by Ким Харрисон
Al misted into existence in a seated, slouched posture, and I stared, fascinated and repulsed as he took on a gross parody of me. His legs were twisted akimbo, skinny shoulders slumped and bare, carrying red-rimmed scratches that held crusted blood. The slack-jawed face staring back at me was mine, but it was blank and empty, the red stringy curls lank. It was the eyes that were the worst—demon-red, goat-slitted orbs staring at me from my own face.
I hated it when he showed up as me.
"That's nice," I said, easing back from the circle.
A flicker of anger lit through his empty expression, and a shimmer of ever-after coated him. His form grew blockier, more solid. A whiff of lilac came to me, and the clean scent of crushed velvet. He faced me squarely, full of elegance and lordly refinement, sitting cross-legged on the cold cement: lace at his cuffs, boots shining in the light, ruddy complexion clean, and every vestige of a bruise or cut gone.
"I knew it was you," he said, the hatred in his deep voice pulling a shiver through me. "You're the only one who knows it."
I swallowed and tucked a curl behind my ear. "I never wanted your name. I only wanted you to leave me alone. Why the hell couldn't you just leave me alone?"
He sniffed, only now looking around with a haughty disdain. "Is that why you're calling me into…a park? You want to trade back? Afraid you're going to be drawn back to the ever-after when the sun rises?" His head tilted, and he smiled, showing me his flat, blocky teeth. "You should be. I'm most curious about that myself."
My mouth went dry. "I'm not a demon," I said boldly. "You can't scare me."
The subtle tension in him rose. I saw it in the slight tightening of his fingers. "Rachel, honey, if you're not scared, you're not going to survive." His manner turned cocky and bitter. "Well, you took my name," he said, his noble British accent perfect and precise. "Isn't it pleasant, being at someone's mercy? Trapped by a hack in a little tiny bubble. Is it a wonder we try to kill you?" An eyebrow rising, he turned introspective. "Did Thomas Arthur Bansen escape?"
I nodded, and he smiled knowingly. "Look," I said, glancing at the growing light, "for what it's worth, I'm sorry, and if you'd shut up about poor little you and listen, we might be able to both come away with something. Unless you want to go back to that cell of yours."
Al was silent. Then he inclined his head. "I'm listening."
I thought of Ceri advising me against this, of Jenks ready to risk his life on a run we couldn't win, and of Ivy knowing I was the only one who could get myself out and dying inside as she forced herself to let me do it. I thought about all the times I had brought in black witches, pitying them for their foolishness, telling myself demons were dangerous, manipulating bastards who you couldn't beat. But I wasn't trying to beat them, I was trying to join them…apparently. I took a steadying breath. "This is what I want."
Al made a rude noise. As if for a nonexistent audience, he threw a lace-cuffed hand in the air. A hint of burnt amber tickled my nose, and I wondered if it was real or simply my memory inventing the scent.
"I want you to leave the people I love alone, especially my mother. I want Trent, unharmed and free from persecution for stealing the elven sample," I said, voice low. "You are all collectively to leave him alone."
His head moved back and forth, and he eyed me over his smoked glasses. "I'll say it again. You are not shy about asking for things. I can't bind anyone's actions but my own."
I nodded, expecting this. "I want that same amnesty for stealing your sample."
"And I want to rip your bloody fucking head off, but it looks like we're both going to be disappointed, now aren't we?" he mockingly crooned.
My breath shook as I exhaled. I glanced at the east, and my pulse quickened. He had tortured my mom, not in anger but to get to me. Never again. "What is it worth to you if I can not only get you out of jail, but have the person who put you there apologize?"
Al sneered. "If you don't have anything constructive to say, you should let me go back to the ever-after and my cell. I had everything under control until you demonstrated to Minias that you could spindle line energy."
"That's what's going to save your ass," I shot back, belligerent. "I have an idea to benefit both of us. You wanna hear it?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, the lace fluttering. "And what is that? Buy a trip in to rescue Trent with your soul?" It was mocking, and my face burned. "It's not worth it," he added. "In a few hours, I'm going to be banished to the surface, my belongings raffled off as novelty items and my living space given to someone else—my reputation destroyed. I'd rather have your head than your soul at this point in my illustrious career."
