"Pale Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Kim)

Twenty-four

The transition was smoother this time as we crossed merely the ever-after, not realities, and my feet barely stumbled as the stink and grit of the surface echoed once and died, replaced by a heavy bass thump and the sound of clinking glasses. Laughter mocked me, and I looked up, numb as we misted into existence. Damn it, Trent. Trust me. He had said trust me. Did he have any idea of what he was asking?

“Right on the tick,” Al said jovially, his arm in mine as he checked his pocket watch. “Clean yourself up, Rachel. Dalliance is a respectable establishment.”

I didn’t know whether to cry or scream. I’d put my trust in a scheming elven drug lord. Al was right. How stupid could I be? I’d lost. I’d lost Jenks, Ivy, my church…everything, cursed to remain on this side of the lines unless summoned. If that didn’t make me a demon, what would?

A bar was to my left, full of demons in trendy clothes reaching over one another to get their drinks. The music was so loud that shouting replaced talking. In front of me was a much more refined restaurant, sedate but borrowing from the energy at the bar. The theme seemed to be Art Deco, with a lot of thick glass etched with circles and triangles. Gray-and-white-patterned carpet mixed with tile, again using the circles and triangles theme. It was modern, expensive, and looked mildly excessive. The smell of food made my stomach growl, which ticked me off. How could I be hungry?

A host wearing a tux was talking to the three people ahead of us, his goat-slitted eyes telling me that they used demons as workers here, not familiars. Trendy and expensive, indeed. The music thumped, and laughter broke out from the wide-spaced tables where waitstaff eased through like boats in the fog. The restaurant was only half full, and the host led the demon trio ahead of us to a table, their clothes and manners making them look like CEOs out for a night of schmoozing on the company’s account. Men. Everyone here was male. Behind the host’s mahogany desk, DALLIANCE floated in mist, sparkling like Jenks’s dust.

Jenks…

I blinked fast, my jaw clenched. A tingling at my shoulder pulled my attention to Al. He’d changed from his crushed green velvet coat and lace into a three-piece charcoal gray suit. A red handkerchief peeped from the breast pocket, and his hair was slicked back. He looked like a professional businessman, right down to the eight P.M. stubble.

“Cheer up, Rachel,” he said, shifting his shoulders as if fitting into a new suit. “This is Dalliance. You’re not still moaning about Pierce, are you? We’ll pick up your little pet tomorrow. Tonight is for celebration!”

“Where did you get that?” I asked, not caring about Pierce.

He looked at me, new lines in his face as he played the part. “My closet. You don’t think I am a one-trick pony, do you? Hold still. First thing tomorrow, I’m teaching you a brush-and-wash curse.”

I took a breath to complain, even as I felt a wave of his energy cascade over me, easing the pain in my knees if not the ache in my heart. Yes, I was depressed, and yes, I’d just lost everything, but I felt like a slob with the grit of the surface on me, and if it would clean me up, then all the better.

I shivered as the curse slipped away, looking up as Al took out a pair of modern wire glasses and perched them on his nose. They had a bifocal line, and I knew he didn’t need them. “Much better,” he said with a sniff. “No one takes you seriously if you’re in rags.”

I jerked when his energy flowed over me again, and my tight leather melted away into an uncomfortable gray business suit. A purple Gucci bag was in my hand, and a Palm Pilot on my hip. “Hey!” I exclaimed, my hand going to my hair to find that it was back in a bun. My shoes were so tight they hurt. “What was wrong with the leather dress? You picked it out for me.”

The host was coming back, and Al pulled me forward as if I was his arm candy. “This is Dalliance. If we don’t fit the theme, we can’t stay.”

The thought of Bis made my brow furrow. I should have called him when I had the chance. “I just lost everything in the world that means anything to me, and you’re taking me out to eat?” I protested.

Ignoring the host now looking at us, Al waited until I brought my gaze up to him before saying, “You just gained everything in two worlds, and I’m taking you to Dalliance. You don’t eat here, you network.”

