Evocation, p.28
Evocation, page 28
Rhys immediately flushed scarlet and stammered something incoherent before Leda’s ringing laughter cut him off.
“He was right when he called you a consummate Catholic! So cute.”
“Excuse me,” David muttered, brushing past them both. Leda tried to say his name, to entice him back into the kitchen and into good spirits, but he pretended like he didn’t hear. He just found a quiet seat in the lively living room, doing his best not to look back at Rhys.
Leda sent everyone home after a few hours, though David got the impression that on any other night the party would have raged on well into the night. Moira gave David a kiss on the cheek before she left, and Rhys, perhaps emboldened by the beer or the late hour, followed suit before gathering up his coat and wallet. They went home to Jamaica Plain and left him to Leda’s hospitality, and David couldn’t help but notice that the apartment was a little dimmer without them in it.
The Murphy bed was a piss-poor substitute for his ergonomic Swedish mattress, but he made do. He managed to snag a few restless hours of shuteye, then hauled himself out of bed early for a scalding hot shower. He itched for his routine, for his morning protein shake and HIIT session, but the shower soothed the worst of his nerves.
When David emerged into the kitchen, Leda was standing at the stove in sweatpants and a slouchy men’s tank top, briskly scrambling eggs. She smiled at him, her labret piercing winking. “Morning. You hungry?”
“I am, actually,” David said, leaning against the counter. “Coffee?”
Leda pushed him a full mug. Unsweetened with a splash of cream.
“How did you sleep?”
“As well as I ever do in someone else’s house.”
“Like shit, then. You’re looking pretty rough around the edges.”
Tossing a hand towel over her shoulder, Leda began to portion out two plates of eggs. She looked him over, her piercing gaze cutting right through any lies he could muster. It reminded him of his father, if his father had ever looked at him like that out of love, not bottom-line appraisal.
“I think we need to pick up our conversation from last night about you not doing so hot. What’s been going on?”
David sipped his coffee and stabbed at his eggs for a minute, working up the right words. Asking for help was not his strong suit. Asking from one of the only people he actually admired felt like adding insult to injury. “I can’t channel, I can’t sleep, I’m exhausted all the time… And I keep having these blackouts. I’ll be fine, and then I’ll start getting lightheaded and sick to my stomach and seeing things…”
“What kind of things?” Leda said, all the sparkle gone from her eyes. She was worried about him. That somehow made the conversation harder.
“I don’t know. Memories, I think. Memories that aren’t mine.”
“And you think this has something to do with that old story Dad used to tell to scare his business partners?”
David’s eyes skimmed hand-drawn sigils taped to potted plants and appliances, her tiny household altars of pennies and red thread and pinches of tobacco meant to draw and trap energies to be used to power spells later. If anyone could believe what he was afraid to even let himself consider, it was Leda.
“Deals have two sides to them. Everything comes with a price,” he said.
“If that’s the case, why didn’t the deal take Dad? Or his dad or his dad?”
“Contracts have loopholes. Trust me, I’m a lawyer.”
“Ass,” Leda murmured, doctoring her coffee with powdered creamer and a shot of vanilla syrup.
“The contract was full of lots of esoteric bullshit,” David said, following her into the living room and taking a seat on the ottoman. “Something about a demon named Baelshieth. Ring any bells?”
“None.”
“Rhys found the name scattered through Evgeni’s records.”
“And you think this Baelshieth character is crawling around inside your head? That sucks, man.”
“You don’t seem worried about your own health at all,” David countered, bristling.
Leda let out a triumphant cackle of laughter. “I’m no Aristarkhov son. Just because Dad’s blood is in my veins doesn’t make me a viable heir to any grandfathered demon contract. I never thought I would appreciate medieval sexism, but here we are. I’m assuming you all came here because you need my help? No offense, David, but you aren’t really one for social calls.”
“None taken,” David said.
Leda tapped a short black fingernail against her lips, ruminating. “I wish I knew more about demons, but I just don’t work with them. I can commend you to some wonderful Satanists, although most of them don’t really believe in the Devil in the traditional sense. My tattoo artist does, though, and he knows his way around an unhallowed bargain.”
“Rhys has got the research covered,” David said. “I was hoping you might be able to give me advice on how to, I don’t know, handle this? Is there any avenue we haven’t explored yet? I can’t keep getting sicker, Leda. I can’t.”
“Well, have you tried to talk to it? You don’t really know what it wants, do you?”
“It wants to wreck my life,” David muttered, and the venom in his words surprised him. He hadn’t realized how much he hated the thing growing inside him until that moment.
“It sounds like you’ve only tried to repress this spirit, and that isn’t working. Sometimes the best way to face darkness is to walk right into it.”
“Yes, well, I’ll keep that in mind,” David said. His headache was starting to come back, building in his ears like the pounding of a distant war drum. The dizziness would follow, and if he was lucky, that was all that would follow. He passed a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Just think it over,” Leda said. “There’s no need to rush. Kick back, my place is your place. Just let me know if you decide to summon any demons; put a sock on the door or something.” She stood and gathered up their dishes, and hummed to herself while she wandered back into the kitchen.
