Friends without Benefits (Rise of the Discordant Book 4)

by McMullen, Christina

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The alarm bells in my head became claxons.

  “Oh come on, Desmond! Look at me! I’m falling apart and it’s all that bastard’s fault! I’m not here to join forces or find the good in him or any of that other Darth Vader crap. I’m looking for a way to end this and I just know it all starts with him. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m cursed.”

  “I thought you had… um… you know…”

  “Had sex to break the curse?” she finished with yet another sarcastic sneer. “It’s sex, Desmond. I know you’re old fashioned and all, but people have been having sex since forever and I’m sure you’re no exception.”

  “Actually…” I began, but changed my mind. Correcting her assessment of me would serve no purpose and likely cause me unnecessary discomfort. “As you were saying, you broke the curse. What is it that you think your sire did?”

  “I broke the family curse, but I’m pretty sure I have another curse on me,” she explained. “A different curse that makes me… um… Look, Des, you’re usually pretty blunt and honest, right?”

  “To a fault at times,” I muttered with a grimace.

  “Tell me then, am I gross?”

  “Gross?”

  “You know what I mean. Do I have any habits or do I do things that might be kind of well… disgusting?”

  Apparently, there was no way for me to avoid having an uncomfortable conversation.

  “You are… spirited and um… well, you’re not constrained by certain expectations that society may have, so I can see where… uh…”

  “Oh for goddess sake, Desmond, it wasn’t a trick question!”

  “Okay, yes,” I said bracing for whatever backlash I was about to receive. “You have some habits that could be described as… off putting.”

  “I see,” she said. The defeated tone told me that she had hoped to hear a different answer, but was not surprised by the one I gave. “How off putting are we talking? Like, no second date off putting?”

  “Donna,” I warned.

  “Sorry, Des, but I refuse to believe that a couple of bad habits are the reason why I haven’t been able to hold anyone’s interest long enough to get a second date. I know plenty of women with bad habits and loads of them are in relationships. I can’t help but think that there’s still a curse on me.”

  As much as I didn’t want to talk about this, she had a point. If she had indeed done as she claimed, she would not be losing any sleep due to incubus activity.

  “Donna, I’m not a doctor and I don’t claim to be an expert, but is there a possibility that you… well that maybe there was a technicality… or something…”

  “Trust me, the damage was done,” she said in a way that left no question. “Besides, I already know that curse was lifted because all Clyde can do is show up and hang out in my dreams. He’s not able to get close enough to try anything else.”

  I definitely did not like the ring of disappointment with which she disclosed the last bit of information.

  “Have you considered the possibility that this…Clyde is not an incubus at all? Perhaps another Discordant is using mimicry. Perhaps,” I added with a pointed look, “the whole point was to get you out here.”

  “Don’t think I hadn’t thought of that,” she muttered. “Still, the token wasn’t a fake, so I know dad has something to do with it. I just…” She cut off with a deep sigh. I felt bad. It was clear she was suffering, but at the same time, this worried me even more. The less restful sleep she got, the more likely Donna was to do something rash, like blow open the portal in an attempt to summon her sire. For all I knew, this could very well be the way the war will begin, however, I wasn’t keen on having it happen today.

  A hushed conversation with Arkady produced a small bottle of sky blue liquid that seemed to swirl in lazy circles of its own accord. “Here,” I said, holding it out to Donna. She took the bottle and frowned.

  “Isn’t this just Betty’s sleep draught?” she asked warily. “I’ve used this. All it does is turn my dreams into an avant-garde film fest and Clyde still gets the starring role.”

  “Arkady added a dash of cloudshine and a sensitivity trigger. You should have dreamless rest without oversleeping. I would recommend trying only a small amount as his draughts have been known to pack a punch, but Donna, you would do well to go home and try to rest. This is the weekend before Halloween. I fear we’re going to need all hands on deck.”

  “I guess it’s worth a shot,” she said with a weak smile. “Thanks, Des. And thank Arkady for me as well.”

