Spells of Blood and Kin (38 page)

He and Jonathan had done some wall climbing together the year before at a gym on the lakeshore. Without ropes, this was a bit more frightening, but Nick's hands were so much stronger now. Even without chalk, he could use his fingertips to grip the edges of the cheap yellow bricks of Jonathan's building. He could kick off his shoes and wedge his toes in the tiny holds. One toe hurt—he thought he'd broken it fighting with Gus earlier—but he knew by now that it would heal up quickly and well.

He took a break on the balcony below Jonathan's, stretching his arms and legs. Only a minute and he was fresh again, ready to keep climbing.

He wrapped his fingers about Jonathan's railing and swung himself neatly up, a campus he never would have been able to manage before, even at his training peak. This was more like it; forget cleaning floors and building shelves. He could become a hit man or a spy.

Jonathan's balcony door was not locked. Why would it be?

Nick slid it softly open and stepped inside.

The apartment smelled of last night's dinner—oil and vinegar, peppery sauce—and of people who'd sweated together in love and gone to sleep without washing up.

Nick stood in the doorway of their bedroom and watched.

Hannah lay with her back to Jonathan, face nested in her own tangled hair. One hand rested at her mouth, as if she'd almost forgotten not to suck her thumb.

Jonathan's hand curled over Hannah's stomach. They were going to have children, Nick remembered. Surely not yet?

As sweet as it all was, he was bored and a bit hungry. He cleared his throat.

Jonathan sat up fast. Hannah tried to, but Jonathan pressed her behind him.

“It's just me,” Nick said. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

“Shit, man,” Jonathan said, rusty-voiced, after a moment. “Just about gave me a heart attack.”

Hannah was squirming beneath Jonathan's arm, dragging the sheet up.

“Oh,” said Nick. “You aren't dressed. Well, I'll wait in the living room.”

He heard them whispering together as he turned his back: urgent, sharp, argumentative. Maybe there was something wrong between them. Maybe they'd break up.

Jonathan came out alone, in boxers and a U of T shirt. “My head's okay now,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

“Oh,” said Nick. “Shit.”

“Yeah. It was you, then.”

“Yes.”

Jonathan sat down on the sofa, staring at Nick with an expression that reminded him of being reprimanded by his father. Nick dug his bare toes into the pile of the carpet.

“Hannah has to get up early,” Jonathan said. “Maybe you should keep this short, whatever it is.”

“I just wanted to see you,” Nick blurted.

“In the middle of the night? After disappearing for a few weeks? We were worried, you know. Hannah wanted to report you missing.”

“But you didn't?”

“I haven't forgotten that time you randomly took off for Edmonton. I thought maybe you'd suddenly decided to go tree planting or teach ESL in Japan or something.”

“I had,” Nick admitted. “Forgotten the road trip, I mean. That was a good time, camping and everything. That music festival. Wow, the hash brownies. What was that girl's name? With the VW van?”

“No fucking idea,” Jonathan snapped.

Nick shook off the memory. “I actually came to tell you something.”

“If it isn't an apology—”

“No shouting,” said Nick, stepping closer and laying his hand over Jonathan's mouth. “You said Hannah needed her sleep.”

Jonathan's eyes widened. His breath, through his nose, whistled faster. His smell changed.

“You're afraid,” Nick said, wondering. “Of me. Is it because I hit you?”

Jonathan nodded.

“That was a shitty thing to do,” Nick said. “I'll try not to do it again.”

Nick removed his hand and laid one finger to Jonathan's lips to remind him to be quiet. Then he crossed to the bedroom door and shoved a chair under the doorknob.

“There. Now it's just us,” he whispered, returning and standing over Jonathan. “I came to tell … I don't even know. Maybe you won't like it.”

“Look,” Jonathan said, even more softly now. “Give it a shot. Tell me. It can't be any worse than the stuff I've imagined, can it?” He didn't sound sure.

“I've changed,” Nick said. “I'm different. I'm not like you anymore.” He couldn't quite bring himself to say
not human.
“When I met Maksim…”

Jonathan actually laughed. “Are you trying to tell me you're gay?”

Nick slapped him across the mouth. “Stop interrupting!”

“Fuck!” Jonathan said, feeling his lip where the blow had landed, checking his fingertips for blood.

“Would you just let me speak?” Nick said.

“There's nothing wrong with being gay.”

“Of course there isn't,” Nick said. “But that isn't what I am.”

“Have you been in the psych ward?” Jonathan said. “Is that where you met this guy?”

“Stop it,” Nick said, reaching out. “Stop fucking
assuming
things. You don't know. You don't know everything.”

Jonathan's breath wheezed through his nose again. Nick found he had clamped his hand rather tightly, and he loosened it a little, but not enough to let Jonathan talk.

“When did you start thinking you were better than me?” Nick said. “I thought it was her, for a while, but she's too nice for that, isn't she? You came up with it all on your own.”

From the bedroom, Nick heard footsteps and a thump.

The doorknob twisted on its short arc. Hannah: “Jonathan? What's going on out there? Jonathan?”

“He's fine,” Nick said over his shoulder. “Be quiet.”

“You're scaring me,” Hannah said.

“You're scaring yourself,” he said. “I just came to talk.”

“Nick,” she said, “I know you don't want to hurt anyone. I'm not sure you're feeling like yourself right now.”

“Of course I don't want to hurt anyone,” Nick said. “Unless someone wants to hurt me.”

Jonathan twisted under him, jerked at his arm.

“Don't do that. You aren't strong enough anymore,” Nick said. “That's part of what I'm trying to tell you.”

“Nick, you need to let Jonathan talk to me,” Hannah said. “If he needs help, I'm going to have to call someone.”

