Ever After th-11

by Kim Harrison

  I blanched at Trent’s anticipation. He stood waiting, elated and riding the high of the chase and looking forward to the grisly end. He felt my eyes on him, and he looked up. “It was a good Hunt,” he said, and the demons who heard him agreed, their gaze holding a new respect.

  A call went up, and the stones quit falling upward from the hole. A muffled boom shifted the earth, and a handful of demons dropped into the craggy entrance. I leaned forward, Trent beside me. Something oily slid through my thoughts, and I shuddered. Al was the only one not looking down into the hole. He was looking at me, and I quailed.

  “We have him!” came up a call, and those of us at the edge backed up. “We have him! And his familiar, too!”

  Nick? I shivered, my arms going around me as the demons crawled up from the hole, their gargoyles leading the way to help them. Two sodden thumps hit the dirt, and the watching demons went quiet. Only one of the captives breathed.

  “Nick?” I said, and the man’s eyes found mine, widening.

  “Rachel!” he said, then fell back when someone shoved him down. He hit the dead body of Ku’Sox and recoiled, horrified as he tried to move away from the alien-looking shape. Ku’Sox’s wings were broken in several places, and his head was tilted at a sickening angle, his neck snapped through. He was dead, but I felt nothing, numb.

  “We found them grappling,” a demon I didn’t recognize said. “I don’t know if we killed Ku’Sox or his familiar.”

  My eyes widened and my knees wobbled as I realized what had happened. Was that Ku’Sox dead before me, or Nick—Ku’Sox changing their forms in order to survive?

  “Rachel, it’s me!” he said, rising up only to get shoved down again. “Tell them it’s me! I never meant to hurt you! Please!”

  The demon holding a staff to his chest shrugged. “Well?” the demon asked me. “You know him best. Is it Ku’Sox or his familiar?”

  I edged past Trent, feeling every stone under my foot, every gust of gritty wind in my snarled hair. Weary, I came to a halt before the downed figure, seeing the emotion behind his eyes, the wrinkles just starting at the corners, the stubble glinting red in the rising sun. It looked the same as when I had left Nick at midnight.

  Reaching out, I touched his face, rubbing a bit of blood off his cheek, feeling it between my fingers, remembering Nick’s smile that turned into betrayal, not once, twice, but three times. Was this Nick or Ku’Sox?

  “Rachel,” he whispered, begging. “Tell them it’s me.”

  My heart beat, and my lungs emptied. Ceri was gone. Pierce. But what hurt the most was that two girls would grow up not knowing Ceri’s proud strength, how her compassion blended with a brutal justice, and that she had loved them with the depth of her soul.

  “Rachel!” he screamed, terror making his face lined. “You told me that you would keep me safe!”

  I leaned in, smelling the fear in his sweat under the stink of burnt amber. “You left the church,” I breathed, and he jerked away from me.

  Trent’s light touch on my elbow shocked through me, and I spun. “It’s Nick,” he said to me, his desperate expression the last thing I’d ever expected.

  I know it’s Nick! I screamed in my thoughts, but I didn’t want it to be. If I said it was Ku’Sox, they would rip him apart. I wanted him dead. I wanted him gone. How could I let him feel the sun and joy when he was why Ceri and Pierce were dead?

  Trent stepped forward, the demons silently watching. “You know it’s him.”

  “He should be dead!” I shouted, and he nodded, his eyes closing in a strength-gathering blink. “He is slime! He’s everything I despise. He’s hurt you, he’s hurt me, and he has lied to me too many times. He doesn’t deserve to walk away from this!”

  Nick pulled himself together, shaking as he looked up at me whispering, “Please.”

  Trent shoved a toe at him to be quiet, then took my hands to draw my attention to himself instead. On our fingers, the slavers glinted blood red in the coming sunrise. “You’re right,” he said, and Nick whimpered. “But let him live. Not for him. For me.”

  “For you!” I jerked out of his grip, falling back into Al. His thick hand fell on my shoulder, and I pulled myself straight.

