The Demon Lover (17 page)

“Is it really such a good idea to include Phoenix?” I lowered my voice even though the wind was so loud I doubted she could have heard me if I shouted.

“We don’t have any other choice,” she replied. “She’s safer
in
the circle than outside of it.”

That gave me a little chill, but I told myself that these women knew what they were doing and that I was safer now with company than I’d been alone. When I put my hand on the doorknob and Diana called “Wait” from the end of the hall, though, I half hoped she meant to call the whole thing off. She was standing outside the closed door to the spare bedroom in which I’d been keeping Dahlia LaMotte’s papers, her eyes wide.

“We need some iron to keep the circle grounded,” she said. “I can tell there’s iron in here, but I can’t get it. Neither can Soheila.” She turned to Phoenix. “Can you?”

Phoenix opened the door and gave a little squeak. “Oh look, it’s like they’re waiting for us!”

I came down the hall and looked into the room. The five iron doormice, which I was quite sure I’d left weighing down stacks of manuscript pages, were standing in a line, their little paws held out like toddlers’, waiting to be picked up.

“Perfect,” Diana said. “Phoenix, could you …?”

Phoenix was already kneeling to pick up the doormice. I didn’t see how she could carry more than three so I stooped to pick up the last two—including the one with the paint splotch and broken tail.

“My little wounded soldier,” I said. “Called back into the fray.”

Diana gave me a quizzical look and whispered something in Elizabeth’s ear.

“Maybe,” the dean said, giving me a curious look.

“What?” I asked, my voice shrill against the moaning wind outside.

“You’re part fey so you shouldn’t like touching iron, but it doesn’t seem to bother you at all,” Diana said.

“Your body has found a way to neutralize the iron’s power,” the dean said. “Which might be why the iron didn’t work to keep the incubus out.”

“Fascinating,” Soheila said. “Casper will want to write a paper on it.”

“Well, we can tell him about it in the morning,” Elizabeth said with a rueful smile. “If we’re all still here in the morning.”

I thought she must be exaggerating the danger until I opened my bedroom door. In the light from the hallway (all the lightbulbs in the bedroom had been shattered), the room looked as if it had been ravaged by a wild animal. Salt, melted wax, and broken glass were strewn across the floor. The sheets had been torn from the bed. The mattress had been ripped to shreds. On the wooden headboard were five long gashes that looked like the mark of a clawed beast.

“You certainly made him angry,” Soheila said, examining the claw mark. I thought I detected a hint of admiration in her voice. “What did you say to him?”

I tried to remember our little dialogue, but like most lovers’ spats it was hard to unwind its logic, if any. Somehow it had gone rather quickly from him asking my name to me getting pissed off at him. Oh yeah, now I remembered.

“I told him that there was more to love than being good in the sack.”

Soheila’s eyes widened. Diana clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh and glanced over toward Elizabeth Book, but the dean was staring at something on the floor.

“I think this is his reply,” she said.

I came around the bed and looked at the floor. Written in the salt were two words:
What more?

“Fascinating,” Soheila whispered. I could barely hear her for the wind roaring through the broken window. It swept the salt and glass across the floor erasing the words—as if suddenly embarrassed by them—and I felt a momentary pang of … what? Disloyalty? As if I’d exposed him to the ridicule of these four women.

I shook the feeling away. Look at what he’d exposed me to! My boss, neighbor, roommate, and colleague were cleaning up my bedroom, literally picking up the pieces of a supernatural dalliance gone wrong. I hardened my heart to him and pitched in. I held the dustbin for Soheila and dumped the debris into the wastebasket under my desk. He’d pulled out all the little drawers—all but the locked one—and dumped paperclips everywhere. My notes for my book were scattered on the floor.
He
should be embarrassed. What kind of question was that?
What more?

While collecting the scattered pages, some of which were ripped and water damaged, I found the fairy stone under my desk. I put it into my pocket, and then sat down in the circle between Diana and Elizabeth. Soheila drew a fresh circle of salt around us, intoning something in Farsi that somehow made the salt stick to the floor despite the wind, and then sat down between Diana and Phoenix. There was a candle in front of each of us, each one held now by one of the iron doormice. I was glad to see that I’d gotten the one with the paint splotch and broken tail.

