Winterblaze

by Kristen Callihan

  Beyond the lofty silence in the salon, he could hear the muffled gaiety of his fellow travelers in the dining hall across the way, the occasional clink of china, and the ever-present hum of the engines. And then, over it all, came the sound of footsteps, steady and deliberate. For no accountable reason, the sound had the hairs along Winston’s arms standing at attention and sent a shiver of warning down his spine. Slowly, like a man forced to face his executioner, Winston raised his head.

  A man strolled directly down the center aisle of the salon, his reflection wavering in the polished marble floor. Attired in the precise lines of a black walking suit, his only nod to color was a scarlet ascot and the glint of gold from his watch chain. His features were lost beneath the brim of his top hat but a glimmer lit his eyes as they locked onto Winston. His stride was languid, as if he enjoyed having Winston watch him, and Winston’s jaw locked, equal parts revulsion and irritation heating his blood. But years of instinct told him not to look away.

  The man moved under a shaft of gaslight, and Winston’s blood stilled. Perhaps it was a trick of the light but, for one sharp moment, the man appeared to have scars upon his cheek just as Winston did. His hair was the same wheat color and shaggy, a waving, rumpled mess that mirrored Winston’s. Then the man came closer, and the illusion faded, revealing close-cut reddish brown hair and a face devoid of scars. He stopped directly in front of Winston’s table.

  “Hello, Winston Lane.” The voice was smooth, soft even, and enough to send another tremor of foreboding down Winston’s spine. Christ, was this the demon Poppy had warned him about? Only one way to find out.

  “Do I know you?” Winston asked plainly. No chance in hell was he revealing his disquiet to this man.

  The man’s thin lips furled into a smile. “Now there’s a question.” Without waiting to be asked, he pulled out the chair across from Winston and sat. The scent of coal smoke and patchouli tickled Winston’s nostrils. Crossing one leg over the other, the man sat back and regarded Winston with shadowed eyes. “Do you know me?”

  The man was either mad, or he was the demon. Win didn’t like his odds at the moment.

  When Win didn’t answer him, the man made a sound of amusement. “Since you have no memory of our earlier meeting, which,” he pulled a thin, gold case from his coat pocket, “is in truth my fault entirely, you may call me Mr. Jones.”

  “Mr. Jones,” Winston repeated dubiously. My aunt Fanny. Out of reflex, Win’s hand moved to the place where he kept his gun, only to realize, rather belatedly, that he’d left his coat behind.

  “I’ve gone by many names, Loki, Dolus. You might even call me the devil. Which would be missing the point. Who I am is not as important as what I do. I grant bargains in exchange for souls.” With precise movements, the man took out an Egyptian cigarette and lit it, filling the space between them with an aromatic perfume. His thumb drew across his lower lip to catch an errant flake of tobacco before he spoke again. “Ask me next why I am here.”

  “How about this,” Win snapped back, “what the bloody hell do you want?”

  Abruptly, Jones sat forward, and his eyes were entirely colorless, like chips of ice in a glass. “I’ve come to collect my due.” With that, he reached into his suit coat pocket once more and produced a rolled length of old foolscap. The roll of paper called to Winston in a way he did not understand, nor like. But he felt the familiarity of it with a soul deep shudder.

  “Your due?” This was new. Poppy hadn’t said a word about debts. His mouth went dry.

  Jones drew on his cigarette again and exhaled slowly, sending interlocking rings of blue smoke drifting into the air. Quite a trick. The man tapped out a line of ash. “It is like this,” Jones said. “On April the fifth, eighteen sixty-nine, you signed this contract.”

  “Bollocks! You’re having me on.” But he did not miss that the date was precisely fourteen years prior to the date that he’d been attacked by the werewolf in a dank London alley.

  Taking one more draw on his cigarette before setting it down, Jones carefully unrolled the foolscap and pushed the paper forward. One long, polished nail tapped the document that lay between them. “Read it.”

  Nothing on Earth could induce Winston to touch that paper. “You’re mad. I’ve never even seen you before.” Shit. But the denial felt like a lie.

