Chapter Twenty-Nine
More than a little anxious over the prospect of deliberately seeking the demon out, Cady deliberately ignored their preparations, trying and failing to take out orcs on the psychic’s video game. It helped to get out some of the nervous energy by hacking and slashing at monsters, she only wished she didn’t keep dying so much. It seemed like a depressing omen.
All too soon Ethan laid his hand on her shoulder, and she briefly considered chickening out. The idea passed quickly though. Better to get it over with than have to keep hiding out, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She let the health run out on the game, unsure how to pause it, and Ethan helped her up out of the bean bag chair.
“You’re going to be fine. We’ll be right here,” he assured, his voice low and calm. “If it looks like you’re in the least bit of distress, we’ll pull you out of it.”
“You promise?”
“I do. Just… try to remember he’s volatile, so treat him with kid gloves. He claims to love you, so use that to your advantage if you can.”
Cady nodded, letting him lead her to the center of the floor where a series of symbols were drawn on the marble tile with black grease pencil. She recognized some of the markings as the same ones on the walls of the safe house, but she had no idea what they signified. “One of these days you’re going to have to teach me what these symbols mean.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Ethan agreed readily. “Though I’m not sure if you’ll have the ability to spell them. It takes practice.”
“If this doesn’t work we’re going to have plenty of time on our hands,” she pointed out, stepping carefully over the black marks.
“Go ahead and lie down in the center. You’re going to want to be as comfortable as possible.”
“Why do I feel like a human sacrifice?” Cady muttered, doing as she was told.
“No, that’s an entirely different ritual, and I thought you said you weren’t a virgin?” Ethan deadpanned and she stuck her tongue out at him. She could appreciate his efforts to make her feel more at ease, and it worked up to a point. “Just lie back and breathe deeply while we seal you in. You’ll start to feel light, like you’re floating when it starts. Try not to worry, that’s supposed to happen.”
“That’s right. Then when you leave your body behind, make your booty call and you should be good,” Gobi added, hopping over parts of the circle, embellishing the curve of a symbol, making the tail longer on another.
“Right, when I leave my body behind. No problem,” Cady breathed, getting as comfortable as she could on the hard tile floor.
“You’re going to be fine, I promise,” Ethan brushed the hair away from her forehead, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to her lips and Cady caught at his hand.
“Is that all I get? How about a real kiss for luck?” she smiled hopefully, rewarded when he bent to do a more thorough job of it. As much as she didn’t want to let him go, Cady gave him a brave wink before closing her eyes.
All around her she heard chanting and sensed movement circling her body, a curious shaking sound accompanying the motion. Her ears popped uncomfortably and the sounds grew fainter. No amount of yawning or swallowing cleared the pressure change, and soon she didn’t care. It was hard to care about anything. She felt… calm, loose, as if nothing touched her.
With a lurch she floated free, drifting out of her body and into the air. When she opened her “eyes”, Cady clearly saw her body lying below, the pair of men kneeling outside the circle, Ethan rocking gently in place. It didn’t bother her though; she knew it was supposed to be happening, and in her relaxed state she didn’t worry about it. She didn’t worry about anything.
Enjoying the sensation, she hovered above the room, amusing herself by pushing away from the ceiling and drifting back again with only a flex of her will. Once when the ceiling pressed at her back, she passed through it into the floor above, and Cady marveled at how easily she could explore with no walls to hold her.
Dimly, she knew there was something she was supposed to be doing, but it was hard to focus long enough to recall it. There was someone she needed to meet. If only she could remember who it was.
Ash.
The name reverberated through her consciousness and she tried it on her “tongue”. “Ash…” It was close, but not quite right. “Ash, Ash, Ash…” she repeated the mantra, feeling her concentration swirl tighter with the focused name. “I have to find Ash. No… Asherik. I need to find Asherik. Asherik…”
Cady felt the answering cry and all at once she spiraled higher, moving faster and faster, too blurry for her to see the direction. And then bam, just like Gobi warned, Cady felt her spirit coalesce into a version of her own body, feeling solid and more herself. Remembering her true purpose.
“Asherik?” she said again, and a man stepped from the shadows, his eyes alight with pleasure. Cady didn’t recognize him, but realized he bore a slight resemblance to Ethan, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
“You came to me!” he beamed, reaching for her hands. “I knew that you would.”
“I did,” she nodded, trying not to flinch when he held her hands, but easing somewhat when he didn’t press for more. “I thought maybe we should talk.”
“I’ve missed our talks,” he nodded, leading her to a padded window seat. “Would you like to sit here, or should we go to the park instead?”
“No, this is fine,” Cady answered quickly, taking a seat beside him, trying to get a good look at the place. It looked like a single family home instead of an apartment, with an old fashioned woodstove tucked into the corner. The décor was masculine, heavy on the earth tones, with nothing but a few cheap prints on the walls. Despite the clutter, there were no personal photos or features that gave a clue as to who lived there.
“Is that what you look like now?” she ventured, doing her best to commit the appearance to memory.
“You don’t like this body? I thought you would find it pleasing,” he frowned, and she shook her head, eager to get him to stop hopping from body to body.
