Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

Mutely, you nod. She climbs off and lies down beside you, resting her head on your shoulder. “Not all of us do that,” she says. “That’s not really what loup is about.” She strokes your chest for awhile with a thick finger, and then she says softly, “I’ll protect you, darling. I’ll keep you safe.”

“What is it about?” you ask, and you turn to look into her deep gray eyes. You think you see the answer inside them: It’s something that’s strong, and young, and very, very old.

“The night is where we belong,” she says finally. “Out where the moon burns white-hot at midnight. The stars go on forever, and the only thing for us to be afraid of now is the sound that the moon makes in our blood. Do you know what that’s like?”

I remember, you tell her. I remember.

Later you fall asleep. You dream that you are lying in the moonlight, and dark shapes are gathered around you. They are ripping you open and feasting on your warm insides, but you feel no pain. If anything, you are glad to be a part of them, for it is good to feel needed. Then one of them moves up and kisses you with bloody lips, and you see that the eyes on her dark face are your own.

You wake up and check to make sure you are still in one piece, and you think back to the time when a woman’s heart would grow cold at the sound of a man’s footstep in a lonely place at midnight. How long, you wonder, how long until both of the moon’s twin children will be able to walk beneath her without fear? And without fear, would love still taste as sweet?

She is sleeping behind you, her breasts pressed against your back, her arms around your chest. The backs of her hands are covered with short black down, and her fingernails are as thick as dimes. Her breath on the back of your neck is hotter than blood.

Feeling her hot breath on your skin, staring into the darkness, you lie awake until dawn.

Contributors

Edward Bryant began writing professionally in 1968 and has published more than a dozen books, including Among the Dead, Cinnabar, Phoenix Without Ashes (with Harlan Ellison), Wyoming Sun, Particle Theory, Fetish (a novella chapbook), and The Baku: Tales of the Nuclear Age. He first focused on science fiction and won two Nebula awards for short stories in 1978 and 1979. While he still occasionally dabbles in science fiction (such as his 1994 story “The Fire That Scours”), he gradually strayed into horror. Most of his work is now in the horror genre, as with his series of sharply etched stories about Angie Black, a contemporary witch, the zombie story “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned,” and other marvelous tales.

Most of his horror fiction will be reprinted in an upcoming retrospective.

Storm Constantine is the author of more than thirty books, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as numerous short stories. Her fiction titles include the bestselling Wraeththu trilogies, the Grigori trilogy, and stand-alone novels Hermetech and Thin Air. Her esoteric nonfiction works include Sekhem Heka and Grimoire Dehara: Kaimana. Constantine lives in the Midlands, England, with her husband and four cats.

Doris Egan wrote the Ivory series: The Gate of Ivory, Two-Bit Heroes, and Guilt-Edged Ivory. As Jane Emerson, she wrote City of Diamond. She’s been a writer and producer on several television shows, including House, Torchwood, Smallville, Tru Calling, and The Agency. She currently lives in Los Angeles and is working on Black Sails, a show about eighteenth-century pirates.

Kelley Eskridge is a writer and screenwriter, author of the novel Solitaire and the short story collection Dangerous Space. Solitaire was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Nebula, Gaylactic Spectrum, and Endeavour awards, and is currently in film development with Eskridge as screenwriter. The works gathered in Dangerous Space include an Astraea Prize winner, two Nebula finalists, three James Tiptree, Jr. Honor List stories, a story collected in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (1995), and a story adapted for SyFy.

Eskridge edits and coaches writers as co-owner of Sterling Editing. She is a board member of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She is currently working on a screenplay about dangerous women and pondering new fiction. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her partner, novelist Nicola Griffith, where she loves to talk, drink, laugh, dance, and write.

Wendy Froud is a doll- and model-maker, writer, and teacher.