Ever After th-11

by Kim Harrison

  The gargoyle yawned and looked at the sun. “Change damaged it. Change will fix it. In time it will fix itself, destroying everything here along with it.”

  From my feet, Al moved, whispering, “Newt. Call Newt.”

  My gaze jerked to him, glad he was conscious. “Newt?”

  His eyes opened, and I started at his black eyes. “She can jump us,” he breathed, clearly not seeing anything. “She’ll be listening for you. She’s worried about you, the insane bat.” Wincing, he tried to move, then thought better of it. “Do hurry. I feel less up to par than usual.”

  Nauseated, I loosened my hold on my thoughts, searching for the demon collective. I’d never tried to contact anyone without a scrying mirror, but as he said, she was listening. “Newt!” I shouted, and the gargoyle lifted his wings in alarm. “Newt, I need you. We need you!”

  The gargoyle made one leathery down pulse of air, then hesitated, his feet still gripping the ruins of the castle. “You won’t find enough time to fix it before it fixes itself. The lines are failing. The world breaker wakes. We need to leave. Save who you can.”

  He jumped into the air, the wind from his departure making me squint and sending my lank hair blowing back. He circled once before becoming lost in the red sun. Desperately worried, I looked at Al, out cold again. The sweat had dried on him, and he was shaking.

  “Maybe I should’ve asked him for help,” I whispered, then spun at the clink of stone on wood. It was Newt, and I was struck dumb for a moment, reminded of the first time we’d met. She’d been a referee to see how long I’d last after the sun went down, marooned in the ever-after by Trent’s “best friend.” She was wearing a long, flowing robe like a desert sheik, her black staff in one hand, the other holding her robe closed against the wind. Her awareness, though, was clear this time, her step sure as she made her way to us with a new urgency.

  “Help me get him home,” I said before she had closed the gap, and I shocked myself with the knowledge that I’d pay just about anything for it.

  Her long, somewhat bony hands were gentle as she crouched beside him, holding a hand over him as if testing his aura. “What did he do?” she asked tersely, then paused as her glance fell on the sword the gargoyle had left behind.

  I sniffed, backing up a step with my arms wrapped around my middle. “He tried to find out if Ku’Sox made that purple line and fell to the bottom of it.”

  Newt spun, finding her feet in an instant. “And you let him?”

  “He didn’t say it was going to scrape his aura off!” I yelled back. “I got him out, but . . .” My words faltered, and I felt the prick of tears, hating them. It was Al, for God’s sake.

  “You got him out?” Newt blinked her black eyes at me, drawing herself up when she saw the ring on my hand. “Oh.” She hesitated. “He gave you . . . Where is the other one?”

  Nervous, I held up my other hand to show her my thumb. “He took it off. He took all the pain so I could call you.”

  Newt made a harrumph of disagreement. “He took all the pain so it wouldn’t kill you.”

  Fidgeting, I came closer. Was she going to help or not? “Newt. Please. The sun.”

  Her androgynous face twisting to look more feminine somehow, she squinted up at it. “Indeed,” she said sourly, twitching the hem of her robe off Al. “It’s like breathing in acid.”

  The gritty wind gusted against me with a sudden force, and I closed my eyes, feeling the dust suddenly halt and drop away before it could hit me. It was Newt yanking me into a ley line, and with a nauseating twist, the horrid red sky winked out of existence.

  My heart thudded once, twice, and still we hadn’t reemerged anywhere. My lungs started to ache, and at the last moment, when I thought she might have forgotten me and I was going to have to scrape another line into existence trying to get out, she yanked me into reality.

  Stumbling, I caught myself against the bedpost in Al’s room. The oil lamp beside the bed was lit, making shadows at the edges of the smallish chamber. Browns, golds, and greens mimicked a primeval forest, and plush, sinking textures made it a close, secure space.

  “Sorry about that,” Newt murmured, looking matronly as she tucked the cover over Al, already resting in my, or rather, his bed. “It took me a moment to get around the room’s safeguards. I thought one jump right to his bed would be better than sliding into the library and having to drag him.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, suitably cowed. Al had told me his old bedchamber was absolutely foolproof, but apparently it wasn’t crazy-proof. I let go of the bedpost, and Newt sat on the bed beside Al, looking like a bedside nurse. I couldn’t see anything but his face, the rest of him lost in the voluptuous coverings.

