Cat Adams - Demon Song

What the hell?

“In case nobody gave you the memo, Rizzoli, I don’t work for you.”

One hand came out of the pocket and he leaned heavily on the side of my house. He looked inside, noticed all the local cops—some in and some out of uniform—and lowered his voice to a dangerous whisper: “Let me explain something, Graves. The notoriety you got for saving the world was both a good thing and a bad one—for you . You’re seen as a threat to certain elements in the government. I’ve been keeping the heat off you and you haven’t even known about it. But I’m getting ridden like a pony at a kiddie party. Now, I can either stop doing it or keep doing it. Which would you prefer?”

Oh. I was liking the no media and no investigations. I’d been sort of wondering why things had been so quiet. “It’s that important? To call you out on a holiday?”

“If they’re not lying to me, you’ll want to save snapshots of the rift in your scrapbook as your last happy memory.” He paused. “Did I mention it’s at double your regular rate? It should only take a half hour or so.”

Well, the month wasn’t over and I did have bills to pay. The party probably wouldn’t miss me for a few minutes. I held open the door. “C’mon in for a second. My badge is upstairs.” He came in but stayed carefully on the tiled entry. I bolted up the stairs as Dawna called out behind me, “What’s going on, Celia?”

I grabbed the badge from the top of my jewelry box and picked up my duffel. No sense going anywhere unarmed. I headed down the stairs but made a sharp right turn before I reached the door. “We don’t have time for good-byes, Celia,” Rizzoli snapped as I moved away from him.

Dawna’s expression was somewhere between surprised and angry. “Where are you going?”

I shrugged. “The usual. Bad people want to hurt good people and Rizzoli wants me to throw myself into the line of fire.”

She got up and walked to the door, putting her face right into his. “It’s Christmas, Mr. Federal Agent. See all the people? We’re having good cheer and high spirits.”

“Yes, ma’am. I can see that. And if you’d like to see another Christmas, I have to borrow Graves.”

I was pretty sure he wasn’t kidding. Just to be safe, I picked up the bag with the first-aid charm disks, then grabbed Bruno’s and Creede’s presents.

I was stuffing the boxes into my duffel as I joined Rizzoli, leaving my now-silent guests staring after me. He motioned toward the gifts. “What are those?”

“With any luck, they’re things that’ll keep me alive long enough to eat dried-out turkey later.”

We could but hope.

Tor Paranormal Romance Books by

C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp

THE SAZI

Hunter’s Moon

Moon’s Web

Captive Moon

Howling Moon

Moon’s Fury

Timeless Moon

Cold Moon Rising

Serpent Moon

THE THRALL

Touch of Evil

Touch of Madness

Touch of Darkness

WRITING AS CAT ADAMS

Magic’s Design

Blood Song

Siren Song

Demon Song

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

DEMON SONG

Copyright © 2011 by C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp

All rights reserved.

A Tor ®eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor ®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2496-2

First Edition: March 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-6639-9

First Tor eBook Edition: March 2011