Double or Nothing (Daniel Faust Book 7)

by Craig Schaefer

  I reached out. My fingertips caressed her good shoulder. Gently pulled her a little closer.

  “Because it’s forgiven,” I said, “and it’s in the past.”

  “Can we start over?” she asked.

  I thought about it. It wasn’t hard to decide. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

  She leaned against me, and I cradled her in my arms.

  “You know we’ve gotta kill the fuck out of Naavarasi now, right?” I added. “I mean, glass-parking-lot levels of carnage.”

  “Unquestionably.”

  “Super dead.”

  “Painfully,” Caitlin said. “Very painfully.”

  “So painful the Marquis de Sade will go ‘damn, why you gotta be like that?’”

  Caitlin nodded to me, utterly deadpan.

  “We have to nuke her from orbit, Daniel. It’s the only way to be sure.”

  “And that,” I said, “is why I love you.”

  “I know.”

  A figure sauntered from the swirling mists. Prince Sitri. Caitlin lowered her head, good shoulder slumping in an exhausted half bow.

  “Well fought, my hound.” He turned his mismatched eyes my way. “And while I applaud your bloodthirstiness, you do realize you can’t just drive to Denver and go on a killing spree, yes?”

  “It’s not a spree if you only kill one person.”

  Sitri laughed. “Caitlin, please enlighten your consort.”

  She leaned against me again. Smiling, her head on my shoulder.

  “You’re one of us now,” she said. “My knight in tarnished armor becoming a real knight, who would have thought?”

  “Meaning you are bound by our laws,” Sitri said. “A direct attack against a member of another court is an act of war. So don’t do it. Ever.”

  “What about indirect attacks?” I asked. “Seems to me like most of these ‘rules’ boil down to not getting caught.”

  Sitri looked to Caitlin. “My dear, are you certain he doesn’t have any of our blood in his veins?”

  “One hundred percent human,” she said. “I’ve checked. My cherished pet is simply a quick study.”

  “He’ll need to be. There will no doubt be those looking to test his strength. Humans rising to any level of stature within the courts are…not well loved by most. On the plus side, Daniel, knighthood does confer some minor privileges to accompany the burden of duty. It’s customary to grant a one-acre plot of land within my infernal domain. My aide has already drawn up the deed for yours.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Is it nice?”

  “It’s lovely. Absolutely beautiful.”

  Something in his gaze, some hint of playful malice, gave me pause.

  “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  “It’s in the middle of a septic wasteland,” Sitri said. “Utterly horrific, never go there.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I am a gracious and benevolent prince,” he said. “And…thank you. I almost lost my favorite servant today. I would have been very displeased if I had to replace her.”

  Sitri gazed at Caitlin, quietly admiring her. Not as a servant. His face said what his words wouldn’t. He looked at her like a father looks at his daughter.

  “My pleasure,” I said. “Though you know, we caught a lucky break.”

  “Mm? How’s that?”

  “Well, when I talked to the Conduit…I understand trials like this would normally take place in hell, where I can’t go without, y’know, dying first. Pretty fortunate that it was held here instead, and that the Conduit had a way to bring me here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it felt like somebody wanted to give me a shot at crashing the party and sabotaging Naavarasi’s plan. You know, in a totally deniable way, so nobody from Malphas’s court could point a finger at him.”

  Prince Sitri rubbed his chin. He nodded thoughtfully.

  “Now that you mention it, goodness, that is an amazingly lucky coincidence.” The ground rumbled under our feet, like the warning signs of an earthquake. “And on that note, it isn’t wise to stay in the Low Liminal for long. We’d best be going. Daniel, I’m afraid that while we have our own means of egress, for one of mortal flesh and blood…”

  He gestured with his left hand, fingertips curling in a ritual sign. The ground between us cracked and a sinkhole yawned open in the marble chessboard. Chunks of stone fell, tumbling into a tunnel of inflamed throat flesh. The living abyss shivered, its skin glistening wet.

  “…you have to leave the way you came in,” he told me.

  I gave Caitlin one last careful squeeze.

  “See you on the other side?”

