by Ким Харрисон
I took a slow breath, feeling the air slip in with barely a twinge of pain. Just muscle aches. A chanting heavy with ceremony came from the sanctuary, and the ting of a bell. The scent of incense wasn't vampiric but herbs and minerals. To be quite honest, it stank.
I managed to sit up. My heart quickened, and I put my back to the headboard. Wincing, I touched my neck and the bandage there. It felt okay, and my hand moved to my middle when it rumbled.
My face lost all expression as I realized that the confusion was gone.
I sat on my bed, worriedly remembering Ceri and David. A pulse of fear shot through me. Minias had been here, and I had literally been out of my mind. Where was the curse? Ceri was going to take it out. Oh, God, Ivy. She had been savaged by Piscary. But I remembered her in the car. She had been alive. Hadn't she?
I flung the covers off, ready to find out who was here and demand some answers—but when the cooler air hit me, I realized I had a more pressing problem.
"Uh… I have to go to the bathroom," I murmured, swinging my feet to the floor, not nearly as fast as I wanted to. A myriad of aches and pains hit me. I was shaky, too. Carefully, I stood with my hand atop the bedpost for balance. Last time I checked, I had been in that gorgeous bridesmaid dress. Now I was in a pair of panties and a long T-shirt. Atop my dresser among my perfumes and sitting on Nick's file were my hairbrush, a tube of antibiotic ointment, and some bandages.
I shuddered when something passed through my aura with the tinkling of silver bells to leave me with the sensation of wintergreen. I'd never felt the like, but it hadn't hurt. More like the pristine pricks of snow on your upturned face. Uneasy, I pulled up my shirt to see the bruises and scrapes in my bedroom mirror. I wasn't dead. Hell wouldn't have me in a Takata STAFF shirt, and heaven would smell better.
I heard the front door shut, then silence. Moving slowly, I headed to the door, feeling every muscle protest. I had to use the bathroom in the worst way. But as my hand reached for the knob, I froze. My nose was tickling. I was going to sneeze.
A thread of alarm unrolled as I took a deep breath, trying to stop it. My hand went to my bandaged neck to hold me in place as a sneeze shook me. Hunched, I sneezed again, then again.
Crap. It's Minias.
"Where's my scrying mirror?" I whispered, panicking as I looked over my dark room. Lurching to my closet, I flung the door open. I had put it in here. Hadn't I?
Pain jolted me as I dropped to my knees, flinging aside boots and magazines as I searched. I sneezed again, grimacing at the throb in my neck. I couldn't see in the darkness of my closet, but a cry of relief passed my lips as my fingers found the cool glass. Staggering to my feet, I backed out and into my room.
My hair swung into my eyes, and I plopped onto my bed. I put my hand on the glass and froze, trying to remember the word. But it was too late.
I spun where I sat at the soft pop of displaced air, springing to my feet with the mirror in hand. Minias stood in the shadowed darkness between me and the closed door, his funny hat atop his brown curls, that exotic purple robe draped over his wide shoulders, and the glint of bare toes catching the faint light.
"No!" I exclaimed, terrified, and Minias raised his hand. I didn't wait to see what he was going to say. Hefting my scrying mirror, I swung it at his head.
It connected, pain reverberating up my arm. Minias yelped, and the mirror shattered into three heavy pieces. Wide-eyed, I fell back, shaking my stinging hand and tapping a line.
Ugly words I didn't understand fell from the demon, and, continuing to backpedal, I made a circle. But it wasn't set from a drawn line. I knew it wouldn't stand.
Striding forward, Minias jabbed one finger into my circle, and it fell.
I retreated to kick him, but he caught my foot before it reached him.
Fear iced through me when he didn't let go, hopping me backward and pushing me onto the bed. "You stupid witch," he said in disdain, then slapped me.
Stars exploded, and I think I passed out, because the next thing I knew, Minias was bending over me. Gasping, I thrust my palm, jamming his nose. The demon fell back, swearing at me. "Get out!" I exclaimed.
"I'd love to, you asinine witchanderthal," the demon said, voice muffled by the hand holding his nose. "Will you relax? I'm not going to hurt you unless you keep hitting me."
