Death's Hand Read Online Free

you.”
    Betty laughed. “Elise! Why are you seeing strippers in the first place?”
    “I’ve got some weird clients.” Understatement of the year. Betty didn’t know that most of the people she worked for weren’t people at all.
    She swiped Elise’s coffee, took a sip, and set it back down with a sigh. “Hate to demand deductions and run, but Cassandra’s outside and my mentor is waiting.” Betty wiggled her eyebrows. “You going to be home for dinner tonight?”
    “No. I’m going to go see James.”
    “Oh really . So you’re planning on eating out ? Get it? You know, like—”
    Elise didn’t let her finish. “Not everyone lives in a porno like you do, Betty. It’s not like that.”
    “I don’t know why,” Betty sighed. “If James was inviting meover for dinner, it would definitely be ‘like that.’”
    “Uh huh. I’ll let you know about your taxes tomorrow.”
    “Thanks, love,” Betty said. “By the way, you got some ketchup on your blouse.” Elise glanced down, touching her injured lip. The smear of red on her collar wasn’t ketchup. “See you later!”
    “Bye, Betty.”
    She turned back to her computer, where the emails full of excuses were still waiting. Her smile slowly faded.
    A lifetime of killing demons could never have prepared her for the ugly reality of being unable to pay her bills. It seemed cruel that she could be a skilled accountant creeping toward debt, but she didn’t think many demons would be impressed by phone calls from debt collectors.
    Elise’s gaze wandered to the drawer with her knives again. Demons only responded to violence.
    Screw discretion. Maybe it really was time to start speaking their language.
     
    Click .
    The sign outside Motion and Dance Studio flickered and turned off. Rain tapped against the control box on its side, dripping onto the brown grass and running off into the gutter.
    Elise locked the door on the control box and headed inside. Her footsteps echoed through the main hall as she moved from window to window to shut them. Elise's reflection on the mirrored wall behind her mimicked her actions, a dark silhouette of a long-haired young woman in an open blazer and low heels.
    She peeked into the second, smaller dance hall. It wasn’t quite as nice as the main one, since it had recently been converted from a garage. The studs were exposed on one side and boxes with branded t-shirts were stacked against the wall.
    The windows were already locked, so Elise turned to leave again. Her own motion in the mirror caught her eye. She hesitated in the center of the dance hall.
    A scar on her left breast peeked over the neck of her blouse, glowing pale white in the light from the street lamps. That injury had been delivered by a stone knife in the hands of a woman claiming to be a death goddess. She tortured Elise for hours by chaining her to a wall and drawing lines in her flesh. Most of them healed cleanly, but the one over her heart had been deep enough to scrape bone.
    It was the last time Elise hunted a demon. She prevented apocalypse that day, but the costs had been too high. Yet her memories of that night were as sharp as though the wounds were still fresh.
    She thought of the death-goddess's laugh, throaty and rumbling. “ I am the cold kiss of Death, ” the goddess whispered as she twisted the point of the knife, “ and you can never defeat me. Alive or dead, I will return for you. ”
    And then, a quieter echo from another time and place: Colder …
    She shivered, averting her gaze from the mirror. She couldn't think of Lucinde without the creeping suspicion that the death goddess’s prophecy might come true.
    Elise clicked off the flood lights before locking the front door, wiggling the handle to make sure it was secure. She hugged the side of the building to avoid the rain as she took the stairs to the second floor.
    The door upstairs was ajar. She hung her coat on the hook beside James’s jacket and shook out her hair.
    “James?” she