Chapter Fifteen
On the morning of the Anaheim show, Skye had to go to LA to complete her end of a soul bargain the old-fashioned way.
She sifted to the parking garage connected to the office building that housed Sprites Records.
Zara’s lead had panned out, and Skye should be grateful, but when Zara appeared beside her, Skye only glared and crossed her arms over her chest.
Zara rolled her eyes, guessing Skye’s cause for anger. “I didn’t tell Laurie anything.”
Skye pressed her lips into a thin line. She hadn’t truly thought Zara had, but the only other alternative was worse. “If neither of us told him, the Devil must have said something.”
“Or Laurie has been spying on us,” Zara said. “He was suspicious about why I was working my leads so hard, and you know he hates being left out of anything.”
Instead of replying to her, Skye hauled open the glass door to the connecting office lobby.
Zara walked in with her. “I still don’t understand why I couldn’t tell him in the first place.”
Skye sighed. “I just really didn’t want him involved in this.”
“Why though?”
She didn’t want to talk about this, but Zara had on her intent expression, meaning she would keep pestering her until Skye confessed.
They walked across the marble floor of the lobby. Heaving a sigh, Skye said, “He broke into my safe and stole one of my mom’s journals.”
“You caught him doing it?” Zara asked.
“Not technically,” Skye said. She plastered a smile on for the security guard. Her demon vision made a red haze of the world as she compelled him. “You’re going to give us two visitor badges that allow access to all floors and offices.”
The security guard’s pupils dilated as the compulsion took effect. He handed them both badges. “Have a nice day, ladies!”
“You too,” Skye responded automatically, slipping into her human mask without conscious thought.
“So how do you know Laurie stole anything?” Zara prompted as they scanned themselves in.
“I was doing some research, rereading her journals, before hunting Remi’s soul,” Skye said. “And I mentioned to Laurie that one of the journals was missing. The next day it was back in the safe.”
“So maybe you just didn’t see it. It got buried or something.”
“I didn’t miss it, Zara. I know he did something. I know it.” Skye gritted her teeth. “I just don’t know why. I asked him if he’d been in the safe, and he lied to my face.”
Skye felt Zara’s eyes considering her, but she was too lost in her head, too distracted by the foreign sensations roiling in her stomach.
She didn’t trust anyone. Not Zara. Not Laurie.
She was a demon. She could only trust herself, and she knew at the end of the day whatever selfish intent Laurie had, Skye would have the same.
“I just can’t stop wondering what he wanted it for,” Skye said, her gaze swinging back to Zara. “The journal he took was from when she…” Skye shook her head, unsure why she couldn’t finish the sentence. “It was in the days before she got caught.”
“You know Laurie has morbid curiosities,” Zara said. “Maybe he just wanted to read it.”
Skye just shook her head. Something felt off about all of it.
“Alright,” Zara said, following her into the elevator. “So he’s a liar and a thief and a piece of shit, so we use him for information the same way he used your mom’s stuff.”
“What do you mean?” Skye scanned her badge again in the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.
“He was the only one to figure out that Remi isn’t human. The Devil didn’t even know, or he did and didn’t tell you,” Zara said. “Laurie might be able to help get the bargain to stick.”
“It doesn’t make sense that Remi isn’t human.
I mean, I was able to enter his dreams,” Skye said.
“He was difficult to make contact with, but he warmed up after a while. Laurie’s compulsion didn’t work on him, but my magic allowed me to influence him, and the bargain worked for a few weeks.
I had no reason to think he was anything but human.
A difficult human, but based on the strength of his soul, it seemed natural that it’d have protections.
” If Remi had been a witch like West, or even another demon, none of her magic would have worked on him.
“I tried to compel him. Just to see if it worked,” Zara said.
“Zara!”
She shrugged. “Keep your panties on. It didn’t work, Skye. You are the only one who is able to touch Remi, magically speaking.”
Skye blinked as her mind raced with this new information. They got out of the elevator. The executive suites lined each side of the hall.
“The Devil did know Remi wasn’t human,” Skye said. “That’s why he threatened me, offered me ten years of freedom. If just anyone could get Remi’s soul, he could have sent any demon to get it, but…”
“It has to be you,” Zara finished.
