Double or Nothing (Daniel Faust Book 7)

by Craig Schaefer

  Nadine’s little white envelope, sealed with a cherry-lipstick kiss.

  I tore the flap open and slid out the card inside. Nadine’s “gift” to me, the identity of a man who could supposedly prove that Caitlin had been manipulating me since the moment we met.

  Dustin Hall, read Nadine’s delicate handwriting. Boulder City, Nevada.

  “I have to go out,” I told Circe on my way to the door. “Don’t wait up.”

  * * *

  Caitlin met me at her penthouse door. She cradled a fresh glass of Chianti. Expressions flickered across her face, relief and pleasure and worry, like she was deciding which mask to wear for me.

  “Daniel,” she said. “I’m pleased to see you alive and intact, but you really shouldn’t be here. We can’t give Naavarasi any grounds to claim our court is aiding you—”

  “It’s important,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  She welcomed me in. Her living room was an expanse of polished hardwood and black leather under sleek track lighting. An original Nagel painting hung over her sofa. She had her stereo on, a Duran Duran album playing low and soft.

  “We just took down another one of the chainmen,” I told her.

  “That’s appealing news,” she said. Her back to me, walking toward the kitchen. “I’ll get another glass. We can celebrate—”

  “His name was Dustin Hall.”

  The glass slipped from her fingers.

  It shattered on the floor, crystal rupturing, irreparable, dark red wine splashing across the wood like heart blood.

  She turned to face me.

  “I smothered him with a pillow,” I said. “He’s dead now. But we talked a little first.”

  Caitlin wore a poker face now. Nothing slipping out past the icy prisons of her eyes.

  “Did you?” she said.

  “Funny you never mentioned him before.”

  “I haven’t mentioned most of my lovers. I’ve been alive for centuries and I’m a daughter of Lust; I’ve had quite a few. You know that. It’s never been an issue before.”

  “Generally it isn’t,” I said. “Except when I find out one of your former lovers was tortured and mutilated to the point he barely looked like a human being anymore, and he says you did it to him, I get a little concerned.”

  I didn’t want to say the other thing. It took me a minute.

  “When he says you used your powers on him to control his mind, and he didn’t even know you were doing it at first…I get a little concerned.”

  Caitlin took a step toward me. Just one step.

  “I broke him,” she said. “I took great pleasure in it. I’m assuming he didn’t tell you why, though. Funny thing about stories. They tend to have two sides.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Dustin was obsessive. Jealous. You—at least, before now—never cared about my past or where I’d been before I was with you. He was the exact opposite. And every moment I wasn’t at his side, in his sight, he was convinced I was visiting a retinue of lovers behind his back. He actually proposed marriage to me, without understanding or even asking what that means to my people, to my culture.”

  “He said you made him do it.”

  Caitlin’s eyes narrowed. “The moon is purple. Look out the window. Is it true? I just said it, so it must be. Or do you only believe in deathbed confessions from homicidal maniacs?”

  “How did he end up…like he did, Cait?”

  “His jealousy,” she said, “reached a boiling point. He decided that the only way he could guarantee my faithfulness was to bind me with magic. To strip me of my free will and turn me into a slave. I’ve told you before, my people become very, very frightened when our freedom is threatened. We lash out.”

  The crystal stem of her fallen glass cracked under her heel. She paced the living-room floor, slow, a lioness in her den.

  “I didn’t want to believe it when I caught him making the preparations. Researching my true name, the seals of my lineage, tokens to bind and compel me. I spent a month in abject denial. And then…then he lured me into a trap. An imperfect one. I wept when he told me why he’d done it. I wept for him, for us, for the consequences of his madness.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  She stopped pacing. She turned to meet my gaze.

  “And then I punished him. I ravaged his flesh and his mind with every means at my disposal, every new agony carefully layered atop the last, but leaving him alive. Leaving him alive to spend the rest of his mortal years contemplating what he’d done. Now that you’ve sent him to hell…well, I imagine one of my sisters is greeting him at this very moment. Preparing him for a refresher course in pain. His screams will begin anew, and they will never cease. They will never cease until I grow bored of hearing them. And that won’t be anytime soon.”

