by Ким Харрисон
"I'm not leaving without Nick," I said, forcing my jaw to unclench. He hadn't left me. He thought I had died. And he needed help.
Jenks's face hardened. "He lured my son away. He taught him how to be a thief, and not even a good thief. He taught him to be a two-bit crappy thief who got caught!"
I hesitated, unsure if he was upset about the thief part or the bad thief part. Deciding it didn't matter, I took my own Peter Pan pose, pointing aggressively to the parking lot. "That van isn't turning south until we are all in it."
From the kitchen, Jax made an attention-getting clatter of wings. "They're going to kill him, Dad. He's all beat up. They want it, and they're going to keep beating on him until he tells them where it is or he dies."
Turning, Jenks scooped Rex up when the small predator realized where Jax was and began stalking him again. "Want what?" he said warily.
Jax froze in his reach for another cake of bee pollen and syrup. "Uh…" he stammered, wings moving in blurred spurts.
At that, I collapsed back into my chair and stared at the ceiling. "Look," I said, legs stretched out and tired. "Whatever happened, happened. Jenks, I'm sorry you're mad at Nick, and if you want to sit here and watch TV while I save Nick's ass, I won't think any less of you." His fingers caressing Rex froze, and I knew I'd hit a nerve. "But Nick saved my life," I said, crossing my knees as a feeling of guilt passed through me. He saved my life, and I shack up with the first guy who shows an interest. "I can't walk away."
Jenks shifted forward and back, his need to move obvious and odd now that he was full-sized and dressed in that far-too-distracting skintight outfit. Wishing he'd put something on over it, I pulled the map of the area I had bought in the motel office out from under the pizza box and opened it up. The crackle of map paper swung my thoughts to Ivy, and my worry tightened. Skimmer was sleeping over?
Skimmer was Piscary's lawyer, out from the West Coast and top of her class, eminently comfortable in using manipulation to get what she wanted. Ivy didn't want a vampiric lifestyle, but Skimmer didn't care. She just wanted Ivy, and if what Kisten had said was true, she didn't mind screwing Ivy's mental state up to get her. That alone was enough to make me hate the intelligent woman.
It hadn't surprised me to find that Skimmer was responsible for part of Ivy's problems. The two had undoubtedly run wild, gaining a reputation for savage bloodletting mixed liberally with aggressive sex. It was no wonder Ivy had twined the emotions of love and the ecstasy of bloodletting together so tightly that they were one in her mind. Back then, she was vulnerable and alone for the first time in her life, with Skimmer undoubtedly more than willing to help her explore the sophisticated vampiric bloodletting techniques Ivy had gained in the time Piscary had been at her. Piscary had probably planned it all, the bastard.
It wasn't a problem for a vampire that bloodletting was a way to show that they loved someone. But by the sounds of it, Piscary twisted that until the stronger Ivy's feelings of love were, the more savage she became. Piscary could take it—hell, he'd made her what she was—but Kisten had left her, and I wouldn't have been surprised if Ivy had killed someone she loved in a moment of passion. It would explain why she'd abstained from blood for three years, trying to separate her feelings of love from her blood lust. I wondered if she had, then wondered what kind of a hell Ivy lived in where the more she loved someone, the more likely she would hurt them.
Skimmer had no qualms about her deep affections toward Ivy, and though Ivy clearly loved her back, Skimmer represented everything that she was trying to escape. The more often Ivy shared blood with her past lover, the greater the chance that she would be lured into old patterns, savage bloodletting patterns that would rebound on her with a vengeance if she tried to love someone who wasn't as strong as she.
And I had just walked out, knowing Skimmer would probably step back in. God, I shouldn't have just left like that.
Just a few days, I reassured myself, moving the pizza box to the floor and clicking on the table lamp. "Jax," I said, arranging the map and pushing Jenks's recovering plant to the outskirts. "You said they had him on an island. Which one?"
He might still love me. Do I still love him? Did I ever love him, really? Or had it just been that I loved his acceptance of me?
My bracelet hissed against the map, and Jax flitted close, landing to bring the bitter scent of maple syrup to me. "This one, Ms. Morgan," he said, his voice high. Pollen crumbs fell, and I blew them away when Jax rose to sit on the table lamp's shade. From the corner of my sight I saw Jenks fidget. I couldn't do this with a half-trained pixy. I needed Jenks.
