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I leaned back against the desk, shaking my head. Clearly, I wouldn’t be running this shop. Even if I wanted to, even if I thought I had the time, there was no way I had the expertise. I didn’t even understand what most of the things in that shop did, let alone being able to sell them.
So why exactly had Gran left it to me? I was the least-qualified person for this job.
Maybe coming here had been a mistake. I should have put it off for another month. I wouldn’t know what to do with it any more than I did now, but I’d probably at least hurt a little less.
Or I’d be dead because I failed to stop Lilith, but if that happened, at least I wouldn’t have to make any choices.
I’d even been foolish enough to think I’d find something at Gran’s that would give me the answers I needed. I’d open the right drawer, and the special anti-Lilith weapon would be sitting there, complete with a manual of how-tos for me.
I hadn’t found that, of course. Instead, it was just stuff, and most of it things that confused me all the more.
The shop doorbell rang, but before I had to worry that it was some other big disaster just waiting to throw what was left of my life into chaos, a familiar voice called.
“Hello, shadow-girl!” Hunter walked in through the doorway of the office, his hair looking even wilder than before, as if the weeks apart had changed it. It also had a more reddish tint. “A sight for sore eyes,” he said before he took a seat across a pile of papers from me.
“I’m sure you have lots of sore things since you decided to disappear for weeks.”
Wow, was it my voice that had come out like a scorned lover? Like some housewife annoyed that her husband had stayed out all night without calling?
Hunter laughed before picking up a file and opening it. “I had things to do.”
“Things more important than—”Me?I cringed at my own neediness. “Lilith,” I went with instead.
“It was for that.” He frowned and turned a page. “Gran was either involved with massive tax fraud or she had people raised from the dead to claim as dependents. Or possibly both. You might want to just burn this place down before the IRS comes after you.”
I laughed, slightly at ease talking about Gran, at the ability to laugh about her even with her gone.
I lifted my gaze to Hunter. “So, what were you really up to?”
“I was following up on a lead.”
“And?”
“And I’ve got an idea.”
I blew out a slow breath. “As I remember from your last idea, they aren’t always good. In fact, last time you and Grant took me to another dimension to meet some Elder One.”
“We traded her a cat for information. Yeah, I recall.”
“So you’re saying this will be a better idea?”
At that, he paused, as if evenhecouldn’t really claim such a thing. “Not exactly,” he hedged.
“It can get worse than a woman you used to sleep with for favors?”
“Yeah, it can.”
“Out with it,” I said. I’d found that the waiting, the nervousness, was worse than anything else.
He sighed before giving me a tired look, proof that the past months had been harder on us all than we were letting on. “How do you feel about calling in that favor from the devil you have?”
* * * *
I frowned and looked around the tattoo shop Grant has asked me to meet him at. A woman with half her head shaved stared at me, her gaze as sharp as the wings on her eyeliner. She had tattoos over her arms, a snake twisting around her neck and a huge rose with bloody petals on her chest.
This wassonot a place I belonged.
I wanted to. I saw the way she’d snapped at a man who walked in, one who had a good hundred pounds on her, when he’d made a comment about wanting to see just how far down her tattoos went. Something about her, about the confidence she had, drew me in.
