Compact with the Devil: A Novel Read online

  “We could be the Egregious Philibins,” said Burg. “That’s a name that’s too silly to be anything other than a band name.”

  “Hey, Louis!” yelled Holly to the bus driver. “What should we name the band?”

  “The Dental Philosophers,” yelled Louis from the driver’s seat. That got another laugh.

  “What’s everyone yelling about?” asked Kit, coming down the stairs, looking more rested and in a happier mood.

  “We’re trying to come up with band names,” said Holly coolly when no one else jumped in. “So far we’ve rejected the Purple Weasels, Egregious Philibins, and Dental Philosophers.”

  “Well, one look at the lot of you and I’d think it’d be obvious,” said Kit affectionately, leaning on the back of a seat. “It’s got to be the Mongol Horde.”

  “I kind of like that,” said Richie, shaking out a Care Bears T-shirt.

  “I like Communist Synthesizers,” said Hammond.

  “You would, you damn keyboarding Commie,” said Burg. “How about Sherpa’s Union?”

  “What about the Rhythm Method?” said Nikki, and Holly burst out laughing, rocking back and forth, her braids swinging.

  “I don’t get it,” said Burg.

  “It might be kind of a girl thing,” said Nikki apologetically.

  Hammond’s puzzled frown cleared. “Oh, dear,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Kit and Richie at the same time.

  “We’d never get away with it,” said Hammond.

  “I don’t know,” said Kit, grinning. “That’s kind of tempting.”

  “I still don’t get it,” said Burg.

  “And you probably never will,” said Kit, laughing. “Richie, come upstairs and play some whist with me.”

  It wasn’t so much what he said as how he said it that bothered Nikki. There was no question in his tone. There was just the command to go upstairs. It wasn’t delivered with any sort of malice; it was just the base assumption that Richie would obey. Nikki frowned. She couldn’t decide whether or not she liked Kit. One minute he seemed vulnerably disarming, the next he seemed like the lord of the manor. He was like a sore tooth that she couldn’t stop poking at.

  “Whist?” asked Richie, looking pained. “Nobody plays whist anymore, old boy. You’re going to lose your rock star privileges if you play games that went out of fashion with your grandmother.”

  “My grandmother is very fashion-forward, I’ll have you know,” said Kit impudently. “You too, Nikki, come on.” He bounded up the stairs without waiting for Nikki’s reply. Nikki gritted her teeth; Trista beamed at her. Richie got up to follow.

  “Playing cards—this will be nice,” Trista said happily, and Richie turned a questioning look her way.

  Nikki shook her head. “That’s all right. I don’t feel much like playing. You go ahead.”

  Nikki became aware that the entire bus had turned to look at her.

  “But you’ve got to,” said Trista in dismay. “He asked for you specifically. That means he likes you, and he doesn’t like everyone.”

  “Well, I don’t like everyone,” said Nikki, “but I don’t always get to play with my favorite people.”

  “Come on,” said Richie from the stairs. “Don’t leave me alone with the whist. I’ll never figure out what I’m doing on my own.”

  Nikki sighed, knowing already that she was going to give in.

  “Please, just go upstairs and play cards with him,” pleaded Trista. “What’s wrong with playing cards?”

  “This is ridiculous,” muttered Nikki. “Normal people do not just get to demand that people play with them.”

  “He’s not normal,” said Trista. “He’s Kit.”

  “You can’t always get what you want!”

  “But if you try sometimes …,” murmured Holly without removing her face from her book. Nikki shook her head and grudgingly got up.

  “I’m doing this for Richie,” said Nikki, frowning at Trista’s anxious face. “I’m hoping to win his Oasis shirt off of him.”

  “Ook. Good luck with that,” said Burg, adding a belch for good measure. “Oasis is his favorite.”

  Nikki trudged up the stairs, following Richie, and found herself wondering if Richie would fit into her jeans or if he would find them too big. Why were rock guys always so skinny? Were only skinny guys attracted to the guitar? Or did you become skinny by spending so much time playing the guitar?

  “Nikki says she’s going to try to win my Oasis shirt off me,” reported Richie as they reached the second story.