  “I will,” I assured and waited until she left the mill before resuming my experimentation with the barrier. At least it seemed that Donna had not been there long enough to actually do any damage, though the fact that she had been out here at all was frightening. I made a mental note to visit Myrna at my earliest convenience.

  Chapter 5

  Who Are You Calling Pretty?

  “Ah, Seth. I see we have come back to distrust,” said the Creator, noting not only the Observer’s dark expression, but that he had once again given it the form of the trickster Coyote.

  “Forgive me, Creator, but how am I supposed to trust those who won’t even allow me the courtesy of seeing the truth?”

  “Ah Seth,” the Creator said, shaking its head slowly. “The truth, as you label it, is never hidden, only out of reach. All will be revealed when the time is right.”

  “And how exactly do you justify this as the right time? Blackbird, as you well know, will soon be the site of the next great war. As it is, I’ve got enough doubts about the town surviving the event. I don’t need the addition of distractions.”

  “I am aware that the sequence of events that have happened in Blackbird seem to be leading to an inevitability, but Seth, let us not forget that nothing is ever set in stone.”

  “That’s just it,” Seth said with a frown, temporarily distracted from his anger and distrust. “I have a feeling, a strong feeling, that this is, in fact, set in stone. Agents of Order are not typically equipped with the sight.”

  “And it comes back to this,” the Creator said softly, morphing its form into that of the alpha god, Zeus. “Have you not discovered yet that Agents of Order are not typically anything? You, and by you I mean each and every one of my creations, within the Cycle and outside of it, have more control over your destiny than you would like to know.”

  Seth opened his mouth to say something, but the Creator simply held up a silencing finger.

  “Do you not have access to the Truth? Are you, even as my Agent, still clinging to the cyclical fear of autonomy?”

  Seth shuddered. What the Creator referred to was the knowledge that each and every soul controlled its own path. Every decision, right or wrong, was in the hands of the individual. This overwhelming information was typically buffered through religion. Souls found comfort in thinking that there was a higher power who had a hand in guiding their way.

  “I will admit, it has been the hardest truth to reconcile,” Seth said at last. “But I don’t see what that has to do with these…” He was reluctant to call them visions. “…impressions that I’m feeling.”

  “No,” the Creator said, shaking its large, bearded head, “I suspect you do not, but give it time. Much like that which you have come here to fight me about, all will be revealed when the time is right.”

  “Forgive me, Creator, but that’s a bit vague even for you.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” the Creator smiled. “And yet, it is at once crystal clear,” it said with a wink before turning away and fading into the distance, leaving Seth alone atop the cloudbank over Mount Olympus to puzzle the meaning of its words.

  For a moment, a longer moment than he would ever admit, Seth pursed his lips and silently fumed, feeling as if the Creator was in some way mocking him. Rationally, he knew this was not likely. The Creator was often vague and had not, as of yet, led him to the wrong conclusion. Yet, as he absently kicked at a stray puff of fluffy
white cloud, Seth couldn’t help but feel that something was off.

  Ah well, he thought to himself, sitting around outside the cycle wasn’t offering any insight and he knew that all he was doing was avoiding facing that which made him uncomfortable.

  * * *

  “Okay, somethin’ ain’t right. Don’t try and deny it.”

  “Can’t slip nothing by you, can I?”

  After a stop at Louie’s for some long overdue dinner, I headed back to the Five Penny. I had to admit that having something other than beer and digestive fluids in my stomach improved my mood immensely, but I wasn’t sure it had improved to the point where I was ready to have a heart to heart with Bogie.

  “Course not,” he said with an exaggerated wink as he slid me a pint of Red Shirt. “You know I ain’t gonna pry Seth, but whatever Des did ain’t worth fussin’ about, so don’t let it get to ya. If I let everything that overgrown blowhard said get to me, I wouldn’t be half the guy I is today.”

  “Is that so?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and hiding the rest of my face behind my glass as I took a long drink. “And how do you know Des did anything at all?”

