Wayward Devils (Souls of the Road #4)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

“ D emon,” Lula whispered.

Bathin dragged a chair over from a nearby table so he could crowd into Raven’s space.

“My name is Bathin,” he said, not bothering to offer his hand for a shake. “You’re Lula and Brogan Gauge, correct?”

We didn’t reply. Abbi wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t relaxed. Raven still had his arm around her, but the mood was tense.

“Why are you here?” Abbi asked. “Why is a demon here?”

Raven sighed, breaking the tension. “You know I could throw you under the bus here, Bathin. Demons are not known for being the sorts of creatures to sit down for a chat. It’d be easy to convince them you aren’t trustworthy.”

“You won’t.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound like me.” Raven shifted to rest his elbow on the table. “Want to tell me why I won’t tell them to ignore you?”

“Because Delaney Reed hasn’t caught on to what you’re doing yet, and neither has Myra or Jean. But if you’re going to follow through on this plan, whatever the hell it is, I want to make sure there are guardrails in place—guardrails on you—to keep Ordinary safe.”

“You mean guardrails that will keep your girlfriend, Myra, safe,” Raven corrected.

“Both, Crow. Both need to remain safe from your wild ass ideas.”

“Who is Delaney Reed?” Abbi asked.

“She and her sisters are the people who keep Ordinary, Oregon, a safe haven for gods, supernaturals, and humans. It’s a vacation town, and the Reed sisters have the power to say who can and can’t stay,” Raven said.

“I’m staying,” Bathin said.

Raven sat back and grinned. “Delaney really got in your head, didn’t she? Big powerful demon stealing all the souls, signing all the lives away on the dotted line. Sitting here in a mediocre diner in the burnt-end of Texas, big mad that I got the best brownie in the kitchen.”

“I don’t give a damn about brownies, Crow.”

“You give a damn about something to be here.”

“I give a damn you don’t screw us all over.”

“Yawn. This would be more fun without you.”

“Proving my point.”

“Is he a good guy?” Abbi asked Raven.

The god shrugged. “He’s in love with a mortal, in debt to her powerful sister, and has a very high opinion of his ability to keep them both safe.”

“But…” Abbi looked between Raven and Bathin. “Do you like those people too? The powerful sisters?”

“Yes,” Raven said simply. “Very much. Which is why I’m here—eating the best brownie,” he threw a look at the demon, who crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, “which Bathin wants, but can’t have.”

“I’m confused,” Abbi said. “Is this about sisters or brownies?”

“This is about the spellbook,” Bathin said. “We know it’s being hunted. By you,” he nodded toward me and Lula, “and by others who should not have that kind of power in their hands. We know you’ve had it.”

“We don’t care what you know,” I said. “We want nothing to do with gods or demons.”

“Whether you want it or not, you are already involved,” Bathin said. “Cupid took his god form and fought At? on Earth. When gods battle on Earth, and you are at the center of that battle, you do not have a choice in the matter.”

“You saw that?” Abbi peered around Raven to assess the demon.

“Oh, e veryone saw that,” Raven said. “It isn’t often a god appears in full power on the visible plane. The last time was…centuries ago.”

“Pompeii?” Bathin asked.

“I was thinking Mt. Mazama.”

The demon grunted. “You,” he tipped his chin toward us, “have been noticed by devils far worse than us. Devils you do not want to face alone.”

“Gods, devils. Plenty of other unsavory things.” Raven gulped his tea. When he set the glass down, he was serious, measuring us with sober eyes.

“If this could be avoided,” he said, calm and utterly mesmerizing, “I for one, would be all for it. Bun Bun cares for you. I think Cupid may, too, in his way. This is complicated work made more so by the target you drew on your back.”

“Target?” Lula asked.

“At?. Of all the gods in all the universes, why did you have to draw her notice? She is such an unreasonable bitch.”

“Bad word.” Abbi leaned back into Raven’s one-armed hug.

“Sorry. She is such a vengeful bitch.”

Abbi giggled.

“For the third time,” I said. “Leave.”

Raven held up a finger. “You made deals with Cupid. A deal with the Hush—don’t think that went without notice. Deals with—”

“We’re done.” I half stood to leave, but there was a wall of demon in my way.

“If you want to survive,” the demon warned, “you need more information.”

Lula scoffed.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re going to tell us everything we need to know. For a price. How generous.”

Raven’s smile showed sharp teeth. “You’d be surprised how generous a god can be when it comes to the lost spellbook. A lot of unsavory people want it. But we want it more.”

We knew gods, monsters, and devils wanted the book. Hell, ever since we’d dug that damn thing out of the broken shack in Illinois, we’d run into more than our share of supernaturals.

And yes, we had agreed to look for the book for Cupid. But we hadn’t made any promise we’d bring it to him in a hurry.

What we wanted—the only way out of the deals we’d made and the targets we’d put on our back—was to destroy the book. Failing that, we wanted to hide it so no one and nothing would ever be able to find it again.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Raven said.

“Says the trickster god,” Bathin added.

“But I can be so annoyingly persistent when I don’t get my way.”

“You’re always annoyingly persistent,” Bathin said. “Except when there’s actual work to be done.”

