Chapter Seven

“This is the first time I’ve ever done the Walk of Shame without having done anything to be ashamed of.” Tag chuckled to himself, then added, “Although ‘smug and pleased’ is usually more how I feel, not ashamed. If you’re ashamed, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Normies are odd, aren’t they? Walk of Shame isn’t something a witch or a dual would come up with, unless it’s being ashamed of not planning better so you’re all scruffy and have terrible morning breath.”

“I’m only ashamed I didn’t jump you this morning.”

Paul smiled. “You haven’t jumped me yet, you mean. I still have designs on you, my foxy friend. But we have an incubus to stop first.”

As Tag put the key card in the lock, he wiggled one red eyebrow. “Aren’t they attracted to sex? Maybe we could lure…” He pushed open the door and gagged on a cloud of foulness that his fox nose broke down to a combination of dead things rotting in a swamp mixed with twofer night at a seedy brothel, in a time and place where personal hygiene wasn’t a priority.

The room was destroyed.

It wasn’t messed up and disorderly, as if someone had been searching it. Every piece of furniture was reduced to matchsticks except the bed. The bed was simply gone, leaving nothing behind but flaky ashes. Scraps of fabric that used to be Tag’s clothes were snowed everywhere. The mirrors had returned to the sand from which glass was made, the marble sink surround a pile of chips the size of decorative garden mulch. He thought he spotted what was left of his laptop, a snarl of wires and chip fragments amid the wreckage.

Tag took one step forward toward the havoc before Paul’s right arm shot out, blocking him. “If there’s magic contained by the doorway,” Paul said, “you’ll break the seal.”

Tag jumped back, shuddering at the notion of that destructive energy tearing him and Paul into little scraps like his favorite shirt and his one and only suit.

He was so out of his depth here. From Paul’s saucer eyes and the catch in his breath, the witch was out of his depth, so Tag supposed he was allowed to feel like screaming like a little normy kid alone in the dark during a thunderstorm. Since Paul hadn’t let his fear take over, Tag wouldn’t either—Paul didn’t need to deal with Tag having a mini-breakdown on top everything else—and there was only one way to cope when things got this hairy. “Jeez, some women take it badly when you don’t call. Do they have therapists for demons? This bitch really needs one.”

Paul shut the door. “Give me your hand,” he said. 

No—he commanded. Until now, despite the scent of his magic heavy in the air, the young witch had seemed like the type of guy Tag would expect to find in a university library researching minor Renaissance poets or the history of medieval Albania, not on the front lines of fighting evil. But in this second, the air crackled around him, a lightning storm indoors, and he seemed bigger, more solid in his body all of a sudden. Normies who’d seen only the polite, scholarly young man would definitely be freaked. Tag knew, with a knowledge that hit him out of nowhere, that this was the real Paul, passionate and powerful and usually hidden behind a mask that would call no attention to him among ordinary humans. 

“Give me your hand,” Paul repeated. Tag, realizing he’d been stunned into immobility by the shift in Paul’s energy, complied.

“Hearth, heart, home,” Paul whispered and squeezed Tag’s hand. The lightning wasn’t crackling in the air harmlessly anymore. It coursed through Tag. His body arched. His cock jumped to attention. Paul gestured with his free hand and said something in that language Tag couldn’t identify.

The nasty sex and swamp smell dissipated. Tension eased out of Tag’s body, although the throbbing excitement in his cock didn’t.

“I’ve banished some of the magic and contained the rest,” Paul said. “But I don’t know for how long. This magic feels caustic enough to eat through witch magic like acid. I managed to convince the wooden door that it’s steel, so that should at least hold it in the room—as long as the door’s shut.”

Tag got a horrific image of some innocent housekeeper walking into that magical disaster area and grabbed the Do Not Disturb sign from the room next door. Better to walk in on someone who was sleeping or doing the tube-snake boogie than to get shredded by demon magic.

“The magic signature was the last bit of proof I needed. We’re dealing with a demon. Mr. Aisling’s not going to like this. Neither do I, for that matter.” Paul’s hand flicked a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. “Good thinking about the sign,” he added and hugged Tag.

Tag pulled him and didn’t let go, not even when a family walked down the hall, the two children ignoring them but the parents staring nervously.

 

Mr. Aisling’s office was surprisingly simple in comparison to the over-the-top décor in the public spaces and guest rooms. The furniture appeared to be actual antiques, patinaed with age and use and not restored to glossy perfection. Early 18^th century, English or Colonial imitations of English, Paul guessed, though he was hardly an expert. Lovely lines, simple shapes, good wood shaped by a craftsman whose hand tools still marked the wood visibly. Not at all what Paul would have expected, until he recalled that, on this plane, at least, fae could conjure to their hearts’ content but couldn’t make anything more complex than a sandwich using their hands and skills. 

