To Dance with the Devil

“Ah.”

“She needs protection from both Connor and Jack Finn. The son is a mere pawn who will do nothing without the consent of his father, but he is still dangerous. They seek to wipe out the last of the Garzas. Their sources have told them that there are three remaining members of the bloodline.”

“Three?” I blinked at that. “But the spell killed everyone. Lucia only lived because she was born postmortem, after the spell was over.”

“It killed all but Lucia, the man who cast it, and the child his wife conceived days later.”

“Wait … Connor Finn…”

“Has Garza blood in his veins. The feud between the families started when Sherry Garza went to Edmond Finn with proof that their spouses were having an affair. What neither of them knew was that the affair had been going on for years. Two of the elder Finn children were actually sired by Julio Garza. Connor Finn is the descendant of one of them.”

“Holy crap.”

Michelle’s mouth turned up in a bitter smile. “I must go. Lucia is tiring. But as of now I am hiring you to protect her. There is plenty of money. You will be paid.”

“And if I say no?”

She was as firm as ever in her response. “You won’t. Otherwise your werewolf wouldn’t be standing guard outside her door.” With that, Michelle’s body thrashed once abruptly and fell back against the bed.

Well, hell.

I leaned over to check on the patient. I could easily see that I was looking at Michelle, who was gasping in pain. She ignored me completely as she fumbled around a bit before finding and hitting the button on the pump that controlled her pain meds. Her body didn’t relax until the spelled morphine actually hit her system. When it did, Michelle’s eyes fluttered shut.

I left the room as the nurse came in to check on her.

Ghosts don’t lie; they can’t. Connor Finn hated the Garzas more than anything in this world … and he was one. The irony of that was bitter enough to choke on. I had more knowledge than when I’d come in. I just wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Celia, are you okay? You look … strange.” Kevin’s voice brought me back to the present.

He rose and guided me to his chair, where I tried to gather my scattered thoughts. After a moment, I said, “Michelle Andrews channeled the ghost of her mother while I was in there. Abigail hired us to protect Michelle from Connor Finn.”

“A ghost hired us.” He shook his head, bemused. “Really?”

“Yup.”

He chortled, his eyes sparkling with real mirth. “Well, one thing about working for you. It isn’t boring.”

I found myself snickering. It was a little funny, now that I thought about it. I asked Kevin if he wanted to take a quick break, maybe take Paulie outside, then grab something from the cafeteria.

He agreed and left just as the nurse came out of the room. I settled farther into the chair, using the quiet time to think.

Kevin needed backup. It was tempting to stay here and help stand guard. It was familiar duty and I was good at it. But I remembered those pictures from my college textbooks. Standing watch at a door wasn’t going to protect the woman in the room from that kind of attack. It wouldn’t keep her alive.

Connor Finn had taken drastic preemptive measures to keep me from taking this case. Clairvoyants had seen the possibility of my stopping whatever the hell he was doing. That meant I could.

That was encouraging. I needed encouragement at the moment. I was feeling particularly stupid and frustrated.

All right, one thing at a time. One of the reasons for my success at my job—even though until relatively recently I had been fully human, even though I’m a woman in a male-dominated field—is my ability to plan, and plan well. Good planning is flexible and thorough, taking into account many likely contingencies.

The attack that had put me in the hospital had spooked me, thrown me off my game. I’d been running frantically around in reaction ever since. Now that I had a minute, I needed to take a deep breath and logically and calmly think things through.

What were my strengths? I’m good at tactics and I’m great in a crisis. I know weapons. I can do violence and physical mayhem as well as anyone I know. I can be physically intimidating.

I’m not good at investigating things. I’m not nearly patient enough. Dawna is. In fact, I’m blessed in having surrounded myself with people who are some of the best in the world at what they do.

“So, Graves,” I asked myself, “why aren’t you using them? ”

Okay, the first thing I needed to do was get someone here to relieve Kevin, a couple of people, actually. If we were going to cover Michelle 24/7, it would be better to have a minimum of three people, each on an eight- hour shift. Six—two on each shift—would be better, but I didn’t think I had the personnel resources for that just yet.

Dawna could do research, see what she could find about blocking blood curses. In the meantime, I could start figuring out what we were going to do with our client once she got out of the hospital.

Kevin came back to find me writing notes on a scrap of paper I’d begged from the duty nurse. Both he and Paulie looked relieved as they resumed their positions.

Signs all through the hospital let me know that cell phone use was forbidden, so I had to wait until I was walking into the parking garage to call Dawna. She picked up on the first ring. “Graves Personal Protection. Can I help you?”

“Hey, Dawna, it’s me.”

“Oh, hi! I’ve got the business phones forwarded to my cell while I look at some of the office space we talked about. One place looked pretty good, but when they heard it was us, they said no.”

Damn it, that was frustrating. These landlords weren’t the first and, sadly, probably wouldn’t be the last to turn us down. I needed a real office soonest, but after the destruction of my last place played multiple times on every news channel, nobody seemed to want to let me rent from them. I couldn’t blame them. In their shoes I’d have felt the same way, but it sucked. I fumed silently for a few seconds, wondering what, if anything, I was going to be able to do about it.

“So,” Dawna asked, “you obviously called for a reason. What’s up?”

“We need more people to cover Michelle in the hospital. Did you get a chance to check out your cousin’s references?”

“Yeah, they were all good.”

“Cool. Call her. Tell her that her eight-hour shift starts tonight at six. She can meet up with you to do the official paperwork tomorrow sometime. And if you’ve got Bubba’s number, give him a call. See if he wants to do some pickup work. If he does, his shift starts when Talia’s ends. The client’s in room 305 at St. Joe’s.”

“We’re hiring Bubba?” Dawna didn’t even try to hide her delight. Bubba had been a friend of ours for years. We’d met when he moved his bail bonding office into the third floor of our office building, just down the hall from my office. He’d had to close his doors awhile back when his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. I’d wanted to stay in touch, but somehow I’d lost track of him. He’s big, tough, smart, and utterly loyal. I’ve trusted him with my back more than once and never regretted it. I could only hope he didn’t.

“If he’ll take the job. I don’t know that he will.”

“He might,” Dawna answered. “He’s been working as a bouncer and as a roadie for his brother-in-law’s band. I’m sure he’d rather have something that pays better. They had to sell the house to pay Mona’s medical bills so he’s living with Mona and Sherry on the boat King Dahlmar bought him to replace Mona’s Rival. I’ve got the number.”

I’d known about the house, had even offered to lend Bubba some money. I’d have given it to him outright, but I knew he wouldn’t take it. He was much too proud. As it happened, he wouldn’t even accept a loan. “Dahlmar replaced his boat?” I hadn’t known that. I was really, really glad. One of the things that had weighed on my