A/N: Inspired by just about any supernatural sci-fi/fantasy thing I've ever read. In particular, a shout out to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files… 1x2, 3x?, 5x?, 4x? Expect multiple pairings, some het and some not, and also some breakups and…changes.
Warnings: Language, violence, sex, language. Angst. AU. Gore.
A/N #2: Thank you for the reviews! And as a reminder, if you aren't logged in and if you don't accept PMs I can't respond to your reviews. So… just know that I appreciate them!
A/N #3: If any of you are unhappy with Heero's lack of face-time – or time with Duo, for that matter – just know that it's going to be picking up, and his relationship with Duo is continuing to develop. Don't give up hope! This fic is not going to become a surprise 2x3 – Heero and Duo DO belong together in this story, but that doesn't mean that their relationship is going to be very conventional. If you want a straight 1x2 with nothing else, I'm going to tell you now that you WILL be disappointed. That said, expect to see a LOT more of Heero after the next few chapters. And with that, expect more 1x2 action.
A/N #4: as of this posting, this fic has 25 reviews, 2200+ hits, is on 30 alert lists and 14 favorites! THANK YOU so much everyone!
Umbra
Chapter Six
Trowa looked pale and shaken – and Duo was fairly certain that he looked the same. It didn't help that his heart was still beating wildly or that his skin was tingling from the magic in the air. It also didn't help that he felt an amazing sense of euphoria that just wasn't normal. Duo didn't do euphoric.
They shifted away from each other as if by mutual, unspoken agreement and Trowa rose from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.
Duo listened to the sound of water running, and when Trowa came back out a moment later his face was wet.
"I have no idea what that was," Trowa muttered after drawing in a deep breath. He remained standing by the door, and Duo appreciated having space between them. Especially considering that his fingers were practically itching to feel Trowa's skin again, and that the scent of the other man was still in his nostrils.
"So… that isn't something that happens every time you have sex?" Duo asked hopefully.
"No, no, that's never happened before. That's not something that you do?" Trowa's equilibrium regarding the world of magic appeared to be shaken.
"Um, no. My magic is never golden and happy and…euphoric." Duo tried to rack his brain for WHAT could have just happened, but he couldn't think of anything in his past.
He usually avoided entanglements with nulls like Trowa, but he had been involved with a few over the years, but had never experienced anything quite like this. But Trowa wasn't strictly speaking a null, Duo suddenly remembered.
"You said that you had Gypsy ancestors," Duo reminded Trowa.
"Yes – no fucking way." Trowa went completely pale and Duo could taste the sudden rush of panic and dread he felt as though they were his own.
"What?" He asked, trying to keep his own rising panic hidden.
"I thought it was a myth. It – this cannot be happening." Trowa ran a hand through his hair and groaned.
"Okay, whatever happened just now let's me feel what you feel, but it doesn't let me know what you're thinking so, please – what?"
Trowa looked at him and then shook his head. He leaned back against the wall and sank down until he was sitting on the carpet, his knees drawn up to his chest. It was a very defensive posture, and Duo was really worried now.
"There's an old story, in my family. I'd…completely forgotten about it. I never really believed it. We can trace our lineage back to the oldest Romani – Gypsies – and there's a story, a myth, about a family curse."
A Gypsy Curse. Duo did not like the sound of this.
"There was a woman, the daughter of the first Rom Baro – a leader – and she was very beautiful and very powerful. She was betrothed to another Romani, who, because the Rom Baro had no sons, but only two daughters, would become the next Rom Baro after the father died. The woman loved this man, and she knew they would be happy together, but on the eve of their wedding she went to the forest to gather flowers for the ceremony. While she was there a strange man approached her and he sang a strange, haunting melody. She was enchanted by the song, and when he finished, he kissed her. The woman instantly fell in love with this stranger, and he asked her to run away with him. But she knew that her father wanted her to marry the Romani man, and that that man was her first love. So, instead of marrying the Romani or running away with the stranger, she went to the oldest, wisest woman in her tribe and asked for her advice. The wise woman told her to follow tradition, to marry the Romani, and to honor her people and her father, but the woman still wasn't sure. She asked the wise woman to cast a spell that would tell her which man was her soul mate, and, reluctantly, the wise woman did so. It turned out that it was the stranger, and not the Romani. So, the woman told her father and the Romani man that she couldn't marry him, and that she would marry the stranger instead. But, this stranger, he wasn't Romani, he wasn't pure, and if the woman married him, she would be turning her back on her entire race, and she would never be able to return to them. The Romani man was so upset to have lost the love of his life that he cursed her and her descendents. The curse should have doomed her and her children to living lives without love, but the wise woman stepped in and changed the curse, so that instead, the woman and her descendents would be forever bound to their soul mate."
