by Sadie Sears
“What’s the ring for?” I nodded at his hand as he snapped his fingers closed around the gem I’d given him.
He shrugged. “Vincent wants it.”
And that was probably all he ever knew. All he needed to know. He worked for Vincent, and I worked for Saul. That was the start and the end of it.
“It was too easy.” I leaned back in my chair.
“What was?” He narrowed his eyes.
“That assignment.” I nodded vaguely at where he’d slipped the ring away. “Finding a ring. A trained monkey could do that.”
He nodded, his eyes calculating. “Well, like I said in the text, I have another assignment for you. So maybe your life on easy street is over.”
My demon liked that. It rubbed its hands with glee. A harder assignment meant something more…complicated than theft.
Saul exhaled, a new light in his eyes. “I got something that’s a little more trouble. Think you can handle it?”
My demon rolled his eyes at the idea there was something we couldn’t handle. I didn’t pass the gesture along. I didn’t want to piss off Saul, and my demon would hate to be caught out being disrespectful.
“I’ve got a girl I need you to find for me. She got lucky earlier, but…there are plans for her.”
I leaned forward. With the amount of interest my demon was taking, I couldn’t stay relaxed.
Saul chuckled. “I knew you’d be eager for it. I knew I had just the guy, and I knew it would be you.”
“What’s the assignment?”
He nodded. “Good. I like that. Straight to business. I like a business-guy.” He took a quick breath. “Okay. I need you to find a human, like I said. She’s wily, and she’s elusive. It will be tough.”
My demon rolled his eyes again. Nothing was tough for us. He wouldn’t dare be disrespectful directly to Saul, though, and no way would he stand for me doing that, either.
“I can find anything,” I said. “You know that. I always find exactly what you send me out there to retrieve. Although, I usually find things.”
Saul lifted his hand and signaled for another drink, drawing his moment out. He lived for this shit, keeping me dangling.
I waited him out, listening to my demon celebrate at the idea of hunting a person.
“This is different.” He shrugged. “So, she’s human…” Saul was just repeating himself now, and nobody had time for that.
Every time he said the word human, thoughts of the one trapped in my treasure room floated through my mind, and unfamiliar restlessness captured me as something in me yearned to return home.
I needed to speed this up. “I got all that. What’s the pay?” I liked money almost as much as I liked my treasures.
Saul looked at me for a moment that stretched into two. Then he pressed his mouth into a flat line before removing a pen from his inside jacket pocket and pulling a discarded napkin toward himself. He smoothed a corner and focused on the napkin for a moment before returning his gaze to me. He nodded once then scribbled a figure on the napkin and passed it to me.
I glanced at it and my demon let out a low whistle. “This is big money, Saul.”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “Well, Vincent is a big money guy. And if this isn’t something you’re willing to do, for this money, I can hire pretty much anyone I like. If you’re happy just finding…things.”
I looked again at the figure. It was big. Real big. But I didn’t want to seem overeager, regardless of the noise my demon was creating in my head at the idea of a hunt.
Saul sat back. “Huh. Well, maybe you’re just not that into it. Although, if you manage to get the girl, there’s a red diamond that has recently fallen into my possession that I’d like to get your opinion on.”
I should have been interested. That was the world’s rarest diamond. But all I felt was the intense desire to go home juxtaposed against my demon’s desire to hunt.
I shifted in my seat, discomfort sitting heavy in my chest. I rubbed my palm against it, and Saul narrowed his eyes.
“The thought of not seeing that diamond hurt?”
“Indigestion.” I threw out my explanation.
“Okay. Let me make this quick so you can go home and take an antacid.” He smirked again. “You’re here because you’re the best I’ve got. I’ve groomed you for this kind of stuff myself. You’re nearly as ruthless as I am. We’ve done some shit together, haven’t we?” He chuckled again and my demon preened. “She’ll be hard to capture.”
“I can do it.” I didn’t doubt my skills. When I’d told him I could find anything, I meant it.
He nodded slowly. “I think you can. And you know what? I’m gonna sweeten this deal.” He drew the napkin back to his side of the table and uncapped his pen once more before he scrawled something else beside the first figure. Then he returned the napkin to my side of the table.
“What’s this?” The second figure was nearly twice as big as the first, and Saul never just handed over money for no reason.
“It’s an increase in your fee, Draven.” His voice grew soft, deadly, and my demon responded, the additional excitement a distraction from my focus.
“Why?” I fought to keep the suspicion from my voice, but it didn’t work out.
“Simple.” He pointed his pen first at one, then the other before downing the shot that had appeared at his right elbow, courtesy of a discreet server. “Two figures for two different results.” He indicated the lower one. “Bring her to me alive.” Next, he indicated the higher one. “Bring her to me dead.” He spoke slowly, as if he was explaining something to a child.
I coughed. “Look, I’ll do the job, but—”
“But what?” He glared, and his eyes flashed red for a moment, revealing the narrow horizontal slit of his demon pupil, and I shivered as it watched me.
Even my demon fell silent in its presence. The noise of the bar muted around us, and we hung in the moment.
“But what?” he repeated, his voice a low growl, barely human.
