Page 8

Indy

We kept busy till evening, when Sully announced we would be closing for a long break.

Summoning a demon seemed like an odd thing to do over dinner.

I wondered what she’d put on the sign on the door: Out to commune with evil.

Back in 15.

After checking the chalk and salt lines, Sully and I gathered beside the sigil circle.

I held the vial of tears in my fist and watched as she lit a fresh candle to serve as the timer for our visit.

Negotiation. Groveling.

Sully opened her grimoire and began to read in that unnervingly deep voice.

I stood by, tugging on the hem of my skirt and knocking my bootheels together like Dorothy, telling myself there was no place like home for me and my hellhound.

The floor shook, and the room flooded with the stink of brimstone.

Smoke swirled up, up, up, and left behind not one, but two figures.

Moira wore a curve-hugging gown the same vibrant red as her eyes.

I remembered Loren returning from various Hellish events in chest-baring suit jackets or vests that made me drool.

The underworld must have been a glamorous place because the man standing beside the demoness was similarly attired.

A sheer white button-down exposed most of his torso and was tucked into fitted black slacks.

His thick chain collar was reminiscent of Loren’s except this one was shiny gold.

With wavy blond hair and sharp green eyes, the stranger peered at me from his post at Moira’s side.

A gilded leash led from his neck to the demoness’ hand.

I knew without asking he must have been a hound, but he wasn’t mine.

“What the fuck?” I blurted.

The timer candle wavered, and Moira’s lips tipped in a grin.

“No deal.” I shook my head and tucked the tear vial into my chest. “You better go right back where you came from and get Loren?—”

“Lorenzo is no longer in my possession,” Moira said.

Everything stopped. No one moved or spoke until I croaked, “What?”

The demoness rolled her shoulders, causing her ebony hair to ripple.

“He hasn’t been for some time now. A few weeks, I believe?” She glanced at the man beside her, who nodded in agreement.

My fingers tightened around the glass vial, squeezing so hard I risked shattering it.

I didn’t care if I did.

A palmful of glass would have been less painful than the barb of that admission.

Sully snapped the grimoire shut.

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

“I said I needed to consider your offer, and I have decided to accept,” Moira said.

It wasn’t an answer.

I stomped my foot. “There is no offer. Not without…” My gaze slid over to the blond hellhound standing idly by.

He was a handsome devil and somehow familiar.

His posture and presence reminded me of Loren, but that wasn’t it.

I’d seen him before.

Recently.

He’d been outside the drugstore the day after I got out of rehab, talking to Loren, though Loren hadn’t seemed pleased about the encounter.

So far, I wasn’t pleased about this encounter, either.

Moira’s smile persisted as she twirled the chain leash around her index finger.

“I will accept one vial of your tears in exchange for Lorenzo’s freedom.”

“You just said you didn’t have him,” Sully cut in.

Contempt hardened her voice.

The demoness thrust her leash-holding hand toward the hellhound.

“Allow me to introduce Whitney Perkins. Since you’re so keen on my other pet, I thought you may be interested in this one, too.”

“Well, I’m not,” I crossed my arms with a scowl, then offered an apologetic look to Whitney.

“No offense.”

His indifference was almost expected.

Silence and solemnity must have been universal hellhound traits.

“You should be,” Moira replied, and I wanted to slap the smile off her.

“He can find Lorenzo.”

“It’s Loren ,” I corrected.

“You can stop dead naming him anytime, bitchwich.”

“Indy,” Sully warned.

I huffed and turned aside, clutching the tear vial that had gone warm in my grasp.

The day’s work in the art gallery had quieted the chaos in my brain, but it was stirred into a frenzy now.

Loren was gone and, by the sound of it, the demoness didn’t even know where he was, but she was willing to put her sexy bloodhound to work sniffing him out.

“Why would he do that?” Sully asked, clearly on board my train of thought.

“He’ll do whatever you command once you are his master,” Moira said.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to be his master.”

“Would you rather be his mate?” the demoness fired back.

Her slim brows dipped to shadow her eyes.

She was taunting me.

Making jokes, but I wasn’t laughing.

“I’m a one-dog kinda bird,” I said gruffly.

“Thanks, though.”

Moira tittered a laugh and dipped her head in concession.

“Regardless, he will obey you. You need only this.” She offered out the golden leash.

Whitney, the hound, didn’t bat an eye.

Did he care about us carrying on around him?

People bartering for his life and control of his will like he had no say in the matter?

The realization slowly sank in that he didn’t have a say, and neither did Loren.

They were house pets in Hell, or perhaps less than that.

Property. Easily handed off, disposed of, or replaced.

“I said no,” I replied.

Moira shoved the leash outward, extending it far enough that it pulled on Whitney’s collar and caused him to stoop.

“My hound in exchange for your tears,” she said.

“That was the deal.”

I glanced at the pillar candle and found it burning furiously.

Liquid wax ran away from it in rivers.

“That wasn’t the deal,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even.

“It has to be,” Moira said.

“I have nothing else to offer, and neither do you.”

The handle to the leash rested in her upturned palm while the vial of tears nestled in mine.

I couldn’t accept. Not only because I refused to claim ownership of another human being, but also because she was right.

I had nothing else to offer.

I couldn’t give her the tears—my sole asset—in exchange for anything but Loren, in the flesh, not the promise of finding him or even a breadcrumb trail leading to his door.

I would settle for nothing but him holding me, breathing against me, calling me Doll, and telling me everything was going to be all right.

It was that or nothing, and I wouldn’t?—

“Deal.”

Sully’s declaration stopped my musing.

I glanced over at her, and my eyes burned with a new kind of heat.

“No,” I protested, feeling betrayed and horribly confused.

