For a while, we just sat there, drinking coffee from the thermos cup and soaking in the view. It was almost silent this far up, the crowd a distant murmur that might easily have been mistaken for the wind through the trees. And since I couldn’t see them anymore, it was easy to imagine that they weren’t there at all, and that Pritkin and I had somehow been transported to a desert hideaway.
If only, I thought, staring upward.
“I came here after my wife died,” Pritkin told me, after a few minutes. “I had some idea that work would help me deal with it. It didn’t, but during the time it took me to find that out, I stayed here.”
I looked at him over my shoulder. “In the same suite?”
He nodded. “The place was run by Tobias’s father in those days, and it was . . . less genteel. It was known as a hard-drinking establishment, and the rooms were a bit rough and ready. The sort of place they tossed you when you passed out unde
r a table.”
I nodded.
“Most people stayed here for a few hours to a few days, depending on how bad the hangover was. I moved in and just didn’t leave. Tobias ran the rooming house part of things, but he didn’t ask any questions: why I wasn’t going home at night, why I was working double shifts every day, why I looked like a freshly dug up corpse. None of it.”
I didn’t say anything. Pritkin rarely talked about his wife, which was still an extremely sore subject. Which wasn’t too surprising since his incubus abilities had drained her of life, leaving her a dried-up husk in his arms on their wedding night, and traumatized the hell out of him.
From what I understood, it had mostly been her fault. She was part demon, and had initiated the feedback loop that constitutes demon sex, hoping that the power they generated together would greatly increase her own. And thus, gain her respect in the hells, something that her family had never had.
That in itself wouldn’t have been so bad, at least by demon standards, but she hadn’t told Pritkin first. Leaving him with no idea what she’d planned or any way to stop it when things went wrong. And they went very wrong. She had so little power that the feedback loop drained her dry before it ever had a chance to give anything back.
Pritkin had blamed himself, of course. And his father, who she had told, presumably to find out if his half incubus son had inherited the family gift. Rosier had agreed to support her because he’d wanted Pritkin back in the fold, and thought that a powerful demon wife who loved the hells might do the trick. What it had done instead was to cause a massive clusterfuck that resulted in Pritkin being banished to Earth under a draconian interdict that had been lifted only recently.
It had also hurt him, far more than Rosier had ever understood.
“No, Tobias didn’t ask anything,” Pritkin said, his hands moving up and down my arms to keep me warm, because we hadn’t thought to bring a blanket. “He just gave me the keys, brought up dinner every night, and left me alone. Told me that if I ever wanted to talk, he was here.”
“He was a good friend.”
“That was just it—he wasn’t. We knew each other—I had trained one of his brothers—but we weren’t close. He had never wanted to be a war mage. Refused to even take the tests to see if he had the aptitude. Said that he wanted to cook and run this place when his father passed, and for everyone to leave him alone. Eventually, they did.”
I lay my head back against Pritkin’s chest and watched the snow fall. It was getting lighter now; either the spell was giving out or somebody had found a way to counter it. But it was still pretty.
And he was warm. His legs were up around mine as well as his arms, so it was almost like I had my very own, war mage shaped chaise. I could stay here all night, I thought.
“Tobias probably saved my life,” Pritkin said, after another pause. “I had a morning shift one day with nothing to do afterward, and went to a bar topside to get a pint or two. Which evolved into a shot or two, and then three and four and eventually I lost count. I made it back here—damned if I know how—completely wasted and calling for more. The pub had tossed me out, but I wasn’t done yet. I told Tobias to bring up a bottle.”
“Did he?”
I felt Pritkin nod behind me. “He did—of a hangover remedy. I remember that it included hot sauce and a couple of raw eggs, and looked as vile as it tasted. I instructed him to take it back and bring me what I’d asked for. He refused, and I took a swing at him.”
“Did you hurt him?” I asked, mildly alarmed that we’d just eaten the man’s pizza.
Pritkin huffed out a laugh that ruffled my hair. “No. I couldn’t even see straight. He put me on my ass, and quite right, too. But then he did something odd.
“He stayed with me.”
“He probably wanted to make sure that you didn’t throw up and choke to death.”
“Possibly. I don’t really know what his reasoning was; he never said. He’s not a big talker, unless he’s dressing down some of his cooks. I think he saves his voice for them.”
I remembered some of the inventive curses I’d heard earlier, being bellowed out of the depths of the kitchen. “It sounded like it.”
“But he is a good listener. I have hazy memories of that night, but I’m fairly sure that I told him more than I should have. I may have told him all of it, or enough for him to guess what I am—”
“Pritkin!"
“—which essentially told him who I am. But he never said a thing to anyone.”