by Kim Harrison
“Oh God, that’s good,” I said, and Mark backed into his uninvoked circle with a nervous smile. Trent was still at the door, and I told Jenks to stay with him with a twitch of my finger. Dali noticed, putting a hand on Newt’s arm to keep her silent when she took a breath to say something.
“The world will change,” I said, echoing Mica, setting my coffee down even as that first swallow buzzed through me. “See, I think that’s funny. It already has, and you missed it.”
Al’s scowl hesitated. Emboldened, I pushed from the counter to claim a spiral circle inlaid on the floor as my own.
“Why are you here?” Mica said, but he wasn’t moving. “You think the elves mean anything?” he added, goat-slitted eyes flicking to Trent. “They have no Sa’han. It’s the only reason you’ve been allowed your game of pretend. You’re doing us a big favor.”
Guilt was a quick stab, and I refused to look at Trent, knowing my feelings would give me away. “I’m not here for the elves, I’m here for the FIB,” I said flippantly. “Before you get yourself into more trouble, you need to know there are laws on the books now concerning demons, demon magic, and demon activity.”
They laughed, but there were more than twenty of them in here now, all but the original eight or so standing at the windows, listening. “We don’t recognize any law but our own,” Mica said, turning his back on me.
“It’s your choice. You sure it’s a good one?”
It wasn’t me who made him turn back around, it was the questioning faces at the window. At the corner booth, Dali squinted at me in warning. Warning me to be careful? To be quiet?
“I’m serious,” I said lightly, moving to keep their eyes on me. “You’ve been stuck in that stinky hole of forced existence for too long, and the world has changed. Al might be able to adapt, but most of you need help. I can do that.”
“You think we need help?”
It had been Dali, and my pace bobbled at the flash of fear that lit through me and died. Damn it, they noticed.
“I don’t think you see what’s going on here,” the round, powerful demon said.
I could actually hear the soft hush of sliding fabric as everyone turned from him to me. Swallowing, I lifted my chin. “I see demons having coffee in a coffee shop. What do you see?”
Dali hesitated, looking at the deeper meaning past my simple statement. I’d gotten to know them pretty well in the last year or so, and I knew that this was what they wanted. They wanted acceptance. They wanted to be part of something alive again, something where their voices and actions meant more than a stale circle of parties and distractions. But their pride, I knew, would get in the way. They were all-friggin’ powerful. Blah, blah, blah. What did it really mean when all was said and done? Nothing. Nothing they did meant anything.
Feeling them waver, I shook my head. “It’s not the same world it was two thousand years ago. Hell, it’s changed in the last six months to make room for you,” I said, words almost tripping over themselves as I tried to get it out before someone opened his mouth and ruined it. “They knew you were coming, and they made room for you.” Someone snickered, and I spun. “Hey!” I shouted, and Trent jumped, his hold on the line zinging through me. “They made room for you. Don’t you get it? They didn’t make weapons, or spells, or traps. They made room!”
Arms crossed over his chest, Mica stared at me. “They’re scared and stupid.”
“It means you belong, damn it!” I shouted as a rumble of discussion rose. “Are they scared? Hell yes. Are there going to be people who will try to ruin it for you? Goad you into making decisions so that fear overflows and starts a war? Absolutely. They wouldn’t be people if they didn’t, but that doesn’t rub out the fact that they made room for you!”
“We thrive on war!” Mica exclaimed as the demons closest to him inched away.
I gave him a disparaging look until his eyes narrowed. “Right,” I scoffed. “And that’s why you can’t live on the ever-after’s surface anymore.”
Mica stood. Trent stiffened, and I moved. Arms swinging, I got in Mica’s face. The demon hesitated for the smallest instant as I stared up at him, expression cross. “Trent just spent almost a year getting legislation on the books for you. Lost his fortune doing it,” I barked at the demon. It seemed to be the right approach, as the tension defused with a soft chuckle from Dali.
“Ah, not all of it,” Trent said from the door.
“Ruined his reputation,” I continued, hands on my hips.
“Er . . . ,” Trent muttered.
