Chapter Thirty-Six • Viral • Lillith
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Ican’t heal the bruises on my throat.
It’s bizarre. Since the attack a few days ago, I keep standing in the bathroom mirror trying to undo the plum-colored injury, but no matter what I throw at it, it doesn’t budge.
I’ve never seen an injury I couldn’t heal before.
I’ve never wanted to heal something so bad in my life, because every time Damien looks at me and catches the dark smudges on my throat, he looks so utterly guilty.
“I already told you,” Aemon says from the doorway. “You won’t be able to heal them.”
I glare at him. “I’m really regretting bending the wards to let you in,” I mutter as I look back in the mirror. I frown at myself once before abandoning my efforts and breezing past Aemon on my way to the living room.
I sit on the couch and click on the electric kettle.
I’d moved it onto my coffee table a few days ago, when the couch became my workspace for reading through my mother’s journals and any books I could find on the strange nature of the bruising around my neck.
I prepare a sachet of arnica tea and drop a sugar cube into my cup along with it.
At least the plant extract can help speed along the natural healing process.
I pick up my phone while I wait for the water to boil.
Aemon helps himself to the seat next to me, and I do my best to pretend he’s not there.
As I scroll through videos, almost every other post has one or another Portent song as its soundtrack.
Hard to believe, but Portent has suddenly blown up across every social media platform because someone decided to use Kiss it Better for a thirst trap trend.
Knowing this is one of the few things cheering me up these days.
This sudden surge in viral popularity is only going to do good things for Damien’s career.
It’s funny—funny weird, not funny haha. Damien’s been in crisis mode over being a man who can’t protect his partner for the last few days.
For me, I’m more afraid of what will happen to him—or frankly to any of my friends—now I’m being pursued by whatever this creature is that has Aemon under his thumb.
The kettle clicks off once it boils, and I tip the steaming water into my waiting teacup. Watching the dried arnica steep into the water and melt the sugar cube gives me the smallest sense that I’m doing something to help my situation, even if I’m not.
“Are we just going to sit here in awkward silence?” Aemon asks.
“Yep,” I say, settling back with my tea.
“And we’re not going to address the problem of the ichor trapped inside of you?”
“Nope.” I take a sip.
“Lillith—”
“Aemon.”
“Seven hells. We can’t just pretend this isn’t a problem,” he says.
“I’ll find a way. Or Bastion or Wren will,” I say, scrolling through more thirst traps.
“How is Wren, by the way? She seemed rather upset when she left a few nights ago,” Aemon says, examining his fingernails.
I narrow my eyes at him.
He continues looking at his nails.
I continue staring.
He finally looks at me, his dark brows twitching. “What?”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a yes or no quest—”
“No.”
“I can’t ask about the emotional wellbeing of one of your friends?”
“Not when she’s fucking hot. And SEEING somebody!”
Aemon rolls his eyes. “Ah yes, the guitar boy.”
“He’s a bassist. And, I repeat: NO.”
Seriously, the nerve of this fucking guy. And he thinks I’m naive enough to not see right through what he’s doing? Be so fucking for real right now. I start scrolling again when a text pops up on my phone from Damien.
Hey, on my way to you.
I frown at the screen. After being with Damien for a little bit now, I can always tell when he’s not in the best mood.
The man takes any opportunity he can get to flirt with me.
Text, phone call. If fax machines were still a thing, I bet he’d be clogging up the fax line.
It’s always a tell when his messages are straight to the point.
“Could you make yourself scarce?” I ask Aemon. “I think Damien and I are going to need a bit of privacy when he gets here.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Aemon drawls. I wonder what must be so interesting on his fingernails with how he goes back to admiring them.
“Seriously. Please?”
Aemon meets my gaze and sighs at something he sees in my expression. “Fine,” he says. “But I’m going to go say hello to Wren, and you can’t stop me.”
I inhale to retort, but between one blink and the next he’s gone. Just gone.
“Asshole,” I grumble to myself as Gloam comes to perch on my shoulders.
I busy myself with cuddling the cat and changing into something a little cuter while I wait for Damien to show up.
My stomach feels like a macrame project as I wait.
It’s not his fault I can read him so well, but it still feels like I got a “we need to talk” text.