  She closed the gap between us. She studied me, faint glitters of molten copper swirling in her eyes.

  “Daniel,” she whispered. “Did you forget what I am?”

  “Never,” I whispered back. My throat suddenly bone-dry.

  “You have a question. Ask it. Let there be nothing but honesty between us.”

  I’d never been so deeply in love, so fast, Hall had told me.

  I remembered standing at the mouth of the storm tunnel, after sending Stacy Pankow’s wraith to hell. Caitlin’s hand curled in mine.

  I’m not sure what there is to celebrate, I’d said.

  Us, she’d replied. Us, and today, and tonight, and tomorrow.

  I remembered the Ring of Solomon. The most powerful relic on Earth, a tool that could bind and enslave demons with nothing but its bearer’s will. I remembered holding it in my clenched fist, contemplating my future. For one moment, I saw something I thought had been lost to me forever: the possibility of redemption. I could have become the champion of humanity, a warrior against darkness, an unstoppable threat to the powers of hell. I remembered looking at the ring, deciding what mattered most to me.

  I remembered throwing it away. Watching it tumble into a starless void.

  “Caitlin,” I said softly, “I need to know something. And whatever you tell me…whatever you tell me, I’ll believe you. I promise I’ll believe you, and that’ll be the end of it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have to ask, but I need…I need to hear you say it.”

  “Ask me,” she said.

  “Have you ever used your powers on me?”

  She thought about it. Then she nodded.

  “Yes,” she said.

  36.

  I had expected a denial. I had expected a rebuttal. I had expected anything in the world but yes. I felt the ground sliding out from under my feet, pitching me toward a yawning abyss. Nothing to hold on to. No safe harbor. Not even in Caitlin’s arms.

  “Yes?” I echoed. Part of me hoping I’d somehow misheard her, that she’d correct me.

  “Yes,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I never wanted to have this conversation. I hoped—vainly, foolishly—that it might never happen. But it was always going to, eventually, and we might as well have it now. Yes, Daniel. I have influenced your mind.”

  “When?” The word came out as an uneven croak. I was having trouble finding my breath.

  “The night you freed me,” she said.

  For a heartbeat I was back in Artie Kaufman’s kitchen. Artie was dead. The parts of him that Caitlin hadn’t eaten, spending slow hours torturing him to death while I watched, trapped in my circle of salt, were splattered across the cabinets and the floor. Artie’s cop buddy was slug-belly pale, down on the linoleum with his hand cut off and his neck snapped.

  The circle was a ruse. Powerless. Caitlin had slid her foot across it, stepping inside with me. Her fingers curled in my hair. She kissed my cheek.

  “I couldn’t get you out of my head after that,” I whispered.

  “No,” she said, “you couldn’t. You’d just saved me from a horrible fate, given me a wonderful gift. I wanted to reward you. I wanted to make you love me.”

  “How is that a reward?
”

  She tilted her head. The molten-copper sparks in her eyes swirled like tiny whirlwinds.

  “Daniel,” she said. “Did you forget what I am?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “You were alone. You were lonely. You thought you were heading for wedding bells with that girl, Roxy—what you got was one less suitcase and an empty apartment. You were going to bed with a bottle of Jack Daniels every night of the week, drinking until the aching stopped. You were blaming yourself—”

  “I was blaming myself,” I said, “because Roxy walking out was my fault. I was a shitty boyfriend.”

  “You say that as if I care. I wanted you to stop destroying yourself. So I gave you the best gift I had to offer. I brought the bloom of new love into your life.”

  Her words were so well rehearsed I almost believed them. Then I thought about the ring.

  “And it was just a coincidence that the Ring of Solomon was in play, and you needed a human agent—who couldn’t be touched by its magic—to do the job you couldn’t.”

