by Robin Roseau
"That's an answer of misdirection."
"Only if I am torturing her in another fashion and am using that answer to misdirect you. I am not. Tell me, Detective. If you were in my place, what would you do with her?"
I stared at the wall for a long time. Finally the demon said, "If you answer soon, you'll have time for perhaps one more question."
"I don't know," I said in a small voice. "I don't know what I'd do."
"Would you let her go?"
"Probably not." I turned back. "Are you going to let her go?"
"I haven't decided."
Conflicted
With that answer, Evaline's timer rang. We both turned to look at it. Then she moved to turn it off, setting it aside on the desk. She turned to me, and when she did, she was back in her human form.
"You never asked where she is."
"Would you have answered?"
"Yes, although the information wouldn't have done you any good. What will you tell your former lover?"
"I don't know." I turned away, still processing what the demon had told me. I tried to summon anger at her, but I couldn't. Rachel had attacked her, and violated what sounded like a healthy friendship to do so. Finally I asked in a small voice, "Do you have any compassion?"
"Do you think you can achieve her freedom through guilt, Detective?" she countered.
I turned back to look at her. She was sitting calmly, watching me. As upset as I was, to face her calm demeanor was unnerving.
"I suppose it's ridiculous to expect a demon to feel guilt."
"Are you going to scream at me, Detective?" she replied. "I am willing to hold a calm conversation, but I do not believe I wish to listen to you vilify me."
I held her gaze and responded more calmly than I was feeling. "I just want to know. Do you feel guilt?"
"About this? No. Am I capable of the range of human emotions? Most certainly, as inconvenient as that can be. I have experienced guilt, Detective. And joy, and sorrow, and every other emotion you can envision. I admit: guilt is not a common emotion for me, and to feel it at all is rare amongst demons. But I am no ordinary demon." She gestured. "I live here, unbeholden to the so-called dark forces, and with the knowledge -- and might I dare suggest blessing -- of the forces you'd call light. That does not make me unique, but it makes me rare."
"Why did you tell me? Did you expect to win our game?"
She pursed her lips for a moment. Finally she said, "I like you, Detective. I like your passion and commitment. I didn't want you to continue to pursue this-" she waved her hand at me. "-Investigation. It wouldn't be good for your career. I imagine you consider me evil. But I care about rules. I care about the law. You are a good detective, and I didn't want you to destroy your career over this. Tell me, Detective. Are you going to continue to watch my businesses?"
We stared at each other for a while. "I don't know what I'm going to do," I admitted. "You feel no guilt?"
"About this? You haven't explained why I should feel guilty. What would you have me do, Detective?"
"You could have turned her over to the police for attempted murder."
"Oh, please," she said. "Seriously?"
"You have no right to be judge and jury."
"And yet, her god hasn't stopped me."
"Maybe her god sent me."
The demon considered me for several heartbeats before nodding. "Perhaps he did." She smiled. "But if so, you do not represent coercion. Perhaps you represent something else."
"Such as?"
"Diplomacy, perhaps?" she said lightly. "Perhaps you will convince me to release her, although I do not know how. It won't be through guilt, but perhaps you will discover other inducements."
"I want to see her," I blurted.
She tapped her lips, not answering immediately. Finally she said, "For a price."
"Another game."
She shook her head. "No." She smiled. "Negotiations will also have a price."
"You owe me several favors."
"I owe you several small favors. This is not a small favor."
"What price?"
"A passionate kiss, freely offered, and I control the intensity and duration."
"No."
She stood up. "It has been an intriguing day, Detective."
I stood with her but then looked at her imploringly. "Please. What is the price to see her?"
"The price for negotiations is a kiss. It would only be a kiss, Detective, nothing more."
"A kiss with a demon is always more than a kiss."
"You have such experience with my kind to make a statement like that?" She arched an eyebrow. "When you are ready to pay my price, you know where to find me." She stepped around the desk and made to take my arm, but I pulled away from her. Her expression remained unchanged, but she gestured towards the door.
* * * *
"I believe she's alive."
"Oh, thank god," Beth replied immediately. "Is she hurt? Where is she? What happened to her? Why hasn't she called her family?"
Before I left, the demon gave me permission to say Rachel was alive and to make up any lies I wanted. If I said a word about demons, Evaline Marsh, any of her businesses, or in any way did something that could lead to others knocking on the demon's door, my soul was hers.
"I have a source, Beth. I can't tell you much. My source tells me Rachel joined a, well, a sort of cult."
"A cult? Rachel would never leave her church. I want to talk to her."
"I don't know how much further I can pursue this. Beth, if you rock the boat any harder than you have, I don't know what will happen."
"Just what is that supposed to mean?"
"Rachel could pay, Beth. Or I could."
She said nothing. I listened to her faint breath over the phone. Finally she asked, "Are you in trouble?"
"Not yet," I said. "Well, nothing I can't handle."
I listened to more silence, then she said quietly, "I need more than vague rumor, Teigan, but I don't want something to happen to you in the process. Introduce me to your source."
