life who can accept what I am is a demon.
“I’m never going to fit in here, am I?” I ask the empty street. Leaves rustle, but nothing answers. No epiphany dawns. There’s just the quiet street, the night breeze, the slow rocking of the swing. And the faint compulsion that’s ridden beside me all day, to go to the demon.
I stare at my wrists. I can almost see the bindings in the dusk. If nothing else, I want these things off me. I want to be free to make my own choices.
I rise slowly and make my way into my house, where the demon sleeps.
A dark shape against the tangled white sheets of my bed, the demon’s still asleep, breathing deeply and heavily. Not snoring. Do demons snore?
No, he grunts into my mind and holds an arm out to me.
I crawl across the bed and cuddle to his side. Kiss him. He returns my kisses sleepily.
“You don’t seem to get bad breath, either.”
“All kinda perks to bein’ infernal. You’ll love it.”
“Mmm.” I stuff all my doubts down deep in my mind and focus on the here and now. “Would you like me to make you dinner? It won’t be up to your standard, but, you know, I’ll do my best.”
“Nuh-uh. I’m goin’ back to sleep.” More sleepy kisses. “Come and join me after you’ve eaten.”
“I will, but I need to go gathering first. I only made half a batch today because I’m so low on dock and trillium.”
A deep grunt and he begins to sit up. “I’m comin’ with you.”
I push him back onto the bed. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You won’t even know I’m gone.”
“I’ll know.”
“Give it a rest, Jou. I’ll be back soon.” I slide off the bed and to my relief, the demon settles back into the pillows with a groan.
“Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.” I rummage in my closet until I find a long skirt. Fold it over my arm. I can change downstairs. “And Jou? This might as well be the night you stay out of my head.”
He rolls onto one side and looks at me, eyes glowing faintly in the twilight. “Why’s that?”
Because I’m going to get these damn things off my wrists, one way or another. “Because you’ll distract me, snoring into my brain.”
“I don’t snore,” he growls.
“That’s what everyone says.” I lean over the bed and kiss him. “And yet something like ninety percent of people do snore. How do you figure that? And what difference does it make? You’re going to be asleep and we’re not going to have sex tonight. So tonight’s a good night for it. I don’t want it to be a night we’re together. I like having you in my mind when, you know.”
“Yeah, I like being in your mind then, too.” He slides an arm behind his head, and lies back into the pillows. “But as for havin’ sex tonight—” He pats the edge of the bed and I perch on it.
“I’ll be too tired after gathering,” I warn. Something I know with certainty.
“We really gotta do something about your lack of stamina.”
“You can talk. You’ve been asleep for what, ten hours?”
“Mmm.” He stretches like a great, golden cat. “Gonna sleep for another ten, too. Can’t believe how much goin’ home fucked me up. Look, I’m even havin’ trouble holding onto my glove.” The sheet rustles and the tip of his flanged tail peeks over the edge. It waves at me.
I reach out tentatively and touch it. It feels firm but soft, kind of like the tip of a finger. It slides down my palm to curl over the groove between forefinger and thumb. The flanges drape around my fingers. They feel less like flesh. They’re smoother, like the skin inside my mouth, and they look like bat wings, which is a little creepy. I swallow and turn my hand over so I can gather his tail in my palm and close up the wings. I’d really rather not look at them. His tail pulses warmly inside the circle of my fingers, like we’re holding hands.
“It’ll be nice to come home to a warm bed.”
“Nicer if you
stayed in the warm bed.”
“Jou.” I blow out a breath, ruffling my bangs. “I need to go gathering.”
“So you can help more yuppies make babies.”
“Are you criticizing my work?” This is not a conversation I want to have right now.
He grunts and his tail tugs on my wrist until I lean over. His arm closes around my waist; he reels me in for a kiss. “No. Definitely not. ‘Cause that’s not gonna get me laid, is it?” He rolls so I end up on the bed beside him. He rises over me, flashes me his wicked grin, and then dips his head and begins kissing his way down my neck.
“Jou!” I protest half-heartedly.
“If you’re gonna be too tired when you get back, then I better get me some now.”