“This is a lot of iron for Diana to be around,” Dean Book said with a worried expression on her face.

“I’m fine,” Diana said in a strained imitation of her usual cheerful voice. It was hard to tell in this light, but I thought she looked pale and that she was pressing her lips together as though suppressing a grimace of pain.

Elizabeth Book lit her candle and then passed it to me. When we’d all lit our candles Elizabeth and Diana took my hands, Diana took Soheila’s right hand, and Soheila took Phoenix’s right hand. When Dean Book took Phoenix’s left hand, I felt an electric charge pulse through me.

“The circle is complete,” Elizabeth said briskly, as if calling a faculty meeting to order. “Let’s keep it that way. Soheila will recite the banishment ritual. The rest of you repeat these words to yourselves:
Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into darkness
. Keep repeating them and don’t let any other thought enter your mind …”

“Like a yoga mantra,” Phoenix said brightly.

Glancing at her, I noticed that she was the only one who didn’t look terrified. No doubt because she was the only one who didn’t know what was coming.

“Yes, just like a yoga mantra,” Elizabeth Book said with brittle humor. “A yoga mantra to save your life.”

Soheila began to speak in Farsi. At least I thought it was Farsi. The words blended into a stream of sound that intertwined with the gusting wind outside, like two rivers meeting. I began reciting the lifesaving yoga mantra:

“Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into darkness.”

The air coming in through the broken window grew colder. There were ice crystals carried on it, settling onto my skin. I opened my eyes and saw there were snowflakes swirling through the air and dusting the floor.

Just like a man, doesn’t care what he tracks in on his boot heels.

“Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into darkness.”

What more?
he had asked. That was just like a man, too. Pretending helplessness when anyone would know
what more
. What about decency and caring and really bothering to see—

“Begone, incubus. I send you away, demon. I cast you into—”

—who he was trying to seduce. Anyone who knew me certainly wouldn’t mess with my desk or my papers.

“—darkness. Begone, incubus I send you—”

And any man worth his salt would know that talking was at least as important as lovemaking. My fairytale prince had known that. He had told me stories.…

“—into darkness begone incubus I send you away demon I cast you—”

Although maybe that is what he’d been doing by showing me those dreams about the fairies marching. I’d asked him, “Who are you?” and the sex dreams had stopped and the marching dreams had begun.
Is that what you were trying to do? Tell me who you are?

A particularly fierce gust of wind blew against me, but it wasn’t cold. Although snow was now covering the heads and shoulders of my circle mates and ice had formed over the broken glass in the windowpanes, the wind that lapped against my face was as warm as a Caribbean breeze.
Yessss
, it crooned into my ear, sending hot waves down to my toes.
I want to know you and for you to know me. You and I have known each other before
.

I laughed out loud. It was the oldest line in the book:
Don’t I know you from somewhere?

But even as I laughed an image was blooming inside my head—the rolling heath, the long line of travelers,
my companions
fading into mist before we could reach the door … because the Riders were going through first … and then the one horse coming back.
For me
. He was coming back for me. Then we were in the glade—our wedding chapel—making love. We were vanishing into the mist together, but then his eyes widened into dark shadowy pits. Someone was calling him. “No,” I cried out—in my dream and in the bedroom in Honeysuckle House, “don’t leave me!” But he was already turning, looking over his shoulder, at
her
. The woman in green on the dark horse who bade him come to her and whom he dared not disobey.

My eyes snapped open.

You left me for that …

I couldn’t help myself, Cailleach
. The warm coil wound itself down the neck of my shirt and caressed my breast. I wrenched my right hand out of Diana’s limp hand and slapped it away.

“Get out!” I hissed. “I never want to see you again.”

For one moment the warm air turned into a hand and grasped mine, but I let it go—as he had let mine go so long ago—and then the coiled air snapped back like a rubber band and hit the window, shattering what was left of the glass. It whipped against the house like an angry cat’s tail and then crashed into the woods. I heard trees snapping and something close by exploded.