My shoulders slumped. Networking. I was sick of demon networking/partying.

The host sniffed at us, and Al turned, his jaw a little heavier than he usually had it, his hair a little thinner. What do you really look like? I wondered, thinking of that black-skinned demon with the tail he’d scared his gargoyle with.

“Reservations for two. You’ll find it under Algaliarept,” Al said, hooking his shiny dress shoe behind my leg and pulling me forward.

The man looked at the folder open on his desk. “You’ve been declined,” he said distantly, his voice clear over the music thumping around us.

A growl escaped Al, and the skin around his eyes tightened. “There’s been a mistake.”

Looking Al straight in the eyes, the demon said, “Your credit sucks, sir.”

“Ah.” Al poked me in the ribs, making me jump and stick out my chest. “How long have you worked here…Calvin?”

Calvin closed the file. “Long enough to know that Dali is not your personal friend but your parole officer. No table.”

Dali? What did Dali have to do with this? Al was starting to look ticked. True, I didn’t want to be here, but I wanted to be at Al’s little four-room palace even less. “Al, I’m tired,” I said, wrinkling my nose as if I smelled something rank. “This slop will likely give me the runs. Can’t we just go home for a cheese sandwich?”

The host turned his attention to me, sneering. His expression became empty of emotion, and then I gasped when he reached across the desk, grabbed my arm, and yanked me closer. “You’re not a familiar,” he said, his face inches from mine. “You’re that—”

I yelped as I was jerked back, Al having taken my other arm and reclaimed me. “She’s not a that, she’s a whom. Hands off the lady.”

“Hey!” I said, my arms out like I was being crucified. “If you both don’t let go of me, you’re both going to be singing soprano!” Just because I was in heels and carrying a Gucci bag didn’t mean I didn’t know how to use them in new, creative ways.

The two men looked at each other and let go simultaneously. Regaining my balance, I snatched my bag from the floor and tugged my uncomfortable skirt straight. God, this suit made me look like a dullard.

A heavy, balding man in a tux strode from the kitchen looking bothered as he started for us. Eyes fixed on us, he gave a final bit of instruction to one of the waitstaff and continued forward. My eyes widened. I knew this demon. It was Dali, and suddenly the name of the place made sense. Demons could look like anything; why Dali wanted to be an older, over-weight civil servant who ran a restaurant was beyond me.

“You got her?” he said to Al, his bushy white eyebrows bunched as he took me in.

“She’s with me,” Al said as he beamed, taking my arm in warning.

Dali flicked his eyes over me. “And you’re sure she’s…”

Al’s smile grew even wider. “She is.”

I felt like a cow he’d traded a handful of magic beans for. “I’m what?” I asked, and Al inclined his head at me, his expression becoming decidedly—worriedly—fond.

“A demon,” Al said, and Calvin sniffed his disbelief. “We are here to celebrate, and this pile of crap won’t seat us.”

The host stood firm, and Dali looked at the list as if he didn’t care.

“Dali! She is!” Al protested. “I know it! They cursed her and everything!”

“Dali, she isn’t,” I muttered, and the older demon sighed, tapping the paper with a thick finger. Behind him, six tables sat empty.

“I suppose I could give you a table by the kitchen,” he finally offered.

“The kitchen?” Al echoed, appalled.

Dali let the folder hit the desk with a smack, and Calvin looked vindicated. “I’ve seen nothing from her that warrants anything better,” Dali said, and Al huffed. “Cursing her doesn’t make her a demon.”

“I’m telling you, she is!”

Leaning in, Dali said calmly, “You’re a scam artist on the skids—”

“I am a procurer and instructor of fine familiars for the discriminating palate,” Al interrupted. “You’ve bought from me yourself.”

“—and I’m not about to fall for one of your Henry Higgins cons,” Dali finished.

Affronted, my mouth dropped open. “Hey!”

