by S. E. Smith
He blew out a breath. “I don’t know why you’re pissed at me.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“I did not.” He took a step back because she was getting that peaceful look about her again, and that, he’d learned, was a signal that whatever it was she could do was bubbling up.
“If that bottle had hit me, it would have cracked open my head.”
“I was ninety-five percent sure that wouldn’t happen.”
She rocked up on her toes, all riled up. She was cute when she was mad. Like she thought she could make him sorry with the power of her anger. “What if you’d been wrong?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“Sure, I did.”
She clenched her jaw. “Ok. Fine. How about you ask your question and then leave me alone forever?”
“It’s complicated.” He reminded himself that his problem was not her problem. She didn’t owe him a damn thing. Maybe he should have waited to ask his favor. Except every minute that he waited was a minute too long. “Will you fucking let me drive you home?”
Just when he was sure he’d blown it completely, she sighed. “Okay.”
He’d driven one of Nikodemus’s cars tonight, the one nearest the garage door had been a green Mercedes sedan. A nice enough ride currently parked about ten feet from Maddy’s driveway. They walked back up the hill, and he unlocked the door for her. When he got in, she was staring out the front window.
“Have you been taking the bus all this time?”
“What do you think?”
“Just making conversation.”
“Don’t. I’m tired, and I have to get up early. Ask me your favor, and let’s get this over with.”
He put his hands on the steering wheel. “I’ll drive you home no matter what you say, all right?”
“Fine.” She stared out the passenger window.
“I was a blood-twin once.”
She huffed. But it wasn’t a complete dismissal. He was pretty sure.
Maddy would have taught this batch of street witches what he meant. Blood-twins were a pair of demons with a magical, permanent bond. Some demons were born to it—sometimes with a sibling, sometimes with a demon unrelated by human parents; same sex, opposite sex, didn’t matter. Others deliberately entered into the bond, which he had done. The blood-twin bond made the pair essentially the same being. They shared everything.
She frowned. He hoped that was curiosity he saw. Without the benefit of even a low level link with her, he had to watch and listen hard to be sure he was getting her reactions right. “I thought that was a permanent thing.”
“It’s supposed to be.” He hadn’t been whole since she died. The quiet in the car got deeper. He hadn’t told anyone this. No one. Nikodemus knew, but that was a side-effect of his oath of fealty. Nikodemus wasn’t talking, and until now neither had he.
“What happened?”
There was nothing out there but a bunch of sleeping or sleepy humans. No magekind except Maddy. He had no idea what the one next to him thought about any thing. “A witch murdered her to make a talisman.”
More quiet because Maddy made sure all the street witches she worked with understood what the magekind had done in the past and now. To be fair, she also covered what the demonkind had done, to human and magekind and sometimes still did. All of them needed to know what Nikodemus was doing, and understand why it mattered, and that nobody was entirely in the right.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice got soft. “Really sorry.”
“I found the witch who killed her.” He didn’t expect Wallace to give a shit about that, but whatever. It mattered to the whole point of his favor. He was counting on her focusing on what mattered; that his blood-twin had been murdered and her life force trapped in a talisman. A living death.
“So.” She sounded thoughtful. He hated that he didn’t have a hook into her mind. It would make this a lot easier because he’d know what he needed to say to persuade her. “She still has the talisman, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah.” He could take possession of her will and compel her compliance with whatever he wanted he to do. Assuming that whatever power she had going wouldn’t neutralize an attempt to indwell. In the old days he might have just done it. Something like that was worth his life now. Nikodemus would sanction him ten seconds after he found out. That is, if breaking his oath of fealty didn’t kill him.
She bit her lower lip. He focused on the tip of her tongue when it darted out to touch the dent she’d made. “I’m sorry.” She looked like she meant it, but he could never be certain with humans when he didn’t have a link. With her, though, he thought she was paying close attention. “I’m not sure I understand what that has to do with me.”
“She’s in Santa Cruz.” Santa Cruz was a beach and college town about an hour and half south, depending on traffic.
“Okay.” Her eyebrows drew together. That meant she was confused, right? Not clear about something.
“Not Nikodemus’s territory,” he said.
“Outside the rules, then.” She was fast. She shifted on the seat, facing him, and he hoped he was right that she was interested. She ran a hand over her hair. She had the kind of round face that went well with short hair. Strong cheekbones. Killer mouth. “What do you need?”
“I don’t want to make trouble for Nikodemus.”
“Understandable.” She laughed to herself, and he took that as a hopeful sign.
“I want your help getting the talisman back.”
He knew he wasn’t wrong about her astonishment. “Why me? Why not ask Maddy or, hell, anyone else?”
