Chapter 34
Nothing happened.
Which didn’t surprise most of the audience, who thought she’d merely signed up for a database she’d presumably be screened out of automatically based on her employee email address.
The more cynical or knowledgeable would guess that she hadn’t even been entered, because who would bother hooking a conference demo up to the customer relationship management database?
But Bel’aliol’s eyes narrowed.
Brad, the consummate showman, continued to the actual juicer part of the demo. But she could tell he was shaken. He probably couldn’t know that the soul hadn’t transferred: it wasn’t like he could have sensed the energy flow. But he could tell Bel’aliol was pissed.
Behind Bel’aliol, she could see her mother glaring at the back of the demon’s head.
She wanted to do something about him but couldn’t in the crowd.
Then something caught her mother’s eye. Her mouth got tight.
She shook her hands the way Morgan knew would loosen the enchanted daggers hidden in her wrist sheaths.
Morgan angled the phone. There was nothing there.
She risked a quick peek around the wall herself.
The angel was watching them all.
Morgan ducked back behind the wall, her breath short. The fact that the angel was draped in at least three different branded totes full of swag and had a large paper cup decked with whipped cream and sprinkles in one hand somehow had not blunted his air of menace.
Brad was wrapping up his spiel, the ex-Keurig in its fake housing having successfully dispensed the smoothie also hidden in the case. He took an ostentatious sip. “Delicious! Any questions?”
“You have failed to deliver,” Bel’aliol intoned.
“Well, this is just the demo version,” Brad said, sounding uncertain for the first time.
Bel’aliol glanced at the angel. Was the demon nervous? “Failure means consequences.”
The crowd murmured. Morgan took the risk and peered around again. Gisele scooted up next to her. Not to be left out, Rix poked his nose out, tail whipping excitedly into Morgan’s face.
“Hey now, buddy. Partner. A little hiccup, that’s all.” Brad spread his hands disarmingly. Bel’aliol stepped forward. Brad’s face paled. “You have to give me another chance.”
“I don’t have to do anything, little man,” Bel’aliol started, less than impressed.
Brad caught sight of her. “You! What did you do to my demo?”
If he’d left it at that, Morgan would have been ruined.
She’d just quit: she no longer had an employee badge.
A dozen industry reporters and venture capitalists and one department head demon were watching as a rising star of the industry accused her of sabotaging a demo that she absolutely had sabotaged.
All he had to do was smile and point any of this out.
But with the fury of a mediocre white man who had never been told “no” in his life, he strode right up to her. Grabbed her hand. And tried to enter her name on the iPad.
Rix sank his teeth into Brad’s calf.
Brad howled and dropped the tablet. But he didn’t release Morgan’s hand. He twisted her wrist painfully until her knees started to buckle.
“She is not a valid target,” Bel’aliol noted, his lip curling.
“Shut up!” Brad screamed at him. “She’s mine, she works for me, she’s a target if I say she’s a target. I make the rules here. I get to be a unicorn. That’s the Deal!”
He grabbed the tablet and, limping, dragged Morgan back to the Kaleo in the middle of the booth. Rix jumped around, barking ineffectually. She tripped over her own feet, pulled forward by momentum and Brad’s surprisingly strong grip. The audience stared in shock.
“Sign! The! Contract! Bitch!” he screamed in her face.
Far too aware of the audience, she focused her wants on her desire for Brad to let go of her hand and did what humans do best. She lied. “It’s not my fault your stupid idea didn’t work.”
The angel stepped forward.
Fiona launched herself at the angel, a dagger in one hand and a budding fireball in the other.
He casually backhanded her. She went straight through the wall of a booth several spots down the row, which had certainly not been built to withstand the force of a flung body.
Several tech influencers found themselves splashed with coffee dregs and sprinkles.
Bel’aliol took a step back, grimacing. Luke tried to push forward, but Bel’aliol grabbed his arm, letting things play out.
Kelly and Carter exchanged glances and started forward, but Ronaldo grabbed their arms as well.
Justin and Josh looked back and forth like they were watching a tennis match.
Brad twisted her wrist further. Tears made her vision swim.
Brad slowly forced her thumb toward the acknowledgment tick box.
Why was she resisting? The contract was still invalid and it wasn’t like she could sell her soul anyway. It was already sold.