  “Speak directly,” she told me. “Ask what you want to ask.”

  I held out my open palm, cradling a memory.

  “I had the ring. I had it in my hand. And I threw it away.” I looked from my palm to her eyes. “Did you make me do it?”

  “No. And you know why you threw it away. It would have put everyone you’ve ever known, everyone you’ve ever loved, in mortal danger for the rest of their lives. Every sorcerer on Earth would be flocking to Vegas looking to claim the ring for their own, and all of hell would be plotting your doom. That is why you threw it away. The choice was made of your own free will.”

  I started to reply. My voice cracked, the words choking in my throat.

  “How can I believe you?”

  Caitlin lowered her head. She stepped back, drifting to the black leather sofa. Her hand clutched at the air. Grasping for something ethereal.

  “I could have used you as an agent. Thrown you away when I was done. I’ve done it to mortals before, so many times. But something happened.” She looked over at me. “I fell in love with you, for real. Wasn’t supposed to. But it happened. And that was the end of it. The moment I realized that I wanted you—that I wanted you, the real you, not some puppet on a string—was the last time I ever used my magic on you. Because I wanted you to choose to love me back. For real, with your real feelings and your real heart. And that moment was long before you seized the Ring of Solomon.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Felt tears gathering, and I fought them back with everything I had.

  “How can I know that?” I asked her. “If your power is so subtle that you can influence me without me knowing about it, how can I possibly know you’re telling the truth? You could still be doing it, right this minute. How can I know?”

  Caitlin walked up to me. Her fingernails pressed gently over my heart.

  “What you’re feeling right now,” she said. “Does it hurt?”

  I opened my eyes. A tear trickled down my cheek. I couldn’t stop it. Wasn’t strong enough.

  “Yes. It fucking hurts.”

  “That’s how you know,” she said. “Because if I was using my powers on you, you would never, ever hurt. And I can’t tell you how badly I want to. I want to wipe your pain away, make you smile, make you forget all of this. But I won’t. I can, but I won’t. Because I’ve learned that people in love—real love—hurt each other sometimes. And you have to deal with it, and work through it, and find a way back somehow.”

  “I don’t know if there is a way back,” I whispered.

  “I hurt you,” she said. “And I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

  I stood there, torn between I can’t and I already have, and I wasn’t sure which was true.

  “It’s not about forgiveness, Cait.” I rubbed at my cheek with the back of my hand, smearing the fallen tear away. “It’s about trust. How do I know I can trust you?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t give you some magical proof. It doesn’t exist. All I can ask is that you give me a chance.”

  “I have to go,” I said.

  Her jaw tightened. “Please don’t.”

  “I’m not…I’m not leaving leaving. I just can’t—” I sighed, frustrated, looking for words I didn’t have to express a tangle of emotions I couldn’t unsnarl. “You want forgiveness. And I can’t give it to you right now. I can’t say the words. I have to go and feel hurt for a little bit, while I work this all out in my head. I just…I need some space.”

  I walked to the door. She could have stopped me. By force, by magic. She did neither. She just stood there, with her bottom lip trembling, as I walked out the door.

  * * *

  I didn’t care about the bounty on my head, the demons combing the city for me. I didn’t care about much of anything beyond the bitter taste in my throat, and how badly I needed a drink to wash it away. I headed for the heart of the Strip. I needed neon and crowds and glitter. I’d overdosed on the truth, and the lying facades and false promises of Las Vegas felt like the only antidote.

  I wound up at the Monaco, at the little bar on the edge of the casino floor. Halfway through nursing my second Jack and Coke, the guy sitting on the stool to my left nodded to get my attention.

  “Girl problems, right?”

  He was in his seventies, maybe, with bright eyes and a tailored gray suit, and what remained of his hair was perfectly groomed. A silver fox. I lifted my glass.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “When you’ve been around the block as many times as I have, you recognize the look. Did you break up?”

  I had to think about that one.