  Giving Al’s cheek a little pat, Newt looked up, her black eyes taking in everything in a single sweep. “This is not Al’s bedroom. It’s far too . . . plush.”

  “It’s mine,” I rushed. “He gave it to me. Made me take it. He sleeps in the closet.”

  “You make him sleep in a closet? Very good. You might survive him after all.”

  I edged closer to look down at Al, the bed between Newt and me. “It’s not really a closet. I just call it that. It’s a tiny nine by twelve I got for making Tron that car.”

  “Oh.” Her hand touched Al’s, turning it over as if looking for the ring on my thumb.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  Again, Newt blinked at me, her eyes looking almost normal in the dim light. “You care?” Her gaze was on the ring he had given me, and I hid it behind my other hand. My thoughts went to Celfnnah, but I wasn’t going to ask Newt.

  From the bed, Al’s voice rasped out, “Of course she cares. I’m a god to her.”

  “Al!” I leaned forward over him, and he squirmed as if hurt.

  “Mother pus bucket,” he swore, running a sweat-stained, dirt-caked hand over his forehead. “I feel like I’ve been across a cheese grater several times in quick succession.” His gaze sharpened, and he tried to sit up, panic edging him. “Where are my rings? My rings!”

  “Here,” I said as Newt forced him to lie back down, and I wedged both rings off my finger and thumb, dropping them into his waiting palm. He slumped, eyes closing as his thick fingers wrapped around them. His hand was shaking, and I remembered the pain we’d shared. Taking that doubled would have killed me.

  “I let go of him,” I said, backing up from the bed and feeling as if this was my fault. “I had to. I couldn’t pull him through to reality while the sun was up. I had to let go so I could move to the ever-after to get him!”

  “Stop babbling,” Al grumped, trying to smack Newt’s hand away as she tried to see his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. Let me sleep.” He opened an eye to glare at Newt. “What is your problem, bitch?”

  Newt stopped trying to lift his eyelids, and I shut my mouth.

  “I’m not babbling,” I said, sounding sullen even to myself.

  Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Newt tucked the covers to his chin. “Good thought, bad implementation.”

  It looked as if he was going to be okay, and I wondered if Newt had seen the bottom of a purple line once and survived. “Can I do anything?” I asked.

  “You? No,” Newt said. “But I have an aura that I can give Al if—”

  “No!” both Al and I exclaimed, and she looked insulted, standing up to smooth her robe.

  “No need to shout. You’ll just have to wait until you heal, then. Here, in Rachel’s bedroom.” Her eyes went over the ceiling. “Where all your safeguards are.”

  I started to relax. It lasted all of three seconds until Al pushed Newt’s hands off him again, muttering, “Ku’Sox did it.” I stiffened, and he added, “The entire leaking line is a ruse to get us to kill Rachel for him. A very expensive, chancy ruse.” He made a wry face at me. “Maybe you shouldn’t have cursed him.”

  “It was him or me, and I like where I live,” I said loudly, and Al winced.

  Newt gave up on Al and stood with her arms crossed before he
rself. “I saw to the bottom of that purple line,” Al said. “His aura signature is down there. He caused it, whatever it is.”

  I lifted the mass of my tangled hair and let it drop, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and a carton of ice cream. “So we can go to the collective and make him fix it, right?” I said, feeling good for the first time in . . . hours? Had it only been that long?

  Newt had drifted from the bed, tidying little things here and there, snooping, and my hackles began to rise. “If he caused it, he can fix it,” she said. “But he’ll wait until after you’re dead, then ‘save’ us so we are more indebted to him.”

  Al snorted. “A brat after my own heart. Minus the killing Rachel part, of course.”

  “But you know he did it!” I said. “We found the proof!”

  Al said nothing, and my smile faded. “Al?” I questioned, and he sighed. Even Newt was avoiding me, and a spark of anger grew. “We can make him fix it, right? Al, you saw his signature in the leak.”

  “Unfortunately—” Al started, and I got in his face, waving my hand under his nose.

