Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (66 page)

Falk snorted derisively.

“I knew they’d snatch up the fool’s gold and leave the silver goblin’s scimitar lying in a pile of tarnished trash.” He carefully lifted the sheathed blade from a heap of broken glass and bent bookends. When he drew the blade a few inches Jason noticed red symbols glowing along it.

Princess circled Falk’s feet but then bounded away to bite the wings of a stuffed owl that had fallen behind the empty, open cash register.

“Of course they also left a lot of actual garbage,” Falk commented. He sheathed the scimitar.

Hints of both gunpowder and camphor scented the air. And a fine white ash drifted down from the second floor, where the incinerated remains of what looked like an immense serpent spilled across three shattered display cases that had once housed jade and carnelian hairpins.

 The afternoon light streaming in through the windows dulled to hazy gold shafts as it filtered through the drifting clouds of ash.  

 Jason found a silk kerchief and tied it over his nose and mouth. He offered another to Henry, who followed Jason’s example after only briefly smirking at the spray of silk pansies embroidered across the cloth.

“What do you think?” Falk asked through the kerchief. “Do I look like a proper robber now?”

“It does strike a nice balance between criminal menace and floral extravaganza.” Jason grinned from behind his own display of pink roses.

“Sure. We’ll set a new trend in criminal fashion. Pretty soon all the young thugs would be swaggering around with their grannies’ hankies over their faces.”  

Together they scavenged and pilfered through gilded cabinets, pungent travelers’ trunks, and the dark little drawers of any number of dressers and desks.

Steadily, he and Falk amassed a treasury of arcane weapons, ancient necessities, and petty valuables. Strings of semiprecious stones, silver blades, tinderboxes, leather satchels, two pocket watches, and a variety of old and costly clothes heaped up on the silken divan where they gathered their loot.

Jason’s nerves tingled with both excitement and anxiety when he surveyed the assortment of odds and ends and realized that he would have to build a new life in another world with just these supplies. But it would be his own life.

He picked up one of the battered pocket watches and studied the constellation of symbols and additional hands that revealed themselves to him. According to Falk it was a compass for traveling between realms.

Jason wound the hands experimentally. A portal to Atlantis would be active in only twenty-three more hours.

“What about Atlantis?” Jason asked.

“Depends on how much you enjoy the damp. Very pretty, though. Red Ogre’s tower was built there. She swears that some quiet nights you can hear the mermaids singing in the lower floors,” Henry replied from the balcony above.

Jason remembered his ghostly visions of serene sea creatures drifting through the hallway.

“I’d like to at least see it,” Jason decided.

“Not a bad thought. There’s certainly wealth there and the inhabitants aren’t too keen on either the sidhe or NIAD. There’s plenty of glass here to trade with the mermaids and merrows, though crystal would be better…” Falk glanced up and then suddenly swung up onto the railing of the balcony and leaned out to catch one of the crystal chandeliers. He quickly plucked several shimmering baubles from their metal supports as if he were picking cherries. “They love how leaded crystal splinters light into rainbows. Pixies tend to go for prisms for the same reason.”

Jason nodded and tried to commit this to memory along with all the other odd and esoteric information Falk had offered him as the sun had sunk outside the windows and the streetlights had flickered into life.

Cold iron downs pixies, nixies, and faeries. Trolls are nuts for coconut sunscreen. Brownies only keep their word when swearing on a sewing needle. Griffins have canaries for brains and go after their own reflections nine times out of ten. Never travel by using Mexican calendars. Don’t eat goblin shashlik.

You must name the weapon you use to kill a unicorn so that the curse of its spilled blood will fall upon the weapon and not its bearer. The same held true with silver knives and werewolves…

Jason could hardly remember it all, but he still felt flushed with excitement at the prospect of seizing control of his own life. He wouldn’t wait for some government agency or a sidhe regent to decide his fate any more than he would willingly walk back into St. Mary’s.

