About an hour later, Skye was in the trailer of one of the trucks outside the venue, taking inventory of the stage lights that hadn’t broken, when Zara returned.
She walked from the flames with a triumphant grin.“I’ve delivered medicine to your band, and I’ve thought of a solution to your problem.”She situated herself on one of the rolling black equipment boxes.“What if the bargain isn’t sticking because you need another dose of magic?Like the magic all dissipated and you’re waiting for the cement to dry, but what if there is no cement, right?”
Skye put her tablet down.“I redid the bargain.I felt the devil magic go into his soul.”
“But you said you were fighting with Remi at the time.He didn’t want the bargain at that point, right?Maybe his soul could sense that.”
“I’m never going to get him to agree to the bargain again.”
“Maybe you don’t have to in the same way,” Zara said, digging a lollipop out of her pocket.“Maybe he just needs to say that he wants the bargain to work or have less resistance to it.That’s why compulsion doesn’t work when making soul bargains.The soul has to want it to work.”
It made some sense.“But I already used up all the magic.”
“So if you go ask the Devil for more magic—”
Skye shook her head.“I can’t go back there, Zara.If I go to the throne room without Remi’s soul…” She snapped her pointer and middle finger together in a scissor motion.
Zara unwrapped her lollipop and sucked on it as she narrowed her eyes, thinking.
Skye picked up her tablet again to start cataloging the stage lights, but her mind was whirling now with possibilities.
“Oh!What if we make bargains the old-fashioned way?”
Skye squinted.“What?”
Zara started waving her lollipop around.“We find a soul, make a bargain, but instead of using devil magic to fulfill it, we do it ourselves and keep the magic for Remi’s bargain.”
“The bargain won’t work.”
Zara shook her head.“Not if we fulfill it ourselves.Demons make bargains with one another all the time without using devil magic.The bargain is tied to our life forces.That’s what binds them.That’s what thecementis made up of.Humans don’t know or care if we are using devil magic or our own, as long as they get what they want.”
“Even if we could find a human who’d give up their soul for something we’d actually be capable of fulfilling, if we tie the bargain to our life force and we can’t complete the bargain…”
Broken bargains started out as an itch but would turn into unbearable pain until the bargain was fulfilled.
“You have so many connections, Skye,” Zara said.“You don’t think you could make a real deal for someone?”
Could she?
A tingle of excitement skittered through her.She did know a lot of people in the music industry, and she was known as someone who had a psychic sense for the next big thing—mostly because she was the one to make the next big thing happen—but maybe that faith would be all she needed.
She chewed on her lip.“If the Devil finds out I’m stealing his magic, he’ll take my wingsandthenmurder me slowly.”
He monitored a demon’s use of his magic and weighed that against the power of the soul that was retrieved.When a demon negotiated a deal well, they were rewarded with Earth-walking privileges, the only freedom they could ever hope for.
But if Skye started making soul bargains herself, redirecting the Devil’s magic from the bargain and into a separate gem that she could then use later on Remi, and she got caught—the Devil wouldn’t care that she was doing it to get Remi’s soul.He’d only see her deception and thievery.
Then again, the bargain wasn’t solidifying, no matter how hard she was working in the physical realm to keep the tour going, and if she didn’t get Remi’s soul, the Devil would have her wings anyway.
She inhaled slowly and blew out a breath.It might be the only option she had left.“I’d need to find a lead, though,” she said.“But running this tour is a full-time job, and I can’t sift away from Remi for too long or risk the bargain negating for good.”
“You leave that to me,” Zara said.“I’ll find a lead for you.”
“Why?Why would you do more work than you have to?Risk the Devil’s wrath?”
Zara tapped the sticky lollipop to Skye’s nose and smiled.“Because I can’t let you have all the fun.”Flames engulfed her as she sifted away.
Skye felt hopeful for about thirty seconds until she spotted three-fourths of her band shuffling to the tour bus.
