Archive of Our Own ^beta

The final sign that this job has moved from went bad to I am so fucked is when I wake up and I'm not in Trauma. It's enough to make me reconsider my seatbelt policy, because if I hadn't been wearing one during that crash, there's a good chance I'd have lost my vessel. Which would be several notches better than waking up with a Malakite staring down at me and the sense all around me that the light of Heaven is ready to cut through my soul if I'm stupid enough to drop my vessel in the middle of a Tether of War.

There's also the throbbing headache, assorted bruises, and broken ribs, but those are low on the list of bad news.

"It's awake," says the Malakite, whose Choir I can identify by the way she reappeared in a fresh vessel ten seconds after I ran over her previous one. She's not much taller than me, but she packs a hell of a lot more of a punch. As Zhune discovered the hard way in turn, and I hope he's still safe where I left him, because. Well. Because he's my partner, and because we have a job to do, so of course I hope he's safe. It's much too early in this increasingly terrible day to start contemplating all the distant possibilities for doom.

I do not try to get up, as I'm currently lying on the floor. Standing up wouldn't help if there are at least two angels in this room with me (good old Theft assessment says: no windows, one locked door, someone standing between me and said door, let's hope better options present themselves soon), and the longer they underestimate me, the better.

Sadly, I'm in enough pain and with few enough resources at hand that I think they're just...estimating me. Pretty accurately, on the combat front. I am not a god damn bruiser Calabite. I do my best work when the enemy never sees me coming.

The Malakite kicks me experimentally in the chest, and my vision grays out while I make a sad squeaking noise.

"There was another person in the car," she says. "Tell us how to find them, and we might let you live."

"Wow," I say, and run my tongue over my teeth. Missing a few, but if I live through this--a very big if--Zhune will fix that the next time he sings me back to health. "You're not very good at negotiation techniques, are you?"

#

I wake up again with the fuzzy memory that there was another kick. My chest is not feeling so good, and the Malakite is arguing with someone behind me. Which leaves the path to the door clear.

So here's my choice. Hold out here, knowing they can kill my vessel pretty much on whim, in hopes that I'll come up with a clever plan or Zhune rescues me. Or slip out of these handcuffs (which are slightly too big for the skinny wrists I've got in this vessel), resonate the door away, and run for it. Crawl for it? With two angels standing right behind me. Hell. That is not a good plan. I wonder if they know yet what Band I am. Maybe if I play hapless and whiny, like an Impudite caught in a bad situation, they'll lock me up somewhere for short-term storage while they get out the knives, and I can break out from there when no one is looking.

As Zhune has often reminded me, a bad escape plan is worse than none. Not sure I agree with him on that; I've done wonders with a really bad plan, short notice, and spreading chaos in my wake. But it's nothing to rely on, and this is a job I don't want to screw up. When you get a message from your Prince saying Get this and bring it to this person, there is no good time to shrug and give up.

So long as they don't find Zhune, we're good. He's got the package. He can get it to the drop-off, especially with the angels distracted by me. I'm almost certain he's professional enough to finish that part of the job first, and then come looking for me.

Almost.

"It's awake again," says the Malakite.

"For Heaven's sake, be more careful this time," says whoever she was arguing with. "It's clearly fragile."

I am not fragile. This is the toughest vessel I've ever owned, and...okay. Yeah. Kinda fragile. At least compared to my partner, who took two bullets and some nasty hits from the Malakite before I ran over her first vessel. He would've been fine past that, a long ways past that, except for the bullet that came through the back windshield, and--well. No use thinking about the details. The point is, he's out cold (last I saw him), hidden somewhere reasonably safe (ditto), and the whole "keep running and distract the people who are chasing us" part worked gloriously, except for where I didn't get away. Or die.

The Malakite's bloody sneakers appear in front of my face, and then she hauls me upright by the back of my jacket. Which has, I suspect, been already thoroughly looted for useful items. It's what I would have done. Goodbye, lockpick and lighter and cash and pocket lint. You're not going to save me now.

I may be feeling a little punchy right now.

"Are you ready to talk?" she asks me.

"All you had to do was ask," I say, and try to pull up a smile. God, even my face hurts. "Could you grab me a few aspirin? It's funny, I kinda feel like I was in a crash or something."

The Malakite looks for an instant like she's about to kick me again. But instead she makes a disgusted noise, and lowers me down until I'm seated awkwardly on the floor, knees folded back and trying not to pitch forward onto my face. "I could just kill you," she says."

"Yes," I say, "but you haven't, which means you want something out of me. How about a beer? If you're fresh out of painkillers. I'm not picky right now, because I'm not sure how much of it I'd be able to taste. But if there are options available--"

"Your only options," she says, cutting right across my request with all the lack of civility I've come to expect from her Choir, "are to answer our questions, or die."

I'm pretty sure there are more options, even if I can't work them out yet. "Fine," I say. "I pick door number two. Could you hurry up? If you kill me now, I might be out of Trauma in time to catch the Sunday night lineup on HBO."

"If I kill you, it won't be that fast," she snaps.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I can tell I'm speaking with the forces of good!" I've found my smile. Excellent. It's a nice cheery one, the sort I use most often when pretending to be a human. This vessel has been described as "adorable" and I've mostly learned to stop fighting that, at least when it's a convenient trait. "Want to tell me your plans? Or if you haven't worked it out yet, I could give you some pointers. I know you Virtues pride yourself on the whole wrath of God thing, but frankly, on the torture front, you still have nothing on Habbalah."

The person standing behind me, who I haven't seen yet, makes a little unhappy sound that I've heard from angels before. Well. From one angel in particular. Who this is not, because the voice is wrong and the setup is wrong and he would not do this to me, so that's not Penny. But five to one that's a Seraph trying to read the truth of what I say. Good luck on that one, you poor bastard.

"If you don't stop trying to change the--"

"Let me guess," I say, since she started the habit of talking over people, so I'm going to consider that the accepted mode of discourse in here. "Fingers! That's what Malakim always go for first, and one day I want to meet a Malakite of Creation just to find out if they come up with a better opening move. Now, half of them threaten to break my fingers, and the other half go straight to threatening to cut them off. You look more like a cutter than a breaker, to me. But I'm just guessing here. Am I right?"

She stares at me for a moment.

"I'm right. But if you start cutting anything off, I'm probably going to pass out again, at which point you need to wait for me to wake up. So..." I shrug, testing the handcuffs under the cover of that gesture. Not so tight I can slip out easily, but I can get them off with a moment of effort, even without resonating them apart. Good to know. "Your call."

