The starch went out of me, and I fell back, but the adrenaline churning in my veins refused to quit.
“He’s not on the porch,” she continued, climbing up my stomach to sit on my chest. “He’s in the yard.”
“Why?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking her about Asa, or the universe about why I was awake, or why she was attempting to give me a heart attack.
“He was there when I woke up this morning. Not daemon-Asa. Just regular Asa.” She stared down at me. “And before you fuss, I’ve been calling your name forever, and I really need to get back to my game.”
The downside of my brand of insomnia was when I finally did fall sleep, I was dead to the world. That explained why I didn’t rouse when she called my name. It had nothing to do with my subconscious perking up at learning Asa was right outside.
None of which sounded great for my peace of mind. “Clay?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
Eyes sliding closed, I mumbled, “I’ll handle it.”
Colby pounced on my gut, knocking the wind out of me, then zipped out the door in a blur.
“That was cruel,” I wheezed after her, “and horrible and plain mean.”
“I had to make sure you didn’t roll over and go back to sleep.”
“For that, no high-speed internet for a month. It’s dial-up for you.”
Popping her head around the doorframe, she quivered her antennae. “What’s dial-up?”
“Leave.” I flicked my hand at her. “Your youth disgusts me.”
A quick check confirmed that nope, I hadn’t taken off yesterday’s clothes.
Grit in my eyes and tangles in my hair, I padded through the house until I stood on the front porch.
Asa leaned against a tree, whittling a stick he no doubt found in my yard.
For no good reason, that irked me. “Can I help you?”
He wore his standard Bureau-issued suit that made me hot looking at him.
Not like hot-hot, I meant sweaty. Not like good-sex sweaty, just regular sweaty.
And gods above, could I see him once and not have dirty thoughts?
“I came for your signature.” He straightened from his lean. “We got a phone call.”
That first day, Clay told me the copycat killer phoned in his crimes after he committed them.
A heavy weight pressed on my chest, a question of whether I could have made a difference to these girls if I had been less invested in protecting Colby, and myself. But one thing life had taught me was that you had to take care of you. No one else would do it for you.
This was not my fault. These deaths were not on my head.
But the next time, and there would be a next time and a next until we stopped him, it might be.
If I didn’t sign away my soul, I might cost someone else theirs.
Four someones.
There was only one response I could live with, assuming the amendments held. “Do you have a pen?”
“Yes.” He exchanged his knife for a pen and stuck his carving in the dirt. “I’ll get the papers.”
A faded blanket was spread across the ground behind him, its earth tones too muted for me to notice at first.
The file holding the contract rested in the center, along with a thermos I bet was filled with black coffee.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he had spent the night out here, but he was too fresh for that. He had returned his hair to its usual long braids and traded his oval earrings for dainty silver hoops to match the one in his nose. Dainty wasn’t the right word, but I was staring again, and I couldn’t get my brain or vocabulary to function.
“Where’s Clay?” I scanned the driveway, but there was no sign of him. “How did you get here?”
Last night, I waited until after the tow truck left with its passengers before summoning Megara.
Between then and now, Clay would have secured them transportation. Either a rental or a company SUV could have been delivered, even this far out in the sticks.
“I went hunting last night.” He retrieved the folder. “I shouldn’t have left it so long. It caused me to…”
“…get territorial?”
“Yes.” He held out the papers with the pen on top. “I apologize for my behavior.”
Last night came back to me in a rush, and I let myself out of the gate. “Your text.”
“It was cowardly of me not to apologize in person.”
The reason I got rolled out of bed came back too. “Is that why you felt the need to stake out my yard?”
“Yes,” he said with enough hesitation I doubted it was his only reason.
“I got your text, but I was up late working on the contract. I fell asleep before I could respond.”
The contract was the exact version Megara and I drafted, and it was already signed by the director at the bottom.
“I’ll run in and sign this at the table.” I nudged open the gate. “Can I get you anything?”
“No.” He crouched, retrieved his stick, and resumed his whittling. “Thank you.”
No surprise, Colby met me at the door and trailed me to the kitchen table.
Palms spreading over the stack, I murmured a soft chant that would verify my assumption.
“The contract is identical.” Not so much as a punctuation mark had been corrected. “That’s good.”
“Then why are you scowling at it?” Colby sat on the papers. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
For me.
She left that part unspoken.
“Life is about compromise.” I scratched her head. “I do this, and we get to keep our life here.”
“We could run again.” She patted my hand with a foot. “We could buy another house, right?”
“I’ve spent a stupid amount of money Colby-sizing your game room. I’m not leaving it behind.”
That was only part of the truth, and she knew it, but she didn’t want to make this about her.
How much she recalled of her ordeal, I couldn’t say, and she wouldn’t tell me. She preferred to pretend I found her wild and tamed her. It hurt less than remembering she had been a little girl once, with parents and a family and a dog.