"Um..." Duo tried to process the story. "Are you saying that we're Soul Mates?"
"I… yes?" Trowa looked incredibly depressed about the idea.
Duo frowned. If the curse was to bond two souls together, then it would require the traditional magical sacrifices – blood, body, and magic. Cleary they had already taken care of the body and magic parts, but they hadn't shared blood.
"Trowa, traditionally magical bonds require three things – magic, body, and blood. We just shared magic and our bodies, obviously, but we didn't share blood. So – if this is some curse to be bound to your each other, we aren't stuck with each other yet. Not until we take that final step."
It was not a step that Duo had any interest in taking. He had seen soul mates before, and he shuddered at his memories. He remembered two Ephemerals captured during the Inquisition. The woman had been sentenced to burn at the stake, but the man, as her accomplice, had been spared death and instead nearly crippled by torture. The day that she had been burned, the man had been in the crowds watching, and as the fire started to lick her skin and clothes, he had screamed with her, as though her pain was his own, and started to claw at his skin. He had been driven mad by her pain and her death, and a few days later had killed himself.
A bond between soul mates was stronger and more invasive than the bond between a servant and master. It literally brought your souls closer together. Thoughts, emotions, magic – everything was shared and magnified by the connection, and it only grew more powerful over time. But those were the unions between two magic users.
Trowa was just a human – there was no way the bond would become that strong, and the fact was that in a hundred years – at the most, if Duo's magic increased his lifespan – Trowa would be dead.
"Plus," Duo had to carefully think of how to say that without pointing out that, for him, this wasn't going to last the rest of his life, "you're human, so the bond shouldn't be that strong."
"Did you feel what just happened?" Trowa asked. "Did that feel not that strong?"
"Well, no, that was pretty incredible." Which made all of this even more strange. Where had that magic come from?
"But as long as we don't share blood – it won't be complete, right?" Trowa repeated Duo's words.
Duo smirked. "What, you don't want to spend the rest of your life worshipping me?" He was angling to lighten the atmosphere – Trowa still looked ready to go kill himself over the prospect of having Duo as a soul mate, and Duo was trying very hard to bury his own feelings about the idea. The reality was, it was done – they had bonded half-way, and there was no taking that back.
Trowa drew in a deep breath and seemed to make a conscious decision to accept the situation.
Trowa arched an eyebrow. "Me worship you? I'm pretty sure it would be the other way around."
"We could take turns," Duo suggested.
Trowa shook his head ruefully. "I really didn't anticipate this happening. I, ah, kind of wanted to keep this relationship pretty casual."
Duo laughed. "Yeah, I think we sailed right past casual. Um, I don't have any experience with this type of magic, but, even though the bond isn't complete, I'm pretty sure that we're going to still WANT to be together. So… if you really want to avoid having to deal with this magic, the best thing to do would be to put some distance between us."
"So, I can move to Spain, learn to speak Spanish, and spend the rest of my life feeling lost and alone, or I can stay here and keep having the most amazing sex of my life with my soul mate."
"Yeah, I think those are pretty much the only two options."
Trowa cocked his head to one side and pretended to consider.
"I don't know. That's kind of tough."
"Do you need some help making up your mind?" Duo asked.
"I could use some convincing, yeah."
Duo chuckled and rolled off the bed to join Trowa on the floor. He pulled the other man up to his feet and pushed him back against the wall before aligning their bodies.
And even that – just the touch of their skin together – sent sparks of pleasure all through Duo's body. Trowa shivered as he experienced the same sensation.
