Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) (33 page)

Sio buried a hand into her hair, jerking her head, angling it so she could hear him as he rasped under his breath. "Come for me."

It was as if her body had been waiting for his permission. The resulting detonation was apocalyptic. Molten waves of undiluted ecstasy erupted through every cell. Tian felt herself go rigid, clenching, convulsing, screaming around the shocking heat of his release as he spilled into her. It was like nothing she'd experienced, going on forever at full speed, sensation roaring through her head until she was deaf. The whole ordeal was mercilessly hot, perfect, right up until she lost consciousness and her entire world went white.

Her pulse was pounding when she came to. She was on the floor in the hall outside her door with no clue as to when her legs had given out, though it was easy to remember with vivid nerve-wracking clarity why they had done so.

Damn....just damn.

The Sight had short circuited her hardware and she couldn't see straight. Better to blame the Sight than to allow that Sio could manage that on his own. The suspicion was there though, no matter how hard she tried to shake it off.

Sio.

Tian forced her stroked out vision to track, willing the bright tracers blotting out large sections of the hallway to subside, as she searched for his massive frame. She found him on the floor, catching glimpses through her Jackson Pollocked field of vision as he made his way to all fours. It was a good thing she couldn't walk yet because she had the demented urge to go over to him and pick up where they'd left off.

With the added insanity of genetic compulsion and Goddess blessing the thought was unraveling. Sio was the first time Tian could recall wanting anything aside from an end and that was alarming. Any form of hope was out of the question, an evil she'd been avoiding for years because she couldn't afford it.

Tian closed her eyes, trying to shake the unfamiliar rush of settling in her bones. She gripped the molding behind her head, yanking herself upright. She ripped the thing off the wall, falling backward into it, but at least she was standing. Sort of. She sucked in the stale air of the hallway, relieved that the breath was ragged; that her chest hurt. She was relieved that she could focus on the protesting burn of oxygen in her system instead of her glaring emotional inadequacies and the lead-up that had driven her to this state.

She could still smell his skin. Smell the winter spice, cold air, and the promise of mind blowing sex. Tian opened her eyes. Sio had his arms braced on either side of her body. He was so close she could nearly taste him on every inhalation. Through the golden haze of her vision he stood out in sharp contrast. It took a full minute to realize that his mouth was moving. It took another minute to realize that the raw sound he was uttering was in the shape of her name.

"Tian."

His voice sent chills skittering through her quiet recesses. He looked half dazed, eyes wide and working to focus like her own.

"TIAN."

Sio placed a rough hand at the base of her neck and collarbone and pressed her against the wall. The hallway snapped into focus. She hit an instant flashback, reliving the moment when she'd begun to burn with liquid warmth. Tian blinked up at him because she was incapable of anything else.

I'm yours.

Sweet Mother she'd
said
that. Worse, she'd meant it.

He was the one thing she wanted above all else. Tian stood frozen in front of the one male she'd trade her next three breaths to have inside her, trade what was left of her mangled soul to have a future with and the realization was paralyzing. It was impossible to cope with the onslaught of emotion spilling through the electric fire of skin to skin contact, reciprocated. Something fractured in her skull, locking her down tight.

She'd crossed the line with him.

"I need to find the marker," she said. Her voice was gritty, empty, pathetic.

"Tian."

She shook her head fighting the lure of his voice. What a tragedy they were.

"Let go."

Sio searched her features for something she didn't know how to give him. Eventually he leaned back, folding his arms across the flat planes of his chest.

"I'm going with you," he said. His face took on a stubborn cast and the expression shouldn't have made her want to kiss him quite so badly.

"That's not necessary."

"I wasn't asking."

Damn it, he was pissed. Not that he didn't have every right to be.

"I need to change and you still owe Avery a bodily fluid so he can shift. I'll meet you in the kitchen," she said finally. Tian dragged herself away, opening her door on the silent plea that the conversation be over.

"It wasn't just a fantasy was it? Wasn't just my fantasy."

