Chapter 12
Luke offered to help get Hayley home after they all got kicked out. It took Morgan a moment to realize why.
“One more big step, you can do it,” Morgan coaxed.
Hayley reached the top of her stoop mostly through Luke’s power. He didn’t look comfortable with her arm draped over his neck.
“Brad’s going to kill me,” Hayley groaned for the fifth time.
“He’s not going to kill you,” Morgan said reassuringly, despite not being at all sure of that.
“He doesn’t want to kill you because he wants you to keep not arguing and he wants to not have to replace you like the last HR person,” Luke added.
“Oh, right,” she slurred. “That’s me. I never argue with him, even when somebody should.”
Morgan managed to fumble Hayley’s key into the lock in the vestibule.
Beyond lay another dauntingly narrow set of stairs to the upper floors of the brownstone.
Hayley’s building was definitely nicer than hers, but it was also a walkup entirely too far from a subway station.
Morgan couldn’t really afford the Lyft, but she was not going to try to maneuver Hayley through the subway, so Lyft it was.
But now they still had to accomplish the walkup part.
“I didn’t argue with him when he picked the dental plan with the extra-high deductible, or when he said he wouldn’t hire that one developer because he said no one could type well that limp-wristed, or when he fired Wendy Xi for getting pregnant. That’s me. No-argue Hayley.”
Morgan tried not to let her disgust show. She’d noticed the dental thing: it was why she hadn’t had her teeth cleaned in a year. But the other two were so much worse.
“Do you want this job?” Luke prodded.
“I need this job,” Hayley said, barely making it around the banister.
“What would you do to get something else?”
“Anything,” Hayley said emphatically. “I’d sleep with him if it thought it would help, but I think the only thing that gets him off are funding rounds.”
“Sell your soul?” Luke asked lightly.
“In a heartbeat. This is me,” Hayley declared, trying unsuccessfully to get her key into the lock.
“What are you doing?” Morgan demanded as quietly as she could as Hayley continued to fumble.
“That’s pretty obvious,” Luke whispered back.
“She’s drunk out of her mind, she can’t consent.”
“Then we’ll confirm in the morning when she sobers up,” he said. “But you were worried about her freaking out. I thought maybe if she saw me in my true form now, the alcohol would kind of, I don’t know, protect her brain. Make it slide off a bit, so she has time to get used to the idea.”
“This is wrong.”
“It’s better than you ending up in the light fixture.”
Morgan didn’t want to end up in the light fixture. But as much as she had never liked Hayley, she couldn’t justify taking advantage of someone like this.
“Let me introduce the idea,” Luke said. “We won’t ask her to sign anything, we’ll let her sleep on it, get her subconscious used to it.”
“Just make sure she really understands what she’s agreeing to,” Morgan fretted.
“She just told us how little she’s argued with any of the other stuff she’s consented to.” Luke said, frustrated. “If you can’t help yourself, at least let me help you!”
“I win!” Hayley crowed, successfully turning the key. “I have defeated Mr. Door. The Doorman. The man who is a door, that is who I have defeated.”
“Let’s go inside Mr. Door,” Morgan said. “Before all your neighbors come looking to see why you’re this loud at 6pm on a Thursday.”
Hayley stumbled in. They glanced at each other.
“We need to at least make sure she doesn’t try to sleep on her back,” Morgan said reluctantly.
“Why’d you ask what I’d do to get another job?” Hayley asked, trying to balance on one foot to take off her shoe. After missing her foot twice, she leaned against the wall.
“Because I have an offer for you,” Luke said. Before Morgan could protest, he continued, “That you’re too drunk right now to accept but I want you to think about it, OK?”
“Aww, sweetie, you’re really cute but Morgan would have dibs if it were OK to sleep with the interns, which I think I’m supposed to tell you it’s not, but it’s not like we’re paying attention to any of the other stuff we’re supposed to do to not get sued anyway,” Hayley said, patting his cheek.
Luke very gently caught her hand. “I’m serious. I can get you out of this job, but it will cost your soul.”
“You don’t have to make any decisions tonight,” Morgan interjected. Luke threw her an exasperated look.
Hayley giggled. “Are we going to go stand at a crossroads at midnight? That’s what my granddaddy would have told me to do, or not to do. I dunno where there are crossroads in New York, though. All the roads cross.”
“We don’t have to stand at a crossroads. Here will do fine,” he said, and changed.
Hayley’s eyes grew wider and wider as the illusion peeled off, leaving shimmery purple scales behind. Her breath hitched and her mouth worked soundlessly.