  “C’mon, Seth. I ain’t dumb. You got that beat down look going that I ain’t seen since I met ya and I can’t help but take notice of hows you showed up alone. Wanna talk about it?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said bluntly, but added with a drawn out sigh, “but I suppose you’re going to harp on me until I do, aren’t you?”

  “Hey now, persistence in the name of caring about my good friends ain’t the same as harping.”

  “Mm hm.”

  “You wound me. Listen, let me take care of one little issue and I’ll be right back.”

  One little issue, it turned out, was getting Donna to go home. The poor girl was wrecked and from our conversation earlier, it was clear that sticking around wasn’t in her best interest, even if getting proper rest wasn’t in the cards at the moment. It took a bit of coaxing, and my HBO Go password, but Donna finally left.

  Fortunately, with only one bartender, Bogie was too busy to continue the conversation he had tried initiating. I took the opportunity to cast out and see what the general mood was like. I also sent a text to the twins to make sure they were okay since I hadn’t gone home that afternoon. Jem sent a text back immediately saying he was at the diner, but that he was with Kayla, the young girl he’d recently taken a romantic interest in.

  I assumed that Nai would be with him, but a few moments later she sent a text stating that she would not be at the diner, but that she would be nearby if I needed her. Now that made me curious. I wasn’t terribly worried that she was up to anything. I didn’t harbor as many of the same trust issues with Nai as Desmond did. But the fact that she was avoiding the diner was curious, nonetheless.

  As it happened, it was a good thing the twins were split up for the evening. Tensions were running high and I found that there was a higher than usual number of lost filtering into the bar. I alternated between sending them Jem’s way or to Nai.

  “Alright, spill it.”

  “The beer? That would be wasteful,” I said, taking the replacement glass that Bogie slid in front of me.

  “Yeesh! Have you been taking comedy lessons from Donna? That was bad, Seth. Real bad.”

  He had a point.

  “There’s nothing to say, really,” I started, but Bogie cut me off with a look that spoke volumes.

  “It’s nine and we still ain’t seen Des. Ain’t that a little strange?”

  “Okay, yes,” I said with a sigh. “He might be avoiding me at the moment. After I left here earlier, I found him at the mill. He’d been there all day and I’d been too busy to take a lunch so I wasn’t in the greatest of moods. Voices were raised. Things were said that perhaps shouldn’t have been…” I trailed off, hoping that Bogie would get the clue that I wasn’t interested in rehashing, but if he got it, he ignored it.

  “Yeah, let’s go back to that. What kinds of things was said?”

  “He admitted that he doesn’t trust my judgement,” I said, deciding that honesty, to a point, was the best policy. Unfortunately, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I noticed that honesty made me sound whiny.

  “Eh, is that all?” He asked dismissively. “Des don’t trust no one else’s judgement but his own. Look, you ain’t heard this from me, but I think you threaten the big guy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I was lucky that I hadn’t been drinking at the moment or I might have choked at that ridiculous declaration.

  “It ain’t that difficult to see,” he went on. “Des, he’s a big guy. A tough guy, right? I mean he’s a Warrior and all that.”

  “Your point?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. I did not need another reminder of the very clear and obvious differences between Desmond and myself.

  Bogie just put his hands on his hips and shook his head at me.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. See, here’s the problem. Des may look like the tough guy, but you and I and anyfolks who gets to know him knows the truth. That guy is a big ol’ teddy bear!”

  “Um…”

  “Yeah, I know, he tries to act tough. I mean, that’s his job. He’s gotta be a big strong man, but see, you ain’t exactly cut out to be anyone’s little lady neither.”

  “B-Bu-What?”

  Okay, that time I truly did choke as beer ended up going down the wrong pipe as well as all over the bar. Was there anyone who didn’t know my past?

  “Geez, Seth, be a stereotype already,” Bogie said as he grabbed a towel to clean up the bar. “I didn’t say you was girly or any such nonsense like that.”

