Hell Has a Succession Problem

Dinner With Dad

Marcel had always pictured his father with horns.

Instead the Devil wore cream linen and a silver beard, and he stood at the foot of the stairs like a man who owned a vineyard.

Warm brown eyes. A kind smile. Nothing about him was on fire.

That was the horrifying part.

"There he is," the Devil said. "You've gotten thin."

"You've gotten old," said Marcel.

"Rude. I missed it."

Behind Marcel, Trigon had gone rigid. His knuckles whitened on the desk, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Listen to me," Trigon breathed. "Whatever he offers, you do not say yes. Not once. Not even to the salt."

"What happens if I say yes to the salt?"

Trigon didn't answer.

Marcel turned. The office window stood open to the night, curtains stirring, and the chair where Trigon had sat was empty.

Of course. The only ally he had, and the man ran at the first sign of Dad.

Marcel went downstairs alone, still holding the warm knife like a dead bird.

The club had changed.

The glass was gone from the floor. The ash was gone from the bar. Even the ruined pad thai had vanished from the tile.

In the middle of the dance floor stood a table set for two, with white linen and real candles.

Steam rose from a covered dish. It smelled like rosemary and lamb.

Marcel's stomach turned over. He had not smelled that in fifteen years.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what?" The Devil pulled out a chair for him. "I only order what I remember."

"You tidied my floor."

"Evidence is vulgar. Sit."

"I'll stand."

"Then stand and eat. I'm told that's how your generation does it."

Marcel sat. He hated that he sat.

The Devil poured wine with his left hand. His right lay flat on the tablecloth, pressed down hard, as if the table might float away without it.

Marcel noticed. He filed it with the other things he would panic about later. The pile was getting tall.

"Your mother used to make this," the Devil said.

"Leave her out of it."

"Everything is about her, eventually." He smiled. "But we'll start with you. How is the throat?"

"Six fingers. Whose were they?"

"Not mine."

"Funny. It's your whole department."

"It is." The Devil's smile thinned. "That is what frightens me."

Marcel stared at him. In thirty years, he had never once seen his father frightened.

"Three sovereigns want you dead," the Devil went on. "Four want you leashed. Only the crown makes you untouchable. So take it."

"No."

"I haven't finished."

"Still no."

"Marcel." The Devil set down his glass. "You run a bar. You have a doctor who brings you noodles and a manager with migraines. You think this is a life?"

"I think it's mine."

"It's a tent in a hurricane."

"Then it's a very nice tent."

The candles guttered. Every glass in the club began to hum again.

"I am not asking," the Devil said softly. "I am telling you what I can no longer prevent. They will come for you. One by one, then all at once. The throne ends that."

"The throne ends me," Marcel said. "I've seen your face when you think nobody's looking."

The Devil's right hand twitched on the linen.

For half a second, something old and tired flickered behind the warm brown eyes.

Then it was gone, and he laughed.

"You see? You're already clever enough to rule."

"I'm clever enough to leave."

"Mm. Let's see how far you get."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a forecast. I have excellent sources."

"Your sources tried to strangle me tonight."

"Then perhaps they are not my sources anymore."

Marcel opened his mouth to answer.

The east wall exploded.

Brick and plaster tore across the dance floor. The table flipped. Candles scattered like fireflies. Marcel hit the floor with a mouthful of linen.

Something enormous stepped through the hole.

It wore a coat stitched from a dozen different hides, and a hooked iron spear dragged in its fist, trailing sparks. Its face was a mask of nailed leather, with two yellow eyes burning in the gaps.

"Heir," it rumbled. "The bounty is mine."

"You're bleeding on my floor," Marcel said, because his mouth never stopped. "That's a cleaning f*e."

The Devil rose from the wreckage without a crease in his suit.

"Hunter," he said pleasantly. "You are standing in my son's house."

"I do not serve the throne."

"No. You serve whoever pays. Who paid?"

"Seven days of hunting," the hunter said. "Three sovereigns pay triple for the heart."

The Devil's smile dropped off his face.

The temperature fell twenty degrees. The floor cracked in a slow, spreading web, and the air smelled like old pennies and burning hair.

"No," Marcel said.

"Stay behind me," said the Devil.

"No!" Marcel scrambled between them with the knife in one hand and a cocktail napkin in the other, because he was an idiot. "Nobody is killing anybody in here. I just had the floors done. Well, you did."

"Move, boy," the hunter growled.

"Make me."

"With pleasure."

The spear came up. The Devil's fingers flared red, and a wall of heat rose around his son like a shield.

Marcel did the only thing he could think of.

He grabbed the covered dish off the floor, held it up like a priest with a chalice, and shouted, "House rules!"

Everyone froze.

Even the Devil.

"You know the old law," Marcel said, hoarse and fast and half guessing. "A host's table is sanctuary until dessert is served. Nobody bleeds until dessert."

The hunter's yellow eyes narrowed. "That law is dead."

"Is it?" Marcel turned. "Dad?"

For a long moment, the Devil only looked at him.

Then, slowly, like a man who had just been handed something precious, he smiled.

"It stands," the Devil said. "I wrote it."

The hunter swore in a language that made the candles shrink.

"Then serve dessert, heir."

"Can't. Out of crème brûlée."

"Marcel," the Devil murmured, "do not push your luck."

"I run a bar, not a patisserie. We have olives. Do you want an olive?"

The hunter's spear lowered an inch. Then another.

"Seven days," it said at last. "Then no table, no law, no father. Just me."

It backed through the hole in the wall, dragging the spear, and stepped out into the empty street.

The club went quiet.

Marcel lowered the covered dish. His hands were shaking so hard the lid rattled.

"You used my rule," the Devil said, brushing plaster off his sleeve. "To protect me."

"To protect my floor."

"Of course." He was still smiling, and it was the worst thing Marcel had seen all night. "He bought you seven days. So do I."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the court gathers a week from now, and a seat is waiting for you. Sit in it, or I stop being able to help."

"You're helping?"

"Badly. I'm out of practice." The Devil straightened his collar. "Seven days, Marcel. Think of this place as a deposit."

"On what?"

"Your life."

He walked to the door. Cold air poured in from the street. The Devil paused with his hand on the frame, and for a moment Marcel thought he would say something kind.

"Lock up behind me," he said. "You never know who walks in."

Then he was gone.

Marcel stood alone in the ruin of his dinner, the knife heavy in his fist.

Seven days.

He didn't hear the front door open again until something fell against it.

A heavy, wet sound, like a sack of laundry hitting the tile.

"Boss?"

Marcel spun.

Cass, his night bartender, lay sprawled just inside the door, one hand stretched toward him. She hummed off key when she polished glasses, and she had gone home hours ago.

Her sleeve was gone. Her forearm was black from the elbow down, cracked like burnt wood, with a thin line of ash trailing from every crack.

"Something followed me," she whispered. "It said to tell you the invitation was a courtesy."

Her eyes rolled back.

And as Marcel dropped beside her, a hooked mark on her wrist began to glow, the same hard yellow as the hunter's eyes.