“Then come over here,” he muttered, herding her into a corner of the lobby, by a large potted plant and a burbling fountain. “Talk to me. What’s wrong? What do you mean, specifically, about the guys in the basement?”
She took a deep breath. “There are workers in the basement. They’re going through these thousands of documents…”
He went cold. His stomach tightened like a hangman’s noose.
“You’re using immigrants,” she whispered. “They don’t get breaks. They don’t get food. And if they don’t find what you want, they get tortured.” Her voice shook. “They’re being treated like animals. Worst of all, they’ve been smuggled in here. They know that no one will listen to them, and if anyone tries to help them, they’ll be
killed
.”
“Is that what they told you?”
“They didn’t have to,” she shot back, righteous fury flooding her entire expression. “And now, I’ll bet you’re thinking of how to handle
me
. And if you’re not, you should be, because I’m not letting you treat those guys this way. Do you hear me? I’m
not letting you get away with this
!”
He couldn’t help it. He let out a tired laugh.
Of all the things that could have happened to her, she wanted to start a damned union.
For demons.
“You think it’s funny?”
“They’re not illegal immigrants,” he said, his mind racing for a more plausible explanation. “They’re prisoners. From a prison work exchange program.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
He forced a wide, easy smile. “You’re right. It’s much easier to believe that they’re smuggled illegal immigrants that I’m torturing and starving.”
She screwed up her face, looking a little doubtful.
He slowly took in her disheveled appearance, the tear at her shoulder, where her sleeve had almost been torn off. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head, but he could see that something had happened. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine,” she said, a little too quickly. Then her eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask? Why do you assume they hurt me? Who are they?”
“They’re violent offenders. They’ve hurt people before,” he said, which was true enough. They were from Hell, after all. “Damn it, Kate, you shouldn’t have been down there.”
“It’s a long story. I misunderstood where I was supposed to be… Listen, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been working with these guys for about four days, and—”
“Four days?”
he goggled. “And you’re still alive?”
“Very funny,” she said, obviously thinking he was joking. “They aren’t given food or water. They’re going to get
beaten
. I don’t care if they
are
prisoners, violent offenders, whatever. What’s going on down there is inhumane!”
He crossed his arms. “You led your local chapter of Amnesty International in high school, didn’t you?”
“So what they did justifies what happens to them, huh?”
“How’d you tear your shirt, Kate?” he returned quietly. “Think that guy deserves better treatment?”
She looked away.
His cell phone started ringing wildly. The tone signaled it was an alarm call. He glanced at it.
Problems in the basement.
A text, from Yagi.
Looks like a riot. Need you here ASAP.
“Damn it,” he said. “Kate, I need to handle this. Wait right here for me, all right? Don’t go anywhere. I want to talk to you about this.”
“I’m done talking to you about this,” she said. “You obviously think what’s going on down there, to those prisoners, is fine. You don’t care if they get hurt or killed as long as they find your precious
contracts
.”
He froze, eyes widening. “What did you say?”
“And you know what’s worse? It’s
stupid
,” she spat out, slinging her heavy bag over her shoulder. “I found one of those damned things in less than
eight hours
. A guy named Victor Klauss. You don’t need prisoners—or whatever they are—going through everything manually. You’ve got all the money in the free world, and you’re cutting corners, abusing workers to—”
“What do you mean, you
found
one?” His cell phone blared again, and he ignored it. He reached out, grabbing her arms. “When? How?”
She stared at him. Then, in one quick movement, she slammed the bag hard into his stomach.
He wasn’t expecting it, and whatever was in that bag was damned heavy. He let out a grunt, stumbling back… right into the fountain.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, oblivious to the people staring. “I am
over
getting grabbed today!”
The water soaked his suit. “Kate—”
“I don’t have to listen to you,
boss.
Maggie already fired me.”
She stormed out the door, red ponytail bouncing like a whip as the security guards stared at him. He thought about having them stop her, but he’d caused enough of a scene. Dripping wet, he headed for the elevator.
When the doors opened at the basement level, he found all hell had broken loose. Workers were fighting one another viciously, knocking papers everywhere.
Al stepped forward, holding up his cane. Yagi, the bodyguard, was waiting for him.
“I could dispatch some,” he said, “but Aloysius claims he can handle it.”
Thomas crossed his arms. Water dripped on the concrete floor.
Al swung his cane, and the room was suddenly filled with a sickly green light. Thomas and Yagi flinched. The workers, on the other hand, writhed on the ground, making mewling sounds of intense pain.
After a few interminable moments, the light dissipated. “What caused this?” Al roared.
They didn’t speak.