  “I don’t know. Guess I’m trying to decide.” I shrugged. “We had our first real fight as a couple.”

  He chuckled. “Show me a couple that never fights and I’ll show you a couple that lies about everything to each other. Stress and occasional heartache are the price of honesty.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a little fight.”

  “What’d you do?” He squinted at me. “No. It’s what she did. Did she step out on you with some other beau?”

  I contemplated my glass. One last swallow of Jack, rolling around in the bottom of the cup. I tossed it back and drank it down.

  “No. Nothing like that, it was…” I tried to find a way to word it. “When we first met, before we got serious, she betrayed my trust. I mean, really, really betrayed it. She came clean about it, says she’s sorry, but…”

  “Has she done it again since?”

  I had to think about that one, too. The silver fox waved for the bartender.

  “Another martini, my good man. And another drink for my new friend here. It’s on me.”

  The drinks slid over on fresh napkins. I lifted mine with a nod of thanks.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I really do believe her. And I believe she’s sorry for it.”

  The crow’s-feet at the edges of his eyes crinkled as he gave me a rakish smile. “So this isn’t really about her at all, is it? Like many a man before you, your pride’s been bruised. A dire wound to the ego.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Isn’t it?” He sipped his martini and closed his eyes for a moment. “Mm. Perfectly made. Would you indulge an old man in a memory?”

  “I’ve got nowhere else to go,” I said.

  “Before I retired,” he said, “I was an architect. A damned good one, too. My best friend and I went in on a new undertaking together. It was a housing project. Enormous, you wouldn’t believe how big. Ecological, entirely self-sustaining, a landmark to end all landmarks.”

  “How’d that work out for you?” I asked.

  “Great. At first.” He gave a tiny shrug. “Soon enough, the arguments started. We disagreed on everything, from the aesthetics to the heating system. Finally, we had a mother of a fight and I stomped out. Said fine, hell with it, I’ll do my own thing and show him just how wrong he is.”

  The old man’s ey
es went distant. He stared at his martini glass, but he was a million miles away.

  “I’ll cut to the punch line,” he told me. “Turned out he was right about almost everything. I was a damned fool. And not only did it cost me the contract of a lifetime, it cost me something even more dear: my best friend. And I know, to this very day, that we could be friends again. All I’d have to do is go to him and tell him I’m sorry.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  He paused, just a heartbeat. The distant look snapped away. Fully in the present, eyes twinkling, he clinked his glass against mine.

  “Because pride, my young friend, is a bitch. I let my pride ruin the best thing I ever had, and I see you walking that same lonely road. Let me ask you something. Dig deep. Really think about it. Do you love this girl?”

  That was the first question I didn’t have to deliberate over. It was the only thing I knew for certain.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I love her. I really do.”

  “Relationships are hard work. But anything worth having in this life is worth fighting for. And the more you want it, the more you have to be willing to fight.”

  I smiled. “Funny. Friend of mine said the same thing, a few days ago.”

  “That’s a friend worth listening to, then. And right this minute, while you’re drinking booze with a washed-up old nobody, that lady of yours is at home. Pacing the floors, fretting, fearing.” He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Go to her. Quiet her fears, and tell her you’re on her side. If you’ve decided she’s worth fighting for, tell her that. She needs to hear it from you. If I judge that look in your eye right, what you’ve got is a one-in-a-million girl. That means you’ve got to be a one-in-a-million man.”

  He was right. I believed Caitlin. And yeah, she’d hurt me, but I wasn’t some perfect prize either. We could get past this. We could move on, together. The only thing stopping me from forgiving her was the thorn of pride sticking in my heel. Time to yank it out.

  “You’re right,” I told him. I set my unfinished drink on the bar. “I’m going. Right now.”

  “Attaboy.” He patted my shoulder as he hopped off his stool. “If love was simple, poets and playwrights wouldn’t have spent centuries obsessing over it. Just keep working at it. You’ll figure it out, Daniel.”