by Megan Starks
“Little dragon is chained with magic in same way Half-blood is chained. Same, but different.”
Gisele holstered her pistol. Leaning against her ruined desk, she considered Beast’s words. Her pulse was still racing, and she curled her quivering fingers against her thigh. She wanted to hurt something, not listen to reason. “You’re saying he’s signed a contract, too. It doesn’t give me much sympathy for him if he’s still going to try to kill me in the end.”
Beast nodded, scuffing his hoof at the mess on the ground. “Kill little dragon first. Fix problem.”
“Yeah,” Gisele said. “There’s that option.”
They spent the next hour cleaning up Shade’s mess. In his fury, he’d wrecked whole sections of the office. He’d ripped her desk apart in search of the contract, the jackass. When he’d found it, he’d clearly gone on a rampage, shoving his own desk against the wall and cracking his computer monitor. He’d yanked his keyboard free and hurled it across the room where it’d skidded across the top of Susanna’s desk, knocking her phone askew. He’d toppled the filing cabinet on its side and kicked the front of his desk in. Then he’d stormed into the kitchen and torn the cabinet doors off their hinges, shattering every last mug and bowl.
Thank God Dinah had been safely shut inside the storage closet. If he’d hurt her cat, she would’ve had to skin him alive.
He was a loose cannon, this demon with his hidden agenda.
But what the hell did he want from her?
He’d tried to steal the Mardoll, then left it alone. He’d known about the elghoul, but protected her from it. He’d raged over her contract and demanded she break it.
He’d admitted he was being manipulated—that he was a weapon to be used against her. But then he’d pressed Beast to look out for her.
She couldn’t understand his motivations at all.
Was he or wasn’t he on her side? There was only one way to find out. But if she crossed that line, there was no going back.
“Why the long face, Gigi-baby? Come, now. You’re too pretty to pout.”
“He’s right, honey, you don’t want to get wrinkles like these.”
Gisele looked up from her blooming onion appetizer, a half-hearted smile quirking her lips. The low-end steakhouse and buffet was noisy enough that she practically had to bark to answer them.
“You mean, aside from losing my apartment and all my possessions?” she asked, trying to divert them—and herself—from her true thoughts…thoughts that she couldn’t keep from circling around (and around) Shade.
Damn him. How could he do this to her—make her feel this way? One minute she was exhausted, dejected down to the depths of her soul, and the next she was furious. Over-amped. Unstable and out of control.
She should help him. She should hurt him. She should hand him over to Maisie. No, she should tell Warrick what was going on and let her ‘dad’ handle it for once. But Shade’s warning came floating back to her, chilling her at the thought. Don’t drag them into this. You’ll regret it if they get hurt.
“Don’t worry, kiddo.” Warrick winked at her, stone-hard face cracking as it moved. “We’re going to find you a nice flat-screen TV this time.” He rubbed his rocky fingers together to flake off the crumbs from his bread roll. “Dishes and Goodwill towels can be replaced. But you, Gigi-girl, are not leaving my sight until that rat bastard of a chief calls and says to me, ‘it’s okay—your girl is safe, because we caught him.’ See? That’s what he’s going to say.”
Ah, so the argument of whether she would be sleeping on Warrick’s and Susanna’s couch wasn’t settled, after all.
“And then I’m going down to the station, and I’m going to kill the pig-shit that spat fire at my child.”
Until then, she’d be under his ironclad guard, watching the minutes tick by until the elghoul came for her again or she was summoned to the Sixth’s courts in Hell. The Stump was dead, and the police weren’t going to catch who burned her apartment down. She didn’t want her friend anywhere near the deadly demon, so she’d made Laurel promise (under much duress) not to hunt the ghoul unless the Office of the Paranormal got involved. And until a human victim turned up, the chances of that happening would be slim.
No, she had no time to sit around. Nor was she willing to endanger her loved ones should the elghoul strike again.
