by Kim Harrison
“Two machines my father programmed for a branch of genetic research that has been outlawed. This is the second time I’ve been broken into in less than a year. Damn.”
I could count on one hand the number of times I’d heard him swear. In the background, Ceri called faintly for Trent. “She’s okay,” Trent said, his voice muffled. “I’ll tell you in a moment.” When he came back to me, concern was heavy in his voice. “Rachel, maybe you should sit this one out,” he said, and I flopped my head back against the top of the chair. “Let the I.S. and FIB handle it.”
“Not you too,” I almost moaned. “I thought you of all people would understand why I have to stop these guys!”
“If they’re trying to duplicate demon blood, where is the sense in putting yourself within their reach? Let me put Quen on it. Actually, I’m going to do that anyway, so . . . wait, will you?”
I exhaled, tired, then jumped when my cell phone began humming from my back pocket. “Good. If anyone can help, it’s Quen,” I said as I twisted, trying to reach my cell. “But I can’t sit here when Nina has promised to make me the scapegoat. We both know the FIB is in over their heads. I have to be there. Me, Ivy, and Jenks.”
“You’d be more effective without that band of silver around your wrist,” he said, and my lips pressed. I hated it when he was right.
“I’m the only person this side of the ley lines who knows anything about demon magic,” I said as I put my feet on the floor and used two fingers to wiggle out my cell phone. My eyes went to the screen and my shoulders tightened. “Crap on toast. Trent? Glenn is on my cell.”
“Rachel, we need to talk.”
I couldn’t wait anymore, and I flipped my cell phone up. “Glenn?” I said before it went to voice mail. “Hey, can you hold on a sec? I’m on the phone with Trent.”
Glenn made a choking cough. “Mr. Kalamack? Rachel, leave the man alone. He’s not responsible for HAPA’s activities.”
“I know!” I said, trying to talk to both men at the same time. “Can you hold on a sec?”
From my other ear, Trent cleared his throat. “As entertaining as this is, Ceri and I would like you to come to tea tomorrow,” he said dryly. “I’d like to talk further with you about the safeguards I’ve developed to make taking that charmed silver off your wrist safer.”
I took a breath to say no, then exhaled, rubbing my forehead. “You think we can overpower Al? Find a way to keep him from taking me to the ever-after? Trent, I can’t live there. I can’t!”
“And I know Ceri would love to see you. The girls as well,” he continued as if I hadn’t said anything, but I’d rescued him from the hell of the ever-after, and he of all people would understand my fear.
“Rachel!” Glenn shouted into my other ear. “This is important.”
“Tomorrow, say three?” Trent asked. “They’ll be fresh from their naps.”
It was more likely that he’d have the charms he wanted to contain Al prepped by then. I stifled a shudder. Maybe together we could keep Al off us long enough to explain, but caging him would only piss the demon off even more. “Tomorrow at three. I’d like to talk to you about a block for memory charms, too. And, Trent? I’m sorry about the park.”
He grumbled softly. “Don’t worry about it. Watch yourself in the meantime. Everyone knows who you are.”
I couldn’t help my smile. I might almost think he cared. “See you then,” I said, and I clicked off the phone.
“Glenn?” I said, setting the landline phone down and shifting the cell phone to my ear. “Why didn’t you call Ivy on her cell?”
“You are unbelievable,” the man said, his irritation obvious. “Get your good boots on. I don’t want to see you in garden shoes and grubby jeans anymore. Now Nina thinks we don’t pay you enough. The amulets you gave me pinged. We’ve found their current base.”
I sat up, adrenaline flowing. “Ivy! Jenks!” I shouted, then turned back to Glenn. “Where are you?”
“Five minutes from the church,” he said, and I heard a background of radio chatter. “We have them triangulated at an abandoned industrial park. FIB and I.S. We’re waiting for you.”
They were waiting for me. I almost friggin’ cried.
Jenks darted in. “We’re on?” he asked, a bright silver dust slipping from him.
I eyed him, worried. He was flying well, and his winter clothes from last year were over his arm. “We’re on. You’ll need those. And anything else Belle has come up with for the cold.”
