'Tween Heaven and Hell Read Free Page B

and gathered up my bag and briefcase.
“Exiting.” The driver’s side door of the Viper opened and I stepped out.
“Secure area.” The door in the roof of the shelter hissed shut and locked into
place and the driver’s side door on the Viper closed and locked. I moved around
the vehicle and punched my code into the keypad on the wall. The entrance to my
living quarters slid back into the wall as I approached it, then slid shut
behind me. “Secure area.” And it locked.
    This was the only time of day I wished I had a pet or
something that could greet me at the door after a tough day at the office.
Maybe I should get a pigmy gargoyle or something. I heaved a weary sigh and
dropped my bag and case on the table beside the entry door. “All lights, full.”
The entire house lit up and I moved into the kitchen immediately to see what I
could scrounge up to fill the empty, aching hole in my stomach. The motley
assortment in the refrigeration unit was totally uninspiring, but I managed to
snag a dehydrated meal and a slightly flat bottle of fizzy water. I placed the
meal into the rehydrator and went to change for the meeting with my new client,
sucking down the bad-tasting water as I went.
    I pulled the snug, black turtleneck sweater I was wearing
off over my head and removed my caramel-colored simulated leather thigh skirt.
I headed for the personal hygiene room, pulling black tights off my legs as I
went. My message center on the televisual bleeped to life when it sensed
movement in the room.
    “You have four new calls,” a sexy, male voice informed me as
I nearly fell on my head when I got tangled in the tights. “Shit. Play Number
One full volume,” I said as I continued into the personal hygiene room.
    The center beeped to announce my first message and my friend
Kayla’s bright, breathless voice followed me into the personal hygiene room.
“Hey girl. Where ya been? Call me, I need to tell you about this crashin’ guy I
met.”
    I smiled. Kayla was always meeting “crashin’” guys. Which
was a good term for the kind of guys she met. To Kayla, they were like a
serious drug and when they dumped her because she was oh-so needy, she always
crashed and burned for about two weeks.
    Message #2 was from my mother, who basically just wanted me
to get married and settle down, take a safe, boring job selling environmentally
and politically correct items, and give her about ten grandchildren. The third
message was from a longtime client who wanted me to kill a murderous demon that
was torturing his customers.
    Just a typical day in my life.
    I programmed the faucet to emit warm, soapy water and washed
my face quickly, leaning into the warm air of the drying disc on the wall with
a sigh. Not for the first time that day, I wished I could put my soft, warm
jammies on and climb into bed with a good palm screen novel.
    As I left the personal hygiene room I grabbed a
tooth-cleaning lozenge and popped it into my mouth. It exploded gently as it
mixed with my saliva and began fizzing away the day’s scum as the final message
beeped into my consciousness.
    “Mx. Phelps,” said a heavily accented, baritone voice. “I
need to see you tonight. I know you are meeting a client at the Church of the
Twined Hands and I must see you before you go there. Please call me back
immediately.”
    I pulled a soft, black dress over my head and said, “Bite
me.” I was getting pretty sick of everybody needing everything last week. With
a sigh that said, Astra, you’re an adult now and you have a business to nurture
and you are subject to the every whim of all of your clients, even ones you
don’t know you have yet, I said, “Return last call.” The phone barely finished
ringing through before the same, deeply masculine voice answered it.
    “Mx. Phelps?”
    “That’s me, who’s this?” I sat on the edge of my bed and
pulled tall black boots with no heels over my bare legs. The politically
incorrect leather of the boots melted around my