Heart's Redemption (MxM)

Chapter 25 ~ Ian

Sam stares at the burnt wreck of the car with a strange expression shifting over his face. His dark red eyes narrow as he surveys the blackened ground, and his gold-feathered wings shift uneasily on his back.

"There are traces of magic here," he says, his short, sharp fangs showing as he bites his bottom lip. "The car didn't just burn. Someone used it as the focal point for a ritual. Whatever happened here, it wasn't anything good."

"A ritual? For what?" I ask. I'm still studying the charred frame of the car, working up the courage to look inside and see if it contains a corpse.

"I don't know," he says quietly. "All I can tell is...it was something dark. I can see the...shadow of a symbol of some kind. Any idea what this means?

He kneels and traces something in the dirt. It looks like an oblong oval with a horizontal line through the center.

"No," I say. "It looks familiar, but...no idea. We can look it up when we get back to the Lodge. How about you, Carlos? Seen that before?"

He shakes his head. "Sorry man. Magic is, like, kind of above my pay grade, you know? Maybe I come from a family of Asesinos, but I'm just a guy who works in a bar and helps out in his aunt's auto shop sometimes. And gets possessed a lot," he adds with a shrug. "If you want to know more about rituals and symbols and shit, you'd be better off asking Toni."

"She, or your mom, didn't teach you about that stuff?" I ask, curious.

My own dad had tried to teach me everything he knew when I was a kid. It had been like attending regular school and being home-schooled at the same time, and I hadn't excelled at either.

Now that my dad was gone, I regretted not having tried harder to learn from him back then. Whatever knowledge I'd failed to absorb—whatever he'd failed to pass on—now it was lost to me forever, taken to the grave.

Carlos stares off at the horizon, hands on his hips. "No," he says. "I guess if you want to be technical, my family weren't Asesinos. They were Asesinas. Only the women got the knowledge. The men could help out—the way I did with Toni's exorcisms—but they were never let in on all the cool secrets and shit."

"Huh. That's like my family, but the opposite," I say. "Until recently, the male side had all the power. I think it's better now that things are more equal. Maybe Toni would teach you, too, if you asked."

He lifts a shoulder. "Maybe. The thing is, I don't know that I'm interested. I'd rather just be a normal guy."

"Speaking of normal guys," I say, turning to look at Sam, "you'd better lose those wings before the Walkers show up."

Sam nods and shuts his eyes, but when he opens them, he still looks like a golden angel with horns.

"Urgh," he groans, "I thought I had the hang of this. Fuck me... What if I'm stuck like this now?" He looks down at his talon-tipped hands with a frown.

"You usually turn back after you satisfy your desires, right?" I say. "So...what do you want?"

He laughs. "Right now? Nothing we can do at a possible murder scene, with Carlos watching and a dead body a few feet away."

"Nothing?" I ask, raising my brows at him. "There must be something you want that doesn't require an X-rating."

He gives me a lop-sided, sharp-toothed grin, but it slowly fades into a softer smile. "Fine," he says, "just...hold me, okay? And...say that you love me again."

Despite the grim setting, I laugh. "For a demon, you sure are a softie," I say, shaking my head as I slide my arms around his back and under his wings, pulling him close. "Are all...uh...what did you call them? Ai..."