Redemption Song (22 page)

“BETRAY,” Emma said twenty minutes later, laying tiles onto a maze of snaking words. “Triple word score!”

I was pretty sure Ben was letting her win. Me, I was just lousy at Scrabble. I looked at the alphabet soup in front of me and tried to come up with a better word than “CAT.” Maybe I was distracted. My gaze kept drifting to the empty fourth seat beside me.

The front door rattled, very softly. Emma gave a knowing glance at Ben, and they both turned in their chairs to watch. Melanie crept inside, shutting the door behind her as quietly as she could, making like a thief in the night until she noticed her parents were staring at her from across the room. She froze.

“
Melanie
,” Emma snapped. “Do you have any idea what time it is, young lady?”

“I, uh, lost track of time,” she said, running her fingers through her rumpled mop of blue hair.

Ben shook his head. “Your curfew is eleven o’clock, hon. You know this. How many times are we going to have this conversation?”

“Like I said. Lost track of time. It’s not a big deal.”

“It certainly is a—wait a second.” Emma’s nose twitched. She jumped from her chair and stormed across the room. “What do I smell on your breath? Have you been
drinking
?”

“It was a party,” Melanie said, her voice laden with the kind of exasperation only teenagers can summon. “It’s not a big deal. Nothing bad happened.”

“This time,” Ben said. “Nothing thing bad happened this time. You know you have to keep control of yourself. If you don’t—”

“There weren’t even any humans there. It was just me and Annie and a couple of the new folks. Jesus.”

“Watch your mouth,” Emma said. “I can’t…I can’t even deal with you right now. Go to your room. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”

“Mom, c’mon—”

I could see Emma’s eyes flash copper from across the room, glowing like orbs of pitch and fire as her voice went guttural, dropping too deep for any human throat.

“
To. Your. Room
.”

Melanie didn’t need to be told twice. She vanished up the hallway. Emma straightened her blouse, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. When she turned back to face us, she was perfectly tranquil.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

“Kids,” I said, shrugging. I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“It’s not like we can complain,” Ben told me. “Her grades are great, she does volunteer work. She’s a good kid. She just sometimes forgets that she has some…special challenges to face that her friends don’t. Things she needs to remember to do, and things not to do.”

“Like not downing a couple of beers and flashing her real teeth at a panhandler,” Emma said, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t a hypothetical situation. “Or necking with her boyfriend, getting excited, and clawing his back so badly he needs stitches. Hushing that up was the highlight of my week, let me tell you.”

“She’ll be fine once she gets a little older,” Ben said. “That’s what they tell us, anyway. But…she’s seventeen. That’s rough no matter how old you are. I mean, I was no prize at that age.”

“You and me both,” I said.

“Of course, if she had more human friends and stopped hanging out with those cambion kids,” Ben started to say, cut short by Emma’s glare.

“She needs exposure to both of her cultures,” Emma said. “We’ve discussed this. I won’t have her pretending to be human.”

“What, you want her walking around in public looking like—like she really looks? We’ve done nothing
but
teach her how to pretend since she was a toddler. It’s for her own safety.”

Emma frowned. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. It isn’t about passing for human, it’s about who she is inside. Melanie needs to understand where she came from. She needs to appreciate her heritage.”

“And yet,” Ben said, “every time it comes up, ‘appreciating her heritage’ only applies to your side of the family.”

I held up a hand. “I should probably get going.”

“No,” Emma snapped. “Stay. I mean…it’s late. And we’re being rude. I’m sorry.”

Ben nodded. “Really, take our couch. You could probably use a few hours of peace and quiet.”

I got the feeling that both of them wanted me there as an excuse not to get into a shouting match. I was okay with that. They were friends, after all, and after three glasses of wine I had to admit my eyelids were getting heavy. I nodded my assent, and Ben found an extra pillow and a fluffy blanket in the linen closet.

I helped clean up, and Emma and Ben disappeared into their bedroom up the hall. Hushed voices carried through the still house, but nothing I could make out over the hum of the air conditioning. One click of the lights bathed the living room in darkness. I slipped under the blanket and got as comfortable as I could. Couch-surfing was my default mode since the apartment burned down, and I wanted a real bed again. My bed. Under my roof.

