by E. A. Copen
Her hand went to her stomach, protective. “We can catch up later. For now, I think we should attend the Spyder.” She gestured back to the table.
Spyder rose from his seat at the far end, buttoning his jacket. “Have a seat. You’re welcome to have food if you need it. Not all of it is human safe, of course.” He grinned, showing his fangs.
I clenched a fist. Give me five minutes alone in a room with that duplicitous fucker… He could’ve told us last night he was in on these talks. But that was just like Spyder, wasn’t it? Playing both sides to his advantage? He’d be the gracious host as long as we were here, then stab us in the back the first chance he got.
For her part, Khaleda didn’t seem upset at all. She went to the seat farthest from Maggie and waited next to it before giving Stefan and me an impatient glance. It was Stefan who rushed to her aid, pulling out the chair for her. Good. It was best he fell into his role in the shadows, appearing to be less than he was. These weren’t monsters whose attention he should draw.
I went to the chair between her and Spyder and slouched in it, forcing myself not to stare at Maggie. That, of course, meant I wound up glaring at Spyder instead. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“It’s my city,” he said, sitting back down. “It only makes sense for me to be here if the peace talks are being held in my city, doesn’t it?”
I snorted. “And I’m sure you get nothing out of it.”
Maggie took her seat and scooted it in. “Shall we begin?”
Beelzebub grabbed the cardboard name card in front of him and crumpled it. “Let’s start with what you’re doing here. You weren’t invited, nor are you wanted.”
Maggie smiled and leveled her gaze at the demon. “I told you, I’m here to represent Remiel’s interests.”
“And what interests are those?” Leviathan asked, leaning forward. “The genocide of our people? You ask us to entertain you as his representative. Well, I, for one, refuse. My soldiers did not suffer and die on the battlefields in Hell so I could sit at the same table as the enemy.”
“Your soldiers died fighting him.” Maggie gestured to Beelzebub. “Not Remiel’s forces. Know your enemy, demon.”
“Know your place, human,” Khaleda spat. “The reason no one is fighting Remiel’s forces is that Remiel has no forces. Belzebub, how many battles have you won?”
“Three,” answered the demon.
“I’ve won three as well.” Leviathan crossed his arms.
Khaleda nodded. “Even I have a victory under my belt. All Remiel has managed is to trap himself in a rotting body. He was defeated in New York, so he ran here. Defeated by his half-blood son and a human Oracle, mind you. It didn’t even take an army to send him running to the other side of the country. Remiel has no claim to Hell’s throne.”
“Winning battles means nothing if you can’t win the war,” said Maggie. “You’d all do well to remember that.”
Beelzebub rose. “I see no reason to negotiate with an underling. If Remiel wants a seat at this table, he should’ve come himself.”
“Sit down.” Spyder steepled his fingers and rested his elbows on the table surface. “Everyone who is here has a claim, regardless of the strength of their bargaining position. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.”
Beelzebub’s fingers tightened around the back of his chair. “And if I refuse to recognize that claim?”
Spyder shrugged. “Then you know where the door is. Bear in mind that you’re currently enjoying my protection, though, and the moment you leave the property, you’re fair game to hunt.”
Beelzebub eyed everyone at the table carefully, pausing on Khaleda and me. After careful consideration, he slid back into his seat.
A vampire came around the table, placing a page in front of everyone.
Spyder gestured to the paper. “The document you have before you is a standard version of the peace accords. Since I’ve agreed to host the talks, you’re under my protection, although I’ve agreed to allow each of you to bring your own security. I’ve agreed to provide food, beverages, and a safe space. That means I won’t allow you to kill each other.”
Leviathan picked up the document and scanned it.
Beelzebub frowned at it and watched Spyder’s vampire creep back into the shadows. “How do we know you’ll keep your word?”
Spyder pounded a fist on the table. “Because I am the Spyder of Los Angeles. My word is my bond. I have spent the last eighteen years proving I can keep my promises and protect my territory with force if necessary.”
