A smooth polished stone decorated with symbols she didn’t recognize lay inside. She shrugged—a little research didn’t bother her—and pocketed the artifact.
“I don’t know what the fuck that was all about,” she muttered to herself.
She wasn’t sure if she’d finished off her opponent, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Besides, it wasn’t like there was anyone else he could kill.
Shay didn’t call Peyton until she was well away from the village. She half-expected the headless body to leap on her 4Runner and didn’t want to be distracted. Once the village disappeared behind her, she stopped on the side of the road and pulled the stone from her pocket.
She took a few pictures with her phone and called Peyton.
“Hey, Shay,” he answered.
“I’m gonna send you some pictures. I want you to do a little background research for me.”
“Pictures of what?”
“The stone I took from whatever the fuck I just killed.”
Peyton sighed. “It wasn’t just a matter of paying some bribes, then?”
“Nope. Some fucking weird possessed elf. Show Lily, too and see if she recognizes anything or… or anyone.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry. I geared up and expected trouble, so I won. Anyway, check out these pictures and see if you can get me any leads.”
“Will do.”
Something or someone meowed.
Shay laughed. “Is that a cat or a girl? I can’t tell.”
“Um, gotta go. I’ll let you know about your symbols.” Peyton hung up.
Shay stared at her phone and shook her head. She could worry about what he was hiding later. It was probably more embarrassing than dangerous.
She’d find out soon enough. There was no way she was staying in Mexico for another day after that fucked-up encounter.
Chapter Nine
Shay ran up and down the new stairs she’d added to her obstacle course in Warehouse One, her breathing heavy. There was nothing that killed her jetlag quicker than a good workout. Lily was moving steadily just behind her, easily keeping up. Her movements were getting smoother, and she was less impetuous.
Shay was thinking her newest asset would be ready sooner, rather than later. But start out with something simple, if that even existed. The last job was supposed to be simple and it was anything but…
Shay still had no idea what she’d fought in Mexico, but she doubted it was just an elf. She wasn’t an expert on demons, but that was the obvious explanation.
Guess I should have called in a priest.
Lily let out a loud grunt and worked her way up the jumping bars. Shay was busy nimbly leaping onto a series of moving, narrow platforms, suspended from guide wires that could swing at the slightest touch. It was taking concentration and quick movements to make it through to the last one and grab onto the sliding pipe.
Lily made it to the top and grabbed onto the Tarzan rope, letting out a yell as she swung across a swath of the warehouse and came to land on a mat.
The tomb raider continued through the rest of the obstacle course, making it to her metal balance beam as she considered the implications of priests fighting demons.
The return of magic was making so many things confusing. Even if people on Earth had made a lot of incorrect assumptions about supernatural beings, it was hard to deny that the people in the past had been onto something. If demons were real, it wasn’t that crazy a thought that priests might use magic to deal with them.
Shay took a deep breath as she continued moving through the course to her new final obstacle. Changing things up helped keep her skills fresh, and she’d added it at the same time she’d added the stairs.
She jumped for a suspended bar and swung back and forth a few times to build momentum before leaping over to catch the edge of a wall. After pulling herself up, she climbed down the rope hanging on the other side.
The tomb raider chuckled. The stone still bothered her. She had no idea what it was, which meant she couldn’t even think about using or selling it, but it wasn’t like she could spend much time digging into it.
Mysteries with no clients didn’t pay. That shit could wait. “Come on, Lily, let’s go get pizza.”
Shay stepped out of her Spider into Warehouse Two, frowning. Almost all the cubicle walls that defined Peyton’s makeshift apartment were gone, which somehow made the entire room feel emptier. Lily came around and stood next to her, looking at the empty space.
“Was it something I said?”
It bothered her, and she wasn’t sure why. Peyton deserved his own place, even if she thought it was a horrible security risk. He needed to start having some semblance of a normal life again.
“Peyton?” she called.
He didn’t answer.
Shay went into the office and sat down at his computer to check what he’d been working on. The security system beeped, and one of the loading bay doors rose.
The lack of blaring alarms told her Peyton was arriving—or he might have been tortured into giving up the codes.
She pulled out her 9mm and stepped out of the office, hoping she wouldn’t have to kill anyone in here and be forced to abandon the building. “You hang back,” she said as Lily grabbed a tennis racket left behind by Peyton.
One of her black vans pulled in, Peyton at the wheel.
The researcher waited until the bay door closed and hurried out of the vehicle.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Shay eyed him. “Traffic that bad?”
“I’d like to say, ‘Hey, that’s LA for you,’ but not so much. It’s just that I’m on my fifth route to get here. Can’t make a beeline every day. Too much of a pattern, right? Security first.”
The tomb raider gave him an approving nod. Security was a mindset as much as it was a system or set of policies. That didn’t change the underlying problem, though.
“You’re gonna wear yourself out,” Shay observed. “Still think the apartment