“Shade tore the office apart,” she said to throw the grimgolem off her scent. He was worse than a damned bloodhound when he was after something. “Going to take it out of his paycheck? Or can we finally fire him?”
“Well, why in Pete’s name would he do that?” Susanna picked at her short, straw-like hair with two hot pink, acrylic nails. “He best not’ve touched my desk.”
“How much damage?” Warrick demanded.
“I don’t know, he threw a tantrum.”
“I told you he was a dark one, War.” Susanna frowned. “A detonation waiting to go off.”
For a moment, her face tightened with fear. But then it ebbed away, and she sat serene as a sunrise, as if she’d forgotten the topic they’d been talking about. She looked down at her ranch-smothered salad and poked a wedge of lettuce with her fork.
“Why would he damage the office?” Warrick asked. “Were you there? Was it a quarrel? Did he hurt you?”
Realizing he’d bent his fork, he tossed it to the table with a curse.
“I swear to Satan—” His words trailed off, and a look of bewilderment crossed his face, a strange contrast to the red cast of his skin and the vein bulging from his neck. “Better believe I’ll dock his pay.”
She waited for him to continue. Surely, there was more? She’d seen the grimgolem go ballistic for far lesser offenses before, and plenty often. He was over-protective, territorial, short-tempered, aggressive, demanding, and impatient. He could be stern, but he was always fair. And she knew for a fact that he’d developed a fondness for her. But now, at the thought of Shade hurting her in a fit of rage, he had nothing to say? Nothing at all?
“You’d dock his pay if he hurt me?”
“Someone hurt you?” Susanna asked, a bite of lettuce midway to her mouth.
“Who? Did that pig come after you again?” Warrick thumped a fist on the table. Their glasses and plates rattled.
Incredulous, Gisele answered them both, “Who we were just talking about!”
“Who?” they said simultaneously.
“Shade!”
“He damaged the office,” Warrick echoed, seeming to recall the topic at hand. “I’ll dock his pay.”
Gisele fell silent, not knowing how to respond. Her brows knit together, and after some thought, she lied, “But you said you’d fire him last week.”
His beefy lips twisted like he’d just been fed a lemon. “Nonsense, child. We’d never get along without him.”
“Except for all the years we did,” she grumbled, biting a hunk off her hard-crusted dinner roll to hide her expression.
She wanted to snap that if they couldn’t do without him, they’d have to do without her in his stead. But something was wrong. This felt different than the other times she’d protested his hiring—or maybe she’d just never noticed their odd behavior before, too wrapped up in her emotions to see past the length of her own nose. They’d been ridiculously stubborn about it from the moment the handsome demon had first strode through the office front door. She thought they’d had their reasons, even if she couldn’t accept them.
Now she felt almost sure as to what had happened. Somehow Shade had entranced them. The realization boiled her blood.
But what could she say? She sat silent, seething. Thinking.
Susanna plucked the paper wrapper from her unused straw before sitting back in her chair and crossing her pointy elbows over her chest.
“I’ll have to take the towels to the laundromat. We don’t have any clean ones, War.”
“You’re telling me this why, woman?” He flagged a passing waiter, presumably to get a new fork. “We haven’t had a clean towel to rub b
etween us for weeks.”
“Because.” She shredded the straw wrapper into pieces, flicking the tiny bits into the ranch dressing on her discarded salad. “Our Gigi-baby’s going to want a clean towel for her shower in the morning.”
She couldn’t take this anymore. “I’m not—”
But as she stood, bumping her chair with the backs of her knees, the front doors to the steakhouse slammed open, cutting off her protest. In clomped a towering bull-faced demon, head stooped to avoid catching his horns on the doorframe.
“Who’s that?” Warrick asked, tone wary.
The lumbering, black-maned beast lifted one three-fingered hand in the air and jingled a shiny set of new keys. Grinning, he clacked his teeth.
And Gisele couldn’t help but beam right back at him. He was a lifesaver. Her rock, and the shelter in her storm. Her new business partner. “My friend, Beast.”
