by Devon Monk
“Well, well. Delaney Reed. All tied up with a bow. I like what I see.”
I couldn’t turn my head to see who was talking but I had never heard that voice before. It was smooth, low, like honey and whiskey.
A man walked into my line of vision, coming out of the green foggy edges to stand beside my father.
Dad’s eyes went hard, his jaw set. Whoever, or really knowing my life, whatever that was, Dad didn’t like him.
“Demon,” Dad said.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
The man—demon—was taller than my dad and wide enough in the shoulder, it made the rest of his body look lean, even though he appeared muscled under the lightweight button-down shirt and business slacks he wore. His tie was loosened at the neck, and matched his eyes, which were a stunning green, almost as light as the green fog around us.
And when he smiled, it was like the sun had finally decided to shine down on something so beautiful and wicked, it was impossible to cast light anywhere else.
I hated the hitch of attraction in my gut. But this demon had that level of once-in-a-lifetime Hollywood leading-man gorgeous that could turn anyone’s knees to jelly.
Demon.
Handsome, conniving, amoral, selfish, cruel.
Even knowing that didn’t take the thrall off his beauty.
So, whatever. I was attracted to a gorgeous image. Most humans were. It didn’t mean I was going to act on it. Or rather, not in the way he probably wanted me to, if that smirk and wink he gave me meant anything.
“Why is he here?” I asked Dad. “Is he keeping you here, trapping you against your will?”
Every word came out steady, like I was bored with this whole thing already and willing to throw my authority around to get my way. I was good at this. I’d been taught by a master.
The corner of Dad’s mouth quirked. I saw the pride in his eyes, the love.
Damn right, Dad. You and I can totally take this joker down.
“Not against my will.”
That surprised me.
The demon chuckled. Yes, it sent happy shivers over my skin.
I turned my “ignore” up to eleven.
“I don’t understand.”
I wanted to touch Dad. To hug him, feel him solid and real again. But he was holding still in a very careful way, as if a line had been drawn between us. A line he couldn’t cross.
“Your father gave himself to me,” the demon said. “Willingly.” The demon’s eyes flashed red for a second, then faded to watery green.
“I’m sure there’s quite a story behind that. Do I have to figure it out in three questions or are you going to fill me in?”
He paused, his lips parted as he considered me, then his smile came back in full force.
The handsome. It burned.
“I like the idea of making you work for it, Delaney Reed, but as time is sliding away, and I have needs to be fulfilled, we’ll make this quick. Your father traded his soul to protect you.”
“You did what?” I nearly shouted at the same time Dad said, “It wasn’t just you, honey.”
I glared at the demon. “You, shut up.”
The demon opened his mouth, that same surprised look crossing his features before he smiled and pointedly pressed his lips together.
I glared at Dad. “You, talk.”
“I was driving back from picking up a package from the casino. The package, a small padded envelope was addressed to me, just my name written across the front. I thought that was odd, but it wasn’t the first time it had happened.”
If I could shiver, I would. That had happened to me too. I’d picked up an envelope addressed to me, and it had warned me about Heimdall’s murder.
“I opened the envelope and a stone fell out. A green stone with cracks of black and red.”
“The one I’m holding.”
“Yes. I didn’t know who it was from or what it was, so I put it back in the envelope. I was going to put it in lock up. Make sure it was warded. The car…I lost control of the car.” He frowned. “I don’t remember it very well. The moment, the reason.
“I remember falling. Falling over the side of the cliff.” He paused and tucked his hand in his front pocket, shoulders tilting sideways. Such a familiar gesture, my heart hitched.
“I knew, this was it. The end. My end. I’d hoped I’d get more years with you, Delaney. With all of you girls. Wanted to see you all build your lives, fall in love. Maybe have a chance to be a grandpa.”
He shook his head, and his smile was sad. “But I knew. I was done.”
Everything in me hurt. For him. For me. For our family. I didn’t know what to say.
“So, you traded your soul?” Okay, it wasn’t what I wanted to say, but I needed to know.
“I died.”
We just let that truth pull on the ties between us, knotting our sorrow, our loss together so tightly, it was an aching bond we shared.
I exhaled and it was shaky. “I miss you. We all miss you, Dad. I love you so much and so do Myra and Jean. Nothing is the same without you. But we’re trying. We’re all working at the station, the town voted me in as chief. I still expect you to come through the door when people call me that.”
He smiled, and it was soft and a little pleased. The kind of smile he always wore when we talked about his job being the bridge for the god powers in Ordinary. The job I’d inherited that made me the one and only person who could tell a god that he or she could or couldn’t set down their power and stay awhile.
“I love you, Delaney and I love your sisters too. I never wanted to leave so soon.”
“This is oh, so touching,” Beauty McJerkface said. “I’m on a schedule, so I’ll bring us to the punchline. I was trapped here. In this stone. Not of my own choosing, but because of a rather unfortunate dealing with a creature you’d rather not hear about. When the chance to change my fate fell in my lap, I took it.”
“Dad’s soul?”
“That, he offered. As I’ve said before. My chance, Delaney, is you.”
