“You don’t like it, though.” She nodded, slowly. “Jesus. Okay. So…what happens if the ring is…destroyed? Would that work?”
“What?” It was his turn to look shocked, and a quite unfamiliar cold creeping sensation shot up his back. “No. Absolutely not.”
The words rang against the cabinets, and the coffeemaker sputtered.
When her eyes were a little less round, and she had swallowed a few times, she continued her questioning. “Why not?”
“The ring’s destruction is my death.” Formlessness, the void, dissolution. He was not quite ready for that.
“Are you sure?” Did she look hopeful? A new light had kindled in those dark eyes, and Hal found himself uncomfortably wondering what else this bearer would ask him. “What if I wished you free? How about that?”
Hal stared at her, his mouth threatening to drop open with sheer disbelief. “I…do not know.”
“Should we try it?” It was hope, he decided, and it made her brighter. Almost incandescent. Those eyes lit with a deep glow, her entire face changing, color creeping back into her cheeks.
Hal’s palms did not sweat like a mortal man’s, but it was uncomfortably close. “No, my mistress. It is too great a risk.”
He teetered on the edge of saying more, but she turned abruptly away, her hip striking the edge of the counter. She winced a little, rubbing at it as her other hand lifted with sweet natural grace to open a cabinet. “Okay, well, we can revisit that. Sugar? Or milk? You look like a black coffee kind of guy, but I’m a bad guesser.”
Hal’s mouth closed with a snap. Of all the people to possess his fetter, how had fate chosen her?
And why, in the name of every god past and present, did the prospect of her wishing his freedom into existence terrify him?
* * *
Evening gathered strength outside her small apartment. His mistress had removed her uncomfortable-looking shoes, pulled her knees up and hugged them, regarding him with large, dark eyes. She seemed much easier now, especially since she had looked down from her bedroom window and seen her metal chariot in its accustomed place, safe and sound. “I’m gonna get fired,” she’d muttered, then shook her head and turned away, shooing him toward the living room and the couch with little gestures. She was handling this remarkably well. Her hair had come down, and she kept brushing it away with small irritable movements.
Now she sat on the couch, regarding him. “So…just to be sure I have this all straight. All I have to do is say I wish—”
“Or let your desire be made known,” he added, perched on the other side of the couch, as far away from her as he could manage.
She grew…nervous…if he drew too closely.
“Or tell you I want something, or command it, right? And you have to do it.”
“If it is within my power, it is done.”
“And your power’s pretty large.”
It almost nettled him. “What would be the point, otherwise? I am no petty spirit, handing out three droplets at a time.”
“Okay.” Her coffee had grown cold; she lifted the mug to her lips, grimaced a little, and lowered it.
“Allow me?” He leaned closer, slowly, and pointed at the cup. Steam rose in florid curls, and her eyes grew very round again. “Is that better?”
“Pretty handy. You’ve got a career in foodservice.” She uncurled long enough to set the warmed coffee on the table, gingerly, as if she was afraid it might turn into something else, or suspected poison. “So what do I do now?”
None of the bearers had ever asked him that. “Whatever you like.”
“I mean, like, what can I do? Can I wish for world peace?” She brightened a little. Had he ever had a bearer so expressive?
He almost felt churlish. “That would be difficult. It might have unintended consequences.”
“Like what?”
How to explain? “Define peace.”
“No war.”
“Then, the wish might simply remove humanity. No people, no warfare.” The shortest solution, and it had almost an elegance to it.
“Wait, you’d do that?” Her nose wrinkled, her lip drew up, and the shocked disgust was almost palpable.
Why should that single little lip-curl trouble him? He hurried to explain. “You must be…careful, of the terms and strictures you apply to your expressed desires. Besides, I am for your service, not the tending of crowds.” Most of his bearers had comprehended as much. Admittedly, none of them had even considered “world peace” as an option. None of them had been women, either. Perhaps that was it.
“Oh.” She considered this, thoughts moving behind those dark eyes.
