Page 48 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

“Yeah.” Obie smiles. “The rest of the tribe warmed up to me eventually. Given enough time, humans will pack-bond with anything. They brought me into their camp, and they taught me about what it means to be human, and they shared their lives and their memories with me. And I took care of them, just like I did for Ada and Kai and Kai’s children and everyone who came after them. ”

Chester’s heart twinges. “That sounds really nice.”

“It was. They sort of treated me like a god, but they didn’t worship me as one, you know?

To them, I was a… provider. A protector.

I brought them food and furs, and I watched over all the little ones, and I always kept the fire going overnight to keep the predators away, and?—?” His voice catches.

“They knew they could sleep soundly with me there. They knew I’d keep them safe.

And?—and I did. For generations, I did.”

The past tense is clearer this time. Chester braces himself for the worst. “What happened?” he whispers.

Obie’s smile is grim and his eyes are darker than Chester has ever seen them.

“Well, humans will always find a reason to hate each other. We’d had conflicts with rival tribes over the years, and I always kept my people safe, but?—but I didn’t like killing the other humans.

” His jaw clenches. “That was our downfall, I think. That I wouldn’t kill them.

Leaving them alive meant that we made enemies, and once all those enemies realized they had a common adversary in the tribe with the god, they put aside their differences to attack us. ”

Chester takes a shaky breath. Lets it out slowly. “How?”

“They put together a binding spell.” Now, it sounds less like Obie is coaxing the memories out of a well and more like he’s scraping them out of a grave.

“I’m still not sure how they did it. Rudimentary human magic already existed, but I don’t know how they created a spell powerful enough to bind me.

It couldn’t compel me to do anything, not like the binding spells summoners use today, but it held me down.

And I’d?—I’d never been powerless like that before.

Never been that vulnerable, that defenseless.

I… don’t think I ever knew real fear until that moment. ”

Chester feels sick. “And then?”

“They slaughtered my people.” Obie’s voice is flat.

“The elders, the babies?—all of them. They killed every last one of them, and I?—I couldn’t do anything except watch.

Watch and beg and scream for them to have mercy.

” A tremor runs through him. “They were relying on me. Chester, they trusted me to protect them, they trusted me to save them, and I couldn’t?—the one time when it really mattered, I couldn’t??—?”

The words choke off on a sob. Chester’s heart splinters right along with it, and without thinking, he crosses the distance between them, wraps his arms around Obie’s shoulders, and pulls him close, trying to hold him together.

Just like Obie has always done for Chester.

Obie’s arms snake around Chester’s back, his fingers digging into the fabric of Chester’s shirt.

“There was so much blood. So many bodies. Human bodies. Those first hunters? The ones who would someday become the purebreds like the Nasirs and the Solomons and the Longs and?—and the Nehemiahs? Their first hunt was killing humans.”

Chester squeezes his eyes shut. “Sounds like not much has changed.”

Obie barks out a bitter laugh. “No. It really hasn’t.”

“And you?” Chester almost doesn’t want to ask. “What’d they do to you?”

Obie’s fingers twist tighter into Chester’s shirt.

“A lot. They couldn’t figure out how to kill me, but they?—they kept trying.

They set up camp right there and tortured me for weeks.

Experimented on me. Tried to figure out what I was.

After a while, they settled on the name ‘demon,’ and it stuck. ”

The first interrogators. Chester has never hated his training, his legacy, as much as he does right now. “How’d you get out?”

“All magic has an expiration date. Luckily for them, they knew it, too. They got a head start of at least a month. Left me bound and alone and bleeding next to the mass grave where they dumped my family like garbage.”

Nausea licks up Chester’s throat. He swallows hard.

Obie’s voice is quieter now. “I wanted revenge, obviously, but?—but I didn’t get it.

They got startlingly close to killing me, and they did some nasty things to my soul, too.

It took months for me to heal, months for me to grieve.

Months for me to fashion a shovel and bury my people properly.

By the time I finally tracked down those other tribes, it’d been decades.

Most of the humans who’d hunted me were dead.

And I couldn’t bring myself to hurt their children, you know?

They hadn’t done anything wrong.” He scoffs.

“Not yet, at least. I didn’t realize their parents taught them everything they learned from torturing me.

So when spellcasters started summoning demons from Tamaros… ”

Chester finishes the sentence. “They were already ready to start killing them.”

“Exactly.” Obie takes a deep breath, disentangling himself from Chester’s arms. “You won’t find my people in any history textbooks.

We may have been large for that era, but comparatively speaking, we were small.

There’s never been anyone to mourn them except me.

” His eyes flash. “History forgot about them. I didn’t.

They might’ve meant nothing to the world, but they meant everything to me.

So when I say that the Sanctum will burn if it’s the last thing I do, you can know that I mean it. ”

Chester’s eyes burn. “I know you mean it,” he whispers, and for a split second, he imagines??—

Imagines being a scared sixteen-year-old?—powerless in every sense of the word?—who accidentally won the unending devotion of the most powerful being in the entire dimension.

Imagines being her son, the one who grew up with a god watching over him, the one whose earliest memories were probably of tugging on Nostringvadha’s wings while the demon smiled down at him.

Imagines being a child in that tribe and knowing there was a god who would love him and protect him. Imagines reaching adulthood and watching that god help his own children and grandchildren survive.

Imagines growing old and gray and dying, but knowing his people would still be safe in Nostringvadha’s faithful hands.

And what about Obie? Did he even know what death was when he first arrived on Earth? How much did it break him when he realized that his humans wouldn’t live forever like him, that Ada wouldn’t live forever like him?

How much did it destroy him when he had to bury his first friend’s last descendant?

