Spells of Blood and Kin

by Claire Humphrey

  “What are we talking about?” Nick said.

  “I’m giving you unwanted advice,” Stella said, laughing bitterly into her empty glass.

  “Damn. I thought you were flirting with me,” Nick said.

  “I’m taking a break from men,” Stella said.

  “Some of us never go back,” Gus said from the other side of the honeysuckle hedge.

  “Jesus!” said Nick. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Behind this plant,” said Gus, strolling around it. “Smells great, doesn’t it? You’ll learn to use that kind of thing.”

  Now Nick could smell her, kin to him, but he wasn’t sure if he would have noticed it on his own, not with the heady flower scent drowning everything.

  “Pretty good,” he said. “You’re like a ninja. A fun-killing ninja.”

  Stella, without asking, filled her glass with the rest of the wine and handed it to Gus. “Give it a rest, Nick. I was never going to sleep with you,” she said.

  Gus laughed hard at that, pounding her fist on the table.

  “I’m going home,” Nick said, wondering if he sounded as sulky as he felt.

  “I thought you were going to Greece. With Stella.”

  “He said that? That’s kind of creepy.” Stella gave him a raised eyebrow.

  “It’s no creepier than Gus going to Durban to stalk her ex,” Nick said.

  “Who’s got a packed bag under the table?” Gus said, kicking it with her boot.

  “Seriously?” said Stella, turning to Nick.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I just went by my old place to get some stuff.”

  “When were you going to invite me on this supposed trip?” Stella demanded. “Christ, you’ve known me how long? And I’ve already had to egg you once.”

  Fuck. He had nothing. It did sound stupid when she put it that way. He didn’t think he’d always been this stupid with women. When had he turned stupid?

  When Maksim Volkov licked him was when.

  He needed advice from someone smart, someone who wasn’t neck-deep in supernatural bullshit. If he wasn’t going to get laid, he needed something to go right, just one thing.

  He made himself turn to Stella and apologize. Maybe she wasn’t as into him as he’d thought, but he’d learned at least one thing from the whole Sue Park debacle.

  Gus, though, she could fuck herself. Nick grabbed his duffel from under her boot and walked away without saying good-bye.

  JUNE 12

  WAXING CRESCENT

  Lissa sat in her kitchen until two o’clock in the morning. She read grimoires, paged through one of Stella’s celebrity magazines.

  More than a week before the full moon, when she could ask Baba for help. She wondered how long she could stay awake.

  She hadn’t tried getting out of the house yet, she thought. Maybe it would help if she wasn’t asleep when the hour struck: if she were someplace beautiful, someplace else.

  Outside, the air held no trace of the weird nightmare chill. Not yet, anyway. She looped her bag over her shoulder and strolled north. The maples were in full leaf now, haloed brilliant lime in the streetlights. They hardly rustled, the air hung so still.

  She walked aimlessly, too tired to hurry, even if hurrying could have taken her further from the nightmare hour. North and a little way east, through two parks, passing a man sleeping beneath a bench, another man on a pair of flattened cardboard cartons.

  A few houses showed lights at upper windows or the flicker of a television. A raccoon trundled across the street ahead of her; two cats stood, backs up, eyeing each other in a tableau of hostility.

  She was only a couple of blocks from the church. She saw the onion spire above a cloud of maple leaves.

  Even at night, empty, the church felt hung about with a special quiet. Lissa found the door locked, of course. She ascended the fire escape, which led up to a side door into the choir loft. Also locked—but she could curl up in the deep embrasure of a window and rest her head against cardinal-red and finch-yellow panes.

  Father Manoilov would be furious if he knew, but it wasn’t as if he could do much to her, not now. She was already barred from the sanctuary. And she wasn’t breaking his edict; she was on the church, not in it.

  She even prayed, one of the prayers she used to say with Baba.

  It didn’t help.

  An hour later, queasy with weeping, she uncurled her body and crept down the fire escape again.

  The walk home took longer than ever, and she had to stop once and lean on a trash can while she decided whether or not she was going to be sick.

