Soul Thief-Demon Trappers 2 (7 page)

No. It wasn’t all she needed. There was so much more to it than just a place to live.

Somehow her escort was closer to her now. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said softly.

She looked up into his dark eyes. “Not your fault,” she replied, shrugging. “Just the way it is now.”

“Maybe that will change,” he said. Ori gently brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “In fact, I’m counting on that.”

Her cheeks heated up again.
What is it with this guy?

A moment later he was rolling out of the parking lot. Apparently his idea of watching over her didn’t mean camping underneath her window.

Probably a good thing.
Or she might be tempted to invite him inside.

*   *   *

When Riley eased
open the apartment door, it creaked on its hinges. The place felt wrong: It suffered from a severe lack of Dad. Her father’s clothes still hung in the closet, his electric razor sat in the bathroom, and all his books were still here, but he wasn’t. That’s why it felt wrong. She’d hoped to find solace here, but the emptiness just made it worse.

There was a solid bump at calf level, and she jumped in surprise. The neighbor’s cat.

“Hey, Max.” She knelt to give him a scratch as he leaned against her, purring. His front paws stood on her tennis shoes, the claws kneading into the fabric as his whiskers tickled her hand.

Max was a Maine coon, a solid mass of feline that weighed in at close to twenty pounds. He was Mrs. Litinsky’s and seemed to think Riley’s apartment was just an extension of his owner’s.

“Sorry, you can’t come in tonight.” Normally she’d enjoy the company, but now all she wanted was a shower and a good night’s sleep. Max would expect a great deal of human fawning, and she wasn’t up to it.

After another thorough scratch under his furry chin she managed to get through the door without him following. She heard a petulant meow from the hallway but didn’t allow the guilt to get to her like it usually did.

She dropped her messenger bag on the secondhand couch and she joined it a second later. The timer had turned on the one light in the living room, and it illuminated the compact space. Since the building was originally a hotel, they’d made this apartment from parts of two separate rooms. Between the drab beige walls and carpet and the jigsaw layout, the end result lacked anything resembling coolness.

At least it’s mine as long as I keep paying the rent.

Riley pulled herself up off the couch, yawned, and then eyed the answering machine on the table near the old computer. The message light was urgently blinking red. She needed an incentive to tackle whatever lived on that machine, so she retrieved a strawberry yogurt out of the refrigerator.

Last one
. She dutifully added that item to the grocery list. The three entries before hers were in her dad’s handwriting. Her heart constricted, and she was forced to swallow a thick lump in her throat that had nothing to do with the yogurt. Yet another reminder that someone she loved used to live here.

She sank into the chair in front of the computer, pushed the play button on the machine, then began spooning yogurt and strawberries into her mouth. Five of the messages were from the CDC—the Consolidated Debt Company, not the germ people. Her father had taken out a loan to pay for her mother’s hospital bills, the ones the Guild insurance policy didn’t cover. Now the CDC wanted their money back. The first message was polite, but they became less pleasant with each subsequent call. By the last one the caller was shouting into the phone about how she had to pay the debt she owed them and if she didn’t they’d exhume her father and sell his body to defray their expenses. The date on that one was yesterday morning.

“Too late for that, guys,” she said, pausing in her enjoyment of the yogurty goodness. “Someone else beat you to it.” For half a second Riley actually liked the necro who’d screwed these guys over.

The rest of the calls didn’t require her immediate attention, which was a blessing. The moment the yogurt was finished, a yawn erupted.

Shower. Bed. Sleep. In that order.

But it wasn’t to be a good night. Apartment buildings generate ambient noise, and though these sounds weren’t any different than normal—someone on the floor above flushing the toilet and the occasional cry of the new baby down the hall—all of them woke her up.

“Thanks, Backwoods Boy,” she growled, using the nickname she’d invented to describe Beck when he was getting on her nerves. Which was most of the time. He’d seeded the idea that the demons would come calling, and now she couldn’t get that out of her mind, even with Ori doing sentry duty. With a sigh, Riley rose and walked to her window, pushing back the curtain. The moon glared off the car windshields in the parking lot below, but no sign of Ori.

