Page 106
Story: Rhapsodic
“Then tell me what I need to know,” Des says.
“You don’t understand,” Stan whines, “he’ll do worse things than kill me.”
Once again the darkness expands around Des. “You know who I am, Stan,” the Bargainer says, his voice icy. “My reputation precedes me. So you’ve heard of what’s happened to past clients who’ve tried to stiff me.”
More sobbing.
“And they paid,” Des says, his voice ominous. “Before they died, they paid.”
Ohshit.
Stan weeps harder, and when I look over my shoulder at him, a snot bubble has formed in one of his nostrils.
That’s just wrong.
“Please,” he begs, softer, “please. I have … I have a family. I have …”
Maybe it’s the snot bubble, maybe it’s the fact that a grown-ass man is being cowardly, and maybe it’s that I have to sit in a smelly car and thus can’t eat my macaroons in peace, but this man is kind of ruining my entire night by being difficult.
I will the siren out, a soft glow rushing over my skin as I turn my body around to face Stan.
“Cherub—” Des warns.
Too late.
“Fulfill your oath to the Bargainer and tell him what he needs to hear,” I command, glamouring the Bargainer’s client. “Now.”
Stan spends a good several seconds fighting his mouth, but it betrays him. He begins to cry even as he says, “They call him the Thief of Souls. I don’t know his real name, or the name of the people that do his dirty work.”
Next to me, the Bargainer’s mouth is a thin, angry line.
“He has many bodies and none at all …” His voice dies away into sobs. Somewhere in there I hear him mumble, “You bitch.”
Des slams on the brakes and the car skids to a halt. A moment later, he’s out of the car, hauling Stan out by his hair. He drags the man into the darkness, and I can tell he cloaked himself in shadows by the way the night deepens.
I hear Stan shriek, and the meaty sound of flesh hitting flesh. Then that, too, grows distant. Finally, there’s silence. Several minutes go by like that, and I’m halfway convinced that the Bargainer forgot about me.
But then, out of seemingly nowhere, Deslandsa dozen feet away from the passenger side of the car, rubbing his knuckles.
“You flew!” I say, amazed. He also did God knows what to Stan, but I’m not going to linger on that.
The Bargainer wouldn’t kill him. Right?
Des doesn’t respond to my words, and it’s only as he gets closer that I realize he’s pissed.
He opens my door and pulls me out, holding me close. “Don’teverdo that again, cherub.” His chest is heaving. “Never again.”
The glamour?
“But I helped you,” I say.
He squeezes my arms, a muscle feathering in his cheek. “You put a target on your fucking back.”
I still don’t understand. “I did the same thing in Venice.”
“Which was also problematic,” he says, “but this is different. You made a man talk who was willing to die for his silence.” He lets that hang in the air.
He was willing to die for his silence.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106 (Reading here)
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164