The bartender with long silver hair appears at my elbow and pulls me up a set of stairs until I’m under the hot lights, across from Alonzo.

Valec steps between the stage and the crowd, turning with a flourish.

“Friends, we have here someone who refuses to hold up their end of the bargain!”

A rising “Boo!” ripples across the roof, echoing back from one side to the other in stereo.

“Yes, yes. And what do we say when terms are violated?”

“Death or deal!” someone screams from the back.

“Yes, indeed,” Valec crows. He turns a sly eye to Sel, who is prowling from one end of the cage to the next. “Death or deal.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I shout.

Valec regards me, hands on his hips. “Well, you can pay the price for your crimes against Alonzo and my business by offering a death—yours, his, one of your friends, I don’t care—or by offering a deal.” He grins wide, fangs glinting. “Demons do love a bargain.”

“What’s the deal?”

“That’s up to you. Do you have information of value?” In a blink he is perched on a stool on the far end of the stage, a slow grin on his face. He looks up at Sel. “Last call.”

“Stop!”

Approaching through the crowd is a tall white man in a disheveled suit and open collar, escorted by the waitress we’d seen downstairs, Emma. “Valec, I need to speak with you.”

“He wouldn’t wait downstairs,” Emma says with a sniff. She pushes the man toward the stage.

Valec groans and stands, moving to the edge of the stage to look down at the newcomer. “Hello, Senator Anderson. Back again for another request for immortality? I told you, I don’t do forevers—”

“No, no.” The man runs a hand through his hair, eyes shifting to me, the stage, Alonzo, the crowd around him. “Can we please go to your office?”

“No, we cannot,” Valec snaps. “State your business.”

The man wrings his hands in front of him, nodding as if to encourage himself to speak up. “I’m in a bind, Valec.”

Valec’s attention sharpens. “Show me.”

The man digs into his breast pocket and produces a wrinkled sheet of paper, folded longwise.

Valec takes the paper and skims it, his face darkening. “Can’t help you.”

The man looks like he’s swallowed a frog. “But… but I need help renegotiating, he… abandoned his side of the bargain—you’re a broker—”

Valec sighs. “This bargain was unregulated and it’s been signed in blood. There is no renegotiating a done deal. If you wanted my guidance, you should have come to me first and paid my prices to broker the deal for you.” He hands the paper back, disgust twisting his features. “What’s done is done.”