Night Fever (A Rue Darrow Novel Book 3) (5 page)

She hesitated, but I waited. “He was almost killed. I should break it off with him. He’s human. They’re so darn fragile. I should stick with my own kind.”

“That’s not what you want.”

“Don’t presume to tell me what I want!” She sucked in a few deep breaths and blew them out. “If I had an alpha, he could help me calm down. Plus, I’d have a group where I’d meet other wolves and a potential mate.”

“It doesn’t matter, Vie. Look at me and Nathan. We’re doing fine.”

Off she went flying along the road again. “I don’t agree with your pairing, but you both can do what you want.”

“You really think it’ll only work out if you’re with a werewolf? People are people. We all have our challenges, whether we’re human or nonhuman, wolf or anything else. You’re scared he’ll be hurt, but if you were human, can you honestly say you would worry less about him? Worrying about the ones we love comes with the territory.”

She didn’t seem to like this logic, but I believed she understood it. Violet was too stubborn to acknowledge my reasoning, so she stayed silent. I figured a change of subject was in order.
Semi
-change. “So, about last night… If your partner is sick, you need backup. These ghouls are a big challenge, and if I wasn’t there at the theatre, I don’t know what would have happened. I propose—”

“No.”

“You haven’t heard my suggestion.”

“I know what you want, Rue, and this case is not going to be for your entertainment.”

I rested a hand over my chest. “I would never.”

She sneered.

“Almost never. Vie, you have to admit the cops are no help, especially when a bullet won’t keep these things down. We both had a hard time with that fight.”

“We did, but it’s my job to take care of it, not yours. I don’t want a civilian under foot and getting in my way. Those people were killed right under my nose, Rue.”

“All the more reason for my help.”

She refused to agree. If I wanted to do anything about the ghouls, I would have to work alone. I had one last question to ask her before returning to my night patrol.

“Did Cam say anything about the incident?”

For a second, Violet’s eyes blazed brighter. “He put your strength down to adrenaline, but he’s already talking about questioning you.”

“I could glamour him,” I offered.

“And I could make you sorry,” she shot back.

I rolled my eyes. “The sensitivity of some people.”

She pulled to the side of the road and pointed. I got the message and stepped out of the squad car. As soon as my feet touched the ground and I shut the door, her tires squealed on the asphalt. We had made excellent progress as friends.

Chapter Seven

After scouring the city twice—maybe I missed a spot or two because I wasn’t
that
fast—I decided I wasn’t going to find the ghouls. Perhaps we had killed them all off the night before, but instinct told me we didn’t. I believed more would crop up, and right now I had no choice but to wait for it to happen.

Instead, I worked on my second important task, that of finding a job. Now that The Rusty Ankle no longer existed, I didn’t have a steady source of income. I assumed I was still working part-time as a sort of private investigator, but no one had buzzed my phone since I came back from the past. My phone had mysteriously been at Nathan’s apartment along with a few other personal items. Time changing was quite confusing.

I chose to first stop by the hotel I used to work at before I walked off the job when my boss tried to put me on the afternoon shift. As I strode along the alley leading to the service entrance, I expected to spot Carl, a former coworker, who never failed to grab a last smoke before he had to go in for the night. Instead of Carl, a woman maybe in her early thirties leaned in his spot. Because I was hungry, I sniffed the air as I approached and wrinkled my nose. Her blood smelled odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Hey,” I said when I drew alongside her. “Carl around?”

Dull eyes drifted in my direction. She dragged long and deep on a cigarette. “No.”

I waited, expecting more and got nothing. “Um, is he off for the night?”

“Who wants to know?” There was no attitude in her question, just mild curiosity. I had the feeling she passed the time with the question more than anything else.

“Rue Darrow. I used to work with him.” I hoped Carl could lead me in the direction of a place hiring because I recalled he was good with that type of information. “He still works here, right?”

She rotated her shoulders as if it were a supreme effort to speak. “He’s on sick leave. Attacked by those weird people.”

I stilled, and she leaned toward me, squinting. Recalling I should at least give the appearance of being alive, I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yup. Happened a few nights ago.” Talking about Carl’s health animated her a little more. “Heard the boss say he’s in the hospital. Got some strange fever they can’t get to go down.”

“How is a fever strange?”

Her eyes widened. “Do I know? I’m not a doctor.”

