Well….This story has been on a bit of hiatus *watches the wild understatement flutter around the room*. A lot of things have happened since I last posted, including writing a very serious nonfiction book with a dear friend. Then I lost my writing mojo. I think I might have it back now, though I hope you will ignore any anachronisms.
As always…Not mine….Not really canon…just fun.
Enjoy!
Psyche b.
10. The Very Bones of You
Sara knew most of the nuns on her list, at least by sight. They taught at the school or filled some other role that brought them into contact with the students. Sister Bernadette McRory was different. Sara had seen her a few times when she went to the administration building, but had never spoken to her. Sister Bernadette was a tall woman in her middle years but every time Sara had seen her she was hunched over, an oversized mug clutched to her chest, the words "I run on caffeine, chaos and prayer" written on the side. The bespectacled woman who moved with swift steps and suspicious glances seemed like she wouldn't be at home with a bit of disorder let alone full on chaos, but it gave Sara an idea.
Instead of meeting somewhere on campus, they were sitting on the waterside deck at the Give Me a Buzz coffee shop in Graton. Sister Bernadette was working on her third extra large plain black, while Sara sipped a frothy iced mocha. The conversation had been stilted to say the least. She tried to catch the nun's gaze as it flickered suspiciously around the deck filled with tourists and locals in summer clothes and sunglasses but she'd been remarkably unsuccessful. At this rate she wouldn't get anything beyond the basics.
She studied the woman for a moment and thought back to her meetings with Crowley.
"Is there anything you'd like to ask me, Sister?" Sara asked.
"What?" The nun blinked at Sara, her wide eyes magnified behind round glasses.
"Well, I've been asking you all kinds of questions, and you don't really know me."
Bernadette's eyes narrowed just a little. "Roberta said I was to tell you how I found my way back to the order. That's all."
Back? Sara wanted to pounce on that one little word, but she kept her face impassive and took a sip of her drink. "Did she tell you why? I mean, I don't really know what you do at the school, but whatever it is, it seems like you're not in contact with the students much."
Bernadette glanced at the other occupied tables. "I keep the books. But I would never dream of refusing a request from Roberta."
"No, of course not. But talking to a complete stranger about something so personal seems like it would be a hard thing to do."
"She said," Bernadette began, then looked down at her hands wrapped around the paper cup. "She said that you had some strange ideas."
A little smile tugged at Sara's lips. "I guess you could call it that. Are you familiar with the life planning sessions that go on during the breaks?"
"Yes. They're a way to think about what comes next."
Sara gave a little nod and looked away. "I disrupted one. Well, Sister Roberta says I disrupted one."
Bernadette leaned forward a little, her eyes fixed on Sara. "What did you do?"
Sara held her contrite posture and let her eyes rest on the drink in front of her. "I said I didn't want to marry or join the order. That I wanted to graduate and maybe go on to another school for design."
The nun's eyes went wide and her hands fluttered to her mouth before she gripped the cup again. "Leave? As in for good? On your own?"
Sara nodded.
"Oh no." She shook her head. "That is a very bad idea." There was an urgency in Bernadette's voice that Sara hadn't heard before. "You don't want to do that. Trust me."
She looked up at the anxious nun. "Millions of women do it. They graduate college, have careers, live on their own-"
"I thought so too, but it's not that way. Not really." The grip on the cup didn't stop the tremors in her hands. She gripped them in her lap.
Sara felt like she was close to something. Her mind raced. Ask a question? Stay silent? She opted for silence and a concerned expression. Bernadette took a deep breath and leaned forward.
"I left when I finished college." The words were tainted with shame.
Sara leaned forward too and allowed her curiosity to take over. "You did?"
Bernadette nodded. "Sister Peter, the head of St. Faith's at the time, tried to tell me it was a bad idea, that I wasn't meant to be in the world, but I wouldn't listen. I graduated with a degree in accounting. I found a job, an apartment," A wistful little smile tickled across her lips, her eyes focused on the past. Color bloomed on her cheeks. "I even met a man. We weren't dating or anything, but we were becoming friends. For six months it felt like I could do anything. Be anything." She looked down at the table again. The smile faded. "Then it happened."
