When I first met Leon, he was haunting a graveyard in France, jealously guarding the grave of the dead human he’d once loved. He’d fallen for a mortal whose soul he’d never claimed, and death separated them forever. He hadn’t been able to bear it.
It seemed ludicrous now, considering that in the centuries since then, he’d developed the habit of killing any human who rubbed him even slightly wrong. But he was a romantic at heart. On the rare occasion he got a liking for someone, his devotion was strong — obsessive, even.
It was foolish, loving a human. Humans were fragile, and they didn’t view loyalty like our kind did. A bond between demons rarely broke, but humans threw each other away over the pettiest things. I’d told Leon as much. I’d told him he needed to detach his raging emotions. He needed to bury his grief. But Leon was all rage — he was all wildly swinging feelings.
I knew better. Hunting souls had led me to hundreds of humans over the centuries. Some I’d felt affection for, but in the way one feels affection for a sentimental object — it was special, certainly, but ultimately disposable.
Juniper was challenging that outlook.
She was merely a soul, a fascinating endeavor, a pleasurable pet. Except, she was so damn difficult. She raged at me, her cortisol shooting so high it even put me on edge. I reasoned it was normal enough: her soul had only just bound to mine, so those powerful things she felt could affect me too.
But it was more than that. It was more than just a touch of shared emotion.
I didn’t want her to be angry. I hated her accusations that I was trying to get out of our bargain, as if I was cheating her out of something. I upheld my deals. I always had.
Did I blame her for her anger? Of course not. But it frustrated me to no end that I couldn’t reason her down from it. It was difficult to think of her as a fun pastime when that look of panic in her eyes — utter, heart-aching panic — made me feel like a massive stone was pressing on my chest.
I’d always sought the broken ones. It had never bothered me, the terrible circumstances from which so many damaged souls came. Such was life: violent, unfair, cruel. All one could do was find pleasure where they could, hold tight to indulgences and savor every drop of enjoyment one could possibly suck from the marrow of existence.
I found Leon on the university campus, guarding a building cordoned off with yellow caution tape.
“What’s all this?” I plucked at the tape curiously with my finger. “Smells like blood. Blood and magic.”
“Get away from it, would you?” He glared at me from the bottom of the steps, arms crossed. “You’re making it look like I’m not doing my job. That kid, Marcus, died in there. They can’t get the bloodstains out of the stones.”
“And what’s this?” I pinched at his tight shirt. PNW Security Services was stitched onto the front. “Playing security guard, are we? Have you caught any naughty, snooping students yet?”
“Only one,” he muttered, peevishly straightening his shirt. “I’m still figuring out how to punish her for it.”
I chuckled, lighting up a joint. “Well, if you need help thinking something up, I’ll gladly help you brainstorm some ways to make her squeal.”
The campus was quiet that afternoon. Students hurried past between classes, and groups of them were spread out across the lawn as they studied. Leon glared at any who dared come too close with undeniable distaste.
Being forcibly summoned and kept, as he had for so long, will change a demon in unpleasant ways. I was fortunate to have never experienced it. After a few centuries of collecting souls and growing my power, a magician would need to be powerful indeed to manage to summon me, if they were able to get their hands on my name.
“I’m supposed to tell you not to smoke here,” he said.
“Noted. When can you leave? I want to go out somewhere. Catch up. It’s been ages since Kent let you out.”
“Tonight.” He paused, giving a long, heavy glare to a pair of students who’d paused in front of the building to snap a photo with their phones. One glance from him and their faces fell, hurrying away. “There’s a festival in town. Kent wants me to keep an eye on things.”
“Why?” I groaned. I laid down on the stone steps behind him, simply because it bothered him, and bothering Leon was far more fun than it should have been. “That’s such a painfully mundane use for a demon. Doesn’t he ever give you anything interesting to do?”
“At least this way, he’s not always fucking watching me. Zane.” He shot me an extremely perturbed look. “I’m supposed to tell you not to lay on that.”
“Good job, gold star, what a very good little demon you are — Hey, hey, woah!” I leaped up the moment he raised his foot to smash it down on my face. “Be nice, be nice, fucker. I’m getting up.” I took a long drag on the joint, exhaled in his face, and dodged away before he could hurt me. He looked ready to snap my neck — it was charming, really.
“I’ll see you tonight then!” I flicked the joint over my shoulder as I walked away, earning some disgusted looks from a few passing students. I made sure to snap my teeth at them to keep them moving. “That little pub off Main Street! Rose and Thyme. I’ll meet you there.”
The streets were crowded that night, and the bar even more so. Drunken humans bumped against the tables, walls, and each other; their volume growing louder and louder as they all tried to be heard over each other. It was a special kind of chaos, watching intoxicated humans get together. Like puppies let loose to do as they pleased.
Leon didn’t look at them quite so fondly.
“The next human that bumps into me is going to get their spine separated from their fucking body,” he snapped. He had his back to the wall, his eyes scanning rapidly over the crowd. The beers we’d bought weren’t going to do anything when it came to getting intoxicated. But, as with most edible things found on Earth, we consumed them because the taste was interesting, not because they had an effect.
“Easy, kid.” I shook my head, relaxing in my chair. “It’s all part of the fun. Clumsy, intoxicated humans…glasses of their cold, fermented beverages…you, staring past my head like I don’t exist.”
He snapped his gaze back to me. “Got distracted.”