  Jones took up his cigarette again and inhaled with almost indecent pleasure. “That is your signature, is it not?”

  Winston’s own, familiar signature was slashed across the bottom of the paper. Ignoring it, Winston leaned in, and the paper crinkled under his forearms. “I would have remembered this.”

  “Ah, now that was part of the agreement. You were to forget everything upon signing. After all, if my clients remembered their deals, they might try to find a way out of them before payment.” Cigarette dangling between his pale lips, Jones bent over the table to peer at the contract. “See there. Paragraph 13?” Jones pointed to a particular paragraph. “Upon signature, the principal—that would be you—shall lose all memory of the agreement—”

  “Why in the bloody hell would anyone in their right mind agree to forget what they’ve signed?” It was all too fantastic. He did not do such things. Christ, but his heart was pounding again. This was why the demon tracked him down? Did Poppy know of it? Nausea boiled within his stomach.

  “Well, that is rather the point, isn’t it?” Jones crossed one leg over the other. “You weren’t in your right mind at the time. A fact of which I took advantage. This human notion of fairness and honor makes you weak.” He blew out another chain of smoke rings. “I snare more ‘gentlemen’ this way than any other.” With a snap of his fingers, a waiter appeared with tray in hand.

  The waiter set down two double-tiered glasses and a small carafe of water. A clear colored liquid winked and swayed in the bottom of each glass. The ingenious little liquor glasses, with their top tiers filled with ice, were made for only one drink: absinthe. The waiter’s movements were precise yet held a bit of theater, as if he knew well that his patrons expected it in this moment. He’d be correct, generally. Only Winston was in no mood. Such excitement had long dimmed for him. Even so, his eyes stayed on the waiter’s hands as he lifted the water carafe and poured it into the top tier of the glass, which served as a filter. Slowly, the water filled up the tier before dripping down into the lower glass. The second the water hit the absinthe, everything transformed, the liquid turning a luminous and milky peridot color. No sugar was used; this was a high-quality brew. The warm scent of anise drifted up, and Winston’s mouth watered even as his pulse quickened.

  Too many days and nights had he lost to the Green Fairy. He’d almost succumbed to her long ago, drowning himself in the euphoric haze she provided. Because he had wanted a woman that he could not—A memory slammed into him, fragmented but strong.

  Running a hand over his face, Winston fought for control as the waiter departed. His mind was a fog. Jones’s white eyes bore into Winston. “No more games. You will remember it all. Now.” Jones pushed a glass closer to Winston. “Drink and remember, Winston Lane.”

  “No.” A cold sweat broke out over his brow. Winston would not drink. To do so would be his undoing. He knew it instinctively.

  Jones’s icy eyes went crimson. “Drink it, or I’ll do it the hard way.”

  Winston considered the hard way, but his hand moved of its own accord, as if compelled to obey. Absinthe spilled over his lips, pouring down his throat in a river of fire. The glass teetered as he gasped. Images flashed before his eyes. Drunken laughter, a haze of smoke, Poppy’s smiling eyes, his father’s scowl. You will not marry the daughter of a merchant. Win, I cannot marry you; your father will destroy my family. Jones’s long-fingered hand offering up a bone quill. Sign it and start anew, Winston Lane.

  Winston’s thighs banged against the table as he surged up, toppling his glass and sending absinthe across the marble. Jones’s hand snatched up Winston’s wrist and yanked him back down with bone-crushing force. />
  “Calm yourself.” Jones’s hand was warmer than human flesh, and though Winston wrenched at his arm, the man’s grip was unbreakable. “Really, I detest this part. The next thing will be you begging, and that becomes quite tedious.”

  “I never beg,” Winston said through his teeth.

  “Well, good. I hate whiners.” Apparently deciding that Winston wasn’t going anywhere, Jones let him go. “Fourteen years ago, I gave you a new life. You wanted to dispose of the position given to you by birth and become a detective. You wanted a certain redheaded chit to be your wife. I gave you those things.”

  Gave him Poppy? No, not her. What they had was real. “You cannot manipulate a person’s experiences,” Winston ground out.

