Random Acts of Sorcery (7 page)

She was glad he couldn’t see her face, because her eyes were rolling to the back of her head and she was open-mouthed, greedily taking in air like she would never get enough. She wanted to lose herself, to stop thinking and just feel what she was feeling, forever if possible, but an unwelcome thought burst forth from somewhere and made her eyes flutter open.

He’s good at this. Someone taught him how to do this.

It was another moment before she trusted her voice enough to speak.

“Sam.”

He shushed her gently.

“No, Sam,” she said, wriggling forward so he couldn’t continue distracting her so easily. “Did someone teach you how to do this? Was it Miri?”

His hands stopped suddenly, shocked. “She told you?”

“No. I guessed.”

He moved his hands so they were at her waist. He pulled her close to him again, but didn’t continue caressing her. “Why are you only really smart when it’s inconvenient?”

She giggled at that, but then stopped herself, afraid the giggling would turn to tears. What was with her and crying tonight?

“Does it matter?” He asked finally.

She leaned back against him, wondering if it should. It wasn’t like she had any kind of exclusive claim on him; she’d never treated him as her boyfriend, or expected him to act like it. She could admit that she was jealous, but did she really have any right to be?

She knew that Miri took a pretty casual, shame-free view of sex, so if the vampire wanted Sam, she would have no problem letting him know about it. What surprised her, she realized, is that she never believed he would agree to it.

Not until the evidence was all around her.

“Were you guys ever going to tell me?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know,” he said. He sighed, and she shuddered at the feel of his breath on the back of her neck again. “It’s not…romantic…with us. It’s functional. I don’t know what the etiquette is for that; I don’t know if there
is
any etiquette. This is all new to me.”

Cassie leaned back against his chest. She could chew him out all night for keeping his relationship with Miri a secret from her, but frankly, she didn’t know the etiquette either. She was pretty sure he should have told her, but their relationship was too strange for there to be any clear guidelines. What did “functional” mean, anyway? Did she want to know?

“Is she more your type?” she asked finally.

He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Do you really want to spend tonight talking about her?”

“Don’t dodge the question.”

He tightened his grip around her waist. “
You’re
my type.”

She felt a surge of excitement in her belly, and wondered if he could feel it too. “When we met, I thought you hated me. Did you act like that because—
”

“—the opposite was true? More or less,” he said softly. “I was angry at myself for being attracted to you, and that manifested as anger at you. And I knew how stupid that was, and that just made me angrier.” He began tracing the contours of her ear with his index finger, and she shivered again.

Still, her mind was working furiously.
So he says he’s been attracted to me all along, but why? What’s there to be attracted to? I’m just a short, chubby girl…I’m kind of pretty I guess, but I’m not beautiful like Aeka or sexy like Miri, and he’s so….

“You know better than that,” he said quietly. “Either you’ve noticed how men look at you, or you’re blind as Vladmira.”

She very nearly jumped off his lap, but his arms restrained her. “Hey! No fair!”

“I’m sorry. When we’re this close, it’s a lot easier to read your thoughts than usual.”

“Yeah, well, stop it,” she said. She furrowed her brow; she was missing something. There was something important she had to know, and she would likely never get a better chance to ask.

“So you like me, but what is it about me that you like?”

He began fondling her again with gentle hands. “Do you need me to draw you a map?” he said. He ran his middle finger over the chain of her amulet, coming dangerously close to the top of her breast. She swallowed.

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, is it me that you like…or just what I am?”

His fingers stopped cold. “I already told you. I liked you before I had any inkling of what you were.”

“But you could probably sense it,” said Cassie, filling in the blanks in her mind while she talked. “You’re a
demon, I’m an angel—at least, sort of. Like Helen says, magic calls out to magic.”

“I know where you’re going with this and I think you should stop,” he whispered. She continued, undaunted.

“If I was just me—without being an angel, without the magic, would you even care? Or does who I am not even matter?” Awkwardly, she turned so she was facing him, sitting sideways on his lap. “And don’t give me a copout answer, like ‘You are you,” or something.”

He looked angry, though not necessarily at her. “How do you expect me to answer that? How could I know how I would feel about you in an alternate universe where everything was different? It’s a nonsensical question.”

But she wouldn’t be deterred; somehow, she felt she had to get a straight answer out of him, even if it was something she didn’t want to hear. “Does it even matter what my personality is like? I mean, could it be Madison Clarke’s brain in my body, and it wouldn’t make a difference?”