I looked down and saw that one of the cast-iron doormice had shattered. The other four were glowing red. Another exploded, sending shards into the air. One hit Phoenix right above her left eye.

“Get down!” I screamed.

Soheila grabbed Diana and knocked her to the floor. I felt Elizabeth’s hand on my back, pushing me over just as the third mouse blew, splattering hot molten iron. I heard Diana scream in pain and guessed she must have been burned by one of the drops. As I hit the floor I saw that the tailless doormouse was tottering on its little hind legs. I grabbed it—singeing my fingers on the hot iron—and tossed it away from the circle. I thought I heard the sound of tiny feet scurrying away and one last moan soughing through the woods. Then everything went quiet.

SIXTEEN

S
oheila helped Phoenix downstairs while Elizabeth and I helped Diana. Although Phoenix was bleeding and screaming, I was more concerned about Diana. She was barely conscious. Elizabeth and I had to practically carry her to the living room couch.

“I shouldn’t have let her get so close to so much iron,” Elizabeth said, stroking Diana’s limp hair back from her damp forehead. The freckles on her face stood out like spots of blood.

“Is there anything that we can give her … an antidote?”

“Do you have any rosemary in the kitchen?”

“I think Phoenix bought some for the stuffing.”

“Boil some water then, and steep the rosemary in it along with some black tea and mint. And bring a dishcloth. We can make a compress with the tea until she’s able to drink it.”

In the kitchen Soheila was cleaning Phoenix’s wound and murmuring a steady stream of soothing reassurances. “It’s all over. There’s nothing to be afraid of. No, you’re not going crazy.”

“You saw it too, didn’t you, Cal?” Phoenix asked when she saw me. “You heard the wind and saw the candles blow out and the mice explode, right?”

“Yes,” I answered, putting the kettle on the stove to boil. “It’s all over now … right?” I tried to catch Soheila’s eye. Phoenix wasn’t the only one who needed reassurances.

“Yes, it’s all over,” Soheila said, but she was too busy bandaging Phoenix’s forehead to look at me when she said it. At least I hoped that was the reason she wouldn’t make eye contact.

When the water boiled I made a pot of the rosemary-mint tea and put it on a tray with a shallow bowl and a checked dishcloth, which I then brought into the living room. Diana was unconscious. I sat on the opposite loveseat while Elizabeth steeped the cloth in the tea and then swabbed Diana’s forehead with it, all the time murmuring soft words of endearment. I felt like I was intruding, but I couldn’t budge until I knew Diana was okay. This had all been my fault. If I’d been sterner with the incubus maybe he would have left sooner. Or if I had asked for help sooner … The recriminations swirled around in my head, but Elizabeth’s soft voice combined with the splash of water and the soothing aroma of mint and rosemary soon lulled me to sleep.

I must have slept for a few hours because when I awoke the first rays of dawn, muted by the ice-coated windows, were spilling across the floor. Elizabeth Book was standing by my chair, her usually immaculate coif a rat’s nest, her face in the cold morning light lined and drawn. She was holding a phone in her hand.

“It’s your boyfriend, Paul,” she said, handing me the phone.

I took the phone from her but covered it with my hand and asked how Diana was.

“I think the worst is over.” She glanced at the couch where Diana lay motionless under Elizabeth’s fur coat so that it looked as if a giant bear was snoozing there. I noticed that one of the alpaca throws was over me. Elizabeth must have covered both of us in the night. “But we’ve got some other problems. Take your call and we’ll talk when you’re done.”

“Paul?” I said into the phone. “Is everything okay? Where are you?”

“I’m in Buffalo!” he cried, his voice more excited than I’d heard it since the Yankees won the Series. “My plane almost crashed! A freak storm came up out of nowhere! The pilot made an emergency landing in a cornfield. Everyone’s saying that it’s a miracle we all survived!”

“I’m so sorry …” A freak storm? Could it be …?

