Jordan is preparing to kill the man she calls Abraham. This was obvious before I dropped back in on her, but another quick dip into the inspector’s mind confirms it. A bottle-fly cloud of contingencies, half-formed plans, and reproach buzzes through the folds of her gray matter.
The Father has sent her this bloody reminder of what happens when mercy is shown to the enemies of creation. Give her another crack at that duplicitous little laundress and she’d see the sorceress hanged. Give her another crack at Abraham, Father, and she will lay the warlock low in your name.
She downshifts as they turn off Prudence to the Chamchek connector. From here at speed, it’s six hours to the city. They’ll arrive by sunset. By sunset, a warlock in a capital city. That won’t happen on Jordan’s watch.
Three dead men already on her head; three families destroyed because of her doubt and delay. Damn her for forgetting her duty. Damn her for her weakness. Damn her for seeing a brother in a beast of the Void.
That’s right, Jordan Darius. My beast. With my speed and strength and fangs. Try it, Madame Inspector. Do me a favor and give him a reason.
Caspar needs to shoot this tool of empire in the head and leave her by the side of the road. If they somehow end up turning in for the night without a showdown, I’ll tell him so. Jordan finally makes eye contact with Caspar after miles of studious avoidance, and something tells me I won’t have to. “I have to pull over,” she says. “Pee break.”
“No.”
“Do you want me to piss myself, warlock?” The burnished skin of her forehead stretches and shines as she scowls. “Would that please your false god?”
Not really, though it might be funny.
“I know it’s watching,” she says. “It’s lied to you, Abe. It’s using every weakness you’ve shown it. It’s turned you into a killer. How many more will it demand?”
“I was a killer already.” Caspar’s hand is steady. “And so are you. We killed for the Suzerain.”
“We killed for Diamante and for humanity,” Jordan says. “And for the Father.”
“They die the same, no matter whose name they die for.”
“Not about to argue morals with a guy telling his sister-in-the-light to mess herself like a dumb farm animal.” She shakes her head. “I’m going to find a side road and pull over and do my business. If your new god says to murder me for that, I guess you’ll have to.”
“Ooh, yes,” I say, though he can’t hear. “Murder her for that.”
Caspar squeezes his eyes shut for a long blink. My prime form’s thorax ripples with apprehension. “Fine. Pull over.”
Jordan jerks the wheel, and they swerve with authority into the exit lane. Off the populous highway and back into the derelict forested paths.
Many of these offramps lead only to paved wildernesses. Some bear the skeletal frameworks of would-be missions and villages, planned with pride and confidence, and abandoned when the Suzerain declared the latest in Pastornos’ steady cadence of holy wars. Half-built apartment blocks for young folks now moldering in mass graves on the other side of the world. Praise be to the Father. Father, keep your children. Should your son, your wife, your parent die in His service, why then do not cry. They await you in His paradise.
Hateful bile rises in me. I discharge it from one of my ventral pseudopods and melt a charnel house on the distant broken ground. I wish we’d kept Him alive longer when we were feasting on Him.
The skeletal frame of a model town’s bell tower pokes above the treeline where Jordan stops and parks. Caspar steps out of the cruiser first and reaches through the passenger window to uncuff her, then stands by and tracks her passage off the shoulder into the trees. “Not too far, now,” he says.
Jordan undoes her belt. “Will you at least grant me a little privacy, brother?”
“We’re done with that,” Caspar says.
She grimaces and unzips her pants. She pulls them down and the skin of her sienna legs emerges as she squats by a tree, and Caspar fucks up.
“Don’t,” I mutter, but he does. My warlock the boy scout turns meekly away from the inspector.
The rock catches him right behind the ear, whistling like a fastball. His fingers go tingly as he staggers and perhaps he’d have kept his footing, but Jordan is on him, shoulder to his gut in a picture-perfect takedown.