“An elf did this,” I said loudly. “Not just any elf, but the same one whose father found a way for me to survive being a demon. He broke the curse, you idiot! What more do you want? I want this to work. I want all of you here with me in the sun. Don’t screw this up for my kids, Mica, or I swear I’ll take care of your family planning for you the hard way. Permanently and painfully,” I added just for the hell of it.
Oh God, I couldn’t back up without looking scared, so I stood there, praying someone would say something.
“Work in their system?” Al said, and I spun, both relieved and petrified at his next words. Of all the demons here, I feared his voice the most. “Settle down? Get a job? Pay taxes?”
I warmed at the titter, and I lifted my chin. Mica backed up, and I inched away from him as well. “Why not?” I said. “It’s better than starting a war that you’ll eventually die from. And that’s another thing. No more stealing people into slavery. It would be a nice gesture of goodwill if you freed your familiars.”
Trent winced, probably thinking I’d gone too far, but if I didn’t ask for more, they’d give me nothing. Sure enough, most laughed. I was losing them. Al knew it. They all did.
“Not going to happen, Rachel,” Al said, the thread of genuine sorrow sparking my hope. “We will not be taken again by elven trickery.” He looked at Dali and elegantly sipped from his paper cup. “A job,” he scoffed.
I stifled a shudder as Jenks hummed closer. “They’re not going for it,” he whispered.
My jaw clenched. This was my only chance, and I’d be damned if I let Al ruin it with his “poor me” attitude. “Hey!” I shouted, making Jenks ink a bright dust. “You will keep your mischief and misdeeds within the confines of the laws of this society, or I’ll sling each and every one of your asses back into the ever-after and Trent will curse you to remain there forever.”
“Ah, Rache?” Jenks whispered as Trent paled.
“You know we can do it,” I said, warming at the dubious looks. “We beat Ku’Sox.”
“Rachel!” Trent cried in fear, but I’d already felt the pull on the line and had spun, my word of invocation filling the circles I’d asked Mark to paint the floor with last year.
Demons cackled and guffawed as Mica’s shot was deflected into the ceiling by Trent’s cast charm before coming close to hitting my protection circle. Scared, I looked first at Trent, remembering to breathe when I saw him wreathed in his own protection, Jenks at his side.
My hand glowed with my power held in check, and I slowly spun to Mica. Fine. We could get the hard part over with first.
“That is enough!” Newt said as she stood, and the laughter slowly ebbed.
Trent came forward to join me, and I dropped my circle, loving his grace and bound anger—and that he was strong enough to stand beside me when my life got ugly. My God, he looked good, his feet barely seeming to touch the floor, and the tips of his hair floated, waving before his brilliant green eyes.
“That could have been a mistake,” he warned Mica as he stood a little in front of me, his voice having a singsong cadence and holding an unsaid threat. “Don’t do that again.”
Adrenaline seemed to rake over my skin as Al stood as well. “You had my help bringing Ku’Sox down,” he growled. “I don’t stand with you anymore.”
I edged past Trent, trying to get to Al before he jumped out. I knew him, and I knew the signs. He was leaving. Running away again.
“Fine,” I snapped, and someone fro
m the back laughed. “Run off so they can kill me without you watching. But put a playroom in your new mansion, Al, because if Trent and I die, you get Lucy.”
Dali’s head jerked up, and I swear I heard Jenks’s dust sizzle, on fire. “He what?” Jenks shouted, but I was staring at Al, reading his shock. He wasn’t going to jump out now, and that’s all that mattered.
“Mother pus bucket . . . ,” the demon said, his blocky face pale as he looked from me to Trent and back again. His cheeks flashed red at a laugh. “I will not be responsible for elf brats!”
Trent’s presence edged in beside mine again, and it was all I could do to not take his hand, but big bad-ass runners facing down a coffee shop full of demons do not hold hands. “I had the papers drawn up six months ago,” Trent said, and Jenks hit the table, his wings unmoving. “If Rachel and I die, Lucy goes to you. You’ll hold the elven future, Al.”
“Oh my God,” Newt breathed, and Jenks made it back into the air, his bright silver dust falling from him like stardust.
“I will not!” Al bellowed as he spun and fussed, but I could tell he was flattered. The demon was dying inside that someone—anyone—trusted their children to him. I blinked fast, wanting to give him a hug, but bad-ass runners didn’t do that either.