"We could heal you," says the cold, irate voice behind me. "At which point we could continue this discussion without significant fear of losing your attention."

"Finally," I say, "someone with the sense God gave a badger enters the room. Yes. You could do that. All I was asking for was a handful of aspirin, but I'll take the healing, if you're offering it."

"We may need assistance to do this efficiently," says the Seraph. "Hold onto her, and we'll get her into holding."

The Seraph sings me just healed enough that they can break my legs without me passing out, or dying on them, and then the two of them drag me out of the room, drag me down the stairs by the collar of my jacket with my legs bouncing across every step on the way. They drop me into a dark rectangle cut into the stone wall, and slam the door closed on me.

I'm not sure this is an improvement. Because I can still feel the Tether locus around me, and there is nowhere I can go with my legs broken. Maybe I should've crawled for the door after all when I had the chance.

#

There's enough space in this closet for me to stand up, if I could with my legs broken. Or sit down, if I don't try to stretch my legs out. No light, and if there's any airflow, it's coming from somewhere high up. When I trace the seams between door and wall, there's no gap there.

It's quiet in here. Kinda stuffy. Very dull. I lean back in a corner and resonate the wall behind me, just barely. To test. And that...is some tough stone. It's one thing to blast through small items, or thin items, but I remember the last time I had to break through a high-quality safe with resonance alone. Cracking the lock is easier at that point.

I wonder if I'm supposed to contemplate how much my legs hurt (quite a lot) or what they might do to me next (the usual) or, I don't know, my sins. Mostly I'm wondering if Zhune's okay, and if they remembered to put any air holes into this closet. My vessel does need to breathe.

It'd be nice to come up with a clever plan while I'm in here, but I don't have anything to work with. Running away is certainly off the list now. The uncomfortable fact that I do not like? I may be better off trying to die fast, and taking my chances with Trauma, as opposed to letting these people wring information out of me. They've dealt with demons before. They'll eventually figure out an effective interrogation technique.

So there are a few escape clauses. Like harassing an angel into killing me by accident, which I had a better shot at before the Malakite was reminded that I'm...fragile. Still tougher than a human, but by the usual standards of demons--especially Calabim--I'm prone to breakage. Beyond that, the options get worse. Resonating myself? Highly painful, hard to do on purpose--it's an act of concentration and will to resonate anything, but there's an automatic selfish flinch reflex that makes it even harder when I'm targeting myself--and there's always the risk that I'd just knock myself unconscious again instead of making it work.

Or I can wait for an angel to open the door, and say, "Did you know I once saw an Elohite of War shoot a Destiny Servitor in the head, on purpose?" and die as the contract I signed with Sean is broken, and all the Essence bound into it hits me...hard. I don't actually know how hard. Back when we were making the deal, Penny said it was enough to send either of us into Trauma if we broke it. Had to be, or I wouldn't have signed; Sean would've broken it at any time for convenience if it would only hurt him. And I'm pretty sure he's still tougher than I am.

Which means that's a suicide switch that hurts no one but myself, and I do not want to pull that. But it's an option.

If it comes to that.

It's too warm in here, and there is too much darkness and my legs hurt continually in this position, but I can't move them anywhere else. The bastards could've at least given me that handful of aspirin that I asked for.

Maybe this is how people develop claustrophobia. Waiting in pain in a dark room for someone to pull them out and hurt them again. But what the hell. I've been through worse. Once Zhune has the package delivered, he'll...what, storm a Tether of something Heavenly for me?

No, he doesn't storm Tethers. He'll come up with something, though. Even if it involves sending in a human servant to shoot me and get me out of here.

Which I'd prefer to breaking the contract. Penny would never deal with me again if I couldn't even keep to a contract like that, if I broke it for convenience.

I wonder how long they'll leave me in here.

#

The Tether thrums above me, the disturbance of someone new coming in. Which is my first sign that something new might be happening.

When the door opens, the Seraph is holding a taser. The Malakite has a knife. And there's a third standing between them, a tall woman with a vessel that says I can punch through walls and a brilliant smile I don't like at all. "Hello," she says brightly. "Do you want to get out of there?"

"Now that you're offering," I say, "yes. And how about that aspirin?"

She nods to the Seraph, and the other two drag me out. Ow and hell and ow. "Sorry," she says, "no can do. We don't stock a lot of that around here. Let's get this show on the road."

They drag me back up the stairs. More slowly, this time, and three steps up the newcomer stops us all, and says to the Seraph, "You could just carry her. It would hurt less."

Oh. So it's the good cop, bad cop portion of the interrogation. Would've expected them to bring in someone more sociable and less relentlessly cheerful, but maybe this is the only person they had at hand who could fake nice at a demon. And the Seraph does pick me up. None too gently, but it hurts less than the dragging, so there's that.

If it weren't for this whole problem with my broken legs, the matter of which is getting to me a lot more than I would've expected, I might try to make a break for it now. Play nice, play terrified, play cooperative, and then resonate my way through the next door we pass.

But I'm not getting anywhere like this. God, I wish Zhune were here.

We end up back in the same room I started in. I've got a better view this time around. Bare walls, concrete floor, no windows, one door. A drain in the center of the floor, which is so not a good sign.

"We could use some furniture," says the newest angel critically. "This might take a while, and there's no point in standing through it, even aside from the part where she can't. Ved, could you grab a few chairs and some kind of table?" And she adds with as much cheer as earlier, when the Seraph hesitates, "If she says anything exciting while you're out of the room, we'll get it repeated when you return. Okay?"

The Seraph, whose full name cannot possibly be Ved, heaves a sigh. But he sets me down on the ground, and then leaves the room to, presumably, grab chairs. At least I can stretch my legs out now. Which turns out not to help much.

"Now here's the thing," says the angel of excessive cheer. "This would go much easier if you'd just answer our questions. You don't even have to tell the truth, if that'll let you pass it off as not your fault to the folks back home. Give us answers near enough that the Seraph can get the real story off of them, and we'll let you go. Which is not something everyone gets offered! But we're kinda in a hurry, so we're willing to play nice."

I glance over at the Malakite, whose glare has not become any less since I last looked her way. "You'll let me go. Really."

"Really," says the cheery one. "Heal you up, toss you out the front door, and we can jump on Shau for a few minutes while you run."

"Wow," I say. If my hands weren't still cuffed together behind my back, I could lean back on them. "What an offer. Does it come without cutting off any fingers, or is that some sort of add-on package that I have to buy separately?"

