16 Baz
16
Baz
Lloyd isn’t much help. He asks a bunch of doubtful questions, like he thinks we’re overreacting to my overly religious neighbor, and he seems unimpressed by the correlation between what she said and what he read from the old book.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” he says. “I don’t have any more information beyond that. There’s a couple people I can ask around here, see if they know anything. Otherwise…if you see a stick-monster, light it on fire and run, like you did before.”
“I got torn to shreds before,” grumbles Dorian. “Thanks for nothing.” He sighs.
“Dorian, my heart, you know I would help you more if I could. I just can’t get away right now. There are too many interesting things happening here.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. Until then, be careful.”
“I hate being careful.” Dorian ends the call and massages his forehead with his fingertips. “Baz, I don’t like the idea of you staying here alone tonight.”
“I’ve got Bible verses on my door, remember? And if those don’t work, I’ll just throw my ‘pagan nonsense’ at the monsters and yell, ‘Hey, I’m on your side!’ Either way, I’ll be just fine.”
“I could stay here,” he offers. “I could sleep on the couch, or…I think I saw a guest room back here…” He’s striding down the short hall, opening the door across from the bathroom before I can stop him.
“No,” I gasp, too late.
Dorian halts in the doorway, staring into my painting room. “Baz, I thought you said you didn’t have any more pieces to sell.”
“I don’t,” I say quietly.
“Ah. Then all this is…?”
“This is private.” I’m at his elbow, craning to see over the arm he has braced against the doorframe. I can’t remember which painting I left on the easel.
Damn it, it’s the abstract painting featuring the color of his eyes…every shade, in every type of lighting. Not that he’ll recognize it for what it is, right?
He stalks forward, canting his head aside. “This color looks familiar, Baz. Where have I seen it before?”
Yeah, he’s obsessed with his own beauty. He’s going to figure it out.
“Forget about that.” I skip in front of him, blocking his way. “Let’s go back out to the living room.”
He takes me gently by the shoulders and moves me aside, picking up a painting of gold lines, luminous and glinting, the exact color and sheen of his hair. I chew my thumbnail, bouncing lightly on my heels while he inspects it.
“Baz,” he says softly, picking up another painting, a small vignette. “What are these?”
“Pieces I don’t want to display or sell.”
“Why not? They’re very good.”
“They’re special.” Shit, I’m blushing. I’m heating up all over. “It’s hard to explain.”
Dorian turns the full force of his beautiful eyes on me. “Try.”
I knit my fingers together behind my back like a kid caught doing something naughty. The truth jerks out of me in broken phrases. “I’ve really been wanting to paint you. Dying to. But I can’t, and even if I chose to, I couldn’t paint you from memory, when you’re not in the room. That’s a no-no for someone like me. So I’ve been painting…bits of you, sort of. Impressions, lines, colors, shapes…it’s a way around the magic. I can’t help it.” I sink onto my stool, arms hanging limply. “You inspire me. Weirdly, when I’m painting ‘not you’ like this, that’s when I feel…” I break off, my pulse veering wildly into dangerous territory.
“When you feel what?” His voice is quiet, pacifying—the hunter speaking to the deer—but there’s a line of tension in it that betrays his eagerness.
“That’s when I feel most connected to you. Like I can understand you. Like I might want to say yes.”
A pounding silence. Me, emptied of my secret, and him, frozen by hope.
“Then by all means,” he says, “keep painting ‘not me.’”
“But I can’t sell or show them. I’ve put too much of myself into them.”
“You feel protective of them.” He nods. “I understand. Basil used to feel the same way about certain pieces of his. They were for his eyes only. And mine. Did you know he painted me several times? There were multiple versions before he made the One.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“He used to speak of a strange feeling he would get sometimes while he worked, like a tugging sensation in his chest. He kept sketching and painting me in different ways, some clothed, some nude. The morning after we made love for the first time, he began the painting I own now.”
“And you didn’t realize what it was.”
“Not until it began to change. One morning, I cut my hand, and it healed almost instantly. Later I noticed a red line in the same spot on the painting’s hand. That’s when I began to suspect what was going on. And from there—well—my experiments turned into excesses, and occasional indulgence became perpetual debauchery.” He sets down the vignette he’s holding. “Keep them if you like. The excursion I’ve planned for us tomorrow should give you a fresh wave of creativity. Just don’t get too attached to any new paintings our trip may inspire. Artists have to yield pieces of their souls for the evaluation and censure of the masses, you know.”
“And for the critics,” I add.
“Oh, the critics. They’re the worst.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes or pop his dimples. A long, slow sadness shines in the blue depths of his gaze, and he’s not pushing it away, he’s holding it. Feeling it.
“Oh, Dorian,” I murmur, rising from the stool, and I move to him impulsively, wrapping both arms around him, comforting him even as my heart sinks. “You still miss him.”
Every muscle in his face tightens, hardens with the tension of resistance. But he only half-raises the walls before letting them crumble again, leaving himself open.