A bright crash as the gun goes off, but she’s already wrapped around his forearm and the bullet whirs past her snarling face. Caspar’s throat tenses and I prime my acid, but Jordan Darius knows warlocks, has killed warlocks, and she digs one elbow into his neck and forces his head to the side. She shouldn’t be able to do that. How is this woman so damn strong? The billow of corrosion sluices a black, boiling mark across the fallen leaves.
Caspar’s got warlock strength, but Jordan has Inspector training. She slides from the crushing clinch he tries to lock in and falls back into an arm bar, hyper-extending Caspar’s elbow. With a grating snap, the bone breaks. He hisses with pain and his fingers jitter and she’s about to get the revolver and I growl with rage and I know; I know. I said I wouldn’t do this again. But if I don’t, then Caspar’s fucked, and neither combatant knows he can do this yet.
I detach Caspar’s arm. It pops off him like a crab’s abandoned claw. Jordan rolls one way and Caspar rolls the other.
The detached arm’s fingers are still locked around the revolver and Caspar realizes he can still control it. He scrambles into a crouch, propped on the one arm he’s still attached to. Jordan’s expression is almost comical. “The f—”
Caspar dives.
Her ex’s gravity knife jams itself through Jordan’s ribcage. Caspar lies on it, presses his terrible weight against it as it catches briefly then slides further. Jordan’s sky-colored eyes widen with shock and panic.
Second time Sofia’s broken my heart. That’s her final, jittery thought, and then with a terminal thrust, her existence on Diamante is finished.
She vents out her life with an elegiac sigh of ohh, like she’s just received a troubling letter. Caspar rolls off of her and lies panting in the dirt. With a tensile snap, a stringy tendon lashes from his abandoned arm, and then it yanks back into place like a rocketing tape measurer, bowls him to one side with the force of its reattachment.
He blinks. The pain of his broken limb shoots through him and with gritted effort, he channels another evocation to set it back into place. “Why,” he says, “is your magic so goddamn weird?”
He beholds the staring corpse of his erstwhile hostage. That’s that, then, he thinks, and then a wave of fear and reproach forces him to a knee. He isn’t angry at me this time, either. His shivering isn’t from the deep existential dread he felt upon taking his tenth (his tenth) life.
It’s because he felt nothing at all.
He wants to will himself toward that same emotional wreckage from his first kill or his third or his fifth. He can’t reach it anymore.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Well, good, I think.
It’s what I needed him to be. It’s good. And anyway, he knows they’re not gone. Not really. This is fine. This is good. I’m not sure why I keep having to tell myself that.
Caspar takes Jordan’s badge, for all the good it’ll do him. He sits with her and catches his breath and looks at her cooling body. He should have brought the shovel from the sedan. Why didn’t he do that? He pops the trunk and bundles her in, the big dunce. Then a wave of fatigue crashes into him and he nearly falls in with her. Even with the long gap since the last clutch of evocations, that’s three more spells today. He’s nudging past his limit.
He’ll find a spot to inter Jordan, or buy the tools to bury her. But he needs to sit down before he passes out.
He gets behind the temple cruiser’s wheel and breathes an absurd laugh. At the wheel of his dream car in the middle of an endless waking nightmare. He clasps his hands together and fights off another uptide of exhaustion. He’s not sure if he should attempt to get back on the highway. Probably too big of a risk.
“Miss Irene,” he begins.
The fireplace glow of his prayer warms my face. Oh, it’s just so lovely, his faith. So soothing. I feel a fondness flower inside me. I ought to be annoyed that it came to this after I warned him it would, that he needs to further delay his journey by sleeping this magic off.
But I’m not. I have this flappy little giddy feeling, instead. I’m excited, I realize. I’m excited to see him face-to-face.
“You delivered me back there. And with the templars. Your magic keeps saving me. I hope I’m not disappointing you.” He clears his throat. An emotion he can’t or won’t name is creeping up his neck. “Thank you,” he says. “Please don’t actually tattoo anything on my forehead. And please don’t be too mean to Miss Darius. See you in a few.”
See you soon, Cas.