  “Strip whist. Now there’s a thought,” said Kit, twisting an imaginary villain’s mustache. “And wait, you own an Oasis shirt? Heretic!”

  “It’s vintage!” protested Richie good-naturedly. “From their ’98 tour!”

  “I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse,” said Kit, throwing himself onto one of the bench seats.

  Nikki looked around the padded interior of the second story. Near the stairs were two rows of traditional bus seats. Beyond those, couches lined the walls and formed a U shape at the front of the bus. There was a low coffee table at the bend of the U; Kit took the seat on the other side of the coffee table, a solitary spot of subdued blue jeans and navy hoodie against the crimson plush. There were metal poles sunk into the floor, and Nikki leaned against one as the bus swayed around a corner.

  “What’s wrong with Oasis?” she asked.

  “Nothing, except they’re complete shite,” said Richie, taking a seat next to Kit.

  “Can we play with odd numbers?” asked Nikki.

  “There are four of us,” said Duncan in a quiet voice, showing a disconcerting ability for sneaking up on Nikki. He’d been sunk down behind one of the seats, but she still should have spotted him. Duncan pulled a foldout chair from one of the overhead bins and unfolded it with a magician’s snap, placing it opposite Kit at the coffee table. Then he sat opposite Richie, effectively forcing Nikki into the folding seat. Nikki frowned; she didn’t like being surprised, out maneuvered, or having her back to a door.

  Kit took two decks of well-thumbed cards out of his sweatshirt pockets.

  “I’m not sure I’m qualified for a two-deck card game,” said Nikki, not moving from her spot against the pole.

  “You just keep one at the ready,” said Duncan, taking one and shuffling. “The dealer’s partner shuffles it and puts it to the dealer’s left. It speeds things along.” He shuffled the cards long edge to long edge and then jammed them together with a forceful shove. Kit copied the shuffle in an exact duplication of his movement.

  “So who’s partnering with whom?” asked Nikki.

  “Who’s partnering with whom,” repeated Richie mockingly. “Who says the Americans can’t speak English?”

  “I give, who does say that?” responded Nikki.

  “The English,” answered Duncan. “I’ll take Richie; you get Kit.”

  “What if I don’t want him?” asked Nikki, peeved at having her decisions made for her.

  “Everyone wants me,” answered Kit, half-serious. “I’m a rock star.”

  “I’m not spoiled. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!” murmured Nikki, taking her foldout seat. That got a chuckle from Richie and a reproving glance from Duncan.

  “With whist,” said Kit, skillfully ignoring something that might upset him, “you simply deal all the cards out. Partners sit across from each other. The last card dealt is the trump card. Person to the dealer’s left starts the play; all other players must play a card to match the first card’s suit. If you don’t have a card of that suit, then you can play any card. Once a trick is all played the person with the highest card of that suit or the highest trump card takes the trick. The person who wins the trick starts the play on the next one. When all cards have been played, the team with the most tricks taken wins. But you don’t start scoring until after you win six tricks. First team to five points wins.”

  “What kind of game doesn’t count the first six points?” asked Nikki, slightly
outraged.

  “Whist!” replied Duncan and Kit in unison. Nikki shook her head and picked up her cards. She had a feeling that whist had been invented in a century that didn’t have television.

  Whist was surprisingly more complicated than it looked, and the first few hands were spent in intense concentration. Nikki frowned as Duncan took another trick; she wasn’t sure when she had acquired such an intense aversion to losing, but the fact that Richie and Duncan were one winning hand away from actually starting to count points was bringing out the sore loser in her. She hadn’t always been so competitive, had she? Nikki couldn’t remember; she wondered if it was a habit she’d picked up from Z’ev. Now, there was a competitive man.

  She played the three of clubs while picturing Z’ev’s solid form, his crisp white shirt setting off brown skin with a sly smile in his deep cocoa-colored eyes.

  “Nikki!” Kit scolded her as Richie scooped up the cards with a grin.

  “Damn, sorry,” said Nikki guiltily. “I was thinking about something else.”