Sara was too wrapped up in the story to think about how best to react to it. She could picture the middle aged woman as a girl in her twenties, walking with her head up, reaching out for the life she wanted. "What happened, Sister?" Her voice was soft.
"I ran out of milk. Stupid I know, but back then I couldn't drink my coffee without it. It was still fairly early and the store was only a block away. I never gave it a second thought. I walked there, got the milk and started chatting with the cashier like I usually did." She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Maybe if I had gone straight home…" She took a deep breath. "Anyway, when I left it was just getting dark, and I was almost home. I had to pass an alley next to my building, but I didn't think about it. I passed that alley every day on the way to and from the bus stop. Someone, a man, came up from behind me and bumped into me. I went stumbling into the alley and all of a sudden there were three of them, they were all around me, telling me all the filthy things they thought should happen to someone like me. They pushed me back and forth between them and when I tried to escape they would block my way."
"Did they-"
"No! No they didn't do anything, not really. I was so terrified. I still remember their faces, the way they smelled, and that word, it still rings in my head." She wrapped her arms around herself and suppressed a shiver.
The word she meant came to Sara in a flash of clarity, but she had to be sure. "What word?" She asked.
Bernadette swallowed hard. "Abomination." Her voice was barely a whisper.
"That's not what you are. You know it's not true."
She shook her head. "Maybe." Her hands wrapped around the tall cup again. "Anyway, I finally got away from them, I still don't know how, and I ran home and locked myself in and stayed there. I didn't even go out to mass on Sunday. I just kept seeing their faces, hearing their voices. That evening Sister Peter called, to see how I was. It all came spilling out, the whole ugly incident. She listened and sympathized and then she invited me to come back to campus for a little while, just to get a little distance from it. I agreed, and I did feel safe there. It was my sign." Bernadette looked at Sara with a new intensity in her eyes. "Don't put yourself through that. There are certain people who just belong in the order."
Sara let the silence grow between them while she took the story settled in her mind.
"So you kept in touch with Sister Peter." Sara said.
"Oh no. I didn't even realize she knew which city I'd moved to. I didn't tell anyone and then I changed my mind anyway. I put it down to divine intervention."
X
Sara finished the last of her drink and made a few notes about her meeting with Sister Bernadette. After the story, the nun went back to the kind of short, bland answers she'd started with, but the rest of the conversation didn't matter. The event bothered Sara. It had no purpose other than to, what? Scare Bernadette? It didn't seem like she'd been assaulted. She wasn't robbed. Three random people just wanted to yell at her? And the timing of the phone call was a bit too convenient. A bit too much like divine intervention. She tapped the end of her pen against a blank page, then a shadow fell across it.
She looked up to see a woman with a severe black bob in a red and white diamond print sleeveless dress. A red blazer with white piping and bright gold buttons was draped over her shoulders. pair of red studded Louboutins completed the look. Most of her face was hidden by sunglasses.
"Sara, right?" A smile curled her bright red lips.
"You were at the gallery the other night." Sara said.
"I was, but we didn't get a chance to meet. I'm Celeste. May I sit?"
"Sure." Sara closed the journal and watched the woman sit and cross her legs. It was a practiced movement.
"I'll come straight to the point," Celeste said. "That dress you were wearing was amazing and according to the blog it was your own creation. True?"
Sara thought she detected an arching brow behind the frames of the sunglasses. "True." Sara said.
"Good. I have a function coming up in a few weeks. Lawyers, boring really, but I want something a bit special."
"Why not go shopping?" Sara asked.
"Shopping isn't special." She leaned forward a little, trying to weave a conspiracy between them. "Come on, I know you've wanted to impress a guy you were dating. Well, I want the same thing."
Sara studied Celeste. "You want to impress your date." It sounded even more like a lie when she repeated it.
"Of course."
"Why?"
A ripple went through Celeste's calm, then her smile widened just a fraction. "He's rich."
"So are you, I suspect." Sara said.
"And good-looking and crazy about me."
"I saw you talking with Crowley. The way you were standing, it wasn't a casual chat. You were reporting in. What do you really want?."
The demon's posture shifted just slightly as she dropped the pretense. "I want the dress, and the idiot is crazy about me. I could wear a dirty sack and he'd be thrilled. I need to get close to the head of the firm. He has a type and you have an eye."
