“What software part? It’s a juicer,” she said. But she already had a sinking feeling she knew the answer.
“He wants to run through the subscription mockup,” Carter said, shrugging. He clearly thought it was stupid. Poor guy: without context, it must be completely incomprehensible. There had been a time when he’d been an important part of the leadership team; now he was acting like an assistant to the intern. “I had Vijay build out the backend of the terms and conditions page this morning.”
Did Brad truly intend to capture a fraction of a soul on the show floor? He must. Was it to impress Ravenfell? Bel’aliol? Just to stick it to House Valefar? Her head hurt.
“OK,” she said. Their web design guy would have to turn around a mockup and string it together to look like it worked. It would work. That was the joy of demon-driven luck. She was on a train she couldn’t jump off. She’d call the designer. After she found out what happened to the napkin order with the custom company logo, which was supposed to have arrived at the office by eleven, and still hadn’t shown up.
“I know you’re busy, but something else has come up,” Luke murmured, glancing at the mechanical engineer who had likely had something better to do with his time two days ago and now was dripping epoxy on the table. The table had seen worse.
Her stomach plummeted.
“The booth babes that Ronaldo ordered fell through,” he said in an undertone as they started toward the back phone room. Apparently, privacy would be necessary.
“Great, so maybe we can ditch the entire idea,” she said. Was that all? That wasn’t so bad.
“But Ronaldo told Brad,” he continued. “And Brad wants them.”
She groaned.
“It’s OK, I handled it,” Luke was quick to assure her. She nearly groaned again. She didn’t want him to handle it. She wished he’d stop handling things. But that was his purpose in being on this plane and unless they found some way to protect him from Bel’aliol, he didn’t have a lot of choice. He continued, “I called in a few favors.”
“People owe you favors?” The door shut behind them.
“People owe Bel’aliol favors,” he said, looking uncomfortable.
“So now you owe Bel’aliol favors,” she pointed out, her heart sinking.
“It’s for a client, it’s not the same,” he said. He didn’t sound confident.
“What kind of favor?” she said, trying to relent.
“… Succubi?” he said.
“You have succubi coming to be booth babes,” she said flatly. “In the Javits Center.”
“They’re very enthusiastic,” he said, holding his hands up. “They don’t usually get to sell things. They liked the outfits Hayley picked out.”
Better Hayley than Ronaldo; most of the tech conferences had banned the super-revealing stuff years ago. “How are they even allowed on this plane?”
“They’ve got their own rules,” Luke said. “They can’t make Deals but they can collect life energy by… you know. Humans seem a lot more willing to break their circles. I guess they don’t do enough long-term damage for people to think it’s not worth the price.”
“Are they going to seduce any reporters?”
“Probably not?” He looked as flustered as she felt.
“Make sure they don’t try to seduce Stavrula,” she sighed. She could fix everything but the real problem.
He gave her an uneven smile. She stepped into his arms and they held each other for a moment. His back was ramrod straight.
She pulled back. “There’s something else, isn’t there.”
He nodded and twitched in the way that meant his tail was lashing. “I bought us a few minutes, but now we’re out of time. Bel’aliol wants to see us.”
“Can this just be a wrist-mail? We’re really busy,” she said, perfectly aware how stupid that sounded.
He gave her the look she deserved.
“But all the chicken hearts are back at the apartment!”