“Who the hell is Madison Clarke?” he said through partially gritted teeth.

“Just a dumb girl.”

She felt brave, looking him in the eye for so long without looking away. In the dim light, his dark eyes became inscrutable pools of black. She almost wished he would drop his disguise spell so she could see his expression better, but it would probably hurt to look at his natural eyes from this close.

“This is uncomfortable for me. Move,” he said finally, and he guided her body with his hands until she was straddling him. She drew in her breath quickly when he placed his hands on the small of her back, feeling the blood rush to her face. But she wasn’t the only one excited; to her surprise, she could feel through his wrists on her back that his pulse was racing too.

“I have no way of knowing how I would feel about you if you weren’t…what you are. You know that,” he said quietly. Their faces were so close that even a whisper was loud, and for once, he sounded breathless too. “But I’ll tell you what I do know: I know that tonight, I want to keep touching you, and kissing you, and do many other things that I could go to jail for.”

“You won’t,” she said, after a pause. “The age of consent here is 17. I’m legal now.”

He laughed at that, although it was more of a quiet rumble from deep in his throat than a true laugh. Somehow, she felt like she could feel the vibrations of his laugh in her own throat. “Well, thank heaven for small favors. Now, do you want me to stop?” he said, tapping his fingertips on her hips impatiently. More vibrations, this time in lower places, took away her ability to speak for a moment.

No don’t stop, don’t ever stop. Wait, he can’t hear me, I told him not to listen…he’s probably listening anyway, evil lying demon…hey, if you can hear me right now, then kiss me. Touch me in all the places you won’t look at, and kiss me so I don’t have to hear myself think anymore...

He did kiss her then, and they stayed on the couch together for a while.

“Ooh,
Cupcake Empire
!” Miri exclaimed, turning the volume up and throwing the remote back onto Khalil’s messy card table. She pulled the bowl of extra-butter popcorn into her lap and got comfortable.

“Figures you would watch the one food show that even I won’t watch,” said Khalil. He reached over to the bowl of popcorn, but Miri hissed and slapped his hand away.

“You said I could have this popcorn, make more if you want it. And don’t be a TV snob,” she said, chewing on a particularly buttery kernel. “You’re as bad as Sam.”

“Actually Sam’s coming around,” said Khalil, stretching out on the couch next to her. “He admitted to me that he actually watched half an episode of
Top Chef
the other day before he got bored out of his mind.”

Miri stopped with a handful of popcorn halfway to her mouth. “Sam? No!”

“Yes!” said Khalil, breaking into an enthusiastic yawn. It had been a long shift at The Daily Grind. In general, he liked the fact that the shop was getting more business, because it meant more job security for Dwight. But in practice, the nigh-constant flood of customers got tiring.

He looked at Miri, who was bolting down her popcorn, enraptured by the TV show. It was amazing how fast his feelings had changed towards her. At first, he could only think of her as creepy vampire, something that shouldn’t even exist in the world. But after she’d very nearly given her life (or unlife, whatever) trying to protect Cassie, he couldn’t help but notice how positive she was: funny, fun-loving, and caring.

Also, she was gentle; even when she had just had her head chopped off and needed blood desperately, he could tell that she was holding back the one time she had fed on him. As bad as her own condition had been, she was still concerned about someone else. Once he knew for a fact that vampires could be empathetic and self-sacrificing, his blanket disgust towards their kind seemed increasingly silly.

Which didn’t mean he had to like every vampire, of course.
Dmitri? That guy creeped him out. Seriously, forget that guy.

Thinking of the one time Miri had fed on him reminded him of something h
e kept meaning to ask her about: why she had never tried to do it again, even though they’d been hanging out together for weeks. It wasn’t that he was eager for her to do it really; more that he wanted to make up for his original revulsion towards her by showing that he was okay with it.

Or, maybe he did just want to try being fed on again. It was strangely hot, and maybe he should be okay with the fact that he thought it was hot. After all, he was okay with other people doing whatever turned them on, even if it was dressing up as cats or elephants or what have you, so that same courtesy should extend towards
himself, right?

He cleared his throat theatrically. “You should just let me have the popcorn, for you have this delicious feast before you,” he said, gesturing to himself with fluttering fingers.

Miri was still involved in the show and didn’t turn to him. “No thanks, I’m full.”

He scowled. “You’re eating that popcorn like it’s going out of style.”

