Blood and Fire

by Gabriela Fišerová

  “Look, this will just end up with us breaking up and being all hurt and sad about it.”

  Arkemoz folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall, staring off to the side. “I’m that now. And I don’t like it.”

  James resisted the urge to hug him. Though seeing the demon pout like that was really making that super difficult. And who was he kidding, anyway? There was no way he’d resist taking things out of the friendship territory if he kept hanging around Arkie, and of course he would stick around, if the demon would have him. He wasn’t strong enough to just leave and forget, though he really wished he was.

  “Is this really what you want?” James asked, looking Arkemoz straight in the eye.

  “Yes,” Arkemoz replied with no hesitation. Because of course he did. “I’d like to try this, however it works here. Emotions are involved, right?”

  James couldn’t not laugh at that. Arkie was so technical about everything. “Yeah, that’s why it gets complicated.”

  “I think I understand,” Arkie said, frowning. “Sort of.”

  “I take it emotions aren’t that big in demon culture?”

  The demon shook his head. “I didn’t even know we could feel much besides anger and irritation.”

  Well, that at least explained why demon dating was apparently so...interesting, then. But really that just made James want to back out of this more. He didn’t want to hurt Arkie, and he knew he would. But abandoning him would hurt him too.

  This situation was just one huge mess. He’d almost forgotten how complicated caring about other people was. Still, there were also the more positive sides of caring. And he had missed those, now that his brain wasn’t addled with bloodlust.

  James’ eyes drifted over to Arkie’s tail. It was laying within reach, stretched out on the bed in a half circle. Before he really thought about it, he reached for it, grinning as it automatically wrapped itself around his wrist. He ran his other hand over the flared out tip, fully aware that Arkie was intently watching him. The tail felt more like skin now, though it was still incredibly smooth. It was kind of fun to stroke it, and judging by how Arkemoz leaned into his palm with it, he liked it too.

  Then did he realize he’d moved closer to Arkemoz to do that, and when he raised up his head, he was only inches away from the demon’s face. And his lips. Arkie was intently watching him, his eyes flicking over to James’ lips too, which was what finally broke James’ resolve, and he leaned in, connecting their lips in a short, gentle kiss.

  At least, that had been the initial plan. But just as James was about to pull away, Arkie hesitantly pushed a hand into James’ hair, deepening the kiss. Even though he knew they probably shouldn’t get carried away, James was a very weak man, and so he just did what Arkemoz had done, running his hand through the hair on the back of the demon’s head. It was so damned soft.

  Finally, after a few more seconds that both felt like too much and not enough they separated, both of them breathing hard. And James felt as if his heart had started beating again.

  Yeah, there was no way he could be the wise one here and end this before it got out of control. And he couldn’t even bring himself to care much, especially after seeing that small but genuinely happy smile on Arkemoz’s face.

  The tail wrapped itself around his wrist even tighter.

  “I assume this isn’t a part of demon mating rituals either, huh?” James joked.

  “No, we don’t have lips,” Arkie reminded him, still sounding a bit dazed.

  And James, filled to the brim with excitement and fondness, started laughing harder than he had in a long time.

  11

  Arkemoz was still tired, and sore, and very, very confused, but being wrapped up in a blanket with Adley’s arms around his chest was making him feel better.

  No, not Adley. James. He should start calling him James. He wasn’t sure why he’d stuck to calling the vampire Adley for so long, but it didn’t feel right anymore.

  “Thanks,” Arkemoz said, not bothering to open his eyes as he continued leaning onto the vampire’s shoulder. “You know, for rescuing me.”

  “Yeah, of course,” James replied, hugging him closer to himself. “I mean, I did kinda get you into that mess in the first place.”

  Arkemoz’s heart jerked. With everything that had happened, he’d completely forgotten about James having been contacted by the Circle. Swallowing, he raised up his head and looked James in the eye. “Were you planning on joining them?”