“No deal.” I backpedaled away from her and the sigil circle containing Moira and Whitney.

This deal was mine to make.

Loren was mine. Not Sully’s.

Certainly not Moira’s.

How and why was this whole thing slipping so suddenly out of my control?

“Indy.” Sully motioned toward the vial I clutched.

“It’s this or nothing.”

The candle melted behind her, a visible measure of time running out.

“We can try something else,” I argued, and I knew what Sully would say because I’d told her the same thing this morning.

She shook her head sadly.

“Indy, we’ve tried everything else.”

I hugged one arm around my middle and pressed the other, the one holding the tears, over my heart.

Turning toward Moira and Whitney, I passed over the demoness in favor of the hellhound, and my eyes locked on Whitney’s green ones.

“You can find him?” I asked.

He hesitated, but I appreciated that.

If he was a liar, at least he wasn’t a practiced one.

“Say yes,” I whispered, belatedly realizing I’d wished it out loud.

He had a kind face. Like Sully’s and Loren’s, so I believed him when he said, “If there’s anything to be found.”

My heart twinged at the mention of a possibility I had done my best to ignore.

Loren could be dead.

Gone farther than I could reach him.

Gone for good.

But I needed to find out, and I couldn’t do it alone.

I’d leaned long ago to trust one hellhound; I supposed I could trust another now.

“Then yes,” I said. “Deal.”

I marched to the edge of the sigil circle and extended both hands, one to offer the tears and the other to take the end of Whitney’s leash.

The exchange happened in a blink.

An item traded for a person with shockingly little pomp and circumstance.

There was only a slight hesitation when Moira grabbed Whitney’s arm and turned him toward her.

She’d been quiet for so long that I hadn’t noticed how her demeanor had changed.

She looked shrunken now, slumped and sad as she cupped her hands to either side of Whitney’s face and pulled him in for a kiss.

I expected him to resist, but he bent in graciously, even returning her affection by curving his palm around the side of her waist.

When they separated, both seemed mired in an emotion I couldn’t quite define.

No, I could, but I hesitated to believe it.

Were they in love?

“Be good,” Moira murmured, then kissed Whitney’s cheek.

The chain leash felt heavy in my hand as Whitney walked forward, then knelt before me.

“Oh, don’t do that.” I stepped back before realizing any further retreat would tighten the choke chain.

I glanced at Sully then Moira while stammering, “I’m not… I don’t…”

“I wish you luck,” Moira said, calling my attention fully to her.

I floundered, and Whitney knelt with his head turned toward the ground as she continued.

“Tell Lorenzo…” She smiled.

“Tell Loren I will miss him.”

The candle’s flame sputtered, signaling the end of our time.

While it wavered, the demoness plucked the cork from the tear vial and cast it aside.

Tipping the vessel to her lips, she consumed its contents in a gulp, then vanished from sight.

Whitney remained on his knees at my feet with his hands behind his back and his head hung low.

I was too stunned to register it, too busy searching the void left by Moira’s departure to process the subservience of the man before me.

That, and the sudden emptiness in my own hand.

The leash was gone. It disappeared along with the gold chain that had been fastened around Whitney’s neck.

“What just happened?” I asked.

The question was fair game for either Sully or Whitney, but neither replied.

“She drank me!” I exclaimed.

“What the actual fuck?”

Shaking myself, I curled my empty fingers.

I should have been happy about the missing leash because I didn’t want to own a hellhound, but the change led me to another realization.

“She lied,” I said.

Whitney’s eyes flicked up.

Some of his angst from moments earlier remained, pinching the skin at his temples.

He moved a hand to his unfettered neck, and his sorrow shifted into confusion.

“That demon bitch lied, and now she’s gone.” I spun toward Sully.

“Call her back!”

Sully held the spellbook but didn’t open it.

I nearly snatched it for myself before Whitney stood.

I glanced over my shoulder at him, watching as his features twisted from uncertainty into shock into sadness all over again.

“She’s gone,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Back to Hell, I know. And I’m gonna drag her outta there?—”

“Heaven,” Whitney corrected, unnervingly calm.

Squinting at him, I asked, “How do you know? Because she drank me?”

Sully made a grumbling sound.

“You’ve gotta stop saying it like that…”

I never thought I would wish for the hellhound to bow for me again but, drawn to his full height standing stiff backed and stern, Whitney was a bit intimidating.

He held my gaze with an intensity so different from Loren’s skittish glances.

“You are the phoenix, aren’t you?” He said it more than asked.

“Your tears can purify. They purified her. Now, she’s gone.”

Loren had explained why the demons were hunting me.

Apparently, I hadn’t believed it.

I struggled to accept it even now.

So, the demoness was in Heaven, “And you’re…?” I trailed off.

Whitney touched his neck again.

His eyes became unfocused, growing distant as he replied, “Free.”

Did that mean Loren was free, too?

I shook my head, wanting to grab Whitney’s arm for lack of a better tether.

I’d seen Loren walk through walls and disappear into Hell without a moment’s notice.

I assumed this hellhound could do the same, and I couldn’t risk losing him.

Not yet.

“Wait!” I blurted, though he’d made no move to leave.

“You have to find Loren. We need your help. We don’t…” I glanced at Sully clutching the grimoire, then swallowed hard.

“We don’t have anything else.”

Whitney paused like he had before, clearly reluctant, but he answered without prompting.

“I’ll do my best.”

My heart leaped into my throat as he turned and walked toward the apartment door.

I thought he would let himself out until he drew up before it and began dragging his finger across the surface.

Starting up from his shins then around in an arch, it opened into inky darkness, then the hellhound exited Earth, leaving Sully and I in cavernous quiet.