Page 26 of Housesitter

“It doesn’t rain, but it throws in frogs,” he muttered.

He tossed the whole, syrupy bottle over the worn, stone rim of the gateway. It dropped into the damp, marshy dark, clicking against the mold-slick sides a few times, and then plopped into something down the bottom that sounded thick and wet.

“If you’ve been scavenging,” Shepherd warned it as he turned to go. “I’ll grate you. I’d rather not, but I will. Keep that in mind.”

“...this is in the public interest,” Emily said as Shepherd tried to usher her toward the door. She held her phone up, not quite filming yet, but ready. “I mean, you came into my cafe that first day, and I warned you about this place. Now you’re living here? That’s a story.”

She made it sound like they were in it together. They were not.

Shepherd sighed. “Let me guess, you have a podcast?”

“I have a channel,” Emily corrected, defensively. “It’s small, but all I need is the right story, and it’ll take off. From forty-seven listeners to four thousand. The algorithm loves a mystery.”

She raised her phone, eyes bright with the desire to not work customer service anymore, and asked, “So what is it like living in—”

Behind her, the door to the basement creaked open. There was nothing there, but it was obtrusively there. You couldn't miss it.

Emily lowered her arm as she looked around.

“...did you hear that?” she asked.

Shepherd reached into his pocket for his switchblade. All the verve had drained from Emily as she stared at the open door. She craned her head to the side as if she could see someone.

“What was that?”

“You shouldn't talk to strangers,” Shepherd said as he put his free hand on her shoulder. Before he could do anything else, the front door slammed open behind them. Both of them jumped. Emily's phone clattered to the floor and skittered across the tiles toward the open basement door.

It slid further than seemed natural. Shepherd stepped forward and blocked it with his foot, gave the basement door a shove, and it clicked shut. On the other side, nothing was indignantly silent at the insult.

“Are you Shepherd…” The question started out confident, in a smooth, velvety baritone, then faltered. “Doncaster didn't know your surname?”

Shepherd turned to look at his visitor. The man standing on the threshold looked like a middle-aged guy dressed for golf, with expensively cut hair and a lazy smile.

He extended his hand. Shepherd considered his options, let the knife drop back into his pocket, and accepted it.

“I’m Easy Harlow,” the man said, holding onto Shepherd's hand a beat too long. “I'm with the HOA.”

Oh.

Shepherd took his hand back.

“Then I probably can’t help you,” he said, trying to disengage. “I’m just the—”

Easy kept smiling. “Oh, I know,” he said, holding up a clipboard. "That’s the first infringement that the board has asked to be addressed before we proceed to legal action.”

Shit. Those were the magic words. Shepherd felt the energy of the House shift as its demonic terms locked onto the conversation.

Emily rubbed her hand over her face and looked between them, her phone forgotten on the floor.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing good,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd consulted the business card that had been tucked into the onboarding file that Renfield’s had left for him. His usual client manager had passed Shepherd’s on as a sub, but they weren’t the one in charge of the account.

Based on the business card that was…

“Ben Maddigan,” Shepherd read out. Then quickly followed up in the same breath with, “Please don’t put me on—”