Al lost some of his confidence, hunching slightly. “Dali…Give me this one thing. A table. That’s all I’m asking. How can I prove her birthright if no one sees her?”

The music shifted to a faster pace, and Dali frowned. “Sit them in the corner,” he finally said, and Al straightened, beaming.

“I’m not a demon,” I said as the host moved to show us to a table.

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Dali said, his head down as he scratched something in that folder of his.

Al pinched my elbow. “If you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut, Rachel. You are not helping.”

Mood ugly, I followed Al’s not-very-subtle push to go first. My feet hurt in the gray pumps, but at least my knees were okay. Beside and a little behind me, Al nodded to the demons we passed as if they were great friends, only to get a lackluster response. Unlike most of the places Al had taken me, there were no familiars, and I didn’t like being the only girl in the place.

“Al,” I whispered as he led us to the back. “I’m not a demon. I know I said I was, but that was for the coven because I was mad. I’m not really one.”

Smiling at someone, Al waved. “I believe you are, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner we can get out of a four-room apartment and into something more suitable.”

Okay, I was more than arm candy. I was his ticket to solvency. “Al…”

“Relax, itchy witch. Smile!”

“I have a name,” I grumped, my stomach pinching me harder.

“Yes, but it has no pizzazz. Ra-a-a-a-chel. Rach-e-e-e-eel,” he said, trying it out in different ways. “No one will tremble in terror at that. Oh my God!” he said in a high falsetto. “It’s Rachel! Run! Hide!”

I’d had boyfriends who might differ with him, but I was silent when the host stopped before a booth behind a pillar. Al smoothly pulled out a chair from the adjacent empty table. “Relax,” he said as he invited me to sit. “You’re the only female demon besides Newt, and she’s fucking crazy. Let them look at you.”

Uncomfortable, I sat, amazed when Al expertly scooted my chair in without a scuff on the carpet. “They’ve seen me. Can we go home now? I’ve had a hard day.”

Home. His home, not mine. A pang hit me, making it hard to breathe. Ivy. Jenks. My mother. Trent better not have screwed this up. I was going to freaking kill him.

Al sat beside me, both our backs to the wall, and the host sniffed before he walked away. “A bite of supper is just the way to end a trying day,” Al said as he snapped out my napkin and draped the black cloth over my lap. “Don’t you think?”

Not saying anything, I settled back, trying to figure out what was going on. I mean, I knew I was at a restaurant and was on display, but Al wasn’t being lewd, lascivious, lustful, or any other nasty l word. I didn’t know where I stood, and that made me uncomfortable.

“Al,” I said suddenly as I looked over the table. “He didn’t leave us menus. How am I supposed to order if he didn’t leave menus?”

Al was fiddling with the lit candle, playing in the curl of heat like a five-year-old. “You eat what you’re given. It doesn’t get better than that.”

I frowned, not liking not knowing what I was eating. “No wine. No eggs. Nothing with a sulfur-based preservative. It gives me headaches.”

Sighing, Al looked at me over his new bifocals. “Rachel, Dali himself doesn’t get real eggs or wine. Chill and enjoy yourself, will you?”

Chill? Had he told me to chill? Al looked funny, still himself, but older as he played the part of the successful businessman taking his main squeeze—that’d be me—out to eat.

One of the waitstaff set twin glasses of water before us, her aggressive “Welcome to Dalliance. Can I get you something to start with?” bringing my head up.

“Brooke!” I exclaimed, and the older woman snarled at me, her eyes tired and her hair slicked back in an unflattering cut close to her skull. “You sold her as a waitress?” I stammered at Al. She was coven quality, and they had her slinging orders and clearing tables?

Brooke’s grimace curved up into a weird semblance of a smile. She was wearing a tight gray uniform that went with the d#233;cor but didn’t look good on her, the starched white collar and the cut making it second-class subservient. Her M#246;bius-strip pin still decorated her lapel, but it looked like a joke now, spotted with something. Spit?

