your interest in Poppy aroused my curiosity enough to meet with you.” He shrugged. “Enough of trifle talk. Let us move on to payment.”
Though his stomach rolled, Winston pulled himself together and sat straight. Inside he might want to scream and run but he had made this mess, so he’d face his fate. “My soul, is it?”
Jones sucked on his cigarette then put it down and picked up the contract. “Yes, your soul. As the contract states, the deal was to expire when Death came for you.”
Swallowing hard, Winston spoke. “You’re going to take me now?” God, he hadn’t even made his peace with Poppy. Right then, he wanted to hold her so badly the muscles along his arms clenched.
Jones’s teeth were sharp and white as they flashed in the gaslight. “Not precisely. You created a bit of a dilemma when you met Death last April. You cheated him.”
“Cheated him?” Winston snapped. “You mean that werewolf?”
“That wasn’t a werewolf. Had that been the werewolf in question, you’d be rife with syphilis right now. Which you most certainly aren’t.”
Odd as it was, a feeling of relief coursed through Winton’s body. Months ago, the fear he’d been infected had become the veritable white elephant in the room, and he’d forced Archer to do the tests. He’d proven clean but never knew why.
“No,” continued Jones, “it was Death you faced that night, sent by me. He simply chose that disguise.” Something dark passed over Jones’s face before he pushed it away and looked at Winston with a near-pleasant expression. “You were supposed to die but that SOS bastard saved you. And now, dear boy, you are in breach of contract.”
“Bollocks! It isn’t any fault of mine that Death lost. I wasn’t very aware at the time, you realize.”
“Doesn’t matter. You did not die when you were supposed to.”
“So then what? What is it you want if not ‘precisely’ my soul?”
Again, Jones placed the contract before Winston, and his long nail tapped on a paragraph. “What I am owed.”
Winston glanced down at the gleaming nail and the words before it. A bolt of sensation shot through Winston, as if he’d done this very thing before. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the contract. Reading was a slow, laborious process as the words kept blurring before him. But the meaning of them started to sink in, and as it did, he turned ice cold and his body trembled.
Should the principal fail to comply with the terms so listed, the grantor shall take as recompense the soul of the principal’s first born. All the blood drained from his face in a rush that made him sway. “No!” He leapt up and grabbed Jones by his lapels, hauling him close. “Not a chance in bloody hell, do you hear me? Not one damn chance!”
For a moment, Jones stared back, but then small licks of flame began to creep out from under his collar and dance over his face, and those strange eyes grew larger, less human looking. His voice went deep, hollow, as if he spoke from the depths of a black tunnel. “You think you can forfeit?”
“I would have never agreed to that.” Winston jerked Jones closer, heedless of the heat biting at his knuckles. “Never.”
“Agree you did. Because you, in the cocksure bloom of youth, believed yourself invincible. That when the time came, it would all go swimmingly. And because,” he leaned with a low, rolling chuckle, “you failed to properly read the contract, dear boy.”
Not wanting to touch him a second longer, Winston let Jones go with a shove. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve left Poppy, and there is no chance of you getting what you want.” Christ, but he’d just tupped her. If they had a child, only to… A shudder went through him, and he fell back into his seat.
Jones grinned. “How naive you are being, Winston Lane. How long has it been since you left her? Three months?” He darted forward in a move too quick to be human. “Are you so very sure of her then?”
Despite being seated, Winston’s knees went weak. “She would have told me if she was with child.” They’d tried for so many years. And failed.
“Poppy Lane divulge an inconvenient truth? Heaven forefend.” Jones straightened his crooked lapels. “Come, man, I can alter lives. Did you really think I would waltz back into yours and demand what I cannot have? Ridiculous human. A child grows in her womb. I can feel it.”
Surely fate