A Demon in Love Box Set

Chapter 2-4

Justin mostly looked like himself, even as a demon. That much was true.

Justin also had a flickering shimmering aura, the sizzle of heat over pavement on a hot day, distorting the air around him; the afternoon tasted of fire and barbecue. His eyes had turned even redder, and his skin had an eerie sheen; the blue highlights in his hair had vanished, burned off. The strands curled and coiled: still partly black, but black and red and gold and rippling, coals burning low and hot and kissed by wind. He even had a tiny ephemeral suggestion of horns.

His lips moved. The words might’ve been no, or oh f**k no, or Kris’s name.

No one else moved. A frozen tableau: café patrons, window-shoppers, pedestrians, gawking motorists on city streets.

The mother ran: across the street, up to Justin, up to the demon holding her baby; and she staggered and trembled and held out arms and pleaded, “Please—”

“Demon,” whispered a man at the corner café.

“Demon,” breathed the girl next to him.

“I’m so sorry,” Justin said, trembling—a demon shaken by notice—and pushed the baby into its mother’s arms, and took a breath—

Kris didn’t think, didn’t stop to process, only moved. Instinctive. Grabbing Justin’s hand.

They rematerialized in a back alley: the one immediately behind the café, in fact, complete with Dumpsters and a scruffy tomcat, which hissed and fled. Justin tripped over an apple core, shook Kris’s hand wildly, and demanded, “What the hell were you thinking—you could’ve—” His hair crackled, distressed.

“What the hell was I—what the hell were you—you weren’t going to leave me behind!”

“I could’ve dropped you into a brick wall! Or—or that Dumpster!”

“But you didn’t!” They were shouting. More shouting was happening down the street. Demon rumors spreading. Justin had faded back to mostly human, with a tinge of crimson under skin and eyes and fireflower hair; Kris was still holding his hand. Neither of them had let go. “Is your hair on fire?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

“It’s an important question! I care if your head’s burning!”

“It does that on its own—” Justin risked a quick peek down the alleyway. “I can probably only teleport us both one more time. Two, maybe, but I might pass out.”

“Are you okay?”

Justin stared at him. Opened his mouth, shut it, shook his head. “How are you not concerned about the whole demon part?”

“You didn’t answer the question!”

“I’m only half! Everything’s harder!” Justin had carried on staring at him. “Shouldn’t you be turning me in? Or asking whether I’m about to abduct you to the demonic underworld?”

“Are you?”

“No!”

“We’re good, then!” Kris yanked his voice down to a reasonable level. Some part of him was shrieking and gibbering in terror—demon, oh f**k Justin was a demon, a real demon, scourge of legends and gruesome cautionary tales—but a much larger part was taking a shockingly rational and simultaneously romantic view of the situation, in which he and Justin were in this together. And Justin was holding his hand. “We should get out of here.”

“Yeah, but—” Justin flung helpless glances around the alley. The Dumpster shrugged at them with last night’s Chinese food: no assistance. “I don’t even—where would we—and I just showed everyone my face—Kris, they all saw me, I can’t breathe—”

“Yes you can!” Hands on Justin’s shoulders. Support. Firm even while terrified. Justin felt human. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing more so than panicked gulps of air, that light body trembling in his arms. “You’re fine. You’re okay, I’ve got you, come on, nobody’s here yet, I’m here, you can breathe. With me. In and out. Please.”

He didn’t think about a demon having an anxiety attack in an alleyway amid Dumpsters and rubbish-heaps. He saw Justin, breathless and clinging to him, while yells about search parties and undertones of pitchforks clattered in the background. “Please. You can breathe, I know you can, one more time, come on, in and out…”

Justin, shivering, managed to draw a breath. Then another. “We should…I should get us out of…I can’t think…”

“You said things were harder? But you can move us?” At the nod, he continued, thinking fast, “You can get us to my place?”

“I…think so.” Justin had continued leaning on him, but seemed marginally steadier: given direction, given assistance. “I’m usually okay getting to anywhere I’ve been, or anyplace I can see…oh f**k, Kris, I’m so sorry about…yes, I think I can drop us in your living room. I’ll try.”

“Go on, then—”

The world swirled. Vertiginous and rushing, melting and merging and falling away. Kris had once liked teleportation—he’d had one or two friends with minor telekinetic talents that extended to location-hopping—but had in later years decided that lurching disorientation, even if brief, wasn’t worth saving five minutes of travel. Most people had extremely short ranges, so there wasn’t much point to it other than showing off.

Justin evidently didn’t have a range limit. But then: demon. Right.

Justin stumbled over nothing. Caught Kris’s shoulder for support. White-faced under the wavering heat-flare that surrounded him, disturbing penthouse atmosphere. I might pass out, he’d said; Kris grabbed him and eased him down onto the sofa. His abandoned scotch-and-coffee cup from that morning wobbled at them when he bumped the table. “Justin? Justin! Say something!”

“I’m fine…” But trembling. Shock. Reaction. Kris snatched a blanket, some designer gift he’d resolutely ignored, off a chair. “Thanks.”

“Your hands are cold.”

“That’s not…that’s just being scared.” Justin huddled under the blanket. He looked younger, despite the scent of bonfires and caramelized sugar, despite the inhuman scarlet glint in those eyes. He looked desperately unhappy, and beautiful, and like someone trying with all his strength not to fall apart. “I don’t know if they got a good look at me. I don’t think so. It was too fast.”

