Naughty Karma

“Are there?” Deuma cooed.

The devil’s legalese made lawyer-speak look coherent, but the first few pages looked aboveboard. It wasn’t until he was seven pages in that the other shoe dropped. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” Deuma asked innocently.

“Clause twenty-seven B.”

“Is that the part about contracts with non-humans?”

“What the hell is Karma’s name doing in here?”

Karma had been leaning against the wall, but now she snapped to attention. “What?”

“Oh that clause twenty-seven B,” Deuma purred. “No need to get yourself all het up. It’s nothing really. I thought after your little declaration earlier, that she would be a good way to seal the deal. Sort of a handshake. Your first task as my employee is to make a deal with your little Karma.”

Karma asked, “What kind of a deal?”

“A loyalty test,” Prometheus growled. “I should have known.”

“Oh, don’t make it out to be a national disaster. Everyone wants something. You get her to voluntarily give up something in exchange for something she wants. But it has to be a good bargain—the juicier the terms, the better the hit when the subject signs. You know the rules. Make it good.”

He should have known. If it seemed too good to be true, it always was. There was no such thing as a win- win deal with the devil. There would be no using his power to protect those he cared about if he signed this deal. He would be a puppet—like Deuma had been for thousands of years. The kind of power he had would only make people think they had been helped—and then come back to bite them on the ass.

Maybe a month or two ago, it would have seemed like an easy choice. A great deal. But things were different now. He was different now. He didn’t want to be a manipulative devil, putting others in the bind he’d stupidly gotten himself into when he was a heartbroken kid of nineteen who knew fuck all about the world. He would feel too bad for the people he was hurting. He’d know he was hurting them.

He wasn’t sure when it had started, but that was who he was now and he couldn’t go back. Sometimes even selfish bastards learned how to feel. Like the fucking Grinch. If he’d had a heart in his body, the damn thing would probably be growing three sizes.

It was almost a shame he’d had his big, love-thy-fucking-neighbor epiphany today. When it was too late to do him any good.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.” Prometheus dropped the contract and it vanished before it hit the ground.

Deuma’s lazy prowl around the room halted abruptly, her flirtation evaporating. “I hope you aren’t actually trying to say no,” she said, the words carrying the icy chill of a threat. “I realize you may want to negotiate different terms, but the fact that you are even in the same room with your heart means I have grounds to execute our previous contract. You don’t really have much room to maneuver. You really should have read the fine print more carefully the first time.”

“One mistake isn’t grounds for another. Maybe it’s about time I got what was coming to me.”

“You surprise me, Prometheus. Where is that survival instinct I love so much? Just because I like you doesn’t mean I won’t kill you.”

A soft pressure on his arm reminded him that he and Deuma weren’t alone. Karma’s voice was low and firm near his ear. “Maybe you should take the deal. I’d give up my magic, voluntarily. At least you’d be alive—”

“It wouldn’t end there. And even if it did, the price is always steeper than you think.” He risked taking his eyes off Deuma long enough to look down into Karma’s eyes. “How would you protect your people if you couldn’t see the risks coming at them? You’d hate not being omniscient, Karma. I can’t do that to you. I told you I would protect you and I will. Even if this is what it takes.”

“I don’t want it if this is what it takes.”

“Listen to her, Prometheus. Listen to the woman you say you love. Would you really be so selfish as to leave her? Just so you can spite me?”

“Not for spite.” For the first time in his life, he was about to do the right thing. He felt an eerie calm. A certainty. Or maybe that was his denial talking.

“This isn’t noble,” Deuma snapped. “This is a child’s nobility. A man does whatever he must to be there for those who need him. This woman you say you love, she needs you.”

“And binding her to you through me is noble?” Prometheus snapped, losing patience with the she-devil’s wheedling.

Deuma’s patience, such as it was, evaporated just as quickly. “Think very carefully about what you say next. I won’t be asking you again. Will you sign the contract or not?”

Prometheus caught Karma’s hand, squeezed it. “No.”

“Fine.” Pure, incandescent anger blazed in Deuma’s eyes and Prometheus had a fraction of a second to realize he’d misjudged. He hadn’t really thought Deuma would kill him. He was no good to her dead. She wouldn’t waste him as a resource.

He’d been wrong. He tried to turn to Karma, wanted her to be the last thing he saw, but he was too late.

The world went white in a blinding blaze of light.

Chapter Thirty Resurrection for Beginners

“Prometheus!”

One second she was holding his hand, feeling the ever-present charge of his power thrumming against her skin, and the next, that energy collapsed in on itself and Prometheus crashed to the ground, the speed of his fall jerking his hand from hers.

For a long, blank moment, the sight that met her eyes refused to process. He lay on his back, one leg folded awkwardly, eyes open and staring, fixed. Dead. A scream built in the back of her throat, but she couldn’t get it out. It lodged there, choking her, suffocating her.

“He really should have taken the deal. Pity.”

Karma whirled toward the maenad, the scream trapped in her throat louder now, angry and wild and clawing its way out, but before she could make a sound Deuma put her hand on the crate—the suddenly silent crate—and vanished, along with the box that held Prometheus’s heart.

She didn’t want to look down, didn’t want to see again, but she couldn’t help herself. Her gaze went there on its own and then she couldn’t look away. Dead. Prometheus is dead. She should touch him. Check for a pulse. He doesn’t have a heart! Perform CPR. Mouth to mouth. Savage panic shredded her from the inside out with vicious claws. She was bloody with grief and she didn’t care. Do something, you idiot. There had to be something she could do.

He’d died. He’d actually died for her. While she was holding his hand. And she hadn’t seen it coming. Hadn’t even had an inkling. What good were her goddamn instincts if they couldn’t predict this? She might as well have signed away her powers to him for all the use they were. God, why hadn’t he let her? Why hadn’t she tried harder to get him to agree? It had happened so fast. One second they were negotiating and he seemed so confident it hadn’t occurred to her that anything irrevocable could happen. She’d thought he was reliably selfish, that he would never martyr himself for any cause—not even for her—and there had been a comfort in that. And then this. Death.

No. This hadn’t happened. She wouldn’t let it. It was a dream. Only a dream. She would wake up and tell him not to be an idiot. Beg him to take the deal. Beg, plead, bully, manipulate, anything to keep this from happening.

She heard someone screaming, ungodly raw sounds of agony, and realized the scream locked in her throat had escaped. She wasn’t aware of falling to the floor, but she was on her knees, shaking him. Wake up, wake up, all a bad dream. Distantly she registered the door slamming open and Rodriguez grabbing her by the shoulders, trying to pull her away, but she wouldn’t be budged. She was staying until he woke