I collected pictures of them off social media and printed them to hang on her walls when she first came to live with me, but I found them balled up in the garbage. I tried again each time we moved, but I was starting to believe my need to fix unfixable things where she was concerned was more for me than her.
“I heard Megara.” She rolled the pen back and forth. “You do seem happier.”
“I missed Clay.” I couldn’t say his name without smiling. “I didn’t realize how much.”
“It’s hard hiding who and what you are from your friends.” Her antennae swiveled. “It’s like, okay, they’re your friends, but would they still be your friends if they knew the real you?”
This wasn’t about me, not really, but that was the safest way to address the answer.
“Sometimes the face you show one person might not be what another one sees. Our friends share our interests, but not all our interests. It’s okay to have different ones for different things. That a person only knows one side of you doesn’t make them any less your friend.”
“No one here knows you’re a witch,” she said thoughtfully, “so Clay is your witch-stuff friend.”
“Exactly.” I let her mull over that. “The relationship I have with him isn’t like the one I have with Arden and Camber. They have different hobbies than he does.” I poked her side. “Like viral food videos and cute boys.”
Antennae quivering, she stared up at me with big, round eyes. “What’s our thing?”
“Everything.” I kissed the top her head. “It’s hard hiding secrets from your roomie.”
Happiness twitching in her wings, she scooted off the contract. “You going to sign or what?”
After I signed my life away, I sat back, half expecting my soul to be contractually ripped from my body.
Nothing happened.
/>
Either because I was overly dramatic or had no soul or maybe both.
The stack of papers shimmered under my hand. It was the only warning I got before they disappeared.
“Whoa.” Colby walked a circle where they had been. “Where did they go?”
A sour taste hit the back of my throat. “Straight to the director’s desk.”
Much like the mythical Satan, he was the final word on all binding contracts.
“That’s so cool.” A shiver worked through her. “You’re a witch and all, but you never do witchy stuff.”
“You’re just mad because I refused to enchant the kitchen to bake for you on command.”
Rainbows and kittens might as well have burst from her eyes as she rounded them for full effect.
“I would blow things up less if you did…”
“Are you trying to tell me you blow things up on purpose, so I’ll cave to your demands?”
A heartbeat passed as I watched the calculations run behind her eyes. “Gotta go.”
Quick as a flash, she kicked off the table and zoomed back into her game room.
“Spoiled brat,” I grumbled loud enough for her to hear. “No respect for your elders.”
The weight of the pen in my hand brought my attention back to who waited for me.
I had done the deed. Signed my name. Accepted my fate. And maybe, I would do some good.
I was a willing employee, as willing as any Black Hat, and it was time to pay the piper.
“I’m going to talk to Asa,” I called, figuring she was already plugged in. “Stay inside the wards.”
He met me at the gate, and it was silly to be more comfortable with the ward between us when I just did the unthinkable by returning to Black Hat, which entailed a formal agreement to work with Clay and Asa.
“It’s done.” I worried one of the claw marks I would have to repair later. “I’m official.”
The peridot of his eyes was eclipsed by burnt crimson for a split second. “I’ll send the case files then.”
“Clay’s still not here?” I checked the road, but I could see it was clear for miles. “Where is he?”
“At the hotel.” He examined the claw marks too, or maybe the tips of my fingers. “I put him in stasis last night while the enchantment repaired the damage from the dryad.”
“He hates that.” I couldn’t blame him. “How much longer does he have?”
For Clay, he could still hear and see what happened around him. He was paralyzed, not sleeping.
“I’m going to head back now.” He backed up a step. “You have my number if you have any questions.”
“You’re going to walk back?” The sun was up now, and so were my neighbors. “The whole way?”
“Yes?” He canted his head. “I walked out here. Ran, actually.”
Groggy from my wakeup, I missed the big picture earlier. “You hunted in my backyard?”
“Your yard is warded.” He smiled the tiniest bit. “I hunted in your neighbor’s yard.”
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” I gestured between us. “Whatever this is.”
Without answering me, he turned on his heel to go, with that pleased-as-pie look on his face.
He made it to the end of my driveway before I caved to my better nature.
“Wait,” I called to him. “I’ll drive you.”
Rushing inside, I changed clothes and pulled up my hair. “Colby, I’m heading to work.”
No answer.
No surprise there.
I scribbled a note that said the same and stuck it to the pantry where I kept her pollen.
Asa waited for me with one hand in his pocket. When I rolled to a stop beside him, he made no move to get in. I stared at him. He stared right back. I considered driving over his foot. He only widened his smile.
Giving in to him, a dangerous habit to start, I leaned across the seat and shoved open his door.
“You are one weird dude.” I strapped on my seat belt. “Why did you stand there?”
“You had to invite me in.”
A laugh burst out of me. “Are you serious?”
“No.” He laughed too, softer. “I was teasing.”
After the drama from yesterday, he was trying to make amends. I appreciated that, and I decided I might not want to beat him to death with his own shoe after all. Daemon culture wasn’t a subject I had studied with my parents or later, with Black Hat, though some witches specialized in summoning the nastier ones.