“What happened to your date?” Gisele asked, bursting with curiosity after the twenty minutes it’d taken her to convince Warrick to let her leave the restaurant with a demon he didn’t know.
She’d had to threaten to clock the grimgolem if he didn’t calm down and let her off the leash. Yes, her life was a mess. But she wasn’t the starving, fourteen-year-old ward he’d plucked from the streets.
He’d promised her a long talk later, but she didn’t care. Trouble with the boss was the least of her worries.
“Date was good,” Beast brayed, abashed. Red tinged his dark cheeks, and he tossed his mane.
It was…kind of cute.
“And?” she pried.
“Was cut short.” He shrugged. “Half-blood needed Beast. So Beast came.”
She cast him a skeptical side-eye. “I did not need you. And how could you know if I did?”
She’d needed him.
It was the minotaur’s turn to glance at her sidelong as they walked. He snorted, sending a thin trail of snot toward the sidewalk beneath their feet. “Beast watches and listens. Understands many things. Half-blood was eager for Beast to return with keys. Wanted new building now, not later, yes?”
“Well, I’m sorry I crimped your date.” She changed the subject lest she risk getting choked up. “What do you say we buy some beds? And flashlights. The electricity won’t be hooked up yet.”
Asphalt gave way to loose gravel, and she smiled at Beast as they crunched their way toward her beat-to-shit car on the outskirts of the parking lot. A touch of sweet hay and mud wafted from him, blending with the pine trees peppering the edge of the lot. The mix of scents was strangely soothing.
But as she opened the driver’s side door, a cold tickle of unease prickled up the back of her spine. She turned, dread-filled, toward the restaurant, but no one was there.
No elghoul lurking under the restaurant’s awning, waiting to murder her. No Shade, leaning against the brick exterior, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, wearing a dark, devil-may-care expression. Despite her jumpy imagination and the threats he’d leveled earlier against her, her coworker wasn’t stalking her every move.
Right?
No one was there, and no one was following her.
She let out a sigh and slumped into the Accord’s front seat. Her apprehension, the sense that she was being watched was just her mind playing tricks on her. Just a feeling.
But then again, her feelings were rarely—if ever—wrong.
13
The evening bled far too quickly into the pale wash of day.
Staying up all night, talking with Beast for hours in the quiet no-utilities-yet-means-no-electricity dark of her new bedroom had been fun. The minotaur’s rumbled voice from the next room as she’d lain on the bed had been strangely soothing, a balm for her soul. And Dinah, curled and purring on her chest, had helped to ground her. In a time when she was feeling wounded and scared, she was glad to have a friend or two—Laurel included—who could handle the chaos that was her life.
Enduring a cold shower in the morning had been a less enjoyable experience. Getting chewed out by Warrick and Susanna at the office shortly after, for ‘letting’ Shade trash the place, had tipped her over the edge of a bristling mood.
After that, they’d refused to let her out of their sight, taking away her caseloads (even the human ones) and insisting on running errands with her in a buddy system.
Warrick took the morning shift, while Susanna switched in post lunch. Both insisted on driving Warrick’s ‘78 black diesel Chevy, which was slow, sweltering even with the windows rolled down, and made her feel like she was fourteen again, needing a ride to community service.
Shade didn’t show hide nor scales all day, which was fine by Gisele. After what he’d admitted, she wouldn’t have gone with him even if Warrick had insisted on another escort. Though he’d said he wouldn’t be back, she hardly believed it even as the hours crept by. He was still on the payroll. And her likely spell-set inability to get him fired just pissed her off.
She almost wished he’d come in so they could continue their knockdown, drag-out fight and she could get to the bottom of his scheme, but ultimately she was relieved he’d kept away. It made one less headache for her to deal with.
Gisele lifted her tired scarlet eyes to scan the nondescript, brick government building, contemplating the even bigger headache she was about to undertake.
