You see how that sounds.

  Derrek went on to explain how the CDC was dropping by later today, just as a precaution, but they, too, were convinced that it was just a case of your garden variety Third-World-Country Syphilis run amok in the body of a promiscuous young man. In our modern era of AIDS and unprotected sex, I could see their point, I suppose.

  “You didn’t notice his condition? I mean… really?”

  “It was dark.”

  Derrek gave me a droll look. “And you claim to be a psychic detective.”

  I stepped out of his way. “I claim no such thing.”

  Derrek stepped out of the operating theatre and rolled his eyes as he reached for his coat on the hook by the door. “If you couldn’t see what kind of terrible condition that boy was in when you found him, then you need glasses, Englebrecht.”

  I ignored his ribbing and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Back up a moment. You said something about him being with someone. As in sex?”

  “A preliminary examination of the rectum indicates that he’d had sexual relations at least a few times in the last twenty-four hours, so yeah. He was having sex. A lot of it from the tears in the rectal lining. Why anyone would have sex with a kid with tertiary Syphilis, I have no idea. It leaves me wondering about the state of the human race, you know?”

  “Very curious,” I agreed.

  He threw his hands up. “This whole town is curious, Englebrecht.”

  “Enjoy your steak and pussy,” I told him as he walked out the door.

  I admit I was unusually quiet on the drive up to Philadelphia that evening. Vivian and I had missed the K’s Choice concert at the World Cafe due to the “incident” (as I had come to think of it) but the follow-up band was a good, bluesy, local band that was more my speed, and that should have bolstered my enthusiasm, but didn’t. I hoped that Vivian didn’t notice, but of course she did.

  David Breyer showed up with some of his college buddies, but he quickly detached himself so he could sit at our table. We only had a cozy two-seater, so Vivian sat in my lap and David sat opposite us, his hand resting heavily on my knee under the table. David was a nice guy, a sort of younger, hotter version of Jeff Goldblum, all teeth and hair. He was studying to be a plastic surgeon, was smart and ambitious, and believed in dedicated relationships, even if they were with two people. I knew, even without asking, that he’d been saving himself all week and was horny as hell tonight. I thought that, too, would distract Vivian, but she had the instincts of a shark.

  “Nick had a bad day at the office today,” Vivian told David as she rested her head on my shoulder and listened to the last set from the live band.

  “I thought you worked for yourself?” David said with raised eyebrows. “That shop on the Strip?”

  I decided not to burden David with the gory details of the strange young man’s sudden, magickal onset of syphilis and consequent eruption of blood. Call it my good deed for the day. I just gave him a pleasant smile and said, “Ah, that. I got in trouble with my partner again.”

  David sat back and smirked. “Nick Englebrecht got in trouble today,” he singsonged. “That’s like saying the sky was blue today and water was wet.”

  “Smartass.”

  “Yes, it is. Thanks for noticing,” David answered with an absolutely straight face as he saluted me with his cappuccino.

  Vivian giggled at our exchange but I held up a hand for silence. “The only trouble I want to see tonight is between the sheets, thank you very much.”

  That lit David’s chocolate brown eyes up. “Speaking of which…”

  We settled the bill and headed out to his car. The designated driver, he drove us back to the apartment that he shared with one of his college buddies—he assured us Sean would be out all night—and as soon as we were inside the doors, David threw off his leather bomber jacket, grabbed me by the belt, and pulled me tight against him and the substantial wood he was packing in his pants. He cupped the back of my head and kissed me so hard it left my lips tingling, then proceeded to do some serious tonsil spelunking with his tongue. Obviously, I had underestimated his horniness in a big way, not that I was going to complain. I liked David. He was fun, didn’t take things too seriously, and I knew I could trust him to act responsibly. Plus, I, too, was horny as hell tonight.

