Death and the Crone Read online

  Patiently, almost like a nurse, he undressed her, one article of clothing at a time. As each piece came away, it was as if her skin was flayed off until she stood before this beautiful demon, her small, wrinkled, drooping body uncovered for his dark eyes to see. The lesions on her skin had gotten worse; scaly and red and sore. Gently, with a thumb, he caressed one.

  “Look at how beautiful you are,” he whispered, and his fingers trailed up both arms to rest on her bare shoulders. She raised her head then, expecting to see craziness in his eyes or a mean quirk at the corner of his mouth. But his gaze remained just as loving as it had been. Her cheeks burned with an embarrassment she had thought life had pounded out of her years before.

  “You’re sick in the head,” she said again, but she lacked the will to spit at him.

  “Your life is all in your skin. Every wrinkle and crease. It’s beautiful. You’ve lived so much,” he said.

  “It was a shitty life; I’m glad it’s over,” she said, her voice gravelly. “My body’s broken and useless.”

  “The most beautiful things are often broken. And besides, you are not your body. You are beautiful.”

  She blinked at that. “What? Am I already dead, and this is heaven or something? Heaven’s got a beautiful man waiting for me?”

  That drew another one of his musical laughs, which made him look just a little bit crazy this time. She found his madness oddly comforting. At last, something she expected.

  “You’ll have to tell me,” he said and began to unbutton his own shirt.

  She took a step back. “What are you doing?!”

  Each button came away, popping one at a time to reveal a beautiful, well-muscled chest. His torso was long, and the edges of him were perfect. He toed off his shoes as he undid his belt in that way that every woman, from the swooniest teen to an old crone like her, recognized as sexy. “What are you doing?!”

  “I’m going to bathe you. It’ll be fine. I won’t hurt you. I won’t do anything you don’t want. You have only to tell me,” he said as he became beautifully naked himself. She stared at his long legs, which were just as muscled as the rest of him. He had to be one of those running fools that regularly shoved past her as they screamed at her to get out of the way, to get a pair of legs like that.

  “No, no, this is wrong. This is wrong,” she said as panic rippled through her. She wanted to run, but she was frozen to the spot as he approached in all his glory and pulled her into his arms, shushing gently in her ear.

  “It’s alright. I will take care of you. You are safe,” he said and rocked her gently, so gently. He smelled good, like forest loam and summer rain and beautiful men. He smelled like a place and a person that she always dreamed would come for her but never had.

  What did she care? She came here to die.

  “Do whatever you want,” she whispered.

  She let him draw her into the shower. He sat her on a stool waiting inside, and the warm water sluiced over her tired body. She thought it would burn her away, but after a few moments, the heat eased the cold inside her, and she began to feel… truly warm. It had been a cold fall; frost and winter winds hounded the people of the streets earlier than they were ready for.

  While he moved around behind her, she stared at her feet. The toes had been crushed inward ages ago, her toenails more like talons. Now they just looked like two old clubs at the end of deformed sticks. Between her feet, she watched the dirt swirl down the drain as the water washed over her. Grey foam replaced it as he began to lather over her back and arms. She went as compliant as a doll, her shaking easing somewhat. He left no cranny undiscovered or slathered in sweet-smelling soap.

  “Jasmine?” she asked softly when he made a second pass.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes, it’s lovely,” she said, as if in a dream. “It has been so long since I’ve felt so warm.”

  “Good.”

  A different soap, this one smelling of citrus, lathered up in her hair as his fingers slid through, finding tangle after encrusted tangle, but he never rushed and never stopped, breaking up the cakey mess with gentle fingers. He washed her hair four or five times, but by the last rinse, those long fingers rolled through the strands smoothly, gently massaging her scalp. She swore she fell asleep while he touched her, each pass a sweet caress, the likes of which she could never remember having felt before. The hypnosis lasted a long time. Letting the water continually wash over her, she realized he had stopped washing her and was simply holding her in his arms against his chest, skin to skin. At some point, he had shifted her back and off the stool, but she had no memory of it. Her head rested on his shoulder, and he cradled her in his lap. It didn’t feel strange or lewd. Instead, it was innocent and… sacred.

  “How do you feel?” he asked softly.

  “Oh, kill me now because I cannot live after this,” she sighed in pleasure.

  “I was right.”

  “About what?”

  “Took ten years off you right there,” he said playfully.

  “Oh, shut up,” she snapped, the spell breaking. She tried to sit up, but he held her in place.

  “Don’t move just yet.” He reached up above him to stop the water with a quick turn of the faucet. The old woman was sad it was over.

  With ease, he stood up with her in his arms and carried her out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. He laid her gently on the bed, still wet, and pulled the clean sheet and comforter up and over, enveloping her in more delicious warmth.

  “What is going to happen now?” she asked, watching his beautiful backside with its unbroken line as he went back to the bathroom, disappearing from sight.

  “You will suffer,” he answered. Her heart jumped in her chest, and she struggled to sit up.

