I glared at him in the darkness for a moment, just as an official protest. Something for whatever records he’d bring back to the Underworld and the Ferryman.
And then I said, “I’ll take Harcourt wherever he needs to go.”
Waylon placed a card with bent edges on the table. The corners were slick with hair gel.
“What the hell is that?”
“Wait here for one hour.” Waylon removed a folded document from his back pocket and slid it across the table. “And sign this, if you would.”
I stared at the crinkled, photocopied paper. Standard contract, except for one thing.
The little part about it being a Blood Oath.
I glanced up, face sour. Waylon was already waiting with an open switchblade, eyes smug.
He placed the glimmering blade next to the contract, as one would a pen.
“If you would, Callaway.”
“I could just go upstairs—”
“Forgive me if I don’t treat your word as gold,” Waylon said.
“A true friend,” I said.
“When you find a kindred spirit, you know it deep within your soul,” Waylon said, right before he disappeared through the wall. From the dining room, his voice every bit as ghostly as you’d expect, I heard him say, “Perhaps you’ll discover the same, babe.”
I might have believed him.
If I’d thought he had a soul.
9
Aside from some nonsense pseudo-legalese and baffling turns of phrase, the five-page document was a crash course on the supernatural, in the form of Harcourt’s grievances.
According to him, Earth proved unaccommodating to creatures of essence. Other worlds—the document eschewed calling them Realms—might have lacked certain scenic amenities, but their populations were more understanding about magic. Alas, having been cast out of the Fae Plains by the new Prince on spurious charges, he was doomed to a life of boredom and persecution.
The official doorway between the Plains and Earth, used by Fae, had been sealed off from him. Thus, a more circuitous route was necessary. And only a Realmfarer could take him through the dusty tunnels left behind when Yggdrasil, the world tree connecting the nine Realms, had burned. There were less reliable options, too, but using the Realm Rifts was Harcourt’s best bet of returning from exile.
And, once I signed the Blood Oath, I’d be bonding myself to him as his little Sherpa.
I flipped to the document’s final page. Finding no trickery or hidden clauses within, I sighed.
“By inscribing this document with their mark, the signatory bonds themselves by Blood Oath to Harcourt Leblanc, swearing to deliver him to the Fae Plains alive. If Harcourt does not cross the threshold to the Plains safely, or the signatory fails to discharge their duties within twenty-four hours of signing, the signatory will find themselves reduced to ash.”
I checked the old clock ticking in the corner of the bar. A little before 4:30. Getting Harcourt to the Realm Rift on time was well within the limits of time and space. But with his predisposition toward chaos, twenty-four hours would evaporate like smoke.
I scratched my nose, looking at the dotted line. There was nothing about guaranteeing the lives of any innocents. If I signed, Harcourt could kill the hostages anyway. This was just an unbreakable agreement for a road trip, with one psychotic Fae.
No thanks. Waylon could return with a revised offer.
A scream filtered down the stairs, turning my blood to ice. Maybe I was going soft, but the sheer anguish communicated was almost Mozart-esque in its virtuosity. I’d have been morbidly impressed by Harcourt’s skills, had I not been about to bond myself to him via Blood Oath.
For the uninitiated, a Blood Oath is a promise writ in blood, underpinned by magic. It is also unbreakable—only the counterparty can release the signatory if the terms are not successfully satisfied. I didn’t see Harcourt as the forgive and forget type.
If I didn’t deliver, I’d be ash on the road.
And that didn’t leave the other pressing issue: by helping him escape, I was breaking the terms of the bounty hunting contract I’d agreed to with Murphy and the now-deceased Benedict.
They would be pissed, and probably come after me. Pearl would be apoplectic about the lost payday. And if word got out that I was liable to switch sides mid-bounty, my professional reputation would be in tatters.
But another scream erupted, this one loud enough to cut past any worries. It wasn’t the content that concerned me this time, but its brevity. The noise had simply stopped at an awkward, unnatural point, suggesting that its owner had been forcefully silenced.
