yours temporarily
You don’t often see me scared. Of anything, really, unless you’re operating far outside the normal parameters of mortal society, and even then my loyalty is unswerving. But after the abortive summoning where you had to rescue me from some spirit I had inadvertently permitted entry, I seemed hesitant to re-engage.
We still keep separate places though we spend a fair bit of time together. You let yourself into my place and find the living room lit by a single candle. I’m staring at you in shock. A mirror stands propped up against a doorstop in the shape of a rabbit and a book lies open in front of me.
“Did I startle you?” you ask, a smile in your voice.
I shake my head. “No, I saw you were coming. Sen— felt you. Did you… did you know you feel like you’re always downhill?”
Well, that’s the evening’s entertainment sorted. Despite being a witch you like data as much as any scientist. It’s rare I get to see you excited and as puzzled as I am.
You sit cross-legged on the couch with a cooling neglected hot chocolate. “But what did you see? What can you see? How long have you been studying?”
I’m still pale but I smile. The room is lit by a dozen candles, since I bought a box of them and quixotically thought it would be fun to talk by candlelight instead of putting the big light on. “I’m not as good at focusing as you so I can’t see much. It came in a feeling. Was looking at my half-lit reflection when I fell off the couch. Thought the ground was slanting. Felt ‘down’ move down the next street, across the front, to the door, and then heard your key.” I scratch my neck. “And I’ve been studying a… month? I wouldn’t be anywhere if you hadn’t helped me.”
Your mouth twists. Maybe you want to tell me to be careful. But you hate it when people say that to you, like you haven’t thought about the risks. Instead you allow yourself to be curious. “What do you feel now?”
“Hm?”
“When you trance. What does it feel like?”
I look suddenly nervous, a novice who has been asked to perform for someone far their superior. Still, I do it. You watch me snuff a few candles to bring back the gloom, then sit and stare at my reflection in the dark glass.
You can see when the exercise takes. My face relaxes as my attention is absorbed wholly in the task. I also wobble in my chair. Wow, you really do mess with my gravity.
I turn slowly to look at you, seem to look through you, and appear to be puzzled. Then, astonished. Then horrified. Then my neck cracks as I jerk my head around, staring into the corner of the room. I scratch the nape of my neck mechanically, probably unaware.
“Andrew, what do you see?” I flinch when you speak and look around before finding you. What I see clearly doesn’t bother me as much. “Thought I saw… Well, you were lines of light, but there was this smaller, denser knot of lights, and I thought it was all you but the knot was sort of inverting and folding rhythmically like a… a tesseract?… rotating in four dimensions. And then I realised it reminded me of, like, a beating heart, but also like chewing, and I thought of the woman you burned out, and…”
You calm me by taking my hand and placing it over your heart. The touch grounds me, though I’m still staring through your chest. “You saw her? I thought she was long soaked up.”
I don’t pull away but I shiver. “If it was her, she’s still… feeling what you’re doing.”
You wet your lips unconsciously. Her voice had collapsed into silence quickly. This is new information. “And the corner of the room? Why stare?”
I now withdraw my hand and curl my legs under me, opposite you on the couch. One arm hugs my chest, one gives my nape another scratch. “More lights. Shapes. Suddenly hundreds. Chaos. More colours than— like, I saw a black that glowed. Is that… normal for your kind?”
You shake your head fractionally. Must take what I say with a pinch of salt, I am a child, but from the mouths of babes… “All in that direction?” You gesture towards the corner.
“No. Most went everywhere. But brightest lines went… like that felt up. And it looked like you, your colours, your pattern and pulse.” I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Do you have a direct line to God or something?”
“If I had, I’d have some things to talk about,” you say with an enigmatic smirk. Your hand, you realise, lingers at your heart, core of your vampiric being, where you picture the diminishing spirit being worked upon and assimilated. “I have an idea for why I might be your downhill.”
I look away from the wall and raise my eyebrows. “Oh?”
You lean towards me and remove my hand from where I’m scratching again. There’s blood under the nails. I seem shocked to see it. “One of those lines, whether you recognised it or not, connected you to me. I’ve fed from you so often that a little of you lives in me. When you die…” You trace an invisible path from the nape of my neck to your lips. You so enjoy my rabbit-in-the-headlights expression that you can’t help but draw a line down your throat, between your breasts, to the wanton and luscious flesh of your middle. “Presuming you die outside of me, of course. Obviously there’s no escape for my meals.”
I’m staring at you rapt. You need no heightened senses or blood attunement to know my heart is pounding. “I’m yours forever?”
“No, silly.” You giggle as I unfold from my position on the couch and crawl to kiss the side of your neck, sucking hard enough to cause a love bite. My hands unbutton your top, shaking sightly with barely controlled urgency. “You won’t last forever.”