Chapter Seven
The Tilted Haze song blared through the speakers as Skye drove her droptop toward Venice Beach.
The sun warmed her skin, and the breeze on her arms was welcome.
She hadn’t been back to Hell since she’d dropped off Remi’s soul to cash in her Earth-walking privileges, so she was fully adjusted to the Southern California weather.
The song faded into the background as the radio disc jockey’s voice cut over. “That was Tilted Haze with their latest single, ‘Dream Girl from Hell,’ which will be on their next album, officially dropping next week.”
Skye rolled her eyes at the name of the song, but couldn’t help smiling.
“The band, who no one had heard of just a month ago, was here, in our studio, yesterday. Here’s what they had to say about their rise to stardom.”
There was a flickering noise, and then another announcer asked, “What do you say to the haters who claim you sold out by gaining mainstream success? I mean, even middle-aged women in the grocery stores are headbanging to your music.”
“Well, first I’d say”—bleep—“you. Our music is about finding freedom from whatever is bringing you down, and in our society, there is a whole lot of crap stacked against middle-aged women, so I’m proud that they like our music,” Remi said.
Skye shivered as his smooth voice resonated with her on a deeper level, a frequency that she felt especially attuned to.
“Age is just a number.” Liam’s voice popped in. “And I’d like everyone listening to hear me when I say that MILKs are one hundred percent welcome at Tilted Haze concerts.”
A rustling noise came through as if someone put their hand over the microphone, and the announcer’s muffled voice asked, “Can we say”—bleep—“on the radio?”
“I didn’t say”—bleep—“I said M-I-L-K, which stands for mothers I’d like to know. In a very radio-friendly kind of way, of course.” Liam cackled.
“Ollie, did you know there is already a social media page for your beanies?” a woman radio host asked.
“Uhm,” Ollie said, laughing self-consciously. “What?”
“Fans have collected photos of you from shows and have dedicated themselves to cataloging all of your beanies,” she said.
“Huh,” Ollie said. “Can you send me that link? I gotta show my dad cause he’s been trying to get rid of my hat collection since primary school.”
They all laughed.
The male radio disc jockey asked, “West, do you have any comment for the disgruntled people who are, shall we say, less than supportive of a gay guitarist in America’s most popular rock band?”
“People have been angry that I kiss dudes since I started doing it,” West said. “I don’t have anything to say to them other than”—bleep—“you.”
“I have something to say to them,” Remi said. “Rock ’n’ roll is about saying”—bleep—“you to the establishment, and in my opinion, there is nothing more rock ’n’ roll than being queer.”
“Is that how you identify, Remi?”
“I don’t identify.”
“What do you mean?”
“You only want me to answer that question so you can put me in a box,” he said, annoyance in his voice.
“The only thing Remi identifies as is a rebel,” West said diplomatically. “While being gay upsets homophobic people, refusing to label himself at all gets everyone in a tizzy.”
“And getting people in a tizzy is what rock ’n’ roll is all about!” Remi said.
“And there you have it,” the original radio host said. “That was Tilted Haze. I’m Johnny Summers, and you’re listening to Radio X, LA’s number one rock station.”
“Isn’t that the band whose singer’s soul you bargained for?” Zara asked.
Skye jumped in her seat, practically swerving off the road. “What the fuck, Zara?”
Zara stared at her fingernails. They were red and sparkly and cut into a blunt, round shape. “If you weren’t staring off into space, mooning over him, you’d have noticed me sift in.”
“I’m not mooning over him,” Skye protested.
“Uh huh,” Zara said in that all-knowing way that only demons who had been partners in crime for two decades could. “So if you aren’t busy fucking the singer, then where have you been? I haven’t seen you in like six months.”
“I’ve been soul hunting,” Skye said.
“Mmm, I did see the one you brought in. What’d you get for it?”
“Five years,” Skye said.
Zara whistled, impressed. “I’ve never heard of anyone getting five years from one deal. Must be a pretty soul.”
“Yeah, it is,” Skye said a little dreamily. The onyx encasement that Skye saw with her demon vision had just been the outer shell of Remi’s soul. The shell cracked when he agreed to the bargain, and the inner core was ice-blue like his eyes. It shimmered with a milky glitter, like a marble.
“The soul was worth five years,” Skye said. “So naturally, it took six months of nurturing the lead to get it.”
Six months and two weeks, if she was being specific. The magic had taken longer to solidify than it usually did with most bargains.