  “Keep thinkin’, darlin’; it’s doin’ fine for me,” said Duncan cheerfully, and Nikki looked at him thoughtfully as his English accent slipped slightly sideways, but it hadn’t lasted long enough for her to place it. “I like to win,” he said, the accent coming back full force, and Nikki wondered if it had just been a trick of her ears.

  Nikki organized her cards according to suit and rank while Richie finished shuffling, plunked the deck down next to Duncan, and then picked up his own cards. It was an odd system, but the waiting second deck did speed things along; she wondered idly what other card game the second deck could be applied to.

  Kit opened with a low heart; Richie countered with the nine of hearts. Grinning, Nikki played the trump card and Duncan threw down the five of hearts in disgust.

  The second round continued, and Nikki and Kit evened up the score while Germany floated by outside the window, a blur of white snow on black everything else, eventually turning into France. Kit triumphantly played the final card as his phone began to ring; it took a moment before Nikki recognized the @last song that Kit had sung at the concert.

  “Damn Brandt,” muttered Kit, rummaging through the seat cushions for his phone. “Never did have any sense of timing.” He flipped open the phone and answered with an almost normal-sounding cheerfulness.

  “Hey, Brandt,” said Kit. “What’s new?” Nikki watched Kit’s face go slowly still and become tired. She felt a surge of sympathy. He never really seemed to get a break. “No, Brandt. Yes, Brandt. No, I haven’t read the paper.”

  Brandt could be heard talking again, and Kit made unconscious hurry-up moves with his hand. Abruptly he pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the screen.

  “Hold on, Brandt, Mum’s on the other line. I’ll be right back. Mum,” said Kit, switching lines. Nikki tensed. “No, Mum, I can’t talk. I’m on the other line with Brandt.” Kit paused and the tiny sound of Camille’s voice was audible as a strident whine to the other listeners. “Mum, I am so going to call you back. No, I don’t know. Ask Trista or Nikki.” Kit rolled his eyes as Camille continued to talk. “Nikki, Trista’s assistant; she’s new. Seriously, Mum, Brandt’s on the other line. Call Trista. Yes, all right, Mum, all right. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

  He flipped back to Brandt and Nikki started counting. On number fifteen Trista came trudging up the stairs, a panicked look in her eye and the phone to her ear. Nikki sighed and went to meet her at the top of the stairs; she should have known Kit would spill the beans sooner or later. She held out her hand for the phone and silently Trista passed it over.

  “Trista’s new assistant, I presume,” said Camille, sounding to be in an icy fury.

  “Hi, Camille,” said Nikki, dropping into a seat, out of earshot but where she could keep an eye on the rest of the upstairs inhabitants.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m protecting Kit,” said Nikki. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “You are supposed to go after Cano! I don’t want Kit having anything to do with us.”

  “Well, I guess that explains your hands-off approach to mothering.” There was a gasp of outrage from Camille and Nikki wished she’d kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t any of her business and Camille already hated her.

  “Since you can’t hold on to a man long enough to procreate, your opinions don’t really matter to me!” Camille shot back.

  “What do you want, Camille?” asked Nikki, sighing. “Can’t you follow orders for once and let me do my job?”

  “Not a chance,” snapped Camille.

  “It doesn’t worry you that Kit’s been the target of several mysterious accidents?”

  “I know all about those; they’re just accidents. He should stop playing at being a singer and get a real job. Cano is the real threat. And since you’re clearly never focused on the task at hand, I will have to do it myself.” Camille’s disregard for Kit’s safety and his career choice was shocking and Nikki found herself gesturing in disbelief even though Camille wasn’t there to see it.

  “And maybe we’d already have Cano if you hadn’t blown it for us in Stuttgart. Your emotions are getting in the way of the mission, just as Mrs. M said they would. If you’re not working with the team, you’re working against it.”

  “Do not presume to lecture me about the mission,” said Camille. “I have been doing this job since before you were born. I don’t need you or your precious team.”

  Nikki gulped back rage. She needed to get Camille under control, and arguing wasn’t going to get the job done.

  “Camille, we have the same goals. Why can’t we work together?”

