“You can stop now.”
“What?” I asked, surprised when he pulled me out of my musings.
“Trying to figure me out.”
“I was just contemplating the fact that you don’t have scales and pointy teeth.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he said, accompanying his statement with a dimple.
“How were you able to get the knife? Demons can’t even touch it without it infecting them.”
“Good thing I’m not a demon.”
Right. I knew that. Technically, he wasn’t a demon. “So, it won’t kill you?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
So, he could touch it, but it could still kill him. The same thing could be said about my relationship with knives. Or pretty much anything. Or anyone. “You said the knife had a glow to it. What does it look like in your eyes?”
“I don’t know. It just has this soft sheen that I could see even through your pants. Kind of what a human soul looks like.”
“Like an aura?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, but more like the soul itself.”
“Oh.”
When it didn’t sink in, he asked, “Can’t you see them? Human souls?”
“Not really. Not like you. Not until they’ve passed. Then I can see the dickens out of them.”
He straightened in his chair. “Surely you can see your own light. It’s blinding.”
I shook my head. “Not so much.”
“How can you mark souls if you can’t see them?”
That threw me. “Um, I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
His surprise turned to anger. “You’re kidding me.”
I reached down and waited for Artemis to appear by my side. She rose up from the floor into my hand. I scratched her head absently as the Dealer took her in.
“What is your name?” I asked, changing the subject. “I only know you as the Dealer.”
“Is that what you told her, Rey’aziel? That I was a Dealer?”
Only after he said that did I feel Reyes. He materialized more fully, and his heat rushed over me in a scorching wave. Naturally, he was angry.
He stood in his hooded cloak directly between the Dealer and me. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice cold and hard like marble.
I rose to my feet, but Reyes still towered over me, his robes undulating around us. I couldn’t see his face within the folds of unending darkness that enshrouded him. “The Dealer took the dagger. I was trying to get it back.”
“You would come here, you would face this thing, alone? After everything we talked about?”
“Apparently.”
My humor did not amuse him.
I sighed. “Believe it or not, you are not helping this situation. I knew I’d have a better chance of getting it back without you here.”
“You have a better chance of losing your soul to him, that’s for certain.”
“Can you just have a little faith in me, Reyes? I’m not stupid.”
His cloak disappeared, falling around him in a cascade of smoke and fog to reveal his requisite jeans and a navy button-down with the sleeves rolled up, exposing his sinewy forearms. He looked really good. He walked up to me until we stood a couple of feet apart, coming dangerously close to invading my personal space. “That, my dear, remains to be seen.”
He continued forward, and just as we were about to touch, he dematerialized in a burst of smoke, his essence enveloping me for just a moment.
But I went from flirty to furious instantly. I looked at the Dealer. “He did not just say that.” I knew Reyes was still there. He hadn’t left. He wouldn’t, I knew. But he was giving me as much privacy as possible.
One corner of the Dealer’s mouth tilted up. “He has a point, you know.”
I sat down, my back stiff. “You’re on his side?”
“On this, yes, I am. You take your role too lightly.”
A sigh slipped past my lips. “My role in what? Taking down the monsters in the basement?”
“No. The only monster that matters. It’s imperative that you live.”
“It’s imperative that you give me back the dagger.”
“What will you give me in return?”
Uh-oh. “This is the bargaining part, right? Where you try to steal my soul?”
“If I wanted your soul, I’d have it.”
“I have to give it over willingly.”
“Oh, you would.” The grin that spread over his face was a little disturbing. “Quite willingly. It would be easy. Too easy. And that’s what makes me nervous.”
No one had any faith in me whatsoever. What would it take to convince them I was competent? Maybe if I stopped getting tortured and beaten up every few days. That would be a good start, anyway. I made a promise to myself. No more getting tortured for—I counted on my fingers—two, no three months.
“Why are you so invested in this?” I asked him. “What do you have against Lucifer?”
“The fact that he enslaved me isn’t enough of a reason?”
“Okay, that’s a pretty good one, but I’ve come up against his slaves before.”
“The mindless creatures who came after you? Do I seem mindless?”
“Not especially. Or you didn’t until you broke into my apartment. You’re paying to have it cleaned up, by the way.”