Sixth Grave on the Edge

“Cook, the last time Mrs. Allen checked on her, Amber ended up in the hospital.”

She nodded before saying, “It wasn’t Mrs. Allen’s fault. She was just trying to check up on Amber.”

“In the dark, with a her hair in curlers and a Scandinavian mud mask on her face. Amber tried to run from her and ran face-first into a doorjamb. I’ll never understand why Mrs. Allen didn’t just turn on a light.”

“It’s okay.” She patted my leg consolingly. “All the swelling is gone now, and I’ve asked Mrs. Allen to just knock and wait for the plainclothes to answer the door.”

“And you think that’ll work, do ya?” I chuckled. It sounded maniacal. It didn’t quite have that refined edge of psychosis that I was going for, but it worked. I pointed to her closet. “Pants? Not that I don’t appreciate a nice pair of pantaloons as much as the next girl, but most restaurants require they be covered.”

I gave Amber a hug before I left and suffered the long trek back to my place. Five steps later, I pried my door open with a hefty nudge from my shoulder, then stumbled inside when it gave. Reyes had patched it temporarily—at least I could open and close it now—but I’d need a new doorframe. That man did not know his own strength. Of course, he hadn’t considered the fact that my door had been unlocked when he decided to crash through it. I righted myself and stopped. Something was different about my apartment. What could it be?

Oh, yeah. My place had been ransacked. Son of a bitch. Every drawer I could see had been turned inside out. Every item I owned upended.

I jammed my fists onto my hips. “Mr. Wong! Didn’t we talk about this? You are the worst guard ever.”

The scene was strangely familiar. I went from room to room, but nothing else had been disturbed. Only the living room and kitchen had been upended. The intruder must have found what he wanted and—

Zeus!

I ran to my kitchen and tore through the knife drawer. Carefully, because it was the knife drawer. I figured hiding the dagger in a drawer full of kitchen knives was ingenious. I was wrong. It was gone.

It would seem that one Mr. Dealer of Souls had decided to visit while I was out. The little shit. He’d pay. Literally. I wasn’t cleaning up this mess. I’d hire a service or something, and make him pay for it. Damn it.

I picked up my bag and went to confront a demon in human’s clothing.

* * *

After finally getting Artemis to scoot over enough for me to fit in, I started Misery up and summoned Angel. I was headed to the last place I’d seen the Dealer and asked Angel where the Daeva lived. I’d assumed he lived close by where the game had been held. According to Angel, I was right.

Artemis decided my lap looked more appealing than the seat Mr. Andrulis had recently vacated. I was going to miss that man. As a result of Artemis’s fussiness, I drove down Central and up San Mateo with a fully grown Rottweiler on my lap until I reached a residential district off a side street. She caught sight of a cat—the horror!—and bound off me, using my ovaries, Beam Me Up and Scotty, as a launchpad. I had to admit, it hurt.

The Dealer’s house was nothing like what I’d expected. It was kind of nice, for one thing, with xeriscaping in front and rich terra-cotta walls with thick wood trim. I walked up to a carved natural wood door with a patina knocker shaped like a deer skull, but he opened the door before I could use it.

“I want the dagger back.”

A smile that was so pretty, it stunned me flashed across his face. The kid was gorgeous. No doubt about it. He wasn’t wearing the top hat. It sat perched on a wall hook just inside the door. And his long black hair hung just a tad past his shoulders.

He widened the opening. “Come in.” When I stood my ground, he added, “Please.”

Okay, he said please. How dangerous could he be? Conceding, I stepped across the threshold and said, “I mean it. I want that dagger.”

“So you can use it on me?” he asked, closing the door. “So you can sink it into my chest?”

“Duh.”

He strolled into the open living area. It was very plush with lots of beiges highlighted with a soft Mediterranean green.

It was hard to imagine he actually owned this house. While I realized he only looked nineteen, he still looked nineteen. He still looked like a kid who should be flipping burgers at Macho Taco—or, well, burritos—when in truth, he was thousands of years old.

“You own this?” I asked him.

“Nah.” He tossed a throw pillow aside and gestured for me to sit. “I killed the owners and ate their souls for breakfast.” When I deadpanned, he shrugged and said, “It’s a rental.”

“The knife.”

“What makes you think I have it?”

“Please,” I said, scoffing at him. “What if I promise not to use it on you?”

He sat in a wingback chair across from the sofa, stretching one leg out and hitching it on the bottom of a beautiful iron coffee table.

“I would offer you something to drink—”

“I would just decline it.” I sank onto the sofa.

“Figured as much. That knife could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Like yours? Is it dangerous in your hands?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he studied me, a curious gleam in his eyes, and it reminded me he had a certain power. He was charismatic and charming, no doubt, but he also had a magnetism that went beyond the average supernatural being. The other demons I’d encountered were nothing like him. For starters, he didn’t have slick black scales or razor-sharp teeth.