The Demon's Covenant

It hurt the same way when Nick glanced over his bare shoulder at her, and then away.

Alan just laughed at Nick and went back to fiddling with the barbecue.

Mae collapsed back on the hot grass, tired of herself and the situations she kept throwing herself into. Seb got out his sketchbook, and Jamie started to read again as Alan began cooking lunch.

Jamie’s voice, talking about dancing and reading and love in a more decorous time, became a gentle rhythm to the warm air and the deep blue sky. Mae had almost fallen asleep when he cut off, sounding surprised.

“Is that a picture of me?”

“Yeah,” Seb said, guarded.

“It’s really good,” Jamie told him, easy as if he’d never hated him. Jamie was ridiculously generous with his feelings, all offenses pardoned with no trace of resentment left, all loves absolute.

Now he thought he loved Gerald. Mae had no idea how to deal with that.

“Yeah?” Seb said the same word in a very different tone, this one startled and pleased.

“Next do Nick,” Jamie suggested. “He’s barely wearing any clothes. That’s artistic.”

“Don’t volunteer my body without running it by me first,” Nick drawled.

“I don’t want to draw Nick,” Seb snapped.

“But I guess I’ll do it for art,” Nick continued calmly. “I’m told I have the body of a god.”

“A Greek god, or one of those gods with the horse heads or elephant’s legs coming out of their chests?” Alan asked. “Next time someone tells you that, ask them to specify.”

The smell of meat and smoke drifted to Mae and made her sit up, rising from the crushed grass. “All right, I’m awake. Feed me.”

Seb got up and started to hand around plates, though Mae noticed that Nick had to get his own. He abandoned the car and came to sit on the grass as far away from Seb as he could manage, hair drying tufty and falling damp into his eyes. Jamie looked mildly ill at the sight of food but also anxious not to insult Alan’s cooking, so he pushed it sneakily toward Nick whenever Alan happened to glance away.

Alan turned his head just in time to see Nick eating calmly off Jamie’s plate.

“Oh no, Nick,” Jamie said in tones of supremely unconvincing shock. “How could you? When my back was turned for one moment. And my food was so delicious.”

Alan reached out to smack Nick in the side of the head and Nick ducked, still eating. Mae was looking at them, glad that they seemed easy together for once, and she saw their faces change.

It was strange. For a moment they looked alike, eyes narrowed and lower lips drawn in, appreciative.

Then Alan smiled ruefully to himself and turned his head, Nick got to his feet, and Mae looked across to see what they’d been looking at.

Through the garden gates came Sin, like a reminder they could never really escape the magical world, a vision of beauty and danger that made Mae recall why she didn’t really want to.

She looked more normal than Mae had ever seen her, but she still moved like a dancer in jeans and a scarlet string top, a bright red bandanna caught in her flying hair. She was all vivid color, and for a moment Mae was just dazzled by how spectacular she was.

At the next moment she registered that Sin’s mouth was set in a straight red line.

“Sin?” Nick asked, and he definitely sounded pleased.

“Alan?” said Sin.

“Uh, no,” Nick told her.

Sin raked him with a dismissive dark glance and then looked away, her jaw tightening. “Alan?” she repeated. “I’ve been sent to deliver a message to you from Merris of the Market. Alone.”

Alan rose to his feet, lurching a little as he did so, and Sin looked away as if she’d seen something obscene, but she followed him into the kitchen.

And it occurred to Mae that Sin was exactly the right person to help her.

She stood and went for the kitchen door, where she halted and watched.

Alan and Sin were arguing in hushed, tense whispers, Sin’s back against the kitchen counter as if she felt the need to have her back to something in case a fight began. Alan was holding on to the counter, with his fingers gone white.

“Are you going to deliver the message, or did you just come here to accuse me of lying to Merris?”

“You did lie to Merris!”

“I lie to everyone,” Alan said softly. “It’s nothing personal.”

Sin looked furious and helpless for a moment, lips parted, and then nothing but furious again.

“Merris says she’ll do it. First of July. Huntingdon Market Square. There will be nobody there to stop you doing what needs doing. And I don’t even know what that means,” Sin went on, her voice suddenly sharp. “All I know is that you and Merris are making a bargain with the magicians, and I hate it more than I can say.”

“Well,” said Alan, “you’re not the leader yet.”

“We haven’t sold any talismans,” Sin said, her voice a little unsteady. “We haven’t given any advice. People are dying at the hands of demons, and we are doing nothing to stop it. I follow Merris’s orders, but if I didn’t? I’d carve your treacherous heart out of your chest.”

Alan’s voice didn’t change. It remained quiet and reasonable. “You’d try.”

Sin made a disgusted noise. “I think we’re done here.”

She pushed off the kitchen counter, and Alan grabbed her wrist. She stared up at him in outrage, every inch the princess of the Market assaulted by a commoner.

Alan said, “Stay.”

“What?” Sin exclaimed, sounding equal parts stunned and amused. “Because you enjoy my company so much?”

“Ah, no,” Alan said. “You and Nick were pretty friendly before all this, weren’t you?”