Duo kissed him, and the taste and scent cinnamon seemed to explode in his mouth. He wondered, briefly, how he tasted to Trowa.
"Reached a decision yet?" Duo asked as he pulled away from the kiss. The physical sensations he felt were a combination of his and Trowa's, and the building passion between them seemed to be fueling that strange, golden magic that still cocooned them.
"I'm getting there," Trowa assured him before bringing their mouths back together.
When Duo woke the next morning he learned two things – the first being that Trowa was a cuddler, and in the middle of the night had wrapped his arm around Duo's chest and his leg over Duo's hips and had pulled Duo into the curve of his body. The second was that Trowa was hot. It felt like Duo was wrapped in a heating blanket. His body tended to run a little colder than a normal human body, so he usually liked to sleep under a few layers of blankets at night, but this – this was way beyond that. It was as if Trowa was running a fever, his skin was so hot.
It took some effort, but Duo eventually managed to disentangle himself from Trowa's grip. He watched in amusement as Trowa rolled over into the spot where Duo had previously been, still deep asleep.
Duo took a long shower, enjoying the feel of the hot water on his still sore back, and used the time to figure out just what he was going to do now. He had a human servant to look after, the Arbiter to keep safe from his own foolish ideals, a Soul Mate to deal with, and an assassin who wouldn't admit that he wanted Duo for more than just sex. And, of course, someone still wanted him dead, even if he was having trouble hiring anyone to do the job.
"This is why I don't like magic," he muttered to himself as he dried his hair. Those blissful, nine days in Montana seemed like centuries ago instead of barely two weeks.
Last night he hadn't wanted to dwell on the idea of Trowa Barton being his soul mate, but now that the human was asleep in Duo's bed, he allowed himself the luxury of a minor freak out in the bathroom.
In some ways – it really didn't matter, because, as Duo had told himself last night, the longest this could last was one hundred years, and then Trowa would be dead. Trowa had mentioned last night that he had wanted to keep their relationship casual, and Duo had really had dreams of the same.
Returning to the magical world had dredged up too many memories for him, of Anthony and Solo, and many, many others in between, and he did NOT want to add Trowa Barton to the list of men that he had desperately loved and then been powerless to save. He didn't even want to add Trowa to the list of men he loved. Ever since Anthony's death, Duo had been very careful to keep his relationships with others more physical than emotional. Heero, of course, had become the exception to that, and Gavi had almost been the exception, until Duo had killed him.
He did not want or need the complication of feeling anything more for Trowa than mild affection and attraction. He had wanted a lover – someone that he could spend time with and forget about the chaos and despair of the magical world. He had not wanted someone that he would be saddled with for the next century.
With a groan, Duo forced himself to calm down. As usual, it didn't matter what he wanted or what he had planned, destiny had, once again, decided to fuck it all up.
When Trowa woke up an hour later, Duo was on the couch reading Heero's book and had managed to bury his irritation at life enough to try to relax. Trowa hadn't bothered to put on his clothes yet, but wandered out, completely naked and adorably sleep-tousled.
"Morning," he said, sounding a little uneasy.
"Hi," Duo smiled at him. He was pissed at the universe – but not necessarily at Trowa. It wasn't as if the human had planned this, or wanted it anymore than Duo did. There was no reason to punish him for it.
It looked like Trowa was going through a similar morning-after freak out to what Duo had earlier experienced. His face was set in the neutral expression that Duo already knew meant he was uneasy about something and didn't want to talk about it directly.
"Remember, it's really great sex…" Duo said.
"I'm pretty sure the sex would have been great without it," Trowa groused.
"Probably. I am amazing in bed."
Trowa rolled his eyes, but the hint of a smile tugged at his lips.
"Would you like some breakfast? I've got fruit, or I could make an omelet?" Duo asked.
"What kind of fruit?"
"Um…" Duo got up and rifled through the fridge. "Bananas, an orange, peaches – or nectarines, I never remember which is which."
"A banana would be nice," Trowa said. He leaned against the kitchen counter, and Duo found it interesting – and sexy – that Trowas was so comfortable being naked.
