A Mate Worse Than Death

by J. L. Ray

  “Also, I heard, not too long ago, from my son, in fact, that she had gotten some help with her issues, talked to a Mundane ...” she paused to think, “I believe that psychologist is the term. And that she had started to date again. That is all I know.” She looked at Phil and raised one brow. Then she shrugged. “All right, that wasn’t all three questions. What is your last question?”

  Before Tony could interrupt, Phil went ahead with one he felt was important to ask before going to the next name on the list to interview. “Were she and Naamah still close? Do you know if they had spoken to one another lately?”

  Agrat made a face. “You haven’t seen Naamah in a while, have you?”

  “No, no I haven’t.”

  “The Queen of Divination. Glory be to Naamah the All-Seeing,” Agrat’s voice dripped venom.

  “You and Naamah aren’t speaking?”

  “Naamah is...well, you should go see for yourself, if you have time. She’s changed, a lot, since last you lived in our realm. And no, she wasn’t in touch with Lilith. Lilith wasn’t in touch with anyone on this side at all, as far as I know. All I heard after the ceremony so very long ago were rumors and news, none of it from her. We never spoke again after that night,” Agrat was so emphatic that Tony immediately knew that was a lie, but since Phil had used question number three, she figured that they would have to come at that lie from a more oblique angle. Perhaps this Naamah could help them with that. It looked like there was no love lost on Agrat’s side.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Leaving proved relatively easy. As soon as the Q & A session ended, Agrat simply disappeared. In fact, the whole building did. And the paved road. And the ridiculously ornate light poles. Instead, they seemed to be in a desert. The Harley was there, and there was a road, but it looked pretty primitive.

  “Fabulous. This is going to be a party,” Tony waved at the gravel washboard in front of them. “Motorcycles aren’t great for off road travel. We may not be able to make it out of here.”

  Phil looked at her, “My dear detective, with every comment you make, I get the sense that this is not your first time with such a vehicle.”

  She shook her head. “I dated a guy in college who was totally into the whole lifestyle, in an upper middle-class yuppie way. He majored in accounting. When I realized he was pretending to be a badass rather than an actual badass, it kind of killed the charm. He did have the money for the whole Harley experience. Very expensive bikes. I rode ‘bitch’ with him for a while,” she smiled as she put air quotes around the word, “but I realized it was more about yanking Mom and Dad’s chains than about him, so I bailed. Rebel without a cause isn’t really my thing.”

  Phil shook his head, “Hidden depths, my sweetling, hidden depths.”

  “I’m not sure aggravating my parents rates as a ‘depth’, but it was fun at the time,” she grinned.

  “You do not like your parents?”

  “I adore my parents. You have no idea! But Mom wants me to be her clone, which ain’t happenin’, and Dad has control issues, as in he wants to know that everything I do, or my sibs do, for that matter, fits his idea of a good career choice. So my sister Melly and I have a bad habit of messing with our parents, just to do it. For me that led to Harleys, if only for a short time.” She grimaced. “They are so loud.”

  “I believe that we are being ‘messed with’ as you call it. We can assume this dirt path is a little fare-not-so-well gift from Agrat. I must say, she has not changed at all. Vicious if she gets her way, vicious if she does not. And she wonders why Asmodeus is content living in Mundania.”

  “This is more than vicious, Phil. The gravel could kill us. We might be better off walking than trying to ride a road bike on dirt,” Tony frowned and kicked at some of the stones in the road.

  “You do realize that I can work magic here?” Phil asked her. “My magic is much stronger here, in fact. It is one of the reasons I am banned from being here more than a day.” He gave her a look that in D.C. would have had her reaching for her weapon without even thinking about it. “If I could stay longer, I could carve out my territory again and hold it against most Beings.”

  She looked at him for a moment, considering. “So you think you can keep that hog between the ditches with magic?” She slapped her forehead with her palm. “You’re going to change it to something more suitable!”