  James shook his head, scoffing. “These ‘we’ll bring about the apocalypse’ cults are always a waste of time. Besides, I like the planet as it is.”

  “Is that what they want?” James seemed to think this was nothing to worry about, but to Arkemoz it sounded like anything but that. And he didn’t even really care that much about Earth, having only been here for over a month. If he had to, he would just move to another planet.

  “Honestly, I don’t think the sales pitch I got is actually what those angels are planning,” James replied, scowling. “Feathery bastards.”

  Arkemoz agreed with that. “We should tell all of this to Aegis, then.”

  “Uh, yeah, about that….” James cleared his throat. “I may have quit that job already.”

  “What do you mean?”

  James stopped hugging Arkemoz and instead raised up his right arm, showing him his wrist. Oh. The bracelet was gone. “Did the Circle do that?”

  “Yeah, that’s the only reason why I didn’t throw that damned address out. I couldn’t quit, Aegis wouldn’t let me.” He sighed, turning to Arkemoz and taking the demon’s hand into his own. “What if we just left and explored the world a bit, huh? You’ve barely seen any of it, and I’ve been around for a while. I could show you stuff.”

  Arkemoz looked away as he thought about this. It felt incredibly irresponsible, especially because the Circle was now around, but then again, how much help was he really? He wasn’t that much stronger than a vampire, and anything he knew about magic was related to blood magic, and Aegis didn’t seem to like that. And he would be lying if he said that he particularly wanted to work for Aegis either.

  “I think…I’d like that,” Arkemoz finally said, which made James grin at him widely. Seeing him that happy made Arkemoz’s heart beat faster. “But what about the Circle?”

  “I’m sure Aegis doesn’t need us to handle them. But we can give them the info I got, if you wanna.” He paused for a moment. “Maybe we could even try to help people on our own, ya know? Right some wrongs. Without Big Brother watching.”

  While Arkemoz had no idea why James was referring to Aegis that way, he had to admit he liked that plan. He liked helping people, but he didn’t appreciate being told how to do it.

  “Okay,” Arkemoz finally said, swallowing. James smiled at him warmly and kissed his cheek. His beard was surprisingly soft. But Arkemoz wasn’t going to let how good it felt distract him from all the questions in his head. “But what about that dust you eat? Do you know where to get it?”

  James grimaced. “I still have enough for about a month if I pace myself. I’m sure there are people who know how to make it.”

  “Then we need to find those people as soon as possible,” Arkemoz said. James opened his mouth to argue, but the demon shut him up with a stern look.

  “Um, all right, we’ll do that.”

  “Good.” Arkemoz nodded to himself, slowly getting up. His whole body ached, but he felt much stronger than he had a few hours ago. “Then I need to tell Black that I’m resigning.”

  “Do you have to?” James asked, looking up at Arkemoz with those big eyes again. “We could just disappear.”

  “I want to tell him what you told me about the Circle. Then we can leave.”

  “And you’re going there right now?”

  “I don’t see why I should wait.”

  “Well, you don’t have shoes, for one,” James reminded him. Arkemoz blinked, looking down at his feet. He’d almost forgotten. Thankfully,
he did have that extra pair of shoes stashed away. He reached under the bed for the sneakers and over to the wardrobe to get a pair of socks from one of its drawers.

  “Oh, you have extra shoes? Awesome.”

  Arkemoz smiled to himself as he put on the socks and shoes, and then walked back over to James. The vampire sprung up, looking at Arkemoz’s sneakers with excited curiosity.

  “Let’s go, then,” he said, grinning.

  Arkemoz blinked at him. “You’re coming too?

  “Yeah,” he said with enthusiasm. Though almost immediately his smile ebbed. “Um, if you don’t mind, that is.”

  Arkemoz felt his cheeks flush as he shook his head. He definitely wouldn’t mind. As he did his best to avoid James’ gaze, his eyes fell on the ball of black fabric on the bed. He picked it up, smiling at it. He was definitely not leaving the t-shirt here.