“It’ll work out, you know.”

My eyelids flickered open. Emma stood at the foot of the couch, a vague smudge in the darkness.

“You sound confident.”

“I have faith,” Emma said, and then she was gone.

• • •

I woke up with the dawn, restless, eager to get this meeting with Agent Black over with. Stashing the soul bottle with her was my best option out of a whole bunch of bad choices, and that wasn’t saying much. I stumbled up the hall and took a hot shower, turning my back to the spray and letting the heat pulse against my aching muscles. The welts from Sullivan’s cane were starting to heal. They’d faded down to a spray of angry bruised lines across my body, like a broken and confused spiderweb.

My pride would take a little longer.

When I finished cleaning up, the reflection in the mirror looked like a presentable, if rumpled, human being. I stole a splash of Ben’s aftershave and patted the pale bristle on my cheeks.

I ran into Melanie in the hallway. She looked like a recent inductee into the wonderful world of hangovers, her eyes heavy-lidded and her fuzzy slippers dragging on the carpet. She wore an oversized Bauhaus T-shirt for a nightgown. I wasn’t sure if she was a fan of the band or just being ironic.

“Hey,” she muttered.

“Hey yourself. Somebody had a long night.”

She followed me into the living room, trudged into the kitchen nook, and rummaged through the refrigerator.

“I maybe overdid it.”

“Maybe a little.” I couldn’t help smiling.

She pulled a bottle of Bud Light from the fridge. “Hair of the dog. Want one?”

I snatched the bottle. Reaching around her, I grabbed a bottled water from the next shelf down and pressed it into her hand.

“Uh-uh. Water. You need to rehydrate. Take it from somebody who’s been there. Water and something greasy. Cook yourself some bacon or something.”

“Pfft. Rather have the beer.”

“Not while I’m standing here,” I said. “You’re underage.”

She puffed air up against her fallen bangs, making them flutter. “Aren’t you, like, a thief or something?”

“Or something, sometimes.”

“But you won’t let me have a beer,” she said.

“Nope. A man’s got to have standards.”

Melanie pulled a sealed package of turkey bacon out of the fridge and reached for a frying pan.

“Ooh,” she said sarcastically, “the code of the criminal underworld, just like in the movies. Like you won’t shoot women or kids, right?”

I shrugged. “I try not to shoot anybody if I can help it. If I’m put in a position where I have to, though, their gender or their age doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it.”

“And let me guess, you never steal from your boss?”

“Depends.”

“Depends?” she said.

“On how much of an asshole he is.”

“That happen a lot?”

“Working for assholes?” I said. “You have no idea.”

She laughed. The pan slowly warmed over the stove’s burner, bacon starting to sizzle.

“I know why Caitlin likes you. I know something else, too.”

“Yeah?” I said. “What’s that?”

“That you’re lying to my parents.”

Twenty-Nine

I
gave Melanie an appraising look. Smart kid, no two ways about it. Good eyes, good ears, good heart too. Could be trouble.

“How do you figure?” I asked her.

She turned her back to me, focused on the bacon.

“I heard them talking after they went to bed. They said you and Caitlin broke up.”

“What of it?”

“You wouldn’t do what Prince Sitri told you, so he made you guys split up. Except suddenly, out of nowhere, you find something else the prince wants. And that’s going to make everything okay, but instead of rushing over to give it to him, you’re, what, weighing your options? If you’re telling the truth, you could fix all of this and you and Caitlin could already be back together.”

I leaned against the kitchen island.

“Gotta be careful,” I said, “dealing with guys like Sitri. They have a way of twisting your expectations.”

“How’d you find the soul you were looking for? And that rakshasi in Denver?”

“Like I told your folks. I had a source.”

Melanie turned, cocking a hand on her hip. No pupils nestled in her fish-belly white eyes, and a spray of blue veins adorned her face. It resembled the pattern on a butterfly’s wings, beautiful and grotesque.

“Hellooo,” she said. “I’m not stupid, Faust. There’s only one person out west who has ‘a source’ that good in the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers. Prince Sitri. And you bought the soul in exchange for ‘an unnamed favor,’ to be paid out to a Flowers noblewoman? A favor that could be anything from a suicide mission to putting a knife against Caitlin’s throat? You would never do that.”

