Cameron Haley - Mob rules

"But now?"

I sighed. "Now, it's getting out of control-like your nest." I smiled weakly. "I feel like a degenerate gambler who's dug herself a hole and just keeps laying bets to try to get flush."

"So get out of the hole. Go to your boss."

"Now I don't think I can go to my boss. I withheld crucial information from him-namely that his own son is involved. I've been…socializing with him, and what's worse, I've been lying to him. I broke into his house and scared him half to death. I've been doing all this while the outfit is more or less at war."

"It's gotten pretty complicated," Honey said.

I laughed. "Yeah, but that's not the bad part. The bad part is that I'm no closer to solving the problem than I was when I started."

"And that's why you don't want to go to your boss."

I nodded. "At this point, I can't undo anything. I think I just have to try to make it right. He's still not going to be happy when he finds out what I've been up to, but if I can solve the problem…at least that's something. Like I said, I have to keep laying bets to try to get flush."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I have no idea," I said, and laughed. "The vampire's protection isn't going to last forever. The problem is, I don't have that kind of time. I'm still convinced I'm not going to be able to get at the spirit in the Between without first getting through Fred."

"So you'll have to deal with him in the Between. He won't have protection there."

"Yeah. But I already know he can kick my ass in the Between. The spirit probably can, too. Which means I need you to train me, pronto."

"So let's get started."

I nodded. "I'm worried about what's going to happen in the meantime. I'm worried that by the time I'm ready to deal with the vampire and the spirit, it's going to be too late. When I broke into Adan's apartment, the spirit possessed him again. I put a guy on him yesterday, for a while, but Anton would be fucking useless if it came to that."

"You need to buy some time," Honey said.

"Yeah. I need a way to slow the spirit down, make it harder to possess Adan. I'll talk to Mr. Clean about it, but he seemed to think the only way I could protect Adan was by destroying the spirit. That's why I went into the Between in the first place."

"He's right. You don't have any magic that can stop the spirit from possessing Adan."

"That's what I was afraid of. If the spirit was powerful enough to defeat all the wards his father has on him, there's nothing I can do about it-short of abducting Adan and locking him up inside a protective circle somewhere. That seems like it might be digging the hole a little deeper than I want to."

"You don't have the magic to do it, but I do," Honey said.

"You do?"

"Yeah, and frankly, Mr. Clean might have mentioned it to you in the first place. How well do you know him, Domino?"

I shrugged. "He's a jinn. He's my familiar. He can be an asshole sometimes. That's about it, I guess."

"He's dangerous, Domino. He's not evil, exactly, not like your spirit from the Beyond. But there's nothing human in him, either-nothing at all. He's been here since the world was made and he'll be here still when the stars wink out and the skies go dark. He's your familiar, yes, but he hates it."

"Well, I knew he wasn't very happy about it."

Honey shook her head. "You've made him a slave, Domino. It's not the same as making a person your slave-he doesn't suffer from it. He can't suffer. But he hates it all the same. It's ego. Really, that's all he is-an ego so strong, and powerful, and willful that it will endure until the end of time."

"So you're saying he doesn't necessarily have my best interests at heart."

"He wants you to die, Domino. More than that-he wants to be the one who tricks you into getting yourself killed. That's the game, to him, and it's the only thing that makes his servitude bearable."

I frowned. "I don't know about that. I owe him a lot of favors. I'm pretty sure he intends to cash in someday."

Honey laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Of course he does! He intends that you die, and when you do, you'll serve him until your debt is paid off."

"After I'm dead? He never said anything about that."

"That's because-"

"I didn't ask," I finished. "Well, this is good to know."

"You don't seem all that mad about it."

"I guess I'm not surprised. I can't really call myself his master and then pretend I didn't know what it meant." Mostly I was thinking about Rashan. He hadn't told me any of this, and he must have known. I could only think of one motivation for that. He'd wanted me to figure it out on my own, and if I didn't, I'd have been an acceptable casualty. I wasn't really surprised by that, either. I'd always known I didn't work for a saint.

"Well, I'd be pissed," Honey said. "Mr. Clean sent you into the Between knowing you wouldn't be able to handle what you found there. The only reason he even told you about me is that it indebted you to him further."

"Yeah, nice play. So tell me what you can do for Adan. You have magic that can protect him?"

Honey nodded. "I'm basically a spirit, too, you know. Not like the one that's possessing Adan, but still a spirit. Predators like that are common where I come from, and we have ways to protect ourselves from them. If we didn't, there wouldn't be any of us left."

"So what can you do?"

"I can make you a potion. It won't be much, like a thimbleful. You can put it in Adan's food or drink. He won't even have to know about it."

"Will it drive the spirit out or whatever?"

"No, it will only make it harder for the spirit to possess him. Ordinarily it would make it hard enough that the spirit would be better off looking for a different host. But this spirit has a lot invested in Adan already, so I'm not sure it will want to start all over."

"But it will buy me some time."

"Yes. It should make the possessions less frequent, and if we're lucky it will prevent the spirit from possessing Adan for a long enough period of time to complete another ritual. At least for a few days."

"That's good enough. It should give me enough time for you to train me in the kung-fu magic so I can destroy the spirit in the Between."

"I think so," Honey agreed.

"What's it going to cost me, Honey?" I looked at her, hard.

"I'll do it as a favor, no strings attached," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I like you. Because I want to be here, in Arcadia. I belong here, Domino. My people weren't born of this world, but we long for it. We made ourselves its first children, spirits of tree and stone and brook."

"You must hate what we've done to the place."

"Cities are good, too," she said, laughing. "It's the magic of this world that we crave, and there's magic in the streets as well as in the groves and the hills. I want to dwell in this world again, and if I'm going to do that, I need your friendship more than I need to nickel and dime you for favors."

I laughed. "If friendship is all you want, you've got it, Honey. I'm not in a good spot, but I don't even want to think about where I'd be if it weren't for your help."

"Good. Then come take a shower with me."

"I, uh…I'm not sure we-"

"I'm still kidding," she said, giggling. "I know humans have strange ideas about such things. I can wait." She winked at me and I blushed. "Go boil some water in a large pot-one of the copper ones I used for the healing salve. I'll get some things from the garden."

I boiled water and watched Honey brew the potion. It wasn't like any magic I did, and by the time she was finished I was nodding off in my chair. I'd been awake for a long stretch, and even without the events at Adan's loft and the junkyard, I'd have been exhausted. As it was, I barely managed to stumble into my room and collapse on the bed before I was out. Ten I woke up at about five in the afternoon. I had a hangover from my overindulgence at the salvage yard, and I used a spell to nuke a burrito and get the juice flowing. The hair of the dog smoothed out the throbbing in my temples and steadied my hands, but the burrito didn't do much for my stomach.