Fingertips brushing the large island in the straits, I felt like Ivy with her maps and markers, planning a run. My motions went still and my focus blurred. It wasn't her need to be organized, I suddenly realized. It was a front to disguise her feelings of inadequacy. "Damn," I whispered. This wasn't good. Ivy was a lot more fragile than she let on. She was a vampire, molded from birth to look to someone for guidance even if she could garner the attention in a room from simply walking in, and could snap my neck with half a thought.
Telling myself that Nick needed me more right now than Ivy needed me to keep her sane, I pushed my worry aside and looked at the island Jax had said Nick was on. According to the fishing pamphlet I took from the front office, Bois Blanc Island had been publicly owned before the Turn. A rather large Were pack had bought everyone else out shortly afterward, making the big island into a hunting/spa kind of thing. Trespassing wasn't a good idea.
Tension quickened my pulse when Jenks put Rex on the bed and edged closer, an odd mix of angsty teen and worried dad. Taking a breath, I said to the map, "I need your help, Jenks. I'll do it without backup if I have to. But every time I do, my ass hits the grass. You're the best operative outside of Ivy that I know. Please? I can't leave him there."
Jenks pulled a straight-backed chair from the kitchen, bumping it over the carpet, and sat down next to me so he could see the map right side up. He glanced at Jax on the lamp, pixy dust sifting upward from the heat of the bulb. I couldn't tell if he was going to help me or not. "What did you two get caught doing, Jax?" he said.
The pixy's wings blurred, and dust drifted from him. "You'll get mad." His tiny features were frightened. It didn't matter that he was an adult in pixy terms, he still looked eight to me.
"I'm already mad," Jenks said, sounding like my dad when I took a week's grounding instead of telling him why I'd been banned from the local roller rink. "Running off with a snapped-winged thief like that. Jax, if you wanted a more exciting life than a gardener, why didn't you tell me? I could have helped, given you the tools you need."
Eyebrows high, I leaned away from the table. I knew the I.S. hadn't taught Jenks the skills that landed him his job with them, but this was unexpected.
"I was never a thief," he said, shooting me a quick look. "But I know things. I found them out the hard way, and Jax doesn't need to."
Jax fidgeted, turning defensive. "I tried," he said, his voice small. "But you wanted me to be a gardener. I didn't want to disappoint you, and it was easier to just go."
Jenks slumped. "I'm sorry," he said, making me wish I was somewhere else. "I only wanted you to be safe. It's not an easy way to live. Look at me; I'm scarred and old, and if I didn't have a garden now, I'd be worthless. I don't want that for you."
Wings blurring, Jax dropped to land before his dad. "Half your scars are from the garden," he protested. "The ones you almost died from. The seasons make me think of death, not life, a slow circle that means nothing. And when Nick asked me to help him, I said yes. I didn't want to tend his stupid plants, I wanted to help him."
I glanced at Jenks in sympathy. He looked like he was dying inside, seeing his son want what he had and knowing how hard it was going to be.
"Dad," Jax said, rising up until Jenks put up a hand for him to land on. "I know you and Mom want me to be safe, but a garden isn't safe, it's only a more convenient place to die. I want the thrill of the run. I wa
nt every day to be different. I don't expect you to understand."
"I understand more than you know," he said, his words shifting his son's wings.
Rex skulked to the pizza box on the floor and stole a crust, running to the kitchen. She hunkered down, gnawing on it as if it was a bone and watching us with big, black, evil eyes. Seeing her, Jenks took a deep breath, and tension brought me straight. He had decided to help me. "Tell me what you two got caught doing. I'll help get Nick out under two conditions."
My pulse quickened, and I found myself tapping my pencil on the table.
"What are they?" Jax asked, a healthy tone of caution mixing with hope.
"One, that you don't take another run until I give you the skills to keep your wings untattered. Nick is dangerous, and I don't want you taken advantage of. I may have raised a runner, but I did not raise a thief."
Pixy dust sifted from Jax as he looked from his dad to me and back again in wide-eyed amazement. "What's the other?"
