Blood Pact (Darkling Mage 7)

“Well,” Carver said, “technically, it still is. Observe.”

Mammon held true to its word: demon nobility could most definitely survive outside of their domiciles. The loose bits and pieces of its corporeal form smacked and squished as they crawled across the floor, picking up dust and grit as they slithered home to the golden pool where Mammon’s disembodied feet were still planted.

Little by little, the many, many fragments found their way into the pool, sinking into the molten gold, no doubt returning to Mammon’s hell to regenerate. And the next time we saw Mammon, I had no doubt that it would be very, very pissed. Its emerald eye rolled all the way to the pool, gave me one last baleful stare, then sank into the liquid gold.

A pair of lips slurped over, crawling like a fleshy slug. The lips moved, a voice emanating from somewhere within the pool. “Now Mammon wants the dog even more.”

Then the gold itself sank into the stone floor, leaving nothing but horrible smears of demon blood.

Something that smelled faintly like farts fluttered by my head, then sat on my shoulder.

“What’d I miss?” Scrimshaw said, munching on a handful of Puppy Yum biscuits. Banjo stared up at him curiously, or maybe he just wanted a treat.

“By the gods above and below,” Carver muttered. “What a mess. See that you clean this up. All of you. We need to strengthen the wards in this place. No more bloody gods and demons strutting in whenever they please.”

“Aww,” Scrimshaw said. “Well that’s no fun.”

“Wait,” I said. “About that. Can you make one exception?”

“Is it me?” Scrimshaw said.

Carver’s eyes smoldered like embers as he glared at Scrimshaw, then at me. Sufficiently shaken, Scrimshaw mewled, then vanished in a puff of farts. I coughed, choking on the smell, but Carver’s stare made sure that I regained my composure pretty damn quickly.

“The longer we put this off, Dustin, the more likely we are to be assaulted again. Perhaps next time Mammon will be more cautious. Perhaps it will bring minions.” Carver’s lips drew back. “Or the other princes.”

I put my hands up. “Okay, fine. I’ll help you ward the place.” I looked down at myself. “Um, after I put on some pajamas or something.”

Carver’s gaze trailed down, then up my body. “That would be advisable. Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back. One thing, though. How do you think Mama Rosa feels about roasting a whole pig? And is the restaurant big enough for a party? Plus, say, two entities?”

Chapter 28

It turned out that the kitchen of Mama Rosa’s Fine Filipino Food was too small to accommodate the roasting of an entire animal. Or a lechon, as she called it, the Filipino name given to whole roast pigs or cows. We had to look up an actual caterer, one that Mama Rosa selected herself out of her phone. That she had them in her contacts was interesting enough. The fact that she had one business in particular on speed dial was even more curious.

Carver yelled at me a little bit, but otherwise was pretty much okay with the idea of performing the special communion in the restaurant. Mama Rosa’s was small, but there was no chance of it happening in the Boneyard because of the fresh wards. Plus, where the hell else were we going to pull off a feast on such short notice?

Or a fiesta, as Mama Rosa called it.

“Piyesta, to be accurate,” she said, dropping some fresh Tagalog knowledge on me shortly before sending me out to fetch the pig. “We will show this goddess a good time.”

Artemis was going to have a great time, judging by the size of the damn thing. I wasn’t sure a rideshare was going to take me while I was lugging the equivalent of several hams joined end to end, and the sun was beating hot that afternoon, which meant very bad things for transporting porky perishables, but the lady running the caterer was nice enough to send me off with her brother, who drove me back to Mama Rosa’s in a truck.

“You guys deliver, don’t you?” I said, hopping out of the passenger side.

“We do, actually.”

I frowned. Then why did Rosa send me out personally?

“To save money,” she said sagely as Gil helped me carry the pig, wrapped in its own special box, into the restaurant. “And to get you boys out of my hair while I decorate.”

She clapped her hands, and the inside of Mama Rosa’s Fine Filipino Food lit up with tiny fires hovering in various corners. My jaw dropped. There were palm fronds everywhere, growing out of the walls, it seemed, which themselves were covered in deep green moss. The tables were covered in huge banana leaves, topped with silver plates and silver utensils, as per Apollo’s instructions. And the greasy linoleum floor was nowhere to be found, carpeted in lush blades of grass. Mama Rosa had magicked the restaurant into a miniature jungle, not unlike Artemis’s domicile.

“Holy crap,” I said, lowering the pig onto a table. “It’s beautiful.”

“I know,” Rosa said, frowning at her surroundings. “I am incredible.”

“Care to share why you don’t do something like this every day?” I said. “It might help for business.”