Al scowled, then hobbled back to Thomas. “Their contracts didn’t stipulate they couldn’t fight with one another,” he said, embarrassed. “I can’t believe I left that loophole in. Must be getting old, huh?”
“There was a woman working down here,” Thomas said sharply.
Al rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Maggie’s fault. The woman’s an idiot, Thomas. The girl’s lucky she didn’t get killed. Of course, if need be, I can make sure that she’s killed with a minimum of fuss.” He shrugged. “With that sort of prolonged exposure to the contracts, she’s probably dying anyway.”
“She managed four days. And that girl found one of the signatories, Al,” Thomas said, his voice shaking.
“She found one.”
Al stared at him. “That’s not possible.”
Thomas looked at the workers. Most of them were still squirming on the floor. But one looked at him, then away, a guilty expression on his face.
Thomas walked over to him. “You. You know about the girl.”
“Kate was just trying to help us,” the tall, lanky guy said, standing up and towering over Thomas. His voice was surprisingly gentle. “She just wanted to help.”
“Shut up!” Another stocky, thick-necked worker stepped forward, tearing off a table leg. The thing crashed down, the paper flying out like a blizzard.
He swung the table leg at the tall skinny demon, who dodged. The other demons quickly moved away, giving them a fighting space.
The worker was still shrieking, swinging his makeshift club. Thomas let out an exasperated huff—then stepped between them, just as the stocky guy took a roundhouse flail.
It stopped inches from Thomas’s face.
“You can’t hit me, remember?” Thomas said coldly. “Physically impossible. It’s in your contract.”
The demon was still glaring when Yagi moved like a ghost behind him. His blade plunged into the demon’s back before he could react.
His howl dissipated as he exploded into flame, disintegrated into ash.
Thomas looked around. The other demons were staring at the pile of dust where the demon’s body had been. Then he focused on the skinny guy, the only one ignoring the steaming remains of his co-worker. The only one bold enough to look him in the eye.
“You’re going to tell me what you know about Kate,” Thomas said, “You’re going to tell me about the signatory she found. And you’re going to tell me
right now
.”
Chapter Seven
Kate was still shaky as she made her way home from the San Leandro BART station, a short fifteen minute walk from her parents’ house, that afternoon. High school had just let out, with knots of teenagers clogging the sidewalks and cars driving by with the bass bumping so loud it made her already brewing headache pulse in sync with the pounding beat.
In the adrenaline crash, now that the immediate danger had passed, she could still picture Thomas’s shocked face as she shoved the billionaire into his lobby pool thing.
Good. Screw him
, she mentally snarled, jamming her key into the front door. Did he think she was an idiot? That the boys in the basement were prisoners out on furlough—that the starving and beatings and everything else were somehow “okay” because of it?
Of course, did you
see
them being beaten?
Her sneaky logical brain asked.
Do you really think that old guy meant he was going to kill you if you talked?
Doesn’t that sound a little crazy?
She stepped in, eager to kick off her low-heeled pumps, call Prue, and convince her to grab a drink. Lord knew she needed one—and she needed to talk to her best friend even more.
“Felix, goddamn it, you
owe
me.”
Kate froze in the act of dropping her bag on the floor. That was her father’s voice. What was he doing home at this hour? He should’ve been on shift down at the police station.
And why was he yelling at Uncle Felix?
“Rita and I loaned you money to keep that cockamamie publishing company afloat,” he said, his voice low and ragged. There was a pause. “Yeah, I
know
you went under. I know you declared bankruptcy. But I’m not a goddamned bank, Felix. You don’t just get say ‘whoops, too bad’ to your
family
.”
Kate winced. They’d loaned her uncle money? She loved Felix dearly—had worked closely with him for four years and loved the work that he was trying to do. Loved the books that they had put out, the people they had helped.
That said, nobody knew better than Kate—you should never loan Felix cash. She’d learned that the hard way—four grand in savings forked over to keep him afloat, which resulted in her moving home with her parents. And now, her father was complaining about also loaning Felix money?
God, she hated irony.
“Don’t do that,” her father growled. He sounded like he was on the kitchen phone; she could hear the thud of his shoes, knew he was pacing with the cordless. “Don’t throw Katie in my face. Nobody twisted your arm. You didn’t have to hire her.”
Kate found herself rooted to the spot.
Was her uncle claiming that he had been forced to hire her?
He wouldn’t have had the company as long as he did if I hadn’t been working there!
Her heart pounded with the indignity of it… even as a little knot of doubt started to tighten in her stomach.
Had her uncle lied to her, as well? She’d thought she was making a difference. She’d made all sorts of improvements to his systems, worked with his suppliers when none of them had wanted to deal with his tantrums and antics. But despite all that, the company had gone under.
