Summoner of Storms (5 page)

“You don’t sound very certain,” John
said.

“Shit, Starkweather, did you sleep through
Non-Human Entities 101? Nobody knows a goddamned thing about them,
not really. It’s all guesses and speculation.”

“I thought the Vigilant were in favor of
communicating with NHEs?” John crossed his arms over his chest,
mirroring Tiffany’s stance. Caleb wondered if he did it on purpose
or unconsciously.

Tiffany’s scowl became even more pronounced.
“We are. But here’s the thing—they aren’t human. Whatever state
they exist in naturally, they don’t have human brains. Once they
have access to ours, they start thinking more like we do, but
there’s still a disconnect. Otherwise you would have already gotten
all the answers you wanted from your boyfriend there.”

“I tried,” John admitted.

“I thought you would.” Tiffany smirked.
“Okay, let’s start with what we know for sure. It’s obvious certain
NHEs have affinities for certain things. Early humans worshipped
many of them as nature spirits. Look at the wendigo—they spread
frost over anything they touch. It always comes back to sex with
incubi. Therianthropes are blind rage. However they exist in the
etheric plane, they obviously have or develop a connection to this
world.”

Is that true?

Flickers of memory, disjointed and
fragmented. Rain and lightning and wind. Hunting. Eating.

“Storms,” he said aloud. “Yesterday, when
Gray did his thing and fried half of the electronics at RD. You
said he was the storm.”

Tiffany sighed. “Yeah.”

“
She is correct. We are the
storm.”

What does that even mean?

Puzzlement.
“It means what I have
said.”

Caleb rubbed at his eyes. “Gray says you’re
right. And doesn’t understand why we don’t get it.”

Tiffany paced across the narrow width of the
room, then back to the door. “We know people have been summoning
NHEs for various reasons for thousands of years, long before we
lived in cities. Hell, there are images of therianthropes in
fucking cave paintings. Every tribe and culture had some version of
a shaman, whose job it was to exorcise or kill the demons that went
around eating people. We—the Vigilant—think at some point, probably
after humans started living in cities, somebody got the bright idea
of calling up something that would eat the demons in turn.”

“Why so late in history?” Caleb interrupted.
“Or pre-history. You know what I mean.”

Tiffany shot him a glare. “Because it takes a
lot to call up a drakul. That we know for sure. And human lives
don’t become disposable enough for mass sacrifices to occur until
you get city states.”

Jerky memories played against the backs of
his eyes, like a black-and-white filmstrip jumping the sprockets. A
high pyramid. Mounds of dead bodies, their blood washing away as
the rain pounded the mud bricks. Nausea roiled in his belly, and
Gray recoiled.
“I did not wish it. I did not ask for
it.”

I know, I know. It’s okay. Not your
fault.

“NHEs are always summoned into a living
body,” Tiffany went on. “Except for the drakul, they don’t have
enough energy to animate a dead one. It stands to reason the first
drakul would have been summoned directly into someone. The
strongest shaman, or the greatest warrior, maybe.” She leaned back,
her shoulders against the closed door. “Mythology is full of
blood-drinking gods called up to stop some threat, gods who
subsequently end up going out of control and become an even bigger
threat themselves. Kali, created to drink the blood of demons, who
becomes so intoxicated by it the gods themselves have to pacify
her.” She glanced at John. “Or Sekhmet. The Devourer of Evil. The
Eye of Ra, the heat of the blazing sun. A blood drinker who almost
wiped out human kind until tricked into drinking beer dyed to look
like blood.”

John paled slightly. “It’s only one of Her
myths, but...I see your point.”

“I can’t get drunk since Gray,” Caleb
objected. Damn, this was getting messed up.

“By the time these things make it into myth,
they’re just distortions of whatever originally happened.
Something
incredibly powerful, called up in a time of need.
Blood drinkers who inevitably go mad and have to be stopped. There
are other examples, but you understand what I’m getting at.”
Tiffany shrugged. “Drakul are blood drinkers, and they’re stronger
than any other NHE we know about, powerful enough to animate the
dead. The Vigilant have funded a lot of scholarships and
archaeology over the years, and we’re pretty damn sure the
connection is there. If the other NHEs have some bond to what we
perceive as the lesser forces of nature, the drakul reflect greater
forces. The heat of the sun, the storm, the tide. Things of
enormous power and energy in the etheric and physical realms.”