“It’d be easier just to let both of us live,” I said, but only Al, Dali, and Newt heard me over the caterwauling of laughter. “And if you kill just one of us, you won’t survive the revenge of the other. I promise you that.”
Al was speechless, a hand on the table as he tried to understand.
Newt gave a long, meaningful stare to Dali, and when he shrugged, she slipped out from the booth. “Gentlemen?” she said softly, then shouted it, “Gentlemen!”
Slowly they quieted. Trent and I backed to the middle of the room. There had to be at least fifty demons in here, and I heard the cooling click on. It didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would.
“Gentlemen,” Newt said a third time as she smoothed her robes. “I propose we take the time until sunrise to weigh Rachel’s proposal.”
“I do not make deals with elves!” Mica protested. “They’re chattel! Slaves!”
No one moved, either away from him or toward him. They were balanced, and I forced myself to breathe.
“Perhaps,” Newt said, voice as silky as a slinking cat. “But they haven’t spent the last two thousand years trapped in a bubble of reality kept alive by tenuous threads of energy as we have been. Rachel is a demon. She’s also the elven Tal Sa’han, the one who sways the actions of the putrid, stinking chattel of an elf. You can strike a deal with her—can you not?”
My mouth went dry, and I edged back until I could feel Trent’s warmth. Tal Sa’han. Quen had called me that once in bitter sarcasm, and while Mal Sa’han held romantic overtones, Tal Sa’han did not. It wasn’t exactly an adviser, but rather the person the Sa’han thought of when he made decisions. I ask myself: Will this decision take me closer or farther from you? And then it’s so clear. Even if it doesn’t make sense at the time, resonated in me, and my pulse quickened. But he wasn’t the Sa’han. It was a title awarded by fealty, and no elf looked to him anymore. Because of me.
“I will not bind myself to human law!” Mica said, jerking me back to the present. “We’re free, and we take our rightful place!”
“You don’t know that!” another demon exclaimed. “What happens if we’re pulled back when the sun comes up?”
Mica’s hand glowed with black smut. “What if we aren’t?” he proposed.
Trent inched up to stand beside me, his eyes darting as he took in the demons with a professional eye. “They’re divided,” he said, breath tickling my neck. “Interesting.”
I suppose, but I’d be more excited if they were all for behaving themselves. Did it matter if Trent wasn’t the Sa’han if the demons thought he was? It wasn’t as if they’d ever come to an agreement with Landon.
Newt cleared her throat, putting me on edge as she came to stand beside me in a clear show of support or perhaps protection. “Where do you want to be next week, Mica?” she said, and I shivered at the certainty in her voice. “Alone in some godforsaken island cathedral playing god with people terrified of you? I’ve done that. It gets boring fast. I’ve looked at these human laws, and they’re more complex and devious with loopholes and clauses than Dali can structure in a thousand years. Their court system alone boggles the mind with the red tape that can be used to twist ends. If we can’t work our will within them, then we don’t deserve the name demon.”
They were listening, but only a fraction were happy, and none was convinced.
“We have a chance to be a part of something again,” she said, stock-still. “All in favor of playing by the rules and making Rachel our liaison with reality-based law?”
I jerked, and beside me, Trent grunted. “Hey, wait a moment,” I said, but Dali had stood with a resounding “Aye!”
He was the only one.
“Opposed?” Newt said cheerfully.
“Nay!” I said, panicking. “I never agreed to this!”
“Never!” most of the demons had shouted, but a few were silent, and I panicked some more as I shook Trent’s hand off my elbow.
“I suggest you leave, Mica,” Newt growled, and I swear the air sparkled around her. “Go away so we can get on with it.”
But only Dali had agreed, and I pulled on the line, my knees wobbling as I yanked what I could from the rest to try to prevent a bloodbath.
“Bravo, Rachel,” Newt praised, a small smile hovering over her face. Her eyes darted past me, and her hand flashed out in threat. I spun, doing the same. Mica. Our thrown energy smacked into the demon before he could loose his magic, bowling him over the table and into the far wall. Demons scattered to avoid him, and the black flickering in his fist went out as he groaned.
