The bag was empty all too soon. Jasper wanted to get him another, but Alcander had only said the two, and Jasper didn’t know enough to know what to do. It seemed like Crimson should have more, he was suckling from the empty bag, a small frown line between his brows. The half-blood gently smoothed it out with his thumb, setting the empty bag aside. Alcander plucked another sliver of gold from a wound and flushed it again. The black blood coated his hands, which were covered in plastic gloves. The blood seeping slowly from Crimson’s wounds began to take on a redder tint. Jasper hoped that was a good thing.
“We’re almost there,” came Max’s voice from the front seat. Jasper had almost forgotten he was there at all. “Which door should I go to?”
Al threaded a long needle with seasoned ease. “The back, there’s a shortcut.” He sewed the larger of the two wounds closed, each stitch tiny and perfectly uniform.
They pulled into the parking lot in front of Alcander’s, and Max drove around to the back. The human got out of the car first, opened the back door for them, and then disappeared inside to unlock the door.
Alcander snapped off the gloves, putting them on top of the few tiny pieces of gold. “Carry him downstairs and take him to the lab.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
The doctor looked to Crimson’s face, held carefully in Jasper’s lap, and then to Jasper himself. “Yes.”
Jasper’s eyes made a second attempt at tears, his relief was so intense. He drew in a shuddering breath, then pulled Crimson into his arms once more, and carried him inside.
#
Max was in the living room, already setting up an IV, though Jasper understood intrinsically that it was not for Crimson. At least, not yet. “You should take some of mine instead,” he said before the human could put the needle in his arm. In the fluorescent light, he looked almost as pallid as his keeper.
“No,” said Max. “It will be okay, just this once.”
“But—”
“Jasper, please understand, you are not human, and we do not know what your blood may do to him,” explained Alcander. “There is every chance it may do as much harm as good. However…” He leaned around him, his gaze focused sternly on Max, who still seemed focused on attempting to find a vein. The vampire moved over to him and plucked the needle deftly from his hand. “Absolutely not.”
“He looks really bad though,” said Max.
“So will you if you lose another pint of blood,” replied Alcander. “Go eat something.”
The human looked pained, but did as he was told, and Alcander led Jasper the rest of the way to the lab, where a table and some plastic tarps stood in place of an operating theater.
Jasper set the werespider on the long table, then pulled up one of the swivel chairs beside it.
“You should eat too,” said Alcander. “And rest.”
Jasper looked again at Crimson. He had barely moved in the past few minutes and was still hardly breathing. If Jasper hadn’t known better, he would have sworn he was dead. The half-blood shook his head and scooted the chair close enough to where he could comfortably hold the demon’s cold hand. “I’ll wait.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
—
Betting Games
Nine days had passed since their run-in with Shane.
He and Crimson, having decided to stay in for the night, were playing Texas Hold ’Em. Since money held no value to the werespider, and since Jasper had none anyway, they transformed it into a drinking game, where antes were upped with shots in place of chips, with a buy-in using cigarettes and spare lighters pilfered from dozens of locations in the attic. The first to empty his bottle lost. “Or won,” said Crimson. “Dependin’ on how you see it.”
By that logic, Jasper was either losing quite badly, or on a fantastic hot streak.
He squinted at Crimson suspiciously over his cards—a mismatched two and seven. He barely ever played poker, yet he knew that was no good.
Crimson’s cards still lay facedown on the table, where they had been dealt. He thumbed up the corners, glanced at the number and suit, then let them lie back down, and rapped his knuckles on the wood. With nothing on the line, there was no harm in staying in, so Jasper matched his check and flipped the first card to reveal the seven of hearts. A pair was better than seven high, he supposed, but not by much.
Crimson poured a drizzle of tequila into the shot glass in front of him, the amount small enough that Jasper was left to wonder whether he somehow had been dealt a worse hand, if such a thing were even possible. He decided to risk it and matched.
The last few days felt surreal.