  Jaw clenching, Trent followed me. Nick cowered behind him, the torn remains of Ku’Sox steaming beside him in the cold wind. “For me,” he said, but his voice was too soft for it to be him wanting to take his revenge on Nick alone. “I want . . .” he said, then hesitated, taking a breath of air and lifting his chin. “I want one pure thing in my life,” he said loudly, his voice ringing in the red-tinted air. “I want one thing I can point to and say, ‘That is good, and it’s a part of me.’ ”

  My heart thudded and my eyes teared up. He thought I was good? I couldn’t speak as Trent took my hands and pulled me a step from Al, and I shivered as the demon’s touch fell away. “I want,” he said softly, “you to keep what you can of the person you want to be. Don’t sacrifice it for this.” Lip curling, he gave Nick a sidelong, dismissive glance. “Don’t let your desire for revenge give him the power to make you what you don’t want to be.”

  “It’s hard,” I said, and the demons around me began to shuffle, eager to be gone.

  But he smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Of course it is. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

  Newt pushed the dead carcass of Ku’Sox into the hole with her foot, and Nick scrabbled away from the edge. “Well?”

  It hurt to say it, but I took a breath and looked straight up. Trent’s fingers were clasped in mine. “It’s Nick,” I said, then danced back when Nick cried out, reaching for me.

  As one, the demons groaned. Al’s shoulders slumped, and then his eyes narrowed. “I say we still kill him,” he muttered, reaching, and Newt slammed her staff down between them.

  “I claim him!” she shouted, swinging her staff in a wide circle, and they fell back, used to her outbursts. Trent pulled me out of the way, and I watched Newt almost crouch over Nick, her robes covering his feet. “He’s mine! He’s mine by rights! His actions cost me a familiar, and I claim him!”

  “No!” Nick cried out, his hand reaching for me. “Rachel! Please!”

  Her head tilted, Newt waited, one eye almost slitted shut as she looked at me. I nodded, and the demon laughed, hauling him up and giving him a shake. “Go wait for me,” she intoned, and he stared, panting in fear. She gave him a shove, and he stumbled, vanishing as she flung him to her rooms. I thought of him landing in the mockery of my kitchen, and a tiny part of me felt the first hints of justice.

  I jumped when Al’s hand landed on my shoulder again. “He will be dead in a week,” the demon murmured, his ash-scented breath tickling my ear.

  But I knew Nick. He was too ugly to die.

  The sound of Newt’s staff scraping on the stones was loud as she came forward to us. Demons were vanishing with their gargoyles in pairs and groups, and the bite of windblown rock blew about my feet, rising. I closed my eyes when it reached my face, and my hair began to stream behind me. I didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow. Maybe I could take a day off.

  “It was an excellent Hunt,” Trent said, and my eyes flew open to see him extending his hand to Dali. “I am Trenton Aloysius Kalamack. I am not my ancestor.”

  Dali looked at it, then Trent. “No, you are not,” he said, his hand unmoving. “But you come from the same place.”

  Trent’s hand slowly dropped, and he inclined his head in understanding. “Perhaps later.”

  Dali backed up a step, his eyes touching mine and Al’s. “I need to think on this.” A coating of ever-after shimmered over him, leaving the clear air of morning empty of him.

  Newt sighed. “And so it circles,” she said, her black eyes coming to meet mine as the sun spilled over the rim of the ever-after, turning me a blood red. “It looks as if I won’t be killing you this morning, Rachel. You have been given a reprieve.”

  Nodding, I pulled the slaver ring off my finger and handed it t
o Trent. The two demons winced as Trent removed his slave ring, silent as he handed them back to me. They were mine again, and I could destroy them.

  I was alive, but what color was my soul?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  There was no moon as I followed Trent down the soft sawdust path of his private gardens. It was silent but for the sighing of the wind in the tender new leaves, and I could smell the cedar the path was made from. Small ferns laced the path, tiny because they’d been above the earth for only a few weeks, but I knew that by the end of the summer they’d be nearly as high as my knees.

  “I appreciate you coming out,” Trent said, a few steps ahead of me, looking comfortable in his black pants and gray shirt, his tie loose about his neck and no coat on against the slight chill. “I have a clear schedule, but showing up at your church after midnight isn’t prudent.”

