Page 4 of A Shade of Myself
I placed the phone on the cushion next to him and, recalling Delilah, casually moved behind our client.
“You didn’t mention this was piece work in your text,” my boss chided. “Are you trying to stiff me out of my proper fee?”
My smirk disappeared, the dark shadow that had swirled down my left arm in a half-formed scythe, now paused. “That’s your concern?” I said. “We’ve got a shit show here. The corpse was dybbuk-possessed. Was. Capisce?”
“Yes, Miriam. I get it. And?” Tatiana said with her regular laissez-faire.
“Do we call the Lonestars in? Because I refuse to have more threats of Deadman’s Island held over me. Once was more than en—” My sentence ended in a high-pitched shriek as I was forced backward against the wall with Davide’s arm blade pressed against my throat.
Minus the rest of him.
It was detachable? Fuck me. My magic fell apart as I panicked, trying to get free.
“Here’s how this is going to go down, dude.” Davide didn’t even quit smoking up while intimidating me, his right sleeve dangling limply without its forearm. That was impressive—no wait.
I attempted to worm a hand between his blade and my very nice, undamaged throat and got my skull conked against the wall for my troubles.
“Your little worker bee’s going to do the job she came over for and keep her mouth shut.” Davide blew pot smoke in my direction and winked.
“Not without my agreed-upon fee, you drawling hippie.” Tatiana tsked him from her side of the phone call. “Enunciate like a normal person.”
Now was not the time for the woman who sounded like a Wiseguy to school the enthralled turkey carver on his diction.
He pressed the magic blade harder against me and I swallowed.
“Please. Let me go.”
“Fine.” Davide snapped his fingers, recalling the bone blade. It slipped up his sleeve to seamlessly fit to his upper arm, becoming a human appendage once more. “But the clock’s ticking. Got it?”
My pulse drummed against the thin skin under my jaw, beating faster with my rush of anger. You messed with the wrong worker bee.
Dude.
“No,” Tatiana said, unfortunately still on the call. “She doesn’t ‘got it.’ Not until we negotiate my fee.”
Delilah puffed up and punched the stoner in the head, momentarily disorienting him.
I sprinted closer, Delilah meeting me to transform into a swirl of dark magic that settled into my scythe, and I smashed it into the floor, severing Davide’s shade from his body.
“Is anyone listening to me?” Tatiana said.
Davide’s eyes rolled back to show the whites and he hit the ground.
That was good. The furious crimson and sickly gray mass of a dybbuk that spat out of him and attacked me, not so great.
Gripping the weapon securely in my left hand, I cried, “Mut!”
“Miriam.” My boss sounded annoyed. “You better not be complying with that man before I have come to a satisfactory working arrangement with him.”
The second that the Hebrew letters for “death” appeared on the blade, I cleaved the little ghost bastard into oblivion, dropped to my knees next to Davide, and began CPR. This side-effect of saving enthralleds from dybbuk inhabitation had become commonplace enough that I’d recently redone a first aid course.
“I’m going to count to three,” Tatiana warned, “and then I expect an answer.”
“A little busy,” I said, doing chest compressions.
She humphed. “Call me back.”
Upon regaining consciousness, Davide took one look at the mutilated turkey shifter and bolted out of the room, white as a ghost.