  “No, no, no!” I exclaimed. “There is no unfortunately in your next sentence. We make him fix it! I’m not going down as the one who broke the ever-after!”

  Al heaved a sigh, then shivered when a black-smeared coating of ever-after slithered over him. It fell away to leave him clean, the soft shape of an old-fashioned nightdress showing between his skin and the coverlet. Newt, obviously. “Rachel,” he said as he studied his bare hands. “My aura is burned down to my soul. Will you wait a few days? Then we can go in, accusations and hidden barbs flying, okay?”

  I scrunched my nose up, hating Newt when she laughed at me. “Ah, the vigor of the young,” she said, making things worse. “If it were me, I wouldn’t go even then.”

  “Why not?” I said, feeling another unfortunately coming on.

  Newt touched a hand mirror that looked identical to the one I’d seen Ceri use. “Al’s testimony will be suspect, even if he did nearly kill himself. No one will risk verifying the truth of it after seeing what it did to him. Al would be dead now if not for . . . you pulling him out.”

  She had been going to say “those rings,” but I kept silent. Her word choice was telling. Frustrated, I loomed over Al, and he closed his eyes, ignoring me. “Al,” I said forcefully, and he opened them. I hesitated at his black orbs, then rushed ahead. “I am not going to take the curse off Ku’Sox. It’s the only reason I can sleep at night. Besides, I don’t think he simply wants me dead, he wants all of you dead, too, or why bother with the Rosewood babies?”

  Newt looked at Al, an unusual trace of fear in the back of her eyes. “I believe you,” she said, her fingers tracing over the few things on the dresser. “But no one is going to help you.”

  “Why not?” I said in frustration.

  “Because we know we can’t control him, and we are cowards,” she said. “It was your familiar who freed him, and thus it is your responsibility to control him. If you can’t, we will give him you to placate him and save ourselves.”

  This sucked. “I got him back in the ever-after,” I said, and she took up the hand mirror.

  “Where we didn’t want him,” she said, and I slumped. “Best him, or we will kill you so he will save us. I’m surprised the collective gave you any time at all. They must like you.”

  I couldn’t get the frown off my face if I tried. Like me, huh? Funny way to show it.

  Al reached out to take the mirror Newt had brought to the bed. “Send her home,” he said, sounding tired, and then he started at his reflection. “What the devil happened to my eyes?”

  Newt took the mirror back despite Al’s protests, oddly sexy as she sashayed across the bedroom to put it back on the dresser. “Will they return to normal?” he asked, and she shrugged.

  “No!” I said loudly, and Al looked at me. “This is bull crap!” I added so he’d know I wasn’t talking about his stupid eyes. “Ku’Sox is going to own up to this!”

  “He’ll say you went in on it together and are now backing out, love,” Newt said.

  My zeal evaporated at the moniker, and cold, I slowed my anger. I didn’t like being “love” to a demon. It meant I was being stupid and foolish.

  “Newt, send her home, please,” Al said, his voice low in fatigue.

  The demon inclined her head, and I waved my hands in protest. “Hey! Wait! Who’s going to watch you?”

  “I don’t need watching,” Al mumbled, burrowing deeper into the folds of goose down and silk. “Go home. Call me in three days.”

  Three days?

  Al smiled, his eyes closed. “Newt?”

  “Damn it, no!” I shouted, but my words caught in my throat as I was suddenly wrapped in Newt’s awareness. I snapped a bubble of protection around myself before she could. Send me home like a little girl, eh? I thought, steaming in anger.

  But, as reality swirled around me and I found myself standing in my sunlit graveyard, my church before me in the late afternoon light, I sobered. Ku’Sox could show up in my church day or night thanks to Nick. And there were Ceri and Lucy to think about, hostages in the extreme. I couldn’t risk Ku’Sox taking revenge out on them, turning my potential win to a personal loss. Getting him to admit that I had nothing to do with that ugly purple line sucking in ever-after without compromising Ceri’s and Lucy’s safety wasn’t going to be easy.

