“Well, it really didn’t seem the right time to teach the finer points of soul contracts as I watched my client drop like a stone after creating a half-assed signing while the object of our mission slipped out the back and disappeared.” Yagi glowered.
Thomas winced. “Victor escaped?”
“Yes, damn it!” Yagi snapped. “I told you. I warned you—there isn’t time for sentiment, not if you’re going to get your soul back.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let her die?”
“YES!” Yagi roared.
Thomas lowered the safety railing, swinging his legs off the side of the bed despite the screaming protest in his head. “Well, excuse the hell out of me,” he muttered. “There’s bound to be a learning curve.”
“There is no learning curve here,” Yagi said, each word slicing like a razor. “Not with what you’re up against. Failure is worse than death and there is no room for error. I have told you this, but apparently I’ve been talking to myself. Either that, or yet again, I’ve got a client who refuses to listen to my advice!”
Yet again? Thomas filed that one away for future questioning, instead focusing on how he could try and salvage the situation. “We were in the same room with Victor. You saw him. We can find him again, right? Can’t your magic work with that?”
If possible, Yagi’s expression turned even more bitter. “I shouldn’t have to use my magic, Thomas. He should be dead. And so should Kate.”
Despite his lack of equilibrium, Thomas stood up and staggered toward Yagi.
“You wouldn’t be so goddamned bent if you were able to find the guy,” he said, with an icy fury of his own. “I’m paying you to locate him for me, not tell me it’s my fault you fucked up.”
Yagi bared his teeth, which came to unnatural, predatory points. “You pay me to advise you,” he shot back. “You pay me to save your soul, or so you claim. But I don’t care how rich you are; no amount of money is worth letting you set me up to fail as the price for your ego and stupidity!”
With that, he stalked off, and Thomas leaned against a nearby wall, grimacing with pain. Only to see Kate, in the other hospital bed, staring at him.
“Well, the upshot of that whole rant seems to be I’m not dead,” she said, her green eyes wide and wild. “So there’s that.”
Thomas felt some of the anger ebb out, only to have the space filled with guilt and concern. “I’m sorry, Kate.”
She was wearing a muted gray hospital gown—they must have needed to take off her torn and blood-crusted clothes. She looked surprisingly delicate, something he’d never considered. “He almost killed me, didn’t he?”
“But he didn’t,” Thomas emphasized, dragging himself to her side.
“I felt things breaking… bleeding…” She swallowed convulsively, and his chest ached. “How badly am I hurt?”
“You’re healing fast. Yagi says you should be a hundred percent by midnight.”
She let out a little snort of disbelief, sounding much more Kate-like. “Bullshit. My mom’s a nurse. Even if he’d just smacked me around, I wouldn’t be a hundred percent.” She paused. “What did you do, Thomas?”
Another wave of guilt rolled through him. “You’re going to find this hard to believe, so bear with me,” he said slowly. “Kate… I signed your soul.”
“That’s what I agreed to?”
He nodded, feeling like crap. “Your blood and the thumbprint make it binding. Right now, it allows me to… well, use some of my powers to help you.” He really, really needed to research this more; Yagi was right on that one. He’d never intended on having signatories, and now he needed to figure out what signing Kate entailed. “If I get this right, I think you don’t have any powers unless you actually sign your real name. Or something. I need to get a frickin’ book.”
“And… that means I’m going to Hell, right?” she asked. “When I die. It’s like a nonstop ticket.”
He winced. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, but of course—if he was damned, then so was she, by extension.
“I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that from happening,” he said instead. “It sounds bad, but it’ll get better.”
She sat there, absorbing it, and he wondered for a second if she was going into shock. Then she leveled those killer green eyes on him, and she looked surprisingly calm.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “I’m in too deep now. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on here?”
For a brief, seductive second, he thought about sitting on the bed and spilling to her the whole ugly shebang. The sheer relief of unloading all this crap on another soul was overwhelming.
