I took a deep breath and told him what had happened. Little expression showed on his face.
“Clever,” he finally said, once I finished the story.
“Clever?” I exclaimed, beckoning for a second drink since I’d inhaled the first in under two minutes. “That was f**king insane! Do you have any idea what they said to me? What they said they’d do to me?”
Luis shook his head, still looking unconcerned. “They’re trying to scare you. And yeah, it’s working, but you know they can’t hurt you. You’re protected under all the rules of this trial, and anyway, Jerome would string up any and all of them if they laid a hand on you. They’re flies compared to him.”
“It was horrible,” I reiterated with a shudder. “I can’t believe they all latched on to this idea. It’s insane.”
“Not really.” Luis downed his own drink, bourbon and soda. “Kurtis has the most to offer, so his bribes would be the best. And this option also curries the most favor with Noelle. She hates Starla. Noelle would be happy to see her suffer. And Clyde was uppity when he got pissed off over the promotion thing. That had to have hurt her pride too. This way, he’s taught a lesson about what happens when you talk back to your superiors.”
I groaned. “So the jurors get their reward and earn brownie points with Noelle.”
Luis nodded.
“What are the odds of the jurors changing their mind?”
“About as good as a snowball’s chances in Hell.”
I glared.
“Sorry,” he said, looking chagrined.
I restrained myself with the second drink, instead stirring the ice around and around.
“What can I do?” I asked bleakly. “I’m pretty sure Clyde and Starla didn’t do this.”
“You do the only things you can do. You either agree with the jury or stand against them.”
I choked on a bitter laugh. “You think I can stand against them?”
“If anyone can, you can.”
“Sure. That would be my ‘annoying yet adorable sense of right and wrong,’ right?”
He grinned. “It’s what makes you so entertaining.”
I turned back to my drink. “I can’t stand against them. I’ll go insane. And this thing will never end.”
“Then cast your vote.” I got the impression Luis’s interest was now more in observing the moral snafu I was in, rather than seeing how the trial ended.
“Don’t know if I can do that either.”
He stood up and patted my shoulder. “Well then, darling. You’re f**ked. But if you survive all this, you can come work for me in Vegas anytime.”
Luis left the bar, and I followed a few minutes later. As I did, I passed Kurtis. He smirked and started to join me.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I snapped.
“I hear there was a little dissension in the jury.” He chuckled. “But only a little.”
I stopped and turned on him, forgetting for half a second I was squaring off against a demon more powerful than me physically and magically.
“I can’t believe you did this! Arranged this. It’s bad enough you wanted to bribe people, even if it made the wrong person suffer. But this? Now two people will suffer.”
“I hear it’s a pretty sound theory, though,” he said glibly.
“It’s horrible.”
“We work for Hell, little one.” When I didn’t respond, he continued, “Besides, if it goes my way, I’ll still make good on our deal. This is a win for you.”
“I don’t need your deal.”
“Right. Because your boyfriend is proving true and stalwart against Blondie.”
“He is.”
Kurtis shook his head, still wearing that annoying smirk. “Georgina, Georgina. No wonder Luis likes you so much. You’re adorable.” He took a step toward me and lowered his voice. “I know about last night, and from what I saw, your guy didn’t seem to do that good a job against your—I mean, her—charms.”
“You followed me?” I cried. This got worse and worse. I bit back a stream of obscenities.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. He didn’t try anything. He didn’t offer anything.”
“Well, it was only the first date,” pointed out Kurtis.
“It wasn’t a date.”
He rolled his eyes. “Semantics. Okay, then. You think he could be so noble again? On the second da—whatever?”
“There isn’t going to be a second da—whatever.”
“Are you sure? Would he refuse?”
“Of cour—” I stopped because suddenly, I wasn’t sure.
Kurtis laughed at my doubt and stepped away. “Go and see.”
I watched him go. A thousand emotions rushed through me. Fear and frustration over the jury. Doubt and jealousy over Seth. Kurtis was a very good demon, I realized. And by good, I meant evil and despicable. Once again, he’d thrown me into the kind of state that’s led mortals into temptation for millennia. My stress and anxiety from the jury debacle only intensified matters.
Which is why it shouldn’t have been surprising when—despite my promises not to repeat last night—I called Seth and told him I’d be busy tonight. A half hour later, I found a lobby phone and called him as Beth, asking him for dinner again.
To my supreme dismay, he accepted.
Chapter Ten
I’d had pretty bad hand-eye coordination when I’d been a mortal, but centuries and centuries of practice will pretty much perfect almost any skill set.
“Whoa,” said Seth, wide-eyed.
A Ping-Pong ball sailed from my hand and landed neatly into a glass filled with blue water. About twenty other glasses sat pressed together around the blue one, some with clear water and some with red. I eyed my target and launched another Ping Pong ball. It too landed in the blue glass. It was the third time I’d hit my mark.
The guy running the game booth shook his head. “I don’t see that very often.”
Seth turned and grinned at me—or rather, he turned and grinned at Beth. We’d taken a cab to this small, beachside carnival and had spent most of our evening playing games and spinning around on rides that caused me only a little more nausea than jury deliberation had. After all that demonic bribery and intrigue, impersonating another woman in order to test my boyfriend seemed downright mundane.
“That was amazing,” said Seth. “You play sports or something?”
“Now and then,” I replied enigmatically.
“Here you go.” The game attendant shook his head again and handed me a large, stuffed dragon. I handed it to Seth, who already held a unicorn and a bear.
“You sure you’re okay with all that?” I asked him as we walked away.
“Hey, I’m not winning anything,” he replied, shifting his hold on the animals. “You’re doing all the work. I figure I should just help out the best I can.”
I laughed. It was such a typical Seth thing to say. If his arms weren’t full, I might have been in danger of reaching out and holding his hand.
“I can’t keep those,” I told him. “You want to take them home?”
“No,” he said promptly. “Too much trouble.” I wondered if he was contemplating the difficulty in fitting them in his luggage or the difficulty in explaining to his girlfriend how he’d acquired another woman’s midway winnings.
Fluffy clouds of pale pink caught my eye, and I honed in on a cotton candy vendor. I bought a clump of it, and Seth and I sat on a nearby bench so that he could deposit his burden and eat the spun sugar with me.
“Good God,” he said, putting a piece into his mouth. “I can feel myself getting diabetes already.”
I didn’t respond right away, instead luxuriating in the way the billowy sugar melted away to nothing on my tongue. “You look like you’re in shape,” I told him a few moments later. “I don’t think you’re doing any permanent damage.”
“Not at the moment, no. But I can’t make this a regular thing. I swim and jog, but considering how much time I just, well, sit around…yeah. Gotta watch this stuff.” He tore off another piece. “But not right now.”
I chuckled. “I hear you. I have to go to the gym every day and…” I paused. What trendy fitness activity were mortal women doing these days? “…and pay homage to the elliptical machine. Pain in the ass—no pun intended. I mean, I hate those people who can eat anything they want and never gain a pound.”