InDescent

by K. Z. Snow

  “No? You think I can’t handle myself. You think I can’t be of any help to you.”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Just shut up and listen for a change,” Adin said impatiently. “Fuckin’ hard guy.” He rose and stalked to the coffee table. “Okay, here are some more bulletins. Number one, you know damned well I’m familiar with quite a few languages, ancient to modern.” He picked up the Ko?ciej paper and waved it at Jackson. “Knowledge like that comes in handy, wouldn’t you agree? Number two, I probably know more about that Prism than you do, just based on the breadth of my experience. I’m sure I can remember something about it if I try. Number three, within this same time-frame you’ve been talking about, things have been happening to me, too.”

  Stunned, Jackson gaped at him. “What things?”

  For the first time since their conversation began, Adin faltered. “After I talked to you on the phone, and especially when I got into the city, I, uh…I started feeling…a kind of stirring of old…” He rubbed his forehead. “Damn, I don’t know how to put this. I shouldn’t have brought it up until I was sure. Maybe I was just overexcited by the prospect of seeing you.”

  An urgent rattling and squealing sounded outside one of the windows behind the dining table. Jackson whirled around and bolted up just as Adin jogged toward the door.

  “Don’t go outside!” Jackson shouted.

  He circled the table, reached for the window blinds, and yanked them up. The familiar, hairy creature didn’t startle Jackson—not too badly, anyway—but his heart still knocked at that sight of it. At least the first time it appeared, the thing has been quiet.

  Adin came over to the window. Forehead rumpled, his gaze shot from Jackson to the panes to Jackson again. “What’s out there?”

  “Don’t you see it? Can’t you hear it?” Jackson couldn’t remember the thing’s name and wouldn’t know how to pronounce it if he did remember. “It’s some kind of household watcher.”

  The creature’s agitation increased. It jumped up and down, gibbering like a monkey as it gawked at Adin.

  “I can hear something,” Adin said, “faintly. But I can’t see anything.”

  What must have been the thing’s hand, or paw, made a horizontal slide beneath its head. Then it blew out of view, as if a strong wind had caught it.

  A single breath emptied Jackson’s lungs; his shoulders sagged. “I am getting so sick of this shit.” He glanced at Adin, who was peering out the window. “What did you hear?”

  “Some words.” Adin looked over his shoulder. “What did you see?”

  “I told you about it earlier. It’s like a dwarfish thing with a matted gray pelt and little horns and a tail.” Wearily, Jackson pulled out the nearest chair and sank into it. “This time, though, it was really riled up. And it made some kind of sawing motion at its neck. Maybe it was a form of sign language.” He rubbed his face, forehead to chin. “Damned if I know what that means any more than what it was shrieking about.”

  Adin sat at the end of the table, diagonally from Jackson. “I suspect it wants you to cut off my head.”

  Jackson’s hand fell with a thump. “Say what?”

  “Based on what I heard,” Adin said, “it’s a logical assumption.”

  “So what did you hear?”

  “The one word that jumped out at me was strzyga.”

  “Oh, well, that explains it,” Jackson said dryly. “Thanks for cluing me in.”

  Adin got up, lowered the blinds, and resumed his seat. “It means ‘vampire’.”

  Chapter Nine

  As soon as their naked bodies fused on the bed, not even a distressed domowoj could prevent the responsive flow of sweat and blood that marked Jackson’s passion for Adin. Their legs intertwined; their cocks met and began to rise. Already-heated kisses became more feverish.

  Slowly, meticulously, Jackson caressed the man he faced. He loved the feel of Adin, his flawless skin so buttery smooth over those long, hard muscles, those muscles layered so gracefully over his bones. He loved that sensuous cushion of a mouth, at once gentle and aggressive and never immobile when it touched his flesh. Adin’s lips, he thought, were more nimbly expressive than the fingers of a pianist.

  The fondling continued. Adin slid down. Spread fingers massaging Jackson’s back, he sucked firmly as well as lightly at Jackson’s chest. He caught one tense nipple between his teeth and tugged at it; just as a luscious burn began to set in, a sensation that sent iron to Jackson’s cock, Adin gently kissed and licked the rosy bud. Then the tip of his tongue rearranged the fine, dark plume of hair that radiated from sternum to pectorals.

