Whatever for Hire: a Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) #5

First, she doesn’t want the world’s sexiest firefighting, kitten-rescuing Scot as an unwilling companion. Since that wasn’t bad enough, she doesn’t know who wants him dead or why, but there’s no way in hell she’s going to let someone mar his perfection.

Add in the fact the devil wants an heir, and there’s only one thing she knows for certain: she’s in for one hell of a job.

Where to Purchase

eBook: Patreon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Apple Books | Amazon | Smashwords

* Print, Paperback (6×9): Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon (Blank Edges)

Audiobook: Patreon | Kobo | Audible | Chirp

* Note: All 6×9 Paperback editions have forced print edges unless purchased at Amazon.

From Chapter One…

I never should’ve named my mercenary gig Whatever for Hire. People took the name too literally, which explained why I was stuck in a tree fetching a cat. If I’d been thinking, I would’ve refused Miss Angorra’s fifty dollars, leaving her precious kitty Mistoffelees to fend for herself. Instead of taking her money, I should’ve told her to learn how to spell before hightailing it out of town. Mephistopheles really didn’t like when people screwed with his name. Call him the devil, call him Satan, or call him Lucifer; he didn’t care as long as you spelled his name right. Nothing pissed off the Lord of Hell quite as much as someone calling him Satin.

It happened. I’d witnessed when an idiot thought it’d be funny to invoke Satan’s name as graffiti. It hadn’t ended well for him. Mephistopheles had appeared, wrapped the poor sod up in satin, and lit him on fire, screaming something in German about the importance of education. I had watched the whole episode with my mouth gaping open like an idiot.

I’d learned an important lesson that day: forget summoning circles. If I wanted a quick chat with the devil, all I needed to do was get some glitter and write his name in it—spelled incorrectly. He’d light my ass on fire, but he’d probably let me live to tell the tale so others would learn from my mistake.

For some reason I couldn’t fathom, the devil liked me.

Mistoffelees mewed, and I was willing to bet my soul the eight-pound ball of white fluff was scolding me for not getting her out of the tree faster. Cats: couldn’t live with them, and no, no matter what people liked to say, I could easily live without them.

“Oh, Mistoffelees,” Miss Angorra wailed. “Come home to Mommy.”

The cat hissed, and I didn’t blame her one bit. No sane being wanted to be named—incorrectly—after the devil. It courted trouble.

“All right, kitty. We can do this the hard way or the easy way. Pick.”

Mistoffelees climbed higher into the sap-oozing pine. Why make it easy for me to pocket some change for once in my life? Asshole cat. “I’ll get glitter, and so help me, kitty, I’ll write your name in it. And when the devil shows up, I’m going to blame you. Sure, he might kill me over it, but it might be worth it. Must you start shit?”

With a defiant flick of her tail, Mistoffelees climbed higher. Yep. Kitty was starting shit just because she could. How repulsively cat-like of her. “Come on, Mistoffelees. Not today. Please, not today. Let’s cut a deal. Take a rain check on tree climbing, and I’ll get you some treats. I’ll give you a five percent cut, paid out in treats, if you come down from there right now.”

Mistoffelees rejected my generous offer and ascended to parts of the pine I couldn’t reach, at least not while human. Damn it. I didn’t want to strip and shift. The resulting disaster involving two cats stuck in a tree would either make me a laughingstock or a prime target for Miss Angorra, who probably hoarded cats while deluding herself into believing they liked her.

Maybe if I had better control over my shifts, things wouldn’t be so bad. I could always shift, but I played Russian roulette with the results. I blamed my father’s side of the family for that; Ruska Roma to the core, he’d wandered his way to Egypt, seduced my mother, and wandered off to wherever it was gypsies roamed after making their conquests.

More often than not, I ended up a sex kitten with killer six-inch heels, gypsy bells, a deep diving, too-tight blouse, and a satin sari skirt that accommodated my furry tail. On a good day, I got wings to go with my feline head, perfect ears, human body, and clawed hands. Well, as close to a human body as someone with silky black fur got. My mother might’ve even approved. What self-respecting Egyptian woman wouldn’t want to be the spitting image of Bastet but better dressed?

Me, apparently.

I wasn’t a very good Egyptian or Ruska Roma; coming to America as an abandoned infant had ensured that.

To add insult to injury, when my shifts went wrong, they went really wrong. The real Bastet could kick my ass in a fight; my big, bad lioness warrior form weighed in at fifteen whole pounds. A Maine Coon could beat the shit out of me, and the average dog viewed me as a snack.

No, if I shifted, I wanted my sphinx form. First, I could fly. Second, I could fly. Hell, did the rest even matter?

I could fly.

On the plus side, weighing six hundred pounds came in useful at times, as did my enhanced hearing, eyesight, senses of smell and taste, and my beautiful black fur and ivory wings. But when I boiled it down? If I had to go through the hassle of shifting, I wanted to touch the sky, flying as high as possible because I could.

I blamed the cat in me.

I hated cats sometimes.

“Don’t make me do this,” I begged.

Mistoffelees hissed at me and disappeared higher up the pine. Yep, the damned cat was going to make me do it. Closing my eyes, I sighed and contemplated summoning His Most Indignant Majesty, Lord Satin of Hell. Shit, Satan. Lord Satan of Hell. It didn’t count if I didn’t write it down, did it?

Then again, death was a far better fate than endless humiliation. Regretting the day I’d founded Whatever for Hire, I stripped.