Caleb wiped sweaty palms against his thighs.
This all had to be bullshit, right? “So why’d you do it? Why didn’t
you exorcise me right away?”

“Because as risky as this is, it would have
been even worse to let Forsyth get his hands on the drakul,”
Tiffany snapped. “And you haven’t gone crazy yet. Although I didn’t
think Starkweather would start feeding Gray blood right away!”

“Gray can’t get nourishment from ordinary
blood,” John argued, drawing himself up. “Just the possessed.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well I don’t
see a spot for heroin on the fucking food pyramid, but that never
stopped anybody from getting addicted.”

Oh. Oh fuck. Did they make a mistake last
night?

Caleb held up his hands. “We’re not
interested in drinking anybody else’s blood.” But God, the day in
the Fist safe house, with Melanie...he’d—they’d—thought about it.
About finding out what human blood tasted like. “And we sure as
hell aren’t interested in sucking John dry.”

“Yeah.” Tiffany looked away. “See you keep it
that way. Shit.” She unfolded her arms and opened the door. “I’ve
got work to do before bed.”

She left. John went to the door, threw the
dead bolt and hooked in the safety chain.

“
What if John is afraid of me?”
Gray
drew back, like an animal unsure of its welcome.
“I would not
hurt him, you know this. But what if he listens to the other
mortal? What if he does not want us any more?”

Caleb bit his lip. He couldn’t blame John for
being freaked. Hell, it freaked him out more than a little. But
hiding from shit instead of confronting it was a big part of what
got them into this position in the first place.
Go on. Talk to
him. Face-to-face. And if he’s scared, at least we’ll know.

* * *

Everything was once very simple. The hunt,
the kill—what else mattered? No questions ever troubled him, except
where the next demon might be found.

Mortals question everything. He knew this
already from their memories, lying in the dark in crypts and tombs
and caves, with nothing to do until nightfall but examine the
ghostly fragments encoded in decaying neurons. Their lives were
frantic, pointless, filled with worry for things no one save he
would remember a hundred years later.

Who am I? What is my purpose? Does the deer
ask itself such things? The werewolf? Of course not. Only
humans.

Now Caleb and John wish him to answer these
questions about himself. Why does it matter to them what manner of
thing he is? He is himself—he is content knowing this. Why can they
not be as well?

“
Because not knowing things scares
us.”

Mortal nonsense, but now he is frightened as
well, because these questions matter to John and Caleb. And if he
has no answers, what will they do? Will John listen, instead, to
other mortals and come to fear Gray?

“Gray?” John stands a few feet away, seeming
puzzled. “Is everything all right?”

“I would not harm you!” He says it too
loudly. The clock on the nightstand rattles at the vibration, and
John looks alarmed. Not at all what he wished.

“Do not listen to the other mortal,” he goes
on in a quieter voice. “She is wrong. Mortals are not food. I will
not harm you, or anyone, save for demons. Or anyone who tries to
hurt us first.”

And yes, he did think about feeding on
Melanie, after she betrayed Caleb so terribly. But he did not
understand then, and now the thought of sharing such an intimacy
with a mortal other than John makes him feel strangely guilty. It
would not be right.

John crosses the room and frames Gray’s face
with his hands. “Shh. Calm down. Don’t let it bother you.”

“I fear it will bother you.”

The corners of John’s mouth turn up wryly.
“It’s weird, seeing you worry about things.”

“It is strange to worry about them.” He never
has before.

John slides into Gray’s lap. His thighs are
warm through their denim jeans. “I trust you. Hear me?” He drapes
one arm around Gray’s shoulders, but the other hand he leaves
against Gray’s face, thumb running over his mouth. The caress sends
a tingle through Gray, and he parts his lips.

John’s thumb slips in, pressing against the
nearest fang. “You could kill me in an instant,” he says, and Gray
cannot argue, because it is true. “Almost without thinking about
it. Here, in bed, with your arms around me, I’m totally vulnerable.
I have to trust you completely for this to work.”

