The Demon's Song

CHAPTER Eleven


The next morning, Sofia immediately knew something was up.

Part of it was that Phenex cooked her breakfast again, this time adding pancakes and eggs to the ridiculous amount of bacon he seemed to find necessary. If he stayed much longer, Sofia thought, she was going to have to start using the gym membership she’d studiously ignored for the past three months.

The other, bigger clue was the question he asked as soon as she sat down with the plate he’d piled with food. That, and how uncomfortable he looked asking it.

“So what kinds of things do humans, you know…do together?”

Sofia paused with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. She waited a moment to see if he was messing with her, but since he looked a little like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin immediately after asking, it made her think otherwise. Slowly, she put the fork down.

“You mean, what do they do if they want to just hang out?”

“Yeah, sure. That works.”

Sofia tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and considered him. There was something just a little bit human in the way he hunched, slightly defensively, over his own breakfast. She didn’t want to find it endearing—it just made the situation that much more frustrating—but it was impossible not to. If he’d been the sort of distant sex god that his friend Gadreel seemed to be, it would have been a lot easier to write him off. But something about Phenex pulled at her, despite the fact that the more she thought about getting involved with him, the more certain she was that it was a terrible idea. After what had happened in the parking lot the other night, she wasn’t ready to jettison the bodyguard thing entirely, no matter how awkward it was, but taking on some kind of supernatural creature as a temporary lover would be adding problems she didn’t need.

Too bad she couldn’t just say no and let it be. Instead, she’d baited him last night, telling him she needed something that she was almost positive he wouldn’t be willing or able to give—not just sex, but intimacy.

The last thing she’d expected was that Phenex would actually take the bait.

“Well,” she said, propping her chin on her fist as she thought about it. “This is DC. There’s a ton of stuff to do.”

“Like?”

Sofia frowned at what seemed to be his genuine lack of knowledge. “Don’t you live here?”

“Sort of,” he replied, an edge in his voice. “I’m mostly at Amphora. I don’t pay a lot of attention to what humans do up—I mean, around here.”

“Okay,” she replied, deciding not to push it. She’d already gotten the feeling that he lived in a place that wasn’t exactly out in the open. “Well, people go out to eat, they go see movies. And in DC you can do the touristy thing, see the monuments, the museums. There’s a bunch of amazing stuff, if you like art or history or science.”

“What do you like?”

“Um,” Sofia said, still waiting for the catch. There didn’t seem to be one, though. He just looked deadly serious. When he stayed expectantly silent, she decided he actually wanted to know. She wasn’t sure whether to feel vindicated or nervous. He seemed to have taken her insistence that he get to know her to heart.

Which meant that he must really, really want to get her naked. Her chest suddenly felt very tight, and it was difficult to breathe. Whatever his reasons, having Phenex’s undivided attention was heady stuff. She was going to have to watch it or she’d decide that crawling up the front of him before they went anywhere was an acceptable plan.

She needed to refocus before she did something she knew she’d regret.

Sofia thought quickly about the things she’d geeked out over when she’d first moved to DC and chose one of her favorites. If Phenex didn’t like it, he couldn’t say he hadn’t asked for it.

“Museum of Natural History,” Sofia said, and then grinned. “They have dinosaur bones and an IMAX. And there’s a great sushi place nearby. They make a mountain roll that’s to die for.”

Phenex listened while he devoured his pancakes, his expression almost comically serious. And when she’d finished, he nodded slowly. “Dino bones and raw fish. Okay. We’ll do that.”

Her brows lifted. “Really?”

“Sure. Works for me.”

Sofia stared at him for a moment while he ate. He looked as innocent as she figured it was possible for him to look, which wasn’t very. She wasn’t fooled at all.

“That’s really all it takes to get an angel to go on a date? The possibility of sex?”

“I’m not an angel. And it’s not a date,” Phenex said quickly.

“Then what is it?” She took a sip of coffee, trying to fight back the smile that wanted to surface. He looked like he was about to choke on his eggs.

“A fact-finding mission.”

Sofia only barely managed to swallow her coffee before she burst out laughing. “You sound like you’re going to present your findings to the UN afterward.”

