Gods and Monsters (13 page)

“Oh,” Cori said. It was all she could say. Gypsy had a knack for scaring off small talk.

“So, when do you plan on killing me?” She blurted out after Cori had taken a large bite of her meal. The mouths previously masticating happily: sputtered, froze in shock, swallowed half chewed food, and choked. Gypsy had a knack for scaring off big talk too.

“What?” Cori said gulping down water to clear her mouth.

“Gypsy,” Danato scolded. “We don’t know that will be the end result.”

“Oh, I think we do,” Gypsy offered him a smile when she said it, but her voice was cold.

“What is she talking about?” Cori leaned over to see Danato clearly past her. “Why would she think I would do that?”

Gypsy chuckled. “I love that panic in your eyes. You seem genuinely concerned.”

“I am,” Cori furrowed her brow, at the sidelong accusation.

“No, you’re concerned that you might be hurting someone with your actions. It is no more specific to me, than it would be to a fuzzy rodent in a trap you put down.”
“ What?” Cori scanned the table for anyone to make sense of the interpretation.

“Knock it off, Gypsy,” Ethan offered her a glare that half demanded, half begged for her silence.

“It was just a question. I don’t know why you are all getting bent out of shape about it.”

“What the hell is she talking about?” Cori blustered.

“Gypsy was saved from a near death experience the night Danato brought Ethan back,” Belus answered before the topic could be blown off to protect the delicate woman. Cori looked over to her for confirmation, so she mimed her throat being slashed starting with the high scar that was the start of the original deadly motion. Cori flushed and set down her fork.

Ethan gave Gypsy a scathing glare and she resisted the urge to blow him a kiss. She was already irritating everyone to their maximum tolerances. She would need to hold back so they could calm down again.

“Her concern is that she will be put back in that same situation and not be saved by Danato, which would of course result in her death,” Belus ended the statement bluntly without any particular emotion. She respected his indifference to high tempered situations. She wished she could be composed like that. Instead she was struggling to keep from laughing at Cori’s grief stricken green face.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Cori asked.

“Because they don’t care,” Gypsy offered.

“That’s not true.” Danato lowered his voice and touched her hand. She glanced down at it, and he removed it. “Cori wished for you to be here as my employee. That being the case you may have only been in that situation because of the wishes.”

Cori nodded. “He’s right, Gypsy. I don’t remember seeing you that night. There was no altercation.”

“You probably arrived too late, sweetheart. Do you remember seeing any dead bodies on your way through the alleys?” Gypsy expected her to wilt at the honesty of the question, but instead her eyes glazed and she searched her memory for corp-sicles.

“The only other people I saw were a couple of men smoking in the alley. There weren’t even any residents walking around.”

“Maybe you missed it.” Gypsy dug in trying to make the hope drain from her face.

“No, I was trying to escape from Danato. I was looking at everything for a way out of the situation: stray cats, spewed garbage bags, fallen snow, and smokers. That’s it. I never saw you. I never saw your body.”

Cori seemed content with her evaluation. Whether what she was saying was true, didn’t matter. She had convinced herself and everyone at the table that it was, so she was free to change the world back to what it was without guilt.

All the conversation proved to Gypsy was that Cori was willing to do whatever it took to get back to her old life. Gypsy wondered how far
she
would go to keep her current life. 

24

Cori couldn’t help but yawn as Danato and Belus examined her rings from either end of the couch. Gypsy was high centered on the arm of one of the easy chairs reading her magazine on the floor. Cori wasn’t sure if the position was comfortable, or if she just liked to put herself in positions that drew attention to her.

Given the conversation at dinner, Cori was convinced that Gypsy was not only very messed up, but liked doing and saying things that made people dislike her. Rude, vulgar, or just plain weird was the only thing that Gypsy had to offer the social construct. She may well have been the ideal employee that Cori had wished for, but only because her disregard for others and herself allowed her to focus on her job. If that was what it took to get in Danato’s good favor, she was glad to be the disfavored employee.

