A Shot in the Dark by K. A. Stewart Page A

that told me to come up here.”
    That earned me a frown. “You ever hear of reverse psychology?”
    “Yeah, and you suck at it.” I finally closed the distance between us, just so I could lower my voice. Who knew where the guys were? “Did you flatten Marty’s tires?”
    His mouth twisted as he contemplated the answer. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
    “And turn Will’s alarm clock off?”
    “Hey, that was just him being a moron. I had nothing to do with that.”
    I could feel the beginnings of a headache, somewhere behind my eyes. “Any particular reason why?”
    “You’ll find out. But get somewhere public. Somewhere you can put your back against something solid.”
    “That sounds like a threat, Axel.”
    He shook his head. “Not from me. I’ll swear it if you like. Just . . . do as I ask, this one time.”
    Everything in me screamed no. You don’t do what a demon asks, period, the end. Even if (especially if) they phrase it to be for your own good. I eyed him warily, as if I could drag secrets from him with the power of my charismatic gaze. Or some shit. “What’s in it for you? You don’t give out information for free.”
    The demon’s eyes flared red again in the dappled shadows, and he spat a curse in a language I didn’t understand. Even so, the single word made my vision swim and the trees around me tilt at bizarre angles for the space of two breaths. Demonic speech is not meant for human ears. The cussing that followed in English was easier to follow.
    “Damn you for your stubbornness, Jesse Dawson. You are the most infuriating creature on this planet.”
    “You been talking to my wife?” When in doubt, resort to being a smart-ass.
    Axel was not amused. His gaze swept the forest around us, and he finally pointed at my feet. “There. Pick that up.”
    “That” proved to be a small branch, probably fallen off one of the trees overhead. Small, nondescript, definitely not something that could be used as a weapon. I bent to retrieve it, carefully keeping my eyes on him.
    He held his hand out to me as I straightened up. “Hand it to me.” Cautiously, I extended the stick out to him, and he snatched it out of my hand. “There, now you’ve given me something. We’re even.”
    At the risk of sounding mushy . . . where was the Axel I had come to know and hate? He would never have let a potential deal go without at least trying to bargain for something bigger, and his insistence on it had almost cost me my life last spring. “Axel, what’s going on? You’re not usually this . . . accommodating.”
    “Don’t worry, Jesse. I still want your soul. But for right now, I need to keep it attached to your body until I can come collect.”
    “So you’re saying I’m in danger. From what?” He stepped away from me, started to retreat into the trees. “Dammit, Axel, you can’t just drop this on me and bail!”
    “I can’t say more. My hands are tied. If I could—” Whatever he was going to say next was lost as he suddenly stumbled.
    I admit, it’s instinct. Someone falls, you catch them. I jumped forward, caught his arms and eased him down as he sagged toward the ground. A bout of wracking coughs shook his wiry frame, ending all conversation for a few long minutes. Eventually, he turned his head and spat something dark and sticky off to the side, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
    “Are you okay?” I asked again. It felt strange, asking him that. Why should I care if the demon was hurt? Damn, could he even be hurt? They could be banished, yes, evicted from whatever physical form they’d taken. But actually injured? That opened up a whole new realm of “evil things Jesse can do to demons” if it was true. I made a mental note to roll this over in my brain later. There had to be something here I could use.
    He took a few deep breaths, testing, before he nodded. “Yeah. Just a bit more banged up than I realized.” He raised a brow, glancing at my hands still on his