Chapter XIII

Morgan glared at the cherub door knocker, daring it to burn him second time, curlicues of fog leaving his lips with every breath and disappearing into the darkness above. Snow threatened to fall from pregnant clouds; he could taste it on the air. The door swung inward suddenly without the usual litany of locks and bolts and standing on the threshold was Jude Jerónimos. He wore a fine suit this time, not the homely sweats he had been wearing earlier in the day, and his brown hair was unbound and braided; even his beard had been neatly trimmed and tamed. A rough-hewn stone of amethyst on a chain by his right ear sparked with the city lights with each turn of the head.

Jude’s face was anything but charming. ‘I can feel you squirming in my wards. You’re messing everything up just standing there. Get inside!’

The exorcist peered past Morgan into the street, left and right, and shut the door, locks and bolts falling back into place under practiced fingers. ‘No Corporal this evening?’ he asked and brushed past Morgan into the house. The formerly-possessed woman was nowhere to be found, and the house had a different atmosphere than it had during the day, especially now that it was clean – quaint and inviting, where shadows flirted with candlelight.

‘No…she doesn’t know I’m here.’

The exorcist crossed into the living room and fell into the sofa, producing two wine glasses from the shadows. His cat eyes danced. ‘A shame really. I do enjoy an audience – have I mentioned that already?’

Morgan hesitated in the doorway for a moment longer before joining the exorcist, who shoved a wine flute, filled to the brim, in his hands.

‘I think so,’ he ventured, taking a sip. The wine, burgundy and inviting, burned on the tongue and throat but fizzled before it could warm the belly. ‘How’s the woman from this morning?’

Jude settled into the sofa cushion, the wine painting his lips mauve. ‘She’s fine. Sent her home with a fee but all things considered she could have gotten off a lot worse. Possession is a tricky thing. Particularly in the end. May I ask you a personal question?’

This took Morgan off guard – he answered before really considering what it was Jude wanted. ‘Sure.’

‘Have you tried looking for a cure for your condition?’

He was quiet for a long moment, taking a gulp of tasteless wine to stall for time. ‘I…No. Maybe? I don’t think so.’ Morgan thought back, back to the days of blood and burning flesh and darkness, of wading in filth and misery, of the sleepless nights and days spent crawling away from the sun. Through the pain and loneliness had he sought after a cure? Had he thought it possible? When he had taken lesser Vorvintti by the throat had he demanded it of them? Not for the first time Morgan found his sparse memories both a blessing and a curse.

‘I think…’ he croaked after a moment, ‘that I gave up on the idea. It just didn’t – I didn’t think it was possible. So I didn’t look. At least, I don’t think I did.’

‘You’re not sure?’

‘It’s not that – I don’t remember.’ He shrugged, ‘Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.’

Jude drained the last vestiges of his wine and wet his lips. ‘What I think, darling, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you didn’t bother looking because you’re punishing yourself.’

Morgan worked the muscle in his jaw. ‘That’s not true.’

‘Really?’

‘You’re wrong. I’m correcting you. That isn’t true. That’s like –’ he struggled for the words ‘– like saying fairies should punish themselves for their ability to fly. Just because they’re different doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad thing. If I wasn’t what I am I’d be dead a thousand times over. I never looked for a cure because I was too busy surviving.’

‘You’re not scared of infinity? Your loved ones dying while you live on?’

The Sleight danced beneath Morgan’s skin and his fangs began to ache. ‘I don’t have many loved ones left,’ he growled, voice low. ‘What more is there to lose? And no, I’m not scared of living forever. People whose lives are miserable, who have grown up with nothing but shit and pain? They’re the ones scared of tomorrow. Idiots living the good life, they’re the ones that want to live forever.’

‘And you, darling? How has your life been so far?’

Morgan flashed the exorcist a wicked grin, a thing without humour. ‘What do you think?’

Jude grunted, pouring himself another glass. ‘How refreshing. Most people in your position look for a cure almost immediately – or they abuse their power. What about you, Butcher?’

Morgan willed his gaze to the floor, fingernails biting into palms. ‘Why am I here, Jerónimos?’

‘Please, call me Jude. And like I said, I need that favour.’

‘Which is?’

Jude sat up and carefully placed his glass on a coaster on the coffee table, deft magician’s fingers careful. As he reached for something on the lower shelf of the coffee table, he asked, ‘Have you tried Baku leaf?’

