Otherworld 05.3 - Bargain by Kelley Armstrong

Author:Kelley Armstrong [Armstrong, Kelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-04-25T21:39:17+00:00

A week later, Xavier was in his apartment kitchen, listening through his answering machine messages. After three days away, they’d started piling up. Amazing how fast the system worked. Put a “job wanted” call out on the grapevine, offer a finder’s fee, and in they pour.

He’d had to be careful with the specifications. It would be easy to say “Give me a job that needs a werewolf,” but then he’d have twice as many messages from contacts wanting an introduction to this new “employee” of his. Instead, he’d asked for jobs suited to a supernaturally strong, gifted fighter.

The vagueness hadn’t worked as well as he’d hoped. The first message was from a witch he hadn’t worked with in years, trying to feel him out about this new guy, guessing he was a Ferratus half-demon—a type as rare as werewolves. Three more messages were in the same vein, including one very irate call from a business partner accusing Xavier of holding out on him with this new employee. Xavier sighed. Feathers would need to be smoothed—reassurances given, gifts sent, promises made. Some days, this really wasn’t any different from running a business.

The other calls were the same sort he’d been getting all week. Muscle jobs: working someone over, scaring someone, guarding someone. Petty thug stuff. Elena would hang up on him the minute he suggested any of those.

So far the only possibility he had lacked the finesse he’d been hoping for, but did have a payoff Elena might appreciate. This one was also about thuggery—catching one, not being one, stopping a Ferratus half-demon who’d been shaking down the owners of some black market spellcaster shops.

The idea of muscling muscle to protect the weak and innocent would appeal to Elena’s council delegate sensibilities . . . so long as she didn’t figure out what these “innocents” did for a living. He could play dumb if she found out, but Xavier hated scamming Elena. Not so much a matter of respect as self-preservation.

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