John is warm, and a growing hardness pushes
from behind his zipper. Gray slides his arms around John’s waist,
tugging him closer. “You can trust me.”

“I know.” John laughs softly. “You want to
know the crazy thing, though? I always have. Right from the first.
Oh, my head argued against it, but my gut’s always been one-hundred
percent sure about you.”

The tension in Gray uncoils, an accompanying
echo from Caleb. John kisses him, warmth and softness, the taste of
truck stop coffee and male human. And it is still a surprise and a
joy to think he is allowed this. He doesn’t have to hide away
behind Caleb any more. Although perhaps Caleb wishes...?

“
Nah, go ahead.”
Affection.
“I
think we both need a little reassurance right now.”

John presses against his shoulders, urging
him to lie back on the bed. Gray does so, and John slips his
fingers beneath Gray’s shirt, peeling it up and off, revealing bare
skin. John’s hands are warm and rough, sliding slowly up Gray’s
belly, fanning across his ribs. Then John bends over and traces the
same path with his tongue, until he finds a nipple and licks it
into a peak. Gray arches, warmth and pleasure prickling his skin
like static.

He tugs impatiently at the hem of John’s
shirt. John pauses and pulls it off, revealing lean lines of muscle
and skin, interrupted by old scars and recent scratches. The dark
bruise at the base of his throat where he allowed Gray to taste him
calls up memories of the night before, adding the keen edge of need
to arousal.

Gray pulls him down and rolls them over. John
moans under him, the feel of skin on skin achingly good. He kisses
John deep, before nipping lightly at his neck, avoiding the bruise
so as not to bring John discomfort. John is mortal, fragile and
vulnerable, and Gray is careful to hold back his own strength, not
to risk anything that would injure his lover. He extends the claws
of his right hand, rests them against the skin of John’s belly, and
is rewarded with a gasp and a jerk of the hips.

“Damn, darling, you know how to push all my
buttons,” John gasps.

Gray is not certain about the buttons—the
only ones are on their jeans, and he hasn’t yet gotten to them. But
the rest of the sentence seems more important anyway. “You called
us this earlier,” he says, sitting back to straddle John’s hips.
“But it is not the term you normally use.”

John’s beautiful eyes are dilated, and he
smells of musk and desire. “I usually call Caleb ‘babe,’ so I
thought I should call you something else. I won’t if it bothers
you.”

Perhaps it is foolish, but Gray cannot help
but grin in response. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a
glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, all black eyes and exposed
fangs.

“
That is the creepiest thing I’ve ever
seen. And John is turned on by us?”

But John is grinning, too. “I have to say,
before last night, I never imagined you smiling. I like it.”

“Caleb says it is creepy.”

John lets out a bark of laughter. “Don’t let
Caleb give you a complex. After all, I’m the one kissing you. And
doing other things with you, I hope.”

“
In other words, get our pants
off.”

Did you not constantly complain about me
as a distraction during sexual relations?
But he slides off
John and removes the rest of his clothing. John does the same; he
is gorgeous in the low light of the single lamp. His skin contains
a kaleidoscope of color, from the deep rose of his erection, to the
blue of veins, to the pale pink-tan of his complexion. Gray wants
to lick every inch of it.

John notices his stare. “Like what you see?”
he asks, stroking his cock with one hand. A delicate bead of fluid
gathers at the tip, shining in the light.

“Yes,” Gray says, because it’s true. “You are
beautiful.”

The expression on John’s face softens
slightly. “Thank you. Now get your sexy ass back in bed.”

Gray straddles him again. John’s muscular
thighs are hard against his, almost as hard as his erection. John
wraps a hand around them both, thumb teasing Gray’s slit. With his
free hand, he grips Gray’s hip, wordlessly urging him to move.

Gray obeys, the slide of velvet skin a thing
of ecstasy, pleasure vibrating along his nerves, only to be
reflected back at him from Caleb. Now that neither of them have to
hide, the act has become even more intense.

“Goddess, you’re so fucking hot,” John gasps,
lust-dark gaze running over them. “Riding me like this.”