The Master (11 page)

“Zee, do you really . . . ? ”

“Yes,” she whispered, even as she blushed. “I want this.”

He wanted it, too. More than anything. More than he wanted his next breath. And how could he refuse the gift she was offering? To do so would be cruel.

And stupid,
said a voice that did not belong to the ghost, and yet did not seem to belong to Nick either.
Take the offering. Accept the power of this gift.

“Please,” Zee whispered, and reached out a delicate hand to wrap it around his shaft.

Her touch was electric, but it was her gaze that was Nick's undoing. Who could refuse it?

He knew his first thrust hurt her, but she still responded; her back arched and a small cry broke from her lips as he joined and then withdrew from her body. She climaxed immediately, and as had every other shiver of her body, this one also seized him. He thrust into her a second time and then convulsed, filling her with his seed.

His seed? The thought touched Nick's numbed brain. He hadn't worn a condom! The thought hadn't even crossed his mind. It was barely crossing it now. He must have had a lot more to drink than he had thought. Fortunately he was healthy, and Zee was a virgin. That simply left the danger of pregnancy.

Well, there was time enough to worry about it tomorrow. Right now, what was more important was kissing Zee's lovely mouth, and looking into her beautiful dark eyes; reassuring her that she hadn't made a terrible mistake in giving herself to him in this moment of madness. Because she hadn't. Nick swore this on his soul. She would not regret this night of magical madness.

Nick was fairly certain that Zee was sleeping, finally, but he gave it another slow five-minute count on his watch before slipping out from under the scratchy wool blanket, pulling on his clothes and heading for the door. Fortunately the storm had stopped completely, and he was able to open the cabin door with no more interruption than a small gust of cold air swirling into the room and disturbing the dwindling fire.

Though the urge to hurry was upon him, Nick walked carefully, crunching through the odd snow that was a slippery mix of powder and hail, and smelled oddly of ozone. What he didn't need for Christmas was another soaking or a broken hip.

The dome light turned on as he opened the passenger door and climbed in, leaving the door ajar. He hadn't looked too closely at the Christmas-in-a-basket he'd won at the mall, just stuffed it away with the other packages. He had hoped that maybe some Christmas stockings had been included— after all, what kind of Christmas was it without stockings? But there didn't seem to be any. No wrapping paper, either. Well, he'd just have to use his own socks. They were rather dull, being made of sensible gray and black wool, but he could take some tinsel off the basket and tie the sock tops shut. And he had a couple of department store bags that his family's gifts were collected in; he could cannibalize them for paper. He even had a pocket knife and some duct tape. What more did a resourceful man need?

Fortunately, the basket packers had been on top of other practical concerns, and had included batteries for the remote-control car. Nick wasn't up on teddy bear couture, but it seemed to him that Miss Bear has plenty of accessories to go with her many outfits. And best of all, there really was a small jewelry box. Nick was getting cold and his nose was running, but he took the time to open the box and have a look at the necklace inside. It was a simple pendant, something more appropriate for a Sweet Sixteen birthday. But the diamonds were lovely, even in the dim light of dawn. And the green velvet box would look very festive with a bit more of the tinsel wrapped around it.

Nick sneezed and realized that he was losing feeling in his feet. He would have preferred to prepare his gifts outside, but he needed to get back indoors before he became a Popsicle. Poets said that love would keep you warm, but he personally doubted the veracity of their claim. At least, it didn't seem to work when one was alone.

Don't forget the dried apricots,
the ghostly image in the side mirror reminded him. “I won't,” Nick muttered. “Now go away, you Peeping Tom. I can take it from here.”

Zee wasn't sleeping; she hadn't been able to sleep for the past two nights. Every time she dozed off she dreamed that she was buried deep underground and in the presence of something terrible, some being who was aware of her and who was slowly suffocating her thoughts of freedom, eating up her dreams and draining her of life. Sleep was important. It was where she refreshed herself, strengthened from the inside, healed. But not anymore. The monster had penetrated her dreams and isolated her thoughts. He had replaced them with fear, and her dreams were no longer healing.