  I thought of the news vans and nodded. “It’s not like I have anything on my plate,” I said, staring up at the dark branches as my steps slowed. No, it had been very quiet the last week. Most days it was just Jenks and me knocking about in the church—Ivy was spending a lot of time with Nina, trying to bring her back from the brink. I’d gotten a lot done in the garden, but I was bored to tears. When Trent had asked me to come over when I’d called to tell him I had the curse to mend his hand ready, I’d jumped at the chance. But I was more than a little curious as to why we hadn’t done it in his office or private apartments. Maybe he wanted to make s’mores? I could smell a wood fire somewhere.

  “Business still slow?” he asked, holding a dogwood branch heavy with last night’s rain out of the way.

  “Nonexistent, but Al is keeping me busy.” I had to force myself to move forward to duck under the branch, and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t Trent. He had been professional if somewhat quiet when he’d met me at the kitchen entrance at the underground garage. I’d never even seen the upstairs apartments, having gone immediately to Trent’s secondary office on the ground floor, and out into the gardens from there. It was nearing midnight and the public offices were deserted.

  Water spotted my shoulder when Trent let the branch go. A flower drifted down, and I kept it, feeling as if it had been a gift. Trent led the way. The lamp in his hand swung, sending beams of light into the wet leaves. I shivered, then stopped dead in my tracks when the path forked. To the right was a narrow nothing, to the left, well-manicured sawdust. Trent continued on down the right path, and I wavered, feeling the need to keep moving.

  “Trent,” I said, actually two steps down the wrong path. Confusion and nausea rose up, and I stopped, unable to go back. What in hell?

  “Oh. Sorry.” Motions sharp, Trent came back and took my hand, pulling me back to the smaller path. “There’s a ward.”

  His fingers in mine were warm, and my head came up. The nausea vanished, and I took a deep breath. “To keep people out?” I guessed, feeling funny as he led me up the narrow, crooked path as if I were a reluctant child. My breath came in a quick heave, and panic took me. Almost laughing, Trent gave a quick yank, jerking me forward another step.

  I stumbled, gasping as a wave of energy passed over my aura. Wild magic sang in my veins, setting my heart to thumping, and then I was through. Halting, I turned to look over my shoulder. The main house was surprisingly close. Jenks and I had probably been within a stone’s throw of the ward when we had burgled Trent’s office, and we’d never known.

  “The ward only hits you when you try to force your way in,” Trent said. “Otherwise, you’d never notice it. At all.”

  Breathless, I pulled my hand from his. “You made it?” I said, and he turned away.

  “My mother did.” His pace slower, Trent wove a path through the tall bushes. I could see a little roof up ahead, but little else. “She made the ward, the spelling hut, and pretty much everything in it.”

  The path opened up, and I stopped beside him as he lifted the lantern high. There in the soft glow of a candle was a small house made of stone and shingled with cedar. Moss grew on the roof, and the door was painted red. It felt abandoned, but the glow of firelight flickered on the inside of the windows, and smoke drifted up from the chimney. Clearly he’d been out here earlier tonight.

  “I found it shortly after she died,” he said, a faint smile quirking his lips. “Made it into my own place to avoid Jonathan. It’s only been recently that I’ve been using it to spell in. It’s remarkably secure. I thought you might like to see it.” He lowered the lamp and I followed him to the wide slate stone that served as a threshold.

  There was no lock, and Trent simply pushed the door open. “Come on in,” he said as he went in before me and set the lamp on the small table beside the door. His back was to me as I hiked my shoulder bag up and sent my gaze over everything to find it neat and tidy. It was one room, the walls covered in shelves holding ley line equipment, books, and pictures in frames. Two comfortable chairs were pulled up before the small fire on a knee-high hearth, and another beside one of the small windows. A cot was half hidden behind a tapestry hanging from the ceiling. All in all, it was a nice getaway, having none of the gadgetry I’d come to associate with Trent, but all his gardener earthiness that showed itself only in his orchid gardens.

  “I’ve not been here in weeks,” he said as I relaxed in the smoke-scented warmth. “Except for earlier tonight, of course. It’s been quiet since Quen took the girls and Ellasbeth home.”

  My head came up. “I can’t believe you let her have them,” I said, feeling his depression. “Even if it is short term. You love those girls! Ellasbeth is such a, ah . . .”