Permanently silenced.
“Fuck it,” I said, letting my conscience out of its cage as I reached for the switchblade.
I half-expected Waylon to emerge from the walls and say well done, babe in that sleazy voice, but the Shade was nowhere to be found as I slid the sharp knife over my palm. The contract sizzled and smoked as blood dripped on the enchanted paper.
Swallowing hard, I pressed my hand against the line. A magical tingle ran up my left arm, like a static charge intertwined with ominous premonitions. A translucent orange current ran through my skin, weaving an unbreakable essence bond between Harcourt and me.
The table smoldered as the blood and paper pulp turned into an acidic combination. A geyser of steam shot in the air, and finally, the contract was nothing but ash.
I’d be ash, too, if I didn’t deliver. I grabbed the switchblade, wiped off the steel, and slipped it into my boot. Could be useful later—or right now, since I was about to meet the man of the hour himself.
Which meant there was only one thing left to do.
10
Winding my way up Le Petit Bleu’s spiral staircase felt more like a descent into the depths of Hell. The pastel gray walls tightened around me as I clenched my bloodied hand into a fist. The shotgun clattered against my spine with each step.
There had been no screams since I’d signed the Blood Oath, which I took as an indication that Harcourt had felt the effects of our agreement. Upon reaching the restaurant’s second floor, I found myself in another dining room. This one, unlike the prim first floor, bore the marks of struggle and chaos. The carpeting was torn, from where hostages had dug in. Tables were overturned, chairs smashed asunder. A broken glass, edge jagged as a demon’s teeth, lay before a pair of gilded doors.
Guess this was where Harcourt’s anarchy began.
I approached, swallowing the instinct to draw the shotgun. A bronze plaque on the wall indicated this was The Remington Room. A single bloody handprint was streaked across the scratched brass.
I reached for the pull handle and heard a gunshot. I jumped back like I’d just seen a pit full of snakes, this time training winning out. The shotgun was drawn and racked before my conscious mind had much say.
From behind the thick wooden doors, I heard an aristocratic voice say, “Do enter, ma petite chauffeuse.”
Every instinct screaming not to, I holstered the shotgun and opened the door.
And if I was looking for chaos, I was not disappointed.
The Remington Room was ringed in soft candlelight. But not the creepy macabre kind I expected. These candles gave the crystal chandelier and wide room the ambiance of an intimate, romantic evening.
Which didn’t jibe with the naked savagery at its center, walled off by stacks of twisted furniture. The gunshot hadn’t been Harcourt’s direct doing—instead, he was staging his very own gladiatorial games in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
“You like what I did with the place, love? Earth is so drab. It could do with a little color.”
My neck whipped toward the voice. A man, not so much moving as gliding, appeared between the cracks in the overturned furniture. His shadow pinwheeled across the entire room from the candles, seemingly everywhere at once. Stifled sobs and moans came from beyond the furniture palisade. It was difficult to tell whether they were cries of pain—or regret.
I kept my gaze away
from the jumble of broken bodies, trying to track the shadow’s movements.
“That is the thing about illusions, my dear.” The words tickled my ear. “You are always looking in the wrong place.”
I whirled around, fist clenched. But I saw nothing except a blood red pocket square—drifting to the floor like a little parachute.
Fingers snapped behind me, and I turned slowly this time, feeling like a marionette being jerked upon a string. This time, my patience was rewarded with an unobstructed view of none other than Harcourt himself.
“Waylon tells me you are the Realmfarer named Ruby Callaway.” Harcourt stood as tall as his slight stature allowed before an opening in the piled-up tables and chairs. A quarter grin clung to the corner of his lip. He relished the opportunity to share his handiwork. His chaos contained a symphonic coordination, each gear meticulously tuned to the correct anarchical pitch.
