A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel) by SM Blooding

picked up a case file from behind his desk. He didn’t have to stoop, so it had to be on a side table or something. He tossed it toward her. It landed on the corner of his desk. “Innocent people, Paige.”
    She picked up the folder and opened it.
    Angela Wright. Age thirty-two. Mother of four. Died from unexplained causes. Her heart had been shredded inside of her body.
    “She killed eight people before we exorcised the demon inside her.”
    “You?” Paige asked in surprise, her eyebrows raised. “Exorcised her?”
    Henry nodded, his shoulders slumped with weariness. “I did.”
    “Is that the reason she—” Paige gestured to the file. The reason exorcisms weren’t performed by just anyone was because they could get them wrong. Very wrong. Like letting-a-demon-kill-the-host-on-the-way-out kind of wrong.
    Dexx frowned and pulled the file from her lap to read through it. “Oh. Really? Her heart was shredded?”
    Henry huffed and pulled another file from behind his desk. “Yes. It has something to do with the exorcism. We think. But we don’t know what.”
    Paige stood up and took two steps to see around his desk. Henry had been retrieving those files from a tall stack of files. There were dozens of them. Maybe even a hundred? Most were not thick.
    Dexx had taken the other file Henry had offered. His eyes widened as he closed it. “We need to look at your exorcism.”
    “Or teach him how to do it right,” Paige muttered.
    “Or that.”
    “Why didn’t you ask Balnore?” Paige knelt beside the stack of files and rifled through them gently. All of these were her fault. All these people. The people they killed. Their deaths? Yes. She could have stopped all of that.
    If she’d been there.
    “He hasn’t been returning my calls.” Henry canted his jaw to the side and sighed down at the pile of papers beside his chair. “We really need your help, Paige. You came home at the perfect time.”
    Why had so many people been insistent she come home? Everyone, to include Oriel, the Scribe of Hell? Was it because of this? Did Oriel know what was going on here? What Henry was trying to do?
    Why wouldn’t he have known? He was Hell’s scribe. He must have seen just about everything down there.
    “I haven’t decided if I’m staying.” She didn’t even realize she was going to speak and the words were already out of her mouth.
    “What?” Concerned alarm crashed over Henry’s expression. “But we need you.”
    “Yes, well—” Paige licked her lips. “I could be used just about anywhere.” She didn’t even know if that was true. She didn’t know because she hadn’t done any research. Maybe she should be on the road, like Dexx. Going from one town to the next cleaning up the demon messes?
    Henry released two quick breaths that were almost words as he floundered. “I thought…” He shook his head. “You came home.”
    Oh, man. Seeing him like this, this surprised and at a loss? She felt like a complete ass for entertaining the thought of not staying. “I was fired.”
    “I heard.”
    “So, you know what happened.”
    “It wasn’t your fault.”
    “No. It wasn’t. However, maybe if I hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”
    Henry snorted, anger settling around his eyes. He picked up a file and flung it at her. “That happened while you were gone. So did this one. And this one.”
    She batted them away. There was no way of catching them the way he tossed them. “Okay! I get it.” She leaned forward to retrieve them and placed them back on the stack. She stood and walked back to her chair. “These things happen whether I’m here or not.”
    “They do. And, trust me, without you, things get a lot worse.”
    Even though he was making her feel like an ass, she still wasn’t sold on the idea that this was the best place for her.
    “A few people started working these cases on their own.” Henry scratched his eyebrow, all signs of anger erased. “I figured it out pretty quick. With