“Threats?” Nick said. “You don't have to do that.”

He let go of Jonathan and shouldered open the bedroom door.

It came off the hinges and knocked Hannah off her feet. “Oops,” Nick said. “Didn't mean to break it. Give me that.” He snatched the phone from her hand, turned it off, and threw it at the window; plastic pieces scattered, though the window glass remained whole.

Hannah backed away, hands out.

“Just stay in here. Shit, you're not going to do that, are you? Come with me.” Nick took her wrist, dragged her into the living room, threw her down on the sofa beside Jonathan. “I'm trying to be nice here.”

They didn't speak. Nick looked at their faces, identically wide-eyed and blank.

He clutched his own hair in frustration, squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck!” he said. “You're making this so much harder.”

When he opened his eyes, Jonathan had his hand on another goddamn phone.

Nick lunged, seized his arm, twisted.

Jonathan came off the sofa, yelling, and dropped the phone. When Nick released him, he knelt on the floor, cradling his arm against his chest.

“You should have listened!” Nick said. “I just wanted to talk.”

Jonathan looked funny: sallow-faced, eyes too dark. Nick wondered if he was going to vomit.

Hannah looked nearly as bad. But her eyes weren't focused on Nick.

Nick glanced over his shoulder.

JUNE 12

  
WAXING CRESCENT

The sandals at the base of the wall were familiar. Maksim laid his face against the brick for a moment, and the scent there was clear.

He untied his running shoes and removed his socks. This close and he wanted to slow down, wanted to turn back, almost. Wanted to walk back to his apartment and make coffee for Gus and tell her that Nick was gone. If Nick had any intelligence, he would be, after tonight.

Maksim did not smell any blood, though. Not yet. He might still have a chance to keep Nick from shedding it.

He cracked his knuckles and set his palms to the wall.

Climbing proved awkward, with several of his fingers still stiff and the healing scabs down his side still cracking. He had never liked heights, either.

He could hear nothing from within the building. Nick's scent stopped abruptly. A thread of fabric caught in a cracked brick smelled of him, and then nothing.

Maksim craned his head around. Above and to the left, the base of a balcony: Nick must have taken that route. Maksim hugged his weight close to the wall, pressed up on his toes, and swung up and out.

The iron rail creaked when it took his weight. Even underweight, he was bigger than Nick. He clambered up hastily, tearing his shirt.

Through the open door, a young woman watched him, open-mouthed—and before her Nick, poised and thrumming with violence.

Maksim bulled in and took him.

Nick had time to turn and inhale. Maksim caught him by the throat and squeezed.

Nick kicked and swore and hammered at Maksim's forearm. Maksim held on.

“You're hurting him,” the woman said. Maksim looked to her. She was backed into the corner of the sofa, hands raised protectively before her.

“Look to your own,” Maksim said. The other man was hunched on the floor, and he wasn't breathing quite right.

The woman darted forward, falling to her knees beside the other man.

She stammered something. Maksim did not listen.

He waited until Nick was purple-faced and gagging for breath and then let him fall.

“I will take him with me,” he said to the man and the woman. “You will not see him again.”

“But…” the woman said.

“What the fuck,” the man said.

“I am sorry,” Maksim said. “I should not have let him escape me. I hope you are not badly hurt.”

He bundled Nick up, arms behind his back. Nick wheezed and drooled.

Maksim asked, “Where is the door?”

The woman pointed. “When you take him back, are visitors allowed?”

Maksim blinked. “I would not recommend it.”

A few minutes later, hauling Nick down the fire stairs, he asked, “What did she mean, your friend? Where does she think I am taking you?”

He'd thought Nick capable of answering by now, but Nick only gasped and choked and leaned on his arm.

By the time they reached the ground floor, though, Nick had recovered enough to point to the place he'd left his bag. Maksim hefted it easily in his free hand.

“Will you follow, or must I force you?”

“I'll follow,” Nick rasped.

He was lying, of course. Maksim had to force him.

ANOTHER COUNTRY: A CENTURY AGO

Maksim had nearly ended Gus, once. He no longer remembered what city, what country, but he had found her in a barn. There had been a cock crowing, and Gus had been wearing a blue smock like a butcher would wear, and it had been bloodied like a butcher's too.

Maksim remembered waiting for her to wake up—from one of her rages? From a blow to the head? From a few days' worth of drink?—while he sat upon a milking stool, empty hands upturned on his knees. She looked childlike, still, in sleep, with the stained fabric bunched around her, hiding the wiriness of her limbs.

As he watched, the lines of her face tightened, and her eyes squinted. He met her gaze and smiled a little. “Augusta,” he said. “You have been busy.”

She did not smile back. “People busy themselves with me. You cannot blame me for answering.”

“Oh, but I can,” he said. “I ordered you to lie quiet.”

“That was days ago, Maks,” she said, stretching, her hands finding the rents in her smock and covering them over. She wrapped the garment closer around her, shivering a little under Maksim's gaze.

“You did not come away clean this time,” he said, shaking his head at the mess of scratches on her bared legs, the torn soles of her feet.

“I had to run away,” Gus admitted. “But some of them could not run after.”

“Is this what you wished for yourself?” Maksim said. “When you fretted inside the walls of your father's house?”

Gus shrugged one shoulder. It looked as if it hurt her.

“It need not be forever,” Maksim said. He turned fully toward her and withdrew the silver-chased dueling pistol from the pocket of his coat. “You need only ask,” he said.

Gus sat up straight, wincing. “Of course not.”

“Are you quite sure? This is no life for a girl.”

“I am no girl,” she said, baring her teeth to him. “And I like this life very well.”