  “See you on the other side.” She leaned in. Her lips brushed against mine.

  Then the fog rolled in, washing the world in winter mist, and she was gone.

  * * *

  I went home. Aching, disheveled, and dirty, I needed a shower and a new suit before I did anything else. The television was off. Circe had only been in my life for a couple of days, but I felt her sudden absence. Usually I didn’t mind living alone. Alone didn’t mean lonely.

  Tonight it did. I turned on the TV and let it play in the background, just to hear human voices while I cleaned myself up. I liked imagining Circe sitting on the couch, obsessing over the moving pictures. I almost thought she might be there when I stepped out of the bedroom.

  She wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. Neither was her queen, her goddess, the Lady in Red. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Her image, her voice—I felt like I should know her. Her memory was a spur in my side, commanding me to speak her name.

  I pushed the thought aside. I grabbed my keys, heading for the door. Then I paused.

  A trace of perfume hung in the air.

  Roses.

  * * *

  I knew exactly where I’d find Caitlin. Gordon Ramsay’s, right where we’d had our first dinner together. She even had the same two-seater table with a kitchen view, sitting alone, sipping a ginger liqueur with lemon and bitters. My drink, a Vesper martini, was waiting for me.

  “Come here often?” I asked.

  “Every now and then.” She nodded to the open chair. “Join me, if you like.”

  “Thanks, this place is packed.” I sat across from her and offered her my hand. “I’m Daniel.”

  Her fingers, warm and soft, curled around mine.

  “Caitlin. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  Then our eyes met, and we had to laugh. Then we couldn’t stop laughing, until the diners around us started looking anxious.

  “Starting over” was a fine daydream, but it just didn’t work in real life. We were who we were, and our relationship was built on the bricks of the choices we’d made. Some good, some bad. Some memories we’d cherish together, and others we’d never talk about again. All we could do was keep moving forward.

  All we could do was forgive.

  “I’ve already ordered for both of us,” she said.

  “I fully expect you have. Beef Wellington?”

  “As if there was any other choice.” She frowned, glancing down, and pulled her phone out. “Sorry. Office. Have to take this.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. Jennifer calling.

  “Yeah, I—same, sorry.” I answered it. “Hey Jen.”

  “You still breathin’ over there? I haven’t heard from you since the raid went down, thought one of those hunters mighta gotten lucky.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been…well, first I was tied up in a bathtub, then I was in another dimension. Long story. But we’re all good, crisis over for the moment. Also, I’m a knight now.”

  “That so?”

  “Yep. You have to call me Sir Daniel from now on. It’s the law.”

  “Yeah,” Jennifer said. “I ain’t gonna do that. As your best friend, it’s my job to keep you humble.”

  “You do excel at that.”

  Across the table Caitlin was leaning into her phone with her hand over her other ear. “Emma, we can’t—no, damn
it, we can’t just expel them all from the city. You need a legal pretext. All right, no, I understand—”

  “Anyway,” I said, “can I catch you up later? We just sat down to dinner.”

  “No can do, Dan. Mayor Seabrook just called and we got a problem on our hands. Malone wasn’t the only ink dealer in town.”

  “They arrested another one?”

  “Worse.” Jen sighed. “Cops answered a noise complaint. Teenagers throwin’ a house party. Looks like they got a bad batch of the stuff. They…did things to each other. Twelve of ’em are dead. Three are sitting in a rubber room. Total psychotic break.”

  “Damn,” I breathed. “Okay, this isn’t just about getting the mayor’s goodwill anymore. We are moving on these Network assholes.”

  “One more thing,” she said. “One of those kids, he’s asking for you by name.”

  I tilted my head, not sure I’d heard her right. “Me? Do I know him?”

  “I don’t think it’s him asking. He’s sayin’ he’s the King of Worms. And he wants to talk to you.”

  The music, the light, the heat all drained from the room as my vision turned pale, sickly gray. I glanced to my left, where a diner lifted a forkful of steak to his mouth in slow motion.

  Maggots squirmed from the putrid meat, plopping onto his lap.

  I blinked. The illusion tore away, the world lurching back to vibrant life.