Carefully, Chester fits his hand onto Obie’s shoulder. Thank you for telling me, he pushes through the bond. It means a lot that you trust me.

Obie looks away. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Hell of a thing to have in common, though.

When Obie glances back at him, frowning, Chester adds, That the Sanctum killed both of our families.

And?—and you don’t have to mourn them alone anymore, Obie.

History hasn’t forgotten about them anymore.

Because I know about them now, too. We can remember them together.

Obie’s breath shudders out of him. For a long moment, he searches Chester’s eyes. “Yeah?” he asks hoarsely.

“Yeah, I’d love that.” Chester hesitates. “Tell me about them? Maybe about?—about Ada and Kai?”

A slow smile spreads across Obie’s face. “Okay,” he says, and he slides his hand into Chester’s .

The spartan Sanctum bedroom dissolves around them. Startled, Chester jerks closer to Obie as the world re-forms into a breathtaking forest stretching out in every direction, the air cleaner and fresher than Chester has ever tasted it.

“Whoa,” he breathes. “Obie??—?”

“This,” Obie says, “is a real memoryscape. The smaller ones are just mock-ups.” He pushes himself to his feet, tugging on Chester’s hand; not letting go, Chester follows him.

“We’re… not quite in the physical world right now.

Without getting too into the technicalities, we’re at the point where my mind meets yours.

So we can manipulate this environment to an extent, but in reality, we’re still right next to your desk.

You don’t have to worry about walking into any walls. ”

“Comforting,” Chester says faintly, looking around with wide eyes. Up ahead, there’s a small clearing dotted with shelters and bustling with people, everyone clad in furs as their voices rise and fall on the wind. “Obie, this is incredible.”

Obie’s smile curves higher. “I’m glad you like it,” he says, pulling Chester forward?—towards, he realizes suddenly, a woman sitting at the very edge of the camp.

“This isn’t the memory of an exact day. It’s more like…

a composite of memories. A general scene instead of a specific one.

Ada and I would watch the sunset together almost every evening, so that’s how I remember her best.”

Chester’s heart flutters. There’s something about the casual intimacy of Obie sitting next to his best friend to watch the sunset that feels almost… private.

Like Obie is showing Chester something that’s deeply important to him.

They arrive at a flattened patch of grass near the woman?—girl, Chester realizes with a start; she’s still a teenager in this memory. Somehow, that makes it feel even more personal.

Slowly, Obie kneels down next to her. “This is Ada,” he says, and the unadorned affection in his voice makes Chester’s chest ache. “You would’ve liked her. She was stupid, just like you.”

“Hey,” Chester says, but he doesn’t bother putting any heat behind the word as he crouches down, memorizing the details of Ada’s face.

Smooth brown skin that’s reminiscent of Obie’s, long black hair cascading past her shoulders, and pretty brown eyes that seem to sparkle in the fading sunlight. “She’s beautiful.”

“One of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met.” Obie pats the bundle of furs in Ada’s lap. “And this is Kai. I promise he’s buried somewhere in here?—he was only a few weeks old, so he was still really small.”

Gently, Chester shifts the furs aside. A squishy little face peeks out at him, clearly fast asleep and cozy. “Hi, Baby Kai,” he murmurs, stroking his tiny cheek. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Kai’s face puckers up at Chester’s touch, but he doesn’t otherwise react. Ada doesn’t seem to see him at all, her eyes still fixed on the sunset.

These were Obie’s people. This was Obie’s family.

And Chester wants to know everything about them. Wants to know how they cooked their food, how they made their shelters, how they started their fires. Wants to know the stories they told about their past and the dreams they had for their future.

Wants to know how Obie was in the center of all that.

“Chester?”

When Chester looks back at Obie, he’s closer than Chester thought, closer than he expects. They’re sitting on the ground next to the memory of Ada, and Obie shifted into Chester’s space while he was distracted, his arm brushing against Chester’s.

And they’ve been this close before. This isn’t the first time Chester has had the opportunity to examine the streaks of amber in Obie’s dark eyes or the first time he’s felt Obie’s soft breath on his lips .

But it is the first time Chester lets himself savor it, the first time he lets himself enjoy it. It’s the first time that Chester allows himself to mentally calculate the scant distance between them and think about how little it would take to close that distance.

Kiss me. The thought is brash and impulsive and just as stupid as Obie always claims Chester is, and for the barest hint of a second, it’s almost like the memory of Ada smiles in encouragement.

Chester isn’t going to initiate anything?—not after how much trust and trauma Obie just poured into him?—but if Obie makes the first move, then Chester is going to show him exactly how much that trust means to him. Kiss me, Obie. Please.

Almost imperceptibly, Obie licks his lips. For one heart-pounding moment, he leans forward, into Chester’s space??—

And then, just as quickly, he shifts away again. “Thank you, Chester,” he whispers. “For this.”

The heady rush of anticipation fades like a fire burning down to embers. Chester swallows his disappointment. “Always, Obie,” he says quietly, and he clears his throat, turning back to Ada and Kai. “So tell me more about Ada. Did she have any siblings? What was her family like?”

Obie’s eyes are bright. “Well,” he begins, and he starts telling Chester about the sister who was the best fire-maker in the tribe and the brother who danced his way through chores.

About the niece who Obie took flying with him and the cousin who never fully trusted him.

About the aunt who gifted him a fur blanket and the nephew who went on hunts with him and??—

Obie weaves together all the oldest stories of his very first family, and Chester commits every word to memory, feeling like the entire world?—the past and the future and everything in between?—is starting to open up for him.

Like it’s starting to feel just a little brighter.