Hal’s discomfort mounted. For a few moments he thought it was a result of her silence, and wondered at it. Then it sharpened, in a familiar unphysical direction. Strange. He had not felt this since…
“Jesus,” she whispered, finally. “I can’t believe nobody was stupid enough to wish for that and wipe out humanity. Or maybe they did, then they changed their minds? Would anyone even notice? A person could go absolutely crazy thinking about this sort of stuff, you know. Did it happen before? Do you know?”
She expected an answer. Or several of them, in a logical chain.
“No.” Hal’s attention turned outward, seeking the source of the disturbance. Danger, yes, but from which quarter? Another bearer would recognize his sudden stillness, suspecting unpleasantness but hopefully confident in Hal’s ability to turn it aside.
“You don’t even know?”
Hal rose. Slowly, so she would not be frightened. The large glass door leading out to a thin strip of a balcony was darkening swiftly with dusk’s indigo; he paced toward it, his knee brushing her toes as he passed. A different, far more subtle thrill moved through him and he paused, seeking to shelve that distraction and focus on the—
A crash, a glitter of falling glass, and the lean gray hungry form of a creature from nightmares lunged for his mistress, his ringbearer. Who had little time to scream before Hal moved, meeting it halfway with a shattering sound, and every light in the apartment died.
Undo Whatever You Did
It was long and quick and hairy, and it moved in a blur. Yellowed teeth snapped as it snarled, and the genie—Hal—had it by the throat. Em scrabbled back along the couch, her palms and heels burning along the fabric; she hit the arm and toppled over it onto the floor, barking her shoulder a good one and barely aware of the noise she was making until she had to whoop in a long lungstarved breath. Another hideous crunching jolt, and a howl that didn’t sound like anything, human or otherwise, that should exist outside a horror movie.
Well, she was in one now, wasn’t she. A really, really bad one.
Something thudded in her bedroom, and the noise was coming from everywhere, it was hard to think, she scrambled for the door, impelled only by the blind desire to escape, get away.
“Stop!” Something flew past her, landed with a wet splatting thump. It cut Em’s scream in half and she gained her feet with a violent effort, her palms burning and the short hall to the door suddenly funhouse-skewed because she was listing drunkenly, going so fast she could barely stay upright. Her kitchen was a dark hole to her right, she heard something break again and a sliver popped out of her front door. A long pale sword of glued sawdust masquerading as wood, she’d never thought of how flimsy the doors were here and she found herself backpedaling, her feet shooting out from underneath her, her ass hitting the hall floor. She could only make a small hurt sound instead of a scream because something hit the door again.
It burst inward, a shower of splinters and sawdust and the peephole glittering as it spun, hanging in midair for one long, adrenaline-soaked, nightmarish moment. Amid the rubble was a long gray hairy shape, snuffling through two huge raw wet dishes on its concave face, its eyes tiny blind rolling marbles. It had claws, wicked outstretched obsidian scythes, and it hung in the air over her. A long stream of crimson-tinged slaver flew back along its plump cheek, and Em knew, with sick certain
ty, that it was going to fall on her.
Except it didn’t. A blurring streak zoomed from behind her, hit the thing dead-on, and threw it back into the hallway, taking out what was left of the shattered door and a chunk of wall on either side. Em took the only avenue of escape left, rolling sideways, her hair suddenly full of splinters and dust, her eyes smarting, and the…that thing, the vision of that thing burned into her brain. Its shoulders, the wiry roughness of its pelt, and worst of all, the fact that rags of what had to be Nikes had clung to its broad, clawed feet.
Rags and tatters of human clothing, and a golden gleam at its wrist—a watch?
She banged into the bathroom door, fish-lurched her way over the threshold on her side, and kicked the door shut behind her. Instant darkness, which was worse than she’d expected, enfolded her. She hit her head on the sink’s counter as she struggled upright, fumbling at the doorknob to lock it.
Silence, broken only by her panting breath and her fingernails scratching as she clawed for the light switch, flipped it.