Had she simply been deluding herself about her own competence? And worse—had her uncle encouraged her delusion because her parents had paid him to?
“In fact,” her father continued, “it would’ve been better if she’d gotten a real job instead of acting like a flunky to you hippie weirdos. Maybe then she’d understand what it means to actually make a living in the real world!”
Kate gasped inaudibly at the slap of her father’s careless words as her eyes stung with tears.
Do they really think I’m that useless?
Of course, she’d just gotten fired from her latest temp job, although obviously she would have quit anyway. She had good reason—her torn shirt was a testament to that, plus the whole “talk and you’ll be sorry” threat. But the bottom line was, she had been struggling to get just a temp job for six months. And she wasn’t exactly thriving outside of a family-owned company.
What, exactly, did that say about her?
She heard her father sigh heavily. He sounded closer. She backed toward the front door, out of his line of sight.
“Felix, you know ordinarily I wouldn’t be asking you for the loan back,” he said wearily. It was true. Her father had often said he’d jump off the Bay Bridge before he asked Felix for a thing. “But right now, I’ll just say it. I got laid off. Goddamned budget cuts, and they’re forcing me to retire. The twenty-five thousand dollars Rita and I loaned you would come in really handy right now, because… well, I’m afraid we’re going to lose the house.”
Kate leaned against the front door, blood rushing in her ears.
Twenty-five thousand? He’d loaned Felix
twenty-five thousand
?
And they might lose the
house
?
Nausea swirled in the pit of her stomach in a slow wave. She swallowed hard, straining to hear.
There was another long pause, another deep sigh. “Yeah, sure. Whatever, Felix. I should’ve known better than to call, really.”
Of course Uncle Felix wouldn’t help. She felt shame, like a cement block on her chest.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be visiting Ma at the home this week, either?” Her father’s dry, humorless chuckle sounded like sandpaper. “Yeah, you’ll try. You always say you’ll try. See you around.”
She was going to talk to Uncle Felix, that was damned clear.
Possibly with a tire iron.
But first things first. She took a deep breath, started to head for the kitchen… then stopped, again, when she got to the doorframe.
Her father was sitting at the kitchen table. His heavy frame was slumped down, his salt-and-pepper hair trembling, his face in his hands. She could see his broad shoulders shaking, ever so slightly… could hear the small, gruff sounds of grief.
Her father, her tough-as-nails cop father, was crying.
She backed away silently. Then she walked to the front door, opened it, and shut it with a firm slam. “Dad?” she called, her voice deliberately chipper. “You home?”
She gave him time. Lingered on the stairs, picking up and putting down her bag. Even waited, pretending she was searching for something in her purse.
When he emerged from the kitchen, he looked a little splotchy, a little tired.
She would’ve ripped out her own tongue before she mentioned it.
“You’re home early,” she murmured.
“So are you,” he said, then studied her. “Something wrong?”
Oh, crap. With her eavesdropped conversation fresh in her mind, she knew the last thing her father wanted to hear was that his daughter just quit and could not make the rent. And there was no way she was going to tell him about all the shenanigans going on in Fiendish’s basement. As a cop, he’d feel duty-pressed to do something—if he believed her.
She wasn’t ready. She needed to sort this out first, especially since she was reeling with this new bombshell. “Ah…”
The doorbell rang, startling them both.
“I’ll get it,” she said, grateful for the reprieve, and opened the door.
Thomas stood there. He’d taken the time to dry off, at least, she noticed. He was in a different dark suit, and his face was handsome… and enigmatic.
He doesn’t look pissed
. That was promising. Then she remembered—
she
was pissed at
him.
Of course, in light of recent events, could she really afford to be?
“Kate,” Thomas said. “We need to talk.”
…
Thomas looked over at an older man—Kate’s father, he assumed. Maggie’s quick check with her temporary agency had provided the address, but they couldn’t have known she was living with her parents. It also surprised him that her father was wearing a service revolver in an unsnapped shoulder holster, and that he was giving Thomas the hairy eyeball.
Damn it. How much had Kate told him? And how much damage control was he going to need to do?
“Kate? Everything all right?” the older man said, his eyes cold and flat, like he was stepping into an interrogation room.
Kate’s own gaze never wavered; she was staring at Thomas like she could somehow kill him with her glare.
“It’s fine, Dad. I’ll be right back.” She stepped out, pointedly closing the door between her father and them, and nodded toward Thomas’s limo. Her voice dropped to a hiss. “Start walking. I don’t want to have this conversation here.”
