Ким Харрисон - The Outlaw Demon Wails

My pulse quickened as I realized I was wearing my usual working leathers, my hair back in a scrunchy and my butt-kicking boots on my feet. The purple scarf around my waist was new, though. "If you're trying to make nice-nice, this might not be the best way to do it," I said to Al when the guy behind the desk leaned back in annoyance as he saw us and the woman took her hand from the mirror.

"Relax." Al pulled me further into his burnt-amber scent as we came to a respectful halt on the round rug laid on the rough planks before the desk. "I'm supposed to be exiled this morning. They would have been disappointed if I didn't do something dramatic."

A puddle of gray in the sun-soaked dinghy tied to the dock moved, and my gaze shifted.

Oh, God. It was Trent. He looked washed out and thin as he bobbed on the fake tide in the sun, and when he saw me, hate filled his bloodshot eyes. He had to know I was here to rescue him. Didn't he?

The demon behind the desk sighed, and my attention shifted to him. Somehow he looked right out here in the cool, Brimstone-scented, breezy shade of the canopy, his desk perched over the water with a coffee cup and a stack of files on it. Flip-flops poked from under the dark mahogany desk, and his Hawaiian-print top showed a wisp of hair at his chest. Setting his pen down, he gestured sourly. "Al, what, by the two worlds colliding, are you doing in my office?"

Al beamed as the demon recognized him, pulling himself straight, tugging the lace at his wrists, and scuffing his shiny-buckled boots on the planks. "Elevating your status, Dali, dear."

Dali leaned back in his chair and glanced at the woman silently waiting. "Before or after I sling your ass to the surface?" he said in a bothered tone, his fast voice rough. His eyes flicked to me, and his lips pursed briefly. "You don't have anything left to elevate anyone. And killing her before the courts will not excuse you from teaching her how to spindle line energy and let her run about with no compulsion to keep her mouth shut."

"Hey!" I said, not wanting that to stand without correction. "I was under compulsion to keep my mouth shut. So was Ceri. We were under lots of compulsion." Al gripped my arm and dragged me back a step as I added, "You've no idea the amount of compulsion we were under."

"You misunderstand, my most honorable ass-kisser," Al said, jaw clenched at my outburst. "I'd sooner die before giving Rachel Mariana Morgan to the courts. I'm not here to kill her, I'm here to demand that the uncommon stupidity charge against me be dropped."

My shock at the honorable-ass-kisser comment was pushed away by the thought of a law against uncommon stupidity, and I wondered how we could get one. Remembering Trent, I nudged Al.

"Oh, yes," the demon added, "and I would ask that my student's familiar be released to my custody. Busy day planned. We could use his help. Must get him trained up, up, up!"

In the dinghy, Trent pulled himself up and sat on the bench, his motions slow as if he was in pain. There was a humiliating red ribbon about his neck. I wondered why he wore it, but upon seeing that his fingers were red and swollen, I decided they weren't letting him take it off.

Dali pushed his papers away and glanced at the woman. "I appreciate your efforts to weasel out of a hundred years of community service, but you've nothing left. Get out."

I turned to Al, seeing his complexion take on a new hue of red. "Community service? You told me they were going to banish you to the surface."

"They are," he growled, pinching my elbow. "Now shut up."

I fumed, but Al was already facing Dali. "I've taken Morgan as a student, not a familiar," he said. "It's not illegal or uncommonly stupid to teach a student how to spindle line energy. I simply didn't think it was worth mentioning…at the time."

Dali's eyes widened. On the floor, Trent's hatred grew directed, and I winced. This was looking really bad, and I'd have done anything to have been able to explain. Smiling, Al looped his arm in mine. "Try to look sexy," he muttered, poking me until my back stiffened.

"Student?" Dali blurted, both hands going palms-down on the desk. "Al—"

"She can spindle line energy," Al interrupted. "Her blood can twist demon curses. She took a human as a familiar before I broke the bond."

"Common knowledge," the demon said, pointing irately. "You said something about status. Give me something I don't know, or get the hell onto the surface where you belong."

Al took a worried breath. His face never changed, but I was standing so close, I felt it. And somehow, that was scary. Exhaling, Al nodded once, as a student might to an instructor. It was the first show of respect I'd seen from him, and I grew more frightened yet. His gaze flicked to the woman with the scrying mirror, and Dali's eyebrows rose.

The older demon pressed his lips and gestured for her to leave. She silently stood, set the mirror on his desk with disgust, and then vanished in a pop that was lost in the sound of the wind against the water. "This better be good," Dali grumbled. "I rent her by the hour."

Al swallowed, and I swear I could smell the faintest hint of sweat on him. "This witch can be summoned," he said softly, an arm behind and before him. "She can be summoned through the lines by way of a password." Dali made a puff of air, and Al added in a louder voice, "I know this because she stole mine and was summoned out in my stead."

Dali leaned forward. "That's how she escaped?" He turned to me. "You stole Al's summoning name? Voluntarily?" he asked. I opened my mouth to tell him it was so Al would leave me and my family alone, but Dali had returned his attention to Al. "She was summoned out? How did you get out, then?"

"She summoned me in turn," Al said, his voice dropping in pitch. "That's what I'm saying, old man. She integrated her password into our system well enough for it to be used in summoning. She can invoke demon magic. She accidentally made her boyfriend her familiar."

"Ex-boyfriend," I muttered, but neither was listening.

"Now are you going to hand me a shovel so I can dig my way out," Al said, "or are you going to banish me to the surface and throw this pretty little ball of chance against the wall of elf-shit and watch it shatter? None of you have the finesse for this. Newt, perhaps, if she were sane, but she isn't. And would you trust Newt not to kill her? I wouldn't."

Dali's eyes narrowed. "You think…," he mused.

"I know," Al said, chilling me with what he might have said, and my gaze flicked to Trent, listening in the dinghy. Damn it, Ceri said I wasn't a demon, but this…looked really bad. "She is my student," Al said loudly. "I already made the deal; she's mine. But I want her free of Newt's mark to prevent any—misunderstanding. All I want from you is to serve as witness and to set up a safe place for me to do a deal with Newt."

Fear jerked me straight. He's going to do the deal now? With me here? "Ah, wait up, boys," I exclaimed, backing up until Al gave me a withering look. "This is Newt we're talking about, right? No way. No freaking way!"

Ignoring me, the demon behind the desk hesitated nevertheless. He reclined with his fingers steepled against the colorful pattern of flowers on his shirt as the wind ruffled his hair, and I was suddenly struck with the memory of me asking Edden to throw me a preserver to get myself out of my personal crapfest just last year. Damn, were we that much alike, Al and I? Using what we had and scrambling to stay alive?

"Call her," Al said as he picked a tin of snuff from an inner coat pocket. A whiff of Brimstone came to me as he delicately sniffed a pinch. "Newt doesn't remember shit about Morgan, but she knows she forgot something. She'll give me the witch's mark in return for her memory, and when she finds out Minias wiped the knowledge from her, accident or not, she'll bloody kill him. That leaves three knowing." His smile grew devious. "Three is a very stable number."