Jenks winced, his ears reddening. "That you don't tell your mother."
I stopped my snicker just in time.
Jax's wings blurred into motion. "Okay," he said, and a zing of adrenaline brought me back to the map. "Nick and I were contracted by a Were pack. These guys."
He dropped from Jenks's hand to land on the island, and my thrill turned to unease. "They wanted a statue," Jax said. "Didn't even know where it was. Nick called up a demon, Dad." Dust sifted to make him look as if he was in a sunbeam. "He called up a demon and the demon told him where it was."
Okay. Now I'm officially worried. "Did the demon show up as a dog and turn into a guy wearing green velveteen and smoked glasses?" I asked, setting my pen down and holding my arms to myself. Why, Nick? Why are you playing with your soul?
Jax shook his head, green eyes wide and frightened. "It showed up as you, Ms. Morgan. Nick was mad and yelled at it. We thought you were dead. It wasn't Big Al. Nick said so."
My first flush of relief turned to a deep worry. A second demon. Better and better. "Then what?" I whispered. Rex jumped into Jenks's lap, nearly giving me a heart attack since I thought she had been going for Jax. How Jenks knew she hadn't been eluded me.
The dust rose and fell from Jax. "The demon, uh, took what they agreed on and told Nick where the statue was. A vampire in Detroit had it. It's older than anything."
Why would a vampire have a Were artifact? I wondered. I glanced at Jenks, his hands keeping Rex from falling over while she inexpertly cleaned her ears.
Jenks puckered his brows, his smooth features trying to wrinkle but not managing it. "What does it do, Jax?" he said, shocking me again with how at odds his youthful face was to the tone of his voice. He looked eighteen; he sounded like he was forty with a bad mortgage.
Jax flushed. "I don't know. But we got it okay. The vampire had been staked in the 1900s, and it was just sitting there, forgotten in the slop."
"So you found it," I prompted. "What's the problem? Why are they hurting him?"
At that, Jax took to the air. Rex's eyes went black for the hunt, and Jenks soothed her, fingertips lost in her orange fur. "Uh," the pixy said, his voice high. "Nick said it wasn't what they said it was. Another pack found out he had it and made a better offer, enough to pay back what the first pack paid him to finance the snatch, plus a whole lot more."
Jenks looked disgusted. "Greedy bastard," he muttered, his jaw clenched.
I took an unhappy breath, leaning into my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. "So he sold it to the second group and the original pack wasn't happy about it?"
Jax shook his head solemnly, slowly drifting downward until his feet hit the map. "No. He said neither of them should have it. We were going to go to the West Coast. He had this guy who could give him a new identity. He was going to get us safe, then give the first pack their money back and walk away from the entire thing."
My face scrunched into a frown. Right. He was going to get himself safe, then sell it to the highest bidder online. "Where is it, Jax?" I asked, starting to get angry.
"He didn't tell me. One day it was there, the next it was gone."
In a sudden motion, Rex jumped up onto the table. Adrenaline surged, but Jax rubbed his wings together in a coaxing sound and the kitten padded over.
"It's not at our cabin, though," the small pixy said, standing under the kitten's jaw and stretching to rake his fingers under her chin. "They tore it apart." Stepping out from between Rex's paws, he met my eyes, looking scared. "I don't know where it is, and Nick won't tell. He doesn't want them to have it, Ms. Morgan."
Greedy S.O.B., I thought, wondering why I cared if he loved me or not. "So where's their money?" I asked. "Maybe all they want is that, and they'll let him go."
"They took it." Jax didn't look happy. "They took it the same time they took him. They want the statue. They don't care about the money."
I put my hand on the table to entice Rex to me but all she did was sniff my nails. Jenks curled a long hand under her belly to put her on the floor, where she stared up at him. "And they're here?" Jenks asked, my attention following his to the map.
Jax's head bobbed. "Yup. I can show you exactly where."
My eyes met Jenks's and we exchanged a silent look. This was going to take longer than a simple snatch and dash. "Okay," I said, wondering if there was a phone book in the room. "We're here at least another night, probably through the week. Jax, I want to know everything."
Jax shot almost to the ceiling. "All right!" he shouted, and Jenks glared at him.
