Chapter 24: God, You Need a Bath

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I dream of the woman from the pond.

She sits beside me, perched on nothing, her beautiful pale face turned up towards the stars. The wind is blowing her golden hair back, riotous and wild. Every now and then she takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and after a while I notice the tears on her cheeks.

Tears that glint beneath the light of the moon.

‘It was foolish of you to take me with you,’ she says. ‘You could have died.’

I say nothing. I cannot speak. My mouth feels as though it’s been stuffed with cotton. I try to move my limbs, but they hardly even twitch. I know I’m in the car - I can sense William beside me. We’re driving somewhere. But I can’t get my eyes to open. It’s that feeling of paralysis again, the one I had just before I passed out after the eldritch creature’s attack. I’d thought after getting out of the Aether it would just…go away. The fact that it’s still here - am I stuck like this? Trapped in my own body?

The woman looks at me with gentle eyes. She shushes me, then reaches out. I can almost feel her hand against my face. It’s a ghost of warmth, yet it comforts me all the same.

‘Hush now, little one. I said you could have died. But you will not. I gave enough to keep your spirit burning. You will recover.’

The words catch me off guard. I guess I’d assumed everything in that place was just. Evil. Maniacal and cruel.

Then again, that’s not really fair, is it? Echo helped me, didn’t she?

I hear laughter in my head. ‘Echo helped herself, child. Any assistance to you was merely a side effect.’ She sighs, the sound wistful. ‘I should have liked to do it. Kill him, I mean. He will reform, of course - there’s enough left of his memory to make him anew. But he will be weaker. The stories are not what they used to be.’

I don’t understand what she means. Not exactly. I mean, I can make some guesses, but I’m not in the questioning mood. I still want to put all of this behind me. God, I want so badly to turn around and go home.

‘Home?’ The look she gives me has a hint of sadness. ‘Oh, sweet girl. You don’t understand, do you?’

I focus all of my efforts into trying to make my fingers twitch. I just need one nerve to fire, that’s all it’d take. I hate the feeling of being trapped in my own body. I want out. I want out. Of this car. Of this whole goddamn situation. I wasn’t made for this shit, alright? That’s the truth. I was going to graduate. Get my degree, get a job. I was going to make something of myself…

‘Oh,’ she laughs. The sound isn’t mocking. It’s light and breathless. ‘Oh, my dear. You truly do not know.’

Know what? I think.

The woman tilts her head at me. Then she leans towards me, passing through the car window. She’s luminous, her hair floating around her like a halo of gilded fire.

‘You were made for this, Lydia Grace. You were made for exactly this.’

The words should make me shiver, but I can’t even do that. I’m too weak.

‘You cannot get out. You cannot go back. You can only go forward.’

No. I want to scream the word. No, I wasn’t made for this. I’m nobody, alright? I’m just some unwanted leftover from a deadbeat dad and an alcoholic mother. Call me pathetic if you want, I don’t care. I know what I am. I was doing my best to make something out of nothing. All I wanted was to make something grow out of me.

The woman presses herself in even closer. The sadness in her eyes has seeped into the rest of her face now, and fresh tears flow down her cheeks. ‘You are not,’ she says, the words washing through me, ‘And have never been nothing.’

The syllables hit me like blows. I feel moisture on my own lashes now, and my first thought is shame. What if William notices? I don’t want him to see me cry again. Once was plenty. I’d like to keep whatever shred of dignity I have left.

The woman sighs heavily, her shoulders sagging. ‘I shall stay with you a while.’ I feel the ghost of that warmth press briefly against my side, hovering over the flute I still have shoved in my waistband. ‘…Yes. I have been trapped for so very long. I think I will see many things if I stay with you. I hunger to see it all.’

She fades then. The image of her vanishes, and my awareness teeters after that. I don’t know how long we drive. I drift in and out of strange dreams. I’m being chased by monsters larger than I can fathom, and so very hungry. I’m falling into an abyss that does not end, my lungs filling with mud, my nose suffused with the stench of decay. Now and then my mother’s face looms up out of the darkness, her features interchangeable with the eldritch horror's.

‘He left because of you!’ she screams, her mouth gaping open, her eyes full of hate. ‘You! Your fault! It’s all your fault!’

She’s more frightening when she’s human because she looks so much like me.