The day had been dull and frustrating, but eventually, she’d gotten a replacement driver’s license, opened a pricy ‘tamper-proof’ magical checking account, turned the utilities on, purchased some clothes and basic supplies, and had given both of her guardians a tour of the new place, leaving them with the carefully cultured impression that she’d found the listing online and was subleasing from Beast for cheap. Then, after dropping Susanna at the office and fending off Warrick’s invitation to dinner with a promise to drive straight home, she’d clutched the steering wheel of her Accord, squeaking the hard, smooth rubber between her hands as she considered her options. She needed to deliver the Mardoll to Hell in order to complete her contract. Which meant she needed to secure the proper travel documents for D.C.’s Hellmouth. Which brought her to where she was now.
Her phone dinged, and she snatched for it, half-expecting to hear from Shade. Instead, it was a call from a blocked number. Marcel.
She debated answering, then remembered the strange effect his voice had wreaked on her last time. Shaking her head, she turned the ringer off.
With a groan, Gisele climbed from the car, locking her pistols and boot knife in the glove box. The Gateway Transportation Protection Agency was a lot like the DMV, its effectiveness bogged down by long lines, a mountain of paperwork, and disgruntled, underpaid, easily bribed government officials. Unlike the Office of the Paranormal, the equipment, from desk chairs to body scanners, was about a decade outdated, and no weapons were permitted on the premises, even licensed concealed carry. Luckily though, this federally run bureau posed no threat to a demon’s freedom—unless they were trying to travel or transport something illegally. Which, of course, in Gisele’s case she was…
Inside, the line sprawled at least twenty deep, winding around a magazine-littered coffee table and blue-striped couch before disappearing down the hall toward the restrooms. Most who were waiting appeared to be human, but a garuda towered in the middle—all seven feet of her, ruffling her goldfinch-colored wings as she flipped through a copy of Working Mother magazine.
The place was closing in less than an hour.
The office in the back of the room opened, and a lanky guy wearing a senate ID badge breezed out, clutching a stack of papers to his chest.
“Walker at 4:10?” a woman’s voice droned out from the same room.
That was her appointment.
Palms only a little sweaty, she made her way into the room.
“Is this trip for business purposes, or will you be vacationing in Hell?” The GTPA worker had drab hair and smudged mascara under her eyes. She propped her elbow on the desk and then her chin on her hand as she waited for Gisele’s answer
.
“Actually, I’m visiting family. For the summer,” Gisele lied, noting how the woman scrutinized her unusually colored eyes and small, knobby horns—then summarily dismissed them without interest.
“Are you under any duress to commit this trip, or have you signed any paperwork pertaining to this intended travel?” the woman intoned, tabbing through the forms on her computer screen.
“Nope. I’m definitely not that stupid.”
For a moment, Gisele wondered how many poor souls had screwed themselves far worse than she had and for far less. Then again, she had the feeling she’d screwed herself far worse than she cared to admit. Ignoring it, she signed the paperwork.
Great. That hadn’t been so painful. Her authorization pass should be available for pickup in the next eight to twelve weeks. Then it’d be get in, get out, finish the deal, and never look back. It was going to be her new life motto.
All she had to do was hold off Marcel and survive the thing that was trying to kill her in the meantime. But she didn’t even know why she was being targeted. All of this had to do with the Mardoll, and at the same time—it didn’t. Beast wasn’t the one being targeted, she was. And Shade had warned her the elghoul wouldn’t relent until called off, that it had a master it answered to. Which meant someone had sent it. Could it be that Canaan had survived his topple through the Hellmouth and summoned the elghoul to hunt her in revenge?
These were questions she had a feeling only Shade could answer for her. But whether he would willingly tell her was another story.
By the time she stepped back onto the street, the sun had dipped behind a trio of squat downtown buildings and a red parking ticket was stuck to the windshield of her car. She shivered, feeling chilled despite the sultry air. Shadows swarmed from the alley beside the lot, gobbling up the gum-speckled sidewalk, scrabbling toward her as her imagination ran wild. An uncomfortable feeling clenched in the pit of her gut, and mid-step, she changed course, avoiding the car.