She relaxed her arm suddenly. Surprised by the sudden lack of resistance, Brad smashed her finger painfully against the screen. Then he yanked her hand and slammed it against the button on the Kaleo.
“Don’t double-load the serving packet!” Kelly and Carter both shouted.
“Don’t mansplain my own product to me!” Brad yelled back.
“That’s still not what mansplaining even means!” Kelly threw up her hands.
The Kaleo started to whistle with a rising pitch. Luke took the opportunity to pull free, slamming into Morgan and yanking her free of Brad’s grasp.
The angel opened his mouth.
But before he did whatever it was he’d come to do, the Kaleo exploded.
The audience ducked, screaming, as shrapnel flew through the air. The angel held up a hand; the chunk headed for his head swerved to embed itself in a monitor across the aisle. Luke covered Morgan’s body as best as he could. Morgan peered over his shoulder.
Brad clutched his neck, a chunk of repurposed metal and plastic protruding from it. The word Keurig was clearly visible. He fell to one knee, then the other. Blood bubbled around his fingers.
“I was going… be… unicorn…” he gurgled before falling on his face.
“And you shall be,” Bel’aliol said as the crowd surged, screaming. Most ran from the explosion, while a few brave souls scrambled toward Brad to try to help.
The angel shrugged back the coat draped over his shoulders so the edges flared like wings.
He raised his hands. Bel’aliol visibly braced himself.
Morgan scrambled backward, grabbing the front of Luke’s shirt to drag him with her.
Everything here was made of foamboard and fabric.
Even ducking behind a wall wouldn’t save them.
All she could think of was to get them as far away as possible before the angel did whatever he was going to do.
He raised his hands a little higher. And then paused. A flash of confusion creased his brow. He cocked his head.
“The echoes have ceased.”
Bel’aliol slowly straightened, but seemed disinclined to answer. The angel’s gaze swept across them, leaving an almost palpable trail of heat. Brad lay motionless and would be no more use in death than in life. What would the angel do if no one answered?
“The echoes are the same… stuff… that was upsetting our seers?” Morgan said, scrambling to her feet.
The angel narrowed his eyes and nodded once.
What could she say with both the angel and Bel’aliol staring at her?
She tried very hard to concentrate on how much she wanted the angel to go away and also how much she didn’t want cholera.
“Well, the thing that might have caused them turned out to not work. So. Ah. You can go away now.”
Instead of going away, the angel took a step forward. “I had thought to render aid.”
“It’s OK, I got this,” Morgan said quickly.
He stared at her, his eyes lit from behind in a way that would have looked sexy on screen but in person was deeply unnerving. “You have no magic, mortal.”
“Well. Not everything needs magic.”
Luke made it to his feet and to her side. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“But,” the angel started to say and then faltered.
He glanced down at his bags of swag, seemingly noticing them for the first time, and then looked back up at her with a faint air of bewilderment.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” She glanced around, hoping most of the humans had fled to safety if this was about to turn into a fight.
The angel’s gaze followed hers. Kelly was in her bare feet, her stilettos abandoned.
She clutched the leg of a smashed bar stool with watchful intent.
Carter crouched behind her, his forehead bleeding.
Josh knelt, holding a free t-shirt wadded into a ball against Carter’s head.
“Go home?” she suggested.
“Without smiting anyone? At all?” No toddler deprived of a longed-for treat had ever been so mournful.
Morgan could think of any number of people who deserved smiting, but none of them were within sight. Not even Ronaldo, who was surreptitiously trying to take a selfie that included the angel in the frame. “I think we’re good on the smiting this time, really. Thanks.”
The angel looked crestfallen. Then he brightened. For a moment, Morgan feared he might smite someone just to meet his quota. For if demons had quotas, who was to say that angels were not the same?
Justin slowly held out a trembling arm. “Cake pop, bro?”
The angel paused. Farther down the row, a medical team was running toward them, pushing a gurney. They had to fight their way through the panicked, fleeing businesspeople. The folks who had stayed put had their cameras out, filming.
The angel turned, seemingly aware of his audience for the first time. He waved a hand and people dropped devices, their batteries abruptly overheating. “See that it doesn’t happen again.”
With that, he disappeared, leaving a faint trace of glitter. The cake pop disappeared with him.