“No one is forcing you to stay,” said Leviathan as he clicked his pen. “By all means, go. Then I can ally myself with whoever is left and crush you.”
Beelzebub grabbed his pen and hurriedly signed the paper without reading it. “Fuck you, Leviathan.”
“Wish you would. That’d be more interesting than all this.” He signed the page and slid it to the center of the table.
Khaleda reviewed the page in front of her and then slid it to me.
“What do you want me to do with that?” I asked.
“Review it for problems,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
“Sorry, love. Not my department.”
“I’ll be happy to.” Stefan leaned in and plucked the paper from the table to skim it. “Section seven is unclear.”
“What about it?” Spyder growled. “Dusk should be straightforward enough.”
Stefan lowered the page. “Yes, but what happens at dusk if the negotiations haven’t come to a natural close? Will you rescind your protection at that time? Considering we are in a room without any windows, how will we determine when it is dusk? Is that with nightfall? Sunset? A specific time would be better.”
“What are you, a lawyer?” Spyder mumbled and took the page from Stefan.
“Let’s just say I have ties to certain organizations that benefit from knowing laws and legal loopholes very well.”
Spyder mumbled as he changed the wording and manually adjusted all the pages he’d passed out. We had to wait for new pages to be drawn up and printed before the talks were allowed to begin, which took all of ten minutes. Stefan was satisfied with the second attempt, and everyone signed it, including the security staff. When it was all said and done, Spyder had agreed to keep everyone present safe until midnight, at which time anyone still wanting to remain would have to sign a new agreement.
The talks that followed were boring. Khaleda and the two demons spent a lot of time arguing about who would win in a fight if they all met in a three-way battle. Maggie didn’t say much, nor did anyone pay her much attention. That wasn’t good. While they spent the morning posturing and trying to prove their strength to each other with statistics and threats, she sat calmly back, watching, learning, seeing weaknesses.
She was so unlike the bubbly, grinning Maggie I used to know. What had happened to turn her into this dark, calculating version of herself? I wanted to take her aside, ask her everything. Did she hate me for not telling her? For giving her to someone else? Had she somehow broken through the protection I’d laid over her, discovering her power? Was it Remiel who’d told her?
And then there were the more human questions a concerned father should’ve asked his estranged daughter. How was she doing? Was she happy? Healthy? I knew the answer to that last one, at least. She’d worn long sleeves so I couldn’t see the holes in her arms, but I knew they were there.
Who was the young man who’d fathered her child? Did I get to meet him? Was he still part of the picture, or was he bad news too? Maggie had such a history with dangerous men. Would I have to worry about him coming for her?
Would she accept help and get clean for her child’s sake?
Wasn’t I the biggest hypocrite in the world for telling her she should?
I was so focused on her, I barely heard most of the conversation until Spyder slapped the tabletop next to me.
“Well, this isn’t getting anyone anywhere,” he said and gestured to the food buffet. It looked l
ike it’d been rearranged while we were talking, the offerings replaced. “It’s noon. Should we break for lunch and to cool down? There’re refreshments here, and you have the use of the grounds and the bedrooms for a quick nap until we resume at five o’clock.”
Beelzebub pushed himself away from the table and stood. “I could use some toilet water to wash the taste of this whole ordeal out of my mouth. Enjoy your food.” He stormed out of the room.
“Temperamental bastard, isn’t he?” Leviathan stood, buttoning his jacket. “Ms. Morningstar, I would like to hear more from you about this proposal of yours for construction near the Sea of Screams. I saw a garden around back, if you’ll indulge me?”
“Of course.” Khaleda rose with a smile and joined hands with Leviathan before the two of them strolled through some double doors off to the side.
Spyder sighed. “She’s going to fuck him, you know.”
I shrugged. “Probably. So what?”
“Think it’ll sway his opinion?”
I eyed the Spyder with suspicion. “Why do you care what happens in Hell?”
