Touched

by A. J. Aalto

  I didn't hear Harry cross the room but there he was, touching my hair softly. “Oh, dear, someone is très fatigué.”

  “Exhausted,” I agreed, relieved that while I seemed to no longer be able to feel him, there was nothing wrong with Harry's side of our Bond. “It's been an incredibly shitty day but I couldn't possibly sleep now.” I'd gone beyond tired into that jittery, dry-eyed, up all night phase. “I've got to take care of Rasta-Thor downstairs and clean up this ghoul sludge and find that other eyeball. Where did I put it? And I should make a list of all the places I need to call tomorrow to find research materials…”

  “Piffle.” Harry started shaking his head. “Come along, say goodnight to the nice policemen.”

  “But the case…”

  “Aren't you considerate to be concerned about the agents’ business,” Harry expressed, taking my elbow. “Surely, they appreciate that.”

  “Harry, I'm needed.”

  “Quite right, your input is of paramount importance,” he soothed. “However, I trust the agents will excuse their gravely injured and addled colleague for a brief rest. After all, a dull axe shall chop no wood.”

  I knew a certain smarmy, condescending revenant who was gonna get a mouth full of fist in a second. He was starting to make me irritable. Again. The fact that he was pulling at my elbow made things worse.

  “Come. You tuck in nice and comfy, and I'll be there in a trice after I've made this place fine as five pence.”

  “You're going to clean up?” I was almost tired enough not to be suspicious. Almost. I studied him sideways. “What's it going to cost me?”

  “As I said, five pence.” His smooth, pleasant face revealed nothing. “Oh and darling? Do set the nice little girl's eyeball on the back porch before you turn in?” he suggested.

  I gave him a withering look and plodded to my room.

  THIRTY-THREE

  My bed smelled like the jealous undead.

  Either Harry had spritzed my pillow cases with his 4711 cologne, or he'd rolled bodily in my bed like a cat marking its favorite sleeping place; it amused me to think it was the latter. As I changed into heavy pajamas, I pictured him wriggling in the sheets until it struck me as impossibly ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the mental picture of him tiptoeing into my room and adding his fragrance to my pillows in ninja stealth-mode. It was nice to be wanted, but what next? Would I catch the revenant scent-marking in all four corners of my room? I laughed alone in my room as I stripped off my gloves then rummaged in Carrie's old hand-me-down dresser for warmer socks.

  “Few women can pull off grandfatherly plaid with your inimitable grace.”

  I jerked; my laugh ended in an unladylike snort. I hadn't heard Harry come in, or felt him get close. Now that my half of our Bond was hinky, I got a taste of how the revenant's sudden soundless appearance affected normal, mundane humans. Would Wesley be able to creep up on me like that? The thought struck me as unfair.

  He continued wryly in his crisp London accent, “Well, perhaps ‘grace’ isn't quite the word for it.”

  “Honestly, it's side-splitting entertainment when you sidle up on other people, but it messes me up when you do it to me. Maybe you could knock it off until the Bond heals.”

  “Whilst I did not do it intentionally, I do apologize.” He cocked his head, taking the fabric of the pajamas between his fingertips for a rub. “Soft.”

  In his murmur, there was a mix of appreciation and disapproval, like he was willing to live with my choices but had to voice his opinion. I waited for it, tensing; he undoubtedly felt my unease, but he said it anyway.

  “Comfort over fashion,” he noted blandly. “Evidently, you are too weary to seduce your mortal stud muffin, and I suppose you've no one else to impress this evening.”

  I exhaled hard. “I get enough criticism from them, Harry. I don't need it from you.”

  He looked genuinely confused. “If I don't criticize, how will you improve yourself?”

  “Maybe I don't need improvement.” I turned my back on him to trade my black silk socks for fluffy pink ones.

  “That is akin to giving up.” He grimaced like I'd just suggested we spend the evening impaling stray cats for fun.

  “Back off, could you? For tonight, for right this second, I'm fine the way I am.”

