“Those ropes, Mr. Ballard, are woven from the silk of goblin spiders from my homeland. They tangle any magic you may attempt to weave, and they glow emerald as they hinder your workings, giving my men more than enough time to put a rune bullet in your brain.”
“It’s very thoughtful of you to tell me that,” I said. “Thanks for the heads-up. I assume this little rope party means you have no intention of honoring your word to me.”
“Oh, Mr. Ballard,” Ankou said, as he sat in a high-backed conference chair only a few feet from me, “my word is for those worthy of it. You are not. Your breeding, your race, your reputation all preclude you from worth. You are a knave, Mr. Ballard, a necessary evil that people of my station must traffic with from time to time, a means to an end, a tool, a rather blunt but effective tool.”
“Not gonna lie, I kinda feel like a tool right now,” I said, testing the silk ropes holding my forearms to the arms of the chair. “Tell me, Theo, did you ever even consider playing straight with me in this? Getting Torri out of her service, letting your daughter live in peace?”
“Did I consider if the amount of political capital I would have to invest to free the Lady Selene—your ‘Torri’—from her service was worth your efforts for me? No, never. Your ‘Torri’ is a shade, a puny human soul granted the glory and the privilege to serve the Fae. She too is a tool, Mr. Ballard. She serves her purpose where she is. Your nostalgic love for the memory of a rotting piece of meat in the earth made you agree to a deal your instincts told you was not to your benefit, as did your somewhat narcissistic feeling of connection to my whore of a daughter.
“Your selfishness, your desire to cling to something that had its time in the light and was gone, made your Torri into a slave, Mr. Ballard. You bargained with my people to keep her soul, to give her a life of a sort, instead of letting her depart for whatever ineffable halls human shades inhabit. You put her in chains, and this whole misadventure was predicated on the glimmer of a hope that you could free her from that existence, could be the hero of the piece.
“You can’t free her, you can’t bring her back, and I think the pragmatic part of you knew that, but you let your sentimentality guide you. It’s humorous; you pride yourself, the legendary Laytham Ballard, on your toughness, your shrewdness, how life has carved you into something hard, jaded, but I could see the moment we met just how soft you are, and how easy it is to manipulate you. You’re too selfish to be the hero, and too sentimental to be the villain. You are truly one of the most pathetic creatures I have ever laid eyes upon. I pity you.”
“I’ll take the pity,” I said. “I’ll belly-crawl out of here.”
“A flippant word to parry the truth,” he said. “You are as constant, as predictable as the tides, Mr. Ballard. You can go on your way. I will even pay you handsomely for your time. All I need is Caern’s location, if you please.”
“No,” I said. “Your word may not be worth spit, but mine is.” I looked over to Vigil. His eyes slid away from my accusing gaze. “You tried to fuck your own daughter, you sick son of a bitch. Use her like a breeding machine to keep your perverted bloodline pure. That’s some real hillbilly shit right there, Theo. Your wife would curse your name, but, thankfully for her, she’s gone already, gone for good.” Ankou’s human guise shredded as he stood, like a sheet ripped from a clothesline in an angry wind. His totality was too much for my human mind to hold.
“You Fae don’t carry on after death, do you?” I said. “You just evaporate, like dew, like she did. You’re both lucky she didn’t live long enough to know what you were capable of, eh, Theo?”
Ankou struck my face with the back of his hand and I felt my skin numb as the force of it snapped my head to the side. When I opened my eyes, he was flesh and blood again. I could feel my eye swelling shut; the flesh on the right side of my face was too-tight pain paper. My head rang from what I suspected was a minor concussion.
“Well, now,” I said, spitting out a mouthful of blood, “look who decided to act like an ape. I know the score on you too, Theo. The only things you give a shit about in this world are your family’s reputation and your dead wife. Didn’t take much to push your buttons and use you either, did it, Lord Ankou?”
Ankou sat back down. He withdrew a silk handkerchief and dabbed his glistening forehead. “What a vicious little mammal you are,” he said, dabbing his upper lip and replacing the hankie. “I almost wish I could keep you as a pet. I have made a study of your race and I have to say, Mr. Ballard, you are a shining example of raw, unpretentious humanity. You should be in some gallery somewhere, perhaps a zoo.”
“Last chance, asshole,” I said. “Cut me loose.”
“Or what, pray tell?” Ankou asked, leaning forward in his chair. “You think your little display of common hustling there puts you in a position to demand anything?”
“No,” I said. “This does. I figured you’d try to track and trace my activity through that expensive secure cell phone you gave me. I was sure of it when Vigil ‘found’ me the night I got ahold of Luis Demir at the