“I don’t.” He went to one of the beverage dispensers and filled his cup with thick red blood. I wouldn’t be drinking from that one, then. “I care about secrets, Josiah; you know that. During talks like this, all sorts of things come out into the open. Valuable things.” He sipped from his cup without breaking eye contact with me.
Maggie got up and collected her bag in silence before excusing herself from the room.
Now is my opportunity to talk to her, I thought, but will she even want to talk to me? I walked away from Spyder without giving him another moment of my time. He’d had plenty of it in the years we’d known each other before, and I had wasted too much of mine away from Maggie.
All the way down the hall, I told myself it wasn’t a mistake, the choices I’d made with her. I practiced what I would say when she confronted me, how I would defend myself. All my arguments sounded selfish in my own head, though I knew they weren’t. Everything I’d done, I’d done for her. I would’ve been a shit father, and she deserved a chance at a normal life.
I tracked her to an upstairs bathroom where she’d locked herself in. Undoing the lock would’ve been easy, but I stopped myself. That wasn’t what a good father would do, was it? Invade his daughter’s privacy like that. But maybe I needed to. She wasn’t in there having a piss. No, I’d known enough addicts in my time to know that look in their eye.
I hit the doorknob with magic that unlocked it from the other side and pushed open the door. She was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, pushing the shit into her arm. The look she gave me… It took me back to that moment I handed her over to the O’Dales on their Nebraska farm. I told myself then that she wouldn’t remember, that I was doing no harm, but I knew better. Her eyes had stayed on my back as I walked away, and she’d cried.
No tears fell from Maggie’s eyes now, but that same sorrow was there. The rejection. The anger.
“Jesus,” I said, still hanging on the door. “Maggie!”
“Don’t stand there and judge me. You don’t have the right.” She tugged the decorative belt loose from her bicep and smashed a wad of toilet paper against the hole. “Besides, I can’t just quit.”
I slipped in and closed the door, sinking to my knees in front of her. “How long’s it been this way?”
She shrugged one shoulder without looking at me. “Didn’t start this way. I hurt my ankle coming down those stupid apartment stairs a year ago. It was real bad, but I didn’t have any insurance. I had to work. Standing on a sprained ankle eight hours in that bar was murder. But then I couldn’t get the pills anymore, and the producers at the studio stopped giving me work. I was sick a lot. I couldn’t take it.”
“Coming off the stuff’s no fun.” I carefully pulled the needle from between her fingers and discarded it. “I know Ron gave you the name and hooked you up. Jesus, Maggie. Let me help you.”
“What can you do?” She shoved me back limply. “You had your chance. All you’ve ever done is lie to me. Showing up in that bar year after year like some sort of stalker. Beating up my boyfriends.”
“They were beating on you first.”
“That doesn’t give you the right! I never asked for your help, Josiah!” She sniffled and leaned back, shaking her head. “What have you ever offered me but pain and misery? Go away. Let me have this. You’ve taken away everything else.”
“Oh, Maggie…” I reached out to touch her face.
She jerked away, then spat on me. “Get out.”
I wiped my face clean with some of the toilet paper from the roll. “Fine. I deserved that. I’ve been a bastard. But these people you’re with now. Remiel… Whatever he’s promised you, it’s a lie.”
“He’s delivered everything he promised and more,” she said, leaning forward and shifting one hand to her stomach. “He saved me from that prick, Ron. He’s been there for me when you couldn’t be bothered. He’s told me things, taught me things. Given me a whole new world. You gave me fifteen percent on a tab a few times a year and more conversations with the police than I ever wanted.”
I swallowed. “Maggie, who’s the father of your child?”
“You left me,” she continued as if I hadn’t even asked. “You knew what I was all this time, and you did nothing. Said nothing.”
I gripped her shoulders. “Who is it, Maggie?”
She pulled away and almost fell over. “You want to know if I fucked him? Well, I did. I fuck him all the time. There. How’s that make you feel, you useless prick?”
My mouth fell open. “He’s your grandfather. You know that?”
