Chapter Text
“I can smell your anxiety from outside.”
“Keith, please.”
“Takashi, you know better than to let him do this.”
“Keith.”
“If the wrong demon gets a whiff of his uncertainty this place’ll become a battle zone fighting down whatever monster he summons.”
“Keith, either express your concern in a palatable way or do not be a witness to the ritual.”
“It’s okay, Shiro,” and Lance stood from painting the floor. He popped one earplug out and tossed Keith a mean grin. “When I summon a monster I’ll tell it to eat Keith first.”
“You can only order it around after you make a contract with it,” Keith snarled, rounding Lance’s summoning circle an arm’s length wide, careful to keep his talons clear of the paint that reeked of chicken’s blood. “Which it won’t be able to do if it shares your wit!”
Lance blushed in fury, “Listen here you—”
Shiro slapped his thigh. The loud clap made them flinch. Keith flinched again under Shiro’s incredulous stare.
He protested, “I didn’t start it!”
Lance roared: “You called me an idiot!”
“You called me food!”
Shiro bodily stepped between them. Eye-contact broken, Keith retreated to one corner of the barn. His tail followed him, twitching irritably.
“Count with me,” Shiro stood clear of Lance’s circle as well. “One.”
Lance sighed. “Two.”
“Three.”
Lance inhaled. “Four.”
With each breath his shoulders fell and his back straightened and the candles studded around the space lost their flare. The objects around them gradually fell into the obscurity of shadow again. The fire had reflected his mood.
The barn was a closeted space to practice their flashier, physical magics. That included broom making, divination, sacrifices and cooking with the dead things that Curtis didn’t want gunking up his kitchen.
Shiro said, “Nine?”
“Ten.” Lance was calm again. “I’m sorry.”
“Focus, Lance,” he replied in lieu of admonishment. “A witch of your caliber cannot afford to be unfocused.”
Lance worked his jaw. “A witch of my caliber?”
Keith teased from his corner, “Explosive.”
Shiro corrected, “Powerful. There are magic users the world over who would kill for the aptitude you have for the arcane arts. But all the power in the world means nothing without a well-honed conduit: your focus and your skill.” He was a little softer. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Shiro.”
Shiro looked up. A circular skylight showed a full moon almost perfectly lined up. “It’s time. Get ready. Remember your training. Stay calm. Stay focused.”
Lance nodded, blew out a sigh, rolled his shoulders, ignored Keith’s eyes on him. Shiro stepped out of his peripheral vision.
Lance’s eyes and intent fell on the shells placed on each cardinal point of his summoning circle. Each one brought a beat of melancholy to his heart. He and Adam had gone to Cuba for the exclusive purpose of sourcing them. Lance had spent much of the day scanning the skyline for his family. He felt the time they had spent there was too short, and he’d wept on the return home.
In each shell was a little water. Water from Varadero beach, from the well he used to drought his tea each morning, from his first storm since joining Shiro’s coven, and from a creek behind their house on the reserve where he’d shared a moment of mutual understanding with a bear fresh out of hibernation.
Lance channeled his feelings into will. He stood to the north of his summoning circle where a smaller summoning circle was waiting for him. He drew his wand from his belt—driftwood with a little coral growing out of it—gave the air a few cursory smacks and reached for the ether.
The ether reached back. It was like holding hands with an old friend, a lost love. The ether was not sentient but it responded, and Lance was always unnerved when Adam and Shiro said they could not feel her potential for consciousness. They were unnerved when he called the magical equivalent of electricity a she.
Focus, he reminded himself bluntly. He exhaled, he reached for the ether, caressed her in his mind, and offered the power in his blood in exchange for her power to punch through the layer of their reality. Ever eager to please, she beget him.
Shiro aside watched Lance work with a firm jaw.
“Fuck,” Keith whispered at his side. “Not even Adam opened a portal that quickly.”
“Lance is a powerful witch, I would have expected no less.”
