"You should not get too close to Alex," Jack said.
"Jealousy is ugly on you," Helen said. "He's my coworker. I have no interest in him." It was almost true. She had no interest in him, the way she ought to have an interest in a human being; but as a botanical study, something to dissect, he was unfathomably interesting. It was mere boredom, she thought; the other men would hardly keep her interest. They were very intelligent men, but they did not know how to speak; or at least not to her.
She thought it was rather that they had lost the ability. They may have had it, once; but wandering the recursive corridors they had built, they had forgotten. Their words were forgotten, and hers had been too, she knew, for when she looked at her own notes, before the censors spilled their pointed ink, she saw only the rambling of madmen. Somehow Alex had made her realize this, and she had begun to struggle toward words again. But Jack seemed enraged by it. Perhaps that was why.
"Perhaps it is," Jack said. "It doesn't matter why, does it. I have to attend to your safety, and Alex," he spat the word, "is not safe for you. You wouldn't want something to have to be done about him."
"I thought you would have already, you were so angry," Helen said. "When he opened the door. Damn, he's a man, he's allowed to open the door for a woman isn't he. I thought I would come back and he would be gone, and no one would say a word. They never do."
Jack growled at her, really growled; and the lights she had just turned on flickered out.
"Don't be petty," Helen said. She walked to her favorite chair; the chair she liked to read on when she got the chance, which was never. She sat back, enjoying the languorous fold of breath, in and out, as she closed her eyes, enjoying her brazen lack of fear. She was too tired to be afraid; not now, not of her demon. There were too many greater things to fear.
"You f—ing human, I'll tear you to bits. You think I care that much for one measly little speck of a soul like yours?" Jack said. His rage was wild; it knocked the framed pictures asunder. Rattled the doors. "I got more filling meat a hundred years ago, in alley rats. I can pull this whole city down on your head, and torture everything you care about until it snaps. How would you like to see your own little brother in one of those subject rooms?"
She opened her eyes. There was a glow, something infernal for it came from no source she could name, and it lit his hair and his sharp teeth, which were all unsheathed, an entire mouth of serrated teeth like a saw. She clenched her hands against the armrest of the chair, and breathed, and breathed, and the entire room was nothing more than darkness for an instant, and panic beyond that, and then she laughed, wild and harsh. She bared her throat—which was covered, always, by unfashionably high collars or with her scarf—and the sigil on it sparked to brilliant life.
"You do that?" she hissed furiously. "You will never get my soul. You'll choke on it until you're dead. I swear it." They watched each other, wary, and she could see his claws and she knew her own nails were snapped open as though she could really manage to gut him.
"Now," Helen said at last. "Live up to your aesthetics and tell me what your f—ing problem is instead of raging like a beast."
"Alex is not what he seems," Jack said. "He's dangerous."
"So you've said," Helen replied coolly. "So kill him, then; if it is really endangering our contract. But you won't. Or—can't?"
Jack grimaced at her.
"What is he?" Helen said.
"Nothing," Jack said. "Go. Put away your things. I'll make supper."
He strode—almost stomped—into the other room and Helen almost laughed again; at the impotence of it, and the very real threat; her blood singing on the edge of fear and exhilaration. Will it be like this when he kills me? She thought. She thought she had been dreading it. It had weighed so deep, as deep as a stone, but suddenly she saw that it did not matter. She would die, and he would take her, and that was that, wasn't it. Until then, he really was hers.
.
.
.