After she recovered from her yawn, she caught Ethan’s eye. He was standing at the fireplace watching her offer her hands to Danato and Belus for exploration. He smirked at her discomfort and she smiled back. She felt a little less distant from him at that moment.

“There seem to be markings on the rings, but they aren’t very distinct,” Belus said using Danato’s eye glasses as a magnifying glass.

“Yeah,” Cori said. “They’re very Tolkien-ish.”

Belus tried to remove the rings, despite what Cori had said about them being immobile. “That’s amazing,” he said to Danato. “It’s like they are out of phase. I can feel them, but my fingers slip away when I try to pull.”

Danato gave it a try as well. He made a valiant effort of strength, but the rings were set harder than the sword in the stone. “You’ve never been able to take them off?”

“I didn’t, and then I couldn’t,” she answered. “What about you? You want a go at them?” Cori asked Ethan. His smile faded and for a moment she thought she had annoyed him.

“No, I’ll give it a try later,” he said winking suggestively and held her eyes for a moment. She reminded herself that he wasn’t hers, but it was getting harder to tell the difference.

“Why do you have elemental power stored in them?” Danato asked. “Don’t tell me I actually allow you on their level.”

Cori laughed. “Not exactly, but I’ve had more than my share of run-ins with them lately. Hopefully, all that is behind me now.” Cori pulled her hands away and they both took the hint that she was done being manhandled. Danato moved to his chair and Belus shifted away from her.

Cori made it a point to yawn again. She wasn’t sure she should just assume that a guest bedroom was available to her. Ethan smirked at her display and looked to Danato who was already deep in a newspaper. “So, where did you plan to store her tonight?” He asked.

Danato grunted at the question before popping out of his newspaper. “Oh, sleep, yes, well…” Danato checked his watch. “It’s a little early yet?”

“It’s been a long day for me,” Cori said.

Danato still didn’t seem to understand. “Should I take her up?” Ethan asked. Danato looked him over suspiciously. “Unless you prefer to take her?”

“No, no, of course, show her up.” Danato ruffled his newspaper back into tension and buried himself in it.

“Come on,” Ethan said as if it were a tiresome errand to show her the way. On her way out she noticed that Gypsy had taken notice of their exit.

25

Gypsy watched Ethan sulk at the task of taking Cori upstairs, but she knew he was tickled to have another opportunity with her. Danato and Belus were oblivious to his interest in her. They assumed that he was as content with his bachelor lifestyle as they were.

“Gypsy,” Danato said putting down his newspaper. “We need to talk about this.”

“No, actually we don’t,” she said firmly.

“Yes, we do,” he reasserted. “This situation has brought up a lot of questions. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it affecting you.”

“Why would you?” She asked.

Danato’s head shook slightly and he sighed. “Because I care about you,” he said as if that shouldn’t be questioned, but it did need to be questioned. She wasn’t exactly the lovable, kissable Cori, so why would he pretend that her existence mattered to him. “You’ve been with us for over two years, you are an excellent employee, and we would not want something bad to happen to you.”

Gypsy smiled sincerely at him. It was fake, but she didn’t see any point in bringing up the fact that he only mentioned her excellence as an employee. “I know, but you don’t really think that I will live beyond that night.”

“My hope is that you were just part of the wish. I hope that you won’t ever be in that town. That’s what I want to talk to you about. You have never shared your story with us—at least not the parts leading up to your…ordeal. Can you tell us now?”

Gypsy looked to Belus. He was content to lean against the arm of the couch and cross his arms. She wasn’t sure she preferred to share her story with anyone, but somehow both of them at the same time seemed worse. She couldn’t play on Belus’s sympathies and she couldn’t be so blunt with Danato. There was no game to be played. That wasn’t fun at all.

“What does my past have to do with any of this?” she asked sitting up in her chair.

“We want to know if there was a sudden change in your life that led you into your situation.”

“I like how you use innocuous words to describe it, since “captivity” wouldn’t really specify which part of my life we are talking about.”

Danato sighed in disgust and frustration.

“Cut the crap, Gypsy,” Belus snarled. “We’re doing this for you.”

