Chapter Nine
Antonio
Fucking Mikey.
Antonio shoved his hands deeper in his pockets, bumping his shoulder against Declan’s as they made their way away from Angela’s house and toward the bay.
It’d felt different, with Declan there. Better and worse. Better, to have someone on his side for once. Worse, because sure, he could put up with it, they were family. But Declan shouldn’t have to. Deserved better.
“Nothing quite like suburbia,” he said, as they passed another of Angela’s pointedly observant neighbors, standing there on their very tidy lawn with their equally tidy dog. “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been pulled over around here.”
“I believe it.” Declan laughed, just a low, rasping exhale, as they turned off the sidewalk and down the little path that led toward the beach. “If pigs here’re anything like I’ve met, there was ‘suspicious activity’ or they thought they saw you swerving? Perhaps you ran a non-existent stop sign?”
“At least they can never say they got the wrong car. Not many people driving around this neighborhood in a silver ‘67 Mustang.” And somehow, he was grinning as he said it.
The thing was, Declan made it so easy. Easy in the way it never was, with his family or his occasional hookups. The sluagh never watched him like he was half feral or might shatter at a harsh word.
If he reminded Antonio of anyone, it was his friends back in the joint. That automatic distrust of authority. The joy at poking the bear. Fucked as it was, sometimes Antonio missed prison. He’d had people to talk to.
Christ. Had it really taken selling his soul to make a friend?
“Despite it being a migraine on wheels,” Declan said, his voice a welcome distraction from Antonio’s self pity. “It is a very aesthetic car. Pigs try to impound it?”
“Technically, it’s Angie’s. Same as the garage.” And yeah, he wouldn’t linger on that thought. Better to focus on Declan, the cracks that traced his skin and those pale eyes. “You must have really gotten up to some shit back in Ireland.”
“Oh, aye, so I did.” Declan met his sideways glance with an alligator’s grin, his accent gone thick. “Ran amok Norn Iron back in me day, just a wee bit of fun. Wouldn’t have believed the fucking shape of me then. Be right scundered to tell ye now. Bleedin’ RUC pricks.”
Fuck. Declan needed not to talk like that. He really needed not to talk like that. Antonio forced himself not to leer or lick his lips, shifting his gaze to the path just as it opened up to the beach and, beyond that, the water.
Enemy of water.
His steps faltered as he swallowed familiar dread. The kelpie’d gotten rid of the curse. Declan had made him. Still, his pulse started racing.
“I’ve likely bigger teeth than anything in this water,” Declan said.
Just that. No frantic reassurance or order to man up. Antonio took a breath.
Sand and seagulls and the sound of waves. Too cold and too late for people. The most dangerous thing around was standing right next to him. And Antonio? He was already walking outside the garage, not wearing a scrap of iron, without gagging on panic.
Because Declan was next to him with his murder of teeth and wings of bone. Safe.
“If you pick a fight with a shark, I’m not helping,” he said, instead of any of the shit he maybe should have. “But I’ll put my money on you.”
“A wee shark. With an attitude problem. I daresay it would…”
The voice grew quieter. Less important. Words without meaning, and Antonio’s feet dragging, because…
Because something.
“Yeah,” he murmured to whoever it was he’d been talking to.
That didn’t matter. What mattered was that sound. Beautiful and familiar and coming from somewhere behind him, so Antonio turned, searching.
Could music sound like a promise? Could love be music? Because that’s what it reminded him of. A time when he’d felt loved.
Antonio missed feeling loved.
If he could just hear it more clearly, maybe he’d remember where he’d heard it before. Maybe he’d know why the melody shivered down his spine, a realization trying and failing to surface.
There was no reason not to follow. There was nothing else as important as this.
Wait. He needed to…
What did he need to do?
What, after the night he had, could be more important than comfort? A family that didn’t want him. Where he didn’t fit. And a song, a presence, that promised to take him something better. Just as it always had.
Antonio took a step. Another. Then he stopped, rocking in place. Fingers rubbing at the inked leaves on his arms. There was something he needed to remember.
Something about iron and nettles and wings of bone.
The song. If he only found the song, everything would make sense again. Everything would be the way it was supposed to be. He would be the way he was supposed to be.
Boiling ink. Flower stems sharpened to knives. A city burnt to ash.
Strange visions. Antonio shoved them away, focusing on the music. He knew better than to let his senses lie. All he had to do was stretch out his hand.
It shouldn’t be difficult. Why was he afraid?
His fingers shook, as he reached toward empty air.
A warm, smooth hand closed around his. Gentle strength tugged him forward, as empty air gave way to … Calloway.
“You came to me! I knew you would.” That too-familiar voice spoke in quick, hushed tones. “He didn’t hurt you? I’m getting ahead of myself–let’s get you to safety, Antonio.”
The calm gave way to smoke. Not an orange sky from a distant fire. Smoke, like tied above a lit pyre. Smoke, like the house coming down around you. Smoke that burned in the throat, stung the eyes, and you always died from the smoke before the flame could even touch you.
Declan. That was Declan.
Where was Declan? It was still so hard to think. The air felt thick, like Antonio’s thoughts. He should be terrified, but his feelings were dim, distant things.
Rage through the bond.
Antonio focused on it, on the sense of Murderpunk, still close. Sharp and painful, an ink-black needle puncturing skin. Pain wasn’t always a bad thing.
