Once Upon a Kiss Read online

  “You make me need.” He held her now, just held her. “In ways I’ve never needed. What are we going to do about this, Kadra?”

  She shook her head. “What must be done is all that can be done.”

  “Things have changed. Things are different now.”

  If only they could be, she thought. With him, a joy she hadn’t known was locked inside her could be free. “What I feel for you fills me, and empties me. I’ve never known this with another.” Still, she made herself draw back from him. “The fate of two worlds is in our hands. We can’t take each other and lose them.”

  “We’ll save them. And then—”

  “Don’t talk of ‘and then.’” She touched her fingers to his lips. “Whatever fate holds for us, we have now. It’s a gift to be treasured, not to be questioned.”

  “I want a life with you.”

  She smiled, but there was sorrow in her eyes. “Some lifetimes have to be lived in a day.”

  He wasn’t going to accept that. He was good at solving puzzles, Harper thought. He’d find a way to solve this one. He also knew when he was banging against a head as hard as his own. There were times for force, and times for strategy.

  “Having a warrior goddess drop on me out of another dimension, visiting an alternate reality, fighting demons, making love. It’s been a pretty full day so far.” He tangled his fingers in her hair. “What’s next on the schedule?”

  Strength, Kadra thought, wasn’t only a matter of muscle. It was a matter of courage. They would both be valiant enough to accept destiny. “We must hunt Sorak, but we will need food and planning time. He’s the mightiest of his kind, and the most sly.”

  “Okay, we’ll order that pizza and fuel up while we figure out our plan of attack.”

  Nodding, and grateful he hadn’t pressed where she was now vulnerable, she rolled off the bed. “What is this pizza?”

  No pizza on A’Dair, he thought. Score one for Earth. “It’s, ah, a kind of pie. Round, usually,” he said as he allowed himself the pleasure of watching her slip on the brief bottom half of her hunting costume.

  “You’re magnificent, Kadra. ‘Beautiful’ is too ordinary, too simple a word,” he added when she stared at him. “Do men on A’Dair tell you that you take their breath away, that looking at you is like being struck blind by a force of beauty so strong it’s painful?”

  His words made her weak, as if she’d slain a thousand demons in one day. “Men do not speak so to slayers.”

  He rose. “I do.”

  “You are different.” So wonderfully different. “When I hear the words from you, they make me feel proud. And shy. I have never been shy,” she added, baffled. “It pleases me that you find me attractive to look at.”

  “Do you think that’s all I meant? You are very attractive. You’re right off the charts in that area. But then you add the courage, the brains, the compassion I saw in you when Mav told you of her father’s death, the active curiosity, the sense of fun, the heart of a warrior. You’re unique to any world, and I’m dazzled by you.”

  “No one has ever…” Her throat burned. “I need time to find the words to give back to you that are as fine and rich.”

  He took her hands, lifted them to his lips. “They were free. They don’t require any trade or payment.”

  “Like a gift?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Thank you.”

  He dressed, switched the TV to the news in case there were any updates. He started to call in the pizza order. Then he remembered it wasn’t just his taste that had to be satisfied this time. “Okay, pizza can come with a variety of options. Meat, vegetables—stuff like onions, mushrooms, peppers, sausage, pepperoni. It’s an endless parade. I usually get it pretty loaded. Is there anything you don’t eat?”

  “I don’t care for the meat of the grubhog.”

  He let out a quick, huffing laugh. “Check. Hold the grubhog.”

  He called in the order—explained to her what a phone was—then went into the kitchen for a couple of beers. “It’ll take about twenty minutes. Let’s figure out what step we take next over a beer.”

  “I like the beer,” she told him.

  “Just one more reason we’re perfect for each other.” He tapped his bottle to hers. “So.” He dropped down on the couch, stretched out. “You said Sorak would have a lair. What sort of digs would he look for? What’s his habit in living arrangements?”

  “Demons live belowground.” She crossed her feet at the ankles, then lowered herself in one smooth move to the floor. “They like the dark after feeding. They will burrow, dig tunnels so they may travel under the ground.”

  She picked up the portable phone he’d set down and began to play with it.

  “In the east, Laris and I once tracked a demon pack to a great lair, with many tunnels through the rock and dirt, with many chambers for stores and sleep and treasures. We slew the pack and destroyed the lair with fire. It was Clud’s palace, and there I destroyed the king of demons. But Sorak, then prince, was not there. When he heard of this, he vowed to kill the slayers who had killed his sire, and to build a great new kingdom in a place where no slayer could defeat him. I have this.”

  She flipped back her hair to show him a thin hooked scar at the base of her neck. “Only a demon king can leave his mark on a slayer. This is Clud’s. The last swipe of his claws before my sword took his heart.”

  “Impressive.” Harper pulled down his shirt to expose the line of puckered skin on his shoulder. “Skip trace, with a bad attitude and a switchblade.”

  She nodded. “How did you kill him?”

  “It doesn’t work that way here—ideally. I kicked his ass, then turned him over to the cops and collected my fee. The authorities,” he explained. “We put bad guys—our demons—in jail. In cages, like at the zoo today.”