Indirect handiwork. His unwrinkled three-piece suit wasn’t marred by a single speck of blood spatter. Resisting the urge to smash his young, vibrant face in, I said nothing.
But it was my turn to speak, no matter if it took me the remainder of the twenty-four hours to do so. His shifty eyes—the same hue as tarnished copper—told me as such.
I finally said, “First thing you do is let them go.”
“That was not in our contract, dear Ruby.” His leather shoe tapped out a rhythm against the polished hardwood. “And, I must say, it pains me that you would renege on our deal so soon.”
“I’ll take you back to the Fae Plains. That’s the deal.” Anger simmered in my throat, like a pot left on the stove too long. The moans scoring our exchange didn’t help, either.
“But that lacks a certain flair, does it not?” Harcourt gestured toward his fallen pocket square. After a moment, I got the message that he wanted me to deliver it to him. With reluctance, I did his bidding. He folded the fabric at crisp, precise angles before returning it to his breast pocket. “And a lack of flair, dear Ruby, will not do.”
“A flair for the dramatic gets you dead,” I said, arms twitching. I realized then that I was clenching my fists again. Awareness didn’t make me let go, though.
It only made me angrier, especially when Harcourt said, “But, alas, dear Ruby, you are no longer in charge of this production.”
The sobs continued in the background.
The candlelight flickered over the broken wood and carnage, like a romantic evening gone amiss.
And Harcourt’s mouth was trapped in a perpetual quarter-grin, like the whole thing was brilliantly amusing.
Which is when I lost it, Blood Oaths be damned.
11
With a scream that could’ve shaken the walls, I hurled myself at the crazy bastard. Harcourt may have possessed an agile grace and a rapier wit, but he wasn’t a trained combatant. I hit him center mass, feeling his breastbone beneath the flowing layers of fabric.
We slammed into a table. Harcourt careened off the wood with a thin, raspy laugh.
I shut it up with the shotgun in his mouth.
“Listen, asshole,” I said, jamming the barrel farther into his throat when he tried to speak. “We’re both going to our graves right now if you think I’m your puppet.”
Those tarnished copper eyes stared back at me without defiance or fear. They weren’t empty, either, which would have been comforting. You can categorize a sociopath or an evil man.
What I couldn’t quite process was the joy writ large across Harcourt’s face.
True insanity is terrifying because it has no rules, no laws. No hot buttons. It is its own master. And that muse can lead a person to the darkest of corners.
I ignored my wobbling knees and held the shotgun in place. Beyond the stacked furniture, in the walled and bloody arena, a woman staggered toward us. Her eyes had that dull sheen of disassociation, her mind trying to shield her from past events.
A pistol hung on her finger like a coat on a hook. As if placed there for safekeeping.
Others groaned behind her, shambling like zombies.
“He…told us,” the woman said, the same glassy-patina coating her voice.
“Whatever this asshole told you, I think you can forget it.” The shotgun shook. I looked down, and I could see it was from Harcourt laughing. Or maybe it was from the fear running through my body like a live wire.
“But it was true,” the woman said, lurching closer. I was focused on the pistol.
“Just put the gun down.” Much to my surprise, she did as I asked. “That’s it. You’re gonna be fine.”
Suddenly, she looked at me, with full clarity, the fog parting. “Nothing is ever going to be fine again. Because I’ve seen who I really am.”
“And who is that?” I winced, fearing what I’d hear next.
“When one gets desperate enough, they’ll kill anyone to survive.” She blinked twice, standing just on the other side of the table, but a hundred miles and three thousand years away. “Even their daughter.”
An unpleasant silence, punctuated only by Harcourt’s muffled laughter, coursed through the candlelit room. In this pleasant, inviting room, these people were forced to grapple with impossible decisions. Bleed like wild animals as he broke them down.
The naked woman slid over the table and walked past Harcourt and me without a second glance. The other hostages did the same. They didn’t pause to relate their tales of sordid woe. I assumed the first woman’s account was representative enough.