  “Fuck,” she said. It was just as she feared, but her old body wouldn’t respond. The ingrained aches that had been eased from the warm water still lurked beneath her skin. The walls and the covers of the bed rolled and fluttered once more. It made it so hard to sit up.

  He returned from the bathroom carrying a bucket and several towels over one arm.

  “Most likely, it will take several days,” he continued, setting the things next to the bed. “I will keep you hydrated, but it will hurt, and there is nothing I can do about that.” He pulled open a drawer in the nightstand next to the bed and pulled out long black straps, setting them on top before closing the drawer. “I might have to restrain you, but I’m hoping my holding you will be enough. Rest assured, I’ve done this before a few times. I’m going to try to make this as easy for you as possible.”

  The old woman tried to scramble away, to get out of the bed, and almost fell into the open maw, reaching up to her from the other side of the bed. He was there then, her demon crossing the blackness as he tipped her back into the bed.

  “Don’t get up. It’s already starting,” he said.

  She tried to struggle, even though the room grew dimmer. She screamed in fear.

  “Let me go! Let me go!!” she panicked. Something held her down, binding her in this hellscape that screamed and roared and laughed around her. Always that persistent laugh. Her whole body trembled so hard, she barely realized she was crying. He shushed her gently in her ear.

  “It’s okay; it’s okay. I’m here. I’ll get you through it,” he said.

  She flinched, but he wasn’t the demon. He was pure light with dark hair. He was there to save her. To ease her over to the other side.

  “What? What the fuck have you done to me?” she hiccupped out. Then she understood, just before she passed out. The world faded away and melted into the old, familiar pain.

  “Your withdrawal has started,” the demon’s voice laughed from the edge of the bed, crawling across the sheets to devour her once more. Except he was already within her, always had been. Just before he raised his ugly head, his eyes black and burning, she thought about begging this other creature of light to kill her now. Then the demon pounced and took his price, chewing away at what was left of her—mind, body, and soul.

  Chapter 2

  The old woman stared at her face in the mirror, hardly recognizing the being staring back at her.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen your own reflection?” the young man asked, his beautiful dark form standing behind her like a shadow in the dim light. Her eyes still ached, as if the room was much brighter than it was, but at least she could stand any kind of light at all.

  “Years. I hate mirrors,” she said, and she leaned in a bit to study the wrinkled face before her. “I look like shit.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he countered, sounding amazed.

  “Shut up. You said that to me when I was puking up all that shit you poured down my throat,” she croaked, her voice sounding old even to her own ears.

  “Water?” The mirth that filled his voice annoyed her.

  “It burned like fire. Probably had something in it.” She didn’t believe that. Nothing ever tasted right when the demon was on her like that. Yet, she had never made it to the other side of withdrawal before, or at least not in too many years.

  Now, as she looked at her face in the mirror, she tried to process what had happened to her since then. Her eyes were sunken into her face, and there were hideously craggy wrinkles all around her eyes and mouth. She didn’t dare linger on her ugly, browned teeth, closing her lips to hide them. Her hair, though it was clean and far whiter than she remembered, hung ragged around her face. There was no shape to it or any semblance of style. Just straight, flat, and white.

  “I used to have waves in my hair,” she said softly, picking at strands with her broken fingernails.

  She stood there naked, but she definitely didn’t care about that anymore. Her… new friend… captor… whatever… had seen everything her body could possibly do and hadn’t run or dumped her in the nearest alley. That had left her strangely comfortable with the level of intimacy they currently shared as he watched her continue her examination, of which there was little left to discover.

  Her ribs stuck out from under the dilapidated sacks that were once her breasts. Below that rounded the bulbous paunch of her belly. Below that… nothing else worth mentioning.

  She shot a dark look at the young man standing behind her. “How can you call this beautiful?”

  He shrugged and dropped a plain, cotton nightgown over her head before helping to guide her hands into the sleeves. He had dressed in black jeans and a soft, white cotton t-shirt that just made him look sexier, his hair clubbed back in a small ponytail.

  “You’ve gotten yourself through the worst of it. Now, it’s just keeping you away from that stuff,” he said, gently slipping the ends of her hair out of her collar. Everything he did was gentle.

  “I’m sixty-eight years old, you dumb kid. What’s the point?” she snapped as he pulled a hairbrush through her hair. She hated how much she loved the feel of him doing that.

  “You’re not dead yet,” he said.

  “I might as well be.”

  “Believe me. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

  “That I’m a still-walking corpse?”

  “You’re beauti—”

  “Will you shut up!”

  He laughed out loud as he set the hairbrush down and planted a kiss on top of her head before turning to exit the bathroom. “Well… what would you like to eat? Do you feel like you can?”

  “Do you realize that everything you are doing is absolutely useless? That once an addict… it’s only a matter of time before I go out and use again?” she shouted after him. Her hip lanced pain down her leg as she tried to turn to follow him, and she muttered curses under her breath. She was forced to lean against the sink, waiting for the spasm to subside before trying again.