Again, the words were combative but absent of heat. I tapped a hand against my thigh and peered up and down the alley. Then I looked at her again. “Are you sick?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

I pressed. “
Are
you?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was nearby. “I don’t know why I should tell you, but I have cancer. I can’t afford the treatment, and I don’t know that I would get the chemo even if I did. They say it makes you sicker.”

“It could save your life.”

She shrugged and went back to smoking. I left her where she stood and headed down the alley. For the next hour, I put in applications at various businesses that might hire me. Funny enough, I even offered my services at a rival cleaners and drew great satisfaction in thinking about helping them grow beyond the Stanleys’ “success.”

Since I had met the goblin Stanley, I had wondered why they would settle for such a moderate income from the business they owned, especially when they had to split it among however many brothers there were. Then it hit me—laundering. I was sure I was right. The Stanleys were probably using their business as a cover. Interesting theory, but I had no reason to pursue it. My employment prospects were limited because even while many businesses stayed open late, most needed someone to work starting late afternoon. During spring and summer months, the sun was still in the sky during that time of day.

When I was ready to admit temporary defeat, I headed over to the paranormal library and slumped into a chair to lie dramatically across the table. Lily hovered over me, patting my back. Each time her hand came into contact with my body, a tiny electric shock zipped through me. Nothing painful but enough to alert me she was there.

“I’m unemployable, Lily,” I complained.

“There there,” she cooed.

“Where’s Bill?”

“He’s here.”

I sat up and looked around. “Where?”

She pointed, and I looked toward a bare wall with nothing adorning it.

“Unless Bill has become a wall, he’s not over there.”

“Look harder,” she said, and I squinted. The wall fell away, and there was one of the other dimensions he had showed me at my first visit. Bill walked about an identical library, helping customers, smiling, and seeming to enjoy himself. While Bill spoke to one woman, a man strode up to him. I recognized the wild man who had come rushing into the library previously.

The two men finished their conversation, and the stranger turned in my direction as if he planned to cross the dimensions to my side. Bill caught his arm and shook his head. Then his gaze slid to me, and I knew just as before when Bill rushed me out of the library, he didn’t want me there at the same time as the man. When I first met him, he’d admitted to signaling when other visitors weren’t welcome if I was already in the library.

Realizing the truth of what Bill did, I huffed and folded my arms. Well, that man could take the long way home, assuming there was one. I had no problem with anyone visiting the library when I did.

Bill crossed the dimensions and greeted me. “Good evening, Rue. It’s good to see you. Would you like a bottle?”

Something inside me leaped to attention. “No, thank you. I’ve just had my meal.”

Bill looked at me with an odd expression, and too late I recalled he could read my thoughts. I performed a fruitless effort to block him out, but he made no comment about my lie. Bill tended not to involve himself too much with others’ situations except when it overlapped library business.

“I would like to search the underweb for a job,” I said. “Do you mind if I take a peek?” One didn’t just use Bill’s a facilities willy nilly. One always got permission.

“You have access at home.” He said it matter-of-factly. I wondered if he hadn’t read in my head about the changes I had caused. Then again, I hadn’t been thinking about it so maybe not.

“Um, Nathan is out of town, and he took his laptop with him. I apparently don’t own one anymore.”

Lily passed through the table and faced me. “Why do you say ‘apparently,’ Rue? Don’t you know?”

“I used to have a laptop, but recently almost everything I owned has, uh, shifted around.”

She was about to ask another question, but Bill distracted her. He gave his permission for me to use the equipment, and soon I searched the underweb for a job. At least, I knew there existed plenty of creatures who were nocturnal like me. You might think I would run into the same problem Nathan had when people feared hiring him because they thought he would eat them. No, not quite. I could always find someone willing to use a vampire for their own purposes. That didn’t mean they liked me.

“Factory worker,” I mused and wrinkled my nose. They packed and shipped spices. That was asking for pain. I ran my finger down the list. So many jobs for unskilled labor, so little time. I had come down in my little world having been a schoolteacher in the past. Transferring bodies meant I couldn’t use the old degree or references. Not to mention no one in my hometown knew who I was now or where I lived. They all believed the lie Ian and I had provided for them.

On the second page of the list, I came across an interesting opening, just posted ten minutes ago, according to the tag. Odd that it should fall back so far. I had no idea why I even stopped to read or for that matter click on the link. Maybe because it blinked off and on at me.

“Lock picker,” I murmured to myself. “Are they really asking to hire someone to break into places? Is there no law enforcement for the underworld?”

