One hand clasped about my middle, I pushed my fingertips into my forehead. I really didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t as if Kotex made a pad for this kind of a thing. “So how do I let this demon know I agree to owe it a favor?”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You just did, then.”
I felt ill, not liking that a demon had such a tie to me that it would know the moment I agreed to its terms. “No paperwork?” I said. “No contracts? I don’t like verbal agreements.”
“You want it to come here and fill out paperwork?” he asked. “Think about it hard enough and it will.”
“No.” My gaze dropped to my wrist. There was a small tickle. My face went slack as it grew to an itch and then a slight burning. “Where are the scissors?” I said tightly. He looked around blankly, and my wrist started to flame. “It’s burning!” I shouted. The pain in my wrist continued to grow, and I pushed at the gauze, frantically trying to get it off.
“Get it off! Get it off!” I shouted. Spinning, I flipped the tap on full and shoved my wrist under the water. The cold water soaked through, quenching the burning sensation. I leaned over the sink, my pulse pounding as the water flowed, pulling away the pain.
The damp night air breezed in past the curtains, and I stared past the dark garden and into the graveyard, waiting for the black spots to go away. My knees were weak, and it was only the rush of adrenaline that kept me upright. There was a soft scraping sound as Nick slid a pair of scissors to me across the counter.
I turned off the tap. “Thanks for the warning,” I said bitterly.
“Mine didn’t hurt,” he said. He looked worried and confused, and oh so bewildered. Grabbing a dish towel and the scissors, I went to my spot at the table. Wedging the blade through the gauze, I sawed at the soggy wrap. I flicked a glance up at him. Tall and awkward, he stood by the sink, guilt seeming to pour from his hunched posture. I slumped.
“I’m sorry for being such a crab, Nick,” I said as I gave up on cutting it off and started to unwind it instead. “I would have died if it hadn’t been for you. I was lucky you were there to stop it. I owe you my life, and I’m really thankful for what you did.” I hesitated. “That thing scared the hell out of me. All I wanted was to forget about it, and now I can’t. I don’t know how to react, and yelling at you is very convenient.”
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth, and he turned a chair so he could sit before me. “Let me get that for you,” he said, reaching for my hand.
I hesitated, then let him pull my wrist onto his lap. He bowed his head over my wrist, and his knees almost touched mine. I really owed him more than a simple thanks. “Nick? I mean it. Thank you. That’s twice you saved my life. This demon thing will be all right. I’m sorry you got a demon mark helping me.”
Nick looked up, his brown eyes searching mine. I was suddenly very conscious of how close he was. My memory went back to feeling his arms around me, carrying me into the church. I wondered if he had held me all the way through the ever-after.
“I’m glad I was there to help,” he said softly. “It was kind of my fault.”
“No, it would have found me no matter where I was,” I said. Finally the last wrap was gone. Swallowing hard, I stared at my wrist. My stomach twisted. It was entirely healed. Even the green stitches were gone. The raised white scar looked old. Mine was in the shape of a full circle with that same line running through it.
“Oh,” Nick murmured, leaning back. “The demon must like you. It didn’t heal me, just stopped the bleeding.”
“Swell.” I rubbed the mark on my wrist. It was better than a bandage—I guess. It wasn’t as if anyone would know what the scar was from; no one had been dealing with demons since the Turn. “So now I just wait until it wants something?”
“Yeah.” Nick’s chair scraped as he stood up and went to the stove.
I propped my elbows up on the table and felt the air slip in and out of my lungs. Nick stood at the stove with his back to me and stirred a stewpot. An uncomfortable silence grew.
“Do you like student food?” Nick said suddenly.
I straightened. “Beg pardon?”
“Student food.” His eyes went to the tomato on the sill. “Whatever’s in the refrigerator over pasta.”
Understandably concerned, I pushed myself upright and tottered over to see what was on the stove. Macaroni spun and rolled in the pot. A wooden spoon sat next to it, and my eyebrows rose. “Have you been using that spoon?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
I reached for the salt and dumped the entire canister into it.
“Whoa!” Nick cried. “I already salted the water. You don’t need that much.”
