“Maybe,” Hill said. “But that’s not a law, and honeypots are generally frowned upon.”
Seb leaned over to the table and picked up Hill’s abandoned cup of coffee. He tipped his head back and poured it into the dog’s mouth, long tongue lapping it out of the air.
“Tell that to the men at the end of the tunnel when they get out their burlap sacks,” he said as he set the cup down and glanced briefly at Hill to enjoy his disturbed reaction to that. “But this is sophistry, and that’s a Thoth’s remit. We’re men of the world.”
“I would not describe myself like that,” Hill said.
He wasn’t sweating. That was one advantage to being disembodied, apparently. The sensation of knowing he should have been was almost as distracting, though. He shifted and resisted the urge to mop his face for nonexistent drops.
Seb wiped his mouth on his sleeve, fresh stains joining old ones on the cuff. “You used to be simple.”
“Me?”
“The living. The invokers. When they called the dead they wanted punishment, plenty, or both. Then you discovered solipsism and nihilism and priapism.”
Hill blinked. One of those things was not like the others, but he wasn’t sure if Seb was aware of that or not. While he tried to decide if it was mockery or ignorance, Seb chuntered on.
“Now they pull us up from the grave dirt, brush the worms from our brow, and shake us down for contentment or fairness or justice… Give me the days when all you had to do was scare up a turkey for a feast or scare some syphilitic old bastard to death.”
“And what you got in return was a…catspaw?”
Seb held a finger up. “No. That’s penitence,” he said. “An act of service to discharge the spiritual judgment against us. That exchange is baked in. This is more…like double-dipping. You get a little something extra than what you asked for, and in return you act in our interests in the mortal world.”
He held up one hand, cupped as if he held what he was talking about already in it.
“Answers about dear old Dad,” he said. Then his other hand came up to join it. “Little bit of necromancy. Who’s it going to hurt?”
The implication there was “no one,” but Seb had always pointedly not promised that. Hill picked absently at a hangnail on his thumb as he tried to find the answer in the static ofthingsin his head.
He alreadyknewhis dad hadn’t killed himself, so was it a “want” or a “need” to have an answer as to why Fraser had done it? On the other hand, he didn’twantto know what else his dad had done for Fraser, or why, but part of him dug its heels in on needing that information.
How could he demand anything of Fraser if he just handwaved away any of his dad’s sins?
Did his mom know…
No.
“No.”
He’d not meant to say that out loud. Seb looked startled at it. The corner of his mouth curled up to reveal the ragged row of teeth and the wet, red inner lip. Slobber pooled and dripped.
The thought of the offer being retracted cut through Hill’s doubts like a hot knife. It was only Fraser’s voice in his head that stopped him.
“Make them wait.”The rough, clipped advice had been delivered dispassionately long enough ago that Hill couldn’t remember what the negotiation had been about. A bike. Pocket money. Skipping therapy. It could have been any of them.“You already know how badly you want it. Find out if they want it more.”
“Not yet,” Hill choked out. He pressed his thumb down hard into his thigh. The pain didn’t work quite as well as with meat and bone, but it still helped focus him. “I need to think about it.”
Seb wiped a string of drool off his lips with his thumb.
“You don’t have much time.”
“I have some.”
Seb took a deep breath, a flash of pink just visible as his wet black nose flared. “Usually this is a ‘take it or leave it’ offer,” he said. “You need us more than we need you after all, but I like you.”
It was not. He did not. Hill hated the fact that he needed to be grateful to Fraser for something else.
“Here.” Seb produced a card from his pocket and leaned over the table to offer it. The thick, glossy black stock was pinched between his two dirty fingers. “When you decide, call me.”