And, despite his fears, the idea of traveling in disguise to new worlds appealed to him. He guessed that Falk was the one who made it appealing in the way he casually mentioned curses and enchanted fountains while neatly wielding his knife to pry the pearls from a Hindu statue. Someday Jason wanted to be that experienced and confident.

Jason ducked beneath the line of a window and crept up the stairs. Princess trailed him, swatting at the fluttering streamers of broken exorcism tape that littered the steps.

“What about this?” Jason held up a blanket embroidered with golden winged lions. When he’d worked at the shop he’d always thought it was a beautiful creation—faded with age and yet still whole and flashing with gold threads.

“Certainly looks like it could keep off the sun or the cold.” Henry swung down from the railing and landed with surprising quiet. “How’s it smell?”

Jason took a whiff of the thick cloth.

“Like fried chicken.” Jason’s stomach gave a demanding growl in response to the scent.

“Really?” Falk asked.

“No,” Jason admitted. “I think I’m smelling the restaurant down the street. They probably started dinner service.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I can smell it too.” Henry took in a deep breath and frowned at the nearest window. “It got dark quick enough, didn’t it?”

Jason shrugged. For the last twenty minutes or so he’d been using the light radiating off Falk to see his way around the shop. It struck him as almost ironic that Falk could shine so intensely and yet be utterly unable to perceive his own brilliance.

“Why don’t you pack the bags while I grab us some grub?” Falk suggested. Jason felt more than happy to agree.

Falk handed him a fistful of cut crystal gems. Then he pulled down his kerchief and took a long swig from the flask in his pocket. A moment later the light radiating from him dimmed and he sank back into a darkness that not even Jason’s vision could penetrate.

The entire shop darkened in his absence and Jason had to grip the handrail of the stairs to ensure his footing as he descen-ded toward the silken divans and ornate Indian beds on the first floor. He wondered if he could create some small illumination of his own; he remembered how he’d used a melody to close Falk’s wounds and decided to try. He let his thoughts fill with the low, warm tones of glowing embers and then the rushing whispers of flames as they burned the air. If anyone but Princess had been with him he would have felt too absurd to open his mouth and release this strange, primal song. But now as the raspy, growl of notes rushed out of him a ball of fire burst up before him.

Princess, who’d been trailing him with a strand of pearls dangling from her mouth, dropped her treasure and let out a startled yowl.

“It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you—or burn the building down…” Jason reassured her and himself. “It’s a tiny flame, just  enough light to see where I’m going.”

Very cautiously Jason lifted his hand and the small ball of flames drifted to his outstretched fingers. It felt warm against his skin but didn’t burn. In fact, it hardly felt much hotter than a warm breath against his skin.

Once he reached the divan on the first floor, Jason placed the flame in an empty crystal chalice on a dresser and set to work sorting and packing everything he and Falk had gathered. Princess curled up on an upholstered footstool where she could watch the flame and chew on her string of pearls. Ever so slowly the flame dimmed until only the dull glow of a red ember fell across Jason.

He lowered the full leather packs to the floor and stretched out on the divan. It had been a long, exhausting day and he suspected that only hunger was keeping him awake at this point. In the chalice, the ember’s light pulsed and dimmed as if it too were fading into unconsciousness.

Then Falk appeared in halo of cold radiance, carrying a bucket of fried chicken and a six-pack of Anchor Steam Beer.

Jason rolled out one of the many Persian carpets and they ate on the floor in the warm fluttering light of the smoldering ember. Initially, hunger rendered Jason oblivious to everything but devouring hot drumsticks, salty biscuits, and cool beer. But slowly he became aware of the way the Henry watched him as he slowly drank his beer.

“Do I have something on my face?” Jason asked. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand self-consciously.

“Yeah,” Falk replied. He leaned close. “Let me get it for you.”

