Death Masks

"I guess I can’t blame them. It sounds a lot more romantic than ‘narcotic drool.’" Some parts of me lobbied for a cessation of meaningless chat and an immediate resumption of any line of thought that would lead to discarded clothing upon the floor. I ignored them. "I remember. When – when we kissed before you left. I thought I’d imagined it."

Susan shook her head, and sat down on the stones before the fireplace, her back straight, her hands folded sedately in her lap. The fire began to grow, catching onto the new wood, and though the light of it curled around her with golden fingers, it left her face veiled in shadow. "No. What Bianca did to me has changed me already, in some ways. Physically. I’m stronger now. My senses are sharper. And there’s -" She faltered.

"The Kiss," I mumbled. My lips didn’t find the word to their liking. They liked the real thing a lot better. I ignored them, too.

"Yes," she said. "Not like one of them can do. Less. But still there."

I mopped at my face with my hand. "You know what I need?" Either a naked, writhing, eager Susan or else a liquid-nitrogen shower. "A beer. You want one?"

"Pass," she said. "I don’t think lowering my inhibitions would be healthy right now."

I nodded, got up, and went to my icebox. It’s an actual icebox, the kind that runs on honest-to-goodness ice rather than Freon. I got out a dark brown bottle of Mac’s home-brewed ale and opened it, taking a long drink. Mac would be horrified that I drank his beer cold, since he prided himself on an old-world brew, but I always kept a couple in there, for when I wanted it cold. What can I say. I’m an unlettered, barbaric American wizard. I drank off maybe half of it and put the cold bottle against my forehead afterward.

"Well," I said. "I guess you didn’t come over to, uh-"

"Tear your clothes off and use you shamelessly?" Susan suggested. Her voice sounded calm again, but I could sense the underlying tone of her own hunger. I wasn’t sure whether I should be unsettled by it or encouraged. "No, Harry. It isn’t – that isn’t something I can afford to do with you. No matter how much either of us wants it."

"Why not?" I asked. I knew why not already, but the words jumped from my brain to my mouth before I could stop them. I peered suspiciously at the beer.

"I don’t want to lose control," Susan said. "Not ever. Not with anyone. But especially not with you." There was a silence in which only the fire made any noise. "Harry, it would kill me to hurt you."

More to the point, I thought, it would probably kill me too. Think about her instead of yourself, Harry. Get a grip. It’s just a kiss. Let it go.

I drank the rest of my beer, which wasn’t anywhere near as nice as other things I’d done with my mouth that night. I checked the fridge and asked Susan, "Coke?"

She nodded, looking around. Her gaze hesitated on the fireplace mantel, where I kept the card and three postcards I’d received from her, along with the little grey jewelry box that held the dinky little ring she’d turned down. "Is someone else living here now?"

"No." I got out a couple of cans, and took one over to her. She took it from me without touching my fingers. "Why do you ask?"

"The place looks so nice," she said. "And your clothes smell like fabric softener. You’ve never used fabric softener in your life."

"Oh. That." You can’t tell people about it when faeries are doing your housework, or they get ticked off and leave. "I sort of have a cleaning service."

"I hear you’ve been too busy to clean up," Susan said.

"Just making a living."

Susan smiled. "I heard you saved the world from some kind of doom. Is it true?"

I fiddled with my drink. "Sort of."

Susan laughed. "How do you sort of save the world?"

"I only saved it in a Greenpeace kind of way. If I’d blown it, there might have been a historically bad storm, but I don’t think anyone would have noticed the real damage for thirty or forty years-climate change takes time."

"Sounds scary," Susan said.

I shrugged. "Mostly I was just trying to save my own ass. The world was a twofer. Maybe I’m getting cynical. I suspect the only thing I accomplished was to keep the faeries from screwing up the place so that we could screw it up ourselves."

I sat down on the chair again, and we opened the Cokes and drank in silence for a bit. My heart eventually stopped pounding quite so loudly.

"I miss you," I said finally. "So does your editor. She called me a couple of weeks ago. Said your articles had quit coming in."

Susan nodded. "That’s one reason I’m here. I owe her more than a letter or a phone call."

"You’re quitting?" I asked.

She nodded.

"You find something else?"

"Sort of," she said. She brushed her hair back from her face with one hand. "I can’t tell you everything right now."

I frowned. For as long as I’d known her, Susan had been driven by a passion for discovering the truth and sharing it with other people. Her work at the Arcane had arisen from her stubborn refusal to deny things she saw as the truth, even if they had seemed insane. She was one of the rare people who stopped and thought about things, even weird and supernatural things, instead of dismissing them out of hand. That’s how she’d begun work at the Arcane. That was how she had originally met me.

"Are you all right?" I asked. "Are you in trouble?"

"Relatively speaking, no," she said. "But you are. That’s why I’m here, Harry."

"What do you mean?"

"I came to warn you. The Red Court-"

"Sent Paolo Ortega to call me out. I know."

She sighed. "But you don’t know what you’re getting into. Harry, Ortega is one of the most dangerous nobles of their Court. He’s a warlord. He’s killed half a dozen of the White Council’s Wardens in South America since the war started, and he’s the one who planned and executed the attack on Archangel last year."

I sat straight up at that, the blood draining from my face. "How do you know about that?"

"I’m an investigative reporter, Harry. I investigated."

I toyed with the Coke can, frowning down at it. "All the same. He came here asking for a duel. A fair fight. If he’s serious, I’ll take him on."

"There’s more that you need to know," Susan said.

"Like what?"

"Ortega’s opinion on the war is not the popular one within the Red Court. A few of the upper crust of the vampires support his way of thinking. But most of them like the idea of a lot of constant bloodshed. They also like the idea of a war to wipe out the White Council. They figure that if they get rid of the wizards once and for all, they won’t have to worry about keeping a low profile in the future."