Nothing happened.
A heavy weight of blackness against her eyes, broken only by a thin line of uneven gray at the bottom of the door. Something was breathing inside her apartment, too. Big, chuffing inhales and short explosive exhales, just like a dog.
Sniffing. Something sniffing.
She’d never understood the heavy breathing in horror movies before. Now she did. Her own starved, heaving lungs weren’t listening to her, and she could hear each tortured gasp, magnified by the tile floor and the mirror and every other hard surface. Singing in the shower sounded good because the acoustics were so great, but now those acoustics were probably broadcasting every sound she made to every corner of the entire building and oh God, she was never going to get her damage deposit back, never.
“No.” Hal sounded contemptuous. It was a big booming word, and it rattled the darkness around Emily, who shut her eyes, clinging to the doorknob for dear life. “My bearer did not call for thee.”
If she kept her eyes closed, she could pretend it wasn’t so dark in here, and that—
Another round of snapping, crunching, tearing, awful noises. Em sobbed once, pointlessly, and tried to think of how she was going to escape when she had stupidly locked herself into a dead end.
Sudden silence, the noise cut off cleanly as if with a knife. Em took the deepest breath she could, and held it, straining her ears.
A soft soughing. The smell of cardamom, again. Something bumped her—warm, and living.
Emily yelped and thrashed, kicking and hitting wildly, but it was only the genie. The light overhead took that opportunity to flick back on, and Em saw him right before she whapped him a good one in the eye with her elbow. His head snapped back, he let out a surprised sound, and Em broke the bathroom door off its hinges as she stumbled away.
* * *
Her apartment was shattered. Emily staggered to a halt and turned in a complete circle, her hands flying to her mouth. Her television screen had a hole in it the size of a fist, the French door was in shards, the couch was ripped to hell. Stuffing flew, an out-of-season snowstorm.
Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus Christ. Oh, my God.
Nope. Definitely never getting her deposit back on this sonuvabitch.
Her framed Rossetti print next to the bookcase was smashed and torn. Her bedroom was mostly okay, but something had run into the counter between her kitchen and her minuscule dining room, and from the look of it, had kept on going until it hit the kitchen sink. Her refrigerator listed alarmingly, water was spraying, and her stove had been torn away and was spitting cascades of sparks. Her DVDs were smashed, her bookcase gone, her coffee table—a moving-in present from May—reduced to splinters and shards.
Her hands dropped. She found herself cupping her elbows in her palms, hugging herself so hard her ribs creaked, and turning in another circle. It reminded her of coverage on CNN after a tornado went through a Midwest town. There’s just nothin’, a heavyset dark-haired woman had said, spreading her hands. What there is, is just torn up.
The genie stepped out of the bathroom. A chill, raw, autumn wind poured through the broken French door. His eyes sparked for a moment, the light reflecting oddly, and Emily’s hands turned into fists. The ring was still on her left hand, the band warming as it pressed into her palm, and maybe he saw the change in her expression because he was suddenly in front of her as she found herself tearing at her left hand, trying to get her nails underneath the ring to scrape it free.
“No.” His own fingers, hard and warm, locked around her wrists. He wrenched her hands apart. “If you take the fetter off, you are dead. No, my mistress. No.”
She considered screaming. Nothing else had done a whole lot of good so far, and it was awful tempting.
“Listen. Listen to me.” He yanked on her arms, or maybe she had tried to get away, she couldn’t tell. His teeth and eyes glinted, and the stove spat another bright fan of white-hot sparks. “I can repair all this. Tell me to repair it. Command me.”
Oh, boy. Hallucinations and commands. At least there was no way she could have done all this on her own, right? So either there was a disaster so huge she had lost her mind, or there was a genie in front of her, a real chunk of heavy magical manflesh, who had just had some sort of brawl that reduced her furniture to flinders.
“I don’t want this,” she whispered. Her throat had been reduced to a pinhole; even if she wanted to scream, she couldn’t. There were sirens in the distance. “This is insane.”
