by Ким Харрисон
"Jenks…," I murmured, and the pixy walked across the table with his makeshift sword to the cheesecake.
"We've never run into this before," Minias said, hesitating as he took in Jenks's "whatever" attitude. "Because of his extraordinary amount of contact with this side of the lines, Al has arranged for someone to summon him every sundown. They get what they want, then release him without the compulsion to return to the ever-after. It's a win-win situation for both of them."
And a lose-lose for me. My thoughts flashed to my old boyfriend, Nick. Jenks eyed me over a chunk of cheesecake as big as his head, clearly thinking the same thing. Nick was a thief who habitually used demons as a source of information. Thanks to Glenn at the FIB, I had a copy of his file in my dresser's bottom drawer. It was so thick a monster rubber band barely kept it shut. I didn't like thinking about it.
"Someone's freeing a demon without compulsion to return to the ever-after?" I managed, my eyes lowered. "That's not very responsible."
"It's extremely clever. For Al." Minias's one elbow found the table as he took a draught.
I cringed, fully conscious of my mom listening quietly. "You think someone's doing this to kill me?" I finally asked.
Minias shrugged. "I don't know. Nor do I care, really. I simply want it to stop."
A reproachful huff came from my mother, and Minias pulled his elbow from the table. "We can regain control of him after sunup," the demon said, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. "When the lines close to cross-traffic, he's snapped back to our side. Finding him then is just a matter of using his demon marks."
I pulled my hands from atop the table, my fingers pushing aside Kisten's bracelet to feel the raised scar. The demon mark had flared into pain just before Al showed up, and a new worry settled in beside the old ones. That's how Al had found me. Crap. I didn't like feeling like a tagged antelope.
"Al doesn't have access to a lab while in custody," Minias said, drawing my attention back. "So he only has simple, easily performed curses, but he's exceptionally adept at line jumping."
"Well, he's been in someone's kitchen. He looks like he always does, and I know that's not his natural form." I don't want to know what he looks like. I really don't.
Minias's head moved up and down once, and he swallowed his coffee. "Yes," he said softly as he leaned back. "Someone has been helping him. That he tried to take you tonight went a long way toward convincing me it wasn't you."
"Me?" I blurted. "You really think I'd work with him?" Then my fingers, gripping my coffee, went weak. Appearance charms didn't just happen in one night. That meant that Al…My eyes rose, and I wished Minias would take off his glasses. "How long has Al been slipping your containment?"
Minias's lips twitched. "This is the third night in a row."
Fear jolted me, and Jenks rose from the table, red dust slipping from him.
"And you didn't think I might want to know that?" I exclaimed.
In a smooth motion, Minias took off his glasses. His arm flat on the table, he leaned in to me. "How much effort do you expect me to exert?" he said tightly, and I blinked at the irate emotion reflected in his goat-slitted eyes. "We don't care if he kills you or not. I have no reason to help you."
"But you did," I said belligerently, thinking anger seemed better than fear. "Why?" Immediately Minias backed down, and seeing there was something here he didn't want to talk about, I decided I did.
"I was tracking Al," the demon said. "That you were there was merely helpful."
Jenks began laughing, and all eyes turned to him as he rose several inches. "You got sacked, didn't you," he said, and Minias stiffened.
My first impulse to protest died at Minias's stoic face. "You got fired?" The demon's reach for his oversize mug almost smacked Jenks in its quickness.
"Why else would he be tracking Al instead of watching TV with Newt?" Jenks said, flitting to the safety of my shoulder. "You got canned. Outsourced. Pink-slipped. Handed your walking papers. Given the go light. Slipped on the banana. Served the dead slug."
Minias put his glasses back on. "I've been reassigned," he said tightly.
Suddenly I was afraid. Really afraid. "You aren't watching Newt?" I whispered, and Minias looked surprised by my fear.
"Who is Newt?" my mother asked, dabbing a napkin at her lips and sliding the last half of the cheesecake to me.
"She's just the most powerful demon they got over there," Jenks boasted as if he had something to do with it. "Minias was her babysitter. She's more dangerous than a militant fairy on Brimstone, and she's the one who cursed the church last year before I bought it. Didn't twitch a wing. She's got a major burr up her ass about Rachel."