"You are staying here," he said, his tone thick with parental control, though he looked like a kid himself. His arms were crossed, and the determination in his eyes would have rocked a bulldog back from a bone.
"Like hell I—" Jax made a startled yelp when Jenks snatched him out of the air. My eyes widened. I didn't know what Jenks was worried about. He hadn't slowed at all.
"You will stay here," he barked. "I don't care how old you are, you're still my son. It's too cold for you to be effective, and if you want me to teach you anything, it starts now." He let go of Jax, and the pixy hovered right where Jenks had left him, looking scared. "You have to learn how to read before I can even take you out with me," Jenks muttered.
"Read!" Jax exclaimed. "I get along okay."
Uncomfortable, I rose and stretched, opening drawers until I found the yellow pages. I wanted to know my resources, seeing as we were out of Cincinnati. An island, for God's sake?
"I don't have to know how to read!" Jax sputtered.
"Like hell you don't," Jenks said. "You want this life? That's your choice. I'll teach you what I know, but you're going to earn it!"
I sat at the head of the bed, where I could see them while flipping through the thin pages. It was last year's book, but nothing changed fast in small towns. I slowed when I found a large number of charm shops. I knew there must be a resident population of witches taking advantage of the heavy-duty ley lines in the area.
Jenks's anger vanished as quickly as it had come, and more softly he said, "Jax, if you could read, you could have told us were you were. You could have hitched onto the first bus to Cincy and been home by sunset. You want to know how to pick the locks? Loop the cameras? Bypass security? Show me how bad you want it by learning what will help you the most first."
Jax scowled, slowly descending until his feet settled in a glowing puddle of pixy dust.
"Here." Jenks took the pencil I had left behind and leaned over the map. "This is how you write your name." A few more silent moments. "And that is the alphabet." I frowned at the sharp snap of the pencil being broken, and Jenks held the broken nub of graphite out to Jax. "Remember the song?" he prompted. "Sing it while you practice the letters. And L-M-N-O-P is not one letter, but five. It took me forever to figure that out."
"Dad…" Jax whined.
Jenks stood, tilting the lamp shade to better light the map. "There are fifteen makers of locks in the U.S. You want to know which one you're picking befo
re you blow yourself and your runner into the ever-after?"
Making a sharp noise with his wings, Jax started writing.
"Make the letters as big as your feet," Jenks said as he came to see how I was progressing with the phone book. "No one can read your writing unless you do, and that's the entire point."
Guilt in his eyes, Jenks sat beside me, and I shifted so I wouldn't slip into him. From the table by the door came the alphabet song, sounding like a death dirge. "Don't worry about it, Jenks," I said, watching Rex follow him up onto the bed to make tiny jumps over the bedspread to him. "He'll be okay."
"I know he will," he said, the worry settling into his eyes. Rex plopped herself into his lap, and he dropped his gaze. "It's not him I'm worried about," he said softly. "It's you."
"Me?" I looked up from the turning pages.
Jenks wouldn't bring his gaze from the kitten, a puddle of orange in his lap. "I have only a year to get him up to snuff so you'll have backup when I'm gone."
Oh God. "Jenks, you aren't a carton of milk with an expiration date. You look great—"
"Don't," he said softly, eyes on his smooth fingers among Rex's fur. "I've got maybe one more tolerable year. When it goes, it goes fast. It's all right. I want to make sure you're okay, and if he's working for you, he won't be tempted to do anything stupid with Nick again."
I swallowed, forcing the lump out of my throat. I had not gotten him back just to lose him. "Damn it, Jenks," I said as Jax started the alphabet song again. "There's got to be a spell or a charm…"
"There isn't." Finally he met my eyes. They held a deep bitterness, touched with anger. "It's the way it is, Rache. I don't want to leave you helpless. Let me do this. He won't let you down, and I'll feel better knowing he won't be working for Nick or the likes of him."
Miserable, I sat beside him, wanting to give him a hug or cry on his shoulder, but apart from that time in front of Terri at the grocery store, he had always jumped when I touched him. "Thanks, Jenks," I said, turning to the pages before he could see my eyes swimming. There was nothing I could say that wouldn't make him and me feel worse.