Read Demon Accords 10: Rogues for Free Online

where a balcony started to encircle the end of the room.
     
    Four big round dining tables were placed at the right end of the room, and as she moved further into the room, she could see a big rectangular pass-through window into a commercial-sized kitchen.
     
    Three men, lodge guests based on their relaxed demeanor and casual dress, were playing cards at one of the dining tables, a mix of beer and highball glasses around them, and a small, middle-aged woman bustled about the kitchen.  Shorty appeared at the top of the stairs as everyone else stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Lisa.
     
    Two of the card players had salt-and-pepper hair, looking to be in their fifties or sixties.  The third was younger, maybe late thirties, with a handsome face and slicked-back black hair.  The two by the television fell somewhere in between, maybe mid-forties to early fifties.  All five studied her like a prime steak newly presented on the butcher’s counter.
     
    “Lisa, if you wanna come up here, I got your room ready,” Shorty’s gruff voice said into the silence, causing a few eyebrows to raise and a couple of glances to be exchanged between the other guests.
     
    She met each of their gazes, letting her eyes slide over theirs without pause as she headed across the floor toward the staircase. First rule of dealing with predators, four-legged or two, was to not look like prey.
     
    She turned her attention on her host as she climbed to the second floor.  He glanced around the room below and behind her before coming back to hers.  He shifted from foot to foot, nervous, until his attention locked onto the case in her right hand.
     
    “We, ah, normally rack all our guns downstairs,” he said, starting off firmly but ending with uncertainty.
     
    “This one needs to stay with me, Mr. Kane,” she said.
     
    “Ah, it’s Shorty or John,” he corrected, a little absently as he visibly twitched, looking decidedly undecided.  “Ah, that’s not our usual hunter policy.”
     
    “I’m not your usual hunter.  My quarry could be in the building, looking to hunt me back,” she replied.
     
    He went pale, his weather-darkened skin turning almost white.
     
    “You mean…” he asked.
     
    “Could be one of your guests,” she said.
     
    He froze, eyes large.  “Wouldn’t you know?” he asked.
     
    “Maybe. I think it very unlikely right now, but I don’t take chances,” she said, bending the truth a bit.  “Rogues are very dangerous.”
     
    He blinked at her and she could see him realize something, the flicker of a thought passing across his expression.  Then he nodded.  “Right.  Come this way,” he said, turning on his heel and leading her around the balcony.  There were seven numbered doors spaced around the L-shaped balcony, two on the end by the staircase and five down the length of the room.  Hers was number four, which put her over the kitchen. 
     
    The room was decorated in mountain rustic, with Native American pattern rugs over more wide pine planking, antique snowshoes on one paneled wall, a painting of a moose in a lake on another, a log frame bed with a red and black Pendleton blanket and green flannel pillows, a matching log chair and ottoman, and most importantly, in her estimation, a door leading to its own bathroom.
     
    “They don’t all have their own facilities, but I didn’t think you’d want to be sharing the common shower room,” Shorty said, one hand shifting his black watch cap enough to scratch underneath it.
     
    “Which I completely appreciate,” she said with a smile. 
     
    He nodded, looking a little nervous.  “Dinner is at six-thirty tonight.  Nothing fancy.  Roast beef, potatoes, carrots, and rolls.  With gravy.   But we do have strawberry-rhubarb pie for dissert,” he said.
     
    “Sounds great,” she said, meaning it as she set down her duffle and propped the gun case against the wall near the bed.
     
    “Ah, I was wondering… how should I