Donne had drunk several glasses of wine with dinner and, unlike Ferencz, displayed the effects of the alcohol. He sprawled limply on the couch, looking pleased with himself and being more talkative than usual, which seemed to amuse Ferencz. Charles didn’t mind, and Tenrael was fascinated, so it was good all around.
“I didn’t suspect when I first met him that I’d be finding myself a cook,” Donne said.
Ferencz—no, he’d insisted on being called Abe—reclined on the sofa too, supporting Thomas’s legs in his lap. He had a bottle of something he called slivovitz close at hand.
“The potato pancakes were very good,” Charles agreed. He’d eaten a large stack of them, some slathered in apple sauce and some with jam. He now felt too full and relaxed to consider moving out of the armchair and donning his overcoat. Which was all right since his hosts appeared to be enjoying their company.
Tenrael was kneeling contentedly beside Charles. He’d watched Abe cook dinner—so that in the future he could make latkes for Charles—and he’d also been interested in the prayers Abe recited when lighting the Hanukkah candles.
It was, in sum, a cozy and convivial evening, strangely pedestrian even if Thomas was the only normal human there.
“It’s my bubbe’s recipe,” Abe said. “Everything she made was delicious. And she was always trying to fatten me up.” He patted his muscular belly.
Thomas laughed. “And now you’re fattening me. By the time I’m mobile again, I’ll be big as a freighter ship. I won’t be able to run after anything.”
“Then you’ll have to float majestically instead.” He turned his attention to Charles and Tenrael. “So is the city still quiet?”
Charles gave a small shrug. “Seemingly. We’ve been wandering and visiting the places on your list. Asking around for news, but nobody has much. We did encounter some kind of cat-spider creature in Chinatown, but it was someone’s pet. Didn’t seem dangerous.”
Abe nodded. “Tsuchigomo, I bet. Some of the Japanese shop owners used them for protection—like guard dogs. But now that the Japanese have been forced into camps, the tsuchigomo have found new homes.” His smile had faded to a deep frown. “Camps.”
“Yeah. In LA too. All over the West Coast.”
“I was born in Budapest. My family came here—where life was a lot harder for my parents—because they were afraid of pogroms. And now….” His face twisted with sorrow and it took a moment for him to steady himself. “Is what we’re doing to Japanese Americans much better?”
“I don’t— I think— I—” Charles stuttered to a stop. He didn’t know what he thought, except that human beings continued to outshine monsters in their capacity for evil. “I’m sorry.” That was the best he could come up with.
“No, I am. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Abe leaned over and picked up a deck of cards from the side table. “How about a card game?”
Thomas laughed. “Don’t do it. He cheats.”
“I do not cheat. Can I help it if my former profession gives me an advantage?”
Charles had learned that lesson the hard way, many years ago during a stakeout with four other agents. Abe had proposed a friendly game to pass the time, and by the end of the evening he’d collected a week’s wages from everyone. Charles had been too impressed with his skills to be truly angry.
But Tenrael hadn’t been there, of course, and now he leaned forward a bit. “You were a magus?”
“A sorcerer? No. I can’t do true magic. I was an illusionist.” Abe must have read the interest in Tenrael’s expression, because he smiled warmly. “Would you like to see a few of my tricks?”
“Yes, please.”
“All right, let’s see. My signature effect was the bullet catch, and—”
“You’re not doing that one,” Thomas growled.
Abe patted Thomas’s good leg. “Don’t worry. I gave up on that one long ago. Don’t want to worry the neighbors.”
He rummaged in a closet and unearthed a few supplies he said had been gathering dust for years. Then as Tenrael watched eagerly, Abe manipulated cards and coins, made it seem as if a handkerchief was haunted, and pulled a bottle of gin out of a top hat. It was all very engaging, especially when Abe affected a thick Hungarian accent. Even Thomas seemed entertained. But Tenrael was the most avid member of the audience, his eyes wide and sparkling. “Although this is not real sorcery, it is very good. You make it look as if you do magic.”
“That’s the key to a good show. Most people come in as skeptics, but that doesn’t matter. As long as they leave shaking their heads in wonder because they can’t figure out how I did it, then I’ve accomplished what I wanted to.” Abe set the deck of cards on a shelf and gave Tenrael a careful stare. “An illusion can still be a success even if the marks know it’s an illusion.”
For several seconds, Tenrael stared back at him. Then he turned to look at Charles. “Master?”
“Your call.”
There. Right there was the tattered pride that Charles sometimes glimpsed in Tenrael, along with the determination that had allowed him to survive years of torture and later present himself to Charles. Tenrael stood smoothly and, with fingers still clumsy at the task, began to unbutton his shirt.
Thomas sat upright suddenly. “Hey, we don’t—”
“Hush, shefele,” said Abe, gently but firmly pushing him back against the pillow. “He’s lifting the illusion.”
Tenrael removed his shirt and handed it to Charles, maybe thinking of how expensive that item of clothing had been. He handed over his undershirt too. And then he slipped the ring off his finger and set it in Charles’s palm.