  He shook his head. “I cannot change the basic form of what we brought with us. That is why Glinda gave you...”he paused and gestured at the Vuitton tote “that large purse. However, I can use magic to keep us upright.” He folded his leather-clad arms across his chest. “Also, one of my former clients was Robert Craig Kenievel.” When she looked blank he added, “Evel Kenievel?”

  “Ah,” she nodded. “So his knowledge about stunt riding just rubbed off on you?”

  He smirked, “Darling girl, much the other way ‘round. I taught him everything he ever knew.”

  She snorted, “Show off.”

  “I am simply telling you the truth. If you wish to interpret it as lack of vanity,” he waved one hand, “I can do nothing about that.” Then he gestured at the bike.“Hop on.” He looked at his Rolex Submariner. “According to my timer, we have 18 hours left before I die. I really have no idea how it would happen,” he mused. “Would it be an accident? Would an executioner show up? Would I just fall over dead?” He looked over to find Tony staring at him and frowning, so he asked, “What is the matter?”

  “Let’s not find out, shall we? Get on the damn machine and let’s go.”

  “Ah, yes. Much the best plan,”and Phil walked over and climbed on.

  Tony stood there for minute, and then gingerly pulled herself and the robe onto the seat behind him and tried to settle the extra cloth into the seat.

  “My dear, if you want to play with my ass, just tell me,” Phil muttered as Tony was trying to tuck in the robes.

  “Y’know, I realize that you are trying to distract me from thinking about the lack of real road and your potential upcoming doom, so I’m going to refrain from punching you. Let’s go, before your former girlfriend shows up and decides she doesn’t want to take no for an answer after all. I’d hate to have to sit around and watch,” and as the words came out Tony gave herself a mental headsmack and waited for the smart remark. After a long moment of silence from Phil, she couldn’t take it. “What?” she demanded. “Come on. I know you’re dying up there.”

  “Sorry, my dear. I was carried away with the image you just put in my head. Hold on!” and he punched the starter and put the bike into gear.

  The dirt path Agrat left them on was brutal. Tony felt like her teeth were being jarred out of her head. After the first ten minutes of riding, Phil yelled back to her, “With washboard gravel, we could go slow or fast, not in between. I vote for fast.”

  “If you can handle the steering, anything to end this!” Tony yelled back, and he gunned it. “Why the hell did Glinda pick a motorcycle?” Then she considered Phil. Then she considered Phil’s backside. The she added the riding leather. Question answered. That demon had an outfit for every occasion. She wondered what he wore to sleep? Best not to answer that particular question.

  Luckily, they soon left Agrat’s territory and the desert area. One hour of hard driving across that awful gravel path led them out of the desert area and into a wood. Phil decided to stop for a bit when they rode out onto a harder dirt path at the beginning of a more wooded area where a river ran nearby, cooling the air. He downshifted and came to a halt. They got off the seat, both covered in fine, brown grains of sand.

  “Do you want to wipe some of the sand off?” Phil asked her.

  She took off her helmet and shook out her hair. The sand had gotten up into the helmet and dulled her reddish brown hair to a mud color. “We shouldn’t take the time,”she said, but Phil saw her look longingly at the flowing water.

  “You can’t get into that water, you know,” he told her with a grimace. “But I’m sure the large purse probably has
something in it that you can use.”

  “Oh,” she said, and shook her head. “Damn. I didn’t even think about the enchantments. That’s not good.” She turned away from the temptation of the stream behind her.

  “I’m not sure what kind of enchantments would be in there to affect a Natural, but I’m sure that if there isn’t something quite nasty, there is probably a resident fae who might try to drown a Natural being.”

  “A naiad?” Tony looked over at the water with longing again. “One of my best friends in high school was a naiad! Maybe this one would--”

  “Your friend in high school was under the Geas. She couldn’t harm you. She wouldn’t even want to harm you, in all likelihood. This one, if one there is, and I cannot be certain, might enjoy harming you very much for polluting her water.”

