Temping is Hell

by Cathy Yardley

  “Now, what’s this all about, dear?” he asked, after she turned down his offer of tea and cookies. “I hope you don’t mind my saying, but pretty as you are, you look upset.”

  “Do you know Thomas Kestrel?”

  He frowned. “The name’s a bit familiar.”

  “He owns Fiendish Enterprises.”

  “Ah, yes!” The old man all but clapped his hands. “Read about that building of his, in the paper. Ugly, garish thing. What about him?”

  “I, ah… I work for him, and…” She swallowed hard. “There’s just no easy way to ask this. Did you sell your soul at some point?”

  He stared at her. “I’m sorry, but my hearing’s not what it was. Did you ask if I sold my soul?”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” she said, miserable. “I told you it was weird. But your name was on a contract at the office, and I think… well, I actually know that Thomas Kestrel is going to come after you.” She paused a beat as he stared at her. “Like, to kill you,” she clarified, when he didn’t seem to comprehend.

  “After me? To kill me?” The man shook his head, then stood up. He reached for a remote, clicking it. The Venetian blinds closed, startling her. “Do you know when?”

  “Soon, I think,” she said, and nerves started to skitter up and down her spine. “You know, now that I’ve said it out loud, I feel even more stupid. I could be wrong, but… I thought…”

  “You thought telling me was the right thing to do.”

  She nodded, tears clogging her throat in gratitude. “I don’t know what you’ve done,” she said, “and it’s none of my business, but… I can’t be a party to someone getting killed. I’m not going to just stand there and do nothing.”

  “That’s very noble of you,” Victor reassured her. “Now, one question—how did you find me?”

  The old man looked less frail, she noticed, once the blinds were closed. He stood straighter and his rheumy eyes gleamed a sharp blue. Even his smile was… different.

  Suddenly unnerved, she got to her feet. “He had your address. Got it from some private investigator.” She swallowed hard. “He’s probably on his way now. I should go. I mean, we both should. It’s not safe.”

  “No,” he agreed quietly. “No, it certainly isn’t.”

  Then he lunged for her.

  Her body had acknowledged the threat before her mind had. Unfortunately, he moved quickly… more quickly than she could have imagined. She’d taken two steps before he tackled her, and she hit the hardwood floor like a ton of bricks.

  “Now, now, you don’t need to be in a hurry to leave,” he said, his voice a raspy, creepy whisper. “I do love young redheads. Especially noble ones.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “This is Victor Klauss’s address,” Yagi said, shutting off his phone. “Mendoza, my private investigator, just confirmed it. You were right. She went to warn him.”

  Thomas clenched his jaw. Yagi’s weird magic was leading them there now. Confirming that Kate was at the first signatory’s house was a wrinkle Thomas hadn’t anticipated and wasn’t looking forward to. It was hard enough to get his head in the game, to prep for killing someone.

  But now Kate’s there.

  How the hell was he going to explain this?

  “The P.I. sent over duplicates, rush delivery via messenger. I’ve read through the highlights of his file so far,” Yagi said. “He’s a psychopath; a serial killer. A rich one, whose family always managed to keep him out of jail, although he spent some time in mental institutions…”

  Thomas saw his knuckles were turning white from the pressure he was exerting on the hilt of his knife. “He’s ninety.”

  “He’s a signatory,” Yagi replied. “That means he’ll have power. He may look like an old man, but don’t make the mistake of underestimating him. As part of a power base, he’ll be superhumanly strong.”

  “Wonderful,” Thomas said, but he felt an odd comfort. Killing someone wasn’t what he’d wanted, but killing a psychopathic serial killer in self-defense wasn’t so…

  “Wait,” Thomas said, as his mind whirred. “Kate’s there. With him. With the serial killer.”

  “Yes,” Yagi said. “And given his victims were all females in roughly her age range, I imagine that he’s probably giving in to his proclivities.”

  “He’s killing her?” Thomas felt his blood pound with rage and sheer fear.

  She can’t die. A flash, a memory-picture of Elizabeth, in a pool of red. Please, please, don’t let Kate die, too.

