The Demon Abraxas (14 page)

Then and now that image evoked a powerful longing in Ana for something she couldn’t name. She tried to shove that wanting feeling away, but it only made her general frustration worse. Her life felt upside down and too jumbled for her to be able to name what she wanted and find a way to it.

“My secrets are worse than yours,” Sabel said in a quiet voice. Ana doubted that, but Sabel went on talking. “Just be careful with Ruben. And I don’t think you should go to your office tomorrow. If these people were brazen enough to come to the front door of your house in the middle of the day, what’s to stop them from trying to take you from your office? They have to be connected to Helen somehow and maybe to your company.”

“I am not staying home.” She spat the words out. She hated feeling trapped in any building and she hated being told what to do by anyone.

That brought Sabel to her feet. “You’re so…heedless. You’re just going to rush in wherever you want?”

“They came here today and they could come back any time. I’m not willing to wait for that, and I’m not going to sit as a prisoner in my own house. I’m going after them.”

“You are not prepared to fight them,” Sabel said. Her voice softened toward a plea, but the words stung.

Ana let out a sharp laugh. “When have I ever been prepared for a fight?” She took a step toward Sabel and met her eyes. “And don’t tell me what to do.”

She expected a challenge from the other woman; the frustrated boil of emotion in her wanted a fight. Instead, Sabel dropped her gaze. Her whole body shifted subtly: her head tilted down, her shoulders lowered a fraction, and her hands turned out in acquiescence. It was a precise and eloquent set of gestures. Every angle of Sabel’s body seemed to defer to her.

In an instant all her anger transformed itself into a noble and protective instinct. A second ago she was ready to hit something and now she wanted to wrap her arms around Sabel and hold her.

In awe, Ana reached out and touched her fingertips to Sabel’s downturned cheek, intending to tip her face up. Instead Sabel turned a fraction of an inch and pressed her skin and the corner of her mouth into Ana’s hand. The brush of lips on her palm was almost a kiss, but not quite. A bolt of electricity traveled down Ana’s hand and arm to her belly and then along the inner edge of her legs to her toes. She sucked in a sharp breath. Sabel held perfectly still with her head still turned down and her cheek against Ana’s hand.

Ana thought she should step away, but Sabel’s stillness itself was an invitation. She’d never seen anyone be unmoving, her breathing slow and measured, and yet look supple and hum with a thick sensual energy. There was no doubt that if she didn’t want to be near Ana, Sabel would have been well across the room by now, but she simply waited.

Ana brought her free hand to Sabel’s other cheek and tipped her face up. In this interior light, Sabel’s eyes looked like a stormy ocean as they met Ana’s and turned down again. The barest brushstroke of a smile changed the angle of her lips.

Ana kissed her. It would be quick, just the idea of a kiss, the hint of something they could have when this was all over. Her lips touched Sabel’s, drew back for a half breath, and returned to find Sabel’s mouth meeting hers with a hungry strength. Sabel’s fingers touched the sides of her waist. Ana kissed her hard and felt Sabel’s hands pull at her until their bodies pressed together.

Sabel’s lips opened and Ana touched her tongue lightly and then harder, tasting the mint, rum and sugar flavors in Sabel’s mouth. Sabel’s moan was a low vibration against her body. She felt Sabel’s knees start to bend and moved her left arm to circle her back and help hold her up.

Both of Sabel’s arms were around Ana’s back now and she felt the heaviness of Sabel’s breasts against hers. She pulled her mouth back enough to take a quick, gasping breath, and then kissed her harder. Against her back, Sabel’s hand convulsed into a fist around a handful of Ana’s shirt.

Ana needed to feel more of her. She tucked her hand under the back of Sabel’s shirt and spread her fingers across her cool skin, feeling the muscles shift under her touch. How far was it to her bedroom? Could she even suggest it? Ruben could be back any moment and she felt a real danger of them just sinking down to the floor together. She wanted Sabel underneath her, caught between Ana’s body and the unyielding floor.