Duo passed him the fruit and grabbed one of the peach-nectarine's for himself. He took a bite into the juicy fruit and discovered that it was a nectarine.
"So, do you have any plans tomorrow?" Duo asked Trowa.
"I have work at night, but my day is free."
"Feel like grabbing lunch and seeing a movie?"
Trowa arched an eyebrow.
"That sounds… very normal."
"Hey – you said you wanted this to be casual, and I'd like the same. I don't see any reason why us being Soul Mates has to change that."
"I'd like that," Trowa said after a moment. "I could come by and pick you up around noon?"
"Sounds great." Duo jumped up on the counter and watched the methodical way that Trowa peeled his banana and broke off portions to eat.
"Do you have any plans for Thursday night?" Trowa asked him.
Duo frowned slightly. "No, but it's Halloween, I should keep the night open in case something crazy happens."
"Something crazy?"
"Yeah – my job. I guess I should probably tell you, since, well, anyway. Your buddy Quatre is the liaison between the American Council, the body that governs magic users, and the United States government. I'm his advisor. And Halloween is one of those times when magic tends to go a bit crazy."
It was also one of the darkest and most depressing nights of the year for Duo, and one that he had actually enjoyed spending alone, drunk out of his mind, for the past century.
"There's a big party at Chippendales," Trowa explained his earlier question, "we usually bring our dates and hang out after the last show of the night." He shrugged. "But your crazy magical stuff sounds like more fun."
Duo let out a bitter laugh.
"Yeah, well…"
As Trowa threw away his banana peel, he walked close to Duo and kissed him.
"I enjoyed last night. Even with the family curse issue."
Duo kissed him back.
"Me too. We should do it again sometime."
"What? Discover that one of us has a magical curse on us?"
"No, not so much that part."
Trowa smirked and kissed him again. Duo dropped the rest of his nectarine on the counter and wrapped his arms around the warm, naked skin of the other man and pulled him close.
"I should get going, I need to go to the gym today," Trowa said after a few minutes of intense kissing.
"Yeah, but the gym isn't going anywhere, and I think you're already forgetting just how awesome the sex is," Duo argued as he jumped down from the counter and pulled off his t-shirt.
"Hard to forget that," Trowa murmured, but he tugged on the waistband of Duo's sweatpants. "Still, it probably wouldn't hurt to be reminded one more time."
"Probably not," Duo agreed.
It was mid afternoon when Duo's cell phone rang and interrupted his return to reading Heero's book.
He checked the caller ID and saw that it was Quatre.
"What's up?" He asked the blonde.
"A friend of yours is at my office –"
"Why are YOU at your office?" Duo demanded.
"It's already four, and – "
"Quatre, seriously, this is about style. You can't keep the same hours that a normal human would."
"Okay, okay fine. Listen, a friend of yours is here and it sounds like Hilde is in trouble."
Duo cursed. He reached out across their connection, a connection that he had taken extreme precautions to block off last night and this morning, and could feel Hilde. She was furious, but didn't seem to be in any fear or pain.
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes – twenty tops," he told the blonde before hanging up the phone.
Traffic was lighter than Duo had anticipated – he found it ironic that fate would saddle him with so many serious issues, but be so generous about getting stuck in traffic – and he made it to Quatre's office in ten minutes. He burst into his office and immediately felt like an idiot.
Wufei, Hilde, and Quatre all looked up at him with expressions that ranged from relieved to irritated.
Zechs Merquise, perched on Quatre's couch as though he were on a marble throne, merely looked amused.
"Since when are we friends?" Duo asked.
Zechs smirked. "I've always felt…friendly towards you, Duo."
"Remind me never to be around you when you're feeling unfriendly, then," Duo muttered before turning to Quatre. "What's going on?"
"It seems that you lost something," Zechs spoke up, as though the question were directed at him, "I merely decided to return it to you."
"Uh…thanks?" Duo frowned when Zechs didn't hand over whatever it was. "What did I lose?" He asked eventually.
Zechs looked over at Hilde, who sneered in response.
"Your servant," Zechs answered.
"Oh, did I? And just where did I lose her?" Duo asked. He leaned against the corner of Quatre's desk that was closest to where Hilde sat.
