Page 106 of Demon's Bluff
“Three is traditional, but there are exceptions.” Energy drifting about her fingers like a fog, Newt sat up, interested. “Are you good at potions? If I buy Al’s mark, I will have two. He’s got himself in some trouble. Selling his option might be his only way out.” Her focus went distant as she played with the energy, making it spark. “He’s in reality. In the sun. How is it, do you think, that he has found a way past the curse that keeps us here? I’m the only one who knows how to do that.”
I froze as Newt pushed up out of the couch and strode to her wall of knickknacks, ribbons of black hazing behind her.
“Ah, give it a few more weeks. Don’t want to be rash,” I said with a little laugh.
Newt had her back to me, watching my reflection in a flat pewter plate. “I remember you now. You were at the Basilica. You wanted something, little demon summoner.” Her gaze went to Elyse. “For her.”
“I am not for sale!” Elyse shouted, red-faced and totally helpless.
“Half right.” I inched forward to get between her and Elyse. “Elyse is not available. We had already come to an agreement before you left. I gave you a vision of the future, and you promised to give me an Atlantean mirror and two line jumps.” Yes, it was another lie, but how else were we going to get out of here? Dosing her into forgetting wouldn’t help, and I only had the one potion left.
“Line jumps that were never in the deal, and a vision you gave me ofthe future that I no longer remember.” Newt laughed, but there was too much hopelessness in it to be a pleasing sound. “No line jumps. Besides, I may not have three marks on you, but you’re in my living room. You’re not leaving it.”
I had reached Elyse. With the barest hint of line energy prickling through me, I touched her and broke thestabilscurse. She sat up, almost sobbing in relief, her forehead on her knees as she shook. Across the room, Newt cleared her throat, clearly surprised.
“You okay?” I whispered as the last of the spell tingled through me and back into the ground. Elyse nodded—her head still on her knees—and I took the spilled coffee and crossed the room to Newt. “There’s a swallow left,” I said as I held out the half-full cup.
Newt silently considered me, probably thrown by how easily I’d broken thestabilscurse. It wasn’t hard to do, but it spoke of me having dealt with demons before. Still, she wasn’t taking the cup, and I finally set it down.
“You were at the bar. You told me to run.” Her black eyes narrowed to slits. “And I did. Why?”
Nervous, I backed up to the table and sat on the edge of a chair as if I was her equal. I wasn’t. “The coven found us. We had to go.”
“Us girls have to stick together,” she whispered, and I stifled a wince. If she remembered that I had dosed her, we were up shit creek. “I forgot what I was doing there,” she added. “Minias wants me to make a tulpa of it. He says if I immerse myself in it, I will remember. It might work.” She watched me like a lioness at a waterhole, her aura edging into the visible spectrum as she pulled heavily on the ley lines. “Or you could tell me.”
For a price,I thought, a flicker of hope rising through me despite her show of strength.
“Tulpa?” Elyse said cautiously as if to prove she wasn’t scared.
“A memory made real so everyone can enjoy it.” Silent, I pushed the coffee toward Newt as an offering to parlay. Not long from now, I’d make a tulpa to prove that I was a demon. It had stunned them, not just that I’d succeeded but that I’d given them a vision of the sun…and wide horizons…and purity. All things they ached for.
Newt rubbed her forehead, the prickling of her aura against my skin vanishing as she went from an active threat to merely a possible one. I knew how fast that could change, though, and didn’t trust it. “If nothing else, tulpas fill the bank account,” she muttered. “Why anyone will want to partake in a strip club is beyond me when they could bathe in the sun of preindustrial Africa. I think Minias is after something.”
“He is.” I shrugged out of my shoulder bag, careful to keep it closed. “About our deal. I give you a vision of the future and you give me an Atlantean mirror. And because I’ve had to track you down to finish it, I’m adding on two line jumps to the Basilica. I can get to reality from there on my own.”
“That’s where I first saw you.” Newt’s gaze fixed on Elyse, and the woman froze. “The Basilica. I was going to filch your familiar.”
“I’m not her familiar,” Elyse said from the corner, her face pale but determined.
“No?” Newt snickered. “You act like it.”
“I do not wear her smut!” Elyse exclaimed, and Newt’s smile went knowing.
“She’s not mine to sell,” I said. “Besides, look at her. She’s right. What little smut she has is her own.”
“Well, if she’s not yours to sell, you won’t mind me taking her.”
I waved a hand at Elyse to stay put. “She’s my friend, and I do.”
Newt took the nearly empty coffee in hand. “That’s hard for you, not me,” she said, then tipped it high, draining the last swallow.
“Not happening, Newt,” I said, feeling as if we were running out of time. “Now, about the mirror? Reasonably, what do you want for it and two jumps home? I have a book—”
Newt stood, and I tensed, the ley line sparking through me as I tightened my grip. “You are home,” the demon said as she went to her spell bar, robe brushing the floor in a soft hush. “I’ve always enjoyed coven members waiting on me, but you, Iggy, I will crack slowly. Something good inside there.”
She was getting erratic again, and I stood, motioning Elyse to get behindme. The need to fill myself with the strength of a ley line ached, but if I did, Newt would, too, and the demon was far more adept than I was. “Not happening,” I said softly, gut hurting. “How about a book from the Kalamack estate? Apparently it’s a complete volume. No missing pages.”
“That belongs to the coven,” Elyse hissed, and I gritted my teeth.