“Perhaps it doesn’t mean what you think,” Bill said.

I read further and found out he was right. Ilsa’s Charm Shop was looking for a lock picker, meaning she wanted someone to dispel traps. “Sounds dangerous. She means breaks magical spells, I bet. I can do that.”

Bill agreed. “If anyone can, it’s probably you.”

I beamed. “I’m going to call her.”

“Better yet, honey, come on down to the shop!”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Ilsa’s face appeared on the screen and that she was listening in on my interest in the job. The last time I had found her ad on the underweb, she had appeared there, although being human she couldn’t actually enter the library.

Recalling on several occasions I had dispelled magic with just a touch or being in the vicinity, if Ilsa was willing to pay me for doing nothing and being myself, I was going to apply for the position. I left the library and headed over to the French Quarter to her voodoo shop. If one wasn’t looking for it, one would pass it by. I wondered if there was a spell that kept it that way but decided that couldn’t be the case. Otherwise, she wouldn’t get any clients.

I already knew the dark and spooky atmosphere of the shop crammed to the gills with items was just a front. Ilsa was the kind of witch that enjoyed dressing in bright colors and frilly costumes. Today, she had donned a stark black dress, and her frizzy hair had been scraped back into a staunch bun. The only spoiler to her getup was the paleness of her skin highlighted the freckles on her face. Cute, not scary.

“It’s good to see you again, honey,” Ilsa said. “How did the werewolf situation go? Oh, well since you’re not in the grave or have limbs missing, I assume okay.”

“Yes, thanks, Ilsa. It’s good to see you, too. It will be even better if you consider hiring me. I can dispel any magic, and I’m willing to negotiate on salary.”

She giggled. “Not any magic, but I think you’ll be useful. Once you get the hang of it, I bet you’ll do just fine.”

“So you’re willing to hire me?” I had come prepared to sell myself more than I had. The boasting about dispelling any magic was a huge stretch, but one had to say what one needed to get the job.

“Of course. You were already hired before you came, silly girl.” She shook her head as if I should understand and waggled a finger at me. “My charts are never wrong, and they told me who I should hire. When I did a little scrying this morning, I knew just the time to post my advertisement. Sometimes it’s scary how good I am.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. She was confident all right, and I liked it. “That’s great. So can we talk salary? Is it too soon to ask for an advance?”

“Much too soon,” she assured me, and I snapped my fingers. Hey, if I was destined to get the job, I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Not like I would get fired. Ilsa believed I was the one. She flashed me a happy grin and spun on her heel. “Now, come over here and fill out a little paperwork. Mind, don’t touch anything.”

I recalled she feared I would ruin the items she had cast spells on to sell in her shop, so I kept my arms inside the ride as I approached the counter. Ilsa waved a hand, and the assorted items cluttering the space before her disappeared. I was impressed and had a moment of regret, thinking why couldn’t I have come back as a witch. How cool would that be?

A wiggle of her fingers and twirl of her wrist, paired with a few muttered words, and Ilsa produced a single sheet of paper with writing on it. I peered at it in suspicion. The top read employment contract, and there was a spot at the bottom for a signature. Yet, if I wasn’t mistaken, subtle vibrations radiated from the sheet. I didn’t touch it.

“Is this a witch’s contract where if I sign, I’m giving away my freedom, Ilsa? Because you still haven’t said how much you’re paying me. Plus, I kind of like my freedom.”

“Of course not.” She laughed but touched the page, and it was gone again. Somehow I doubted her denial. “Let’s just have an at-will agreement, shall we? As long as you’re willing, you’ll work for me, and I can let you go at any time.”

“Sounds good so far.”

“The money is on a job by job basis and will depend on the power of the spell. You’ll receive an item, let’s say for example a music box, and according to how difficult I judge the spell is to break, I’ll pay you a certain sum.”

She named an average amount, and I accepted it. We weren’t talking getting me into designer brands. Not that I had ever had interest in such things. In addition, the items needing my expertise might come semi-regularly or not at all for a couple weeks. I almost groaned in disappointment, but even a bit of money was better than none.

“Also, honey, you’ll work at home,” Ilsa told me. “I can’t risk you moving about the shop. I’ll send the packages by special courier.”

“Wow, I love that part most of all,” I declared. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Ilsa, and thank you for the opportunity.”

“The pleasure is all mine, honey. Now run along. Work to do.”

I left the shop looking forward to my new assignments, which would make life quite entertaining indeed.