Naughty Karma

Chapter Three Sympathy for the Devil

Prometheus decided to take it as a good sign when Karma visibly paled at the prospect of his imminent death. He’d hoped to play on her sympathies and she was proving to be as softhearted as he’d pegged her. Page one out of the sinner’s bible: blessed are the saints, for they shall be easy to manipulate.

He didn’t bother trying to look innocent and worthy of saving. Whether or not she would help him depended more on her character than it did on his. “Will you do it?”

“What exactly do you need me to do?”

He smiled, triumph and a feeling that could have been hope filling up some of the void that lived in his chest where his heart should have been.

“Don’t get too excited,” she interrupted his internal celebration. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet. Just tell me what you need.”

Her sharp words didn’t discourage him in the slightest. She hadn’t agreed yet, but she would. He might see his fortieth birthday yet.

“From the research I’ve done,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t spent three complete years scouring every magical tome he could find for the merest hint of a clue as to how to steal back his heart, “it’s a three step process.” He held up a single finger. “We locate the heart—which I have reason to believe Deuma is moving or veiling in some way.” It was the only explanation for the fact that every time he did a finding spell on the damn thing, it vanished before he could get to it. Based on his finds, he’d searched from Venice to Ethiopia for the damn thing without luck. “I saw her place it in a wooden box with gold inlay, then the box vanished and I haven’t seen it since. I think the box may have been Bacchus’s vessel.”

Karma’s brows pulled into a V. “Ignoring the fact that Bacchus’s vessel is a mythological figment of warlock imaginations run wild, what’s the second step?”

“Summon Deuma. Because she is the source of my power, I am incapable of using it to summon her, but you have that lovely exorcist at your beck and call.”

“The third step?”

Prometheus met her eyes. If she’d known him, she would have known to doubt whatever he was about to say next, that he always looked ‘em in the eye right before he lied his ass off, but no one knew him that well. He was an island. “The third step is all you, Karma. As a channel, you are capable of redirecting energies. You will reverse the flow of energy from Deuma to myself and sever her hold on me. It will keep me alive.”

It wasn’t, technically speaking, a lie. If Karma did all those things, it would keep him alive. It would also piss off the devil by stripping her of her powers and giving them permanently to Prometheus. It would keep him alive, all right. It would make him immortal.

Prometheus wasn’t ready for his clock to run out, but he also wasn’t about to lose his powers while bargaining for his heart back. He hadn’t spent the last twenty years as a god only to go back to being a normal man. He was already reneging on his deal with the devil—a dangerous prospect in and of itself. He couldn’t afford to leave her with the power to smite him after he stole back her prize. But Karma wouldn’t go along with his plan if she knew there was a way to keep him alive any other way.

“I can’t.” Karma’s protest almost gave rise to a glimmer of doubt—did she suspect he was lying? But when she went on, he realized it was her doubt he had heard. “I don’t have that much power.”

Prometheus snorted. “You have plenty. You just have to learn how to let it out to play.” He straightened away from the sales counter, letting his presence fill the room. “I can teach you that.” The words were a seduction. A flush rose to her cheeks and he could see her pulse fluttering wildly at her throat—like the power he could feel beating velvet wings against the inside of her mind, struggling to get out. What he wouldn’t give to be the one to give her that release.

“If I help you…” She glared at him when he started to smile. “If. I’m not guaranteeing anything, but if I were to help you, I would need your word that none of my people would be harmed in any way.”

“Done.” For all his word was worth.

“All attempts to disrupt my business or invoke chaos would obviously have to stop.”

He smiled, flicking his fingers. “Of course.” This was going to be easier than he’d thought.

“And I would expect you to make amends for your actions over the last few months.”

“Amends,” he repeated, nausea stinging his throat as he forced out the word. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t regret. He didn’t ask for forgiveness. Prometheus didn’t do amends.

“As a show of good faith, you would have to work for me, using your powers only for good, to prove that your sorry ass is actually worth saving.”

This time Prometheus’s smile was genuine—though bile still left his throat raw. “We both know you’ve already decided to save me, angel. Whether I deserve it or not.”

“My terms are not negotiable.”

“Of course they are. You may want to have the position of power in this negotiation, but we both know power goes to whichever party can walk away.” Or, more importantly, which party could convince the other they could walk away. Prometheus may need her more than she needed him, but he never flinched in a game of chicken.