His smile was reluctant, but it was there, making the deep blue of his eyes glitter. Sofia had a feeling she’d fall in if she wasn’t careful. Still, she found that she was actually excited at the prospect of showing Phenex some of the city today. Apart from the disaster of the other night, it had been a while since she’d done anything outside of the usual routine of work, eat, work, sleep, work, go out. And her dating life had been a bust for longer than she liked to think about. This actually sounded…fun. Which wasn’t the sort of thing she expected to be having with a guy who insisted he’d been a demon for a really long time.

Still, she managed to put aside her misgivings and go with it.

“This is a great idea. I think you’ll like it,” Sofia said, hoping to set him a little more at ease. Instead, he just lifted an eyebrow at her.

“We’ll see.”

She pressed her lips together. “That positive attitude’s really going to set the tone. What do immortals do for fun?”

The look he gave her had her out of her chair and backing away before he could act on what she saw written so clearly across his face. Without a word, he’d circled them right back around to where they’d started last night. Her own cheeks were hot, her feet clumsy. But damn it, she wasn’t just going to throw herself at him. She had a feeling he was used to that. He seemed to have a low enough opinion of humans without her doing exactly what he expected.

“Never mind. It’s about time you saw how the other half lives anyway,” she said.

“I doubt it’s changed much,” Phenex said, his voice a low purr. “I saw a little too much of humanity a long time ago. But maybe you’ll show me something new.”

He sounded utterly unconvinced. Sofia stuck her hands on her hips and glared at him and his casual challenge.

“With your expectations so low, you should be easy to impress,” she said, and then grabbed her plate to go clean it off. As she walked away, his voice followed her.

“My expectations are low for a reason. Humans live short, violent, pointless lives. They waste the spark that my kind lacks. They take beauty and twist it into pain, fear, loathing, or they break it just because they can. For a while I thought it was sad. Then I thought it was interesting, in a pathetic sort of way. Now I just ignore it.”

Sofia put the dish in the dishwasher and slowly came around the breakfast bar to look at Phenex, whose beautiful face had turned to stone. He wasn’t talking about going to the museum anymore. This, she realized, went far deeper. It was a glimpse at what had turned him dark in the first place. His words, and what they revealed, twisted like a sharp little blade deep in her chest.

“What happened to you?”

Phenex looked startled at her question, and Sofia saw a flash of what might have been regret across his face, though it quickly vanished behind a hard mask that didn’t betray any emotion at all.

“Nothing. I just got real,” he said, and pushed back from the table, grabbing his own empty plate. He didn’t bother looking at her when he changed the subject.

“Let me know when you want to go. I’m ready whenever,” Phenex said, brushing past her and then busying himself cleaning up the pans he’d used. Sofia leaned against the post at the end of the breakfast bar for a moment, watching him as he neatly shut her out. He was such an odd mix of traits so far—unexpectedly thoughtful, frighteningly determined, fierce, moody…and sometimes, like now, a snotty pain in the ass.

Sofia considered telling him to shove it, then discarded the idea. It wouldn’t make any difference to him, and he’d made his disinterest in leaving very clear, though given what he’d just said about humans, she was even more curious about why he was bothering with her. He was beautiful. He could have sex with almost any woman he chose, she was sure, so she didn’t see how it could just be that. What was his deal? She was pretty, but no supermodel. Just a working-class daughter of immigrants, busting her ass to be financially secure someday in the distant future.

She was a garden variety human. But here he was, washing her dishes with that mulish expression on his face, even after telling her how little he thought of her kind in general.

And that, Sofia thought, was why she couldn’t just throw up her hands and ignore him until he found some other job to do. Her life had been mostly pleasant, mostly ordinary. Phenex was neither. And she couldn’t get him out of her head. She wanted to prove him wrong. She wanted to see him smile.

She wanted him to let her get to know him, even though she knew she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that whatever they were doing here, it would be over before long.

Sofia gave Phenex’s rigid back one more lingering look, then went to get her things.

…

Finding out that Sofia liked dinosaurs wasn’t a huge shock. She was a nurse, liked science, dinos were a bunch of bones, whatever. It made sense. What he hadn’t expected was that going to a museum full of rocks, bones, and a vast collection of dead, stuffed animals would turn her into a five-year-old on crack.

