Chapter 30
SEBASTIAN
I’m still chuckling as I follow Jade, then my smile vanishes when I spot Annie Lennox, in a suit and tie, dancing with Diablo Fuego. Shit!
I wait until his back is turned and scuttle out of the ballroom. Hopefully, he hasn’t spotted me. But I should probably warn Annie not to get too cosy with him. Diablo is a wicked negotiator.
Jade is waiting for me impatiently. ‘Come on! I could be being conceived as we speak!’
She hurries to the stairs and waves her hands at Ash, who’s deep in conversation with a bespectacled guy. Ash shakes his head and says something, but she hauls him up the stairs by his shirt collar. He looks a bit shocked but seems to grasp there’s an urgency to her actions.
I lose sight of them briefly when a group of people surge down the stairs, but I overhear someone saying that there’s an altercation with a crazy girl upstairs and that the cops might come.
I groan inwardly. What’s Jade doing? She’s going to force me into transporting us out of here so she doesn’t get arrested.
Pushing my way up the stairs, I see a small group hanging around one of the doors to the left.
Jade is pounding on the door, which appears to be locked.
Ash is hovering and looking embarrassed.
‘Is Tommy in there?’ I ask a girl in a multicoloured neon jumpsuit and so much Day-Glo blusher it makes my eyes hurt.
‘Apparently,’ she says, sucking on a cigarette and not seeming too concerned.
‘We heard a woman scream a while ago, but it’s been quiet since then, and Tommy hasn’t opened the door.
Not sure I would either if that was waiting for me.
..’ She indicates Jade, red-faced and slamming the door with her fists and yelling, ‘Tommy! Get your ass out here!’
A few people snicker, and I know they think she’s a deranged groupie. I intervene quickly before she ends up in tomorrow’s papers.
‘Jade, calm down. Let me handle it.’ I’m thinking I need to break in. I have the strength to do it, being imbued with rather strong devil muscles, but it’s not particularly something I want to do with all these people watching.
Then both of us hear it. A whimper.
Jade inhales sharply. ‘Rach?’
‘Keep talking to her,’ I suggest.
‘Rach? It’s me, Jade. Are you hurt? Can you open the door?’
There’s a long pause.
Then the door clicks open, and Rach stands there, white-faced.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ she whispers.
That doesn’t sound good. I poke my head into the room and see Tommy lying on the ground by the bed, out cold. His head is bleeding. I stare at him wordlessly.
Shit. This timeline is out of control. That wasn’t meant to happen. Rach and Tommy hook up, and then they spend the rest of the night dancing downstairs, a little Jade forming in Rach’s belly.
I need to do some damage control.
‘Nothing to see here, folks. It’s all good. We’re just going to have a little chat with Tommy,’ I say to the bystanders. I yank Ash and Jade into the room and quickly lock the door.
Jade gasps when she sees Tommy sprawled on the carpet. She spins to Rach. ‘Oh my god. What did you do?’
Rach’s lip wobbles. ‘W-we were fooling around, and he wanted to have sex. But it was moving too fast, and I panicked. I kicked him in the nuts like you showed me. Then he fell off the bed and hit his head on the nightstand. He didn’t seem to be breathing, and I was too scared to come out in case I go to p-p-p-prison. ’
Ash glares at Jade. ‘Why did you show her how to kick guys in the nuts?’
She shrugs. ‘It was a self-defence move I taught her and Kiki before the concert. Lucky I did!’
Jade grasps Rach’s shoulders. ‘You did really well, Rach. The important thing is that you didn’t have sex with Tommy.’
Rach doesn’t say anything.
Jade shakes her. ‘Rach! Tell me you didn’t have sex with Tommy?’
But Rach is too distraught to answer. She’s shivering, and her eyes keep sliding to Tommy.
‘Leave her alone,’ Ash says. ‘Can’t you see she’s upset?’ He puts his arm around Rach, and she sobs into his shoulder.
I kneel and check Tommy’s pulse. There’s a faint flutter.
‘Good news. He’s not dead,’ I say.
Rach moans, ‘Oh, thank God!’
‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ says Jade and starts reaching into her back pocket but then remembers she’s in the 1980s. ‘Dammit, the one time I need a mobile!’ she mutters.
I nod at the gold push-button phone on the nightstand while I move Tommy’s limbs into the recovery position. ‘Use that. Hurry. We need to go.’
Jade looks at Tommy. ‘Shouldn’t we wait for the ambulance...?’
‘We can’t for ... reasons,’ I say vaguely, not wanting to scare her. But Diego will be hanging around like a bad smell if Tommy starts fading. Lucifer prizes pop star souls highly. I suppose if Tommy does cark it, at least Jade will have someone else to hang out with in hell apart from me ...
As if she gleans what I’m thinking, Jade kneels and touches his arm. ‘Bye, Dad,’ she whispers. ‘We might meet again. Or not...’
‘Jade, come on!’ I hiss, opening the door, and she stumbles to her feet.
‘Tommy’s had a fall. Stay with him until the ambulance gets here,’ I tell the bystanders outside. ‘And don’t say anything to the press about us.’
They nod dully. I’ve got a certain amount of charisma as a devil that I can influence small groups of people. It’s a handy skill to have in situations like this.
There are lots of wailing sirens in the distance.
Jade looks at me and bites her lip.
‘I said we needed an ambulance, but they may have sent the police as well. I was gabbling a bit. Sorry.’
Hmm, it seems events are really going off on a tangent now. The party is about to get shut down, and it’s not going to look good if we're caught fleeing the scene.
But these places always have an alternative route. I start opening doors. ‘Look for the backstairs,’ I tell her, and she nods and joins me, throwing open doors. There are squawks and protests of ‘Hey, fuck off!’ from half-naked couples who have snuck up upstairs for a quickie.
‘Here!’ Jade calls triumphantly, pointing at a dimly lit twisting stairwell.
‘Good girl,’ I breathe at her, and she gazes up at me with a melting expression. I know she loves it when I praise her, and I’m quite happy to praise her until the end of days. But first, we’ve got to get out of here.
We clump down the backstairs, Ash helping Rach, and come out into the country-style kitchen, which is thankfully empty apart from some platters of vol-au-vents. I point to the kitchen door that leads outside. ‘This way.’
‘Wait, what about Kiki?’ says Jade.
Shit, I forgot about her.
‘She’ll be OK. Leo will look after her.’
Jade gives me a withering look. ‘Really?’
I nod. ‘Trust me. Things are going off-piste, but we have to let it happen.’
‘What does that mean?’ asks Ash suspiciously.
‘It means that Jade might be in for a few surprises when she gets home.’ Speaking of home, I grab one of the half-dozen silver car keys that are dangling from a line of hooks.
I’ve always wanted to drive an Aston Martin.