He crossed the room toward her, approaching her for the first time. Goose bumps rose up on her arms and her pupils dilated, but other than that she remained unmoved in the face of his prowling approach. Her scent—jasmine and something sweeter, not quite honey, but something with more bite…ginger, that was it—rose to his nostrils and he inhaled, deliberately drawing in the exotic aroma.

“I could walk away.” She spoke softly, the words a husky, dark promise they both knew she would never fulfill. “You’re the one who needs me.”

“I do.” He didn’t touch her. He was close enough to now, but Prometheus felt the strangest urge to save that first touch, hoard it until the perfect moment. “But you need to be the woman who saves the day more than I need to be saved. That do-gooder complex is your Achilles’ heel.”

“Or my greatest strength.”

“You couldn’t let even your worst enemy die if you knew you could help him.”

“Are we enemies? Here I thought you were a pest. Like a roach. I’m fond of killing pests. There’s such satisfaction in exterminating them.” God, her voice was intoxicating, sultry and rough.

He leaned in, just a hair more, and the air around them grew tight—talking about cockroaches had never been so intimate. “You would never forgive yourself if you could have saved me and stood by doing nothing.”

Her jaw tightened, lovely anger flaring at the way he’d boxed her in—physically and verbally. Prometheus raised a finger, but stopped himself a centimeter short of brushing the muscle clenching along the column of her throat, still saving the first touch, holding it in reserve.

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do if you believe there is anything I wouldn’t do to protect my people.”

“I’m not a threat to them. Demonic kidnapping aside.”

“Demons aside, you sold a medallion that nearly killed my favorite ghost exterminator.”

“Again with the nearlys and the almosts. Besides, I sold it. I didn’t activate it. Are you really going to hold me responsible for every little bauble I’ve ever touched that was eventually used for less than wholesome purposes?”

“Yes. You enchant charms then sell them to whoever wanders through your door. They’re unregistered weapons in the wrong hands, and you just scatter them wherever the hell you please.”

“I’m a businessman, not a cop.”

“Magic should be used for good. It needs to be monitored. Controlled.”

“On that we’ll have to disagree. Magic is a force, a freedom. It’s meant for the masses.”

“Is that why you stole a valuable heirloom from one of my clients? You steal magic from its rightful owners because you want the masses to have it?”

“Borrowed. And she hired one of your little pets to get it back, so are you really going to complain about profiting from my temporary possession?”

“You’re a thief, a liar, a demon-summoner and an unscrupulous bastard who sold a piece of himself to a devil. I could never trust you.”

“I’m not asking for trust. I’m asking for help.”

“You aren’t my problem. And I think the best way to protect my people is keep it that way.”

Was she actually going to say no? Prometheus cursed internally. This wasn’t going as planned.

Time to activate the home-field advantage.

“Say you’ll help me, Karma,” he urged, making his voice thick with power and a pulse of heat, leaning in to remind her of their physical proximity, pull her out of her mind and put her into her body. He could control her body. Her mind was another story. “Say you’ll do it.”

He put his palm flat on the frosted glass behind her, sending a low pulse of energy through it to activate his little insurance policy. Over the years, he’d woven a binding spell into the walls themselves. With a thought, the spell woke and any words spoken within these four walls took on the weight of an unbreakable vow. She wouldn’t be able to back out later. She’d be forced to follow through, provided he could get her to say the words that would seal the deal.

He stared into her eyes, tracing a phantom path behind her ear, still holding that first touch in reserve. “What will it take to get you to say yes?”

“I would have to believe you were reformed. That you would use your powers for good. I don’t see that happening, Prometheus.”

“How about a show of good faith?”

“Do you even know what good is?”

“I know freedom without the moralistic constraints of good and bad is a lot more fun.”

She was so restrained. So contained. Not a hair out of place. Not a smudge in her lipstick or a wrinkle in her dress. He wanted to muss her. Rake his fingers through her hair, smear her lipstick with his mouth, bunch her dress in rough, urgent hands. The urge to unleash the chaos she’d buried deep was a living thing inside him. Her power calling to his, a siren song of perfect destruction.

“Let me show you, Karma. Live a little.” He rested a finger against the nape of her neck, half-expecting her to sear his skin with the heat of that first touch. She was smooth, soft ivory, cool marble and hard diamond—all that promising heat buried beneath layers of icy reserve, but he could feel it. An echo, a tremor, a promise of wildness to come. He stroked his finger slowly up the arch of her neck. “Say yes…”