Tonight, with Nick, was the first time she'd thought that maybe she could sleep without dreaming. She had allowed herself to relax, to anticipate. But then he had gotten up. She had felt him slip away, taking all heat and peace with him. Zee had tried not to acknowledge the swift sinking of her heart, her secret worry that he would leave her now that they had lain together.

She scolded herself. Possibly he'd felt the call of nature; that might be why he was going outside.

Her heart dropped another painful inch when she heard the car door open, but it arrested itself when several moments passed and the engine didn't start. Finally, she heard the car door shut again. There was the sound of the trunk being opened, and then Nick returned, laden with parcels and a large basket. He closed the cabin door with his hip and then tiptoed across the floor, being careful not to make any unnecessary noise.

Through slitted eyes, a relieved Zee watched him work, first opening his duffel and pulling out socks, then stuffing them with some unidentifiable things that were likely food, judging by the sweet smells floating on the air. She was a little baffled by his actions but wondered whether this might not be more of Christmas. He had promised that the elf or an emissary would come for her and the children. Had someone actually left something in Nick's car? She was fairly certain that she would have heard anyone prowling outside, but she and Nick had been rather preoccupied.

She hoped that whoever it was would come back, because she needed to ask specific directions to Cadalach, the fey stronghold where Jack Frost lived. It wasn't that she wanted to go to the fey—she was almost as frightened as the children about seeing her people's old foe—but she was part human, too. And someone had to be told about that creature at the mall who was doing something to the children, and her own family hadn't believed her.

Would Nick believe her, if she told him?

Zee wasn't sure. It would be asking an awful lot.

Nick was yawning prodigiously by the time he finished tying up his socks with shiny, bristling ribbon, and when he was done folding the various boxes inside the paper squares he had torn from some large bags, he was almost asleep on his feet.

Cold and a bit clammy, he snuggled back under the blanket he and Zee were sharing, but the chill didn't seem to interfere with his need to sleep. He draped an arm around his living treasure and closed his eyes. His last thought was that at last he had found a way to loosen some of the emotional logjam inside. For so many years, he had dreaded Christmas—and the effects of that dread had been cumulative. This year, he would have a happy memory, one he didn't need to bury.

Nick smiled and began snoring softly.

It was Zee's turn to sneak away. Wriggling slowly out from under Nick's arm, she stepped into her shoes and smoothed her clothing into place. She had wanted to do something special for Nick anyway, but after seeing his efforts to bring Christmas to the children, it suddenly felt vitally important. It was like working a good-luck spell or something—only fine things could come of it. And he had sounded so wistful when talking about Christmas trees. That would be her gift to him. Fortunately, in a forest, trees were easy to find.

He hadn't said how large such a tree should be, but if people brought them inside, they couldn't be all that tall—not like the wonderful display of metal trees at the mall. Anyway, she wouldn't have time to find decorations for a large tree. All she had was aluminum foil and some dog biscuits.

Zee pulled on her cape and turned to look at Nick and the children. She had a moment's qualm. Should she go? It felt safe; whatever evil magic had conjured that storm was now gone. The children and Nick were deeply asleep. The fire was dying, but it would hold for another hour. She would build it up when she got back. Yet . . .

Feeling the compulsion prick at her again, she turned away. Picking up a small rusted hatchet she had concealed in the small pile of firewood, Zee went to the door and opened it.

The morning was cold, the air a sharp thing that stung her lungs with invisible needles. She understood why Nick hadn't wanted to work outside. Even in heavy clothing, the weather was a punishment. Still, it helped her keep awake. Moments of sleepiness were coming upon her in waves now; she would soon need to sleep. But not yet. She needed to do this thing for Nick . . . before it was too late and the moment had passed.

Zee looked about carefully, waiting for something nearby to present itself as an obvious candidate. The most obvious choice was one of the ubiquitous pines. But there were also a handful of twisted oaks and also several attractive manzanita bushes, which were more conveniently sized.