  She wasn’t. She kept walking.

  She was. She vomited bile into someone’s flower bed, while a cat watched from a nearby stair.

  Shaking, she wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist and trudged on.

  JUNE 12

  WAXING CRESCENT

  Maksim dreamed of Afghanistan again.

  It was not the full-color horror of the dreams he’d had over the last few weeks. The sleep brought on by the eggs had seemed to make those brighter, more vivid, than anything he truly recalled. He knew he did not have complete memories of much of what he did in his battle fury, but his dreaming mind was all too willing to fill in the missing bits with stench and hot blood and bone-cracking sounds.

  Instead, this dream was unpeopled, spare, and fragmentary. In it, he wore his Afghanka, and he walked the perimeter of a camp alone. Sunrise glinted from the windshields of the infantry trucks. Behind him, the main battle tank loomed, still in the shadow of the hills.

  Dust coated the grass at his feet. His boots were worn; steel showed through the leather at the toes.

  He smelled the distant river, fast and fresh, and the grease of his gun. He heard wind and his own footsteps.

  He felt quite peaceful, even though he knew in the dream that he would be fighting again before noon.

  As he began to wake, he remembered what he would do a few months later. He wondered if peace was ever real, ever a thing unto itself, or whether it was only the temporary absence of violence.

  The dream fell away then, and Maksim rolled out of his bed, finding that the sunrise, in reality, was still an hour away.

  He drank yesterday’s cold tea, black. He tore a chunk from a loaf of bread and ate it on the balcony, watching a rat creep down the gutter on the opposite side of the street.

  He thought he would buy meat at the market today; he would visit the gym, see how DeShaun was doing with the competitors; he would buy wine and bitter greens, and he would cook. Nick would like his steak rare, and if he ate well, he might feel his other appetites less.

  Only then did Maksim wonder when he’d last seen Nick.

  JUNE 12

  WAXING CRESCENT

  Stella was sitting on the porch, just outside the shadow of the lilacs.

  “Did you forget your key?” Lissa asked, hurrying up the walk.

  “Nah,” Stella said, waving her hand languidly. “Gus doesn’t like it inside, is all.”

  Then Lissa saw that what she’d taken for a dismissive gesture was Stella patting Gus on the shoulder. Gus Hillyard, who was a pale smudge lying sprawled in the dark of the lilac leaves.

  “What is it? Is it Maksim?”

  Stella giggled. “Nothing’s wrong. Sit.” She slapped the porch beside Lissa’s feet, overloud. “Have a drink. Unless I drank it.”

  “No, I did,” Gus said drowsily.

  “Seriously?” Lissa said. “This is what you decided to do with your night?”

  “You were mad at me; Rafe was working. I don’t know anyone else,” Stella said. “Are you still mad?”

  “No. I called you to apologize.”

  “Oh. I don’t know where I put my phone,” Stella said, and she began digging through her bag.

  “Forget it,” said Lissa. “You can listen to it later. I just wanted you to know.”

  “That’s lovely,” Stella said, and she hugged her around the legs.

  “You’re not going
to be sick or something, are you?” Lissa asked, looking down, twining her hand in the loose strands of Stella’s hair.

  “I wouldn’t let that happen,” Gus said and chuckled, low and hoarse. “She’s only a little foxed. I, on the other hand…”

  “You still walked me home. Mostly,” said Stella, and she yawned. “I have to go to bed.”

  “Me, too,” said Gus and she did not move.

  Lissa gave Stella a hand up. “Are we okay? Really?”

  Stella hugged her again and kissed her on the cheek. “One of these days, you’re going to tell me all about whatever is going on in your head,” she said. “And I’m going to steal your blue camisole top and make you watch romance films again.”

  “Deal,” Lissa said. “Gus? Want a cab?”

  “What? Christ, no,” Gus said, struggling up. “I prefer to go on foot.”

  “The sidewalk is that way.”

