Into the Tiger's Hour

Chapter Twelve

A page flipped and Jonas rubbed his eyes, letting out a loud sigh of impatience.

The demon across the table didn't lift his gaze from the letter he was reading. "Finding it a touch harder than you thought it would be?"

"No. ...well..."

"Yes?"

Jonas puffed another breath and rose to his feet, the cheap aluminum legs of his chair scraping across the linoleum. Betre grimaced, his concentration broken, and set the letter down, looking up irritably. "If you're going to stop studying, then be constructive and make fresh coffee."

The death mage walked to the insulated pitcher on the counter and opened it, peering inside. "There's still plenty in here."

"You made that five hours ago. I prefer it fresh."

The apartment was really too small for two men to move about in it comfortably, too ...cheap for Betre to be really at ease in it and too crowded with memories for Jonas to relax. He'd lived there for five years and hadn't hung a single thing on the walls aside from the calendar that still showed the previous year's summer, a series of days marked off in red permanent marker. It was cleaner than it had been, thanks to Betre's recoil when he'd first set foot in it, but the Formica on the counters was faded and stained, the linoleum a horrible shade of mustard yellow and peeling, and the furnishings were all scrounged from thrift stores and curbs.

Really, why anyone would choose to live like that was beyond the demon's comprehension.

The French press, gourmet coffee and filtered water had appeared because Betre refused to tolerate anything less, but he'd been unable to press Jonas into making a decision about a better 'home' for now. The death mage was still uneasy about their partnership and had, quite often, stared at Betre over the wobbly kitchen table, muttering something about "demons lie" as he turned the pages of the instructive tomes Betre had found for him to study.

Well, he wasn't wrong, Betre reflected, watching Jonas pour bottled water into the copper kettle (also provided by him) and measure out freshly ground French roast. Demons did lie; it was in their nature. But doing anything that would jeopardize this was counterproductive and Betre was, if nothing else, going to see to it that he achieved his goals.

...which meant ensuring the death mage could comprehend the necessary incantations and spellwork required for a summoning.

The demon reached across the table and snagged the tome, pulled it over to examine the page and laughed. "This is what's giving you that perpetual scowl? This is elementary incantation work. What is it that you don't understand?"

Jonas's mouth thinned as he tapped the coffee into the French press and turned to face Betre, crossing his arms. "I didn't say I don't understand it."

"Then what, pray tell, is the trouble here?"

He didn't say anything. His gaze had, no surprise there, fallen on the calendar. On the days marked off in ink the color of unreal blood. The days that Diamanta Rothwell had spent in the company of another, in Boston, Massachusetts. The days that had preceded her untimely death.

Really, Betre would've visited her grave and thanked her for dying as she did if there'd been a grave to visit. He had been present when Jonas's mage friend had called, pleading with him to attend the memorial service, to be there when the silvery remains of the fae were poured into the ocean. And the demon had managed to not laugh when Jonas had snarled that he didn't give a fuck what they did with what was left of her, they'd let her die so everyone, as far as he was concerned, could go fuck themselves.