The Devil May Care
They call us heartless, you know.
Wrong, and wrong again. We're every patter of your overused and overemphasised little muscle. No, not that one. Further up, dolt. Yes. There. That sinewy lump that keeps your blood endlessly circling.
Interesting things, hearts. Chewy, but rich and thick and dark.
And you do go on about them. It's bewildering, trying to keep track of it all. Sometimes you talk about them as if they're made of porcelain, breaking and shattering all over the place.
Other times, someone would think you were pouring gasoline on the poor thing and lighting up. Heartache. Heartsick. It blazes and burns: it's on fire, it's aflame.
You hear a lot about hearts in my line of business. Impossible not to, really.
But whatever labels you put on it, what it comes down to is this: you're not talking about your heart. That sordid knot of flesh can't do any of those things. It pushes and pulls, and that's it.
No, what you're talking about is desire. And I know all about that. Come a bit closer, and let me show you.
You'll remember me until the day you die.
X - X - X - X - X
"Jesus, why don't people ever keep their dark, evil secrets somewhere a little more accessible?" The voice was exasperated, and the owner of it was crammed next to her in the narrow confines of the wardrobe.
"Because then they wouldn't be dark, evil secrets," retorted the coyote shapeshifter whose elbow was sticking in her back. "And excuse me, but which idiot was it who triggered the hexes and shut us all in a two-foot wide cupboard?"
"It's not a cupboard," chimed the cool voice of the antiques expert they'd bought with them. "It's a fine example of a Boulle armoire, probably owned by Louis XIV, beautiful use of marquetry, and I'll thank you to keep your grubby paws off me."
"Yeah? Well, madam, if we don't find this damn passageway soon, my grubby paws might be the only thing getting us out of here," snapped Vaje Chusson. "And if you want someone to blame, try Keane. He's the one who got us in here."
In the musty darkness, Chatoya Irkil was glad of the warm bodies and heated voices around her, but the situation had gone from amusing to inconvenient to damned uncomfortable in the space of minutes. She braced her hands against the wooden door, which was depressingly solid. If they'd give her a little peace to concentrate in, she could find out just what kind of spells had been placed on this cramped, cursed piece of furniture.
"It was an accident! How was I supposed to know those carvings were hexed?" Michael Keane squirmed, crushing her against the door. Chatoya lost her focus, and swore inside the confines of her head, which felt roomier than the wardrobe.
"Oh, I don't know..." Vaje Chusson sounded about as happy as she felt. "The big skull carved into the top? The suspicious dark stains around the door? The pentagram on the sodding floor?"
"All right, maybe I was a little hasty-"
"Could you three shut up for ten seconds so I can try and find a way out?" she interrupted, feeling around the back of the cupboard. "And Michael, if you sniff my neck once more, I will rip your fangs out with my fingers."
"I was breathing heavily," snapped the culprit. One of Pursang's newer assassins, Michael Keane combined superb skill and astonishing reflexes with the attention span of a butterfly in a glitter storm. If not for the fact he'd discovered the ramshackle house and its treasure trove of old spells and arcane objects, she would have dismissed him long ago. "In case you haven't noticed, it's getting hot in here."
"Don't tell me you've forgotten our discussion already," growled Vaje from somewhere near the door.
Beside her, she felt Michael flinch. "I mean...it's a bit warm, Lady Chatoya, but I apologise for my loss of control."
"Never mind," she murmured. "Just give me some space. I think the spells were cast after this was built, not before."
"Young lady," said Nerine De Villiers sternly, "while I can only admire your firm grasp on Pursang, particularly your ability to control its rather bawdy young men, I must object. This armoire was most certainly not 'built'. It was crafted, with an expert and loving hand. I should know, I watched dear Andre-Charles put the carv-"
"Not now, Nerine," she broke in. "I need to find out exactly what spells are on this thing. For all I know, this wardrobe might do something a lot nastier than just locking us in."
She could almost feel the disapproval radiating from the old vampire, but eventually Nerine murmured, "Of course, Pursanguia. We all have our skills."
Chatoya didn't bother to close her eyes in the thick gloom, but instead let several wire-thin threads of magic wind out from her palms. Power eased through the wood, exploring the shape of the magic laid on it, edging around the whorls and slashing lines. Old, she thought, swooping along the lines of those old enchantments, old but strong.