He steers the cruiser into the model town and finds an overgrown garage with a flock of sandy-colored doves living in its rusty rafters. As good a place to lay low as any. Nobody’s been here in a long time.
He sits back and lets the evocation strain drag him under.
₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪
“It’s a bit low, I think.” Caspar gives the pool table a critical eye. “Gotta make sure you can eye-level it.”
With a tilt of my chin, I extend the femurs hidden within the table’s wooden legs. “How’s that?”
Caspar leans across the table and lines his shot up. “Yep. That’s the ticket.”
We’re gathered around the pool table I’ve manifested for the captive humans. At my insistence, we’re giving it a test drive before bringing it to them. Caspar doesn’t object. His apprehension simmers as he prepares to stand before the new crop of Father’s dead servants.
Fortunately, I’ve never played this game, and I’ve taken the opportunity to demand that Caspar teach me. In my analysis of humanity, I’ve concluded that giving a man the opportunity to explain something to an attractive, genuinely interested partner is just about the happiest you can make him with his clothes still on.
Caspar chalks the tip of his cue. “You wanna flip a coin to see who breaks?”
“You go ahead,” I say. “I’ve only ever watched this stuff.”
“Go Caspar, go!” Bina waves a few tendrils excitedly. Traitor.
Caspar clasps his tongue between his teeth and draws one well-honed arm back like a bowstring. An exhale and a clattering chorus, and the triangle of balls splashes into a riot of motion. His eyebrows shoot up at the sheer speed of the break. He’s forgotten his own strength again.
Bina ooohs appreciatively. “I love that. How hectic.” She raises the triangle rack. “And now we reset and do it again?”
“That’s just the break,” Caspar says. “Now we play.”
“Oh.” Bina’s tendrils droop a little. “Oh, well.”
I nudge my shoulder into Caspar’s arm. “Can I go?”
He steps aside. “Sure. You can play the solids and I’ll do stripes. You wanna use the blank one to tap the others into the holes on the edges there. Once you got the ones labeled one through seven in, you can try to sink the black eight ball, and then you win. Piece of cake.”
I whistle the tip of my cue through the air as I set up. “You mind checking my form, Cas?”
I’ve swapped the cocktail gown out for a sundress in patterned paisley purple. It is appreciably shorter.
Caspar dutifully examines me. “Keep the cue lined up under your chin. And turn away from the table a little.”
“Like this?”
He nods hesitantly. I am not leaning enough. “You might want to, uh. If you lean forward, you’ll get more control.”
I nudge forward. “How’s this?”
Caspar’s hands stick into his pockets. “Little more. Straighten your spine out some.” I do an intentionally piss-poor job at following his instructions, straightening an iota but staying humped like a cat. “Not quite,” he says.
I glance over my spaghetti-strapped shoulder. “Maybe you could just scoot me like a doll.”
His fingers bunch the material of his jacket. “Okay,” he says, and lays his palm against my back as he eases my spine into a straight angle.
It may bear mentioning, darling reader, in case you’ve been hit on the head recently, that a primary goal of mine in crafting a humanoid form is to have sex with Caspar Cartwright. I’ll disclose my reasoning, in case you find this a foolish or frivolous position:
1. As far as my sisters and I can tell, the promise of sex is a primary motivator for enough of your species that it affects you on a civilizational level. If I’m to take over from the Father, I need to understand you fully, and therefore I need to understand sex beyond my third-party observations and its obvious biological role in creating more humans.
2. Caspar’s previous sexual partners, especially his former fiancee, have all enjoyed consistent and attentive loyalty from the man. If I become his bedmate, I anticipate the same. In my effort to deprogram his extensive Pastornist indoctrination, I’ll take every advantage I can get.
3. Caspar’s sexual desire for me is steadily growing. His gaze lingers on the slim hourglass span of my waist and the graceful outward flair of my hips. His self-effacement and personal prohibition are sources of considerable mental and emotional discomfort, which will only compound itself as he keeps trying to ignore his attraction. As his patron, his health and happiness are my responsibility.