Sara tapped her pen against the cover of her journal. "I'm not saying I'll do it, but if I do-."
"If?" Celeste took the glasses off and leaned closer. "I'm offering you an opportunity here. Do you know how many known designers would line up to dress me?"
Sara met her gaze and weathered the anger she found there. "How many of them do you have under contract?"
Celeste's eyes narrowed, then she looked away and put her glasses on again. "Go on. If you agree…what?"
"If I agree, I don't work for free." Sara said.
Celeste looked at her, a predatory twitch to the corners or her lips. "I'm sure I could arrange something."
"Cash only." Sara said. "Maybe a bit more than my usual fee because you aren't a student." She opened her journal to another section, her pen poised over the page. "When is this happening?"
"In a month." Celeste said.
"Are there any photos of previous functions I can look at? You say you need something specific."
"I can send you some. Does this mean you'll do it?"
"Maybe." Sara said. "Give me your number and I'll get back to you."
X
Sara opened the cleaning closet on the third floor and thought about the state of her life. Two of the numbers in her phone belonged to demons. Both had an agenda. One she was kind of maybe dating, sort of. Did demons do the whole 'dating' thing? One might be using her to gain favor with or find information on the other. Maybe both. If that wasn't complicated enough, one was the King of Hell.
And then there was Leah, who was definitely demon-adjacent these days. Pretty soon, she was going to need a chart just to keep track.
She rolled the vacuum cleaner to the opposite end of the long hallway and set the caddy of dust cloths and polish next to it. Why hadn't she just said no to Celeste? She'd have other opportunities to have her designs seen. It was only some law firm thing anyway. Saying no would have gotten rid of some of those complications.
She plugged in the old radio the girls kept under the dust cloths and attacked one of the small half-moon tables that lined the hall, dusting the statue of the Virgin Mary on top with a vigor she rarely used.
It wasn't too late. She could pull out her phone right now and come up with some excuse for Celeste. Did you have to be diplomatic when dealing with a demon? It probably wasn't a bad idea. She set the statue on the floor and began to polish the table. Maybe she'd leave the excuses out of it. She could say she'd thought about it and decided against it.
She ran the cloth over the doorframes on the way to the next table. That made the most sense. It's what she should do, she thought as she dusted the statue of Saint Theresa.
Simple.
To the point.
When she finished polishing the table she replaced the statue and texted Crowley.
X
Crowley closed his eyes and listened to the bound demon's scream chase itself around the tiled room until it tumbled apart into whimpering sobs, begging and calling him everything but 'Your Majesty'.
He looked down at the woman stretched out on the table in front of him. Freshly flayed strips of flesh hung down like fringe around her, dipping blood in wet splatters. To think, he had been bored by this not that long ago.
The woman struggled and the ribbons of flesh swayed. Her scream rose again.
"I'd stay still if I were you, Darling." He traced the raw edge of a wound and felt her shudder, her body practically vibrating with pain and the effort not to move.
"Just tell me what I did! I'll fix it!" She screamed, anger mixing with the pain.
Crowley smiled and clucked his tongue. "Still think you can demands? I see I haven't made much of an impression yet. I take time out of my busy schedule to offer an insect like you the personal touch and that's the thanks I get."
She arched and whimpered. Pain and frustration striking all the right chords as they bounced off the tile. He watched, razor poised delicately in a bloody hand.
All the right tingles in all the fun places, as he'd said to Sara. Unimpressed, untempted Sara. He could taste her mouth, hear her voice as she whispered in his ear. Oh the little daydreams he'd had about her in the last few days. Naked. Bound to a table like this one. Moaning his name. Begging. Bit of a different context than this, but lovely nonetheless. The sounds of agony ebbed and he turned his attention back to the bound demon.
"You know, some people prefer a scalpel for this." He began cutting at her right nipple and continued down over her ribs. Her screams waxed once again. "I don't. I like the feel of a razor. There's just something about the way it balances in the hand. Perfect for delicate work if you know how to use it. Not to mention the impression it makes when it comes into view."
