Again I looked up. Again I hesitated before speaking. “There have been … incidents. Jonathan’s great-uncle’s car accident, it was … not an accident. That was the story the council told the family. And there have been … others.” I hurried on. “But the risk with me is negligible, compared to others.”
Which didn’t reassure her in the least. I said nothing after that. I had planted the seed. It would take time to sprout.
A week later, Jonathan was still in the hospital, recovering from his injuries. I had not yet returned to my apartment — once I entered, I wouldn’t be able to leave. Catherine had to retrieve my food and drink from the refrigerator. She didn’t like that, but the alternative was to sentence her only helpmate to prison until Jonathan recovered.
The day before he was due to come home, Catherine visited me in the guest room.
She entered without a word. Sat without a word. Stayed there for nearly thirty minutes without a word. Then she said, “Tell me how to release you.”
We had to hurry. I could only be freed without Jonathan’s consent if he was unable to give consent.
We withheld his fever medication until his temperature rose. While befuddled by fever — and a few of my illusory tricks — he parted with the combination to his safe.
I retrieved what we needed, and fingered the stacks of hundred-dollar bills, but I took none. I had no need for them.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Catherine asked as I prepared the ritual. “They say that when a rakshasi passes to the other side, there is no afterlife. This
“Peace,” I said. “There will be peace.”
She nodded. My death was, after all, to her benefit, meaning the council would not judge her or Jonathan as harshly as if they’d freed me.
I drew the ritual circle in sand around Jonathan’s bed. I lit tiny fires in the appropriate locations. I placed a necklace bearing one half of an amulet around my neck, and the other around his. I recited the incantations. Endless details, etched into my brain, the memories of my kind, as accessible as any other aspect of my magic, but requiring Jonathan’s assistance. Or the assistance of his bodily form — hair to be burned, fingernails to be ground into powder, saliva and blood to be mixed with that powder.
Finally, as Catherine waited anxiously, I injected myself with the mixture. The ritual calls for it to be rubbed into an open wound. I’d made this modernized alteration, and Catherine had readily agreed that it seemed far less barbaric.
Next I injected Jonathan. Then I began the incantations.
Jonathan shuddered in his sleep. His mouth opened and closed, as if gasping for air. Catherine grabbed his hand.
“What’s happening?” she said.
“The bond is breaking.”
Now
Catherine started to gibber that something was wrong. Jonathan wasn’t breathing. Why wasn’t he breathing? His heartbeat was slowing. Why was it slowing?
I kept my eyes closed, ignoring her cries, and her tugs on my arm, until at last the bond slid away. One last deep shudder and I opened my eyes to see the world as I hadn’t seen it in two hundred years. Bright and glimmering with promise.
Catherine was shrieking now. Shrieking that Jonathan’s heart had stopped.
I turned toward the door. She lunged at me, crutches falling as she grabbed my shirt with both hands.
“He’s dead!” she cried. “It’s supposed to be you, not him. Something went wrong.”
“No,” I said. “Nothing went wrong.”
She screamed then, an endless wail of rage and grief. I picked her up, ignoring her feeble blows and kicks, and set her gently in a chair, then leaned her crutches within reach.
She snatched them and pushed to her feet. When I tried to walk away, she managed to get in front of me.
“What have you done?” she said.
“Freed us. Both of us.”
“You lied!”
“I told you what you needed to hear.” I eased her aside. “I do not want annihilation. I want what I was promised — a free life. For that, I need his consent, and the council to provide the necessary tools. There is, however, a loophole. A final act of mercy from an isha to his rakshasi. On his deathbed, he may free me with his amulet and that ritual.”
“I–I don’t — ”
“You will tell the council that is what happened here. The poison I injected is the one we’ve used many times on our targets, undetectable. The council will believe Jonathan unexpectedly succumbed to his injuries.”
“I will not tell them — ”
“Yes, you will. If not, you will be complicit in his death. And even if you manage to convince them otherwise, you will forfeit this house and all that goes with it. It is yours only if he dies and I am freed. They may contest that, but even if they do, you will have already removed the contents of his safe. I left everything for you.”
That was less generous than it seemed. For years, I’d been taking extra from our targets and hiding it in my room. I would not leave unprepared. I was never unprepared.
Now that the bond was broken, there was nothing to stop me from entering and exiting my apartment, and taking all I had collected. I passed Catherine and headed for the door.
She was silent until I reached it.
“What will I do now?” she said.
I glanced back at her. “Live. I intend to.”
BREEDING THE DEMONS
by Nate Kenyon
FOWLER’S PINK, chubby face glistened, and he wore the hungry-dog look of a man waiting out his obsession.
“Been here long?” Ian said.
Fowler grunted and motioned for the photographs, his eyes glazed and mouth stained red from drink. He smelled of sweat and cheap cologne. Three Bloody Marys lay drained upon the nightclub table, and Fowler had loosened his tie.
Ian slipped into the booth and put his leather portfolio on the table, enjoying making the man wait a little. But Fowler would not be denied. He grabbed the portfolio and rifled through its contents, and his breathing quickened as his eyes devoured the pictures within.
Finally he sighed and straightened his head. He removed the photos and slipped them into a plain manila envelope, which he stuck inside his jacket. “You are a fucking genius,” he said.
“I had to give bribes. It’s expensive — ”
“Your business.” Fowler waved a sausage-fingered, jeweled hand. “Keep it to yourself.”
Ian shrugged. He had expected this. Fowler didn’t want to know how he did it, any more than the purchasers of a pornographic magazine wanted a detailed description of how the models were selected and positioned, lighted, and airbrushed. “When can I have the next set?”
“I need some time. And I can’t keep paying everyone off and expect to get away with it.”
“Well, come up with something else, then.” Fowler looked irritated that he had to offer advice. “I don’t have to tell you what happens if you just stop. I’m barely keeping them satisfied as it is.”
“I’ll get it done as soon as I can.”
“Have a new batch by the end of the week.”