“Jou—“ I slide my hands into his dreadlocks. Tug gently, although whether I’m pulling him closer or pushing him away is completely open to interpretation. He ignores my conflicting signals anyway and reaches down to unbutton my pants.
“Jou, wait.”
“No, no waitin’.” He succeeds in opening the fly of my pants and working them over my hips. “Waitin’ never got anyone laid either.”
That starts me giggling, even while I run my hands down to his shoulders, pushing half-heartedly. “I should go if I’m going to get back before midnight.”
“Or you just shouldn’t go.” He stops pulling off my pants for a second while he pushes up my sweater and unhooks my bra. “What the fuck’re you wearing, anyway?”
I push at his shoulders more concertedly. “Clothes.”
“Where’d you pick ‘em up, a garage sale? I swear, I’m out of it for one day and you fall back into the fashion abyss.”
I’m about to argue, but then he finally succeeds in uncovering my breasts, and his hot mouth closes on my nipple. Oooh. I stop pushing at him. Slide my hands down his back. No one but you cares what I wear anyway.
Right now what I mostly care about is gettin’ you naked. He tugs on the pants that are half-way down my thighs. I obligingly lift my hips so he can slide my pants off. He immediately settles over me. Onto and into me. Not giving me any opportunity to escape. I pull him closer, curling my fingers into the big muscles of his back, and let his familiar heat and power fill me.
An hour later, I leave him sleeping and slip downstairs to call the Squire.
I love the woods. The Squire’s horse has taken us to the Estabrook Woods in Concord, which after years of gathering I know better than I know my own yard. I’m comfortable in these woods. The moonlight picks out trails for me to follow. Frog-song and the calls of night-birds lead me from place to place. Black cohosh and spikenard, which I use in the magic milk, are plentiful. Small fae inhabit Estabrook, and they’ll often call me to smokeberry, one of the rarest magical herbs, which grows in their dancing rings.
Except tonight. Tonight I lumber through the woods. I can’t find any of the usual paths and I keep crashing through bracken that tangles my skirt and slashes the backs of my hands. The woods are full of noises, but I can’t read any of them. Nothing calls to me. I stumble through a thicket and end up ankle-deep in mud before I realize I’ve hit the edge of Rose Meadow Swamp.
“Damn.”
The Squire silently and somberly offers me a hand out of the mud. He stands a slight distance away while I scrape off my boots. He looks the way he always looks, patient and watchful, his gauntlet resting lightly on the pommel of his sword, his helmet turning slightly as he surveys the woods around us. These woods are safer since he eliminated the pack of barghasts that haunted the old Pilgrim road, but there are still wild and unfriendly things here. So he’s watchful, but he’s also, I sense, laughing a little at me.
I kick mud off my boot with a wet spatter and grimace as a lot of it lands on my skirt instead of the leaves. “I’m not doing very well tonight, am I?”
The dark slit of his visor swivels back to me.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” I sigh heavily. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Well, that’s not true. I do.” I pause while I hunt around for a stump. On top of feeling completely disconnected from the woods, my legs and back are aching from all the unaccustomed . . . activity lately. Fortunately for my temper and my muscles, I find a dry stump and sink down on it. “These things.”
I hold my wrists out in front of me. Slouch over them. Where I could see a shadow of the bindings at twilight, now I can’t see anything. But I can feel them. That spiderweb sense of constriction. The compulsion to return to the demon. The binding that’s worked its way under my skin, which is slowly separating me from my world. Making me feel less and less a part of the Earth. More and more a part of Him. And even without him in my mind, I know that if he called me, I’d be compelled to answer. No matter where he was. No matter where I am. This is a deep binding, deeper than anything I’ve ever heard of. And it scares the shit out of me.
The Squire kneels in the damp leaves without a rustle. He takes one of my wrists in his gauntleted hands and examines it gravely, his helmet bent over me. I can feel the warm puff of his breath on the skin of my inner wrist. The touch of his chain mail glove is as light and soft as the brush of feathers.
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t seem to do anything, but I feel him call power. It ruffles across my skin, bringing the small hairs on my neck to attention. Around us, the woods fall silent. Except for a little breeze that swirls over and around us, carrying the faint tinkle of bells.