“No, don’t be sorry!” Paul started talking so fast and excitedly that I had trouble following what he was saying. I was also distracted by the possibility that I had caused the storm that had almost killed him. When I started focusing I heard him say: “It was the most amazing experience of my life. You should have seen the lightning! They say the windspeed was a hundred and fifty miles per hour. I really thought I was going to die, but then I didn’t. It just
clarifies things.
”

“Wow,” I said, wondering what exactly Paul’s near-death experience had clarified. “That’s great, I guess. I can’t wait to hear all about it. Can you get a plane from Buffalo? Or maybe drive from there? I think it’s about a five-hour drive …”

“Oh my God! You haven’t been outside or watched the news yet, have you? Take a look out your window.”

I was staring at my window but the panes were coated with ice. I got up and walked through the kitchen to the back door, not wanting to disturb Diana by opening the front door.

“They’re calling Fairwick, New York, the epicenter of the storm,” Paul was saying as I opened the door. “The roads are blocked in all directions in a twenty-mile radius of the town. It’s the largest ice storm ever recorded. What does it look like there?”

“It looks …” I tried to think of a word to describe what I was looking at. A sheet of clear ice, shimmering like melted opals in the first rays of the rising sun, spread across my backyard up to the edge of the woods. As the sun climbed up the trees they too began to glow—every branch, many of which were broken, twig, pine needle, and stray brown leaf had been encased in a sheet of clear ice that burst into fiery brilliance at the touch of the sun. “It looks,” I finally said to Paul, “like a fairyland.”

Paul told me he was going to the hotel provided by the airline for him and his fellow “survivors,” as he called them, to try to catch a few hours of sleep, and then would call me when he found out anything more about his travel options. After I got off the phone, I went back into the kitchen. Elizabeth and Soheila were at the table drinking coffee and watching CNN on my little portable TV. I poured myself a mug from the coffee-maker and sat down to watch.

“The Thanksgiving ice storm came out of nowhere,” a female reporter in a heavy fur-trimmed down parka was saying. She stood in front of a line of stalled cars at an exit sign for Fairwick. “Stranding motorists everywhere. Curiously, this is not the first time that the town of Fairwick has been the victim of freak weather. In the summer of 1893 the town was hit by hailstones carrying live frogs …”

“One of Casper’s chemistry experiments gone awry,” Soheila said, rolling her eyes. “I tell him not to mess with the weather.”

“And in 1923 a sandstorm covered the town.”

“The Ferrishyn Wars?” Elizabeth asked.

Soheila nodded. “Nasty creatures. I still find sand in my closets sometimes.”

“Sources in Fairwick say that the town has been without power since midnight.”

I looked at the electric coffee machine and the TV. “How are these working?” I asked.

“Courtesy of Soheila,” Elizabeth said. “Didn’t I mention last night that she’s a wind spirit? She can conduct energy, too. Now shush a moment. I want to hear how far the ice goes.”

The screen now showed a map of upstate New York. Fairwick was surrounded by a blue blotch with ragged edges—some graphic artist’s attempt to represent ice, I supposed, although it looked more like a malevolent microbe to me—that enclosed all of the state park to the east and north, but didn’t quite reach West Thalia to the west or Bovine Corners to the south.

“Oh good,” Elizabeth said. “At least it’s only our little valley. I think we can manage if it’s contained. We’ll call Dory to organize a visiting committee to check on the elderly and infirm, to make sure that they have enough firewood—if they don’t have generators—and food.”

“Brock and Ike can head up the salt truck and plows,” Soheila said.

“Thank goodness most of the students have already gone home for the holiday. I’ll have Casper and Oliver check for stragglers in the dorms.”

“Mara Marinca didn’t go home,” I volunteered.

A worried look crossed the dean’s face. “No, she wouldn’t have. I’m sure she’s fine, though, and she’ll be here later for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I’m not sure Phoenix will be up to cooking,” I said, remembering for the first time how many people I had invited over. “She was pretty wigged out by what happened last night.”

