While Hope tries to pass as human by holding down a job working for one of the tabloids reporting on the supernatural, the majority of those like her work for one of three or four crime-style families called the Cabals. These Cabals are more like feudal overlords for their employees, providing them with everything from communities to be a part of to safe doctors to attend to their specific illnesses. All they require in return is your life. Once you sign on with a Cabal, the only way you leave is usually feet first - or natural causes, if you play by the rules, or slightly less natural ones if you decide to seek other employment.
The supernatural world isn't that much different from the human world, and comes complete with its own set of ingrained prejudices. Like any other corporate environment, men still rule the roost. If you're a werewolf, you need not even bother filling out an application.
Then there are those pesky young folk who don't want to play by the rules and set up their own little operations - or gangs. The Cabals let them operate in their territory as long as they stay within certain boundaries, like not making it obvious to humans that there are supernatural elements among them. If they start stepping over the line, the Cabals step in and put them in their place. In Personal Demon one of these gangs has started to step over the line and a Cabal that Hope owes a debt to calls in their marker to get her to infiltrate them to find out what's going on.
It's not just Hope who owes the debt to the Cabal; her sort of ex-boyfriend Karl owes as well. Karl has issues though, not the least of those being he's a werewolf whose been a lone wolf for way too many years. The thought of permanency had sent him scurrying with his tail between his legs. Hope's a big girl now, though, and doesn't need anybody's help to get the job done.
That doesn't turn out to be the case and Karl ends up sticking his snout in. Predictably, once Hope had infiltrated the gang, she had managed to find a young man to get hot and bothered with. Not just physically, either. He was just full of lovely, chaotic emotions she could feed off as well. That relationship is cut short, not just because Karl shows up, but also because her young man and his best friend in the gang are kidnapped. When all the clues point to the Cabal who hired her as the culprits for the snatch, Hope and Karl soon find themselves investigating what looks like an internal coup within the Cabal.
Article comments