Chapter Thirteen
Hell House Client Brief: The shadows move sometimes. Pretend to be spooked, it makes their day.
The key to being a New Yorker was dwelling on what you liked about the city.
Shepherd stood at the counter in the bodega and rubbed the ginger cat behind the ears.
It enjoyed the attention for a while, and then turned around to present its furry ass for a scratch.
While Shepherd obliged, he drank his bougie coffee—whipped cherry matcha espresso—and watched the cook slice pastrami into tissue-thin slices.
On the corner. That was the sort of convenience small towns couldn’t offer.
Shepherd got the bagel and sandwich, paid, and left.
The brown paper bag rustled under his arm as he stepped over the homeless guy sleeping under the window.
Catcalls followed him down the road from the half-hearted gang of kids on the corner.
They lost enthusiasm as he got closer to his current home base, making excuses as they skulked back to their own territory.
A drag queen on her way somewhere took a last drag on her cigarette and tossed it into the gutter before she tumbled into an Uber.
A fat and shit-grease-shiny rat squeezed out of the gutter to grab the butt and take a drag.
Beady black eyes caught Shepherd’s attention on it, and it bared human teeth in a rodent mouth before it disappeared back into the sewers.
OK, so the familiars interbreeding with the local wildlife was more of an ecological disaster than something to appreciate. Still not something you’d get in Ye Olde “Marble Falls”.
Shepherd held the paper bag between his teeth as he unlocked the big, heavy metal fire door. He threw his shoulder against it to shift it, the metal-shod corner scraping along the old groove in the concrete as it reluctantly opened.
Appreciate the New York of all that, and the fact that every godforsaken supernatural entity in New York lived in a tunnel or an unventilated, illegal basement flat didn’t seem so bad.
Eventually.
That was the theory.
Shepherd wrestled the door shut and padded down the worn, slick concrete stairs to the barren room at the bottom. Shithead was on the bed where he’d left her. The smell of damp wool and old wood hung in the air.
“...oh nice,” Shepherd said. “Trying to end it all in a blaze of glory? I suppose it’s my fault the tenement didn’t burn down.”
He set the bag down on the desk and shrugged his jacket off, hanging it on the meat hook next to the door.
“For crying out loud, the house wasn’t your only friend,” he said, rubbing his hand through his hair in exasperation.
“And you can make new friends. I saw three hideous abominations of nature between here and the bodega. And…yeah, OK…they aren’t ‘objects,’ but I’m not living with a prejudiced doll. So get over that.”
He unwrapped the sandwich and took it over to her, setting it down on the damp circle of charred wool.
“It’s pastrami on rye,” he said. “Your favorite.”
The corners of the meat didn’t even curl or assume a green cast. Shepherd took a deep breath and refused to get drawn in. He left the sandwich on the bed as he grabbed the bagel, unwrapped it, and headed down the hall to the cell.
“At least someone is going to appreciate the effort I went to,” he threw over his shoulder.
Halfway there, he heard his phone ring and had to backtrack. The glow of it through his jacket pocket made it easy to find. He fished it out, checked the caller was someone he wanted to talk to—Renfield’s so…sort of—and answered.
“Shepherd,” he said curtly.
“Hold on a second,” a vaguely familiar voice said.
It took a moment for Shepherd to identify the carefully flat, middle-American voice as the client manager on the Madden account.
He grimaced and threw himself down in the office chair.
It creaked and swivelled under his weight, spinning him around to take in the glorious view of mold-wet walls and dried skins.
His current client was a ghoul. It was the lowest-tier job. Ghouls were basically just one step above serial killers. Some people (not Shepherd) would say that it wasn’t even a whole step.
And OK, he’d known he’d have to work off leaving Marble Hall before the contract was officially up. Still…a ghoul. All Shepherd was doing was feeding whatever was in the cells. There was no skill involved.
He was willing to do it, but not and get reamed out again.
“OK,” Ben said. “I wanted to—”
“I already explained that I left the Madden job because it was untenable,” Shepherd interrupted. “Ask any of the client managers I usually work with. I’m fine with threats to life, limb, and loved ones. But I will not be owned. I—”
“No, that’s fine,” Ben interrupted. “That’s all resolved now. The original client is back onto our books, so—”
Shepherd sat up. “Dio?”
“Original,” Ben repeated, audibly exaggerating each syllable. “Think crossword, Seven-down, phrase finisher ‘crossroads blank,’ six letters.”
“...five letters,” Shepherd said.
There was a pause and then an irritated sigh. “You knew what I meant.”
