Chapter 4

Zai sat crossed legged on the blanket and watched the boy with shuttered eyes. Through his eyelashes he stroked the boy with his eyes, following the lines and curves of Toby's body. He'd wrapped his cloak around the narrow shoulders and all the boy had done since was sit and snivel, rocking every now and then. Zai's attempt at earlier conversation had established that the boy Toby was not talking to him, apparently wrestling with some inner torment.

The soft half-light after sundown had deepened to the proper black of night, lit by the gibbous moon. It was the third night since the half-moon waxing, and Zai was thinking about going home. It had been ages since he'd been underground, preferring to shift and live silent for the rest of the moon month. He'd enjoyed living in the house, liked the company of other demons, especially Shindae and Sitka. The three of them made a great little team, two enforcers and a scavenger, all with fairly eclectic and morally compromised attitudes to sex and food. But every few years Zai left, killing on the timing of the moon, hunting in the next and sleeping through the sun.

But Zai couldn't keep a hold of the boy in his other form, although the Chain would still do its job. Zai tapped his fingers against the hardness of his cold horns and thought. Taking the boy underground would be a major risk. But even now, the boy's options were limited. He could not be let go, and the amount of power it would take to wipe his mind, even if Zai could call someone with that specific power, would probably leave him a vegetable at worst, a bumbling idiot at best. He would have to be killed, or he'd have to stay with Zai.

Did Toby have the mental capacity to cope with going downstairs? Zai thought he might, he'd seen him in his real form instantly, had recognised him, and had managed not to go insane. That alone spoke of a decent mental capacity, a mind strong enough to swallow horror and visions and keep on going.

As the moon rose in the sky Zai started to plan what he was going to say to Toby. He'd sorted it out in his head. He would explain, he would use as normal a voice as possible, and not try and charm him. He would explain everything and there would be no problems. And then Toby ballsed it up by speaking as soon as Zai touched him.

"You're never going to let me go are you?" his voice was filled to the brim and overflowing like a too small cup full of sorrow.

"I can't." Zai watched the boy closely, but Toby wouldn't look straight at him, "I want to take you home with me."

Toby's brows furrowed together and he seemed fascinated by his hand, the one that had been broken.

"Where's home?"

"Underground, the underworld. Hell."

"Hell is a real place?" Toby sounded surprised. His head jerked up and he looked at Zai for the first time that day.

The demon held his gaze, and stroked his ankle softly with a thumb.

"Yes. It's a real place. The place where I was born, where my house is."

"You have a house?" Toby was surprised, and he stared at the place where Zai touched his skin. Through that join Zai felt his leaking emotion, the worry and hurt of the boy, the shame and slight arousal from where their skin touched, from where Zai's thumb stroked and circled his ankle.

"I don't spend my whole life living in disused haylofts y'know."

"Thanks," there was a pause thick with unsaid questions, "For the food and the new blankets."

"You're welcome. We will have to leave soon."

"Will I get to say goodbye?"

"No," Zai shook his head softly, "The world will suppose you dead, too much blood."

"Oh." The boy sounded almost emotionless, resigned to his fate. If it hadn't been for the emotion leaking from him Zai would have thought that the boy was a vegetable.

"I got this for you." Zai separated himself from the boy, fumbled in the mess of blankets and cloak and came up with a pair of jeans, thick socks and an oversized sweatshirt. "We're gonna have to walk a bit."

Toby stood and got dressed slowly, his movements sort of stiff and disjointed. Zai wondered if something in their conversation had broken something in the boy. He was moving, doing things, but he didn't seem to be thinking. Zai reached out and put a hand on his shoulder as he turned to put the jumper on. He focused, fought to break through the barriers he let build up around the smaller, gentler part of his empathic talent, and found the boy's voice in his mind. Words tinted by a lostness roamed around in his mind.

I'm dead. Either way I'm dead. And I chose to live with what this creature did to me. I must be fucked up inside to want that. I'm dead. Either way I'm dead...

Zai was moved by his thoughts. He took half a step forward and put his arms around the boy's waist. A small part of him wished that there was some other way, that he had not done this, but the greater part of him was glad. If he hadn't fully broken the boy, maybe he would learn to love him.

Toby shuddered and pulled out of his grip.

"Stay out of my fucking head!"

They stared at each other in the darkened hayloft.

"You can ... hear me?" Zai's eyes were wide in the dark, able to see and pick out the details of Toby's worried face clearly.

"Just then I could."

The demon wondered at this. Empathic talents were rare among demons, perhaps they were more common among the human race, though Zai have never knowingly met once before. And why had it taken this long to find out about it?

"You're an empath?"

"Am I?" Toby stuck his hands in the jeans pockets, which were too big and threatened to slip off at any moment, "Sometimes I hear what people are thinking, but not often. Never so clearly."

Zai smiled at this. He should shut down the barriers again, he could feel emotion leaking between them even without touching the boy, but he sort of liked the feeling of being connected. To someone. Finally.

"How do we get down?"

"You can jump ... or you can hold on while I climb down."

"That second option sounds less painful." Toby stared at his feet. Zai shrugged. It was an odd motion for the demon to make, the shape of his horns requiring him tilt his head back to avoid hitting them with his shoulders. Zai knew he was going to have to do the whole thing himself, and he wrapped a free arm around the boy and lifted him bodily. Zai started down the side of the building, being careful now that his charge was awake and conscious. He climbed far farther down that he normally would've, careful off his charge, and about five feet from the ground felt Toby slip from his back. The boy swore as he hit the ground and took off running.

Zai let him go. He got out of the barn and another ten feet before the Chain of Possession snapped into play. Toby jerked back, as though an invisible wire round his neck pulled at him, and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. He lay panting, breathless, until Zai arrived, the half-dressed, and stood over him with a deep sigh.

Zai reached down and helped the boy up.