But what good would it do? Haven’t I screwed her up enough?
He forced a smile. “Trust me, the less you know, the better.”
“No, you trust me,” she said, not smiling back. “I need to know this stuff. I’m already signed. The less I know, the more dangerous it is for everyone.”
“You’re barely handling the idea of soul contracts,” he said firmly. “You might think you’re strong, but you have no idea just how complicated, and just how harsh, all this is about to get.”
She sighed. “I know that you’re looking for a power base of twelve people,” she said in a monotone, shutting him up. “I know those twelve signatories protect a thirteenth, and I’m guessing number thirteen ‘done you wrong’ or something, so you’re gunning for him. I figure you could’ve killed me at any time, but apparently I’m useful, probably because I could work with the contracts without getting killed or going crazy. Now, I get the sense that you signed me by accident, but that I can still be useful. There are a few gaps, but tell me how I’m doing.”
He stared at her slack jawed for a moment. Then he loomed over her, his previous anger at Yagi and at himself and his shock at her information dump spilling out. “How did you know all that? Who do you work for? Who sent you?”
“Who sent me?” She sat up quickly, then groaned, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips to her temple. “Nobody sent me but a temp agency, you ass!”
It took a second for it to sink in. “Then how do you know all that?” he demanded.
She screwed open one eye to glare at him.
“For future reference,” she said, “never underestimate my ability to find shit out.”
He collapsed against the bed, putting his own head in his hands. “You are gonna be the death of me, Kate O’Hara.”
He felt her touch, soft and insistent, on his arm, and he glanced at her.
“Tell me,” she said. “How bad is this? Exactly what scale of trouble am I in?”
He put his hand on top of hers. Then he squeezed her fingers very gently.
“I’ll take care of it, Kate,” he said with a steely determination. “I swear it.”
Oh, really? his subconscious mocked.
Like you took care of Elizabeth?
…
“Kate, where the hell are you?” Prue’s voice crackled over Kate’s cell phone. “I’ve left you, like, twenty messages! When you didn’t show up at the BART station, I freaked out!”
“Things came up,” Kate said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. It was close to eight o’clock, and getting dark. She’d recovered as best she could at the Havens, but when Thomas left to handle something business-related, she’d thrown on a pair of large sweatpants and a T-shirt that she’d found, and fled. “Things… went wrong. I’m taking a cab to Nan’s. I’ll be there in a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” Prue said. “But you’d better tell me everything when you get here. Are you all right?”
“No. Not remotely,” Kate said, then stopped, realizing that the cab driver was listening in over his hip hop radio station. “I’m almost there, and I’ll tell you everything.”
She hung up, feeling wrung out. She’d done her best to fix things. She’d tried to warn that old guy that he was going to get killed. If Thomas is only killing assholes like Victor, she thought, I’ll be hap
py to help him.
Then she realized—for all she knew, that was her new job description.
Pick up dry cleaning. Arrange for murder of asshole number two. File TPS report.
Ugh.
Prue would help her, Kate thought, biting her lip. Nan was some sort of supernatural badass, and Prue appeared to be a mystical force in her own right. Even if she wasn’t, nobody brainstormed like Prudence Mikai.
Kate started feeling some of the fear and panic recede. They’d talk it over, figure it out. And Kate would get her life—and her soul—back.
After ten minutes, the cab pulled up the winding dirt road that lead to Nan’s house, in the middle of the grasslands a little ways from Pleasanton, “out in the boonies” as her mother would say. The lights were on, casting shadows of Nan and Prue, who stood waiting on Nan’s wraparound porch.
“Want me to hang out?” the cabbie said.
“Nope, I’m fine,” she said, handing over the money and cautiously getting out. Her body was healing—Yagi wasn’t wrong there, she was recovering remarkably quickly—but she still felt off, like she was getting over a really bad cold or a wicked sprain or something. She stood there, taking a deep breath, as the taxi pulled away.