I wind up changing out of my scummy pajamas and into a pair of lounge shorts and one of my comfiest oversized sweaters in the hopes that Damien will find it as endearing as he usually does.
When Damien does finally appear in the doorway, he doesn’t look angry.
He just looks sad. His shoulders hang a little too low, his head slumped forward as he walks over to the couch.
He takes Gloam out of my arms, and for a moment I think he’s going to snuggle with her before he puts her down on the ground and lays on his belly on the couch, his arms constricting around my waist, his face nuzzling just beneath my breasts.
He inhales deeply and lets out a slow, steady exhale as I slip my fingers into his hair. His roots are starting to come in, a mousy sort of brown color that’s hard to picture on his whole head.
“What’s wrong?” I ask softly.
“Nothing,” he says. “I just have to quit the band.”
“Uhm...” I take a moment to process that sentence and then blurt out an incredulous, “What?”
“I thought we were just practicing today, but it was actually a call with the label. The explosion of our popularity with that stupid thirst trap has them wanting to expand the tour beyond the west coast. They want to send us all across the country now.”
“Damien—that’s excellent news. Why would you want to leave the band over that?”
“I’m not leaving you alone here while you have some demon-fuck-head breathing down your neck,” he says. “We all got in a huge fight over it.”
“Damien,” I say, cupping his face in my hands and making him look at me. “You have to go.”
“It would take me away from here for two weeks.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “And maybe it’s for the best. You’re pretty vulnerable staying around here while this thing is hanging like a guillotine over my head. Being on the road would be good; it gets you out of harm’s way.”
“No,” he says. “Are you fucking insane? Lillith, it hasn’t even been a week since you almost died. Shit, you did die.”
“But I’m in the shop now. Even Aemon says he can’t get to me here.”
“I’m not going,” Damien says. “No.”
“Damien, it’s not as if you’d be able to do anything even if I did get attacked by this entity that’s pestering Aemon.”
Damien sits up and back, withdrawing from me. He looks at me like I suddenly developed aphasia.
“That’s a low fucking blow, Lillith,” he says. He’s fucking pissed.
I’m genuinely confused as to what I said to piss him off. But the anger in his face isn’t one I’ve seen before. His eyes shutter, his lips press into a tight line that blanches the skin around his piercings. He looks away, leaning against the back of the sofa.
“Damien. This should be a good thing. Don’t you remember how much of a sad bitch I was when you went to the mountains? This is character growth. You know?”
“Sure. Character growth. Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“It’s just a coincidence that you’re hanging out with Aemon all the time, and suddenly it’s not so heartbreaking that you can’t be around me twenty-four hours a day?”
I quiet, shocked by what he’s implying. This... this doesn’t seem like him. This isn’t normal. I take his wrist in my hand, focusing on his energy.
“What are you doing?” he snaps.
“Seeing if you have the evil eye on you, or something,” I say. “You’re not being yourself.”
He snatches his hand out of mine and stands up, shaking it off like my touch is repulsive. “What is this, gaslighting via witchcraft? You gonna ask me if I’m on my period next?”
I flinch. “Damien,” I say slowly. “What are you accusing me of right now?”
“Why? Do you have a guilty conscience?”
“Damien, imply that I’m cheating on you one more fucking time. I dare you,” I snap.
“Your words, not mine.”
Gloam hops on the couch then, curling up against my leg as I picture melding Damien’s lips together or shrinking his balls or making his hands like a Ken doll’s. I’m proud to say I don’t do any of those things; I manage to stop myself.
I do, however, throw the cat.
At him.
Specifically, at his face.
Gloam yowls while Damien yelps. He doesn’t dare duck out of the way, letting the small grey feline collide with his body.
Gloam’s landing is not a graceful one. She grasps onto his shoulders with her claws, her back feet straight, nails presumably hooked into his obnoxiously sculpted abs.
“FUCKING SHIT,” he shouts.
“YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW DAMIEN.”
“You just THREW A CAT AT ME.” He cradles Gloam like a football while she purrs her approval of maximum squish.
“YOU ACCUSED ME OF SLEEPING WITH SOMEONE ELSE.”
“Well? WHY WOULDN’T YOU?”
“Because I fucking LOVE YOU, you imbecile!”