I don’t know when the nightmares start to fade. They do it in flashes and bursts. They assault me, and then for a moment I become aware of my surroundings. I see dawn in the corner of my vision, pink sunlight coming through the window. I hear the sound of gravel beneath the tires. When we come to a stop, I feel the lurch as William hits the brakes.

“That’s enough traveling for a while,” he murmurs. It’s the first time I’ve parsed a full sentence from him since I passed out in the Aether. It’s such a small thing, but it makes my heart swell in my chest. I latch onto his presence desperately, trying to cling to him, use him as an anchor. Please, I think. Please keep talking to me.

I don’t know if he understands, but I hear his voice again all the same.

“We need to get you cleaned up, my dear. Come.”

I feel his arms wrap around me. There’s a sensation of weightlessness as he lifts me out of the car. I want to cling to him, clutch at him to keep from falling back into the quagmire of bad dreams. I don’t think I can take much more. I think my mind is going to break.

William, I cry. William, please. Please…

“You’re rather filthy. My fault, I suppose. Terribly sorry about that. I didn’t want that beast eating your pretty face off. That would have been such a pity.”

My mind briefly plays through the image of him smashing his fist through that monster's chest. Strangely enough, even that memory is a comfort. He killed it, didn’t he? He tore out its fucking throat. As long as he’s got me, I’ll be okay. I just have to hang on.

“This room is much nicer,” he remarks, humming to himself. “Luxurious, even. I hope you don’t mind, but I only got us one bed. I don’t do much sleeping, you see.” A pause. “And I admit, I’d like to make sure you don’t go running off on me again.”

I want to laugh. I don’t give a shit, I want to say. No, I do, actually. I want him to hold me. I don’t give a damn if he’s a demon, an incubus, a goddamn throat-ripping vampire. He’s real, and he’s here, and he’s talking to me. Just hold me, I think. Don’t let go.

He sets me down on a bed. I can feel the softness beneath me. For a terrible moment, I think he’ll walk away, oblivious. I can sense the nightmares waiting at the back of my mind, scratching like a rat trying to dig beneath my skin. No, I think, panicking. William, please. Stay. Stay…

His fingers begin working at my clothing. He tugs off my shoes, my shirt, my pants. I can feel the stiffness in the material. I must be completely coated in gore. “Ugh,” he mumbles. “Let’s get this shite off of you, alright?”

He lifts me again. His hands feel overly warm against my bare skin, almost hot. Am I cold? Am I…

Carefully, William lowers me down into heaven.

He must have run a bath at some point. Hot water engulfs me, melting into a dozen different muscles whose ache I’d forgotten about. Then there’s a sting in my leg, one that grows into a burning fire, and my breath catches in my chest. I finally manage to make a sound: a long, low moan.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“…Lydia?”

His hands move under my arms, making sure my head doesn’t slip beneath the water. I try to work up the energy to speak, to say something, but I can’t move my lips. All I can manage is an inarticulate gurgling sound.

“It’s alright,” he says. His voice has dipped into such a gentle timbre, rolling in his chest. I don’t quite feel the easy lethargy I did when he used his power on me back in my apartment - what feels like an eternity ago - but I do feel calmer. “You’re alright, my dear. I’ll take care of you.”

His words make me want to weep. He feels down my leg, obviously noticing that something is wrong. Maybe he can sense the echo of my pain. I hope not, because it really hurts.

When he finds the scratches from the eldritch creature, he lets out a faint hiss. “We’ll need to clean this before I can close it, mmm? Can you open your eyes for me?”

I try. I really do try. I feel them flutter, but it’s like there’s a weight tied to every single lash. I can’t even open my own eyes.

Honestly he should just let go of me and let me drown at this point.

“Don’t strain yourself,” he says kindly. “This is normal, Lydia. You’ve overtaxed yourself. You’ve lasted longer than most people would have. Take your time.”

He’s obviously just being nice to me. He’s been bound to a lot of powerful people - I saw flashes of it in his memory. Assholes, for sure, but any one of them could kick my ass at any moment. I can’t imagine he enjoys playing caretaker to some random woman he got stuck with out of circumstance.

“An essence is a malleable thing. It cannot be quantified or measured - not with any real accuracy - but it can be depleted. Yours is particularly potent. I suspect you’ve a deep well to draw from, but that doesn’t mean you can just keep going. Eventually you’ll hit a wall, like you’ve done now.” He pauses. I hear the sound of fabric shuffling, and then he dips a washcloth beneath the water. “This will sting,” he warns, and then he begins to scrub the detritus out of my wounds.

