Free Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong

city. After a moment, he glanced back at me.
    “Well, come on.” He waved for me to lie down.

    I glanced at the ground.
    “It’s not that dirty. You’re washable.” He peered across the roof. “Yo! Sonny!”
    Sonny appeared, sighed and shook his head, but sat down beside his friend, knees drawn up. I hesitated, then laid down.
    The city stretched out before us, and it was breathtaking. A few blocks away, a bay glittered with the reflection of a hundred lights. Boats bobbed on the water like toy ships. Salsa music drifted on the brine-scented breeze. The humidity from earlier was all but gone, the night air pleasantly cool.
    “People knock Miami, but they’re just envious,” Jaz said. “Look at it. Sand, surf, sun every day of the year.
    Goddamned perfect.”
    He went quiet for a moment, then stretched out his hand, pointing to the skyscrapers ringing the bay. “You see that one? Third left from the tallest? You know what that is?”
    “No.”
    “Cortez Cabal headquarters. I bet if you had binoculars, you could see Benicio himself, up in his penthouse office, counting his billions.”
    I laughed.
    “Can you imagine working there?” Jaz said. “A waterfront view from every window? How much does real estate like that even cost? And that’s only the location. I hear they have marble floors in the damned bathrooms. The toilets probably run on Evian.”
    “Perrier, I think,” Sonny said.
    “You know what I mean. All that money. All that power. And where do the Cortezes get it? Not by casting their own spells, that’s for sure. They use our powers to line their coffers. The supernaturals working for them think they’ve got it made. Like our parents, Sonny. Never a bad thing to say about the St. Clouds, no matter what the bastards did to them. They were just happy to have a job. Used them up and spit them out. Like slaves in the cotton fields, pouring out their lifeblood for the masters.”
    “You’ve been hanging out with Guy too long,” Sonny said.
    I knew we should be going, but neither seemed in any hurry, and sitting out here, when our mark could return anytime, set my heart tripping with a steady stream of chaos.
    As I glanced at the distant Cabal headquarters, I found my excuse for staying longer: using the opening about the Cabals to get information.
    “So Guy doesn’t care for the Cabals?” I said. “I can see his point. They make life cushy for supernaturals—
    access to health care, special education for our kids, a community that understands us—but the employees pay for those perks. Still, it’s not really much different from any corporation. They use your skills and give you a sweet benefits package in return.”
    “But in a corporation, if you screw up, they don’t kill you. Unless you work for the Mafia.”
    “Which is what some say a Cabal really is. So that’s what bothers Guy, then? The abuses of power?”
    “More the concentration of power. The old-boys club, to the nth degree.” Jaz waved at the building. “If you worked there, Faith, you wouldn’t have a shot of getting to the upper floors unless you wanted to be a secretary. Not because you’re a woman, but because you aren’t one of them. None of us are. Maybe everyone on those upper floors isn’t a Cortez, but you can bet your ass he’s a sorcerer. No magicians or druids or half-demons. And if you were a werewolf or vampire? You couldn’t get through the front door. Even Guy, who’s a sorcerer, wouldn’t rise very high, as smart as he is. He doesn’t have the connections.”
    “Does he talk about this a lot?”
    Jaz laughed. “You mean: are you going to have to sit through political sermons? Nah. He might talk about it now and then, but he’s usually quiet.”
    “Except with Jaz,” Sonny said.
    Jaz shrugged. “He’s got a lot of good ideas. I think it’s just been bugging him lately, so he wants someone to talk to—someone he can sound off to about the stuff that’s been