He pulled back the skin to reveal fat and muscle to a crescendo of desperate screams. The sound of an incoming text message was almost lost in them. He glanced at the metal tray where he'd left his phone. Could be nothing. Could be someone's idea of an emergency, which usually turned out to be nothing. Could have been Moose or Squirrel calling to demand his help with something in between threatening his life and insulting him. They usually preferred voicemail for that. More room to vent, less pesky spelling. Probably wasn't worth the effort to read it really.
The tone came again. Bloody things. Impossible to ignore.
He glanced at the demon on the table. Torture shouldn't be a fast process. There should be moments where the subject could rest, where the pain could settle and smolder a bit before the next cut forced it to another crest. It was the difference between the peaks and valleys that changed blunt force into ballet. He stepped over to the tray.
His eyebrows shot up when he saw it was from Sara. "I met Celeste today. She wants a dress. I haven't decided what to say yet." And that was it. As though it were nothing.
"Bollocks." He let the razor clatter to the tray.
Crowley, pressed a button next to the door with his elbow. A tall demon in glasses and a white lab coat appeared at the door almost immediately.
He bowed his head respectfully. "Your Majesty?"
"Take over" He washed the blood from his hands, hung his apron on a hook. "I want her pliable, not pulped."
X
It was a fifty-fifty chance whether or not Crowley would answer, but Sara felt better having sent the text. For the moment she was able to let it go and she began to sing along with the radio. She was halfway through Galileo by the Indigo Girls when she felt someone watching her. When she lifted her eyes she half expected to see Crowley standing there, but no, there was just empty air. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. Sara spun on her heel just in time to see Martha reach the landing. Happier thunderclouds had spawned tornadoes.
Sara put on her brightest smile. "Hi Martha."
She crossed her arms and shifted her hip. "Don't you 'hi Martha' me. Erika and I have the hours between one and five reserved for silent contemplation and you're up here making all this racket. And that song is hardly appropriate."
"So you broke your albeit temporary vow of silence to come up here and tell me off?"
Martha opened her mouth and closed it again. She shifted her hip the opposite way. "You knew that if you sang a song like that I would have to come up here."
"You assume I was thinking about you at all. Even if I was, you couldn't resist temptation for," She glanced up at the clock. "About an hour. Seems like life as a nun is going to be a bit of a challenge."
Martha blinked and the disapproving look fizzled into uncertainty. A moment more and she uncrossed her arms and shifted from one foot to the other. Sara thought Martha would stay there, staring, but she turned and trotted down the stairs.
X
Humans, in Crowley's experience, tended to be too wrapped up in their own petty little dramas to notice his arrivals. In the rare event that one of them did, they were easily able to convince themselves that they just hadn't noticed. That he had walked in when they were looking at their phones or staring at the pretty bartender or trying to chat up the person in line behind them. If he happened across one who tended to believe their own eyes, well, who would believe them anyway?
Popping in on Sara required a bit of caution. Luckily, he knew a few tricks.
The king appeared at the end of a long hallway just inside the spectrum of light invisible to humans.
She was singing and the sound wove the same magic it had in the church. Much as he hated to admit it, if someone had asked for a voice like that he didn't think he could give it to them. Another reason he would have her, in every sense of the word. He moved closer. She looked up, directly at where he was standing, but she shook her head and turned away. She knew, but she convinced herself that she didn't. She went back to polishing a small table. She was cleaning? What kind of a place was this? He almost stepped out when he heard someone coming up the stairs.
Another girl, plain and frumpy with it, came up to the top of the stairs and started to complain to Sara about breaking a silence. If Sara felt any surprise she never showed it. The argument didn't matter. Sara had that handled. No, seeing the two of them together had given him a sense of something else.
The other girl had something about her too. He hadn't noticed in the church, largely because it was a bloody church and his attention had been on Sara. Here, he could focus. Seeing them side by side it was like looking at a poor quality industrial diamond next to a faceted red diamond. What caused the difference? No idea. Not yet.
The other girl retreated, all the indignation she came in with deftly flayed by Sara. It brought a little smile to his lips. She rubbed at the side of her wrist, the place where he'd first touched her. The feeling of her silky skin came back to him and he tried to push it aside. It didn't work. It never bloody worked. Not really.
