Page 65 of Demon's Desire

I opened the door and went inside. The first floor bar looked completely unharmed. It was a bit messy, but there was no fire damage. That was a good thing. It meant the fire hadn’t completely destroyed the building, at least.

Against the back wall, there was an open door that led to an office. In the doorway, there was an older man who looked like he was in his fifties on the phone, looking fairly annoyed.

“No, I know–” He got cut off by someone and sighed. “Listen, this has been about the worst day I could imagine. Why don’t I let you go, and I’ll call you so you can piss me off tomorrow instead?”

“Damn,” I muttered.

“All right, thanks.” The man hung up and groaned. He rubbed his forehead for a second before turning to me. “Hi. Mia?”

“Yes.” I nodded and walked forward, extending my hand. I was very aware of Soul’s presence, even when I wasn’t looking at him. I know he said he’d behave, but I didn’t trust him. “Hi. Hudson, right?”

“Right,” he confirmed. “I hope I didn’t interrupt any holiday plans.”

“No! I didn’t have anything planned.” I gave him a polite smile. “Sorry, I know this is probably a bad time for you.”

“The worst.” He sighed, grabbing a clipboard from a desk. “But that isn’t your fault. Come on, let’s sit out here.”

He walked over to one of the tables and sat down. I sat across from him.

“Before we get started, do you mind if I ask…” I pursed my lips. “Was anyone hurt last night?”

Hudson shook his head. “Thankfully, no. People were just shaken up. Someone got pushed into the wall during the stampede to get out, but that was the worst of it.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Thank goodness. My friends and I were here last night. That’s when I asked about the job, like I said in my email. It was… I was really worried people would get hurt.”

“I’m sorry that happened.” He shook his head. “They’re still looking into the possible causes. The whole thing is… Yeah. Anyway, why don’t we get started? Tell me about your experience bartending.”

I nodded and switched into interview mode. As I did, Soul began wandering around. I glanced at him once in a while, but mostly I focused on Hudson. At one point, Soul moved out of my peripheral vision, so I had no idea where he was. I didn’t want to look strange by glancing around the room every few seconds, so I just had to trust that he was probably keeping out of trouble.

The interview itself seemed to go well on my end. I told him about my year of bartending and what it was like, how I dealt with difficult customers, cutting people off, things like that. He seemed impressed enough. He told me to pick two drinks to make for him, and I went with an old-fashioned and a dirty martini. He asked me a few basic questions about mixing alcohol and different types of beer. After all that, he set his pen down and stood up.

“I think that covers everything,” he said. “It was nice meeting you. I’ll have to look over some things and get back to you.”

“Right. Of course.” I stood up and shook his hand. That didn’t seem good. I mean, I’d only ever worked at the bar back home, but when my interview had been over, the manager had said he thought I was a good fit and I could start the following Monday, so I was fairly sure this was a rejection. Still, it was good experience. “Thank you for your time. And I hope all the repairs and everything go okay.”

“I appreciate that.” He gave me a clearly tense smile and grabbed his things to return to the office. “Do you have a good way to get home?”

When he turned his back to me, I glanced around quickly. Dammit. I didn’t see Soul anywhere. When I answered Hudson, I raised my voice a bit. “Oh, yeah. I’m just going to order an Uber.”

“Yeah?” Hudson turned back to look at me. “You can wait inside until it gets here if you want. You shouldn’t just hang out on the street.”

“Oh, thank you.” I smiled at him. “I’d appreciate that. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“Of course.” He went into his office and shut the door. When he did, I relaxed. There weren’t any windows in his office, so I knew he wasn’t watching me. That was good. I looked around one more time and sighed. Soul wasn’t on the first floor, so unless he was in the bathroom, that meant he was upstairs.

I slowly walked over to the staircase, but before I got there, Soul appeared from behind the wall. “How did it go?”

I jumped when he appeared suddenly and stepped back. “It went fine. Where the hell were you?” I whispered, pulling out my phone to order an Uber.

“I was upstairs.” He shrugged. “Why? Did you miss me?”

I rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t help but smile as I put in the order. “Very funny. Did you cause any trouble?”

“I don’t think so.” He winked at me.

I headed over to sit by the front door, and he followed me. “How is it up there? I mean, is the fire damage bad?”

“Yeah,” Soul admitted. “It’s pretty bad. The building won’t collapse or anything, but the wall over where the fire started will need to be replaced. Some of the floor is badly damaged. All the equipment is wrecked. One of the windows is just gone. I guess the window frame burnt up, so the glass fell out or something. Or maybe it was the water from the fire hose that busted it.”