“Look!” she said, dragging him to a display that was centered on a model of an enormous snake. “Titanoboa! I read about this! This is a full-scale model of the largest snake in history!”

Phenex allowed himself to be pulled along, bemused as he watched Sofia do everything but press her nose against the glass while she devoured every scrap of information offered about what was, from what he could see, a snake from the Paleocene that was almost, but not quite, as large as Gadreel’s better-looking form.

Sofia watched a snippet of a Discovery Channel documentary. Phenex watched her. That seemed to be the story of the day so far, and he found he didn’t mind at all.

“Can you imagine?” she asked him, eyes wide as she examined the enormous fake snake. “I don’t think I’d want to share space with something like this.”

“Then don’t let Gadreel back in your apartment,” Phenex replied. “Though you’ve probably guessed that’s easier said than done.”

She laughed, a sweet sound that had him smiling for what felt like the hundredth time today. His face was starting to hurt. Good humor wasn’t normally his thing, but it was surprisingly hard to avoid around Sofia.

“You’re making me think of Hell as some kind of fiery version of Wild Kingdom. Snakes, birds...did you live in a house or a tree?”

“A house. A manor.” He hesitated, then added, “I was a composer for a long time. Even...in the beginning.”

Phenex didn’t know why he said it. He should have no need to impress her, this little human who had devoted her life to helping instead of harming, a foolish and futile pursuit. And yet he couldn’t help himself. He needed her to know that he, too, had been devoted to something once. He’d had a purpose, a meaning. And even he had been able to create rather than destroy.

Sofia stopped, tilting her head, watching him as though she’d just seen something new and fascinating. Phenex found himself holding his breath, waiting for her response. Would she ridicule him?

Finally, she said, “A composer. I can see that. Your music is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

Her honesty, so easily given, left him with a strange and somehow pleasurable ache deep in his chest. He hadn’t wanted to speak about his work in a very long time. Once his ability to compose had gone, even thinking too deeply about it had brought on either blind rage or black despair. Why didn’t it hurt to talk about it with Sofia?

“I was the Angel of Song,” he said, testing his own reaction as much as hers. And still, he felt none of the searing pain he expected. Sofia only smiled, gently.

“I’m not surprised,” was all she said. Despite the curiosity in her eyes, she didn’t press further, and he appreciated it. He had said enough for today. Enough for centuries, probably. They walked away from the snake exhibit in a silence that was warm and comfortable. Sofia’s presence seemed to be a balm to all the darkness that roiled inside of him. Phenex knew he’d be up puzzling over it later, but for now, he tried to just accept it.

“You’re awfully interested in that snake for somebody who doesn’t like them,” he said. They walked a bit more slowly than they had been. Even for an immortal, Phenex decided, two hours with an excited tour guide was tiring. They’d seen the Hope Diamond and woolly mammoths, fossils, and insects. None of it would have been anything more than mildly interesting to him but for Sofia’s reactions.

“Well, I don’t mind snakes, as long as they’re not in my apartment and I’m not in danger of being eaten by one. I like animals in general. Birds, things with fur, things with fins…I probably should have been a zookeeper, not a nurse. But I like people pretty well, too, and I wanted to make sure I could get a job right out of college, so nursing it was. I get my fix this way, or I watch the Discovery Channel. It works.”

Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she reached up to brush some of it back. He liked the way she looked today, in tight jeans and brown boots that came up to her knees, and a long cream sweater that hung loosely and yet still managed to hint tantalizingly at the curves beneath it. She had her coat draped over one arm, while the other, closer to him, swung loose. He had a sudden, strange urge to grab her hand. Phenex turned his head away and frowned, clenching his fist instead of reaching for her. Maybe he needed sleep or something. He hadn’t bothered in days.

“I’m surprised you don’t have any pets, then,” Phenex said, trying to distract himself.

Sofia seemed oblivious to the turmoil she was causing him. She smiled and shrugged, watching a family walk past with a child who was proudly carrying a large, new, and very purple stuffed lizard.