Keith didn’t think that Shiro spoke with praise. He murmured, “Shiro, I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
Shiro didn’t respond. His unmoving, firm posture replied for him.
Lance lifted his hands up. The waters spiraled out of their shells, dissolving into mist and forming a vortex. Candles across the barn spluttered as though they were made of faulty electric wiring. The floor vibrated and the wooden pillars groaned under the weight of his magic.
Keith’s ears pricked. His hair stood on end. He pooled to his feet and into a defensive stance. “Shiro—”
A window pane cracked beside them. Shiro touched it to repair it, but more cracks spiraled out if he tried. He whipped back to Lance in concern. “Control, Lance…”
Adam and Curtis slipped in from outside. They watched Lance in wide-eyed alarm. The vortex had taken up a light now, as if there was a hole beneath his summoning circle and another world there was illuminated by a blue sun. Fire streaked across the room, joining the vortex or relighting quickly evicted wicks.
Adam ran to Shiro’s side. “Should we stop him?”
Curtis winced, “Can we?”
“He’s just a powerful human, not a god.” But even Keith said that in a hushed way, because for all of the chaos carrying on around them it was deathly quiet beyond a perennial humming.
And then all of the candles guttered to a stop. The vortex and the moon remained the only sources of light. Lance looked as though he were in pain, back seized, head thrown back, teeth grit, and arms stretched out before him with each tendon on display. It was when he convulsed with his eyes alight with blue fire and bit back a shout that Shiro called it.
“Adam, with me.”
Adam drew his wand from his belt. They held it aloft—
The familiar appeared.
A plume of smoke took over the vortex, blocked out the moon and the ceiling. In the light beneath it appeared a long tail that snapped through the air like a bullwhip. Keith and Curtis held their ears at the horrific crack that dispersed the rest of the windows. A forearm appeared next, drowning in scars and claws. Antlers protruded the inky smoke, ivory white, and fanning around them long, straight platinum hair. The smoke cleared, and a pair of yellow glowing eyes took them in.
Shiro recoiled so violently he landed on his ass.
“Galra!” Keith screeched.
Adam tossed his wand in elaborate shapes. A blade of wind cut through the air towards the demon’s head. The demon lifted a hand—the spell hit his palm—and although the flesh there immediately burst into gore it quickly regrew into a fist.
Adam gaped.
“Galra eat magical energy,” Keith hissed. “Spells won’t do shit!”
The demon regarded them each a heartbeat more. He took special notice of Shiro, glaze-eyed and frozen to the floor in Keith’s hands. The demon said, “I do not mean you harm.”
Then he turned to Lance.
“NO!”
“Get away from him!”
Curtis dashed forward.
Their attacks crashed into an invisible, impenetrable barrier. They were not spared another glance as the gargantuan figure bowed over their most vulnerable member. They screamed.
-
Kolivan was powerful.
He had not answered a summons in centuries. The inert energy beneath his skin could burn through the contracts of most magic users. If he were not careful, he could accidentally burn through magic users themselves.
But not this one.
This one was an inferno onto himself. His potential for wanton destruction was so almost, so nearly there, that Kolivan was surprised to find it was a mortal that had summoned him rather than an Altean or minor god. He bowed over him.
The little witch’s arms were splayed so wide they might pop out of their sockets any moment. Magic tore through him like a deluge. His eyes were bright blue and his voice strangled.
“Pardon me,” Kolivan whispered, and inhaled over Lance’s open mouth. He winced at the initial blaze of arcane energy, but his body was designed for it, and he did not suffer.
No sooner had he ingested the excess energy did the boy came to. He looked even frailer and younger now that he was aware. His legs betrayed him. Kolivan caught him and they slid to their knees together.
Lance coughed. “What,” he cleared his throat. He looked up. His eyes glowed. “Are you…mine?”
Kolivan couldn’t help but smile at his forthright attitude. “No,” he said gently.
Lance squeezed his eyes closed and dropped his head. “Fuck.”
Kolivan tilted his head. “You summoned me.”