“Watching over me, huh?” If he was, he was invisible.

After staring at nothing for some time, she trudged back to bed and pounded her pillow into shape. “Maybe I should have let Max in tonight.” He would have curled up against her and purred her to sleep.

A slight shifting noise came from her dresser, and she remembered why an overnight cat wouldn’t be a good idea—her fellow lodger. Max would destroy the apartment just to get the thing.

More movement, or at least the faint hint of movement. “I hear you,” she said, quietly.

The sound halted abruptly, followed by a minute sigh.

There were a number of things a demon trapper was supposed to do: Riley was expected to trap fiends, keep the proper paperwork, protect the public, and prevent Hell’s Minions from making a real mess of the world.

She was not supposed to be sharing an apartment with one.

This was a Grade One Klepto-Fiend, or Magpie, as the trappers called them. He was about three inches in height, with brown skin and dressed like a ninja. He even carried a little bag like a cat burglar. He wasn’t dangerous, just prone to ripping off shiny items such as bright pennies or pieces of jewelry. Sometimes she’d find them in bizarre places in her apartment, like in the silverware drawer. Often they’d be stuff that wasn’t hers.

Riley had trapped and sold this fiend to a demon trafficker but it had promptly returned, like one of those missing dogs you read about in the paper, the ones who travel hundreds of miles just to find its owner. Not that she owned this fiend. He was definitely one of Lucifer’s critters. She wasn’t even sure if it was a “he” but as she saw it, girl demons probably dressed nicer.

Riley rolled over, thumped her pillow, and tried to shut down her mind. Instead she heard a teeny voice, the demon talking to himself. Probably counting his stash of goodies.

At least you don’t start fires.

And with that in mind, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

S
EVEN

Morning felt as cruel as a dull knife slicing across her throat. To Riley’s annoyance her head ached as much as her body, like she’d overdone it with some of Ayden’s highly potent witchy wine. Every little noise had made her think of crackling flames and the taunting cackles of the Pyros. As a result she’d slept poorly, bouts of being awake interspersed with seriously bad dreams that had featured fountains of blood and lots of screaming.

“I should have had Ayden’s tea,” she grumbled, but she’d completely forgotten that remedy until this morning.

It annoyed her that Backwoods Boy might have a point: If Hell really wanted her dead, the fiends wouldn’t care how many people they killed to get to her even if the mysterious Ori was nearby. No way could she admit that to Beck’s face. His flurry of unwanted advice would become an avalanche.

Riley sat at the kitchen table, face propped up by an elbow, watching the microwave carousel rotate her dad’s favorite cup, the one that said
STUPIDITY CAN BE HABIT-FORMING
.

Forty more seconds and there’d be hot chocolate.

She felt miserable, partly because of the poor night’s sleep but mostly because of the calendar. Today’s date was circled and marked with a big
D
. She’d marked the calendar that way because this was Dad Is Free day, the day of the full moon. After today no necromancer could touch him.

“Yeah, that really worked, didn’t it?” she mumbled. She rose and turned the page to February, even though it was a day early. Anything to keep from staring at that
D.

Just as she returned to her chair and resumed the microwave vigil, her cell phone jarred her out of her misery. She answered it without looking at the display.

“Riley?” a gravelly voice asked.

“Good morning, Beck,” she said, not taking her eyes off the cup. Thirty seconds. First the hot chocolate, then oatmeal. Maybe she’d be adventurous and make toast.

“I told ya to stay at the cemetery, but ya didn’t,” he said accusatorily. “I was outside, watchin’ yer place all night; that’s how I know.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
You sat out there in the cold? What kind of idiot are you?

That was why Ori was nowhere to be seen. He wouldn’t want Beck to know he was around.

“What are ya thinkin’, girl?” her caller demanded.

“I’m thinking my hot water is almost ready and I don’t want to talk to you anymore, not if you’re going to be a stalkery butthead.” She hung up on him. He immediately rang back and she ignored it.