“Let go,” he snapped, jerking against Calloway’s grip. “Jesus, Calloway. This isn’t a game. You don’t get to rescue me.”
Calloway held on, stepping forward. Still so fucking soft and pretty and nice. So young. It made the past couple decades feel impossibly long.
“Someone has to. You don’t understand, Antonio,” Calloway begged. “They can twist how you think about them, how you see other fae. When they’re in your head, it’s easy to succumb. You’ll see that if you just get away from him.”
The words came to him from a shocky, floating distance.
“You’re a wisp,” he said. “Twisting how people think is what you do.”
“Antonio, he’s a monster.” Calloway’s voice was choked with genuine disgust.
Declan smiling with his lips closed and his wings tight. Declan and his “fifteen minutes a day.” Declan laughing, easy, at Antonio’s side.
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
“Please. Please, Antonio,” Calloway said. “I beg you, come willingly. I can help you. I want to protect you.”
There was a crack from somewhere back in the direction of the water. Calloway started, and the blurred strangeness of the air drained away.
Antonio jerked again against Calloway’s grip. This time, his hand slid free. He backed away, one step, then another, his whole body threatening to shake.
“Better run,” he managed to spit out. “Before the monster gets you.”
“No, Antonio, please! Listen!”
But Antonio was already turning, seeing for the first time what Calloway had tried to hide.
Declan. The sluagh stood alone, surrounded by blood and rotten flesh. He was fighting something, a figure that seemed as much water as woman. He was winning.
Fuck. Was he winning? The thing had a tentacle around his neck, its hands reaching for his face, and Antonio would kill Calloway for this. He would. Except, when he glanced over his shoulder, the wisp was already gone.
A scream, and when Antonio looked again, Declan’s attacker was turning black, skin bubbling and bursting, spewing fresh gore on the sands. And Declan? Declan was bleeding.
Antonio broke into a run.
“Stop!” Declan called out. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll– Shite. I’ll come to you.”
Antonio didn’t want to stop. He wanted to get to Declan, clean the blood from that pale skin. He needed to help. But he stood, trying not to gag at the smell of rotting flesh, because he trusted the bastard, and Declan trusted him.
Declan also, apparently, felt like stripping. Which made sense. If Antonio’s sweater was covered in rotting fishperson, he’d be stripping too. And thank fuck for shock and rot and Declan bleeding, because at least this memory would only ever be a nightmare, not a betrayal.
How had Antonio been so fucking stupid? Wandering after the pretty music while Declan fought for his life.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, breathing shallowly through his mouth between the words. “I’m so fucking sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“If you get to apologize for being magicked, I reserve the right to apologize for not grabbing you up or noticing the voids fucked fog sooner.” Declan tossed his balled-up shirt to the side and kicked off his boots before starting on his jeans.
“Like hell,” Antonio answered, wondering if he should look away. But he couldn’t. He needed to see Declan, to know the sluagh was safe. “Fine. We both blame Calloway.”
“Fair enough.” Declan nodded to the space between them–still too much of it–and a road flare came into being. “Set that off, would you? Get Florian here. You’re not harmed?”
The flare must have been manifested, not glamoured into being, because Antonio could see it. Even with everything, bleeding and stripped to his skivvies, Declan had remembered.
“You’re the one bleeding,” he said, picking up the flare. His hands were steady. His breathing wasn’t. “I’m alright. Because of you, I’m alright.”
“I know how to heal myself up.” Declan used his jeans to clean the gore from his skin as he spoke. “I’d much rather it be me if we’re to be honest.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t. You could heal me, too.”
The flare was comforting in his hand, solid and simple.
Antonio made himself focus on it, the act of taking off the cap, finding a flat, unbloodied piece of ground, and lighting it with the rough surface of the striker.
It went up in a shower of sparks, casting the whole gruesome scene in shades of orange.
“I’m attempting to think of something to lighten the mood,” Declan said, discarding his jeans with a frown.
“Unfortunately, I’m coming up quite short.
We can move further away if you like. I’m …
well, as acceptable as I’m like to be, until we get home.
Some substances cannot be simply magicked away. ”
Something was wrong. Well, just about everything was fucking wrong. But this was in the bond, a bitterness in the comfort of smoke. And Antonio wasn’t exactly Mr. Feelings, but he knew regret. The tense anticipation of breaking.
He knew Declan with his wings pressed against his back.
Right. Do something. Now.
“But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the beach?” A cautious riff on Antonio’s favorite dark joke.
Laughter, low and rasping and real, the bitter tension easing into surprise. Antonio stripped off his sweater, the oversized blue one Mara had given him for Christmas, and held it out with a weak smile.
“Here, Murderpunk. Just looking at you’s making me cold.”
“My thanks.” Soft words as Declan pulled on the sweater. Ridiculously oversized on him, sliding off one shoulder and drowning him in pale blue.
“You–”
And then Florian was there. The elderly wisp stood a few feet away, his eyes wide.
Too much.
The guy didn’t do anything. No music. No fog that made the world fade.
He was just there, and Declan was talking, asking Antonio to go first, and Antonio was nodding while his pulse beat in his ears, but he took a deep breath, the way he did when he needed to calm the fuck down, breathed in the rot while his pulse kept galloping in bullshit fucking panic and …
His stomach knotted, and he dropped to his knees, heaving, the sharp smell of vomit mixing with putrid flesh and seawater.
Funny, but he’d had worse nights. Ones where no one had his back. Still, he never wanted to see another damned beach.