Luke goggled at him for a moment, and then scrambled to produce a soul contract. Behind them, emergency personnel came swarming in. The vampire did not seem particularly bothered. He whipped out a pen, grabbed a bewildered Ronaldo, and handed him the umbrella. “Stand here.” He leaned on Ronaldo’s back, signing with a flourish. He retrieved his umbrella.
“There you go, my good demon-man,” Vesper announced, turning to Bel’aliol as Stavrula finally glared at Rix, who whimpered and sat immediately. “One standard soul contract, negotiated by the lovely Ms. Blackwater-McKey here. I look forward to our long and fruitful association.”
“I believe that clears my debt?” Morgan said. Fiona was limping up, somewhat worse for wear.
Bel’aliol, looking murderous, opened his mouth to refuse.
“A contract is a contract,” Fiona said. “I’ve always wondered what would happen to you folks if you tried to break one.”
Bel’aliol snarled, but yanked the contract out of her hands. He turned to Luke. “I look forward to seeing you in my office when they kick you off this Earth of a plane.”
He whistled for Rix. Rix instead bounded over to Morgan.
“Really?” Bel’aliol asked the hellhound, exasperated. “You want to stayhere?” He glared at Luke. “I had better not find out you had failed to care for him properly.”
Then he vanished in a puff of brimstone. Rix looked alarmed and cowered with his tail between his legs, waiting for someone to blame him.
Fiona cocked her head. “Huh. Wouldn’t have pegged him as a dog person.”
Now that Bel’aliol was safely gone, Morgan could afford to be gracious. “Turns out you could do worse.” She very carefully didn’t look at the paramedics wheeling out a covered gurney.
Fiona raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to side with the soul-buyers?”
For a moment, she thought about bringing up climate change and dismantled social nets and healthcare being tied to employment and child factory labor and enshittification. Instead, she just said, “They’re more honest about it.”
Fiona cracked her neck and winced. “Fair enough.”
“I used up your favor,” Morgan admitted.
“I shall remain ever grateful, regardless,” Vesper said, directing a courtly bow toward Fiona. “Even if you did break my heart. I suppose McKey is still treating you well, then?”
“We get by,” Fiona said with a private smile.
“Alas,” the vampire put a hand over his heart. “I shall never forget our time in New Orleans. I suppose I must be grateful, though, that you two have produced such a divertingly clever child. She’s given me a delightful hold over that demon fellow. They were never foolish enough to give me a contract. After all, I’m functionally immortal. It’s practically a blank check.”
Fiona gave her a smile so full of pride that it warmed her to her toes.
Behind Fiona, Kelly and Carter gave their statements to the security guards, looking a little shell-shocked. Kelly looked straight at her, and then, very pointedly, did not send the security to take a statement from her.
One of the succubi slunk up and ran her hand up theshoulder of Vesper. Now that the angel was gone, they had slunk back to the booth. Vesper looked down her Zabloom t-shirt appreciatively.
“Have you heard of this popcorn thing?” she purred. “I do so love to share.”
“Why yes,” Vesper said. “Although you appear to have eaten it all.”
Morgan looked at the rented machine, which was only a little blood-spattered. Murder was perched on the handle, delicately removing the unpopped kernels at the bottom, one at a time. “How the hell did you even eat that much popcorn in under an hour?”
35
Bill, bill—are you going to have anything to throw in for the rent this month?” Gisele sorted through the mail. “The one problem with averting an apocalypse is that there’s nothing to prevent the rent hike now.”
“My parents sent me a check,” Morgan said, paging through the LinkedIn job postings. It turned out that when your CEO died on the tradeshow floor in the middle of a demo, everyone ended up laid off. At least, that’s what happened when it was the exploding physical prototype that had killed him. No one even bothered going back over the presentation, so no one seemed to have noticed that she’d sabotaged the software part. Hayley somehow had neglected to file the resignation paperwork and neither Kelly nor Carter had reminded her, so Morgan got the same one week’s pay layoff package as the rest of the employees before Ravenfell liquidated the company. Fortunately, that meant she was still eligible for unemployment. Unfortunately, since her title had never changed, she was now job hunting as a former SDR from a company notorious for its gruesome end. So far, the only job interview she’d gotten was from someone who had been clearly less interested in hiring her and more interested in hearing grisly details.
“Like, a physical check?” Gisele’s eyebrows rose. Morgan was grateful, even if the check was inconvenient. Her parents had never had that much cash to throw around—butt-kicking and archiving weren’t known for paying particularly well—and she appreciated the help while she got back on her feet.
“Could be worse. There are some members of their community that still try to pay for everything in gold bars.” Morgan rolled her eyes. “Companies like Ravenfell keep people on payroll entirely to deal with the weird tax implications. Although I also heard about some lady up in Connecticut who’s started consulting to folks on the edge of both worlds who have to deal with the accounting going back and forth.”
“Wizard consigliere?” Gisele said. “There’s a potential career path for you.”