My gaze darted to the closed door, and he brought his hand from his nose, glancing at it to see if he was bleeding. He murmured a word of Latin, and a glow from my dresser mirror lightened the predawn gloom. My mouth was dry, and I scooted to the headboard. "Why should I believe you?" My throat hurt as if I'd been yelling, and I held a hand to it.
"You shouldn't." Minias looked at his fingers in the new light, then let the hand drop. "You're the most backward person I know. I'm trying to finish up this arrangement so I can return to my quiet life, and you want to play demon summoner and demon."
Pulse easing, I flicked my gaze to the door and back to him again. Someone had gone outside, and I hadn't heard a car start. It had to be Ivy. If she'd been in the church, she would have heard us and come. "I'm safe?" I said softly so my throat wouldn't hurt, wondering if I could trust him. "We're in the middle of a deal?"
Minias took a firmer stance, his head canted in exasperation and his hands clasped before him. "I'm trying to finish it up. The way your Were worded it, I'm not done until I'm sure the curse is out of you and you're back to your usual backward self. And until it is, everyone that was in the room is under a measure of protection. So yes, we are in the middle of a deal." His gaze went to mine, and I shivered. "But you're not safe."
I curled my feet up under me, not liking this at all. "I'm not paying for you to come over here," I babbled. "I was trying to answer. You didn't give me enough time to answer."
"Good Lord!" Minias exclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against my dresser. Bottles spilled, and he jerked forward. "It's only a little imbalance," he said, fingers fumbling to stand a bottle upright before he turned to ignore the rest, making me think that for a demon he didn't have much experience in dealing with people. "You make your dates pay for everything, too, don't you?" he added. "No wonder you can't keep a boyfriend."
"Shut up!" I yelled, hurting my throat. Oh, God. Kisten. Piscary had been lying. He had to have been. Otherwise I was going to have to decide if I was above revenge or not. And I wasn't good at telling myself I couldn't have something when I wanted it.
Minias's eyes ran over the lines of my room as I sat on my bed in my underwear and a shirt and tried not to shake. "You have such interesting thoughts," he said lightly. "No wonder witches are ephemeral. You drive yourself crazy. You should simply do what you want without the soul-searching." His goat-slitted eyes fixed on me, and I felt my stomach drop. "It will be easier in the long run, Rachel Mariana Morgan."
My pulse had slowed, and I was starting to believe I was going to survive this. "Rachel is fine," I said, not liking him saying my middle name.
A single eyebrow rose. "You seem to be all right. Any urges to run under the moon?"
Refusing to shrink away, I let him get close enough that the scent of burnt amber settled deep in me. "No. Where's the focus?"
"Feel the need to tear out people's throats?" he asked.
"Just yours. Who has the focus? You took it out, where is it?"
He straightened, and I realized again how tall he was. "Ceri took it out, not me. And if there had been a way to help her do it wrong, I would have."
"Just tell me who has the damned focus!" I exclaimed, and he snickered.
"Your alpha," he said, and my stomach knotted. David? We're back to square one.
"It settled in him as if it wanted to go," the demon added, and my heart seemed to stop. David didn't possess the focus; it possessed him? Like it had been inside of me?
"Where is he?" I said, springing off my bed. But there was nowhere to go.
"How should I know?" Minias lifted a bottle and sniffed the top, recoiling. "He's handling it bet
ter than you are. It was made for a Were, not a witch. Taking it in you was stupid. Like dropping a chunk of sodium metal into a bucket of water." The bottle hit the dresser with a clink.
I shifted uneasily, not knowing if I should believe him. "He's okay?"
"Better than," Minias drawled, his fingers still toying with my perfumes. "Giving the focus to the Weres is going to turn around and bite you, but it did accomplish what you wanted." His goat-slitted eyes focused on mine, and my tension rose. "The Weres are happy, and the vampires think it's destroyed. Right?"
Right. "I'm fine," I said tartly, my fear coming out as cheek. "You can go now."
"The elf did it," he said, shaking his head. "Al has more drive and talent to teach than I gave him credit for. He taught her extremely well to be able to untwist a curse like that and leave you… relatively unscathed. No wonder he kept her for a thousand years."