Skye had tried to negotiate Remi down from his many demands because the more someone asked for, the more devil magic was needed to make it happen, and the less profit, in the form of Earth-walking privileges, Skye would walk away with.
Remi’s bargain had taken two weeks to take root because Skye promised him more than she’d ever given any soulless.
She could probably have made a better deal. Whittled him down on the streaming numbers a little more, but she’d be risking him walking away entirely if she pushed too hard.
Remi distracting her with his fingers and those ice-blue eyes darkening with lust had nothing to do with it. She still got five years of Earth-walking privileges, so she wasn’t upset.
Zara flung her long black hair over her shoulder and clapped. Her bracelets clinked and clacked together. “I have the best idea! We should celebrate your five years of freedom tonight!”
“You just want an excuse to party.”
Zara shrugged. “And since when do you not want to party? Come on. Laurie and I haven’t seen you for, like, ever.”
Skye, Zara, and Laurie were the closest thing to friends and lovers that demons who were incapable of such things could be.
They had one another’s demonic loyalty, but the last time Skye saw Laurie, she’d been reminded that loyalty stopped where selfish interest began.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. It was the demon way.
And it didn’t.
She didn’t experience human feelings like the sting of betrayal, so when Laurie lied to her face, she kept her face blank and didn’t reveal that she knew he was a lying, sneaking thief. The acidic burn that flooded through her was only her anger.
Afterward, she became so busy hunting Remi’s soul that she hadn’t thought about him since.
“I don’t know,” Skye hedged.
Zara pouted and then looked around. “Where are we going anyway? And why are we driving there?”
“I have another deal to make,” she said under her breath, hoping Zara wouldn’t hear her.
“Why? You have five years! Okay, see, you need to come back to Hell. Laurie, you, and I will lock ourselves up for a few weeks and fuck each other silly. You obviously need it. You’ve gone nutso. Why are you working when you could be enjoying your freedom?”
Skye chewed on her lip. She’d been asking herself the same question. Most demons used their manipulation skills to weasel their way out of anything and everything they didn’t want to do—including work. Which made what Skye was currently doing really fucking weird.
She didn’t have an explanation for it. She’d lived soul-to-soul for so long, only getting a few months of freedom here and there, that she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Typically, she’d spend it partying and fucking and getting trashed with random people she barely knew. It wasn’t hard to find a good time. Her music industry connections were good for more than just exposure to souls ripe for the taking.
But five years? Five years?
What the hell was she supposed to do with all that time off?
She avoided thinking about it by finding her next lead. It’d been a piece of cake compared to Remi.
Skye decided to answer Zara’s second question instead. “I’d rather drive than sift.”
“Yeah, but if you’d sifted, we wouldn’t be sitting in this traffic.”
“I like driving.”
“You like playing human, you mean,” Zara said.
Skye scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
Zara and Laurie loved to tease Skye about preferring Earth over Hell, but there was no contest. There was just so much more trouble to get up to here.
A headache began to throb behind her eyes, and Skye grimaced. “So much for five years of freedom,” she muttered.
“The Devil is summoning you?” Zara asked.
“Yeah,” Skye said with an exhausted sigh as the summoning ramped up into an insistent tugging at the very core of her being. “Can you tell him I’m about to finish a deal and I’ll be there right after?”
“Anything for you,” Zara said and kissed her cheek. “Let’s go out tonight, yes? Your boy has a show at the Whisky a Go Go. A private, intimate show, only two hundred of the dirtiest and depraved were invited to hear their album before it drops.”
“I know,” Skye said, annoyed with herself that she did. She didn’t keep track of her other soulless like this. She wasn’t sure why this singer was different, or why she’d let him touch her, or why she wanted him to touch her again.
Maybe she should let Zara and Laurie fuck her silly for a few days. Her lust needed an outlet. Then she’d stop imagining Remi’s fingers and the snake tattoo that curled up his neck.
She had no hangups about fucking humans, but she never fucked the soulless she made deals with.
Ever.
She wouldn’t turn out like her mother.
“Let’s go see him,” Zara said, the whine in her voice telling Skye that she’d just keep pestering her if she said no.
“Fine,” Skye said. “But only because I haven’t been to the Whisky in a while.”
“Uh huh,” Zara said. “Sure.” Flames encased her, and she sifted away. Only a minute passed, and the summoning headache faded.
Skye turned the radio to a different station to skip the commercials and landed on another Tilted Haze song.
She turned up the volume and mouthed the lyrics as she drove down Pacific Avenue.
“You’ve got a deal,” the soon-to-be-soulless rock star said.