  His eyes widened; he watched me as though I were dangerously insane. “Whatever has come over you, my fluttering cabbage moth?”

  “Did it ever once occur to you in a whole decade of living side by side that you could accept my faults the way I accept yours?”

  I expected him to argue that he didn't have any faults, and I was ready with a full mental list of them, from A for arrogance to Z for… okay, I didn't have a Z one, but I had plenty in between.

  Instead he said, “I shan't put you on a pedestal. You are not perfect, and I cannot in good conscience do you the grave disservice of pretending that you are.”

  “I get it, Harry. Between the dreadful hair and the sloppy wardrobe, and the stupid things I do, and the horrible things I say, and my dysfunctional family and my appalling work, I'm just about as useful to you as a tit on a rooster.” And there's the real reason you won't sleep with me, I thought, then swallowed it deep into my gut where it settled in a cold, vicious lump.

  Harry's mouth worked at making sound, but his head shook like the words he was trying to get out no longer made sense.

  “You must either be tired beyond the capacity for reason, or more upset about your brother's turning than I had surmised, for I said nothing of the kind.”

  “You said it all and more, with act, deed and body language.”

  His eyes darted up and to the left. “Undoubtedly, my body has been misinterpreted.”

  My answer was a simmering glare. He didn't move a muscle, but something in him retreated a full measure until there was a palpable distance between us. I wished all at once that I could still sense what he was feeling, even if it was disappointment, or anger, or misery. Where our Bond once linked us, there was a fresh psychic gorge, a crumbling trench void of warmth and consuming itself at the edges. I shuddered and hugged myself.

  “Whatever part of my body indicated such contemptible things to you, consider it duly reprimanded.” He forced himself forward toward me as though the air had become thick enough to wade through. “The stars must be in some funny alignment. We so rarely argue.”

  My chin quivered and I bit my bottom lip to stop it. Harry demanded perfection from himself and others, and I didn't want him to change. At the same time, the high expectations every hour of every day wore on me like a constant grinding, something out of sync winding against a gear, especially since I was clearly incapable of living up to his impossible standards.

  I thought to explain it to him, then chewed it back; why should I have to tell him, when he knew it as plainly as he knew his own heart?

  He gave me an opening. “What do you need from me, my only love? You have only to ask and it shall be done.”

  “I need some uncritical affection. If you can't manage that, I'll have to seek it elsewhere.”

  There. It was an ultimatum of sorts, but I trusted him not to back down; if I knew one thing about him, it was that Harry and Devotion were one and the same. My companion was the embodiment of virtues rarely found since the extinction of knightly ways. Having made some internal decision, Harry rose to the occasion like I knew he would, sweeping a bow at me as an excuse to catch my hand in his. He rubbed it with his thumb, his eyes tightly closed, and I watched as his eyes moved under those fair translucent lids, back and forth like they were searching, scanning, reading the lines of an invisible transcript.

  “Oh, ducky,” he sighed, placing his cool lips to the back of my hand, his eyes tightly closed.

  My shoulders fell. He looked sad and unexpectedly every year of his age. My nurturing urge kicked in and I touched his hair as he straightened. His ancient eyes searched mine with four centuries of experience, pegging the expression on my face with expert p
recision.

  “It occurs to me that I may not be entirely pleasant to live with. Is this true?”

  “Wow. You thought you were entirely pleasant to live with, Harry?” I smirked at him. “Seriously?”

  “Don't joke. You feel…” He blinked at me in wonder as something occurred to him. “Flames and ether, I have made a beautiful woman feel ugly.”

  “Let's drop it. I'm sure that Wesley needs us. Maybe I'll go see if I can bribe Chapel and Batten to stay at a hotel.”

  “I'll thank you to stop that.” Harry refused to let go of my hand. Since his immortal grip had the strength to pull the roof off the Buick, I gave up. “I understand when you ward yourself from them, but I must insist you stop your cynical wall-building against me.”

  I avoided his gaze, blinking rapidly to keep my eyes clear of the threatening tears. When he didn't stop staring at me expectantly, I exploded, “What do you wanna hear?”