  “Ah.” She considered that, and found it just. Captivity was a living death. “Is the demon who broke your nose also in his cage?”

  “Sucker punch,” Harper told her, running his hand down the uneven line of his nose. “Yeah, he’s doing a stretch. Pissant grifter going around snuggling up to rich women, then ripping them off, copping their jewelry, draining their bank accounts. Prick.”

  Kadra angled her head. “I like the way you speak. I find it arousing to listen to your stories.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He slid down onto the floor beside her, walked his fingers up her boot to her thigh. “I’ve got a million of them.”

  “Sporting must wait.”

  “I like your face. I find it arousing to look at your face.” He touched it, just a skim of fingertips over her cheek. “When I was sleeping, I dreamed of making love with you. Then it happened, just the way I’d dreamed it.”

  “This is vision.”

  “Maybe.” He thought of the blood and the battle, of the dark and the smoke. “One thing, before we get back on track. I’ve always liked working alone; that’s why I went out on my own. I’ve liked living alone, which is why I’ve screwed up any potentially serious relationship with a woman. I never wanted a partner, until you.”

  She lifted a hand to his cheek in turn. A kind of joining, she realized, with only a touch. “I have been alone. It is the way of slayers. I never wished it otherwise, until you. They will write songs about you in my world. The great warrior from beyond A’Dair.”

  And when she listened to them by the fire, she thought, she would be alone again.

  She let her hand drop away, then took a deep drink of her beer. “I tracked Sorak across my world and killed many of his warriors. He has sired no young, and with his death, the power of the Bok will be diminished. I thought he meant to build a lair in some far-off place, a fortress of great defense. But in my world. I did not know he meant to come to this place, to build his kingdom in yours.”

  “We won’t give him the chance. You said he would burrow underground.”

  “Yes. The Bok require the cool dark when they rest.”

  “I’ve got an idea where he might
’ve gone. The subway. We have a system of tunnels under the city, for transportation. The sewers are another option,” Harper considered, “but I don’t know why anyone, even a demon, would want to set up housekeeping in the sewers if he had any other choices. The trick will be pinpointing the right sector.”

  “What creatures of your world travel this subway, this underground route?”

  “The variety is endless. Just people, of all walks. It’s a crowded city. It’s another reasonably efficient and inexpensive way to get around it.”

  He spent the next few minutes explaining the idea and basic workings of the subway system.

  “This is clever. You have an innovative and interesting culture. I would like to have more time to study it.”

  “Stick around, take all the time you want.” He rose when his buzzer sounded. He went to the intercom by the front door, verified the pizza delivery, and buzzed the entrance door open.

  “You keep a servant in that small box?”

  “No.” Amused when she came over to peer at it, he explained its function, then opened his door to the delivery boy’s knock, paid him, and sent him on his way.

  “Was that your servant?”

  “No. I gave my servants this century off. He works for the place that makes the food. It’s his job to bring it to people when they call on the phone. Hungry?”

  “Yes.” She sniffed. “It smells very good.”

  He set the pizza box on the coffee table. “I’ll get some napkins—we’ll need them—then you can see if it tastes as good as it smells.”

  When he came back she was sitting on the floor, the lid of the box open, poking a finger at the crust. “It is very colorful. Is this a staple of your people’s diet?”

  “It’s a staple of mine.” He lifted a slice, flicked strings of cheese with his finger. “You just pick it up with your hands and go for it.” He demonstrated with an enthusiastic bite.

  Following suit, Kadra brought a slice to her lips. She bit through pepperoni, through pepper, through onion into cheese and spicy sauce, down to the thin, yeasty crust.

  The sound she made, Harper thought, was very like one she’d made during sex.

  “I like this pie called pizza,” she stated, and bit in again. “It is good food,” she added, her mouth full.

  “Baby, this is the perfect food.”

  “It goes well with the beer. It’s like a celebration to have kissing and joining, then pizza and beer.”

  He knew it was ridiculous, but his heart simply melted. “I’m crazy about you, Kadra. I’m a goddamn mental patient.”

  “This is an expression?”

  “It means I’m in love with you. I go thirty years without a scratch, and in less than a day I’m fatally wounded.”

  “Don’t speak of death, even as an expression. Not before battle.” She reached out, closed her hand tight over his. “It is bad luck. When it is done…When it is done, Harper, we will talk more of feelings.”

  “All right, we’ll table it—if I have your word that when it’s done you let me make my pitch.”

  Baffled, she frowned at him over what was left of her first slice. “Like in the battle of baseball?”

  “Not exactly. That you’ll let me tell you the way it could be for us.”

  “When it is done, you will make your pitch. Now tell me more of the subway.”

  “Hold on.” He switched his attention to the televised news bulletin.

  The reporter spoke of the attack at the zoo, the murder of the guard and the mutilation of several animals. Witness reports were confused and conflicting, ranging from the claim of an attack by a dozen armed men to one by a pack of wild animals.

  “They don’t know what they’re up against,” Harper said quietly as the newscaster reported that the police were investigating the incident and that the zoo would remain closed until further notice. “They don’t have a clue. I call them with the truth, I’m just another loony.”