"She was questioning my human servant about some string of murders committed by an Ephemeral. She claims that it was on your orders."
"It was," Duo assured him while making a mental note to have very strong words with once Zechs was gone.
"Really? I didn't realize that you cared about human criminal investigations. In fact, I'm fairly confident that you haven't assisted in a human criminal investigation since the Inquisition reached Spain."
"Things change," Duo pointed out. "And this particular crime…reminded me of an old friend."
Zechs arched an eyebrow. "I didn't realize you had any of those still alive."
"Well, there's you," Duo shot back with a toothy grin. "Anyway, thanks for brining her back."
"You should take better care of your things, Duo, you have always been careless. And you know how the Council feels about your servants."
Duo's jaw clenched at the implication, but he nodded sharply.
"A word of advice – friend to friend," Duo said, "things have changed in this country, and the Council doesn't get to decide the way it wants to do things anymore. There are laws, and you are all bound to follow them. Furthermore, any criminal investigation involving magic or magic users requires the full cooperation of the Council. Which means you, and your servant."
"But my servant isn't on the Council."
"Sure, but you didn't sign the new contract between a servant and master – which means that, legally, your servant doesn't have autonomy and is, by law, considered to be the same entity as you. Hilde can question your servant – and any of their servants – as much as she wants."
Zechs' handsome face looked very strained. He stood stiffly.
"Very well. Treize also wanted me to pass on his invitation to attend the Summoning tomorrow evening."
Duo frowned. He had not anticipated that.
"Me?" He repeated.
Zechs smirked.
"You are one of us, as much as you and we would like it to be otherwise."
"I – thank you." Duo didn't know how else to respond to the invitation.
Zechs nodded to Quatre.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Arbiter," he said and then left.
"This is your fault!" Wufei exploded as soon as the door closed. He stood and advanced on Duo.
"Oh, for the love of – what is my fault?" Duo demanded. He took the seat that Zechs had vacated, determined to be comfortable if he was about to listen to the Chinese null's rant.
"She could have been killed by those monsters!"
"She is in the room," Hilde broke in immediately, her voice frigid.
Wufei spared her a glare.
"And she needs to remember who her superior officers are," Wufei said tightly.
"I did nothing wrong! I'm assigned to this investigation, so I investigated! I don't need you – or anyone – to hold my hand!"
Quatre sighed.
"I think we all need to calm down," the blonde man said. "It's been a challenging few days, and we are all tense. Let's just – please, try to be rational. Hilde, what information were you able to get?"
She smirked. "Quite a lot. I spoke with Margaret – Sylvia's servant, and with Alex, who is Lucrezia Noin's servant, and with Mueller, who is Zechs' servant."
Duo was actually impressed. Those were three very well placed Council members.
"And?" He asked.
"The Council is worried about the serial killer. Apparently, the two scenes we've seen aren't the only ones – this has been going on for almost two years, but they've been keeping it quiet while the legislation legalizing magic was going through Congress."
"Two years? How many victims?" Wufei had temporarily set aside his anger and seemed to remember what his job was.
"Twelve women. It's not a huge amount, considering the other crime in the area, but the Council has been concerned with the magic used to make the ritual, and with the fact that it seems like the Ephemeral is getting stronger. The last two cases – the ones that we found – they let us find. They called the police."
"They – how did they know?" Quatre asked.
"They felt the magic. Apparently, whoever this is is seriously powerful and puts out quite a bit of energy when he casts the circle."
"So – that first case when I got here – the ritual hadn't been finished," Duo pointed out.
"Mueller told me that the Council detected the magic being expended immediately because of them was actually at the location. It was a huge coincidence, and that's the only reason the ritual was interrupted."
"Why didn't they do anything about it?" Duo wondered. "If the Council is so concerned about some vigilante – " he trailed off.
"What?" Wufei demanded.
"Well, if they didn't do anything, it's probably because they couldn't. This Ephemeral is powerful enough that the Council can sense whenever she – or he – puts up a ritual circle. So why haven't they ever tracked her down? Because they're afraid of this Ephemeral."