“I did?” he jerked up. “But you just said—”
“I am not yours. We are not bound.”
“Bound? Oh, you mean the contract?”
“Is that what you call it now? Yes.”
“Would you? That is,” and Lance back tracked, looking down and blushing suddenly. “Uh. Sorry. I didn’t even ask your name.”
Kolivan felt embarrassment and something less negative strumming in the thin thread that tethered them together. It was a spiritual lead that seduced Kolivan to come here. Amazing, he thought. It was amazing that this was a being of such fortitude that simply being called already partially Bound them. “My name for this plane of existence is Kolivan.”
“You have other names?”
“I have one name for each plane of existence,” Kolivan replied patiently.
“Really? How many planes are there?”
“I know of six,” and he smiled and leaned forward a little. “May I know your name?”
“Oh, right! U-uh, Alejandro,” Lance blinked rapidly. “My friends call me Lance.”
“And what would you like me to call you?”
Lance blushed. “Lance.”
Catching the meaning, Kolivan bowed his head and smiled. “Lance, then.”
Lance blushed.
Lance had been anticipating something less…bipedal. Bipedal demons were categorized as the most intelligent among hell’s creatures. They were to their world what humans were to Earth. Shiro and Adam were wicked strong and talented which was why they had enlisted the companionship of fellow people rather than paranormal animals.
Lance, in contrast, had predicted he’d have summoned a hellhound or a bird made out of shadows at best, if for no other reason than because he was very behind in the most basic of techniques.
He hadn’t predicted being served a silver-fox Adonis with horns.
“Have you ever summoned before, Lance?”
Lance shook his head.
“I am your first?” Kolivan’s eyes widened. “You’re strong indeed. I’ve heard trial runs are common.”
Lance’s eyes shifted. “You mean…this isn’t a trial run. This isn’t? You want me? You want me to be your witch?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Lance blinked. Lance narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Kolivan arched a brow. “Because I can tell that we can help each other.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“What answer were you expecting?”
“That you wanted to eat me. Which…is racist now that I think about it oh my god I’m so sorry.”
“Some stories of witches being eaten by the things they summon is true. This is when they have the power to conjure a beast but lack the skill to contain it.” Lance grimaced. “The loss is felt by both the mortal world and our world, as we benefit from having witches among us.”
“What for?”
“We lack humans’…institutions. A pack of us is an island at war with the rest of the world. When we grow sick, when we grow hungry, we die. A demon bonded with a human increases our odds of survival because of the power that wards of most threats to our kind.”
“Demons have magic too, don’t they?”
“Our magic is internal and is severely limited.”
“Oh,” Lance moved his expression into genuine heartbreak. “I’m sorry.”
“It is the nature of our world. I did not tell you this for you to Bond with me out of pity.”
“No! No, I asked, and,” he offered his hand. “I’m glad you told me.”
Kolivan took Lance’s hand between his thumb and forefinger, brought it to his lips and kissed his knuckles. He felt a spiral of urgency and alarm and fear and reluctant arousal through their almost-Bond in response to his gesture. Kolivan lifted his head, “Is this not how this is done?”
Winded: “It’s a little archaic but you got the spirit.”
Kolivan offered a bemused smile. Then the smile fell as his eyes flickered.
“What is it?”
Kolivan turned and closed the portal.
“Wait! How will you get home?” More urgently Lance wondered: How did he do that?
“I will find a way. Another beast was honing in on our location. They were attracted to your magic.” Kolivan’s gaze flitted over Lance’s body like a butterfly’s wings. “It’s beautiful magic. And as wild as the sea.”
Lance caught himself before he blushed again. “Got a way with words there, heartbreaker.”
“It is the truth.” He saw Lance’s eyes drifting right. Kolivan brought his attention to him again with a forefinger against his cheek. “Lance?”
Pink: “Hm?”
“If you create a Bond—or contract—with me, I will be yours and you mine for as long as our souls align. It is a great commitment, but I am already certain I want you. Desperately.”
Pinker: “Oh.”