  “Thomas, I hate to point this out now, but Kate knows too much as it is,” Yagi said quietly. “And if he’s torturing her, it’s keeping him in one place. He’s doing us a favor if she dies, and she’s doing us a favor by dying.”

  “Yagi?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Yagi didn’t look offended. He simply sighed. “I warned you, Thomas. You can’t afford emotion. Not if you’re going to get your soul back.”

  Thomas ignored him.

  The car pulled up to the curb, and Thomas was out before it came to a full stop. Yagi was right behind him. Both had their knives at the ready.

  “Remember… it’s got to be a clean jab, through the heart or across the throat,” Yagi whispered.

  As Thomas got closer to the house, he circled around, looking for a window or a door, some way to get in. Suddenly, he went still, pressing his ear to the wall. He heard muffled voices.

  “Yagi? Can you do that thing… the spell thing? So I can hear?” Thomas said.

  Yagi sighed again, then closed his eyes.

  Suddenly, Thomas heard as if he were in the room with them. He recognized Kate’s voice—but it was abnormally high and thready, he noticed.

  And scared.

  “Mr. Klauss…” Her voice quavered. “Please. You don’t want to do this.”

  “Actually,” a cheerful voice all but sang, “I really, really do. My last playmate died not too long ago. I’d just gotten rid of her body when you so serendipitously arrived on my doorstep. It’s kismet!”

  Thomas moved toward a back door, looking for the best way to get in. The obvious fear in Kate’s voice gnawed at him, forcing him forward.

  “But business before pleasure,” the man’s voice said, irritated. “How did Kestrel find me?”

  “I told you, he hired a private investigator.”

  “Yes, but how did he know to look for me? How did he find me?”

  There was a long silence… then she let out a short, sharp shriek.

  “This is going to hurt, regardless,” he said. “But you might as well tell me.”

  “I came here to warn you!” she shouted. “I came here because I thought I was going to Hell and I couldn’t let him just kill you. Now, I hope he makes it hurt, you withered old fucker!”

  The man’s laugh was tinged with madness. “Oh, that little whelp isn’t going to kill me, don’t you worry. I think I’m going to enjoy making you tell me everything you know.”

  “No… no… pleasepleaseplease…” Her breath sped up, hyperventilating fast as an over-revved engine.

  The scream echoed through Thomas’s head. He gritted his teeth, then motioned to Yagi, who moved like lightning.

  “If we break in, he’ll kill her,” Thomas said. “We need to surprise him. But hurry.”

  Yagi nodded, working on the lock with small tools he’d pulled from his pocket.

  He could still hear Kate. She was weeping, screaming. Then there was a sickening crack, and a shrill, high cry of agony.

  “Ah, yes, sweetheart,” the man’s voice said. “To think, you didn’t even know what you were getting yourself into when you decided to work for Thomas Kestrel.”

  “Actually… I’m… a temp,” she said, then shrieked. “Motherfucker!”

  “A temp? Good grief.” The man’s chuckle was evil. “Well, I don’t think you’ll have any more assignments.”

  “Yagi?” Thomas asked, his voice tight.

  Yag
i grimaced at him, and the door suddenly swung open.

  There was a piercing scream, and then a heart-wrenching, angry sob… and creative, vicious swearing. He would’ve been impressed by the sheer imagination behind her anatomically impossible obscenities, but he was too frightened for her life.

  “It’s a pity that I won’t have the time to spend with you that I’d really like,” Victor said over Kate’s spew of curses. “It’s not safe for me to stay here if your precious Kestrel knows the address, although I’m hardly afraid of that little upstart. Still, I can take a few minutes to… indulge.”

  Then the sound of wet thuds and gurgling screams filled the air.

  Yagi and Thomas rushed into the house, knives at the ready.

  Oh, God, Kate…hold on, baby, Thomas thought, and sprinted.

  …

  The pain was obscene, almost baffling in its intensity.