Prue rushed off the porch and down the path to her, arms open. “Girl, you shaved about ten years off my life,” she scolded, starting to hug her.
“God, Prue, it’s been the worst day,” Kate said, hugging back. “I’m in trouble. I’m in serious…”
Before she could finish, Prue shrugged out of her hug, jerking her arms back. “Kate?” Prue said slowly, staring at her. “What did you do?”
Kate blanched. She’d never heard that much disgust in Prue’s voice before—not even when talking about Tad, whom Prue out-and-out loathed. “Well, let me preface it with, I was doing what we’d talked about. I was just trying to…”
Prue took two large steps back. The revulsion in her eyes was horrific, and she held her hands up. “You signed your soul over to the Darkness.”
“I had to,” Kate said, taking a step forward, only to have Prue retreat even more, stumbling onto the porch.
Nan came through the front door, holding up her cane like a sword, pointing it at Kate before she got too close to the house. Kate huffed. “I was dying, Prue! That guy I was trying to save? Total psycho, and he… he…” She swallowed hard against a wave of nausea. “I was hurt. My skull was crushed, I was dying…”
“So that boss of yours made you a deal,” Nan said, and her voice was tinged with sadness… and irritation. “Lord, child, you are just made of stupid.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my idea to go back in there and find out what was going on,” Kate said, feeling defensive, and hurt. “Prue, you said—”
“You signed your soul.” Prue’s voice sounded strangely like a growl—not just a metaphor, either. A real growl, like something an animal would make. “You signed your soul over to Hell.”
“Hello, I was dying!” Kate snapped. “I wasn’t thinking straight! Would you rather I was dead?”
Prue’s silence spoke volumes, and Kate felt it like a stabbing wound in her chest. She didn’t think anything would hurt more than the beating she’d had at Victor’s hands.
Apparently, she was wrong.
“Prue,” she pleaded, her eyes welling up with tears. “I came over here to find out what I could do to fix this. I want to make it right. I want to get my soul back.” She paused as the tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Aren’t… aren’t you going to help me?”
Prue’s expression was anguished. “I don’t think I can.”
Nan made a little clucking sound against her teeth. “Don’t know if anything can help you,” she said. “You don’t get in trouble by half, missy.”
“I was just doing what I thought was the right thing, and now I’m getting hosed for it?” Kate asked. “Prue, you’re my best friend. I’m sorry I did this, but I thought… Really? Is this it?”
Prue closed her eyes for a long moment, and Kate felt tears pricking at her own eyes.
When Prue opened them, her eyes had changed. They were now yellow, like a cat’s eyes, or a fox’s. In fact, her already thin face had turned a little foxlike.
“Ah, shit,” Nan said, and jumped in front of Prue, just before Prue leaped at Kate. There was no way the tiny woman should have been able to stop her tall, lithe, muscular granddaughter, but she held Prue at bay. Prue snapped at Kate, her now noticeably pointed teeth clicking out loud as they snapped shut.
Kate gasped, stumbling backward and falling on her ass. “What the fuck, Prue?” she yelped.
Prue shook her head, then staggered back herself, hitting the door. “Oh my God,” she said, taking deep, gulping gasps. “Oh my God.”
“You, in the house,” Nan ordered, shoving Prue in the doorway before turning back. “Kate, you’re gonna have to leave.”
“What? Why?” Kate asked, reeling. “What just happened?”
Nan sighed deeply. “You might say that Prudence’s heritage finally decided to show up,” she said cryptically. “For now, the hint of your demon taint—signing your soul—is triggering something she’s not ready for. Until she learns to get a grip on it, you need to stay the hell away from her.”
“So that’s it, then?” Kate said hollowly. “I’m just screwed?”
“I’ll look into it,” Nan grumped. “When I find out something, I’ll call you.”
“So what am I supposed to do until then?”
Nan’s wrinkled face grimaced. “Try not to die, first off. You die, you’re going to be well and truly screwed.”