Sitting among these solid artifacts of an earlier time, fiddling with a computer that didn’t fit at all with the room, Mr. Aisling seemed even more eerily absent than usual, as if the part of him that was fae had left the building or possibly the planet. 

That changed when Paul and Tag told their story. The full force of his fae side roared into the room, filling it with a press of unfocused power that slammed Paul back in his chair like a hurricane-force wind. Mr. Aisling claimed he could access little magic from either his fae or human side, but it occurred to Paul for the first time that “little magic” meant something different to someone whose relatives were fae lords. He could scarcely breathe through the weight of power. Power and…

“Anger-management time, Mr. Aisling,” Tag said calmly, as if ordering around furious extraplanar beings was all in a day’s work. “Can’t say I blame you, but let’s save it for the critter that’s doin’ the murderin’. I’m pretty sure you can flatten a fox without really trying, but I’d rather you didn’t. And I’ll be right upset if you hurt Paul.”

Aisling’s eyes shifted so they were entirely pewter, cold and metallic, without whites or pupils. Then he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. When he let out the breath and reopened his eyes, both his eyes and the air in the room were back to what passed for normal.

“I apologize, mortals. It has been hard enough to control my rage at these assaults on my guests’ lives and my honor. But to hear of an incubus here, an actual demon, almost drove me past the point I could contain my wrath. I thought they were barred from this plane. I thought your gods had made the barriers impassable.”

“They can be invited, sir.” Paul sounded like the calm scholar explaining theory, but Tag was never going to be fooled by that cover again. Paul was scholarly and could be calm, but there was so much more underneath. “One does not have to know magic or even believe demons are real to invite them. Untapped magical potential and the right kind of strong emotion can be enough to open a door. Unfortunately, since demons are not of this plane, they are almost impossible to destroy on this plane.”

Mr. Aisling’s eyes shifted back to solid steely gray. This time, his facial features changed subtly so he lost any illusion of being human. “There is a creature of evil from another plane preying on those under my protection, and we can do nothing against it? Need I call in my cousins? They might know what to do, but I fear what might happen if fae lords and demons go head to head in a human city.” 

Paul shuddered. A full-blooded fae lord wasn’t much of an improvement over a demon. Neither was evil in the true sense of the world, any more than a human enjoying a steak dinner or squashing a mosquito was evil. But they were both so much higher on the food chain than normal humans that they could be carelessly deadly. 

“I can banish the demon, once I get my hands on the proper spells from home. My sister’s already on that.”

Tag blinked. Paul hadn’t made any calls or sent any emails or texts that he knew of, and they’d been together pretty much constantly. 

Could you send a spell via email, or would it arrive by carrier pigeon or something?

“Portia’s one of our strongest telepaths, and we’re twins. As soon as she finds the information, I’ll know it. In the meantime, though, I’m going to need to go into lockdown. Lowering my shields enough for that level of detailed telepathic sending, even from my twin…”

“Is going to leave you vulnerable unless you’re within wards of your own creation, wards keyed specifically to Donovan magic,” Mr. Aisling finished. “Tell me what you need, young witch, and I’ll see that you get it.”

Paul’s face turned grim. “Answers. You can get me answers. You led us to believe that you had little magic, but the power you just unleashed was immense, though unfocused. Why do you need my help when you clearly have full fae powers?”

Mr. Aisling’s face, usually impassive, looked very human as he admitted, “I have many of a fae’s innate powers, but my human blood limits my use of them. My recent display of temper caused me considerable pain. Actually working a spell is worse. To do the magnitude of magic needed to defeat a powerful foe would burn away all that is human in my body—and because I am of mixed blood, I cannot manifest a suitable new body here.”

“So you have powers it would kill you to use? That bites,” Tag said.

“It wouldn’t precisely kill me, but it would drive me from this plane and into the fae plane, without half of my spirit. It would be…unfortunate. I will help you to the extent it is safe for me to do so, but I cannot confront this creature directly and hope to walk away with my mortal life. You, at least, have a chance. Is that answer enough?” 

“Yes,” Tag started to say, “you’re a coward—” but Paul elbowed him. Okay, he’d shut up now. Even if the half-fae couldn’t use his full powers, he wasn’t someone to piss off.

“As for what else you can do for us,” Paul said, “how about two breakfasts, one vegetarian, one with steak and bacon, and any further information you have about those who died. And a clean outfit in Tag’s size. He’s a little short on clothes right now.”