“Because of what you can do.” He squeezed the steering wheel hard. “Because after all this time, that talisman is unstable. You can do—what you did to me tonight. And I’ll have time to get it someplace safe and stop her suffering.”
“No.” She whispered, but he heard her fine. “I don’t think I can do anything like that.”
He looked sideways at her. “I have been watching you for weeks. Angel, you dead dropped me, and there’s about five, maybe six of the magekind strong enough to do that. If you can learn to control it, you could neutralize an entire fucking household of magekind.”
The woman blinked several times, and he had to take a deep breath to keep his disappointment under control.
“I will pay you two million dollars. Half now. Half afterward, whether I get the talisman or not.”
Chapter 5
Wallace stretched her legs as far as they would go in the front seat. Nothing but silence from Palla. That wasn’t unusual for him, but it was more uncomfortable now because she was stuck in the car with him until he dropped her at her place.
Two million dollars. Assume fifty-percent out the door in taxes, and it was still a lot of money. She barely had ten thousand in her 401K. The roughly million dollars left over would pay off her student loans and then some. She didn’t like being bribed, though, and she didn’t need to be paid in order to do the right thing.
He started the car just as she said, “I don’t want your money.”
His jaw flexed. “Your choice.”
There were plenty of times she’d been up close with one or the other of the demons who took their turns working with Maddy. A couple of times, that meant Palla. All the street witches had to practice making psychic links with them and learning what an indwell felt like. Needless to say, she’d been unable to get the hang of linking up with a demon, and the indwell had made her sick to her stomach and given her a migraine that lasted for hours. There was no way she could do what he was asking.
He put the car in gear. He’d misunderstood her answer because she hadn’t given all of it, and now she couldn’t bring herself to correct the conclusion he’d leapt to. He’d already decided her answer would be no, and that was that. There was safety there. Nothing bad would happen if she left things like this. Except the continued suffering of Palla’s blood-twin.
Except the
knowledge that she had done nothing to end a very great evil.
According to Maddy, the magekind had once practiced a gruesome ritual that trapped the disembodied life of a demon in some easily carried object called a talisman, once the demon was entombed. The mage or witch used the talisman to boost their magic, and never mind that only the demon’s physical body was dead. The demon was trapped, cut off from everything and slowly losing coherence, yet sentient. Forever. Endless suffering.
Imagining what that must be like made her stomach roil. Someone had done that to Palla’s blood-twin, and how could she live with herself if she did nothing?
He maneuvered the car out of the parking spot and got them headed downhill. “What part of Berkeley?”
“Near San Pablo Avenue. I’ll tell you when you’re close.” She’d heard the broad outlines of the sort of ritual that had must have been carried out on Palla’s blood-twin, enough to know it had to have been a brutal physical death.
How did you live knowing someone had done that to someone you loved? Knowing every day that they were still suffering? She shuddered.
Palla turned up the heater.
Now, why did he have to go and do that? Why did he have to do something thoughtful when everyone knew he didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything?
The longer she sat with the car moving through traffic and him not saying anything, the worse she felt. For him. For what had happened to his blood-twin. And the less she thought of herself for letting him accept a no she hadn’t given. The fact that he was asking for her help said something about what he thought he’d face if he went after the witch on his own.
They were just past Albany when there wasn’t any getting around the truth. Of all the people she’d worked with these last months, human or otherwise, Palla was the coldest. The least forgiving of faults, and she had plenty. He was an asshole and a jerk, and he didn’t have the slightest notion of what it meant to be kind.
None of that had anything to do with whether she helped stopped the suffering of another being.
She looked out the window. “I said I didn’t want your money. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“God, I do not like you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
She glanced at him, and saw nothing but the same cold profile. He wasn’t someone she could like. Not ever. “I don’t know why you think you want me involved in anything to do with you, but I’m in.”
He took the next right and pulled over. She reached for her center of calm. “First you say no, then you say yes. Can you make up your mind instead of jerking me around?”
“I am not jerking you around.”
Palla opened his mouth then didn’t say anything. Not right away. He leaned over her. “Explain. Explain so I understand what the hell is wrong with you.”
She leaned back. “You asked for my help, and if what you said is true, then I’m saying yes, I will help you.”
Flecks of yellow snaked through his eyes. She was used to seeing that with the demonkind. It meant he wasn’t bothering to hide that he wasn’t human. “What did you mean about the money?”
“It means I don’t want it.”
He sneered. “My money’s not good enough for you?”
“No.”
“It’s the same as everyone else’s.”
She tipped her head back. “I mean, no, you are wrong. Your blood-twin is suffering, and if you think for some insane reason you need my help to stop that, then I can’t say no. I won’t take money for something I’d do for anybody.” She looked at him, but it was dark, and all she could tell was that he was listening. “If you want to pay my expenses, fine. That’s fair, I guess.”