  Submerged in Adin’s touch, it was a delicious kind of drowning Jackson felt. His lover’s hands and mouth continued to assert their mastery over him without exerting any force. Instead, with astonishing tenderness and skill, Adin claimed his body. Nerves seemed to cluster and vibrate wherever Adin touched him, however Adin touched him. Muscles went slack. Adin Swift was the only person to whom he had ever surrendered himself so fully.

  There were so many things Jackson almost said, declarations that ran through his mind but were never voiced. Instead, loosely grasping Adin’s head, Jackson kissed his full, fragrant hair, over and over, down to the scalp. He damned himself for a coward…and kissed Adin again.

  “Fuck me like you did the first time,” Adin said breathlessly, pulling up again to face Jackson. Another kiss, fast and fervid. “Remember how you did it? How you strained to control yourself?”

  “I don’t remember how I did it,” Jackson said, summoning enough breath to speak, “just that I did. And the urgency…the need.”

  He reached for the fresh bottle of lube as Adin flipped from his left to his right side. Jackson was glad. He wanted to hold him, to maintain as much contact as possible.

  Curling an arm over Adin’s side, Jackson pressed the man’s back to the front of his body. He kissed and nibbled the smooth precipice of Adin’s shoulder and the plain of bone beneath it. Both felt like sleek, water-polished rocks that had absorbed heat from the midday sun. Jackson’s hands glided lower. He let himself enjoy the texture and contour of Adin’s ass, at once tough and yielding, and the buried ridge of his pelvis.

  Their first time… It would be difficult to reconstruct that coupling without the same prevailing circumstances.

  Adin had indeed been a vampire. He’d been one for over six centuries. He was one when they met and he was one when Jackson first had sex with him, a year ago.

  An outlaw wizard and a charming immortal, both living essentially solitary lives well outside the mainstream, each doing what he felt driven to do: practice magic; drink blood. They were drawn to each other by needs they imperfectly understood at the time. But understanding wasn’t necessary to strengthen their bond.

  The last person Adin had truly loved was his first and only and very young wife, struck down by the Black Plague as it slunk through London in the winter of 1348. Jackson had never known romantic love.

  After wiping lubricant over his fingers and his cock, he began massaging his lover’s firm cheeks with both.

  Like so many vampires, Adin had been a mixed breed. Unlike so many, his dominant breed was quite respectful of mortals. He never “took” a person unless his intimate attention was invited. Ultimately, Jackson not only invited it, he insisted on it.

  For years previous to that moment, he’d heard that a vampire feed could be a transcendent experience. At once savage and mystical and intensely erotic, it was reputedly like the biggest buzz from the most bliss-inducing drug imaginable. It was also supposed to heighten an Adept’s powers.

  Jackson was intrigued by these claims. Still, it took him over a decade to offer his blood. Even his friendship with Adin didn’t dispel his inherent distrust of vampires. Aware of this, Adin never raised much less pressed the issue of a feed. But it was inevitable, Jackson realized later, that this particular vampire would have him. It was inevitable, because Jackson wanted to be taken by him.

&nbs
p; “I remember the piercing, though,” he murmured against Adin’s skin. Even now, the thought of it aroused him. His swollen cock seemed to move with a will of its own against his lover’s ass.

  Adin never had fangs. He never had to deliver a brutal bite to draw blood. Instead, the nail of his little finger grew and sharpened enough to become, in the blink of an eye, a needle that slid into human flesh with all the speed and efficiency of a laser. That was yet another characteristic of his dominant breed. And the act didn’t result in vampirism.

  He’d pierced Jackson’s neck and drunk from it. He’d pierced Jackson’s chest and drunk from it.

  Now, Jackson’s hand roamed over Adin’s chest as he began his own invasion. His mouth sucked and lapped at Adin’s flesh the way Adin had then sucked and lapped at his. Images hazed by time became more vivid. His balls felt dense and tender. His straining cock sought the snug cleft that was, now, a threshold.

