I was shaking my head as I said, “She didn’t just leave.”
“She did.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
“She’s gone either way,” he said, seeming more interested in his damn tennis ball than satisfying my curiosity.
This was going to be a big day for firsts, like bigger than when I walked into the Shadowlands for the first time, bigger than when I cast my first spell, even bigger than when I lost my virginity. Well, that hadn’t been a particularly good night anyway. Point was, I never thought I’d say what I was about to say.
“Can you get her back?” I couldn’t really mean this.
The stack of papers sat looming large on the desk, and I kept going, knowing Kane was going to harass me daily for help if I didn’t. I needed him too much to tell him to go screw, and he knew it. “Call her up and tell her you’ll pay her double.”
“She won’t come back for any amount of money. That’s your fault, so now you need me to help.” He seemed very calm over her leaving. Just thudded his ball. Maybe Flip had been right.
“Wait, how’s it my fault?” Yeah, I might’ve threatened her in the past, but she’d had it coming. Plus, that woman had given as good as she got. I wasn’t buying any “poor me” bullshit she gave him that landed me in paperwork purgatory.
“It is.”
I walked over to him and grabbed the ball before it returned to him. “Prove it’s my fault and I’ll help.” I dropped the ball back to him, knowing this was my ticket to the shredder. He’d never be able to prove it.
He glanced at me, and I could see something wavering in his expression, and then he threw the ball again. “It is.”
He was leaning back on the couch, giving me his best I’m the boss of this shop look.
I walked back to the desk, leaned back, and kicked up my heels. It took me less than a second to realize I’d stolen this posture from the man himself, after watching him do it countless times.
I was digging in. There was no way I was getting all that paperwork dumped on me without an explanation.
He finally stopped bouncing the ball. “You know I could make you.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” That was it. He couldn’t prove it was my fault. Ha!
He turned toward me. “You’re really sure you want to know?”
“Positive.” Big bluffer. I knew this game. I’d played it, stalling for time until you thought something up.
“She acted in my name when she shouldn’t have. We had a discussion and she left.”
“Like a chitchat discussion?”
“Do you think I kill everyone?” He seemed to find it amusing.
“No. But…well, you don’t seem to have a difficult time with it, so it’s not like I shouldn’t check.”
“I wanted to kill her, but I told her if she got out of my office right then, I wouldn’t. She did.”
I hadn’t really thought he’d kill her. He was loyal, I’d give him that. To some people, anyway. “So how is her acting in your name my problem?” I had him now. I crossed my arms over my chest, smiling wide.
“She told the leprechauns they could pick you up after I’d made it clear you weren’t to be touched.”
He hadn’t turned his back on me? I dropped my gaze as the intensity of that revelation rocked me. When he’d walked down those stairs to the basement, as if invited, I thought the worst. But he’d done nothing. Isabella had, and he’d made her leave because of it.
Why had he not told me this before? It didn’t make any sense. “Why didn’t you…”
The bouncing finally stopped and I saw the closed expression.
He went back to bouncing, but not before I got the message. I should’ve known.
He was right. I should’ve. Yes, he’d used me for his purposes in the past, and I’d used him every bit as much. But he’d protected me too, more times than I could remember now. I’d left without a word, which I knew he’d seen as a betrayal, and he was still protecting me.
Why had he done that? Why was he acting so nice? Or maybe it wasn’t an act at all.
When I first met Kane, I’d hated him. Then I’d started to warm up to him, maybe even gotten a little hotter than warm.
Then I left him and he’d hated me, and I’d decided I needed to hate him. Now? I didn’t know what I thought anymore.
And where did that leave me and that stack in front of me? I might’ve been better off thinking he hated me. “I don’t even know what to do with all this stuff.”
“You’ve gone over enough of my paperwork before. Just make sure nothing looks outlandish.” He was back to thudding his ball as if we hadn’t had a moment, exactly as I hoped he would.
I scratched my head, wondering if I needed to read everything or maybe every other page. “I really don’t think I’m proficient enough. I’m going to mess you up somehow.” Hopefully that would scare him off.
“Didn’t you just tell me you were going to pay me back all those debts?”
I placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward. “I’m not paying you back in paperwork, so just get that right out of your head.”
“What if that’s my preferred payment?” He started humming as he bounced.
We’d see who won this negotiation. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do paperwork, but you’re not going to like my rate.” Let’s see how happy he looked after this.
“Name it.”
“Fifty thousand an hour.”
He paused and looked at the stack. “Deal.”
“What?” I sat back down. How had that gone so wrong?
“That’s ninety-two hours of paperwork. You should be able to get through the stack in that time. I’ll let you slide on the five dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
“But…”
“You named the price.”
I started shuffling through the papers, feeling overwhelmed just looking at the foot-high stack.
“You know, ever think of getting involved in a business that has less paperwork?” Had I just teased him? Well, if we were going to be friends, it wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t flirted; there was a definite difference between teasing and flirting.
“They’ve all had paperwork. It seems unavoidable.”