“Don’t,” Kris said, “don’t worry about it, I can deal with the media, I’ve done it for years, stay put, I’ll get you a drink,” and ducked into the kitchen for the good scotch. His own hands shook slightly when he picked up the bottle; he reminded himself to breathe. Justin. In his apartment. On his sofa. A demon. Half demon.

A half-demon who’d just saved a baby.

Who loved classic rock and sugary nutty coffee.

Who needed his help.

He came back out, handed over a cut-glass tumbler, and said, “So you’re a demon, then, does that mean you know what happened to Elvis? Did he really get carried off by fifty succubi?”

Justin laughed, exhaustedly. Consumed a large gulp of scotch. Shut both eyes, and opened them again. “Not as far as I know, though it’s one possibility…how’re you so calm about this?”

“I don’t exactly see you as the type to go round nicking anyone’s immortal soul.” He plopped down on his couch next to the blanket-wrapped half-demon he was in love with. “Tell me if you are, though. Mine’s not worth much these days, but I could let you have it cheap.”

“You’d be surprised how much you’re worth.” Justin drank more scotch. Looked at his glass in some bemusement, as if only now realizing he had it. “I’m sorry about panicking. I’m okay.”

“Yeah,” Kris said, and got refills, “you look completely one hundred percent, sure, let’s pretend that’s true. Want anything else? Coffee? Food? I don’t have any appalling healthy tea, sorry, only Earl Grey.”

“…you’re not scared?”

“I saw what Reggie once did to a hotel toilet in Glasgow. You’re not even close.” Light words, batted about like petals on a breeze; covering over yawning cracks in the foundation of the earth. Justin—his Justin, sweet obliging Justin Moore, made of long legs and playful hair and sunbeams—was a demon.

Demon was a misnomer, in fact. Humans tended to apply familiar labels to the magical realm, especially magical creatures; leprechauns weren’t products of Celtic myth, and gnomes would bite your ankles if referred to as lawn ornaments. But demons, oh, demons…

The term had got plastered onto the collectively less savory magical beings sometime in the fifth century, and like most outside terminology, provided a good catch-all phrase while simultaneously reducing near-infinite diversity to zero. Demons came in many shapes and sizes, from the Elvis-rumor succubi and incubi to sandstorm ifrits and crawling arachnids; they did collectively, however, possess two traits in common. Firstly, they dwelt, like most purely magical beings, in a space not quite human, a kind of parallel world between raindrops and mirages; in the case of demons, this had become known as the underworld.

Secondly, demons were inimical to humanity. They fed on human energy—not exactly a soul, but similar enough—and they had a propensity for deals, twisted bargains, seductions, and general mischief. They didn’t all want the same things, but it was true that they tended to be the wickeder fairy types; this had contributed to the legends and lore and perpetual distrust.

Demons existed in stories. In rumors. In tales told to frighten children: don’t go outside in the dark, don’t make deals with strangers, don’t accept a visit to the underworld, beware of men with red eyes, they’ll steal your soul…

He asked cautiously, sitting close enough to reach out if his demon looked wobbly again, “How does the half bit work?”

“My mother was a demon. Well, what you call demons.” Justin’s voice was tentative. Wary. Afraid of the reception. Kris inched closer. “My father’s human. He’s a history professor. He teaches at Youngstown, upstate, he specializes in the development of human-otherworld relations and political science…my stepmom’s human too. And also a professor. Physics. She’s an empath, but more receptive, not projective like you. They have four thoroughly human kids. Who’re great. And I’m, um, me.”

“You’re you, yeah, I’d be traumatized if you up and turned into Reggie.” He wanted to put his arm around those shoulders. Wasn’t sure if it’d be wanted, if it’d be too intimate, if Justin’s hair genuinely was on fire and would nip at his shirt. “So your mum went back to the—” Justin’d said otherworld, not underworld. “—home? Her home?”

Justin’s smile frayed like broken threads, crooked and sad and trying to hold on. “No. She’s, well, she died when I was three. I don’t remember her much.”

“Oh f**k,” Kris said, aghast, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” and then gave up and did put the arm around him. “I’m so sorry, love.” He wasn’t sure where that’d come from, but Justin exhaled and leaned into his hold, unselfconscious as a kitten seeking comfort. The hair wasn’t even hot, only pleasantly warm, like being tickled by daylight.

“It’s all right.” Justin sounded tired but not offended; Kris hadn’t hideously overstepped. “We can heal a little, small stuff, I mean minor demons can—she wasn’t one of the, the great powerful ones, and I’m not even that. But we’re mortal. Car accidents happen. Stupid everyday crashes, on a wet road…but it’s not like I knew her very well. I miss her, but it’s not like missing a person, more like missing the idea of her. If that makes sense. Kells—Kelly, my stepmom—is fantastic, though.”

“Yeah. Um. I’m still sorry. Can I change the subject? And ask about your hair?”

“Which would be why I dye it.” Justin tugged a strand of smoldering obsidian-and-ember into his face, peered at it critically. “I can’t exactly walk down the street like this, can I…”

“I don’t know, I sort of like it. Very punk-rock. Fire and melodrama.” Which earned a weary half-hysterical ghost of laughter. Warmth brushing Kris’s throat, along the collar of his shirt. He rubbed Justin’s back through blanket-armor. “How’re you feeling? Any better?”

“I think so.” Bonfire eyes regarded the second-time emptied scotch glass with surprise. “I might end up very drunk. At four in the afternoon. On your sofa.”