Page 37 of Sleep With Us

Zee shoved the phone away and hammered on the door, then backed up and eyed the camera watching us from high up on the wall.

“Yeah, yeah!” A deeply accented male voice grumbled beyond the door. Whatever accent it was, it definitely wasn’t American. Australian? Or demon, maybe. They must have had their own vernacular?

A bolt clanged, the hinges groaned, and the entrance door swung open, revealing the biggest demon I’d ever seen. He was taller than Zee, with four stumpy head-horns, and so enormous I doubted he’d be able to fit through the doorframe. The name Fido had been stitched into his big white apron, that strained to contain his bulk. Stunted wings jutted out from his back. He probably hadn’t used them in a while.

He peered down his broad, flat nose. “No humans.”

“General.” Zee dipped his chin, bowing his head. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Do I know you?”

“Wow, I’m hurt you don’t remember me. Your favorite battalion commander, the life of the party, the one, the only⁠—”

“Lycian,” the general grunted, then eyed Zee closer. “Did you get smaller? I didn’t recognize you. Why you here? You wanna pie?”

“Uh . . .” Zee glanced at me, then back up at his former general. “Sure.”

General Copernicus turned, and stomped down the narrow corridor, filling it from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. “But we’re not here for the pies,” Zee added, trailing behind. “Delicious, as I’m sure they are.”

I closed the door behind us, sealing us inside with an increasing, baked-pastry smell.

“Then why you here, Lycian? No war, no more. No veil. No home. Just pies.”

I was pretty sure there was more to life than pies, but maybe the general didn’t have anything else? I still wasn’t going to feel sorry for a demon who clearly advertised pets in pies.

“It’s Zodiac now. This is my friend, Adam.” Zee gestured at me, and the general gave me a quick glance, then continued on his way, down the corridor, toward the heavy clanging, thumping and hissing noises.

“Right, right,” Copernicus grumbled, not at all interested in me. “What doin’ now, Zodiac?”

“That’s why we’re here.” Zee gave a little dismissive laugh. “You remember Sebastien⁠—”

“That worm. Can’t forget. Want to put him in a pie. Bake him for forty minutes at one-eighty degrees. Hmm . . . no. Not enough meat on that shlak.” He looked over his shoulder and snapped his sharp teeth together. I had no idea what a shlak was, but it didn’t sound friendly.

“You like pies, human?” the general asked.

“Erm, yes?” I smiled, and hoped it looked genuine. I was beginning to suspect General Copernicus might be missing some mental ingredients, and tried to catch Zee’s eye to ask, but he was too preoccupied with following in the general’s shadow.

We emerged from the corridor onto a vast factory floor, filled with loops of conveyor belts snaking through different machines, almost like a scaled-down rollercoaster. Except pies rode this one. The thumping sound came from a machine that appeared to be an enormous grated metal hammer, pounding chunks of meat into mush.

It was probably normal meat, right? Just pie filling?

I glanced around, and found I’d fallen back from Zee and Fido. They’d climbed a rickety set of metal stairs, to a suspended office with a glass front on it. Like a watchtower, from where Fido could oversee his production line. There didn’t appear to be any other workers. Just him, and his loud, clanging, hissing, rumbling machines.

A shiver tracked down my spine. I hurried up the stairs to the watchtower office.

“—sold you off,” Copernicus was saying. “All agreed.”

“I know, I know,” Zee agreed. “But is there anything you can think of that might void the contract? Any reason the deal might not be legit?”

The general planted his huge ass on his large desk and sniffed. “You looking to wriggle out of a deal, like a coward—like the shlak, Sebastien? Thought better of you, Lycian—Zodiac. I got a copy of the contract.” He reached behind his desk and yanked open a drawer. “Wanna see? No wriggle room for cowards.”

Zee rolled his eyes toward me, asking if I really wanted to go through with this when there was obviously nothing to find.

“Can I see it?” I stepped up to the general and took the familiar-looking contract from his hand—a hand the size of my face.

“It’s as tight as your puny ass, human.”

“Oh. Erm. I’m sure it is.” I buried my face in the contract, not sure what to say to that. I didn’t have a photographic memory like Reynard, but the contract did appear to be the same as the one we’d taken from Seb’s apartment. We weren’t going to find any answers in the general’s version.