Pawned
Page 31
Young Don’s gaze is heavy on me. “I can think of plenty of people I want to die.”
“The demon will give you no choice. It will be someone you cherish. Someone you love.” I look at the unconscious old man’s head on the pillow. “Surely there are others you love almost as much as your father?” I wonder about the woman I saw in the elevator, days before. The girlfriend.
Young Don looks at his father. “Yes. Yes, there are.”
“There’s always a catch to the deal. A trade for a trade. But...the demon will want this back. That in itself, might be even trade. It’s a gamble. But a safer bet, in my judgment, than the hourglass.”
Young Don reaches out, takes the tooth from my hand. He turns it over in his fingers as if it’s a coin.
“Be careful not to cut yourself on that.”
“Why?”
“I’m told it will cause a wound that won’t heal and will be no end of trouble to you.” I rub the inside of my arm, the rills and valleys of the design of my mother’s sword pressed into it. It’s still too swollen to know for sure, but I can make out suns and moons in a celestial band.
“You seem to be told a lot of things. How much is truth?” His eyes bore into mine.
I meet his gaze levelly. “I’m telling you the truth. This is something better than you asked for. A better bargain.”
“That’s for me to judge.”
I nod. “It is.” The whole thing is for him to judge: whether I’m telling him the truth, whether I’ve brought him the real thing.
“What blood did the demon take from you?”
“My brother. My neighbor, Rose. All for a few years of extended life.” I don’t mention the request to be collected later, the favor Hoodie can invoke upon my family at will. I’m pretty sure I’m his least favorite member of my family, so I’m pretty sure that he’s going to come calling on me one of these days.
“I’m sorry,” Young Don says. “I lost my brother as well. More conventionally. He was beaten to death in prison by guards.” A wrinkle crosses his forehead.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s the past. I must act to preserve the future.” His hand closes over the tooth. “I’ll take this, on your guarantee that it’s powerful currency against a demon.”
I nod. “It is.”
“Then I accept this item in trade. There will be no further violence by my people toward yours.”
“Thank you.”
“Yet...I admit some curiosity about a gnome I heard of. A gnome with a taste for liver...”
I wince. “Yeah. Our security system gets a little...extreme.”
Young Don stares at the tooth in his hand. “How do I summon the demon?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. He’ll come. He always does.”
Young Don stands, and I follow suit. He crosses around the bed and claps his hand on my shoulder. “We’re no longer enemies, Erasmus. We are collaborators. We might even be brothers someday.”
I swallow, say nothing. The idea disgusts me, but I’m too scared of upsetting the truce to ask what he means. But I can guess he’ll want more magical things from me. He’s a man who wants power of all kinds, and he thinks I can give it to him. He knows how to hurt me, the way Hoodie did: through those I love. I have no choice for now. Maybe I can find a way to amend the deal later...
He embraces me in that stiff way guys do. I ineffectually pat his back until he releases me.
“Go home, Erasmus.” Young Don holds the tooth up to the light. “I would like us to talk later about other initiatives. Things that can benefit us both.”
I feel like I’m sliding down some terrible slope. I nod mutely, shake his hand. It’s cool as glass.
The Man in Black shows me out. I wait, quietly, on the elevator, not entirely certain of what’s transpired here. Something I don’t fully understand.
He places the key into the elevator panel to bring us back to the ground floor. “At least until you get your own,” he says, with a shrug.
“What do you mean?”
“No one never comes back down that elevator who’s not family.”
Shit. I’m now...family. That might be a bit better than the alternative, coming down the elevator as a corpse. Maybe.
The doors open on the casino floor. I can’t wait to put as much distance between me and Young Don as possible. I step briskly across the carpet, not even tempted to drop a quarter in the slots. Until something snags my attention...a figure in a gray hoodie, head held low. It makes a beeline behind the poker tables to the back, where the elevator is.
My blood chills. Hoodie. He doesn’t waste much time.
I rush out of the casino like my ass is on fire. Hoodie is Young Don’s problem now. And hopefully not mine...at least, not for a while.
I GO TO PICK UP MY dad in jail after that. I pay his bail out of cash from the bail bondsman down the street, who let us use the ice cream truck and Sid’s bike as collateral.
I wait in the misery-soaked vestibule for my father. I don’t lean against the wall because it smells too much like piss for me to want to touch it. I cross my arms over my chest to hang onto my wallet and not get groped by anybody.
A buzzer sounds, and my dad shuffles out of the mouth of the jail. He’s wearing his court suit and holding a sheaf of papers. He looks very small, but almost respectable. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna be pissed that we left him in there so long.
His face splits into a grin. “Raz. You came!”
I hug him. It’s good that he wants to see me, no matter the reason. And he called me Raz this time.
He smiles at me. “C’mon, son. Let’s go home.”
We turn and head away, out of the vestibule, down the street, out of the shadow of the jail. It’s a sunny afternoon with a blue sky.
We walk in silence for a block. I expected it to be uncomfortable, but it’s actually sort of companionable.
He loves me in his own way. It may not be a way that would get him featured in a parenting magazine or the way I want him to love me. But he cares. And without him, I wouldn’t be here, breathing in the car exhaust and listening to the seagulls cry.
“How’s Pops?” he asks.
“He’s good. I left him sleeping in.”
“So you...didn’t give the Mob the hourglass?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
He sighs in consternation. “And how are Sid and Carl?”
“Sid’s lost an eye.”
My dad looks down at the pavement.
I continue: “The girls next door bought some felt and have a Bedazzler to make him some nice eye patches with sparkly shit on them.”
“And the girls?”
I swallow. “Rose...Rose had an accident. She died last night.”
My dad pauses. “What happened?”
“It was a freak electrical accident. Like Zach.”
My father puts his arm around me. “I’m sorry.”
I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to hear that. For something, anything. And I can’t begin to say how hollow it feels. It’s just words.
But maybe it’s a kind of beginning.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to the amazing folks who helped this book take shape.
Thanks to my wonderful husband, Jason, for all the Girl Scout cookies. Gratitude to my beta-reader and cat-sister, Marcella, for the read and pondering our cats’ inner lives. Thanks to Becca Stumpf for helping to shape the story that’s been rattling around in my head for many years, and for writing the back-cover copy. Thank you to Michelle Browne at Magpie Editing for the awesome content edits. Thanks to Roxanne Rhoads at Bewitching Book Tours for promo. And a big shout-out to Danielle Fine at By Definition for amazing copy edits, cover design, formatting, and layouts.
You guys are the best!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology-Crimi
nology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams.
Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.
The latest updates on her work can be found at www.laurabickle.com.
Novels by Laura Bickle
YA Rural Fantasies
The Dragon’s Playlist
Flesh
The Wildlands Series
Dark Alchemy
Mercury Retrograde
Nine of Stars
Witch Creek
Phoenix Falling
The Hallowed Ones Series
The Hallowed Ones
The Outside
The Anya Kalinczyk Series
Embers
Sparks
Ashes
Delphic Oracle Series, writing as Alayna Williams
Dark Oracle
Rogue Oracle