He settled in his seat. “All right, then.”
Wallace touched his arm, and he flinched. “When did it happen?”
He stared out the front window. “Winter 1505.”
She did the math as fast as she could. “Five hundred years?”
His eyes snapped to hers. His lips thinned, and his eyes glowed enough that she could see the yellow flecks in his pupils. “Fuck you, human.”
She held his gaze.
“Why do you think it’s been that long?” He stared straight ahead again, and she got a sick feeling he was about to tell her something she didn’t want to know about him. “Until two years ago, I was not free.”
One thing she’d learned early in her work with Maddy was that demons who’d been mageheld didn’t like to talk about it. They’d be fine, and something would happen to remind them, and it was like watching scars turn back to open wounds. She was watching that happen to Palla. There was no blood, but he was bleeding right in front of her.
A mageheld was a slave. If you were mageheld, you did whatever the mage or witch told you to do. No matter what. You had no will of your own. No freedom. No control over what happened to you.
“It took me this long to find out where she is. Sorry if that doesn’t meet your expectations.”
“That isn’t—” But she couldn’t argue with him about this. He didn’t need her giving him a hard time about something so awful. “I said I’ll help you.”
He didn’t say anything for a while, but she did get another stink-eye from him. “You have to take the money.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes.” He started the car, on this quiet side street where most everyone was home and if not in bed, then getting ready, and had no idea there was any such thing as demons.
“Why?”
“We do this, I don’t want you thinking about your fucking job or whether it’s going to take longer than whatever vacation you have coming. I’m not going to wait for your time off to get approved. I want you knowing you don’t have to worry about paying your goddamned bills or taking the fucking bus home because you can’t afford a car.”
She slouched on her seat. “Excuse me for not making enough money.”
He glared at her, and his glittering, unhuman eyes were hard. “I will have two million in an offshore account for you by morning.”
“I thought you said half now and half after.”
“Fuck that. If you fail, you won’t be around to spend it anyway.”
“There’s a comforting thought.”
He made the turn onto the main road. “I don’t want to owe you any favors.”
She waved a hand in the air. “You’ll just make sure I get killed by the end.”
Palla went dead silent. She couldn’t tell if he was doing anything with his magic, but she could tell he was pissed off. She didn’t have to be able to tell. If he’d said something like that to her, she’d be righteously pissed. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
He took the next right and parked in the first available spot.
“Now what?”
He turned off the car. Gold and yellow sparks shot through his eyes, tiny whirlwinds of color. “You think I’d kill you so I don’t have to pay you.” He delivered his judgment in a low voice, and she winced. “Even though I’m not allowed to harm the magekind.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Like I’d accidentally on purpose not watch out for you. Drive off without you. Let you take a bullet through that soft human heart of yours. Forget to tell you to watch out for the step off the cliff.”
“No, I don’t think that.”
“Yes, you do.” He punched one of the buttons for the interior lights. “I can fix that.”
“There’s no need. I didn’t mean it. You just have a way of pushing all my buttons.” Why, why, did he make it so hard for her to be nice? Better question. Why was it so hard for her to be nice to him? “I apologize.”
“I will die before I let harm come to you.” He grabbed her near arm, and she pushed herself straight on her seat, stomach nothing but a black hole of emptiness. He growled.
“What the hell?” She tugged on her arm. “Let go, you crazy fucking bastard.”
His fingers tightened o
n the back of her elbow, not hard, but not enough for her to break free. “I’m going to make it so you believe me.”
“What? No!”
With his free hand, he slashed the side of a finger at a diagonal just below the crook of her elbow. She didn’t feel anything at first, and by the time it registered that he’d opened a nick in her skin and that she was bleeding, he’d swept a finger through the blood.
Her skin prickled with some bizarre rolling reaction from head to toe. “What the hell?”
“I will protect you with my life, Wallace Jackson.” Slowly, he licked her blood off his finger. The back of her head went cold and then hot because Palla had just made her a promise bound by her blood. Their gazes locked, and she felt the power there, and it scared the hell out of her. He released her arm and sat back. “Problem solved.”
“What the hell,” she whispered.
His eyes flickered with more colors. “In or out of Nikodemus’s territory, now I can’t let you die.”
“I didn’t mean it. Jesus.” The horror and finality came home. “No. You can’t do that.”
“Stop me, how about.”
“You’re insane if you think I meant that. You didn’t have to do that.”
“You have no say in who I swear to protect.” He curled his fingers into a circle. “Zero.”
“You can’t go around making oaths like that.”
Palla smirked at her. “Angel, it’s too goddamned late.”
“Well, what if I don’t want you to die for me?”
“Get off it, Wallace.” He started the car again., “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you back. Twice as fucking hard.”
