Stone Cold Passion -a caroline harper story- Please visit carolineharper.tumblr.com for more information, and follow the author, Zoe, on twitter at @zoegmiller 1. "W-what do you call that again?" He shuffles his wrists against the bindings in a way kinda makes it look like he's playing it up for the crowd. That's the great thing about metrosexual guys, they've always got a cache of scarves, ascots, etc; whatever the occasion there's always something handy for tying a boy to a bedpost. Maybe it makes me a bad houseguest, availing myself of accessory drawer like that, but James doesn't seem to be complaining. Well not about that, specifically. "It's a cantrip. Try to keep up Jimbo, otherwise I'm liable to get bored." I spread the fingers of my left hand slowly, and the scintillating orb of light in my palm - sort of like a disco ball, but one I've summoned from the ether - expands with them. "You kids are like the worst case of ADD on the planet. What do they say about mogs? 'never trust one under thirty?' And you're cusping, what, twenty two?" "Twenty three," he says, and I can barely see him flush in the darkness of the room, lit only by my summoned sphere and a weak street lamp filtering through the window shade. "And don't say 'mog,' that's offensive." "Offensive? Babe, I think your need for social justice is inversely proportional to your ability to turn into a tiger." I rest my hand on his hip and gently press my nails into his bared skin. He pouts. "Fine, fine," I say, "'transmogrificational magic user,' that suit you better?" "Well i-it doesn't have to be so technical..." His hips stretch upwards, needily, seeking my hand. It's only an inch or two away, but I know he can feel my heat, and to him it must seem like a mile. "Look, let's just settle on 'shifter' before we spend the whole night hashing out nomenclature." My nails crawl back into his skin, digging across his body, desperately close to his... "Carol..." He says, weakly. His worried arms wiggle their bound way up and down against the wooden slats of the headrest. "Ah, ah, ah," I say, slowly digging my nails into his side in a silent warning. I, of course, remain dressed, which tonight means dark blue jeans and a button-down. One of my favorite parts of the game is seeing how many articles of clothing I can take off of them while seeing how many articles of clothing they'll let me leave on, and for how long. "Ms. Caroline," he says, after a moment's pause. "That's better. Now then..." I splay my fingers wide and the orb of light shatters into a grouping of dazzling shards, like bits of broken glass. They float curiously, bouncing off of each other, trapped by the gravity of my hand. "What were we saying...? Oh right!" My free hand moves from his hip, fingers slowly sliding around his rather fierce erection. "I was noticing you forgot to shift at least one part back after your last horse escapade." James doesn't seem to know whether he should focus on the gradual stroking of my hand, or the private light show I'm giving him. "I, ah..." He starts, but a firm squeeze of my hand around his cock dissuades him from any further talking. Just by rolling my knuckles I've begun to juggle the light shards off of the tips of my fingers. Each one bounces up and away from my fingertips with a lazy sway, hovers in a sleepy arc, then falls in a floaty, feathery sort of way, easy for me to catch and juggle again. I've [split] the orb into five shards. I've been able to manage ten before, but that's when my concentration wasn't otherwise divided. Multitasking, I know, very impressive. A lot of slow nights at the bookstore gave me plenty of time to practice. On the juggling bit, not the handjobs. That's a different skillset, and not really appropriate for the workplace. James gives a hint of a gasp as I scoop my hand over the head of his cock on the upswing. I squeeze down firmly, and am rewarded with a skotch of a sticky sensation against the inside of my palm. "Well anyway, if you aren't using that special gift of yours to cheat," my hand tickles down the subtle bulge that runs down the length of his dick, "then you should spend an extra moment tomorrow giving things to whatever god graced you with this bad boy." My fingers spool out when they reach his balls, which are crinkled and feel small as I roll them across my index and middle finger, but maybe that's just his shyness made manifest. They are mostly hairless, of course. Any metro guy worth his salt considers pubic grooming an art form. When I gently pinch the root of one of them between my fingers I feel a shudder surge through him that curls all the way down to his toes." "N-no 'cheating,'" he says, with labored breath, "Shifters can't change their human form. You ought to know that." "I do know that," I reply with a sharp smile, and a slightly sharper slap to the root of his cock, "Mind the way you talk to your elders, young James." I've only got five years on him, but it's good to remind him of his place. My little love tap jerks the desired yelp out of him, and once it does my fingers sweep in to gently caress the spot I've just abused. "Now say you're sorry for talking back, and tell me just how positively sore this little beast is, then maybe we'll see what we can do about it." "I'm... I'm sorry for talking back," pants James. And I can't blame him for stuttering, really, not with the way my nails threaten to dig into either side of his little piss slit. "You're sorry and..." "I'm s-sorry and..." "You're sorry aaaaand," I say, almost singsonging. His eyes are flitting back and forth between the deep shadow of my hand sidling up and down the length of his dick and the juggling act I've been maintaining with the light shards to keep them distracted. "Shit, Ms. Caroline, please don't make me say it." "Oh babe, you don't have to say anything you don't want to." I smile as I splay my fingers wide, realizing his cock. It wiggles in an unsteady throb as gravity reasserts its control over it, heaving itself in a downwards sway that almost, but doesn't quite, send it slapping against his spectacularly firm tummy. He emits nothing but a long, languid whimper. Shifters make the best sounds, don't you think? All that pent up animal lust, all that magic tied up in their body, their cells screaming out to turn all beastly. How could you not want to tie them up? Tease them? Force them to stay subdued, while both of you share the knowledge that they could break free at any time? Besides, the bestial passion gig is fun, but you don't always want to be thrown up against a wall. Only like... thirty percent of the time, tops. "Oh, alright," I say, "It's your first time with a mage, after all, and my New Year's resolution was to help those in need..." My fingers find his cock again, and twist it downwards so he can feel the run of my knuckles as I stroke him slowly, upwards, and downwards, and the joints of my fingers run through his finely trimmed pubic hair like hunters flushing out game in some wonderfully wiry, black forest. "You ready?" I ask. "For what?" "Just hold still." I can't keep up the pace of my stroking as smooth and seductive as I'd like, not when I'm concentrating on maintaining my spell, but James doesn't seem to mind. On each down stroke I squeeze him firmly, like I'm milking him in reverse, like I'm forcing him to keep control, and I can feel the hard rod of his dick like a deliciously firm chunk of rebar under the spongy flesh. I dip my left hand lower, until each rock of my fingers, juggling the bits of light, barely grazes his stomach, slips my knuckles across his body. Each touch digs a convulsive shiver from his abdomen. "Your whole body's going to want to change, but don't you dare. I'm not into fur and all fours. When you feel the surge, you hold it back; you hold it back, and I'll make it worth. Your. While~" I chirp the last bit out, so I'm sure he gets my drift. "W-what are you going to do?" he starts to ask. But I've already done it. I flick one of the shards of light up off the tip of my finger, into the air, and it drifts down lazily like a feather, inching closer and closer to his stomach. He squirms. I can see his eyes flick this way and that in the deep shadows of the room. I can feel his wrists rattle against the bedframe as he tries to bodily purge his nervousness. Finally, after what must feel like minutes to him, the light touches down right atop his belly button and spreads out in an incandescent pool that highlights his veins and capillaries for half of a fraction of an instant before his body absorbs the power. James, to his credit, knows how to follow an order. His body cants upwards and he moans with a sound that is so close to pain that I'd be concerned, if it weren't for the way his eyes roll back in his head. I grip down firmly on his cock, anticipating the jump of his hips, and use his erection like a lever to ratchet his body back down onto the bed. Oh, the way it makes them surge in your hand is my favorite part. "Again?" I ask. He can do nothing but tremble and nod. So I reward him with another flick of my fingers and another drifting, dawdling shard of light that touches down on his tight body and spills its energy out into his core. "What is it," he asks, voice strangled, though one wonders if it's due to the light show or due to the rather firm way I am dragging the backs of my nails across the underside of his cock with each upswing. "It's the energy of the universe, man. Mother nature, Gaea, whatever you wanna call it. Though, truthfully, I don't go for the whole gendered nouns, Earth Goddess thing. Call it whatever you want, or don't call it anything if it makes it easier." I dip my hand like I'm going to infuse him with another bit of light, and his stiffness in my hand surges just so and his hips raise with their need. But I don't indulge him, not yet. "Just what do you do in those supe bars anyway?" I ask. "Don't tell me you spend so much time sniffing after pussy you haven't even picked up on the basics." "Not these basics..." He gasps out. James has bit of a six-pack, close enough for my purposes, anyway. The sweat forms in the creases of his muscles, and his pale brown nipples have crinkled to smaller and more needy studs with each infusion of light. "Well then it pleases me to be the first," I say with a flourish, which manifests as an affectionate squeeze and pull on his cock, and my left arm thrown wide, until it seems that the remaining light shards might spill out of my hand. But I catch them. I always catch them. It's all part of the act. "What do you say, stud, think you can handle the rest all at once?" If the feeling alone didn't send him to wild nodding, then surely the aggressive pace of my hand up and down the length of him would. I hook my leg over his, straddling his knees, and lean forward