"I can't. Beth, I absolutely cannot." I made a sound of exasperation. Beth knew what it meant, and she grew quiet, waiting. I repeated the noise then said, "I might be able to get in to see her."
"Don't take risks."
"My job is a risk, Beth. You know that."
"This stopped being about your job, Teigan. And you stopped taking those risks three years ago, didn't you?"
I didn't say anything. Instead, we each sat quietly, listening to the other breathe for a while. Finally Beth asked, "Are you doing all right, Teigan?"
"Sure," I said. "I've been great."
"Are you seeing anyone?"
I shrugged although she wouldn't have seen me. "Now and then. No one serious since you." I paused. "Beth-" I didn't know what I wanted to say.
"It's ironic, don't you think?"
That seemed like a non sequitur. It wasn't.
"What is?"
"I'm a lawyer. I shouldn't have needed your protection." I didn't respond, and after a moment, she went on. "I didn't realize it at the time, but that's what made me angriest."
The thing is, she didn't need my protection. She needed to be protected from me. I didn't think those were the same thing.
"In a way, you were right," Beth continued.
"What happened was inevitable," I said.
"Probably," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry."
"I am, too. I wish things had been different. I wish you could have come to me instead of her."
"Beth..."
"In a way, though, you were right."
"And in a way, I wasn't. If I'd been stronger-"
"-Or if I had."
"Yeah," we said together.
There was another long pause. Somehow it didn't feel awkward. Finally she said, "I still love you."
"I do, too."
"It wouldn't work though."
"I know," I said quietly.
There was silence for a while
before Beth asked, "Do you think you can get in to see her?"
"Yes."
"How dangerous is it?"
"Manageable," I replied. I wasn't worried about danger the way Beth imagined. I worried I'd go back to Evaline afterwards, or that I wouldn't escape the demon's clutches in the first place. I didn't know what the frightfully alluring demon wanted. She was playing another game with me. She'd been playing a game since I walked into her bar.
I hated playing games when I didn't know the rules. But I was pretty sure I understood the stakes.
I would find out I was only half right about that.
"Teigan."
"Beth."
"You're a good woman, Teigan. You should let someone discover that."
One Kiss
Without a word, the bartender set a coke in front of me. He'd already used the phone. I wondered how long I'd wait this time. I turned around on the bar stool, leaning my back against the bar, and looked around.
It turned out I didn't wait long. There was a presence next to me.
"Hello, Teigan."
I didn't even turn to face her. "I have a hard time believing this place makes any money."
"It picks up in the late afternoon," she replied.
I gestured with my nose. "Women dance up there."
"And men," she said. "Thursdays are ladies' night. You should come."
"I don't think you'd have anyone up there I'd want to watch." I glanced over at her. "I suppose you wouldn't be impressed with a lecture on the objectification of women."
She laughed. "I'd be quite happy to discuss the morality, Teigan. Perhaps we should talk about one of my dancers. Her name is Karen. Such a boring name. On stage she goes by Naomi. She's a single mother of three. Her husband was a casualty in Afghanistan."
I sighed but said nothing.
"She was struggling as a cocktail waitress in a seedy little hole across the river, working long hours, her boss a grabby little man who didn't care when the clientele was equally grabby." I didn't really want to learn more. "I found her in the parking lot of the horrid place while she was fending off what was going to end up being a very, very unfortunate time for her after a shift."
"Enough."
"She wasn't much to look at," the demon went on. "You know how tired a woman can look during those struggles. But I took her home, helped her get cleaned up, and took a real good look at her."
"And saw the diamond in the rough." I said it gruffly.
"Everyone is a diamond in the rough, Detective," she said. "It's only a matter of really knowing how to look."
"So now she works here, abasing herself even worse than she did before."
"She doesn't feel like she's abasing herself. She makes far better money than she was making, and absolutely no one lays a hand on her. She and her children are now living in a house in suburbia. It's not a big house, but it's a hell of a lot better than the apartment they were all squeezed into before. The kids are going to decent schools. They have good food on the table, and when winter arrives, warm jackets and boots." She reached over and turned my shoulder until I faced her. "Are you honestly going to tell me she was better off before I found her?"
I wanted to. I really did. Instead I said, "Everyone can pull out one example like that."
She made a disgusted sound. "Should I go down my roster? Not everyone in my employ represents a similar story, but enough of them do that I didn't have to try hard to use Karen as my example. I look for people in trouble, Teigan."
"So you can, um... fill your own needs."
"Yes, for staff. You know things about me most of them do not. They don't fill my needs the way you suggest. Oh, I don't do this entirely for altruistic reasons. When you help someone like that, do you know what you get?" I blinked twice at her before she went on. "Loyalty, Teigan."
"Did you have anything to do with the bad night she was about to have?"
"No, and I resent the implication."
"I made no implication. I asked a question."
We stared at each other for a moment or three. Then I gestured with my nose towards the runway. "It's still objectification."
"Humans are such hypocrites."
"Excuse me." I lifted an eyebrow.
