“You can ask me,” he said, with the breezy air of someone changing the subject.
Dee latched on to his question, grateful for his not pressing. “Ask you what?”
“What I sold my heart for.”
She had wondered that; she did not know what attractive, fearless boys sold their hearts for.Girls, was her first thought, but James didn’t seem to have a girlfriend.Money, was her next guess—but then she gazed at his clothes. Beyond that, she did not know.
“All right,” she said, “what did you sell your heart for?”
He smiled and slid the napkin across the table.
She had been half-wrong. He had been doodling, but… but the worddoodlehardly did it justice.
He had sketched her. A girl with a squared-off jaw, bushy hair, hands clasped about her coffee cup. But he’d done something—smoothed out the imperfections of her skin, made her lips seem softer, her eyes lowered and mysterious. Heat flooded her cheeks and her stomach went tight. It was undeniably beautiful, and for one brief moment she thought,Is that how I look?
But one glance in the reflection of the window reassured her that no, she had not suddenly transformed into a model. It was simply a trick of the art, a subtle flattery of her features.
When she could speak, she said, “Art talent.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I was always talented, and I could get by on that talent when I was in school or living with my foster parents. But out here, in the bright and cold real world, talent is all too common. You need skill, and that takes years.”
“You weren’t willing to wait?” asked Dee. “Get skilled the normal way?”
His smile dropped. “Why’d you trade your heart for money? Couldn’t have earned it another way?”
“There wasn’t time,” she said.
He smiled. “There never is.”
SEVENTEEN
After their coffee, they did not immediately return to
Brannigan.
Turns out, the Daemon really did have a lair. But it was not in the sewers.
Dee found herself standing on the curb, eyeing a dilapidated building with some amount of unease. It stood among several other condemned structures, and the whole street looked like a mouthful of rotting teeth—all gray and caved in, with a few solid pieces still standing. Dee eyed the building that James pointed at. Above the door was a sign, and the only words she could make out wereEDIT UNION.
She cocked an eyebrow. “A bank?”
“An abandoned bank,” corrected James. “I doubt a demon would set up camp in a working credit union.”
He walked up to the bank doors—they were chained shut, and a large redKEEP OUTsign was hung in the window. Ignoring it, James slid a key into the lock and the chains snapped free. He dropped them to the ground and pulled open the door.
“What are we doing here?” Dee asked, making no move toward the open door. All she could see was darkness and a thick layer of dust on the floor.
James smiled. “After you,” he said, and held the door open.
She remained rooted to the spot.
There was an awkward pause.
James’s mouth twitched, as if he were trying to hold back a smile. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because,” said Dee, “this is the moment when the girl gets offed by the seemingly nice hobo hipster because she was gullible enough to walk into the creepy building.” She had a flash of mortification, wondering if she’d angered him, but then James burst into laughter.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But I’m the least scary thing in this building. Does that help?”