"Good," I shot back, "because you're not going to get it." My heart pounded as I waited for him to get over his pity party. Sure enough, after about five seconds of miffed silence, he turned back to me. In a very small voice I asked, "Is there a system in place for a demon to teach another? Sort of a mentoring position?" God, help me. Tell me I'm seeing things clearly and unclouded by pride.
Al threw his head back and laughed. The water surrounding us rippled, and I heard the echo of it come back from the new town houses across the street.
"There hasn't been a demon needing instruction for five thousand years!" he exclaimed. "I'm about to be exiled to the surface, and you want me to take you on as a student? Teach you everything I know for free just because?"
I said nothing, waiting as he followed my question to the reasoning behind it, and his ruddy face lost all expression. Eyes peering over those damned glasses of his, he stared as my pulse quickened. "Yes," he said softly, almost breathing the word. "There is."
My hands were shaking, and I wrapped my arms around myself and tucked them under the shelter of my jacket. "And if you said you had taken me on as a student instead of a familiar—because I could twist demon magic—then you wouldn't be in trouble for letting me know how to spindle ever-after in my thoughts."
His head moved almost imperceptibly up and down, his jaw tightening.
"You could tell them that you taught me, then left me here because I was learning more fighting you than I could in the ever-after."
"But I didn't."
His voice was so lacking in emotion, it sounded dead. "They don't know that," I said.
Al's chest rose and fell in a sigh. I could see relief in him, and I wondered what it was like to be a demon and afraid. And how long he would let me live knowing I not only saw it, but had the answer to save him. "Why?" he asked.
I licked my lips. "I want Trent. If I'm your student, wouldn't I be entitled to a familiar? Hell, I made one of my boyfriends my familiar before you broke the bond," I said, attention going everywhere as I tried to hide my shame even though I knew I'd never use another person like that. At least not intentionally. "Trent is wearing smut that I should have," I added. "He took it voluntarily. That's what a familiar does."
His fingers twitching with a repressed excitement, Al smiled. "And my reputation is restored." The demon glanced to the east and adjusted his glasses to hide his eyes. "They aren't stupid," he said dryly. "They will say it's a convenient story."
This was the really scary part. I had trusted Al to give me a night of peace, but this was entirely different. "Which is why you're going to bring me through the lines so I can speak in your defense," I said, fear clenching my heart. "Then you do what you have to for me to claim Trent as my familiar."
"Trenton Aloysius Kalamack wears Minias's mark," he said quickly.
"But he's wearing my smut of his own free will," I offered, and Al pursed his lips, leaning back until he hit the bubble and jerked forward.
"I would need to buy your familiar's mark from Minias," he mused aloud. Eyebrows rising, he shifted a hand in a gesture of possibility. "But I can do it."
"Then Trent and I come back here, and we all go back to normal."
Al snorted. "Sweet innocence be damned. What about my name?" he asked, making a moot face. "I want that back."
I met his gaze, refus
ing to give on this. "You won't be in jail."
His eyes narrowed. "I want my name. I need it."
I remembered what Ceri had said about how he made his living. Would I be responsible for the people Al tricked into slavery if I gave it back to him? Logic said no, but emotion said I should stop him if I could. But what about me being summoned into Tom's circle? I didn't want that happening again. "Maybe," I whispered.
His attention bore into mine as he took a slow breath. I didn't know what he was going to come back with. "Rachel," he said, and the simple sound of it made my blood turn cold. Something was there that hadn't been before, and it scared the crap out of me. "I need to know something before I will bargain with you anymore."
Hearing a trap, I edged back, my jeans scraping on the grit between me and the cement. "I'm not giving anything for free."