  “I’ll meet you in twenty minutes,” I told her.

  Caitlin hung up three seconds after I did. She sighed and folded her cloth napkin.

  “I’m sorry, pet, but dinner has to wait. Apparently a number of errant chainmen, instead of leaving town as they were instructed to, threw a bit of a wild party at Winter. A party involving property damage and multiple injuries. I have to go and sort out who did what to who, and dispense punishment as appropriate.”

  I held up my phone. “Same here, I’ve got a thing I’ve gotta deal with right away. New Commission business.”

  She took a long, quiet look at me, shaking her head, and smiled.

  “Power couple,” she said.

  I laughed. “Power couple. Call me. We’ll do lunch.”

  At least we had time to leave arm in arm. At least we had time for one long, lingering kiss in the doorway.

  Some nights, you take what you can get. It was enough for now.

  Epilogue

  Naavarasi sat at her feast table in sullen silence.

  Her arm still burned every time she moved it, and her head hadn’t stopped aching since Royce dragged her from the battlefield. She didn’t have a demon’s resilience: healing, for her, meant slow, agonizing shifts and re-shifts, altering her form again and again until everything knitted together just right. Recovering had hurt worse than the beating she’d suffered at Caitlin’s hands.

  Still, she couldn’t help but smile.

  A man stood in the restaurant doorway, just inside the beaded curtain. His features were inked in shadow. He hovered like a nervous animal at the edge of the bloodstained carpet.

  “I told you,” Naavarasi said. “No face-to-face contact until your part of the plan is complete. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I had to come.” His voice was uneven, anxious. “I heard…I heard you’d been hurt, Mistress.”

  “That was unfortunate, yes. I’ll be honest: I wanted Caitlin. It would have been a sweet victory, and she would have made an extremely useful servant.” She beckoned to him. “Come. Dine with me. You’ve earned this.”

  As he sat beside her at the feast table, she lifted one of the silver serving-tray lids. Steam gusted up, carrying the rich scents of saffron and curry. Strips of meat, pink and tender, nestled in a yellow sauce flecked with herb shavings. Her jade fingernails plucked one of them from the tray.

  “Open wide,” she said. “Just like I taught you.”

  The human tilted his head back, lips parted. She dropped the slice of meat into his mouth and chuckled.

  “There you go,” she murmured. “Nothing makes you stronger than the flesh of your own kind. And your mission status?”

  “Successful,” he said, chewing contentedly. “I’ve ingratiated myself with Ms. Fleiss and won her trust. Your psychological profile was invaluable.”

  “Of course it was. She thought I was mooning over her master, when I was spending my time studying her. Stay valuable to her and keep a low profile. It’s almost time for your turn in the spotlight.”

  “But…isn’t it all over? Didn’t we lose?”

  “Lose?” Naavarasi arched an eyebrow, irritated. “Why would you think that? I told you, Caitlin was only a bonus prize. She was never the real goal. If anything, this helps us. She and Daniel are convinced they uncovered my master plan.”

  She picked another strip of meat from the tray. She threw her head back, held it high, and dropped it down her gullet. Swallowing it whole.

  “More importantly, they think it’s over.”

  “But what about the Cutting Knife? It’s gone now. Didn’t you need it?”

  Naavarasi burst into laughter. She closed her eyes, beaming, and patted the man’s knee.

  “That old thing? Oh, no. What I needed was for Daniel to have access to one. More importantly, I needed Sitri and Malphas to know he had access to one. It’s true, I will need a Cutting Knife for my plans to manifest…”

  She reached for another serving tray and lifted the lid.

  Underneath, on a velvet pillow, rested a dagger. A Tibetan phurba, brass with a three-bladed tip. The brass had oxidized from time and neglect; the once-grand designs carved into its ornate hilt were encrusted with a sickly green patina.

  “So it’s very fortunate,” Naavarasi said, “that I already have one.”

  * * *

  The glass elevator slowly climbed Northlight Tower. One man stood inside. Mr. Smith, Esquire, was prim, pressed, and precise. Gray suit, gray tie, and a white pocket square folded with laser-sharp edges.

