Chapter 11

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

“You look like you’re about to tell me your grandkids never call you.”

Barnaby didn’t appreciate my observation of his sleep attire, which was stolen directly out of a cartoon about a curmudgeonly old man who foils children’s antics. The long nightshirt he wore almost reached his ankles, complete with a matching floppy hat that I refused to believe he slept in. He’d told me it was to keep his horns from wearing down his pillow, but I think it was because he bought the outfit as a set from an old folks’ home.

Unlike the more striking incubi who had just stomped on my heart, Barnaby’s eyes didn’t fade into a colorful spectrum of emotions. His remained inky black and angry, and he was the only incubus I had ever met that had frown lines.

“I’m going to be up all night fixing my books,” he complained, stomping around in his shop with his slippers on. “I don’t know what the hell you did to him, Dallas, but it really ruined my evening.”

“Why the hell do you assume this is somehow my fault? I was out for the past hour.” I didn’t see a single thing out of place except for the books Barnaby was shuffling around.

“Because it usually is your fault. That’s what you do. You’re an agent of chaos and heartburn.” Barnaby exhaled as he sorted some hardbacks and slammed one back onto the shelf. “He has my ancient linguistics mixed up with my post-classic fertility rituals of the Sarbon empire texts. This is all a mess!”

“I’d offer to help but—yeah, that was the face I was expecting to see from the offer.” I glanced around at the quiet shop, the shadows of his erotic antiquities casting hilarious shapes on the walls. “Where is said maniac book organizer?”

“He insisted he was going to teach Kevin a new trick and bolted right after I called you.” He took a step back and set his hands on his hips, aging from sleepy grandpa to scolding ghost who died from being disappointed. “I like Zane. He’s decent, and nice, and can actually carry a conversation. I would be upset if you chase him away with whatever nonsense you’ve done tonight.”

“I didn’t realize you had such a big crush on my vampire Thrall, Barns.”

“I don’t like him that way, you impossible dick, but I do consider him a friend.” He crossed his arms and uncrossed them, turning to glare at his books before deciding that he did want to cross his arms after all. “Probably the only friend of yours I think is good for you.”

“Good for me,” I echoed, exhausted. “Sure. The vampire is good for me.”

“Compared to the usual ruffians you hang around with, yes.” He started busying himself with shuffling books again. “The vampire is the least of your problems.”

“I’ll agree with you on that point.” I turned to leave but rotated around when Barnaby did his “I’m not finished” sigh.

“Two DHAP officers stopped by. I think they were former clients, but they were looking for you.”

“Human and jinn?” I asked and Barnaby nodded. “They say what about?”

“Only that you should call them. I didn’t get their card.”

Preston Cheslock and Seyyid Taleb; Demon Human Alliance and Protection officers I had helped over a year ago. Seyyid had been bitten by a vampire and started to turn into a messenger, and his buddy turned boyfriend had dragged him to my doorstep for help. It had also been the first time I met Zane—well. The first time we tried to kill each other, anyway.

While I managed to help the two and Seyyid made a full recovery, they were quick to let me know they could only turn a blind eye to my assassin profession to an extent.

We had a complicated history, but for the most part they didn’t bother me.

Still didn’t love that they dropped by. It probably wasn’t good, but I had other fires to deal with.

“Thanks,” I told Barnaby. “Anything else?”

“Rent is due next week.” He exhaled a few more years off his life. “And I thought you were visiting Sias soon? I was hoping for an intimacy crystal.”

A slice of bitterness ran through me, but I managed to keep it from leaking out.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll get one to you as soon as I can. Night, Barns.”

He mumbled some sort of departing words, but his attention had been set back to the books by the time I was leaving.

I felt heavy as I hauled myself up the stairway, my body demanding rest but my mind whirling too fast for any sleep to arrive. I had done this dance for so long that I knew the nights I wasn’t getting any sleep way before my head ever hit the pillow. I had been na?ve to think the emotional turmoil and earlier drugs would help knock me on my ass for some deep, dreamless sleep, but I thought I was building up a resistance to such things.

Lucky me.

