Personal Demon (Otherworld 8)

"Take the fucking test. I was only trying to give you an easy way out. Just remember, when you change your mind, it'll take more than twiddling your knob to get a pass-card from me." He threw a scrap of paper on the floor. "An address. You're looking for a conch shell there. A tourist knickknack with Welcome to Miami and a girl in a bikini painted on it. Get it, bring it back, you get your pass."

I looked at the address. "Is this a house or a--"

"Could be a house. Could be a warehouse. Could be a fucking cemetery with the shell buried in one of the graves. Have fun, princess."

I kept my expression neutral and turned to leave.

"Oh, and did I mention it's a race?"

I stopped. "A race?"

"You think you're the only piece of pussy fancies herself a gangster? There's another girl out there with that same address, and there's only one spot to fill." He glanced down at his fake Rolex. "She left about an hour ago."

I FUMED THROUGH the entire cab ride. Was I surprised? I'd foiled that goblin's little game and I should have expected to pay for that. But how badly was he going to screw me over? Was there a competitor? Or was he just saying that, hoping I'd rush and make a mistake?

Even if Benicio found me another way into the gang, the failure would sting. Yes, Mr. Cortez, I know you tried to make it easy, but it wasn't my fault.

Whining. Complaining. Blaming someone else. I hate those traits in others, and I loathe seeing them in myself. Fate makes you a half-demon? Gives you visions of death and destruction? Makes you crave them like candy and cigarettes? Too bad. Suck it up and move on.

While I was damning myself for not handling Romeo better, I was heaping a generous dose of curses on his head too. My mother would have told me to look at the guy and imagine how many times he'd been rejected or laughed at by a pretty girl. Even if that didn't excuse his behavior, I should rise above it. But I couldn't. I wanted to win this race, drop the conch shell on his lap and guzzle the sweet chaos of his rage.

And I would. One way or another.

I CHANGED BACK into jeans and T-shirt, and had the cab drop me off in a tourist section that looked as if it'd been born in the fifties and untouched since. I stood in front of the Ocean View Resort, t

he kind of decrepit motel unwitting families book by name alone, only to arrive and discover they could indeed view the ocean--if they stood on the roof with binoculars.

Next door a soda fountain promised "authentic malt sodas." Having once tried a malt soda, this was not a selling point for me. On the other side was the ubiquitous Florida T-shirt shop. Three shirts for ten dollars. If they didn't survive the first wash after you got them home, you wouldn't fly back for a refund.

The address Romeo had given me was across the road. A souvenir shop with painted conch shells in the window. None had the markings he'd described, but the sign promised more designs inside.

This was too easy. I wasn't waltzing into that store until I'd taken a look around.

HOPE

SUNKEN TREASURES

I circled behind the store to a parking lot filled with compact rental cars and minivans with out-of-state plates. A narrow gravel path ran between the lot and the store.

I walked between the two minivans nearest the shop, my apartment key in hand, as if I was preparing to get into one of the vehicles. The solid wall of the store was broken only by a glass door that had probably once been a secondary entrance, dating from more prosperous days when the shop owned the parking lot. It was now blocked by a rack of cheap sunglasses.

Hoping to get a peek inside, I slipped to the front of the vans. As I reached the fence, I had a mental flash--a "light pop" like a camera flash had gone off. I backed up a few steps, then approached again. Sure enough, in the same spot, everything went white.

Sunken Treasures souvenir shop was protected by a spell.

About a year ago, while doing a job for the council, I'd realized I could detect security spells. With Paige and Lucas's spellcasting help, I'd learned to figure out exactly what kind of spell I was detecting. Like having an error box pop up on your computer screen--all you see at first is a basic warning message, but the details are there if you have the know-how to find them. Paige's analogy, not mine. Deep in my brain, a racial demonic memory knew what the spell was. And soon I had it: a perimeter spell to warn of one specific type of intruder--supernaturals.

A souvenir shop protected by a witch spell to detect supernaturals. Was the shop owned or staffed by a witch? Or was it part of the test--so someone would know when a recruit entered the store and could swoop in and make things very difficult.

Damn.

I idly watched a group of teens saunter through the lot. As one tossed a souvenir bag to another, I got an idea.

I FOUND MY target easily enough: a boy about thirteen, still young enough to be on vacation with Mom and Dad, but old enough to escape them when he could. He stood outside the T-shirt store, reading the off-color slogans.

As I approached, his face reddened as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't.

"Hey," I said, flashing a big smile. "Do you have a second?"