It wasn't a question either. Tian froze, swallowing around the arid state of her mouth. She could have lied to him, shit knows it would have been easier, but she didn't.

"No," she said, fighting the urge to bounce her forehead off the door a few times. "It wasn't just a fantasy." She pushed forward into her room, closing him out into the hallway. She slumped against the hard planes of the wood behind her. Physical compartmentalization was cake, but she was losing the battle to the personal mess.

The weather was abysmal as Sio followed Tian onto the front stoop. The rain fell in steady torrents, as if the darkened sky had opened up, intending to make good on earlier threats of biblical scale flooding. Expectoration from on high pelted the ground with the frothing, bouncing, bone chilling almost sleet that San Francisco had distilled into a hateful art form. It was still early, though how early was difficult to pinpoint given the miserable state of the climate. The streets were empty, as if they'd been abandoned during the night, as if the end of the world had hit before the flood and he'd missed it. The only indication of life was the electric whine of the Muni Bus off in the distance as it accelerated up an endless supply of hills and squealed reluctantly to its designated stops.

He stood with Tian in the alcove between the front door and the unsightly metal security gate while she watched the street. A muscle tensed in the side of her jaw. Her agitation, obvious or not, was instigating a fresh wave of his adrenaline. There was nothing safe about his life at the moment, sure as hell nothing sane. And the most unbelievable part about this whole mess was how easily he alternated between fighting to stay alive and thanking his lucky stars. He wondered briefly what day it was and if he still had a job. Then he silenced the semi hysterical lunatic cackle building inside his skull and headed into the street.

The security gate clattered shut and the air became oppressive, coating them in a thick film of frigid moisture that made it hard to breathe. Sio coughed into the newly soddened NorthFace jacket Avery had lent him and tried not to make a big deal over the fact that his skin was crawling. He grimaced and squinted against the downpour that dripped into his eyes.

"They're looking for you," Tian said.

Rivulets of water soaked her hair as it hung in sodden waves against her neck and shoulders. Thick trails of the stuff traced shifting lines into the warm gold of her flesh. He had a vivid flashback of doing something similar with his mouth, but it was squelched too soon by the uncomfortable weight of whatever was out there searching. He followed her diagonally across the street.

Tian's right hand was in her pocket. The other held a soaked paper lunch sack that Avery had handed her before they left. Her shoulders were hunched around her ears as she dodged the polluted streams that raged through the gutters and the cracks in the pavement. She looked like an image out of a graphic novel, the only spot of color in an otherwise gray wasteland of urban clutter.

"So," Sio said before clearing his throat. It was difficult to force enough air out to talk and was getting progressively worse. "Where is it that we're going?"

Tian glanced at him without breaking stride, dodging the random objects that popped up to thwart the natural agility of her movement. She glistened, fiery and inhumanly beautiful in the buttery electric street lights that were seconds away from going into permanent hibernation for the day.

"Union Square." She threw the statement out there as if she was suggesting they take time off from the survival racket and do a little sightseeing. He got the impression she was downplaying the destination and would have resented the attempt if it had been directed at him.
Tian's gaze lingered long enough to kindle a steady blaze under his skin, building until all of his sodden garments and the miserable frigid temperatures the Haight had to offer were welcome. Sio looked down at his hands and noted grimly that he was spilling steam like a Tibetan Monk in the middle of winter.

"Any particular reason we're wandering around the Haight at the butt crack of dawn instead of driving?" He sounded grumpy, but he'd take it. Grumpy was better than smitten, not that he wasn't planted firmly in both camps.

"Wandering would imply that we lack a specific destination," Tian responded, digging around in her pocket and lifting out an old fashioned silver key before rolling it across the knuckles of her right hand.

They shuffled past a darkened head shop and a couple of garish vintage clothing stores, taking advantage of the minimal shelter the short overhangs out in front provided. They avoided the doorways where decaying figures loitered in worn sleeping bags. Only one of them was human.

