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might decide to honor our agreement.”
    “And if I don’t play by your rules?”
    Another stuffy laugh assaulted Bryant’s ear before the line went dead. He lost his appetite.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    Julia
     
    Why am I still running?
    No one had followed Julia out of the restaurant. Aza was running next her. With his fists clenched, he pumped his arms. She tried not to think about him as anything other than a demon, but the girly girl in her spied the bulky biceps that filled out and stretched the t-shirt he wore. The cotton clung tightly to his body. Where had he found those clothes?
    She slowed to a walk at the corner of Woodward and Nine. They needed a place to crash for the rest of the night and possibly the whole entire next day. Julia deduced Bryant wouldn’t have left town knowing she’d died without any witnesses who cared to point accusations at him. By now, the idiot may have already handed off her necklace to Maurice for payment anyway. She hated Maurice. He’d tried to have her killed once before and failed. Aza had saved her at that campsite her family used to vacation at every summer. Julia knew those woods and felt safe there.
    “We are stopping now?” the demon asked.
    “Uh…tired…I need to sleep…am I…?”
    I’m dead, why do I need sleep…or food?
    Julia doubled over at the waist and panted. Her hand came up to point at the motel across the street.
    Aza looked where she pointed. “What is it? What do you see?”
    “A…motel,” she said between gasps.
    Julia paid the fifty-five dollars for the room, cash up front. Her feet and lungs hurt too much to care. They trudged up the stairs to the second floor room. A hot shower followed by a massive snooze-fest awaited her beyond the door. She opened the door, stepped inside, and was rewarded with a shocking vomit-inducing mismatched color scheme—red, orange, green, and oh-my-God-mauve.
    Aza sat on the edge of the double bed and bounced up and down, smoothing his hands over the ugly striped bedspread.
    “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
    “Why not?” He picked his hands up and examined the palms, turning them from side to side, this way and that.
    She snorted quietly. “It’s just, I’m not sure they always wash the comforter every time they change the sheets.”
    “Sheets?”
    Oh, for God’s sakes, really?
    She ripped the corner of the bedspread out from under the mattress and flipped the burgundy and green rag over. “See? Sheets. Got it? I’m taking a shower.”
    “By shower, do you mean falling water?”
    Julia’s eyes glazed over.
    Jesus. Christ.
    She stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
    The metal rings screeched against the rod when she pulled the shower curtain over. She leaned in and turned on the water. Her clothes weren’t as dirty as she’d thought. She’d managed to avoid the spilled blood out in the back of the Senior Center. There was a slight old egg smell, but nothing too toxic. Shoplifting some new clothes would happen sometime tomorrow. She took her clothes off and laid them on the puke yellow laminate countertop, next to the sink with a metal beauty ring around the perimeter. Clear plastic bottles that looked like they were filled with Pert shampoo and cheap bar soap samples sat in the corner of the vanity. She set them on the lip of the tub and stepped in the shower with her panties on so she could wash them.
    Julia was amazed by the water pressure. She cleaned every inch and her underwear before getting out of the tub. Would the demon like a shower? Or would he freak again if something touched his skin? She shook her body. “Don’t touch me,” she mocked him under her breath . Gawd.
    After wrapping a towel around her body and securing the corner, she ran her fingers through her wet hair. Julia emerged from the steamy bathroom. Aza was pacing the floor.
    “What are you doing now?” she asked. He stopped and looked at his feet. She skated past him,