Face scrunched up, he smelled another bottle and set it down. "Al is furious," he said casually, and even my false bravado vanished. "They caught him seconds after you threw him back to our side of the lines. He's in his own personal hell. And you still owe him a favor." Sniffing a third perfume, he looked at me from under a lowered brow. "I wonder what it will be?"
"I'm fine. Get out," I repeated.
"May I have this?" he asked, holding the bottle upright.
"If you leave, you can have them all."
The bottle vanished from the cradle of his fingertips. "One last thing," he said, an odd glint in his eyes. "The focus?"
I stiffened, a trickle of fear growing in the pit of my being. "Yeah? "
"It wasn't what Newt was looking for when she tore your church apart."
He began to vanish, and I stepped forward, frightened. "What was she looking for?"
I haven't the slightest idea, echoed in my thoughts.
"Wait!" I shouted. "Does she remember me? Minias! Does she remember me?"
I searched the night for sound and my mind for thoughts, but he was gone. Another instant and the light he had set glowing in my mirror faded to nothing.
Crap. What had she been looking for if it hadn't been the focus?
The thump of the front door closing echoed through the brightening air, and I looked to the front of the church. A car started, and tension brought me straight when I recognized Ivy's soft footsteps in the hall. "Ivy…" I said, then put a hand to my throat when it hurt.
I jumped when my bedroom door was flung open and a gray shaft of light spilled in. "Rachel," Ivy said, her features lost in shadow.
"Last time I checked," I said, deciding that mentioning Minias wouldn't help anyone.
"You're okay," she whispered, coming in and gripping my arm. "It's you. Right? Just you?" Her eyes were wide from the shadow, and there was a bandage on her neck. Seeing my blank stare, she took me in a surprising hug. "Thank you, God."
My tension, born of surprise, vanished and I relaxed, my face next to hers as I took in her scent as if it were water. I didn't care if it was chock-full of pheromones meant to relax me, to make it easier for her to bite me. That's not why she was holding me. She had been worried. And she was alive. A dead vampire wouldn't have cared if I was myself or not. Ivy was alive. Maybe Kisten is, too. Please let Piscary have lied to me.
"It's me," I said, remembering Ivy and Edden grappling with me in the back of a car when I'd been lost to the curse. "Uh, I have to go to the bathroom."
Ivy stepped back. "You scared me," she said.
"I scared myself," I said, catching myself against the bedpost as I scuffed forward.
"Jenks!" Ivy yelled when my bare feet edged into the hallway. "She's okay! She's up!"
"What is that stench?" I said, sniffing the distastefully harsh scent of bad incense.
"We got the church unblasphemed," she said, following me out. "The guy just left. I think you embarrassed him, so he did some research. All he had to do was find and replace the original scrap of holy cloth that the sanctity was focused on. Jenks's kids found it, and the rest was easy."
I nodded, thinking that odd sensation I'd felt when waking up must have been the blasphemy falling away. Then I wondered what the guy was going to do with the fouled cloth. Put it in the ever-after, maybe? That's what I'd do. I wobbled three more steps to the bathroom, then turned. "You're alive, right?" I asked, remembering the EMTs stopping their efforts.
From my doorway Ivy laughed. I must have really scared her. I'd never seen her show so much emotion. Clearly happy, she smiled. "I'm alive," she said, looking beautiful with her eyes wet. "Piscary didn't…" She took a breath. "I passed out when Piscary gave me enough vamp saliva to stop my heart, but the FIB guys kept me alive and the EMTs gave me an antitoxin. I never died," she said happily. "I still have my soul."
Good, I thought. Something had gone right for a change. I was afraid to ask her about Kisten. "I have to go to the bathroom," I murmured, the situation turning critical.
"Oh!" she said, suddenly embarrassed. "Sure. I'll, um…"
Her thought was cut short when Jenks blew in from the back rooms. "Rache!" he shrilled, shedding gold sparkles. "You okay? Tink's bordello, you're one wild woman. I've never seen anyone do the things you did. Who taught you to swear in Latin?"
He was flitting madly between Ivy and me, and I put a hand to the wall so I didn't lose my balance trying to watch him. "It was the curse, not me," I said.
