Chapter 2
Noah followed the vampire down the corridor and into another room, the room he was supposed to be sharing with Pan.
Fury and fear flowed hot and rough in his veins.
He didn’t really want to be holding the coat in case it wrapped itself around him and he turned into a seal, but at the same time, its weight was warm and comforting.
That time spent on his belly, terrified that he would never walk again, was something he’d never forget. And while he swore to himself that he would never put the coat on again…now he knew how to take it off.
His anger with Pan was justified…but Pan had seemed genuinely as freaked out as Noah was. Seeing a supposedly powerful god on the verge of panicking had not been reassuring. And it was true that he had worn the coat and not turned into a seal…so why would he have expected Noah to turn into one?
“I will have hot water sent up,” Feryn said.
“Thank you.” Noah was sure he was dripping goo on the stone floor. He felt like an oversized snail and was not enjoying it at all. He’d be enjoying it even less if his clothes had bound to him.
Feryn stood there, looking at him for several seconds. “Can I take your clothes?”
He hadn’t been joking about the clothes. “Um…sure. Is it the goo or the clothes?”
“It is the goo. But it is in the clothes, so we will dry them and then wet them when we need the healing. It is a very valuable gift.”
Noah nodded. “Is this the kind of thing you owe me a favor for?”
He’d seen the way the mythological people operated and how they negotiated. There were favors big and small, and it seemed as though one was supposed to keep their word. Pan was very concerned about breaking his.
Feryn inclined his head. “It is. Though, at the moment, none of us are in a position to return the favor. It would be simpler to offer you gold.”
Noah had no idea how much selkie healing goo went for. “How about I get my clothes off, and we can settle the debt later?”
It was only after the words had left his lips that Noah realized he had suggested getting naked in front of a vampire who looked as though he had freshly risen from his grave and was feeling a little peckish.
“I will fetch a bucket for your clothes and some replacements. Clothing is one thing we have plenty of.” His shoulders sagged, and he closed his eyes as if it was all too much.
Goo dripped onto the floor in large wet splats.
All the clothes were from the wardrobes of the dead.
Feryn sucked in a breath. “If you want to place them in a pile…in the bath. There are towels in the bathroom.” He pointed at another door. “I will return.”
Then Noah was alone with the coat.
He placed it on the bed and walked halfway to the bathroom before stopping and turning around to grab the coat and take it with him.
The coat was part of him, and if somebody stole it and damaged it, they would be damaging him.
He shuddered at the thought and hoped that human myths had gotten it wrong.
And that there was a way to undo the bond between him and the coat. He didn’t need those kinds of problems. A week ago he’d have said he didn’t need god problems either. Or dragon problems.
And yet he had all three.
He placed the coat on the side of the bath. A massive metal tub with clawed feet that put the modern one in his aunt’s house to shame. His knees wouldn’t stick out of this one. It was big enough for him and several friends to all relax in. Oh…it was probably not made for relaxing.
And from the candles dotted around the room, no one expected him and Pan to be doing much sleeping either. It was all very pretty, and if he wasn’t so annoyed, so scared, so… He didn’t know what he was.
Tired. Maybe that’s all it was.
He just needed a good sleep, and things would seem better tomorrow. It was easier to find solutions in daylight. And if he wasn’t tired, he’d be thinking better. There had to be a reason the coat had gotten attached to him…unless it was because of the tiny bit of magic Pan said he possessed.
That he hadn’t even realized he had.
But he’d touched magic in the tent with Pan. He’d felt the glorious expanse of power, and for one bright moment, he’d existed within it. Then he’d passed out. Probably because humans shouldn’t experience god levels of magic.
He peeled off his shirt, glad that it didn’t peel away his skin in the process. The goo between the clothes and his skin was tacky, as if trying to glue the fabric to him. He shivered with revulsion and terror.
New nightmare unlocked, becoming one with his clothes via accidental magic.
He didn’t want to think about that possibility too much. Or keep wearing these clothes in case they became glued to him.
Spurred on by fear, he stripped off in a hurry, dropping his jeans in the tub, followed by his socks and underwear. The vampires could have everything. He was never putting on the coat over his clothes again, even though that would mean stripping and leaving his clothes somewhere.
No, it was safer to never put the coat on again.
He grabbed one of the smaller towels and began rubbing the goo off his skin. The door to the bedroom creaked open and then closed.
Noah stuck his head out of the bathroom, expecting to see Feryn. Instead, it was Pan, holding two buckets.
“These are for you.” Pan held them out as if they were a peace offering.
Noah wanted to have the strength to ignore him, but he was tired and sticky, and it wasn’t really anyone’s fault.
Magic was broken, and it had been bad luck.
The vampires probably thought it was good luck, given they got magical healing goo clothes.
He wrapped the small towel around his hips.
“Thank you. Can you put them in the bathroom?”
Pan walked over and placed the buckets on the floor. “This is not how I imagined the evening.”
On that, Noah could agree with him. “Yeah… I’m still not sure what to do with that.” He nodded at the coat.
