CHAPTER THIRTY
DAVID
David tried to return to his life at the firm to the best of his ability the next day. His employer threatened to put him on extended leave, but David, through a mixture of slick talk and no small amount of charm, managed to wiggle out of the worst of the discipline and got away with a slap on the wrist. He put on his favorite suit, smiled with all his teeth at anyone who insinuated that he should take some time off, and threw himself into his work with an enthusiasm that bordered on feral. Psychic breakdown or no, he was not going to fall behind. He was not going to sacrifice all he had worked so hard to build. He made it two days before the spirit sickness caught up with him. He ended up falling asleep on his lunch break in his car dreaming of Rhys’s steely eyes holding him steady in place, Moira’s warm fingers curled around his own. He ached for both of them in different ways, and as his condition continued to worsen, there seemed to be no use in fighting it. He didn’t have the energy for ego anymore, or for denying himself.
In the end, David only lasted until the end of the work week before picking up the phone. When he heard Rhys’s “hello” on the other end, prim and crisp, relief washed over him.
“Rhys. Yes. Hi.” God, he sounded desperate. David pulled it together. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Nothing important,” Rhys said, with a shuffle of papers that said he was lying. “What do you need, David?”
It wasn’t an irritated question. It was broad and open, inviting even. If David didn’t know better, he would have said that Rhys was happy to hear from him. David was still getting used to that.
“I was hoping we could pick back up where we left off before my little… incident.”
“It’s been more than one incident, David,” Rhys said, and oh no, he sounded concerned. David could handle a lot from Rhys: rivalry, arguments, sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. But kindness was too much. That was too close to something real, something David knew he could never have, no matter what Moira was willing to allow. Real closeness between Rhys and David was a live wire capable of setting the world on fire, and it was only a matter of time before the sparks between them grew into a destructive, out-of-control blaze.
“I was thinking of going back to Lorena’s,” David said. “She’s one of the smartest magical people in the city. If she can lift the curse, then our problem is solved.”
And then we won’t have any more recourse with one another, David thought. It was sobering. Even though he would give anything to be well again, the thought of losing all the ground he had gained with Rhys and going back to icy professionalism wasn’t pleasant.
Rhys cleared his throat on the other end of the phone. Maybe, David mused dangerously, Rhys was thinking the same thing.
“Moira and I can meet you there. Just say when.”
“Can you come tonight?” David asked, and there was that pathetic desperation again, worming its way into his voice. An Aristarkhov was never desperate, but David was now. If you had asked David how he thought he would face death before all this happened, he would have said that he would go down alone, with a sneer on his face and a haughty tilt to his chin. But it turned out that the prospect of dying was actually fucking terrifying, and it made David want to barricade himself away from the world with the people he cared about. That number had always been pitifully low, and Rhys McGowan had always been on the list, no matter how much David tried to cross out his name.
“Moira works until five. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to skip out on her job.”
“I want to see her,” David said. And why couldn’t he just stop talking? He had barely been able to tolerate Moira not three months ago, and now he didn’t feel like he could make it to the end of the week without a hug from her. The spirit sickness must be rotting his brain, lighting up adolescent needs for affection and approval that he had thought long ago smothered. Or maybe this was who he really was, under the bravado and the money and the glossy job: a scared child who couldn’t do anything by himself. “I can wait until she’s free.”
“I’ll bring her,” Rhys said, in a warm, soothing voice that settled low into David’s stomach. “We’re going to figure this out, alright?”
David closed his eyes and pressed the phone tighter to his ear, savoring the sound of Rhys breathing on the other end. Rhys was his High Priest now, and he was probably only being gentle out of obligation, or pity. But David wanted to pretend, just for a moment, that Rhys’s kindness meant something more. That whatever was left between them wasn’t soured and unsalvageable.
“David?” Rhys asked.
David’s eyes flashed open. “That sounds good to me. Just text me when you’re headed over and I’ll meet you at the botanica.”
“Take care of yourself until then, please.”
And with that, Rhys hung up and left David feeling hot and cold all at once.
Moira and Rhys met David on the sidewalk outside Lorena’s botanica. David, who had been nervously smoking through a pack of cigarettes for the last fifteen minutes, couldn’t help the physical reaction that overtook him when he saw them striding across the street. His heart leapt into his mouth at the sight of Rhys’s black curls, and his arms opened instinctively to Moira, who stepped right into his embrace like she belonged there. David closed his eyes and breathed in her sandalwood perfume, allowing her energy to wash over him. David rested his chin on the crown of her head and rubbed a circle between her shoulder blades, sending her soothing signals through the point of contact. I’m alright, he was saying. I’m not dead yet.
Rhys stood a polite distance away, trying not to look at them. There was a line of confusion between his brows. Confusion, or anguish.