“Will you take me as well?”
Lance nodded. “Yes,” he barely whispered.
“Then what must be done?”
Lance brought a knife from his belt. “Uh.”
“A blood pact. That is fine. Do we drink each other’s blood or exchange it through another means?”
“I was taught we cut our palms and shake hands. Is that not okay?”
“It is intimate enough.”
Lance’s hands shook.
“Allow me.” He placed Lance’s knife aside. He positioned his talon over Lance’s open hand. “I will not harm you.”
Lance laughed. “I know.”
Kolivan cut Lance’s skin in a quick slit. Lance jumped more out of surprise than pain. Kolivan did the same to himself. They held hands and Lance felt something trickle into him. It felt like beads of water running down his skin and into his heart. His heart felt heavier as time went on.
“Feelings transference,” Kolivan whispered.
“I feel achy.”
“You will.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What did you mean when you said this was intimate enough?”
“There are many ways to create Bonds—ah, contracts. Drinking one another’s blood. Through magic, they might exchange eyes or tongues or hearts or other body parts. A common method is through coitus.”
Lance narrowed his eyes.
Kolivan tried, “Sexual intercourse?”
Lance jerked. “I thought that was just a rumor!”
“It is very real and very effective. To be fair, other methods are far less time consuming.”
Lance chortled. “I think that depends on the partners.”
If Kolivan meant to send him a chiding glance, it was ruined by his half smirk. “The duration does not matter. Kissing is also common.”
A pulse of interest rapidly followed by guilt and self-admonishment flowed to Kolivan through their hands and blood. He was also aware of a persistent loneliness. Kolivan felt a prick of anxiety as Lance in turn felt Kolivan’s emotional reactions.
“What…is that?”
“That is me. What do you feel?”
“Um.” He chuckled, wide-eyed. He pulled his bangs back but they were short and flopped down on his forehead again quickly. “I…I want to call it relief.”
“What else?”
Lance twisted his mouth. “Uh, going out on a limb here: happiness?”
“Yes.”
Lance smiled, stared at their hands. “Will it be like this all the time?”
“I can teach you how to ignore it, but the tether will always be there, yes.”
“Can you…read my thoughts too?”
“No. I can only guess based on our empathy.” His eyes flickered to the edge of the barrier. The witches of the coven had started drawing glyphs to dismantle his magic. They were hoping to act before they completed their contract. He suppressed his irritation.
Lance looked too, drawn by the spike of negative emotion, but he could not see out. Kolivan made it so.
“Where are my friends?”
“They are there,” Kolivan answered honestly. “They are anxious.”
“I can’t hear them.”
“I blocked them out to grant us privacy.” He drew his hand back.
Lance looked down. Kolivan’s blood was blue against his. His cut was gone. He felt a pulse of satisfaction and knew that it wasn’t his own.
“Now that that’s done, I must help you with this.”
“With what?”
“You are burning out, love. I can see it. Taste it—magic is churning through you like an open tap. Let me help you close it. You do not need to be an open conduit anymore. I am here.”
“Oh. Okay. Uh.” Lance smiled and the smile fell and he brought his shoulders up and his shoulders fell. “What should I do?”
“Trust me,” he slipped the first knuckle of his forefinger under Lance’s chin and tipped his head up.
Lance frowned. Confusion spiraled through their Bond—why would I not trust you? Kolivan unintentionally replied in a burst of relief, gratitude and affection. He leaned forward and pressed their lips together.
-
The barrier fell and Adam and Shiro tensed. Keith and Curtis were behind them, poised to fight, their tails rolling and their fangs and claws free. Keith paced but Curtis was still.
Kolivan looked at the two of them first for a long, long moment. Lance lay limp in his arms. His hat was squashed on his head, pinned between his hair and Kolivan’s chest. He slept easily despite the claws as long as his fingers perilously close to his face and knees.
Kolivan watched each of them and smelled their unspoken hostility. He said softly, “Who is the leader of your pack?”
