Must Love Hellhounds

Blake knew that Sir Pup had a demon form, then it was no wonder he’d been so pale a moment ago. Maggie was used to the three heads, but she didn’t think she’d ever be comfortable with the giant, terrifying hound he could become.
    “No. Right now he looks like a three-headed black Labrador.” A very large black Lab. When Maggie knelt beside the hellhound, her eyes were level with his shoulder. “Once we’re outside, he’ll shape-shift back to one head. Sir Pup, the harness?”
    The guide apparatus appeared in her hand. Sir Pup’s invisible, formless hammerspace allowed him to store almost any object, but even a hellhound couldn’t make a retriever-sized harness fit over a bear-sized torso.
    “And shrink, please,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. The hellhound was being a pain in the ass by forcing her to ask him to shift into a smaller form.
    Probably, she thought, so that Blake wondered exactly how big the hellhound had been. Though Sir Pup was friendly enough to be considered a bad hellhound by Hell’s standards, he still enjoyed making people uneasy. He just had a better sense of humor than most hellhounds—and was less likely to tear out throats first, and eat the rest later.
    Or so Maggie had heard. She’d never been to Hell, and so she’d never met any other hellhounds. If her luck was good—and if every negative thing she’d done in her life didn’t land her in the Pit as soon as she bit the big one—she never would.
    And if her luck was very good, she’d never run into another demon, either. After discovering that her previous employer was one, she’d had enough of them to last her a lifetime.
    She adjusted the last harness strap and gave Sir Pup a scratch behind the ears of his left head. His dark eyes glowed faintly crimson before rolling back in ecstasy. A freakishly powerful and terrifying hellhound, sure—but pettings and food were two things guaranteed to make him more biddable.
    “Don’t leave him anywhere,” Maggie murmured, “and I’ll see that Ames-Beaumont buys out a butcher shop for you.”
    Apparently satisfied with that bribe, Sir Pup pranced to Blake’s side. Blake curled his fingers around the harness handle.
    “Why would it be a problem if he does lead me out to the middle of nowhere? You’ll be there.”
    Blake had heard her? There was obviously nothing wrong with his ears. “I won’t be,” Maggie said, moving into the hall and gesturing for Sir Pup to follow her down the stairs. “I’m taking you to the airport. He’ll accompany you on the plane.”
    “What plane?”
    Maggie stopped beside the front door and glanced through the window. Her gaze skipped from vehicle to vehicle, from person to person. She didn’t recognize anyone, and no one tripped the instinctual alarm in her gut that, over the years, she’d learned to trust.
    Of course, it had let her down a few times, so she kept her hand on her gun.
    “Sir Pup, you have too many heads,” she reminded the hellhound before answering Blake. “I’ll charter a plane to take you back to San Francisco. Mr. Ames-Beaumont can look after you while I—”
    “Not a chance,” Blake said.
    “—find your sister,” Maggie finished over him.
    “Find her where? Do you have information about where he’s taken her that I don’t?”
    She opened the door. “No.”
    Not yet, anyway.

Chapter Two

    Once they hit the sidewalk, Geoff got his first look at Maggie Wren in four years. His first look in person, anyway. A little over three months ago, he’d seen her picture in the file his uncle had sent along with the rest of her history. He’d recognized the woman immediately, her pale eyes. They’d been impossible to forget, considering the last time he’d seen them it had been over the barrel of her gun just before she’d squeezed the trigger. She’d been a CIA operative carrying out a mission in Darfur—both of them a long way from home.
    Where her home had been, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Abandoned as a child, she’d been moved around the foster system until she’d found a steady home at the age of twelve. From there, she’d gone into the military and had been recruited early into the CIA. For years, she’d been based in D.C., but had been away on assignments most of the time.
    Her transition back to civilian life hadn’t been smooth. She’d lived in with her last employer, a congressman—and a demon. After she’d learned what the congressman was, she’d left his employ and taken a position