She gave him a dead expression with just the slight lift of one of her eyebrows.
See what I can do to you?
He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands.“Fuck.”He winced as pain from his knuckles and wrist shot down his arm.
He hated her.Fucking hated her so much.
He was losing this war, and the tour had barely started.He wasn’t sure how much more damage to his hands, to his relationships, to his pride, he could take.
Chapter Thirteen
“Wherethehellismy kick drum?”Liam shouted.The band was already forty-five minutes late to go on.A restless, hostile energy pulsated through the venue.The promoter was breathing down Skye’s neck and complaining about the potential riot that would break out any second.
“I’m taking the extra cases of water that we had to hand out to the people in the pit from your take-home,” the asshole was saying as Skye searched through the extra equipment backstage.
She whipped around and snatched the promoter by the shirt and slammed him against the wall with her demon strength.The breath whooshed out of him as surprise widened his eyes.
Lowering her chin, Skye let the red haze of her demon vision take over the color of her irises.“You will not be taking anything out of my band’s take-home pay, and you know why?Because these people are drinking like fish, and this extra forty-five minutes has added thousands of dollars to your bar tabs, so I think you can eat the cost of three cases of water.Now if you’d like the show to go on”—she let go of his shirt and pressed both of her hands into his shoulders to shove him against the wall again—“you need to kindly fuck off.”
She strode down the hall, the heels of her boots clicking against the floor.She pointed to one of the roadies.“Get every single person backstage looking for Liam’s kick drum.If you can’t find it in the next five minutes, use the opener’s.”
They nodded and scrambled off.
Kick drums didn’t justpoofdisappear into thin air.
Or rather, when fucked-up bargains weren’t involved, they didn’t.Skye’s magic didn’t let her materialize things unless she already knew their location, so she had to keep searching along with the rest of them.
As a stopgap, Zara and Skye were both keeping a steady stream of their demon magic funneling toward Remi’s soul to rebind the bargain, but it wasn’t working, and it was draining them both.
Their tour bus was in the shop, but the company they rented from didn’t have another available until they got to Detroit, so Tilted Haze was bunking on the opening band’s bus, making for cramped quarters.
Then Ollie got strep throat, and Skye booked everyone a hotel room in Toronto so the tour bus could be decontaminated.
The opening band’s bass player filled in for Ollie when he was at his worst, though he pushed through and hid his fever from Skye for at least one of those shows.
At this rate, Skye was terrified the entire band was going to get some rare, exotic life-threatening illness—that all of them—the crew, the opening band, everyone, was just going to fall over, and she’d be forced to admit defeat and cancel the tour.
She refused, absolutelyrefused, to take that walk to the wing guillotine.
They needed a full dose of magic.No patchwork jobs.No hoping for the best.A full redo of the bargain entirely.
The flicker of flames came from behind her as Skye rummaged in one of the back rooms.
“I don’t have time now, Zara,” she said.“I have to find a goddamn kick drum.”
“I think I have a deal.”
Skye dropped the dust cloth back on top of the ancient equipment and spun around.“You do?Seriously?I could fucking use the magic right now.”
Zara shook her head.“I didn’t make the offer yet.”
Skye sighed and resumed her search.
“I wanted to make sure we could pull it off.The band wants a Top-40 song and a contract for four albums.”
Skye threw her body weight into moving about five hundred pounds of amps.“A four-album deal is unheard of nowadays.Negotiate for one album and tell them their Top-40 song will also stream for—” She paused to do the math in her head.“At least eight weeks.”
Zara squinted.“I don’t usually negotiate my deals...”
