The door slammed behind him, near-deafening in the silence of the office. His mother looked up from where she sat in the chair on the visitor side of the desk. He thought, somewhat distractedly, that he must have seriously frightened her, because she’d actually left his chair for him for a change.

She raised her chin, tried for haughty. “Your little girlfriend is gone?” she asked.

Gabriel took his seat and glowered at her across the desk. “She’s gone home to her apartment, for now,” he said. “I don’t intend for her to continue to do so for long, but that’s up to her.”

“Up to her?” Vivienne leaned forward, set the palms of her hands against the desk as though she might boost herself over it and go for his throat. “Since when do you let people make decisions that contravene your own desires?” she spat. “Has she domesticated you then, so very quickly?”

Gabriel leaned forward as well, and rested his elbows on the desk, brought his face to within a few inches of hers. “I assure you, I am far from domesticated. Would you like me to show you how much I dislike being … contravened?”

She raised her chin, cut her gaze away from his as though there were something tremendously interesting somewhere vaguely to the left of him. “That won’t be necessary.”

He reached across the desk, nudged her face back in his direction with a none-too-gentle pat on the cheek. “Look at me when I’m explaining how furious I am,” he said. “I want to be very sure you’re listening.”

“Gabriel, I—”

“Not interested,” he said. “I want your word you won’t do her harm again.”

She spluttered a little. “I’ll give you no such thing,” she managed, finally. “I don’t give my word lightly, and I don’t know what the future holds. Would you have me an oathbreaker over some as-yet-unimaginable future event? Forsworn to the deepest pits?”

She ought to have been forsworn to the deepest pits long since, in his opinion, but damn it, Lily was right: she was his mother. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t set you up like that.”

She smiled, but not for long.

“Which is why,” he continued, “you’re going to craft your own oath, and swear to it.”

“I am most certainly not,” she said.

“Oh, but you are,” he said. “And I’ll tell you why. You came back for me, Vivienne. I don’t know why, and I don’t really care, so I’ve never asked. But you came back. Either you want something from me, or you need something from me. Whichever it is, I’m willing to bet it’s important. So”—he picked up her purse from the desk, passed it to her—“get out whatever little tools you need, and get ready to make some promises.”

She said nothing, just stared at him as he tossed a pen and a pad of paper on the desk in front of her.

“Start making notes,” he said. “Oh, and while you’re at it, summon Pusboil.”

“Why?” she said.

“We’re renegotiating its contract again.”

She did as she was told, using her compact for the simple blood ritual. This one used only her blood, which was good; he knew she had other spells and rituals that required the blood of others.

He thought of the handkerchief he carried in his pocket, and began to formulate a plan.

Within moments, the room was filled with the acrid, sulfurous smell of an imp summoning. A heartbeat later, Pusboil appeared on the desk in front of Vivienne, accompanied by a profound but swift change in air pressure that made Gabriel’s eardrums tighten uncomfortably.

“It’s your lucky day, Pusboil,” he said. “Remember you wanted out of your contract?”

The imp nodded. “Yeah, I remember a bunch of excuses why you wouldn’t let me out, too.”

“Well, today’s your lucky day.” Gabriel said.

“My son has decided to take his expertise at forging binding oaths, and put it to good use constraining the both of us,” Vivienne said acidly. “Expertise he developed while he was accidentally binding himself to some useless human.”

“Vivienne,” Gabriel said. Only the one word, by way of warning.

“What?” she snapped. “I can’t help it that you’ve hooked yourself up with this … this nothing. I’m sure she’s … enjoyable, as far as that goes, but Gabriel, seriously, she’s like a vacuum. You could have attached yourself to anyone you chose; there was no reason to keep this one around.”

“Maybe for you,” he said. “I’ve several reasons I want her around.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll get no results out of her that way, either,” she said. “Even the highest sex magicks aren’t going to raise much power when you’re starting from nothing.”

“Call her nothing again,” Gabriel said. “Go ahead. Let’s see what I do.”

Vivienne glared at him, but piped down and picked up the pen he’d given her, jotting down a few words at a time, then staring off into space for a few minutes. After a few rounds of this, she had a fair number of scratchings in front of her and looked up at him. “I think I have it.”

“Get it done, then,” he said.

So he witnessed her own oath—a long but fairly straightforward one—that she would neither harm Lily nor cause harm to come to her, nor contract with any other being or entity for purposes of same, nor withhold information that she knew would lead to harm, and so on until Gabriel was quite sure he’d covered every possibility of his mother being a danger to his lover.

Gabriel turned his attentions to Pusboil, who’d been watching the whole procedure in uncharacteristic silence. “No sarcastic remarks?” he asked.

It shook its head. “I like her,” it said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me,” it said. “I like her. She feels nice to me, inside my head—not all sharp and jagged, like you two. Calm. And nice.”

Surprised, Gabriel leaned back in his chair a little. “Are you saying my mother’s right—that she’s somehow null, psychically speaking?”

The imp shrugged. “What do I know about it? I’m just telling you, being around you two is like listening to rocks crash against each other all the time, and the girl, she makes a noise in my head like the ocean. Roaring, far away, and quiet.”

Gabriel exchanged a look with his mother, who shrugged.

“Well, it’s good you like her,” he said, turning back to Pusboil, “because she’s your new job.”

Vivienne squawked a little, but in the end, he persuaded her—with a combination of calm reasoning and vicious threats that left his head aching—to use the blood Lily had left on his handkerchief to perform a ceremony to bind Pusboil to Lily.

“… and to report any unusual activity to Gabriel at the earliest opportunity, and to protect her against all threats to her well-being.” The imp repeated the last of the words back to Vivienne, who then smeared the bloody part of Gabriel’s handkerchief against the twin mirrors in her special compact.

“That ought to do it,” she said, snapping the compact shut and returning it to her purse. “Unless you’ve got some other ridiculous errands you’d like me to waste an imp on. Would you like me to send him down to the corner street vendor for a hot dog?”

“Shut up, Mother,” Gabriel said pleasantly. “And make sure the place gets shut down properly. I’m going home.”