Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(83)

One of the cambion clapped his hands, beaming at Sullivan like he was the Second Coming. The others joined in, and soon the table was a chorus of starry-eyed applause. Even Lauren joined in with a polite golf clap. Meadow and I kept our hands under the table.

“Meadow,” Lauren said quickly, before she could ruin the moment, “we should resolve our business, don’t you think? Run upstairs and get the ring out of the safe.”

My shoulders tensed. The awkward dinner conversation had just become the countdown to a massacre. I noticed more of the serving staff loitering on the edges of the room, blank-eyed and watching the feast. Waiting for their cue.

“Indeed,” Sullivan said, tapping the contract but keeping it close to his hand. “Tonight, everyone gets what they deserve.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Lauren lifted her flute of champagne.

Meadow returned with a small wooden box and passed it to Lauren before taking her seat. Lauren opened the box and showed it to Sullivan. Inside, the Ring of Solomon sat nestled on a bed of black crushed velvet.

“It’s more beautiful than I imagined,” he murmured.

Lauren set the box on the table, close to Meadow’s hand. There they were, all laid out in a rough triangle amid the half-finished plates: Gilles’s contract, Solomon’s ring, and Father Alvarez’s manuscript.

“There’s only one thing I need to know,” Lauren said.

Sullivan nodded. “Ask anything. I’m an open book.”

I slipped my hand into my pocket and around my phone. Before they picked me up at the hotel, I’d pre-keyed a text message. Two words: “GET READY.” I pressed send.

“Not you,” Lauren said and looked at me. “Him.”

Then she asked me a question in French.

I didn’t understand a word of it, but then she chuckled, spread her hands and said “Non?”

Maybe I could fake this a little bit longer. I mirrored her smile and shook my head.

“Non, non,” I said, as if I was in on the joke.

Her smile vanished. “What I said was, ‘If this is an elaborate scam and you don’t even speak French, say ‘non.’”

“Ooh,” I said. “Gotta admit, that was good.”

One of the cambion, farther down the table, rubbed his eyes like he’d gotten sand blown in his face. Another stared around the room, googly-eyed and confused. The gumbo was kicking in.

“I don’t—” Sullivan said, flustered. “I don’t know anything about this, Lauren—”

“Holy shit!” one of the cambion shouted, jumping up so fast his chair fell back and clattered on the hardwood floor. Another fan of the appetizer. I’d eaten it too. I could feel the enchanted ingredients coursing through my system, and I could see what he saw. Brand’s illusions were good, but not good enough to stand up against a heavy dose of Mama’s magic gumbo. It wasn’t just good for your heart; it was good for your eyes too. The effects would only last a few minutes, but that was all I needed to get this party started.

The servants had been creeping closer, clustering around the table, but now they weren’t servants anymore. A baker’s dozen of Meadow’s human-sized marionettes—faceless wooden armature dolls with rusted metal shivs and razors for hands—stood in a motionless ring around the dining table. A couple of Sullivan’s men yanked small guns from pockets and ankle holsters, clutching their steel close and waiting for orders.

“You were going to betray me!” Sullivan roared, slamming his fist on the table.

Lauren bared her teeth. “You were going to betray me!”

I jumped up onto my chair and climbed onto the dinner table, standing in the heart of the powder keg.

“Ladies! Gentlemen! You’re both right! You were all about to betray each other. Congratulations and welcome to Las Vegas. If I could have the floor for a moment?”

All eyes were on me.

“The fact is, it just wasn’t meant to be. Crazy rich lady who wants to blow up the world, crazy demon * who wants to invade hell…I know, you had high hopes, but this relationship just wasn’t going to work out.”

“I am going,” Sullivan seethed, “to kill you.”

“Not if I get to him first,” Meadow said.

In my pocket, my phone vibrated against my leg. It rang three times and then stopped. The signal I’d been waiting for. I dipped my fingers into my other pocket and took out the poker chip from the Sands.

“For my final performance,” I said, “a golden oldie. Aleister Crowley called it the Harlot’s Curtains—”

“Kill him!” Lauren commanded. The mannequins didn’t move. They only answered to Meadow.

“—but me, I call it Closing Time.”

Lauren bolted up from her chair and shouted, “Kill them all!”

I tossed the chip in the air. It spun end over end, glittering like fairy dust, and exploded.

A pulse of white-hot magic blasted through the room like a flash-bang grenade. Every light died at once, the bulbs in the grand chandelier exploding while the candles on the table sputtered and went black.

That was when the shooting started.

I hit the table, landing in a clutter of dishes as a shot winged over my head. The mannequins moved in, crashing in a wave of wood and rusted steel against the cambion. In the shadows, Sullivan grabbed for the ring while Lauren grabbed for the contract, the two of them almost running into each other. I snatched the book, hauling it back by my fingertips and clutching it to my chest as I rolled to one side, thumping to the floor in a puddle of cracked china and soggy pasta. It wasn’t the most dignified exit, but I was still breathing.