A hot, dry wind shifted under the skin of her arms and she flinched back with a gasp.   

“What?” Sabel asked, her voice low and soft.

Abraxas, dammit! She’d forgotten all about him, but how could she possibly do anything more with Sabel, knowing that he was in her body and could feel it too? She’d just given him access to her senses at Lily’s. Of all the rotten timing.

“I can’t,” Ana said. She took two steps back from Sabel and tried to get her breathing to slow down.

Sabel’s expression closed in on itself: her open lips compressed to a hard line, the flashing blue-gold of her eyes flattened to gray as her eyes narrowed, a muscle clenched in her jaw. It made Ana burn with the need to touch her again and feel her soften.

“I’ll go,” Sabel said.

Ana nodded. What could she come up with to have her stay? There was no excuse, no reason that could combat:
I’m sorry I can’t kiss you, there’s a demon in me
.

“I’m sorry…” she started to say, but the rest of the words crumbled to dust in the back of her throat.

Sabel picked up her bag and let herself out while Ana stood in the living room by the fireplace. She stared at the closed door until Ruben came around the corner and put his hands on his hips.

“What did you do?”

“I kissed her.”

“I saw that part, what did you do to drive her out again? I thought for sure you two were going to hook up.”

Ana just shook her head at him and slumped down on the couch. “It’s complicated.”

“Demons, huh?”

“It sounds sexier than saying I was abducted and may be having some PTSD stuff come up,” Ana said. Sabel was right that she didn’t need to bring Ruben any further into this than necessary.

“I can’t figure you out,” he said.

“That makes two of us.” Or three, she thought, if she included Sabel. No, counting Abraxas—and she had to count Abraxas now—she was pretty sure the total came to four.

* * *

The darkest hour of night this time of year fell between one and two a.m. Lily set up her tools in the room at the top of the house facing cold north. She wasn’t good at this. Years of study and she still felt a pit of dread every time she had to make contact with the noncorporeal entities in the city. Alone and secure in her house, she’d taken off the heavy boots that hid her clawed feet, removed her contact lenses, and the caps on her teeth. She imagined to an average person, or someone like Ana, she looked more alien than the noncorporeal demons were to her. Still, at a fundamental level she just didn’t get how creatures could survive so long with nothing physical to cling to or steer by. Maybe this was just her own fear of death come to stare her in the face again.

Enough woolgathering. The powers that protected the city needed to know they had an enemy in their territory and if she got this done quickly enough she might even get some sleep. Lily splayed out on her back, arms and legs relaxed and outflung. She concentrated on her own fear for Ana and for the city she loved and threw it out from her body like a flare attached to the name of the one she wanted. After decades of practice she didn’t need ritual implements or to draw any more sigils than already existed in her house; she just needed to send out this intention with enough emotion to draw attention and then hold in that state for much longer than a person should have to.

She was starting to get cold when Asilal saw her from across the city. They’d known each other for decades but this part always made her panic a little. With her eyes closed and inside her room, she still saw a face the size of a mountain turn from the spires of downtown and search across the houses until he saw her. Then he came forward like a tidal wave.

The moment he passed through the wall into her room he appeared only a little larger than a man. He dropped into a cross-legged position on the floor—or rather he seemed to. He gave off enough image for her to pretend he looked like the ghostly figure of a man, though he was so much larger.

“Lily.” His silent voice shook her to her teeth. “Sit.”

She rose to sit and inclined her head to him. “Asilal, please turn down the awe. You’re making my head hurt.”

His laughter was short of terrible, merely chilling. In his gray-black face with its leonine nose he shut his storm-gray eyes for a moment and then squinted at her. “Is this better?”

It was doable. Little bones in inner ear still protested, but she knew he was toning himself down seriously in deference to her delicate half-humanity. She nodded and got on with it.

“There’s a shaidan of some power in the city. He’s drawn a group of humans to him, at least a dozen, and is trying to bring his consort into a body here. He’s already killed one woman in the attempt and nearly another.”

