Spell Bound

Piano music tinkled as we opened the front door. Otherwise, it was so quiet, I thought the place was empty, until we walked into the lounge and saw couples at most tables, sipping Cosmos and single malts, speaking so softly the piano drowned them out. While I didn’t see a dress code posted, there wasn’t a single woman in slacks, much less jeans.

We found a table in the corner, so recently vacated the empty glasses still sat there. The cocktail waitress stopped in her tracks, gaped at us, then cast a panicked look at the bartender. He set down his dish towel and made a move, as if to come out and show us the door. Then he took a better look at Adam, whose short sleeves showed off biceps bigger than the bartender’s scrawny neck. The guy picked up his towel again and pretended not to see us.

I glanced around at the women in cocktail dresses. “I am wearing silk. I could strip down to it if that would help.”

A low laugh as Adam relaxed into his seat. The server made a move to walk right past us, but a twenty folded between Adam’s fingers helped her vision. She came over and cleaned the table, stacking glasses on her tray. Then she took our order. Premium tequila. Two glasses. Salt and lime. Just leave the bottle. I handed her a couple hundreds to prove we could cover it.

Adam didn’t bother waiting for me to line up a shot. Just took one, straight. Another followed. Then he leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes shut.

His eyes shot open. “Shit. Of course. I should have thought—” “That’s why you have me. The callous bitch who can keep her eyes on the game at all times.”

“Right. Because only a callous bitch would have tried to let Leah kill her to save innocent strangers.”

“I wasn’t thinking of innocent strangers. I was thinking of my friends. If Leah stayed alive, then anytime she needed anything, she’d have threatened you guys.”

“Part of you was thinking of innocent strangers. The same part that offered up her powers to help a little girl she barely knew.”

I nodded at the bottle. He took it, filling both our glasses, then lifting his, a spark of my Adam finally lighting his eyes.

“Getting there. But if I ever consider using my research to hire myself out as a demon summoner, remind me about Alston.”

Adam pulled a face. “I didn’t make a deal. If he does come back with information, I’ll see what he wants. Asmondai is his liege’s liege, so he won’t try to screw me over too badly. And I am something of an expert on demons. Well, an expert-in-training.”

Adam didn’t answer, just poured another shot, but this time, only lifted it, twisting the glass between his fingers, peering down into the tequila.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t even point out that he had a one-shot lead on me. Just stared into the tequila like it held the meaning of life.

“I’m only going to say this once, Savannah. And only because I’m drunk enough to say it.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “You don’t need your spells. If you never got them back, you’d be fine. But you don’t see that, so I’ll do whatever it takes to help you.”

I nodded, dropped my gaze, and poured another shot. We didn’t drink them, just sat and looked into the tequila, then at each other. We both broke out laughing.

“Oh, I’m going to drink it. Just give me a minute. I plan to be able to walk out when I’m done.”

“That’s not because I was too drunk to walk. I just like seeing you try to support me when you can barely stand upright.”

“Heli-skiing. When this is done.” He waved. “This whole mess. When it’s over, I want to try heli-skiing.”

“We’ll have to find someplace cold. Maybe Switzerland. I always wanted to see Switzerland. That’s where we’ll go.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll pay my own way. You pay yours. We’ll go to Switzerland as soon as this is over.”

“—then I’d pick something you wanted to do. I’m the one who’s been pestering you to try heli-skiing. This is all about me. So, you in?”

A vacation in Switzerland. Just the two of us. We’d taken a lot of trips together, but always brought others, so no one could mistake it for anything but friends on vacation.

Now he didn’t want that buffer. Did it mean something? I wanted it to. But when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see anything new there, just the old Adam grinning, inviting me out to play.

“That doesn’t look like a yes,” he said. “Come on. A week in Switzerland. Taking a helicopter up the mountains. Skiing down. Sipping brandy by the fire. Being stuck together in a chalet until you’re ready to beat my brains in with your ski boot. What’s not to love?”

“Do you have an end date in mind for all our other problems? My power failure? My would-be assassin? The violent uprising we need to squelch before they manage to summon the Prince of Darkness?”

