Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,14
common for demons, fae, and even ethereal spirits. It’s not culty or anything, I just don’t want anything like that myself.”
“So you have to choose,” Billie said. “All right, I see.”
“I wonder…,” Byron said. “But we’ll discuss this later. One thing I can warn you about this place is…the monsters are coming.”
“Monsters?” Graham said. “Like the ones we fought on the porch?”
“Worse,” Byron said. “As the barrier between worlds starts to crack apart, demons, fae, and ethereals will all rush in to claim the site and they will want a witch or a human to anchor the spot. Luckily, this is a minor spot so they won’t be terribly powerful ones.”
“That’s what I was warning you about,” Bevan said.
“Monsters?” Billie looked nervous.
“Don’t tell me you can’t handle low demons,” I said.
“I can. But…my work crew is all human.” Billie started tugging on her wild curls. “I usually just come in and sweep the place of magic the week before, then they get to work. They can’t fight off monsters.”
“Looks like you’re going to need a new crew. Luckily you have a witch and two werewolves who were already planning to work on this house…”
Billie looked anguished. “I hate this.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. Maybe it’s good if we work together, because I can make it up to you.”
“I have to confess something,” Billie said. “I can barely use a drill. I just check houses for magic, then I let my human work crew do all the hard stuff, and then…I decorate. What I’m mostly good at it is making people do what I want them to do. And decorating.”
An ominous skill, I thought. “Well, you are good at that,” I said, and I didn’t want to get on her bad side after watching her work over Kiersten and Caleb. “That’s okay! I love to decorate too. No shame in that. I still have to hire out plenty of stuff. It’s a gorgeous house. I can teach you how to do some basic jobs and we’ll knock it out.”
“Frankly, I don’t think I have any choice,” Billie said, and then we shook hands.
Chapter Seven
Graham
I let Helena and Billie walk the house. No need for my opinions. This wasn’t my business. For me, houses had always just been a place to crash.
I was getting tons of calls from my campaign manager so I just went to the porch to talk.
“What the hell are you doing that you are so slow to return my calls?” Sandra yelled after one ring. “This is the worst possible time for you to be gone! This is about a woman, isn’t it? It has to be. I think she can survive until after the election. This is not the time for you to be thinking with your damn dick. If nothing else, Graham, you might lose the damn election if the female voters think you’re no longer eligible. You’re like the boy band member of the house of representatives.”
“Boy band? Sandra, at least afford me the dignity of being in a man band.”
She snorted. “You know what I mean.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“What? This is not the time to be afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid I only win elections because women think I’m eye candy.”
She cackled. “Oh, Graham, who cares how you win them, as long as you do?”
Maybe she was right and it didn’t matter. Was magic cheating? Did cheating even matter if I planned to serve my country to the best of my ability? Was it still my country if I was from the demon realm? But talk about throwing integrity out the window on day one.
All of this was really starting to be the least of my concerns. I was still keeping a hand on my belt so my tail didn’t knock my pants off. I had just strangled a ghoul. And the woman all this was about seemed like she wasn’t completely opposed to pursuing Byron and me at once.
“I’m sending you a schedule of all the events I booked for you when you get here, and you need to hit the ground running. Sleep on the plane. And we need to tweet something about this new health care situation. Are you going to do it? Because I can get an intern.”
I was usually pretty hands-on with my social media but I didn’t even know what the ‘health care situation’ was. “Sure, I guess you can have Kate handle Twitter until I get back.”
“God. Promise me that when you get back you will be