  Kate couldn’t think, couldn’t move, could barely breathe as her body shrieked at her, overwhelming her with the painful reports that things were bleeding, broken… failing.

  She was dying. And the deceptively strong old man was grinning at her like a ghoul, eyes gleaming with a perverse lust as he struck her, over and over, with the brass candlestick from the mantel.

  If I were Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I would totally be kicking your ass right now, the small part of her brain, the one that made inappropriate quips during times of high stress, yelled at Victor.

  But then, she wasn’t Buffy.

  That said, her protective inner stand-up comedian might not be able to fight—but she sure could talk smack.

  “Bet… bet you can’t even get it up, Matlock,” she slurred, intent on hurting the bastard in any way possible before he punched her ticket. “Bet you’re hung like a Tic Tac.”

  She got the satisfaction of seeing his face transform into a snarl—right before he brought the candlestick down hard on her ribs.

  Okay. Maybe the smack talking isn’t helping. Her inner smart-ass, which usually never shut up, was finally subdued.

  I think we’re really dying this time, kiddo.

  There was a loud sound. She thought it was something in her body, some large bone, until she realized it wasn’t her at all. It was the sound of the old man yelling in surprise—just before there was a loud thud. Through her distorted vision, she could barely make out two figures. Two men, she thought. The old man, fighting. Running?

  And… was that Thomas?

  Of course. He was here to kill the old man, after all.

  “Go fuck him up,” she said with approval, although through the blood in her lungs, it came out more like “Guh fohp.”

  She thought she heard yelling, scuffling. Maybe running. Then, she barely registered the smooth, sexy scent of Thomas’s cologne.

  “Oh, honey,” Thomas breathed next to her. “Oh, sweet crispy Jesus. This is bad.”

  She opened her eyes. Pain flashed through her like a lightning bolt. She gasped, or tried to. Breathing was becoming problematic.

  “Kate.” Low voice, slightly accented. The Asian guy, the cool bodyguard with the shades. Yagi. “Don’t move.”

  “Wasn’t… planning… on it,” she managed to say, even though each word cut her. She thought she saw Thomas grin before her eyes shut.

  She didn’t know how many jokes she had left. Or how much time.

  I’m dying. It seemed stupidly obvious, but the fear dwarfed the unbearable pain for just one second.

  If she died, at least this screaming, relentless pain would stop—and there was a seductive temptation to that. But as even the hint of vision she had closed off, and her pain drifted a little, she started to subconsciously wonder… wasn’t there a light she was supposed to head for?

  Because right now, everything just seemed dark.

  She heard the hollow sounds of a scuffle, as if from a far distance. Footsteps… running. Cursing. She struggled to hang on.

  There’s no light. No fucking light.

  They never tell you what to head for if you’re going to Hell, she realized. She doubted there was a light over that entrance.

  She whimpered. The vision of Hell had her clinging to the pain, like hanging from a sharpened sword over a chasm.

  “Damn it.” She recognized Thomas’s deep, silky drawl. The undertone of fury. “He was ready for this. Ready for us. Probably just a lure.”

  “That would make sense,” Yagi’s voice said. “He’s bait. That’d be why he’s in the city. Why else would Cyril have one of his signatories so close to you?”

  “You get a tracker spell on him?”

  “Yes,” Yagi said, with some small satisfaction. “He won’t go far.”

  “Kate.” Thomas’s voice was low, with that tin-echo effect, but Kate could still hear him, like a faint but perfectly clear radio station. “Is she… ?”

  “She’s not going to make it, Thomas.”

  A pause. A long silence. Hearing the confirmation made her weep… at least, she thought she might be weeping. Her body felt a long, long way away.

  And it was getting colder.

  “Kate… Katie, hon.”

  She felt attuned to his voice.

  “You’re dying, sweetie.”

  She whimpered, couldn’t help it.

  I don’t want to die.

  She remembered Slim’s face—his worry, his absolute conviction that it was going to be agony and unthinkable pain. She’d fucked up so many times in her life, made so many mistakes.