so we're cheek-to-cheek. Hard to do it with both hands busy, but I manage (though I do kind of have to throw an elbow down onto his chest). "Get ready for the big finish," I whisper, my lips gracing around the curve of his earlobe. Before he has time to brace himself I throw my hand downwards, pressing it palm-down into his chest and sending the remaining shards of light surging through his being. His gasp is more like a strangled cry, and one imagines I wouldn't have needed to touch him at all to receive the desired result. But where's the fun in that? I feel the wet, heavy wash of his orgasm spatter against my hand, still pressed down into his body, and against the fabric of my shirt sleeve. His head jerks, blindly, seeking my face, and his breath is a white-hot wash of passion that tickles all over my neck and sends a jolt of chill down my spine. His fingers scramble up and down the slats of the headboard seeking me, any part of me, but finding my hair just barely out of range. "Oh my!" My fingers around his surging dick lose not even a fraction of their pace, "That was quick!" And he is blushing even as he moans, and his eyes can't quite meet mine, so my lips convince him it's okay, pressing down onto his with a soft flush of pliant skin, as my hand works the final, coursing bursts of his orgasm out of him, until his hips unwind himself and his tight body finally relaxes. "You made of mess of me, James," I chide as I break the kiss. Already I can feel him softening under my grip. The light trick is fun and all, but I've learned it takes a lot out of a boy, especially on the first go. My hand relaxes its pace, stroking him in a way that's more like petting, comforting, telling him it's all right. Shifters like that sort of thing. "I'm sorry?" He asks. I guess I didn't really give him enough time to determine his role in the game. "Now ordinarily I'd made you clean me up, but I guess exceptions can be made for your first try." I am smearing the sticky sap of his cum against his tensed abs, cleaning myself as best I can. I get most of it off of my fingers and onto him, though my shirt might be a lost cause. "Will you think of me when you throw your next girl on all fours and start rutting into her like a big, dumb animal?" "Y-yes, Ms. Caroline," he responds, with his eyes tight and crinkled around the corners. "And what more can a girl ask for?" I stand and take a few steps backwards across the floor. James eyes his bound wrists as if the game is over. "Oh no you don't," I say. I am rocking the heel of my left shoe against the front of my right one, but they prove too much effort to remove so I leave them alone. "It's my turn now. Fair is fair, after all." I undo the button of my jeans and hook my fingers through the belt loops as I wriggle them past my hips. I'm not that skinny, and certainly not as muscular as James's, but I do my best to keep fit. My jeans fall to around my ankles with a thump and I trot forward on denim manacles, back towards the bed. "Now then," I say, as my knees find the space between his shoulders and his neck on either side of the bed. My jeans spread across his chest and ensure he stays down, as if he'd even try to escape at this point. "Scoot down," and he complies. He's staring right up at my underpants, which are as no-frills as they come - this didn't start out as date night, after all - but now that my illuminating orb is gone, how much can he really make out from the weak light streaming in front the street lights? Shifter vision is better than human vision, but not that much better. A Shifter's sense of smell, on the other hand... well, let's just say any average old human wouldn't mistake just how heated up I am, not when I'm literally rubbing their noses in the small, wet spot between my legs. And James the Mog, with his Shifter nose? I can feel his breath quicken as he catches my particular spicy scent, cascading its warmth between my legs, and causing my thighs to tighten around his ears. "Your turn," I edge out, voice so hot with anticipation that the words almost caught in my throat. I use two fingers to shuffle the fabric of my panties to the side, the elastic banjos around his nose for a second before I sweep it out of the way. I have exposed myself to his lips... and he is hungry. Now it's my turn to gasp. My other hand jerks forward to support me, digs so hard into the slats on the bedframe I swear it'll leave a mark. James, shy, submissive James, certainly knows how to use his mouth. Our lightly bondage themed escapades have left me wet and warm enough that his tongue meets no resistance slipping into me. "Fffuuck," I grit my teeth. I close my eyes and imagine the scenario I'd just placed in his head, of James and some other girl, any girl, some other shifter, or maybe a were, the two of them scrambling against each other. James, mounting her, claiming her. I imagine the taut, flexing muscles of his shoulder blades from behind. I imagine the seething, plowing motion of his hips. His tongue scoops upwards, splits my lips wide and finds my clit. Normally I'd prefer a finger or two, but the heat of the moment is helping, and the wet, strong muscle of his tongue against my hidden button seems willing to pick up the slack. "Shit!" I curse again, and my nails scrape against the unfinished wood of his bed. "Angh!" My thighs are squeezing him so hard I swear I'll burst him like a ripe fruit. James, oh lovely young James, I could forgive all your youthful supernatural ignorance, all the supernatural ignorance in the whole wide world, just for another five seconds with that lovely, luscious tongue! He is shoving me closer and closer by leaps and bounds and I was already pretty damn close to begin with! I am scrambling, grasping at the hill of my orgasm like I'm cresting Kilimanjaro. So close! I can feel myself cresting... I can feel myself almost tipping over... almost... almost... And then... BRRRT! No, if I just... all I have to do is concentrate. My hand around the bedframe jerks down to James's hair, wraps up in it like a leash. No, don't you stop now! Don't you st- BRRRT! It goes again. Ignore it, Carol! BRRRT! Fuck, fine! Fine! There's only one person who'd call me after two AM on a weekday. It's Shen, and just the thought of the old geezer and his whiskery beard has killed any hope of orgasm for the next, oh, six to eight months? I throw myself to the other side of the bed, away from James, and sit back so I can scoop my vibrating phone out of my pocket. "What!" I shout into the phone as James pants beside me, seemingly too deep in a lust coma to even speak. Or maybe he's just reacclimating to the sensation of air filling his lungs. My legs had a pretty good grip on him, towards the end. "Another strange statue," he says. Shen always got a bit too into the cloak and dagger side of things for my taste. But I guess what good is monster slaying if you can't have a little fun with it? "This one in Bay Ridge." "Bay Ridge?" I ask, "Shit Shen, I'm all the way on the other side of Brooklyn. You know how long it'll take to get a train out there at this hour?" "Come morning it may be gone," he says. "You could always take a cab." "Oh? Am I getting a raise? With what you pay me I can barely afford the MetroCard." "Bay Ridge," he says. I commit the address he gives me to memory. James is looking at me with this plaintive puppy dog eyes, but he's not my first shifter and I'm wise to the cutesy tricks. "Nobody's more sorry than me," I say, as I stand and shuffle my jeans back up my legs. I look myself over and notice the quickly drying wet spatter on my sleeve. "Ungh... mind if I use your bathroom?" It's not until I'm halfway across the room that I hear his helpless rattle against the bedframe. "Uh, Ms. Caroline...?" He asks. I stop and turn, where James the Shifter, who could probably turn into a bear and break the whole bed if he cared to, waits patiently for me to untie him. "Oh, fine." I say, "But just one arm, and only because you've been so very good." 2. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and secure it with a band around my wrist. It's a Plain Jane sort of brown, my hair, and I keep it only at about shoulder length, but shoulder length is long enough to get in the way when you're trying to concentrate on breaking and entering. I fumble my lockpick gun three times before I get the door open, so desperate am I to get out of sight, and out of the hallway, before some confused neighbor sees me. Thank god Elizabeth Sinclair, the presumed victim, lived in such a dump out in the middle of nowhere. If the lock on her door were anything better than what you could get for five bucks at a hardware store I might've had to go home empty handed. I know, I know, look at me: all-powerful enchantress, manipulator of nature, never figured out how to use an actual set of lockpicks and has to get by with a cheaty impact gun. Turns out magic requires a lot less dexterity than B&E. I'd called Shen on the walk from the subway station to the apartment building. His cursory googling of Elizabeth Sinclair turned up the obvious reason for her low-rent digs out in the middle of nowhere Brooklyn: Elizabeth Sinclair, a young professional a year or two out of college, had fallen victim to the creeping trend of unpaid internships. I turn on the light and take in the living room. The apartment is small even by New York standards, but it's positively miniscule for Bay Ridge. I guess you get what you pay for, and "what you pay for" isn't a lot when nobody's paying you. The coat rack by the door doubles as a closet, apparently: it's festooned with clothes hangers holding modestly cheap, but fairly efficient-looking blouses and suit jackets. I sigh and try to shake my head out of the clouds. I can still feel the neediness clawing up from my core, unfulfilled. It's distracting me. I try to will away the thoughts of James, likely asleep in his bed now, all safe and warm, while here I am, on the job. I get a pen out of my purse and poke my way through the discarded takeout counters on the table. She doesn't appear to own a TV, so the loveseat sort of just stares directly at a wall of cracked red paint and a teeny-tiny window. Nature's television, I guess, perfect for eating your... ugh, what is this, General Tso's? A busy schedule is no excuse for syrupy corn starch sauces. All right Caroline, ease back on the jokes, and maybe the present tense, too. Odds are, Elizabeth isn't in a position to worry about her figure, or anything else, ever again. The living room doesn't hold much in the way of identification, or any signs of struggle. Neither of the first two apartments had any obvious signs of violence either, though the first girl had a backyard deck, and appeared to have been caught unawares while sunbathing, a half-finished glass of wine