If she had her clients’ lack of scruples, she would bill the Ramirezes for services rendered. Why shouldn’t she make money off her knowledge like any other consultant? The only problem was James. He would never approve of profiting off a five-year-old girl’s life.
Elise tested the edge of the blade with her thumb. Maybe instead of billing families in need, she could start threatening her pre-existing clients with violence. Yeah. That could work.
She speared the stack of mail with her knife. It gave a satisfying thunk as the knife’s point bit into the blotter.
The only warning her door was about to open was a single knock. Elise jerked the blade out of her desk and dropped it in the drawer just in time for a blonde tornado to sweep in.
“Good morning, gorgeous!”
“Morning, Betty,” Elise said. “How did you get here?”
Betty was the exception to Elise’s steadfast refusal to develop a social life. Her roommate liked to describe herself as the sexiest research scientist in the West, and she played into that image with a dangerously low-cut blouse and what barely passed as a skirt.
“I’m just popping by. Cassandra and I are on our way to the university. I need a revision to my taxes!” Betty set her folder on Elise’s desk with all the flourish of bestowing a gift upon her.
“No, you don’t. I prepared your taxes three months ago. They were perfect.”
“Yeah, but I think I found more deductions. Would you take a look? Please? I don’t want to have to pay the IRS this year.”
“You know every month you don’t pay incurs a half-percent fine, right?” Elise asked. “And aren’t you worried about splashing caustic chemicals on your cleavage?”
“I’m not doing work in the lab today. I have to see my mentor about my thesis,” Betty said, giving Elise a knowing grin.
“I’ll take another look at your taxes if you promise not to get kicked out of graduate school for sexual harassment. Nobody else is paying me anyway.”
“Great! Well, except for the part where you’re not getting paid. Are you going to make your half of rent this month?”
“Probably,” Elise said. She silently added, I hope.
Betty wasn’t fooled. She gave Elise’s hand on the desk a comforting squeeze. “We’re doing okay. Don’t stress about it. But maybe it’s time to hire some goons to have a talk with them, huh? Make them an offer they can’t refuse?”
“Would you believe me if I said I’m seriously considering that as an option?”
“I’ll believe anything with you, Elise. So what happened with your mail? Taking out your frustrations with a letter opener?” She wiggled a finger through a hole in one of the envelopes.
Elise shrugged. “They showed up like that.”
“Yeah? I wonder if it was the postal service or the mailroom guy,” Betty said. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Ooh, you know, I bet it was that guy that does the credit counseling services. He’s such a creeper. He always gives me looks when I go by his room.”
“I think he’s surprised anybody likes me enough to visit. It could also be your amazing disappearing wardrobe. I’ve seen strippers wear more than you.”
Betty laughed. “Elise! Why are you seeing strippers in the first place?”
“I’ve got some weird clients.” Understatement of the year. Betty didn’t know that most of the people she worked for weren’t people at all.
She swiped Elise’s coffee, took a sip, and set it back down with a sigh. “Hate to demand deductions and run, but Cassandra’s outside and my mentor is waiting.” Betty wiggled her eyebrows. “You going to be home for dinner tonight?”
“No. I’m going to go see James.”
“Oh really. So you’re planning on eating out? Get it? You know, like—”
Elise didn’t let her finish. “Not everyone lives in a porno like you do, Betty. It’s not like that.”
“I don’t know why,” Betty sighed. “If James was inviting me over for dinner, it would definitely be ‘like that.’”
“Uh huh. I’ll let you know about your taxes tomorrow.”
“Thanks, love,” Betty said. “By the way, you got some ketchup on your blouse.” Elise glanced down, touching her injured lip. The smear of red on her collar wasn’t ketchup. “See you later!”
“Bye, Betty.”
She turned back to her computer, where the emails full of excuses were still waiting. Her smile slowly faded.
A lifetime of killing demons could never have prepared her for the ugly reality of being unable to pay her bills. It seemed cruel that she could be a skilled accountant creeping toward debt, but she didn’t think many demons would be impressed by phone calls from debt collectors.
Elise’s gaze wandered to the drawer with her knives again. Demons only responded to violence.
Screw discretion. Maybe it really was time to start speaking their language.
Click. The sign outside Motion and Dance Studio flickered and turned off. Rain tapped against the control box on its side, dripping onto the brown grass and running off into the gutter.
Elise locked the door on the control box and headed inside. Her footsteps echoed through the main hall as she moved from window to window to shut them. Elise’s reflection on the mirrored wall behind her mimicked her actions, a dark silhouette of a long-haired young woman in an open blazer and low heels.
She peeked into the second, smaller dance hall. It wasn’t quite as nice as the main one, since it had recently been converted from a garage. The studs were exposed on one side and boxes with branded t-shirts were stacked against the wall.
The windows were already locked, so Elise turned to leave again. Her own motion in the mirror caught her eye. She hesitated in the center of the dance hall.
A scar on her left breast peeked over the neck of her blouse, glowing pale white in the light from the street lamps. That injury had been delivered by a stone knife in the hands of a woman claiming to be a death goddess. She tortured Elise for hours by chaining her to a wall and drawing lines in her flesh. Most of them healed cleanly, but the one over her heart had been deep enough to scrape bone.