“I know.” He took in a sharp breath as if she’d yelled at him. “I am…sorry. Do you wish me to repair your home?”
“Fine.” She shut her eyes tightly. “Go ahead. Do it.”
But it won’t be the same, she told herself. Nothing will.
“Undo it,” she whispered. “Undo everything.”
Did he pause? “If that is your wish,” he said, finally, very softly. The sirens stopped, and a soft slithering silence fell. Everything whirled, even though she couldn’t see it, and the vertigo was so bad she almost fell over, except for his grip on her wrists. His hands gentled, and he tried to pull her forward, but she remained straight and slim as a sword while stealthy, unholy energy crackle-crept around her crushed and broken life.
The Easiest Way
She did not scream again, or weep, or fly at him in a rage. She simply opened her eyes, glanced over the apartment—everything as it had been before the Appetites had arrived, with their obsidian claws and their unerring concave noses—and shook away his hands. Two nervous, delicate steps away, a doe picking her way into an empty meadow. Her chin leveled, and she regarded him steadily.
The silence was intolerable. He bore it, watching her face for any hint of her next command. What would she ask of him now? To repair was not to undo, but he was given leeway to choose. He did not even need the theatrics when she had her eyes closed.
Still no word. She simply stared, and there was a strange glassy quality to her gaze he was not sure he liked.
Outside, the night was quiet. There were no wailing vehicles drawing nearer, clustering the site of an emergency—now those were an innovation. An everyday human magic, one so simple and practical even the ones who made him might have approved. For a moment, Hal tried to remember their faces, those rich-robed masters standing in a circle and chanting while his shivering mortal body stung from shallow cuts, blood and sand mixing, a paste of hideous effectiveness.
But that was not a pleasant thought. Instead, he kept studying her face, waiting.
It was odd—her skin was so fine, and her lashes were soft charcoal arcs. There was dust in her hair, and that was not right. Her shirt was torn, and the knee of her breeches. A pale knee showed, with welling ruby droplets. A scratch, merely a scratch, and yet it pained him.
His mouth opened, with no direction on his part. “There are others of your kind who know…the possibilities.”
“Possibilities.” It was a colorless whisper. Her lips were very pale, and that bothe
red him. “You mean, magic.”
Hal almost winced at the word. Still, it was appropriate. “Yes.”
“If I…” Her right hand twitched. “If I give them the ring, will they leave me alone?”
“Even if you could remove it, I would not counsel such a thing.” Hal weighed the words very carefully. His attention settled on her left hand. If she moved to take the ring off…
No. Do not let her.
What a strange thought. As if he cared who held his fetter. But the arrival of the Appetites had somewhat changed things. Such things were costly to make, requiring much of the vital force drawn from a living human body.
Was Cavanaugh still alive? If he was, how had the ring left his possession? Perhaps others of the Fratres, but why would they let it be lost? The man had sent him away in the midst of a night of drunken wenching, for once not wishing to force Hal to share his debauch. The miracle was that nobody had thought to utter the summoning words while they wore his fetter—or perhaps nobody had thought it looked worth wearing? Or had it sat in a jewel-box, a dusty closet, for a mortal lifetime or two?
He could have spent an eternity in the castle, staring out at the blank gray wasteland outside, powerless to escape. It was unpleasant to contemplate.
Very unpleasant.
“Will they leave me alone?” she repeated. “If I give it to them? Will they?”
“It is far more likely you would meet death soon after you handed it over, even if you could take it off.” The Fratres would no doubt swiftly put to death anyone not inducted into their fellowship who had discovered such an artifact; if she thought it was impossible to remove the ring and did not send him back to the castle, he could protect her from whatever else they would send to collect it.
It was not a lie, he told himself. It would be impossible for her to remove his fetter.
Because he would not allow it.
Her gaze finally dropped. She held her hands out, and her slim fingers shook. The ring looked too large, too barbaric for such soft perfection. One of her nails had torn all the way down to the quick, and another ruby of bright blood welled.