Page 39

Rene gotiations

“N ow, you go on ahead. I’m going to drop you off here,” Honey said as she came to a stop in the alley behind a fairly large building. There were lights at both ends of the alleyway with another light over a fami liar door.

“Of course, she booked this building,” Honey said as they came to a stop.

“What about the building?” Rafferty asked, looking through the window at a structure that seemed similar to all of the other buildings in the city.

“This is the Wrightwood Ballroom,” she said.

Rafferty’s heart jumped in his chest.

“You didn’t recognize it?” Ho ney asked.

He shook his head. “I never saw it from the outside. When Helena summoned me, she did it from inside the building.”

Honey nodded. “Sure, that makes sense. Be careful in there.”

Rafferty’s legs shook as he got out of Honey’s car, a very unassuming wh ite Camry.

“Good luck,” s he called.

He turned around, stopping the door from closing. “You’re not coming with me?” he asked.

She shook her head. “My part in this is over.”

And he knew that was true. So he accepted it. Still, he hesitated. “I need to ask you one more question.”

“Go ahead,” s he nodded.

He licked his lips. “Is what Helena told me true?” He thought he needed to say more, but before he could form it, s he nodded.

“Energy freely shared compounds; it doesn’t deplete,” she confirmed.

It felt like the sun rose in his chest, warm and light. “Thank you, for getting me this far.”

Helena nodded. “You got this, my little strudel.”

He laughed as she pu lled away.

The door from the picture Helena had sent him with her last plea that he come loomed before him. It was exactly the same except for the burly man standing at it with a clipboard and a bunch of cards hanging from lanyards looped over hi s one arm.

The guardian at the gate , h e thought.

The guard lifted his head as Rafferty approached. He gave a cursory glance over Rafferty, eyes noting the chef’s outfit, the red pipping visible over his chest since he hadn’t bothered to zip up his coat.

“Name?” he asked without any prompting.

“Raffer ty Lares.”

The guard skimmed down his clipboard but didn’t need to go far to find it. With his pen, he made a check, then slid a lanyard off his arm and presented it to him.

One side had an image of a stylized chef and the words “Cooking Underground” printed next to him. At the bottom of the card was a strip of purple and the word “Chef” printed in white.

“You can head on in. Keep your lanyard on at all times. You will need it on the cooking floor and to get back into the building,” the guard said, then turned and opened the door for Rafferty to enter.

Immediately, warm, savory smells hit Rafferty’s face. He breathed it in, savoring the ghosts of tastes dancing over h is senses.

“You heading in?” the guard prompted, a little impatient at being mad e to wait.

Rafferty nodded an d entered.

He found himself in the familiar, zigzagging back hallway of the loading dock of the Wrightwood Ballroom. It was fairly obvious which way to go. There were two tables set up to his left with catered food and drinks as well as a couple tables where other people in chef’s outfits were getting something to eat themselves before they ha d to cook.

Still, he couldn’t stop his gaze from turning around in the opposite direction. It took a second to even understand why. He wanted to feel it, to sense it. The pull of the closed summoning circle that had changed everything. It was somewhere in one of the side rooms set into the zigzags of this back area.

But he fel t nothing.

“So, you did show up,” Eleanor’s v oice said.

Whirling back, he found her standing right in front of him, her arms crossed in that stiff, irritated way that was all hers. She was dressed in her whites, but she had her hair tied back with a blue kerchief that brought out the blue fire in her eyes. His heart lightened at the sight of her, only to crash just as fast as he registered the man standing ther e as well.

“Nice to see you again, Lares,” Vassago said, grinning as he thrust his hand out to be shook.

Rafferty didn’t take it, but he stared at his own reflection in the aviator sunglasses the d emon wore.

“You know you’re indoors,” Raff erty said.

Vassago’s human eyebrows quirked over the top of the sunglasses. “I do know that I’m indoors. What is yo ur point?”

Eleanor snorted. “Okay, so you two do know each other. He told me he knew you, but I didn’t want to believe it. So, you are actual ly Lares.”

The way she was eyeing him, looking him down and up, like she was seeing him for the first time, made him feel like a dried-up milk cow ready for b utchering.

How does she know? Vassago couldn’t have told her, Rafferty wondered.

Which meant she had to already know about Lares. And Vassago’s smug grin told him there was some piece of all this that he wa s missing.

Still, he kept his face carefully neutral. “Yes, I told you that when I was introduced to you,” he said as if it were an obvious thing. He couldn’t remember if he had or not; he just needed her to doubt her own accusation that he had lied to her about it.