“I mean, I’m blood-full.” She still wasn’t looking at him.

“Oh really,” he said, turning back towards the TV, suddenly angry without really understanding why.

“If my blood isn’t good enough for you, you could just say so, you know. No need to be a bitch.”

Miri turned to him, wide-eyed. “Jesus Christ Khalil, where did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but as he talked, he figured out why he was irritated. “It’s just that I kind of figured that dating a vampire meant giving blood, but you never ask. And the first vampire I ever met told me I smelled bad. So I guess I’ve just been wondering if my blood is only good enough for you when you’re dying,” he finished sullenly.

Miri chewed her popcorn thoughtfully. “What did you eat for dinner last night?” she asked suddenly.

“What does that have to do with—um, pizza rolls. Frozen pizza roles.”

“And the night before that?”

“You expect me to remember? I don’t know, probably something else frozen. Maybe a cheesesteak?”

Miri giggled. “There’s your problem right there. You’re full of fillers and preservatives. Vamps, especially older ones, can get really snotty about that. They like the blood to be as free of artificial tastes as possible.” She put a gentle hand on his knee. “The first vamp you met was probably old, and he
was just smelling all the High Fructose Corn Syrup in you. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Oh,” said Khalil, feeling sheepish. He had never really thought about it before tonight, but he guessed his feelings had been kind of hurt by the initial vampire brush off. If you had to live in a world with vampires at all, you wanted to believe that your blood was a sweet nectar they held in high esteem; having crappy blood just seemed like a personal failing.

“So…are the preservatives in my blood the reason why you…?”

Miri snorted at that. “No way, I’m not that old. I grew up eating practically the same crap you do. I don’t need my blood to taste like it’s from before the Industrial Revolution.”

Something still wasn’t adding up. “So then why do you never want to feed on me?”

Miri put the bowl of popcorn on the table and nestled into his side. Khalil was surprised that she would voluntarily put down food. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I think
it’s better not to. I’ve had bad experiences mixing feeding and relationships,” she said, tracing the line of his collarbone with a pale finger. “Eventually, no matter how careful I am, you’ll start to feel like I’m just using you, and I don’t want you to feel that way. Maybe if we end up staying together for a while, and you still want to, we can try it. But I’m not going to risk making you feel bad just for a feeding here and there.”

Khalil picked her hand up off his chest and kissed it. The TV blared on in the background, completely forgotten. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, babe. I’ve got some bad habits left over from ex-girlfriends who weren’t half as smart as you.”

She began running the fingers of her other hands through his hair, stopping to trace the line of his cheekbone. “I figured. Most girls can’t be as awesome as me.”

“Nope,” he agreed.

“And you thought I was just an evil vampire,” she said, leaning in for a kiss.

“Did I say evil? I meant “wicked-hot,” he said, kissing her deeply.

They stayed like that for some time, just holding one another and kissing. Eventually he moved so he was on his back with her on top. It ended up being fortunate that he had chosen that position, because if she was on the bottom, they would have knocked heads when she suddenly jerked up like someone above had pulled a string attached to her spine.

“Sam!” she gasped. Before he knew what had happened, she was off the couch, fumbling to find the stockings and shoes that she’d thrown somewhere in the living room with unnatural speed.

“What? Is there an attack?” said Khalil, sitting up as rapidly as he dared.

“Hmm?
Oh no, nothing like that,” she said as she pulled on one lacy black stocking. “It’s Cassie. I think she just gut-punched him.”

He stood up, shocked. “Don’t tell me he’s–!”

“No, no!” she said, waving her hands back and forth. “I meant emotionally. He’s hurting and he needs help, bad. I need to get there.”

As she finished getting her things together, a sinking feeling came over Khalil. “It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? You’re never off the clock.”

“Working for a demon isn’t a 9-to-5. I’ll be back tonight, if I can,” she said, grabbing her purse.

“It’s like you’re choosing him over me,” he said quietly. Why beat around the bush?

Miri sighed and closed her eyes. “Khalil, not now, okay? I don’t have time, I have to go.”

“Sure, go. Be sure to let me know if you’re ever your own person.”

“Khalil!”

“Go!” he bellowed.

He knew she wasn’t scared of him; despite her slim frame, the girl could beat him in arm-wrestling three times over if she wanted to. But that look on her face before she turned on her heel and left, as though frightened that he could be so cruel, was something that would haunt him for a long time after.