still on the table beside her deck chair. I cant shake my off my sour mood. I should've had James ride me like a fucking bronco before I left. That would've kicked the fog out of my head and made it easier to stomach coming out here in the middle of the night. Living room's clear. I've checked every nook and cranny, in so much as this place even has nooks and crannies. For a second I worry that I've come to the wrong place, that I'm thirty seconds from some enraged Brooklyner cracking me, the home intruder, over the head with a baseball bat. But Shen's information is never wrong, and there's an eerie stillness to the air, though that may just be my nerves talking. I head to the adjoining bedroom and flick on the lights. They take a second to stutter on and when they do I gasp, stumbling backwards and nearly falling flat on my ass. There she is, in the flesh (or the stone, as it were). Elizabeth Sinclair, now modeled exquisitely in statue form. She's standing in the middle of the floor, halfway between the bed and the bathroom. The folds of stone on the statute highlight one of those workman-like blouse-and-skirt-suit combos, her burial shroud, fresh off the rack from TJ Maxx. One of her stone hands, slender - girl, eat all the General Tso's you want if you can keep that figure - has lifted the front tails of her shirt above her stomach, her belly button just a shallow dimple in the stone. Her hair is short, and traces the line of her jaw just about perfectly. She cared more about haircuts than rent, evidently. About the only thing 'nice' about this whole situation, I'd say. Her eyes are half-lidded, and you could imagine a sort of "come hither" look if they were more than just featureless swells in the stone. Her lips are parted. Only barely. Less than a centimeter. Elizabeth Sinclair. Rest in Peace. She's the third this month. They all fit this sort of profile: young, business-minded, but otherwise unremarkable, not that their jobs have anything to do with it. We assumed it was a Basilisk, and Basilisks don't really care about your tax bracket. A Basilisk is a komodo dragon looking thing, sized about as big as a corgi. Their gaze petrifies you, but it takes a few seconds. They're just all around slow as hell - don't gotta move quick when your food-source is transmuted into stone - so they're really only dangerous to people who don't know what they are or are too squeamish to stomp a twenty pound lizard to death with their boot. Thing about Basilisks is they eat their prey. They're stupid animals. You might find a leg here, an arm there, little chunks of leftovers, but usually not full statues. The first two cases felt plausible: they were in apartments with backyard access, and just a few blocks apart in the Borough Park neighborhood. If a Basilisk is shocked by some poor sap while it's chilling out in a mud puddle it could conceivably stone them before scuttling away. Stranger things have happened. But Elizabeth Sinclair lives in the second floor of a ten unit building. A Basilisk can climb stairs if it really wants to, but they mostly like to hang out in the underbrush. Anyway, how could it possibly scuttle through the double locked entryway downstairs? I am becoming increasingly concerned that I didn't bring my mirror shades, but I try to put the thought out of my mind. Gorgons are extraordinarily rare. I've seen only one in my life, and that was at a menagerie. A Gorgon? Maybe you know them as Medusas? But that'd be like calling a tissue a Kleenex, and I am unwilling to let the brand supplant the generic in my mind. I trace the butt of my pen around the stony curve of Elizabeth's hair. That's three, all women, which lends credence to it being just a really agro Basilisk. Basilisks will stone whatever's nearby; The Gorgon is a bi-curious beast, at best. Gorgons are the sorority girls of the supernatural world. If they petrify a lady, it's because they're trying to impress some dude. I step around Elizabeth and into the bathroom, still seeking any sign of a struggle, something that would prove it was a brainless lizard and not a monster lady with an agenda. Once you get by the stone gaze Basilisks are about as scary as a small dog. Gorgons on the other hand are human sized and strong, too, but they don't need to fight you, not most of the time... I kneel and run my hand at the floor under the sink. Aside from the caked layer of dust - Elizabeth, really, spring-cleaning this place wouldn't take more than an afternoon - I come away with two almost translucent scales stuck to my fingers. I hold them up to the light. Funny thing about Gorgon scales: when they're connected to the creature their color combines into this greenish, snake-y kind of hue, but when they're detached they start to break down, they take on this rainbow sort of pattern... I turn the scales over in my hands. Shit, yeah. That's a Gorgon all right. I've never seen one of their scales up close, but it fits everything I've read in books to a tee. The rainbow spirals out from the center, but it's almost gone. These still have a bit of life left in them, which means this crime scene is still fresh. We're talking hours, and not more than a few. I'll have to call Shen, and I've got a crapload of reading to do when I get back to the bookstore... I'm standing, facing the sink, trying to puzzle the whole thing out. I look up in the mirror and shake my head. I'm pinching at my nose between the eyes and trying to blink the last of the James-induced clouds when I catch the hint of her, it, slinking down from the ceiling. The Gorgon, in the flesh, maybe even waiting for me, peeks out like an upside-down prairie dog, from around the top of the doorframe. She emerges slowly. First I see the writhing mass of snakes that comprises her hair, then just the tops of her emerald green eyes, slitted into two hungry lines. "Fuck!" I shout, recoiling from the image in the mirror, which has the appreciably negative effect of moving me closer to the actual monster. Gorgons are agile, did I not tell you that? The combination of human hands and a snake-like torso makes them into adept climbers. Think mermaid, but wriggling, and quick. She drops herself, tail-first, to the ground with a heavy thud. She has caught me by surprise, and she is quick, but I saw her in the mirror and, as everyone who's seen Clash of the Titans knows, Gorgon mind-tricks don't work unless they get you dead-on. She grasps me up by the shoulders, forcibly turning me around. I squeeze my eyes shut to avoid her gaze, but she has me grappled before I can do anything more than that. The clinging heaviness of her snake-half lifts off of the ground, entwining itself around my legs, and I fall backwards with my hand against the sink to support myself. "Shit!" She hisses. Gorgons don't hiss like snakes. When they do it, it coils off into this weird chattering sound in the back of their throat. Her talons have me around the neck. It's rare they don't catch you entirely by surprise, but Gorgons know what do when you close your eyes. She squeezes me around the throat and I gag. I can feel her claws digging in, threatening to break skin. I whip my hand up in front of her face, or at least where I think her face ought to be. I'm rewarded with the snapping bites of the hair-like mass of snakes all along my hands and arm, so it feels like I'm on the right track. Each fang is like a thumbtack, they're small, but there are dozens of them, and they get in their fair share of bites before I'm able to cool my concentration and summon the orb. The same scintillating ball of light I used on James... it has other applications. With my eyes still squeezed shut, and the orb radiating heat into the palm of my hand, I crush my fingers as hard as they'll go, and I'm rewarded with a blast of light that pierces through even my closed eyelids. The Gorgon screams and recoils, falling off of my body and to the floor with the heavy slap of her meaty, thick tail against the tile. I stumble backwards onto the sink and open my eyes. My hand and arm are a wash of miniscule snakebites, blood seeps through my ruined shirt. Legends say they petrify you because they're so ugly. That's what we like to call "revisionist history." Someone with a bone to pick, or maybe just someone jealous. The truth is Gorgons are about as beautiful as any creature has any right to be, and it's not just the sporty tits - no Gorgon ever needed a sports bra, that's for sure - or the way their hips curve into this oddly sensual "V" where the flesh of the woman meets the scales of the snake. It's not just the lewd, obvious stuff, I mean. They have these high cheekbones and this permanent rosy flush on their cheeks, like they've just applied the perfect amount of rouge at all times. If it wasn't for the hair and the, you know, forked tongue, they'd pretty much have the perfect face. Of course, some people are into the lizard thing, and who am I to judge? She thrashes and roils on the floor, halfway in the bathroom, halfway in the bedroom. Her tail slaps angrily against the tiles, just barely missing my feet, as she struggles to right herself. Thank god: I don't think Chuck Taylors are a great defense against the hundred pounds of an enraged snake-woman's lower half. I duck away from her, towards the shower. It only gives me a few feet clearance, but it's better than nothing. Gorgon eyes don't just petrify, they enchant. That's why there's been no struggle at any of the apartments. If a Gorgon catches you unaware, that's it. Think about it: who wants a cluster of sculptures all struggling and screaming in terror? Kind of repetitive, don't you think? No, they enthrall you and then you're only too happy to sit there and assume whatever pose they like. Once you're under their spell, and it only takes but a second, a Gorgon can petrify you at her leisure. She has her hands over her eyes. Thick treacles of blood spill down her forehead from where she's dug her talons in, as if the pain might clear the temporary blindness caused by my spell. It won't, but her stun also won't last forever. Already she's slithering, wobbling, to... to her feet? Well, call it "upright." She's bracing her body against the doorjamb, so she can still cover her face with both hands, while her muscular tail surges in a spiral, slowly getting her back to vertical. The blood... from the snake bites... I can use it. I can use it to. I shoot two fingers of my damaged hand up, dangerously close to the range of her raging head snakes, whom the blast also appears to have left dazed, but seem no less wrathful for it. They snap blindly, seeking anything in reach, some digging their fangs into the doorframe as the creature drags herself upwards. Already I can feel the blazing numbness of their poison storming up my arm. Yeah, poison. Say you've got a