"How's your knees?" he said, dropping down to look at them, and my head snapped up when he darted to the ceiling. "You hit them pretty hard when Ceri took you down."
"I don't remember that either," I said, crossing my legs and praying. "Would you get out of my way? I have to go to the bathroom."
"Holy crap," Jenks said, rising up to follow Ivy and me. "I thought you were going to kill Edden. He's the one who gave you the black eye."
So that's why my face feels puffy, I thought, shuffling down the hallway. "What day is it?" I asked, wondering how long it had been since I ate.
"Monday." Ivy was hovering tight to my heels. "Wait. It's Tuesday now."
"Oooooh, the spirits did it all in one night," I said, squinting as I flicked on my bathroom light. My eyes hurt. I turned to find them staring at me as if I'd said something scary. "What?" I protested, and Jenks landed on Ivy's shoulder.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yes, but if I don't get into this bathroom, I'm going to make a puddle."
Jenks took flight, and Ivy took three steps back. "You want something to eat?" she said, and I hesitated in my motion to shut the door.
"Anything but Brimstone," I said, and her face flushed guiltily. The door closed between us, and I put both hands on the washer, leaning over it and shaking. It wasn't blood loss. And I wasn't beaten up that badly. I was fatigued. Something—maybe someone—had fought a battle in me, and I didn't remember any of it. The focus was gone, so it had lost. I was the one picking myself up off the battlefield and hobbling to the next fight.
I hoped it would be easier than this last one.
Pushing myself upright, I went to the mirror. My hand moved to peek behind the bandage on my neck, then dropped. I didn't want to know just yet. Turning my head, I looked myself over, deciding that it wasn't bad. A complexion amulet would take care of the black circles under my eye, and the fat lip made me look pouty. There was a bruise on my shin and another on my hip just below where the T-shirt ended. My back hurt when I bent over to check out my knees, but nothing would need more than a day or two to return to normal. It was almost a disappointment. Having been a demon curse, however brief, should leave some kind of mark. A streak of silver hair, or bewitching eyes. Maybe crows on one's roof or a hound from hell at your heel. But what do I get? Blowing out my breath, I stood and squinted at my reflection.
A black eye. Swell.
Ivy's voice murmured as she talked on the phone, and after taking care of my most urgent need, I decided a shower could wait until after I got a few questions answered and my stomach filled. The dryer contained a pair of jeans instead
of Kisten's clothes, so with a new depression, I tucked my STAFF shirt in, invoked a complexion charm, ran a toothbrush over my teeth, and called it good. The smell of coffee sifting in under the door made me feel ill, I was so hungry.
Movements slow from the expectation of bad news, I headed out. The bright light of a new day spilled into the hallway from the kitchen. This was the third morning I'd gotten up at dawn instead of going to bed, and I was tired of it.
"Rachel just woke up," came Ivy's voice before I had gone two steps, and I slowed. She wasn't on the phone; we had someone in our kitchen. "She's not talking to anyone until she gets a chance to eat and catch her breath, and she's not talking to your shrink, so you can just get back into your cruiser and the hell back to the FIB where you belong."
My eyebrows rose, and I hastened forward. What's Glenn doing here?
Shit. Kisten, I thought miserably, answering my own question. He's dead.
"Felps wasn't at Sparagmos's apartment," I heard Edden say, and my reality shifted. Not only was Kisten's death still uncertain, but this wasn't Glenn, it was his dad. I didn't know if that was better or worse. "We need to find him, and Rachel might be able to help," he finished.
"Give the woman some peace!" Jenks said. "Piscary said he was dead. Find him on your own. The I.S. isn't going to stop you. They don't care."
I pushed into motion, ready to try anything if it would lead to Kisten's still being alive. "But if he's alive, he might be hurt," I said as I entered, and Edden turned from his position at the back of the kitchen. There was someone else with him, looking spare next to Edden's squat bulk, and my bare feet squeaked to a stop. Edden had brought the FIB's shrink out with him?
Edden glanced at the young man beside him. Ignoring the threat of Ivy standing before the sink with her arms crossed, Edden came forward, his brow pinched in worry. He was in his usual khaki slacks and white shirt, and the gun in his shoulder holster said he was working. "Rachel," he said, glad to see me. "You look a lot better."