"I get the impression," she says, "that you're not taking my offer seriously. But I do mean it. I don't think beating a lot of answers out of someone is the best way to work, even if we do have a Seraph at hand to dig some truth out of it. Why not cooperate, and we all come out ahead?"

"Let me think about it," I say. I'm not sure how long I need to stall before Zhune's done. A few hours I can do. I can put up with nearly anything for a few hours. Days would be...tricky.

But Malakim still don't have anything on Habbalah.

Our friendly neighborhood Seraph, Ved (which must be a nickname, as all Seraphim seem to have pretentious names that nickname down easily if you're lucky), returns to the room with two folding chairs under one arm and a round cafe table scraping along the floor behind him. The cheery angel gets those set up, keeping a steady watch on me. "Want those legs fixed?" she asks.

What, the one thing completely preventing me from making any practical plan of escape? How...convenient. Too damn convenient, but I can't spot the catch in it. Maybe the only catch is that they think I'm that easy a pushover for matters of pointless kindness. "That and a decent beer," I say. "If you could?"

"Maybe later," she says. "I don't think we have any in the Tether, but I'm not here often enough to be sure. Ved?"

She looks at the Seraph, who sings my legs back whole, while the Malakite drags me to my feet. Hurts a lot less to stand on them now, and the instant I have a clear line to the door, I am out of here.

"Sit down," says the overly friendly angel. Which is harmless, so I sit, like I'm going to be cooperative and all. She takes a seat across from me. "Now stay there," she says, and a Geas wraps around me.

I. Am. I am so surprised I don't even know what to say, and I think it's written across my face, because the Malakite snickers behind me.

"Now," says the--not angel, the Lilim in front of me, and I don't know why she'd work for them or why they'd fake it like they brought in another angel just to set this up, but it fucking worked, so I guess they're smarter than I am, this time--well, she says, "let's get this interrogation underway. The name's Cory. Yours?"

"Fucking hell," I say, for lack of a better comment. I would like to keep up some semblance of sanguine confidence here, but it's pretty much a lost cause. Heaven already gets Malakim. They're not allowed to get Lilim contracting for them too. It's not fair.

"I get that a lot," says the Lilim. "If it would make you feel better I could get all violent, but Shau already tried that and it didn't work so well. "

I just stare at her, and try to figure out how many hooks she could have in me, beyond the Geas she's already invoked. Out of that room? Probably. I don't know how badly I wanted out. Less pain on the stairs? Yeah, I'll bet. Maybe the chairs, not sure there. Definitely the legs. God, that must be a vicious one, I wanted that not to be a problem so much, and I cannot so much as stand up to yell at someone without dissonance leeching into me from the Geas.

"You still want that beer?" she asks. "Freebie. Honest." And all I can do is shake my head, and try to work out what I'm going to do next. "Oh, well. Your call. Here's the next one. Answer every question any of us three asks of you, truthfully to the best of your knowledge, except for those that would cause you dissonance, soul death, or serious immediate harm." And another Geas slides into place, right past any attempt on my part to reject the debt.

"Why the clauses?" demands the Malakite at my back. "I don't care if she takes dissonance."

"Because the Geas won't last as long if it can require that from her," says the Lilim. She rolls her eyes at whatever expression she's getting from the other two angels. "It's not like I haven't done this before. Ved, are you taking notes? Then I'll start."

"How does Heaven get a Lilim working for it?" I ask, because I don't think the first Geas is going to let me jump across the table and punch her. Resonate her...yes. It wouldn't object. But that would be a bad idea, no matter how satisfying.

"Same way it gets anyone else out of Hell," she says. "What's your real name?"

"Leo. Seriously? A Lilim, working for Heaven?"

"Seriously," she says. "And I'm not 'a Lilim', I'm a Bright Lilim."

There is no such thing. I know that, everyone knows that, the way I know...

Well. There are probably a few things in this world that I know and aren't true, but I'm not changing my mind on this one until someone I can trust to tell the truth is saying it.

"Right," she says. "No response. Pretty typical. You don't have to look so surprised, it's not like I'm the only one. Never mind, moving on. What's your Band and what Word do you serve?"

"Calabite. Theft. What about you?"

"Bright Lilim, I said," she points out. "And I work for War. Who did you think we were?"

"I hadn't figured out yet, but War was high on the list. Maybe the Sword." And the more questions she asks, the worse trouble I'm in, so it's time for me to start coming up with stalling techniques. "Clearly you weren't Animals or Flowers, and this doesn't really seem like the Wind's kind of setup. Fire's always a bit more on the crazy side, unless you run into the inspirational types, which I've never really understood. Fire, inspiration, doesn't match up. Though I did run into this one pair recently who were running a bar for broke musicians, and they seemed pretty happy with the arrangement, so what do I know?"

"You're stalling," she says cheerfully. "Nice try, but no. And on the Calabite front, I recommend that you not blow anything up, because then we get back to Shau turning violent. Just as an FYI! So here's the fun question. Are there any questions I can ask you, where answering would cause you dissonance?"

"Not that I'm aware of." What sorts of people could she interrogate where that would be an issue? Maybe Gamesters, who can't disobey orders without dissonance. Or people already wearing Geases forbidding them from speaking about things.

"Same question as the last, but causing you death? As in, your Prince will certainly take you apart if you answer."

I have to think about this one, while the Geas squeezes on my soul, trying to force words out before I'm even ready. "Maybe. Who knows what Princes will do when annoyed? But there are probably a few."

"That's fine," she says. "Just tell me if we run into them. Same question, serious physical harm?"

Well, so much for those ones being a surprise escape clause. "Yes."

"No one's answered that one with a yes in ages," she says, and frowns briefly over my head. "I know, I'm focusing, I just find that interesting. How much could they hurt you?"

"Vessel death," I say, and I have completely lost control of this interrogation. Why couldn't we have just gone for the breaking fingers thing? I know how to deal with that. This has to wear off eventually. No Geas lasts forever. "That might be exciting. I'm not sure if I explode, or keel over. It's a good thing you've got this drain already installed."

"Well, Malakim," she says. "There's a lot of hosing people down while they're dripping with blood, in this business. How could answering a question kill you?"

"This is irrelevant," says the Malakite. "We need to know about that package."

The Lilim puts up a hand, watching my eyes. Wish I had my shades on, to get away from whatever hooks she may be picking up. How can I not know what she can see me Need? (The same way I don't know my own honor as well as a Malakite does. Stupid angelic resonances. So annoying.) "I'll get there. Go ahead."