“What would you like, Madam Demon?” she said, looking extremely pissed.

“See, even Brooke knows what you are,” Al said as he moved his empty glass. “Tell the piece of witch crap what you want to drink. Hurry before there’s a shift change.”

I stared, my heartbeat fast. “She’s a coven member, and they made her a waitress?”

Brooke waited, her face becoming red.

“What do you want me to do?” Al said, not looking at all embarrassed. “If I sold her as a skilled familiar, I’d get her back in a week. To tell you the truth, I’m a little disappointed.”

Brooke’s jaw clenched. “Can I interest you in the specials tonight?” she asked, the hatred in her voice coming in clear over the thumping of the music.

My head was shaking in disbelief. “Brooke, I’m so sorry. I tried. I really did.”

“Can I start you off with a drink?” she asked tersely. “The Brimstone Bomber comes highly recommended.”

Al gestured flamboyantly and leaned back. “Two of those, yes. And whatever the chef suggests. Something sweet for the lady, and something earthy for me.”

“As you will it,” she said, and turned to leave, her pace slow and giving the surrounding demons a wide space. I saw why when one reached to grab her ass, laughing when she scooted to avoid him.

I felt sick. Why hadn’t she listened to me? I’d told her not to summon Al. Hand to my middle, I looked away. “She’s too expensive for me to buy back, isn’t she?”

Al nodded, watching her walk away. “Very much so. Dali has wanted to bring familiars onto his waitstaff since he started dabbling in the entertainment field, but he hadn’t found any able to handle the shifts. As I understand it, she’s been good for business. Who wouldn’t want to have their ass kissed by a coven member? Relax. Enjoy yourself.”

That was the third time he’d told me to relax, and I was getting tired of it, but I froze when he took my hand, his usual white glove gone as he lifted my fingers to kiss them. Uncomfortable, I pulled away, ignoring his snort of amusement as I looked over the arriving people. The tables were starting to fill. Because of me?

My feet hurt, and I wanted to take off my shoes. Demons were looking at me, and I didn’t like it. “Al, how old do gargoyles need to be before they bond with a, uh, witch?” I asked him, thinking of the little guy.

Al was making the “phone me” gesture to someone. “Several centuries. Why?” he asked, seeming uninterested. “Once bound, they live as long as we do.”

I played with my silverware, feeling guilty. Several centuries. Bis couldn’t be that old. He acted like a teenager, and I remembered him saying he was only fifty.

With a soft sound of linen, Al turned to me, his strong features bunched up in question. “I said why, Rachel. Is Bix getting clingy?”

Like falling asleep in my kitchen? “No,” I lied. “And it’s not Bix, it’s Bis.”

Al rubbed his hands together in delight. “I thought as much. They don’t bond well until they can remain awake during the day. Bis is too young yet.”

My expression went flat. Oh my God. It was happening—whether I wanted it to or not. Bis was going to tie himself to me, and then we would both be stuck here. No. I wouldn’t allow it. “Hey, there’s Newt,” I said to change the subject, and as if my speaking her name caught her attention, her gracefully long neck turned our way.

“Don’t look at her!” Al exclaimed. “Don’t—” He groaned as the crazy demon smiled and changed her path to us. “Shit,” he added, slumping. “She’s coming over.”

“What?” I said, uneasy, but seeing two empty places at our table. “She’s the only person I know here besides you.”

Al looked at the ceiling as if in pain as Newt made her way to us, her pace both provocative and flat, her motions feminine but her figure androgynous. She was wearing a man’s business suit, and it changed to match mine as she approached.

“Well, that’s an improvement,” Al muttered as he brought his gaze from the ceiling. “See, Rachel, you’re having a positive impact already.” Pasting a smile on his face, he stood. “Newt! Love, I’m so surprised to see you here! Please join us!”

“Sit down, Gally,” she said, turning her cheek so he could give it a perfunctory kiss. “I know you loathe me down to my mRNA.”

