Naughty Karma

never left her home. But she hadn’t answered the door. The lights were off and no sound came from the massive television Karma knew sat on the other side of the door.

Ciara was missing.

She’d called the FBI department Ciara worked with recovering stolen gems and jewelry, but they’d claimed Ciara wasn’t working a case for them now and had refused to put Karma through to her missing finder’s new handler. She’d called Ciara’s house every hour on the hour just in case she’d made it back home. Under normal circumstances, she would have called in her personal cavalry—nothing like having a private investigator for a brother—but Jake was on his honeymoon. As was her other most reliable finder, Chase.

Which left Karma helpless—a feeling that never sat well with her.

And now she had a pissy exorcist to deal with.

Rodriguez switched to Spanish and continued to vent his spleen. Karma waited, thinking longingly of the meditation she would do as soon as she had fifteen minutes to recenter. Rodriguez wasn’t being unreasonable. She was asking him to babysit a man he had good reason to hate.

But understanding where he was coming from didn’t mean she was going to take no for an answer.

“Rodriguez,” she said sharply, cutting into his tirade, which had diminished to Spanish mutterings.

“I won’t do it.”

“He’s agreed to cooperate.”

Rodriguez snorted. “And you believe him?”

“I had Ronna read him. He’s no angel, but he’ll be using his powers for good. For the time being.”

Her exorcist folded his arms, black tribal tattoos rippling across his forearms. “I won’t trust him. Nothing you can say would make me.”

“Good. I picked you because I knew you wouldn’t let him get away with anything.”

“Lucky me.”

Rodriguez might hate it, but he was the perfect choice. She needed someone to wrangle the slippery warlock and she could be certain Rodriguez wouldn’t take any shit from him. She couldn’t do it herself—not only because she had a finder to track down and a business to run, but because after yesterday she felt the definite need for some distance. Prometheus disturbed her. She needed her calm.

Her head throbbed, more evidence that she didn’t need this stress, but she ignored the pain. “He has demonstrated a definite knack for handling demons.”

“Summoning them,” Rodriguez snapped. “Summoning them to harass my girlfriend. And teaching bored housewives to summon them so they can make my life hell.”

“The control necessary to summon is the same skill needed to exorcise.”

“I won’t be nice to him.”

Karma felt a smile quirk her lips. “That’s the other reason I picked you. He’s supposed to make amends. That doesn’t mean we have to make it easy for him.” She reached for a file on her desk. “Apparently there’s a possible nest of mischief demons upstate. Take him with you.” Rising, she handed Rodriguez the folder.

He took the folder, shaking his head ruefully, but she knew she had him. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

She smiled. It wasn’t luck. Rodriguez was reliable. She’d known she could count on him. He started toward the door, but Karma stopped him at the threshold with a last minute instruction. “Rodriguez? Give him hell.”

Chapter Nine The Amateur Boy Scout

Prometheus arrived for his summons at Karmic Consultants on Monday morning prepared to suck up like there was no tomorrow.

No ass left unkissed, that was his new strategy. Especially if that ass is Karma’s. This was his chance to play the Boy Scout—since it had become apparent he wasn’t going to get the upper hand unless he earned Karma’s trust, something that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen if he acted naturally. His new plan consisted of bombarding them with so much sweetness and light these Karmic goodie-goodies wouldn’t know what hit them.

He shoved open the front door with an absent pulse of magic, both hands filled with lattes and muffins that should damn well taste better than ambrosia after he’d paid the GDP of a small country for them at the Starbucks around the corner. You’d think a caramel macchiato was liquid gold for what they were charging for the things.

On any other day he might have taken the time to drop a hex charm or two on the corporate bastards as a punishment for price gouging, but today he was being a good boy. No matter how much that halo might chafe.

The ray of sunshine seated at the receptionist desk looked up as the door shut behind him, her brown curls bobbing as she beamed at him with enough cheer it was a miracle rainbows didn’t shoot out of his ass. “Welcome to Karmic Consultants! How can we help you?”

“I’m Prometheus. I believe Karma’s expecting me.” He flashed his most charming smile and extended a Styrofoam cup of caffeinated temptation. “Nectar of the gods?”

She ignored the proffered Starbucks manna as her eyes lit up with a blinding enthusiasm rather than any sort of cognitive awareness. Nobody home at Casa Receptionist.

“You’re Prometheus!” she parroted with a disconcerting delight he’d never before heard associated with his name. “I’m Brittany. I’m the one you summoned a demon to stalk. Not that I hold that against you. The things we do for love, right? Karma’s with a consultant at the moment. If you’ll have a seat, I’ll let her know you’ve arrived.” She bounded out of her chair, waving him toward the seating area off to one side of the lobby.

Wary of her enthusiasm, Prometheus obediently took a seat and barely eavesdropped at all when she plucked up the desk phone and murmured into it, alerting Karma to his arrival. When the bubbly brunette hung up the phone, she looked up to find him watching her and beamed.

“You don’t look at all like I expected,” she enthused, rounding the receptionist desk to perch on one of the waiting area chairs opposite him. “Like Spock.”

Prometheus couldn’t tell whether she was saying he looked like Spock, she’d expected him to look like Spock, or that Spock didn’t look like she expected him to either. None of which gave him any clue how she expected him to respond anyway, so he tried the peace offering route again, thrusting out the Styrofoam tray. “Starbucks?”

She blinked, returning from whatever planet she visited in her off moments. “Hmm? Oh, no, thank you. Luis is still holding a grudge about that whole kidnapping, demon-summoning thing and made me promise not to accept anything you’ve touched.”

He jolted, sloshing the coffee onto the lids, startled more by her honesty than the blatant distrust. “Smart man. Who’s Luis?”

She bounced on her chair like a five-year-old with a secret. “My boyfriend.” Her eyes flicked to the door to Karma’s office then back to his face. “How long have you been in love with Karma?”

If he’d been drinking, he would have sprayed the lobby with coffee. As it was, he jerked like she’d Tased him and the four brimming cups of liquid gold macchiato tumbled toward the floor in a hot caramel tidal wave. Prometheus caught them before the first drop of liquid could touch the carpet, reversing the flow and wrangling the coffee back into cups that were suddenly neatly vertical again.

“Whoops.”

Bubbles the Receptionist gaped at him, mouth open, eyes saucer-wide. “You… Oh my. You just… gosh.”

Only a woman like Sunshine here could make the word gosh work for her. Prometheus set the coffee beside the artfully splayed magazines on the table and gave a shrug. “Figured you didn’t want the rug to stain.”

That seemed to snap her out of her shock. She blinked, beamed and bounced. “Yep. I don’t have the first idea how to get a coffee stain out of a rug, but I’m getting really good at laundry!”