“I’ve gone by many names, Loki, Dolus. You might even call me the devil. Which would be missing the point. Who I am is not as important as what I do. I grant bargains in exchange for souls.” With precise movements, the man took out an Egyptian cigarette and lit it, filling the space between them with an aromatic perfume. His thumb drew across his lower lip to catch an errant flake of tobacco before he spoke again. “Ask me next why I am here.”
“How about this,” Win snapped back, “what the bloody hell do you want?”
Abruptly, Jones sat forward, and his eyes were entirely colorless, like chips of ice in a glass. “I’ve come to collect my due.” With that, he reached into his suit coat pocket once more and produced a rolled length of old foolscap. The roll of paper called to Winston in a way he did not understand, nor like. But he felt the familiarity of it with a soul deep shudder.
“Your due?” This was new. Poppy hadn’t said a word about debts. His mouth went dry.
Jones drew on his cigarette again and exhaled slowly, sending interlocking rings of blue smoke drifting into the air. Quite a trick. The man tapped out a line of ash. “It is like this,” Jones said. “On April the fifth, eighteen sixty-nine, you signed this contract.”
“Bollocks! You’re having me on.” But he did not miss that the date was precisely fourteen years prior to the date that he’d been attacked by the werewolf in a dank London alley.
Taking one more draw on his cigarette before setting it down, Jones carefully unrolled the foolscap and pushed the paper forward. One long, polished nail tapped the document that lay between them. “Read it.”
Nothing on Earth could induce Winston to touch that paper. “You’re mad. I’ve never even seen you before.” Shit. But the denial felt like a lie.
Jones took up his cigarette again and inhaled with almost indecent pleasure. “That is your signature, is it not?”
Winston’s own, familiar signature was slashed across the bottom of the paper. Ignoring it, Winston leaned in, and the paper crinkled under his forearms. “I would have remembered this.”
“Ah, now that was part of the agreement. You were to forget everything upon signing. After all, if my clients remembered their deals, they might try to find a way out of them before payment.” Cigarette dangling between his pale lips, Jones bent over the table to peer at the contract. “See there. Paragraph 13?” Jones pointed to a particular paragraph. “Upon signature, the principal—that would be you—shall lose all memory of the agreement—”
“Why in the bloody hell would anyone in their right mind agree to forget what they’ve signed?” It was all too fantastic. He did not do such things. Christ, but his heart was pounding again. This was why the demon tracked him down? Did Poppy know of it? Nausea boiled within his stomach.
“Well, that is rather the point, isn’t it?” Jones crossed one leg over the other. “You weren’t in your right mind at the time. A fact of which I took advantage. This human notion of fairness and honor makes you weak.” He blew out another chain of smoke rings. “I snare more ‘gentlemen’ this way than any other.” With a snap of his fingers, a waiter appeared with tray in hand.
The waiter set down two double-tiered glasses and a small carafe of water. A clear colored liquid winked and swayed in the bottom of each glass. The ingenious little liquor glasses, with their top tiers filled with ice, were made for only one drink: absinthe. The waiter’s movements were precise yet held a bit of theater, as if he knew well that his patrons expected it in this moment. He’d be correct, generally. Only Winston was in no mood. Such excitement had long dimmed for him. Even so, his eyes stayed on the waiter’s hands as he lifted the water carafe and poured it into the top tier of the glass, which served as a filter. Slowly, the water filled up the tier before dripping down into the lower glass. The second the water hit the absinthe, everything transformed, the liquid turning a luminous and milky peridot color. No sugar was used; this was a high-quality brew. The warm scent of anise drifted up, and Winston’s mouth watered even as his pulse quickened.
Too many days and nights had he lost to the Green Fairy. He’d almost succumbed to