  “It is for us,” Kadra told him. “Rhee has said that we would fight this battle together. He must be destroyed here or driven back where he belongs. There must be balance again.”

  “Here.” Harper rolled his shoulder where a demon had dug its claws. “We finish it here. New York style.”

  Kadra pondered the images on the television, the moving paintings of the zoo. “This subway. Does it go near the place where they keep the animals? Where we battled today?”

  “There are possibilities.”

  “Sorak would like a lair near prey. It will be dark soon,” she said with a long look at the sky through the window. “Then we hunt.”

  7

  SHE BALKED AT changing her hunting gear for jeans a second time, claiming they restricted her. He let it pass, figuring the long coat would cloak most of her…attributes.

  The thing about New York, Harper thought, as they passed a guy with shoulder-length white hair, two nose rings, and a black leather jumpsuit, was there was always someone dressed weirder than you were.

  He wore his ripped jacket, for sentimental reasons. And for the practical one that if he was going up against a demon again, there was no point to sacrificing another garment to the long blue claws.

  He had his Glock in a shoulder holster, a backup .38 in an ankle holster, a combat knife sheathed at his back, and a switchblade in his left boot.

  He’d have preferred an Uzi, but what he had on hand would have to do.

  “I like my work,” he told Kadra. “And I like to think it makes a difference to some of the people who come to me with problems.” He paused to take a good look at his neighborhood—his city—his world. “But this heading out to save the planet stuff brings on a real high.”

  “You were born for it.” When he glanced over at her, she shrugged. “This is what I believe. We are born for a purpose. How we live, how we treat others who live with us forms our spirit and determines if we will fulfill that purpose or fail. We were meant to face this night together. Meant for it from the moment we were created.”

  “I like that. And I’ll take it one step further. We were meant for each other, too.”

  Meant to love each other, she thought, and to live alone in two different worlds. Her life had been filled with sacrifices, but none would bring the sorrow of the one she had yet to make.

  Harper led Kadra down into the station for the train heading uptown. She would have vaulted over the turnstile if he hadn’t blocked her.

  “You have to use a token, then you walk through.”

  “These are very flimsy barricades,” she pointed out as she bumped through. “Even a child could get over them.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s…tradition.”

  “Like a ritual,” she decided, satisfied. She heard the roar, felt the floor vibrate. “The earth trembles.” She was prepared to drag him to safety when he grabbed her hand.

  “It’s just a train coming in.” Still holding her hand, he pulled her onto the platform, where she studied the other waiting passengers.

  It was a huge cave, strongly lit. She had never seen so much life, so much motion and magic in one place. “Your people have so many colors of skin. It’s beautiful. You are blessed to have such richness of person, such variety.” When she glanced back at him, she saw he was smiling at her in an odd way. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” He leaned toward her, and to her utter shock, kissed her mouth.

  “We cannot join here,” she said in a hissing whisper. “It is a private activity.”

  “It wasn’t that kind of a kiss. Remember, there are all kinds.”

  “I thought you were pretending.”

  “Is that a polite word for lying? On this side of the portal, people kiss all the time. Lovers, friends, relatives. Complete strangers.”

  She snorted. “Now I will say you are lying.”

  “Locking lips is practically a global pastime. And this one’ll get you: people pay a fee to sit in a big, darkened room as a group and watch other people’s images on a screen—a larger version
of the TV, where you saw baseball. One of the things those images often do is kiss.”

  “I think you are a harper after all, because you tell fantastic tales with great ease and skill.”

  “Nothing in those knowledge banks about movies?”

  She frowned, but tipped her head and searched through. When her eyes widened, lit with delight, he knew she’d hit on it.

  “Movies.” She tested the word. “I would like to see one.”

  “It’s a date.” He heard the rumble of the approaching uptown train. They had another date to keep first.

  She liked the train that flew under the earth. She liked the way people crowded inside, bumping together as they clung to metal straps. There were colorful drawings to study and read. Some spoke of magical liquid that gifted the user with shiny, sexy hair. Another advised her to practice safe sex. There was a wall map provided for lost travelers, and yet another picture that boasted its elixir could transform the skin to make it sexually attractive to others.

  Kadra leaned close to Harper’s ear. “Is sex the religion of your world?”

  “Ah…you could say a lot of people worship it. Why are you whispering?”

  “No one is speaking. Is conversation permitted?”

  “Sure. It’s just that most of these people don’t know each other. They’re strangers, so they don’t have anything to say.”

  Kadra considered it, and finding it reasonable, she tapped the shoulder of the woman standing beside her. “I am Kadra, Slayer of Demons. My companion in this dimension is Harper Doyle. Together we hunt Sorak.”

  The sound Harper made was somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “Rehearsing,” he said with what he hoped was a nonthreatening smile. “New play. Way, way off Broadway. Honey,” Harper said to Kadra as the woman edged as far away as the press of bodies would allow, “maybe you should just talk to me.”

  “Making introductions is courteous.”

  “Yeah, well, you start chatting about demons, it tends to weird people out.”

  The train stopped. People poured off, people poured on. Kadra scowled and planted her feet. “As you said, how can they defend against Sorak if they are unaware of him?”