Chapter 31
They had to kick a would-be influencer out of the alcove where he was on his fifth take of a ‘best of show’ post to find somewhere to make the call to Bel’aliol. Fortunately, Luke had expected to report in on how things went down with Valefar and had brought the chicken hearts.
“I thought we were going to do this in one of the little conference room things,” Luke said as he put down a plastic tablecloth for easy clean-up.
“I don’t think anyone’s doing anything over there for a while,” she replied, laying out hearts as fast as she could.
“What the hell?” asked a random older conference-goer, appalled.
“TikTok,” Morgan said brightly.
“Friggin’ Gen Z,” the poor middle manager said, looking nauseated and hurrying off.
“Pull that plant over and see if we can block the sight lines,” Morgan told Luke in a lower tone.
Huddled behind an underwatered ficus tree, they opened the connection.
Bel’aliol was wearing a truly impressive war helm that somehow incorporated his horns. She hadn’t thought he could look more terrifying. She’d been wrong.
“Well, that’s quite the fuss you’ve managed to stir up,” he said. He was not nearly as pleased as she had been hoping to see him. Beside her, Luke’s breathing sped up.
“We’ve evicted Valefar from New York,” Morgan spoke up when the silence had lasted too long. “Berith’s territory is secure. Umm. Sir.”
“Oh, we noticed,” Bel’aliol said. His voice was not as bone-rumbling through the scrying spell as in person, but it was still enough she could see passersby glancing at their inadequate ficus.
Fortunately—or maybe because of a demonic luck spell, she didn’t want to ask—the morning session let out at that moment and the facility turned the background music up to full.
The high-energy yet somehow wildly inappropriate tones of the Black Eyed Peas wailing about how good a night it was going to be covered their conversation.
Bel’aliol looked appalled, and she guessed that he did not want to jump off that sofa.
He tried to recover his dignity, which shouldn’t have been so easy to lose while wearing that helmet.
“Not all parties are happy to have come so close to battle and have to pull back at the last moment,” he said finally.
“Niseraz is disappointed?” she joked weakly.
“The parties Upstairs,” he said.
“Duke Berith is upset?” Luke breathed.
She’d known that Berith was on the list of demon lords from antiquity, but somehow she’d thought of House Berith as a multigenerational thing.
Like the House of Windsor. But no, there was no reason that Berith wasn’t still around, lording it up.
And now he was pissed. At them. And she was still on the hook to go to Berith’s realm when she died.
Where Berith was. Who apparently scared even Bel’aliol, from the expressions on Lucareoth’s and his boss’s faces.
“This plan of your client’s? It had better work,” Bel’aliol said, his words dripping with menace. He leaned forward. “Which is why I’m calling in your debt.”
“What?” For a moment, she didn’t understand. Then she gasped. “You can do that?”
“You signed the contract,” he said silkily, holding it up and pointing to the relevant paragraph, which apparently allowed him to change the terms in the case of “substantial change to business conditions.” The paragraph she hadn’t read, in the contract she’d had to sign while he stared her down, without the chance to run it past a lawyer.
There were lawyers for that, she knew, if she’d been willing to tell her mother, which she wouldn’t have wanted to do but never got the opportunity to anyway.
“You have one hour to deliver a soul contract to my desk, or I claim yours. Unless, of course, this demo proves the concept.”
An hour? It was impossible. Even if she threw herself begging at her mother’s feet, there was no way that was enough time.
Unless her mother signed the contract. And Fiona would, Morgan knew, if that was what it would take.
And she could never live with herself if she damned her mother for her mistake.
At least she didn’t have to keep waiting for Luke to move on and leave her. She hoped her mother got him amnesty anyway. She hoped Gisele found another roommate who could be kind. She hoped her mother forgave herself.
“Wait.” Lucareoth found his voice. “What about mine?”
“Your quota? You don’t get to apply any souls from the soul market until after we’ve collected enough to pay back her debt, so you’re still on the hook for Q3. But get the demo to work and we can discuss.”
“No,” he said. He grabbed Morgan’s hand and squeezed it so tightly it hurt, but still did not meet her eyes. “I mean my soul.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Your… soul?” Bel’aliol sounded genuinely puzzled.
Lucareoth nodded shakily. “I’m on this side. There’s an arbitrage slope. What if I sign a contract? With Morgan?”
He couldn’t be seriously offering to sacrifice himself for her. Could he? “Luke, you can’t do that.”
Bel’aliol looked amused. “You want to come back home as a power source instead of a salesdemon?”
“If it would clear Morgan’s debt so we could forget this whole soul market thing, yes.”
“Do… Do your souls go where ours do when you die?” she whispered urgently.
“No, they do not,” Bel’aliol said. He snorted. “Depending on how the contract was interpreted, it could be argued that his obligation would be eternal.”
“Luke, you can’t do this,” Morgan turned to him, grabbing his hands back.
“It’s my fault,” he said, searching her face. “We both know you wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for me. I can’t let you be punished for my problems.”
“Why?” She wanted the answer and dreaded it.
“Because I love you,” he said simply.
“She wants to believe you,” scoffed Bel’aliol. “I don’t, because that’s the stupidest desire I’ve read off one of my staff in a century. What’s so special about this creature?”
Morgan didn’t like agreeing with Bel’aliol, but she couldn’t help agreeing with Bel’aliol.
Lucareoth kept looking into her eyes, though. “She got me axolotl slippers.”