The name felt vaguely familiar, but Morgan could not recall from where. He did, however, know a deflection when he heard one. ‘No. The favour?’

Jude ignored him as he set a metal tin, a circus troupe printed on its side, on the coffee table and a long wooden pipe beside it. ‘Great stuff.’ He removed the lid to reveal dried leaves about several inches long and black that he crinkled between his fingers. The leaves had a pleasing aroma, both refreshing and fruity, like mint and raspberry. ‘It isn’t cerith, of course, but it’s a lot healthier for the mind and body. Natural.’

‘I haven’t tried –’

‘You really should, darling. It’ll take you on quite the journey.’

Jude crushed a few of the leaves between his fingers and stuffed the end of the pipe with it. As he reached for a lighter, the pipe at his lips, Morgan arrested the exorcist’s hands with his own.

‘Stop deflecting. The favour?’

Jude closed his eyes, taking in a breath as though sampling a bouquet of flowers. ‘Ah, compulsion. Are you aware you use it all the time? Just a bit, not too strong for the uninitiated to notice, but it’s always there. Makes people notice you, pay attention when you speak. Rafaella was the same.’

Morgan snatched his hands back as though burned. ‘Don’t compare me to her.’ A growl; he couldn’t stop the compulsion rolling off his tongue, almost reflexive by now. This only made Jude’s catlike smile widen.

‘If you don’t want me to mention her, I won’t.’ Jude gestured to the pipe. ‘Care for some, sweetheart?’

Still weary, ‘There’s no point. Shit like that doesn’t work on me.’

Jude perused the leaf tin, pulling a particularly large leaf from the pile. ‘At all?’

Morgan sighed. It was hard to stay angry at Jerónimos. He turned over your faults for inspection with an open mind, curiosity and the need to problem solve leading him by the nose. ‘Theoretically, it can be transmitted by blood.’

‘So if I had enough Baku in my bloodstream and you drank from me, you’d feel it too?’

Morgan didn’t like where this was going. ‘Theoretically,’ he repeated.

His cat’s gaze locked to Morgan’s, Jude placed the leaf on his tongue and closed his mouth. Without so much as another word, he parted his lips with the stem of the pipe and lit the bottom. Sharp, sweet smoke billowed from the pipe as the leaves burned. After two more experienced puffs, wet lips coaxing smoke into his mouth, Jude settled back into the sofa, the lounge now obscured by a haze. Jude tipped his head back, throat and Adam’s apple exposed. Morgan tore his gaze away from brown skin.

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‘My favour has two parts,’ Jude said after a long moment. Morgan had thought he’d fallen asleep. ‘One, which I consider finished, is to entertain me for the evening. The next part is a little more complicated.’

‘I won’t kill anyone.’

‘What makes you think I want you to?’

‘Why else would you need someone like me specifically? When you clearly have more skill and experience. What you want is a scapegoat.’

‘What I want is help.’ This barely above a whisper, so low that if it had been anyone else listening it would have been lost. ‘I need help from an immortal, to be precise. Someone I know who will be alive in the future.’

Morgan swallowed. There it was again, the promise of years and years hanging above his neck like a noose. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I need you to break a curse.’

Morgan laughed without humour – hysteric, almost. ‘I – me? You want me to break a curse? On who?’

‘Me.’

He didn’t look cursed. Aside from the eyes, feline and dangerous – but the same could be said for any mage. Even his own eyes were similar, ruby red and snakelike. It meant nothing. Hardly a curse worth breaking.

‘Care to explain?’

Jude placed another leaf on his tongue, his words noticeably more slurred than before. ‘Where to begin? I’m not from Joudai.’

‘Runeja.’

‘What a guess!’

Morgan shrugged. ‘You mentioned it before, in the exorcism. And the chanting sounded familiar. My cousin is from there. And I could smell it on you.’ He neglected to mention the strange lilt the exorcist carried in his words, something ancient and noble – his cousin spoke the same way, though its influence was stronger on him.

‘Not as dumb as you look, sweetheart.’

‘Thanks?’

Jude continued as though he hadn’t heard him, ‘I wasn’t in Runeja long. Until I was about five, then my father brought me here. I can do magic, though, unlike most of the humans in Joudai. Magic here is bought and sold. That always upset me, you know? So I studied. Picked up tricks here and there. But I got bored and decided to go back to my homeland.’ He shook his head, ‘What a fucking mistake that was. You know there’s a saying in Runeja? Never piss off an old woman, just in case she’s a witch in disguise. Guess what I did? One guess.’

