by Ким Харрисон
My hand was still shaking. He was at the right height, and nervous, I reached out with my free hand and brushed his curly hair aside to show the pale skin behind it. I could smell the ever-after on him, but combined with the herbs around me it sort of smelled nice. I let his soft hair slip through my fingers, then pulled his curls back once more, enjoying the sensation.
"Touch me like that again," Minias said in a low voice, "and I'll rip your fingers off."
I glanced at Ceri and remembered her twisted affections for her demon captor. "Sorry." Immediately I strengthened my hold on the line. Steeling myself, I felt my grip on the knife go slick with sweat. "I'm really sorry," I said, then made a quick downward cut.
Normal-looking blood flowed, and Jenks's wings hummed in agitation. Minias stiffened. "Invoke the curse, you idiot!" he snapped.
Ceri was standing helplessly outside her circle, and before I lost my nerve, I said the words. A curious sensation pulled through me, like when I had called Minias the first time. I was tapping in to a communal spell, and it gave me the willies. My lips parted, and Jenks swore as the cut mended right before me, a line of scar tissue showing when the smear of ever-after vanished.
"Holy crap!" Jenks blurted, and Minias jerked away. Three steps from me, he felt the skin behind his ear and frowned. Remembering the knife in my hand, I dropped it. The clatter of it hitting the counter was loud.
"You promised you'd leave," I reminded him. "Now."
His goat-slitted eyes fixed on me, and though I knew it was impossible, I felt as if he were seeing my past, or maybe my future. Face unreadable, Minias leaned close. The cloying odor of burnt amber mixed with the dry scent of his silk robes, and I refused to shrink away. "I can change my eyes if I work at it," he murmured, and I jerked back.
"It could be you didn't hear my voice because you're an unregistered user," he added, as if not having said his previous words. "You need to change that."
Ceri was pale, and, feeling ill, I said, "I don't want to be in a demon registry. Go."
Minias touched the crucible, his fingers coming away with ash. "It's too late. You put yourself on it when you called me the first time. Either update your information so I can reach you, or I have every right to pop over here anytime I think I have a way to remove my mark."
My head came up, and I stared, sick with dread. Damn. Was that why he had agreed to wear the mark in the first place? Minias's eyes glittered with success, and I dropped my head into my cupped hand. Double damn. "How do I register?" I said flatly, and he snickered.
"You need a password. Connect to your calling circle as if you're going to contact me, and while connected to aline, think your given name, and then follow it with your password. QED."
Simple enough. "Get a password," I said, feeling weary. "Okay. I can do that."
Minias was eyeing me from under some curls that had escaped from his hat. He was silent for a moment, and then, as if he didn't really want to, he crossed his arms over his chest and said, "You have a common name that everyone calls you and a password that you keep to yourself. Pick it carefully. That's how people pull demons over the lines."
Horrified, I looked from Jenks to Ceri, who was now holding her stomach. "A summoning name?" I stammered, figuring it out. "Your password is a summoning name?"
The demon grimaced. "If it gets out, yes, it can be used to force someone across the lines. That's why you pick a password that no one can piece together."
I backed up until I bumped into Ceri's circle. "I don't want a password."
"Fine with me," Minias said snidely. "But if I can't contact you, I'm going to come over when it's convenient for me, not you. And seeing as I don't care, it's going to be right before sunrise when you're trying to sleep, or making dinner, or screwing your boyfriend." His eyes drifted over the kitchen. "Or is it girlfriend?"
"Shut up!" I exclaimed, worried and embarrassed. But I was stuck, and stuck tight.
"Make it impossible to guess," Minias said. "Nonsense syllables."
My mouth opened in an 0 of realization. "That's why demon names are so weird," I said, and from behind him Ceri nodded. Her face was white, and she looked as shaky as I felt.
"Demon names aren't weird," Minias said indignantly. "They serve a purpose."
Jenks landed on my shoulder. "How about your name backward? Nagromanairamlehcar."
I felt my face twist. It sounded like a demon name.