While my body ached and my mind was in pieces, I had somehow managed to still set an expectation of what I was going to see when I entered my apartment. I hadn’t known Zane long, but the word “manic” was not one I would ever use to describe him, even when he was in intense situations. Whatever I had imagined seeing when I came home was shoved off the tallest tower in my imagination and replaced by the scene before me.

My bed had been stripped of its sheets, blankets and pillows repurposed for an honest-to-God pillow fort, erected in the middle of my very small living space. All my swords had been taken down and rehung, my guns in perfect order beside them. All of my laundry was folded, my sink void of dishes, the smell of fresh cookies hung in the air like I was being lured into a trap.

As I stood in my doorway, taking in the lunacy, Twig sauntered past in a little vest made from a sock.

My vampire Thrall had apparently gone insane.

“Zane?” I stepped inside and shut the door. “You uh…you alright?”

Zane stood from where he was bent over Kevin’s tank, face set in intense concentration.

“It took all night, but we figured it out.”

I glanced between the crazed vampire and my fish, who was building a bubble nest near the top of his tank.

“Figured out the bubbles? ’Cause he does that when he wants a fishy wife so…whatever you have planned, I’m vetoing it.”

“Bubbles? No.” Zane drummed his fingers on the counter. “The double backflip.”

“You or Kevin?”

“Kevin. The landing is still a little sloppy but he has done it twice so far.”

I cautiously went over to my fish and peered into his tank. Kevin paused his aquatic architecture to glare at me. He did not like to be bothered when he was working, and from the amount of bubbles made he had been at it for some time. His little gills flared, his breathing normal, and he puffed his tail in absolute outrage that I would dare speak to him while he was constructing his future wife’s palace.

“We just need to adjust the angle of the second flip,” Zane went on. “Otherwise he splashes everywhere.”

The counters were dry, nothing fish-floppy about the situation.

“Sure, man,” I placated, steering his attention away from my poor betta fish. “You’ve been…busy.”

“I had a lot to do. The apartment needed revamping and Barnaby had his books out of order.” He tried to peel away from the counter, whatever compelling him to move won the battle, but I caught his arm and piloted him back in my direction.

“Look at me a second,” I told him, amazed by how wide his pupils were. His stare was glassy and jumpy, his arm buzzing with the desire to do anything but stand still. “Saints, Zane. Are you high?”

“Do humans like cinnamon in their cookies or is that just an imp thing? Because the recipe I found was an imp one from someone’s grandmother, but it seemed like everyone could benefit from them.” He looked at the fresh batch sitting on the counter, then back at me.

“Everyone likes cinnamon.”

“I’m going to make more.”

“No more cookies. That’s plenty of cookies. Zane, focus on me. What did you take?” I snapped my fingers to get him to stop staring at the cookies and repeated myself before he realized I was asking him a question.

“I didn’t take anything,” he insisted. “I feel great.”

“How great?” I probed. “Obviously you have…an abundance of energy. What the hell is with the pillow fort, by the way?”

“I read about them in a book. Did you know kids make these and sit inside them to read?” He lifted his eyebrows like he just told me a very coveted secret I should be amazed by.

“Kay. You didn’t find something in here and swallow it? Little pink pills or some powder maybe?” I quizzed. “You didn’t eat any of the cookies, right?”

“Do you want more cookies?”

“No, stop it.” I steered him out of the kitchen. “Hey, show me the fort. Let’s go sit down.”

Watching a tall, brawny vampire crawl into a pillow fort was hilarious, even if he had stripped my bed to make the damn thing. His wide shoulders scraped the sides of the entry, and there wasn’t a ton of space inside with his large body dominating the narrow space. I managed to squeeze myself in and sit, though the close quarters meant I was basically sitting in his lap.

“Did you ever make these as a kid?” Zane asked, shoulders hunched to bring his head away from the blanket ceiling.

“I didn’t have that kind of childhood.” I scooched forward and watched his eyes dance around. “Zane, when did you start wanting to do all this stuff? Can you remember?”

“I made the fort right after you left. But then I wanted to go see Barnaby.” He drummed his fingers on his knees, wide pupils aimed at me. “I wanted to keep myself busy.”

“You’ve done a great job at that.” I reached up and snagged a piece of cookie dough from his hair, surprised when he leaned into the touch. His fingers stopped tapping, his eyes shut, and he took a long breath.

