Luce smiled. “It was. How much is the pizza? I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Thirty-six dollars,” the boy blurted, looking relieved, “and eighteen cents, technically.”
Luce grinned, reaching into his billfold and pulling out a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
He pressed it into the kid’s palm as he passed, going down the stairs, plucking both boxes from his hands. So that hadn’t gone well at all. His son clearly hated him, and Luce couldn’t blame him. He’d have to work harder to try and mend this relationship, and hopefully it would be enough to prevent Armageddon.
In the meantime, now he had pizza. Maybe it was petty, but itdidmake him feel better. He summoned up another Rift, vanishing without a trace before the pizza boy had even cleared the first landing behind him.
Chapter Eight
Inside his blessedly father-free apartment, Foster sank to the floor, resting his back against the door and his head in his palms. He could hear said father speaking to someone in the hallway and had a sneaking suspicion the bastard was making good on his threat to steal the pizzas.
How damned childish…He groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. Why the hell was that ass turning up at his door,nowof all times?
The voices had stopped, so it was probably safe to stand up without his dad trying to break the door down. Stupid pushy asshole with his stupid self-pityingexcuses. He stomped down the hall, muttering under his breath, and kicked open the door to his bedroom so hard that it clattered against the wall.
The small act of aggression helped slightly, but it wasn’t enough. A mix of emotions swirled in his chest, building to a breaking point, until his cool façade snapped. Foster screamed, bringing his fist against the wall over and over as the primal sound rose to a furious bellow. It rang through the room, shaking the walls and rippling out in a wave of pain and frustration, and continued until his throat was raw and his knuckles were a bloodied mess.
His breath came in sharp pants and his injured hand twitched as he stood, trembling, and tried to calm down. As the echoes of his rage faded away, he became aware of a panicked thumping under his feet and the muffled sound of agitated Spanish from the floor below.
“¡…vas a destruir todo este lugar!” Señora Delgado had little patience for nonsense, and Foster wasn’t surprised in the slightest that she was bold enough to confront him. He had seen the five-foot-nothing grandmother chase down many a delivery driver with whichever package they had haphazardly tossed on her doorstep, just to ream them out for being lazy. She continued her tirade in a frustrated mutter, but his enhanced hearing picked up her ranting easily. “Estúpido idiota sin vergüenza. No sé qué está pensando. Vamos a morir porque este mojón no se puede controlar…”
“¡Ay, bruja!” he shouted back, stomping his foot after every whack from her trusty Swiffer. “¡Calmase!”
Her pounding ceased, but he could still hear her cursing him out as he slumped into his armchair with a heavy sigh. The old lady was testy and judgmental, but herpastelitoswere worth the stink eye, even if she did call himDiablito. He wondered sometimes if she saw more than he realized. The more likely possibility was the simple fact that he wore eyeliner and a fair bit of leather. It probably didn’t help that he was prone to burning unusual spell components and bellowing like an enraged warthog when he was upset.
He glanced at his battered knuckles and was pleased to see they were already knitting back together. A quick assessment of the wall revealed that it wasn’t faring quite as well. He grumbled a bit but decided to put off fixing it until after his call. He dug in his pocket for his projector cube, tossing it onto his bedside table. It landed beside a worn, vintage photo in a silver frame.
The sepia-toned image couldn’t show you the young woman’s caramel skin or the bronzed gold of her braid. It didn’t tell you that she was wearing her favorite dress in her favorite color, deep midnight blue. But it captured the demure tilt of her head, in clear contrast to her mischievous smile, and the relaxed, open stance as she leaned against a doorframe.
Foster frowned, feeling a twinge of guilt over his outburst, as if she was here reprimanding him for it. Clearing his throat, he made a complex movement with his hands and enunciated, “Cube—Connect to Gabriel.”
A low humming sounded from the box, and a beam of light spread from the top to form a rough square. The dim light brightened as a man’s head and shoulders moved into the cube’s range of view.
“Foster,” Gabe was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his sapphire eyes and there was something guarded in his tone. “I didn’t expect to hear from you today. What a…coincidence.”
“You’re acting weird,” Foster informed him bluntly. “Has your day been as shit as mine?”
“Oh, I suppose you could say that.” Gabe snorted and took a drink from a crystal goblet of red wine. “I saw darling Auntie Maggie today, andapparently,you’re plotting the end of the world, did you know? Can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
Foster ignored his sarcasm in favor of groaning into his palms. “Now it all makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” Gabe sipped leisurely at his wine.
“My ‘father’ was at my door just now.”
The image was lost in a spray of red liquid. Gabe coughed, sputtering in the background, and wiped his mouth on a pale handkerchief. “Sorry,what?”
“Oh yeah, I had a similar reaction.”
“The nerve! To show up when it suits him after abandoning and neglecting you? I hope you punched him!”
“I did.” Foster frowned. “I should’ve done it twice.”
“Oh.” Gabe paused, momentarily stunned into silence. “Well, good!”
Foster picked at his knuckles where they were scabbing and sealing back into smooth flesh. “Why does everyone think I’ve been plotting something evil? Do they know about?—”