  I was looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning, waking around noon with the warmth of my lovers tucked up under my arms. Morgana wouldn’t let me take anyone upstairs to the apartment we shared above the shop, so that meant if I wanted any action, I needed to go to Vivian’s place. Unfortunately, Vivian had morning classes at Lincoln Culinary—her last year, she was graduating next spring—so right after we finished doing the dirty, I usually took myself back home so she could study and get some sleep. It was going to be nice not having a clock ticking over our shoulders tonight.

  Vivian climbed up on David’s renovated countertop and stretched out like a sleek cat on her side to watch us make out for her entertainment, her eyes never leaving our tangled, groping forms.

  “God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” David told me as he ripped at the front of my shirt, several of my buttons pinging off the floor. His hand skimmed underneath, hardening my nipples with his touch. “You both are. I keep thinking you’ve had something done, but you haven’t, have you?”

  “Nah, I’m all natural,” I told him as I nested a fist in his unruly dark curls, yanked his head back, and snagged his Adam’s apple in my teeth, sucking ardently.

  “Jesus, Nick,” David gulped as I worked him up. I groped the front of his fancy dress trousers and was flattered to find him so eager. “You’re like some romance hero. I keep thinking you can’t be real, that I’m imagining all this.”

  We got that a lot, from David and from the others we bedded. Vivian and I were half-angel. It was inevitable, really. In the beginning, I was been afraid we might attract some obsessive stalker types, some who couldn’t let go, but it hadn’t happened yet. I had the feeling that despite what people like David felt, how much they liked the outside package, a part of them knew that what lurked beneath our pretty faces was all wrong and instinctively shirked at it.

  After all, in the end, David was one of God’s creatures. And Vivian and I were not.

  I tried to lose myself in the touch and feel of David’s hands, the lusty sounds of his voice as I cranked him up, but I’d had a kid die in my arms only a few hours ago, and his final expression of utter and complete Godless despair haunted me. He’d died horribly in writhing agony, died like a dog in the street. But died from what? Syphilis that he’d magickally contracted and had killed him in a manner of minutes? I knew some powerful witches, but there were none in Blackwater with that kind of black magic. I mean, that was seriously evil shit. The kid had obviously attracted some bad mojo.

  We retired to David’s bedroom, and while I happily serviced both David and Vivian’s most basic needs, I kept that question rolling around the back part of my mind. The sex was good, helped me relax and focus, almost like a tantric exercise. I could always rely on sex to sharpen my senses and give me new insight into a problem.

  Derrek said the kid was having sex. A lot of it. He’d probably been selling himself to Blackwater’s menagerie of bored, rich, closeted bureaucrats. That gave me a very good lead, should I decide to pursue this thing further. Blackwater was small enough that it had a very limited sex trade, as you can imagine, so I knew what doors to knock on when I got back home.

  By the time I had my epiphany, Sean had returned to the apartment—a few hours too early, I noted. He looked a little sheepish, walking in on the three of us, but then I saw he’d brought his hot, redheaded Asian girlfriend with him, and she was packing some exotic brand of clove cigarettes that I’d never heard of before.

  “Come on, man,” David started. He had me back against his pillows and he was very good at giving head, so this little interruption came as something of a nuisance.

  “Don’t be mad, roomie,” Sean told him with a twinkling smile. “I brought some peace offerings.” He held up his girlfriend’s stash. “Clove and hashish. It’s all the rage on campus.”

  David rolled his eyes. Sean was big into designer drugs, but he was strictly a lightweight—weed, hash, LSD, magic mushrooms. I mean, Jesus, he drank Joose and bought blotter acid with Hello Kitty printed on them. I liked to dance with the dragon myself on occasion, so I wasn’t going to fault him for such minor crap.

  The redhead sat down on the edge of the bed between me and Vivian and handed out her party favors. She checked us out before brushing a well-manicured finger up the soft line of blond fur bisecting my chest. “Aren’t you a pretty boy,” she said with a gleaming smile. Something about the fact that she looked Chinese but spoke with a broad, clipped Pennsylvanian accent left me amused. “I’m Kara. I’ll share with you if you share with me.”