Thomas noticed one of the wooden blinds opening. Her father was going to be watching, protective. Well, Thomas wasn’t here to abduct Kate or threaten her.
Hell, all he was doing here was hiring her. No crime in that.
“I wanted to apologize for earlier,” Thomas said smoothly. “I could have handled all that better.”
“You mean you could have come up with a better cover story if you’d realized that you might need one.”
That was true enough. “Let me explain.”
“How, exactly, are you planning on explaining the starvation and beating of illegally smuggled immigrants?” She stared at him, her expression a war between anger and disgust.
“First, they’re really not illegal immigrants,” he said. Which was also true. They weren’t even human, and he had documentation that allowed them onto this plane. Technically legal, from what he understood. “Second, I, ah, contracted their work because the people who can read this language are very, very rare. I needed them for their expertise.”
“That’s bullshit.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I spoke with them,” she snapped. “You don’t need someone who can read… whatever the hell language that is. You just need to find one specific word. A simple image recognition program could handle that more quickly and more efficiently.”
“That’s right,” he agreed. Damn, the woman hadn’t been there a week, and she’d found out all that? From
demons
?
What were they doing down there, braiding each other’s hair?
“So why didn’t you just do that?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you do what I did?”
Because the programmers keep getting possessed.
Which brought him back around to why he was here in the first place. She wasn’t possessed, psychotic, or even ill, after a few days. She was his best and only candidate. “It’s top secret. I couldn’t trust a programmer with this image.”
“Why is it top secret?”
He let out a brusque laugh. “Perhaps you don’t understand what ‘top secret’ means.”
“I’m saying there’s no possible way I can make any sense of it. It’s just a cipher, something encrypted. I was assuming that’s the whole point of the language—to keep stuff secret.”
Thomas took a step back, evaluating her. Despite the fact that she looked like a cute, irritated librarian, there was real intelligence gleaming in her eyes. She’d survived for four days with some of the most brutal beings he’d ever encountered—and all she had to show for it was one popped seam. And now, despite living at home with her parents, she was still standing toe to toe with him, not backing down—something that most billionaire businessmen had a hard time managing.
I like this girl
, he thought. She was smart, strong. A powerful combination. Sexy, too, he realized.
He probably shouldn’t focus on that aspect.
Thomas cleared his throat. “I’d like you to come back to work.”
Now she blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You were right. There was an easier way, and you found it,” he said, shifting his voice to the gentle, aw-shucks drawl that had served him surprisingly well in so many business deals. “It’s too late to keep you from knowing about the, er, code—and as you say, you can’t figure it out anyway. So let’s say I trust you by default.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch. At least, not for you,” he said. “I’m stuck in a predicament because you wound up going where you weren’t supposed to—”
“Where I was assigned,” she interrupted. “Maggie sent me there.”
Thomas paused, then growled softly. “Of course she did.” He felt a headache starting to brew behind his eyes. “I’ll have a talk with her. And I can promise that if you take the job, you won’t be reporting to her.”
Kate tilted her head, surveying him suspiciously. “Why should I?”
Now it was his turn to cross his arms. “Last we talked, you’re the one who needed the paycheck.”
He watched as her cream-pale cheeks flushed a dark rose. Her jerky shrug confirmed what he’d thought—she needed the money. “I can always get another assignment.”
“True,” he said, feeling more confident. “But can they match what I’d be willing to pay?”
He then named a number, and was gratified to see her emerald eyes go wide. “Holy crap,” she muttered. “For that much, am I supposed to kill somebody, too?”
She was possibly the least professional person he’d ever worked with, but damned if she didn’t make him chuckle. “No. But I’m going to need you to work with all those documents by yourself. There’s nobody else I can trust with them, and right now, you’re the only one who can use the scanner.”
She frowned again, absently pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose in a ridiculously cute offhand gesture. “You trust the guys,” she pointed out. “They’re already working with the documents. Why don’t you have them scan?”
How to explain the limited mental capacity of an Ammonite demon? “That’s not really in their skill set,” he hedged.
“Don’t worry. I’ll train them.” She grimaced at him. “And don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” he repeated, baffled.
“That ‘aw, how cute’ patronizing smile. Trust me, I’m a good trainer,” she said, even as a flash of doubt crossed her face. “Besides, even if I work twenty-four-seven, it will take forever. You get fifty guys on those scanners, you’ll have it done in a few weeks.”
He crossed his arms. She did have a point—if it worked. “All right. I’ll give you three days to test it,” he relented.
She took a deep breath—then he saw her glance back toward the house. The blinds shifted a little. She bit her full lower lip, an action that momentarily side-tracked him. She had a nice mouth, he noticed.