“I am worried about her,” Soheila admitted. “But I got her to bed by two this morning and cooking might take her mind off what happened.”

“Plus Dory Browne called to say she’d be by to help,” Elizabeth said. “Don’t worry about that. Here in Fairwick we all pitch in during an emergency. But there is something I need you to help me with right now. Would you mind taking a little walk with me?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Make sure you wear sturdy nonskid boots. The footing will be rather treacherous where we’re going.”

Since the entire town was coated with a two-inch layer of ice I thought Elizabeth Book’s warning was unnecessary, but when I saw she was heading for the woods I wondered if any warning was sufficient. Before the temperature had dropped the wind had knocked branches and even whole trees down; then the debris had been coated with so much ice that it had all melded together into a glittering, unmovable tangle. I couldn’t even see where the path was. While Elizabeth stood uncertainly at the edge of the woods staring at the wreckage, I turned back to look at my house. The shutters over my bedroom window had been completely torn off, and the rest of the shutters were missing slats and hanging crookedly from their hinges. The copper gutter had been wrested from the north eave where it hung limply, twisted like a chewed up swizzle straw. So many slate tiles were missing from the roof that it looked like a checkerboard.

“What a spoiled brat!” I cried. “That demon’s little temper tantrum is going to cost me thousands of dollars in repairs.”

Elizabeth Book turned around and looked at the back of my house. “Yes, that’s the problem with incubi—they’re all libido. And he can’t use being a demon as an excuse. Soheila’s a demon and look how evolved she is! Honestly, though, I’m surprised the damage isn’t worse. From the state of these woods I’d say the wind he summoned was moving at a hundred twenty-five miles per hour. If it had hit your house at that velocity it wouldn’t be standing. Something must have lessened the impact …” She switched her gaze from the house to me. “Almost as if you’d managed an aversion spell before the wind hit or …”

“I don’t know any spells,” I said somewhat petulantly, peeved that the dean wasn’t taking my house damage seriously enough. “Should I? You said before that you thought I had fairy blood, not that I was a witch … Is being a witch hereditary?” I asked, suddenly overcome with all the unknowns in this new world I’d stumbled into.

“There are witch families that have passed down their craft from generation to generation,” Dean Book said as she stepped over a downed pine bough, which the ice had turned into a festive Christmas decoration. “I myself come from a long line of witches. No one is sure how much of being a witch is nature or nurture. Some believe that the original witches interbred with the fey, which is what gave them their power; but the more reactionary antifey witches believe that fey blood cancels out a witch’s power.”

“There are reactionary witches?” I asked, scrambling after her, grasping ice-slick branches to keep from slipping. It felt like we were walking through the ruins of a strange and foreign world. The ice rings of Saturn, perhaps, or the Jotunheim, the glacial home of the Norse ice giants. The violence that had caused the wreckage was frightening and yet the effect was oddly beautiful. Giant trees had been snapped in two, but pinecones, acorns, and even the delicate yellow flowers of witch hazel trees had been preserved in ice like sugared treats to put on top of a cake. It seemed an appropriate setting in which to learn about this other strange world that Dean Book was describing.

“I’m afraid so,” she told me with a pained look. “There are those who would have us renounce all ties to the fey. But if we did, then the last door to Faerie would close entirely. No one would ever be able to get out again …”

She paused as we reached the honeysuckle thicket. The ice-sheathed snarl of vines and branches looked as if it had been spun out of sugar. Jeweled shapes glimmered in the crooks of vine and branch like Christmas lights. Peering closer I made out the shapes of small birds, tiny mice, voles, and chipmunks—all the tiny creatures that had died in the thicket. Elizabeth cupped her gloved hand around a frozen chickadee. Nestled in her palm it looked like an exotic jewel.

“Why do so many creatures die here?” I asked.

“These are the Borderlands,” she said. “Small creatures lose their way. Even large creatures—very powerful creatures—lose their way between our world and Faerie. More and more get trapped between the worlds each year. The door is narrowing and opening for shorter periods. That’s why we were so excited when we realized you might be a doorkeeper.”