Keith said, “Let our friend go you fucking parasite.”
“And so the fish accuses the snake of having scales,” Kolivan dismissed. He watched Adam. “If memory serves, it is the humans who lead the packs.”
“I am the leader of our coven,” Shiro was white as he introduced himself. “What have you done to Lance?”
“I came in the stead of the leviathan attracted to his power.”
That gave them pause. A leviathan! Those were colossal—and destructive—beasts, infamously cruel, they were awarded the responsibility of three apocalyptic events in Earth’s history. No mortal was known to Bond with one and live for more than a week and Lance had summoned one! On his first try!
No: he summoned a Galra. While wildly more manageable, a Galra was not a lesser evil. Where there was one there were many, like a nest of rats, and they ate life. They sucked vitality right out of the air, even now as Shiro and Adam looked on they felt their throats parch and their hair crackle. Before the end of the month the forest that disguised their coven would be dead.
“You’re not welcome here,” Shiro said with more strength than he felt.
“Shiro,” Adam’s voice broke. “He already formed a contract with Lance.”
Shiro said, “You are not welcome here!”
And Keith, fueled by Shiro’s fear and fury hissed, itching to fight.
Kolivan did not pay him a glance. He inclined his head to Shiro: “Then I will go.” He turned on his heel and walked away. The sigils that Lance had painted on the ground evaporated beneath his feet. He reached the door—
Curtis was before him. Kolivan paused.
“You are forgetting something.”
Intrigued, “Am I?”
“Alejandro stays with us.”
“He is my Bonded. Where I go he goes.”
“That is not your decision to make.”
“No, it is his. And he made it.”
“Oh, don’t be clever.”
Kolivan narrowed his eyes. “Mind how you speak to me. It is out of respect for Lance that I do not force you aside.”
Keith scoffed, “But you find it okay to threaten us!”
Adam raised his hand. Keith glared at him, and Curtis materialized at his side. Intrigued by the retreat, Kolivan turned his back on the door to face them. Adam came forward. He said, “There’s no helping it. You are Lance’s familiar.”
They each looked at him in outrage. Keith punched his shoulder. “Are you insane? They bring their whole packs into our world like this! The park will be devastated before the next full moon!”
Kolivan said from across the room, “And yet you have been here for how long?”
Shiro snapped, “Stop antagonizing him.”
“I simply make the point of saying that if your familiar is Galra, and he can live here in peace with you, why am I different? Because I lack mortal blood?”
Keith fired, “Shut up.”
Curtis grasped his shoulder. “Easy.”
“Listen to me: my pack do not do what you accuse of me. We do not infiltrate a place for the sole purpose of ravishing it to the ground. We are a society of mutualism. We form Bonds with witches to preserve the longevity of our culture without preying on the vulnerable. The groups you refer to, the Fires of Purification and the Empire, they do not represent all Galra.”
“Pretty words,” Curtis whispered sagely.
Adam agreed. “How can we believe you?”
“Alejandro would not have formed a contract with me otherwise.”
“Alejandro doesn’t know what you are.”
That seemed to give Kolivan pause. His eyes narrowed. He glanced at his Bonded cradled against his chest, drooling now he was so tired. He watched them. “What do you expect of me? To leave? I won’t. We are Bound. He is mine and I am his. I mean you no harm, but I cannot do as you ask.”
Keith glanced at Shiro. And he’s too strong. We couldn’t kick him out if we wanted to.
Shiro ignored Keith’s obvious thoughts. “As his teacher I cannot let this continue.”
Kolivan’s hands curled around Lance protectively. “You mean to sever us.”
“No.”
Kolivan did not relax.
“I need to…speak to him. At length.”
Kolivan did not relax. “He will not wake up for now.”
Keith barked, “And whose fault is that!”
Kolivan answered haughtily, “You would rather his aura had blown this structure to pieces?”
“The guy has a point.” Adam whispered to Shiro, “His lack of control is why Lance needed a familiar in the first place. To temper his power.”