  “Ignore my patronizing sister,” Stella said. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Gus, and she took Stella’s hand and kissed the back of it before stepping heavily off the porch and down the walk.

  “And she didn’t like me giving Maksim eggs,” Lissa said.

  “Maybe it is the same,” Stella said, watching Gus weave around the corner. “They only want to be able to get by, right? But it seems like life should be more than just getting by. Especially when your life is that long.”

  Lissa wasn’t really listening. “Bed,” she said, tugging Stella’s hand. Her mouth watered at the thought of toothpaste, clean sheets, cotton nightshirt. The night was nearly over and the worst hour past. She would sleep in, long after the sun was up. She would drink tea and listen to the news on the radio, and maybe, later, she would see Rafe.

  JUNE 12

  WAXING CRESCENT

  Maksim saw Gus coming up through Bellwoods Park; she was off the path, kicking heavy boot prints into the soft grass. He changed direction to meet her.

  “Why did it get worse for you?” she said without preamble. “Why did you go off the rails?”

  “Koldun’ia Iadviga died,” he said.

  “No. Before that. The thing you never talk about.”

  He took a breath into tight lungs. “I still do not truly know why.”

  “That’s not good enough,” said Gus, gripping him by the shoulders. “I need to know.”

  “I need to look for Nick.”

  She shoved at him and nearly fell. “I need to know! Why didn’t you see it coming?”

  “Augusta…”

  “If I’d been there, I could have stopped you.”

  “If you had been there, one of us would be—”

  She cut him off with a wild haymaker. He didn’t let the blow land; he just caught her arm and squeezed until he felt her skin start to pulp against the bones.

  She didn’t make a sound. She looked at him with her eyes wide and wet and still young-looking, somehow.

  “I must look for Nick,” he told her again, letting his fingers ease open. “He has not been back to my apartment.”

  “I saw him,” Gus said, holding her arm against her chest, stroking the skin where it would bruise. “He was at a wine bar.”

  “Then where is he now?”

  “I don’t know,” Gus snapped. “Not with Stella. That’s what matters.”

  “Oh,” Maksim said.

  Gus hit him again, faster and with better aim this time.

  Only once, though, and then she backed down and let her shoulders slouch. “I’ll show you where the wine bar is,” she said while Maksim ran his fingertip over the tooth-cut on the inside of his lip. “After that, I’m going to crash at your flat, because I’m too damned drunk to be up past dawn.”

  Maksim held his tongue on the things he could have said. He had said them before, anyway, in other languages and in other countries, and he did not think they would sound different enough in this.

  JUNE 12

  WAXING CRESCENT

  Scientists would want to examine him if they could see him now. The military would run tests on him. Vials of his blood would be marked with biohazard symbols. They’d keep him in a cell underground in the Arctic. For centuries.

  Nick nearly laughed aloud. Jonathan would get such a kick out of this. Jonathan would have all kinds of great ideas of how Nick could use his powers.

  Jonathan, he realized, would be asleep right now. Jonathan was just a person and would not get up until long after dawn.

  Rather than ring his bell, Nick dumped his bag in the alley and decided to climb the wall.

  He and Jonathan had done some wall climbing together the year before at a gym on the lakeshore. Without ropes, this was a bit more frightening, but Nick’s hands were so much stronger now. Even without chalk, he could use his fingertips to grip the edges of the cheap yellow bricks of Jonathan’s building. He could kick off his shoes and wedge his toes in the tiny holds. One toe hurt—he thought he’d broken it fighting with Gus earlier—but he knew by now that it would heal up quickly and well.

  He took a break on the balcony below Jonathan’s, stretching his arms and legs. Only a minute and he was fresh again, ready to keep climbing.

  He wrapped his fingers about Jonathan’s railing and swung himself neatly up, a campus he never would have been able to manage before, even at his training peak. This was more like it; forget cleaning floors and building shelves. He could become a hit man or a spy.

  Jonathan’s balcony door was not locked. Why would it be?

  Nick slid it softly open and stepped inside.

