“Absolutely not,” Morgan declared. “For one thing, show tickets are more than a thousand bucks a head. Ijustsaid. But also, what are you going to do against two demon Houses?”
“Know what the hell’s going on, unlike almost everyone else,” Gisele countered. “And be unexpected.”
“Actually, that’s not the worst idea,” Fiona said. “As much as I hate it, sometimes it’s the random civilian friend who’s made the critical difference for me.”
“Mother,” Morgan said tightly. “Please understand that I’m not saying this to be hurtful, but nearly all your civilian friends have ended up dead.”
Fiona looked sad. “It’s unfortunately true. But—when they’ve died, it’s almost always been at two different points. Either it’s been early in the case when the perpetrator was trying to get to me, and we’re well past that point. Or it’s been at the height of the fight, when they tried to be a hero. When they’ve stuck to their wheelhouse, they’ve been OK.”
“And what is Gisele’s wheelhouse here?” Morgan said, incredulous.
“Graphic design,” Luke said. He didn’t look happy to be agreeing with Fiona, but it wasn’t stopping him. “Look, you know Brad’s going to change his presentation five times onthe day of. He can’t commit to plane tickets or a business model, he’s not going to commit to a PowerPoint. We bring Gisele in as an on-site graphic designer. We can have her use one of the Zabloom tickets. We’ve got a premium booth, it came with a bunch of floor passes.”
“And then I can change his presentation to sabotage the soul market scheme!” Gisele said excitedly. “Somehow. Umm. We’ll have to workshop that part a bit more.”
“I hate this,” Morgan said to her mother. “This is a terrible idea, and if anything awful happens to Gisele, I absolutely will never forgive you.”
“I’ll never forgive myself,” Fiona promised.
“You’ve never forgiven yourself for at least half a dozen deaths that I know of, and that does not help them at all,” Morgan shot back.
“Hey,” Gisele put her hand on Morgan’s wrist. “I don’t wanna die. I don’t plan to die. But I also don’t want you to go to Hell, or Luke to go back to Hell, and I really don’t want to end up fractionally in Hell because I hitAccepton a mobile tappy game four years from now. Let me help.”
Morgan’s eyes stung. Partially because Gisele was a better friend than she deserved, but mostly because she was once again on the sidelines and helpless in her own life. Like every other time her mother had gotten involved. This wouldn’t be happening if she had magic, she was sure. But she didn’t have a better idea.
Murder tilted his head, examining her. He picked up a chip and hopped over to her, shoving the little plastic cup of guacamole as he went.
She sighed and ate her chip.
27
Uh, so, the booth babes keep disappearing with my prospects before I can set up a demo call,” Ronaldo said. He didn’t make eye contact, though, as his eyes were very firmly glued to the butt of one of said booth babes.
Well, that’s what he got for convincing Hayley to change the uniform order. Hayley at least had the sense to order pants, but the succubi filled out normal pants in a way that mocked show regulations. Morgan had thought the logo shirts safe until she saw exactly where the two OOs of Zabloom managed to fall. The succubi seemed happy enough, though—one had even commented how nice it was to wear something that wasn’t drafty.
The booth didn’t look too bad. The temporary walls were printed with slogans about wellness that could easily apply to both software and the juicer. She had rolldown banners that would be unfurled to reveal Kaleo in all its glory after Brad made the official announcement. Given that the cost could have gotten her a nice one-bedroom apartment in midtown for a year, she was glad it at least came out respectably. The trashcan she was renting for twelve dollars a day appeared to be a cardboard box with a plastic linerbag in it and one of the rented barstools wiggled enough that no one sat on it for more than a minute. She looked at some of the monstrosities around her in neat rows filling the cavernous Exhibit Hall and wondered how many souls you’d need to sell to afford them. One exhibitor had constructed an entire house, including an upper level. The folks across the aisle had chair massagers and a build-your-own-sundae bar, and the ones down the row seemed to be doing some kind of indoor drone race, taking advantage of the soaring ceilings multiple stories above them. She’d run into one guy she’d known back in elementary school whose family specialized in illusions. He’d given her a half-hearted wave, clearly uninterested in being asked which company he was working for.
It wasn’t easy doing pitches when all they could really do was hint that a big announcement was coming later in the day. So if the succubi stole all the leads but encouraged them to come back later, she could live with that.
Justin-or-Josh strolled up sucking what might have been either a smoothie or three pixies caught in a blender, balanced on top of a pile of swag. She could see two tightly rolled t-shirts, a water bottle, a key chain shaped like a disco ball, a miniature skateboard suitable for doing kickflips with your fingers, pre-packed Insomnia Cookies with branded labels from two entirely different companies, two notebooks, and that was just what she could identify from the mess. A stuffed alligator and an umbrella peeked out of the branded tote he had slung over his shoulder, along with two other different branded totes.
“It comes in pints!” he quoted at her, holding the smoothie aloft. “They’re just giving this stuff away!”
“We’re here to sell products, not collect presents,” she said, trying to keep her patience. “Where’s…?”
She suddenly realized she couldn’t remember whether this was Josh or Justin. Fortunately, he answered without noticing.
“Josh got the cute chick two rows down to help him carry his haul because of his cast,” said the programmer who must be Justin. He waved his arm and three pens escaped. “Bro! Over here! They’re giving out cake pops at the next booth in an hour, bro!”
“Is this booth B-23?” A bored-looking workman pushed a cart up to their booth. She’d been hoping for Brad, who was late. Or her mother, who was also late. Or even Gisele, who apparently had tried to leave the apartment twice already but had received emergency edits from Brad each time.
“Yes, we’re Zabloom—this is the popcorn machine?”
“Yes ma’am. Sign here, here, and here—I’ll be back to pick it up at three-thirty. Send someone over to exhibitor services if you need a refill.”
“How much are refills?” She didn’t care about refills. She wanted her people where she could see them.
“Fifty bucks for a three-pack.” Highway robbery for ten dollars’ worth of popcorn, but she didn’t have an alternative. Where was Luke? Brad had dragged him off to go over plans and left her here. She checked her phone again, looking for texts that did not exist and trying not to feel like he was already pulling away from her. They hadn’t talked after her mother had left (because she was a coward), just fallen into an exhausted sleep next to each other but not touching, an inch and a million miles apart. “Lady?”