“Bullshit you’re doing it for your own peace of mind.”

“No, we aren’t,” Belus continued. “What you don’t seem to get is that all your anti-social defenses have achieved what you set out to do. We won’t miss you.”

“Belus,” Danato tried to interject, but his objection stopped there.

“You usually respect my honesty, don’t you?” Gypsy narrowed her eyes at him, but nodded. “Here it is. You shouldn’t be here. Something changed to bring you here. Your whole life reeks of the intervention of a dark power. We just want to know when that intervention took place so that we can alleviate your fears. We could care less otherwise.”

Gypsy cleared her throat if for no other reason than to break the silence following Belus’s speech. “That was beautiful, Belus. I’m glad I can depend on you for honesty to the point of heartache.”

“That’s not exactly how I feel,” Danato added less enthusiastically.

“Oh, Danato, it doesn’t matter. I was resigned on dying that night. You saving me just put me in a position that I didn’t know what to do with, but made the best of. Belus is right. I am a complete nut job and a pain in the ass.”

“Anti-social was the phrase I used,” Belus corrected with a note of sourness for her paraphrasing.

“Yes, but what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think I care.”

“When did your life spin off course?” Danato asked paying no heed to what was supposed to be her suicidal admission. All her best lines were lost on lesser minds.

“I don’t know really. I was out of college and working as a nurse.” Gypsy paused thinking about that part of her life again. It seemed like someone else’s life. If they were right about the genie it was this life that was someone else’s. Cori’s apparently. “I hated it. I had considered joining the military. I wanted to do…something different.”

“You didn’t though?” Danato asked.

“No, I chickened out. I stayed in my job, and got abducted when I took a vacation with my girlfriends.”

“Had you joined the military, you wouldn’t have been able to go on that vacation,” Danato clarified for her more than himself.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Danato nodded pleased with that answer. “Good, that’s a tremendous coincidence. That sounds like a designed skew in your life.” He stood and left the room without another word.

Gypsy tipped her brow to Belus. “Well, I guess he’s reassured. What about you, Ruthie?”

“You’re just a bit more border-line than any of us wants to admit, aren’t you?” he asked tipping his head to examine her. “I don’t think you understand what we’re telling you. All that crap you went through with Mr. Throat Slasher: the rapes, the beatings, the slave labor. You don’t have to endure it, which means after this is all said and done, you will be free of all those bad memories, all the scars emotional and physical. Gypsy you can lead a normal life as a nurse, or a soldier, or whatever you want: family, kids, dog, and a white picket fence. That’s even more than we hope for.”

Gypsy let her mouth gape open. “Wow. That sounds like the tenth level of hell to me, and I’ve already seen the first nine.”

Belus narrowed his eyes on her. He looked as if he had a scathing remark to brandish, but his enthusiasm for the rebuttal faded. He moved to the door offering no further commentary on her behavior, which was disappointing. He paused at the door before leaving, but didn’t offer anything more.

As soon as the door shut, she rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair with her magazine. “Who the fuck wants a dog when you can have a dragon?”

26

“So are you and Gypsy…together?” Cori tried to ask the question casually, but Ethan no doubt suspected that she would be jealous of any relationship he had.

“You mean are we shagging?” He said touching the frame on the far wall of the spare room. He had been kind enough to show her in. Shutting the door behind him left room for his intentions to be known, but so far he hadn’t actually initiated anything.

“That’s not exactly what I was saying, but yes, I guess that’s the core of it.”

“No, Gypsy doesn’t do that,” he said.

“Is she gay?” She asked.

“No, it’s just...” He looked down at the bed as if he weren’t sure he should sit with her on it. She wanted to be close to him, but she wasn’t sure who he was. He seemed to be warming up to her, but she wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t just trying harder to get her into bed. “Gypsy is her own kind of woman. She
flirts
a little with me, but she’s never let me touch her. She had a bad time before she got here.” Cori scooted back a little offering more of the bed, and Ethan sat.

“Was she auctioned off like we were?” Cori asked.