It was the last time Elise hunted a demon. She prevented apocalypse that day, but the costs had been too high.
She clicked off the flood lights before locking the front door, wiggling the handle to make sure it was secure. She hugged the side of the building to avoid the rain as she took the stairs to the second floor.
The door upstairs was ajar. She hung her coat on the hook beside James’s jacket and shook out her hair.
“James?” she called, stepping into the kitchen.
All of the lights in the apartment were off. Elise flipped the switch to the stove’s overhead light. Golden potatoes simmered under a glass lid, and two wine glasses were waiting nearby on the counter. The wine itself was still on the rack.
Her eyes scanned the arrangement of the furniture, the appliances. The table had been moved from the informal dining area to the living room. Half-melted candles marked with pentagrams and anointed with oil were arranged on low stands around the edges of the room. A large crystal had been set on a velvet cloth in the center of the table, and the last edition of the Sierra Witch’s Almanac lay by its side.
It looked like James had been preparing for a ritual, but she heard no sounds in the house beyond the occasional hiss of steam and clicking as the stove’s temperature shifted. He would never leave dinner unattended.
Where was he?
Elise slipped off her shoes, a thread of adrenaline thrilling through her stomach. She turned off the light again and approached the hallway. Lifting her skirt over her knees to free her legs, she lowered into a half-crouch.
“James?” she called again, softer this time.
Creak.
Danger.
Elise spun too late. The closet door slammed open, and a tall, dark form flew at her from its depths. Her hip hit the arm of the couch and sent the side table crashing to the ground. She let herself roll over th
e side, and the assailant flew past her.
She was on her feet again in a heartbeat, sweeping her leg high to strike his back. He cried out, stumbling forward, and Elise kicked again, lower this time. Her foot connected with a muffled thump.
He lost balance, barely catching himself on the half wall. He threw his arms up to block Elise’s next kick, catching her ankle. She jerked and broke his grip.
Her attacker’s fist flashed through the darkness. Elise twisted away. The blow landed on her right shoulder instead, and her arm numbed.
The blows between them were fast, smooth, like a choreographed dance. He swung at her, and she blocked him with her forearms to strike low, seeking a hole in his defense. Kick, kick, punch—Elise caught his arm and threw him against the opposite wall.
She grabbed him by the throat and pushed his head back. She tightened her fingers around his esophagus. It didn’t take much force to hold him in place, even though he was nearly a foot taller than she was; one wrong move and his airway would collapse.
“Got you,” she growled.
A frozen moment hung between them, his struggling breath hot on her face. He smelled of breath mints and aftershave, and a little bit like summer grass, and he all but radiated heat. He had been inside—waiting—for quite a while.
Her assailant gurgled. Elise relaxed her hands.
“Oh, sorry. Are you okay?”
He coughed once and cleared his throat. “Yes…I think so. You haven’t lost your touch, have you?”
“There’s no chance of that happening with your help.” Elise backed off, allowing her aspis to step away from the wall. She flicked on the living room light, and James rubbed his neck.
“You could have pulled your punches,” he said. “Didn’t you recognize me?”
Elise smiled. She would have recognized him in total darkness. “It would be insulting to go gentle on you. What’s that I smell in the oven?”
“Prime rib roast with red wine sauce.”
She picked the side table back up. “Sounds great. What would I do without you?”
“Starve, I imagine,” he said as he pulled an apron that said Kiss the Crone over his head.
James returned to his cooking while Elise fixed the mess she made in the living room.
The apartment was small, but he made good use of the space; James’s sense of aesthetics was far superior to hers. All his furniture matched in a Pottery Barn kind of way, his walls were decorated with fine photography, and he even had some kind of fancy throw rug. Elise’s idea of decorating was putting up movie posters with thumb tacks.
“It took you a long time to get up here,” he remarked from the stove. “I hid for ages. What were you doing downstairs?”
“Locking up. Someone forgot to shut all the windows.”
“I was busy making dinner.” James turned on the oven light and peeked through the window. “Just a few more minutes, I think. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
He gave her the kind of look that said he knew she wasn’t, but didn’t feel like arguing it. “Did you see the Ramirezes today?”
“Yeah. That was fun. They’re a mess.”
James uncorked a bottle of wine and poured it into the waiting glasses. “Is it possession?”
“Maybe. Lucinde didn’t like having St. Benedict flashed at her. She also kicked me in the face.”
Elise picked up the Sierra Witch’s Almanac and peered at the bookmarked page. James’s coven published a new almanac every year with lunar correspondences and seasonal spells, and they always included an excerpt from their Book of Shadows in the back. The spell he was looking at seemed complicated.
He handed her one of the glasses. She dropped the book. “Your bruises look painful.”
“She’s got a nasty kick for a five-year-old. Nastier than yours, anyway,” she said. He opened his mouth to protest, but she went on. “Marisa mentioned she was having nightmares. It’s possible Lucinde was attacked by a mara or an incubus instead.”
“But you don’t think it’s possession?” he asked, serving dinner using puffy blue pot holders.
“Probably not.”