Sio wasn't sure how he knew, but he didn't question it. He'd seen enough in the last couple of days to know that the sense of wrongness emanating from several of the bodies wasn't a product of an overactive imagination. Tian gave those doorways a wide berth too, which made him feel less like he was making shit up. One of the non-human creatures leered at him from its sagging skin suit. It produced a small razor blade from under the rancid mass of its tongue and cut a boil from the loose gray flesh of its ankle. Then it stuffed the scab into its mouth.

Sio choked back a curse and increased his pace until he was walking directly to Tian's left. The overhang ended about halfway across his body and the acid rain runoff was pouring down his left side, trickling down the back of his collar and fusing the already saturated shirt closer to his spine.

"Okay," he said, fighting the futile urge to start wringing out his clothes. "Give me a reason why
I'm
wandering around the Haight at the butt crack of dawn, getting dumped on by this freak ass storm instead of hopping the 71 and taking it to Powell."

Tian stopped in front of a neon graveyard. The burnt out tubing was set behind a thick film of marker tagged Plexiglas in a display that was the ultimate personification of pop culture disillusionment. The bizarre collection surrounded a wooden door covered in tags and carvings. The entrance had been painted so many times the peeling had begun to mimic organic structure. Tian inserted the silver key into the lock which chattered in protest as she turned it.

"Driving would take too long," she said. Her tone was perfectly logical, as if she weren't walking into a video store as a viable option to their transportation problem. She leaned in to the door and it snapped open with a loud crack that made it hard to tell how much wood was left under the thickly painted layers of its hard candy shell. "We need to avoid being out in the open for as much time as possible while Avery shifts."

As Sio crossed the threshold the relief from the crushing pressure outside was instantaneous. He stood taking in the rows of lacquered plywood shelving, and the staggering amount of shiny plastic DVD cases. The ceiling was covered in dully glowing neon letters, wires, small bulbs, and enough circuit boards to make him feel like they were standing inside a busted computer modem staring at the pieces while all its guts hung out on display.

No offense, but...

"And the Vegas of video stores here counts?"

She shut them in together as they dripped lagoons onto the floor. "Like you wouldn't believe."

With the door shut the space was downright claustrophobic. And it hadn't been the Taj Mahal to begin with. It was so narrow that if he'd been inclined to do so he could have reached out and planted both palms on the shelves of the opposing walls. At the far end of the room the cashier's counter was set back into a small recess. It was embellished with three salvaged doors affixed to the front. Each one was cut to fit and painted in a different bright primary color. The top of the counter looked like recycled plank and the nearest side facing him was covered in an eclectic collection of kitchen cabinets. The pen knife carvings dug into the wood on the counter were similar to the stuff he'd seen on the door coming in.

Tian walked over to the bright red door at the far edge of the counter and kicked it a couple of times. The impact caused the citrine yellow glass knob in the front to rattle.

"Rise and shine, Dryad. It's time to get off your sap filled ass and open up a portal." Tian paused, listened for a second and shook her head. "Fucking non-diurnal bastards. Get. Up. Todd."

She ran a hand through her hair, pushing it off her forehead, cracking her neck in an unspoken expression of irritation. Sio swallowed, dully noting that the unconscious effect she had on him had gotten stronger. Tian took a couple of steps back toward the far wall and dropped the soggy lunch sack on the floor with a loud crack.

"Avery sent you a goody bag, Todd. Now get out here and quit wasting time." The inflection in her voice had gone back to being conversational, reasonable even, but Tian's application of tact was overtly threatening.

Whatever she had said worked. Small clumps of dark potting soil sifted out from under the counter. An awkward arrhythmic thudding emanated from somewhere in the ground. Tian stepped back again and leaned against a wall of shelves, crossing her arms over her chest.

The red door popped open and vomited up a load of dirt, and a viscous mess of roots or vines that looked like entrails. The store was overrun with the deep wet incense of moist earth, and it was like standing in the middle of the most well-tended greenhouse in history. Sio let the aroma curl around him like a long lost memory from the childhood he'd never had.