“That feels amazing,” he confessed. “Relaxing. Like my whole body feels it.”

It was a simple gesture, and something I hadn’t thought much of, but his reaction was the missing piece I needed.

“Ah, hell.” I winced. “Barns was right, this is my fault.”

“Hm?” Zane opened his eyes sleepily. “What is?”

“My blood. I took some Rabbit Hole earlier and I forgot. When you um…when we did the…” I motioned to my chest, felt my cheeks burn and moved on. “The drugs were still in my blood. You got a kick from it. You, my good sir, react very strongly to this shit.”

“Your blood…had drugs?” He screwed up his face like I was trying to trick him.

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“Oh.” Zane rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows. “What do I do? Will it go away?”

“Normally I’d try to get you to eat something and lie down. That’s what I do to try and curb it—Zane, if you’re about to get up to make cookies, I’m gonna punch you.”

He paused in mid-rise. “You said you needed to eat something.”

“No, you need to eat something, but you don’t eat! Hell, you don’t sleep. Are you just going to be stuck like a hyperactive vampire puppy forever? Because only one of us can be the jackass. We both can’t be, it fucks up the dynamic.”

Zane watched me for a moment, eyes drifting to the exit then back to me.

“So, that’s ‘no’ for cookies? They have cinnamon.”

“Oh my GOD . Zane, lie the hell down. Rest. Meditate. Stop moving and relax so this can pass.”

“Let me just get you one—” He tried to crawl past me, which was impossible because there was no room, so it turned into him crawling on me to try and escape. The guy was strong and determined, and from the personal experience of me trying to kill him more than once, I knew there was no way I was going to out-muscle him into submission. He could toss me off him without batting an eye, and had several times in past encounters.

Instead of trying to grapple him to the ground and force him to stay still, I used his current affliction to my benefit and pacified him the easiest way I could think of. Just as he knocked me over to go fetch some fresh-baked, imp recipe, damn cinnamon cookies, I reached up and ran both of my hands through his hair.

I knew from earlier when the drugs had still been rolling through me, that everything felt extraordinary when at the peak of the high. The maneuver was risky and a little awkward, but damn if it wasn’t effective. Zane’s manic quest to grab sweets stalled out at the feeling of fingers on his scalp, and he deflated like a heavy balloon.

I had made one fatal error in my plan in that I hadn’t moved out of the way fast enough. When Zane melted into my touch and lay down, I had become the only resting place that made sense. He settled down like a meat blanket on my chest, head over my heart, one thick arm thrown over my stomach.

It wasn’t ideal. He was heavy, and a vampire. I didn’t want vampires lying on me.

But he wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, he was pleasantly warm, and the construction of the fort had padded floors that felt nice as I lay on them.

I had to grudgingly acknowledge that his hair was silky soft. Running my fingers through it to keep him peaceful wasn’t awful. His shampoo smelled crisp, pleasant, and I decided I was going to steal it. I wanted my hair this soft. The entire situation, while weird—and I vowed not to speak of it later—was…

Nice.

Comfortable.

I didn’t hate it.

My deep sigh brought his head up and then down again, and I couldn’t tell from the angle if his eyes were closed or not.

“You know Barns has a big ol’ crush on you?” I asked, not able to bear the tranquility any longer.

“No, he doesn’t,” Zane countered immediately, voice slowing into his normal cadence.

“Hm, I dunno. He was pretty mad that I might chase you away. He absolutely likes you more than me, that’s for sure.”

“He cares about you,” he said, which took me by surprise. Before I could dismiss the accusation with something funny but likely shitty, he nullified it by adding, “He’s losing his shop.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s drowning in debt and can’t make enough to keep the bank off his back.” Zane adjusted his head on my chest a bit.

“How bad?”

“Bad.”

“Goddamnit, Barns.” I kept petting the vampire but took a moment to rub at my eyes. “He never said anything to me.”

“He’s not going to. He’s too proud.” Zane started moving around a bit too much, so I put both hands in his hair again.

“I thought he was some rich guy with endless sources of income. Who else opens a shop like that other than eccentric millionaires with trust funds?”

