“Okay good, that’s good. You’re stable now, you’re going to live, thank the gods… Damn it, Harry, sometimes I hate being your sister.”
My lips are too slow to form a smart retort before her fingers pass over my eyes, dropping me into the murky abyss of sleep.
***
I wake up in the same bed, dressed in nothing but my boxers and some strategically placed towels. The damp stickiness of blood on the sheets is gone without a trace, as though it never existed. But that’s a regular blood witch trick, so I’m not alarmed. I’m more afraid of what Luce is going to say when she knows I’m awake.
“Ahem. I know you’re awake.”
Ah, crap.
I open my eyes. Luce is standing at the foot of the bed in all her five-foot-zero glory, wearing pastel pink pajamas decorated with sleeping cartoon cats. She has a purple bonnet encasing her hair and a trembling scowl on her face, the light shining off her tall, round forehead and button nose. I sit up with a towel pressed to my chest, slowly, and crack a tentative grin at her.
“Heeey, Luce. Sorry about the time, if I had a choice I wouldn’t have interrupted your beauty slee—”
“What the Hell, Harry.”
I suppress a wince. “Look, Luce, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get shot—”
“Not that, you idiot, that!”
She jabs a finger at my bare stomach. The raised skin of my sigil scar stands proud.
“Oh,” I say. “Uh. That. Well, it’s really not that serious, it’s just—”
“A demon sigil! Harry, what did you do?”
Oh no no no, her black irises are turning twilight as they water—this wasn’t supposed to happen, she wasn’t supposed to find out—
“I didn’t sell my soul, okay? I’m not that stupid! It’s just a bet, and as long as I don’t get damned nothing happens—”
“You know it’s never that simple!”
“It was the quickest way to help Miriam!”
Luce rubs the back of her hand over both her eyes. “You’re always hurting yourself for someone else’s sake, aren’t you?”
I open my mouth to speak, but she cuts me off.
“You know what, never mind. Forget it. I’m your sister, not your babysitter, and frankly I don’t have the energy to do this twice in one week.” She plops down on the bed next to me, still rubbing her eyes. “Fuck, I’m tired.”
I swallow my unsaid words. “You okay?”
Luce cringes. “No, I… I’m not. I’ve been busy. Something… happened. Council-related. I’ve been on call for forty-eight hours, and I’d just lied down to sleep when you called.”
“Oh, crap. Luce, I’m so sorry.”
She waves me off. “Don’t be. It’s not like you shot yourself.” She squints a critical eye at me. “You didn’t shoot yourself, did you?”
“No, no, not this time. Hey, what happened with the Council?”
Luce scrunches up her face, making her cute wide round nose even wider and rounder. I take the hint.
“…Right. Excommunicated sister. Not allowed to tell me.”
Luce gives me a sheepishly apologetic shrug. “If it’s any comfort, it’s not just you. Council’s going batshit. Anyone in the community who doesn’t know is being cordoned off with velvet ropes, and anyone who seems to know is getting crowned and dragged in front of the Council for questioning. Only way I can tell you anything is if you’re involved somehow.” She pauses. “How did you get shot?”
I tell her everything, starting from Joy’s disappearance (conveniently leaving out the demonic one-night-stand) to the parking garage.
“I was almost out but then this kid, the guy in the parking attendant booth—”
Fuck, I’d just forgotten about him. His image flashes in front of me: a round, freckled face with acne pockmarks under the cheekbones and unruly, carrot-orange hair sticking up on one side. I didn’t even know his name. I still don’t know it.
I take a deep breath, burying my face in my hands. I hadn’t even realized until now that I’m shaking. I feel Luce’s small hand on my shoulder blade.
“He’s dead. It happened so fast, he had nothing to do with… I shouldn’t have just run in there. If I’d been careful I could have seen them before they saw me, I could have slipped out quietly and nobody would have gotten hurt… fuck. I fucked up.”