  “Because you’re not good enough,” said Camille, and hung up the phone.

  Nikki felt a hot flush of embarrassment on her face as she went back to the card table. Kit was still talking to Brandt. She began to shuffle the cards, giving her fingers something to do. She shuffled them short end to short end, then bridged the two stacks between her hands until they fed back on themselves and became one stack. Her thoughts followed the movement automatically, watching the blue intertwining leaf pattern on the card-backs blink past.

  What had Camille meant when she said she knew about the accidents? How could she be so sure they were just accidents? And what if Camille was right—what if she wasn’t good enough?

  “Jeez! How do you do that?” exclaimed Richie as she shuffled again.

  “You can’t do that?” asked Nikki, blinking in surprise.

  “No. What are you, some sort of card shark?”

  “It’s just a stupid human trick. Here.” She grabbed the second deck and handed it to Richie. “You divide the stack and shuffle end to end. Then you sort of press your thumbs down and flex your fingers in.” Richie flexed, and the cards exploded outward.

  “And then you play fifty-two-card pickup,” said Duncan with a chuckle.

  “Damn it!” yelled Kit, jumping up and pushing cards off his lap. “No, Brandt, I’m not yelling at you. The idiots I live with are just making a mess.”

  Nikki narrowed her eyes in irritation, her previous sympathy erased. Richie hurried to gather the cards in again.

  “Look, Brandt, can we go over this later?” said Kit, stepping on the table and then walking across to the other side. Duncan followed Kit with his eyes. “You know, I can’t get these things without pictures.”

  There was a pause, and from the first floor of the bus Nikki could hear the laughter of the band and crew. The laughter of Terry, the Scottish packing chief, boomed like a foghorn in the distance, and Burg’s monkey noises filled in the spaces between the notes.

  “Cleaning up my mess? My mess? This isn’t my mess. I didn’t walk out! I’m not paying them anything. They ought to be thanking their lucky stars I’m not suing. Screw the fans!” shouted Kit, and even Duncan blinked at that one. “No! No. I’m hanging up now. Fine. We’ll talk about it in Paris.” Kit slammed the phone shut. “Have you got anything
better to do than stare at me?” he snapped at them.

  “No, not really,” said Nikki, feeling contentious.

  “Don’t worry about it, man,” said Richie. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “I didn’t walk out on that concert! I mean, I did, but … I was right to. It was dangerous.”

  “Seriously,” Richie said in agreement. “We could have died. The papers are just looking for a story. It’s a load of twat and everyone knows it.”

  “I don’t think you actually would have died,” said Nikki practically.

  “That’s easy for you to say!” protested Richie. “You weren’t staring death in the eye. Any more tilt on that stage and we would have come crashing down.”

  “Actually, it wouldn’t have tilted any more. I talked to Ewart, the platform tech. At most you would have had another few inches before it shut down.”

  “You talked to the tech?” demanded Kit. “When?”

  “Last night, before we decorated your hotel room.”

  “No one asked you to do that!” snapped Kit.

  “Didn’t realize I had to be asked,” said Nikki. “The poor guy was drinking himself into oblivion at a bar. He really liked his job.” She glanced at Duncan. He’d talked to Ewart too; he must have come to the same conclusion she had—that someone, someone besides Ewart, had rigged that stage. She was half expecting him to back her up, but instead he sat mute, his face looking as if it had been carved from stone.

  “Then maybe he shouldn’t have screwed it up,” yelled Kit.

  “He didn’t,” replied Nikki, trying to keep ahold of her temper. “Someone rigged the stage. It wasn’t an accident.”

  “Bullshit!” cried Kit. “He screwed up; he gets fired. Everyone pulls their own weight around here. Stop telling me this stuff!”

  “I don’t get it,” said Nikki, shaking her head. “Are you just stupid, or do you honestly not want to know what’s going on? And if we’re talking about pulling your own weight, then what about you? The papers have a point. Those fans paid a lot of money to only see half a show.” Nikki knew it was a low blow. She didn’t actually disagree with his decision to walk out of the show, but she was mad.