Odd:she didn't recognise several of the symbols scrawled there. Others seemed out of place against the standard protection and confinement spells. She did notice several of the Hebrew cantrips for protection and binding, but why on earth was a request for mercy wound into the spells? And was that...there, spiralling delicately around the symbol for denied desires, was that a blessing?
Someone had renewed these spells time and again. This had been the work of lifetimes, as if a line of witches had committed themselves to etching these spells more and more deeply. If not for two small flaws, they might well have been confined in there until the wood rotted into dust.
Firstly, the spells hadn't been renewed for a long time. Secondly, they were written in an archaic tumult, with little order to them. A modern witch, with several of Pursang's newest hexes at her fingertips, could pry those spells apart with a little time and effort.
"Good news," she announced. "I should have us out of here in few minutes."
X - X - X - X - X
Desire.
You might think that it's all about sex, if that's all you've ever seen in silver screens and magazines. They gloss over the truth: they splash it with red and crown it with diamonds, and think it beautiful. They sell it under the counter, swathed in shame and scandal, film it and deform it, twist it and bend it and yet never capture its essence.
Sex is part of it – oh yes, there's something low and luscious and thrilling in that tangle of flesh and sound, but that's only a brief waypoint in the journey.
Or maybe you think it's about love. But whether you paint it pink and cover it in roses or smother it in pretty euphemisms and pretty faces, desire will still slide through like candle-smoke escaping under a door. It's pervasive that way, moving and multiplying like cancer. Love is nothing but a pallid imitation of desire.
Love is forever. Desire is for right here, right now, right or wrong.
Desire has no mercy. And neither do I.
I know what you want. I know everything you want, and I'll make you want it until you beg, until you weep: you will bend to me, strain under me, arch over me, beg and threaten and cajole...you will ache inside your own skin, and I will deny you until you stop begging and begin to hate.
Maybe then you will have an inkling of what desire truly is.
X - X - X - X - X
"It's been half an hour," announced Michael. She only half-heard him: the rest of her attention was on the knot of magic she was carefully picking apart, strand by strand. "Are you nearly done?"
"Your parents didn't take you on many long car journeys, did they?" Vaje commented dryly.
"How'd you know that?" The vampire sounded startled.
"Instinct," the coyote said. "Now shut up, Keane, and let our lady concentrate before we find out how many moth-balls I can fit down your throat before you choke."
"That wasn't very nice," muttered Michael sulkily, but he fell into silence.
She revelled in the brief lull, and the strands began to fall away quicker. At the centre of it all was the trigger, she was sure, whatever would let them out of this wretched box. Another half-dozen spells fell apart, picked with blades of magic as expertly as a thief working on a lockpick. Three more, then another, two more and-
The last one.
"Right, I've got it," she announced. "Vaje, you might need to give the door a good shove."
Like a magician whipping the black velvet from her finest trick, she tore away the last protection spell-
And the trapdoor they stood on dropped open.
X - X - X - X - X
You're all a fool for something. And me...?
I'm a fool for you.
Even as I defile you, debase you, destroy you, your pleas enchant me. Each break in your voice, each jerk of your body – yes, these things are what I live for, to feel your hands clutching at me, scraping at me, sliding free on sweat and spit and semen.
Desire me. Want me so much that you'll die without me, that you'll rip off your own skin for one more moment with me. Gouge out your sight so that you can see no one but me. Bleed for me so I can lap up your blood along with your devotion.
I need it. I'm so hungry. I've been hungry for a hundred years, imprisoned because you were too afraid to let me loose, too afraid of your own passions. Here in this room, in this hellhole, alone except for those times when you came to curse me, dozens of you, reciting holy words and holy lies, and being so, so surprised when they didn't work.
And now you're back. I hear you – footsteps on the floor above while I tread water here, neither waving nor drowning. It's been years. I haven't forgotten you, and I know you haven't forgotten me. No one ever forgets me.
Come back to me, fragile things with bruised eyes and reaching hands. You're so close, I can almost feel you. Up there, unlocking the doors to my prison. Come to me, and let me be everything you've ever wanted. Maybe I'll even let you live.
And ever after, when you're rutting in the shadowed light, when you're down to skin and sighs, it'll be me you try to tear from their flesh, me you search for in their shallow eyes. You'll brutalise everything you love to catch the faintest glimpse of me.
No one will ever be enough for you.
And then you'll understand what it is to be incarcerated in your own skin, as I have been all these years. Yes, come back to me, my loves, my jailers, mine.
I've been waiting for you.
X - X - X - X - X