bunch of mirrors and you can avoid the Gorgon's gaze during a full-out encounter. "No big deal," says the Gorgon, "That's what my paralytic head snakes are for." If not by guile, she'll incapacitate you by force. Sometimes the legends get it right. My hand is a mess of tiny cuts. Perfect, the blood is a crucial component in the spell. I flick my middle finger vertically in the air, and then I draw a line with my index finger like a horizontal 'v,' bisecting the first line. The air flashes, takes on a pink tint, and I feel a hit of gravity sucking against my hand like a vacuum. "Compel!" I scream inside my head. The spell has no verbal component, though. That part is more like an 'attaboy' to convince yourself that you're doing a really, really good job at magic. I snap my hand away before the snakes can reach me, just in case the spell fails, but almost immediately they cease their thrashing. For a moment, for a sweet peaceful moment, the snapping and the hissing of the snakes stops. All there is between us is my ragged gasping and the Gorgon's howls. She has recovered enough that she can put one hand against the wall. She has finished dragging herself upwards. She is opening her left eye. Then, just like that, the snakes reach an internal consensus. There's a hit of confusion as the spell takes hold of them, then they all decide on the proper course of action. The proper course of action, suggested by my spell, is that they all bite the fuck out of their master's face. The Gorgon wails as her hair turns against her. She stumbles backwards into the bedroom. Her talons grip and pull at her head, tearing out two or three snakes at a time, screaming in abject pain as she mutilates herself to stop her own body from biting her over, and over, and over. I can only imagine it; like ripping off your leg to escape a bullet wound. Should I be horrified or relieved? Right now my stomach is kind of seesawing between the two. I have stolen another few seconds, but the Compulsion spell, way more complicated than my illumination cantrip, is about ten levels above my pay grade. I won't get another bit of magic out, not even the orb again. Glancing around the bathroom, the closest thing I see to a weapon is the shower rod. The Gorgon writhes and bucks on the floor, overcoming the snakes gradually, bit by bit. Her screams have transmuted to those of pure fury, not pain. Great. I've done an excellent job of pissing her off, if nothing else I turn towards the tub and leap forward, balancing on the porcelain side of it and grabbing the shower rod with both hands. It's screwed into the wall on either side. I'm probably not strong enough to yank it out, but... I throw myself backwards and down, leaping down to the ground and letting my weight do the work of tearing the rod from the wall. I almost fall flat on my ass, again - twice in one night, not good, Carr - I take two or three stumbling steps backwards before I get my balance back. I turn myself towards the bedroom, trying to keep the Gorgon in the corner of my eye. Maybe her seduction gaze won't work as well on peripheral vision. Yeah, good luck with that. The Gorgon's head is a patchwork mess of stumps, and streaming blood, and the few snakes who escaped her wrath. She slithers to her feet again, though her movement is unsteady. Blood spills down from her face, forehead, cheeks, anywhere the fangs found purchase. My left arm is flagging as the venom finds my bloodstream. Already I can barely curl my fingers. This may be my only shot. I charge forward just as she's standing. The shower rod proves to be a better weapon than I expected, the ragged edge from where my fall sheared it from the wall punches squarely into the Gorgon's chest, and I swear I push against her so hard it ought to come right out the other side. Did you ever see that jousting movie? The one with Heath Ledger? Where he's a knight and it's medieval times, but all the peasants sing "We Will Rock You" at the tournament? It's like that. Or... at least it felt like that. I only get it in an inch or so and that brings me into striking distance. One of her flailing arms hits home and she nails me with a strength that doesn't really jibe with her waify little limbs. I rebound against the wall and end up in a pile on the floor. Her swerving tail slithers her forward in dense, muscular strokes and her left hand curls around the shower rod, which has stuck right into her. Her eyes meet mine and I know, instinctually, her gaze has taken hold. I feel it grip around my brain and, all of a sudden, it's like I want to be the perfect statue for her. I am standing, very slowly, getting into the position she desires of me. Her forked tongue hisses angrily out of her mouth, she salivates over the blood nearest to her lips, and she jerks the shower rod away, out of her body, and hurls it against the wall where it rings out with a hollow clatter. The walls in this place are probably paper thin. The neighbors have almost certainly heard the commotion. Hell, half of Bay Ridge must be stirring by now. She positions me with one hand at my jaw, so two of my fingers are scooped under my ear and the others rest on my cheek. Her hand is almost gentle as the talons clasp around the band in my ponytail and work it out, freeing the hair to spill out over my face. I am scrambling to find any place in my head where the magic might be, but again and again I come up empty. Her eyes scintillate and spread in the dim bedroom light. The irises transmute from green to yellow to orange and my breath begins to slow... A gout of flame bursts out from behind her, and the light arcs up around her head like a halo. She screams in fury and turns towards the source of the blaze, and I have a clear view of her singed back, and the snarling, serpentine muscles of her shoulders as she throws her arms backwards, out behind herself at an angle, and roars at the new aggressor. Her tail seizes, and she aims to hurl herself forward. The source of the fire-related assistance is this tall asshole in a black t-shirt and blacker jeans. He's got mirror shades on. Guy's stupid enough to cast his shitty fire magic indoors, but at least he remembered his aviators. I'll have time to be embarrassed later. He's backing away, at least for a second. Fire magic isn't easy to control. You have to be a pretty powerful mage to do it in the first place, and even then you'll only get a couple shots before you're completely spent. He doesn't have time to get out another blast. Lacking other options, I heave myself to the floor and wrap both arms around the meat of the Gorgon's tail. Her momentum jerks her body forward, but my weight sends her smashing face-first to the ground before she gets the sense to wriggle out of my grip. She doesn't bother getting up, her claws against the floor and her tail writhing are more than enough to close the couple feet between her and the mage. To my surprise Mr. Fire Mage spools up a second burst. He throws a hand across his body and the spray flicks out into the air, sailing ponderously like refined spheres of white-hot magma. When they impact, whether against her or the carpet, they burst into arcing trails of flame, singing the Gorgon's face, and lightning up a good bit of the carpet and the nearby bedframe. My chest seizes from the spectral force reverberating through the room and I roll myself onto my back, unable to clear my head and stand. My head is spinning, maybe just because I've been yanked out from under the Gorgon's control. I've... I've never seen anyone produce that much flame all at once. I've heard guys brag about it, sure, but this guy just tore lava out of the fucking ether. The beast flails onto her back on the carpet, thrashing her tail just inches from my head. She whips her hands in front of her seared face, trying to protect herself from the heat and fire. But the damage is already done, and the choking smell of burnt meat fills the apartment. Have you ever eaten snake? I did once, when I was eight. My dad made me try it. We were on a camping trip in Arizona. It's actually not that bad. The smell, though... She roars a final time and surges herself back upright. She has had it. Seething body hurtling forward, the Gorgon barrels right into the guy, slamming him to the side, almost knocking him off balance as she storms past him in a hail of arms, snarls, and the snapping of the few head snakes that escaped destruction by her talons, the flame, or each other. He almost seems... surprised, when she barrels past him, her momentum throwing the statue of Elizabeth Sinclair, placed right in the middle of the Gorgon's exit strategy, into his arms like a fainting damsel, and he catches it with an insane fumble that leaves him on the floor, and nearly crushed by the weight of poor Liz. There's the crash of glass from the other room. I can't see, but I assume the Gorgon has found a way to fit through the living room's postcard of a window. "Idiot!" I say, as my brain catches up with reality. I stumble for the bathroom and grope behind the toilet, where Elizabeth Sinclair has stored her New York-standard fun-sized fire extinguisher. My brain is mine again, but my body is still surging with the toxins. I move back into the bedroom with a lurch. I barely have enough acuity left in my fingers to pull the pin on the extinguisher. From there it's just the brute force of holding down the handle and spraying wherever I can. Already the flames are eating through the thick carpet in waves, seeking the infinitely more flammable hardwood floor underneath. Who puts a carpet over hardwood floors? Fucking Bay Ridge. The blaze is fairly contained, thank god for that. To his credit, Mr. Tall, Blonde, and Nordic cheekbones has been stomping one of his stupid clompy boots over one of the remaining patches of flame. I throw myself backwards against the wall, for support, after I've put out the worst of the flames and the extinguisher falls with a clonk onto the carpet. I pant, and grip my bite-riddled arm against my chest. "You moron! You want to burn the whole damn building down??" "Not even a thank you?" He asks, sliding those ridiculous mirror shades up his forehead and looking at me with eyes colored like crystal at the bottom of a deep pool. If his expression weren't so deadpan he'd come off as sarcastic. I lean against the wall near the bathroom door and grip my wounded arm at the elbow. "Next time try to do it without the third degree burns, dick! What the hell are you doing here anyway? Who are you?" "I'm saving your life, apparently." He grins at me, just tweaking up the left side of his mouth, and dusts at his shirt, where Gorgon blood spattered across the side of it. It's not very visible against the dark material. He could fix it with a cold wash. "I could ask you the same question, but first I'd have to ask why you thought it was a good idea to hunt a Gorgon without even bringing a pair of sunglasses." "Because nobody told me it was a Gorgon, that's why! And I'm here because it's my goddamn job!" I get back on both feet and head for the bathroom once the room stops spinning. "And you're the only monster hunter in the city?" "Eat shit," I say as I begin rifling through the medicine cabinet, throwing things like floss and ibuprofen to the floor. "Your arm." He says, behind me, "You'll live?" I snipe back at him over my shoulder. "He knows to bring sunglasses, but he doesn't know shit about Gorgon venom. I can take care of myself." My left arm is completely dead at my side. The effects of the venom aren't permanent, but they'll knock you out for a few hours if you don't catch it in time. You can make a pretty effective Gorgon anti-venom out of a few household objects, and Elizabeth Sinclair kept better stock of her medicine cabinet than the rest of her apartment led me to expect. "Good," he says. I grab up a big brown bottle of peroxide and turn back towards the bedroom, but he's already gone. Asshole. 