"Divine contract." It feels almost like betrayal to even bring up the topic, but I can talk around it, or discuss the fact that it exists, without triggering any of the clauses in those contracts. I read them closely before signing.

"Huh. Trade does broker all sorts of things, but...I'm a little surprised." She sighs at the angels behind me, while I slouch down in my chair and tug discreetly at my handcuffs. Not sure how long the Geas that holds me here will last. When that wears off, I can try to bolt. And there are a few questions that won't technically kill me that I'd rather take vessel death than answer. "Yes, yes," she says, "I'm getting to it. Leo, you're working with someone else, right?"

More a statement than a question, but the Geas insists it counts. "Yes."

"Do they have that package?"

I wonder if they don't know what's in it. We didn't know. Knew better than to ask. "Last I knew, yes."

"Describe that person," she says.

Which...is not a question. "I don't know where I'd start," I say. "There's a long and complicated backstory involved, full of adventure and intrigue, and when it comes to describing the true character of a man--"

"What does he look like?" demands the Malakite, yanking back on my collar. God damn direct Virtues.

And I want the Geas to say, no, this one's too far, but she could've seen his vessel easily during the fight if it hadn't been so dark and foggy at the time, and this Geas is convinced I should answer this question. Which I do not, because fuck this whole interrogation game, and the way Heaven cheats, which is supposed to be our schtick. Which turns into dissonance slamming into me, the punishment for fighting the Geas, more than I've ever carried before in my life, and it's like a gray fuzz rising up between me and the world around me. Not in any basic audio-visual way like humans might perceive the world, but a haze between me, here with my Discord like any good Calabite, and my ability to shove breaking through it into the world around me.

"About the height of your Seraph," I say, "it's a Balseraph sort of vessel, you know the style. Dark hair, usually slicked back. Nice suit. Built like he knows how to work out but doesn't obsess over it." And all the dissonance is gone, just like that, and I feel sick to my stomach. But he'll be fine. Zhune's always fine, and he gets the job done.

"That," says the Malakite, "is a lousy description of anyone."

"You're just going to have to forgive me if I don't spend a lot of time contemplating how to give the police artist details for the wanted posters," I say, and wonder how well she could resist if I slapped my resonance into her.

Probably better than it's worth testing. Damn it all. Zhune had better be getting the job done, after I got his sorry body hidden away with the package and went to all the trouble of distracting these people. If I knew how long I've been knocked out and locked up, I'd have a better idea of whether he'd have a chance by now to wake up, stagger a good distance away, and heal himself back up. Or find backup.

"Where is he?" the Malakite asks.

I could take the dissonance. It might be worth it. In a lot of ways it doesn't hurt as much as standard garden-variety torture, and it doesn't even fuck with my head the way some Songs and resonances do. Except it buzzes through me like I'm doing this wrong, and I cannot cope with this feeling, this sensation that--it's unlike anything else. The soul-deep knowing that I have fucked up and gone against who I really am.

Even though who I am is someone who doesn't betray his damn partner.

"I don't know," I say. And the dissonance buzz doesn't go away, not yet, because the Geas says this is not to the best of my knowledge, even if it's in some ways technically true. "I don't know, because I don't know how long it's been since I last saw him, but he's probably hit the drop-off already and moved on." Fucking Geas, still not happy. "Which was at the arcade back in town, so I don't know, draw a circle around it and figure out how far someone could get in the elapsed time you've spent fucking around with me, and he's probably in that circle still."

Enough. Finally. The dissonance vanishes, and my ears are ringing, the way they do when an overwhelming noise suddenly stops.

The Lilim looks over my shoulder, and asks someone else, "Is that enough?"

"It's a place to start," says the Seraph.

"I could keep asking," she says, "until you can get a better reading."

"Not worth the time right now," he says. "Can you two handle things while I go help the Seneschal?"

"Easily," says the Lilim.

The Malakite yanks back against my collar. "Or I could kill her now, and we could all go."

"And use up a perfectly good Geas?" says the Lilim, sounding outright indignant. "I've hardly started on the question list. Come on, it's one guy, and all you need is to get the package off him, or whoever he handed it to."

Footsteps recede behind me. The door opens and them slams shut, so I guess the Seraph is making his opinion known. The Malakite sighs over my shoulder. "Do I at least get to kill her when you're done with the questions?"

"Sitting right here," I say.

"I suppose," says the Lilim, "that it depends." She leans back in the folding chair, arms crossed over her chest. "Do you have any strong opinion on the matter, Leo?"

...it is entirely unfair if they get to ask questions about my opinions.

"Yes," I say, "but I have strong opinions on a lot of things. Like your whole stupid fucking Word. Never yet figured out how you can be sure your Archangel is still actually a Seraph, given the way his minions operate. You're a pack of liars, oath-breakers, and cheats, and I'd trust a Shedite of Factions further than any of you. So if you want to try to convince me that there's something I can do to get out of this alive, you might as well save your breath. I would sooner believe a Balseraph. Overall, they've been a lot more honest in dealing with me than any of you people."

That was...not strictly required by the Geas, I think. And probably stupid to elaborate on. But it felt good to say, and as this day is made of pain and disappointment already, I might as well get something out of it. Even if it's the fleeting sense of satisfaction before fingers start coming off.

Besides, torture never hurts as much on the corporeal as it does back in Hell. Vessels can be replaced. Souls, not so much.

"Please let me kill her," the Malakite says. "Or just start on the process. Just a little. I'll leave her conscious enough to talk."

"Shau," says the Lilim, "I get where you're coming from, but let's try to be professional about this." She looks back to me, and props her elbows on the table between us. Rests her chin on clasped hands. "That sounded really personal, Leo. Have you run into us before?"

"Plenty of times."

"And you're upset about...oath-breaking. That's an interesting way of putting it. Not the sort of thing I usually hear out of demons, especially Theft." She stares intently in my eyes. Should probably just close my eyes outright until she Geases me into letting her look, but I am too angry right now to be making, let's be honest, perfectly rational choices. "Who was that divine contract with?"

I don't have to answer that question.

Not answering is an answer.

"Huh." She glances over to the Malakite. "What do you think?"

"I think," says the Malakite, "that this is beside the point when we could be asking about Tethers."

"Maybe. Hey, Leo, are you likely to hit the 'probably results in soul death' clause if we start asking about Tethers?"

"I might."

"You see," says the Lilim, with the sort of jolliness that I associate with kindergarten teachers standing in front of a classroom, "if you ask someone to do something that'll just about doom them, you need an enormously strong Geas. But if you ask someone to do something they merely dislike, it's a lot easier, it lasts for longer, and you can pick out all sorts of other information in the process. For example, we're about to find out who the contract was with. Was it with another angel?"