From my general studies, I couldn’t peg Asa’s caste. He didn’t behave like any daemon mentioned in the darker texts that had been my focus. Maybe his fae blood was to blame. I wasn’t sure, and it was rude to ask. Worse, it would open me up to questions like So, were you born evil, or did you choose to be?
For a black witch, there was only one answer. For me? I wasn’t so sure anymore.
The radio kept us entertained on the way to town, and I dropped Asa off at his hotel to free Clay.
As much as I hated to abandon my store, I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t balance both jobs without dropping one or the other, and the case had to be my priority. I had my speech planned out when Arden glanced up from the counter and pointed to voices coming from the back room.
I followed the conversation to Miss Dotha, who sat behind my desk. Hunched over my desktop, Camber beside her, she had started filling online orders that needed to go out on our next mail drop. Her glasses had slid to the end of her nose, which almost touched the screen, but her cheeks were flush with purpose.
Miss Dotha, being farsighted, had no trouble spotting me across the room. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here?”
Camber snorted then straightened when Miss Dotha gave her side-eye. “Why aren’t you on vacation?”
While the girls believed I was helping the police put my abusive ex behind bars, Miss Dotha, and the rest of the town, got the much more vanilla excuse of me taking a trip to the mountains.
“I came to break the news to the girls.” I smoothed an eyebrow. “I see you have things under control.”
“Gran told me you called her to set things up,” Camber confessed, “and I told Arden.”
The phone tree was a real thing in this town. Probably everyone and their momma knew I was leaving.
“Was there something else?” Miss Dotha resumed her hunch. “I’m on the clock here.”
“No, ma’am.” I meekly backed out of the office—my office—and bumped into the counter. “Have fun.”
“She’s not so bad.” Arden straightened the flyers I knocked askew. “But also, please, come back soon.”
Laughing at her darted glances toward the back room, I left her to fend for herself. Miss Dotha might as well be a blood relative, as much time as the girls spent together. Arden loved her, even if Miss Dotha could be prickly.
The store hadn’t taken any time at all, so I popped into the smoothie shop to get my breakfast of choice. I hesitated but then decided to get Asa the same thing. I chose the daily specials for Clay, who would eat or drink anything you set in front of him. One of each. Both large.
When my order came up, I scratched an R in the foam near the bottom of my cup with a thumbnail. I felt ten kinds of stupid but also eaten up with curiosity. I had to know if I was off my rocker, and this was an eight-dollar sanity check. Not that it explained why he may or may not be playing switcheroo with me.
Armed with breakfast, I returned to the hotel for a debriefing and to dig into the files in person.
Negotiations had cost us time, but I couldn’t regret the precautions I had taken for Colby and me.
Clay met me at the door with a scowl I recognized as him shaking off the sedative effect of self-repair.
“Maybe this will help.” I passed him the first of his drinks. “Blueberry banana with granola.”
“Thanks.” He gestured me into their suite. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Asa sat at the table that was the reason for the s
uite, in my experience, with papers strewn about him.
“I got you my usual.” I presented him with the cup. “You seemed to like it well enough yesterday.”
“Thank you.” He accepted the offering then kicked the leg of the chair across from him to push it out for me. “I didn’t expect you to finish your errands so soon.”
“The problem with hiring good people and training them well is they don’t need you.” I placed my cup five or six inches from his, on my side of the table, then did my level best to ignore it. “I have a few things for Colby to do, but nothing major. I can be ready to leave from home within an hour.”
“You’re leaving Colby?” Clay traded out for his second drink. “Will she be okay with that?”
The alternative, parading her around in front of my fellow Black Hats, wasn’t happening.
Humans might mistake her for a hair bow, but other paranormals would sense her magic and salivate.
“Colby is safer at home than she would be with me on the road.”
Before we moved in, I warded the house like a fortress in case Black Hat caught up to us at home. Colby knew her way around our property. There were thirteen moth-sized emergency shelters, each six-inches square and protected by individual wards, in case the worst happened.
The target was on my back, which gave Colby an excellent chance of escaping while in her smallest form.
“She’s your ward.” Asa spread his hands. “You know best.”
Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t noticed how hard I was silently daring him to claim it was a bad idea. But that was my insecurities talking. I had done my best. I had planned for the worst. Now we tested it.
“I’m worried.” I sipped my smoothie. “I can’t put her in my pocket and carry her everywhere I go.”
Life would be simpler for me, but she wouldn’t really be living, and that was the whole point of all this.
Clay sat on the bed, a safer bet than the spindly chairs. “How much does she remember?”
“All of it.” I took another sip to wet my parched throat. “She won’t talk about it, but it’s in there.”
The burnt-black eyes of Asa’s daemon stared out at me. “Only a true monster preys on children.”
Monster had so many definitions. I didn’t disagree with his, but mine must be broader.
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