3. Shen looks up as the bell above the door to the bookstore clangs. I wave to him with the gauze and Band-Aid mess that is my left arm. Tending to the bites on the fingers was the worst. I don't think I'll get a good curl out of my hand for a week. "You didn't call..." he starts. You have to concentrate to navigate Shen's store. The space is wall-to-wall bookshelves, but that only covers about a third of the stock. Brooklyn rent is ticking up and up, especially in the Slope, and the magical tome business isn't exactly booming, so mostly we just organize the leftovers in piles on the floor as best we can. There is room for about one and a third person on any given walkway between the three-to-six foot tall piles of ancient and archaic works (and a few of the standard trashy vampire books, you know, to draw in the kids). "Aw, did I worry you? I would've texted, but I was too busy throwing myself into a taxi cab and fighting off paralytic brain poison to say goodnight. I kept the receipt, by the way, so break out petty cash." "Poison?" Shen asks, "Then..." "Yup. We got a Grade A Genuine Gorgon in our little borough." "Caroline, girl, this is no good. This is no good." Have you seen Gremlins? Remember that racist caricature of a magic shop owner? Shen, who is short, 60s, Chinese, and could probably stand to lose a pound or two (but not too many, I'd miss those ruddy, pinchable cheeks), affects the "wise old Asian guru" bit for the customers, but he's 100% Brooklyn-bred. He's got a silk hat he wears on days when he's feeling particularly prankish, and he does the wispy goatee thing on months when he doesn't feel like shaving, but Shen's barely left the city, let alone the country. I asked him once if he even spoke Chinese. He babbled at me for about a minute in something that convinced me he did, but what do I know? It could've just been part of the shtick. "You're telling me," I say, wriggling my hand's worth of war wounds in case he's forgotten. "Carol, I'm gonna ask you again: find yourself a gun." "Yeah right! New York's changed since you were a kid, Shen. It'd be a hell of an end to my illustrious career to end up in jail for possession of an illegal firearm." I step around a pile of tomes. New delivery, I think; they haven't had time to gather dust. "Besides think of the logistics. Silver ammo, wooden ammo..." Shen leans forward across the counter and fixes me with this fatherly eye as I get close. "I'd rather imagine you in an orange jumpsuit than a funeral gown." "I dunno, I'd look pretty good in something all frilly and mournful, don't you think?" I grin and beckon with my fingers, trying to be all coy, but the pain in my hand makes me wince. "Oh well, it's good to hear that, at your age, you've still got enough verve to imagine a girl in anything at all." "Caroline..." he says, in a stern tone reserved for willful poodles and impetuous 20-somethings. "Well if it'll make you feel better, I'll get a squirt gun and fill it with holy water." I raise the fingers of my good hand, cock them, and fire. "P-chah!" He frowns. My feigned disregard for my health and wellbeing is not as charming and/or infectious as I'd hoped. I turn towards the shortest stack of books on the counter. "Heraclitus's Digest, huh?" I ask, carefully flipping open the cover. "First Renaissance printing?" "Of course." Shen says, crossing his arms after adjusting the big blue sleeves on his work "costume," "You saw the new Jaguar outside, didn't you? It's parked right next to my private jet." Okay, so I laugh. "This one's 18th century at the latest. Some suspicion it's from one of Franklin's printing presses, but I think that was just the vendor giving me the hard sell." He shrugs, dismissing his charity, "I took pity on the kid." I lean forward and put my elbow on the counter, giving his wrinkly cheek an affectionate pinch, "Aw, Shen! Look at you, you old softly." He grimaces and steps away, rubbing his cheek where I assaulted him. "Caroline, you're changing the subject." "Oh fine. Hey, funny thing, and by funny I mean annoying as fuck: just as I'm about to get eaten - did I mention I almost got eaten? - this Nordic looking motherfucker shows up outta nowhere and saves my ass with this real whizbang fire magic. You wouldn't know anything about that, wouldja Shenny?" He doesn't try to mask his surprise, and I've never known Shen to lie to me. "No, I..." "Who's been feeding you these tidbits anyway? I mean, I dig the whole Deep Throat thing, I just wonder..." "You wonder why a Gorgon has petrified three separate women and left them where they stood." I tap my fingers against my temple before indicating him. "You and me, Shen, you and me." Then I shake my head and smile, "Not that a girl minds being saved from time to time, I'd just like to know where to repay the favor. Like maybe I could spray the carpet with a flamethrower while he's struggling within an inch of his life and see how he likes it." "Fire magic?" says Shen. "You've made some impressive friends, Caroline." "Hey, don't call us buds, douchebag didn't even tell me his name. Anyway, what do you figure the odds are your Deep Throat told my Fire Mage about Victim #3? Guy's on some whacked out shit. Like is there a magical equivalent of steroids? Because, no fooling, I saw him whip about a square foot of magma out of thin air." Shen snorts and the curls of his goatee twitch as he purses his lips. "Impossible." "Hey man, I saw it." "The poison. You may not have been thinking clearly." I shrug. "Rationalize it however you want, but I saw it." The door chimes and we both turn to look. In comes this mousey girl with coke bottle glasses and a frumpy sweater. Probably here looking for some flavor for her next Dungeons and Dragons session, we get a lot of those types. They're not so bad. They buy more stuff than the window-shopping Goths. Shen swoops into his bookstore persona. "Welcome," he chimes, in his affected 'aah, soo' accent. "How may the humble Shen assist you today?" She seems indecisive for a moment, like she can't tell if he's pulling a joke on her. But the wizened Chinese sage act tends to work on the tourists and the college kids. "Shen," I ask, "Gorgons?" "Oh, yes Caroline." He says in his most obsequious, nose-scraping way, "Paracelsus's Analytics. Volume VII." "I'll be in the back..." *** A few hours later Shen has stepped out for a pack of cigarettes and to pick up his dry cleaning. I'm sat behind the desk, still poring over the master works of Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, while I scarf my way through my second chicken parm and a large soda. Shen would probably have a shit fit if he saw me keeping greasy Italian food this close to such an old book, even though it's a third generation copy, but I'm doing my best to eat with one hand so I don't get any smudges on the paper. That's the thing about magic: it's hell on the calories. Burns more fat than cardio kickboxing, that's for sure. I'm a little on the weak side, as far as mages go, I specialize in cantrips and other light magics - like the ball of light, or gusts of wind, that sort of thing - but even something as relatively complex as a Compulsion spell shouldn't have taken this much wind out of me. I write it off to the crap sleep I got. Life or death situations tend to keep you up at night. The shop bell chimes and I look up, expecting Shen. I'm already working out my "sorry about the greasy sandwich" apology. But no, it's Mr. Tall, Norse, and Cocky. I drawl out the standard greeting without a hint of my boss's flair. "Welcome to Shen's Oddities." "I'm not here for the books," he says. He's changed his clothes, but he obviously pulls from a fairly limited wardrobe. Black wifebeater, black jeans. Sneakers this time, not boots. I roll my eyes. "No shit. How'd you find me?" "How'd you find the Gorgon?" I flip my book shut and clear away some of the crumbs from the counter. "Maybe this'll go better if we stop answering each other's questions with questions." "We have a source in common." He approaches the counter, stepping easily around the piles of books. "Beyond that, I think you know as much as I do." "All right. What do I call you, then, or does that kill your carefully crafted mystique?" He's taller, close up, now that I have the time to think on it. He's gotta be like 6'4, and the sleeveless tank top just highlights his lean frame. You might even call him lanky, if his arms weren't lithe and sinewy and dense with understated muscle. A lot of ladies like a nice, tall man, and at my prodigious 5'7 I'm taller than the average girl, but damn if I don't feel like a pipsqueak compared to him. "Alexander," he says, plainly. "Fine, Alex. And I'm-" "Caroline Harper." "Well," I say, "I guess now I know as much as you do. Good to know our mutual source is telling you my whole life story." "I've found the Gorgon's nest." Straight to business, huh? "Well thank god you came rushing right over to tell me! What's the matter, big ole fire mage can't get the job done?" "You're coming with me." His voice is deep, and his speech is slow, but purposeful. If we were hanging at some club I'd write it off him playing hard to get. "Oh, I am?" I drop my elbow atop my book and lean across the counter. "Hey man, remember that awesome part of the 60s where all the ladies got together and burned their bras? I don't gotta do what you say just because you crook your little finger at me." "The fire last night, that was partially your fault." "The hell it was." His eyebrows raise. He almost seems taken aback. A first. "Do you honestly not know what I'm talking about?" "Hey, can't hurt to be specific." "You're a Conduit." "Like hell I am!" Conduits are dangerous. They'll