  “I, um, didn’t think you liked it,” James muttered, making Arkemoz blink at him.

  “Of course I do,” he replied, looking back at the shirt. “I just didn’t want to ruin it in a fight.”

  “Oh, Arkie….” James leaned in and kissed his forehead, stroking his hair as he did so. “I’ll get you more.”

  Arkemoz smiled, his face growing even hotter as James offered him his hand. The demon took it, interlocking their fingers. So far he was liking this dating thing a lot.

  There were still a few hours of darkness to go, so they took their time walking to the Aegis headquarters, stopping at James’ apartment for his dust as well. They were both silent, but this was the comfortable sort of silent, so Arkemoz hardly minded. That silence ended however as soon as they turned a corner and the headquarters came into view.

  There was a firefighter truck and police cars around the still smoldering remains of what used to be the headquarters. The lights on top of the police cars were flashing as at least a dozen people surveyed what was left of the building. Arkemoz stared at the scene from afar in shock. And judging by how hard James was now squeezing his hand, the vampire wasn’t exactly calm either.

  “What the hell?” James muttered. “Did...did they do this? But how?”

  Arkemoz wished he could answer those questions, but he had no idea what had happened. However, James seemed to already have an idea of how to find out more as he pulled out his phone and let go of the demon’s hand. Despite James’ rather lengthy explanation from a few days ago, Arkemoz still didn’t understand how phones worked.

  “Okay, here we go, I found a news article,” James said after a few seconds of rapidly touching the screen in various places. He mumbled a part of what he was reading, keeping his voice so low that Arkemoz couldn’t make out the words. “‘At 9PM the building exploded, but no bodies have been found so far.’ Yeah, and there won’t be any. I mean I doubt everyone was inside when this happened, but still. Goddammit!” James shook his head, pocketing the phone again. “They must have done it. When did they capture you?”

  Arkemoz swallowed. “An hour or two after...we fought.”

  James nodded, glaring at the destroyed building. “Right, so that’s after I got the bracelet removed. So they knew we weren’t inside, and I’m guessing we were what they were after.” He let out an angry huff. “And I bet they planted bombs back when everyone went on a town-wide search.”

  There wasn’t any way of proving any of this. James had killed the two vampires who’d most likely done all of this. But Arkemoz was inclined to believe James’ theory.

  “Aegis’ bosses are probably already on their way over here,” James continued, running a hand through his hair and sighing. “Which means we really should go.” He looked at Arkemoz again. “Unless you don’t want to anymore, I mean….”

  The demon shook his head. This changed nothing about his decision to leave. However, sharing what they knew got a little more difficult. “No. But we need to tell Aegis what happened.”

  James stared off at the building for a bit, watching as the policemen walked around. “The garage might still be intact. We could leave a note in one of the cars, maybe.” His eyes widened. “And maybe take one of the cars.”

  Arkemoz scowled at him. “Should we really be stealing from Aegis right now?”

  James turned to face Arkemoz, giving him the big, pleading eyes yet again. “But it would make traveling so much easier for me. And Aegis isn’t gonna miss one car.”

  Arkemoz sighed. He knew he would give in anyway, but he wasn’t going to agree to this just yet. First they needed to leave that note. “Can we get inside the garage?”

  James smiled. “Let’s find out.”

  They walked around a whole block just to get to the building from the other side, hoping that that would be enough to avoid the police. There really didn’t seem to be any policemen around the back, but there was that yellow tape humans always put around crime scenes.

  James ducked under it without hesitation, carefully walking to the damaged wall and pressing against it. Arkemoz did the same, though he felt much more nervous about it. He didn’t like the idea of getting shot very much, especially now. He’d had enough excitement for one day.

  James seemed to pick up on that, though, as he took his hand again and slowly led him through the alley to the garage. It did help a little to see that James seemed to know what he was doing, and at least the way to the garage entrance was pretty close. Arkemoz just did his best to ignore the chatter of the policemen, and the occasional flashes of light from their torches.