"Yes." It's a little ironic that this Geas is helping me remember the exact wording of that contract, because it only pushes when I can speak safely.

"Outcast?"

"No."

"With the permission of their Archangel?"

"I don't know," I say, and follow up with, "but I assumed so at the time," because the Geas is itching at me. I am going to burn this Tether to the ground, just see if I don't. Even if I don't have any explosives at hand, don't know where I am exactly or what their defenses are, and probably won't make it out alive. I will come back for them and hurt them for this.

"Were there more Words than Trade involved?"

"Yes," I say. "This is like some sort of demented game of twenty questions."

"I know," she says. "A lot of interrogations turn out this way, when we need to work around dissonance conditions and so forth. You should see what it's like to interrogate a demon of the Game. I've invoked Geases based on pre-written templates just to get them to work at all, with those guys."

"Well, they are rules-lawyering bastards."

She nods, with a wry look that I could almost like if I were not so interested in murdering everyone in this room. How much longer until the Geas for Stay there wears off? And will it wear off faster if it turns from something I don't want to do into something that's getting me murdered? I suspect I'm going to find out.

"Was it Judgment?" demands the Malakite behind me.

"No," I say, and then cannot stop giggling as I picture it. As I picture the very concept, any angel of Judgment that I ever ran into trying to make that sort of contract with me, the sorts of things that first contract covered, how much fun it might be some day to get out of a Judgment interrogation by just telling them what that first contract prevents me from talking about.

"Cory," says the Malakite, "she's not taking this seriously."

"No," Cory says, "it's probably just the kind of hysterical laughter people get into when they're worried about dying horribly. I've been there." She stares into my eyes, and blinks. "Was it us?"

Now, here is the thing. She's forgotten the wording on her own Geas. I could lie in response to this question, and she'd have no way of knowing. Could get her to run through asking about every Word in Heaven in turn until she figures out the loophole, and that'd be an entertaining use of my time. (Especially now that I've stopped laughing.) But I may need that loophole later, and I don't really care whether or not she knows the answer to this question, except that it's uncomfortable in some ways to be. Well. Essentially breaking the contract, in a way that its wording technically allows for.

One of these days I need to ask Penny how he writes these contracts, and how they decide on these things. If that's a deliberate escape clause, so that you can't be forced into "revealing" an answer by clever asking around it, because it's not your fault, or if it's just a loophole he didn't think of when writing the contract for us. Sean probably just didn't notice. He's not as bright as he thinks he is.

In any case. I haven't answered the question.

"Right," Cory says, "I need to make a call. Keep an eye on her, okay?" She gets up, and calls back from the far side of the room, "The kind of keeping an eye that doesn't involve blood, Shau!"

Which leaves me alone in the room with the Malakite.

She circles around the table to look me up and down. Her knife's hidden away, which doesn't mean a lot. I should know, if anyone does, how much damage someone can do without resorting to blades. The options are endless. I've implemented several, and experienced more.

"Right," I say. "What are the chances that Cory will be yelling at you when she gets back about what you're doing next?"

"High," she says absently. "Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

I set up a Shedite for redemption, once. Helped an Outcast Kryiotate get back home. Saved a human kid from the War, twice over, and got her stashed away with angels each time. I saved a portion of the world from a plague once, saved the angel who was helping me with it from vessel death or dissonance, and the bastard never thanked me for it, either. Might or might not have sent an Impudite of Fire off to be redeemed, never heard back on that one, and I probably saved that Cherub and Mercurian both from being eaten by the god of whales, and...the Geas is not pushing me to say anything about this, because admitting to it in the wrong company could get me killed.

But she doesn't even notice that I haven't answered. They probably don't breed Malakim for their EthForces, up in Heaven. "I could do plenty without bleeding," she says. "Or without knocking you out again."

"Sure," I say. "Is this something that serves the cause of Heaven, or is it just to make yourself feel better?" I smile crookedly at her expression. "Hey, I don't know how these things work. You tell me."

"There's nothing wrong with making myself feel better," she says dryly, and that moment is gone. "I'm not an Elohite."

And thank fucking god for that, because I'd rather deal with a Malakite. They're straightforward, in their own psychotic way. "That must be convenient," I say, and try not to wonder what she's seen on my honor. Probably something recent. Looking back over the last year of my life could be...awkward.

"You have no idea," she says. She moves behind me, pulls my hands back painfully via the handcuffs, and I know where this is going.

I destroy the handcuffs--hardly takes thinking about to reduce them to metal shards, when they're right there on me--and yank my hands away. "How did you even get a Lilim? War is a poster child for worst recruitment practices."

"And Hell keeps pulling angels down," she says, which does not sound like a hypothetical example or general statement at all, "even though you're full of horrors, so maybe the war isn't about being nice."

"I know they're not," I say brightly, and duck away from a slap. I can't leave, but I don't have to sit perfectly still. Apparently. "Used to work for them, and that was such a drag. Maybe people keep signing up for Hell because we have all the fun."

If that Lilim were in here, she'd ask something like, "Do you actually find it fun?" and again, awkward responses would result. But the Malakite is stupid, exactly as I'd expect, and she clips me with the next blow. Hard enough to take out another tooth. Ow. She will not be finding out a damn thing from this part of the interrogation.

"For example," I say, and roll my tongue around inside my mouth to figure out which tooth went--no, it's just loose, and bleeding--"the last time I needed to ask an angel a lot of questions, I just asked. Politely. That went a lot better on both sides, and I think we both walked away from that deal with something we wanted."

"I can hardly believe there are angels who will deal with Hell," the Malakite snarls. "That's disgusting."

Should I mention that they didn't know at the time of the questions? Nah. More fun to horrify the Malakite. "I don't know, I'd say it falls well within the range of behavior appropriate to angels. If you can drop bombs on civilians while Flowers is in the middle of trying to nurture their interpersonal relationships, and both call it the work of Heaven, who am I to argue? There's scope for all sorts of action in the name of Heaven. So far as I can tell, the only difference between your War and ours is that you've got better PR. Which is kinda ironic, given we have all the Balseraphs and the Media, too."

She draws her knife at last. And hesitates, blade raised, as disturbance rattles past us with someone else coming down the Tether. Apparently Cory's call went through.