  The blood offering, exquisitely thrilling, had surpassed all claims. Maybe that was a result of the men’s existing attraction. Whatever the cause, Jackson’s dick ended up feeling like a ponderosa pine with hot resin creeping beneath its too-tight bark. Adin was similarly affected. Masturbation brought no relief. It seemed they, donor and recipient, could only find relief through each other.

  So Jackson fucked his friend.

  Without trying, he was doing it now the same way he’d done it then. A fraction of an inch at a time, he sank his straining erection into Adin’s welcoming body, tender tissue easing into a muscle-banded glove. He fought the urge to thrust like an animal. As much as his body willed him to, he resisted the impulse. Not only did he want to be considerate of his partner, he wanted to prolong his own euphoria.

  Adin pushed against him without being demanding. In concert, they rocked in opposite directions that led to the same place. A current branched through Jackson’s torso and into his legs and arms. Finally, deep delicious spasms forced the outpouring that led to his favorite kind of fatigue. Adin, too, jerked, his hips tapping against Jackson’s crotch. He must have stroked himself to climax. Soon, he seemed to wilt beneath Jackson’s arm.

  “Share it with me,” Jackson murmured against the damp curls at Adin’s nape.

  Adin rolled over and touched wet fingers to Jackson’s lips. Closing his eyes, Jackson licked them clean of his lover’s essence. He scrambled lower on the mattress, drew Adin’s softening shaft into his mouth, and took what residue he could from there. Even sated, he wished he could suck Adin hard again and bring him to climax. He loved the feel of that sweet, sweet cock swelling between his tongue and palate. He loved the savory, mild bitterness of the man’s cum.

  Jackson wondered if the two of them would ever get their fill of each other, if these carnally indulgent weekends were a novelty that would some day wear off. He couldn’t begin to guess. It was still too new, too deeply thrilling and satisfying. On countless levels.

  Falling onto his back, Adin seemed to stare at the dim halo of light on the ceiling. They always kept on the nightstand lamp on when they had sex; they liked looking at each other. Jackson remained on his side, idly caressing his lover, studying him. He never tired of these simple joys.

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you before,” Adin said without looking at him. “It’s about the Prism. I didn’t want to alarm you.”

  Jackson tensed. His roaming hand stilled. “Then tell me now. Being alarmed is preferable to being uninformed.”

  “You’ll need to know as much as you can about that thing, and the reason you’re in it, before you give in to this. From what I know, that hunk of glass is nothing to toy with.”

  Jackson lifted his eyebrows. So, yet another report full of foreboding. “You’d better not stop there, my man.”

  Sighing heavily, Adin turned to look at him. “I’m sure you’re aware that some occultists would’ve given their nuts to get hold of it. What you might not be aware of is that other occultists would’ve given their nuts to steer clear of it. Remember that sixteenth-century mage I told you about?”

  “Yeah, the one who liked being fed on by a vampire. By you, in particular.” Jackson allowed himself a reflective half-smile. Just as I did. “What about him?”

  “He had an acquaintance,” Adin said, “an alchemist in Budapest who was somehow lured into the Prism. And he apparently faced some terrifying stuff.”

  With the side of his hand, Jackson swiped away the sweat that had beaded on his upper lip within his mustache. “Is there any way of warding off this…imprisonment?”

  “I don’t know,” Adin said. “Psychic self-defense is your area of expertise.”

  “So, what happened to the alchemist?”

  “When he finally was released or found his way out or whatever the hell happened, he manifested as a paranoid schizophrenic. At least that’s what I’ve since deduced. Ended up killing himself. According to the mage, that was a common result of entry into the Prism.”

  “It shattered a person’s mind.”

  “Yup. If there was even a person left. I guess some who’ve gone in have never come out.”

  Feeling the first gnarled grip of a headache, Jackson rubbed the tendons of his neck. Adin’s account only verified what other few things he’d heard. “How much credence do you give this story?”

  “Pretty much,” Adin answered. “The mage wasn’t prone to hysteria or exaggeration. At least, not beyond the norms of his time. But the change in his friend rattled him. That much was obvious. Then he got a letter from the alchemist along with his journals, a couple months after the man committed suicide. He found whatever was in those papers very distressing.”

