“Where,” Myra said in a flat tone. “Were you?”
“Here. I drove Jame home for a shower and change of clothes. While he was doing that, I felt Dad’s ghost.”
“Here?”
“Weird, right? Yes. Then a rock fell off the mantle and I picked it up.”
“What rock?”
I looked at the mantle, didn’t see it.
Bathin held up his hand, the rock between his fingers. Instead of green with cracks of black and red, the stone was now this beautiful tone of clear blue with fractures of pale pink sparkles and a shatter of pure, solid silver shot through it like a forked lighting frozen in time.
It didn’t look the same, and the reason for that flooded my mind. The stone had held Dad’s soul. This one held mine.
I shivered and rubbed at my arm absently. “That’s the one,” I said. “Hey, you sent it to Dad on the day he died, didn’t you?”
“I did not,” Bathin said.
“Huh. I had just assumed you were behind that. Anyway, that doesn’t matter right now. Here’s what matters: Dad traded his soul to Bathin, who is a demon, in exchange for Bathin keeping demons out of Ordinary. Which he mostly followed through on, except for the demons that Lavius controlled and sent into Ordinary to do his dirty work.”
“Possessions.” Rossi sent that toward Bathin, waiting for the demon to corroborate my story.
But I wasn’t done talking yet. “Yes, possessions, or so Bathin tells me. And while I will never trust a demon’s words, it does all fit into place. So. Bathin offered me a deal. He would release Dad’s soul in return for a favor he would grant to me. All I had to do was give him my soul.”
“Holy shit, Delaney,” Myra shouted. “All you had to do?All? And you went through with it? I cannot. I cannotbelieve you did this! Ever since Dad died you’ve been…no, you know what? No. You don’t get to throw yourself in the way of this bullet. Not again.”
“Myra. Hey, Mymy, it’s okay.”
“Shut up.” She slammed her coffee down on the table near her, and it sloshed. “You,” she pointed at Bathin, “are coming with me, asshole.”
She pulled the handcuffs out of her belt. Not the zip ties we used with humans, not the handcuffs we used with gods, but the brassy-copper colored ones that were intricately scrolled with spells and hexes and blessings and made in such a way that they could restrain any creature.
Though we’d never tried them on a demon.
I wondered if they’d work on him.
While I was lost in a moment of idle speculation, Myra stormed toward Bathin, gun in one hand, cuffs in the other.
He slipped the stone into his front pocket, his long fingers moving slowly as if he were putting on a show for her. As if he hoped her gaze would follow his fingers. His eyes were all pupil, his breathing a little shallow. Desire rolled off of him in waves.
I couldn’t be reading this situation correctly. He didn’t want Myra. Couldn’t be lusting after her. He was just turned on because she was going to manhandle him. He probably liked any kind of physical violence that came his way. Because he was a demon.
Or maybe I was stereotyping again.
“Turn around, hands behind your back.” Myra lifted the gun so that it was pointed right at his head. She was a crack shot. There was no chance she’d miss at that distance.
“Myra?” I said again. “Uh, he has my soul, so maybe don’t shoot him?”
“Hands behind your back.”
Bathin licked his bottom lip and then his mouth curled up on one side. “If you detain me, I will be unable to fulfill my contract with your sister. Every moment, Ben bleeds.”
Jame jerked, muscles in his body going tight—fists, shoulders, back, stomach—as if Bathin had just punched him.
Myra didn’t budge. “What I’m going to do to you won’t take long.”
He lifted his hands slowly as if he wanted to touch her, then paused and turned. “Isn’t that a pity?”