Find out who they called in and what happens next, or let the Malakite kill me? ...oh, fuck it all, she'd probably just stab me somewhere inconvenient, and then I'd still have to sit through what comes next while bleeding. I've got my escape switch right up until they gag me, and I don't think they want me alive if I'm not talking.

It's a good thing I have a backup vessel, because I don't want to explain this whole incident to the Boss. Being Geased by angels is embarrassing, and I have the uncomfortable suspicion that even knowing Bright Lilim exist is frowned on by certain parties. Like the Game. Which doesn't like me anyway, but I try to stay on the side of plausible deniability when it comes to their hot buttons.

Anyway. I resonate her knife into broken pieces while she's trying to figure out whether or not she wants to stab me before the Lilim gets back. She punches me in the face again, and this is why when the door opens I'm lying on a folded chair on the ground with a Malakite kneeling on my chest with her hands around my throat.

"Oh, for the love of God," Cory says, and strides forward to grab the Malakite. Who's sporting some pathetic scratches from my attempts to respond, as this room is horribly free of misbalanced heavy items to drop on anyone with the right application of resonance. It's almost like they've interrogated Calabim before. "She can't even walk away, Shau. Try to play fair."

"It's not a game," the Malakite snaps as she's dragged off me, "and we're not the Sword to care about fair."

Which whining I might care to listen to and critique if I didn't recognize the blessed Mercurian walking through the door.

"I just can't leave you alone without you getting into trouble," Sean says, and he's talking to me, not either of the others. He offers me a brilliant smile as he saunters up to me, and then a hand up.

Which I could ignore, but he looks surprised when I take it. Makes the motion worth it right there.

"I hate you," I say conversationally, and put the chair back together so I can sit down. The Geas wasn't quite ready to shove dissonance onto me for that one, but it was getting close. "How have you been?"

"Great," Sean says, and takes the chair across the table. "Replacement vessel, huh? When did you hit Trauma?"

Wait a minute.

The Lilim said, "the three of us in here," or something along those lines. The Geas does not care what he asks. But I bet he doesn't know that, if this Lilim didn't think to explain that detail, because she wasn't planning on bringing in more people originally. The Seraph isn't here, and I can lie my head off for every question he asks. So long as he can't catch me in the lie and figure out what's going on.

But he already knows the answer to this one, even if he shouldn't be able to tell this is a different vessel that looks like the one he saw last. So maybe it's a test, and if I pause too long to think about this he'll notice.

"Yeah," I say. "A few months back."

"What happened?"

"That's sort of complicated, Sean. The short version is that Malakim get pissy when you kill the person they're interrogating. A lot of stabbing happened."

"And to such a nice person," he says. He tilts the chair back on two legs, hands cupped behind his head. "You didn't think we'd care about you stealing that?"

"No," I say, "because it's not yours."

"And it's not yours either," Sean says patiently. He still has that stupid facial hair. I wonder how hard it would be to resonate that off his face.

"Wrong. It's ours now, because we stole it. That's how Theft works."

"Semantics aside," Sean says, and maybe he's not so easy to distract as some people, "do you even know what was in that package?"

"Nope."

He smirks down at me. "Good. So what do you think Zhune's doing right now?"

Figuring out how to get me out of here. "Waiting to see if I walk out of here or show up back at my Heart."

"Those aren't the only options," Sean says. "Do you want to talk about the other ones?"

"Not any more than the last time, no."

"Wait," says the Malakite. I wish she were standing in front of me so that I could see the expression that accompanies that tone of voice. Dawning horror, at a guess. But I am not willing to take my eyes off Sean. "You're the one who dealt with her?"

"Virtue," Sean says, without his easy smile cracking in the slightest, "I could go into the lecture about all the times it can be enormously useful to have a demon with an obvious resonance for everyone to blame a particular incident on, but now is not the moment. Would you go double-check perimeter defenses? Pay attention to any early alert systems that might have gone mysteriously offline."

"But--"

"Sorry for the phrasing. That was an order," Sean says mildly. The Malakite stomps away accordingly. Which puts the line of command as... The Seneschal, still unseen, and maybe a Kyriotate because the signs are pointing towards them being someone who can scan the surroundings without abandoning their duty. Sean, then the Seraph, I'd bet. Or Cory. I can't tell yet. But the Malakite's on the lowest rank of this hierarchy, and that means chances of vessel death are moderate rather than high. Some other method of fuckery: high, high chances.

I hate running the odds. That's Zhune's habit. I'd rather just watch for opportunity and grab it when it arrives, if I don't get a chance to plan properly.

The Mercurian beckons, and Cory walks over to stand where we can both see her, hands tucked in her pockets. (Chance of summonable or easily concealed weapons in there: high. God, I hate not being able to move. All I can do is think when I'd rather act.) "Tell me what she needs," he says, "the obvious ones aside."

"Stalling was high on the list for a while," Cory says. "Keeping secrets of her Prince's organization, which is always a hard one to fulfill. Just not asking isn't enough, for that one. Getting out of here alive. Getting out of this without more hooks laid, and I always hate seeing that one. It's like a headache to see a Need that's impossible to fulfill by its nature."

"You know," I tell Sean, "if I break a contract to get out of here, I can freely break it again later without penalty."

"You'd kill yourself just to get away from me? And here I thought we were getting along so well." Sean drops his chair back down, and leans in over the table. His smile's sharper now. "Let me lay out this, then. If you break the later contracts, we'll be annoyed. If you break the first one, we will be angry. The kind of angry where the next time you leave Hell, there will be someone on your heels, and you will be dragged to a Tether, and you will not get the option to leave with your Forces in the same shape as before. Am I clear? Because I can spell it out for you if you're having trouble following."

Well. That's one bluff called. I'm not offing myself just to get out of tedious interrogation unless we run into things that'd have me disassembled or dissonant otherwise. Even if it would be fun go send Judgment a letter about what Sean got up to that one time, and...hell.

I should not care what Penny would think.

"You're clear," I say.

"That one's new," Cory says, and walks behind Sean so that she can get a better look at my eyes. "What is it?"

"I don't know. You're the Lilim, you tell me what I want."

"You want someone in particular to be overseeing this interrogation," she says, and sounds outright puzzled. "Which is different from wanting to be rescued, or not to be here at all. And it's not an insignificant Need at all."

"Don't worry about it," Sean says. "I know that one."

I don't like him looking at me that way. I do not need anyone's fucking pity, especially his. Least of all when he thinks it's funny, like it's some pathetic joke that I think I'd be better off with Penny in this room right now than with Zhune here.

If only my partner were more willing to set a building on fire once in a while. That'd get me out of this situation fast. Probably via horrible painful death, but that's looking like a better option all the time.