  Jones selected a fresh cigarette and lit it. “What is a man but what he thinks himself to be? Moreover, what is a life but a collection of memories?” Jones exhaled. “And I, my ignorant fellow, manipulate memories. For a fee, that is.”

  “Jesus.”

  “No,” Jones smiled, “I am not he.” The smile left. “I altered the memories of you and those within your sphere. Thus it became your truth, their truth.”

  “My father did not disown me?” The memory of being disowned was still there, clear as day. I no longer have a son named Winston. From this day forth.

  Jones laughed shortly. “Ra’s balls, you are the son of a duke. The spare, yes, but do you honestly think he’d let you go? He was ready to crush all opposition to pull you to heel. No son of his was going to gad about playing at detective.”

  Jones was repeating his father’s words. He could hear them play in his head now and felt the same suffocating anger. You marry that chit and every door in London will shut in your face. I’ll see you a beggar before a son of mine gads about playing at detective.

  “Until his dying day, he believed you’d gone to the grave before him,” Jones said. “Your name is on the family tomb. Very impressive structure.”

  Christ, his father had thought him dead. He didn’t know how he felt about that, seeing as he’d bargained his soul to get away from him. Had he really been so desperate? Yes, he realized, yes he had.

  “This is why you are here?”

  Jones grinned. “Poppy Ann warned you about me, did she?”

  The way he spoke of Poppy, with such familiarity, sent a bolt of sheer rage through Winston’s chest. “Did she know? Of this.” He waved his hand in the direction of the paper.

  Jones snorted in amusement. “You are wise to ask. That woman keeps secrets upon secrets. She’s a bloody menace.”

  Winston wasn’t about to dignify that with a remark. The silence grew taut until Jones exhaled with a long, suffering sigh. “She is entirely ignorant. Fooled by a lie as well.” His smile was pure evil. “So much for your righteous indignation toward liars, Winston.”

  Winston’s fists ached with the need to smash the man’s face. He breathed through the anger and said nothing as Jones continued. “However, if you need to throw a bit of blame her way, you may be happy to know that your interest in Poppy aroused my curiosity enough to meet with you.” He shrugged. “Enough of trifle talk. Let us move on to payment.”

  Though his stomach rolled, Winston pulled himself together and sat straight. Inside he might want to scream and run but he had made this mess, so he’d face his fate. “My soul, is it?”

  Jones sucked on his cigarette then put it down and picked up the contract. “Yes, your soul. As the contract states, the deal was to expire when Death came for you.”

  Swallowing hard, Winston spoke. “You’re going to take me now?” God, he hadn’t even made his peace with Poppy. Right then, he wanted to hold her so badly the muscles along his arms clenched.

  Jones’s teeth were sharp and white as they flashed in the gaslight. “Not precisely. You created a bit of a dilemma when you met Death last April. You cheated him.”

  “Cheated him?” Winston snapped. “You mean that werewolf?”

  “That wasn’t a werewolf. Had that been the werewolf in question, you’d be rife with syphilis right now. Which you most certainly aren’t.”

  Odd as it was, a feeling of relief coursed through Winton’s body. Months ago, the fear he’d been infected had become the veritable white elephant in the room, and he’d forced Archer to do the tests. He’d proven clean but never knew why.

  “No,” continued Jones, “it was Death you faced that night, sent by me. He simply chose that disguise.” Something dark passed over Jones’s face before he pushed it away and looked at Winston with a near-pleasant expression. “You were supposed to die but that SOS bastard saved you. And now, dear boy, you are in breach of contract.”

  “Bollocks! It isn’t any fault of mine that Death lost. I wasn’t very aware at the time, you realize.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You did not die when you were supposed to.”

  “So then what? What is it you want if not ‘precisely’ my soul?”

  Again, Jones placed the contract before Winston, and his long nail tapped on a paragraph. “What I am owed.”

  Winston glanced down at the gleaming nail and the words before it. A bolt of sensation shot through Winston, as if he’d done this very thing before. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the contract. Reading was a slow, laborious process as the words kept blurring before him. But the meaning of them started to sink in, and as it did, he turned ice cold and his body trembled.