Minias bit back a snort, and I wished Jenks would shut up. My mother hadn't known about the "blasphemy incident."
"There are no female demons," my mother said, fumbling in her purse to bring out a compact and her lipstick. "Your father was very clear on that."
"Apparently he was mistaken." I picked up a fork but immediately set it down. I'd lost my desire for cheesecake about five surprises ago. Gut clenching, I turned to Minias. "So who's watching Newt?"
The demon's face lost all its amusement. "Some young punk," he said sullenly, surprising me with the modern phrase.
Jenks, though, was delighted. "You lost Newt one too many times, and they replaced you with a younger demon. Oh, that's beautiful!"
Minias's hand quivered, his fingers abruptly loosening on his mug when a soft crack rang out from the porcelain.
"Stop it, Jenks," I said, wondering how much of Minias losing his job was due to Newt slipping away on his watch, and how much was from the demon's inability to make impartial decisions regarding her security. I'd seen them together, and Minias clearly cared for her. Too much to lock her up when she needed it, probably.
"How do they expect me to seduce her and maintain her adherence to the law simultaneously?" he snarled. "It can't be done. Damned fool bureaucrats don't know the first thing about love and dominance."
Seduce her? I arched my eyebrows, but an icy sensation rippled through me at the glimpse of his anger and frustration. Silence, thick and uncomfortable, took over, making the surrounding conversation seem louder. Seeing us staring, Minias forced his tension from him. His sigh was so soft, I wasn't sure I hadn't imagined it.
"Al can't be allowed to flaunt the rules," he said, as if he hadn't just shown us the pain in his soul. "If I can contain him, I can return to supervising Newt."
"Rachel!" my mother exclaimed, and I turned to see a familiar mask of lighthearted ignorance on her. "He's a runner, just like you! You should go out to a movie or something."
"Mom, he's a—" I hesitated. "He's not a runner," I said, stopping just short of saying he was a demon. "And he certainly isn't date material." Guilt hit me. I'd pushed her, and she was slipping into old patterns. Cursing myself, I pulled my attention to Minias, just wanting to wrap this up and get out of here. "Sorry," I said to apologize for my mother.
Minias's face was still empty. "I don't do witches."
I had a hard time not finding offense in that, but Jenks saved me from making a total ass out of myself by buzzing his wings to gain everyone's attention.
"So let me get this straight," he said, hovering a breath above the sticky table with one hand on his hip, the other pointing that plastic-coated paper clip at Minias. "You lost your cushy babysitting job and are now trying to gain control of a demon who has limited power and resources. And you can't do it?"
"It's not a matter of gaining control over him," Minias protested indignantly. "We can catch him. We simply can't contain him after sunset. As I told you, someone is summoning him out of confinement."
"And you can't stop them?" I questioned, thinking of the charmed zip-strips that the I.S. used to keep ley line practitioners from jumping out of custody via a ley line.
Minias shook his head and his glasses caught the light. "No. We catch him, confine him, and when the sun goes down, he pops out, rested and fed. He's la
ughing at us. Me."
I disguised my shiver by taking a sip of my coffee. "Any idea who's doing it?" My thoughts went to Nick, and the coffee turned to acid in my stomach.
"Not anymore." His boots scraped against the gritty floor. "Soon as I find out, they die."
Nice. Fumbling for my mom's hand under the table, I gave it a squeeze.
"Do you have any idea as to who might be helping him?" Minias asked next, and I forced myself to keep breathing.
Nick, I thought, but I wouldn't say it aloud. Not even if he was sending Al to hurt me—because if it was Nick, I'd take care of him myself. I could feel Jenks's eyes on me, wanting me to say it, but I wouldn't. "Why don't you just get rid of his summoning name?" I said, looking for other options. "You do that, and he can't be summoned out."
The skin visible past Minias's sunglasses tightened. He knew I wasn't saying something. "You can't throw away a password. Once you have one, it's yours." He hesitated, and I felt the gathering of trouble. "You can exchange it with someone else's, though."
The ribbon of tension around my chest squeezed, and all my warning flags went up.