  I caught my words as Trent took my coat and hung it on a hook behind the door. “Bitch?” he said, shocking me. “It was either that or invite her to stay here, and I’m not ready for that.” His finger twitched, and I bit back my advice to tell her to take a hike. I knew he was going to marry her at some point. Everyone wanted it. Expected it.

  “They’ll be back in April, and Quen is with them, in the meantime. We’re doing monthly exchanges until they get older, and then we can start stretching it out.”

  He was trying to hide his distress, but I could see right through it as he went to the fading fire and crouched before it. “For now, I get them half the time, Ellasbeth the other.” His motions stirring the coals slowed. “I never knew what silence was before. I go to the office, come back to an empty apartment, go back to the office or the stables.” He looked up. “I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t feel so alone out here. Fewer reminders.”

  I nodded, understanding. It still hurt that Ceri was gone. I could only imagine how quiet his apartments were with no one there but the many reminders of her and the girls. The warmth of the place was seeping into me, and I came forward, liking the old wooden planks and the dusty red woven rug. “Sorry.”

  Trent set the poker back and dropped a small birch log on the coals. The bark flared and was gone. “Quen will see they’re safe and that Ellasbeth doesn’t warp them too badly. I’ve got my spells to work on until then. And business, of course.”

  Hands in his pockets, he looked over the small hut, and I could see the long days stretching before him. That the girls were gone wasn’t exactly what I had been sorry about.

  I scuffed the last of the dirt from my feet, not knowing what to do. Trent made a neutral smile and excused himself to go to the small counter set under a dark window. There was a teapot that made me think of Ceri, and I wasn’t surprised when Trent’s reaching hands hesitated. Shoulders stiffening, he drew it closer and took the lid off and looked inside. “You want some coffee?” he said as I faced the fire to give him some privacy. “I’ve got some decent instant.”

  “Only if you want some.” I went to the shelves, drawn by a tiny birch bark canoe that I recognized from camp. A trophy with a horse on it was tucked behind it, and a hand-drawn picture of a flower behind that: memories. There was a half-burned birthday candle, a blue-jay feather, and a dusty stalk of wheat tucked into a wide-mouthed handmade pot, again from c
amp. I frowned, feeling as if I recognized it. Would my fingerprint match the one in the glaze? I wondered, afraid to bring it closer and see.

  Uncomfortable, I sent my fingers to trace the spines of the books, a combination of classic literature and world history. The room smelled like magic, the cedar mixing with the scent of cinnamon and ozone. My aura tingled, and I slipped into my second sight long enough to see that the tail end of the line that stretched from his public office to his private one nicked the edge of the little hut. There was a circle there, made of something that glittered black. Beside it was what I had to call a shrine.

  Curious, I went to investigate, smiling when I saw a black-and-white photo of his mother tucked beside a lit candle and a small fingerbowl of fragrant ash. On sudden impulse, I set the flower I had found beside the candle. My fingers brushed the candle as I pulled back, and my head jerked up at the wash of warm sparkles that numbed it. Faint in my thoughts, wild magic burbled and laughed, and I curled my fingers under.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, looking at the photo with my hands behind my back.

  “You can pick it up.”

  The soft sounds of his making coffee were pleasant in the extreme. I tentatively reached for it, finding the ornate silver frame surprisingly heavy. It wasn’t sparking wild magic, so I took it to the fire to see it better, dropping my bag on the floor and sitting on the edge of the seat to tilt the photo to the light.

  Trent’s mother was smiling, squinting at the wind that had taken a wayward strand of her long hair. Behind her was a mountain I didn’t recognize. Beside her, looking just as wild and free, was Ellasbeth’s mother. There were flowers in their hair, and deviltry in their eyes. I’d guess it was taken before they had come to Cincinnati. I wondered who’d snapped the picture. I found my lips curving up to smile back at them. “You have her face,” I said softly, then flushed.

  Trent noisily put the lid on the teapot. Bringing it to the fire, he set it on the hearth. There was a kettle in his other hand, moisture beading up on it as he set it on a hook and shoved it over the flames. “It’s going to take a while. There is no electricity out here.”