David was left with nothing but silence, until Leda poked her head around the corner of the room and said, almost as an afterthought: “I guess we’ll figure out how serious this thing is on your thirtieth, huh? Live through that and you’re probably fine for life.”
The muscles in David’s stomach clenched. “What do you mean ‘on my thirtieth’?”
“The timeline,” Leda said, looking genuinely confused. “On the curse?”
“What timeline?” David demanded.
“Oh God, I thought you knew!” Leda exclaimed, black eyes going wide. “It’s part of that old story. Maybe you just forgot. Or, you know what, maybe I heard about it when I went flipping through dad’s journal looking for juicy blackmail.”
He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, but he wasn’t sure his legs were trustworthy at the moment. “What timeline?”
“The demon is supposed to come to collect when the Aristarkhov turns thirty. That’s the terms and conditions of the soul-snatching. At least according to folklore.”
David’s mouth was dry as ash, and there was a tinny ringing in his ears. “My birthday is in a week,” David said tightly.
“It’s an old story,” Leda sighed. “Details get exaggerated. Demon deals don’t just kill people, and I’ve never heard of one being transferable anyway.”
“One minute ago, you were on board with the idea.”
“I can hold multiple potentialities up here without committing to any of them,” Leda said, tapping her forehead. “Chaos magician, remember? We operate in multiple realities at once. In one reality, there’s a demon out for your soul. In another reality, you’re overworked from playing psychic since you were a kid and will probably be fine. No use committing to one until we know which one we’re living in.”
“Fine, fine,” David muttered. In that moment, he wanted Leda to disappear. He wanted to be left alone with the darkness and his own despair, to mourn the thirties he might never get.
But that, he reminded himself quickly, would be unproductive. He had to focus. He had to force himself through.
“I should get going,” he said, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his coat. God, his head was killing him.
“David,” Leda started, looking injured. David didn’t let her get any further. If she tried to press him to stay, he would give in. It was too tempting to curl up in Leda’s house and let his sister fuss over him while the world went on turning outside his door. He needed to get back to Rhys and Moira, he needed to get back to his day job, and he needed to keep working to unravel his curse. He didn’t have any other choice.
“I’m fine, Leda. Really.”
Leda pressed her lips together skeptically, but then she nodded. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
David gave his sister a brisk kiss on the cheek before gathering his keys and his wallet. They had never been big on sweet talk and physical affection, not even when they were children, and David was still getting to know the woman she had grown into, but she accepted the small gesture of familial love graciously.
“Me too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
DAVID
David tried to return to his life at the firm to the best of his ability the next day. His employer threatened to put him on extended leave, but David, through a mixture of slick talk and no small amount of charm, managed to wiggle out of the worst of the discipline and got away with a slap on the wrist. He put on his favorite suit, smiled with all his teeth at anyone who insinuated that he should take some time off, and threw himself into his work with an enthusiasm that bordered on feral. Psychic breakdown or no, he was not going to fall behind. He was not going to sacrifice all he had worked so hard to build. He made it two days before the spirit sickness caught up with him. He ended up falling asleep on his lunch break in his car dreaming of Rhys’s steely eyes holding him steady in place, Moira’s warm fingers curled around his own. He ached for both of them in different ways, and as his condition continued to worsen, there seemed to be no use in fighting it. He didn’t have the energy for ego anymore, or for denying himself.
In the end, David only lasted until the end of the work week before picking up the phone. When he heard Rhys’s “hello” on the other end, prim and crisp, relief washed over him.
“Rhys. Yes. Hi.” God, he sounded desperate. David pulled it together. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Nothing important,” Rhys said, with a shuffle of papers that said he was lying. “What do you need, David?”
It wasn’t an irritated question. It was broad and open, inviting even. If David didn’t know better, he would have said that Rhys was happy to hear from him. David was still getting used to that.
“I was hoping we could pick back up where we left off before my little… incident.”
“It’s been more than one incident, David,” Rhys said, and oh no, he sounded concerned. David could handle a lot from Rhys: rivalry, arguments, sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. But kindness was too much. That was too close to something real, something David knew he could never have, no matter what Moira was willing to allow. Real closeness between Rhys and David was a live wire capable of setting the world on fire, and it was only a matter of time before the sparks between them grew into a destructive, out-of-control blaze.
“I was thinking of going back to Lorena’s,” David said. “She’s one of the smartest magical people in the city. If she can lift the curse, then our problem is solved.”
And then we won’t have any more recourse with one another, David thought. It was sobering. Even though he would give anything to be well again, the thought of losing all the ground he had gained with Rhys and going back to icy professionalism wasn’t pleasant.
Rhys cleared his throat on the other end of the phone. Maybe, David mused dangerously, Rhys was thinking the same thing.
“Moira and I can meet you there. Just say when.”