After waking up at Alcander’s, Crimson had gone for a “walk.” When he came back, he had guzzled down a full bottle of wine “for the pain” and then passed out on the bed in a deep, sound slumber that lasted nearly a day. Whether the pain was physical or emotional, he did not say, and Jasper did not have the nerve to ask.
When he woke, he was surly, and he only kept himself up long enough to walk home with Jasper, where he went immediately to the couch and listed in and out with the television on and a bottle in easy reach.
On the third day, when he seemed to be feeling a little less depressed, Jasper timidly asked him what all he remembered. Crimson claimed to have lost track of the situation back in the alley, when he had been shot, and that most of what came before and after was a little fuzzy. Jasper didn’t know if he bought that, but he also didn’t know if he was ready to deal with whatever feelings the werespider was hiding. He had been keeping them secret all this time, after all, and things between them were good. He didn’t want to risk messing that up.
After a few more days of rest, Crimson’s recovery seemed fuller, enough so that he was awake more than he was asleep, though his energy was still low and he resisted any course of action that involved leaving the house for more than an hour or two. This had happened in Florida too, and Jasper decided perhaps it was just part of the way he was. As the saying went, things that went up, always eventually came down. Crimson simply went up higher than most, so he had further to fall, and the resulting impact left him no less pained than if he had actually struck the ground.
With his days and nights suddenly free, Jasper entertained himself by wandering the city alone, visiting the local libraries and parks, grocery shopping, and reading voraciously. All the while, he kept his senses strained for Shane, even going so far as to inquire about him at some of the demonic haunts where he was seen as a friendly face. Either no one had seen him, or the ones who had were too scared to talk. In any case, he didn’t sense him, and before long his concern over the matter began to fade. If the guy had any sense, he had hopped the first plane to Mexico and wouldn’t come back.
As for Jasper, he had the credit card Alcander had given him, the cash from the Hunting Agency a distant memory. The card adequately covered all his needs, but he felt bad always using Alcander’s money. If he wasn’t going to be a Hunter anymore, there seemed no choice but to start looking for a civilian job. Alcander still had to help him with his credentials (and his résumé—he’d never written one and had no clue where to start), but he had put in applications at all the surrounding bars, apart from Rascal’s, which felt slightly too personal a place to work. He had gotten a call for an interview next weekend, and the game was their way of celebrating.
Now that he had bought in, Crimson raised the bet substantially. The clear tequila bubbled over the lip of the shot glass. Jasper shook his head, folded, and took his quarter shot with a grimace, while Crimson scooped the cards back together and shuffled them to redeal.
“So if you get the job, what’ll you be doing?” asked Crimson conversationally. “Like, bartending or something?”
“Probably just washing dishes or sweeping floors, shit like that,” said Jasper, though bartending did sound kind of cool.
“I don’t even like to wash my own dishes,” said Crimson.
“I noticed,” said Jasper.
His hand this go-aro
und was decidedly better than the last. Two kings. But it must have showed in his face because Crimson folded right off the bat. Jasper threw the cards on top of the pile. “I’ve never had a job before. Not a normal one anyhow.” He shuffled the deck, feeling along the edges for dog-ears or indentations. It would be just like Crimson to cheat, even in a game meant purely for fun.
“I used to run liquor for Tommy Rascal, scare away cops, shoot mobsters. It was fun.”
“I don’t think that counts as a job, Crims.” But the mental image of Prohibition-era Crimson made him smile.
Crimson opened his mouth to say something, and Jasper held out a hand to stop him. “Neither does any sort of robbery, piracy, larceny, arson, assassination, or espionage.”
Crimson closed his mouth. Jasper dealt him two fresh cards. Crimson peeked at them and poured two fingers of tequila into his glass. “Bet.”
“Raise,” replied Jasper.
Crimson matched. “I played piano over at Moonlight.”
“I thought that was a strip club.” Jasper had never been inside, but St. James was well aware of the place. The only reason they had never done away with it was because the only humans who ended up there were the sort that wanted to, and the demons who ran the place knew better than to have it any other way.