The quirk between her eyebrows told him it worked.

Vassago’s twinkling eyes ruined th e triumph.

“I’m not surprise to see you two together,” Rafferty commented breezily.

Eleanor shifted her arms from crossed to fists on hips. “And why is that?”

“Oh, he’s just being a bit bitter, my dear,” Vassago said, grinning like a crooked salesman, whi ch he was.

“Don’t call me ‘dear,’” Eleanor interjected quickly, as if it were already becoming rote. That told Rafferty this demonic relationship had been going on fo r a while.

Vassago continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I previously represented Rafferty-boy here as a client, much like I’m doing for you. Unfortunately, he made a lot of personal choices that forced me to end the relationship.” He sighed. “There is only so much I can do. You know. Free will and all.”

“I thought we had a deal,” Rafferty said, using his whole will to keep his vo ice level.

“Yeah, about the deal, you mind if I walk with you a minute?” Vassago slapped his hand on Rafferty’s shoulder in the way he did the first time. It made Rafferty’s skin crawl. Despite not being able to see his eyes, there was a smugness in the gesture that just dared Rafferty to shru g him off.

“Sure,” Rafferty replied, turning to head the opposite way down the hall, using that natural motion to escape Vassag o’s touch.

Vassago simply took it in stride. “I will be right back with you, my dear.”

“Don’t call me ‘dear,’” she repeated.

And he repeated it, disregarding her words.

The demon and the man walked side by side, not saying a word until they were out of sight of t he others.

“You’re not a judge now, so you’re a… what exactly?” Raffe rty asked.

“A personal manager,” Vassago stated, tugging on the lapels of his suit jacket as he scanned around them at the doors tucked into alcoves. “Though I thought of going with life coach. Ah, the re it is.”

He scurried over to a door, one with police caution tape hanging on only one side, still clinging to the concrete. The other side had pooled on the floor amongst some dirt and detritus.

Rafferty wasn’t surprised to see this door. Of course, Vassago would bring him here, to where everything last went very, very wrong. It was the demon’s natural en vironment.

The demon in question gave him an expectant look through the glasses, smiling a sharp smile, enjoying making his target uncomfortable. Rafferty had played all these games before, and they seemed so silly and unnece ssary now.

“This is the only one that’s not locked,” Vassago said, answering Rafferty’s unspoken question. “Trust me. I checked.”

Rafferty didn’t trust him, but also didn’t want to dwell in this demon’s company any longer than he needed to.

He had other p riorities.

Turning into Vassago’s chosen room, Rafferty’s eyes went straight to the carved circle, etched and burned into the concrete floor. He couldn’t feel a thing from it, but the sight of it still made his stomach queasy. Someone had mopped up the gore that had been left by Vassago’s last victim, but Rafferty could still picture exactly how it looked. That image was burned into him. Why it should disturb him now, he had no idea. He had seen far worse in his time.

Vassago let the door drop shut before slipping his hands into his pockets, grinning under the fluorescent lights in the room. “I’ll cut to the chase. I need to make a modification to our agreement, and in exchange I’ll grant you o ne favor.”

Rafferty didn’t even fight to keep his forehead from wrinkling. “A favor?”

The demon nodded. “Yes, a favor, no conditions,” he said. Rafferty knew from experience he was rushing things. Vassago really wanted this deal.

Looking him over, Rafferty could only come to one conclusion as to why this demon was taking a Hail Mary option. “You’re running out of energy, ar en’t you?”

A breath huffed out of the creature who didn’t need to breathe. “Don’t ask stupid questions. Neither of us really have the time, do we? I believe it’s thirty minutes until this sho w starts?”

Rafferty narrowed his eyes, an expression not lost o n Vassago.

He stiffened his jaw, not willing to confirm what Rafferty already realized was true: he was still working on solidifying a deal wit h Eleanor.

The former demon could very well imagine it; sometimes it took an expenditure of energy, a sort of down payment or “proof of concept,” to smooth the way for a more solid and lucrative deal with a target, especially if that target hadn’t been the original summoner. Summoning gave the demon in question more of a toehold, already putting the target on the hook to pay the cost for the summoning.

But Eleanor was innocent of that sin. And she had always struck Rafferty as very savvy. Yet, Vassago was talented in getting the overly ambitious someones like her to fall into his traps… as long as he delivered.

“Oh, I see,” Rafferty murmured, his voice warm in its softness. “And because of your contract with me, you have been struggling to deliver the things that Eleanor would want—like a first-place win. Not if I’m there competing with her since you can’t do anything to directly harm me.”