  Finally reaching the right place, Arkemoz was surprised how far down the way out of the garage went. It hadn’t seemed that way from the car, but then again, James had driven out of there very quickly. There was a problem, though. The garage door was open, and the police were searching the place, if the lights flashing inside were any indication.

  James looked back at Arkemoz, holding up a finger to his lips. The demon hoped that meant he was supposed to be quiet. He wasn’t very good at Earthly nonverbal communication yet. He followed James down to the dark garage with bated breath, wishing he had some kind of non-lethal weapon to use as he looked around.

  “Do you remember this place being here?” he heard one of the policemen asked the other. Arkemoz could only spot two, both of them standing with their backs to them close to the wall.

  “I think so, but I thought the place was abandoned, or something,” the other, a woman, replied. “Why would anyone blow it up?”

  Arkemoz watched as James picked up a metal rod that had been laying on the floor. He was pretty sure it had something to do with cars, but he had no idea what it was actually for. Though he had no doubts what James was about to do with it.

  And then, a second later, it happened. James attacked, hitting the policemen both in the back of the head in one rapid strike, and sending them unconscious to the ground.

  “That should take care of them until we leave,” said James, twirling the rod between his fingers. “Now to write that note.”

  Arkemoz went to the nearest car, opening the door and checking for anything they could use. He quickly located a thick book full of maps in the glove compartment and pulled it out, paging through it to see if there were any blank pages. Thankfully some of the maps that folded out of the book were in fact white on the other side, which would give them enough space for a note like this. Arkemoz ripped one of the maps out, putting the book back where he’d found it. Now to find something to write with.

  James had already taken care of that, though, as he showed Arkemoz a ballpoint pen he’d found. “I should probably write this.”

  Arkemoz agreed immediately, giving James the piece of paper. The vampire knew more than him about this, after all. He watched him as James put the paper on the hood of the car next to them and started writing down the note, strangely hypnotizing in his wrist movements.

  “There we go,” he muttered as he finished. He then turned the paper over and put it on the driver seat, so that the note wasn’t immediately obvious but still easily found. “Now I think we need to run. Befo
re more police show up, or something even worse happens.”

  Arkemoz had no problems with that plan, and followed James into another car without hesitation.

  “All right, now hold on. They’ll definitely notice us, and they’ll follow us,” James warned him, doing something under the steering wheel. “Can you cloak this car somehow, so no one finds us? You know, with magic or something?”

  Arkemoz nodded. “Yeah, I know some spells. But I’ll need blood.”

  James grimaced. “Can you use mine?”

  Arkemoz nodded again, and the vampire heaved a relieved sigh. He pulled out his stake, presumably the one he’d used to kill the two vampires earlier tonight, and pressed the tip against his palm, gritting his teeth. Right away, blood started to appear, dripping down the stake. Arkemoz found himself morbidly fascinated by the deep, dark red—much too dark for a human—that was now making its way into his palm as James put his own over it.

  Soon he had enough to paint the necessary symbols, and he went to work right away, dipping his finger in the blood and drawing the first demonic letters onto the windshield.

  “Not to nag, but how long is this gonna take?”

  “A few minutes,” Arkemoz replied, not looking away from what he was doing.

  “Oh, okay, great, so we should have enough time….” James trailed off as the silence in the garage was broken by sudden chatter from the unconscious policemen’s walkie talkies. Arkemoz couldn’t make out the words, but he doubted he needed to. “Can you do this while I get us away from here?”

  As long as James avoided potholes, Arkemoz supposed so. He just shrugged and continued painting the letters. He needed to spell out a few words of protection to make this strong enough to hide from what Aegis would no doubt use to try to find their stolen car, and that would take time even without the car moving. Arkemoz hadn’t done much magic himself, so he hoped making the letters slightly crooked wouldn’t ruin his efforts.