“Don’t die. Great. Fantastic advice.” Kate swallowed hard. “Is Prue going to be okay?”
“Go on home, Kate,” Nan said, a little more gently. “I’ll take care of Prue.”
Kate felt terrible. She didn’t want Prue hurt, and whatever had happened had shaken them both. But she’d never imagined her best friend attacking her. She’d certainly never thought that this could happen.
For the time being, it looked like she was on her own.
Chapter Seventeen
Thomas sat in a chair in a large conference room at Fiendish Enterprises. Yvonne, head of Fiendish Couture, stood next to him, towering at six foot seven. “She” used to be a power forward for the North Carolina Tar Heels back in the day. A lot had changed.
“I wanted you to look at the prelim collection for spring,” she said, her voice low and smoky as a jazz club. “We’re doing some really avant-garde stuff, and since you’ve made that deal with so many of the movie stars from Fiendish Films, we’re getting some great buzz.”
Thomas barely listened. “I trust you, Yvonne. You don’t need to run this by me.” Especially when he had another two meetings and a million details to take care of. And the pesky business of trying to retrieve his soul while his supernatural hoodoo consultant sulked in a corner somewhere.
“You’ve got amazing instincts,” Yvonne demurred. “You’re probably the only one whose opinion I care about. So I’ll get my girls ready, okay?”
She strutted off on ridiculously high heels, graceful and yet mildly menacing, as the models who rushed out of her way no doubt noticed.
Thomas sighed, then texted Yagi for the thirty-fourth time.
“I’m here,” Yagi said, startling Thomas. “You can stop sending me messages.”
Thomas crossed his arms. “So, are you quitting?” he asked, staring at the woman coming down the makeshift “runway” rather than at his consultant.
“That will be up to you,” Yagi said, none of the fury that had colored their last conversation apparent in his voice. “But I will say that, unless you can prove to me you’re serious about getting your soul back, I will not remain in your employ.”
Thomas grimaced. The girl on the runway was wearing what looked like a barber-pole-striped dress with a metal spike as a hat, trailing a ribbon. He nodded, and she preened.
“What does this proof need to consist of?” Thomas said, glancin
g at Yagi and dropping his voice to a murmur that couldn’t be heard over Yvonne’s background music. “Do you expect me to kill Kate now?”
“Would you?”
Thomas was staring at the next model when Yagi asked the question, and realized he was scowling fiercely when she stumbled and her expression dropped. “That’s fine,” he said to the model, then hissed at Yagi, “It wouldn’t serve any practical purpose.”
“It might give you a little boost in power,” Yagi said. “After all, she didn’t have a lawyer go over her contract like you did. She’s got standard boilerplate—if she dies, you still get to retain a percentage of her soul power.”
Thomas shot over an icy glare. “I’m not going to get my hands bloody just to help you feel better about your job.”
Before Yagi could respond, Maggie settled herself on Thomas’s other side, making sure her hip made contact with him and sitting just a fraction too close. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, shutting off her phone and tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder.
Thomas grimaced. “Why are you here at all?”
She smiled at him, playfully hitting his arm. “You know I pulled this together, Thomas,” she said, sounding surprised. “I think it’s getting there, but it needs some fine tuning.”
Thomas stared at her. He vaguely remembered her saying she wanted to be involved with this, but he was fairly certain that she was just in it to get free clothes.
“I thought I’d sit with you, explain the choices I made and what I think needs to happen,” she said, sounding a little too chipper. She was dressed to kill in her signature red from Fiendish’s business collection. Obviously she was there to prove that she was just as competent as Kate.
Oh, goody. Between the bizarrely dressed models, Yagi’s demands, and Maggie’s hyper-cheerfulness, he felt a headache beginning to pound in time with the pulsing dance music. “Maggie, I need to finish this conversation with Yagi,” he said through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you go check on the line up of runway models?”
“Of course,” she purred, then walked with a full hip swing toward Yvonne. Thomas turned back to Yagi.
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