  I glanced over at Vivian. She was lounging in bed, completely naked except for her red stilettos, licking the spliff that Kara had given her. I liked how at ease she was with herself. She wasn’t one of those stick-thin college girls who was terrified of calories. She wasn’t shy and she didn’t hate her body. She was working toward being a master baker, and she liked to eat. She had hips and boobs, all natural, and a sweetness to her skin like she’d been dusted down with confectionary sugar. She looked utterly edible at the moment, rubbing her legs together like a cricket as she watched the two of us from under her dark, luscious eyelashes. Vivian was hugely into voyeurism.

  I, on the other hand, was hugely into curvy redheads. “Viv?”

  “I like her,” Vivian said, stretching and sitting up on the bed, which made her big breasts bounce in an interesting way. “But if you get to play with Madam Butterfly, I want a shot with David and Sean.” She grabbed Sean by his 80’s-inspired skinny tie and kissed him, sucking the cold, sweet, aromatic smoke of his joint into her mouth before turning to David and passing it to him like a smoky snowball.

  I mean, you have to admire a girl who can do something like that. “You have a deal.”

  ivian was still sensing my tension as I drove her home the next day. She’d rented an apartment in an old, de-sanctified Evangelical church on the outskirts of Blackwater. Since the town had about a gazillion churches, I didn’t think anyone missed it.

  Seriously, Blackwater is like the Promised Land for the devout of whatever denomination. Alongside the usual menagerie of Christian churches, there were three synagogues, a Jehovah Witness Hall, and even one small Church of Scientology. And that’s not counting the various pagan covens scattered throughout the region that usually met up at different practitioners’ homes on a regular basis. It certainly made you wonder about the town—or it made me wonder, anyway. I didn’t think Castle Rock and Salem’s Lot, combined, had this many safeguards against evil.

  I wasn’t complaining, mind you. Soldier angels couldn’t commit bloodshed in a holy place—even a de-sanctified one—which made the town something of a safe haven for creatures like Vivian and myself. Notice someone following you? Duck into the first old building you come upon. Chances were good it was at some point a church or holy meeting hall of some kind. Presto, instant frustrated soldier angel.

  I’d found the apartment for Vivian after the Seraph Malach put her on his big fat hit list—and before he and I had buried the hatchet, sort of. I hadn’t seen Malach in months, at least, but I figured he was probably busy dealing with the truly fucked up politics of an empty Throne and the scrambled ranks of angels with no Godhead. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still watching us, only that he was too busy to do anything about it at present. I knew if we stepped out of line, he’d get seriously pissed. You don’t want to deal with a seriously pissed Malach. There weren’t many folks I’d cross a street to avoid running into, but he was certainly one of them.

  “Something’s bothering you again,” Vivian said from the bucket seat beside me as I pulled up the drive that wound around behind her apartment building.

  I parked in her spot and shut off the Dodge Monaco’s massive engine, then lit a cigarette as I tried to turn my thoughts into words that made sense. I ran a hand through my bed head before saying, “Morgana shared some insights with me yesterday. I’ve just been rolling her words around my head, is all.” I hadn’t told her about the dead kid. I figured that was my bloody bag to handle.

  Vivian leaned back and rolled her pretty, sea-green eyes. “You worry too much about what Morgana says. She’s just jealous.”

  “Of you?”

  “Of you, Nick. Don’t you get it?” She tossed her long, russet hair off her shoulders and gave me a narrow-eyed, cattish look. “No matter how much she develops her powers, she will never be as strong as a daemon. We’re like natural tuning forks when it comes to the Craft. What we do naturally from birth, they have to learn to do over a lifetime.”

  “They?”

  “Humans.”

  “You do know you’re half-human?”

  Vivian turned to stare over the rather unkempt grounds of the apartment complex. There was a blue dumpster overflowing with trash and some crows bouncing around the mess, picking through the debris. She rubbed her shoulders and looked troubled. “I don’t always feel human. Do you?”

  I smirked as I passed her my cigarette. “I felt pretty human last night when I was inside you. And David.”

  “That was fun,” she agreed as she sucked most of my cigarette down all in one inhalation. It actually impressed me.