suck the life out of you as you sleep. Conduits are weak. They couldn't conjure ball lightning during a thunderstorm. There's a lot of differing opinions about Conduits. What's a Conduit? Someone people don't tend to like. A Conduit is a parasite, depending on who you ask, but in reality it's more like they're just really good at shuffling energy from one place to another. That just happens to include moving energy into and out of human beings. This can make them dangerous, but it can also make those around them incredibly powerful. Think of it like a power schematic. A mage takes in energy and decides where it needs to go. But the world's got a lot of energy, and magic takes a hell of a toll. Most mages, even with the easy stuff, operate with really crap efficiency. They burn out quick. Me? I can do little things, like my light sphere, until the cows come home. I'm like a perpetual motion machine of low-grade tricks and illusions, but if I try for anything bigger than a sideshow attraction, like that Compulsion trick, it completely wipes me out. But being efficient with your wimpy magic doesn't make you a Conduit. I'm almost thirty. I guess some part of me thought I was in the clear, like if I was a Conduit I almost definitely would've known by now. Alex is looking at me with lowered brows. "Give me another explanation for what happened last night. I'm an accomplished mage, but I'm not that accomplished." Talk about pretentious! The way he says 'I'm accomplished mage' summons visions of stuffy libraries and expensive scotch and red velvet smoking jackets. I almost parrot the phrase back at him, just to let him know how it sounds coming out of his dumb mouth, but I think better of it. Instead, I say, "Been on this blue marble for nigh on three decades, Al, don't you think I would've noticed by now? Anyway, a lot of guys can't control their output. You shouldn't feel bad about it." My diss goes over like a limp balloon. "I'm telling you what our mutual friend told me. If you have any objections direct them at him." There are ways to avoid letting your Conduit-ness manifest: don't cast a lot of spells near other mages, keep your head on straight in tense situations, don't eat food after midnight. Okay, the last one is from Gremlins, but it's still a good rule for general life. I've spent my entire life conscientiously following rules like this, so if I am a Conduit that nobody would ever, ever know. But magic manifests in weird ways. It's tricky. The way my adrenaline was kicking last night the energy was probably sheeting out of me in waves anyway. If a mage wasn't expecting an extra boost I can see why he might accidentally go a little overboard with his flame discharge... "Fuck..." I say, resting my elbow on the counter and cupping my hand over my face. "Next time Shen picks up the phone I'm going to give this buddy of yours and his an earful. What else did he tell you? You wanna list off my top ten embarrassing first dates?" "The Gorgon will be more ferocious in her den. She will have healed, and if she hasn't already, she will soon go on a rampage to regain more of her strength." "Look at Mr. Encyclopedia! With you around," I pick up the text, Paracelsus's Analytics, Volume VII, and wave it lazily about, "I probably don't even need this." "You must have sensed it last night. She is not an ordinary Gorgon. She is feeding off of something nearby, a source of power, a ley line, maybe." "A human ley line." I continue his thought. "She's making the statues for him, all the pretty young girls, but she's leaving them at the scene. Why?" "Fire won't been enough, not even with your assistance. It will stun her, but we need something that will- "Seal the deal?" I sweep some of the books, and the rest of my lunch, over to one side of the counter, so I can open my text and turn it towards him. "Quicksilver, aka mercury. You were awake that day in Chemistry class, right? They used to use it to make mirrors. Get my drift?" "Yes." He says, shifting on his feet. He's becoming impatient. Maybe he gets it, or maybe he's just acting like he does. I assume the latter, but partially because I think it makes me sound pretty smart. "Gorgons and mirrors are like oil and water." "Slathering ourselves in mercury will be counterproductive." I almost laugh, but the sting of the Conduit talk still sticks in the back of my mind, so I hold it back. "That's why I'm the brains of this operation. Listen, alchemists love mercury. They go crazy for it." I cup a finger to my ear, really play it up for the crowd, "What's that you I hear you saying? 'Why's that Caroline?' Well I'll tell you! Because this stuff-" I tap a lovingly detailed drawing in the text "-with the proper application of a Fuse spell, will bond with just about any magic anything, and that includes the very magical innards of a certain Gorgon." "Good," he says. "Then tonight, before she can crawl back out into the world." "When?" "Before sundown." He takes the receipt paper from next to the register and writes an address down on it. "Will you need reagents?" "I travel light." "Good," he says again. "Good." Already he's turning towards the door. "Thanks so much for helping, Caroline!" I sing-song after him, "I would've never gotten this far without you!" He looks back at me over his shoulder with those blue eyes set in a colossally lame stare deep under his dusty blonde eyebrows. This is like de rigeur for him, I guess, wandering into people's places of work and shifting their entire sense of self like it's no big deal. What a dick. Doesn't he know I'm supposed to be the quippy, nonchalant one? "Tonight," he says. "Tonight," I intone back, deep as I can muster, so he knows I'm mimicking him. Then I go back to my sandwich. 4. Shen has his misgivings about me going out after last night, but I ply him with a bunch of 'think of the children!' lines about the next possible victim, or string of victims, and he eventually relents and gives his blessing. And access to his cache of materials, which includes the mercury. The address is a burned-out factory in the middle of nowhere-land in the northwest corner of Dyker Heights, far from any subway access (another taxi receipt), but centrally located to all the previous murders. Alex is waiting for me across the street. It's after sundown by the time we've finished our preparations. "Gorgons have the worst sense of style," I say, eying the rows upon rows of smashed-out windows. It's gotten colder. I brought my leather jacket. I also picked up a pair of cheap-o reflective aviators from a dollar store on the way over (actual cost: $3.99, thanks inflation). I look like a douche wearing them, so I keep them propped up on my head for now. My hair is already tied back in a ponytail. Alex has not dressed for the weather, he's sticking with the tank top. Hey, if I had gymnast arms like his, I might show off a bit too. "Just one?" he asks, when I show him the case with the mercury syringe in it. "Hell yeah just one. It was hard enough to get this shit into the syringe without getting it all over my fingers and receiving an extreme case of mercury poisoning. Just make sure you don't waste it." "When I draw power from you..." he begins, but trails off. "Aw! Who's shy all of a sudden?" He fixes me with this steely gaze. I try to grin through it. "Look, let's act like it's no big deal, okay? You cast your spells, I'll get in tune with the spirits, and everything will work out... I mean, probably. Just try not to burn the neighborhood down in the process." He nods. I say it's not a big deal, but I spent most of the afternoon researching it. Shame there isn't a Google search filter for 'hey I'm probably this really weird species of mage that nobody likes to talk about.' Like a puberty book for Conduits. "Can you do anything besides fire?" I ask. "Yes," he says. Fine. I didn't want to know anyway. "I spent all afternoon practicing," I say, like it'll cut the tension. "How do you feel on your magical prowess vis-à-vis a pet rat?" "What?" Alex asks. I think I have finally shocked him. "Shen's rat, Rupert. He didn't seem to mind when I grabbed him up and channeled the 'power of the Earth Goddess' or whatever, into him." "I am not a pet rat." I grin. "Well I've never known Rupert to sling any fireballs, but it seemed like he enjoyed it. I mean he squirmed a bunch, but like I was tickling him. Will you tell me if it tickles?" He doesn't even bother to reply. I put a check mark in my mental victory column. The factory is barred by a heavy steel door, which is painted black in the places where it hasn't rusted through. It takes both of us to open it. The Gorgon has probably been using the second story windows. It's dark inside, and Gorgons have excellent night vision, so there's no risk of me giving us away by summoning my light. As it is, she's probably caught our smell already. The factory is a wide-open floor space. Most of the equipment has been removed, either by the previous owners or by bums looking for scrap to sell, but you can still see the rusty patterns in the floor where the hulking machines once stood. I step around a collapsed pile of broken bricks. In the distance I can hear the plip of water from a leaky roof. "I don't like the idea of putting on these things on in the dark," I say. "Can you float that light to leave your hands free? You won't be any good in a fight while you're holding it." "Not without a shitload of concentration." I put my shades on and he does too. There's enough ambient moonlight to see, but just barely. Next time I invest in one of those keychain flashlights. "Listen, you're the big, strong fire mage. I'm going to just stand behind you and make sure your booms are as everything they need to be." My something rustles against my shoe. I squat down and the beacon's light illuminates the floor. It's a carcass, a rat or a squirrel maybe, stripped to the bones. When I look up I see a trail of them leading across the floor. We follow it in silence, with me in a half-squat so I can keep the path lit. The mess of pulped animal ribcages lead us to a pile in the corner, where a mass of significantly larger bones, some of which are probably cats and small dogs, some of which are definitely human. "Do you hear that?" I ask, in a whisper. "It's water, from the pipes." "No I-" What I heard was the chattering noise of the Gorgon's hiss as she slunk through the rafters above us. Before I can finish my sentence she descends like a boa constrictor, falling bodily on top of me, knocking the wind out of my lungs and crushing my ribs against the hard concrete floor. My light shorts out the second I lose my concentration. "Fuck!" I say, with the last of my breath, as her claws flail against the thick leather of my jacket. The Gorgon's tail slaps eagerly against the backs of my legs. Her