Prickling heat rises behind my eyelids. Crap, I can’t cry, not now—but I do anyway, because I’m tired too. So far in the last day, I’ve almost gotten shot, actually gotten shot, gotten someone else shot, and failed to find a substantial lead on any of the missing people. I swallow thickly, raising the towel on my chest to press it against my eyes. “I shouldn’t have gotten him killed.”
“It’s not your fault, Harry. You thought you were chasing one guy with a bullet wound. Anyone would have done the same.”
I drop the towel an inch. Through my unfocused, watery vision, the cartoon cats on Luce’s pajamas look like they’re dancing. I sigh. “Maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now, does it? Dead is dead is dead.”
We sit in silence for a moment.
“And—Luce—I’m sorry for doing this to you too. I know you hate having to patch me up like this, and I keep promising not to let it happen again…”
“Hey, you and I both know I’d be fifty times madder if you actually died. And I can fix you up much quicker than a hospital anyway.”
She smiles. Unable to help myself, I smile back.
Something lands lightly on the mattress next to me. I turn to see Tuxedo, Luce’s black and white cat, staring up at me with wide, cornflower blue eyes.
“Hi baby,” Luce coos, beckoning. Tuxedo steps gingerly across my bare thighs (her little paws are so fuzzy), then purrs like a motor engine as she rubs her ears against Luce’s pajamas.
“What, no headrubs for me?” I pout.
Tuxedo makes an annoyed noise, cracking one eye open to peer at me. Then she flops onto her back in Luce’s lap.
“So, what’s your next step?” Luce asks as she absentmindedly pets Tux’s tummy. The points of Tux’s teeth and claws are immediately in her knuckles, but she doesn’t seem to care.
“What do you mean?”
“As in, how are you handling this case? You need my help? You run into another merc with a gun, you’re probably going to need healing again. I’m still technically on standby for the Council so I’ll have to drop everything if they call, but—”
As if on cue, blaring electric guitars and high-pitched voices singing in Japanese erupt from the bedside table. Tuxedo yowls and tumbles off the mattress as Luce scrambles to find her phone. She presses it to her ear as she stretches out on her stomach across the bed. “Yes? Uh huh. Crap. Alright, on my way.” She rolls sideways off the bed, barely landing on her feet. “Damn attendants couldn’t keep a few leech bandages on for two hours. Do I have to do everything myself?”
She starts grabbing clothes out of her closet and tossing them onto the bed. I get up, rolling my shoulders.
“I guess this means you’re busy.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Your clothes are over there, I had to cut some of it off of you.”
My slacks and bra are entirely unsalvageable, courtesy of Luce’s scissors. My shirt is still in one piece—but it’s also missing the majority of its buttons. Ah well, at least it’s not bloody anymore. I shrug it on, then check on my coat. Bullet hole, bullet hole, bullet tear, bullet hole… no biggie, I’ll leave it with my tailor for a night and it’ll look good as new.
“Here,” Luce says, breezing past with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She tosses a T-shirt and a pair of jeans onto the bed next to me. “These should kind of fit you.”
I hold the jeans up. They do look long enough to fit me, which means they’d be impossible on Luce’s shorter legs.
“Which girlfriend left this behind?”
“Keisha. She moved to Chicago before she could pick up all her stuff.”
“Ah, Keisha. I know I already
said this, but you were way too good for her.”
“Aw, thanks.”
By the time I pull the shirt over my head, grunting at the strain on my newly healed muscles, Luce has already hopped into pinstriped tights and a simple black dress with a petal collar. I zip up the back for her while she fixes her springy purple hair, fish her favorite Mary Janes out of the closet as she tosses various vials and pouches into her purse, and drape a coat over her shoulders as she speeds out the door.
“Take care of Tuxedo!” she calls.
The door slams shut. I stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, towel held loosely at my side, Tuxedo mrrowing as she prowls in a circle around my feet.
I’m not sure what I should be doing. Investigating, probably. Or finding a way to protect myself against further attacks from the gray spook squad. Technically, I already have a first line of defense: Lilith. But I pissed her off, and now I’m in Luce’s apartment and there’s a kid lying dead in a parking garage.