  Her brow creased.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I’m just wondering if that’s it. You and me. You, me, and David. You, me, David, and his friends.” Again she shrugged. “I’m graduating next year. David’s graduating in another year. Guess that means everything ends soon. Did you know that David is talking about opening a practice down in Miami?”

  “We’ll find someone new,” I assured her. “There’s this club down in Philly called The Scene where the couples closer to my age group hang out. Sophisticated married types, so no more of that college scene stuff for you, missy.” I smiled as I leaned forward to peck her on the nose. “I’ll let you pick this time.”

  “Letting me graduate, huh?”

  “We can get one of those big, hairy, construction types you like so much.”

  She grinned as she returned the cigarette. Then a thought occurred to me, and I blurted it out before I really thought about it. “The ones at The Scene like to hook up with other married couples, so why not marry me?”

  She looked at me with upraised eyebrows like I was crazy. “Nick, are you really suggesting we get married so we find a better breed of swinger?”

  I thought about that as I smoked. “Nah. I just want to marry you, Vivian.”

  “For real?”

  “Yes,” I answered as I stared at the burning ember of the cigarette between my fingers. I had never been more sure of anything in my life. “For real.”

  “Sure you want to be married to The Whore of Babylon?” she asked, referring to the name that various and sundry people and other-creatures had called her over the years. It was not a badge of honor. “She can’t be trusted, you know. Everyone says so.”

  “Have you noticed the things the other-creatures call me?”

  “Good point.” She sat looking out of the windshield for some time. The sun was sinking low and the occasional flare of a firefly sparked against the glass. Finally, her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know, Nick. I really don’t know.”

  I tried not to let her answer bother me too much. “What we have… it’s not enough?”

  “It’s not that.” She shrugged but didn’t look at me. “I love you, Nick. And you’re so fucking sexy I can’t control myself around you. But I just don’t see myself as married. My mom was married. Humans get married. We…” She shrugged again.

  It wasn’t a perfect answer, but it was better than the alternative, that I wasn’t good enough, sexy or not. “Compromise, then. We move in together. Give it a year. If we’re still hot on each other by this time next year, we get married.”

  She relaxed visibly. “We get almost married?”

  “We could get a little house on the edge of town,” I said, hoping to entice her. “I have enough saved up for it. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about Morgana anymore. We could be together all the time. I could really apprentice you in the Craft. I mean, if that’s what you want.”

  I shut up. My heart was thudding in my throat and I was starting to feel like a teenage boy trying to cop a feel but afraid of pissing off my date. I had never experienced a fear like this before. If I pushed Vivian too far and lost her, I wasn’t sure how I would cope with that.

  She turned and scooted into my lap. She coiled her arms around my neck and kissed me softly and completely. Before long, she was moving her hips against me, and not long after that, I had her jeans off and was pressing her into the seat of the car while she moaned and writhed against me, kissing my face all over, and racing her fingers through my spiky blond hair.

  Her own personal brand of magick sparked between us, and soon all the fireflies outside the car were shining so brightly I had to squint under the power of their blazing illumination. They sparked as they collided with the windshield, burning out, dying. It only lasted until she climaxed against me and brought me with a lunge and a few deeply muttered words against her mouth. I emptied myself deep inside her. I gave her my lust, my love, my heart. She devoured me shamelessly.

  After that, we snuggled together like two lost children, still connected. I liked these moments when she let me hold and comfort her like some little girl who had lost her way. I liked the way her body felt pressed against mine, the way her head fit just under my chin. Honestly? I loved everything about Vivian. Her white skin and mahogany hair. Her candy apple scent. Her brainy, witchy ways, and how she could turn them on and off on a whim. Sometimes she was this fiery femme fatale, and I half expected her to show up in my bedroom in a leather corset with a bullwhip; at other times, she was soft and pure and innocent like a little girl who needed me to protect her, to fight her battles for her. She was the first girl who turned me on, drove me crazy, and left me wanting more, and more, and more…

 

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