A Wolf at the Door

“And later, her porridge will be too cold and her bed will be too hard.” The waiter just rolled his eyes, and the two men exchanged fist bumps before he wheeled the rejected food back toward the elevators.

The bodyguard caught the door when it would have closed, and gestured me inside. “Welcome to the penthouse, Jesse Dawson.”

The penthouse was everything you would expect of a room tagged with that designation. Spacious, sumptuous, elegant, extravagant. It seemed to be a central sitting room, with several doors leading off. I mentally mapped them as the master bedroom, a second bedroom, a second bath, and off to the side there was a kitchenette and a full dining room with a twelve-seat table. The living room—which looked nothing like my living room, I might add—was crowned by a TV the size of my bed at home, and a couple of plush couches in dark brown leather.

I might have noticed more, had there not been a topless woman standing in the middle of the room. Okay, she wasn’t totally topless, but she stood there in only her bra and panties with her hands on her hips like she owned the world. In the split second before I averted my eyes, I recognized her as Gretchen Keene, movie star extraordinaire. Hell, maybe she did own a good chunk of it.

“Is it Take a Homeless Guy to Work day, Tai?” A small smattering of chuckles sounded from around the room. I mentally marked the positions of two other people, both male, but refused to look toward the crazy half-naked chick.

“This is Jesse James Dawson. Reggie told you he was coming, remember?” If Tai was uncomfortable with her nudity, it wasn’t evident in his voice. Maybe this was normal? Naked Tuesdays or something? Geez.

“Oh yeah. The demon slayer.” That made me look up in surprise. Very few people knew what I did. It wasn’t like demons ran PR campaigns or took out television ads. For her to speak so openly, in front of witnesses and everything…I wasn’t expecting that.

Dear God, where was I supposed to put my eyes? I mean, the girl was smokin’ hot and the next best thing to buck naked. I think her legs went all the way up to her eyebrows, and even without makeup on, she was stunning. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, gold like only comes out of a bottle and all artfully messy-like, but it only made her even more gorgeous. Was this what demon magic could do? I could feel warmth in my face and fought the urge to look away again. Instead, I focused on her eyes. They were blue—darker than mine, I could tell from a distance—but there was that slight shadow behind them that I recognized instantly. She was soulless.

That forced my eyes to her left forearm, looking for the telltale black tattoo. It was there. I could see one dark curlicue snaking toward her elbow, but it was mostly obscured by her stance. Still, if it stretched that far, it was a helluva tat. A helluva contract.

Gretchen raised a brow when I finally raised my eyes to meet her gaze. “Well, are you any good?”

“The ones who aren’t good don’t live to get better.” Every eye in the room was on me, which struck me as odd when they could have been staring at her. I could feel Tai standing behind me, and off to my right at the bar was another big man with a crew cut who had to be the other bodyguard. The third man was hanging over the back of the sofa, watching me, his short dreads dyed an unnatural shade of fire-engine red. I couldn’t see much of him except his head, but somehow I didn’t think he was a fighter.

“Well, show me something.” Gretchen waved her hand and plopped onto the leather couch, curling her bare feet beneath her. “Do a spell or something.”

This day was just getting weirder and weirder. “I don’t perform on command, Miss Keene.” Never mind that I couldn’t “do a spell” if my life depended on it. “I will, however, check the room over if you don’t mind.” What I couldn’t do, my friends could do for me.

My mirror was still in the bundle of anti-demon stuff hanging off my belt loop. I picked it up and turned it toward Tai first. It was hard as hell, trying to get a look at the big man in such a tiny glass, but I managed it while walking a few slow circles around him. He was clean.

“What are you looking for?” He watched me curiously when I headed next toward the man at the bar.

“Fleas.” More precisely, I was looking for huge demonic fleas, things I called Scrap demons. As long as Gretchen had been demon-sworn, I’d be amazed if there weren’t at least a couple of the little beasties lurking around. They tended to latch on to the soulless, sucking their life force like greasy little parasites.