An hour later, I stood on threadbare lime green carpet in the lobby of the Mahone Bay Inn, a small motel several miles inland. For a hundred and twenty a night, the young man behind the counter could offer me a lumpy bed, central heat, satellite cable, and an iffy Wi-Fi connection.
Central heat sealed the deal.
Shivering, I pulled my wallet from the still-damp pocket of my leather coat, moving stiffly as my body worked to heal the damage Hagen had done to my ribs. The steel bracelet around my wrist clanked against the counter as I dug out my company credit card and slid it across cheap Formica to the clerk whose nametag readMy Name is Kurt.
Kurt, who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old,stared at me, both brows furrowed over non-descript brown eyes.
At first, I thought the handcuffs were giving him pause. I was probably quite a sight, shivering in snow-soaked clothing, with half of a set of manacles on each wrist. But his reply set me straight. “We’re not set up for those here,” he said, and I realized he was staring at the card, rather than at my wrists. Evidently the handcuffs weren’t noteworthy, even at seven in the morning.
“You don’t take credit cards?”
“This is a small, family business. We can’t afford the transaction fees.”
Well, shit. “I have cash, but it’s US dollars.”
Kurt nodded. “We take those.”
Room 128 was cold and dark, despite dawn breaking outside the grimy windows. The dark I liked, but after only a few hours in Nova Scotia, I’d had enough cold to last me the rest of my life. Er…my afterlife.
The lamp next to the bed lit the room, yet left plenty of shadows for a soothing, familiar feel.
I dropped my bags against the wall and left the door open as I trudged back to the car for Orthus, who lay across the back seat, all four paws hanging over the edge. For a long moment, I stared through the window, watching his chest rise and fall in the rhythm of deep sleep.
Creepy as he was, after he’d been shot trying to protect me, I could hardly leave him behind. Fortunately, by the time I was ready to leave Oak Island, Orthus had recovered enough to walk pretty steadily. His healing impressed me even more than Devich’s had, because the hound was shot in the head—one of the two automatic-kill spots for most creatures, human and Netherworlder alike—rather than in the gut. But ifIwas amazed by Orthus’s recuperation, Bowman was damn near speechless.
By the time I’d gotten the hellhound loaded into the back of my rental car, the foreman had convinced himself that his shot had missed entirely. Or that the gun had misfired. I think that was the only way he could reconcile what he’d seen and done with the laws of nature as he understood them. His subconscious was trying to protect him. Denial, all the way.
I knew exactly how he felt.
The glare of morning sunlight on the rented windshield brought the passage of time to my attention. Soon the few other motel guests would be up and around, and I had no desire to meet them.
Orthus twitched as I opened the car door, but he didn’t wake up until I said his name, and even then, he only blinked, then closed his eyes again. My hand hovered over his flank, my fingers barely brushing thick, coarse fur as I considered shaking him awake. But I couldn’t think of anything in the world more foolish than touching an injured, semi-conscious hellhound. For all I knew, he might bite my hand off out of instinct before he’d even opened his eyes.
“Orthus,” I called again, drawing my hand back. His eyes opened. His ears twitched. He blinked, then he lifted his head and looked at me with an almost-human expression of confusion. “Can you get up?” I asked, and he barked softly, an oddly deep sound that had little in common with most canine vocalization. It was more expressive, more meaningful. Yet still intimidating.
“Come on inside, and you can rest until…”
Until what?What on earth was I going to do with an injured hellhound? Or a healthy one, for that matter, because if he continued to heal at the current rate, he’d be as good as new in a matter of hours. I couldn’t bring him with me on a job… Could I?
I stepped back from the door, and Orthus stood on the floorboard. The peaks of his ears were smushed against the roof of the car, and I gasped, impressed anew by how fantastically big he was. He took up the entire rear half of the car, and he had to weigh close to two hundred pounds.Hadto.
Orthus stepped carefully down onto the asphalt, already plodding into the room as I slammed the car door. Inside, he claimed the nearest bed—Kent had given me a double—where he fell asleep again before I’d even bolted the door. The nasal rumble erupting with his every breath gave me momentary pause. If I’d known hellhounds snored, I might have thought twice about letting him inside.
Or maybe not. I wasn’t sure yet that I could trust him not to eat the other hotel guests. After all, there was areasonBowman had shot him in the head.
Poor guy.I’d made the foreman promise to drive straight home and take a couple of valium, then climb into bed. With any luck, he’d wake up and think he’d dreamed the whole thing.
Rolling my eyes at the snoring hellhound, I closed the hideous orange drapes and turned on the heat, then I headed straight for the shower, shedding my clothes on the way.
The motel’s plentiful hot water made up for the molded-plastic tub and ripped vinyl curtain, and if not for the amputated lengths of steel chain tangling in my hair when I washed it, my shower would have been perfect.
Ten minutes later, I’d dried off, donned the sports bra and cut-off sweats I slept in and was running a brush through my still-wet hair when my cell phone started buzzing from the top of the dresser. Almost too tired to think, I sank into the ratty hotel recliner and answered it without looking at the screen. “Hello?”
“Hello, Alexandra.”
Devich sounded suspiciously alert and coherent for seven a.m. In general, morning people get on my nerves, but since this particular specimen had information I desperately wanted, I put on my professional-voice, indulging in a dark scowl to balance it out.
“Hello, Mr. Devich. How are you?” I tugged on the lever on one side of the ancient arm chair, but the pop-up ottoman didn’t move.