It does sting. It hurts like a motherfucker, and a whimper comes up my throat. Usually this would be humiliating, but in some ways I’m grateful for it. It and the pain. Both are grounding. I’m feeling more and more like I’m back in my body. I feel the nightmares starting to recede, their claws unhooking from my mind with quiet shks that I swear I can actually hear.

“Try to open your eyes again for me, Lydia.”

I set my jaw. This time, when I try, I manage to open them to narrow slits. I get a look at William - the real William, red-haired and skinny and absolutely perfect - before he shifts into focus and my mind realigns itself. Lucas’s face is peering at me again, and I can’t help the disappointment that shoots through me. I don’t want him. I want William.

“There you are,” he says. He smiles brightly, and I find myself assuaged. His voice is the same. I know his voice, and it’s as much him as his pretty green eyes and cute little dimples. “How are you feeling?”

I groan.

“Understandable,” he says, nodding. “Alright. Why don’t you try talking to me? Not with the bond, dear. Let’s keep things nice and simple for now. Let me hear you speak.”

I swallow. It’s hard to work up the energy, but I know why he wants to do it this way. Or at least I can take a guess. Even if it’s a minuscule amount, using that bond to talk to him probably takes a little bit of this essence he’s talking about. And like he’s saying, my well is tapped right now.

“…Hi,” I croak.

He smiles again. God, I’m starting to really love that smile. Not because of the face it’s on, but because of the way it makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. It’s a full, real, honest kind of smile. “There we are! You’re recuperating much more quickly than I might have guessed. Here.”

His hands cup my calf, and he gently lifts my bare leg out of the water. I stare at it, and make a startled gurgling in my throat.

The scratches are gone.

“All better,” he says. He slips it back into the tub. When I look at him, I notice that he seems a bit paler than he did before - but the moment I catch it, color returns to his face. Did fixing me take energy out of him? What did that book say? Your wounds can be healed at the cost of the creature’s life force.

“Don’t,” I wheeze. “Don’t.”

William stops, perplexed. His hand hovers in the air near my face, a clean white cloth dangling from his fingertips. “I’m just going to finish cleaning you,” he explains gently. “Then we’ll get you dressed again, yes? Don’t worry.” He winks at me cheekily. “I’d prefer you be a bit livelier when we engage in more sordid affairs.”

I wheeze again, with laughter this time. Tears prick my eyes. “Don’t,” I say, trying harder. “Don’t hurt yourself to help me.”

Confusion passes over his face. He stares at me for a moment, silent, one of his hands still holding me up. My meaning must register then, because he frowns. Then he leans in close. I can smell him - he still smells like death, like rot. It occurs to me he has yet to bathe himself.

“What did you do in the Aether, Lydia?”

I swallow again. I struggle to speak, but before I can, he continues.

“You told me to drain you. Drain you. I could have completely eradicated you. Not even your soul would have been left. You would not have been banished into the Aether. You would have been nothing.”

He sounds angry, and a spike of fear shoots through me. My eyes widen, and I manage to choke out: “I’m sorry…”

“I’m not looking for an apology,” he interrupts. “I’m giving you clarity. You risked everything to save us. So you do not get to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own power.” His mouth twitches. “Well. You can, for all intents and purposes, but if you command me not to heal you I shall find a way around it. You’ll find I’m a very stubborn creature. And a dreadfully poor minion.”

I laugh. Well, I try to laugh. I want to laugh. It comes out more like a very phlegmy, geriatric cough.

“Take back the order,” he murmurs. The smile falls from his face. I can tell it’s not a request. His eyes bore into mine, and in them I can see the sheer age of him. The weight and power that must have come with all of those years.

“Okay,” I whisper. “I take it back.”

He brightens instantly. “That’s my girl. Now.” The cloth descends, and he begins carefully washing my face. The fabric is warm against my cheeks, my brow. He even scrubs the shells of my ears. “Our situation has become decidedly more complicated than I first thought. You’re very strong, Lydia. Strong enough that disentangling us will be more difficult than finding a half-penny street psychic. We’re going to need expert help.” He gives me a look. “So long as breaking our bond is still your goal?”

I start to nod, then stop, struck by something. “…What happens to you?”

He tilts his head at me. “Mmm?” The cloth moves down my throat, wiping away more grime, and the path of it momentarily distracts me.

“I…what happens to you? If the bond is broken?”