“I’ll so pay for that,” she mumbled, but right now breakfast was the only thing she wanted to think about.

Ding!

“About time.”

As she stirred the hot chocolate mix into the cup, she realized Beck wasn’t going to give an inch. He’d sit out there, night after night, watching her place like a vigilant bloodhound. If he kept it up, he’d be so tired a demon would make a meal of him. And if he was out there, it would make it harder for Ori to do his job.

“Ah, jeez,” she grumbled. Why was everything so much hassle?

What she needed was a “bolt hole,” at least until Ori caught up with that Five. Every trapper had a safe place on hallowed ground just in case the demons went to war. When her father had first told her about that, she’d thought it sounded really paranoid. After the Tabernacle, not so much. Beck’s bolt hole was in a church, so it was heated and had a bathroom, both of which would be a major improvement over the Blackthorne mausoleum, her family’s “sanctuary.” Besides, if she could find a place to stay, that would get Backwoods Boy off her case.

“Until he comes up with something else to complain about.”

The phone rang again, but it wasn’t Beck’s name on the caller ID. This wasn’t someone she could blow off.

“Lass?” the Scotsman asked, his voice tight.

“Master Stewart.”
Why is he calling me?

“I’m hearin’ that yer givin’ Beck a hard time. Now let’s be clear: Ya
will
be on hallowed ground after sundown, till I tell ya different.”

“But why not during the day?” The Five had come after her in the late afternoon. Or, it might have been right after sundown. It was easy to lose track of time inside a library.

“The beasties are stronger at night. Ya might be thinkin’ that ya might go about yer business and I’ll not know if yer followin’ my orders. That would be wrong.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be on hallowed ground at night.”

“Glad we got that sorted. Good day ta ya, then.” Stewart hung up.

Riley dropped the phone on the table like it was red hot. “Cute, Beck. Bring in the big dog,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re such a jerk.”

A sharp series of raps came from the apartment door. She ignored them. Mrs. Litinsky didn’t knock that loudly, and she was the only person Riley was willing to see this early in the morning. At least until the hot chocolate was history.

“Miss Blackthorne?” a voice called out. It took a moment for her to recognize it: It was the guy from the collection agency.

“Go away,” she muttered under breath, continuing to stir the hot chocolate. Almost all the little clumps were gone now. A few more stirs and—

“Miss Blackthorne? Your car is in the parking lot so I know you’re here.”

Well, at least she could see what this idiot knew about her father’s summoning.

Riley opened the door, leaving the chain lock in place. The guy promptly wedged a highly polished shoe inside to keep it from shutting. He wore a black suit, white shirt, gray tie, and carried a black briefcase. His hair was so glued down it didn’t budge when he moved. It made him look like one of those dress-up dolls she used to play with as a kid.

He offered his card and she took it.
ARCHIBALD LESTER, CLAIMS ADJUDICATOR.

“What do you want?” she asked. Her hot chocolate was cooling.

“I would think that would be obvious,” the man replied, an eyebrow arched. He pulled a sheaf of legal-size paperwork out of his briefcase. That was never a good thing.

“If you’ll just tell me where I can find your father’s body and where the funds from his sale are located, we can get this taken care of without any unpleasantness.”

Her sleepy fog vanished. “You think I sold my own father?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter who did the selling as long as we receive the money and the asset in question.”

“Asset?”

“Your father’s body.”

Her stomach twisted. “No way.” She tried to shut the door, but the guy’s foot prevented that.

“You’re not helping matters, Miss Blackthorne.”

Riley jammed a finger in his direction. “Why don’t you go find the necromancer who stole my dad and ask him for that
asset
.”

“We’d rather deal with you. You don’t wield magic. If you refuse to cooperate, I’ll be forced to file a complaint with the police.”

A giggle escaped Riley’s mouth before she realized it. Then another. She wasn’t a giggler, but this was just too stupid to think about. After everything that had happened, this guy was worried about money.

The man’s face clouded. “You’re not taking this seriously, Miss Blackthorne.”

The giggles ended abruptly. “I watched people die the other night. Do you think I give a damn about your money?”