If I could sit down, shake my head, press cool fingers against the back of my neck to clear my brain, I’d do any one of those things. But since I was still stuck in a thrall of some sort, all I could do was blink and wait for that to make sense.
“No.” Dad turned to square off against the demon. “She isn’t any part of our agreement.”
“You have no say in our agreement now, Robert Reed. Those bones have been cast, cards turned. There is only the future at hand and all the ink upon it has dried.”
“She is not a pawn in your game, Bathin. Let her go.”
The demon held my father’s gaze, his face utterly impassive. Nothing Dad said made any difference to him.
“That is true,” Bathin said. “She is not a pawn. She is my rook. And I will use her as I please.”
“My soul—”
“Your soul,” the demon shouted over my father’s words. “Is mine. As such, you have no say over what is or isn’t done with it.”
Dad’s jaw locked. His fists closed. I was pretty sure he was going to punch the demon in the face.
“Please.” That one word, from my father’s mouth almost sent me to my knees.
The demon’s expression didn’t change. “Better,” he said, as if my dad were a dog that had remembered to heel.
Now I wanted to punch him in the face.
“This has been fated. When you agreed that your soul could be used to keep Ordinary safe. To keep me trapped here, in this stone. You knew giving me your soul meant I had full control of it.”
Dad didn’t say anything. And that scared the pants off of me.
“But I am a reasonable man.” The demon turned to me, and I knew he was neither reasonable nor a man.
“You will come to understand that I always have my best interest in mind. Always, Delaney Reed. Therefore, you now find yourself in the unique position of my services. In exchange, of course, for your services.”
“For my soul.” I didn
’t have to ask. Hello, this was a demon I was dealing with. Souls were the only thing they traded in. The only thing they wanted.
“Yes. For your soul.”
“No,” Dad said again.
“Let her decide. If she refuses to give me her soul then I will do nothing more to take it from her. I am self-centered. I’m not unfair.”
“Don’t do this, Delaney,” Dad said. “He wants more than his kind are allowed.”
That—the ‘his kind’ comment—struck hard enough that Bathin’s mild expression slipped into a scowl.
“I want what is owed to me. Nothing more,” he snapped. “This: your father gave his soul to me. In exchange, I agreed not to enter into Ordinary, nor to allow any of my kind to enter. Have I not lived up to the agreement?”
When neither of us spoke, he raised the volume. “I have lived up to every syllable of our agreement. And more. Because this, this is what I’m offering you, Robert Reed. I am offering you one more chance to trade your soul in a way that will bring good to your town. To your daughter, whom I can see you must love.”
“Out of the kindness of your heart,” I said.
“Out of my own best interests. We both know I have no heart. I took your father’s soul and promised to keep it in exchange for an absence of demons in Ordinary. And now, as part of the trade with you, I will set his soul free.”
Dad exhaled, a small sound that somehow carried both desire and sorrow.
“His soul for my soul,” I repeated.
“No,” Dad said again.
“Not just a soul for a soul. In what way would that profit me?” Bathin asked. He took a breath and for the slightest moment, something else seemed to shift in his eyes. I’d say it was curiosity and maybe need mixed with an urgent hope, but that would be too weird. This was a demon we were talking about here. No heart.
And I knew enough Demon 101 to never, in no uncertain terms trust one.
“I will free your father’s soul, and I will grant unto you a single favor for your living soul, Delaney Reed.”
“Don’t do this, Delaney.”
“What are his powers?” I asked Dad. “Myra would know, but I don’t. What can Bathin do?”
“Nothing,” Dad said.
Bathin sucked air through his teeth. “Falsehood, my dear man? I thought that beneath you?”
“Nothing is beneath me when my family’s threatened. You of all things should know that.”
“Yes, yes. How desperately you made your agreement with me. How terribly you wanted to ease the burden your daughters bear in your absence. So humanly thoughtful and earnest and….” He stuck one finger in his open mouth as if he were going to gag.
Ass.
“What is his scope of powers?” I asked again, wishing I could reach my TASER and dial it to disintegrate.
Dad’s eyebrows shot downward as he tried to recall his demonology. I could only imagine it was harder now that he had been dead for over a year and didn’t exactly have reference material handy.
“Stones,” Bathin said. “I know stones, and herbs, ways in which they can be used. I can move people in both physical and astral forms.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
He widened his eyes before narrowing them again. “That is so much more than you can imagine and all that I will tell you.”
Bathin obviously knew how to keep demons out of Ordinary. Or maybe he didn’t. It might simply be a coincidence that there were no demons in the town. A coincidence he took credit for.
Never trust a demon.
“You’ll set my dad’s soul free for my soul and a favor?”
“Yes.”
My heart was thrumming a heavy beat. I didn’t know where, exactly, we were physically right now. I mean, I remembered coming to Jame’s house, but the green fog around me made anything more than a few feet away hazy enough I couldn’t make it out.
This was either some kind of spell I’d triggered when I’d picked up the stone, or I’d fallen into some kind of between space. Time did weird things when it collided with supernatural happenings. The world around me might be running either really fast, or really slow, or not at all.
None of those possibilities made me happy.