‘Pissed off an old woman?’

‘Exactly! Unbelievable. The specifics aren’t important right now –’ at Morgan’s puzzled glance, he clarified, ‘– don’t worry, I’ll explain one day, but not tonight. You don’t have to break the curse right now, or tomorrow, or even next week. But one day. One day I’ll ask for your help. And you’ll give to me.’

Morgan was quiet for a moment. Perhaps the corporal had been right. Promises and deals aren’t the same as they are where he grew up, the lesser-known plane of Earth, where a promise was empty words and nothing more and the people thrived on ignorance and technology in equal parts. Here, in Joudai, promises had the power to bind – they had magic, ancient but alive, behind them. And Runeja was far worse. Joudai’s distant cousin, a plane where time was sluggish and backwards, where men fought with sword and hidden knife and magic rather than technology and magecraft. Lawless, almost, a split continent at war with itself. Whatever curse burdened Jude that had come from that place, Morgan knew, would take a miracle to break.

‘Why me?’ It wasn’t a complaint – he genuinely wanted to know.

Jude packed his pipe. ‘Why indeed? Fire has a kind of purifying effect, don’t you think? It leaves no bacteria. No contagion. Maybe even a curse can be burned right out of the body.’

Morgan shook his head. ‘You’re insane. You, what...?’ He grasped for the answer, and when it eventually dawned, he spat the words, ‘You want me to turn you?’

‘Have you done it before?’

‘No.’

‘Have you tried?’

‘I can’t!’ he barked. ‘Only Rafaella could do it, and other progenitors like her. They’re all dead or gone by now. Hopefully.’

Jude relit the pipe and took a deep drag. Smoke escaping his lips, he said, ‘I’m messing with you sweetheart. I know you can’t do it. There are ways for a lesser Vorvintti to, what’s the word? Ascend, I suppose, to the throne of progenitor –’

Morgan growled softly in his throat.

‘– but I don’t recommend it. In any case, that’s not why I asked you. Like I said, I need your immortality. My curse is difficult to explain.’

Morgan settled into the sofa, glad for the return to the main topic. ‘Try.’

‘You do know what a cat is, I assume?’

Cats were common enough where he was born but rare in Joudai. They were, however, the only animals he had seen that shared any resemblance to the creatures from his home plane. The native wildlife of Joudai was nightmarish in comparison, things with multiple sets of eyes, many teeth and ten times the size of anything from Earth. ‘I know of them.’

‘Good, saves time. I thought it was a blessing at first. The witch that cursed me explained it like this: I’ve been given, like a cat, nine extra lives excluding my own. Each life is worth roughly about eighty years, but if I happen to die before then the life is spent and the cycle starts again.’

Morgan whistled. ‘How old are you, really?’

Jude’s eyes sparked with a smile, pupils full in the dim light. ‘I’ve been alive for one hundred and twenty-nine years. My entire life expectancy and then some. But I’ve used two of my nine, plus that. So I have seven lives left.’

‘You do realise,’ said Morgan, ‘that if I break this curse for you, you might just end up dying anyway?’

‘Think I’m going to turn to dust?’

‘You might.’

Jude’s laugh came as a snort, an exhalation of tired breath, the Baku leaf sapping strength. ‘I’d rather be dead. The curse makes magecraft stronger, but it takes my own magic as a price. Without my magic to stop it I…’ He leaned forward, face obscured by a curtain of brown hair. ‘…I lose myself. Memories, thought, speech –’ He glanced up suddenly, pupils so round they almost eclipsed the pewter. His fingers raked across those high cheekbones, digging into flesh. ‘Even this damn face. I become a monster, lose whatever humanity is left inside this wretched sack of flesh.’ He ran the end of his fingers over his straight front teeth. ‘And I can’t tell myself to stop.’

Jude dug his fingernails into his forearms, the charm and wisdom from earlier swallowed by this anxious, terrified thing. In those crazed eyes, those black fingernails too long, Morgan could see it. See the feral animal staring out of a man’s eyes, scratching to be set free. He knew, then, that what the exorcist needed was not someone to break the curse but something else entirely.

He needed a friend. Someone to hold the reigns, tell him to stop. Empress, Morgan knew he had needed someone like that at least once in his life.