“Says the king who wouldn’t take his own throne in Hell.”

“I like my current living arrangements. That’s not changing.”

“Not even for power? For adoration? To rule?”

“I have all the power and adoration I need.”

“Really?” Raven threw him a look. “Huh. I thought you were just…vacationing from all that.”

“I’m here because I want to protect what I value, Crow. I value Ordinary.”

“Something we have in common,” Raven said. “So do you want the information or not?” he asked us.

I opened my mouth to tell him to shove off.

“What does it cost?” Lula asked.

“This,” he said. “Your time. Your willingness to listen.”

The diner song changed to Kenny Rogers talking about poker hands—when to fold ‘em. When to hold ‘em.

If we listened to whatever information he wanted to give us, I knew someday we’d owe this god more than our time. Listening would be a terrible idea.

“Tell us,” Lula said.

I stifled a sigh. This was not going to end well.

Raven put his fork down.

“The gods’ spellbook has been forgotten by many. By most. An experiment lost to the dust of time. Now it’s reappeared, but it is not easy to keep. You know that.

“The book won’t allow just anyone to handle it. It also won’t allow just anyone to speak the spells within it to wield the gods’ magic. You’ve touched it. One of you.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Brogan?”

“I touched it, and it knocked me on my ass.”

The smile again, with just the hint of tooth. “So, Lula, you’re the one who can hold it.”

Her head made the smallest motion of refusal, then stopped. “Back in McLean. I had it in my hands.”

“What happened?” Raven asked.

“A monster hunter.” It was her turn to show a little teeth. “With a gun. He took it.”

“Was he human?” Bathin asked.

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“Yes,” the demon said.

I made a short list of the people I knew who had touched the book: Stella who had hidden it in the little shack before she’d become a ghost. Hatcher, the monster hunter with the gun, who had stolen it. Lula, me. And At?.

The only one of that bunch who had been purely human was Stella. But now that I thought about it, there was a chance she had supernatural in her blood and didn’t know it.

“Hands and voice,” Raven went on like he’d given this lecture a hundred times. “It takes two beings to use the book. One to hold it, the other to speak the spells. It was a safety feature, I think. I don’t remember who made it that way. One of the goodie-good gods, I’m sure.”

“That’s the information you thought we needed?” I asked. “That it takes two not-quite-humans to use the book?”

“Two not-quite-humans like you,” Raven said. “Exactly like you. Exclusively like you.”

His words punched the oxygen out of the place. And the hits kept coming.

“It’s why At? tried to kill you, Brogan, and hold you, Lula. It’s why you were attacked a hundred years ago. It’s why your souls were shredded and a piece of each of your souls was stitched into the other. It’s why you were chained to the earth. To follow Route 66 so At? could keep an eye on you.

“You were born for this, and then you were made into this so At? could find the book, keep the book, and use the book.”

I slipped my hand over Lula’s beneath the table. The ice of her skin stung against the heat of my palm.

“I don’t know why you two were chosen,” Raven said, as if we were talking about a shopping list, how the crops were coming in, if it were going to rain.

“It’s their souls,” Bathin said. “And their love.”

My hand clenched. What did a demon know about love?

Bathin grunted, reading my reaction. “Demons make the human soul our specialty—mostly to exploit it. It’s why we know the power of love. How it can destroy and be destroyed, how it can survive and even thrive against all hope.”

“So, there you have it,” Raven said. “Your souls and love have made you targets. Along with your stubbornness. Congrats.

“This is me putting all the cards I can on the table.” He spread his fingers across the table top like he was revealing a winning hand. “You need to find the spell book. Out of all the options, I’d rather have it in your hands than any of the others who want it and will use it.”

He leaned back. “I will help you in any way I can—without crossing the deals you have made with Cupid, and without him knowing, if that’s how you want to play it.”

“Generous.” My voice was distant in my ears. Shock, I thought.

“Not generous,” he corrected. “I’m offering to help you for very selfish reasons. That book is a terrible mistake. It’s a fucking universe-ending bomb waiting to go off. Gods are arrogant. They think they are untouchable, unbeatable. Unkillable.”

Abbi made a little sound indicating she agreed.

“Creating a book of magic, one spell from each god, might have been a lark, an experiment, long forgotten. But for those of us who still kick around this earthly plane? It is an absolute shit show about to happen.”

“Shit show already happened,” Bathin said.

“Because Cupid and At? fought?” Abbi asked.

Raven tightened his arm around her. “More than that, Bun Bun. Did you hear the ruckus in the Underworld?”

“The King falling?”

He nodded.

“There was a dragon too,” Abbi said as if remembering something she’d seen in dreams. “Was the dragon a spell in the book?”

“No, that was Delaney’s angry pet. But the whole reason the showdown happened was because the Demon King tore a page out of the book and used the spell. If a demon can figure out a loophole to get his hands on that power, then anything can figure out a loophole.”

Bathin crossed arms over his chest again. “Demons and worse are looking for the spellbook. Hunting for it. They’re hunting the two of you too.”

“Because I can touch it?” Lula asked.

“Yes,” Raven said. “And because when you hold it, Brogan could cast every one of those powerful spells in it.”