"If someone exchanged names with him," Minias drawled into the conversation-rich air, "we could contain him. Unfortunately, because of his job, he's been very lax with his summoning name. There are an astounding number of people on this side of the lines who know it, and no demon will willingly take it." Minias stared at me. "They have no reason to."
My fingers tightened on my waxed paper cup, sure now I knew why Minias was sitting at a table sipping coffee with me. I had a password. I had a reason to trade. I had a major problem.
"So what does that have to do with my daughter?" my mother said, her voice thick with warning. Fear caused her to drop the scattered-thoughts image she used as a buffer to hide the damage my dad's death had wrought.
Minias adjusted his glasses to give himself time to weigh the emotions at our table. "I want your daughter to exchange passwords with Al."
"No fairy-crap way." The dust slipping from Jenks was a red so deep that it seemed black.
"Absolutely not," I echoed. I scowled and slid my chair back.
Unperturbed, Minias shook more cinnamon into his coffee. "Then he'll kill you. I don't care."
"Obviously you do or you wouldn't be here," I said sharply. "You can't hold him without my name. You don't care if I live or die. It's you you're worried about."
My mom sat stiff and miserable. "Will you remove her demon marks if she does this? All of them?"
"Mom!" I exclaimed, not aware that she even knew about my demon marks.
Green eyes full of pain, she took my cold fingers in hers. "Your aura is filthy, honey. And I do watch the news. If this demon can remove your marks and purge your aura, then you should at least find out what the consequences or possible side effects are."
"Mom, it's not just a password, it's a summoning name!"
Minias gazed at my mother with a new interest. "It's a summoning name that has no pull on you," he said. "The most that will likely happen is you fielding a few months of redirected calls to Al."
I took my hand from my mother's, not believing this was happening. "You said I had to pick a name no one could figure out, that if someone did, they could make my life miserable. Do you know how many people know Al's name? I don't, but it's more than know mine." Done with this, I pushed myself from the table. The chair scraped, and the vibration went all the way up my spine and made me shiver.
"That's the point, witch," Minias said, making the word an insult. "If you don't, you're going to die. I intervened tonight in the hope you'd be willing to come to an arrangement, but I won't do it again. I simply don't care."
Fear, or maybe adrenaline, sparked through me. Arrangement? He meant a deal. A deal with a demon. My mother's eyes pleaded with me, and Jenks lifted his poker, bristling. "Is that a threat?" he snarled, his wings going red with his increased circulation.
"A statement of odds." Minias set his cup down with a sense of finality. The napkin was next, folded and laid flat beside it. "Yes or no."
"Pick someone else," I said. "There are millions of witches. Someone has got to be more stupid than me and say yes. Give them a name and exchange it with Al."
He looked at me from over his shades. "You're one of two witches this side of the lines whose blood is capable of making a strong enough bond. Yes or no?"
Oh, back to the demon magic thing. Swell. "So use Lee," I said bitterly. "He's stupid." As well as aggressive, ambitious, and now a basket case from having been Al's familiar for a couple of months before I rescued him. Sort of. God, no wonder Al hated me.
Minias sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. A faint whiff of Brimstone tickled my nose. "He has too close a tie to Al," he said, his gaze on the ceramic mug cradled in his hands. "He wouldn't do it. I asked. The man is a coward."
My neck stiffened. "And if common sense makes me say no, then I'm a coward, too?"
"You can't be summoned," he said, as if I was being obstinate. "Why are you balking?"
"Al would know my name." Just the thought made my pulse quicken.
"You know his."
For one brief moment I considered it. Then the thought of Kisten flashed through me. I couldn't take the chance. Not again. This wasn't a game, and there was no reset button. "No," I said abruptly. "We're done here."
My mother's shoulders eased and Jenks's feet touched the table. I was wire tight, wondering if this truce would last now that I had said no, whereupon he'd return to a normal demonic frame of mind and trash the place along with what was left of my reputation. But Minias finished his coffee in a final swallow, raising his hand and motioning for the clerk to make one more to go. He rose, and my held breath escaped. "As you want it," Minias said as he picked up the cinnamon and stood. "I won't be conveniently coming to save you a second time."