“Maybe it seemed necessary at the time.”

“And maybe your whole story’s a pile of crap.” Melanie turned back to the bacon. When she glanced the other way, reaching for a roll of paper towels, her face was back to normal.

“What do you think happened?” I asked her.

Melanie laid out a handful of folded paper towels on a bright orange ceramic plate. She didn’t bother with tongs. She plucked a bacon strip from the sizzling grease with her bare fingers, setting it on the towels to dry.

“I think,” she said, then suddenly winced and sucked on her grease-spattered fingertips. “Shit! God
damn
that hurts! Mom doesn’t even flinch when she does that trick!”

“You hurt?”

“No,” she sighed. “I just thought that’d be really badass, and now I look like a total dork.”

“Your mom has a little more experience,” I said and handed her a pair of rubber-coated tongs from a jar of utensils. “Try these. And no, you don’t look like a dork.”

“Know what I think? I think you’re on a top secret mission for Prince Sitri. A spy, on his infernal majesty’s secret service.”

I forced a laugh. “I’m a sorcerer and a thief, not James Bond.”

“I think you knew where to go, because the prince told you exactly who to talk to and what to expect. I think he gave you something to barter with, too. Thing is, you aren’t bringing the soul to him because that’s not what he wants. It’s just part of a bigger plan.”

“Now why would I lie about a thing like that?”

“I don’t know,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “It’s got to be something so secret that even my mom and Caitlin can’t know about it. I’m right, aren’t I?”

With the exception of a tiny detail or two, she’d pretty much nailed it. I was definitely going to have to keep an eye on this kid.

“You’re pretty close,” I admitted. I knew denying it would only encourage her to dig deeper. “I made a deal with Sitri. We’re both getting something we want, assuming my plan works. Thing is, Melanie, I need you to stay quiet about this.”

“Sure!” She picked up the dish and held it out to me. “Just one condition.”

I grabbed a piece of bacon. “What?”

“I want to help.”

Good thing I hadn’t started chewing. I shook my head.

“No way. I’m not putting you in any danger. Your dad would kill me. Your mom would
literally
kill me.”

“I’m not a kid, Faust.”

“By the definition of the word, you kinda are.”

“I’m not a
little
kid. I turn eighteen in five months. That’s an adult. Legally. Look it up.”

I thought it over. One thing I didn’t need right now was another complication.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I might have something for you to do. Might. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and we’ll talk later.”

“What about right now?”

“Drink another bottle of water. You’ll thank me later.”

• • •

I didn’t realize, until I’d gotten out to the car, that I was still holding the bottle of Bud I’d confiscated from Melanie. I shrugged and tossed it into the duffel bag. I wasn’t much of a beer fan, but there was no sense in throwing away perfectly drinkable booze.

The Metropolitan is hip. Its designers took great pains to make sure you knew, from every angle of its brushed-chrome curves and Andy Warhol stylings, that it’s hipper than you’ll ever be. It’s the kind of place where blond heiresses in garish plastic sunglasses mingle poolside with guys in European leisure suits. Not normally the kind of place I’d pick for a meet-up, but maybe that was a good idea. Right now, being unpredictable was my best defense.

I nosed the Barracuda up to the parking garage ramp and waited while the automated box clacked and spat out a paper ticket. The barricade arm swung up, inviting me deeper inside. I didn’t like it. My last meeting in a parking garage ended abruptly, with a single shot from a sniper rifle. This time I was driving down, not up, but that didn’t set me any more at ease. Fewer avenues of escape if things went sour.

Chrome letters, five feet high and backlit by florescent pipes in cool electric blue, spelled out METROPOLITAN along a curving tiled wall. The Barracuda’s motor purred as I rumbled down a steep ramp to the second level. If her word was good, Agent Black would be waiting for me two floors down. I found a parking space and killed the engine.

Driving down to meet Harmony would give me a faster escape if I needed one. On the other hand, I’d be handing her my make, model, and plate number. We might be helping each other out right now, but ultimately she’d made it damn clear she intended to see me in an orange jumpsuit. The less information she had on me, the better. I figured I’d have the meet-up, walk up to the hotel for a late breakfast, then come back down and retrieve the car once she was long gone.