The Devil You Know (11 page)

She gave me a stern look, unimpressed by my blustering. She walked over to hand me my pack of Camels. She had smoked most of them down, not that I minded. I minded more that she was trying to feed me breakfast, which is absolutely fucking disgusting. “Go wash up and put your gun away, grumpy. Breakfast will be ready in half an hour.”

Twenty minutes later I’d dragged myself back to the kitchen. I’d showered and dressed and shaved. I was ready to eat breakfast. Since I
never
ate breakfast, I decided this was a good indication that I was utterly and completely in love with Vivian.

She was impressed with my clean-cut appearance and said as much. My father is the most beautiful of all angels. Like David Bowie, only better. Neil Gaiman got that right, at least. I look like my dad. That’s advantageous because I look like shit in the morning but no one ever complains. I dropped into a chair at Aunt Lydia’s kitchen table and smoked and watched Vivian slide a glass Pyrex dish into the wall oven.

“I made baked French toast. It’s made with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.” Vivian explained like she was teaching a cooking class. She bent over to check the temperature on the oven and I learned a deep appreciation for cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg in that moment. “Unlike traditional French toast, it’s made in the oven. I won a competition for it at school last year.”

After she was satisfied the French toast was well on its way, she climbed into my lap and ringed her arms around my neck. I loved the way she felt there, the press of her breasts and sharp little nipples into my chest, even through the apron. I liked the apron a lot more on her than on me. She was wet as she kissed me good morning. I could feel it through my jeans, not that I minded. She took the cigarette from my mouth and frenched it long and hard. “We have to wait twenty minutes,” she told me. “But I guarantee it’s worth it. You’ll love eating my French toast, Nick.”

“I’m sure I will,” I told her.

Morgana got back from Anton’s around eleven o’clock.
She had left a message on my cell, probably telling me she’d be back by then to open the shop, but I hadn’t played any of my messages. I’d been preoccupied.

Vivian was lying on the kitchen table, her hair half in our sticky plates of maple syrup, my face buried in her muff, when Morgana walked into the kitchen. I noticed. Vivian did not. She was too busy enjoying the effects of our sex magic. We had learned quite a few things about her power that morning, including the fact that Vivian’s sexual energy was incredibly powerful. She could even heal herself through it. I had never met anyone, human or otherwise, who could heal injuries through sex. And yet, she wasn’t a succubus. A succubus can only draw power through her partner’s body, usually by killing him. Vivian did not need to drain power, and she did not need to kill. She had it all inside herself already. The sex only released it.

Morgana turned and stalked out of the kitchen.

I stopped and eased Vivian up. “I think it would be best if you got dressed now,” I told her softly.

Vivian looked at me uncertainly. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” I lied. “After you get dressed I’d like you to go downstairs to the shop and gather together the things I told you about.”

“All right.”

After she’d left the kitchen, I started cleaning up the mess we’d made. Then it occurred to me that Vivian was headed for the bedroom where we’d left her clothes. That meant she and Morgana were likely going to have a few minutes of quality girl time alone. I dropped the plates clattering in the sink, wiped my hands on a kitchen towel, and headed for the bedroom myself.

Things weren’t
too
ugly when I arrived. Morgana stood leaning against the closet, listening to Vivian explain about what we’d discovered about her power. Vivian sat on the bed, one leg curled up under her, dressed in her black bikini underwear. I stopped in the doorway and Morgana looked over at me with an absolutely blank expression. “Vivian was explaining about the sex magic,” she said.

Vivian looked at me, then at Morgana, then at me. She seemed to sense the fission in the air because she dressed faster than anyone I’d ever seen. In less than two minutes she was standing in front me exactly as I had seen her the night before. “I’ll be downstairs, Nick,” she said, lowered her head, and hurried from the room.

To her credit, Morgana waited until the apartment door had closed before she ripped into me. “What is she doing here?” she asked. Her voice dripped ice.

Normally, I would never have tolerated anyone talking to me like that, but I had broken the house rules, and now I had to pay. We had an understanding between us that neither of us would bring our conquests home. The apartment was something we shared. Neutral ground, both physically and spiritually. I leaned into the doorway and hooked my fingers in my jeans pockets. “I didn’t bring her home. She came here on her own.”

“And you let her stay?”

“Morgana, she’s a daemon and Malach was after her. What was I supposed to do, throw her out onto the street to be slaughtered?”

She eyed me levelly. “That’s awful dramatic, don’t you think, Nick? You could have phoned one of the safe houses. There are a dozen covens in this area alone that would have taken her in.”

“Vivian needed help. I was there to help her.”

“By teaching her sex magic.”

“She wants to be a witch. And I’d like you to teach her.”

“No.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I said no. I will not teach that . . . Vivian magic.”

I knew what she had meant to say. She had meant to call Vivian a
thing
. The sudden spurt of rage made my hands clench. My entire body stiffened at the realization. “You don’t want to teach Vivian because she’s a daemon,” I said, trying to keep my voice from growling.

Morgana looked at me carefully, like I might fly at her. “I don’t want to teach her, Nick, because she’s evil.”

I laughed then, hoarsely. “Don’t you think that is just slightly ridiculous to say to
me
?”

She shook her head. “You’re not evil, Nick. At least, not yet. But Vivian is. I can sense it.”

“You can sense she’s an evil person.”

She closed her eyes as she thought. I knew she was reading the ambient vibes that Vivian had left behind. “I sense evil within her. A powerful evil. If she learns magic, she may also learn a way to unleash that evil.” She opened her eyes. “You’re only acting this way because she’s a daemon and you want her.”

