Chapter 6: The Roof

Zane got in the SUV and rolled the window down.

"Think about it, kiddo," he called, cheerful again, and drove off.

His three pests slid in under the back bumper and went with him.

I stood in the gravel with my hands shaking.

"Is it real?" I said. "The offer?"

Ivo didn't answer right away.

"Ivo. You can't lie to me. So don't stall either."

"Half," he said.

"Which half?"

"If you go with him willingly, the debt's paid early. Your mother's off the hook. That part's real."

He looked down the empty road.

"The part where she never gets hurt is a lie. Men like him always come back for more. They make a second deal. Then a third."

"So I'd die, and she'd still have him."

"Yes."

I kicked the gravel.

A piece of it hit the gate with a ping.

"There has to be a way out that isn't me going in a car with him."

"There is."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's hard, and you'd do it."

I turned on him.

"Tell me."

He leaned on the stone gatepost, arms crossed.

"A deal dies if the buyer loses what he bought. In front of witnesses. Before it comes due."

"What did he buy?"

"You heard them laugh. You saw them turn to him like he's the sun."

"Love," I said slowly. "He bought people loving him."

"His audience. All of them."

I thought about the salon ladies sighing.

About the client with ten signed journals on her shelf.

About the billboard on I-95 with his teeth on it.

"So I have to make his audience stop loving him," I said. "In front of them. By September tenth."

"Yes."

"That's insane."

"Yes."

"Okay."

He looked at me.

"Okay?"

"I kill things people can't see for a living. Now I have a client."

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