“Tink’s little pink dildo!” the pixy shouted, and he darted out, as excited as I was.
“We’ll be ready,” I said into the phone. “Thanks, Glenn.”
“Don’t thank me until it’s over,” he muttered. “You’re staying in the car.”
I snapped my phone shut and sank back into the cushions. Car? I doubt it. My eyes touched upon my band of charmed silver, and a flash of worry went through me. “That’s why I’ve got the sleepy-time charms,” I whispered as I stood. I was going to kick some serious ass, and I didn’t need demon magic to do it.
Chapter Twelve
I stood from my crouch beside the warm, ticking car and handed Ivy the night binoculars. The brisk wind tugged at a strand of hair that had escaped my ponytail, and I tucked it behind an ear as I looked at the industrial building across the parking lot. The lights of Cincy were distant, and no moon lit the spaces in between. Deserted for forty years, the industrial area had been left to rot when the world fell apart. Trains still ran through here, but they didn’t stop anymore.
I felt akin to the empty tracks and vacant buildings, abandoned when things went wrong while others thrived. Frowning, I fingered the band of silver around my wrist, thinking. Simply cutting it off would send a burst of ley-line force through me large enough to fry my brain. It was, after all, a piece of the elves’ and demons’ historic war, designed to make demons almost useless. Being able to cut it off wouldn’t be very effective. It had to be disenchanted first. That meant Trent.
His offer to help me pacify Al long enough to explain had me more than nervous. I wasn’t so sure that anything we could do or say would keep me on this side of the ley lines once Al knew I was alive. The ever-after was a hellhole, and despite my earlier thoughts that demons were more moral than HAPA, they were only when they felt like it. It was like trying to play cards with five-year-olds who kept changing the rules and lying. If you didn’t have the clout to make them hold to their rules, they wouldn’t.
I’m going to talk to Trent about the options. That’s all, I thought, and stomach tight, I blew on my cold hands and shoved the thought away to worry about later. It was above forty-three degrees, so Jenks would be okay, but it was going to get colder the longer this took. Glenn had driven us here, taking the last road with his lights off and the car barely moving, his excitement pushing Ivy’s buttons to the breaking point. Wayde had thought it was amusing, but I didn’t see anything funny about it.
That had been about fifteen minutes ago, and I was getting antsy myself as I watched car after car show up and the slow deployment of people and equipment. Wayde was fidgeting by the I.S. van specially designed to hold magic-using criminals. He shouldn’t even be out here, but they were cutting him lots of slack. Jenks was somewhere on the other side of the building. I didn’t like him being gone this long, especially when it was so cold.
I grimaced, my low boots grinding into the grit. The parking lot was laced with cracks that allowed grass as tall as my thigh to grow, and the entire area reminded me of the tomato cannery that Ivy and I had once stormed when I’d been interning at the I.S. with her. A Were had died that night—one we’d been trying to save. I hoped it wasn’t a premonition. The other Were, though, we’d saved. It bothered me that I couldn’t remember her name.
I half turned when Glenn broke from the FIB officer he was talking to, his motions sharp as he stomped our way, dress shoes kicking up tiny pebbles and his suit jacket open. Ivy stood, exhaling as she handed me the binoculars. “Ple
ase tell me that’s not the tomato cannery,” I said.
“It’s not,” she said as Glenn stopped between us. His mood was tense, and I could smell his aftershave on the cool night air. There were two yellow FIB vests in his hand, and I eyed them suspiciously. They were probably ACG, but I still didn’t want to wear one.
“You’ve been here before?” he asked as he handed one to me, and sure enough, my fingers felt the somewhat slimy feel of material coated with an anticharm spray. Maybe if I put it on they wouldn’t give me any crap about being part of the team storming HAPA’s hold.
Shaking my head no, I put the vest on over my thin leather coat. I wasn’t wearing leather as a matter of style—though it did look good—but as a matter of my not wanting to leave skin grafts on the pavement. Chances were good I’d go down at least once before the sun rose. “No,” I said flatly, not wanting to explain. “Is everyone finally ready to move?”