Sin put her hand behind her back, fingers curled over a slight bulge beneath her shirt where Mae was prepared to bet she kept her knife.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Go out and be nice to him. He doesn’t often like people. I don’t want him hurt.”

Sin’s mouth fell open. “Hurt? The demon? Oh my God, you’re crazy. You’re actually crazy.”

“I’ll pay you,” said Alan.

“I’m listening,” said Sin.

“Six-thousand-year-old Sumerian translation. It’s a full ritual, too, so the going rate will be higher.”

Sin’s eyes widened, but she was a Market girl. Mae wasn’t surprised to see that her face and voice betrayed nothing more. “Done,” she said briskly, and then a thought seemed to occur to her. She smiled, the curve of her lips cynical and not happy. “So you want me to play nice with the demon, do you?” Her stance shifted, ever so subtly. Suddenly the curves of her body were on offer, as was the curve of her red mouth when she said, low, “And you, traitor? How do you want me to treat you?”

Alan laughed. Sin looked outraged.

“Really, Cynthia.” He gave her a look over his glasses. “Your usual barely concealed contempt will be fine.”

“It’s Sin,” Sin snarled.

“Want to do another deal?” Alan asked. “Watch me walk across a room without flinching, and I’ll call you whatever you like.”

Sin bit her lip. “Get me that translation. I want to be paid in advance.”

Alan nodded and made his way across the kitchen. Sin leaned against the counter with her back deliberately to him, so she wouldn’t have to see him walk.

That meant she saw Mae standing at the door. She gave her a slight smile and pushed herself up so she was sitting on the counter, one slim leg kicking out at a cabinet. “Hear anything interesting?”

“I think so,” Mae said slowly. “Merris is incapacitating the Market and allying with the magicians.”

Sin looked angry for a moment, then sighed and let her tense shoulders relax. Mae crossed the room to Sin and leaned against the counter, close enough that Sin’s bare shoulder was pressed warm against Mae’s blouse.

“Gerald of the Obsidian Circle wants Alan to trap Nick on Market night and strip him of his powers,” Mae said. “One blow and he gets rid of the greatest threat they have. Nobody can stand up to him then. Merris isn’t even trying to stand up to him now. How long do you think the Market will survive?”

“The other choice is that Merris dies,” Sin said, her voice a thread.

Mae closed her eyes. “I know. I’m really sorry. But you told me you loved the Market.”

“What can I do?” Sin demanded.

Mae could hear Alan’s step outside the door and only had time to say, “Something,” before he came in. He looked mildly startled to see her but approached Sin anyway, handing her a folded piece of paper and a tablet wrapped in cloth. Sin opened the paper and scanned it with an expert’s eye.

“All I have to do is pretend to like your demon?”

“Putting on a show is kind of your specialty, isn’t it?”

“I thought it was yours,” Sin said, level. “You had us all fooled.”

“True. I know all the acts people put on,” Alan told her absently, fetching a plastic bottle of lemonade out of the fridge as he spoke. “So you’d better make your act good.”

He left, swinging the bottle in his hand. Sin looked very annoyed as she swung her little black bag off her shoulder and onto the counter and stuffed the tablet and the translation inside. Mae felt a little ill watching an ancient artifact being handled like Monday’s homework, but she stopped herself from snatching it away.

Instead she said, “Can we talk?”

Sin looked up, her eyes narrowed. “Later,” she promised, low and thrilling, the voice she used at the Market. “Right now I have a show to put on.”

She left her bag on the counter and walked out into the sunlight. Even her hair seemed to be moving differently, swinging jauntily around her slim shoulders. She headed straight for Nick.

Mae watched from the door and felt the mark burn hot under her blouse.

“Now I have the boring part of the afternoon done with,” Sin said, without even sparing Alan a glance, “I thought I might stick around. See if there’s anything exciting going on.”

Nick leaned back on his elbows, looking more relaxed as well as slightly predatory.

“What did you have in mind?”

Sin offered him her hand and he took it, thumb moving deliberately over the inside of her wrist, and let her pull him to his feet. She did not wait a moment before she stepped in and kissed him on his curling mouth.

“Surprise me,” she suggested.

Then she sat down gracefully beside Jamie and gave him a smile. Jamie gave her a look of wholehearted admiration.

“You should draw her,” he advised Seb, having clearly decided Seb had a use after all.

“If you like,” Sin allowed, brushing her hair back. It was glinting brown and red in the sunlight, enough glowing tones to show it was dark instead of black.

Seb looked pleased to show off his artistic skills, shifting his notebook to one knee and starting to sketch, lead whispering against the smooth paper. Mae noticed that he didn’t seem all that impressed by Sin, which was kind of nice after the way Alan’s and Nick’s eyes had followed her entrance.

While Seb was drawing, Sin wandered over and sat on Nick’s Vanquish, pulling Mae over to put her hair in tiny pink braids. Nick regarded them both with amusement.

“You said I was never even allowed touch the car,” Jamie grumbled.

“Well, get that good-looking and I’ll let you do anything you want,” Nick told him. “Also, stop moaning or I’ll remember that today I want to start you on sword practice.”

“Sword practice?” Sin echoed. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

“Nick fences,” Mae informed Seb. “The little white outfit and the metal beehive helmet? He wears those.”