Alex checked on Jago again, hoping that coming here hadn’t doomed the four of them.
Joanna reached behind her, lifting a pot of ointment into the light.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Our ticket here? As I said, we journeyed together, but he needs replenishment. Help me.” She gave Alex a kind smile, procuring another pot and working the ointment into Jago’s feet.
“What is it, exactly?”
“A flying ointment. Our dear friend and muse will need to take flight one last time before we’re done here. Don’t ask me what it’s made of, just help me.”
With no small hesitation, Alex massaged the substance into Jago’s face, neck and shoulders, smearing more of it over his chest and arms, ensuring, just as Jago had when he’d done this to Alex, that every inch of his body was covered. For a brief instant, Alex wished he’d held his nerve the night he’d opened his eyes to find them hovering in mid-air, naked in each other’s arms; that he’d embraced the experience and trusted what it could offer.
“Do you feel it drawing you closer?” asked a voice from somewhere deeper within the cave, neither male nor female, but a fusion of Joanna, Jago and… something else. “It’s not too late, if you wish to be alone with him. My gift to you.”
“Who’s there?” Alex demanded. “Who are you?” He couldn’t imagine letting Joanna out of his sight in that moment, much less making love to a man passed out.
The voice answered. “Of course… I understand.”
“Show yourself!” His own voice echoed back at him. “What’s going on, Joanna? Why are you here?”
“I simply had to know.” She nudged Jago’s genitals out of the way as she coated his thighs. “And tonight, I understood it with absolute clarity.”
“Understoodwhat?” Alex didn’t know why he was hesitant to oil Jago’s sex. It wasn’t like he hadn’t handled it before.
“What they wanted from me. What I wanted from them. You felt it, just as I did, in the theatre. Their story. Darling, he must be completely covered. I’m sure he’d rather you do it than me.”
“Enough!” Alex pulled Jago’s body against his, wrapping his arm around him protectively. “No more riddles or games or blasted metaphors. Who arethey?”
“Darling, you saw for yourself. Lorca, and his last lover, the man who would become Jago.”
Alex stared at her in disbelief.
“The man who killed him.”
“I saw the show, Joanna.” Somehow, he’d refrained from snarling. But real as it had seemed, their show was just a fine trick, blending magick, mischief, and strange poetry. “I don’t know who that man was, but it was nothim.”
“But it was, in his last host. I don’t know the fellow’s name or how he came to join the Fascists. I’ve a notion he infiltrated them in secret, unwilling to let any other man kill his lover. What a terrible, romantic ending that would be. In any case, it’s his secret to share, not mine.”
“Joanna, this is…”
“A joke? A dream? No, Alex, it’s a transfer. Tonight, there will be another. You felt their minds, shared as one, just as Jago shared it with me.”
“Jago? He? They?”
“Both and neither. One and two, all at once. Now, oil his genitals, please.”
“No.”
“If you will not hear it from me, then spend these last moments with him.” Joanna stood up, and before Alex could challenge or stop her, stepped forward into the fire, vanishing before Alex had time to scream her name.
Last moments? He held Jago tighter. Wake up, damn it. Wake up.
“Alex?” came Jago’s voice from the darkness. The body he was holding slept peacefully.
“Jago? Where are you? Where’s Joanna?”
“Alex, what she’s telling you is true. I’m sorry. She caught me quite off-guard tonight.”
