Lost Girl: Hidden Book One by Colleen Vanderlinden

said.
    “I don’t think that’s something you’ll have to worry about.”
    I shook my head. “All right. So what can I have them do?”
    “Anything you want. Have them look for your lost girls. More eyes and ears out there. Have them get information for you. Have them scope out neighborhoods for us. Have them bring you a sandwich and give you a manicure. Whatever.”
    “Handy,” I murmured.
    “You could say that.”
    “So they can talk?”
    He nodded. “They’ll only talk to you, unless you command them to talk to another, or give them an order of some kind that involves talking.”
    I watched him. A muscle ticked in his jaw, the only visible indication that he was still pissed at me. I nudged him with my elbow. “So...can they live here with you?”
    “Fuck no, Molly. Creepy little bastards.”
    “I had to try.”

Chapter Seven
     
    I ended up bringing the imps home with me. The dogs were less than thrilled with their new companions. I gave the imps the run of the basement, attic, and yard, and then I put them to work.
    There was a little girl I was looking for. Kayla Martin. She’d been missing for almost two weeks, and everyone suspected her father.  No one had seen him since Kayla had gone missing from in front of her house.
    I sent the imps out, told them what I was looking for, and within hours they had a name. A friend of the girl’s father, who worked at the same garage he did. I hung around, listened in on the man’s thoughts. He knew where Kayla was. He was considering turning the father in. But he was afraid. He didn’t want to get involved. I could see the house, clear as day, in his mind.
    I sent the imps out again with a description of the house and general area, and they had an address for me within an hour.
    A girl could get used to this.
    I got ready. Dressed, filled the pockets of my cargo pants with things that I seemed to need less and less now that I was training with Brennan and Nain more often. My power was already higher than was comfortable; stress always did that. I gritted my teeth against it and tried to focus.
    I looked at Kayla’s photo from the newspaper. Beautiful little girl, a pawn in a fight over a nasty break-up. Soft, curly head of black hair, eyes like dark chocolate, dimpled smile, so full of joy it hurt me to look at her.
    I patted Kayla’s photo, went through the naming of the dead, my lost girls I’d found too late. By the time I was done, emotion, whatever had been, was gone, and I was cold. One thought: find my lost girl.
    I jumped into the Barracuda, two of the imps in the backseat. I was going to see if they’d be useful as lookouts. I still didn’t quite trust them, but I had to admit they were damn useful. I headed to the house I’d seen in the man’s mind, the address the imps had given me. It was there, as he’d envisioned it, just off of Mack. Fire had destroyed the roof and parts of the second floor, but it was a brick house, and still appeared to be mostly solid. I walked up to it, tried to remember to breathe.
    I listened as I got close to the house. Not a sound, other than the chirp of crickets, the distant sounds of traffic. I crept inside, one hand on my pepper spray, another on my flashlight. I glanced up and saw stars through the roof. She wouldn’t be up there. I headed through, to what used to be a kitchen, long stripped of anything even remotely useful, right down to the copper piping behind the walls.  I paused at the top of the basement stairs. If she was here, experience told me, this was where he was holding her. I went down, fully aware that if someone decided to follow me in, I could be dead before I knew what was happening. It was nothing new.
    Down the rickety stairs, listening for any sound that might alert me to danger. The basement smelled of dampness, urine, feces. And something else, something worse. I looked through the small basement, saw nothing other than dirt, debris, stains on the floor that turned my stomach. I