“I don’t know about that, but I know he only has a few weeks left. I saw the bills shoved in his desk.”

“Damn.” I stared up at the sheets above us, worry picking at my chest. I’d have to move, find something else low profile and cheap, with a landlord that wouldn’t ask a ton of questions. Kevin hated moving, it was always stressful for him.

I quietly mused how the hell I could convince Barns to move with us. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being out on his ass, even if he was a major pain in one.

“I think I fucked up with Sias.”

“Oh?” Zane sounded surprised, which was fitting because I was too. I wasn’t sure why the hell I blurted it out, but it was out there now. “What happened?”

“I sort of…punched one of his favorites in the face? Don’t fucking sigh. It wasn’t on purpose. Mostly.”

“How do you accidentally assault someone?”

He was starting to sound like his normal grumpy self, which was good, but I decided to keep him still with my platonic hair petting for a while longer. Just to make sure he was resting long enough to let the drugs wear all the way off.

“When they cross a line,” I explained to him, the leftover venom of guilt starting to work its way into my bones. I was getting tired of constantly messing up. “I don’t like people biting my neck. He got lost in the moment and…well, I reacted strongly, we’ll say that. Sias…” I wasn’t sure how to proceed, and almost let the sentence die on the vine. “Sias told me that I couldn’t hurt people he cared about, then kicked me out.”

Zane, who was growing to be a master at shooting me with perfectly aimed insightfulness, landed a well-placed bolt through my chest.

“You know he wasn’t excluding you from that, hunter.”

I didn’t know when my hands stopped moving, but they had found a nice little nest in his hair.

“I know.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I wish I could have him borrow your emotion reading abilities for a while,” I said. “So I could just feel things and he’d know.”

Zane hummed thoughtfully. “You spent a small fortune obtaining a device to keep someone from knowing your feelings.”

“You’re not Sias.”

“No, I’m not.”

That was Zane’s cue to finally lift off of me, his pupils retracting back to their normal size, or at least close to it. He rubbed at his eyes, which I knew from experience were dry, and blinked them at me.

“I don’t have the luxury of getting pissed off at you and shoving you out the door,” he explained. “Instead, I have to force you to talk to me. Which, to your credit, hunter, has been the hardest fucking fight of my life.”

“Do you charge for your special vampire therapy by the hour or is it a weekly fee?” My words were as deadpan as my posture, and I glared up at the vampire from his stupid damn pillow fort. “Why the hell do you even care?”

Zane watched me, my blood in his veins giving him an almost alive, human glow to his cheeks. He needed to shave, and his locks were wild from being ruffled into submission. He wore a different, but equally black shirt and dark jeans, and looked more like a pasty model than an undead creature of the night.

He hadn’t been the toughest vampire I had ever encountered until that moment.

Until he spoke, he was just a burden, a weird, hilarious fluke that had been cursed upon me from years of bleeding necromancers and vampires dry. Zane was a heavy suitcase I had to drag around behind me, who could feel all of my insecurities, and was filled with aggravation and annoyance.

But then he spoke, and everything changed.

It set us on a new path.

“I care about you, Dallas.”

And that was it.

He was the first person to tell me he cared about me to my face.

No vague remark, no phrasing that could be easily tossed away as manipulative or toxic.

He just simply cared. About me.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” I told him, because I honestly didn’t.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Zane affirmed. “I just wanted you to know.”

“Okay.” I continued to lie on the base of his pillow fort, wondering what the hell to do next. “You’re not about to go make more cookies, right? I don’t like that you’re standing up right now.”

“No. I’m going to go shower, then sit and read my book. Feel free to sleep in the fort, because I’m not remaking your bed. I’m tired.”

“Gee, thanks.”

As Zane disappeared, sober and not nearly as whimsical, I was left lying on the ground as a tiny kitten wearing a sock found a home against my leg. My thoughts had taken a gelatinous shape, bouncing violently each time I tried to latch onto any of them. Each time I tried to unpack my run-in with Austin, an intrusive plop of guilt squished into my mind. When I replayed the image of Sias’s eyes flashing yellow in anger, Zane’s admission dripped over it.

Eventually I was too exhausted from trying to fight my own messy brain to stay awake, and I fell asleep to the sound of Twig purring.