My eyebrows rose, and I met his gaze glancing to me as he helped her with her chair.

“You seem unusually cognizant tonight,” he muttered, taking the purse that appeared as she handed it to him.

Newt, now wearing a blond pageboy cut, sniffed. “It’s amazing what one remembers given time.” Hand long and thin, she gestured for Brooke to bring her a drink, then focused on me, black eyes wide and wondering. “Did you bring me my ruler, Rachel?”

My mouth opened, then shut. “Um, I forgot,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Newt, love.” Al took her hand and gave it a kiss. “Let’s not talk business. Not tonight.”

Newt pulled her hand from him with a little tug, looking disgusted. “No, let’s talk of the future. Did I not say I could see the future? I’d like to hear of your day, Rachel Mariana Morgan.”

My gaze fell, and I remained silent. She saw the future, all right. But seeing that I had a pattern of being screwed over, it wasn’t hard to predict.

Al cleared his throat as if bothered that I was unhappy, and Newt tried again.

“Rachel,” she said, leaning back in her chair with her glass, “do you enjoy looking like a rung-climbing peon who has to sacrifice the fruits of her ovaries to have status in a man’s world?”

“No,” I muttered.

“Then go put on something new in the jukebox,” she said, handing me a coin. “My treat. Something exotic and old, when women were recognized for the goddesses they are.”

Al’s eyes widened in wonder as I took the tarnished gold coin she slid across the table to me. It felt slimy, almost, and I glanced to Al for guidance. Was I being gotten rid of?

“Go,” he encouraged, indicating what looked like an accurate representation of a jukebox, complete with colored bubbles and 45s. It didn’t fit the d#233;cor, but it still looked as if it belonged there in the corner.

I stood, not appreciating that Newt’s smile was probably because I’d looked to Al for direction. My shoes hurt me, and I kicked them off, leaving them under my chair as I padded across the carpet, my head up and not looking at the demons watching me as I gave them a wide birth.

“She’s sweet,” I heard Newt say as I left. “Look, she’s afraid.”

“No, she isn’t,” Al grumbled. “That’s the problem.”

“Mmmm. If she ever has sex with you, I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t think I know that?” he muttered.

“So give her to me now and be done with it. You can’t handle her,” Newt coaxed.

“Yes, we all saw how well you did with Ku’Sox.”

And then I was out of easy hearing range, with a whole lot more to think about.

I came to a halt before the jukebox, fingering the greasy coin in speculation. I’d never held a chunk of demon smut given real form before. And I was going to buy a song with it?

Everyone in the place was watching me. I could feel them taking in my knee-length skirt and the blah nylons, my hair in that ugly bun, and that I was barefoot thanks to Al putting me in too-small shoes—I think they might have fit Ceri. My back to them all, I forced my shoulders down and looked over the titles. None of them was remotely familiar. Not a single Barry Manilow or Rob Zombie. The titles seemed to be places and dates, only a smattering in English.

“Cuneiform?” I mused aloud, never having actually seen it in use, but that’s what that weird writing among the French, German, and Latin had to be. Immediately I dropped the coin in, hearing it clunk through the machine before I pushed the proper button.

Behind me, the lights dimmed. A wave of conversation rose along with masculine groans from the bar as the modern, loud thumping shifted to an ancient set of drums and flutes. I wrinkled my nose, thinking someone’s dinner smelled like a barn, and when I turned, I could do nothing but stare. Wow.

“Most familiars can’t handle the shifts.” Now I understood that Al hadn’t been talking about lengthy hours but shifts of reality. The restaurant had changed. There were reed mats on the dirt floor, and the tables were made of rough wood and were lit by candles and tarnished metal lamps filled with flaming oil and hanging from an overhead shade. We were outside, and a breeze shifted a strand of hair that had escaped my bun. It was night, and beyond the glow of a central cooking hearth, more stars than I’d ever seen stretched in a sparkling wash, brilliant all the way to the horizon because there were no city lights to dim their glow. The wind carrying the scent of salt to me was warm. It was incredibly realistic, reminding me of Dali’s seaside office on casual Friday. The grit of sand was beneath my feet and the reed mats, and the muggy air smelling of horse and wet wool was hot.