His motions holding an excited quickness, Glenn looked at his wrist, the dial softly glowing a faint blue. “No,” he said, and Wayde rubbed his beard and edged closer, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders up about his ears. “Someone from the FIB wants to observe. We wait until she gets here.”
Ivy rolled her eyes, black in the dim light. “Are they questioning your methods?”
“I’ve no idea,” Glenn said, his low voice going lower. “They’ve never done this before.”
A soft “mmm” came from Ivy, and she touched his shoulder. “You’ve never worked this closely with the I.S. before.”
Wayde’s posture said he wanted to argue with me again, and I turned my back on him, relieved when I spotted Nina striding in from the distant parking area at the head of about six people. “Excuse me,” I said softly, then started her way. I could tell even from this distance and in the dark that it was Nina the DMV clerk, not Nina the dead vamp, and I wanted to talk to her.
Behind me, I heard Ivy say, “I’m not wearing that,” and Wayde’s nervous laugh.
Finding a smile somewhere, I pasted it on my face, extending my hand as I approached. The young woman took it, looking a little more unsure than that afternoon in the DMV office. A jumpy wariness had taken the place of her eager, confident excitement, and she looked somewhat wan, even in the dark, her attractive features tight and drawn. Nina the DMV clerk wasn’t looking healthy anymore, even if she was better dressed and had a bevy of people looking to her.
“How are you doing?” I asked, and her eyes jerked to mine, probably catching the wisp of pity that had arisen from nowhere.
Her hand pulled from mine, and the positive smile returned—barely hiding a flash of fear. “I’m fine, of course,” she said, her entourage coming to a halt behind her. “Why would I be otherwise?”
I shrugged, rocking back to get a glimpse of Ivy and Glenn. “I’ve seen how hard it is to have a god inside you,” I said, and her eyes flashed a frightened black. Her hands trembled, and my old vampire scar tingled as she suppressed a rising hunger, a hunger he had instilled in her, one she didn’t have the practice to contain on her own.
Crap, Ivy hadn’t been kidding, and I stifled a surge of fear. This woman wasn’t safe anymore. “I’m surprised he’s not here himself. It being dark and all,” I added, trying to say something to take her mind off her needs while she tried to get a grip on them.
Nina breathed slow and deep, standing stiffly as she regained control. She looked scared. She should be. “He doesn’t come out of the basement much, actually,” she said as she pulled her shoulders back to find a stronger posture. “He was—”
I looked up when her words cut off. Nina shivered, and like magic, I watched the I.S. boss slip in behind her eyes, shake the reins, so to speak, and take control.
“ . . . waiting for you to arrive,” she said, her voice now low and soothing as she eyed my leather with a much darker thought behind her appraisal. She blinked in appreciation, and I felt myself flush.
“Hi,” I said dryly, and she shook her head.
“I already said hello,” she said as she waved her people off and took my elbow to direct me back to Glenn, Wayde, and Ivy. “Are you not listening?”
“Don’t touch me,” I said as I pulled out of her grip. “Or aren’t you listening to me? I don’t like what you’re doing to Nina. You need to spend some time helping her gain control of the crap you’ve been turning on in her brain before she hurts someone.”
“Nina is fine,” she said, smiling even more beautifully as she tugged the lace hem of Nina’s shirt out where it belonged to make a more feminine statement in the otherwise business-looking attire. “I’ve not been at an actual tag for decades,” she said as she watched Ivy and Glenn, still arguing over the FIB vest, then turned her attention to the dark building. “You’ve no idea how odd it feels to be able to use magic openly like this. You will participate?”
In the tag? I patted my hip, and then my back where my splat guns were. “Don’t see why not.” And by God, they were going to let me, I thought, glancing at Wayde.
The soft popping of gravel under tires became obvious. Ivy, too, looked up, shoving the vest back at Glenn, her posture becoming somewhat hesitant as she took Nina in, evaluating her, perhaps.
“About bloody time. I think they might be ready,” I said when the FIB car swung around to park beside Glenn’s, and Nina and I started toward it. “Ivy, have you heard from Jenks?” I asked, and she shook her head, clearly as worried as I was.
“Ahh,” Nina said as she gazed at the sleek black car and rubbed her hands together as we walked. “Have you met Teresa Cordova, Ms. Morgan? She’s the woman that Detective Glenn probably told you about. She wants to talk to you. Something about . . . a list?”