“I can make your dreams come true,” Luke said in a voice like black silk. He took a step toward her.
A thin wail finally made its way out of Hayley’s mouth. “You—you—you—nooooooooo…”
She scrambled backward. “Stay away, stay away from me!”
“Hayley, it’s OK, he’s not going to hurt you,” Morgan said, trying to sound reassuring.
“I’m not touching you. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want, I promise,” Luke protested.
“Granddaddy said Jesus loves me no matter what!” Hayley grabbed a half-full mug out of the kitchenette sink and threw it at Luke.
He ducked, but cold tea and soap suds splatted across his shirt.
She grabbed a Walt Disney World fridge magnet and threw that, searching for anything loose.
She’d caught sight of the knife block, to Morgan’s horror, when her foot slipped on the suds, her shoes went up, and her head went down.
It bounced off a cheery decorative Hello Kitty tea towel on the oven handle. Hayley slid to the floor.
“Oh my god, Hayley, are you OK?” Morgan rushed next to her.
Luke knelt beside her. “She’s breathing. That’s good, right?”
“But she hit her head,” Morgan fretted.
“OK, OK, don’t panic,” Luke said. His face looked strained. “I can fix this.”
“She didn’t agree to anything!”
“She didn’t. It has to come out of the protection budget,” he said.
“But it won’t get her to buy anything.” She was terribly aware that he’d spent too much of his budget on her already.
“I know, but no one will buy anything if she dies and I go to wherever people on this plane get sent when they kill someone!”
“Will it work?”
“I don’t know, unless you stop talking and let me try!”
Morgan bit her lip and stopped talking. She held Hayley’s hand, stroking it and trying to send her good vibes—as if vibes could help with a concussion.
Finally, Luke opened his eyes. “I think I fixed it. She’s going to be OK and she’s not going to remember any of this.”
Morgan felt her shoulders unkink a tad. “What’s it going to cost?”
“We’re going to need one of those souls to be a really big Deal,” he admitted. “Someone ambitious: someone who’s going to ask for something huge. We’re going to need to find a way around the vampires, because I don’t know how we can do this without Brad.”
* * *
“I got an email from our landlord and he’s happy to let us renew but he’s raising the rent in September,” Gisele greeted them. “How was shuffleboard?”
She was not only failing at soul-buying, she was failing at adulting in general. Morgan pitched face forward onto the couch. “Multiple hospital visits, Hayley’s off the list, and we have to defeat a vampire VC firm somehow.”
Luke held up his bracelet. “Bel’aliol got a note from Accounting. He wants to know when we’re planning to offset the expenses.”
“That good, huh. Sounds like we need a new game plan,” Gisele declared. She managed to sound businesslike for a woman padding around in fluffy pink axolotl slippers.
Morgan tried to pull herself together. “We’ve established Brad needs to know what he’s signing.”
“Ooh, can I get a whiteboard?” Gisele interrupted. “We should get a whiteboard.”
Luke perked up. “You want a whiteboard?”
“Luke, focus.” Morgan glared at him, trying to mentally beam thoughts into his head. He’d agreed Gisele was off-limits. She thought hard about how much she wanted him to leave her friend alone.
“You can’t really help yourself, can you,” Gisele said. Rix noticed that his people were excited and decided to help with the being excited. He started bouncing in circles, which was not particularly helpful.
“It’s harder to ignore after the drinks with all the fruit in them that everyone wanted so much,” he complained, trying unsuccessfully to get Rix to sit back down.
“Why does your neighbor want shoes with red bottoms so badly? They’re nowhere near as good as Gisele’s shoes: hers have faces on them and her feet don’t hurt.
Anyway, we should get a whiteboard and then she’ll stop wanting one and then I can focus. ”
“Do you even know what a whiteboard is?” Morgan asked.
“I’m going to take a wild guess that it’s a board that’s white.”
“Are you going to offer me a whiteboard in exchange for my soul?” Gisele asked, amused.
Luke’s panicked gaze flicked to Morgan.
Gisele’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you looking at her?”
“I—Morgan—” he pleaded with Morgan.
Shit. He wasn’t a human, he couldn’t lie. She admitted reluctantly, “Because I banned him from offering you anything.”
“Excuse me?” Gisele asked, her tone flat.
“What?” Morgan said. It was the right thing to have done.
“He could have theoretically offered me anything I wanted. My heart’s desire. And you just unilaterally banned him?”
“Yes.” Morgan crossed her arms. If it was the right thing, why did she feel bad now? “It was too dangerous to let him stay here otherwise. Because you’re—”
“Because I’m what?”