“I cut very close to the line a few weeks ago, but that tarnished me in her eyes, yes,” Vassago said through the teeth of his feral smile, which cut his face in half, confirmation and threat all in one. “You have been quite a thorn in my side.”

“And the mortal agents are on your tail. Evading them must be costing quite a lot of energy as well,” Rafferty added, poking at the wound.

“Uh, fuck you,” the demon shot back.

Rafferty was completely unfazed. “I’m jus t saying.”

“Things are different this time. I’m very close to anchoring with this powerful soul, so I just nee d you to—”

“Put my head on a chopping block for your convenience. Our deal is the only thing that is keeping me safe.” Keeping Helena safe , he didn’t say. “I allow you to dissolve the contract, and you could kill me now. That would solve your problem with Eleanor, wou ldn’t it?”

A talon burst from Vassago’s otherwise human-looking hand. Pulling off his glasses, the demon’s whirlpool eyes examined the talon. “You let me do what I need to do to secure myself here in reality, and I will owe you a boon . How about that? More than a favor, an honest-to-whomever boon. You can use it to protect yourself. Or your little old soul if you want, though it looks like you cast her aside already?”

Rafferty debated that. A boon. That was a powerful gift, to be able to make any wish of a demon without a cost, or rather the cost would be borne by the demon themselves. A favor didn’t guarantee that. A favor was a maybe I’ll do it if it’s convenient to me. A boon had the same binding energies tied to it as a contra ct itself.

Still, he hesitated. What boon could he ask for that would accomplish the same thing as this current contract? “I could just command you to go back to where you belong,” Rafferty po inted out.

Abruptly, Vassago slashed out with his taloned claw, which had only grown longer as they were talking and was joined by two others more. Three long gashes appeared in the concrete of the wall. The concrete bits clicked as they fell like a mini hailstorm.

The claws ended a mere breath away from Raffe ty’s face.

He didn’t back down from the cle ar threat.

“Absolutely not!” Vassag o shouted.

The only thing holding Vassago back from ripping me to shreds is the terms of the contract, Rafferty reminded himself. He forced himself to chuckle. “You’re not exactly making a convincing argument here. I think you are losing the game more than I realized.”

Rafferty could see it as clear as glass as he was looking past the whirlpool eyes boring into him through to the dark being trapped in his own prison beyond. His old self would know exactly how to use such a creature, and his longest-hated rival at that, to get the most o ut of him.

But all he felt in that moment was pity.

“I know a way out of the game,” Rafferty said, realizing that Vassago wouldn’t like what he had discovered, but unable to do anything else. He felt compelled to say it, like the words were coming through him from… somewhere else. “Just pay your price. Pay what you owe and go home.”

The demon’s eye s widened.

Then he bared his too-sharp teeth, grinding them with painfu l squeaks.

Then he laughed. “For a second there, I actually believed that you were going to give me a real answer.” He dropped his threat, the claws retreating back into hi s fingers.

“I’m sincere,” Rafferty said, amazed at his own words. But he realized that Vassago wouldn’t listen, not yet. He needed to put it another way, one Vassago would understand. “Look, I’ve been here before. You’ll keep draining yourself out until the price gets too high… Cut your losses. Take what you have won already and go back. You will get called again. You will make it back to play the ga me again.”

That the de mon heard.

Vassago’s jaw shifted, considering it. It was advice Vassago had given Rafferty at one time in a similar circumstance, though he had been more of an ass about it.

Then the jaw locked, the decision made, and Rafferty’s heart sank as he re alized it.

This would have been the best way forward for everyone, but it wasn’t in Vassago’s nature to do that. Otherwise, the demon wouldn’t even be in this pos ition now.

“Give me… the deal,” Vassago ground out between his too-sh arp teeth.

Rafferty looked him straight in the eye. It would be so much easier to just relent, take the deal, and walk away. A boon from a demon, free and clear, would be extremely b eneficial.

He could just walk away.

“No. Enough is enough, Vassago. I’m done dealing with you.”

He finall y said it.

Despite the physical threat around him, Rafferty ducked under Vassago’s too-long arm and out of the ring of his aura.

And the demon couldn’t do a thing to stop him. Not with the original deal in place. The boundary w ould hold.

“Your new mistress is just going to have to win the old-fashioned way,” Rafferty said as he moved to the door. Gripping the handle to hide the shaking of his hand, he turned back to the demon, who had rage-filled, swirling eyes. “She’s going to have to beat me.”

“There are other ways to destroy you!” Vassa go hissed.

Rafferty nodded. “Yeah. Probably.”

And he left the room, and his pas t, behind.