  Should the principal fail to comply with the terms so listed, the grantor shall take as recompense the soul of the principal’s first born. All the blood drained from his face in a rush that made him sway. “No!” He leapt up and grabbed Jones by his lapels, hauling him close. “Not a chance in bloody hell, do you hear me? Not one damn chance!”

  For a moment, Jones stared back, but then small licks of flame began to creep out from under his collar and dance over his face, and those strange eyes grew larger, less human looking. His voice went deep, hollow, as if he spoke from the depths of a black tunnel. “You think you can forfeit?”

  “I would have never agreed to that.” Winston jerked Jones closer, heedless of the heat biting at his knuckles. “Never.”

  “Agree you did. Because you, in the cocksure bloom of youth, believed yourself invincible. That when the time came, it would all go swimmingly. And because,” he leaned with a low, rolling chuckle, “you failed to properly read the contract, dear boy.”

  Not wanting to touch him a second longer, Winston let Jones go with a shove. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve left Poppy, and there is no chance of you getting what you want.” Christ, but he’d just tupped her. If they had a child, only to… A shudder went through him, and he fell back into his seat.

  Jones grinned. “How naive you are being, Winston Lane. How long has it been since you left her? Three months?” He darted forward in a move too quick to be human. “Are you so very sure of her then?”

  Despite being seated, Winston’s knees went weak. “She would have told me if she was with child.” They’d tried for so many years. And failed.

  “Poppy Lane divulge an inconvenient truth? Heaven forefend.” Jones straightened his crooked lapels. “Come, man, I can alter lives. Did you really think I would waltz back into yours and demand what I cannot have? Ridiculous human. A child grows in her womb. I can feel it.”

  Surely fate could not be so cruel as to bless them now. But, God, what if she was with child? Horror washed over Winston in a cold wave. Swallowing down bile, he slumped into his chair. Jesus. Winston sank his head into his hands and tried to breathe.

  “Ah, yes. A son is on the way, I believe.” Jones sighed. “I shall raise it as my own.”

  “Like hell!” Tableware rattled as Win slammed his hand down upon the table.

  Jones shrugged lightly. “It is the bargain you made. No use crying about it now.”

  Rage surged hot and thick along Winston’s flesh. His fists twitched with the need to do violence. With supreme effort, he calmed himself and focused because everything he held dear
depended on what he would say. “Right then. You’re a bargain demon; let us bargain.”

  The demon’s expression eased into one of childlike delight. “Shrewd Winston Lane. I knew you’d make a counter offer.”

  Perhaps this was why the demon was here after all. He wanted something else. Winston only had to draw it out and find the right angle of attack. “Go on then, Jones. Tell me what you will take instead.”

  Jones tapped his long nail against his chin, and the gold ring he wore caught the light. It was of a serpent coiled in on itself. Tiny ruby eyes seemed to stare back at Winston. “How about this? You do me a small service, and your child will be spared.”

  Winston rubbed his burning eyes. He’d lied to his wife, far worse than she’d done to him. Good God, but he’d bargained away his child’s very existence. His chest felt as though it were bleeding out. “What is to say that you won’t manipulate events to get your way? That this isn’t an illusion as well?”

  “You may find it hard to believe but I must operate under rules,” Jones said. “I make bargains. I keep bargains. I cannot toy with what is not struck in a deal.”

  “You’re right,” Winston snapped. “I find it hard to believe.”

  “Fair enough,” Jones answered with a short laugh. “Only it’s true.” He shrugged. “Should we strike a bargain, I will adhere to the terms.” He held Winston’s gaze. “I must.”

  “Rather charitable of you to admit to it,” Winston grumbled.

  “Also a must.” Jones leaned in. “Now then, what say you? Have we an accord?”

  “What is the service?”

  Jones tutted. “That you cannot know until you agree.”

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, Winston regarded him. “First you must swear that, if I agree, Poppy will not be harmed in any manner. Ever.”