  Immediately I found my phone, scrolling until I got to Trent’s number. I ought to put him on speed-dial or something. Pixies were coming from everywhere, and I waved them off as I began walking to the church’s back door, my head bowed as I waited for someone to pick up. “Your dad is fine,” I said, glad when Jumoke chased most of them back to their sentry duty.

  Three rings and a click, and my feet stopped when I heard Ray crying through my phone. It was a soft, heart-wrenching sob of loss that no ten-month-old should even be aware enough to make. Jenks was singing to her about blood-red daisies. “I’m back,” I said even before I knew if it really was Trent. “Don’t summon me.”

  “Did you see them?” Trent asked, his voice shockingly stark. I took a breath to tell him, my throat closing when I couldn’t get the words out. My eyes welled up. For three heartbeats, neither of us said anything, and then softly, Trent added, “No, I guess you didn’t.”

  “I think they’re okay,” I said, but it sounded like a thin hope even to me. My chest hurt, and I began to weave through the grave markers, one hand wrapped around my middle so it wouldn’t cave in. In a soft sound of wings and dust, Jumoke sat on my shoulder. “Ku’Sox has them. He’s going to use them to force you and me to do what he wants. Trent, give me some time to find a way to get them back. Ku’Sox can’t do this. Ceri is a freed familiar. All I have to do is file the right paperwork.”

  “I don’t have time for paperwork,” he said bitterly, and then I heard him sigh as Ray finally stopped crying. I could hear her little-girl snuffles, and I figured he’d picked her up.

  “Give me some time to talk to Dali then,” I said. “I need a chance to explain what’s going on to him, and then maybe he’ll help.”

  “Why would a demon help me?” Trent said, and I looked up at the church, squinting to try to find Bis. There was another huge gargoyle up there, and I frowned.

  “He’d be helping me, not you. And I’m not going to ask him to do it for free,” I said, then softened. “Give me a few hours. Can you bring Jenks home for me? And maybe my car? Say after midnight? I should be done by then and will have more information for you.”

  “Midnight!” I heard Jenks shrill, then I frowned when Trent covered the phone. “Fine, midnight,” the pixy said sourly when I could hear again.

  “Trent?” I said cautiously.

  “I’ll see you at midnight,” Trent said, and then the phone went dead.

  Startled but not surprised, I closed the phone and tucked it away. Arms wrapped around myself and my head down, I stomped up the back porch and wrestled the screen door open. This
was going to take a lot of planning.

  I should have called Ivy.

  Chapter Nine

  Nervous, I wiped my fingertips off on a towel and tossed it on the counter. Almost before it hit, I was reaching for it again, carefully folding it to drape over the oven handle, right in the middle. Exhaling, I turned to look over my kitchen, dim with only the light from the living room across the hall and the small bulb over the sink. Demons and shadows seemed to go together, but they craved the sun like an undead vampire.

  Ceri’s teapot sat between two chairs at Ivy’s farm table. The antique porcelain was warm with Earl Grey tea, two of Ceri’s best teacups beside it. A candle on the stove made it smell like a pine forest. If I was lucky, it might even overpower the burnt amber stench. Maybe. I had an hour before Trent brought Jenks home. I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d promised Trent results, and it was time to call the demon.

  I turned to Bis atop the fridge. “Well?” I asked him. “Look okay to you?”

  The cat-size teenager brought his wingtips up to touch over his head, his version of a shrug. “I guess,” he said, his pebbly skin flashing the entire range from gray, to white, to black, and back to gray again. He was anxious. So was I.

  I spun to the sink and closed the blue curtains, not wanting Dali to see anything more than he absolutely had to. For starters, the leather outfit that I’d come home in was on a hanger, hanging from a limb and airing out. “Thanks for being here, Bis.”

  “I’m not afraid of demons,” he said, his high but gravelly voice giving him away.

  Smiling, I leaned my back against the sink. I didn’t like anyone with me when I contacted Al, much less an unknown like Dali, but Bis was involved up to his pointy ears, and when he’d refused to leave the kitchen upon hearing my plans, I’d let him stay.

  “Demons aren’t that bad when you get to know them,” I said as I got a plate from the cupboard and arranged the store-bought petits fours around the pile of homemade gingersnaps in the shape of little stars. I didn’t know what Dali liked, and variety was nice.