“You’re throwing away your immortal life for footwear.” Bel’aliol did not sound impressed.
“She can’t sense my desires and she figured them out anyway. And made them come true without looking for anything in return.”
“Small, incredibly stupid desires.”
“That’s why they’re beautiful. Because they’re small, and because satisfying them is actually satisfying.
Because she isn’t looking for big things and doesn’t expect me to either.
Because she bakes even when it doesn’t further any goals.
Because being with her is restful. And teaches me things I never knew to want.
And thinks it’s OK for me to want them. And because she wants me, even though I don’t understand why, even though I’m terrible at my own job, and will probably never amount to anything, and have brought nothing but fear and disruption to her life. ”
Oh. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. He’d said from the start that her life seemed familiar—why was it that she had been so resistant, thinking that just because she wanted him he couldn’t want her for the exact same reasons?
And if she thought he should have what he wanted, why was she so determined to believe that she should not?
Oh. Right. Her heart cracking into a million pieces, she shook her head. “I’ll get out eventually. You didn’t ask for any of this. I can’t let you do this.”
“You can.” He clutched her hands.
“Actually, you can’t.” Bel’aliol snorted.
“It’s an amusing concept, to be sure, but demon souls are only edible.
They don’t have the energy potential of those from the Plane of Consumable Souls.
It doesn’t matter which side of the portal you’re standing on, your soul will never be worth what hers is. ”
Devastation bloomed across Luke’s face.
How dare he shatter Lucareoth like that, she thought. If Bel’aliol had been physically present, she would have tried to claw his eyes out, even though she knew she’d lose.
“Besides, this has gone far beyond your little pet’s soul. We’re not going to give up a potential gamechanger for the sake of one soul. I’m ensuring our investment pays out. You have one hour,” Bel’aliol repeated. “Starting now.”
The image winked out.
From the other side of the ficus came a slow clap. Brad walked around the planter. “Touching. Very touching.”
“How did you even find us?” Morgan cried, at the end of her cope.
Brad raised his eyebrows. “The monitoring software Carter installed on everyone’s phones includes a location pin.
Didn’t you realize? I love BYOD: making people pay for their work phones was the best innovation.
Besides, one of the little favors I asked this one for is the luck of overhearing conversations that it would be convenient to overhear. ”
Morgan shot Luke a look. He shrugged in despair.
“Hey, no long faces,” Brad said. “We’re positive.
Pumped. Luke, buddy, you’re about to get that promotion, you know you want it.
And hey, we can’t have our lovebirds not match, now can we?
Tell you what, Morgan baby, I’ll sweeten the pot.
Luke’s boss wants to be bad cop, I can be good cop.
Get through the demo and then take care of our loose ends.
Make me a star and I’ll make you a VP. How does that sound? ”
Her heart lurched. VP of Marketing at her age.
Of a unicorn startup, no less. She had the connections through Stavrula—it was Forbes 30 Under 30 material.
Would it mean anything to her mother? No.
But it would mean success on her own terms, in the mundane world she lived in.
With Lucareoth, who loved her. Safety. Power.
Not immediate death and a century of torment.
It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? All she had to do was go along with what was going to happen anyway.
She’d say it would cost her soul, but she’d already lost title to that.
Brad clapped his hands again. “C’mon, troops, we’ve got work to do. You’ve already received your marching orders.”
She wanted to pull Luke aside. She needed time to process.
Instead they followed Brad like chastised ducklings, hating themselves and the world all the way.
To add insult to injury, she had to turn down freshly baked cookies, three raffle entries, and a stress ball shaped like a sea otter to get back to their booth.
The only victory she could claim was managing to see the angel’s procession coming six aisles away and steering Brad to turn before he could catch a glimpse.
The rest of the team were gathered already. Kelly had somehow retrieved both Ronaldo and Justin, and was steering them each into place by the elbow. The Spotlight Series would wind its way through the exhibitor hall, trailing investors and journalists, pausing at key booths for demos.
“All right, team, we ready?” Brad pumped his fist. Ronaldo whooped, Kelly nodded decisively, Justin fist-bumped Josh’s cast-free fist, Carter offered a half-hearted cheer. Gisele shrugged—no water off her back—and Rix wagged his tail, happy to be participating.
Brad glanced at her.
“Yay,” Morgan said weakly.
“Now, I need a volunteer for the subscription part of the process,” Brad said, his eyes glittering. “I’d been thinking a reporter, but that’s a little risky. Kelly, can you be our sacrificial victim here?”
“No problem,” Kelly said.
“You can’t,” Morgan burst out. Kelly looked at her questioning. “The soul thing?”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “It’s a little tasteless, sure, but the crowd seemed to eat it up. I’m in sales, won’t be the first time I’ve been accused of selling my soul.”
Her thoughts spun in little frantic circles.
It shouldn’t have been worse; hundreds of thousands of theoretical victims were no less valuable than the woman in front of her.
She was a bad person for valuing someone just because she knew her.
And it wasn’t like Kelly wasn’t also continuing to work here despite knowing all the dirty laundry. Most of the dirty laundry.
Morgan didn’t even have to convince her to sign a Deal or do anything herself. All she had to do was stay silent, and all her dreams would come true. Everything she was supposed to want—even everything she actually wanted.
No ethical consumption under capitalism.
“I can’t do this,” she burst out. “I quit.”