  “Do you realize that ever since I brought you here, you have done nothing but try to convince me how worthless you are, even though it is completely against your self-interest?” he shouted back.

  “I’m a contrary, contemptuous bitch,” she answered and paused between the bathroom and the entryway from the bedroom, winded. “And getting old sucks,” she wheezed out as she grabbed the offending hip again.

  “Do you need me to come to get you?” he called.

  “No, I’m coming,” she answered stubbornly and pushed off again. He was busy in the kitchen, making clinking sounds as he worked. She focused on getting to a stool, but once she got there, she could hardly haul herself up.

  “Why do these stools have to be so damn high?” she grumbled under her breath. Then his hands were behind her. Before she could shrug them off, he had boosted her up to sit smartly in the middle of the cushioned seat.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you. The stuff you were on was coated in half-baked magic to increase the potency. Any magical assistance would have… prolonged… things,” he explained, planting his long arms on either side of her. He smelled so good. Granted, that was because he had just bathed her for the hundredth time since they met, but she still couldn’t stop the pounding of her heart at the warmth of his chest against her back. Why was she letting this kid, this child, stir her up like that? She was a worthless, old has-been, a piece of trash ancient enough to be his grandmother if she was being honest with herself.

  “Would you rather sit at the table?” he asked softly.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered out of pure stubbornness, even though sitting at the table sounded better.

  “As my lady wishes.” He moved away to circle back around, depositing a plate in front of her.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Milk toast. It might be the easiest thing right now,” he said as he French-pressed some coffee.

  “Milk toast.” She stared down at the plate of soppy bread sprinkled lightly with cinnamon.

  “Sister Agnes used to make that for me when I was a kid,” he said and poured out the coffee.

  “You still are a kid,” she shot back. “Sister Agnes? You were raised by nuns?”

  “For a couple of years,” he said. He continued putzing about in the kitchen, making his own milk toast and cleaning up his cooking mess while he ate.

  “You should try this whole damsel-in-distress routine on some pretty young thing who’s got something to offer you. It’d go over well,” she said, taking a small bite of the milk toast with her fork.

  “Nah, not interested,” he said.

  “For god’s sake, why?”

  “They don’t know the songs,” he answered cryptically, turning back to the fridge to pull out a clear glass jar filled with a syrupy, dark-red liquid.

  “What the fuck is that?” she asked, staring at the jar as he unscrewed the top.

  “The blood of virgins. It’s supposed to be good for the skin,” he said and poured some into his coffee. “Want some?”

  The old woman bolted off the stool, almost falling over as she scrambled to get away. Panic slid across the young man’s smiling face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, rushing around the counter.

  “You’re a vampire?!” she shouted and held her hands up to ward him off, even though such an action would be completely useless against a bloodsucker.

  He stopped mid-way to her, his dark eyebrows getting lost in his hair as surprise took its turn on his face. “A what?”

  “You drink blood!” she quivered.

  “No! No, it was a joke! I apologize. Look. It’s just strawberry syrup, see?” He reached back for the jar and held it out to her. “It’s homemade. I get it from a dame down at the farmers’ market. Here, try it.” She eyed the jar he held out to her with cock-eyed suspicion. “Taste.”

  “Strawberry syrup in coffee?” she asked, her voice cracking into a high pitch.

  “Yeah. I got the idea from a… well, friend would be a strong word for him. An associate of mine. Saw him do it once, thought I would try it. It’s good, really.”

  Just then, a buzzer sounded, eliciting another yelp from the old woman.

  “Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. He set the jar back on the counter and moved to the intercom, jabbing the button hard with one finger. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” a young girl’s voice piped through the speaker.

  “That’s a bit vague,” he responded. While he was turned away, the old woman shifted her weight against the counter, her hip raging at her for the sudden backward not-quite-fall she’d just had.

  “Elias, god dammit, let me in. I need your help,” the intercom cursed back.

  The old woman fidgeted as he glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyes looking a bit worried. “Now’s not really a good time.”

  “Armageddon doesn’t exactly care if it’s a good time or not.”

  With a sigh, he hung his head a bit, then hit the button again. “I’ll be right down,” and he hit another button that buzzed harshly.

  “Is that your girlfriend?” the old woman asked, entirely unamused by his attempt at a reassuring smile.

  “No, a business associate, and it’s always Armageddon with her. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.” He went over to a set of bookcases on the other side of his extra-wide dining room. To her surprise, he stuck his hand into the side of one shelf and pulled the whole thing away easily. A light flickered on as he opened the secret door. The bookshelf swung in to reveal a staircase leading down. “Just wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  “So, your name is Elias, huh?” she asked.

  He turned back to smile at her.

  “You should eat your milk toast, Margaret,” he said before disappearing down the steps.

  She stared at the open secret door for several minutes as her brain processed what it had just heard. How did he know her name? It was strange that they hadn’t exchanged names prior to this, but at the time, she hadn’t really given a rat’s ass about his name or anything else. She shouldn’t even be sitting here.