Shiro glared. “But a Galra?”
“In a way, isn’t it perfect?” Adam apologized. “Who better to keep Lance’s overabundance of magic in check than a creature designed to eat it?”
Shiro turned away from Adam in a snap. He hated Adam’s logic. His fists shook. He said, “We didn’t catch your name.”
Kolivan’s eyes narrowed. He told them.
“Kolivan. Lance will be safe with us. I promise you. But you can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
Not safe for whom? But Kolivan did not ask that aloud. He inclined his head. “Then I will return in three days. I must put my affairs in order before leaving the pack to devote myself to the cause as Lance’s familiar.”
Keith bit under his breath, “Yeah, go crying to your leader.”
Kolivan smiled. “I am my pack’s leader.” A vengeful corner of his mind savored the shocked expressions on their faces. “Now please, show me the directions to Lance’s sleeping niche.”
-
Lance’s room was on the topmost floor of the ranch house. The ceiling ran up to a peak and he had two skylights. Instead of a bed he had a corner congested with stuffies, pillows, quilts, duvets, pillows, cushions and three sets of fairy lights. Near the skylights he kept plants, and in blank spaces of floor he kept drawings, books, toys, games, boxes of instruments and bottles of gross and spiritual things.
“It looks like a nest,” Kolivan thought aloud.
Adam chuckled, “No, Lance is just messy.”
Behind him Shiro stared silently and Keith mutinously. Curtis lingered in the hallway out of sight.
Kolivan went to the bedstuff and lay Lance down. He asked, “Will the four of you stay there and watch me all night?”
Keith challenged, “Do you intend on staying here all night?”
“Until Lance wakes up, yes.”
“That wasn’t the deal!”
Shiro shook his head. “They just completed a contract, Keith. This possessive behavior is normal.”
Kolivan pulled at Lance’s shoes. “You do not need to waste your time putting me under surveillance.” He paused. “Do humans sleep in the nude?”
Adam chirped, “Depends on the human.”
Shiro growled, “Leave his clothes on.”
“Very well.” He wrapped the covers around Lance. “Good night, love.” He felt a burst of something small in his chest, affection and contentment, and Kolivan was honored that Lance felt so around him while at his most vulnerable.
“Let them be,” Curtis whispered from the corridor. “Kolivan clearly has no ill will towards Lance.”
Shiro murmured back, “That doesn’t mean he won’t take him when we aren’t looking.”
“I won’t,” Kolivan replied. They jumped, certain they’d been discreet.
“Let them be,” Curtis said again, and reached for Keith. Adam took Shiro’s cold and clammy hand. Kolivan watched the open door until he heard them dissolve into various corners of the house.
Kolivan sat beside Lance’s bed, reflecting for hours. On occasion alarm or intrigue rose and fell in his breast, and he wondered what Lance might have been dreaming about. He let his eyes roam around the room, wondering about his new charge. He was unfamiliar with the written languages of this time and place—in fine, he spoke no human language but when he spoke he was simply understood—so staring at the notes told him nothing. He knew Lance was a competent illustrator and an avid collector of odd things.
When the sun rose, Kolivan was stroking Lance’s hair.
Lance shuffled.
“Good morning love.”
A spark of terror melted into recognition and relief. “Good morning,” Lance replied shyly.
“I have to go,” he whispered.
“Go?” Lance flailed. “Go where? Why?”
“Home. To get my affairs in order.” He cupped Lance’s cheek. “I am not leaving you, love. Of course I will be back.”
Lance felt foolish for doubting it for even a moment. “Be safe,” he murmured.
“Of course, love.” Kolivan pinched Lance’s chin to keep him in place and pressed their lips together. Chaste as it was, delighted surprise and reflex attraction was no secret between them. Kolivan felt it so violently he wondered for a moment if it was his own. “Good-bye, Lance.”
“Bye…Koli,” Lance was blinking the stupor from his eyes. When he got a hold of himself enough to lean on his elbows, only the memory of a demon’s lips lingered.