“That was more than just distraction,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder. It wasn’t hard to determine where his gaze had been. All I had to do was find the woman staring at him, who quickly snapped her gaze away the moment she noticed me watching her. She was too small for her clothes, her booted feet dangling from her barstool, her eyes enlarged by her thick glasses. She couldn’t keep her gaze away for long. It kept dragging back, irresistible curiosity demanding she look again. But she wasn’t just some random, curious human.
She was seated at a table with Victoria Hadleigh.
I raised an eyebrow in Leon’s direction. “Is the Hadleigh woman going to be a problem?”
He shook his head. “She doesn’t care. She’s not constantly kissing Kent’s ass, unlike Jeremiah. She doesn’t give a fuck what I do.”
“And the other woman you’re staring at?”
“She’s a new student at the university. Raelynn Lawson. Bothersome. Too curious. Can’t get her nose out of places it doesn’t belong.”
“I’m guessing she’s got it up the Hadleighs’ asses?”
“Unfortunately,” he muttered. “It’s not entirely her fault. Victoria and Jeremiah decided she’s their toy of the week. They’ve been lavishing her with attention.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s odd. I don’t know what the hell they want from her.”
“Do you care?” I chuckled, but the sound died at the expression I glimpsed briefly on his face. “Holy shit, you care.” I looked back again. Tiny human woman, fidgety, couldn’t stop glancing in his direction. “Oh no.”
“Don’t start,” he groaned. “I don’t care. It’s just…strange. A curiosity.”
“That’s how it starts, Leon,” I said. “One day you don’t care, and the next you’re obsessed. If she’s involved with the Hadleighs, she’s not good for you.” He grunted, my words bouncing off his thick skull like ping pong balls. “Fucking hell, we need to get you out of Abelaum. Away from Kent. This has gone on too long.”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it even messier than before. “The man is insufferable. His family…also insufferable. I want to murder them. Is that too much to ask for? One little opportunity to slowly and meticulously rip their limbs off, starting with fingers and toes.”
“I should bring it up with the council again. Keeping a demon in captivity for over a hundred years isn’t normal. At some point they have to intervene.” I paused. As much as I wanted to have a casual conversation, there was still a purpose I had for seeking him out.
There were few things I ever felt a need to keep from Leon, but this…this might be one of those things. He didn’t exactly have good feelings about Juniper. It wasn’t personal on his end — she was just a bad memory. But it felt like a shitty thing to say, if I were to admit I had made a bargain with the woman that eluded his capture all those years ago.
She was supposed to be dead, and he’d paid for her survival dearly.
“What did Kent let you out for anyway?” I said. “Why the sudden guard duty?”
“The Libiri made a sacrifice.” He was still staring behind me, utterly infatuated. “The kid…Marcus. It was him. The Libiri offered him up to the God and had me toss his corpse down into the mine. So shit is stirring up. Kent wants me to make sure the Eld don’t become a nuisance. If bodies start piling up, it’ll make things more difficult for him. Fuck, if that’s all he needs me to do, what’s a little guard duty? It’s easy enough. And he leaves me alone, most of the time.”
Toss his corpse down into the mine. Oh, Juniper was going to love that. This was going to be a goddamn pain in the ass.
I would have rather heard it was at the bottom of the ocean. That would be easier than going down into the mine.
“Sounds like things are finally going Kent’s way then,” I said. “I guess that’s lucky for you.”
“Maybe. The old man has been acting a little strange.”
“How so?”
“He’s nervous. Stressed.” He tapped his fingers against his arm, staring off in thought. “He’s still volatile, but he’s let me get away with some things I wouldn’t have expected him to.”
“Maybe he’s finally warming up to your charming personality.”
Leon snorted. “Oh, sure. It’s only taken him a few decades. No, something is going on. Marcus’s murder getting so much attention might have him on edge.” He gulped down the last of his beer, setting down the cup heavily. “Enough about the old bastard. What about you? Hunting again?”
“I’ve got a new target,” I said. “I’m getting close to wrapping it up.” An utter lie: this bargain and all its difficulties was far from over, but that was embarrassing to say. Made it sound like I didn’t know what I was doing, like I was a rookie taking desperate, difficult deals.
He smirked. “A difficult one, eh?”
“She’ll be fun…if she doesn’t kill me first.”
“And you scold me for getting the least bit interested in a human.” He shook his head. “Here you are trying to make bargains with humans who might kill you.”
“I like things that might kill me. I like things that try to kill me. You, for example.”
He scoffed. “I never tried to kill you.”
“Bullshit, you tried to kill me! Multiple times!”
“You’re being dramatic. Consensually getting close to killing you doesn’t count.”
“I can list off all the times you’ve tried to kill me, starting with France —”
“That doesn’t count either. I killed anything that got near me back then. You just made the mistake of getting near me.”
I rolled my eyes and held up a second finger. “The incident in Toronto.”
“That was your own fault.”
A third finger. “New York. Outside that club.”
He paused. “That…I wasn’t really trying.” I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “If I was really trying, you’d be dead.”
“I would not. You can’t kill me.”
He got up from the table. “I need a joint if I’m going to keep up this argument.”
I joined him. “I’ve got three. Outside we go.”
His eyes lingered on the woman as we passed her. And the fool said it was merely a curiosity. I’d known Leon far too long to mistake that look for merely a curiosity.
I just hoped when all this was done, he could pursue whatever curiosity he wanted. Juniper and I were aligned in that, at least — we’d both gladly see the Hadleighs die.