Angel no longer an issue, Bel’aliol turned Morgan and Luke. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
She looked up around at the crowd. Vesper stood forlorn. Fiona was gingerly extricating herself from the wreckage. Morgan had a sudden flash of inspiration. “I still have ten minutes. Can I just say goodbye?”
He snorted with ill grace, but took a few steps back.
Rix, bless his overly friendly heart, jumped up to try to lick the demon’s face.
Bel’aliol attempted to maintain a semblance of dignity as he commanded Rix to sit.
Rix did not sit. Stavrula, phone clutched against her head, tried to grab Rix’s collar while continuing to dictate the story.
Morgan took advantage of the distraction. “Excuse me, Mr. Vesper?”
He turned. “Bernie to you, my dear.”
“Bernie,” she said, trying to smile winsomely. “Would you like to pay back my mother’s favor? The big one?”
“Why, certainly. What can I do for you?”
“How would you like your heart’s desire?”
For a moment, she was afraid he wasn’t actually bright enough to see where she was going with this, but then his eyes lit up.
“Contract boy,” Vesper snapped at Luke. “I need a contract.”
Luke goggled at him for a moment, and then scrambled to produce a soul contract.
Behind them, emergency personnel came swarming in.
The vampire did not seem particularly bothered.
He whipped out a pen, grabbed a bewildered Ronaldo, and handed him the umbrella.
“Stand here.” He leaned on Ronaldo’s back, signing with a flourish. He retrieved his umbrella.
“There you go, my good demon-man,” Vesper announced, turning to Bel’aliol as Stavrula finally glared at Rix, who whimpered and sat immediately. “One standard soul contract, negotiated by the lovely Ms. Blackwater-McKey here. I look forward to our long and fruitful association.”
“I believe that clears my debt?” Morgan said. Fiona was limping up, somewhat worse for wear.
Bel’aliol, looking murderous, opened his mouth to refuse.
“A contract is a contract,” Fiona said. “I’ve always wondered what would happen to you folks if you tried to break one.”
Bel’aliol snarled, but yanked the contract out of her hands. He turned to Luke. “I look forward to seeing you in my office when they kick you off this Earth of a plane.”
He whistled for Rix. Rix instead bounded over to Morgan.
“Really?” Bel’aliol asked the hellhound, exasperated. “You want to stay here?” He glared at Luke. “I had better not find out you had failed to care for him properly.”
Then he vanished in a puff of brimstone. Rix looked alarmed and cowered with his tail between his legs, waiting for someone to blame him.
Fiona cocked her head. “Huh. Wouldn’t have pegged him as a dog person.”
Now that Bel’aliol was safely gone, Morgan could afford to be gracious. “Turns out you could do worse.” She very carefully didn’t look at the paramedics wheeling out a covered gurney.
Fiona raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to side with the soul-buyers?”
For a moment, she thought about bringing up climate change and dismantled social nets and healthcare being tied to employment and child factory labor and enshittification. Instead, she just said, “They’re more honest about it.”
Fiona cracked her neck and winced. “Fair enough.”
“I used up your favor,” Morgan admitted.
“I shall remain ever grateful, regardless,” Vesper said, directing a courtly bow toward Fiona. “Even if you did break my heart. I suppose McKey is still treating you well, then?”
“We get by,” Fiona said with a private smile.
“Alas,” the vampire put a hand over his heart.
“I shall never forget our time in New Orleans. I suppose I must be grateful, though, that you two have produced such a divertingly clever child. She’s given me a delightful hold over that demon fellow.
They were never foolish enough to give me a contract.
After all, I’m functionally immortal. It’s practically a blank check. ”
Fiona gave her a smile so full of pride that it warmed her to her toes.
Behind Fiona, Kelly and Carter gave their statements to the security guards, looking a little shell-shocked. Kelly looked straight at her, and then, very pointedly, did not send the security to take a statement from her.
One of the succubi slunk up and ran her hand up the shoulder of Vesper. Now that the angel was gone, they had slunk back to the booth. Vesper looked down her Zabloom t-shirt appreciatively.
“Have you heard of this popcorn thing?” she purred. “I do so love to share.”
“Why yes,” Vesper said. “Although you appear to have eaten it all.”
Morgan looked at the rented machine, which was only a little blood-spattered. Murder was perched on the handle, delicately removing the unpopped kernels at the bottom, one at a time. “How the hell did you even eat that much popcorn in under an hour?”