“Good. That will make it easier.”
Elise shrugged. “It’s not my problem. I’m not an exorcist anymore.”
He turned on the radio on the windowsill.
“—other spooky news, a temp guard by the name of Richard Czynski disappeared from a cemetery in the north side of town,” the DJ said in a voice far too perky to be discussing a missing persons case. “Curiouser and curiouser, he’s not the only thing that’s disappeared. The grave of notorious Amber Hackman, one of the only people to escape this black hole of a town, has also been raided. Obviously she didn’t like having to spend her death here anymore than she did her life. Zombie attack? Your run-of-the-mill grave rob gone wrong? You ring in and let us know on Spooky News, your favorite—”
“What trash,” he muttered, switching it over to a classic rock station.
She felt the motion before she saw it. James’s hand whipped toward Elise.
Side-stepping his reach, she jerked his wrist forward and trapped his arm under hers. A twist, a hard shove, and she had him against the wall.
Elise grinned at him, and his returning smile was softer, but no less affectionate. It softened the coldness of his eyes. Ten years, and he hadn’t won a fight against her once.
“Damn, you’re fast,” he said when she dropped him. He rubbed his elbow. “I’ll get you someday.”
“Sure you will,” Elise said, mostly to be nice.
They sat down together at the table. James hesitated over a piece of potato, pushing it through the prime rib’s juices with his fork. “I think you should keep working with the Ramirezes.”
“Why? The coven can handle it, and I have too much work to do. Real work. The kind of stuff that pays the bills.” Elise smiled over her wine glass. “Unless you think the Ramirezes would pay me a consultation fee?”
“You can’t charge them money.”
“And I can’t pay the rent with gratitude.” She tried to ignore his disapproving stare, but she could feel its weight as she picked at her salad. “I’ll investigate. Maybe I’ll find out something helpful.”
“Thank you.”
She grunted. “Do you still have my falchion?”
“It’s in the locked case where you left it. Why? Did you want it back?”
“Not really. I was just thinking about it earlier.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, too,” he murmured over his glass of wine. He didn’t mean the sword.
The sounds of classic rock intermingled with the soft pattering of rain on glass, making for a peaceful meal. Elise made a good show of picking at her dinner to appease James, but as good as it tasted, she left her plate half-full. She cleaned up her place at the table, shoveling her barely-touched potatoes into a container.
James wasn’t finished, but stood to help her anyway. “Eager to escape?”
“No, I just have to follow up on some clients that aren’t paying.”
He touched Elise’s chin, his thumb hesitating over the gash. “Are you certain you’re all right?”
Elise gazed up at him, momentarily breathless. James was a handsome man. He also had absolutely no interest in her romantically, which he had made very clear over the years.
“Yeah.” She turned from him to put the leftovers in the refrigerator. “I’m fine.”
He caught her elbow—a less violent gesture than their earlier fighting. “Let me take care of you,” he said.
All she had to do was nod, and James ran his knuckles down her cheek, and his power flowed around them, gentle and warm. It breathed through Elise, and she felt as though she was sinking into the sky.
An instant later, it was over. Elise touched her lip. The wound was gone.
James held up a yellowed note card with a single, prominent rune inscribed on the blank side—an old healing spell.
“Found this in my
fire safe yesterday. Might as well get some use out of my old paper spells. I don’t plan on using them ever again. This, on the other hand…” He took a knife of the cabinet and handed it to Elise. It was as long as his forearm and intended to be worn in a spine sheath.
The corner of Elise’s mouth twitched. “Hiding weapons in your kitchen? I’m visiting a client, not going on safari.” She jabbed the dagger into an invisible enemy, and the muscles in her arm rippled.
“Yes, but between Lucinde’s demon problem, and some of the other news I’ve been hearing…” He trailed off. “I would appreciate it if you humor me.”
Elise led him to the entryway and showed him the throwing knives hidden in her blazer pocket. “I’m miles ahead of you.”
James’s smile was sad. “Be careful.”
“Always,” she promised.
Chapter 3
Elise didn’t deal with many local clients, and of those nearby, only one would provide information as well as a paycheck: Craven’s, a small demon-owned casino with six months of outstanding debt to their accountant.
Craven’s wasn’t one of those big hotel casinos that booked Cirque-style shows and courted high-rollers. It was a little dive a few blocks off downtown with boarded windows and no flashy lights. Elise only discovered it wasn’t condemned when one of her oldest clients, a cambion that could barely stand, informed her that their racks of ribs were the best kept secret in the city. And they did have great ribs—but it wasn’t always from the kind of animal Elise was willing to eat.
Her contacts worked in the basement nightclub beneath Craven’s. It was the kind of place a kopis couldn’t visit unless she wanted a fight, and it wasn’t much safer for someone in a business suit, either. Instead, she went home to change into something club-appropriate. Elise didn’t go anywhere except work and the gym, so all she had was a black halter top and Lycra pants left over from Halloween. The pants were skin-tight, with nowhere to hide a weapon, but she fit an ankle rig under her right boot and a small knife under her belt. It wasn’t a fast draw, but it would have to do.
Elise was doing her makeup in the mirror when Betty got home.
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 167