I should never have trusted her. I mean, I told myself that I didn’t. But somehow, I ended up thinking that—that if I were in trouble, she’d be there, at least out of necessity. Why did I let my guard down like that? Because I bumped uglies with her?
“This is why you don’t fuck demons,” I mutter to myself, folding the towel into a square and burying my face in it.
The doorbell chimes. My head snaps up while Tuxedo hisses and bounds off into Luce’s bathroom. I go to the door and squint into the peephole.
Lilith looks innocently back, her face distorted by the lens’s fisheye view. When she grins, her canines swell to inordinate proportions. I roll my eyes and open the door, leaving it open just a crack with my body blocking the gap.
“Lilith.”
She’s wearing a new dress, a casual black floral number, and her shoulders are once again covered by her jean jacket. Her curls are a little neater and flouncier too. She looks fully human—except for the fact that her feet are still entirely bare and furry.
“I like this apartment,” she chirps. “It’s not yours, is it? Girlfriend’s? You didn’t say you had one when you were humping my leg like a horny Chihuahua.” She tilts her head, her gaze sweeping up my bare legs (oh right, I haven’t put on pants yet) and studying my shirt. She sniffs once, quickly. “Hmm, those aren’t your clothes either.”
“You know damn well this is my sister’s place. It’s why you’re at the front door instead of the window, isn’t it? You can get through my wards, but you’re not risking your luck on Luce’s. You know she’s stronger than me.” I narrow my eyes. “Or you should know, given how long you’ve been shadowing me. Except in those convenient moments when I’m getting riddled with bullets and an innocent kid is dying on a parking garage floor.”
The grin flickers. “What’s this about a kid?”
“You let him die, Lilith. You were there and I know you didn’t fuck off completely, because you must have stuck around to make sure I survived. He didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Uh, yeah, I know. Your point?”
“He was innocent! It wouldn’t have taken you even a minute to save him, but you just watched him die!”
Lilith doesn’t flinch at my outburst, but her eyebrows go lopsided. She stands up taller, crossing her arms over her chest and regarding me coolly.
“Witchy, when did you forget that I’m a demon?”
I shut up. Glare at her. What else am I going to do? She’s right. She’s a demon, and I’m the idiot who actually expected her to save someone.
“…Fine, then. I guess there’s nothing else to say.” I start closing the door, but stop. “Hang on. I want to play out our bet.”
Lilith’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Really?”
“Yeah, the ward’s in my apartment in a plastic bag. Can’t get it right now though, place is probably being watched—”
She’s gone.
There isn’t much to do while I wait for her. I sit on the couch for a bit. Then I try to straighten out the rumpled sheets on Luce’s bed. As soon as they’re somewhat neat, Tuxedo pops out of nowhere and hops onto the duvet, making a nice, cat-shaped dent in my work. She lets me pet her behind her ears for approximately a minute before she starts trying to eat my fingers; I retreat to the living room couch again, twiddling my thumbs. Oh, right, I’m still not wearing pants. The jeans Luce left me are a size too small, but my hips are narrow enough that I can slip into them without a problem. Sure the cuffs come up to my calves, but I’ll call it fashion.
The doorbell rings again. I take my time responding, and when I open the door, Lilith is standing there with shining, excited eyes.
“The handcuffs,” she says. “You put it on the handcuffs.”
“Yeah, I did. Did you test them yet?”
“Of course not. I want you to be around so I can see the look on your face when they don’t work. Oh, and by the way, there’s two creepy guys in gray watching your apartment.”
I sigh. “Figures.”
Lilith takes a step forward—I nearly slam the door on her. She stops and frowns.
“I’m not letting you into my sister’s place. We’re going somewhere else.”
As if to back me up, Tuxedo pokes her head out from between my legs and hisses. Lilith shoots her a look, her pupils shrinking to slits—Tux backs up a little, but glares just as defiantly as she did before. I guess having feline features doesn’t necessarily make you friendly with cats.
