subservient. Her Möbius-strip pin still decorated her lapel, but it looked like a joke now, spotted with something.
“What would you like,
“See, even Brooke knows what you are,” Al said as he moved his empty glass. “Tell the piece of witch crap what you want to drink. Hurry before there’s a shift change.”
I stared, my heartbeat fast. “She’s a coven member, and they made her a waitress?”
Brooke waited, her face becoming red.
“What do you want me to do?” Al said, not looking at all embarrassed. “If I sold her as a skilled familiar, I’d get her back in a week. To tell you the truth, I’m a little disappointed.”
Brooke’s jaw clenched. “Can I interest you in the specials tonight?” she asked, the hatred in her voice coming in clear over the thumping of the music.
My head was shaking in disbelief. “Brooke, I’m so sorry. I tried. I really did.”
“Can I start you off with a drink?” she asked tersely. “The Brimstone Bomber comes highly recommended.”
Al gestured flamboyantly and leaned back. “Two of those, yes. And whatever the chef suggests. Something sweet for the lady, and something earthy for me.”
“As you will it,” she said, and turned to leave, her pace slow and giving the surrounding demons a wide space. I saw why when one reached to grab her ass, laughing when she scooted to avoid him.
I felt sick. Why hadn’t she listened to me? I’d told her not to summon Al. Hand to my middle, I looked away. “She’s too expensive for me to buy back, isn’t she?”
Al nodded, watching her walk away. “Very much so. Dali has wanted to bring familiars onto his waitstaff since he started dabbling in the entertainment field, but he hadn’t found any able to handle the shifts. As I understand it, she’s been good for business. Who wouldn’t want to have their ass kissed by a coven member? Relax. Enjoy yourself.”
That was the third time he’d told me to relax, and I was getting tired of it, but I froze when he took my hand, his usual white glove gone as he lifted my fingers to kiss them. Uncomfortable, I pulled away, ignoring his snort of amusement as I looked over the arriving people. The tables were starting to fill.
My feet hurt, and I wanted to take off my shoes. Demons were looking at me, and I didn’t like it. “Al, how old do gargoyles need to be before they bond with a, uh, witch?” I asked him, thinking of the little guy.
Al was making the “phone me” gesture to someone. “Several centuries. Why?” he asked, seeming uninterested. “Once bound, they live as long as we do.”
I played with my silverware, feeling guilty. Several centuries. Bis couldn’t be that old. He acted like a teenager, and I remembered him saying he was only fifty.
With a soft sound of linen, Al turned to me, his strong features bunched up in question. “I said why, Rachel. Is Bix getting clingy?”
Al rubbed his hands together in delight. “I thought as much. They don’t bond well until they can remain awake during the day. Bis is too young yet.”
My expression went flat. Oh my God. It was happening—whether I wanted it to or not. Bis was going to tie himself to me, and then we would both be stuck here. No. I wouldn’t allow it. “Hey, there’s Newt,” I said to change the subject, and as if my speaking her name caught her attention, her gracefully long neck turned our way.
“Don’t look at her!” Al exclaimed. “Don’t—” He groaned as the crazy demon smiled and changed her path to us. “Shit,” he added, slumping. “She’s coming over.”
“What?” I said, uneasy, but seeing two empty places at our table. “She’s the only person I know here besides you.”
Al looked at the ceiling as if in pain as Newt made her way to us, her pace both provocative and flat, her motions feminine but her figure androgynous. She was wearing a man’s business suit, and it changed to match mine as she approached.
“Well, that’s an improvement,” Al muttered as he brought his gaze from the ceiling. “See, Rachel, you’re having a positive impact already.” Pasting a smile on his face, he stood. “Newt! Love, I’m so surprised to see you here! Please join us!”
“Sit down, Gally,” she said, turning her cheek so he could give it a perfunctory kiss. “I know you loathe me down to my mRNA.”
My eyebrows rose, and I met his gaze glancing to me as he helped her with her chair.
“You seem unusually cognizant tonight,” he muttered, taking the purse that appeared as she handed it to him.
Newt, now wearing a blond pageboy cut, sniffed. “It’s amazing what one remembers given time.” Hand long and thin, she gestured for Brooke to bring her a drink, then focused on me, black eyes wide and wondering. “Did you bring me my ruler, Rachel?”
My mouth opened, then shut. “Um, I forgot,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Newt, love.” Al took her hand and gave it a kiss. “Let’s not talk business. Not tonight.”
Newt pulled her hand from him with a little tug, looking disgusted. “No, let’s talk of the future. Did I not say I could see the future? I’d like to hear of your day, Rachel Mariana Morgan.”
My gaze fell, and I remained silent. She saw the future, all right. But seeing that I had a pattern of being screwed over, it wasn’t hard to predict.
Al cleared his throat as if bothered that I was unhappy, and Newt tried again.
“Rachel,” she said, leaning back in her chair with her glass, “do you enjoy looking like a rung-climbing peon who has to sacrifice the fruits of her ovaries to have status in a man’s world?”
“No,” I muttered.
“Then go put on something new in the jukebox,” she said, handing me a coin. “My treat. Something exotic and old, when women were recognized for the goddesses they are.”
Al’s eyes widened in wonder as I took the tarnished gold coin she slid across the table to me. It felt slimy, almost, and I glanced to Al for guidance. Was I being gotten rid of?
“Go,” he encouraged, indicating what looked like an accurate representation of a jukebox, complete with colored bubbles and 45s. It didn’t fit the décor, but it still looked as if it belonged there in the corner.
I stood, not appreciating that Newt’s smile was probably because I’d looked to Al for direction. My shoes hurt me, and I kicked them off, leaving them under my chair as I padded across the carpet, my head up and not looking at the demons watching me as I gave them a wide birth.
“She’s sweet,” I heard Newt say as I left. “Look, she’s afraid.”
“No, she isn’t,” Al grumbled. “That’s the problem.”
“Mmmm. If she ever has sex with you, I’ll kill you.”
“You don’t think I know that?” he muttered.
“So give her to me now and be done with it. You can’t handle her,” Newt coaxed.
“Yes, we all saw how well you did with Ku’Sox.”
And then I was out of easy hearing range, with a whole lot more to think about.
I came to a halt before the jukebox, fingering the greasy coin in speculation. I’d never held a chunk of demon smut given real form before. And I was going to buy a song with it?
Everyone in the place was watching me. I could feel them taking in my knee-length skirt and the blah nylons, my hair in that ugly bun, and that I was barefoot thanks to Al putting me in too-small shoes—I think they might have fit Ceri. My back to them all, I forced my shoulders down and looked over the titles. None of them was remotely familiar. Not a single Barry Manilow or Rob Zombie. The titles seemed to be places and dates, only a smattering in English.
“Cuneiform?” I mused aloud, never having actually seen it in use, but that’s what that weird writing among the French, German, and Latin had to be. Immediately I dropped the coin in, hearing it clunk through the machine before I pushed the proper button.
Behind me, the lights dimmed. A wave of conversation rose along with masculine groans from the bar as the modern, loud thumping shifted to an ancient set of drums and flutes. I wrinkled my nose, thinking someone’s dinner smelled like a barn, and when I turned, I could do nothing but stare.