He draws in a heavy, shuddering breath, his body bowing in the circle of my arms. “I never let myself feel it much,” he whispers. “I was so angry with him. So full of grief and love that I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t know what to do with it. So I shoved it away. I kept shoving it away, into the painting, so it was never purged. It never quite left me, even after he was long gone. But you were right, what you said that night at Scoundrel. I need to feel it. I think that’s the only way I can heal and—move on to something new.”
And just like that, my sinking heart rises again, bobbing to the surface with a thrilling lurch.
Something new.
Am I the something new? Do I want to be? Could the connection between us ever measure up to what he had with his old love, a love that has followed him for over a century?
I can’t believe that’s possible. But I want to believe it, with all my heart.
Shit, I’m in serious trouble.
He lets me hug him a moment longer before pulling away. “So…you don’t have a guest room. The couch, then?”
But I can tell he really isn’t a fan of the idea of sleeping on that couch. I don’t blame him. It’s far too short for his frame, and while it’s decent for sitting, it’s not super comfortable to lie on. Plus it smells a little funky. Not sure what happened to it during the years Aunt Jessie owned it, and I’d rather not think too hard about the possibilities.
“Go back to the Chandler, Dorian,” I tell him. “If anything happens, I’ll text you, and I’ll call 911. Plus I’ve got my nosy neighbor to keep an eye on things.”
“Don’t let her in again,” he warns. “These fanatical religious types can be just as dangerous as the skriken.”
“Got it.” As he heads for the door, I push him along. “Now would you relax? Nothing is going to happen.”
He whirls around, staring. “You did not just say that.”
“What?”
“Baz, have you ever watched a horror movie?”
“I think it’s fairly obvious that I have. Many of them, in fact.”
“Then you should know not to say things like ‘Nothing is going to happen.’ It’s the best bloody way to tempt fate and ensure that something terrible will happen.”
“Good thing we’re in real life, not a horror movie.” I hesitate with my hand on the door, softening my tone to ask, “Are you all right?”
“I’ll pace the penthouse and brood awhile, I think.” He gives me a mournful half-smirk. “Seems like the thing to do for beautiful long-lived bastards like myself.”
“Now who’s been watching too many movies?” I shoo him out the door. “Drive safely. Watch out for beasties in the dark.”
He gives me a laughing grin and the finger at the same time. Chuckling, I close the door, just in time to prevent Screwtape’s sudden dash for the exit. He actually bumps his nose against the doorframe and skitters away, claws scrabbling on the hardwood. Immediately he picks himself up and stalks proudly away to the litter box, as if that’s where he intended to go all along.
I’d better empty it when he’s done. Like I don’t have enough shit to deal with.
After Screwtape has done his business, I take care of cleaning the box and adding fresh litter. I knot up the garbage bag I used and head for the side door, the one that opens onto my viewless porch and the ribbon of a driveway. I keep my big garbage can out there. The exterior bulb is out, but I turn on my phone light and hold it high as I hurry along the porch to the large trash can.
As I lift the lid with my phone hand, something scuttles through the darkness.
My heart bolts right out of my chest. I drop the garbage can lid with a bang and swivel my phone up, shining the pale light around a silver swath in the black night.
But I don’t say “hello” or ask “who’s there?” That’s pointless. Because who really wants the things that crawl and creep through the dark to answer back?
It was probably a squirrel or a stray cat or a possum or a raccoon—could have been any number of normal nighttime critters.
I shine my light over the scraggly hedge near the back of the property. Just leaves and twigs. Nothing scary, just—
Just some branches sliding out of the bushes, looking for all the world like a black paw with broken-twig claws.
The rest of the creature emerges from the hedge, a jerky, hitching, crumpled mass of debris and thorns and branches.
I should drop the trash bag and run. But I don’t.
A cold tingle of awareness unfurls along my spine.
I’m staring at something magical—or folkloric, at least. Something like me. A piece of a lost world that’s coming back to life.
The skriken limps and straggles forward, approaching the porch. It’s not charging or prowling. It seems to still be in the process of assembling itself.
I’m about to do the smart thing and run back inside when another shape emerges from the darkness. A massive, burly, bearded shape, with lines and curves I know and a face I know.
It’s the man I drew on my tablet. The not-Dorian man, the imaginary man. He is imaginary, isn’t he? Oh god—maybe I did see him somewhere and drew him from memory without realizing it! Which means he’s in some kind of trouble—or looking for revenge, maybe…
He’s just staring at me. Each of his irises is circled by a white glow, like the reflection of a ring light. He seems vaguely translucent, like he isn’t quite all there, literally.
My mouth opens to ask him who he is, what he wants—but the grind of tires on pavement right in front of the house catches my attention. I turn my head for a split second, and when I look back, the man is gone, and so is the skriken.
Hastily I toss the trash bag into the can and run to the end of the porch. It’s Dorian, his face tight with purpose.
“I changed my mind. I can’t leave you here alone tonight,” he says. “You’re coming back to the Chandler with me. I texted Sibyl, and she said you can sleep in her room tonight. Feed your cat, grab some stuff, and shove it in a bag. No excuses.”