  He reached into his breast pocket and took out a plastic makeup compact, flicking it open with his thumb. Instead of reflecting his face, the mirror inside was a pit of inky darkness. A man huddled in the depths of the image, head bowed, clutching himself in mortal terror.

  “Dr. Nedry,” Smith said. “Just thought you’d like to know that I’m working on remedying your lamentable error of judgment.”

  “Please,” Nedry’s voice whimpered from the glass. “Let me out.”

  “You’ll stay where you are until I’m certain you’ve learned the importance of discretion. You betrayed our trust when you revealed our existence, Doctor. Your knowledge and experience are the only reasons we haven’t simply eliminated you. So be thankful.”

  Nedry’s shadow slapped at something on his arm. He squirmed to one side, flinching.

  “There are…things in here with me.”

  “I know,” Smith said. “I put them there. If I was truly being cruel, I’d turn the lights on so you could see them.”

  He snapped the compact shut and slipped it back into his breast pocket.

  The elevator chimed. Smith strode through the coldly lit halls, past mahogany walls and plate-glass windows overlooking a city skyline. He moved, as he always did, unseen and unimpeded.

  As the penthouse office doors swung open, light from the waiting room flooding the near-pitch darkness, the Enemy flowed up from his chair with an electric crackle. Smith held up an open hand.

  “Please don’t be alarmed,” he said. “My name is Mr. Smith, legal counsel for an organization of forward-thinking entrepreneurs. We’ve been watching you for quite a while, sir.”

  “You’ve what? How are you even here? How did you get past—”

  “I have a talent for opening doors. As I was saying, we’ve seen your work—and we like what we see.”

  The Enemy swirled around him, circling like a school of piranha in the crude shape of a man. “Do you now?”

  “We do. And we couldn’t help but notice you’ve been having some trouble in Nevada. There’s no shame i
n it. We’ve had some difficulties there ourselves lately.”

  “I’m not having any difficulties. Everything is under control.”

  “I wouldn’t imply otherwise,” Smith said, standing still as a statue. “But there comes a time in every corporate life cycle when expansion proves problematic. When such occasions arise, a merger between like-minded parties is only prudent.”

  The Enemy stopped circling. His etched-negative form hovered in front of the lawyer. He leaned close, pearly teeth clenched.

  “Why…” he breathed.

  “Is there a problem, sir?”

  The Enemy loomed closer.

  “Why don’t you have a history? Your timeline is completely empty.”

  “We’d like to help you, sir. We’d like to collaborate on this Nevada situation by lending you some valuable resources and aiding in logistics. We feel that by doing so, it would create a win-win situation. Positive synergy. You’re aiming to accomplish big things. So are we.”

  “Why don’t you have a history?”

  Mr. Smith smiled thinly.

  “I’m just not very memorable, sir. Afraid I’m quite boring, really. No life outside the office.” He held up a business card. “Will you consider our offer? Call me, day or night. No strings attached.”

  Crackling, flickering fingertips plucked the card from Smith’s hand.

  “I’ll consider it.”

  Mr. Smith stepped back, bowing with a quick nod of his head. “Very good, sir.”

  He walked to the door, pausing to glance back over his shoulder.

  “And welcome. Welcome to the Network.”

  Afterword

  Daniel’s a knight now. So he has that going for him (which is nice). Of course, Prince Sitri never does anything without a reason, and we shouldn’t forget the timeless words of the Notorious B.I.G.: “mo’ connections to the courts of hell, mo’ problems.”

  (I may not be remembering those lyrics right. Oh, well, close enough.)

  At least he and Caitlin weathered this latest storm — which is good, because with all the trouble headed their way, they’re going to need each other more than ever. Almost as much, I daresay, as I need my support team: thanks as always to Kira Rubenthaler for her editorial prowess, James T. Egan’s cover design artistry, Adam Verner for his audiobook narration, and my priceless assistant, Maggie Faid. And thank you for reading! My readers have stuck with me through thick and thin, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me. As for Daniel, he’ll be back in 2018 — though the actual story will begin, oh, about twenty minutes after this one ended. No rest for the wicked.