claws strip through my jacket, but she hasn't drawn blood yet. A flare of light blossoms through the room for just an instant. Not an attack, but Alex's own sort of cantrip, a nanosecond of flame meant to scare the Gorgon, as if she were a skittish woodland creature. Gorgons aren't smart by any means, but they operate on more than just instinct. Still, the fire does its job and she swerves away from my body, taking up a defensive position a few feet away from us. Alex has a flame in his palm, now, a small orb of rolling, molten fire, like a tiny sun, and it is slowly growing. Lit by the flame, the Gorgon's seared and mutilated face is made visible. She's the same one, as if there were any doubt, but she has recovered admirably from last night's damage. Her strength, certainly, hasn't ebbed one bit. I jerk myself upwards with a handhold onto Alex's jeans. I pat the pocket of my jacket to make sure I've still got the syringe case. The Gorgon is sliding herself backwards and using her arms to shield her face. In her defensive pose, she looks almost fragile, and between her bared breasts is the fresh wound where I jammed the shower rod into her. The orb in Alex's hand quakes and shivers. His control over it is fluctuating. Normal mages aren't made for this kind of precision. "I need you," he says. Every girl's dream, the guy who says that. That's Tom-Cruise-in-Jerry-Macguire level talk. But he doesn't mean me; he means what I can do. So I grip down on his bare arm, the one not holding his flame, and I concentrate on letting the power seeping into my body, up from the ground and through my shoes, flow through me and into him. As it's my first time trying, I don't know what to do other than let it happen. The tingling in my feet winds its way upwards, through my body and out of my arms and... and... Well shit. I didn't expect, when I was feeding myself into him, that he'd go and start feeding back into me. I get these flashes in my mind, flashes from his brain. Not just fireballs and magic spells: pictures, thoughts, memories, dozens of them, hundreds of them, but so many it's like looking at someone's grade school magazine collage. I slap my hand against my forehead and over my eye. The dip of his magic pushing back against me makes my limbs seize up. His magic and mine stare down each other's ethereal eyes. The world stops for a second, and the power builds and builds and builds inside of me, roiling about and lighting up every inch of me, flowing up through the earth, filling me up, but it hasn't found an outlet... not yet. Then... it does. His magic spreads wide and lets mine in. All this happens in, like, a second, but it feels like a million minutes and my concentration shatters in a thousand directions. My knees buckle when the buzzing in my veins gets to be too much. Fuck! My distraction causes me to lose control over the swell of the power, and it flows through me like a firehouse. I stop myself from falling to my knees by grabbing tighter around his arm and biting my nails into his skin. Through the line of power that connects him and me I feel his body tense and his teeth grit. The orb shivers and quakes, and he's barely able to chuck it away before it doubles in size. He tosses it with a clumsy sideways hurl, like he's never pitched a game of baseball in his life. It impacts the ground just in front of the Gorgon's lower body and billows out to four times its size and draws fresh screams out of the best. The searing heat that rolls past us and Alex and I have to shield our faces. The room goes almost completely dark once the spell is cast, but there remains a faint glow from the quickly cooling lava dribbles spattered across the concrete. Even with that I can barely see through my shades, but I can't risk taking them off. "Rorarrr!" screams the Gorgon as she throws her arms backwards and hurls her body towards us in a shaking charge, the handful of head snakes that remain sneer and snap at the air, threatening even as they paradoxically beg us to come closer. Alex covers his eyes with his arm and my nails bite down into the skin at his elbow. He throws his other hand out and across, and a swell of flame spills out of his palm in a ballooning semi-circle aura. Its range is only a foot or two, but it casts out just as the Gorgon is in swiping distance and catches her full on. She recoils, once again scrambling to protect her seared face. Alex falls to one knee and nearly drags me with him. I gave him too much. The fireball alone probably took a week off his life. "Shit!" I shout, jumping backwards to keep myself upright. "The mercury!" "Yeah!" I fumble for the protective case. I get the syringe out and uncapped and leap for the Gorgon, who is covering one half of her face with one hand while she swipes the talons of the other this way and that. Nothing for it. I charge and, against all odds, manage to stick her right in her curved, porcelain, perfect neck. Before I can depress the plunger her flailing arm knocks me backwards. I keep my hand on the syringe, somehow, but the levering motion of the needle against her collarbone nearly wrenches the whole thing out of my grip before my tumbling away yanks it out of her. The Gorgon lashes herself towards me with her claws raised for a killing strike,. Screaming out a cry that is part fear and part pain and part just to psyche me up, I stab the syringe forward with both hands, jamming it up and into her stomach just as she slaps the glasses away from my face with swipe of her claws that draws a diagonal slash across my the top of my nose, right between the eyes. I bear down through the pain and squeeze the plunger, sending the payload of liquid metal right into her gut. I keep both my hands on the syringe like if I let it go I'd fall right off the face of the earth. The air is still for a second. We look each other eye to eye, both of us struggling for breath. Her arms go limp at her sides. I don't feel any compulsion or seduction pulling at me. We are looking at each other like two human beings, me with the blood from my lacerated nose spilling into the corners of my eyes, her from eyes green like crystal, set in behind the charred, flaking flesh of her cheek and forehead. She blinks and I blink. Then the wail comes out of her in a 'roawrrrarr!" and she digs her talons into the spot where I have injected the poison. When that fails, she throws her arms up towards the heavens in a plaintive pose. For a second I can almost imagine her as a statue of her own. Then the puppet strings of her body are cut, and she crumples to the floor in an inert pile. I am standing with my hands at my side, gasping, when Alex gets back to his feet and stands beside me, taking in the kill. "It worked," he says. I still haven't regained my breath. "How... observant... of you." "Then we're done. You can leave." He kneels by the slain beast, moving her arm away from her face. He tilts her chin upwards and her head lolls back. Her eyes are open, staring at nothing. I bend forward and use my shirt to sop up the blood streaming from my nose. "The body..." I say. "I need to collect the reagents while they are fresh. I will bring your share to the book store." I'm too tired to argue. He's produced a small knife and is angling it at the Gorgon's face. I stare at him, and when he realizes I'm doing it he looks back up at me. He stares back for a second, then says, "Watch, if you like." I drag the side of my hand against my nose, clearing away whatever blood I can. "What, no celebration? You don't want me to buy you a beer? Nothing?" He shakes his head and returns to his work. There is moonlight streaming in from the tall windows, now. Enough light to work with, I guess. The knife digs in under her eyes. My mouth feels dry. I spit across the floor. "Mages, god. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to have any fun?" 5. James opens the door with a hit of surprise on his face. "Carol," he says, "You didn't call..." "I don't call," I say, "Not usually." I step closer to him. He's shirtless and in these plaid pajama bottoms. Clearly he wasn't expecting company. I curl my finger across his bare chest, roll it around one of those small nipples. The past twenty-four hours have been all charge and no release, and a couple drinks by my lonesome weren't cutting it. Might be nice to feel something that wasn't fear, or confusion, or pain, I thought. Might be nice to get thrown up against a wall... "Your nose..." He says. "Oh this old thing?" I ask, with a slurred smile. "I've had it all my life." My body presses forward, into his, and he puts an arm around my shoulders more on reflex than by desire. "I can smell her on you," I say, "A were. What was she? A wolf, a panther?" He is taken aback, and his response is, "...I can smell the beer on you..." I grin, and my hand on his chest, wedged between our bodies, strokes gradually upwards, across his neck and onto his earlobe. "Was plenty of beer in me the other night, too," I say, as my grin widens and my eyes lowered, "I figured you'd want a little payback. Come on now, invite me in." And he does. He only gets as far as the couch before I shove him down and throw myself into his lap. He doesn't stop me, even when I've thrown my sneakered feet up onto his clean cushions. "Tell me about her," I ask, tilting my head towards his neck, drinking in his scent. And hers too? I might just be imagining it. "Carol, I don't think that's-" "I'm not the jealous type, Jim," I say, as my flat, human teeth work against his neck, pressing strong bites against his soft skin. I smell the lotion on him, and the sweat. "I am the needy type, however." "Should I get the scarves?" He asks. His strong, wide hands grab me up about the shoulders and massage my skin firmly against the bone. The tension I didn't even know I was holding on to begins to slink away... "Ah," I moan, despite myself, and I retreat from his neck. "Not tonight. You've been so good, haven't you? You've been very patient, James, and patience gets rewarded." His hands can't decide where to take me - though honestly I would've let them stay at my shoulders all night - so they claim everything, all at once. He digs his fingers under my bra, but over my shirt. He finds the needy, flat rise of my nipple through the fabric, pinches it eagerly, even as his other hand digs between my legs, grabs me by the inside of my thigh and squeezes the giving flesh for all it's worth. "Now you've got the spirit," I say, slowly. My head is filling with haze, and not just from the beer. He turns me so that I face the couch, presses my head down into the arm of it, and jerks a hand underneath my hips to scoop my ass up into the air. His thighs enfold mine, he leans his body forward and his teeth, closer to fangs than I've got, work around my earlobe. His breath is