“Maybe you should leave,” I said, voice quavering. They wouldn’t make a decision until they knew if the sun would sling them back to the ever-after or not.
In pairs and groups they left, their expressions varying from worry to outright anger as they winked out. I didn’t care where they went, only that they were gone. Mica was the last, his murderous look chilling me as he vanished.
She’d called me the Tal Sa’han . . . My pulse quickened, and I met Trent’s eyes, finding him just as thoughtful as I.
“Damn woman!” Jenks shrilled, and I shivered as his dust seemed to burn my aura. “Where did you learn that?”
“Al,” I said, seeing him still with us. The demon was sweating, and I wondered if he’d been as scared as I’d been. I took a breath to try to mend the rift between us, but he vanished, the black curl of ever-after magic swirling up as if to smother him before it fell in on itself with a soft pop. My stomach hurt, and I blinked fast. At least he hadn’t tried to kill me this time.
“That went rather well.” Newt’s words were precise and holding zero sarcasm.
“Well, you say?” Trent said, shaky as he almost fell into a chair.
“That was good?” Jenks echoed, dust sparkling as he flew to Trent. “Did you really give him your kid if you and Rachel kick off? Damn! That’s either really stupid or really smart.”
Trent eyed him sourly. “It’ll ensure both girls’ safety if Rachel or I aren’t here to see to it.”
Dali snickered, easing back into the booth to take up most of the seat. His opinion that it was really stupid was obvious.
“They left,” Newt said saucily. “I’m here drinking mar-r-r-r-rvelous coffee. Therefore, it went well. Mark, love. Another if you will? Put it on my tab.”
Tab? I slowly sank into the nearest chair. Mark wobbled to the door and turned the closed sign around. Good idea.
Elbow on the table, Dali dropped his chin into his hand. I caught a hint of worry as he looked at the clock. “Three against all the rest? Not good odds, Newt.”
He had included me. Interesting.
“Four.” Trent’s attention rose from his hands, having been gauging their
shaking.
“Five,” Jenks added, and Newt eyed him until the pixy flipped her off.
Shrugging, Newt sipped her cooling coffee. “They’ll come around as soon as they know they won’t be pulled back to that hole come sunup. They’re just worried, poor dears. It’s not as if we have to trust the elves. Just not let them kill us.”
Poor dears, my ass. Tired, I looked for and found my bag, still on the pickup counter.
Newt’s eyes shifted to the window. A big black car was pulling up in disregard to the parking lines. It wasn’t the I.S. vans I had asked for, and Newt laughed at my fast inhalation when burly vampires began getting out. Shit, it was Cormel. But then I grew angry. Ivy. She’d better be okay. He promised, damn it!
Jenks hovered before Trent and nodded to the window. Trent sighed when he turned to look, and I could almost see him begin to pull himself together, his professional mask slipping over him to hide his fatigue. I thought it interesting that he’d let it drop in front of Dali and Newt. “I’m never getting home tonight. Ellasbeth is going to flay me alive,” he grumbled as he tucked his shirt back into his pants.
“I know the feeling.” I could think of a few reasons Cormel might be here, none of them good.
Newt wrinkled her nose. “Vampires,” she scoffed as Cormel emerged from the car, tugging his coat’s sleeves down as his people jogged around to the back of the store to look for possible trouble. “They remind me of surface demons in suits. Trenton, thank you for your offer to stay with you until I can arrange for the legal purchase of an estate.”
Trent jerked, clearly surprised, as Jenks hovered backward, mouth curling up in a laugh. “Ah, I would be honored . . . ,” Trent said, and Dali chuckled as well, seeming to gather himself to leave. Seeing it, Trent paled even more.
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea, Trent,” Jenks said as he yo-yoed up and down. “If that dog doesn’t get Ellasbeth to leave, the demons sure as hell will.”
Licking his lips, Trent stood, all professional polish gone. “Ahhhhh.”
“Dog?” Newt stood, and I froze when she leaned over to give me a professional cheek-to-cheek press. “Trent, I’ll fetch my horse and stable her. Dali, you know where the elf lives, yes?”