Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(53)

You’re gonna have a long wait, I thought. And so will I.

“So do we have a deal?” I said, struggling to avert my eyes from the dish, to force down the urge to eat one more piece. I’d never felt so hungry.

She held out her hand. I gave her the folded paper. She read it, and her eyes went wide.

“Wait here,” she said, rising from the divan. “You’ll be my guest until my servants can verify this information.”

“Guest” was a nice word for “hostage.” She wanted me at arm’s reach in case my intel was wrong. Close enough to shred. I watched her leave and wiped my clammy palms against the legs of my slacks. I’d just gambled my life on a scrap of information handed to me by a demon prince. One with a decidedly black sense of humor. He does enjoy his games…

The dish sat there, tempting me. I’d already had one bite. Would another hurt? Either I’d committed cannibalism or I hadn’t, no middle ground there. Another piece wouldn’t make me any more or less guilty.

I closed my eyes and counted my breaths instead.

The beaded curtain rattled. Naavarasi stormed into the room, looking furious. My stomach clenched. She stopped near the archway, her attention caught by a faint, pleading whine from the booth I’d stopped at before. The one with the bloated shadow and the half-gnawed hand. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it put a sadistic smile on the rakshasi’s lips.

“You should have thought of that before you published your review,” she told him. “One star? Now you get to sample the real restaurant. Eat up. Your next course should be here soon, and I’d hate to have to get the feeding horn out again.”

Then her eyes fixed on me, and my blood ran cold.

“He’s gone.” She glided toward me like a freight train on ice. “He packed a bag this morning and fled. Someone warned him.”

I held up my empty hands. “Don’t look at me. I’ve been watched by the prince’s men or by yours since the second I crossed into Utah. You know every move I’ve made since yesterday.”

“I do,” she said, stroking her chin. “And yet.”

“Was the information good?”

“It was. We found journals, photographs, evidence on his computer. He was funneling information to the Court of Jade Tears. Had been for years, by the looks of it. A damaging mole.”

“A damaging mole that you just single-handedly uprooted. I didn’t sell you the man; I sold you his name. You can’t tell me Malphas isn’t going to honor you for this, either. You’re getting exactly what I promised you.”

She sat down on the divan, composing herself, her anger smoothed away behind a mask of panther grace.

“I still smell treachery,” she said. “But you speak the truth. This will further my ambitions nicely. Very well, a deal’s a deal.”

She reached across the banquet table, picking up a covered tray I hadn’t noticed before. Something told me it hadn’t been there a minute ago, but I hadn’t seen anyone put it down. Under the lid, a rolled-up scroll of yellowed parchment rested beside a slender bottle of glazed blue glass.

“The soul of Gilles de Rais, and his contract,” she said, unfurling the scroll. I couldn’t read a word of the spidery, ornate glyphs that filled the curling paper—it might have been Sanskrit—but she offered me a fountain pen and pointed to the bottom of the page.

“Sign here. Your full name, if you would, and your sigil if you have one.”

I scribbled my name beneath her florid seal. I suddenly felt dizzy, off-balance, as if something in the universe had shifted under my feet. The sensation fled in the space of a breath.

“You are his master now, and he is obliged to obey your commands,” Naavarasi said. “Until such time as he passes into another’s hands, or the contract burns. The bottle contains his soul. He’s going to need a body to ride, if you plan on putting him to work.”

I shook my head and rolled up the scroll. “I don’t have a lot of work for a child-abusing serial killer. He can stay in there and rot for all I care. I just don’t want anyone else to have him.”

“Where’s your imagination?” She pouted. “A weapon is a weapon. Well. Should you change your mind, simply uncork the bottle close to the flesh you’ve chosen for him to inhabit. Those with little magical training make the best choices. Easier to possess than those who can defend themselves.”

“Yeah. I’m familiar with how possession works.”

Naavarasi looked as if she was about to say something, a twinkle of mischief in her eye, then stopped. Instead, she picked up a bag made of blue crushed velvet, sealed with a golden drawstring.

“Where will you go now?” she asked.

“Back to Nevada. It’s not safe, but I have unfinished business to take care of.”

That was probably the most truthful thing I’d said all day. She held out the velvet bag.

“I’m sending you away with a parting gift.”

I worked open the drawstring and took a peek. The brass collar lay snug inside, dark and glittering.

“I’m flattered,” I said. “But really, I’m not looking for a—”

She held up a hand, sharply.

“Hear me out. That, Daniel, is your ‘get out of death free’ card. If you’re in danger, simply put it on and wherever you are—anywhere in this world or any other—I will hear you, and I will come for you. Of course, once I do, you will be mine. Keep it with you. Just in case. What could it hurt?”