hot. My jeans are thick, but his pajamas are barely a barrier at all, and I can feel the steely press of his erection slipping across my ass. "Like this?" He growls it, and his tongue slips around all the places his teeth dug into my ear. "This is what you imagined, isn't it? This is what you think I did to her?" "Yes," I gasp, and bury my face against the couch, "Yes." His hand grips me by the roots of my hair. He pulls my head up and I can't hide my face anymore. I moan when it's become clear that he's yanked his bottoms down, when I can feel the scrambling press of his bared cock against rough denim. "I thought of you," he says, speech nearly replaced by grunts, "Like you asked. I thought of you the whole time." I thought of you too, James, this morning, in the shower. It wasn't enough. It wasn't anywhere close to enough. A trail of discarded clothes as we wind our way to the bedroom. He has me by the upper arms from behind. He is almost marching me, and he grabs me by the hips every few steps and forces my ass into his want, whenever he wants, until I think we might just give up and do it right there, against the living room wall. He has my jeans down around my ankles. He is rutting up against my underwear, dick smearing its sticky precum against the lower curve of my ass, imbuing its heat into me. He jerks me around, facing him. The wall clonks hollowly when he throws my back up against it. He is panting and I am panting. My fingers scramble against his cheeks and along the line of his jaw, tickling across his tiny hint of stubble. I push my heels up and grip his face, drag his lips to mine. I focus on kissing him. I focus on spearing my tongue through his lips, and he does the rest. The hardest part is getting my legs apart, and getting him between them, with my jeans tight around my knees, and my underwear jerked down to join them as quickly as I could manage. His hand is cinched tight in my hair, tugging at my head, gradually easing me away until our lips break apart. His palm against my mouth, "Lick," he huffs. And I do. I close my eyes and sweep my tongue around the inside of his hand. My shoulders shudder at the salty taste of his skin. I can feel his hand, wet with my saliva, wedged between the two of us, working himself up, making himself ready for me. I look up at him. I look at him in those Shifter eyes. He stares back at me, lips slightly parted. I am nodding. Over and over again, I am nodding. There's barely any resistance at all. He works his spit-slick cock into me and my pussy, wet and starving with my need, sends screams up into my stomach so hard I can barely think. His hips cram against mine, my legs still barely able to spread. His thrusts are rugged and labored. My head bobbles with each one, and I pull myself into his body, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and struggling to give him whatever he needs, silently begging for just another inch, just another centimeter, whatever I can get. He's fucking me so hard, even in this awkward position, that my feet are barely touching the ground. The whole of my body weight focuses directly down on my clit, forces it into his stubbly public mound and he's bucked and writhed against me for barely another instant before I shout. "Shit, James!" And my arm sweeps around his shoulder for support. I dig my nails down into his shoulder blade. My orgasm is intense, but instantaneous. Even though it only lasts a microsecond it drags a thousand pounds of pressure out of my body. He feels it. I know he does because a moan spills out of him. My forehead stings; I've clenched my eyes shut as far as they can go. He jerks himself out of me and my stomach sucks away from the vacuum where once there was his wonderful, warm, firm, fucking cock. He flips me around without ceremony. I'm facing the wall again, my sweaty cheek is smeared against it. Again his girth finds my ass, slips between, against, my cheeks. "Gunh..." I moan, and my nails slip and slide over the smooth wall, looking for purchase, looking for anything to hold onto, anything. His hips flex and squirm, and his cock shuttles eagerly through the tight space between our bodies, as if rutting against these plush, pliant parts of me could actually be enough to satisfy him I push both hands against the wall. "No," I say, and he stops like I've said a dirty word. I turn back to look up at him, almost tripping over my jeans, sweeping hair out of my face, clumsily kicking my shoes off. "Not here, I mean," I say, when the worry creases along his forehead, when his basic human decency outweighs his animal need. I am panting. Words are too much. Too much work. Not worth it. Save it. Save the energy for what you want. What you need. I want the bedroom. I want the dark, where I can close my eyes and just... and just... It's just a few feet away, his bedroom, but we barely make it. His hips are flush against my ass, and I can feel his searing heat spilling into me. My nipples are freezing, they shrink away from the cold touch of the windowpane. I am wedged between him and the sill. He is strong. His hand is in my hair, wrenching my neck backwards. It hurts. I'll have to teach him some etiquette, but... not now. He is tall. I have to stand on my toes to allow room for his pistoning. His cock claims me, fucks its way into every inch of me. Lucky James, pretty James. Isn't it fun when the shy ones end up so... gifted? I have my hand between my legs. My wrist rebounds against the hard wood of the windowsill. It hurts, but I've hard worse. I find my clit with one finger and rub it frantically, forcibly, without finesse, through the thick skin of my pussy lips. I gasp as his thrust rebounds my head, my whole body, against the window, and I see stars for a moment. My clit shouts at me, sends a scream through my whole body, forces me to pay attention to it once more, to drag myself upwards, further, and further, and closer... He groans and whimpers like an animal, and I can feel every smooth, fleshy inch of him seizing up inside of me. "Not yet," I say, "Not fucking yet. You wait. You wait." And young James complies. To his eternal credit he doesn't break his stride, not even for an instant. The window creaks under the weight of our combined fuck. My cunt stretches, I ache with the need, and the sharp, muscular line of his hips slaps against me with such fervor that I'm sure I'll have bruises the next day, that I'm sure I won't sit - not comfortably - for the foreseeable future. "Nnngh!" I shout. "Fuck!" As my finger slips through my hood and bears down too hard on my exposed clit. I squint my eyes tight, almost closed, and I watch the light of the stars, what little stars you can see in New York City, glimmer through the clouds, as the tears of my much-needed orgasm force their way out of the corners of my eyes. "Agah!" My whole body quakes while my arms become rigid, and a shudder rolls through the core of me. It's about as subtle a cue as James is equipped to understand. He finds some hidden intensity left inside of him, finds the strength to shift the gears of his hips up one last notch. When he arches his feet, and nullifies the advantage of my own tiptoes, I scream from the deep, full sensation of his cock punching into me. His hard, fucking shaft finds uses for my body that I never anticipated a boy like James would never need. For a few agonizing, wonderful, beautiful seconds, I am a puppet. I am a body of meat for James's need, and when his hot spunk spills into me, and through me, the intensity of his fuck and of his moans eke out a third quiet - almost an afterthought, really - orgasm of my own. We stand sweating and panting and leaning against each other, neither of us speaking. It feels good - great, even. His arms wrap around mine. I'm still pinned between him and the wall, though now his body enfolds me in a protective way. I close my eyes. I relish in the warmth of his embrace and the gentle pull of his softening cock as it shrinks away from me. Eventually, after our breathing has slowed, and when I begin to feel the tickle of his spunk down the inside of my leg, I excuse myself to the bathroom. I spend my time sitting on the toilet obsessing over the weird, frantic need that led me to have unprotected sex with a guy who was probably playing Pokemon cards on the schoolyard while I was graduating high school. It's not pregnancy... one of the fringe benefits of magic is having an intense and particular control over the machinations of your body. Doesn't work like that for STDs, however. James is a good boy, though, and I trust him, and we all slip, once in a while. When I come out, he's sitting on the edge of the bed, and even by the weak starlight I can see him kind of sulk. "See you later?" he asks. "Aw!" I say, inwardly charmed, "Does James need some after-care?" "I just thought-" I plant my fingers across his lips. I smile. "It's cool, babe." I grip him at the back of the head by his short hair and paint a kiss onto his forehead. "I've got a couple hours worth of cuddles in me, I think." So we lay there, with him spooning me, in James the Mog's queen size bed, though he only has two pillows so we each only get one, and I stare at the wall for long minutes after he's fallen asleep. The hard line of his stomach swells and falls against the small of my back, and I know for sure he's out when his hand around my waist begins to gently twitch, and his leg shifts against me, trying to find the right position. I scoop my hand backwards, to cup around his strong shoulder, and I stare at the wall. I summon the orb with my free hand, though I keep its light muted so it doesn't wake James. I watch it rotate and shine in silence, I hold my boy, and I think. ~END~ Next in the Caroline Harper series: "Must Love Hellhounds" The phone rings, you pick up the phone, the voice on the other end tells you where to go. That's how it's always been, that's how it is for every monster hunter, as far as I know. Though it's not like I know many offhand. I prod my shoe at the fire-charred floor of what was once probably the quaint parlor of a charming little Brooklyn three-story. The room, and its adjoining, have been seared black. Gouts of concentrated magical flame have blackened every bit of wall, floor, and furniture in sight, but the house is still standing. Most magical fire sticks around long enough to roast flesh and wallpaper and that's it, but Hellhounds have enough juice to take out a whole building, if they actually care to. Judging by the circular hole in the wall where the flaming breath burnt clear into the adjacent building, this little fella is teething something fierce. If Alex were here I'd rub it in his face so bad! Now Available on amazon.com! Please visit carolineharper.tumblr.com for more information, and follow Zoe on twitter at @zoegmiller