Morgan crossed from his seat opposite and kneeled before Jude. Gently, so gently, like a mother coaxing her child, he pulled the exorcist’s hands away from his arms, the blood tainted by Baku pulsing in his grip making his head swim. Jude went still, eyes crinkled with relief and gratitude, as he let himself be handled.

‘It’s worse at night,’ he murmured, as though not willing to break the silence formed by their shared proximity. ‘So much worse. Especially when I’m alone, nothing to distract me. I can feel the fucking thing right there purring in my ear. You know what I mean, don’t you darling?’

Morgan was rooted to the spot, as though the Empress herself was pressing him there – or maybe God, His influence crossing the planes. ‘Jesus, yes. I do.’

‘And sometimes it’s just easier to let it do what it wants than fight it anymore?’

He couldn’t force words passed suddenly dry lips, so he nodded. The steady rush of blood was right there beneath his fingers, Baku and something else, something dark and powerful, tainting the aroma. Magic, pure and simple, a thing of potential and will, the promise of greatness that went beyond what was in front of him. It reminded Morgan of Shalia and a pang went through his chest. Guilt, like he was betraying her somehow by feeling this way. He forced the feeling from his mind, turned it away despite the pain growing in his sternum – if anything he’d long since grown used to ignoring his conscience.

Jude took a ragged breath, that showman’s smile returning. ‘I want you stop fighting yourself.’

‘I – what?’

He extricated his hands from Morgan’s and slid out of his suit jacket. Slowly, carefully, his gaze never wavering, he undid the top buttons and rolled back the sleeves of his shirt to reveal perfect, unblemished brown skin. ‘Drink,’ he commanded, the words so strong they almost had a compulsion of their own.

Rhiley, inert, almost dead, bite marks marring the flesh. ‘But what if I…?’

Jude’s smirk was a complicated thing, humour and mischief and misery married. Morgan felt the press of the exorcist’s age then in that timeless smile. ‘Sweetheart, you can’t kill me. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?’

Morgan grimaced, a war of anguish and appetite manifesting in a shaking of the hands and the welling of saliva. A monster, a beast, Jude had said. Instinct and loneliness. That’s all they were.

He softly took the exorcist’s forearm and ran his tongue on the inside of the wrist, blood and magic pulsing in the vein there, before biting down. Blood, warm and strange, hit the back of his mouth. It wasn’t as coppery as what he was used to, not as salty, and the Baku gave it a distinct perfumed taste. When he pulled back to enjoy the image of red on skin, he froze.

Even in the dim light Morgan’s eyes didn’t miss much, candlelight as bright as day. ‘Holy shit.’

‘Cursed blood, so the legend goes, turns blue.’ Jude rested his chin on his hand, amusement twinkling in those full eyes. ‘At least it does for the people where I’m from, as long as magic is in their blood.’

It had a fine taste, better even than its red cousin, and he hungered for more. With blood running down his chin – Jude didn’t seem to mind the mess, busy as he was with sighing his pleasure – Morgan drank deep like a starving man. He knew immediately when the Baku hit his system. A familiar looseness in the limbs, a weightlessness that started out from his head and radiated outward, breaking the connection with the rest of the body. The light from the candles seemed to blur and dim, the room hazier than it had been a moment ago. A feeling of contentment, true relaxation the likes of which he hadn’t felt in years, stole over him. Morgan realised, belatedly, that this was muted symptoms of being high. He missed it. The euphoria dulling his predatory senses elicited a sigh of pure pleasure deep in his throat.

Jude’s catlike amusement grew at his obvious delight. ‘I thought you were meant to go for the jugular?’ the exorcist purred, slender fingers caressing a long neck.

Obligingly, Morgan took Jude by the back of the neck – softly, his own limbs weighing him down – and went for the man’s throat. He took his time with the bite now, savouring teeth against flesh, no longer fuelled by desperation but by something else, a heat of a different kind creeping up his own neck. Jude groaned sharply in a voice used to telegraphing its bliss. His pulse beat beneath Morgan’s lips, a birdlike flutter at odds with the man’s calm exterior. The thrill of it, adrenaline mingling with Baku and magic, made Morgan grin.

When that pulse became too weak Jude put a steadying hand on Morgan’s chest. The motion put a crack in his elation through which guilt and sobering panic began to pour, but before it could overwhelm him Jude broke into a slow, sultry smile.

Slightly breathless and face flushed the exorcist said, ‘Darling, you’ve been on your knees this whole time. Let me return the favour.’