  Tony nodded, her face falling like a kid who’d been told that the tooth fairy wasn’t real, though, of course, nowadays only Nattys in total denial believed there wasn’t a tooth fairy. Tony reached into the tote and started poking around. “Let’s see. Memory spells, lipstick, hairbrush, ooh, a spare tire kit for the Harley! Nice one, G. Good thinking. Uhm...is that? Man,” she laughed and started pulling a shiny, stainless steel object out of the tote, “Glinda really did put in the kitchen sink.” As she finished pulling it out, she amended, “Guess it’s really the bathroom sink, huh?”

  Phil grinned and watched as Tony started washing the grit from her face and neck, and then gave up and bent over to stick her head under the faucet. Her hair was long enough that she had to swing it back out of her face as she stood upright. The water from it slung across Phil’s face, turning it to a mud patch mixed in with his facial hair.

  Tony turned around, carefully wiping her face on the hair shirt. “Ouch, ouch. This is, without a doubt, the worst material I have ever come in contact with. I don’t think G. put a towel in that tote. That was kind of evil.” She got her eyes wiped and opened them to see Phil standing in front of her, mud dripping off his goatee.

  “Oopsy. Did I do that?” she pointed at his face.

  “Yes, yes, you did,” he replied carefully, trying to keep the mud out of his mouth.

  “You can use my sink,” she said hesitantly.

  “Mmmhmm,” he said as he stalked up to her.

  She took a step back, stopped from going farther by the sink. “I’ll just get out of your way,”and she started to duck to the right, but a leather-clad arm blocked her escape. In the next moment, the other arm blocked her left side as well.

  “You aren’t going to get cleaned up with me in the way,” she told him, a little breathlessly. He had moved in even closer, and his face loomed over hers.

  “Who said anything about cleaning up? I’m thinking about getting much, much dirtier,” and she gasped as his lips closed over hers. His tongue teased hers as he rubbed his lips against her mouth. The tingle she’d felt in his office yesterday was nothing compared to the feeling she now had, as if his lips somehow managed to connect to more than just her mouth. She moaned just a bit and moved in closer to him, her hands sliding around and down to his leather-clad ass, which, yes, was every bit as lovely as advertised. She began kissing him back for all she was worth, right up to the point that she choked.

  Two seconds later they were both coughing and spitting mud. Phil turned and grabbed Tony’s face in one hand and flipped on the sink, splashing water into her mouth. “Gargle, now!” he roared, and startled, she did just that. “Don’t swallow any of that mud.” She paled at the thought. If she ate anything here, even by accident, she would never be able to leave. Apparently Phil thought that dirt counted. She wrenched her face out of Phil’s hand and put her lips to the pouring faucet, rinsing over and over again.

  When she came up for air, he had taken off his leather jacket and pulled off a white, short-sleeved t-shirt that was under it. He handed it to her without a word and then another materialized on his torso. She took the shirt from him, still staring at his compact, muscular chest as it disappeared behind that plain white t-shirt. “Finish up,” he barked. “We need to go.”

  And as she dried her face, he stuck his head under the faucet. When he stood back up, she held out the shirt to him. Wordlessly, he dried his face and then he flipped his right hand at the shirt and it dematerialized, though the mud on it dropped to the ground. He walked over to the Harley and picked up his leather jacket, dragging it back on and wrenching the zipper up to the top. Tony, facing his back, was working up a serious case of pissed off. He’d kissed her. He’d put her life in danger, and now she got the silent treatment? What the hell was that?

  Unfortunately, pissed off didn’t translate to working up the nerve to ask him what he was so mad about. While interviewing Agrat Bat Mahlat, she had gotten a more realistic view of Mephistopheles’ true age. He might look like her contemporary, but he had lived more years than every Super she had ever met, combined. Okay, except maybe Agrat. And Azeem, but at least he did try to fit in with his unit. Most of them forgot that he was older than the Egyptian pyramids. Unfortunately, even knowing how ridiculously old Phil was didn’t mean she wasn’t having a hard time keeping her mind on the case and off his potent charms. That kiss. Holy shit. Maybe Calvin had been right. Maybe trying to keep an eye on him as a person of interest by using him on this case was the worst kind of bad idea. Because she didn’t think she could handle him. He was scaring her right now, and that wasn’t a good place for her to be. She wondered how she was going to climb back on that bike behind an ancient, angry Being when all she wanted to do was climb on that particular Being for a very different kind of ride. Also, she kind of wondered about her sanity.

