Charm City (The Demon Whisperer Book 1) (14 page)

"You don't think what?"

"He did not recently bear the loss of his mother."

"He wouldn't lie—"

"She has passed over. But her soul ascended nearly three years ago."

"But— Simon had said the authorities wanted him to tend to her estate. But if she died three years ago… Then why are the police searching for him?"

"He needs to answer that. I am neither a keeper nor a dispenser of his secrets." He stepped backwards into the fog that gathered behind him. "I am only here to watch."

She went back upstairs to check on Simon. When she opened the door, she was assaulted by a cloud of pungent smoke and the sight of Simon sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his jeans.

Her jaw dropped open. "What on earth are you doing?"

He stood to pull up his pants, a sharp intake of breath as he fastened them. "Not taking it lying down. Somewhere a hell gate is going to open again and I've got to be there to stop it."

"In your condition? An hour ago you were barely breathing."

"As you can see, I'm feeling much better." He turned with a flourish of outspread hands. "Thanks to a little help from an Inuit shaman, who taught me to never leave home without an emergency kit. I just needed a little aroma therapy."

He crumpled a little, hugging his rib and coughing softly, looking like a good cough would really hurt. He waved at the layer of heavy smoke that still hung in the room. "Open a window and it'll clear right out."

"You're not better. Get back in bed."

"I'd be better if I can have a dip in your ugly little pool. That stuff made you whole after you nearly bled out." He gingerly rubbed his ribs. "I just need a teaspoonful of it to finish things off."

"It's not kind of pool."

"Fine. I'll swim, then. I just don't like going under. Water in the ears—
bleargh
."

"No, Simon." She shook her head with two tight jerks. "It's not a healing pool. It's…"

"It's…?" He prompted her with a roll of his hand.

Defeated, she sighed. "It's a portal. To my father."

"Finally!" He clapped his hands together, looking both furious and delighted. "A truth I can use. Maybe it's time I met your father so I can ask him about that hell gate I had to shut down."

She planted her hands on her hips, wanting to throttle him now that he was well-past the danger of dying. "Such self-preservation. You don't really care if you get yourself killed. What are you thinking, Simon?"

He just smiled, hard and dangerous. But his eyes held the truth. Pain. Self-loathing. He'd never run out of ways to punish himself because he'd never run out of reasons why he deserved it.

"You want to go? Fine." She grabbed his hand and got nose to nose and narrowed her eyes. "We're going."

He jerked his head away, suspicion in every line of his face. "Going where?"

"To Boston." Without releasing his hand, she strode from the room, pulling him behind. He was dead weight. Such a stubborn person.

Well, so was she. She leaned into the dragging, giving it a divine nudge. That made him move.

"No, no, no, no." He dragged his feet. "Thousand times, no."

Truly? She cast an impatient glare at him. He talked so big. Little big man thought he'd march up to her father, did he? Demand answers? Wave his fistful of charms at him? Oh, he was just a colossus of courage, wasn't he?

Until she mentioned Boston. Then the façade shattered. One thought of facing his past and he wanted to hide under the bed.

No. Not this time.

"Yes, we are." It took very little effort to pull him along behind her. He was in no shape to put up much of a struggle.

Panic made the edges of his voice brittle. "You have no idea what happened there."

Down the steps, out the door. Out of the street, she released her hold on him, knowing the three flights of stair would have robbed him of any desire to flee. She stepped to the curb and stood on her toes, scanning the traffic. "I know enough. You are stumbling in the dark, Simon. You're trying to forget who you were. You haven't forgotten her."

"Going to Boston with you isn't going to make me remember who I am. It'll just remind them. I don't want them to remember me."

She waved toward an oncoming taxi.

"Too late for that, I'm afraid." A cab slowed and she pulled open the door. "That hell gate was proof they haven't forgotten you."

On the flight, Simon drummed his fingers, grimacing at the scowls from the passenger beside him. Thirty thousand feet between him and the ground made him nothing but nervous. And what kind of magic kept these buses in the air? Nothing but bad juju.

At least they offered anesthesia. Several empty bottles stood on his tray table already, and the flight attendant was only halfway up the aisle. Ah, well. He'd catch her on the return trip.

Now, if there was only a way to charm her into letting him sneak a cig in the john...He sighed. Fricken underwear bombers. Had to ruin things for everyone.

Chiara patted his hand. "We'll be there in just a little bit."

He banged his head back against the head rest. "This is a nightmare."

"You worry too much."

"I don't worry enough, apparently. I'm charging headfirst into an ambush with a girl who wears a huge target."

"Shh. You're so pessimistic. Better watch yourself. They'll try to use your shadows next."

"Let them." He gripped his armrest so fiercely his fingertips paled. "I'll be ready."

"No, you won't."

"Why are we doing this? For that matter, what exactly are we doing?"

She reached over and squeezed his hand, entwining their fingers. "You're a good man, Simon. And you're a good mage, dabbler or not. But your shadows make it too hard for you to see where you are going. When we get to Boston, we are going to banish that shadow, once and for all."

He closed his eyes. The way she made it sound, he just had a raging case of VD that could be cleared up with a course of penicillin. "It's not as simple as you make it sound."

"It never is. That's why you have to tell me about her. I need to know everything. You need to tell me."

Simon raised his hand that she held, their fingers still clasped. "Can't you just look in and see it? It would be easier than saying it."

"I did see what happened. But I need to hear your heart's side of the story."

Her eyes, so big and dark and forgiving. Would his secrets be safe with her? They'd never been safe with anyone. Not even the men he'd called
master
.