Around my wrists, the demon’s intricate knotwork appears, shading in from nothingness. It hovers just on the edge of my vision. If I look squarely at my arm, there’s nothing, just moonlight and leaf-shadow shifting over my skin. But if I look away, out of the corner of my eye, I can see the cords that loop over and around my wrists and trail down to the ground.
The better to tie me to the headboard with.
The Squire runs one finger over the binding, following the long blue vein in my wrist. I shiver.
“I’d really like to be able to take it off,” I whisper.
He bobs his armored head and draws a long knife from somewhere.
“Wait.” I touch his glove just before he slides the tip of the knife under the bottom edge of the knotwork. “He’ll know if the binding is broken.” He may not be in my mind right now, but the binding is linked to him at a deeper level. I want to be free, but not at the cost of pissing off the demon.
The Squire nods gravely and puts his other glove over his heart. Trust me.
I do. Where the demon protects me because he wants to use me, the Squire protects me because it’s what he is. He’s never let me down, and he never will. There’s a lot of comfort in that thought. “Yes, okay, go ahead.”
He carefully slides the knife between the binding and my skin. The kiss of the cold metal makes me shudder, which I try fiercely to still. I’d really rather the Squire didn’t open my wrists by accident. He slides his glove under my wrist to steady me and holds me still while he makes the first cut.
I expect a flash of light, an inner-quake, something to mark the breaking of the binding. But there’s nothing, and as the Squire works, I realize he’s not breaking the binding. He’s loosening it. By cutting each knot, he’s slowly undoing what the demon’s done. If he’d slashed open the knotwork in one stroke, he might have broken the binding. But by cutting each knot, he’s not pitting his power directly against Jou’s. He’s working around it.
He reaches the last knot and withdraws the knife. The binding’s still there. The knotwork remains coiled around my wrist. The severed threads don’t fray or fall away. But their hold on me has lessened. The binding is held only by one knot, which the Squire’s carefully left, sitting right on top of the big blue vein of my wrist. He taps the knot with a gloved finger and then touches his finger to my mouth.
Charades again. “Sorry, I don’t get it.”
He pushes the tip of his finger between my lips and taps my teeth. The metal of his gauntlet jars against the enamel. A bright shock up into my skull. “Ow. What, I bit
e it off?”
The Squire nods and gestures for my other wrist.
When he’s cut all but the last knot on the other binding, he rises and offers me a hand to help me up. I take a deep breath as I straighten. Smells flood up my nose. Moss, the vanilla-sweetness of Joe Pye Weed, wet leaves, the tannic edge of the bogs. Good smells. Earthy smells. Frog-song rises from my left and I know they’re calling me to a stand of trillium. My connection with Earth, the real Earth, my Earth, opens wide again.
I take a step towards the frogs, another. Feel the rightness of my direction. And of the path I’ve chosen. Maybe the demon won’t be happy when he discovers what I’ve done. Maybe he won’t ever have to discover it. But I like having the ability to rid myself of his bindings whenever I want to. Having the freedom of choice.
It’s long after midnight by the time I get home. I’m yawning, and the Horse uncharacteristically blows out a long breath as I slide to the pavement in front of my house. Do fae horses get fatigued?
The Squire doesn’t seem fatigued, and waits with his usual patience while I dismount and regain my footing after tangling up in my stupid skirt. When I turn to say good-night, he holds out his gauntleted hand.
I peer up into his palm. There’s a tiny glass tube sitting in the middle of the chain mail. I take it and turn it over between my fingers. No clue what it is. Demon-repellant? A girl can hope.
“Sorry,” I say. “What is this?”
The Squire drops the reigns he’s holding with his left hand and cups both gauntlets together. The bowl. I get it.
“Fae super-glue,” I say. Despite the fact that old magics don’t really like being thanked by young magics, I say it anyway. He’s more than earned it tonight. “Thank you. For everything. I’m in your debt. Again.”
The Squire shakes his helmet. Then he reaches out and touches my cheek. A quick brush of cold metal against my skin. Then he and the Horse are gone and there’s just the soft night breeze against my cheek.