That was why Zara funneling her demon magic to Remi’s bargain wasn’t helping either.
Skye automatically rubbed the shadows within the diamond on her necklace. The remnants of Remi’s soul were cool to the touch, and energy hummed under her fingers, like the dark mist inside was excited by her attention.
“Fine,” Skye said. “Let’s talk to Laurie.”
Zara nodded. “You finish this bargain, and see if funneling devil magic through you to rebind the bargain works. I’ll go find out what I can get from Laurie.”
Zara walked back into the elevator and flames enclosed around her as she sifted.
“Than—” Skye snapped her mouth shut, grateful Zara disappeared before the words escaped. She must be tired or something. Demons didn’t feel gratitude toward one another.
Skye shook off the weird moment and tossed her hair over her shoulder. She’d already made the soul bargain with the wannabe rock star and had reverted the devil magic to her necklace to use later, but she wanted to make sure she could fulfill this end of the bargain before using the magic on Remi.
She leaned into her hips, swishing them left and right as she walked toward the top music exec’s office.
“He’s not seeing people today,” a receptionist said, running after her as Skye flung open the door to the office. “He’s on a call—”
The startled middle-aged man looked up with a disgruntled curl of his lip, but his expression cleared when Skye put both her hands on her hips and tilted her head with a wide smile.
He waved the receptionist away and bade Skye to sit in the chair in front of his desk, while he spoke into the speaker of his phone.
Skye ignored the gesture and leaned her hip against the edge of his desk, picking up one of his stupid glass awards that sat in the corner and tossing it back and forth between her hands.
“Just make it work,” he said. “I don’t care if you have to blow every single one of them. If their song isn’t played on the radio, we’ll start sending our artists to their competitors instead.” He didn’t bother to let the person answer before pressing the end button.
“My beautiful Skye.”
Skye put the glass award back on the desk, upside down. “Roger, how are the kids?”
“Sucking me dry, just like the ex-wife.”
Roger leaned back in his chair, spreading his legs wide. His gaze wandered over Skye’s body. The slinky top under her blazer was low cut, so she inched forward a bit to give him ample view of her cleavage.
“Well, I got something to help with the alimony,” Skye said.
“Do you?” A condescending smile spread across his face.
“New band that you can get for cheap,” Skye said, tilting her chin up. “But I guarantee they’ll have at least one hit single from the first album. Alt-rock but radio-friendly. I need you to give them a deal in the next forty-eight hours.”
Roger rolled his lips and smacked them together, continuing to leer at her.
“How many bands have I given you a heads-up about, Roger?” Skye said with a raised eyebrow.
“Eight.”
“And how many have I been wrong about?”
“None,” he said, interlacing his fingers over his stomach. “But this is the first one that you’ve stormed into my office for.”
Skye circled around to his side of the desk and grabbed his pen. Leaning over, she scribbled down the details on a sheet of paper. She pretended she couldn’t feel his gaze on her ass.
“That’s cause this is the first one I’m demanding a commission for. I want a fifteen percent finder’s fee. That’s what your A&R guys make,” Skye said and thumped her palm on the paper to get his attention on it.
Roger narrowed his eyes as he read.
“They’re gonna be the next big thing, Rog.”
“Five percent of the first album,” he countered.
“Ten percent of the first two albums.”
“Five percent on the first album, and if it does well, ten percent on the next.”
Skye narrowed her eyes. It was a shitty deal from her perspective, but she was only putting up a front because Roger wouldn’t have made the deal if Skye had just come in and asked nicely.
He had to think she had a stake in the game.
With her track record of always calling the next big bands, she knew he believed in her ability to pick them.
He’d throw a bunch of money into writing, producing, and creating an album for this band, and they would organically amass hundreds of thousands of followers, even if they had the shittiest lyrics and music in the world.
That was what money did—it made mediocrity seem incredible.
More often than not, when the people in power invested in something, it convinced the masses there was something important going on, no matter the quality.
“Deal,” Skye said, sticking her hand out.
Roger gave her a slimy, triumphant grin. “Nice doing business with you, Skye. Bring me some more of your finds.”
“Will do,” she said. She’d have more coming if Zara could find the right leads.
