Shit. This wasn’t something I wanted to do in front of Lu. I had hoped to negotiate the payment for this in private.
“I assume you are going to set a price for putting the party together for me. I assume we will negotiate that after the party.”
Bathin grunted and went back to eating cake.
“Thing is,” he said, like this was a conversation he had been thinking over for a while, “demons are made for deals. We are transactional creatures. Self-centered too.”
Lu placed a plate with cake in front of me, a little of her joy subdued as she listened to Bathin.
I grinned and took a bite, trying to keep the mood light. The burst of flavor and soft pillowy crumb melted in my mouth.
“Damn.” I glanced at the demon. “Is your friend a magician? This cake is stunning.”
He nodded. “Hogan does good work.”
Lula made a humming sound, agreeing wholeheartedly as she sampled a bite.
“But I have a stake in this business now,” Bathin went on. “In the two of you taking the book somewhere safe. Ordinary, Oregon, is safe.”
I wanted to ignore him and devour the cake, but I put the fork down and waited for the other shoe to drop.
“There are a few other places in the world that may also be safe,” he said. “Safe from gods. Safe from demons, the self-centered transactional lot of us. But Myra’s library in Ordinary is the safest.”
He scraped the tines of his fork across the plate, gathering up the last of the bright red strawberry preserves.
“I don’t like that book,” he said. “I don’t like what it can be used for. So, for the low, low price of one private birthday party out in the middle of nowhere, I want your promise that you’ll bring the book to Ordinary, as soon as you can.”
“Yes,” Abbi agreed.
“You can’t promise for them, Bun Bun,” Raven said, sneaking Lorde bits of bacon that had appeared in his hand. “They have to make the deal with the demon themselves.”
“Okay, but I still say yes.”
“Why do I think it’s a trap if I agree to this?” I asked.
“Because,” the demon pushed his plate away and sat back, holding another full bottle of cola in his hand, “I’m a demon.”
“Lying, cheating, self-centered, transactional, cruel…” Raven listed.
“Sometimes,” Bathin agreed. “Not all of those things always. Not all of them this time.”
I shook my head. We’d made promises to Cupid, made deals, and remade deals. The last thing I wanted was to tie us up in another promise with another powerful supernatural.
But what had I expected when I asked a demon to throw my wife a birthday party? I was lucky he wasn’t demanding our souls for it, although our souls might be damaged in ways a demon wouldn’t care to have them.
“Brogan,” Lula said. “Can I talk to you a moment? Outside?”
“I’ll make sure there’s still cake when you get back,” Ricky said.
“But we get seconds, right?” Abbi asked. “There’s so much left!”
Lu and I walked out into the heat. The sun had slid toward the horizon, and though the heat was about the same, the light was richer, gold instead of piercing white.
We paused at the front of the truck where a little shade had inched out from the building.
An RV pulled off on the other side of the road, and six people who looked like three middle-aged couples all got out. They laughed, slapping hands in high fives, and strolled over to pose in front of the Midpoint sign.
“You asked a demon?” Lula said. “Really?”
