Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 33 - Demon of the Night

She quickly wiped away her tears. “Can’t you tell me where you’ve been?”

“No!”

“Were you on ... your mission?”

“Perhaps. Oh, do shut up! I want to sleep.”

He flopped on the bed and pulled the blanket over his head.

Vanja was never sure whether he actually slept. Perhaps he just pretended, in order to pass the time in a more pleasant way. He was probably just resting. When he wasn’t busy with his actual task in their house, that is.

Vanja went to bed reluctantly, lying behind him. He was obviously still cross with her after the night before.

“You’re cold,” she said bluntly.

“Yeah, and so what?” he snarled. “The sun doesn’t shine where I’ve been.”

She put her arms around him, drawing his back towards her bosom.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you use your wings, my little friend,” she smiled. “I didn’t even know they worked. They are so much bigger now than they were. Can they really have grown so much?”

“Stop calling me your little friend, you damn cow!”

“Is that really the only word you know? And you’re smaller than me.”

“That’s bound to change.”

He was silent and confounded. Vanja tried to radiate warmth through her nightgown and into his ice-cold body.

Suddenly, he turned halfway so that he was lying on his back but with his face turned towards her. “I am cold,” he gasped. “My soul turned to ice last night.”

Vanja laid one arm over him and the other under his neck. “Let me warm you, Tamlin! Let all evil between us be forgotten for a little while. Let us hold each other, because I also need to feel your closeness. I missed you dreadfully last night – you mustn’t leave me like that without warning!”

He accepted her warmth willingly. She understood that he was shaking from an unknown fear.

A demon, full of fear? What could he have met last night?

“Where did you think I was?” he smiled nervously towards her nightgown.

“I had no idea, that was the most awful part of it all. I thought perhaps I had hurt you too much the night before, perhaps ...”

“Hurt me? Are you crazy? Oh, come on, after all you’re really not that special. You wanted to say something else?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” she said, because now he had hurt her.

He got up on his elbows and was suddenly quite demonic once more.

“Yes, go on, tell me!” he hissed between his teeth.

“No, surely I also have a right to secrets!”

“You hell-cow!” he whispered furiously, lashing out at her.

“I can feel that you’re yourself again now,” she retorted. “So I don’t have to keep you warm any longer.”

She turned her back to him.

But Tamlin poked his hand under her arm and under her nightgown until he found her breast. He held the little bud between two fingers, playing with it for quite a while.

With her heart beating fast, Vanja felt him carefully but determinedly press his abdomen into her back until she could clearly feel his hard organ against her spine. It hadn’t grown any smaller over the years. Thank goodness for nightgown and loincloth!

She lay so still that she was hardly breathing, and she could feel that her abdomen was beating heavily and was sticky and hot.

This was dangerous, it really was! It couldn’t go on! Though she had no reason to be afraid provided he feared that she would blabber about him.

Was it fear that she felt?

After that night, Vanja was too scared to have the little demon child in her bed. He wasn’t really a child now. He was somewhere in between, just like herself. And he was obviously growing much faster than she was, so now it was becoming serious.

He was offended, but she was indifferent to his grumpiness. It didn’t help at all that he said she was crude and heartless.

“Don’t try to charm me,” she said curtly. “Do you want me to think that demons are so lethargic and lazy that they have to sleep in beds! They don’t, they rush around and do horrible, shocking things or flitter about in a void because human beings no longer believe in them.”

“You have no heart!” Tamlin said glumly from his place on her fine rococo desk. He couldn’t have been more out of place.

Vanja walked right up to him. “I’ve taken care of you for three years now,” she said through clenched teeth. “Taken care of you and protected you while you’ve had nothing but scorn for me. But now it’s over, see? I want to live a life of my own and to have my bed and my room to myself. There’s no longer room for both of us!”

Tamlin suddenly turned nice. “What is it that you’re so scared of? I haven’t done anything to you. Is this because you suddenly had difficulty breathing? Did you get wet between your legs? Like when my tail discovered you? Should I have found out last night?”

His direct hit made her livid.

“Tamlin, I couldn’t care less where you go, but you have to leave my room now! You’ve lost your right to live here.”

He looked away and began to fiddle absently with her writing materials. “All right. I’ll move. But I’m not allowed to move out of the house. That’s a part of my assignment. So I’ll just move in with Benedikte and young André.”

Vanja stiffened with horror. “No, you mustn’t do that! Oh well, you can stay here. But you’ll never be allowed to lie in my bed anymore! Whether the fault is mine or yours doesn’t matter, but it won’t do any longer, surely you can understand that?”

“No,” Tamlin replied mischievously.

Vanja closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. When she opened them again, he was gazing at her with glistening eyes and a playing tongue.

“Let’s say that we share the blame?” he asked her, and Vanja smiled gratefully.

“It’s impossible to be cross with you for any length of time, Tamlin. But remember this: if you touch me once more, I’ll tell the others that you’re here. Then being you won’t be fun! Benedikte might summon our forefathers, who have great power. Don’t forget that!”

“Oh, there are those who have greater power than them,” Tamlin said enigmatically, but her words had clearly made him feel ill at ease. “Well then, you can keep your horrible old fleas’ nest, I can easily ...”

“I haven’t got any fleas!” Vanja yelled, and once again they argued fiercely. But she had got her way, which was the most important thing.

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