Page 1 of Graveyard Dog

Chapter One

No good deed goes unpunished.

—Oscar Wilde

Michael Cavalcante tried to remember the exact circumstances that’d led to his sudden and alarming inability to see straight. Or to unlock his throbbing jaw. Or to hear anything other than a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Either he could now perceive frequencies otherwise reserved for dogs, or he’d been ambushed by a tiny brunette with a frying pan and trust issues.

The bad news: If he died, it would take weeks for anyone to find him. He’d just settled in for the night and caught a nice buzz when the call came in, so he’d left his bike at home and taken an Uber. No one knew where he’d gone. Would anyone wonder why he’d disappeared? Would they worry about his fragile well-being? Not likely since there was nothing fragile about him. But a guy could dream.

The good news: Death would be preferable to the throbbing in his jaw. And his neck. And his right shoulder. Actually, anything would be preferable. Fire ants. Torture. An IRS audit.

He lifted his lids long enough to realize the sun had crested the horizon, the light a soft glow around him. He’d been out a while.

The sound of metal scraping against wood broke through the ringing in his ears, followed by the soft rustling of feet and a cascade of falling objects like a box being dumped out beside him. He tried again to focus on his surroundings and received a stabbing pain along his left temple for his efforts, so he gave up.

He let his lids drift shut and leaned his head back against the cool, smooth surface of what he could only assume was an oven door. Or possibly a dishwasher. Either way, his hands had been bound with a rope to the handle of whichever kitchen appliance his captor felt would hold him best.

They didn’t know him very well.

It was this complex. The apartment complex he’d been conned into buying by a fourteen-going-on-forty-year-old named Elwyn Alexandra Loehr. The preternatural daughter of two gods, Elwyn had been making strange requests of the entire team commissioned to protect her.

She’d had his friend Donovan start following the team’s gorgeous, ask-no-questions doctor—a godsend, considering their lifestyles—only to find out the woman was a wraith from another dimension. She’d encouraged another member, Eric, to take a break and visit his old friend in Idaho, where he stopped a woman from being killed by a man who’d been stalking her for years. And she’d convinced Michael to invest in real estate. To make something of himself. To expand his horizons. As if watching over the girl destined to save the world from a demon uprising wasn’t enough.

He hadn’t questioned her motives then, but he was beginning to now. She was far too intelligent for her own good, and he was beginning to see a pattern, as though she were moving pieces on a chessboard. Collecting a pool of humans with supernatural abilities. Gathering her army.

The whole thing made him nervous. At this point in her life, she was far too young to face an opponent like the king of Hell. She needed time, and they needed to come up with a plan. Together.

Besides, Michael didn’t have a supernatural bone in his body. He probably would’ve known to steer clear of this building if he did. Strange things had been happening since he bought it.Like lights flashing at all hours of the night. And creepy sounds keeping the tenants awake. Clearly, it was cursed. Or haunted. Or both.

Probably both.

He made a mental note to call in a favor from Elwyn’s mother and have the place exorcized. What were friends for, if not to purge one’s demons? Then again, would the building still be standing when she finished? She’d exorcized a nasty bottom dweller out of one of his best friends a few years back, and he’d turned out okay—if one used averyloose definition of the word.

A lyrical voice wafted toward him, one with a soft British accent. “Excuse me, my lord, would you like milk and sugar?”

The situation just got a whole lot weirder.

He pried open his right, less traumatized eye. A little girl, who couldn’t have been more than five, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him. She sat in the middle of a thousand tiny plastic dishes and held up a pink plastic teacup.

A bevy of wild, dark curls encircled her head, some wilder than others, as though she’d just woken up. She wore pink pajamas, the kind with feet, and a single barrette did its best to keep one of the more brazen curls out of her eyes. But that’s not what surprised him the most. Well, besides the whole situation. The girl’s eyes. They were huge and a silvery brown, like the fur on the coyote he’d spotted outside the compound one foggy morning.

“Tea ought to have milk at least, don’t you think?” she asked, raising dark brows until her forehead wrinkled.

He wondered what part of England she was from and how she’d ended up living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

She picked up a toy milk carton and poured it into his empty cup. “It’s the civilized way to drink it, after all.”

He grunted, and she glanced up at him as though surprised.

She put the cup down and picked up another plastic dish, just as empty as the first one. “One lump or two?” she asked as she held up what had to be her mother’s tweezers.

He eyed her with a wariness usually reserved for psychopaths, scammers, and McDonald’s employees. Was she punking him? Was this a joke? A setup? He wouldn’t put it past his more asshole-inclined friends, but he had a killer headache and was starting to lose feeling in his hands. Surely, they wouldn’t go this far. “I’ve had enough lumps for one day, thank you very much.”

“As you wish.” She pushed the cup toward him across the yellowing linoleum floor—the one he’d hated since he bought the place. It would be the first thing to go when he started the remodeling project. If he lived that long. These apartments were in serious need of an upgrade. Especially with the astronomical rent the tenants paid. Then again, this was Santa Fe.

A loud gasp came from the doorway, and a woman who looked eerily familiar rushed into the kitchen, snatched the girl to her, and backed away until they were both out of his reach. Which, at the moment, was like two inches, but she seemed determined to put space between them.

Then reality sank in. It washer. The woman who’d answered the door at two in the morning holding a frying pan. And possibly a Taser. Who did that?

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