Pale Demon

Smiling, he turned, his eyes looking almost normal in the dim light. His teeth glinted. “That’s the nature of it, yes.”

Uneasy, I counted the dirty dishes scattered around, making it look like a frat boy’s dorm. It appeared as if he’d been here for days. Maybe he’d been hungry. I knew I was. “What did you see?” I asked, nervous.

The rag he’d used to clean the table went into the fire behind him. “I saw what you are,” he said, “and I was ashamed. I saw what you expect from a person, and I’d call you a bitch except you demand it from yourself as well. I saw how you see me,” he explained. “It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but it made me wonder at what I lack, what isn’t there.”

“Al,” I interrupted, remembering that forced kiss and how it had felt.

But Al was shaking his head, looking ill. “I am not going to be the person who completes you,” he said, glancing at me and turning away. “You are one messed-up bitch.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered as I held my cold toes, glad that he wasn’t going to try to change our relationship now that I was stuck here.

Al’s expression shifted, became ugly, angry with himself. “I saw what we had become. Soft, ineffective, laughable,” he said, his hand forming a fist.

“You still scare the hell out of me,” I interrupted.

“Accepting our exile and making it comfortable instead of finding a way to go home. We are a joke.”

Oh, that. I rubbed my feet, trying to warm them. “Sorry.”

Al shook out a silver scarf that hadn’t been there a moment ago and turned back to the table, running it lightly over the new slate as if erasing any electronic charge left behind. “I don’t need your pity.”

No, you need a good psychiatrist. My eyes went to his feet as they scuffed. Slippers? “Where’s Ku’Sox?” I asked, wishing I could wake up again and start over. Having swum in my soul might have given Al the feeling that he could be casual with me, but it made me nervous. I had no idea what he was going to do next.

His shoulders moving slow and steady, Al wiped down the table again until even the last hints of what he’d written were gone. “Don’t worry about Ku’Sox. You proved yourself.” Becoming still, he looked at me, the candle and firelight making his eyes glow. “You have a place here.”

Perhaps, but I didn’t want it. I had things to do. I had to ask Trent what I’d done wrong with that curse. Then I had to find Ku’Sox to give it to him so I could at least go home without being summoned. Home… “What time is it?” I asked, depressed.

Seeming to appreciate the change of conversation as much as me, Al squinted at the clock on the mantel, the lights getting brighter. “Noon?”

Great, I’d been out for hours. Ivy and Jenks were probably worried sick. Maybe come sundown they could summon me back for a couple of hours and we could strategize until the sun came up. I had to get out of here for a while. Al was scaring me.

I flung the covers off, then hesitated, putting a hand to my middle when I wasn’t sure I could stand up yet. Damn, I was dizzy. “I passed out,” I said needlessly, and Al sat back down in his chair to stare at me, one hand on the clean table, the other in his lap.

“Rachel, you made a construct large enough to land a jet in. Yes, you passed out.”

I licked my lips, uneasy. “Thank you for taking the smut.”

He frowned, almost growling. “I didn’t take the smut. Newt did, and I’d give a lot to know why.”

Newt had taken it? Was that good or bad? “I think it was because she wanted to be a part of it,” I said, remembering that she had cried.

“Newt?” Al barked, shifting in his chair, appearing nervous. “I doubt that she wanted to be part of that. She doesn’t like making constructs anymore. She doesn’t trust anyone to watch her while she recovers. That, and she doesn’t want anyone in her head.” Al touched his chin, a nervous tic I’d never seen before. “How do you feel?”

How do I feel? I feel like crap. Hand to my middle, I tried to stand again, changing my mind and huddling under the blanket instead with my back to the large fire. Had that nervous tic been real when he’d asked me how I felt, or was that statement about not wanting me for a girlfriend bull and he was trying to seduce me? He knew everything. What turned me on, what turned me off. What lowered my defenses. What made me vulnerable. It was enough to make someone crazy. “Hungry,” I finally said. “I can’t believe I was out for half a day.”

“Half a day?” Al drawled. “Try the better part of three.”

“What!” This time, I managed to get up, wobbling until Al stood and steadied me, his grip a shade too tight on my elbow. “Three days? I couldn’t have been unconscious for three days!” Crap on toast, I’d missed my brother’s wedding!

“Slow,” he said as I sat back down to get his hand off me. “Newt said you might be dizzy for a while. That’s why I didn’t leave. Can you tap a line yet?”

Yet? Head between my knees, I concentrated on breathing. I carefully reached for a line, just enough to know I could, then pulled back. I was starting to see the sense in this. Females thought up the construct, and a male lifted it from his friend’s psyche and protected her until she recovered—and I say friend because no way was I Al’s lover. But three days? Jenks and Ivy would be sick with worry. “Newt was here?” I was able to sense the mild disturbance in the energy surrounding Al that she always left the demon with.

I heard the creak of his chair as he sat back down. “After you didn’t wake up the first day, yes, I asked her a few questions. Can you tap a line?”

I looked up at the worry in his voice, feeling something shift. “Yes. Thank you. For watching me.”

“I had to force her to leave,” he said, eyes everywhere but on mine. “She said I couldn’t care for you. Bitch. I made sure you ate. Ran a brush-and-wash curse on you when you crapped yourself. Waited. Kept everything out until your aura recovered.”

My aura? “Al?” I said, really scared as I firmly tapped the line to find no headache, no pain. I was okay. “You’re kidding, right?”

His wandering eyes settled on me. “You’d rather I let you sit in your crap for three days?”

“No. I meant…Uh. Thank you. Just…Thank you.” Holy fairy farts, I hadn’t know making a construct would be so far-reaching.

Standing, Al pushed his chair back. “Damn lazy of you.”

I could tell he was relieved as he stacked the plates and cups, sending them to the food kitchen all at once. He’d been watching me for three days? “Al. Thank you. I really mean it.”

Turning, he took a breath to say something, sneezing instead.

“Bless you,” I said, and he held up a hand in annoyance as he reached for his scrying mirror, tucked in among his books. Holding it out, he grimaced. “It’s for you.”

My eyebrows rose, and I stifled a shiver as the heavy, cold glass slipped onto my lap. “How do you know?”

“Because you touched a line, and they were waiting,” he said. “You’re going to have to make a new calling glyph. I’m not your bloody secretary.”

What are you then, Al? “It wasn’t like the coven gave me time to get my luggage before they banished me,” I said, not wanting to put my hand on the more complex glyph that Al used. The lines practically glowed red, and the glass was so dark I couldn’t see any reflection at all.

“So I buy you a looking glass and you make a new one,” he said, and I smiled, glad to be back on familiar ground. “Answer it, will you?” he prompted, annoyed by my good humor.

Still smiling, I pulled my legs up to painfully sit cross-legged, resettling the heavy thing on my lap. “Couldn’t make it any bigger, could you?”

“The boy with the biggest toy wins, love,” he leered, and I looked down.

My hand was already placed, and I tentatively reached for a line, carefully tapping it until I was sure my head wouldn’t explode. The line slipped in with a gentle smoothness, and I found the collective with ease. At least my aura was okay. I hadn’t even known I’d damaged it.

Hello? I ventured. Al’s line.

Rachel! boomed a thought in my head, and I cringed. So glad I caught you and that you’re feeling well, love.