Why haven’t I bothered to ask this question before? What the hell is wrong with me?

“I return to the Aether until I am summoned again,” he replies, simply.

I shudder. Having actually been in that place, I decide that’s not an option here. I mean, sure, he’s a goddamn murderer, but I’ve had time to sit on that scene from the mobile home for a while now. I’ve got my suspicions about what happened in there, and they’re casting William in a whole new light. Actually…

“Why them?” I ask. “Why those two men? Why did you pick them to drain?”

The change of subject clearly perplexes him. He works his way down my arms before answering, cleaning thoroughly as he goes. The water is white with suds, but I still feel a moment of embarrassment about the fact that I’m butt-ass naked while I’m trying to interrogate him. I’m not exactly cutting an imposing figure.

“I have a particular ability,” he replies at last. “One that lets me see flashes of people’s memories. Specifically the ones they associate with lust.”

I stare at him. “…What, like. Broadband magical voyeurism?”

He laughs. “Something like that. At any rate. I’ve found that if I employ this in an area densely populated enough, I can usually find someone who…” He trails off for a moment, as if trying to find a tactful way of saying it.

But he doesn’t have to say anything.

My suspicions click into place. The thin girl’s face peering at me in the dark, needle tracks on her arms, her voice full not of horror, but of praise.

He killed them.

“To find someone who’s guilty of rape.”

He gives me a grave look. “Don’t mistake me. I’ve had to make concessions before—but yes. When I can, I try to soothe my bleeding conscience.” He places a hand over his chest. “Besides. There’s logic in it: it leaves a trail of bodies behind me that people may be less likely to follow.”

He’s lying. I know he’s lying. I’ve only gotten flashes of William’s history, and I can only take guesses about his sister, but I’ve started filling in some of the details myself. God bless him, this demon has an agenda. Maybe he’s not aware of it, but that’s exactly what it is.

I’m not going to bring that up right now. That has to be addressed with more care, and probably far more skill than I’m capable of. I’m not about to go barreling through this man’s trauma like an elephant in a corn field. When I know more, I’m going to help him.

First thing’s first, though.

“We’re not just sending you back into the Aether.”

His brows curve upwards. He’s reaching out towards one of those tiny complimentary hotel bottles, reading the label and muttering ‘shampoo’ to himself. “Oh no?”

“No. We’ll find an alternative. You’re like, old as shit, right?”

He gives me a wry look. “Not how I would have put it, but yes.”

“So you probably know these experts you were talking about.” A memory hits me, and I peer at him sidelong. “Maybe this Archive that Samantha mentioned? I’m sure we could work out an alternative with some help. Find a way to keep you here, you know. On planet Earth.”

He stares at me. His features are so blank I can’t get a read on him, though I’m picking up pulses of his feelings again. Shock. He’s so shocked that he doesn’t know what to say.

“…Unless being back in the Aether is what you want,” I add. I guess I don’t necessarily know he hates it there. I mean I hate it there, but he’s not technically human. Maybe he has a bunch of incubus friends and they throw keggers every Friday.

Probably not, but still.

“I would prefer to stay here,” he says, slowly. “For a time, at least.”

“Right.” I nod. “Then it’s settled. We’ll figure something out for the both of us. I get to go back to college, and you get to go off-leash. Deal?”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

I laugh. “No? Buddy I’ve been chased by an evil cat named Mr. Darcy, shot at by a Templar and nearly eaten by the void itself in the past few days. I don’t think there are rules. I think there’s just shit you gotta figure out to get what you want.”

His lips twitch again, in that way that lets me know he’s fighting a smile. “A very optimistic outlook, if not particularly eloquent.”

“I’m a Biology major. Creative writing isn’t really my strongsuit.”

He shakes his head wryly at me. “A bridge we shall cross when we come to it. For now, consider it a deal, Miss Grace.” He lifts his hands to my scalp, smearing soap into my hair. If you’ve ever had someone wash your hair for you, then you understand this is instant nirvana. Honestly half the reason I ever get it professionally cut is for the washing part.

“I presume this means my method of hunting will not be an issue,” he ventures.

I snort, cracking an eye open at him.

“Shit, no.” I toss my hair out of my eyes, giving him a wicked grin. “I’ll even help you get the blood out of your clothes.” I pause, then squint at him. “And before you ever make…concessions, consult me first.”

He raises a brow at me. “Oh?”

“I may be able to help you find the right snack.”