“Can you come tonight?” David asked, and there was that pathetic desperation again, worming its way into his voice. An Aristarkhov was never desperate, but David was now. If you had asked David how he thought he would face death before all this happened, he would have said that he would go down alone, with a sneer on his face and a haughty tilt to his chin. But it turned out that the prospect of dying was actually fucking terrifying, and it made David want to barricade himself away from the world with the people he cared about. That number had always been pitifully low, and Rhys McGowan had always been on the list, no matter how much David tried to cross out his name.
“Moira works until five. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to skip out on her job.”
“I want to see her,” David said. And why couldn’t he just stop talking? He had barely been able to tolerate Moira not three months ago, and now he didn’t feel like he could make it to the end of the week without a hug from her. The spirit sickness must be rotting his brain, lighting up adolescent needs for affection and approval that he had thought long ago smothered. Or maybe this was who he really was, under the bravado and the money and the glossy job: a scared child who couldn’t do anything by himself. “I can wait until she’s free.”
“I’ll bring her,” Rhys said, in a warm, soothing voice that settled low into David’s stomach. “We’re going to figure this out, alright?”
David closed his eyes and pressed the phone tighter to his ear, savoring the sound of Rhys breathing on the other end. Rhys was his High Priest now, and he was probably only being gentle out of obligation, or pity. But David wanted to pretend, just for a moment, that Rhys’s kindness meant something more. That whatever was left between them wasn’t soured and unsalvageable.
“David?” Rhys asked.
David’s eyes flashed open. “That sounds good to me. Just text me when you’re headed over and I’ll meet you at the botanica.”
“Take care of yourself until then, please.”
And with that, Rhys hung up and left David feeling hot and cold all at once.
Moira and Rhys met David on the sidewalk outside Lorena’s botanica. David, who had been nervously smoking through a pack of cigarettes for the last fifteen minutes, couldn’t help the physical reaction that overtook him when he saw them striding across the street. His heart leapt into his mouth at the sight of Rhys’s black curls, and his arms opened instinctively to Moira, who stepped right into his embrace like she belonged there. David closed his eyes and breathed in her sandalwood perfume, allowing her energy to wash over him. David rested his chin on the crown of her head and rubbed a circle between her shoulder blades, sending her soothing signals through the point of contact. I’m alright, he was saying. I’m not dead yet.
Rhys stood a polite distance away, trying not to look at them. There was a line of confusion between his brows. Confusion, or anguish.
“Shall we go inside?” Rhys asked.
David nodded, opening the door for them both. Rhys usually scowled when David tried to do anything chivalrous for him, but this time he stepped through the door without complaint.
The botanica was blessedly empty, probably because it was a rainy evening and almost closing time.
“Lorena?” David called.
“I’m here, mijo,” Lorena replied. The trio turned a corner to find Lorena standing at the counter, fingers hovering over three gilt-edged tarot cards. The High Priestess, The Chariot, and the Hanged Man. “And you all are right on time.”
If David had been raised in a different family, he might be a little spooked by Lorena’s uncanny abilities, but he knew her too well to be surprised. Of course she had divined they were coming.
“Hello, Lorena,” Moira said courteously. Rhys echoed her, obeying the sort of unspoken protocol that came with conversing with someone exponentially more powerful than yourself.
Lorena flipped the cards back into the deck and shuffled idly while she looked David up and down. “Have you finally come to your senses and decided to let people help you?”
David considered arguing with her, but there was no point. She could see with naked clarity how hard he was leaning on Rhys and Moira, and she knew he needed her expertise. So, he just nodded, making the gesture as deferential as possible.
And he told her about the curse, all of it, down to every scrap of conflicting information. Lorena just listened with calm, dark eyes, because of course the cards had already told her everything she needed to know.
“We haven’t made any progress on breaking the curse,” David finished. “I’m out of my depth, and I’m running out of time.”
“Time?” Rhys echoed, shooting David a dark-eyed look.
David swallowed hard. “When I talked to Leda, she reminded me about a part of the legend I had forgotten. The Devil is supposed to come to collect on the Aristarkhov deal when the heir turns thirty.”
Rhys went a bit ashen. “David, your birthday is in five days.”
“I know, I know,” David said, gritting his teeth against another wave of nausea. The room spun for a few minutes, then settled. “I just found out, and I wasn’t even sure it was something to be taken seriously. But now I’m willing to consider any possibility, so long as it helps me.”
Moira’s eyes gleamed strangely in the dim lighting of the botanica, and for a moment David thought she was going to cry. But then she stepped forward and pressed her palms against the glass countertop, fixing Lorena with a steely look. “You have to help him, Lorena.”
“Very bold of you to say,” Lorena said.
“She doesn’t mean any disrespect,” Rhys said quickly.
“I’m sure she doesn’t. Even the Syrophoneician woman asked Jesus for what she wanted, isn’t that right?”
“Right,” David said encouragingly, even though the Biblical reference was lost on him.
“Please,” Moira added, with unashamed earnestness that made David want to hug her all over again.