One by one, the clientele sitting at the rough-hewn benches was changing, flashes of ever-after cascading over them to leave the much skimpier attire of homespun robes and sandals. Dressed in a business suit, I was totally out of place.

“Oh for the two worlds colliding!” Dali shouted as he burst from a maroon tent that had once been the kitchen, his new black robes flapping. “Who the hell put in Mesopotamia? You know how hard it is to get lamb to taste good?” he finished, sputtering to a halt when he saw me standing before the jukebox in my nylons and machine-made fabric.

Embarrassed, I looked at Al, seeing that he’d changed into sandals, his chest and much of his legs bare but for a draping gold cloth. Regal and confident, Newt reclined beside him on a cushion with a silver goblet that she distantly toasted me with. Her hair was in beaded dreadlocks, and she’d ringed her eyes with a dark pigment.

“Al!” Dali said, red faced. “She fits in, or you go.”

Al grinned and blew me a kiss. I shivered as the wind brushed me with his intent, and my uptight gray suit melted into a robe of rich golds, purples, and reds. Little green rocks had been sewn into the fabric, and I felt the new weight of it settle comfortably on my shoulders.

“Nice,” I said, my hand jerking up to keep my headdress on when I leaned over to see my new sandals. Yuck, my hair was oiled flat to my head. That was going to take forever to wash out. But I fit in now, and grimacing, Dali turned and vanished back into the cooking tent, his voice raised as he yelled at the staff.

Okay, I’m a Mesopotamian princess. Pulse faster, I headed back to the table amid whistles and a few complaints from where the bar had been. Everyone there was now sitting on the sand around a huge fire pit in the open air. Instead of a kitchen, waitstaff brought wooden bowls and platters from a second cooking fire, and apparently lamb wasn’t a favorite.

“Interesting choice,” Al said dryly as I wove my way past the benches and cushions the upper echelon were seated on and eased onto a smooth, tooled chunk of wood.

Newt set her tarnished silver goblet down. “I rather like Mesopotamia,” she said airily. “It’s so easy to distinguish the haves from the have-nots.” Smiling, she regally motioned for Brooke to bring us a plate of cheese and flat unleavened bread. “And the wannabes.”

“No need to be catty, Newt,” Al replied, then nodded at Brooke—who was now in rags. “See, I told you she was good. It takes an unusually skilled familiar to stockpile all the changes needed to run this place. On a busy day, there might be three shifts an hour.”

“Three shifts?” I said, now understanding why you didn’t bother to order from a menu. You got what you got. “So Brooke has to change herself? It doesn’t just happen?”

Al grunted his answer, grabbing a handful of bread as Brooke set it down. “Newt, can you remember the last time you saw Mesopotamia?”

“I can’t remember the last time I was here,” Newt shot back, and I smiled nervously, not sure if she was kidding or not.

“So all those buttons are different restaurants?” I asked, looking at the jukebox, now totally out of place, like a British police call box on the deck of the Titanic.

Al bobbed his head and downed a glass of red wine. “They are memories,” he said, looking at Newt. “Apart from the last one, we’ve not had a new one for thousands of years.”

Newt’s brow furrowed, and she flicked a grape at him. “I apologized formally for that,” she muttered. “It was Ku’Sox’s fault.”

“Ku’Sox.” I breathed in, wondering if Al had made this memory as I snatched up something that might be a cracker after a few thousand years of civilization. How Ku’Sox had anything to do with the lack of new memories at Dalliance was beyond me. Maybe he’d broken the machine. He certainly had broken my life. He and Trent. Stupid elf. You can summon me back any time now, Ivy.

“Stay away from Ku’Sox, Rachel,” Al offered as he filled my empty glass from a flaccid wineskin.

