[Corine Solomon 5] Agave Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

wanes.”
    Shannon frowned. “But that’s good, right? I mean, you’ll get out soon.”
    His expression twisted with melancholy. “Dear Shannon, I was thirty-six when Macleish confined me here. Do the math, my girl.”
    I could tell Shan was crunching numbers by the way she looked upward and to the left, chewing on her lower lip. The truth dawned on her around the same time I worked it out. He looked sixty or sixty-five, tops. But he’d been trapped in this cottage, counting the solitary years until it was a wonder he hadn’t gone mad.
    “You’re one hundred and two,” she breathed. “How is that possible?”
    Booke explained, “Time passes at a one for two ratio here. I suspect that’s part of the curse, ensuring I live long enough to despise my own company.”
    I considered. “So one day here is two out there?”
    “Did Macleish send you to fairyland or something? This is like what happened to that Thomas the Rhymer guy.”
    He mustered a smile for Shan’s wit. “It wouldn’t surprise me if a similar spell inspired the original tale.”
    “So the curse is crumbling, which means you’ll die when you rejoin the normal time stream. All the years will catch up to you at once.” I thought I understood what he wanted of us now.
    Booke shrugged. “It may not be instantaneous, but certainly my days are numbered once the magick fails.”
    “You want us to fix the spell?” Shannon asked.
    He shook his head, fingers lacing tightly around the bone handle of his teacup. His knuckles burned white. “I want you to crack it. I’ve had enough waiting. I’m beyond tired, and I’m ready for it to end. I am selfish enough, however, that I do not wish to die alone. I don’t want to be an undiscovered skeleton in an abandoned house. I want a proper burial . . . and I trust you to see to it.”
    The request hit me like a brick upside the head. His timing couldn’t have been worse; I’d just lost Chance. I wasn’t strong enough to do this for him. My first instinct was to run for the door, but I couldn’t get out, unless I cracked the spell. He didn’t seem strong enough to tweak the parameters just yet, even if I thought he would be inclined to do so.
    Shannon set a hand on my arm, soothing. “This sucks,” she said to him. “You’ve hardly lived at all, unless you count those thirty-odd years as a pleasure-seeking asshat.”
    “My son died,” he said quietly. “He was only eighteen. His mother wasn’t strong after his birth, and she wasted away. Macleish was alone within a few years of wreaking his vengeance.”
    I guessed he’d found out via Internet searches. At this point, I just had to ask. “How do you—”
    “Acquire food and modern conveniences?”
    Shan looked like she wanted to know too.
    “I made a deal with a minor devil. He can’t cross the spell barrier, but he can deliver items inside the house itself. It is easier for me to tweak the spell in order to permit inanimate objects to cross over.”
    That was rather elegant, actually.
    Shan asked, “You couldn’t summon anything strong enough to break the curse?”
    “I have no Solomon blood. Without that surety, it’s dangerous to deal with demonkind. Anything strong enough to smash the magick would also be powerful enough to destroy me or compel me to a situation more dire than this.”
    Her face darkened as she remembered her experiences in Sheol; then she gave a jerky nod. Things could always get worse. I respected Booke’s forbearance, since I might well have summoned something just to see an end to the interminable waiting.
    I wondered aloud, “Did Macleish think you would starve to death?”
    “The magick is sufficient to keep me alive, but I was weak and emaciated when I stumbled over a tome that offered me the name of a bargaining devil.”
    “The Birsael,” I supplied. “There are castes of demons.”
    Interesting to realize he owed his relative health and safety to a demon like Maury. But my knowledge surprised him.