“Strippers gotta dance to something.” Crimson laughed as Jasper revealed the first three cards. “We didn’t always have your fancy, newfangled radios.” The werespider scooted a second glass in front of him and filled it halfway. “Raise.”
Jasper was sitting on three of a kind and aces no less. “Match,” he agreed. “I guess that counts as a job. How was it?”
“Didn’t like it. It’s all schedules and routines. Go here at this time, go home at that time, play that same song. Play it again. Time I quit, I hated being there so much I didn’t go back for months.”
“How long’d you make it?”
Crimson squinted an eye halfway shut. “’Bout three weeks, I’d say. Wouldn’t recommend it.”
Jasper laughed. “Well, I like schedules. And I like routines.”
“Bizarre.”
They went back and forth with the bets until each had three full shot glasses in front of him. The quarter bottle of whiskey (Jasper couldn’t stomach the tequila) he’d drank prior was already fizzing in his senses, impairing his judgment, which was probably why he thought it would be okay to bet such an extravagant amount. He had him this time for sure.
They revealed their cards. Jasper swore. A full fucking house.
He took his three shots. By the third, the whiskey went down easy.
Like most drinking games, once you started losing, it was hard to do much else. They played for another hour, Jasper getting foggier all the while. They were technically supposed to play until one bottle was entirely empty, but Crimson called the game while Jasper’s was still a fifth of the way full.
“You drink any more and we’ll have to finish the game on the floor with a bucket.” Crimson laughed.
“Yer jus’ scared Imma make a comeback an’ beat’choo,” accused Jasper in a slur that did nothing but prove Crimson’s point.
“Yeah, sure. That’s it, kid. Whatever you wanna tell yourself.”
Jasper glared at him. He glared so hard, in fact, that he just closed his eyes. Once closed, he saw very little reason to open them again. He went to prop his chin in his palm, missed, and set it on the table instead.
Crimson made a soft clicking sound with his tongue. “Looks like it’s time for bed.”
Jasper’s eyes snapped open. “Not tired,” he announced, sitting up again.
“You can sleep at the table if ya really wanna,” said Crimson, “but don’t bitch to me when your neck is sore.”
“Not tired,” Jasper repeated, reaching for the cards to shuffle them. They flew out of his hands and across the table, many fluttering to the floor.
“C’mon, kid.” Crimson hauled him up from his chair, arm tight around his waist. They hobbled gracelessly across the room to the beds. Crimson let him drop onto the mattress. Jasper lay back and looked up at the spinning ceiling. Oh, that wasn’t good. He sat up again.
Crimson was still standing beside his bed, giving him a look he couldn’t quite read. Jasper gave him a look back, squeezing one eye shut while studying him with the other. Had he always looked at him this way? Maybe he only imagined it.
The surplus of alcohol made him feel bolder. “It true—what Shane said?”
Jasper didn’t have any trouble reading the disgust that quickly crossed the demon’s face at the mention of the incubus and just as quickly disappeared. His face transformed into a look of cool indifference.
“Yeah, I can speak Atlantean.” He said something in a language that sounded like bubbling water and crashing waves. Jasper didn’t know enough about it to tell if he was bullshitting or not.
“Nah, not ’bout that. The other thing.”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ ’bout, kid.”
“Quit callin’ me kid. And quit playin’ dumb. I’m talkin’ ’bout the thing about you ’n me.” Crimson was unreadable once more. It was extremely frustrating. “You… like me?” That wasn’t exactly what Shane had said, but Jazz couldn’t bring himself to use the same words.
At first Jasper didn’t think Crimson would answer, he was silent for so long.
Finally: “Would it matter if I did?”
“Course it would.”
“How so?” asked Crimson. He hesitated a beat, then took a seat on the edge of the bed, some distance from where Jasper sat. “Let’s say I was in love with you. Hypothetically. No matter how much I loved you, it ain’t gonna change the fact that you don’t feel the same way. So what’s it matter?”
