VenCo(97)

In the centre of the room was a hospital bed covered by a mound of white bed linens. The sounds were coming from a collection of machines, beeping and whooshing, lights blinking, one a constant red that seemed to blare in silent alarm.

“Hello?” she whispered, creeping quietly to the side of the bed. Was someone there? Remembering her mother’s hospital room, her mother’s body, she reached out and touched the shape on the bed, then pulled her hand back. It was definitely a person, and they were definitely not breathing. She backed away, then turned and fled to the foyer.

“Gerard has gone to meet his maker, I’m afraid.”

Lucky jumped at the voice. The Benandanti was standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands in his pockets, head tipped to the side.

Lucky jumped. “Oh, fuck . . .” She caught her breath. “Why are you keeping a dead man in the parlor?”

“Why not?” He shrugged.

She tried to compose herself. She needed to be composed. No thread could be dropped now, no boundary unguarded. Not even for a corpse.

“So what is your name, then? It sure as hell isn’t Morris Montgomery from Missouri.”

He chuckled. “No, it sure as hell isn’t. I am Jay Christos.”

She put her hands on her hips, attempting to project nothing but strength, even if her bladder felt suddenly very full. “And you are Benandanti.”

“Yes, very good. It’s an old name, but I find it still fits.”

“Everything about you is old, I think.”

He walked towards her, nodding. “Ancient, in fact. All the very best things are. Only the strongest things can stand in the midst of all this time swirling about.”

She paced slowly in the opposite direction, so that they circled each other around the centre table. She smiled, mocking him. “Strongest? Is that why you ran from a little old Yarb witch?”

Some colour rose in his cheeks. “Strength is measured in intelligence, too, and I am no fool. I was out of my element. She belongs to that place, and I don’t, clearly, since I have all my teeth.”

He stopped, bending slightly at the waist, a hand in front of him, like a small bow. “Shall we go and get ourselves that drink now?”

His hand was large but shapely, his fingers slender but strong. And his wrist—she had never taken note of a man’s wrist before, but his seemed a model for the David.

What the fuck? she thought. The David, Lucky? Really?

He was distracting at an almost elemental level, and something about his invitation was appealing. Still, no way she was taking the chance. “If you need a drink, I’ll keep you company, but I’m good.”

“Very well,” he said, and started back up the stairs.

“Whoa. Why upstairs?”

“That’s where I keep the good stuff,” he called over his shoulder. “And considering the nature of this visit, I thought only the good stuff would do. Unless you’d rather stay down here with Gerard?”

She sighed. Keeping a safe distance, she followed him up one flight, and then a second, where they turned into a broad hall. She watched him carefully as they made their way past several closed doors. His movements were so smooth, he almost glided, except that there was also something muscular about the motion.

The room he led her to was huge, running the whole length of the house, from the back to the front, where French doors opened onto an iron balcony overlooking the street. Two chandeliers, dark metal arms dripping in crystals, hung low above mirrored side tables, with a larger, older model swagged above a massive bed. Lit pillar candles of different heights flickered from narrow tables in between the windows and along the fireplace mantel. She didn’t like the way the room was putting her at ease. “Can we turn on a light in here?”

“This is fine,” he answered, and he sounded so certain she couldn’t help but agree that it was fine.

What the hell, Lucky?

She felt as if her mind and her body were somehow sliding apart. So while her mind was growing complacent, her body was growing more responsive, and to Jay Christos of all things. She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself back together.

“Strange,” she heard him say from very close. “I can’t seem to touch you.”

When she opened her eyes, he was right in front of her. Close enough that she could see that his eyes were so dark he didn’t appear to have irises, that his skin was unblemished, that he was, in fact, perfect. He walked around her, trying to lay his hands on her, even just to run a finger along her jawline or touch her hair where it curled on her neck. “I can’t reach you.”

She felt his confusion as her triumph. It worked! She had even picked the cedar from a park, the way she did with Arnya all those years ago as part of her “defence training.” Cedar in your shoes keeps you walking right, Arnya’d explained to her. And it’s free.

She raised one foot. “Cedar in the shoes, Christos. Something passed down to my mom from her mother.”

“They were witches?”

“Better, they were Indigenous women.”

“I am unfamiliar with those practices.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so Western in your education. That’s a weakness.”

He raised an eyebrow. That hurt him, she could see it. “My, you really are a fascinating quilt of methods and belief. But, you know, even the most beautiful quilt is crafted out of rags after all.”