  She thought back to the third grade… to Sister Mary Grace’s prune-like face, after her second expulsion from Catholic school. “You keep this up,” the woman had quavered, pointing her wrinkled finger, “and you’re going straight to Hell!”

  At the time, Kate thought that the nun had just been speaking metaphorically—and, admittedly, was just super pissed. But maybe she’d actually been prescient.

  It’s bad enough I’m dying, and probably going to Hell. Irony is just adding insult to injury at this point.

  “There is a way I can help you,” Thomas’s voice said, quickly, almost desperately, bringing her back for a moment. “But I’m going to need you to agree to it, okay? I’m going to need you to show me you’re doing this of your own free will.”

  “Thomas!” Yagi said, sounding scandalized. “Don’t we have enough problems? Just let her die already. You don’t need the complications.”

  “She was only trying to do the right thing,” Thomas said. “I’m not having her die for something she was trying to fix.”

  Going to hell, she thought. Dying, and going to…

  “Katie, if you want to live,” Thomas continued, “I need you to lift your hand, sweetie. Okay? Just lift your hand.”

  She thought about it. The pain. She couldn’t live with this pain. Didn’t know how she’d live, period.

  I don’t want to go to Hell.

  Her body screamed as she tried to force it to move. It ignored her.

  “Thomas, her skull is partially crushed,” Yagi snapped. “She’s bled too much. You’re going to need to shift some of your soul energy to heal her, which you haven’t practiced and haven’t tried before. It’s going to knock you out for an hour. And frankly, every minute we spend with her is a minute he’ll slip away.”

  “Kate,” Thomas said, his voice pleading. “I’m not going to make your decision for you. But I will help you if I can. Please. Let me save you.”

  Despite the maelstrom of pain, her mind went quiet. She thought of everything she’d ever wanted. Everything she had done wrong. Everything she’d swore she’d do.

  No, damn it. No way I’m going out like this.

  The pain was a wave. She dove into it. Then, through a brutal force of will she didn’t even know she possessed… she lifted her hand.

  Something pressed against her thumb.

  “Signed with blood,” Thomas said. “It’s done.”

  Wait, whoa, she thought, as her hand fell away. I signed what, now?

  Then she felt someth
ing indescribable. A burning flash, all the darkness turned instead to blinding, equally painful light.

  She shrieked, then fell into numbness. As she heard Thomas yell, like a wounded wolf, she dropped into the void, and went gratefully unconscious.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thomas opened his eyes slowly to a light gray room. It took him a second to realize he was on a hospital bed, with the railing up. Then he saw the gray cupboards.

  He glanced around. Everything looked band-box new. Not a hospital, he realized. The medical floor that Yagi had suggested he install at the condos in the Havens.

  “Even if all goes well,” Yagi had said at the time, with his usual aplomb, “there are going to be injuries you won’t want to explain to the authorities.”

  So there were injuries. His head pounded. The last time he’d felt this logy and vicious was after a three-day tequila drunk, back when he’d given college a go. “What happened?” he croaked.

  As if to answer his question, memories tumbled back in a rush. Tracking Kate. Saving Kate.

  Signing Kate.

  He sat up abruptly, almost immediately regretting it as his stomach did a quick, sickly spin. “Where’s Kate?”

  “Relax, Galahad,” Yagi’s voice said, his slightly British-tinged English sounding even more clipped than usual. “She’s in the next bed. As you hoped, you managed to save her life. You even managed to heal her almost completely—which is why you probably feel like a truck ran you over.”

  Thomas grimaced. “That’s about right.”

  He focused on Yagi’s face. Yagi’s expression was… well, “purely pissed” didn’t even begin to cover it.

  “Of course, if you’d been open to discussing the practical possibility of signing souls earlier,” Yagi continued, his voice almost gentle despite the ferocity of his expression, “I could have explained to you that when you sign a soul, there’s a certain… exchange of energy that takes place. And we could have discussed how you can both draw power from and share power with your signatory deliberately, with training.”

  “I sense a lecture here,” Thomas said, wishing like hell his tongue didn’t feel like it was covered with sand.