“No, I like it just fine. It’s um, very handsome,” she added awkwardly. It felt so strange, sitting there with him the way she had night after night, baring her soul. No, not like those nights. That was before she knew what he was. The longing she’d felt for him sickened her now, and yet, a thread of the connection was still there. Cady pulled her hands from his, fearing what that said about her.
“What do you want?” she asked boldly, not sure how long the dream would last.
“I want you.”
“You want me to do what?”
“I want to be with you, that’s all,” he chuckled, reaching for her hand again.
“You don’t want to carve me open and snack on my insides?”
“I’ve no doubt you’d prove sweet,” he lifted her hand to his lips for a brief kiss. “But no, I mean you no violence.”
“But you are violent. You’ve killed.”
“That has nothing to do with you and me,” he replied with an utter lack of guilt and Cady pulled her hand back again.
“How can you say that? You killed someone last night.”
“I did.”
“Why? Why do you have to kill?” she asked, trying hard to reconcile the pleasant man she sat opposite from with the memory of him busting through her wall in a rage.
“I didn’t choose this life, it’s what I am now,” he shrugged. “I was summoned here by human intent, not my own design. I’ve stopped thinking about returning to what I was before, I’ve accepted my life now. You should too, especially now that we’ve found one another.”
“You’re stuck here?” she blinked, ignoring the press of his leg against hers. “Where did you come from?”
“I hardly remember it now, only that it was a different place. We had no bodies such as you, no need to surround ourselves with so many things. I’ve come to enjoy this realm though,
the pleasures, even the vices.”
“Would you go back if you could?”
“Why would I want to?” His brows drew together in puzzlement. “Now that I’ve found you, I see that this is where I belong.”
Balls. Just when she’d thought she was onto something, he brought them right back to where she started. “You can’t keep killing people though. You can understand why, can’t you?”
“Because it upsets you?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
“If it’s wrong, then why is it so prevalent here? All the world over people maim and kill for varied reasons. Why not for hunger?”
“I thought you didn’t need to eat people.”
“There are all kinds of hunger. I can feed from love as well as fear, but I must feed to survive. If I did not have the right to feed, then why would I have been created thus?”
That sparked a theological discussion that Cady felt ill equipped to argue. Once more he displayed a sharp mind and a witty tongue, reminding her how much she’d enjoyed their talks. Round and round they went and she felt no closer to making her point. The one bit of play she had was in his desire to make her happy. “You could choose to stop killing though, if you wanted to?” She seized upon that single fact.
“If I had your love, I think I could. I did not kill while you came to me in your dreams. It was only after you were kept from me that I… slipped.”
So, if she kept coming to him the world would be safe. Awesomesauce. “Ash, do you ever think about why you feel the way you do about me?”
“No, I only think about being near you, to drink in your beauty,” he replied, fingers trailing along her shoulder to brush lightly against her neck.
“I hate to break it to you, but you don’t love me, you only think you do. It’s nothing more than simple chemistry. See, what happened was…”
His fingers hovered over her lips, stilling her words. “If this is not love, I don’t know what is. You said you needed love to give yourself to me. I’ve respected that wish, have I not?”
What did he call busting through her apartment wall? Taking a hold of his hand, Cady met his blue eyes, speaking as gently as she could. “I don’t love you.” Having steeled herself for the worst, his crooked smile caught her off guard.
“I realize my mistake in choosing that last body. I thought only of getting close to you, not your attraction for it. If this one is not to your liking, we’ll pick the next body out together, shall we?”
“No, it’s not about the body. Ash…”
“I know there is a part of you that loves me,” he interrupted with a confident twist of the lips. “You wouldn’t have come to me otherwise.”
“I came to ask you to stop the violence.”
“And to see me again,” he grinned. “You’ve missed me, haven’t you?”
“No, I…” The lie died in her throat. Christ, part of her had missed him, even as she’d known there was something wrong with him all along, she’d still craved the time with him in her dreams. Cady swallowed, trying to hold tight to the knowledge that the charming smile masked a taste for violence.
“What can I do to prove my love to you?” he asked, kissing her fingertips.
“Stop killing people for one thing,” she snapped, snatching her fingers away even as she recognized that she had to take control of the conversation back. “And no more trying to frame Ethan for your crimes.”
“I will, I won’t kill so much as a fly,” Ash promised, laying a hand over his heart. “I won’t even eat red meat.”
“And Ethan?”
“I’ll leave the reaper alone unless he comes for me. Then all bets are off.”
There wasn’t much she could say to that, she doubted he’d be willing to lay down and die to prove his love. “And stop trying to hunt me down. No more jumping into my boss or my friends. If you try to trick me again I won’t forgive you.”
“Will you come to me again?”
The thought both pleased and terrified her, which in turn, scared the crap out of her even more. But how could she say no, knowing she could keep others from dying by giving him this one thing? “Yes, I’ll come to you again. Maybe not every night, but I’ll come.”
He caught her up in his embrace and Cady closed her eyes, wondering what she’d just agreed to. “I’ll be waiting,” he pledged. Slowly, her hands moved to return the embrace, to keep him happy, she told herself. “Don’t abandon me.” His lips moved along the shell of her ear, sending a shiver across the fine hairs on her neck. “I can be the man you want me to be.”