The only thing that made me happy was seeing Dad. Even though he was scowling, angry at the demon and maybe a little angry at me too, for considering the demon’s offer.
But then, he’d done more than just consider the demon’s offer. He’d taken him up on it.
I suppose the one big difference was that Dad had been dying.
And in his dying moments, he hadn’t used a deal with a demon to save his own life. He’d given up his soul to save Ordinary. To keep us safe. The people and the place he loved.
I understood why he didn’t want me to make a deal. I would forbid Myra, Jean, and anyone else I loved from making any deal with any demon.
But right here I had a choice. I could set my father free or leave him trapped. Tied to this demon for all time.
The bite on the side of my neck burned cold, shivering down deeper beneath my skin.
“Delaney,” Dad said, “you will not do this. Please. Your life. Your heart. You can’t do this, baby.”
“He won’t have my heart. Just my soul. Is that right?”
The demon inclined his head. “It is what I said.”
What was worth the price of my soul? My family’s safety? The safety of my town?
Ryder.
I could ask him to break the tie between Ryder and the god, Mithra who had claimed him. I could ask him to bring my father back to life, although I thought that was probably outside his scope.
“Can you bring the dead back to life?”
“Can I?” He opened his hands. “I could make it happen. It would be…messy.”
“No,” Dad said firmer now. “That I absolutely forbid. I’ve made peace with my decisions, Delaney, and I will not have you throwing away your soul for my life.”
That hurt, the ache turning in my chest. The need to bring him back to life was the need of a child who didn’t want to face the hard decisions alone anymore. Still, it was very, very tempting.
“Ask,” the demon whispered. “You know what you want. You know I can give you your desires.”
Wow. When he turned on the charm, it was sort of stunning.
“He won’t,” Dad argued. “That kind of resurrection, this long after my death would take the agreement and direct involvement of gods and demons. Of Death, at the very least. And convincing him that I should be breathing again…. He won’t do it, baby. Not for me. The favors between us are too great.”
But would he do it for me?
For a fleeting, wild moment, I thought yes. Thanatos seemed to be, if not fond of me, at least amused by me. I might be able to talk him around to seeing my side of this, to maybe even team up with a demon to save my dad.
“How messy?” I asked Bathin.
“Gods and demons….” He grinned, full-blast charm. “Oil and water. There is no good way to mix us without a lot of agitation, and even then the mix is temporary. Imperfect.”
So that was off the table. I exhaled, shaky. Fatigue was setting in, though it shouldn’t make me tired to just stand there with a stone in my hand.
“What about vampires?”
“Explain.”
“Do demons and vampires mix?”
He pulled his head back and the grin was gone. He considered me with those pale green eyes, as if trying to read the text inside my brain.
“Demons care not for vampires across the long dance of eternity we’ve shared.”
“Can you kill one?”
“Most.”
“Lavius?”
His eyes shot to the bite on my neck. From the heat in his gaze, and the dark expression, it seemed he was acquainted with the evil in question.
“With consequences, yes.”
“Consequences?”
“If I killed him, you would die, and I want you living, Delaney.”
&
nbsp; “Why?”
“It would be so much more pleasant for me, and I am all about my own pleasure. I told you that.”
“Terrific. Look, can you break the tie between me and Lavius, then kill him?”
“That would be two favors, Delaney Reed. I have only offered one.”
“Delaney, say no. Don’t bargain with this being. You know he’s darkness. An end, not a beginning. Not even a weapon you should use.”
I gave dad a soft smile. “He’s the only weapon I have.”
Bathin made a happy little humming sound. “I live to serve.”
“Bullshit,” Dad said.
If he couldn’t bring Dad back to life, or kill Lavius, then there was only one other thing that I wanted, needed that badly.
“Can you find Ben Rossi and bring him back to Ordinary alive before midnight?”
Bathin’s nostrils widened, as did his pupils. “This. This you desire. You are in pain. I can taste it, oh. I can taste it.” He swallowed as if he’d suddenly shoved something succulent in his mouth. “Why have you misplaced that particular vampire?”
“My reasons are my own. If you can free my father’s soul and find Ben Rossi, and return him to us, alive, breathing, whole–every finger, toe, and scrap of flesh he currently possesses, including his soul and sanity before midnight tonight, I will give you my soul.”
“Delaney.” My name left Dad’s mouth in a hush that sounded like something heavy had struck his chest.
It made tears push at the back of my eyes.
Yes, I was frightened. Yes, I knew I was selling my soul to a thing of darkness. A thing that as Dad had said was an end, not a beginning.
I knew how stupid this was. How risky.
But I knew other things too. How much Jame loved Ben. How much Rossi loved Ben. How much it was my job, my responsibility to keep the people of my town safe. And that if I hadn’t been the one to directly cause Ben to be taken, that I was absolutely the one who could right now, right here, directly bring him back.
Safe.
Whole.
And I knew this wasn’t my end. I was bargaining my soul, but I was betting on the people who loved me. There would be a way to break this, a way to change it, to get my soul back. There were too many gods and creatures who had my back. There were too many mystics, and books of magic, and indomitable, clever sisters to think that my soul being in a demon’s hands was going to be anything but temporary.