  Without turning to look at her, Phil swung onto the seat. “Pack up that sink and let us go.”

  Despite her anger, Tony choked back a laugh. “Words no one expects to hear,” she thought, but she didn’t comment out loud. It looked like it was time to walk softly and play it safe, not roll with some old George Carlin riff she had listened to with her parents as a kid.

  Phil managed not to react when he felt Tony’s arms slide around his waist. He wanted to apologize for almost stranding her here in Fairie, but he was so mad at himself that he almost couldn’t speak. And he knew if he apologized, if she didn’t seem so nervous around him, that he might be tempted to repeat the experience. And Blood and Bones, what an experience. He had lived a long time and been with a lot of Beings in that time, but kissing her had been more intense than he had expected. He could still feel her hands on him, and it was all he could do not to transform his leathers to a less binding suit or maybe a nice loose robe. He realized that as much as he wanted an encore of that kiss, he himself was afraid of it. He’d completely forgotten, in the heat of the moment as he stalked her like the predator he had been before the Geas, that with the mud all over him, he could have stranded her in one land while he was forced to return to another. And once there, he would have had to explain to her parents, her brother and sister, ye Gods and little fishes, to Lt. Azeem and the furious Calvin Kelly and his mythically formidable spouse Berthell just exactly how she had gotten stuck in Fairie. He wasn’t sure which was scarier--kissing Tony again, or facing her considerable pile of loved ones. He started the bike and drove fast, trying to outrun the images in his head and ignore the warm arms that held on a little too tightly.

  Phil felt his watch timer go off. He was down to just thirteen hours now. However, he had actually recognized a few landmarks three miles back. While territory in the Fairie Realm had a bad habit of moving about, if a seeker was intent on a location, and the person whose territory it was had not specifically warded against said seeker, then finding a specific territory, while difficult, was not impossible. It had taken over four precious hours to get to Naamah, not counting the time they took to almost strand his darling and for him to become absolutely certain that touching her too much might be the literal death of one or both of them. He sighed.

  Tony yelled in his ear over the guttural rumble of the Harley, “Yo
u okay?”

  He rolled his eyes, wondering what she would do if he answered that truthfully. “I believe that we are almost at the next destination.” He felt her whole body tense and suddenly she was clutching him hard. “What is happening? Are you okay? Tony?”

  He slowed to a halt, cut the engine, and turned his torso to look at her. Her face under the half helmet was pale and sweating, and she looked up at him with haunted eyes.

  “Another of those premonition thingees,” she gasped, her arms no longer clutching him but instead bracing her body on the seat in the room between them. “This time I saw something.”

  His eyes scanned her face as if trying to read it. “What did you see? Describe it to me. Close your eyes and picture it and describe it before it is gone.” He reached and put a hand on either side of her face, forcing her face up toward him, and as he watched, he saw her eyes film over and go blank like any Seer’s would before she closed them.

  Her head slowly shook in a negating gesture as she talked to him, “I see a room, stone walls, high ceilings, a large fireplace, but no fire. It is so cold, so cold.” She shivered abruptly as if she herself was cold. “There is a bed, small, old, so uncomfortable, and it makes me ache until I’m crazy with it. But sleeping on the floor wouldn’t be better.” Phil stared at her, horrified. This was the Sight, not a premonition. What was she, this supposed Natural, this daughter of humans? “I need to wash my face. I go to the basin, and the water is frozen, so I crack the ice on top. I lift water up and splash it on my face. I look up at the mirror.” Tony moaned. She opened sightless eyes and as Phil looked into them, hoping she would come back, she groaned and slid into a faint.