She left Sprites Records feeling pretty good about everything. All she needed now was to get Remi to say he wanted the bargain to work before using the devil magic on his soul again.
After the show that night, she’d corner him and use her wiles to get him to say it.
The rest of the day passed without a catastrophe.
When evening rolled around, Skye went to make sure the band would be on time for their sound check. She found them crowded around the front of the tour bus in the parking lot of the venue.
“And because I’m an amazing agent,” Kevin said. “I got you the best opening band in less than a day.”
Skye stifled her eye roll. In reality, Kevin was probably just farming his agent list. If he got one of his bands on this tour, that meant he’d make double the commission, but when Skye called him yesterday, she’d been desperate to get another opener, so she hadn’t called out his trickery.
“Who are they?” Remi asked.
“Key of Atlas,” Kevin said with a flourish of his hands. “We just signed them. They’re going to be huge.”
“Oh, fuck,” Skye said under her breath and pressed her fingers into her eyes. How could this be happening? The harder she worked to keep the bargain together, the more her life was backfiring to conspire against her.
“We’ve never heard of them,” West said.
With a heavy, defeated sigh, Skye said, “I have.”
The high-pitched whine of a total poser had Skye turning around.
“You,” Levi pointed at her. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
Skye deadened her expression.
“You two have met?” Kevin said.
“She’s the demon woman who stole my soul and tricked me into a shitty bargain,” Levi said.
There was a beat of silence where everyone just stared, and then Liam folded over laughing, and everyone else joined in.
Everyone except the two soulless. Remi and Levi glared at her.
“Ha,” she said. “Very funny. Seems you’re doing pretty well. Got yourself on a stadium tour. The only thing you ever asked for.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Levi said.
Skye grabbed his shoulder and steered him behind the tour bus, away from the group. “Look, are we going to have a problem here? Because I will get you kicked off this tour—”
“So you fucked him over too?” Remi said, following them.
Skye sighed.
“You made a bargain with her?” Levi asked.
Remi didn’t answer him. He stepped into Skye’s space. His anger stole the air from her lungs. She didn’t know what was going on or why or how. It was like Remi’s broken bargain was getting revenge on her. She’d never had a deal sour like this before.
“Listen, man,” Levi continued. “She’s going to tell you to sell your soul, and then she’s going to give you what you want, but not really. I told her I wanted our band to be huge! To play stadium tours! And now look at us!” He waved his arms around and gestured to the parking lot.
“Playing a huge stadium tour,” Remi deadpanned.
“As the fucking opening band!” Levi said, exasperated. “It’s a bullshit play on words or some shit! It’s technically what I asked for, but she’s a fucking bitch—”
Remi snapped. Faster than even Skye’s demon eyes could track, he shoved Levi against the tour bus. “Wanna say that again, fucker?”
Levi scrambled against Remi’s hold, but there was no competition. Remi might have been as scrawny as Levi, but there was a practiced viciousness in the way he withstood Levi’s attempts at shoving him off, the way he slammed him against the tour bus over and over.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Levi conceded, gasping for air. Remi took a step back and released him. Levi hunched over, holding himself up on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“I’d like to talk to you in private,” Remi said in a level and even tone that was completely out of place to the violence he’d just dealt out.
Skye was too shocked by the entire turn of events that she just quietly followed Remi around the front of the tour bus. They walked past the rest of the band—who had to have heard the scuffle since they were staring at them with wide, round eyes—and into the venue.
Remi led them into the dressing room and locked the door before Skye could finally find her voice.
An angry buzz hummed under her skin. “What the hell were you thinking? Fighting him like that? So what? The only person who can call me names and treat me like shit is you?”
Remi turned around, a matching ruthless anger on his face. His eyes had molten lava burning within them.
He took three long strides toward her, his combat boots clunking against the floor, every heavy thud a warning of some kind. The thick metal chains on his neck clinked against one another.
Skye found herself backing up. The edge of the vanity table dug into her lower back.
Remi closed the distance between them. The studs on his leather belt poked into her stomach. He wrapped one hand around her throat, and with the heavy press of his thumb on her windpipe, he whispered on her lips, “Yes. Only me.”
Then, he slammed his mouth to hers, and his brutal kiss consumed them both in a blaze of fury.