“Why not a Christmas bush?” she asked the early light. Zee bit her lip, wishing she had questioned Nick more carefully. She reviewed their short conversation. Nick had talked about the European tradition of singing to the trees. They didn't have manzanita in Europe. That left the oaks and the pines.

Personally, she preferred oak trees. They weren't so sappy, and they had beautiful branches. But Christmas was largely about smells, or so it seemed, and there was no denying the sharp pleasantness of freshly cut pine. It was a pity that there were no small ones nearby. Maybe she could just cut off a branch. It would be easier to move and it would save the tree.

But, no. If she was going to do this, she wanted to do it right. Nick hadn't said that he missed having a Christmas branch. He wanted a tree. It was important to do this right, to bring the correct offering so everything would be well.

Familiar hunger began to gnaw at Zee as she hesitated, but it wasn't because of her empty stomach.

Thanks to Nick, for the first time in the last two days she was not having hunger of the body. It was odd but, sometimes, when she was feeling especially lonely or frightened, Zee liked to think about food—all the wonderful dishes that she had read about in cooking magazines at the human grocery store in town when she was twelve but had never actually tasted. She thought sometimes that she would like to be fat, all filled up with wonderful things made by people who cooked with what for humans was a sort of magic. Other magazines—fashion magazines—said that to be fat was wrong, that Zee should want to be skinny because that was the key to success. But Zee's body had always been magazine-thin, and it had very rarely been happy. And since her father died, she had felt perpetually empty inside. She needed to fill the hollow space with something.

Sighing, Zee started into the cold forest, so dark with fir-scented shadows. She didn't like walking alone—but not because she was afraid of wild animals. It was just that being alone gave her too much time to think, to question, to doubt . . . and she was doing a lot of doubting these days.

Zee had always been aware that she wasn't a real goblin, nor really a human, nor a fey. She was a freak, a crossbreed who was actually forbidden in many lutin cultures. Some days the aloneness of that identity pressed in on her, but never so hard as it had the last few weeks. The autumn had been brutal, dark and cold outside and inside her soul. She had kept on going only because she had to, because turning back would have meant that there really was something in the world to be afraid of after all. It was to admit that she might try to find a new life and still fail. And she had persisted because of the children. She had to go on for them, even when her own strength and courage wore thin and her dreams ran out. She couldn't let fear stop her. If she did, then Luz would win. Destruction of her hopes and dreams was his favorite form of thievery. He had sucked her mother dry; she would not let him have this victory as well!

Leaving home hadn't been an easy decision; it was not the lutin way. True, her life there had not been happy since her father died, but it hadn't been so bad at first, when it was just her mother and uncles. But her mother had eventually remarried a goblin from another hive, and the creature, Luz, was a human-hating bigot who never tired of trying to turn Zee's birth family against her and the children because they looked more human than lutin. And without her mother's support, the campaign of alienation had slowly worked. Zee's family's disappointment in the trio's increasingly human appearance, and eventual distrust of their hive loyalties, had grown until it was the only thing she ever saw in their faces. Except for her stepfather: He had looked triumphant.

And then there was her cousin, Paspar. He had steadily grown more sullen and nasty the longer he hung around with Luz, and the longer Zee resisted him. He had at first thought of her as perfect wife material—someone who wouldn't be fussy because she was a half-breed and therefore didn't deserve to have any standards about men. Then he had become physically and verbally abusive, telling her plainly that half-breed sluts didn't have any right to be selective about whose bed they warmed.

But she did deserve to have standards, damn it!

And the children did too. And they never would have had any if she'd left them behind again while she made a life for herself. She had been gone for only a couple of weeks, trying to set up her business and arrange a place to live, and had been appalled at the change in them when she returned. They had been pale and silent, their eyes downcast. Asenatha, as Gretel was then called, had looked up with sad eyes and asked, “Zee, am I bad?”