I was about to tell him where he could shove his convenience, but Al was going to show up again, and if I could call Minias to collect him, my chances of survival would increase—I thought. I didn't have to take Minias up on his offer, just survive until I figured out who was summoning Al and deal with him or her myself. Demon summoning wasn't illegal, but my foot in their gut a couple of times might convince them it was a really bad idea. And if it was Nick? Well, that would be a real pleasure.
"What if I think about it?" I said, and my mother gave me a nervous smile and a pat on my arm. See, I can use my brain, too.
Minias smirked as if he saw right through me. "Don't think too long," he said, accepting the paper cup Junior was extending to him. "I've gotten word that they caught him on the West Coast trying to ride the shadow of night into tomorrow. The pattern-shift indicates he has everything he needs and all that's left is implementing it."
I refused to show my fear, not swallowing though my mouth was dry.
Minias leaned close, the scent of burnt amber high in my imagination as his breath shifted my hair. "You're safe until the sun goes down tomorrow, Rachel Mariana Morgan. Hunt fast."
Jenks rose up on his dragonfly wings, clearly frustrated as he stayed just out of the demon's easy reach. "Why don't you just kill Al?"
Tucking the entire container of cinnamon into a jacket pocket, Minias shrugged. "Because we haven't had a demon birth in five thousand years." He hesitated, then shook his arm to cause an amulet to slip from his sleeve and fall into his fingers. "Thank you, Alice, for the use of your amulet. If your daughter is half as skilled in the kitchen as you, she would make a fine familiar."
Mom had made it herself? I thought. Not simply invoked a pilfered one?
The cloying scent of burnt amber rolled over me, and my mother blushed. It was obvious by the protests of the surrounding people that they had noticed the stench as well, and Minias smiled an empty smile behind the mirrored black glasses. "If you would banish me?"
I'd totally forgotten. "Oh. Sure," I mumbled as the people behind him turned with their hands over their noses in complaint. "Ah, demon, I demand that yo
u depart here and return directly to the ever-after to not bother us again this night."
And with a nod, Minias vanished.
The people behind him gasped, and I waved. "University professor late for a class," I lied, and they turned, laughing at their fear and dismissing the stench as an early Halloween prank.
"Lord help you, Rachel," my mother said sourly. "If that's how you treat men, it's no wonder you can't keep a boyfriend."
"Mom, he's not a man. He's a demon!" I protested softly, pausing as she pocketed that charm. Clearly hair straighteners weren't the only thing she was trading to Patricia. Scent amulets weren't hard to make, but one strong enough to block out a demon's stench was highly unusual. Talk about your niche market. Maybe she was specializing in charms no one else bothered with to avoid competition—and thus lawsuits—from annoyed, licensed charm makers.
Eyes on my coffee, I said, "Mom, about those amulets you've been making for Patricia."
Jenks took to the air, and my mother huffed. "You're never going to find Mr. Right if you don't start playing with Mr. Right Now," she said, gathering everything up on her plate. "Minias is obviously Mr. Never, but you could have been a little nicer."
Jenks shrugged, and I sighed.
"I noticed he didn't offer to get the tab, though, did he?" my mother finished.
I took another swallow of my coffee and gathered myself to rise. I wanted to get home to my sanctified church before any more demons popped into my life with nasty solicitations. Not to mention I had to talk to Ceri. Make sure Ivy had told her Al was out.
As I slowly followed Jenks and my mom to the trash and then the door, my thoughts swung back to what Minias had said about no new demons being born for the last five thousand years. He was at least five thousand years old and had been assigned to monitor and seduce a female demon? And why no new demons? Was it because there were so few female demons left, or because having sex with one could be deadly?
Three
I set the stack of unopened desk organizers I'd bought last month on the scratched hardwood floor of the sanctuary, wincing at the high-pitched squeal of pixy children as they swarmed into the nook of my desk that I had just opened up. They weren't moving in for the winter yet, but Matalina was getting a jump on prepping my desk. I couldn't blame her for the fall cleaning. I didn't use my desk much, and there was more dust gathering than work done at it.