"So," I say. "Are we done? Because if we're done, I should probably get moving. Places to go. Things to steal."
"No," Sean says, "I don't think we've quite finished with you. Want me to call back--Cory, who's the local Seraph?"

"Ved," she says. "Is this going to turn into one of those cryptic interrogations where everyone talks around the information I'm not classified to know?"

"Maybe." Sean isn't any more apologetic in her direction than mine. "You want us to bring in the Seraph for this chat?"

"Not really," I say. "I get the feeling that Seraphim of War can be trusted about as far as you can."

"Hey," he says sharply. "The last time we dealt with each other, I was fair with you. More than fair. All the way through."

"Sean, the last time we dealt with each other, I gave you information you needed, fixed the problem myself, and pulled you out of a pile of Hellsworn trying to kill you. You responded by pointing a gun at me and trying to rob me." I spread my hands. "Does that sound like fair to you? And before you answer, think about how likely I am to take 'Oh, I could've just let that plague get released instead of helping you' as a plausible answer."

"I am definitely not cleared for this," Cory says. She shrugs, and leans against a wall. "But it's not my call, Vassal."

"We can deal with that later." Sean leans forward fast and grabs my hand. It's too easy to forget that under the trendy college kid look, he's faster and stronger and older than I am. "I'm not going to interrogate you about Theft, because by and large, Leo, I don't care. Your Prince might destroy you over revealing information that we're never going to use. In the grand scheme of things, Theft is largely an annoyance. Not an opponent."

"And yet," I say, "you're still not letting me go. Funny, that."

"No," he says. "What's funny is how disconnected you are from the Word you serve. You barely know them, Leo. You're defined by your relationships, just like anyone else, and after a few years in Theft, you should have dozens of them hanging off you. Rivals and friends and people who just annoy you, favors owed in both directions, gangs you've run with and run up against. You don't. You've got a partner. Your Prince. And a few distant little connections that I can barely even recognize as Wordmates. You have more of a connection to me than you do to anyone in the same Word as you, except for that Djinn, and that's one messed-up relationship if I've ever read one."

I don't know what to say to that. I could mouth off about it, and if the Malakite were around, I probably would. But these people look right into me and see these problems, and there's only so much lying I can do before they start to call me on it.

If the Geas weren't still holding me down, I'd resonate that door away and run. If I thought I could make it to the door before Sean jumped me, I might take the dissonance and do it anyway.

"You may be good at stealing things," Sean says quietly. "But you're not very good at being part of Theft. That's going to catch up with you. Hell eats its own. They'll eat you up too. Sooner or later, and with the way you act, I'm betting on sooner. If you go down to your own side, well, let's be honest, Leo, I won't be too broken up over it. You bring these sorts of things on yourself. But I know there's a Seraph who'd be upset to get the news."

That. Was a low blow.

He pats me on the shoulder, and sits back. "Something to think about," he says. "Anything you wanted to say?"

I wrap my hands over my knees, under the table, where no one can see my fingers trembling. That'll stop soon. "You're a fucking asshole, Sean."

"Yeah," he says, "but for God, so I can get away with it." And I can see for an instant between his fingers a few strands of hair, before that hand disappears into a pocket. Messing with my head, and picking up a way to track down this vessel again. Hell. He must've done that with the last one. No wonder he knew I lost it. "You want to talk with him? It might take me a few days to track him down."

"I ought to keep moving." And I glare at his sudden smirk. "In the sense of Theft. You try to pin me here for three days, and I will break a contract before I take that."

"No, you don't like being confined very much, do you," he says. "Or cornered." He twists around in the chair to look at Cory. "Would you go check on Shau? We're sort of running into memory pearls area, otherwise."

"Ugh," says the Lilim. Which I can kinda sympathize with. "I'll go make sure the Virtue isn't trying to interrogate the local fauna. Don't lose her while I'm gone, would you?"

"I won't," Sean says. "How much longer is the sit still good for?"

She checks her watch on the way to the door. "About seven minutes. I can rush back--"

"No, it's fine," Sean says. "Believe me, I can hold my own if she tries to run for it."

When the door shuts behind her, that leaves the two of us. And me without any need to keep telling the truth.

But what Sean does is pull out a sleek new phone, the kind I never use because they die after four days in my pockets, and tap out some text message. "You would not believe the amount of trouble you've been causing me," he says. "Even when you're not present. It's like some sort of demonic talent."

"Gosh. I am so sorry." I slouch down in the chair, and try to decide what I want to do when the time runs out on the Geas that has me pinned.

"And don't think I didn't notice the loophole," he says. "If I wanted honest answers out of you, I'd bring in a Seraph and a Song that would melt your brain out your ears until you were willing to tell your best friends everything that occurred to you, regardless of what your Prince would think." He lays the phone on the table between us, and I think that's a challenge of sorts. Because if I destroy it out of spite, then something else will happen, and I will not like it.

So I roll my eyes, and fall right back into the petulant brat act that's thrown off smarter people than him. "And you needed to throw the Lilim out for this? Insults and threats? I think she could cope."

"No," Sean says, "it's for what comes later. Penny's decided that you have potential, not that I think you have enough to make it worth his time, much less mine. So he's been fucking me over with Trade on your behalf. And no thanks to your poorly timed vessel loss, I haven't even been able to meet his price. Now that I have you pinned down, you get to buy me a solution to this problem."

That was rather more candid than I expected. Can't figure out why he'd tell me, either, which makes me nervous. (Insofar as there's any more nervous for me to get than the whole "sitting in a War Tether talking with Sean" part would make for already.) "Need anything from me for this, or should I go ahead and take a nap while you wait?"

"You can tell me," Sean says, "just how much you hate not being able to leave that chair."

"What, and run outside into the welcoming arms of the Malakite? I'm pretty happy right here."

"I don't have to be a Seraph to know you're lying," he says, sprawled back in his chair again. "Some days I just want to drag you into a nice big locked room and start throwing rocks at you until you learn to run properly."

"Or I could resonate the rocks."

"So the plan needs some refinement." Sean waves a breezy gesture through the air. "That's one of the problems with demons. Making you dissonant doesn't push you back towards true. It just makes you whiny and Discord-covered. There's no good way to shove the truth through your selfish thick skull. Which is why I'm not up for hanging around hoping you change your mind, but some people in this world are far more optimistic."

I fold my arms on the table, and rest my head between them. Like looking at his smirk helps me with anything. "Does that help?"

"Hanging around? Clearly not."