  “A man could get his heart clobbered by you, Marnie Baranuik, if he were so imprudent as to allow himself to be blinded by your looks. If you have no idea how lovely you are, that is all on me. I should be a clear mirror for you, and in that I have failed.” It sounded like a compliment, a rare occurrence indeed, but with calculated aloofness he continued, “But inside, there is nothing in you that is not hard or fortified. The guardian of your heart is a veritable meat grinder. Cerberus would not do a better job of tearing apart intruders.”

  “You're calling me cold? Me? That's rich!”

  “I share everything I am with you!” Harry suddenly towered over me in the room, his eyes backlit with rage. “Every morsel of wisdom I've gained, every dollar I've earned, every moment of my night and into every day, no matter how drained I become. I share every ounce of immortality I can possibly spare you. Everything.”

  “Everything but your—” I clipped off the word dick, my breath streaming ardently from my nose, and finished, “Everything but intimacy.”

  He didn't miss a beat, as though he'd been expecting the issue to crop up. He pounced, pointing hard to the sky, eyes brightening past silver as his pupils expanded to eat the color up. “If I were to cross that line with you, you know the consequences of that act, regardless of how pleasurable--”

  “No I don't!” The tears wouldn't stop now, blurring my vision. “What would the consequences be? Spell it out for me, Harry, because I think you're full of shit, frankly. All this crap about possessiveness and jealousy, it's nonsense.”

  “And you know everything, is that it?”

  “You're hiding something from me.”

  His accent thickened and his fine English accent became crisp and cutting. “Do take that tone out of your voice and remember to whom you are speaking, DaySitter.” His back straightened and his mouth settled into a grim line. “You ask me for uncritical affection and when I get close, you poison me with your accusations like a black widow spider.”

  “Don't insult me with lies when every other word out of your mouth points to the truth.”

  “Why, tonight, do you suggest that I am a fabricator?” The clear bright rage in his eyes dared me to confront the issue. “Out with it. Let's have it!”

  When I backed down, he slammed a hand down on the nightstand. The lamp jittered as though startled off its base, toppling to the floor in a tinkle of shattered glass. Lights out. Moonlight poured through Kenmare Irish lace curtains, imprinting the side of the revenant's pale face with an intricate cut work pattern. The new quiet signaled the birth of a dark silence so windless and arctic that I couldn't imagine an end to it.

  I stood there frozen in our emotional polar winter, wrestling with the need to scream it, to grab him by the shirt front and shake him silly, unable to get past my fear of the truth. There was another in his life. There was no doubt in my mind. No one was celibate for a decade, certainly no revenant, and the unadulterated truth was there in his eyes, with neither guilt nor shame, instead putting the blame firmly on me. Another eager, willing body stood there lost in the great black void of his pupils, proudly, wantonly, something worse than a mistress. Maybe it was Gary Chapel, or maybe Gary was just one of dozens, men and women, who supplied the revenant with what he truly needed. I squeezed my hands into fists tighter until my fingernails were raking into the flesh of my palms. I had to know for sure. I had to hear him say it. But if it was said aloud…what if it ruined everything? What if the act of saying it was the last nail in the coffin? The true and final end of our Bond.

  “You broke my lamp,” I said quietly.

  His eyes flicked down to the shards. “It was a tacky little thing.”

  “I liked it.”

  His jaw set. “Then I shall scour the world for its duplicate.”

  “Try reallyuglylamps.com.” I needed to swallow but my tongue was thick and hot. Something dry clicked in the back of my throat. “And technically, it's not tacky. It's shabby chic. It matches your snooty hundred year old lace curtains.”

  Harry's eyes blazed anew with the need to correct me, but he held his comment back behind the wall of his teeth.

  So that was it. I wasn't ever going to ask about his indiscretions, or his refusal to have sex with me. If there was a time to do it, it was now, but when the right words poured out of my brain and into my mouth, my heart leapt with terror and I couldn't make my jaw unclench. He was waiting, calmer now, his intensity fading from the room, and he no longer seemed the four hundred-year-old monster with centuries of manipulation techniques in his arsenal. He was just Harry, covered in lacework shadows, the guy who was handing me a Kleenex.