And then she had to pause because in all the preparations she hadn’t thought through whether or not she’d tell him about Abraxas. Stupid mistake. If she did tell him, he’d want to bring this long-gone traveler into his world and question him. Who knew how long that might take. Lily found she was strangely protective of Abraxas. Maybe it was his vulnerability. At his age he should be near growing into a creature like Asilal if he willed it and knowing all that power was in such a small and humble state had an oddly intoxicating quality. She wanted to get to know him now while he could be easily known, before he became something she could barely listen to.

Into her silence, Asilal placed questions. “How do you know this? Have you had contact?”

“A woman came to me with a small creature placed in her so the shaidan could capture her. She’d seen his face and heard his name: Nathan Drake. I banished it after I questioned it. It confirmed that he is in the city still. I believe he is finding another body.”

“I will watch this.”

She knew he couldn’t just swoop down and nail Drake. Not only would that be far too convenient for her own life, but the Sangkesh were cautious not to make overly aggressive moves against other demons for fear they would spark a conflict that could catch humans in its crossfire.

“I will also,” he went on, “improve the wards on the city so no creature within my boundaries can summon anything larger than a gnat.”

“It would be beneficial to have protection for the woman,” Lily pointed out. “He will try to take her again, not only because she saw him but I believe he is a creature of anger who cannot stand to be defied.”

“You have a specific protection in mind,” Asilal said.

She had to be careful here not to ask for anything that would also affect Abraxas. “Ward her house. Elsewhere she is surrounded by humans and I can deal with any small demon he sends to her, but if she knows she is safe in her house, that no creature who has not already been there can come in without her clear, spoken assent, that would help greatly.”

“Give me her location and it is done.”

She told him and felt the sharp snap of his power. He did not control the whole city, but he was one of a few of the older ones who watched over it and so he knew every brick, stone, board and pane as if it were part of him. He’d been here for over a hundred years.

“What else are you hiding from me, Lily?” he asked, as gently as he could.

“This worries me. No, it scares me. Usually I deal with accidents, people who are fooling around with powers they don’t understand and often don’t even believe. Whoever Drake is, he’s easily hundreds of years old. And this woman…I like her. She has spirit. I’m afraid for her.” It was enough truth to cover the other fact she meant to keep hidden.

“Would you have me reach down and smite this Drake?”

“What if you try and you can’t?”

He looked at her, unblinking, eyes as cold as the moon. It was almost a foolish question. On the rare chance that Drake was as old and powerful as Asilal, the protective demon had enough allies in this city and in the hierarchy of the Sangkesh that it wouldn’t matter. The problem was, he couldn’t call on that help unless Drake did something much worse than what he’d done so far.

“You will tell me what you find out, yes?” he said. “I will do the same.”

She gestured around the room and at him and the direction he’d come from. “Is there a better way for me to send you information?”

“Write it in black fire on white fire and I will see it,” he said. Then he was gone, striding away over the city again and warmth rushed back into the room. Lily was shivering.

She went out of the small room she used for these personal magics and into her private library, turning on all the lights. She’d heard the phrase before, “black fire on white fire” she just couldn’t remember where, so she woke up her computer and searched for it.

It was a reference to the creation of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and some speculated it referred to black ink on white parchment. She scrolled through a few various interpretations. Was she supposed to get some parchment? Sitting back, she stared at the screen and suddenly got it. The screen behind the words glowed white, the words themselves black.

She opened a fresh document and wrote at the top: “Asilal, you could have just asked me to email you.”

Below her sentence, words appeared all at once on the screen: “Email is so human. Forgive me my drama but you are one of few I can genuinely play with.”

Lily shook her head. Demons on the Internet now, well that would make her life easier.

She wrote: “Good night.”

The reply: “Guard yourself, little one, I cannot watch everything.”

When Sabel walked into her apartment, she realized that the shirt and pants she’d gone to Ana’s to return were still in her bag. She took them out and then found it hard to let go of them. She sank down onto her couch and held them against her chest while she replayed the memory of Ana’s hands pulling her close.