But killing. While the idea excited my demon, it wasn’t the way I usually did business. “This isn’t the way I work.”
He smiled before his demon receded, then reached into his pocket again and pulled out a flat piece of paper. He slid it over the table and nodded at it.
“Her picture.”
I didn’t even look. I just put it away for later. Then I stood and walked past the bar, heading back to the exit.
“Draven.” Saul called my name, and I stopped, but I didn’t turn around.
My shoulders tensed as I waited for him to continue.
“You’ll do whatever I tell you to do if you want to keep receiving a paycheck from me.” He leaned closer. “And I can make sure you never work in Port Lair again.”
I waited a moment longer, watching the grin that stretched his mouth.
“You’re my bitch now.”
With Saul’s last words ringing in my ears, I strode for the way out, not even sparing a glance for Chloe. None of my chats with Saul were ever particularly satisfactory, but this was the first time he’d tried to make me a murderer for hire.
My demon could sense power within his grasp, a chance to cozy up to Saul.
But I blew through the door, my desire to go home stronger than the need to stay and drink with Saul.
Ash nodded at me as I walked by him. “Tough night?”
“Something like that.” I didn’t want to get into it.
As I sat astride my bike and turned the engine on, I pulled the picture out to study it under the dim parking lot lights.
A startled gasp caught in my throat, and the need to get home increased.
The human woman Saul wanted dead or alive was the same woman I’d left sleeping in an ermine fur nest in my treasure room.
3
Mae
The moment the door clicked closed behind the guy, I opened my eyes to look at where he’d left me. Only I couldn’t see a thing. The room he’d laid me down in was the darkest place I’d ever bee
n.
This whole situation was my idea of hell, if hell even existed.
I took a deep breath, followed by two more, and right when I was on the verge of hyperventilating, I stopped. This wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to me tonight. I needed to get a grip.
I was safe, even if I was locked in. And there were no guys here about to transform into beasts-I-couldn’t-even-name before they went on a murderous rampage. Those were both plus points. Except now, I had to get out.
I rolled over, nuzzling my cheek on the fur below me for a moment before standing up and putting my arms out to steady myself. My fingertips brushed objects I couldn’t see in the dark, and I cursed my dead cell phone battery.
My purse still hung from my shoulder, and I fumbled the zipper open before rooting through my things. I’d only taken a little party purse out with me—enough to hold my phone, a bank card, a couple of bills of emergency cash, and a personal alarm.
And fuck, yes. It was an all-singing, all-dancing emergency alarm purchased by Grandma when I took my job in the big city. Cue a choir of angels singing a hallelujah chorus because Thank you, Grandma. I’d never used it. I just carried it around because it reminded me of her when I saw it at the bottom of my purse.
And now I had a use for it.
“Come to me, little flashlight.” I gripped the small plastic keychain and clicked the button to turn the flashlight on. Nothing happened in the milliseconds I expected a response, so I clicked it again and the alarm began to strobe and shriek at me. The noise echoed off the walls, and the light effect was midway between the police pulling up within inches of me and my own personal prison cell party.
I shut it off before I went deaf, or summoned a curious harpy, and clicked the correct button to activate the tiny flashlight. It was probably only enough to see a keyhole, but the tiny sliver of light was bright enough in the pure black of the room. It lit on stacks of coins, and the metal—gold?—glinted enticingly. Jewels glowed from a stack in the corner, too.
As I shone the light in fine strips over the walls, I couldn’t even make out a doorway, let alone a door. But that couldn’t be right. There had to be a way out because there had been a way to bring me in. And no matter how hidden the secret panel, there had to be a way to activate it from the inside. Too many childhood mystery novels had taught me that much. Move over, Nancy Drew.
Except where was the problem. The back wall held wide shelves, and every inch of those were covered in ornaments, some jewel encrusted and others seemingly plain, but probably worth more than the Statue of Liberty.
Who the hell was this guy?
I moved trinkets and valuables aside as I searched the walls, glanced at chests worthy of Blackbeard himself, and even checked behind a carpet on the wall that looked like one of Aladdin’s best-kept rejects. I poked into the corners where my light wouldn’t reach, and I held my breath each time. That thing earlier had terrified me, but the appearance of a spider from a shadowy corner might have made me pee my pants.
Somewhere in this room, there was a release switch, but damned if I could find it. I’d leapt out of the fucking frying pan into the fire. Straight from one man intent on pursuing me to another intent on what? Keeping me?
But try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to fear him. Only frustration that I was locked up here with no access to the communication I needed gripped my chest. It almost seemed hopeless to continue. But I couldn’t stop. I had a goal—getting my video of this evening to the police. Hell, getting myself to the police because I sure seemed to need protection.
Not to mention it’d be good to get to my computer to write all this up.
I sank to a seated position and flicked my tiny flashlight inch by painstaking inch over the walls. Nothing. I dropped my head back in frustration and pain spread across my skull as I struck it on some sort of box. Dammit. I rubbed it with my hand, and as I moved, my flashlight jerked across the ceiling.