“No, she was already a slave. She had finally had enough when we came upon her. On the way out of the village we caught her having a heated discussion with some guy. Her owner I guess. Danato barely had enough time to stop him.”

“Stop him?” She asked. Ethan offered the throat slashing motion less enthusiastically than Gypsy did. “Oh, right that.”

“She doesn’t talk about it much, but Danato and I have learned to keep our distance with her. Too much attention, friendly or otherwise tends to repel her, one of her many deep rooted psychosexual circumventions. She works hard, but she’s not the best socializer. So, no, we aren’t a couple.” He sighed as if the topic of Gypsy exasperated him. “Would that bother you?”

Cori paused not sure how to answer that. “Definitely, I mean you are my husband after all.” She chuckled to let him know she was joking, even though she wasn’t.

“Technically, I am him though.”

Cori lost her amusement in the seriousness of his look. “I don’t know. DNA sure, but personality, not so much.”

“I am currently the only Ethan Pierce in existence. I have the same history, save the last two years.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“I don’t think you need convincing. You wouldn’t have been bold enough to kiss me this morning if you didn’t think I was the same Ethan.”

Cori looked away. “I know you’re Ethan, but you aren’t my Ethan. You aren’t the Ethan that loves me.”

“You got to give me a little time to catch up, sweetness.”

Her eyes snapped back to him, surprised by the familiar endearment. He smiled with flirtatious eyes that were also familiar. She smiled back, forgetting momentarily about the specifics of his identity. Their gaze held until reality bled over her desirous thoughts. “Why did you close that door?” She nodded to the closed door.

“For privacy.” 

She lost her smile. “Look, I won’t lie, I love Ethan and nothing would make me happier in the middle of all this chaos than being in his arms, but it wouldn’t be making love if I did it with you. It would just be a notch on your bedpost, and my ego won’t allow that; no matter how satisfying it might be.”

Ethan smirked at her. “Since you are being so honest, I won’t lie either. Yes, I would love to do all that with you. Incidentally, I barely have enough notches to warrant a bedpost, but thank you for the confidence. However, the reason for the privacy wasn’t so I could take your clothes off, it was so I could take your rings off.”

Cori flushed with embarrassment before his entire statement set in. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just thought…wait, what? You can’t take my rings off. No one can.”

“Has Ethan tried?”

Cori furrowed her brow. She could remember telling him about the rings, but he never actually tried to get them off. “I don’t think so, but why would it matter? No one else could.”

“You’ve heard of the sword in the stone, right?” Ethan looped his finger under her hand and drew it to his lap.

“Yes,” she said watching him massage her skin.

“It’s a little like that. Only in this case the sword is a ring, and King Arthur is your husband.”

“My husband isn’t here,” she purred, entranced by his tender touch.

“We’ll see about that,” he said as he twisted off one of the rings without difficulty. She gasped and scrambled to test the remaining rings again. They wouldn’t budge.

“How did you do that?” She took the ring from him and slipped it back on. She tried to remove it again, but it wouldn’t come off. “Do it again?”

He wiggled the ring off easily. He removed a second and third as well. Cori laughed at seeing three naked fingers. “How?” She stared at him in awe. He smirked at her, letting the mystery drive her mad.

“Because I am your husband after all.”

27

“Why would either of you be able to remove the rings?” She said as he slipped off the last ring on her right hand. She touched the blanched skin where they sat.

“Because,” Ethan handed her the freed rings, and proceeded to her left hand. “The set was completed at your wedding.”

“So.”

“So, I imagine your wedding vows contained something along the lines of love, honor, and blah, blah, blah.”

“It was traditional, if that’s what you mean?”

“Mm-hmm, so you basically bound yourselves to each other.” Ethan twisted the final ring that was her wedding band. She pulled her hand away before he could remove it entirely.

“Yes, we did.” She looked down at the ring sheepishly. “I probably shouldn’t remove all of them. Just in case they’re allowing me to retain my memories of my old life.”

