Broken Contracts, page 20
Pressing uncomfortably against the inside of his slacks, Slate realized he wasn’t bluffing.
If the Gestalt wouldn’t give in, Slate . . . actually could let Anthony die.
It sent a little thrill through him, how sure he was. He could do it.
No, more than that, he realized, switching focus to look at Anthony again.
He was going to do it.
Slate didn’t tolerate connections in his slaves, and this one had managed not one, but two. He’d talked his way back into that jackass Cunningham’s heart, but beneath that, the slimmest beginnings of a gossamer thread traced out a path Slate knew well.
Micah.
Slate wasn’t ready to get rid of Micah. He was more than ready to be done with Anthony.
A strange, reedy laugh escaped him as he thought about how easy this would be.
He could have Anthony’s barcode removed, could have his body left out in the woods, and no one would ever find him. No one would go looking for him, not with the police tucked safely into the circle’s various pockets. No one would miss him, no one would ever know what Slate had destroyed.
Well. No one but Cunningham, who apparently had developed some nostalgia for his errant fucktoy.
“Please!” the Gestalt shouted at him, and Slate was snapped out of his fantasy.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Heal him.”
The Gestalt was on his feet in a moment, crossing the room to cradle Anthony’s face in his hands. Where they touched, Anthony’s skin glowed. The power was the same inky blackness that Slate saw inside the portal, but while that was a darkness beyond the capacity of light, this blackness was . . . bright.
Slate stared at it, awed by its beauty even as it dimmed and went out. The Gestalt grunted in frustration, nearly shoving his hands against Anthony before the glow reemerged. It glittered purple along the tears of frustration in the angel’s eyes.
Beneath the blood, Anthony’s wounds began to zip closed, edges vanishing like a tight-lipped smile.
“Wake,” the Gestalt commanded, and the light beneath his palms dimmed and stuttered again. “Wake.”
The purple-black light went out.
The room was silent, broken only by the slow drip of blood into the room’s central drain.
“He’s gone,” the Gestalt said. His voice was quiet. Empty.
Something twisted through Slate’s stomach, so violently that he looked down to make sure he hadn’t been struck.
There was nothing there—just a tense excitement. The idea that something had changed. That things were different now. That a door had been opened—maybe not the literal door he was trying to fix, but certainly a metaphorical one, and—
And Anthony was dead.
Turned from a whining little prick into a dripping slab of torn meat.
Slate had done that.
He bolted for the counter, barely making it in time to be sick into the pristine sink.
Almost absently, he realized that the hand gripping the rim was clean.
November 2014
The call was answered on the second ring, and Slate was so startled he didn’t know what to say.
“Hello?” Christopher said again, a little louder.
“It’s me,” Slate said. With the hand not holding the phone, he toggled the lock/unlock button on the car door, watching the pin by the window go up and down.
Up and down.
Up and down.
“I know it’s you,” Christopher said shortly. “I have caller ID. What do you want?”
Slate cycled through the list of icebreaking comments he could make to try to smooth over the fact that they hadn’t exchanged a single word in eighteen months.
“I need to talk to you,” he said instead. “It’s . . . it’s about something important.”
“What.”
Slate rubbed a hand over his face, trying to figure out if he should summarize or just spill the whole fucking story. There had been a time, not that long ago, when that wouldn’t have seemed so absurd. But now . . .
“I need to ask you a favor,” he said instead.
“A favor,” Christopher said, incredulity in his voice. “A favor. I had to move, Adam, because there was a bloodstain on my front path that wouldn’t come out.” His voice was high and close to breaking as he went on. “I will have nightmares about that creature for the rest of my life. What could you possibly want my help with?”
“It’s not to help . . . me, exactly,” Slate said, trying not to let the guilt into his voice. He thought of the look the medic had given him that morning, when Slate had finally opened the bedroom door. The medic and Carol had both been waiting in the hallway, their faces pale. They’d heard.
“I . . . I’m afraid if I don’t ask, I’m going to lose my nerve.”
“I think you could do with a little less nerve, in general,” Christopher said. “I think we all could have.”
There was silence on the line, silence in the car, broken only by the quiet think-thunk of the door locking and unlocking.
Locking and unlocking.
Locking and unlocking.
“Would it help if I said I might have been wrong?” Slate said, wincing, and while it wasn’t the truth, it wasn’t completely a lie.
The gateway wasn’t closed. Or at least, not closed to everywhere. And by touching it, he’d . . .
His heart beat faster just considering, but he was fairly sure of it now. He’d let something through. Not something like the Gestalt, who spoke of colors and harmonies and walked in a stolen body as though it were his own.
No, Slate had brought something from another place. An empty, hungry thing that told him to clutch and squeeze and pull, even as Micah’s skin bruised as black as the stain making its way past Slate’s elbow.
Christopher sighed. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
Slate offered to host; Christopher didn’t. Slate wasn’t sure he blamed him. They agreed to meet somewhere neutral. Christopher picked the place, a tiny candle-lit restaurant with pastries and spoon steaks and salads made of colorful shredded unidentifiable plants, no lettuce to be seen.