My pace bobbled, and Nina smoothly put a hand to the small of my back, propelling me forward. The scent of vampire incense rolled over me, and my pulse hammered as I was reminded of Kisten. “Uh,” I said, halting ten feet from the still closed car.
Nina leaned close, laughter in her voice as she said, “That’s what I told her you told me when I brought it up. I don’t trust her any deeper than I can bury her. Watch her face when she realizes who I am. She’s fun.”
The car door opened, and Jenks darted out, his dust a bright silver, telling me he was fine. “I could have made better time if I’d flown!” he exclaimed, making bright circles around me. “Tink’s panties, Rache, the guns they got over there! You ready? Seen the plan?”
I held my breath until his dust settled. I had seen the plans—several times, actually. And “fun” wasn’t the right word to describe the older woman getting out of the car.
Impatience colored her motions, making her look jerky as she tugged on her gray business skirt to get rid of the wrinkles. She looked about fifty-something, a very unhappy fifty-something in low heels and hose. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like her hair was an attractive mix of hard black and silver that only a lucky few women get as they grow older. A lined face, narrow chin, and no makeup made her look even more severe. She sent her gaze over the assembled team, her expression looking as if she smelled something bad.
An aide had his head near hers, and the woman’s eyes flicked to mine and held when he said something. Putting a small hand on his arm, she brushed by him, headed for me.
“Watch now,” Nina said as she took a deferential step backward to leave me all alone. “She doesn’t know it’s me,” she said into my ear, leaning forward to whisper it. “You can’t pay for entertainment like this.”
Curious, I thought, feeling vulnerable until Jenks landed on my shoulder. A vampire with a sense of humor? Perhaps the fun-loving, skydiving Nina was rubbing off on him.
“Teresa,” Nina said suddenly, her voice pointedly cheerful, “have you had the pleasure of meeting Rachel and her team yet? They’re one of the biggest assets this city has. Look, she brought her own spell pistols. Grand little weapons, those. I wish we’d had them when I was still in the field. They’re powered by compressed air and don’t need to be license
d!”
The woman’s hand extending toward me faltered, and then she grimaced, reaching out to take mine in a firm grip, warm from the glove she was wearing against the chill. “I see you’ve met Felix,” she said, her aide standing an irritating three feet behind her, talking into a cell phone.
Nina laughed at her sour expression, and I wondered. Felix? I thought he hadn’t wanted me knowing who he was. “Pleasure,” I said, wincing when my band of charmed silver slipped down to thunk into my wrist.
“I’ve explained this, Teresa,” Nina said as our hands parted. “Call me Nina now. That is who I am.” Leaning conspiratorially to me, she whispered loudly, “Felix was the name of the man I did my daylight work through when we first met. I guess that sort of thing sticks with the living. I miss him,” she said, and I leaned away as Jenks buzzed a warning that she was too close. “He was very small, but quick. Died of an infected tooth, poor boy.”
“You don’t get out much, huh?” I said as I stood between Cincinnati’s head of the I.S. and the head of the FIB, wondering why they were here. Really. Why were they here?
Nina smiled deviously, and something in me twisted. She looked like a woman, but the arrogant eyes raking over me were very male. “Not that anyone can prove, no.”
Lips pressed, Teresa brought her attention back from Glenn, waiting a respectful distance away. “Thank you for your help today, Ms. Morgan,” she said, a big “however” in her tone.
From my shoulder, Jenks coughed, saying, “Lame!”
Her eyes tightened at the corners. “And your help in the past as well,” she said, her eye twitching as she saw the tattoo fluff visible on my collarbone. “It’s the future that concerns me.”
I kept my hands in my pockets as my tension rose. “We get the bad guys and go home. What’s more to know?” This was taking forever. If it had been just Ivy, Jenks, and me, we would have been in and out by now.
The woman sighed, and Nina shifted, smiling as if waiting for the expected punch line. “Ms. Morgan, we would appreciate a list of the magic you can do as a demon,” she said, and Jenks made a weird, almost unheard whine. “For your own protection.”