His expression didn't change. "Oh, not free," he said in a dangerous monotone. "Insight into another's thoughts is never free. You pay for it in the most…unexpected ways. I want to know why you didn't call Minias the other night. I saw your decision to let me go, and I want to know why you did it. Minias would have jailed me. You would have had a night of freedom. Yet you…let me go. Why?"
"Because I wasn't about to call a mouse of a demon when I could take care of it myself," I said, then hesitated. That wasn't why. "Because I thought if I gave you a night of peace, you might give me the same." God, I had been stupid. To think that a demon would respect that had been dumb.
But a slow, deeply satisfied smile came over him, and his breath quickened. "So softly it starts," he whispered. "Foolishly clever and with an unsurvivable trust. It just saved your miserable life, that questionable show of thought, my itchy-witch." Al's smile shifted, becoming lighter. "And now you will live to possibly regret it."
I shivered, not knowing if I had just saved or damned myself. But I'd be alive, and that was what mattered right now.
"You as my protégée?" he asked, as if trying it on.
I felt dizzy. "Name only," I breathed, putting a hand on the cold cement to ground myself. "You leave me alone. My family, too. Stay away from my mom, you SOB."
"Priceless," Al mocked. "No. If I am taking you, you will be here." He touched the ground by his knee. "In the ever-after. With me."
"Absolutely not."
Al took a breath, then leaned forward with his brow furrowed, as if he was trying to impress me with the weight of his words. "You don't understand, witch," he said, hammering in the last word. "There hasn't been the chance to teach someone worth the salt of their blood in a very long time. If we are going to play this game, then we will play it."
He leaned back, and I remembered to breathe.
"I can't claim you as a student if you aren't with me," he said, gesturing flamboyantly, his earlier mood of seriousness replaced with his usual dramatic flair. "Be reasonable. I know you can be. If you try very, very hard."
I didn't like his mocking tone. "I'll visit you one night a week," I countered.
He eyed me over his glasses, his gaze rising to the coming sun. "One night a week off, and the rest of the time, you're with me."
My thoughts went to Trent. I could walk away from this right now, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself. "I'll give you one twenty-four-hour period—a full day and night every week. Take it or leave it." Damn it, Trent, you owe me big.
"Two," he countered, and I stifled a tremor. I had him over a barrel, having shown him his freedom and the status having a teachable student would bring him. Still, he could say no, and then neither of us would have anything. And I was hoping that I might get something else out of him before we were done.
"One," I said, sticking to my original offer. "And I want to know how to jump the lines immediately. I will not be stranded with no way home."
A curious light flickered in his eyes. It wasn't lust, it wasn't anticipation. I didn't know what it was. "We will spend our time as I see fit," he said, then leered, completely wiping out the deeper emotion I'd seen in him. "Any way I want," he added, licking his ruddy lips.
"No sex," I said, heart pounding. "I'm not sleeping with you. Forget it." It was now or never. "And I want that mark of yours removed," I blurted. "Gratis. Call it a signing bonus."
His lips parted and he laughed until he realized I was serious. "That would leave you with only Newt's mark," he said, amused. "Her claim on you would be stronger than mine. Not a healthy place to be, when one is in the ever-after and…vulnerable."
Okay. Good point. Backtrack a little. "Then buy Newt's mark for me," I said, shaking inside, "and take it off. You want me as an apprentice, I want some insurance."
Face clouding, he thought about it, and I got really scared when his expression shifted to a devilish delight. "Only if you give me my name back…Madam Algaliarept. Do that, and we have a deal."
I shuddered upon hearing the terms come from his lips, and I didn't care that he saw it. His grin deepened. But considering that I wouldn't have to deal with Newt ever again or risk being summoned into Al's circle, it wasn't a bad arrangement. For either of us. "You don't get your name until Newt's mark is gone," I countered.
He looked at me, then turned to the bright horizon, his smoked glasses going even blacker. "The sun is about to rise," he murmured distantly, and I held my breath, not knowing if he agreed or not.
"So are we doing this?" I asked. There was a jogger at the far end of the park, and his dog was barking furiously at us.
