A Wolf at the Door

The floor beneath our feet was plain cement, not even smoothed out properly in some places, but the majority of it had been covered with old rugs. Layers and layers of old rugs, actually, the ones on top worn through enough to reveal the patterns of the ones underneath. It made for uneven footing at best, and a fire hazard at worst. I wondered how the little old lady made her way through here on a regular basis without breaking a hip.

Aside from the furniture, which looked like it had been rescued from Goodwill at some point, there was very little else to see. A few lamps hung from the ceilings, their low lights almost drowned out by dark shades beaded heavily just like the curtains that marked the doors. In one corner, a small set of shelves stood, displaying various knickknacks, and one ancient portable TV, the kind with the black-and-white six-inch screen and the antenna half broken off. I found a small Buddha on the top shelf, carved out of jade or a good replica of it, and smiled a little. He looked just like the one that sat by the waterfall in my backyard, and it was like finding a friend in a strange place.

I might have even reached out to dust him off, but I caught the slightest hint of cloves in that corner. It wasn’t fresh, by any means. Old, musty, faint. Whatever the spell was, it had been cast so long ago that it had almost faded away to nothing. Most likely, it would no longer be functional at all, no matter what its intention had been. Of course, there was also the very rare chance that the old magic had soured over time, becoming something other than what was meant entirely. In those instances, the results could be…unexpected, and highly unpleasant.

Best to follow my mother’s advice, and look with my eyes, not my fingers.

“And there. Finished.” Cindy gave a few sharp taps to her keyboard, then closed the laptop. “This was an interesting job, to say the least.” A few moments later, the elderly woman entered, handing Cindy the pages from some unseen printer. She nodded to us all, her cheerful smile still in place, as she disappeared into the other room again.

“So what does it say?” Gretchen leaned forward, suddenly eager now that all the answers were within our reach.

The translator gave her a small smile, but turned her dark gaze toward me. “I believe there was the matter of payment?”

“What’s your price, then?” It hadn’t escaped me that Ivan said he didn’t trust this woman. I almost dreaded what was going to come out of her mouth.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Hm. I think about five thousand dollars will suffice.”

“Done.” Gretchen whipped out her phone. “I can transfer that now.”

“Wait…what?” I blinked at the seemingly innocuous Asian woman.

She smiled at me, and while it was still saccharine sweet, there was something behind it. Something darker. “What did you expect me to ask for, Jesse? A lock of hair? Drop of blood? A soul? I can get those things easily, should I want them. But money for rent, for supplies, that’s a bit harder to come by. It turns out I really am a material girl.”

Gretchen did whatever it was she had to do, and Cindy handed over the printed pages. “You can read through the entire thing if you want, but I highlighted a few sections I found interesting. Page seven, paragraph three was one of them. It seemed…important.”

I crouched down next to Gretchen, looking over the printout as she flipped to the indicated paragraph. “Upon death, the additional souls collected will become the property of the collector’s master.” Oh yes, that was definitely the clause we needed to see. How very kind of Cindy to guess just what we were about. Kind, my ass. She knew too much on such a short acquaintance, and I was really starting to not like it.

Gretchen looked at me, puzzled. “I don’t understand. Is the demon that made this contract my master?”

“I think that’s the loophole, Gretchen.” I flipped a few pages forward and backward, skimming for the pertinent words, but I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t find them. “Your ‘master’ is never defined. So I think what happens is, these souls go to whoever you name as your master. The decision lies with you.” And that’s why that thing was after me, not her. They couldn’t risk killing her until she’d passed her cargo on to someone else. They needed it to be someone on their side. They needed to get me away from her, lest I influence her choice. Axel’s master plan was starting to become clear to me. The bastard.

“Is there anything in here regarding a New Year’s Eve date?” I flipped through again as I asked, but I was already pretty sure I wasn’t going to find anything.

“Nothing that I saw, no,” Cindy answered. “Momentous date, though. Turning of the year and all. Things happen on a date like that.”

“Why?” Gretchen fixed her sharp blue gaze on me. “Why ask about New Year’s?”