“I do want her. She
is
a daemon. But I also want to protect her.”

“Birds of a feather, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I was shouting now and I didn’t care. I had never seen Morgana so resistant.

She looked at me steadily, staring me down as always. She was the only person I had ever met who was truly unafraid of me. “You demons are all alike. In the end, it’s all in the family, isn’t it? You always look after your own.”

I never thought about what I was doing. I stomped forward and took Morgana’s delicate throat in my hand. I lifted her up so her back scraped against the closet door and we were eye to eye. “I am not a demon!” I spat, which was pretty absurd, considering our present situation.

Morgana began to gag. Then she clutched my arm. She touched me, and the cold fire of her touch raced up my arm and into my body. The power was sickening, overwhelming. I knew she was calling on her human familiar for protection, a seven-year-old girl named Emily who died violently in a fire almost three hundred years ago. Emily is a spirit guide, powerful and pure. A virgin and a Christian. She’s everything I’m not. And she hates me. She’s warned me on several occasions to stay away from Morgana, not that I necessarily listen to the denizens of the afterlife. I also run with scissors and I don’t always play well with others.

I dropped Morgana and staggered back. My arm felt frozen where she had touched me.

Morgana landed lightly on her feet like she had no weight at all. Her eyes looked darker, crazier, holier—more like Emily’s than her own. I could see the vague outline of Emily’s body contained within Morgana, like a trick of photography. “Satan, get thee down,” she said in Emily’s sweet, lilting soprano voice. She raised her hand to me, bringing her two middle fingers sharply down in an archaic expression of exorcism.

I couldn’t be exorcised. I was neither dead nor truly a demon. But it still managed to hurt like hell. It felt like someone had taken lead weights, attached them to massive fishhooks, and embedded them in my flesh. Before I could even say anything, or apologize, I was down on my hands and knees on the floor, my head bowed, shoulders straining, teeth grinding in agony. I stared at Aunt Lydia’s worn green carpeting, breathing roughly through my nose and mouth. Moving was useless. My hands might as well be nailed to the floor. And anyway, it only hurt more if you struggled.

“Tell that cunt to back off!” I shouted at Morgana.

I waited, shoulders tensed. I sensed the exact moment Morgana lowered her hand. I sensed Emily taking her leave from the room. Emily feels like a cold, cutting winter wind, the kind that can kill on contact.

Slowly—very slowly—I climbed to my feet.

“Don’t
ever
do that to me again, Nick,” Morgana warned, rubbing her throat. Her eyes had lightened to their usual bright wintery grey color. “And do not ask me to teach Vivian magic. I will not.”

“Fine,” I told her before leaving the room. “I’ll teach her myself.”

“Is everything all right?” Vivian asked me as I climbed into the car beside her.

I lit a cigarette. It helped calm me somewhat. “Everything’s fine,” I lied.

We sat in the delivery alleyway behind the shop. The road here was narrow and still dim, even at this hour of the morning. Next door, Mr. Fernstermacher, who ran the antique shop, was dragging his empty trash cans back in. It occurred to me that I had forgotten trash day. Another reason Morgana was likely to lay into me when I got back to the shop.

I was feeling especially peevish. There’s something about being called down by some dead, seven-year-old bitch that’s very bruising to the ego. I hated Emily even more than I hated Shelley Preston. At least, with Shelley, I knew where I stood. I knew she was a deceptive bitch who would rip my balls off, given the chance. Emily was an enigma. If she’d been alive today, she’d have been the type of girl who played with My Little Pony at age eighteen instead of screwing a long string of boyfriends like a normal teenage girl. The fact that
that
gave her power over me pissed me off to no end.

It also made me worry. I’ve noticed over the years that those who wield innocence and piety seemed to be gaining a stronger hold over me. I figured that was probably a bad sign, but I was frankly at a loss as to what to do about it. The one time I mentioned it to Morgana, she suggested I turn to a god—any god—for an answer. She thought it was possible I might still be saved, but I doubted that. For one thing, I had no desire to turn to a deity with the intention of begging for help. That was being a fair-weather friend, and I just didn’t do that shit. Plus, my father, who has lied to billions but never to me, has told me it makes no difference what spiritual path I follow. I could be a priest or an atheist for all he cared. I was still going to the same place when I died. He said human beings and demons have free will. I was neither, so I was shit out of luck in that department. Those are his exact words, by the way.

“Nick…”

I looked over at Vivian. She sat hunched in the passenger seat, one of our plastic shopping bags in her lap with the Curiosities logo on it. I had given her a list of things for her to gather from the shop if she wanted to learn to control the craft. Novice stuff. She had done so, and I’d made note of those things in the ledger so I could cover them with my wages. At least Morgana couldn’t accuse me of ripping off the shop.

I eased back in my seat. “I’m sorry,” I said to her.

She looked very pretty sitting there. After she’d washed up, all her makeup had come off and she still looked amazing. She looked like a young Audrey Hepburn with red hair, the glowing innocence and the mysterious, almost Oriental cat eyes that worked so well together. Her lashes were long and dark, like a leopardess’s. She must have known what I was thinking, because she set the bag down on the floor of the car and scooted into my lap. She slid her arms around me, up under my arms, and brushed her mouth against mine, inviting me to kiss her. I cupped the back of her head and plunged my tongue deep into her mouth. Vivian could be sweet as well as sexy. She kissed me while hugging me against her. It felt good to be held that way, like she needed me to protect her.