Chapter 4

      “I’m a Luminaire....”

      “I know what you are. Who are you?”

      His aura pulsed bright red, spiked with black. Sexual energy, as well as negative forces. Keira shoved lightly at his chest, breaking the physical contact.

      “I’m your new housekeeper, a woman who needs a job, okay? I’ve been roving from town to town.”

      “Why?”

      The man was relentless. “I like helping people. I search for individuals that need enlightenment and then help them heal. Ask your neighbor if you need a reference.”

      “I did. Odd how you showed up just when she needed you.” He lightly clasped her wrist. Sexual current sizzled between them.

      Keira closed her eyes and breathed deeply, channeling every bit of white light she could to fight the temptation to lift her face to his and kiss him. “I heard her crying. Psychic cries, not real cries. I’m a healer and it compelled me.”

      “Right.”

      “There’s enough darkness and negative energy in this world. What’s wrong with trying to eradicate it and make people feel better?”

      “Maybe there’s no hope for them.” He dropped her hand.

      Keira watched a shadow drape across his expression, then his face smoothed out. Dale Curtis was hiding deep pain, pain she knew well, because she’d caused it.

      Suddenly he went still. Keira’s heart dropped to her stomach as she caught the small, scampering sounds.

      “Damn mice,” he said. “One reason why my housekeeper quit.”

      “That’s not a mouse,” she said and bolted down the hallway, hooked a right and ran into a locked door. Keira jiggled the knob. “Open this,” she told him as he pulled up short behind her.

      A fierce scowl tightened his face. “That’s private.”

      “If you want to get rid of your pests, open it. Now.”

      He looked shocked, as if no one ever talked to him that way.

      Dale clicked a series of buttons on a brass plate and opened the door. She burst inside, barely noting that it was an office, with stacks of papers piled on the desk. Her sense of smell overtook everything. Those little, nasty creatures, smelling like a bad combination of bad breath and rotting cabbage...

      “My report to the admiral...”

      Ignoring Dale’s mutterings as he sifted through papers on his desk, she dived to the floor by the credenza. Keira groped beneath the furniture and felt slicing pain scrape her hand. She peered down. The imp had affixed razor blades to the credenza’s bottom, effectively making a protective nest for itself.

      Two red, beady eyes glared at her. It started to lash out with its tiny claws and then backed away, obeying the hidden compulsion in the slave armband. Keira stretched out her fingers and summoned the power deep inside.

      The creature squealed as it slid into her hand. She wriggled from under the credenza, clutching it tight.

      “Jar,” she gasped.

      Dale stared at the creature as it wriggled in her hand. Blood seeped down her clenched fist. “What the hell...”

      “Jar, hello, could use a little help here, get a jar, something to hold it. Please hurry.”

      He seized a heavy metal pencil holder from the desk, dumped out the contents.

      Keira squatted down. “Be quick, they’re really, really fast... I’ll let go and you trap him. On three... One, two, three!”

      As she released the creature, Dale slammed the pencil holder down. Damn, the man was fast.

      He picked up a scrap of paper and tossed it down with a disgusted sound. “My report to the admiral... It’s chewed to pieces.”

      “Uh, of course. They adore paper. Almost as tasty as flour.” Keira examined her injured hand with a rueful sigh. “If he’d have gotten to your computer, your hard drive would be royally screwed.”

      To her surprise, he gave a small, wry smile. “Never did like anything royally screwed, especially my hard drive. I prefer the commoner’s touch.”

      It took her a minute to realize the joke. And then to her enormous chagrin, she blushed. He gave his rusty, deep laugh again. And then he looked at her injured hand and stopped laughing. Dale took her hand very gently and examined it. His touch was absolutely gentle. Fishing out a clean, white square from his pocket, he wrapped it around her bleeding palm.

      “Remind me to be careful dusting under there. It fastened razor blades to the credenza’s bottom to keep anyone from going after him.”

      Dale focused his attention on bandaging her hand. “Even without a contract, you’d have to stay now. Can’t have you leaving here wounded.”

      “It’s not much. It’ll heal.”

      “I always take care of my own.” He looked slightly dangerous as he stared at the floor. The pencil holder trembled, but the creature was effectively trapped.

      “What the hell is that thing?”

      “Imp.” Keira wrapped her hand tighter to slow the bleeding. Blood was bad, attracted bad things, and this house already had enough darkness. She couldn’t risk drawing out more.

      “A demon,” he said slowly.

      “A very minor one. Imps are drawn to negativity and darkness. They feed on it.”

      That and residual demon energy left on a victim, she thought.

      Dale frowned. “That thing invaded my home because I’ve been in a bad mood?”

      “Not exactly. You’ve been expelling dark energy. Something must have happened to you to suck out your white light.”

      He shot her an incredulous look.

      “Imps tend to make a person bad-tempered and irritable. They make a bad situation worse. They’re hard to kill because they’re so fast. They can outrun almost anything.”

      He raised a dark brow. The commander opened a desk drawer and withdrew a pistol. Keira’s jaw dropped as he chambered a round and pointed the gun at the pencil jar and fired. Shards of plastic exploded, along with a nasty splatter of gray demon blood. The stench stung her nostrils.

      “Not a 9 mm,” he said with satisfaction.

      Sweat trickled down her spine. “Um, you’re not very forgiving, are you?”

      “No.”

      “I’d hate to be on your bad side.”

      “You would.” His expression darkened. “Good thing you’re not a demon.”

      Keira swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sounds like you’ve run up against them. It’s the source of your dark energy.”

      “I’m only interested in one.” A hard smile touched his mouth, making him look dangerous. “No matter how long I must wait. I will find her and make her pay for what she did to me.”

      The coffee soured in her stomach as she remembered how skillfully he’d wielded the pistol. Keira didn’t relish him discovering her true identity. Holding back her nausea, she pointed to the mess on the floor. “If you’ll show me where I’m sleeping and then where your cleaning supplies are, I’ll get started on my first assignment.”

      He gently clasped her injured hand. “After I clean your wounds. Those are some nasty cuts.”

      “I can do it.”