"Unless they know who it is and can't do anything about it," Hilde suggested. "Alex seemed to imply that Noin, at least, knew the Ephemeral."
"We have to question her," Wufei said.
"You can't," Duo pointed out. "Only the Arbiter could question the second most powerful Council member. She would never agree to a null interrogating her, and she's just going to lie."
"The law – "
"Doesn't matter to them," Duo wearily interrupted. "When's the next Council meeting?" Duo directed the question to Quatre.
"Two weeks."
"Two – more women could be dead by then!" Wufei shouted.
"I can try to question more human servants," Hilde said.
"No," Wufei barked.
"What do you mean, no? I have every right to –"
"I think we should take this opportunity to talk about Wufei's wife, the psychotic vampire who almost crippled me," Duo broke in.
Wufei turned a furious glare to him.
"It's something we need to know," Quatre added, when Wufei started to protest.
Wufei looked ready to explode, but he took several calming breaths before speaking in a flat, emotionless voice.
"Three years ago my wife decided to become a vampire. We had just lost our child – our son, he died a month after his birth. He had a heart murmur. Meilin was devastated. She started going to a support group, and she met a vampire who offered her the chance to avoid having to die. Meilin wanted both of us to… convert, is what she called it. She didn't want to have to lose me, she said, and she didn't want to think about death anymore. I refused to do it. She left me and she became a vampire. That's all there IS to the story, if you're satisfied?" He looked up at Duo and sneered.
Duo shrugged one shoulder. "I'd like to know who her maker is – do you know?"
"You already mentioned her – Lucrezia Noin."
Which explained a lot to Duo. Noin had always taken a role in Council punishments, and it made sense that HER vampires would be the enforcers of Council law.
"I'm so sorry, Wufei," Hilde said. She reached out to him, but he jerked away from her. She flinched.
"I don't need your pity. I need you to follow orders, and to do your job. Which isn't to take needless risks to get us no useful information. Stop dabbling in this bullshit magic and remember that you're a cop." With that, Wufei stormed from the office.
Quatre looked a bit shell shocked, and even though Hilde's face was neutral, Duo could feel her pain. He sighed.
"Listen, Quatre, I need to talk to Hilde about a few things – d'you mind if I catch you up in a bit?"
"Okay." Quatre frowned slightly. "But, before I forget, what's a Summoning?"
Duo shrugged uneasily. "It's a kind of ritual. Council thing."
"Are you going?"
"I… it would be rude not too."
"Then you should go. If you can make amends with the Council, you should – it would be in everyone's best interests."
"Yeah, don't get overly optimistic there," Duo warned him.
He looked at Hilde and then jerked his head towards the door.
"Let's go grab dinner," he told her.
Duo was very proud of the fact that he waited until they were halfway through their meal at Hilde's favorite dive bar before he started to dress her down.
"You are my human servant. You want to be independent, that's fine, but let's get one thing straight – fundamentally, you belong to me. Everything you do reflects on me, and everything you DON'T do reflects on me."
She started to interrupt, but Duo held up a hand to forestall her comments.
"You don't get to argue with me about this. What you did was completely idiotic. You're a cop – you should have taken backup, or at least told me what you were going to do. The Council don't pick their human servants because they're nice and cuddly, they pick them because they are scary bastards. Don't ever throw around my name again like that – not unless you've actually asked me if you can. Zechs had every right to kill you – and the fact that Treize knows you were questioning human servants just makes it worse."
"Why didn't you just gang up with Wufei back at the office?" Hilde demanded sulkily.
"Because he's an arrogant asshole and this is between you and me. Part of my job is to protect you – from dying, and from getting yelled at by an idiot."
"He's not an idiot."
"Please stop defending him. He's –"
"His wife left him to become a vampire!"
Duo rolled his eyes. "He is so not worth your time and effort."
"I – I can't help it," she said. "He's – he means everything to me and I wish I could turn it off, but I can't."
"Yeah, tell me about it." Duo thought of Heero and Trowa.
"What is a Summoning?" Hilde repeated Quatre's question.
Because she was his servant, Duo decided to give her a better answer than he had to Quatre.