Ignoring him, I tossed the wooden spoon into my dissolution vat and pulled out a metal one. “Until I get my ceramic spoons back, it’s metal for cooking and wooden for spells. Rinse the macaroni well. It ought to be okay.”
Nick’s eyebrows rose. “I would think you would use metal spoons for spells and wooden for cooking since spells don’t stick to metal.”
I made my slow way to the fridge, feeling my heart pound from even this little exertion. “And why do you suppose spells don’t stick to metal? Unless it’s copper, metal screws everything up. I’ll do the spell crafting if you don’t mind; you do dinner.”
Much to my surprise, Nick didn’t get all huffy and testosterone laden but only gave me that lopsided smile of his.
A jolt of pain broke through the amulets as I tugged the fridge open. “I can’t believe how hungry I am,” I said as I looked for something that wasn’t wrapped in paper or plastic foam. “I think Ivy may have slipped me something.”
There was a whoosh of water as Nick dumped the macaroni to drain. “Little cake thing?”
I pulled my head out and blinked at him. Had Ivy given him one, too? “Yes.”
“I saw it.” His eyes were fixed on the tomato, steam billowing around him as he rinsed the macaroni. “When I was doing my master’s thesis, I had access to the rare-book vault.” His brow pinched. “It’s right next to the ancient-book locker. Anyway, the architectural designs of preindustrial cathedrals are boring, and one night I found a diary of a seventeenth-century British priest. He had been tried and convicted of murdering three of his prettiest parishioners.”
Nick dumped the pasta back in the bowl and opened a jar of alfredo. “He made reference to such a thing. Said it made the vampire’s orgies of blood and lust possible on a nightly basis. From a scientific point of view, you should consider yourself lucky. I imagine it’s only rarely offered to someone not under their sway and compelled to keep their mouth shut about it.”
I frowned in unease. What the devil had Ivy given me?
His eyes still on the tomato, Nick dumped the sauce over the pasta. A rich smell filled the kitchen, and my stomach growled. He stirred it in, and I watched Nick watch the tomato. He was starting to look rather sick. Exasperated with humanity’s groundless revulsion of tomatoes, I closed the fridge and hobbled to the window. “How did this get in here?” I muttered, pushing it through the pixy hole and into the night. It hit with a soft thud.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a relieved breath.
I returned to my chair with a heavy sigh. One would think Ivy and I had a decaying sheep’s head on our counter. But it was nice to know he had at least one human hang-up.
Nick puttered about, adding mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce, and pepperoni to the concoction. I smiled as I realized it was the last of my pizza fixings. It smelled wonderful, and as he plucked the ladle from the island rack, I asked, “Enough for two?”
“It’s enough for a dorm room.” Nick slid a bowl before me and sat down, curling his arm protectively about his bowl. “Student food,” he said around a full mouth. “Try it.”
I glanced at the clock above the sink as I dipped my spoon. Ivy and Jenks were probably at the FIB right now, trying to convince the front guy they weren’t loons, and here I was, eating macaroni alfredo with a human. It didn’t look right. The food, I mean. It would have been better in a tomato sauce. Dubious, I took a taste. “Hey,” I said, pleased. “This is good.”
“Told you.”
For a few moments there was only the scraping of spoons and the sound of the crickets in the garden. Nick’s pace slowed, and he glanced at the clock over the sink. “Hey, uh, I’ve got a big favor to ask,” he said hesitantly.
I swallowed as I looked up, knowing what was coming. “You can crash here for the night if you want,” I said. “Though there are no guarantees you’ll wake up with all your fluids intact or even at all. The I.S. is still spelling for me. Right now it’s just those tenacious fairies, but as soon as the word gets out that I’m still alive, we might be up to our armpits in assassins. You’d be safer on a park bench,” I finished wryly.
His smile was relieved. “Thanks, but I’ll risk it. I’ll get out of your hair tomorrow. See if my landlord has anything left that’s mine. Go visit my mom.” His long face puckered, looking as worried as when he thought I was bleeding to death. “I’ll tell her I lost everything in a fire. This is going to be a rough one.”
I felt a stab of sympathy. I knew what it was like to find yourself on the street with only a box left of your life. “Sure you don’t want to stay with her tonight?” I asked. “It’d be safer.”
He went back to eating. “I can take care of myself.”