I froze and drew the light beam slowly back. A handle. Well, it looked like a handle. Could have been a shadow. I stood and pushed the chest from behind me to directly under the handle on the ceiling. This had to be it.
I still needed something to reach it. I glanced around. Nothing fit the bill. Until my flickering light beam stuttered over something tall and pointed. I picked it up. A damn trident. Gold in color and—hot damn! Like Poseidon had owned the thing himself. But it was perfect for what I wanted.
With the trident in one hand, I climbed carefully onto the curved top of the chest, my bare feet scuffing right over the rough wood. I couldn’t help anyone if I took a spill right off the other side. I directed the light beam upward and raised the trident, inserting it underneath the handle. If this set off the sprinkler system, I was really in the shit.
At that thought, my concentration wavered. The trident slipped in my damp palms, and it dropped to the floor with a clatter.
“Shit.” I stepped off the chest and picked the trident up for a second try.
It was a crap place for a release handle anyway, but apparently, giants had designed this room.
Once I was back on the chest, I repositioned myself, but the trident skidded out of position again, only this time I held onto it. I drew a deep breath.
“Focus,” I told myself, and hearing the word out loud as a direct command seemed to add to my concentration.
I almost added you can do this, but I didn’t want to overencourage myself and put me off my game.
With a surge of strength that seemed to come from nowhere, I forced a prong under the handle and lifted. It caught something that clunked, and a panel in the wall slid open, revealing the garage full of cars lit by a shaft of moonlight streaming through the window.
Well, I wasn’t out yet, but it was a start.
I walked into the garage space and tugged my phone from where I’d finally stashed it in my purse. Thank God I’d thought to do that. Anyway, I’d just released myself from a room without doors—surely, it wasn’t unreasonable to hope my phone had enough juice to just make one teeny tiny 911 call? Even technology had to understand we were having an actual emergency. I pressed the power button hoping for even small flicker of life. But the screen remained blank, mocking me. Of course, batteries didn’t resurrect for one last miracle.
Regardless of my common sense rearing its head, I still dialed 911 and pressed send, just in case there was still enough power in there somewhere to force out some sort of bat signal. It was a Hail Mary, that was for sure.
But my hopes weren’t entirely dashed. This place had electricity, so it wasn’t unreasonable to believe there might also be a phone charger lying around, or even a landline. I took in the entire space in a single glance. My best bet was either going to be the cupboard over the work bench at the far end or one of the glove boxes. I could search the convertibles, even if nothing else.
I had no idea when that guy would be back or even if the whatever had chased me was still roaming around outside. If I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself, that meant no lights, and no leaving the building until my immediate future was more secure.
My movements became hurried, verging on desperate, as I searched his cupboards, but this guy was so boring he literally only kept tools by his workbench. I’d just stretched into my third convertible to open the glovebox when a whir of machinery preceded the opening of the wide overhead door. It slid like a slow-motion reveal of the person outside, and I stood frozen, hardly daring to breathe as I prayed to gods I didn’t believe in that the gloom at the back of the room offered me some sort of hiding place.
No such luck.
“How did you get out of the room?”
Unexpected relief brought me a sense of lightness, and a spark of excitement danced over my skin at the familiarity of the voice.
Everything’s okay. I’ve got you.
His earlier words echoed through my mind, but I pushed them aside. I didn’t have time to sort through all of my emotions from tonight, let alone figure out
why my stomach flopped over every time I heard this guy speak.
“Get back in there until I decide what to do with you.” He nodded toward the open door of the room crammed with treasures.
Whatever he was, it was highly likely he was wanted by the police because no one came by that much loot by honest means.
“No.” I stopped, regretting my abrupt tone. “I mean, no. Please don’t put me back in there.” I couldn’t do anything from inside that weird vault of a room.
Couldn’t get back to town, couldn’t send help for anyone who might still need it, couldn’t even charge my damn phone.
I grabbed the trident from where I’d left it and held it in front of me. Defensively, threateningly… I couldn’t tell.
He looked at me but didn’t move, so I took that as willingness to listen.
“Look.” I tried appealing to him. I’d never managed the whole hair-twirling thing, and I didn’t have sex appeal in spades, but I could just aim for logic and reason. “I’m not going to lie. I’m in trouble. I need to call the police, and my phone battery has died.”
“In trouble?” His eyebrow quirked up like it was the most interesting thing I’d said to him.
“Yes.” I didn’t want to explain the whole mess because I was pretty sure I’d sound crazy as soon as I got to the part about the monster, but if talking was keeping him from putting me back in that little room, then I was going to talk and talk and talk. “Please just listen to me.” I wasn’t even above begging if it bought me an extra moment or two outside a locked room.
The longer I was out here, the more opportunity I had to leave.
He nodded, the movement curt and brisk, but remained standing away from me, and I resisted the unexpected temptation to sidle closer to him.
I let the trident fall to the floor with a clatter and rubbed my hands over my upper arms as I began to speak. “I was at a party at some rich guy’s estate.” I squinted as I glanced at the window. “It can’t be too far away, actually. I’m still on the bluff, right?” I’d run fuck knew how many circles through the woods in the dark. I was probably lucky I hadn’t run right off the cliff edge.