“I did,” Shepherd agreed. He rubbed his neck absently, fingers tracing the old scar. “Why not just—”
“Oh, legal is all up my ass about it,” Ben said.
“Apparently we have to be very measured in our wording since it’s a bit of a grey area right now due to the whole house business.
So he doesn’t…technically, in the strictest sense of the word…
follow under our client remit. But he’s assured us that he’ll have possession again shortly.
Since I’m the client manager for the area, I just wanted to touch base with you to make sure—”
“Harlow,” Shepherd said. He stood up. “Was he going for hollow or hallowed, do you know?”
“I…no…I don’t,” Ben admitted. He sounded baffled. “Does it matter?”
“No.”
Shepherd cut the call.
He stared at the phone in his hand for a second as his brain tripped over that for a moment. Was that enough to get him blacklisted? Or was there a tier lower than ‘ghoul’ that he could be assigned to?
“I guess I’ll find out,” he muttered as he scrubbed his hand through his hair. He glanced at the bed and gave Shithead a tight grin. “Maybe we could start our own business?”
It was a possibility. Renfield’s wasn’t the only company focused on servicing the undead/unholy community. It was just the biggest. There was probably a market for a more boutique approach.
Half-formed ideas floated around Shepherd’s head as he grabbed the bits and pieces he’d actually unpacked. The Danielle Steel that was not going to be fit for a quarantine shelf again, his jacket, and Shithead.
He stuffed the doll into his holdall and dropped the Danielle Steel on top of her. It had definitely not been called The House on HELL Street when he’d gotten it in the thrift store. Shithead glared at him from under it.
“Hey,” he said. “You wanted to go back. We’re going back.”
He flicked the lights out and headed out. Halfway up the stairs, he had second thoughts and went back to get the sandwiches. He wrapped them up, tucking the greasy brown paper in at the edges, as he jogged down the dark tunnel.
“Hey,” he said as he got to the clumsily welded sewer grate in the floor that sealed off the cell. “Change of plan.”
Something breathed raggedly in the corner. “You came…back…”
“Oh, yeah, sorta,” Shepherd said. “Look, I have to go, but there’s only four days left on the contract, so…just try and make these last. OK?”
He dropped both sandwiches into the cell and then headed out, ducking his head so he could cross the strap of his bag over his chest. Shithead made aggrieved, busted voice box wheezes from under the Danielle Steel as he loped up the steps.
The sound of whatever was in the cell throwing itself, screaming, against the grate echoed up after him as he struggled with the door. It cut off abruptly as he finally got it closed.
Shepherd braced both hands against it, his shoulders aching, and took a second to catch his breath. He finally straightened up, wiped a drop of sweat off his nose, and turned to head out of the alley.
“...you said you didn’t want it,” he pointed out as he fished in his pockets for his keys.
He paused for a moment to listen and rolled his eyes.
“I know it’s a long drive, but you didn’t want it.
I’m not leaving it for the client to find when he gets back.
It’s not like I’ll be getting tipped on this one, so I’m not putting in that sort of effort. ”
Shepherd stepped into the garage and looked around. His gaze caught on the Mustang, half-hidden under a stained tarp, and then flicked over to an old red truck. A pair of long legs in drab, olive green trousers stuck out from under it.
“Um…” Shepherd cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Kel?”
There was a sharp metal crack and then a muttered “fuck”. Before Shepherd could apologise, Kel braced his heels on the ground and slid out from under the truck. He sat up and rubbed one hand as he looked up at Shepherd.
“Did you get the milk?” Kel asked dryly.
Shepherd frowned and cocked his head to the side in confusion. “What?”
“It’s a joke,” Kel said. “Somebody’s husband or wife or dad would say they were going to get milk and then fuck off.”
“Statistically, some of them were probably murdered.”
Kel flexed his fingers and looked at his knuckles.
“Sure.” He reached over, braced his weight on the truck’s running board, and shoved himself up to his feet. “The rest were just assholes.”
Shepherd supposed that was meant for him. “You tried to use your power on me,” he said.
“Yeah, and the first time I did it I got laid,” Kel said. “What changed?”
Shepherd had honestly assumed that was obvious.
“It worked.”
Kel made a strangled sound and scrubbed his hand, knuckles split and bruised from the undercarriage of the truck, over his face.
“Why do I still think you’re cute enough to get away with this shit?” he asked through his fingers.
Shepherd relaxed. “It’s not just you,” he said. “Everyone does. I was bred for it. Look…um…remember what I said about Easy Harlow. That he was—”