"Terrible," Minias said, and I moved back when he picked up my chalkboard and set it on the counter. "Your names backward will be the first one Al tries, and if he figures it out, he can do untold mischief under your name. And nix on the birthdates, hobbies, favorite ice cream, movie stars, or old boyfriends. No numbers or weird characters that can't be pronounced. Stay away from the backward theme. It's too easy to run through the dictionary and find you."
"That would take forever," I scoffed, then blanched when Minias set his red eyes on me.
"Forever is just about what we have."
I felt something shift, and I watched him, ready to move if he did. But he turned away, glancing at my kitchen clock above the sink.
"You need to leave," I said, hearing my voice shake, and Jenks's wings clattered as he took flight to hover between us.
"Mmmm." Minias inclined his head. "I agree. We're done now, but with this mark between us to settle up, I will be talking to you. It's my God-given right to try to pay it off." Touching the side of his hat, he vanished in a cascading sheet of ever-after.
I tightened my grip on my line as I felt him use it to cross into the ever-after. Numb, I stared at where he had been. What in hell have I just done?
Immediately Ceri broke her circle, almost knocking me over as she gave me a hug to be sure I was still alive. "Rachel."
Crap. What have I done?
"Rachel!"
Ceri was shaking me, and I blearily looked at her. Seeing my awareness return, she sighed in relief, and her hands fell from my shoulders. "Rachel," she said again, softer. "I don't think you should do demon magic anymore."
Jenks lit on her shoulder where he could see me; he was scared. "You think?" I said bitterly, wiping a hand under my eye. It came away wet, but I wasn't crying. Not really.
"Actually…" Ceri dropped her head, clearly worried. "I don't think you should do any ley line magic either."
Sliding down from the counter, I looked past Ceri to the dark garden lit with the occasional flicker of pixy dust. My dad hadn't wanted me to have anything to do with ley line magic. Maybe… Maybe I should have a talk with Trent as to why.
Thirteen
"Rachel, hand me the hammer, will you?" Ivy said, her voice raised so she could be heard over the pixies yammering in the corner loud enough to make my eyeballs ache. "I've got another popped nail," she added as I puffed to blow a curl that had escaped my ponytail out of my eyes.
Jamming the rolled insulation back between the two-by-four studs, I turned. The afternoon sun came in the high windows in the living room to make dusty beams that the pixies were playing in. They had just woken from their afternoon nap, and Jenks had them in here so Matalina could get a few extra winks. She'd been feeling poorly lately, but Jenks had assured us that she was doing fine. His kids were a bloody nuisance, but I wasn't going to suggest they leave. Matalina could get all the sleep she wanted.
Fumbling, I pulled the hammer from the sill. I had borrowed it from my mom this morning, having dodged her questions with the excuse that I was putting up a birdhouse, not fixing the damage of an insane demon who'd trashed our living room. That it was July and too late for nests had never occurred to her.
"Here," I said, smacking the ash handle into Ivy's bare hand with a soft and certain pop. She smiled before turning to pound in a nail that had pulled through the paneling Newt had ripped down. Pixies squealed, and Jenks's attention shot to them as he sat on a far sill with his youngest set of sextuplets, teaching them to tie their shoes.
Immediately his blurring wings stilled, and he resumed his
lesson. It was a nice piece of pixy life we didn't get a chance to see often, a reminder that Jenks had an entire life outside of Ivy and me.
Ivy looked like a construction worker's calendar girl in her worn hip-hugger jeans and black T-shirt, her straight hair covered with one of those paper hats you get at paint stores. Body moving with a controlled grace, she pounded the stray nail into the paneling. Soon as she backed up, three pixies were there to inspect it, all helpfully pointing out the tear she had made in the paper veneer. Saying nothing, Ivy glued it back down and continued on.
Smiling, I turned away. Ivy wasn't pleased she had missed another one of my encounters with a demon. It was probably why she was hanging so tight today, needing to reassure herself that I was okay. And I could use her help. After seeing the estimate to replace a few sheets of paneling and carpet, we had decided to do it ourselves.
So far it had been easy. Just tidy the studs Newt had pulled the paneling off and put up new. There was no wall behind the thin sheets, and the insulation was the roll type, not the blown-in stuff we had put in the church's ceilings last fall. It didn't really look up to code, but that's what you get when you do it yourself. As for the carpet, it could stay out on the curb. There had been an oak floor under it. All it needed was a nice coat of shine.