"One more question," he said, bringing his gaze back to me. "Tell me what it was like, being trapped in someone's bubble like a demon."
My face screwed up at the memory. "I hated it," I said, and a small noise slipped from him, rising up from someplace deep inside him where only he knew his thoughts. "It was degrading—infuriating that a worm like Tom had control of me. I wanted to…scare him so bad he wouldn't ever do it again."
Al's expression shifted when what I had said hit me and I put a hand to my chest. Damn it back to the Turn, I understood him. He hadn't asked because he hadn't known how I felt. He asked so I would see we were the same. God, help me. Please.
"Don't do that to me again," he said. "Ever."
My stomach cramped. He was asking for me to trust him out of a circle, and it was the scariest thing I'd ever had to do. "Okay," I whispered. "You got it."
Al looked at the bubble of ever-after over his head and tugged the lace of his cuffs down. "Come here."
At that instant, light spilled over the rim of earth surrounding Cincinnati. My scratched circle was still there, but Al no longer was. Shaking, I dropped the barrier of ever-after and brought my second sight into focus. Taking a breath, I stepped into the line to find him standing right where I'd left him, smiling with his hand extended. Around him, or us, rather, slumped the broken city, grass-choked chunks of pavement standing at odd angles thrusting upward from the earth. There was no bridge or ponds. Just dead grass and a red haze. I didn't look behind me to the Hollows as the wind blew grit into my face.
I was standing in a line, balanced between reality and the ever-after. I could go either way. I wasn't his yet. "One day a week," I said, knees wobbling.
"I give you Newt's mark, you give me my name," Al said, then wiggled his fingers as if he needed me to take them to finish the deal. I reached for it, and at the last moment, Al's glove melted away, and I found myself gripping his hand. I stifled my first impulse to jerk away, feeling the hard calluses and the warmth. It was done. Now I only had to roll with the surprises.
"Rachel!" came a call with the slamming of a car door. "God, no!"
It had been my mom's voice, and my hand still in Al's, I turned, unable to see anything.
Al pulled me into him, and numb, I felt his arm curve possessively about my waist. "Too late," he whispered, his breath shifting the hair about my ear, and we jumped.
Thirty-three
The jump through the line hit me like a bucket of ice water, an uncomfortable slap right from the start with the shock turning into
the sensation of being wet where you don't want to be and left dripping. I felt my body shatter—that was the shock—and then my thoughts tightened into a ball around my soul to hold it together—that was the miserable, dripping-wet part. That I was holding my soul together and not Al was a surprise to both of us.
Good, came Al's grudging, almost worried thought rippling over the protective bubble I had somehow made about my psyche. And then came the push back into existence.
Again the bucket of ice water hit my thoughts as he shoved me out of the line. I tried to see how he did it, coming away without a clue. But at least I had managed to keep from spreading my thoughts over the entire continent crisscrossed with ley lines—the stretchy stuff that kept the ever-after from vanishing, if Jenks was right.
I gasped as I felt my lungs form. Dizzy, I fell to my hands and knees. "Ow," I said as I looked at the dirty white tile, then brought my head up at the hammering of noise. We were in a large room. Men in suits were everywhere standing or sitting in orange chairs—waiting.
"Get up," Al grumbled, bending to bodily yank me upright.
I rose, arms and legs flopping until I found my feet. Wide-eyed, I stared at the irate people dressed in a vast array of styles. Al jerked me into motion, and my mouth dropped as I realized we had popped into existence upon what looked like an FIB emblem. Holy crap, it even looked like the FIB reception room. Minus the demons, of course.
Feeling displaced and unreal, I turned to where the doors to the street would have been, seeing only a blank wall and more waiting demons. "Is this the FIB?" I stammered.
"It's someone's idea of a joke," Al said, his voice tight and his accent impeccable. "Get off the pad unless you want someone's elbow in your ear."
"God, it stinks," I said, hand over my nose as he pulled me into a long step.
Al strode forward, head high. "It's the stench of bureaucracy, my itchy-witch, and why I chose to go into human resources when but a wee lad."