Abe and Thomas gasped in unison, but neither of them reached for a weapon. They simply gaped at the creature—and who could blame them? Standing tall with his wings outspread, Tenrael looked especially big and uncanny in the cozy living room. “I am a demon,” he said.
Pride for his lover swelled in Charles’s chest. Tenrael had revealed himself willingly, in front of two Bureau agents, dangerous men who were sometimes charged with destroying creatures like him. And who, Charles realized, Tenrael liked. They’d given him his first opportunity to socialize like a normal person and had accepted him despite his unusual relationship with Charles. Showing himself like this was an act of pure courage.
“You’re the demon who got away,” Abe said softly.
“Charles freed me, but I returned to him. I am his now.” Tenrael lifted his chin. “Must you kill me?”
Charles stood—Tenrael’s shirts falling to the floor unheeded—and tucked the ring into his pocket. He always carried a gun in a holster at the small of his back, but he didn’t reach for it. He did, however, stand between Tenrael and their hosts. “If so, you’ll have to kill me first. Or at least try.” He flashed his most vicious smile.
But to his enormous relief, both Abe and Thomas shook their heads. “It’s bad luck to murder a dinner guest,” Abe said mildly.
“Even if he’s a demon?”
Abe opened his mouth to answer, but Thomas beat him to it. “Everyone in this room has killed. More than once. And some of the dead were innocent. None of us should rashly judge others.”
“I have never killed.” Tenrael’s voice had softened. “I carried nightmares. Perhaps some of those dreams indirectly led to deaths, but….” He shrugged, making his feathers rustle.
Charles found himself laughing at the irony—of the four of them, the demon had the most untarnished record. Maybe the others got the joke too, because they laughed with him. Even Tenrael joined in. Charles sat back down with a sigh, and Tenrael folded to his knees beside him.
By the time Thomas drank a shot of whiskey and Abe downed considerably more and Charles gave Tenrael’s wings a few strokes, the remaining tension had left the room. At their hosts’ requests, Charles and Ten told the story of how Tenrael had become a captive, what had happened to him during those long years, and how Charles had set him free. In return, Abe and Thomas spoke of the events that had originally brought them together. It also included, as it turned out, how Townsend had ended up as West Coast Bureau chief.
Charles shook his head with wonder. “I knew Townsend wasn’t, uh, normal. But neither am I. Still, I wouldn’t have guessed….” Apparently the world still had wonders in store for him.
“It’s been fourteen years and we’re still not used to the idea,” said Abe.
“Can I trust Townsend? He knows about Tenrael.”
Abe and Thomas exchanged looks. “I don’t trust anyone,” said Thomas. “But I don’t think he’d destroy Tenrael on a whim. Especially if he thinks you two might be useful to him. Which apparently you are.”
It wasn’t much reassurance, but it would have to suffice.
It was late by then, and Thomas’s face showed deep lines. His injuries were likely hurting, and he probably needed some sleep. Charles handed Tenrael the ring and shirts and then turned to their hosts. “Thank you for having us over to your home. And for… well, everything.”
“Thanks for coming. Thomas and I were getting desperate to talk to anyone but each other. Come back in a couple of weeks to celebrate Christmas. For the benefit of my goyishe beloved, I even plan to get a tree.”
Charles and Tenrael had said good-night to Thomas in the living room and were putting on their coats near the door when Charles remembered something he’d been meaning to ask. “The Sea Dog was on the list you gave us,” he said to Abe.
“Yeah. It’s a dump, and they water their drinks if they think they can get away with it. But it’s a good place to overhear things. One of the bartenders passes information our way now and then in exchange for a few clams.”
“There was a singer there the other night. A boy—very pretty.”
Abe blinked. “Huh. I hope that joint isn’t trying to be classy, because it’s gonna take more than that.”
“The bartender said the kid was new, for the holidays. Do you think they’re pimping him out? He didn’t look happy to be there.”
“Could be.” Abe rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. “Not our jurisdiction. But you can call Detective Collins if you want. He’s on the list. If the kid’s willing to bend over for pay, Collins will let him be. But if the kid’s being forced… Collins can fix things. He’s not an honest cop, but he’s not a bad man.”
“Thank you.”
A heavy fog had settled over the streets, lending the city an otherworldly feeling. Charles liked it. Fog was similar to that wet strip of sand he liked so much on the beach: not quite solid, not quite insubstantial, a thing neither here nor there. Not exactly one thing or another. Kind of like him.
“Want to walk?” he asked Tenrael. It was a fair distance back to the hotel, but they were in no hurry, and he wouldn’t mind the exercise. And Tenrael was fond of the night.
Their footsteps sounded muffled, and the yellow light of streetlamps vainly fought the mist. Charles caught the sound of a foghorn, so faint that a man with ordinary hearing would have been unaware. A black-and-white cat dashed in front of them and between two houses.
“I liked them,” Tenrael said after a few blocks. “It was nice to spend an evening together.”
“It was brave of you to let them see who you are.”
“I used to be… lost. I became nothing. And then I met you and now I am becoming something new. I want your friends to see that.”
“They’re now your friends too.”
In the dark, Charles could sense Ten’s smile.