“Shall we go inside?” Rhys asked.
David nodded, opening the door for them both. Rhys usually scowled when David tried to do anything chivalrous for him, but this time he stepped through the door without complaint.
The botanica was blessedly empty, probably because it was a rainy evening and almost closing time.
“Lorena?” David called.
“I’m here, mijo,” Lorena replied. The trio turned a corner to find Lorena standing at the counter, fingers hovering over three gilt-edged tarot cards. The High Priestess, The Chariot, and the Hanged Man. “And you all are right on time.”
If David had been raised in a different family, he might be a little spooked by Lorena’s uncanny abilities, but he knew her too well to be surprised. Of course she had divined they were coming.
“Hello, Lorena,” Moira said courteously. Rhys echoed her, obeying the sort of unspoken protocol that came with conversing with someone exponentially more powerful than yourself.
Lorena flipped the cards back into the deck and shuffled idly while she looked David up and down. “Have you finally come to your senses and decided to let people help you?”
David considered arguing with her, but there was no point. She could see with naked clarity how hard he was leaning on Rhys and Moira, and she knew he needed her expertise. So, he just nodded, making the gesture as deferential as possible.
And he told her about the curse, all of it, down to every scrap of conflicting information. Lorena just listened with calm, dark eyes, because of course the cards had already told her everything she needed to know.
“We haven’t made any progress on breaking the curse,” David finished. “I’m out of my depth, and I’m running out of time.”
“Time?” Rhys echoed, shooting David a dark-eyed look.
David swallowed hard. “When I talked to Leda, she reminded me about a part of the legend I had forgotten. The Devil is supposed to come to collect on the Aristarkhov deal when the heir turns thirty.”
Rhys went a bit ashen. “David, your birthday is in five days.”
“I know, I know,” David said, gritting his teeth against another wave of nausea. The room spun for a few minutes, then settled. “I just found out, and I wasn’t even sure it was something to be taken seriously. But now I’m willing to consider any possibility, so long as it helps me.”
Moira’s eyes gleamed strangely in the dim lighting of the botanica, and for a moment David thought she was going to cry. But then she stepped forward and pressed her palms against the glass countertop, fixing Lorena with a steely look. “You have to help him, Lorena.”
“Very bold of you to say,” Lorena said.
“She doesn’t mean any disrespect,” Rhys said quickly.
“I’m sure she doesn’t. Even the Syrophoneician woman asked Jesus for what she wanted, isn’t that right?”
“Right,” David said encouragingly, even though the Biblical reference was lost on him.
“Please,” Moira added, with unashamed earnestness that made David want to hug her all over again.
Lorena looked at her hard for a long moment, then reached under the counter and produced a little wooden box. She waved David closer and began to study his face as though for signs of sickness. Rhys stood awkwardly next to Moira, shifting from foot to foot as Lorena completed her examination.
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” Lorena murmured, turning over David’s hands and examining the lines of his palms. All at once, she wasn’t the most powerful person in the room, she was just the Lorena he had grown up with, the surrogate mother who had bandaged his scraped knees and listened to him whine about boys.
“I don’t know,” David muttered, wincing against an oncoming headache. “I wanted to fix it myself.”
“Like a chicken trying to find its own severed head,” Lorena snorted. “It looks like you’ve let this go untreated for months.”
“Can you fix it?” David pressed. “Don’t you have some kind of uncrossing oil or curse-breaking powder?”
Lorena opened up the wooden box and tipped a handful of small pink seashells into her hands. She shook them as though they were dice, muttering in Spanish, and then tossed them across the counter. They spilled towards David like grasping tendrils of seafoam.
Lorena sorted through the shells with her long acrylic nails and frowned. “No,” she pronounced. “I can’t fix it. This isn’t your garden variety evil eye or hex from a neighbor. This is old, nasty magic, passed down through the blood. I can make you more comfortable, but this is a thing you have to fight off yourself. Only blood can rewrite blood. The answer has got to come from you.”
David sagged against the counter, feeling entirely defeated. “I don’t have the time, Lorena.”
“I just don’t get it,” Moira muttered. “It isn’t fair. He didn’t even make the deal. Why should he suffer for something his ancestor did?”
Lorena just shook her head. “We don’t choose our families. Sometimes, they leave us with horrible messes to clean up. That’s just the way of the world.”
“But the terms of the contract have already been fulfilled,” David pressed. “So, there’s got to be some mistake here. Deals aren’t hereditary; there’s got to be some way out.”
Lorena looked at David with a heavy sadness in her eyes. “Oh, David. You still don’t realize what he did, do you?”