He kissed Jason and his mouth tasted like beer and something earthy and strong that Jason couldn’t name but yearned for. He leaned into Falk, kissing back and feeling the sensation of Falk’s lips and tongue shiver through his entire body.

He wanted this so very badly and yet he didn’t know if he trusted where it would lead. Falk’s hand curled around his shoulder and Jason thought he would pull him closer, but he didn’t.

Jason drew back. Falk held his gaze even as he allowed him to withdraw.

“I thought you didn’t…” Jason wasn’t certain of what he wanted to say except that after they’d screwed this morning Falk had seemed so cold, almost angry with him, and Jason didn’t want that to happen again. “This morning…”

“I was an asshole this morning. Sorry about that, I wake up surly. But I don’t think I ever said anything about not wanting you.” Falk’s mouth curved like he might laugh, but his gaze remained intense and fixed upon Jason. “What about you? What do you want?”

Jason wasn’t certain how to answer that. For such a simple question it asked so much—from his long-ranging romantic ideals to a preference of sexual positions.

In response Jason simply caught Falk’s scarred, calloused hand and drew him up onto the silken divan.

They undressed together. Jason felt self-conscious, comparing his soft naked body to the ropey muscle, rough blond hair, and scars of Falk’s tall frame. His inexperience seemed so obvious.

But it relieved Jason to see that he wasn’t alone in his feverish, flushed skin or excited, shaking hands. Jason tossed his T-shirt aside and Falk kissed his bare chest and then his abdomen, sending tremors through Jason’s flesh.

“You’re beautiful all the way to your bones, you know that,” Falk told him and then he pulled aside Jason’s underwear.

Jason gasped as Falk’s mouth engulfed him, his silver tongue lashing waves of pleasure through him. He didn’t know if it was magic or simply a result of Falk’s vast lifetime of experience, but never before had Jason felt ecstasy rock him so powerfully or linger so long after.

As Jason lay, sticky and catching his breath, he noticed that the ember had died out. It didn’t matter; Falk illuminated him, bathing him in a glow as radiant as starlight. Jason touched Falk’s weathered cheek and he wasn’t sure if Falk’s expression was sad or tender as he gazed down at him.

“Are you worried?” Jason asked.

“Maybe a little…” Falk stretched out beside him on the divan. “Mostly about rolling off this thing.” He pulled a crooked grin.

But Jason could tell he was lying and Falk seemed to realize as much because his expression sobered.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Falk admitted. “But that’s life. Sooner or later everyone loses something or someone.”

“It’s not like I’ve never lost anyone.” Jason searched Falk’s angular face. He didn’t know how he could look so rough and handsome at the same time. Like one of those tough-guy detectives from an old-time movie: the kind that talked mean and then sacrificed everything to save some hapless heroine in the end.

But Jason wasn’t a heroine and he wasn’t hapless. And most importantly he wasn’t going to let fear of an unknowable future keep him from embracing his freedom now.

“Look,” Jason said, “I can’t promise that I—or you for that matter—will be safe and sound for all time to come. But we’re here together now. And this is good, isn’t it?”

“It’s very good,” Falk admitted. The smile that curved his mouth this time was genuine.

“Then let’s enjoy now,” Jason suggested.

Falk kissed his brow lightly.

“If we’re going to keep enjoying ourselves, I need to get something out of my coat pocket,” Henry informed him.

Jason guessed that even magicians needed lube and condoms.  

When Henry returned, he lay down behind Jason. His hands felt hot as he stroked the muscles of Jason’s bare back and traced curling designs down the length of his spine.

“Is this all right?” Falk asked.

Eight hours ago it might not have been, but now Jason nodded.

He relaxed, allowing Falk to arouse his languid body, while he built a song of passion and rapture in his mind. Falk shifted them both up to their knees. Jason’s skin shivered with delight at the sensation of Falk’s hair brushing over his back and buttocks. The heat of Falk’s skin and the smell of his sweat filled Jason’s senses as his hard width filled Jason’s body.