“Maybe Remiel the angel is,” she spat back. “But Remiel the man isn’t. He’s good to me.”
“So good, he sends you to negotiate with demons and shoot up in a bathroom all alone?”
She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. “Go away. You’re ruining everything.”
I sat there, not knowing what to do or say, while Maggie slipped further away from me than she’d ever been. What could I do for her now? She was right. I’d had my opportunity to help her, to be a part of her life, and I had squandered it.
“Come on, then,” I said and scooped her up. Poor girl weighed practically nothing now. I put her head against my chest and pushed open the bathroom door to carry her to one of the bedrooms. Wasn’t anything I could do to change what had already happened, but there was no reason I couldn’t change how things went going forward.
Chapter Sixteen
Stefan
“Do you know what your boyfriend did to me?” asked Spyder as he sat back in his chair with his cup of blood.
He and I were alone in the meeting room. Khaleda and Leviathan had gone off into the garden, Beelzebub stalked the hallways, and Josiah and Maggie were somewhere upstairs. Even Spyder’s vampire servants were gone.
I settled into Josiah’s chair with a turkey sandwich in front of me and another cup of coffee. “No, and I don’t care.”
Spyder folded his hands and hunched forward. “Did he tell you about how I got to be the bastard I am? In fact, his story and mine aren’t so different. He just liked it more than me. Groomed by a pedophile with magic. What a fucking world, huh?”
I stared at the sandwich, suddenly not hungry despite the protests of my stomach. “You mean Christian Lenore? Yeah, he told me about Christian.”
“And Danny and Evette, and all the other little groupies he fucked?”
“What’s your point?” I pushed the sandwich away.
“My point is he liked it…the attention, the power. I mean, we all liked something about that little cult. Why else would we have stayed? For me, it was the drugs. Christian gave me everything I asked for until he didn’t, then he kicked me to the curb. For Josiah, it wasn’t about the people. He doesn’t give a shit about people.”
“You’re wrong.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Am I? Is that why he dragged you along on this personal quest t
o deal with his daddy issues?”
“We’re hunting Remiel to stop the apocalypse.”
“Or maybe you’re hunting him so Josiah can take his power. Josiah has a history of killing people and taking their power for his own. What do you think happened to Christian?”
I picked up the coffee and took a long drink, wishing I could get away for a smoke. “Josiah burned him alive along with all the others.”
Spyder laughed. “And just let all that power slip away? Come on now. You really think Josiah just let all that power, all that knowledge, die? Even you’ve got to know better than that.”
“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.” I pushed away from the table and stood.
“He’s kept something,” Spyder called after me.
I stopped with my back to him. Keep walking. Don’t listen. He’s just trying to get to Josiah through you. But my feet wouldn’t move.
“You open his bag and look through it, and see if he doesn’t have something of Christian’s he stole. Might be a relic. Might be a spellbook. Who knows? Whatever it is, he killed Christian to get it. This story he’s telling everyone, it’s just a convenient cover, isn’t it? He’d been waiting to get his hands on that for years. The student supplants the master.” He laughed again. “And look, he’s already got his very first acolyte. You.”
I spun, fists clenched. “So what if he does have something? It doesn’t make your story true. Josiah’s not Christian. He doesn’t manipulate people.”
“Doesn’t he?” Spyder stood and crept around the side of the table. “Hasn’t he manipulated people before? Look at Maggie. Look at you.”
“He’s never manipulated me. I’m with him because I choose to be.”
“Are you sure? Or are you just a convenient replacement for Danny Monahan?”
I flinched as if he’d slapped me. It would’ve been kinder if he had raised a hand to me. I didn’t even know why. Josiah had never treated me like a replacement for Danny, had he? But he’d never committed either. Every time I brought the topic up, he ran, changed the subject, or avoided it entirely. He’d never even said he loved me back. I’d been telling myself I didn’t need that, he wasn’t that sort of person. But somehow Spyder’s words had watered the seeds of doubt that I’d already sown.