  The apartment smelled of last night’s dinner—oil and vinegar, peppery sauce—and of people who’d sweated together in love and gone to sleep without washing up.

  Nick stood in the doorway of their bedroom and watched.

  Hannah lay with her back to Jonathan, face nested in her own tangled hair. One hand rested at her mouth, as if she’d almost forgotten not to suck her thumb.

  Jonathan’s hand curled over Hannah’s stomach. They were going to have children, Nick remembered. Surely not yet?

  As sweet as it all was, he was bored and a bit hungry. He cleared his throat.

  Jonathan sat up fast. Hannah tried to, but Jonathan pressed her behind him.

  “It’s just me,” Nick said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Shit, man,” Jonathan said, rusty-voiced, after a moment. “Just about gave me a heart attack.”

  Hannah was squirming beneath Jonathan’s arm, dragging the sheet up.

  “Oh,” said Nick. “You aren’t dressed. Well, I’ll wait in the living room.”

  He heard them whispering together as he turned his back: urgent, sharp, argumentative. Maybe there was something wrong between them. Maybe they’d break up.

  Jonathan came out alone, in boxers and a U of T shirt. “My head’s okay now,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “Oh,” said Nick. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. It was you, then.”

  “Yes.”

  Jonathan sat down on the sofa, staring at Nick with an expression that reminded him of being reprimanded by his father. Nick dug his bare toes into the pile of the carpet.

  “Hannah has to get up early,” Jonathan said. “Maybe you should keep this short, whatever it is.”

  “I just wanted to see you,” Nick blurted.

  “In the middle of the night? After disappearing for a few weeks? We were worried, you know. Hannah wanted to report you missing.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “I haven’t forgotten that time you randomly took off for Edmonton. I thought maybe you’d suddenly decided to go tree planting or teach ESL in Japan or something.”

  “I had,” Nick admitted. “Forgotten the road trip, I mean. That was a good time, camping and everything. That music festival. Wow, the hash brownies. What was that girl’s name? With the VW van?”

  “No fucking idea,” Jonathan snapped.

  Nick shook off the memory. “I actually came to tell y
ou something.”

  “If it isn’t an apology—”

  “No shouting,” said Nick, stepping closer and laying his hand over Jonathan’s mouth. “You said Hannah needed her sleep.”

  Jonathan’s eyes widened. His breath, through his nose, whistled faster. His smell changed.

  “You’re afraid,” Nick said, wondering. “Of me. Is it because I hit you?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “That was a shitty thing to do,” Nick said. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

  Nick removed his hand and laid one finger to Jonathan’s lips to remind him to be quiet. Then he crossed to the bedroom door and shoved a chair under the doorknob.

  “There. Now it’s just us,” he whispered, returning and standing over Jonathan. “I came to tell … I don’t even know. Maybe you won’t like it.”

  “Look,” Jonathan said, even more softly now. “Give it a shot. Tell me. It can’t be any worse than the stuff I’ve imagined, can it?” He didn’t sound sure.

  “I’ve changed,” Nick said. “I’m different. I’m not like you anymore.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say not human. “When I met Maksim…”

  Jonathan actually laughed. “Are you trying to tell me you’re gay?”

  Nick slapped him across the mouth. “Stop interrupting!”

  “Fuck!” Jonathan said, feeling his lip where the blow had landed, checking his fingertips for blood.

  “Would you just let me speak?” Nick said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

  “Of course there isn’t,” Nick said. “But that isn’t what I am.”

  “Have you been in the psych ward?” Jonathan said. “Is that where you met this guy?”

  “Stop it,” Nick said, reaching out. “Stop fucking assuming things. You don’t know. You don’t know everything.”

  Jonathan’s breath wheezed through his nose again. Nick found he had clamped his hand rather tightly, and he loosened it a little, but not enough to let Jonathan talk.

  “When did you start thinking you were better than me?” Nick said. “I thought it was her, for a while, but she’s too nice for that, isn’t she? You came up with it all on your own.”