"It's a tradition that the Old Ones on the Council have. This isn't something a lot of Ephemerals know about, and there are some Old Council members who would execute you if you knew about it."
Hilde's eyes widened slightly. "It's that big a deal?"
"Yes and no. It's just… very sacred. Halloween is the one night when this plane and the next intersect, so the souls of those that are departed are very close to us on that night. The Summoning is a ceremony where all of the powerful Old Ones in a community will make a blood sacrifice and call forth the spirits of those departed. We pool our magic so that we have a greater chance for success."
"And they invited you?"
Duo shrugged. "Selfish reasons only, I'm sure. It helps to have as many powerful magic users as you can to make sure it works."
"Who – have you done it before?"
"Not since I left the Council. It's too hard to do on your own, not unless you feel like making a human sacrifice, and I don't."
"But before? When you did work for the Council?"
Duo nodded.
"Can you Summon anyone who's died?"
"In theory."
She frowned. "But not in practice."
"No. At least, I can't. I've been trying for five hundred years to Summon the same spirit, but he never comes."
"That golden man?" Hilde guessed. "The one from your memories?"
"Yeah, that'd be him." Duo swallowed hard and then sighed. "Listen, Thursday night, be careful, and don't go looking for trouble. Halloween is tricky, and now that magic is legal… things could get crazy. If anything happens, I want you to let me know, okay?"
She rolled her eyes.
"I can take care of myself."
"I know that, or I never would have wanted you for my servant. But sometimes the things you never plan for are the ones that happen, so…"
She arched an eyebrow at him.
"This wouldn't have anything to do with what happened to you last night, would it?"
Duo frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, I don't know. Sometime around eleven or so last night I was just about to fall asleep and I felt the most amazing sense of… euphoria. And then a few hours later I felt it again… and then again this morning."
Duo blushed.
"Er, sorry about that. I thought I had blocked you out pretty well."
"What was it?"
"Well, that'd be me having sex with my Soul Mate, I guess."
Now it was Hilde's turn to blush.
"Your…Soul Mate?"
"Yep."
"Um. Okay. But this wasn't – it didn't feel like sex, it felt like –"
"Like Nirvana," Duo said helpfully. "Like my entire being was content and all the darkness in me was replaced with golden light."
"Exactly."
"Yeah, apparently that's what happens. It'll take some practice for me to stop bothering you with it."
"I'm not bothered by it – wait, who is your Soul Mate anyway?"
"Some null," Duo groaned and rubbed his forehead. "It's so ridiculous. He's – he was just supposed to be a fun distraction and now! Fuck me."
"Yeah, I'm guessing he did," Hilde said with a smirk. Duo glared at her.
"He's saddled with some ancient Gypsy curse, which, because he's a null, he never really believed in, and all of a sudden – Soul Mates."
"You sound so thrilled."
"My life is complicated enough already, thanks, I didn't need this too. Not to mention –" Duo caught himself before saying Heero's name. But, honestly, he was wondering just how the assassin would take this new development. Duo would probably have to wait half a decade to find out, but when he did – he was willing to bet that Heero would not be pleased.
Hilde looked expectant.
"Nothing," Duo sighed. "Please be smart – I'd really like to keep you around for a while."
She rolled her eyes.
"I will. You should take your own advice too – stop letting yourself get tortured with a silver whip, okay?"
"Well what else am I going to do for fun?" Duo demanded.
Up Next: Happy Halloween! Without the happy part. And a next-next up: Heero returns!
Definitions:
Council: the body that presides over magical creatures and users in the US. The Old Council refers to the European Council.
Dryad: A nature spirit, like a Sprite. Another Old One. Usually associated with a tree, and different 'families' of Dryads are associated with different trees.
Ephemeral: a human who can use magic. Used interchangeably with witch.
Old Ones: the powerful magical races. Vampires, Shape shifters, Faeries, and a few more to be named later!
Old Ways: reference to the way that the European Council ran things or the way things were before magic was legal. Sally Po refers to the old ways – a reference to the practices of Native American Shamans, and NOT the Council.
Null: a human without magical ability.
Shaman: A Native American mystic or holy person. Used in this context to mean an Ephemeral.