But she was more than they had been. She was more than a magician or a shaman or a priest. She was a special breed, a blend of impossible divinity. Breathing alchemy. The embodiment of everything that captured his imagination. The men he'd called masters would crouch at her feet and beg for enlightenment, for protection, for a brief glimpse of possibility.

And she had saved his life. And she held his hand. And she asked him to trust her.

Simon took a deep breath and started telling the story he had never stopped reliving, every day, every fight, every night in his darkest nightmares.

"I was a stupid kid, who grew into a stupid teen ager. I was no different than any other. Loud music. Smokes. Anything to seem cool enough. And there were stories, you know, about Salem and magic, and the bitchin' things you can do with it. Me and my friends, see, we got our hands on some old books. Journeyman's spells. Basic shit."

"How basic?" Her voice was even, non-committable. Non-judgmental.

So far. It was still early on.

He scratched the back of his neck. "Bend to my Will, Fire Starter, that sort of thing. They never thought anything of it, and neither did I, at first. Long after the others forgot about it, I still practiced. I had something inside that was trying to reach out, and magic was the only thing that allowed me to reach in." He held up his hands, fingertips not quite touching. "I needed to make that connection, complete that circuit. So I practiced. I used to do tricks for the kid that lived next door. Sarah was nine, maybe ten. Used to look out her window into mine at night and I'd make something float, or appear in her room. The way she'd laugh—It was a game to her."

"Magic is never a game," Chiara said.

"Yeah, well, tell that to a stupid kid trying to impress a girl. Casey was a year ahead of me in school. Cheerleader. Theatre club. She was the girl every guy would have killed for a single kiss. But she was mine. She wouldn't have given me a second look if I hadn't conjured. That caught her eye. Made her think I was special. Made me think I was special, too. Until she left, for another. He had money. Guess the poor kid with the magic tricks wasn't enough. And the sod that took my place, well. I'd already lost her. He won, him and his fancy car. He didn't have to do what he did."

The memory of the shame he'd endured, the abuse. Five against one was a coward's game, an ambush. He clenched his fists, his teeth so hard the cords in his jaw bulged. And the way she laughed at him the next day in school…

"Well. I wasn't going to let him get away with it. He could have her, the trashy bitch, but he wasn't going to take my self-respect. I showed him who had real power. I went home, I got my book. I went to the park where they hung out, the hoodlums. I opened a circle, I conjured—"

"Oh, no, please say you didn't."

"I did. I was angry. I was beyond angry. And stupid, stupid me hadn't yet learned that a circle drawn in anger can only do one thing."

Her voice was a strangled whisper. "A demon."

"Not just any demon."

Chiara lowered her eyes. "Bal. That's how you knew him."

"You got a real thing for the nicknames, doncha? Well, your buddy Bal, he did the trick, alright. He hunted down that bullying bastard and tore him to shreds right in front of me. And I enjoyed every minute of it. Dick bag deserved it."

"Did he?"

"Back then, he did. And you don't need to try to make me feel bad because I have been paying for it ever since. See, Balazog performed the task he had been summoned to perform, and when he was done, he wanted to be paid for it. And he took his pound of flesh, and all the smiles that went with it—"

"Sarah."

He rubbed his eyes, feeling old, feeling tired.

"He didn't even kill her first. He took her straight back to hell with him, body, soul, life, breath. An eternity of torment for a little girl who never did anything but laugh at my stupid tricks. I tried to fix it. I studied. I apprenticed. I exhausted master after master and I know more dead master mages than there are living ones now. I alienated my friends, my family. They thought I was crazy. Mom had a breakdown when she thought I was ready for the nuthouse. She thought she failed me. All I wanted was to know one thing, how to correct one mistake. But I never learned it. And now what am I but a stupid man, making the same stupid mistakes again and again?"

Chiara just nodded and rested her head on his shoulder.

"That felt too much like a confession," he said.

"Confession, I hear, is good for the soul."

"Then why don't I feel any better?"

She tilted her face up toward his. "Don't you?"

He didn't reply.

"You have carried a lot of guilt for a very long time. Was this the first time you expressed regret? Sorrow? Being angry with yourself, blame—those things aren't contrition. You know you would never make that mistake again. You know deep in your heart that you will never again be that cocky when an innocent life is at stake. You've done your penance. You can heal. And you've also told me everything I need to know to correct this."

"You can't correct this one, love. The demon that has her is too strong."

"He is. But I'm stronger."

"You're not even full demon."

"Thanks for noticing." She grinned at him. "Anyway, I have a little something up my sleeve. You're not the only illusionist, you know. I'm holding all aces."

"You're starting to sound like me. And that's never a good thing. I hope you know what you're doing."

"Of course, I do." She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. "Mostly. I just have to sort the details."

Simon rubbed his mouth. "You have no limits."

"Oh, I have them. I just know where they are. See, people who don't know their limits spend their lived walking in the dark, all cautious, hands out, creeping one slow step at a time. They're too afraid they will come crashing hard against their limitations, like smacking into a wall. If they knew their limits, they'd be like kids in one of those inflatable bounce houses, jumping around like they could just about fly. And if they bounce into a wall, they see it coming, they turn a shoulder, and they realize it's not hard at all. Me, I know my limits. I know exactly how far I can go and I have the freedom of having my entire being available to use."

"Must be nice."

"It is. You'll see what I mean when we get you there."

"Not me." He rolled his head away. "I've gone much too far the way it is. All I want…is to go back."

"We are."

He smiled and squeezed her hand. She didn't know what he'd meant. Didn't matter. He loved her for getting pretty close.

No one had ever been brave enough to even try.