"Thanks," Ivy said, handing the hammer back, and I slid it onto the mantel.
"No problem." I straightened my short-sleeved shirt to cover my midriff and pulled a handful of thin nails from the box beside the hammer and arranged them between my lips. "You wanna 'old 'is for 'ee well I 'ammer it?" I asked as I tried to maneuver an unwieldy piece of paneling into place.
Bending, Ivy took it by the one edge and wedged it tight against the old paneling, her vampire strength making it look like she was holding a sheet of cardboard.
With a few quick whacks, I put a nail in the upper left corner, moved around her to put another in the lower right, then a third in the upper right. The rich scent of vampire incense mixed with the sawdust and my latest perfume in a pleasant fragrance of contentment. "Thanks," I said after I took the nails out of my mouth. "I can get it now."
Her smooth oval face showing nothing, she backed up, her hands rubbing against each other as if soothing herself. It was the first time we had done anything together since she had bitten me, and it felt good. Like we were back to normal.
"Hey, Rache," Jenks said loudly as the kids before him rose up and joined the others in a dusty sunbeam, "I've got one for you. How about Rumpelstiltskin?"
I didn't bother to write that one down on the legal pad sitting on the dusty mantel, simply lifting my eyebrows at him as he laughed at me. I'd been trying to think up a password since coming back from my mom's with the toolbox, and I wasn't having any luck.
"I'd go with an acronym," Ivy suggested. "One that isn't in the dictionary. Or your names backward?" Her eyes fixed on mine with an odd intensity as she intoned, "Nagromanairamlehcar."
That both Jenks and she had thought of the same thing proved Minias was right about the no-backward theme. "No," I said before Jenks did. "Minias nixed it. He said it's too easy to run through the dictionary backward and find you. No numbers, no spaces, no real words, and nothing backward." Grabbing a few more nails, I stretched to reach the top of the panel.
Ivy dropped back and watched me for a moment before starting to move quietly about and put the tools away. I could feel her attention on me as I worked down the stud line, aware she was there but not uncomfortable about it. It was noon, for criminy's sake, and she had probably slaked her blood lust with Skimmer last night. And does that bother me? I asked myself, smacking a nail with an extra amount of force. Not at all. Not one bit. But I couldn't stop the memory of her biting me swim up from my unconscious.
A soft tingle grew at my old demon scar, and I stayed still, simply tasting the feeling that warmed me from my skin inward and trying to decide if it had been born from my thoughts and Ivy's pheromones—or my desire for her to be happy. Did it matter?
Jenks flew up from the sill and moved to the mantel, his wings clearing the dust from where he landed. "How about something in Latin?" he said as he walked to my list and stared down at it. "Like 'kick-ass witch,' or 'royally screwed.' "
"Raptus regaliter?" I said, thinking it sounded too much like Rumpelstiltskin. "They all know Latin. I think that comes under using words in the dictionary."
His expression sly, Jenks glanced at Ivy as she put the drill away. "How about Iaasw," he said. "Which means 'I am a stupid witch'—or here's one." Grinning, he stood on my list with his hands on his hips. "Nuacsiepasn? That's a great name."
Ivy shook the thick contractor garbage bag down and dropped her paper hat in it. "What's that stand for?"
" 'Never under any circumstances should I ever pick a summoning name.'"
I pressed my lips together and hammered a nail.
Ivy snickered and took a sip of bottled water she had on the sill. "I think we should call her Spam, because her ass is going to be in a tin if she's not careful."
Ticked, I turned, hammer in hand. "You know what?" I said, waving it in a weak threat. "You can all just shut up. You can all shut up right now."
Capping her water, Ivy frowned. "I don't even know why you're doing this."
"Ivy—" I started, tired of it.
"It's asking for trouble," she said, setting the empty bottle back on the sill.
Jenks stood on my list, staring down at it with his hands on his hips. "She's doing it for the thrill," he said distantly.
"I am not!" I protested.
They both looked at me in disbelief. "Yes you are," Jenks said as if it didn't bother him. "It's textbook Rachel. Coming close to something lethal, but not quite there." He smiled. "And we lo-o-o-o-ove you for it," he crooned.