After Harcourt and I were left alone, his laughter intensified, spitting flecks of blood up the barrel. It dawned on me that the hostages would share a fate with the immolated server in the kitchen.
“You son of a bitch.”
I released the shotgun and rifled through his pockets. He let out a raspy moan as I located a small vial in his pants. The script adorning its label was ancient, written in an apothecary’s hand. Having been one—for a brief moment, many years ago—I had to hope this was a ward breaker.
I crushed it in my already wounded hand, ignoring the shards of glass that dug into the cut. A smoky green vapor slipped through my fingertips, like fog sliding over a San Francisco hill. Then, quick as a flash, it dissipated throughout Le Petit Bleu.
Pulse throbbing, I waited for the screams. A blissful quiet held in the restaurant. After a minute, satisfied that the hostages hadn’t self-immolated, I turned my full attention toward Harcourt.
He hadn’t bothered to remove the shotgun still lodged in his mouth. Instead, he had embraced the pose, smiling like an actor playing the role of his life. Glaring at those eyes of tarnished copper, at the joy he had snatched from his victims, the pot finally boiled over.
And I pulled the trigger.
12
There’s a moment, right after you make a bad decision, where time freezes. Your conscious mind can see the error, but the die has already been cast. You’re nothing but a witness, along for the bumpy ride.
Such would have been my fate, save for one small detail.
The shotgun jammed with a grinding click.
My finger hovered over the trigger, eager to test it once more, but a little voice screamed prudence. Whether it had been fate or luck intervening, punishing Harcourt would’ve been the same as putting the shotgun to my own head and pulling the trigger.
With trepidation, I withdrew the shotgun from his throat. He let out half a gagging cough before I cold-cocked him with the stock, clean across the cheek. His body jackknifed to the floor, head whipsawing off the hardwood with a crack.
Harcourt just laughed.
What made it worse was that it was smooth, cultivated—not the cackle of some megalomaniacal madman. No—it was the type of inviting, warm laugh one might share with a guy over drinks at the bar. Not right after he’d shattered people’s spirits for his own amusement.
Flickers of candlelight splayed across his bloodied lips as the aural torture continued.
“See what happens when you embrace chaos, dear Ruby? Can you not see the beauty?”
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“I can see your brains leaking out on the floor.” I tried deep breathing to make the anger go away. Wasn’t working. I’d never been into Zen, anyway. But I sure could’ve used the ability to channel some right now.
This was his plan: how he would break me down. Crazy as Harcourt was, he saw people for who they were—better than any intuition or magic could. Fighting against my training and instinct, I wiped the barrel of the shotgun on his arm.
Then I holstered it—hopefully for good.
“The nearest Realm Rift is in Las Vegas,” I said. “I’m sure the Fae will be happy to have you back.”
“There’s nothing in Los Angeles, dear Ruby? I fear I’m injured.”
“And here my fear was you weren’t hurt at all.” I yanked Harcourt up by the collar. It gave me some satisfaction to see a glimpse—however brief—of pain crease his vibrant features.
I released his collar, expecting him to fold like a rag doll. Instead, to my minor disappointment, he stood of his own volition. In the soft glow, he looked like a man who had survived a particularly calamitous first date.
It almost made me feel sorry for him. Such was the power of his deceptive charm. No tricks or magic, far as I could tell. Spells weren’t really the Fae’s bag, although they could fight with white light in a pinch. But any light coming out of this guy had to be stained blacker than the ashes of Hell.
“So, a road trip, then, love.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Dear Ruby, we are going to Vegas.” Harcourt adjusted his suit and mopped his bloodied face with his pocket square. “The center of theater. You must come dressed for the part.”
His eyes passed over my dirtied oxford, jeans and ankle boots with disdain. I rolled up my sleeves, undid another button and glared at him.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I saw his hand snake into his pocket. “Hey, asshole. Remove it. Slowly.”
Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection Page 75