  I took it. I wiped my nose. What could I say?

  “Are you still hungry?” he said quietly.

  I shook my head, no.

  “Get some sleep. Call upon me if you need anything at all. I shall be in the kitchen seeing to our guests.”

  I didn't watch him bow or leave the room, but stared at the curtains as though they were suddenly the most important thing in the world. It occurred to me then that our yelling must have been overheard by my brother's new revenant acuity, and that two FBI agents in the next room got an earful. To their credit, they had given us our privacy, even after they must have heard the lamp shatter.

  I bent to look at the mess and my eyes filled with tears like they'd only been waiting for gravity. I pinched my lips inward and swallowed hard. The lamp had fallen into a wiggling spot of ghoul sludge, but that was the least of my problems. I thought about just kicking it under the bed, slippery stuff and all, to worry about it in the morning. There were tiny pieces of light bulb glass winking in the moonlight that streamed through my window. I reached for them stupidly, and hissed when a tiny splinter pricked my fingertip. I couldn't believe I'd gotten into the habit of walking around without my gloves.

  The bedroom door opened again almost as soon as it had clicked closed and Harry stormed back in, his presence a cool eddy through the room.

  “Is everything all right? Where are Batten and Chapel?”

  “They went for a drive,” he said curtly, clutching his hands together and pressing them over his midriff. “Stupid, considering what may be waiting outside, but they had one collective leg out the door already, and would not be dissuaded.”

  “Oh.” I had no other words. “And Wesley?”

  “Resting. Exhausted.” He knew this simply by aiming his focus through the floor.

  “Oh.”

  “This is all wrong,” he insisted. “My stomach is an out-and-out knot, and so is yours. It's perfectly insufferable.”

  He paced, using his middle fingertip to repeatedly smooth his eyebrow to the piercings, and then swung around to gaze down at me, his inhumanly entrancing face inscrutable. I swallowed back heady panic in my chest and tried to convince myself that I didn't feel like vomiting. His calculating measurement said he wasn't going to let it go; the conversation I didn't want to have was coming and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it now.

  “Are you quite well?” Harry asked, knowing the answer. “What is t
he matter with your finger?”

  “Just a prick. My painkillers are wearing off again,” I side-stepped. “I should have timed them better. I missed my afternoon dose.”

  “I will help you find comfort with a neck massage.” He removed his onyx cufflinks and tossed them on the nightstand. Rolling his French cuffs to the elbow exposed the black calligraphy tattooed on his wrist.

  I caught his cool wrist in my hand and turned it to the moonlight. My name. I looked up at him, shaking my head at myself.

  “It has not changed.” He assessed me seriously. “Did you think that it had, or ever would?”

  “I don't know what to think anymore.” I closed my eyes tightly so the tears wouldn't return.

  “Lay your silly head down, and let me rally round your battlefield.” He massaged his knuckles and cracked them, motioning for me to turn to my stomach so he could give me one of his famous neck rubs that melted a body to the core. But I stayed upright, cross-legged in the tangle of blankets, damp-eyed and nervous. If he wanted this confrontation now, I needed to stop being a pansy, pull up my big girl panties and just say it.

  “If you really want to help me Harry, then answer this,” I said, summoning my courage. “If I lived up to your expectations, if I did everything you wanted and more, if I made myself the perfect DaySitter, then would you make love to me, like you did all the others?”

  He measured me with his unblinking gaze, going very still.

  “Would you take me to your bed, Harry, or your casket, or the goddamn floor, or your friggin’ antique bondage restraints, or wherever the hell you want to do me?”

  We stared at one another in silence.

  “Is that a no?” I demanded, my voice thick.

  Finally, he let his chin fall, and barely above a whisper he told me, “You're not ready.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It wasn't what I expected to hear. I opened my mouth to grill him and he spilled his voice into the bedroom, his words coming quickly and anxiously.