  “Well, it’s not-” I began, but Bogie shook his head and kept going.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I already know all about how yous guys are timeless souls without true gender and all that yada yada that comes with the Cycle. I get it, but I kinda gotta think maybe that’s not really the case. Some folks just has a certain way and you just happen to be one of them guys who is the opposite of Des.”

  “Souls have certain ascribed traits,” I said, half agreeing and half as an explanation. “There are protective souls, reactive souls, souls with a predetermined leadership path, and of course, there are… martyr souls.”

  Just saying the word darkened my mood. I could have lived with the idea that perhaps Desmond was trying to shield me because of some misplaced protective need to keep safe the woman he had loved. But no. He had all but admitted that the situation in which he discovered the truth led him to believe that I am weak, too feeble in my martyrdom to be of any use to Order.

  The fact that both Desmond and the Creator used this as an excuse to hide my past identity was disquieting. So what if I had been the woman Desmond loved? It really wasn’t that big of a deal. At least, it wouldn’t have been had they been honest and up front with me.

  “See, that’s just it,” Bogie said, shaking his head and laughing. “You ain’t gettin’ what I’m sayin’ ‘cuz you got hung up over having to prove you is some kind of a tough guy ‘cuz of the fact that you is a pretty boy.”

  “Look, just because I might have been…wait,” I paused, wondering if I’d heard Bogie right. “…I’m what?”

  “You’re a pretty boy, Seth. You got them eyelashes and cheekbones and whatnot that makes the ladies jealous, but you also make some of the guys nervous, ya know what I mean?”

  “Um, no, actually I don’t.”

  I caught my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. In the low light, it was hard to see much of anything. Sure, I had high cheekbones and maybe my eyelashes were a little longer than most. I wasn’t so modest that I didn’t realize I could be considered attractive, but pretty? That might have been a stretch.

  “Yeah, I think you do, just yous don’t wanna admit it. You ain’t never been the kind of guy to primp and preen over your looks and whatnot. You’re a guy’s guy. You already told me you miss physical labor and you told me how you shoulda known somethin’ weren’t right wit
h Amara ‘cuz you didn’t much enjoy management and only tolerated the shop job ‘cuz you still got to haul around inventory and feel manly.”

  I relaxed slightly as I got the impression that maybe Bogie didn’t actually know anything about my past after all. Granted, and maybe this was because I’d had a few more beers than normal, it still sounded an awful lot like he was insulting me.

  “So, you’re saying that I strut around trying to act macho because I’m really girly?”

  “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ of the sort. C’mon, Seth, I ain’t calling you a macho jerk or nothin’, but I gotta wonder if you being the way you is ain’t a symptom of your masculine attitude conflicting with your delicate looks. Likewise, Des acts like a tough guy because he looks like a tough guy and feels like he has to hide his sensitive side. You see it now? Neither one of you is what folks would expect by lookin’ at you, so instead, you both butt heads like you is a couple of dogs peeing on your territory.”

  Funny how Myrna had only a week before accused me of acting as if I’d something to prove. Admittedly, my posturing had more to do with Desmond’s lack of faith in my ability to take care of myself and Blackbird than I would previously admit, but now… To be honest, now I simply felt justified. If everyone was going to see me as weak and girly, I had the right to prove who I was as well as who I wasn’t.

  A moment later, Desmond finally made an appearance in the bar. He didn’t appear to be any more comfortable with the situation than I was, so it was fortuitous that Louise showed up not long after and the conversation turned to Donna and her issues. For the most part, I just continued to get quietly drunk while the rest of them fussed.

  When Des pushed another beer in my direction, I had to wonder if it wasn’t a misguided attempt at making amends. Unfortunately, another beer was the last thing I needed and when Louise asked my opinion on how to approach Donna about her problems, my answer was about as subtle as a brick through a window. Were it not for the Discordant that showed up at that moment, who knows what would have happened.

  As Desmond turned to leave, I lifted my glass and found ice water where the beer had been. I gave Bogie a questioning look, which he returned by rolling his eyes and shaking his head at me.