I flick my fingers at him in irritation, and stare at the surface of the table. "No, the other thing. Optimism."

He's quiet for longer than I expected. Probably just trying to get me to look up, when I'm busy ignoring him.

"I don't know," Sean says. "Me, I don't see the point in wasting time hoping for the future or despairing over it when I could be putting the work into changing it myself. But I guess it keeps some people happy. About as many as it makes unhappy when they're inevitably disappointed."

I dig grooves in the table with a thumb, etching down with just the faintest hint of resonance. A tiny bit of entropy explaining to the metal surface where it was always bound to go. "Then I guess I'll stick with pessimism. It's been pretty solid for me so far."

"What kind of life expectancy do you think you've got? Time left, and all that."

Ten would be nice. I could get a lot of things done in ten years. "I don't know," I say, "I guess it depends on how often angels decide they want to chat instead of killing my vessel like they're supposed to."

"Come on. You're a pessimist. Be an honest pessimist. Give me a number."

The Geases are slipping off me. And it doesn't make any difference. "I'd say there's a good chance I'll be dead before I've served Theft for a full decade, with the way this year's been going."

"So why go back?" Sean asks. "You're not that devoted to your Prince, you're just scared of him. What makes it worth getting yourself into this kind of mess over and over again, looking at that kind of lifespan, when there are other choices?"

He's going to keep annoying me about this until I give him an answer he'll believe. I tilt my head back up until I can just see over my arms, enough to glare at him. "You read my relationships. You already know the answer. If you insist on harassing me, could we call back to the Malakite with the knives? She's refreshingly direct."

Sean stares back at me, and then snorts. "If that Seraph had any sense, he'd stop trying to seduce you to the light side, and send out a hit team to destroy that fucking Djinn."

"I'd kinda hold it against him," I say, mild as milk.

"Being a Seraph doesn't necessitate avoiding some good old-fashioned deceptive--" He shuts up when his phone rings, and picks that up. Which I was tempted to try first, just to see what happened. Except that I'm too miserable right now to try much of anything. "Sean! ...yeah, great, I want to work out a deal."

He pushes his chair back and stands, listening to the phone. I can't make out the words on the other end, only a faint burble of noise that indicates distant speech. "Yes, I'm sure, but that's your problem, not mine. I want that flag cleared, you don't want your favorite Calabite yanked out of her vessel and dragged through a Tether locus, so maybe we can work something out, huh?"

And he would, wouldn't he. Because he's with the side of what's Good and Holy and True, and it's no great loss--something of a net gain, even--if I die off a few years earlier than planned, compared to him removing some inconvenient political squabble he's having with Trade.

I don't like being a bargaining chip. Not even when Penny's doing the bargaining. I do not belong to anyone (except, I guess, my Prince and maybe my partner, depending on who you ask) and I'm not something to be traded by other people.

Even if that's exactly what I did to Luna.

Sean grimaces at the phone, and then tosses it to me. I catch it by instinct. "Don't break it," he says, and makes an insulting little go-ahead motion. "Go on, talk to him."

I set the phone to my ear, and say, "This is insulting."

"I agree," says Penny, on the other end of the line. Which I did not expect, and he sounds so irate it's enough to make me feel like--oh, never mind that. It's beside the point. "You are not my, my property, to be used like this."

"I don't know what you're so upset about," Sean says, talking over Penny's words. "Don't you want to get out of here alive?"

I make a rude gesture at Sean. "So we're in agreement on that point. What did he offer you?"

"To let you go free, in exchange for certain concessions from Trade." Penny makes a sound that I usually associate with him having heard a dreadful lie out of someone who knows they're lying. Mostly me, I guess. "I did not intend for him to pin you down to gain an advantage in negotiations with me."

I watch the Mercurian watch me right back. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it. Just an unfortunate coincidence."

"If you call keeping your name flagged a coincidence," Sean says. "Some of us do things through hard work and not happenstance."

"Shut up, Sean," I say sweetly. "We're talking." Then to the phone, "This is sort of fucked up, but what's new about that? Usually if I'm talking to you something has already gone horribly wrong."

"Usually," Penny says. He sounds tired. This is probably not a phone call he was expecting today, and I'm not even sure if whatever Sean wants fixed with Trade is something Penny has the authority to do. "What do you want, Leo?"

People don't ask me that very often. The only people who care are Lilim, and they can already tell what can buy me. "I want to get out of here," I say, "without leading War right to my partner. Failing that, not being soul-killed would be nice. There's nothing else I much need to do or know right now."

"Mm," Penny says, which is his much politer way of saying liar when--well, let's assume War is recording this call. "She's doing well, in case you were wondering. Go ahead and pass the line back over, and I'll see what I can do."

I did not ask, and that's the beauty of speaking with a Seraph. Say it right and they hear what you mean instead of what you said.

And I do not mind being bought and paid for if someone asks first. Even Valefor gave me a choice when he stole me.

Sean takes the phone, and I don't have to listen to the rest. It'd only hurt to not be able to hear both sides.

I hope Penny drives a hard bargain.

#

Sean walks me out of the room blindfolded, which is embarrassing in how cliche it is. And he's none too gentle about shoving me in the trunk of the car, either. I get the blindfold resonated off myself in there, and contemplate popping the lock, and...end up just waiting, because sometimes that's all you can do. Wait and see what happens.

But fifteen minutes later he dumps me out on the side of a country road I don't recognize. Trees all around us, trying to spread the first tips of green leaves now that they're sure winter's over. They might be wrong yet. The forecast said there's another frost coming that'll kill off a lot of that new growth.

"I expect your Djinn will be along," Sean says, hands in his pockets as he watches me climb back to my feet. "But here we go. Exactly as negotiated. Satisfied?"

"Yeah," I say. "It's a fair deal. I'm fucking satisfied."

"You shouldn't be," he says, and slams the door on his way back into the car.

#

Takes about an hour for Zhune to catch up with me, in a car I don't recognize. He steps out, tosses me the keys, and gets into the passenger seat while I get to driving.

"Hand-off went okay?" I ask him. "And where the hell are we?"

"Yes, and the middle of nowhere," he says. "Angels on our tail?"

"Maybe. Probably not."

"What happened?" he asks, a few miles down the road, once he's sure I'm not about to volunteer more information on my own.

"I got away." I press the gas pedal down further, and whip around these sharp corners at unsafe speeds. I'm bound to hit an intersection eventually, and from there, we can find our way somewhere. Anywhere. Doesn't really matter. Any one place is as good as the next.