Her eyes swept over the place where he stood, her eyebrows drawn together slightly. He could have stepped out then, but watching was just too delicious. The king waited until she went back to dusting. The element of surprise had always been a favorite of his.
X
He was there. Sara was certain he was there, but there wasn't anywhere to hide in the hallway. It was all open space and light. She rubbed at her wrist and picked up the dust cloth again. She'd just finished the last table when she heard the floor creak. She looked up and Crowley was standing there, a little smile on his face. Exactly where she'd felt like he was. At first, she just stared, but then he opened his mouth to speak and the reality of where they were hit her. She waved her arms to stop him, grabbed his hand and pulled him into the closest room with an unlocked door, the cleaning closet.
Once the door was closed, she stood on her toes and leaned close to whisper in his ear. "Please, do that quiet thing."
He wrapped an arm around her waist and nipped an earlobe. "Spell." He murmured.
A tremor went through her body. "That quiet spell."
His mouth found the sensitive skin just below her ear. "If you give me something."
Sara tried to step back, but he held her close.
"Careful, pet. We wouldn't want to set off anyone's suspicions, now would we?"
"I'm not agreeing, but what do you want?" Sara relaxed against him again.
His grip eased, but his lips kept teasing over the shell of her ear. "Nothing much. Just one extra question which you must answer truthfully, to be asked at a time of my choosing. Agree?"
Sara couldn't imagine all the things he could possibly ask. But could she really tell him anything? She was too lost in the feeling of his mouth on her skin, the sound of his voice and the feeling of his body against hers. Even without the distraction, she doubted she could see this deal from all the angles anyway. "I agree."
"Then we'll seal the deal properly. Kiss me."
"Just one extra question. That's all I'm agreeing to." Sara said.
He nodded. A little smile caressed his mouth. His eyes glittered in the dim light. She brushed her lips over his. He captured her mouth and Sara was lost. Lost. In a broom closet, surrounded by the smell of bathroom cleanser and bleach. Sometime soon, when she was alone and her mind was quiet, she would have to work out why she couldn't seem to resist this.
After what seemed like ages he broke the kiss and murmured a few words. The sounds of the building disappeared. Sara stepped back a little. This time he let her go.
His eyes swept around the dimly lit space. "I'm all for a novel experience, Darling. But this?"
"If you had told me you were going to be dropping by, I would have been somewhere better." Sara looked away a little and tried to put the tendrils that had escaped her messy bun into some kind of order. "And I probably would have done something with my hair."
"You look, well," he shrugged a little. "You'll clean up nicely."
Not complimentary, but refreshingly honest. Sara smiled a little and leaned back against one of the shelves. "Next time it's my turn to clean the common areas I'll be sure to wear my tiara, just in case."
He tilted his head. "I could see you in a tiara."
Sara shook head, a little smile on her lips despite herself.
"Charming as this cupboard is, I'd rather not have a chat in here. Too much like a confessional."
Sara started for the door. "Let me see if the coast is clear."
He caught her arm. "I don't care about the bloody coast."
A moment later, they were standing in her room. He held a finger to his lips. In the space of two heartbeats, the spell settled around them. "Much better." He sat on the bed and patted the space next to him, expectation played across his features.
Sara sat cross-legged, facing him.
He reached inside his jacket and held up his phone, her message on the screen. "Care to explain?"
"Explain what? That's it. Celeste asked for a dress, I said maybe. End of story."
"I know you're not thick. Celeste is a demon." There was a harder edge to his voice.
Sara gripped her leg and refused to flinch. She held his eyes. "And she has agendas I can't even imagine. Why do you think I texted you in the first place?"
"You texted. I'm here. Stop being so bloody obstinate." His voice was rising and so was his anger.
Sara could feel her heart pounding, but she refused to give in just because he got a little loud. "I'm not being obstinate. The whole interaction took two minutes. I don't know what you want me to say so stop treating me like one of your subjects. You want to know something, you ask me a question I can answer."
He looked away and took a deep breath. When he spoke again the jagged edges of his anger in his voice had dulled. "When and where this happened would be a start."
"This morning at the coffee shop in Graton. I was interviewing another nun and after she left I was thinking about what she'd said. Celeste asked if she could sit. She kind of surprised me. I recognized her from the gallery. Whatever she wanted, I thought that I should just hear it or she would show up later, so I said yes."