There was no one else inside, because Slate had paid the manager to make sure they weren’t disturbed. She wasn’t used to that kind of request, but a couple members of Slate’s security helped her do an admirable job of improvising. Even the waiter was nowhere to be seen—he’d left them their food and a pitcher of water and then vanished.
Christopher said nothing until he was gone, letting Slate fill the silence with trite observations. And then, suddenly, he spoke.
“Things have been bad, haven’t they?”
“They aren’t ideal,” Slate allowed. “I’m having some . . . some trouble with certain aspects of . . . of the magic we did.”
Christopher nodded slowly, his face pale. “I know it’s hypocritical of me,” he said quietly, “to pass judgment on you. You didn’t even do the spell. I did. I did . . . that, and as much as I want to be angry at you, I know you didn’t exactly have to force—”
“I want you to take Micah,” Slate said, getting the words out before he could talk himself out of it. A part of him was hissing that he needed to take it back now, he could just get up and leave, he could—
“What?” Christopher said. “Micah? You mean, your, um . . .”
“The hospitality slave, yes,” Slate said, trying not to be charmed by the way Christopher’s cheeks were turning pink beneath his glasses. “I’m giving him to you.”
“Oh, no.” Christopher put up his hands. “No, you can’t just fix all this with a present. I don’t care how, uh—”
“It’s not for you,” Slate said, surprised at the anger in his voice when he said it. “I don’t care if you never talk to me again after today. I’m doing it for him.”
Christopher looked hurt, which was pathetic, considering he was the one who’d been on the offensive since he’d first picked up the phone.
He did pick up the phone, though, the little voice of reason chimed in. And he agreed to meet.
“Things have been . . . escalating,” Slate said, his voice going back to normal. “Since we summoned the Gestalt—the angel. The creature.” He’d forgotten he’d need to explain that. Gods, but it had been a long year. “The sense of decorum has slipped, to say the least, and I don’t . . . I don’t want to sell Micah on. I don’t know who it’s safe to sell him to.”
There was more to it than that, so much more, but it was nothing he could explain to Christopher. How to explain the kernels of excitement and terror that had been burning in his belly since Anthony had died? The way the parties and exhibitions had been getting rowdier and more dangerous? How they’d used the silver cuffs and the spell Christopher had forged?
Or the way Micah had looked last night, drugged and bound and fully at Slate’s mercy, and what Slate had done with that power—
How could he explain the fear he felt when he thought of what he might do next?
“I know,” Christopher said quietly.
Slate frowned, switching focus. “How do you know? No one’s talked to you, you’ve severed every contact three degrees deep—”
“I saw it,” Christopher said dully. He picked at the napkin left crumpled on the table. “When I opened the gate, before we brought the creature through, I . . . I looked. And I saw.”
Slate’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward, suddenly eager. “What was it? What did you see? Was it the place we pulled the Gestalt from? What did it look like? He describes it as ‘a place between colors’ and won’t tell me any more than—”
“I saw something horrible,” Christopher deadpanned. “And if I hadn’t, we would have died that night.”
Slate frowned. “Why?”
Christopher pushed his napkin around the table, fabric soaking up the condensation left by his glass.
“Do you believe in souls?” Christopher asked the table.
“I’ve . . . never really seen anything that compels me to.”
“That’s what blood magic is,” Christopher said confidently. “It’s the power of a human soul. We pretend it’s just science, but science can’t tell us why blood magic can’t be worked with animals, or with the blood of the unwilling.”
“And . . . that’s what you saw, through the gateway?”
For a moment, Slate worried that Christopher wasn’t going to continue. He twisted the fabric anxiously around his fingers.
Slate reached out, laying his hand over Christopher’s fidgeting one. It was a risky move—if it was too fast, Slate could have just ruined everything.
Christopher looked up sharply, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “Adam, I bound that creature with blood magic. His own blood.”
“It wasn’t his, it was the slave’s—”
Christopher brought his hands together, clasping Slate’s between them. “It was his, Adam. But his soul didn’t mesh correctly into his body, the way ours do, there was the tiniest little crack . . . and I was able to work my magic into that crack.” His face was pale, and he shook his head. “I didn’t even think about it until after it was done.”
“You saved our lives,” Slate said. “I don’t understand the problem.”
“Because in that crack was darkness,” Christopher exclaimed, loud enough that Slate was grateful for the empty dining room. “Evil. Showing me how to turn a spell that no one ever should. The darkness inside that doorway is something else, something we should never know, let alone use, and I recognize it now, I hear it all around me, in me, whispering possibilities I never would have—”
“But you saved our lives,” Slate repeated, louder.
Christopher looked back at him, face pained. “I shouldn’t have,” he whispered, and his voice cracked. “Everything you’re afraid of now, I knew it was coming. I knew it the moment I saw.”
“Is that what you saw?” Slate asked, breathless. “The future?”
Did the far side of the gateway contain a break in time somehow? Was that why he could see a connection to Micah that didn’t exist yet?