I took a stack of papers, glancing at my new workload, while sneaking glances at Kane.
I had to say something about Asher, but I didn’t want to, especially not now while Kane seemed like he was in a good mood. But if I didn’t, it was going to look really suspicious.
Might as well get it over with. “I need to go see Asher, and since you’ve got him under lock and guard…” I shrugged as if to say, You should be able to guess the rest of this. But that was when it struck me. I wasn’t mad. Shouldn’t I be mad that I couldn’t check on Asher whenever I wanted? Yes, I should. I should be railing at Kane and demanding to see Asher whenever I wanted. But the thing of it was, the shock of the situation most definitely had passed, and I was still relieved I couldn’t see him.
Kane tucked the ball back into the cushions and got up.
“When I get back later. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
He hadn’t looked like he’d been going anywhere. “Okay.”
I knew I should be arguing to see Asher right then and there, but I was too afraid I’d win.
Kane was staring at me, probably wondering where all my fight had gone. I dropped my head, suddenly engrossed in the most interesting numbers.
“You’re good with that?” he asked. There was a hint of either curiosity or humor in his voice, but I couldn’t tell which. Either way, I’d have to pretend I wasn’t good with it, but how to avoid Kane giving in now that he was nice again? I couldn’t tell him I didn’t want to see Asher. That might make it look like I thought Asher was guilty.
I looked up, making sure my brow was furrowed and my lips were flat. “Of course I’m not, but you call the shots, so what else am I supposed to do?”
“Really? I do?” he asked, leaning a shoulder on the do
or and crossing his arms as he watched me.
I might’ve overdone it, plus my cheeks hurt from trying to keep everything tense.
“When did you decide I was in charge?”
Did he have to be funny now? This was hard enough. I mean, everyone else had decided that, but I certainly had never agreed to him being boss, and I wasn’t going to now, either.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do. I can’t have this silly talk with you.” I kept my eyes on the papers, hoping he’d leave before I had to make up some big lie about how he was the boss of me.
Chapter 18
I waited about twenty minutes before I went to the stairwell off the sixth floor.
“Zee?”
The gargoyle popped in, sporting a side pony and a red Lycra jumpsuit. “Make this quick. I’ve got a pedicure appointment.”
She was not going to be the easiest of partners. “Do you have a list for me?”
“A list?” she asked, half listening as she eyed up a chip on her pinky.
“Yes. Like we talked about? I need to know who wants what spell and who’s willing to pay what.”
She finally dropped her hand and smiled. “Baby, I don’t have a list. I’ve got a whole damn novel of wants and needs. I just wasn’t sure if we were still in business.”
“We are not only open but dying for customers. I should be shadow walking soon, and I need to be prepared with requests.”
She held out her hand and a legal pad popped out of the air. She licked a red-clawed finger and flipped through.
“I need ones that will pay the most cash,” I added. I couldn’t be wasting time on frivolities with the amount of bills I had due.
“Not an issue.” She flipped another couple of pages and then smiled and nodded. “This is a real goodie. The guy is willing to pay up to a million. Considering you’re the only game in town that can supply his spell, that’s exactly how much he will be paying.”
A million? I’d be caught up on everything and have a cushion. This was it, all I needed. Well, except for the debt I owed Kane, but he wanted that paid in paperwork. “Tell me what it is and I’ll get it.”
“Raise the dead. How long do you think it’ll take to find?” Her overly arched eyebrows went frighteningly high as she waited for the answer with what could only be excitement.
It was a spell after my own heart. I’d wondered many times if I could save my own family. Then I’d remember the book by Stephen King called Pet Sematary. What were the odds they’d come back the same? Highly unlikely. And did I have the stomach to kill them again? Even more unlikely. The money was nice, but I couldn’t cross that line.
Instead of giving a long explanation that Zee would argue against, I kept it short. “I don’t think I can get that one. It would take way too long.”
“You sure? I thought you were good at getting things?”
“It can’t be done. I’m sure of it.” Not by this person, anyway. Not now.
She shrugged and looked back at her pad. “Okay, here’s another one. This should be easy. They need a love potion.”
I nodded. Love. That was a good thing. As she laid out the details of the who and when, the idea bounced around a bit until it sort of soured. If I did a love potion, someone who wasn’t interested in someone else would be compelled to be with that person. They’d probably have sex with that person. What if they got married and had a kid with that person, someone they obviously weren’t into or the spell wouldn’t be needed? The more I walked the idea down the road to its natural conclusion, the more the whole thing started to have an icky, rape-ish feel to it.
“Wait, no, I don’t think I can do that one either.”
“What?” Zee stared at me like a headful of snakes had popped out of my scalp. “Why? Why?”
I threw my hands up and shrugged. “I’ll feel like a rapist.”
Her mouth looked like she was saying huh, but no word came forth.
“If I do this, someone is going to be tricked into thinking they care for someone they don’t care for. It doesn’t feel ethical.” I threw my hands up. There was nothing to be done about it.
