Raum glanced down at the animal. “He’s just scared.”
Caro nodded as if this pleased her. “So, you want a job? I’ll pay you to come in and work with the feral ones. If you can do half as much for others as you did with Tiny here, I’ll consider you a miracle worker.”
Raum rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t need money.” He and his brothers had amassed a fortune in Hell before they escaped, which they exchanged for Earth currency at the Blood Market. And if he ever ran out, he still had stashes of loot all over the underworld.
“Too bad. This job is too tough for volunteers.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t need to. We all have a past, and any man who shows kindness to an animal is a good man in my books. If you’re living…under the radar, I’ll pay you cash in hand. As long as you help my dogs, I don’t care where you came from.”
He couldn’t take a job at an animal shelter. It was too risky mixing with humans in that kind of setting. It was one thing to party and get drunk with faceless crowds he’d never see again. It was another thing to interact on a regular basis with people who didn’t know what he was. With everything going on with Murmur right now, it was an added risk they didn’t need.
So it surprised the hell out of him when he said, “Okay.”
Caro beamed. “You’ll do it?”
“Sure.”I’m an idiot.
“When can you start? Tomorrow? Eight AM?”
He winced.So early?But he said, “Sure,” again anyway.
The woman looked like he’d just handed her a million dollars. “Give me your phone. I’ll put in my number and the shelter address. Have you got transportation? I can pick you up if you need a ride.”
“Okay.” He didn’t own a vehicle, and Eva had sworn never to allow a demon to drive her car again because, apparently, they were reckless drivers. And he avoided public transit because so many people in a tight space made the itch unbearable. Everyone had bags and jackets with deep pockets. He had yet to take the metro without ending up with a new collection of wallets and phones.
He and Caro exchanged numbers and discussed wages he didn’t want, and then he helped her walk Tiny back to her van. Apparently, he was feeling saintly today. She’d caught him on a good day.
Tiny was terrible on the leash, pulling and leaping at every noise, but Raum’s strength was to his benefit, and he held him easily. By the time they reached Caro’s van and loaded him into the crate in the back, she was staring at him with undisguised awe.
“You have a gift,” she said, like he was bloody Jesus turning water into wine.
He made a face.
“I’m serious. I look forward to working with you. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
As the van peeled away from the curb and gunned down the street in a cloud of black exhaust, Raum looked over to where Faust was waiting for him on the sidewalk.
“Guess I got a job now,” he told the hound.
He swore Faust cocked a brow.
Raum narrowed his eyes. “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”
Faust closed his mouth as if to say,Mum’s the word.
“Good boy. Let’s go home.”
Stupidly, Raum cast one last look at the park, searching for the woman in pink. There was no sign of her, of course.
He rolled his eyes at himself, and then took off at a jog, Faust at his side.
* * *
Sunshine rematerializedin her rental suite still gasping for breath. She immediately went to the long mirror on the wall and assessed her appearance. There were sticks and leaves in her braid. When she turned around, there was mud all over her backside. She’d had the wind knocked out of her by that fall, and she looked like it.
What a disaster. A colossal failure.
