“So… who are you?” Vijay finally turned to the demon as the EMTs made for the elevator.
“Lucareoth,” the demon replied.
“Luke Harrioff?”
“I’m in sales,” Lucareoth answered smoothly.
“He’s the intern,” Morgan was already saying. She corrected herself. “The new sales intern.”
Vijay nodded. “Good, good. Good. Well, like, seeya around, man. I’m gonna go.” He mimed smoking. “This was hella heavy.”
Morgan pulled out her phone, trying to figure out exactly how to explain this all to Gisele. Finally, she settled for texting her.
Home late. Sorry. We have a surprise guest.
They stepped out of the building, Morgan’s mind whirling with logistics. He’d be cool with the subway, right? On one hand, more people around to notice a faux pas, but on the other, it was less concentrated focus than they mightget from a cab driver. Oh no, where was he going to sleep? Did demons sleep?
And then Morgan saw her. Leaning insouciantly against the building at the corner, a crow perched on her shoulder, black leather duster that should have been too much in the heat but still looked unfairly cool, radiating a shield of “don’t fuck with me.” The last person she wanted to see in the world right now.
Her mother.
3
Shit. Say as little as possible,” Morgan murmured. It was too late to turn around: they’d definitely been seen. Would her mother sever the poor demon’s head right here in the street, or drag them off to some Shadow Council safehouse to do the deed? Her mother’s posture hadn’t changed. Surely if she’d realized there was a demon standing next to her daughter, she would have moved into some kind of stance by now? Morgan wasn’t actually sure. She’d been nearly as bad at the self-defense lessons as the magic lessons, and that was saying something.
Maybe I could pretend I didn’t know he was a demon, she thought frantically as she dragged her feet toward her mother. She’d look like an idiot, but that was nothing new. She felt guilty, though. He didn’t even want to be here; it wasn’t his fault. Maybe she could convince Fiona to help?
She looked at her mother, all hard edges. Fiona wore her black jeans tight and low, the stretchy kind to allow for high kicks. She wore her black hair, only lightly streaked with silver, pulled up and back in a ponytail too short to be easily grabbed in a fight. While Morgan bore a passing resemblance to her and was thirty years her junior, Fionastill had the abs and the cheekbones to pull off both styles while Morgan most assuredly did not. Morgan had made an actual effort to style her own black hair but hadn’t had the money or dexterity to really pull it off; her own jeans were relaxed fit. Most importantly, Morgan was unarmed. There were at least four blades concealed on her mother’s person (that Morgan knew of) and warding glyphs embroidered into the lining of her coat. A scar grazed her cheek and somehow only made her look rakish. She’d gotten the scar fighting a rogue summoner bent on demon-assisted world domination, Morgan remembered. There was a much, much uglier one over her kidney from the same fight. Her mother spent most of Morgan’s childhood routinely perforated, a human drip-irrigation system leaving blood (both hers and others’) in puddles up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Fiona had a lot of scars she shouldn’t have survived, but she was still bitter about the cheek. No, Fiona was not going to help Lucareoth.
“Morgana Severina Blackwater-McKey, have you been ignoring my texts?”
“Hi, Mother,” she said weakly.
“Who’s this?” her mother asked, sizing up the threat at her daughter’s side. The crow eyed Morgan with disdain.
But Fiona didn’t pull a knife or a lightning bolt. Which meant her mother somehow didn’t recognize him under the glamour.
The demon had recognized the danger. His breath was speeding up, almost hyperventilating. He opened his mouth and Morgan stepped on his foot. The crow huffed.
“This is Luke. He’s the new sales intern,” Morgan said. She prayed he’d follow her lead.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed and she sniffed. Not a sniff of derision—that would have been mortifying—but the more dangerous sniff for magic. She could tell something was clinging to him that was not mundane. The last thing Morgan wanted was her mother asking questions.
“Tidepools grad,” she babbled, name-dropping the famous mage academy in Big Sur. Her mother didn’t deal with the West Coast folks much; she hoped it would be enough. Although her mother’s reputation certainly had made it out there—if Morgan was very lucky, Fiona would think Lucareoth’s nervousness was just the normal hero worship. “Came in from California for the summer. Mother, I thought you had your dinner?”
Her mother relaxed a little and her hand twitched. Morgan knew some effect had been dismissed, even if she couldn’t see it. “I did, butsomeonedidn’t show up and the whole effort was pointless.”
“I know it was a show-off-your-family-dinner, but I thought since I’m not exactly—”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not like they don’t already know. I needed you there to give me an excuse to even be there. Instead, you’re off doing some three-letter-acronym whatever for a silly company that didn’t exist three years ago and won’t exist three years from now.”
“Hey.” Just because it was true didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Her mother snorted. “What, are you going to try to tell me you’re deeply passionate about…”
“About using quantum computing and predictive analytics to help companies zero in on candidates that will generate the best medium and long-term outcomes.” Morgan lifted her chin. She wasn’t, but she was at least supposed topretend she was. It wasn’t even real quantum computing, just misnamed to sound fancy because investors were already getting tired of things misnamed “AI.” But it paid the bills. So what if it wasn’t saving the world from a death cult monastery?
Her mother and the demon gave her identical looks of skepticism.