"Shut up," I muttered, turning my back on him and hammering. "I'm doing this so Minias doesn't have to pop over here to get that mark resolved." Leaning into the sun, I grabbed another handful of nails. "You liked Minias showing up that way?" I said.
His eyes on his kids clustered on the windowsill, Jenks shrugged. "I agree with what you're doing, but not why."
"I just told you why." Nervous, I tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. "Look, if you don't want to help me pick out a password, that's fine. I can do it myself."
Ivy and Jenks glanced questioningly at each other—as if I were incapable of doing this on my own—and my blood pressure spiked.
"Dad!" came a high-pitched shriek from a desperate pixy. "Dad! Jariath and Jumoke glued my wings shut!"
Surprised, I felt my anger ping to nothing, and I turned to the window. Four streaks of gray raced out of the living room. There was a metallic crash from the kitchen, and I wondered what had hit the floor. Jenks stood frozen, his face a mix of fear of what would happen if Matalina found out and embarrassment that he had taken his eyes off them long enough for them to glue someone's wings together.
Instantly he recovered and was airborne. Darting to the shelf, he tucked the hysterical child under his arm and took off after the other's. In a swirl of silk and dismay, the entire clan whirled into motion. "Jariathjackjunisjumoke!" Jenks shouted from the kitchen, and then even that was gone, to leave only a shimmering sifting of dust and an echo of memory in our thoughts.
"Damn!" Ivy said to break the silence, then started to laugh quietly. Taking up the glue, she glanced at the label and tossed it to me. Water soluble, I thought, then dropped it into the toolbox. I smiled ruefully, and though I hoped Jenks got his kid's wings unglued, I thought I had my summoning name right there. Jariathjackjunisjumoke. If I ever forgot it, all I'd have to do was ask any pixy kid who had gotten their backsides tanned for glueing someone's wings shut.
"Oh, hey," Ivy said after bending to the portable radio and clicking it on. "Have you heard Takata's latest?"
"Yup." Glad the pixies were gone, I grabbed more nails as the song in question belted out. "I can't wait until the winter solstice. Think he'll ask us to work security again? "
"God, I hope so."
She turned it up to sing with the refrain—her voice soft but clear. When I finished hammering in the last nail in the row, Ivy maneuvered the final piece of paneling in place, and I tacked in the corners without pause. We worked well together. We always had.
The sound of pixies laughing in the garden assured me everything was fine. Relaxing, I breathed in the distinctive scent of raw wood and insulation. It was a bright day. The heat wave had finally snapped. Jenks was doing dad stuff. Ivy and I were getting back to normal. And she was singing. It couldn't get much better than that.
My expression softened when I realized she was singing words to a verse that I couldn't hear. It was the vamp track that Takata put in his music, something special that only the undead and their scions could hear. Well, Trent had a pair of spelled headphones that let him hear it, but that didn't count. He had offered me a set once. I had turned him down because of what he would have attached to his "gift." Even so, while hearing Ivy harmonize to Takata's voice, both rough and smooth, I wished I had a pair. The one time I had listened in with Trent's headphones, the woman's tortured, pure voice had been exquisite.
Ivy grabbed the broom and started sweeping. I finished one line of nails, bent upside down for the last few, then started on the next column. Intent on trying to catch what Ivy was singing, I missed a nail, grazing my thumb. I jerked, yelping when the sharp pain zinged through me. My thumb was in my mouth almost before I knew I had nicked it.
"You okay?" Ivy asked, and I nodded, eyeing the red mark on my thumb, then checked out the wall. Crap, I had dented the paneling.
"Don't worry about it," Ivy said. "We can put the couch there."
Tired, I whacked the nail one more time. Tossing the hammer into the toolbox, I sat on the hearth, stretched out my legs, and eyed my thumbnail. It was going to turn purple. I knew it.
Ivy resumed sweeping, her motions slow and even—hypnotic, almost. The music changed from Takata to an obnoxious man screaming about cars, and I leaned to turn it off. My shoulders eased in the new silence. The hush of the broom was soothing, and the garden had gone silent, the pixies off doing pixy things at the far end of the graveyard, no doubt.