I shrug on my perforated coat and attempt to shoulder past Lilith as I leave the apartment. She deftly avoids the movement. I grab the plastic shopping bag, more than a little peeved.
So, where can I go to slap a pair of warded handcuffs on a demoness without attracting undue attention? A seedy hotel, that’s where. I don’t have much money on me, what with the whole “rushing out to make sure my friends aren’t dead” thing, but I’ve got what’s in my wallet and that’s enough for now. Despite how my shabby state contrasts with Lilith’s cheerful neatness, the concierge barely looks at us as he hands me a key.
I think the walls in this room used to be white. Now they’re a yellowish beige, stained more interesting colors here and there. The ceiling is just two inches above my head and all the furniture looks like mismatched trophies from a secondhand shop. As soon as we’re in, Lilith starts bouncing up and down on her toes.
“It’s not going to work,” she says with a gleeful grin painted across her face. If I’m not mistaken, I can see her horns trying to burst out of her temples.
“That’s to be seen,” I answer. I take the handcuffs out of the bag and hold them out. “Show me your hands.”
“Sure thing, officer.” Lilith primly holds out her wrists. I click the cuffs on one at a time, fitting them snugly, but not so that they bite into her skin. I step back.
Lilith balls her hands into fists and tests the strength of the handcuffs, jerking her arms in opposite directions and making the chain pull taut. She does that a few more times, and the fourth time her brow furrows up, just a little. For a second, I really believe it’s going to work.
Then she yanks her wrists apart in one quick motion, and the chain snaps. A bit of metal goes flying—I duck instinctively. She stands, her teeth taking up half her face.
“It was a good effort, Witchy. By which I mean, that was terrible.”
She casually rips the cuffs off her wrists as she says it, and my heart sinks as I watch the metal rend as easily as candle wax under her fingers. She tosses the mangled cuffs onto the carpet, and it’s like they were never on her in the first place. I huff.
“It was a first attempt. And I didn’t get to work on it for very long.”
The Hellish grin just gets wider and brighter. “Yeah, but you still have to hold up your end of the bargain. So: question time.”
I groan and dump myself into a nearby scratched-up armchair. I lean back with my arms crossed, a bit petulantly. “Fine. Ask away.”
Lilith hops up onto the oddly luxurious four-p
oster bed, facing me, criss-crossing her legs like she’s listening to gossip at a sleepover. Her tail twirls up behind her, flicking in a way my eyes can’t help but follow. “So, tell me,” she says, “how did you get rid of the body?”
I forget how to breathe for a second, a slight wave of nausea flooding my throat. “Body?”
“Her body. Your mentor’s. Jo—”
“Johanna’s, yes, I know,” I snap. “Shit, you’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?”
“It’s the reason I was interested in you in the first place, remember? Now ‘fess up, you don’t have a choice.”
I can hear the clock ticking down the longer I don’t answer her, the weight of my own promise bearing down on me. No, really. My chest is ticking. There’s a pulsing pressure in the center of my ribcage, one I would mistake for my heartbeat if I didn’t know better. And it’s speeding up, like the footsteps of someone creeping up behind you in a dark hallway, or the theme song of Jaws. Godsdamned magic demon deals. But I don’t want to tell, I don’t—it’s not my secret to tell—but fuck, I made a deal. I just never expected Lilith to ask this.
I level my gaze at the wallpaper just over Lilith’s shoulder. A water stain quivers to the drumbeat that’s now vibrating my shoulders. I open my mouth, and with the first word my lips wrap themselves around, the beat comes to a dead halt.
“It was Luce. I was too out of it to help, and she knew the Council was coming, so Luce… dissolved the body.”
Lilith’s eyes gleam. “Dissolved it?”
“Yeah, she… broke it down, all the skin and muscle and bone, and turned it into liquid so it… seeped into the floorboards. I didn’t know about it until she told me later, in the hospital.” I rub the heel of my hand over my eyes, squeezing them shut. “The room smelled like… carrion, rotten blood… until we paid to get the floor torn up. We took the planks and made them into a pyre and burned them. The way she would have been burned if I hadn’t—”
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