Crimson’s voice was soft and rhythmic, and Jasper’s alcohol-sodden mind was having trouble understanding him through the gentle melody, but one word rang clearer than the rest. He sat up a little straighter. “Love?”
“Hypothetically,” repeated Crimson, firm. “It’s like with you and your friend Adam. You felt one way. He felt another. Sometimes them’s the breaks.”
“Wha—you told me you didn’t remember that!”
Crimson smiled weakly. “Yeah, I was sort of bluffing. I mean, it’s kinda vague. What I remember. But it, uh… just seemed easier.”
“Shouldn’t’ve lied about it.” Especially since he was the only one who knew the truth.
Crimson shrugged. “Me knowing doesn’t change anything… Does it?”
In general, the whole social-interaction thing was not Jasper’s forte. He knew how little seven-year-old him had felt when Adam turned him down. And he had been only a child then, without any real concept of love and only a vague understanding of rejection, but even then, he knew enough to understand he was well and truly hurt. He didn’t want Crimson to feel that way, but he didn’t want to lie to him, nor risk leading him on either. It wasn’t fair.
“I, uhh… guess not,” he said. His chest ached. “I’m sorry.” He leaned closer to wrap him in what would have undoubtedly been a very clumsy hug, but Crimson caught him gently by the forearms and pushed them down in front of him, not cruelly, just firmly.
“Nothin’ to be sorry for.” He raised an eyebrow, a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. “Kid.” He stood up quite suddenly. “You’re really drunk. You probably ought to sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” Jasper insisted, his voice small.
Crimson surveyed him a moment longer and shrugged. “Alright. Do whatever you want. I’m not your father.” Stretching, he dropped down on his own bed and sprawled out with a yawn. “I’m gonna sleep though.”
Jasper watched the werespider turn away from him, staring at his back for a long moment before lying down himself. Pulling a pillow over his face, he tried to sleep.
#
The next day they didn’t talk about it again. Jasper wanted to, but he never could figure out what to say, and Crimson was right, it was easier to pretend.
Alca
nder was supposed to call him and invite him over to work on his résumé. His interview was coming up, and he was nervous. Drop him in an angry coven of vampires and he was fine, he knew what to do to get out of that situation, but the idea of having to sit down and convince someone to let him wash dishes had him anxious enough to consider not going at all. He couldn’t wait any longer for Al to contact him; he’d be chewing his fingers off at this rate.
He called Al’s cell and it went straight to voicemail. He must have been working on something. The last time they’d talked, after he and Crimson came back home, he had thought he’d made a breakthrough with his synthetic blood formula. Jasper didn’t understand half the things he said about it, but he hadn’t wanted to disturb him while he was working. Al must have been so involved in what he was doing that he had forgotten to charge his phone or something. He tried calling Max instead.
Max didn’t answer either.
Jasper called him back. It went to voicemail again, and he stood up from the table, sliding his phone shut as he went over to the couch, where Crimson was watching a movie, half dozing.
“Hey.” Jasper tapped his arm to get his attention. “I can’t get a hold of Al or Max.”
“Did you call his numbers?”
“I called his cell and Max’s.”
“Al’s got a thousand phones.” Crimson took his phone from his pocket and dialed a number from memory. After a few seconds of waiting for an answer, he hung up and dialed a different number. He did this two more times before the languidly irritated expression on his face began to change into something else.
Snapping his cell shut, Crimson was on his feet. “Get your gun. We’re going over there.”
#
The entrance to the basement was hanging wide open, the stairwell below a dark spiral. Crimson and Jasper almost stuck themselves in the doorway trying to run for it at the same time. “Al!” screamed Jasper. The overhead lights popped on as they descended, one after another. At the foot of the steps, in the entryway, a large black rat blinked its red eyes and then scampered quickly towards the living room to avoid their tromping boots. With a sinking stomach, he watched it dash across the white carpet, towards the kitchen.
Strangers in the Night Page 29