“Yeah, yeah. I was being dramatic. Lucifer is only another lord demon. A particularly nasty lord demon, though, which is why we don’t want him getting involved.”

“Mmm. I wouldn’t say nasty. Dangerous. Not nasty. There’s a difference. You, for example, are dangerous, but not nasty.”

He launched into a mini-seminar on Lucifer, the angel who refused to serve humans and was, for his hubris, cast out of heaven. Personally, I’ve always kind of sided with Lucifer on that one. It would be like Paige bringing home a two-year-old and telling me I had to do his bidding. Um, no. Ask me nicely, and I’ll help take care of him, but I don’t bow to anyone who hasn’t proved himself worthy. I’m sure, in Lucifer’s case, there was more to it than that, but I can’t help thinking he got a raw deal.

“Lucifer retains the powers of an angel, including his sword of judgment, which can send souls to purgatory.” Adam was still talking as we finally staggered out of the cocktail lounge. “Whether that’s true or not, nobody knows, but it’s an interesting piece of lore.”

“You know, alcohol brings out different things in everyone,” I said. “For you, it releases your inner librarian.”

He put his arm around my neck as we set out across the road. “Remember I was doing some research on Persian demonology last week? Did I ever tell you what I found?”

We shared a motel room again. We could only get one bed this time, so we decided to flip for it. At some point while searching for a coin we both ended up on it and, well, just never got up again. Next thing I knew, I woke curled up at the foot of the bed with Adam’s feet in my face.

I pulled off his socks, left them by his face, and went in search of coffee. If I’d had to go far, I’d have abandoned the quest—I didn’t want him freaking out because I’d gone into the assassin-infested streets alone. But there was a café beside the cocktail lounge. Just as trendy, unfortunately. I overpaid for a plain cup of coffee, got him a drink, and grabbed a pastry assortment.

“It was directly across the road,” I said, handing him his drink as we backed into the room. “I even looked both ways before crossing.”

“Yes, it’s a girly drink and I know you love it, so having made your token protest, shut up and drink. You can go scale a mountain or something after. Reclaim your manhood.”

“Is that still the plan, then?” I sat on the edge of the bed and took a muffin from the bag. “Head to Arizona? Focus on my little witch-hunter?”

“On a grand scale, she’s the minor threat. But she’s the major threat to you, so that’s the one I’m chasing first.”

“Yes. It cost extra, but you’re worth it. Now drink it while we tackle today’s tidal wave of e-mail panic and see if there’s anything useful in it.”

Same song; second verse. More supernaturals had heard of the threat. More demanded answers. None offered to help.

“And none offering any useful information,” I said. When Adam didn’t answer, I glanced over to see his gaze fixed on his screen.

My name is Gary Schmidt. I’m a necromancer. We’ve never met, but I think you know who I am. At least, you know my work. Leah O’Donnell.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “This is the guy who put Leah into Jesse’s body. He has the nerve to contact me? To do what?”

To apologize, it seemed. Leah had said she’d gone to an old necromancer contact and “convinced” him to do the ritual. Schmidt wrote that she’d used her Volo powers to play poltergeist. Deadly poltergeist, first killing their cat, then knocking Schmidt’s wife over a second-story banister. The woman was still in the hospital. Leah had promised to finish the job by pulling out her life support. That’s when Schmidt capitulated.

“Well, I do. The minute she killed his pet, he should have seen where it was going and gotten help.”

“But would you let her hurt your family? Would you eventually give in and zap a psychopath ghost into a body, then wash your hands of it, be glad the bitch was someone else’s problem? He got his wife badly hurt, and got a lot of people killed. He almost got you killed. Now he wants to talk to say he’s sorry? Piss on him.”

Schmidt did want to talk. He said it was a “matter of urgency” and “something I needed to know.” But with Leah back in her hell dimension, what could he need to tell me? Like Adam said, he was just feeling guilty.

I still called. If he only wanted to apologize, I’d let him know what I thought of that. And I’d let him know exactly what Leah had done. The number rang through to an answering machine. I hung up without leaving a message.