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David got out of the car, shutting it with an attention-getting thump. Inside the house, a small dog started yapping hysterically. David looked good in his suit, but also tired. It was just after the full moon, and the two ladies had probably run him hard.
Eager to get my life back, I jumped out of the car and slammed the door.
"Relax, Rachel," David murmured as he came around the car, gripping his briefcase and wrangling his shades into place.
"I am relaxed," I said, then jiggled my feet impatiently. "You want to hurry up?" Please don't be Nick. Let me have made one good choice in my life.
David hesitated, his dark eyes flicking to the barking dog visible through a window. "You can't arrest anyone. You don't have a warrant."
I nudged him into motion and up the short walk. "If I'm lucky, someone will take a swing at me, and then I can hit 'em."
Looking askance at me with a wry grin, David snorted. "Just tell me if it was demon damage, and we'll leave. If it is, you can come back and make whoever it is chew his own balls on your terms, but as far as I'm concerned, this is just some nice lady with a crack in her wall."
Yeah, and I'm the cosmetics girl at Valeria's Crypt. "Whatever," I muttered, then tugged my dress straight and checked my complexion charm as we took the stairs to the shady porch. I wanted my Halloween back.
David rocked to a halt on the mat, tilting his head to watch the dog having hysterics through the long window beside the door. "It's not illegal to summon demons."
I huffed as I tucked my shades into that ugly brown purse, right next to the splat gun, the magnetic chalk, and the heavy-magic detection amulet—so far a nice friendly green. "It's illegal to tell them to kill someone."
"Rachel…," he coaxed as he rung the bell and the barking dog jumped up and down. "Don't make me sorry I brought you."
I stared, fascinated as the blond fuzz ball turned somersaults. "Me?" I said coyly.
The little dog yelped, vanishing in the blur of a swinging foot. I blinked, and my mouth was hanging open unintelligently when the door moved, revealing a middle-aged woman wearing a paisley-patterned dress and an honest-to-God apron. I sure hoped it was a costume, because the fifties look was not an attractive fashion statement.
"Hello," she said, sounding like a little-miss-hostess doll. Her eyebrows arched, and I wondered if I had a run in my stockings. She didn't appear as if she was a demon summoner. She didn't appear as if she was in mourning either. Maybe she was the cook.
"I'm David," David said as he shifted his briefcase and shook her hand. "David Hue. And this is Ray, my assistant. We're from Were Insurance."
Ray? As in a little drop of sunshine? I gave him a dry look. I wasn't incognito, here.
"Ms. Morgan," I said, extending my hand, and the woman took it briefly with a noncommittal smile. A wave of redwood spilled from her, telling me she was a witch rather than a warlock, and she'd been spelling heavily lately. I wasn't buying the housewife image—she could probably slam me against the wall. Better be polite.
"I'm Betty," she said, stepping back and giving her dog another shove. It skittered sideways and parked its little yappy butt in the archway to the dining room. "Come on in."
David gestured for me to precede him, so eyeing the panting but silent dog happily staring at me, I went in. Betty's skirt swayed as she set a cordless phone on the table by the door between the huge bowl of wrapped candy and the plate of frosted sugar cookies. Orange pumpkins and black cats. By golly, she bakes, too.
"I understand you have some water damage?" David prompted when the door shut.
A shiver passed through me as it clicked smartly closed. Everything was clean and bright, lit by a high window. The hall was spacious, and clearly the woman was wealthy. The fact that her husband had just died of a heart attack was nowhere on her face or house. Nothing.
Heels clacking, the woman started down the hall. "In the basement," she said over her shoulder. "This way. I have to say I'm surprised you're working on Halloween."
Her tone was slightly sour, and I imagined Betty only offered to be available today as she thought we wouldn't work on Halloween. No one else did.
David cleared his throat. "We like to settle claims fast. Get your life back to normal."
Catch you in a lie, I added, looking at the décor. It was all angles and stark colors that made me uncomfortable. It smelled like hard-boiled eggs. On a long table was a big flower arrangement of lilies and black roses. Okay, so someone had cared.
The rapid patter of the dog's nails at my ankle pulled my gaze down, and the little dog panted happily up at me as if I were his best friend. "Go away," I muttered, motioning with my foot, and he yapped playfully, dancing around my toes.
Betty halted at an unadorned door painted white, and she turned, frowning at him. "Beat it, Sampson," she said roughly, and the cheerful little dog sat at my feet, his ba
With a last scowl, she opened the door, flicked on the light, and headed down. I looked at David, and he gestured for me to go first. I shook my head, not liking the bare boards and ugly walls after the open whiteness of the rooms upstairs, and sighing, he went first.
Betty was yammering about something, and I took a breath to steady myself. I didn't want to go down there, but that's what I was here for. Frowning, I looked at Sampson. "Everything okay down there, sport?" I asked him, and he stood, his entire backside waving as he ate up the attention.
"Stupid dog," I muttered as I started down. But maybe not so stupid, since he stayed at the top of the stairs in the sun while I followed Widow Betty into the electric-lit blackness underground. Two steps in, I opened my purse and checked the lethal-spell amulet. Nothing. But the heavy-magic charm was glowing brightly enough to read by.
"I don't know how long the wall has been leaking." Betty's voice came echoing up as she reached the bottom and opened up a second door. It was unusual, but they might have had the vamp door for resale value. "I only come down here when I have to store something," she said as she flicked on the lights and the scent of carpet cleaner came drifting up. "I noticed it was wet a few weeks ago, and I ran the extractor over the carpet and forgot about it, but earlier this week, the crack just sort of opened up, and it got a lot worse."
David stepped into the basement, and after a quick amulet check, I halted at the base of the stair. I wasn't ready yet to let that woman get between me and the door. It was really thick, and it had a conventional lock on the outside and a deadbolt on the inside. Nice. Bet it was soundproof. No one likes screams disturbing their Sunday di
Seeing me there, David nodded almost imperceptibly and went to drop his briefcase on the long conference table set up in the middle of the large room. It smelled too clean for Betty to be coming down here only once in a while. Bleach, and maybe that spray that Ivy used on the blood circles this spring. The cinder-block wall under the front door had a crack I could put my pinky in ru
Betty clustered close to David as the clicks of the locks on his briefcase made a tiny echo. He brought out some paperwork, and feeling safer, I meandered to the cracks. My skin crawled when the woman's gaze sharpened on me, even as she started signing papers. If this was water damage, then I was an elf.
There was a back room behind some fake pine paneling. The drop ceiling was low, and the brown indoor/outdoor carpet looked like dirt. No wonder Al liked my kitchen; this would be an ugly place to be summoned into. Past David and Betty at the far end under the high basement windows, an eight-inch-high platform took up the entire end of the room. I looked at the crack in the wall and smirked. Yeah. This had demon-summoning all over it. I'd seen the damage they could do. The water on the floor had probably come from trying to get the blood out of the carpet.