52. Brody
Brody
“You should come with us,” Matt says. “It’ll be better than moping around.”
“I’m not moping.”
“You’re in a pair of pyjamas that say ‘Master Lego Builder’ on then and you’re on the Just Eat website looking to see if anyone will deliver you an entire cake.”
“I’m in my pyjamas, that my nan kindly bought me for Christmas, because I’ve barely slept in forty-eight hours.
I’m human. I need to sleep far more than you do.
And I’m not looking for cake, I’m just contemplating ordering some dinner.
” We both know I’m lying about the cake.
When I’m stressed or sad or sleep-deprived – or a combination of all of these – the only thing I crave is some kind of sponge with a thick layer of icing.
Preferably red velvet, carrot cake, or at a push a lemon drizzle.
“How about I promise we can go to the bakery on Bedford Street? They’re open for another hour.”
“I’m fine, Matt. Honestly.” I don’t want to have to tell him that I want to be on my own. I want to sit here in my pyjamas and stuff an entire cake into my face and try not to think about everything that happened over the past few days.
The way Ari looked in the soft lighting in my room, her dress falling from one shoulder. The way she felt. The taste of her.
The elation of getting the funding. Those heady few minutes when it felt that I had finally won and everything was coming together.
Then the crushing blow as Andrei switched off the magic mirror to leave me standing there as the only reflection in the room. The way I could feel every eye on me. Every vampire in that room suddenly seeing me as prey.
The run through the corridors and tunnels of Hele House. Terrified that any moment I would be caught.
Ari looking me in the eye and telling me she didn’t love me. That everything I had hoped for, wished for, worked for, was worthless. That I was nothing to her.
And then the run through the dark, the sound of them keening behind me, searching for me, ready to tear me apart.
The deal with Victor.
Just how much work I have ahead of me if I want to avoid ending up an actual demon.
It has been the longest forty-eight hours of my life. I just want to be left alone in peace with my cake.
“Fine,” Matt says eventually, my silence telling him everything he needed me to say. “But you only get tonight to mope around, OK? Tomorrow we’ll go and do something fun. Get you out of the house.”
“Fine.” I agree with him because then he might leave more quickly.
A Slice of Heaven delivers me an entire red velvet cake forty-five minutes later.
“You off to a party?” The driver asks when he hands it over. He frowns a little as he takes in my attire. I don’t exactly look like I’m on my way out and in need of an emergency birthday cake to feed twenty-four people.
“Something like that,” I say and force myself to laugh. “Imagine if all this was just for me. Ha ha.” But I think I might have said too much as he backs away from me.
Fuck it. I get a fork from the kitchen and place the box on the sofa next to me. The sponge is moist and the frosting thick and so full of sugar it makes my teeth hurt. This is exactly what I needed.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know someone is shaking me awake.
“What the—” I start to say as I sit up properly. I can feel a line of drool from the corner of my mouth.
“You stupid idiot.” Clara is standing in front of me, hands on her hips as she stares at me. “What were you thinking?”
“Err… I…” She’s caught me entirely off guard and I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Is that red velvet cake?” she asks.
I look at the box next to me. It was a red velvet cake, but I’ve already smashed down almost half, just forking it straight from box to mouth. No wonder I feel a little queasy. And the left overs aren’t looking too appealing.
“Ivan,” she calls out. “Get a couple of plates and a knife.”
“Will do,” he shouts back.
“Right,” she says to me, her tone back to before. She sounds seriously pissed off. “Are you going to explain what the actual fuck you’ve done?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The deal, Brody. The deal you decided to make with a demon.”
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that. What were you thinking?”
“Hang on. How do you know about it?” I sit up even straighter. I only did the deal a few hours ago. Is everything really so interlinked in the paranormal worlds that everyone knows everything that fast?
“I spoke to Ari.”
“You spoke to her? How is she?”
“She’s in Scotland with her dad.”
But that doesn’t tell me how she is, only where. “Hang on. How would she know?” I’m so confused right now, my head full of cotton wool and cream cheese frosting. Nothing is making sense but I’m sure I’m asking all the wrong questions.
“Victor told her. Her father summoned him. Anyway. Do you actually know what you’ve done? What you’ve agreed to? What will happen if you don’t pay him back, plus all the interest, on time.”
I feel stupid. But I’m not. I understand exactly what I’ve done. “Clara. I know what I did, OK? So spare me the lecture.”
Ivan comes in with the plates and a knife. Clara bends down to slice up my sofa cake, making sure she doesn’t take any of the section my fork has been gouging tracks into. I can see that she is seething, her rage rippling just below the surface of her skin.
“I bought you a year,” she says softly. “I bought you a whole fucking year to find a real solution to this mess and then you go and pull this stupid stunt with Victor and none of it matters anymore because in nine months you’ll be swapping places with Victor and anything you and Ari could have been will be done. ”
Ivan takes a plate of cake from Clara and she proceeds to cut another slice. “For Matt,” she says passing that one to him as well. She cuts a final piece for herself. “You’ll be alright with the continued use of your fork, I suppose?” she asks me.
“Good cake,” Ivan says as he finishes swallowing his first mouthful. “Anyway, when I told you about Victor I didn’t tell you to make a deal.”
“You told him about demons?” Clara spins to ask him.
“No. Well yes. But not because I thought he’d actually do it. I mean, humans don’t make deals with demons. Everyone knows that.”
“You’re almost as much of an idiot as he is.” She shovels cake into her mouth.
“I warned him not to.”
“Well, you obviously didn’t do a very good job.” She turns back to face me. “So why did you do it?”
“For Ari.” It’s all so simple really. “I know she didn’t mean all those things she said. And so I’m going to make Only Fangs. I’m going to prove to the world that she is a genius. I’ll pay back the debt to Victor and then we’ll all be free.”
“You’re an idiot,” Clara tells me. “Now let me enlighten you on what will happen if you can’t repay Victor.” She cuts off another slice of cake and then settles into one of the armchairs, tucking her legs underneath her.
“You become the demon. Right. And I know you’re thinking that it can’t be all that bad, just mooching around giving people loans.
But you would be working for him. For Satan himself.
And he is not exactly a big believer in workers’ rights.
So no days off, no sleep, no spare time, no privacy.
Just on call, all the time. And always knowing that the people you’re making deals with are desperate.
They have no other option but to call you and you will capitalise on that, prey on that.
For ever and ever.” She pauses. “And ever,” she adds for good measure.
She eats another forkful of cake, but all the while her eyes are on me, as if she’s daring me to say something.
“Oh,” she says after she swallows. “And did I mention the bit about burning in hell? Did you notice how sweaty Victor was, how grubby he looked? There’s a reason we talk about the pits of hell, it’s literally the last place in the universe you would want to spend any time. Let alone eternity.”
Another forkful of red velvet disappears into her mouth. “So,” she says, “now do you agree that you are a fucking idiot?”
I open my mouth to reject her judgement of me but swiftly close it again. Having heard what will happen in explicit detail I know she’s right.