“I wish. The building has a no-pet policy. Besides, Amy’s allergic to cats, which is about all I could handle with my hours right now. I might be able to manage a hamster or something, but with my luck it would escape and stick around to gnaw holes in the cereal boxes. So, no pets. Yet.” She glanced at him. “What about you? No pet hellhound or anything?”

He hesitated, then offered another small fragment of himself up for scrutiny. “No. But most of my brothers have an animal form. Birds, mainly. One snake. A griffin. Meresin just has one form, which is dangerous enough. And then there’s Levi.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ah. That’s the one who got you all out, right? Gadreel said he was...well, what is Levi, exactly?”

Phenex tried to come up with a good way to describe what Leviathan was when he didn’t look like a man.

“You don’t want to know,” Phenex finally said. “He’s got scales.”

“You’re right,” Sofia said. “I don’t want to know.” They walked in companionable silence for another minute. Then she said, “So you can really turn into a phoenix?”

He hunched his shoulders a little as he nodded, expecting yet another joke in what seemed to be an endless stream of Harry Potter jokes since the books had come out. Instead, Sofia simply said, a little shyly, “I’ve always loved that myth. Maybe you’ll show me sometime.”

Phenex looked at her, surprised. “Yeah, maybe.” He hadn’t assumed his avian form in a very long time, finding it an unpleasant reminder of things lost. But for her, he found he might actually consider it.

She smiled her pleasure, and he felt a weird, not entirely comfortable sensation start in the pit of his stomach and flood him with a warmth that made him momentarily light-headed. At first he thought it might be nausea. Then he realized it was pure, simple happiness. And that he hadn’t felt such a thing in so long he might have been experiencing it for the very first time. Also, he seemed to be grinning like a complete ass.

Oh, hellfire. No.

But he was still trying to shake the warm, fuzzy feeling as Sofia turned the subject back to safer territory.

“So speaking of creatures, I got tickets to do the butterfly pavilion before we go. Do you mind? It’s right over there.”

Phenex allowed himself to be directed through the entryway of the futuristic dome that housed the butterfly habitat, hoping that maybe being bombarded by flying insects would dampen his mood. The humidity and heat they stepped into made him glad he’d only worn a T-shirt under his simple black peacoat. He pulled off the coat as he looked around, joining Sofia on a path that ran alongside overflowing banks of blooming flowers. The air was alive with brightly colored wings.

“Oh, look! I love the blue ones!”

Sofia was laughing, delighted, as a large black and blue butterfly fluttered around her head, then decided to land on her shirt, making a living corsage of itself. It pulsed its wings gently, probably trying to decide how she tasted.

Lucky bastard.

Phenex couldn’t look away—for a few moments, everything around him seemed to vanish until there was just Sofia and her butterfly, two fragile, impermanent, beautiful creatures. He had a momentary wild impulse to spread his own wings and envelop the two of them, protecting them. The need was so strong that his flying muscles ached from holding back. Every breath Sofia took, every soft rush of air beneath the wings around them, suddenly seemed to be the most glorious music, dancing, swelling, swirling around him in a way that made something long dormant inside himself stretch and stir. It filled the empty places, silenced the endless aching…

Then the butterfly flitted off again, and Sofia watched it go with a smile that was touched with wistfulness. The moment was broken.

Phenex looked around, dazed. Whatever he’d just felt had vanished as suddenly as it had come. But…it had left an echo. One he could still feel, one he’d be mulling over later, once he quit feeling as though the ground had just shifted beneath his feet. He trailed along behind Sofia, not really hearing or seeing anything, absurdly relieved when she announced she was starving and it was time to go eat.

It was nothing, Phenex decided.

Except that he was still hearing music, very faintly—a song he’d never heard, even though he hadn’t composed an original piece in over a thousand years. Something was different. And different usually turned out to be bad. But it didn’t feel bad.

Confused, but strangely elated, Phenex pulled on his jacket and walked with Sofia out into the cold gray day. When he lagged behind, Sofia looked back, grinned, and then reached to catch his hand in hers to pull him along.

“Come on,” she said. “The mountain rolls at Okada… Seriously. You don’t even know what you’re keeping me from, Phenex. They’re amazing.”

So he let her lead. And it wasn’t until three blocks later that he realized he’d left his hand in hers.