My nose wrinkled. No way was I drinking anything that came out of a bag with fur still on it from its previous owner. “Not a problem,” I said. “Besides, last I saw him, he was hiding out in reality, and what are the chances that he’d come back here?”

Newt sipped from her silver goblet, her fingers playing in the candle flame. “Everyone finds his way home eventually,” she said, and as I watched, her eyes changed. Though she made no move as she reclined in idleness like a goddess on a throne, the light behind her black orbs went from complaisant to virulent hatred.

Al noticed, too, and he motioned for me to shut up.

“You want to kill him?” Newt asked me, her mild tone a stark contrast with her hidden anger.

“Yes!” I blurted out, then hesitated when I saw her fondling a knife on her hip. “Uh…”

“That’s two of us, then,” she said, interrupting me. “Give me enough time, Gally, and I’ll have the majority.”

“No one likes the little genetic designer dump,” Al said, trying not to look at her, but it was hard not to. “But we can’t kill him. Same as we can’t kill you, love,” he said to Newt, clinking his glass to hers. “Genetic material is genetic material.”

“Al,” Newt pouted as I puzzled over the designer-dump comment. “Is that what I am to you? Genetic material?”

“Of course not, love,” he said, playing with her. “I want your library, too.”

I watched Newt’s mood sour as she stabbed a grape and ate it off the point of her knife. “I despise the bastard even more than you do, Rachel, though that might change as he takes everything you love. You need to be clever to best him. Are you clever, Rachel?”

Oh God. She wants to know if I’m clever. I glanced at Al, and he stared at me, then shrugged. Licking my lips, I said, “It’s the shiny pot that puts a hole in the sky.”

Al’s mouth dropped open, but Newt thought about it, her expression thoughtful and her fingers finally leaving her knife. “Very true,” she said as she eased back into the cushions.

With a soft click of his teeth, Al’s mouth shut. His eyes were cross, and he seemed peeved that I’d found a way to satisfy her without compromising myself at all. Hunching into his drink, he muttered, “Dali is headed this way. Newt, I swear, if you get me kicked out of here tonight, I’ll never sell you another familiar as long as I live.”

“Boohoo,” Newt said, a wiry arm rising delicately to the demon approaching behind her, an invitation to take it, I suppose.

Sure enough, the robe-bedecked, extravagant civil servant gone tent restaurateur elegantly touched his lips to her fingers before gesturing for more fruit and cheese. “Is everything to your liking?” Dali said, only the slightest hesitation hinting at his annoyance with Newt being here. Inside me, a feeling of warning coiled tighter. There were too many eyes on our table.

“As always, Dali,” Al answered, and the demon frowned at him.

“I was asking Newt.”

Newt beamed, fully aware that she wasn’t welcome and relishing the fact that they had to put up with her. “I can truly say I don’t remember a more perfect evening, Dali. As Algaliarept says, it’s as wonderful as always.”

A brief flash of teeth, and Dali turned to me, his veneer of pleasantry becoming transparent. “And you, Rachel? Enjoying Mesopotamia?”

“U-uh,” I stammered, not liking being put on the spot. Crap, the demons watching us were pointing now. “I can honestly say I’ve never had an evening quite like this.” Dali was hunched a little too close, his mood a little too aggressive, even for a demon. If everyone in the place hadn’t been watching us before, they were now. Why is he over here?

Al seemed to be thinking the same thing as he set his cup down and pointedly looked at Dali. Newt, too, cocked her head, clearly waiting. “It’s not me, of course, but others,” Dali said, a thread of his eagerness to cause trouble coloring his voice. “Some of the clientele feel that a member of your party is not a demon and therefore should wait outside.”

“Rachel not a demon!” Al shouted dramatically, and I twitched. “Who dares?”

“I do!” exclaimed a strong voice, and my head turned to the tattered awning that now marked the entryway to the restaurant.

Shit, it was Ku’Sox.