"Do you know which night in here is the most raucous? Thursdays. Ladies' night. Now, part of the reason it gets raucous is because I let it. If I let the men act like the women do, they'd be more likely to get out of hand. But if you pour a little alcohol into anyone, the baser instincts come out."
"So they get loud when they get drunk. So?"
"Their true selves come out when they're a little loosened up," she replied. She made a disgusted sound. "What is wrong with admiring someone else's body? What is wrong with enjoying the way someone else moves? What is wrong with admitting it gets you worked up just to watch?"
"I'm not going to argue with..." I almost said 'a demon', but realized we weren't in private. "With you," I finished. "I can't imagine I'd win. I'm sure you have an answer to everything."
She looked me up and down carefully. I turned away, uncomfortable with the appraisal. "You have a good figure," she said. "I imagine you work hard to keep it fit for your job." I didn't respond. "You should try it." She gestured to the stage. "It's liberating."
"I don't think so." I paused. "Where are we doing this?"
"Teaching you to dance?" I glanced at her, and she was smirking.
"Is she capable of speaking?"
The demon stared at me for a moment, her smirk fading. "I was having fun," she said. "You're fun to tease, Teigan. There's a price for an answer to your question. Come."
She gracefully slid from the stool. I gulped down the last of my coke then hurried after her while trying to make it look like I wasn't hurrying. Against my will, my eyes dropped to her ass. I couldn't help it. She looked over her shoulder at me, saw where I was watching, and smiled. "That's more like it," she said.
Damn it.
* * * *
She held the door open for me, and I stepped past her into her office. I turned to face her as she closed the door and stood with her back to it. "Well, it's official."
"Excuse me?"
"You have now been in this office more times than anyone who doesn't work for me."
"Is Rachel Spencer able to speak?"
"The price for an answer is simple. Look at me carefully then say something nice about me. Use my name when you do so, and say it in a fashion that suggest you want me to actually believe you."
I stared. "Seriously?"
"Cheat me, and this conversation is over, and you will not enjoy the price to be admitted into this office in the future." Her tone was severe, one I hadn't heard from her before.
"Fine," I said. I studied her for a while. I think she expect me to compliment her appearance. She was, of course, truly stunning, beyond gorgeous by anyone's standards, and it wouldn't have been hard to say something about that.
But that was far too obvious.
So I looked her up and down quite pointedly, appraising her. She was my type, but then, I imagined she was everyone's type. Well, if it weren't for the entire soul-eating demon thing.
Then I smiled lightly. "I've always found intelligence deeply sexy, Evaline."
It was her turn to stare at me. Her lips party lightly, and then she began to smile, the smile turning into laughter. "Oh, Teigan," she said finally, stepping away from the door. She caressed my arm as she moved past me. "You have managed to surprise me. I consider myself well paid for this answer." She moved to the chair behind her desk and gestured to the guest chair. We both took her seats. She leaned forward against the desk, resting her arms on her desk. "Yes, Detective. Miss Spencer is quite able to speak."
"Then we are not negotiating only if I may see her. I require a conversation with her."
"Ah. That was already my interpretation of what you wanted. You feared I would show her to you through a window or perhaps a security camera."
"I wanted to be clear."
&
nbsp; She nodded. "Then we understand each other. And have you come to pay the price of negotiations?"
"Will you answer other questions first?"
"You may ask. Answers may require payment."
"What do you want to let me speak with her?"
"That's what we're here to discuss, and I won't answer that until I have had my kiss, Detective."
"I want to know if you're going to ask something I couldn't possibly pay."
"Of course I am," she said, grinning. "You understand the nature of negotiation, don't you? I ask a high price. You offer a low price. We work around the edges until we come to an agreement. Detective, I will say this: I have every intention of letting you see her, but it isn't going to be cheap. I always negotiate in good faith. Do you?"
I'd never thought about that, and I didn't know how to answer. She waited several heartbeats before she asked, "Did you think to come in here and low ball me?"
"I don't know what I can pay you that I'm willing to pay."
"I guess we'll find out," she replied. "Did you have other questions before you pay the negotiating fee?"
"A fee, is it?"
She smiled again. I was struck how often she smiled and commented on it.
"I like playing with you, Teigan," she replied. "And life is to be enjoyed, don't you think?"
I'd never thought about that and said nothing. Instead I looked around her office for a while, putting off the inevitable. My heart was pounding partly in fear but mostly in anticipation. And of course, that was why I was afraid.
And so I said two words I hadn't said since I was a little girl.
"I'm afraid."
Maybe I shouldn't have said it, but I was sure she already knew. When she responded, her tone was kind. "I know. You don't need to be, but I understand why. I wish you weren't. I'm not going to hurt you."
"There's hurt, and then there's hurt."
"I'm not going to hurt you that way, either, Teigan." I looked down at my hands, and she continued, her tone still gentle. "Look at me."
I couldn't help it. Reflexively, I looked up. Her face carried a tender expression. "We're playing, Teigan."
"We're playing for my soul."
"Oh, Teigan," she said. "No."
"But-"
"If you try to cheat or expose me, then yes, your soul is mine, but I don't want it."