Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

“And that’s it?”

“Yup. In and out. Just enough to warp the weft around the Hill. Last thing I want is for the old man to get wind of this.”

I sit in silence for a moment. Too surprised to really think of any objection. Two innocent offers in one day. That can’t be right. There must be a catch. But I can’t see it. “In and out,” I say slowly. “No part of me stays there. Nothing happens to my soul.”

“In and out. No part of you stays. Nothin’ happens to your soul.”

“I—” I still can’t think of any reason to say ‘no.’ Maybe I should take the path of least resistance, the way I did with Timmi. That worked out okay. “I, uh, okay.”

“Okay?” He corners through Union Square before glancing at me darkly. “Just okay? Whaddo you want in return?”

“I, um—” What do I want? I’m not sure anymore. “I want these things off my wrists.”

“No deal. Those things are all that’s lettin’ me take you there in the first place.”

Damn. “I want . . . I want a future favor.”

“A what?” he growls.

“A future favor. Something that I get to ask for in the future.”

“Wrong. Whaddo you want right now?”

“I don’t want anything right now. I mean, I do want things, but I can’t think of anything I want for this. So I want to keep my favor for the future. Like an I.O.U.”

“Whaddo you think I am, the Bank of Perdition? Fuck that. Tell me what you want now.”

I set my jaw. “I can’t think of anything right now. Not that you’ll give me.”

“Well, thinka somethin’ I can. You wanna come a thousand times in a row? I can do that. You want to look different? Have more money? Drive a fancy car? Tell me something I can give you and it’s a deal.”

I sigh with relief when he turns the car into my street. He pulls up onto my drive, but when I go to unbuckle my seatbelt and escape the car, he puts his hand over mine on the seatbelt latch. “We’re not done here. Tell me what you want.”

I tug my hand out from under his and cross my arms over my chest. “I told you I can’t think of anything right now.”

He turns his head slightly, the dreadlocks shadowing most of his face, but the light from the street plays over his mouth and I can see how tight his lips are. “You are such tough fuckin’ work sometimes.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, I bet you are. I’m not givin’ you a future favor. This ain’t Monopoly. There’s no get outta jail free card.”

I’m surprised he knows what Monopoly is. But then, he knows a lot about my world, particularly for someone who has mostly been a magical battery.

“All those junkies I ate in New York? I fed on their memories, too,” he growls. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

“I can think whatever I want!” I flare, furious at his intrusion into my every thought. “Fine, I want you out of my mind!”

“I like bein’ in your mind.” He sits back in a creak of leather. “That what you really want?”

“I—” I swallow hard. Make my choice. “Yes. I want you out of my mind. For one day. Of my choosing.”

“One day.” He scratches his dreadlocks. “Not now. I gotta be able to talk with you when we’re down below.”

“Okay.”

“And that’s it. One day where I stay outta your mind.”

“Unless you want to offer something else.”

He blows out a breath. “Sure you don’t want the thousand orgasms thing?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a thousand orgasms.” I smile tentatively. “But do you mind if it’s not all at once? I get kind of sore after three or four in a row.”

His dark chuckle reverberates through the car. “Humans. Just no fucking stamina.”

I expect him to hurry me, now that he’s gotten me to agree to what he wants. But he doesn’t. We eat dinner, lingering over the crème brulee, which, thankfully, he doesn’t make me lick off his ‘little demon,’ but he does feed me spoonful by spoonful. He’s paired the lamb tagine with a wonderfully oaky white wine. With the crème brulee he pours me a different wine, the color of butterscotch, which he tells me is a Sauternes. Whatever it is, it’s sweet and delicious with enough of a citrus edge to keep it from being cloying and I drink two glasses before I know it.

He eyes my glass when I put it down empty for the second time. “If I let you have another, you’ll be too tipsy to do anything useful, won’t you?”

I consider the glass, and him, seriously. “Probably.”

“You’re such a light-weight. All right, we’ll save the rest of this for another night. C’mon.”

He corks the wine, takes my hand and leads me upstairs, over my protests about leaving the dirty dishes sitting on the dining room table. I can almost hear my Dala’s ghost tutting at me from the bottom of the stairs. The demon leads me into the bathroom, where he begins stripping off my clothes.

“Uh, wait a minute—” I protest weakly.

“Shh, sweet meat. I know what I’m doing.”

“You do? I mean, you’ve done this before?”

“Yeah. I’ve helped humans raise power hundreds of times. Whaddo you think all those warlocks were doing with me? Playin’ cards?”

“I, um, I don’t know. What were they doing with you?”

He runs his hand down my leg, lifts my knee and strokes off my ankle boot. I don’t know how he does it. I’d be fumbling with the zipper, tugging at the heel; he slips my clothes off like he’s brushing away feathers. “Different things,” he says, his voice low and intimate, close to my ear. His breath blows warm along my cheek. “The al-Assassin had me brainwash their followers. Made them think old Sabbah controlled the gates to Heaven an’ Hell. Masaharo had me bend the minds of a bunch of kids so they’d kill some guy named Inukai. Start a war. The