Dread trickled down David’s spine. He had spent months trying to unravel the mystery of this curse, but now that it was right there within his grasp, he wasn’t sure he wanted it. The truth, oftentimes, was much more terrible than any fairy tale.
“I’m so sorry, mijo,” Lorena went on. “We all thought he had told you. He must have died before he was able to. I would have told you myself, if I knew you were going through this. I wish you had reached out before now.”
“Who?” David demanded. “What are you talking about?”
Lorena took his face between her weathered hands. “The old story, David. Try to think. The demon thought it was getting your ancestor out of their bargain, but the deal was made in exchange for the life of the youngest Aristarkhov heir. Anatoly was the last of his line, but Aristarkhovs have always found a way to survive. He sired sons.”
David stared at his old mentor in bafflement. The implications weren’t sinking in, but they loomed just out of reach.
“It’s a loophole,” Rhys breathed. “Anatoly wrote a loophole into the contract. But that means–”
“Jesus Christ,” David said, prying off Lorena’s hands and leaning hard on the counter. He looked like he might lose consciousness again, but not from demon-sickness. From total and utter despair. Of course. Of course. He had been an idiot not to see it. “Evgeni found the same way out. The son of a bitch.”
“David,” Moira said quietly, but he barely heard her. His mind was a maelstrom.
“Oh God, Leda,” David moaned. “He abandoned Leda because she wasn’t what he was looking for. He needed a boy. Lorena, why didn’t you tell me?”
The priestess looked at him with a mixture of piteous love and unshakeable poise. She looked like one of her saint statues, high above the realm of human squabbles.
“You never call, David, you never asked. I wasn’t even sure there was any truth to the curse, until I found out you were sick moments ago. Give me a little credit. I only ever heard of the curse in rumors; you know how sorcerers love to gossip. I assumed it was just Evgeni trying to bolster his own reputation.”
“So, this is how my family has always done things? Sacrificing their fucking kids?”
“If the youngest son sires sons before their thirtieth birthday, the curse gets grandfathered down and the cycle repeats. That’s the bedtime story, anyway. It could go on indefinitely.”
“Well, I don’t have kids,” David spit. “I don’t want them. And even if I did, I would never use them as bait!”
“You’ll find your own way through this. You’re smart, and you have some of the strongest supernatural abilities I’ve ever seen–”
“No, I don’t!” David exploded, with a ferocity that made Moira jump. “None of those abilities belong to me; they’re just the side effects of some sick family curse. Evgeni knew about this, he knew, and he still tried to wring every drop of value out of me before turning me over to a goddamn demon. I was bred to be slaughtered, like an animal.”
Lorena was unimpressed with his outburst. “Well, you had better just lay down and die, then,” she said, slate eyes hard. “Or you could keep shouting at me; I’m sure that will help things.”
“Lorena–”
“You are what you choose, David. You can choose to be your father’s son, or you can choose to be a sheep waiting for the butcher, or you can choose to fight this. Nobody else can make that decision for you. But I very much hope that you choose to fight.” She swept the seashells back into their box. “I’ll pray to Santa Muerte for you.”
“I’m not sure how prayers are going to help me now,” David snapped.
Lorena swatted him on the shoulder. “Don’t let her hear you being ungrateful! When my husband and I travelled from Guatemala, she was there. When I had my gender reassignment surgery and went to the courthouse to change my name, she protected me. And she’s protected you too, David, ever since you were a child. I pray to her for you all the time. Go apologize.”
David slunk off to the saint’s shrine and slapped a couple of dollar bills down on the altar. Then he stalked out the door, letting it slam shut behind him.
He didn’t know how long he stood out there on the street, gulping down burning breaths while his eyes stung treacherously. Leave it to Evgeni to screw his progeny from beyond the grave, and leave it to David to be the one left holding the short end of the stick. He should have put it together sooner. He should have done something before now, asked for more help, something. He should have–
“David,” Rhys said, settling his hand on the other man’s shoulder.
David flinched back. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. Human contact was too much for his raw nerves. Moira was lingering behind Rhys, a line of concern between her perfectly penciled brows.
Rhys pressed his lips together in a displeased line, and for a terrible moment, David thought Rhys was going to leave him there alone on the curb, out of hope, out of options. But then Rhys fished his car keys out of his pocket and said, with unimpeachable surety, “You’re coming home with us. Let’s go.”
David thought about arguing. He thought about digging his heels in and insisting that he could handle this, that he didn’t need to be monitored. But, for once in his life, all the lies evaporated on his tongue. Instead, he just dropped his head and nodded. “Alright,” he said, voice hoarse.
“We’ve got a guest room,” Moira said, circling her fingers around his bicep and leading him across the street. “I suggest you use it.”
David didn’t have it in him to argue. And, though he would never admit it, he was so, so grateful.