“Look after it. Feryn was storing it for me because it has value even without being part of a selkie…now…I want to promise to keep it safe for you, but I can’t. And I didn’t give it to you because I wanted you to become one.”
Noah nodded. It wasn’t an apology, but Pan probably didn’t know how to make one. “I want to be angry with you, because that is easier, but I’m scared. And cold. It’s freezing in here.”
“The water is hot. I will get more.”
“You don’t want my goo water?” Noah tried to make light of the situation.
Pan frowned as if taking the request seriously. “I should wipe the cuts on my feet.”
“Why do you have cut feet?”
“Because I had no shoes when I woke up here. I stole the green boots from someone’s house.”
“What happened to your clothes?”
Pan glanced away. “I had taken them off to party with the selkies.”
Noah lifted his eyebrows. He made air quotes and said, “party?”
“What do you want me to say? That I was enjoying a very nice orgy and granting some prayers?”
“If that’s what you were doing, yes.” He tried to imagine what it would be like having a sex party one minute and waking up naked in a strange world the next. “How many other selkie coats are out there?”
“I don’t know, that was the only one when I woke up, and I was sitting on it.”
“So you don’t even know who wore it before me.” And he would never find out because they were all dead.
“No. I do not want to relive that night. It is bad enough that I dream of it.”
“Gods get nightmares?”
“Humans seem to think gods are all-powerful and all-knowing. We are flesh and blood. What makes me different from the vampires or the selkies is that I was connected to magic. I was part of it, and it was part of me. I had the ability to change the way reality was constructed. A thread here, a thread there…” He lifted his hand as if reaching for the threads he could no longer touch.
“Without that connection, I am nothing.”
“Thats not true.”
“Without you, I could not have found the dragon. Or escaped the centaurs. I would be as lost as the rest of my people. I don’t know how to help them without you, so I am begging you not to abandon me. Please.” Pan glanced up at him.
“I’m not abandoning you. We have a deal, and I keep my word.
” But he was going to think twice before accepting gifts from any mythological being in the future, no matter how much it buzzed with magic.
“Why don’t I put my clothes in the empty bucket, and you can give it to Feryn and get some more hot water? ”
Noah didn’t wait for him to agree. He scooped up his goo-covered clothing and dropped it in the bucket.
Pan’s gaze lingered on him. The candlelight flickered in his hazel eyes, and for a second, Noah remembered what it had been like when his pupils had revealed his connection to magic and burned with gold. He swallowed a little too loudly.
Pan’s lips curved as if he knew exactly what kind of effect he was having on Noah.
It was rather too easy to believe that Pan was an incubus. Perhaps there was still a little magic in him, and he used it to charm Noah.
“Would you like me to help?”
Noah shook his head. He was sure that accepting Pan’s assistance came with a price, and he had nothing to pay with. “I’ll manage.”
“I meant nothing else by it.”
Maybe that was true, but Noah didn’t trust him.
He wasn’t sure if he ever had. But he had liked Pan, and not only because he’d shown him magic and had cute, curly horns.
It was the way he made Noah feel important.
“I just can’t at the moment. I don’t trust myself not to fall into your touch and agree to anything you want. ”
“Why is that a bad thing?”
“Because you turned me into a fucking seal,” he softened his voice. “By accident, but that isn’t the kind of thing that takes me five minutes to get over.” If he could get over it all.
Did that mean he wasn’t human anymore?
Was he now a mythological being?
That was too weird to even think about.
“If there is a way to undo it, the Strega will know.”
“Assuming she’s not dead.”
“Most city-states had one. I used the magic you let me touch to summon one. I trust that she will make herself known.” He picked up the bucket of clothes. “Make sure you get a fair trade for this.”
“I don’t know what a fair trade is, but I haven’t agreed to anything, only that they owe me.”
Pan smiled. “Good. Sometimes the best prices are the ones that you don’t decide on immediately.”
Noah watched him leave with the clothes. He set the small towel on the side of the bath and began scrubbing his skin clean with the hot water. By the time Pan returned, with another bucket, he was sitting in bed, naked because he didn’t know when Feryn was going to bring replacement clothes.
From the bed, he was able to watch Pan strip and wash. He used the goo cloth on his feet last, then blew out the candle in the bathroom before doing the same in the bedroom. Moonlight illuminated the chamber as Pan slid into bed next to him, but didn’t touch him.
For several seconds, they sat there with the awkward silence blooming between them.
“How are your feet?”
“Better, thank you.”
“Better as in healed completely already?” Just how good was the goo?
“No, better as in I can feel the burn as the wounds close.”
“That doesn’t sound better.” Noah picked at a hangnail, torn between ripping it off and leaving it be. An annoyance or a stinging wound. “But maybe things need to get worse first.”
He ripped off the hangnail, winced, and stuck his finger in his mouth. He knew he should get up and stick it in the bucket of goo water.
Pan glanced at him. “That’s what I am afraid of.”
And if a god was afraid, that meant Noah should be terrified.