Page 11 of Spit

I hummed, mimicking his earlier mannerism.

“Good.” Antonio sounded relieved. “We need someone to keep the boys in line.”

“Sure,” I said, feeling anything but confidence.

Mr. O’Tooley, the grumpy Irish-American man on the floor below, found me on the stairs. He thanked me for getting rid of his ‘mirror problem’ as he did every time we passed in the halls. I had the sneaking feeling that he either didn’t know what to say to me now that he knew I was a witch, or he was losing his marbles and had forgotten that he had already thanked me. I suspected it was the former; Mr. O’Tooley was no fool.

“Someone in the lobby asked me to bring you this.” He told me as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card.

I frowned. “You could have left it in my mailbox; you didn’t have to come all this way up the stairs.” I took the card and turned it over in my hands. It had a single word printed on the front. ‘Pennies.’

The older man’s face crinkled in thought, and he shook his head to clear it. “It was the darnedest thing.” His voice was slow and confused. “I can’t remember who gave me the card. Only that I needed to get the card to you, or something horrible would happen.” His lip curled as he looked down at the card as if he had never seen it before.

I thanked Mr. O’Tooley and made my way down the stairs.

Mr. Bub was losing his patience.

“You need to get laid,” Kailee murmured as she wiggled her fingers at the man that had just bought her a drink from across the bar. “It's yucking my yum.”

I didn’t point out that I was technically a virgin. Half a virgin? I didn’t class what had happened to me as sex, and I had no intention of courting danger if a boyfriend kissed me by accident.

I rolled my eyes. “I simply pointed out that it’s acceptable to return a drink and ask for the bartender to remake it,in front of you, before accepting a drink from a stranger.”

“Which I did.” Her lips wrapped around the paper straw as she took a large sip. “What’s crawled up your ass? We got the security gig of the Elementals tour. We should be celebrating!”

I looked down at my hands, realizing I had shredded three napkins. “I’m still avoiding Gluttony.”

Kailee blinked before a grin slowly dawned on her face like a sunrise. “Really? It’s about time. Maybe you’ll get a contract on actual paper with an end date. Why the hell did you agree to an open-ended contract with a demon anyway?”

“I wasten. I don’t even remember what I agreed to.”

“Demons don’t really care about unlawful contracts with minors then?” Kailee tapped her chin with a sparkly pink nail. “Who’d have thought?”

I exhaled a short breath that was half exasperation, half strangled laugh.

“I’m not even going to ask where your mom was when you were off summoning demons.” Kailee rolled her eyes and shook her head. Kailee had lots to say about my mom, and not all of it was good. If Adelaide was still alive, I’d bet they’d be chatting it up over coffee about my mom.

Kailee was convinced my memory problems from childhood were due to trauma—I just thought I had a shit memory.

I inhaled deeply, watching her as if she had lost her mind. “Beelzebub told me last month’s job was the last one.”

“What did you have to do?”

I waved my hand. “Collecting a cat demon from Greenwood Cemetery. Some succubus had lost her pet, and she called in a favor from Gluttony.”

“And your plan is just to avoid his calls until he forgets you exist?” she asked.

I gave her a long look.

She held up her hands in a disarming gesture. “Youdon’t run from anything. It isn’t like you. Maybe it’s because I’m not a witch and have no idea about power, magic, and demons, but can’t you just cut him into teeny-tiny pieces?”

“I don’t solve all my problems with violence,” I told her.

“No offense, Lexi, but you prefer hitting things to solve your problems over thinking things through.” Kailee reached over and patted my hand. “I love you for it, but it doesn’t really work in the long term.”

“My desire to hit things keeps you employed,” I replied.

“We have a whole team of people we hire to hit things.” Her brow arched. “Though they spend most of their time checking IDs and filling out paperwork.”

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