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“What?”
“What happens if Coffee didn’t make a bet? What if he forgot or he couldn’t because he was trapped in ice?”
Yordan thought back, a sinking pit in his stomach. “Wasn’t he in ice for a couple days? Conscious but frozen in—”
“Magical ice. Yes.”
“He thawed out okay. We called him Captain America for a bit until he got too obnoxious calling himself one of the hot Hollywood Chrises.”
The Scot’s lips quirked. “I remember that.” Then he sobered. “But he couldn’t have made any bets while frozen.”
“Shit.”
“Yup.”
Together, they started flipping through the spiral notebook dated the year Coffee had been turned into an ice cube. They found it quickly enough. It was a single bet on an otherwise pristine page.
“Double or nothing bet. Dwayne bets Gamfay that the fairy can’t find the Big Tits Bar tee in ten minutes of looking at human speed. If Dwayne wins, all missed bet consequences are gone, plus he gets a single Death Save. If Dwayne loses, Gamfay gets a Lost Love.”
McNabb frowned. “What’s a Lost Love?”
“No clue. You?”
“Nada.” Yordan pointed. “But it looks like it didn’t matter. He must have won. Had to have if he claimed he had a Get out of Dead Free card.”
“That’s g—” The Scot started to say but then caught his breath. Yordan, too, as dark, flourishing words appeared on the formerly white page.
Unless Dwayne cheated, in which case, all penalties and benefits are enacted at my whim. And I have a lot of
WHIMSY
The last word was writ large and with expanding lines of flourish until it ended in a grinning smiley face that kept winking at them.
“Oh shit,” Yordan muttered. When what he actually wanted to do was scream, What the fuck, you fucking idiot? at Coffee. But that would be undisciplined and completely unhelpful.
Meanwhile, The Scot proved that he was a quick thinker by grabbing a pen and scribbling his next words onto the page.
What’s your name? We want to make a deal.
Yordan gasped. “No! No, we don’t! That always makes it worse!”
The Scot sucked in a breath and nodded. “You’re right,” he muttered. So he carefully scratched out the word “We” and replaced it with “I.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Yordan grumbled, though it was too late. The Scot was already well on his way to repeating the same mistake that had created Wulf, Inc.’s special habit of insanity. Apparently, “Never Make Fairy Deals” actually meant “We Always Make Fairy Deals When We’re Desperate.”
“It’s my risk alone,” McNabb grumbled.
“I’m sure that’s exactly what Coffee thought. And Nero. And Bruce.” He continued listing off the wolves he knew who had made simple, clean, desperate fairy deals and ended up nearly destroying the world several times over.
But it didn’t matter because Gamfay was answering.
Prove you’re worth my time first.
“Fuck you,” Yordan answered just as McNabb scrawled.
How?
Collect the rest of my debts. Then we can wager on Dwayne’s continued existence.