  “Did you ever get a chance to read any of it?”

  “A little, but it sounded like psychotic babble. Something about an elephant being in the belly of an ant and a flea being in both, and something about a hall of mirrors on the way to hell. I’m not sure. My focus at the time was on other things.”

  Like finding your next blood donor. “I suppose it was,” Jackson murmured. Adin’s vague reference reminded him of an earlier snippet of conversation. “Are you going to tell me what you were getting at earlier, what it is that’s been happening to you?”

  It was a while before Adin spoke. “The dreams I was having last fall—the images and urges in the dreams—are starting to plague me while I’m awake.”

  Jackson’s pulse became more distinct. “Images and urges from your past, you mean?”

  “You know that’s what I mean.”

  “So…maybe these are just more sensory memories. Maybe they’re similar to what an amputee feels—phantom sensations in a limb that’s no longer there. I mean, hell, you were a vampire for an awfully long time.”

  Adin, who still hadn’t looked at him, sighed. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself.”

  Jackson tried to puzzle through this. Despite the extent of his experience with the paranormal, he knew precious little about paranormal earthbound creatures. He’d never wanted to interact with them. Not, that is, until Adin came along. Vampires were a particularly confounding and unpredictable race. There were numerous breeds and crossbreeds, all with different sets of characteristics.

  Adin had undergone a reversion to mortality a year ago, very shortly after he’d fed from Jackson. If a member of his breed, his dominant breed, murdered another of its kind, reversion was the result. It was an extremely rare occurrence. Knowing full well what would happen to him, Adin nevertheless stalked and killed the vampire who’d brutally murdered his parents in 1349. He’d been living happily ever since. Or so it seemed.

  The thought wasn’t exactly comforting, but Jackson wondered if everything else that was going on—Bothu’s discovery of the “damaged” Prism, the appearance of creatures from another plane, his own involvement in the whole mess—had some bearing on the reemergence of Adin’s old self.

  “You’re thinking it, too, aren’t you?” Adin said. “That whatever is oozing out of Nezrabi’s little world is somehow…reawakening
what I used to be.”

  Jackson’s hand stilled on his body. Within seconds, he removed it. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  Rolling his head on the pillow, Adin finally faced him. “If that is the case, it isn’t your fault, you know.”

  “The fuck it isn’t.” Jackson sat up. Elbows on raised knees, he shoved his hands into his hair. “I’m the designated repairman. And you’re too damned close to me.”

  Adin scooted higher on his pillows. “That isn’t going to change. So just forgo the guilt trip, would you?” He grabbed the bottle of lube off the sheets and angrily tossed it back into the nightstand drawer. “I’m nearly certain I can’t just lapse back into full-blown vampirism. The transformation is a process, a very physical process.”

  “You’re ‘nearly’ certain,” Jackson echoed with no little sarcasm.

  Adin gave him a resentful glare. Jackson had trouble meeting it. He hated seeing that look on this particular man. Lips compressed, eyes narrowed, his face took on an almost fearsome beauty. Tiger, tiger, burning bright…

  “Do you want me to leave?” Adin said, his voice low and tight. “Is that what you’ve been getting at? Do you have it in your mind now that I’m going to ‘turn’?”

  Looking at him was necessary. Jackson realized he had to do it to determine the nature of his own motives. Within seconds, he knew.

  “No,” he said quietly. “I just care about you. You have a good life now. I don’t want to put you at risk, in any way.”

  Adin hiked himself up and crouched beside Jackson. Those words had instantly melted his defensiveness. For all kinds of reasons, they regularly needed to reassure one another. Vulnerability seemed an unavoidable part of their relationship. Jackson was still trying to accept the fact that neither the vulnerability nor the reassurances were signs of weakness—not any more than most aspects of human nature were.

  “The reason I have a good life is mostly because of you,” Adin said. “I couldn’t have tracked and killed Birkett without your help. And our time together has become—” His mouth jumped into a self-conscious smile before he pivoted away and settled back onto his side of the bed. “Well, I think you know what it’s become.”