“Ethical? We’re doing magic, not law. Why are you even thinking about all this? You just get the spells. That’s it. You aren’t committing the acts.” She was tossing her head back and forth, swinging that side pony with it.
“I can’t. What else do you have? There’s a whole list.” I reached out and tried to take the pad from her, but she tugged it back. “There has to be something that won’t make me feel sleazy on it.”
“I’m in charge of the list. No touching the list.”
“Fine.” I stepped back in a show of peace.
She watched and then, seeming to come to a truce, looked back at the pad. “Okay, how about this. I’ve got a female shifter who wants to get rid of excess body hair. Or do you have some problem with destroying hair? Like, you’re a hair follicle killer? Or is it okay as long as you don’t bring the hair back to life?”
I ignored the heavy layer of sarcasm dripping off each word.
“How much will she pay?”
The way Zee looked down at the paper, I knew the figure was decent. “She’s pretty desperate. Hair grows back within an hour of her shaving, and the witches haven’t been able to do a thing for her. Werewolf hair is very stubborn. You can imagine the embarrassment during intimate moments. She’s willing to pay a hundred grand. Fifty up front and fifty after being hair free for a couple of hours.”
Wow, that sucked. “That sounds pretty steep. Maybe we should do it for less?” Good thing she was going through Zee or I would’ve done it for free.
The pad disappeared and she pursed her red lips, her knee pointing out as she took on a bitch stance. “Excuse me, but I work on commission. You won’t raise the dead, you won’t let people fall in love, fine. But I draw the line at pricing like we’re Walmart.”
There were some fights you couldn’t win. “Set it up.”
“I’ll be in touch. I’m late for my pedicure.”
“Good talk,” I said to the air before I turned around and headed to the doorway that opened up to the hall.
I bounced off nothing before I got there. I tried to repeat the step and nearly fell over this time.
A male said, “Stop shoving!”
I immediately stopped, more from surprise than anything else. I knew that voice. Two dwarves appeared in front of me. The one in the middle I recognized from when I’d gotten my dwarf clothes. He was the DiC, Dwarf in Charge.
“How long have you been here?”
The noncommittal shrug said it had been long enough even before he said, “You won’t do dead people or love potions, but you’ve got no problem with hairy chicks.” He looked over his shoulder at his buddy. “Was there more?”
“Other than being a mammy pansy about will she or won’t she? Nah, I think that was it.” The buddy nodded assertively.
These little guys needed bells on their necks. “Don’t say a word about that.”
“What’s it worth to you?” DiC said, his buddy stepping forward to make sure he heard my answer.
“Nothing. Did you come here for a purpose or just to harass me?”
“We’re here to warn you.”
I leaned against the railing of the stairs. I should’ve been more concerned about what the warning was going to be, but as I eyed up the sleekly dressed dwarves in front of me and remembered what they charged for their clothes, I asked, “How much is this going to cost me?”
“This one is on the house.”
Free? Nah, that was hard to believe. No one in this place did anything for free. You had to spell it out. “No strings at all? You warn me and we walk away even?”
“Well, you might want to do us a favor in the future,” the second dwarf said.
“What kind of favor?”
“There’s nothing at the moment, but there might be at some point.”
Great, another IOU. I couldn’t dig myself out without digging right back in. I sho
ok my head but rolled my hand. “What’s the warning?”
“We heard the witches say they needed to even the score with you.”
Great. “How?”
“We don’t know that.”
I found myself raising my eyebrows at them. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t owe you a favor for that,” I said, walking around them to get to the hall door.
“We warned you. You owe us.”
I turned, hand on the handle. “You told me the witches want to do me in. Everyone here already knows the witches want to get me. You want to extract favors, you better get me details on how they plan to screw me.”
DiC turned to his second. “Fine. We’ll be back, but you’ll owe us then.”
“Gladly.”
Chapter 19
I walked over to the booth where Butch and Leon were sitting and realized how natural it all felt. I’d been gone for months, but I felt like I’d eaten here every day for the last year.
They both stopped eating and looked at me when I stopped in front of them, waiting to see who was going to scoot over before I had to get pushy.
Butch moved first, dragging his burger and fries with him.
I ordered a turkey club from a gargoyle I didn’t recognize. I was taking a bite when Leon brought up a subject that made me wish I’d eaten dinner alone in Kane’s office while poring over paperwork.
“Forgot to mention I saw your commercial a few weeks back.” Leon took a sip of beer before adding, “It was very nice.”
Butch made a suspicious coughing noise that made Leon’s lips twitch. It took Leon a moment to get himself under control enough to continue. “It was a good try, anyway.”
Flip walked over, and we all shifted to make room. “What’s Butch hacking over?”
I looked at Butch as I replied, “He thinks Leon liking my commercial is funny.”
She leaned forward, her ear tilted toward me as if she doubted what I’d said. “You mean BBGB?”
Butch stopped laughing, and Leon rolled his eyes and groaned.
Everyone knew what she was talking about but me. “Why is my commercial called BBGB?”
Walking in the Dark Page 11