4. Almost every mortal I’ve ever seen having sex looks like they’re having a fantastic time. Especially when they’re having sex with Caspar. I’d like to have a fantastic time.
5. Caspar smells good, and he’s big, and he’s got big rough hands, and whenever I’m kind to him, his voice gets soft and scratchy and warm. And when he smiles at me, this thing happens where the air in my chest goes solid and an invisible fist clenches around my belly.
I’m not prepared to explain #5 at the moment, as neither Caspar nor his hands are actually big. I am, in fact, many times larger than Caspar.
With that exception, the logic is sound. But humans aren’t logical about sex, and to my interest, I’ve discovered that I’m not either. Would it feel nice to ride my warlock like a bronco? By every indication, yes. It would. And I know for a fact that it would feel nice for him, too. I’ve designed this body to ensure it. I’ve done exhaustive research on human nervous systems in general, and Caspar Cartwright’s predilections in particular.
It’s the reason I haven’t just created an entirely accurate human avatar. Caspar finds our stark differences interesting. He’s always been a curious young man. He’s curious about me, and he’s getting curiouser.
Why haven’t I indicated my intention to him? It ought to be straightforward, no? Why do I continuously hesitate to bring it up?
That’s a genuine question. Being a human, I’m afraid you probably have a better answer than I do. I’d love to hear it, but tragically, our discussion is one-sided. I suppose I’ll have to keep frustrating you while I figure this out. Please accept my apologies and take solace in the fact that I’m frustrating myself, as well.
I put all this down to interference from the Irene Experiment, which seems more and more like a vulnerability that ought to be corrected and concluded. I’m sure I’ll get around to that, eventually.
And so instead of immobilizing my warlock in my many tentacles and shredding his clothes off, I breathe into his hand at my back, and line the cue up beneath my chin, and say “Good?”
“Good.” His touch departs me; the air is cool and insubstantial in its wake. “Okay, strike and keep the follow through straight.”
I take careful aim and sink the ball into the pocket.
“Huzzah!” cries Bina.
Caspar lets out the freest laugh I’ve ever heard him make around me. “That’s a scratch, Miss Irene. You don’t want to sink the cue ball. You use it on the others.” He plucks the ball out of the release. I gotta tell you, dear reader, I like when he calls me Miss Irene. “Now I get to put this wherever and it’s my turn.”
I tsk. “Come on. You’re making that up.”
“Nope.”
“You so are. Do you see what I put up with, Bean? My human’s a dang cheater.”
Caspar leans down and eyes his next shot. “Ain’t no need to cheat.”
“Cocky Caspar!” I give him a playful swat on the shoulder. “Okay, big guy. Show us.”
Caspar gives a couple of test strokes. “Nine ball, center pocket.” His cue clacks sharply against the ball. It snaps one of the stripy numbered ones into a pocket and nudges another out of the corner into what even I can recognize is a prime position.
“Fuck me, Cas. How’d you do that?”
“Pool was a religion of ours in Rogarth. And I ain’t converted all the way to you just yet.” He straightens. “Just about the only game I ever got good at.”
“When I rule reality,” I say, “I’ll make special dispensation for pool idolatry. Maybe make you the patron saint.” I rub the chalk thing on the end of my cue. “What do you say we do a couple more turns on this table, and then we haul it to the Autumn pocket and work on our limb reattachment?”
His smile falters. “Whatever you like, Miss Irene.” Now he’s thinking about that dumb dead inspector again.
Let’s see if we can’t get his mind off her. I hum to myself as I set up. I put a little arch in my back with my lean, enough to raise the hem of my dress to the first cursive curve of my raven-black butt.
He forgets his attentiveness to my technique. His eyes slowly wander. I relish the fanning spark of his appetite. It kindles my own. My deadly warlock. My faithful servant. Mine.
You may not be converted all the way just yet, Caspar. But by the time I take my throne, I’m gonna have you singing your new goddess’s name.