Page 69 of Hell’s Half Acre

It was the pool where she’d first met Luke and the sight of it always made her smile.

And as much as Sorcha wanted to go into her office and research, she veered off to the spiral stairs on her right that led up to the main floor.

As Luke had noted, she wanted to speak to Reyes as quickly as possible. Find out what the woman knew and if she could give them a lead on the werewolf killings.

Sorcha opened the door and walked into an invisible wall of cool air that felt so good, she sighed in relief. Even though it was fall, Savannah was still very hot.

“Please don’t leave the door open!” Ryan Braddach called from her desk down the hall, just inside the front door. “I hate being on the main floor where everyone lets the heat in during summer and cold in during the winter. It’s a wonder I don’t keep getting pneumonia.”

The woman was always a bit surly, but Sorcha liked her anyway. “Sorry.”

Ryan leaned over the desk so that she could see Sorcha and Luke coming in. “Oh, hey! Didn’t realize it was you. Sorry for being bitchy. Christian’s been coming and going all day. I think he’s fighting with Winslow and is heading outside to sneak a vape.”

Sorcha laughed. Winslow was the resident ghost who shared the upstairs room where Christian made his office. Though Winslow left her alone, he was a poisoning victim who forever turned over whatever drink Christian had. At least that was what he’d done when Christian first moved in.

But Sorcha had a suspicion that Winslow was now doing it just to irritate his office mate.

Their fights were legendary.

“Is Reyes in?” Luke asked Ryan as he stepped past Sorcha.

“Yeah. She had a meeting with Bernadette, but they should be finished by now.”

Curiously, Sorcha cocked her head at the sight of a deck of tarot cards on Ryan’s desk. “You doing a reading?”

Ryan crooked her finger to motion her closer. “You won’t believe this.” She used a pencil to scoot the cards closer to the edge of the desk. “They were part of our case. They’re haunted as shit!”

Wouldn’t be the first time. In this job, Sorcha had become used to haunted items, especially things like tarot cards. And don’t get her started on baby dolls.

Shiver…

“How so?” she asked Ryan.

“No matter how much you shuffle them, they always come up with the Devil, the Tower, Ten of Swords, and Judgment. Even if you do a three-card layout, the missing one will pop out of the deck and fall on top of the other three.”

Sorcha was suspicious of that. “Statistically impossible.”

“Oh, I know. One in one-hundred-fifty-six per position per card.”

“It’s a summoning deck.” Luke reached across Sorcha to pick it up and thumb through the cards. “It’s not haunted. It’s cursed.”

That caught both their attention.

“Any more details?” Ryan asked excitedly.

“Sure. You want to talk to the chort trapped in it?”

Sorcha stepped back at the same time Ryan scooted her chair farther away.

Eyes wide, Ryan stared at him. “What’s a chort?”

“Lesser demon. Shapeshifter. They barter souls and back in the day, I used a lot of them to search out vermin. This one in particular is a nasty little beast.” Luke pulled the Fool from the deck. “Otakar, I summon you to form.”

Two heartbeats later, a tall, handsome man appeared. The moment he saw Luke, his eyes flared and he shrank back. “Dominus!” He turned into a short, warted man with a twisted form, horns, and an actual tail that flicked around his body.

Sorcha gaped as he bowed low before Luke.

“Stop it, Otakar. I’m not my father, and I don’t like pomp and ceremony.” Luke gestured toward them. “Say hi to the ladies and play nice.”