“Sure,” he held her eyes a moment before standing. “I suspect that the writing on the rings is an apotropaic spell. The gold was most likely intended to repel or absorb harmful energy, to protect the wizard you took it from. Either way, they are doing both now. You are absorbing power and deflecting it when needed.”

“How do you know this? Ethan never suspected anything when he gave them to me.”

Ethan cleared his throat and took his usual militant stance. “I can harbor a guess. I assume that he stopped focusing on his studies after he passed the test.”

“He…” Cori wanted to defend Ethan’s devotions to his studies, but after thinking about it, she realized it had indeed been months since she had seen him with a book.

“I on the other hand,” Ethan continued without regard to her potential objection, “have remained focused on learning everything I can about all aspects of the preternatural world…which is easy to do when you don’t have a wife or significant other,” he said it flatly, but she could see he wasn’t a happy bachelor.

She opened her mouth to offer thanks or appreciation for his knowledge, but somehow it seemed mocking. “I can see how the spell properties of the gold would have merged into a weaponized defense after being melted down.” Cori set the removed rings on her bedside table and stood up. “But how were you able to remove them, when even I can’t.”

He smiled and looked down. He drew her left hand up as if he might kiss it. “This ring is a symbol of Ethan’s love for you.” She nodded even though she wasn’t sure it was a question. “It’s also a symbol of his ownership of you.” Cori winced at the word ownership. He rolled his eyes at her. “Did you, or did you not give yourself to him?”

“We gave ourselves to each other.”

“Yes, but he’s not wearing spell cast rings. You have to understand, spells are simply oaths. Whether they are written or verbal, if you mean them, and believe in them, they create their own power. The man who put this ring on your finger took claim of you that day. He promised to love, honor, and protect you until death do you part. In doing so, he bound you to him through the rings.” Ethan caressed her wedding ring. “To answer your question, the reason I can take the rings off, is because you belong to me.”

Cori was aware of her mouth hanging open offering no response to that statement. She wasn’t entirely sure when they had closed the gap between them. Ethan took his time leaning toward her. She suspected that he was waiting for her to object. If she should have or even could have, was up for debate, but at the moment, her mind was still reeling from what he had said.

Somewhere between realizing that she could finally get some answers about her rings and wondering what the hell
apotropaic
meant, his lips closed on hers. He wasn’t as aggressive as before. The insistence that drove most men to get horizontal as soon as possible was on hold for the moment. His arm braced her back, pulling her paralyzed feet forward so their bodies could touch.

When she was certain that he wasn’t going to push her into something she wasn’t yet sure about, she relaxed in his arms. He pulled away a moment to look at her, before drawing her in for a deeper kiss. His free hand intertwined with hers and squeezed gently. In that moment, she wanted him. Not because he was different or the same, but because he was hers.

He drew himself away releasing her back, hand, and lips simultaneously. He re-created the personal space he had infiltrated. She could see desire reflecting in his eyes, but he continued to back toward the door. “Ethan—” She intended to offer him permission to proceed, but he cut her off before she could.

“I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. You should get some rest.”

She wanted to ask him to stay, but she knew why he was pulling away. As difficult as it was for him to admit, he was scared of her. Scared of how much he enjoyed being with her. Cori had long since given up any doubts about Ethan’s love for her, but she found it reassuring that even in this world, he was still drawn in by her. 

28

Cori knew it was ridiculous to be running around the prison with Ethan and Gypsy. She should have been gone already. Just because she had 48 hours to spare, didn’t mean she needed to use them. She supposed part of her was guilty about her mother. Another part of her was feeling guilty for Gypsy’s circumstances. Despite Danato’s assurances that Gypsy’s life would be normal once the wishes were undone, she still felt like she was displacing her.

The chief reason she hadn’t left though, was because of Ethan. Last night’s heated kiss aside, he seemed to have a working knowledge of her rings or at least the craft that created it. She had more questions, and if he had answers or at least hypotheses, she wanted to hear them. Naturally, Gypsy and Ethan were called into work early to tend to a problem. The best way for her to get some time with him, was to go along.