His eyes narrowed just a fraction. "You didn't know she was there?"
Sara looked away. "I let myself get too wrapped up in Sister Bernadette's story."
"Another 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam' narrative had you spellbound?"
"Trust me. That was not the kind of story it was. I'll tell you later if you're interested." Sara took a deep breath and relayed the rest of her conversation with Celeste as close to word for word as she could.
Crowley leaned back against her pillows for a moment, his eyes closed. "And that is it? There's nothing you've left out because you think it's not important?"
"No. As soon as I took her number, I left." Sara said. The vision of him laying in her bed was one that would live in her imagination and likely crop up unbidden at the worst possible moments. She pushed that aside for now.
He opened his eyes and sat up, shifting closer to her. "Do you want to make this dress?"
She shrugged. "I do, but I'm not sure I should."
"Afraid you'll be tempted?"
"I know you're not thick either. If I can say no to you I can definitely say no to her. No, it's the sneaky questions."
"About you?"
"About you." Sara gripped her leg a little tighter and looked down at her hands. "Every time I talk to Leah it's always what you're like and what we do when we're together, where we go. She makes it sound like best friend girl talk but it just feels wrong."
He moved closer. "Do you tell her?"
Sara ignored the danger in his tone. "Give me some credit. If she asks something about you I tell her I don't know. If it's something that I obviously do know I tell her that it's personal and I'm not sharing."
"Hm." He looked away. "I wouldn't have thought her that devious."
"On her own, she isn't. I think this is Jubal."
"Demons don't rub off on people they make deals with, despite the kiss."
"Maybe not, but she and Jubal are still seeing each other. Anyway, we're getting off track. I can deal with Leah because she's so obvious about it. I'm sure Celeste is more subtle and I don't want to say something that I shouldn't without realizing it."
Crowley thought for a moment. "Then say yes, with a condition. I provide a place for you two to meet, and I'm present for all meetings and fittings. Do you have any kind of agreement your clients sign?"
"Yes, but isn't it a bit obvious if you're there?"
"Darling, there's not much that demons like better than a juicy tidbit of gossip. Rumors have been flying for weeks. At this point, denial is ridiculous. The document?" He held out his hand.
Sara got up and fished a blank form out of her desk and handed it to him.
"Not bad," He murmured as he scanned through the first page. "Not bad at all."
Sara sat next to him again.
His eyebrows shot up. "Is that really what you charge?" He pointed to the list of numbers.
"Yes." Sara said.
"For original work?" He looked horrified.
"We're all in school here. No one has a job, just allowance or income from a trust. If I charged more, no one would buy. I did tell Celeste that if I said yes I was going to charge more."
"How much?"
"I don't know, I was thinking about twenty-five percent."
"Twenty-five-" He drew an ornate fountain pen out of his jacket and grabbed a copy of the Lives of the Saints from the bedside table. He drew a slash through the numbers in reddish black ink. "You'll triple it." He wrote in the new figures in a bold hand.
"I can't just - "
"You just did." He hovered the tip of the pen over the page as he scanned. "And she gets only one fitting included." He made those changes as well. Once he was satisfied with the basics, he added a note that terms continued on the back. There he wrote out the part of the agreement that said he would provide space for meetings and be present during them. The language was thick and obscure as any contract Sara had ever seen, but the bold script had an elegance that seemed out of place on a sheet of ordinary white printer paper.
He handed the pages back to her and slid the pen back into his jacket. "Are you right-handed or left-handed?"
"Right-handed. Why?"
He touched the tip of her left clavicle near the hollow of her throat. Sara didn't know if there was a flash of light or if she just thought there was because of the explosion of pain that radiated across her left side and down her arm. She jumped up and put as much distance between them as the room would allow, her left arm cradled in her right.
"What the hell was that? What did you do to me?"
He got up. "Pet-"
"Don't you take another step. What did you do?" The pain in her arm was starting to ease a little, but her collarbone felt like it was on fire.
He raised his hands in front of him, but didn't move. "It's a mark. If just anyone can find you, things might tend to become complicated to say the least. I did it for you."
Sara glanced down. "There's nothing there."
"Not on your skin. Carved into the bone."