Page 40 of Client from Hell

I found the basement through falling through the floor, and I dodged death from hungry, angry tigers thanks to landing on top of one of the cages filling the room rather than between them. The narrow distance between the metal top and the ceiling spared me from becoming dinner, and I shrieked, scrambled away from the emaciated animals, and as I’d already thrown away my dignity, I graduated from a shriek to a full-blown scream.

The tigers had friends, and judging from what I could see of the floor, they’d already eaten a few people who’d once worn lab coats.

“These ‘kittens’ are fucking tigers and lions!”

Later, if someone asked, I would claim my exclamation had emerged as a rather stern shout rather than a word-punctuated scream.

Jonas peered down through the Sandra-shaped hole in the floor. “Well, I’ll be damned. The kittens are ligers and tigons, and they’re pretty young, too. They have eaten fairly recently.”

“You sound way too excited about this, Jonas.”

“Those fucking assholes, the ones that used to own those shredded lab coats, are surely in hell waiting to be disciplined, if my guess is right. I’m going to try to get Lucifer to let me help with them this round. Are you all right?”

“I almost got eaten by a few tigers.” The tigers in question roared at me, batting at the cage in their efforts to eat me. “I think that one, in particular, is hungry.” I pointed at the most determined of the predators.

“She, and she’s nursing her kittens, so she’s hungry and needs to produce milk for her little ones. This problem is not hard to solve. The problem is solving it without getting eaten in the process. Fortunately, I have a phone and a willingness to call Lucifer, because we are not rigged to tame a bunch of hungry predators.”

My twisted little brain decided to focus on the one predator I wanted to hunt me and needed to be hungry for the hunt to be on. Careful to keep my feet well out of the tiger’s range, I twisted around to stare up at him. “I’m rigged to tame a hungry predator.”

“I don’t know what species He made you, but I’m concerned. I haven’t seen a woman get this insistent since my sister, and I try not to think too hard about my sister’s hunts for Lucifer. If you want to avoid being eaten by a tiger, I recommend you carefully get to your feet so I can lift you out of there.”

As I needed to escape the hungry tigers and lions in order to hunt the incubus, I obeyed, holding my hands up so he could help me scramble out.

He edged closer to the hole, and the floor creaked, and more rotten wood rained down.

The lions and tigers roared at the noise, and one of the animals rammed the cage, knocking me off my feet. I hit the metal hard enough I yelped.

“I’m impressed with that cage. That tiger has to weigh at least five hundred pounds, and the cage barely moved.”

“It moved enough I landed on my ass,” I growled.

Jonas smirked at me. “It could have collapsed. As such, I say the cage barely moved. If it had collapsed, you’d be surrounded by hungry tigers and lions.” With narrowed eyes, he peered into the room, leaning over for a better view. “At least three tigers, four tigresses with kittens, six lionesses, and a lion. And a lot of lion cubs. The kittens are in good health, so there must have been enough lab workers to keep them fed for the past few days. How sad. The illegal lab workers got eaten by their test subjects. I’m so sad over this.”

I gave Jonas full points for his use of sarcasm. “Don’t we have to treat this like a crime scene or something?”

“Do you think the tigers or lions will give good testimonies? The roaring and attempts to eat the attorneys would be entertaining, but I’m not sure they’d be able to defend themselves. Personally, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt and let them go on self-defense, but the courts here can be a little crazy.”

“A little?” I blurted.

“Just sit tight while I call Lucifer,” Jonas ordered, pulling out his phone. He dialed a number, held it to his ear, and waited. “You’re on notice. Sandra almost got eaten by a tiger, she’s probably hungrier than Darlene is on a bad day, and I have no idea how I’m going to feed a bunch of angry, partially starved tigers and lions. I’m open to suggestions that don’t involve us being mauled or eaten. Sandra fell through the floor.”

Jonas listened for a disturbingly long time while the angry, hungry cats prowled around the cage, and every few rounds, they lunged against it and took a swipe at me. Staying away from edge kept me well out of their reach thanks to the rotting ceiling. After my nerves frayed to a dangerous degree, the incubus sighed and hung up. “You are not going to believe what that asshole told me to do.”

“Just hit me with it so I can start crying.”

“There is a freezer in the adjacent room. He wants us to bust in, get the meat, and throw it down to them. I can thaw it with a practitioner trick. But there’s no guarantee the lab’s experiments won’t be out and about. He wished us luck, laughed, and hung up.”

“I can shroud us if you can get me out of here. We can run away from the hungry lions and tigers.”

“The kittens would starve, and they’re sick. They need help.”

“They want to eat us, Jonas.”

“While they do want to eat us, they still need help.”

I glared at the incubus, who would pay even more for his various crimes. “If I get eaten by hungry lions and tigers, I’m haunting your ass for the rest of eternity. You will try to feed, and I will be there, making commentary about your performance and scaring off your next meal.”

“I see you’re already jealous, and I haven’t even gotten a chance to dine upon your delicious flesh yet.” Then, because he was a bastard of an incubus, Jonas leered at me.