through pedestrians. A barefoot guy stood on the front chrome bumper with his hands out in the air, laughing in a way that suggested morning drug use.
She jerked her attention away from the street. “If I was bein’ called in, I’d know. Even here. Right?”
“I want to say yes because I want you to relax and enjoy yourself, but I’m not sure how you’re being signaled. Is it telepathic?”
“Seems logical. No devices are involved.”
“Then I think you’d hear that frequency regardless of what time you’re in. Besides didn’t you say you always know when something’s up with your sister?”
“’Tis true, but we’ve never been five decades away before.”
A cute guy with one big gold, pirate-style earring stopped at the table just in time to hear that. He gave her a funny look, but said, “Can I get you something else?”
“Not now,” Lyric answered. His gaze turned back to Shivaun, but he could see that the waiter hadn’t left. He slowly raised his eyes in question.
“Look man,” the guy said with voice lowered. “Management says we have to keep turning the tables. Everybody with lunch money would camp at this table if we didn’t keep tabs.”
Lyric gave the guy the sort of look that would have sent most running, but the waiter must have needed that job in a serious way. The man looked nervous, but stood his ground.
“Tell you what I’m gonna do,” Lyric began in the tone Shivaun was coming to learn was his business-like, let’s-make-a-deal voice. “Every hour we’re sitting here you’re going to order five hundred dollars worth of food on my behalf. But you’re not going to serve it to us. You’re going to put it in bags, hand it out to those street kids who are dumpster diving for scraps and tell them the devil made you do it.”
After fifteen seconds of blinking, the waiter said, “The devil made me do it. Um, yeah. Sure. The only thing is…”
Lyric stopped that sentence in progress by handing over two thousand dollars in bills minted in 1967 or before. “Keep the change. We’ll be gone long before that’s used up.”
Shivaun looked down at the table and chuffed out a soft, almost inaudible laugh.
“What?” Lyric cocked his head and waited to hear what amused her.
“It must be so strange to always get what you want.”
“Things like this.” He gestured to indicate the table and probably the event as well. “Things that can be fixed with money are easy.”
With a barked laugh, she said, “For you! Where’d you get it? Thin air?”
His mouth twitched. “More or less. The economy won’t notice a few more dollars moving around.”
“May be true. Still, you did nothin’ for it.”
“I did something for it. I grant that it wasn’t a struggle. But back to the subject of getting everything I want…”
He stopped, suddenly unsure how to finish that thought. He realized that, if he told the truth, he’d come off sounding pitiable. Not exactly the image a viral demon wants to project when courting his mate-to-be.
“You were sayin’. ‘Bout gettin’ what you want?”
“That I’ve never spent a lot of energy wanting things.”
“Oh.”
“I’m just getting acquainted with the sweet torture of desiring something I can’t have.”
Shivaun started to ask what that was when she saw the telltale sparkle in his eyes and realized he was talking about her. Her pretty bow mouth pulled into a temptress’s smile. “You mean me.”
He sighed. “Indeed I do.”
“Well, you can no’ always get what you want.” Lyric laughed before realizing she wasn’t making a musical reference. “Why ‘tis amusin’ that?”
“I thought you were using a song title to make a joke.” He looked around. “But that song won’t be released for another year.” He winked.
The two demons spent the next two and a half hours talking about what had gone into the phenomenon that bloomed in the Haight-Ashbury district in 1967. She didn’t understand a lot of it because there was no shared cultural reference, but she did understand feelings of not belonging where your family belongs. From time to time, as Lyric recounted the history from his point of view, she looked out and into the faces of those who’d come seeking. Something.
Shivaun turned to look at the street knowing there’d be a new visual treat since spectacles weren’t in short supply. Her gaze scanned the scene and almost immediately caught on someone directly across the street, as if he was sending out a beacon. He was leaning against a building, staring directly at her, giving the appearance