“No,” Christopher said, shaking his head as he stared down at the table. “No, not any more than you can see the future when a vase hurtles toward the floor. I don’t know what’s going to happen. What they’ll do. But that gateway is woven from souls, and I know the darkness inside chafes at them, hour after hour, day after day . . . And I know no one can withstand that. Not forever.”
Slate blinked, puzzle pieces slotting into place inside his head. The slow escalation he’d seen from others—and the faster one he’d seen in himself. And even those who hadn’t given their blood—Locke, Coffey . . . they had been pulled along with the current.
“That’s why you left,” Slate said quietly, lacing his fingers through Christopher’s. “Because you knew what we would become. But why didn’t you say anything? We could have—”
“That’s just it. I’m afraid of what we could do.” Sighing, Christopher pulled his hand back. “I let you give me permission to do things I never would have done on my own. Things I knew were wrong. It started with what I did to Micah, but it wasn’t until I bound that creature that I realized . . .” Christopher looked up, meeting Slate’s eyes in a hard stare. “I realized how far gone I really was.”
Slate opened his mouth to protest, but the words weren’t there. Christopher was right—and it wasn’t just him. The whole group fed off each other, like vampires, siphoning off every last shred of human decency.
“But you got away,” Slate said instead. “So there has to be some hope.”
“My blood isn’t in the spell,” Christopher said dully, scratching at his napkin. “I don’t have that excuse. I made my own choices. And I don’t like the reasons I made them.”
There was a pause, long enough that Slate thought that maybe Christopher wasn’t going to continue.
“I’ve been angry at you for a long time,” Christopher said finally. “But all you ever did was ask. I could have said no. I could have walked away. So I think when I’m angry with you, I’m really angry with myself.”
“You can be angry with me,” Slate said. He considered reaching for Christopher’s hand again, but decided against it. “Blame it all on me if you want. I’m not trying to trick you into coming back, I know this situation is fucked. The shit that’s happened since you left, it’s monstrous, it’s—”
“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to hear you say that,” Christopher said, a tired smile in his voice. The seam of his napkin was beginning to come loose. “I knew it was going to come apart, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it if it wasn’t . . . if that wasn’t what you wanted.” He let out a cynical laugh. “I see the dark everywhere, I feel it creeping into my mind in a way I know I’ll never be able to escape, and even with all that, every choice I make is still for you. It’s always been for you.”
Slate blinked, leaning back in his chair.
He’d known they were friends. He hadn’t been surprised when Christopher had kissed him the night of the summoning. And if he was being honest with himself, he’d known that Christopher would answer the phone, would agree to meet him if he asked. So maybe this confession shouldn’t come as such a surprise.
“So . . . you’ll help me?” Slate asked cautiously. Christopher might be haunted by what he’d seen, but it was clear the empty darkness wasn’t inside him, not the way it was inside the others. Certainly not the way it was inside Slate.
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” Christopher said, looking up at him with a smile. “I thought, of all of them, if anyone was going to put a stop to it, it would be you.”
“I don’t think I can stop it,” Slate said, frowning. He puzzled over the magic he’d come to know well, even with its inconsistencies and unknowns. If Christopher was right about the doorway chafing at the souls it was made of, then there was nothing to be done. Anything strong enough to form a protective barrier would also need to be made of blood magic; it was the only thing strong enough to work on forces this grand.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Christopher said, reaching down for the leather messenger bag at his feet. He laid out a thick binder, paying no attention to the crumbs and condensation on the table. Unlike the ancient leather tomes Slate was used to working with, this looked like it had come from Office Mart. Rather than thread and glue, the college-ruled pages of this book were held in place by snap-shut metal rings.
“There’s no way to stop the decline,” Christopher said, standing and flipping through page after page of handwritten notes and complex illustrations. “But we can still save everyone another way.”
He reached the center of the notes and triumphantly jabbed his finger right in the middle of the diagram.
Diagram was a generous word. It was a manic drawing of the doorway in ballpoint pen and black permanent marker, ink lines so thick and overlapping that they broke through the paper in some places.
“I haven’t been able to do much on my own, not against that many souls,” Christopher was saying, “but with your help, I’m certain we can figure it out.”
“What are you talking about?” Slate said, flipping the book around so he could see. “I don’t need your help with the gateway, I’m not asking you to come back, I just want you to take a slave off my hands, someone . . .” He trailed off, flipping backward through the pages. “Someone who . . .” He skipped slower, reading the words on the page. He looked up, to where Christopher was watching him with a wide smile. “What the fuck have you been doing?”
“I think of it as stapling,” Christopher said, turning a half-dozen pages and pointing to a series of equations. “I can’t close the gate on my own, but by drawing it crosswise along itself, I can prevent the passage of—”
“It’s you.” Slate’s blood drained out of his face as he studied the papers. “None of my spells worked the way they should . . . because of you?”
Slate had blamed it on the angel, and that stupid fucking monster had taken the blame, refusing to give them solutions because he didn’t have them—
