Chapter 102: The Deal
Vera’s jaw tightened, her pulse hammering in her ears. “I’ll never help you get those daggers.”
Orishirishi’s smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed just a fraction too sharp. “Oh, but I already have one. I had to get my hands a little dirty with some blood, but I retrieved it.”
Vera’s breath hitched. She spoke with a little panic present in her tone, “What? How were you able to—”
Ori interrupted, “Your dear Kane was most… cooperative after a little persuasion.”
Vera’s stomach plummeted. Ice flooded her veins. “What did you do to him?”
The demoness waved a wrinkled hand dismissively, as if the question bored her. “He’s alive. Bruised, bleeding, but breathing. For now. He put up quite the fight. Stubborn man, that one—no wonder he’s still alive after all this time. But I got what I needed.”
Vera remained standing, fists clenched at her sides. “You’re not getting the second one.”
Orishirishi leaned forward slightly, black eyes boring into Vera’s. “You will retrieve it from the preacher. If you want little Sandra to return home safe and sound.”
The name hit Vera like a physical blow. “You took her?”
Orishirishi chuckled softly, the sound layered and ancient, like wind through a graveyard. “Not personally. But the curse your friends tried so hard to break still lingers in this town. Even without Martin and Elena’s vessels walking the earth, the hunger remains. Children will keep disappearing in the night. They will keep turning up dead by the river, eyes wide with terror, necks broken. Unless you help me.”
Vera didn’t understand what the demoness wanted. “Help you with what?”
“With getting my daggers back,” Eleanor sighed with a hand over her face, “Try and keep up, human.”
She extended a pale, wrinkled hand across the desk, the gesture almost polite. “The child for the dagger. Do we have a deal, Sheriff?”
Vera stared at the offered hand. Her mind raced—Sandra’s parents’ desperate faces, Tommy’s miraculous return, all the lives already lost to this nightmare. The room felt smaller, the air thicker, pressing down on her chest. Her hand trembled as she reached out.
Before contact was made, she considered finding another way, but she knew that there was none other than what was being offered. She shook Orishirishi’s hand.
The demoness tightened her grip, cold and iron-strong, her black eyes gleaming with dark triumph. “Good. Deliver it to me tonight… or the girl will never come home.”
Then, with a swirl of dark mist that smelled of smoke and scorched earth, Orishirishi released her hand and turned toward the door. She opened it and just walked out of the precinct without being intercepted or noticed by the other cops in there, leaving Vera alone in her office, staring at her trembling fingers in a state of deep uncertainty and growing dread.
How was she going to do this? How was she going to convince Kivior to give up the dagger to save the little girl’s life? Also, what would be the consequence after Orishirishi got both daggers back? For now, she couldn’t ponder those things. She could only think about Kane, and with that, she grabbed her things and ran out of the precinct so she could get to him and make sure he was alright.