bedeviled & beyond 05 - bedeviled & besmirched by sam cheever Page B

elder folk,
    Their gnarly hands and rheumy eyes, the devil’s unkind joke.
    I was going over my digital mail and clearing out the televisual messages that had built up over the previous few days when I heard Bob and Ralph in the outer office. A moment later, a head with longish, curly black hair and the most amazing hazel eyes with long lashes popped around the doorframe. “Hey, Astra. How’s it going? You okay?”
    I smiled at Ralph. He and Bob had gone out of their way since I’d joined them, making sure I was safe and comfortable. It might have been because I’d saved Ralph’s life once when Satan lowered a magic veil over the Earth, which turned ordinary humans into magic-hating, evil zombies. Ralph had found himself on the wrong side of a mob and had gotten pretty severely beaten. But the truth was that Ralph and Bob were just really nice guys and I considered them my friends.
    “I’ve had a pretty constant stream of people popping in today to ask me that very same question. If nothing else, the chances of a bad guy managing to work his way between the visits of my family and friends is very small.” I softened the complaint with a grin.
    Ralph laughed. “Got it. If you need us...”
    “I’ll scream at the top of my lungs.”
    He lifted a large hand in my direction and turned away.
    I went back to work.
    A moment later I heard a sound at my door and looked up to find Bob staring at me. He was shorter than Ralph, with sandy-brown hair and non-descript brown eyes. He stood there with his hands in his pockets. Although Bob was only about five foot ten, he was built like an enforcer, with bulky muscles and a thick neck. I knew from seeing him in action that he could be deadly in either his human or wolf forms.
    My teeth grinding together, I smiled. “Hey, Bob.”
    He leaned against the doorframe. “How are things, Astra?”
    I nodded and stood, giving up trying to get anything done. “Things are good, Bob. How about the three of us hit the Devil’s Den? I feel the need to beat your ass in jet pool.”
    Bob’s pleasant face spread in a grin. “You can try to beat me, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on the outcome. Unless you’re betting on me.”
    I headed for the door, feeling better already. “In your dreams, bud. You’re goin’ down.”
    Bob snickered. I draped an arm over his shoulders and we turned away from the door. We both looked around when we heard Ralph talking to someone in the foyer area.
    His back bowed to minimize his height. Ralph was talking to a tiny, elderly woman. He held one of her gnarly hands in both of his own massive paws and was nodding kindly, obviously listening carefully to everything she was saying.
    “Looks like you have a new client,” I told Bob.
    We approached Ralph and, as we neared, I heard him say. “Don’t worry a thing about your husband, Mx. Diamon. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise you.”
    “Hello.” Bob held his hand out to the elderly client, a gentle smile on his face. “I’m Bob Gleason.”
    She smiled and let him clasp her hand. I watched Bob’s face carefully. I’d recently learned that he was an empath. He could read the emotions and map the electrical signatures of some races. He was particularly good with humans. Like a ripple across still water in a soft breeze, Bob’s non-threatening face showed a very brief disturbance, which I would have missed if I hadn’t been watching closely. He quickly smoothed it over and offered the old woman a smile.
    His momentary blip made me focus my extra sight on the woman. Her aura was human. almost too human. It was thick and opaque, with smooth edges and very few nicks or holes in it. Unusual. But not unprecedented. It just meant that the woman had no magic at all in her gene pool. She was pure, unadulterated human. Or she was damn good at manufacturing auras. I knew that some shapeshifters were able to create fake auras.
    “This is Mx. Phelps. She occasionally works with us.” Ralph placed