by Kim Harrison
“Mmmm,” he said, the long sound holding more emotion than I was comfortable with. “If you shift your soul’s expression, the baku wouldn’t be able to find you.”
“You mean my aura? Sure. Okay,” I said sarcastically, wondering why he was trying to be helpful, except that perhaps he was tired of being alone or that he thought he might be able to poach me from Al as a student. Or maybe we had simply connected over the stupid things we had survived doing. “Newt was the only one who knew how, and she’s the Goddess. No way.”
“I’m not talking about contacting the Goddess,” he said loftily. “Who do you think taught Newt? If you want, your gargoyle can tell me what your aura originally looked like, and I can shift your soul to express it again. He could teach you how to jump the lines then. In return, you and your gargoyle will continue to keep your mouths shut about me.” He frowned as he looked at the passing cars. “A demon moving through space inside a combustion wagon. That is appalling.”
Bis, I thought, elated. And then my breath caught. “Al.” I turned to face Hodin, stifling the urge to take him by the shoulder and shake him. “You can change Al’s soul expression.”
Hodin jerked, his eyes sheened with a sudden anger. “No,” he almost barked, and I scooted closer until he eyed me and I inched back.
“Why not?” I said, breathless. “If you can shift mine, you can shift his. He’s in seclusion!” I said, pointing at nothing. “Fighting for his life. Change it.”
“I. Will. Not!” Hodin exclaimed, drawing the attention of a passing pedestrian, and I pulled away even more, watching the haze of line energy dancing over his long black waves. “I am dead to Gally. Do you hear? I was dead to him before that elven whore put me in a bottle and left me to be buried under a city of rubble. I will not do so much as tap a line to save that mother pus bucket’s soul.” He sat back against the bench, his expression tight and his focus on the past.
But his anger wasn’t at me, and that gave me strength. “You will,” I demanded.
“I will not,” Hodin muttered even as he twisted a ring off his finger and handed it to me. “They’re all dead to me. Here. Unless invited, the baku can’t enter your mind when you are awake. If it enters when you are asleep, you can kick it out by waking. At least until it has stripped your shells and owns you. You may not hurt anyone if you sleep restrained, but the more attacks you suffer, the more shells the baku damages and the easier it is for it to take you over completely, so I wouldn’t advise it. Spin the ring on your finger and think of me when you change your mind—and you will after another attack.”
He must think I’m too strong to easily kill if he wants to make a deal for my silence, I thought. “You are not going to leave Al fighting for his soul if you can—Hey!” I shouted as he dissolved into a black hummingbird. “We aren’t done here,” I said as he hovered over the bench, and then I started as I saw Trent pulling up to the curb in a cab.
“Trent,” I whispered as I stood, torn. Hodin darted up, his tiny shape lost in the intense blue of an autumn sky. The need to tell Trent about the baku, and Al, and Hodin almost hurt, and I clutched Hodin’s ring in my fist as Trent paid the driver. Why would Hodin help me and not Al? On the surface it looked like a carrot to keep my mouth shut, but perhaps Dali was right that he was a trickster and Hodin was really helping himself to my detriment—and I couldn’t see it.
And yet . . . I pocketed the ring, shoving it down deep.
“Rachel.” Trent’s eyes were bright as he got out, just about pegging my gotta-have-that meter with his mix of casual shirt, windblown hair, and excited confidence. “The zombie you tagged has been stolen!”
I jerked, my thoughts realigning as the cab drove away. “From the zoo?” I said as he sat where Hodin had been and began swiping through his phone. “You’re kidding.”
“Here, look.” He pulled me down and angled his phone so we both could see a video showing a dusky-dawn live shot of the sunrise at the zombie enclosure. It was empty.
“Okay-y-y,” I said, the need to tell him about the baku and Hodin growing as the video buffered.
“—an early-morning incident,” the smartly dressed reporter said as Trent turned it up. Behind her was the enclosure, empty but for puzzled zoo officials. “Review of security tape shows the zombies were abducted and did not escape due to inadequate precautions.”
The baku and Hodin could wait, and I scooted closer, relishing the scent of wind and cinnamon outdoing his aftershave. “Who would steal a zombie?” I said. “Euww.”
“Like most enclosures,” the reporter continued, “there’s a private area where keepers can perform health checks and give their charges a chance to escape the pressure of human contact. It was here that the thieves struck early this morning, bypassing the safeguards and luring the zombies into a white panel van with what appeared to be a half side of decaying beef. Authorities are going over the numerous tapes, but this is the only image we have of the presumed thieves leaving through a back entrance, taken from a nearby gas station.”
Sophisticated, I thought, leaning in as the grainy footage showed a large but limber man getting off a motorcycle and swarming up a pole to angle a mirror before a sensor.
“That’s a laser tripwire he’s getting around,” Trent said, clearly impressed. “Quen uses those. I’ll have to warn him someone knows how to bypass them.”
I nodded, but it was the thief’s unusual toys and his confidence that drew my attention, and I squinted, lips parting as the man wearing a charm to blur his face looked at the camera. That smug confidence paired with the decisive gesture and the tight black jumpsuit was unmistakable.
“I know who that is,” I said, pulse quickening, and Trent pushed back to look at me.
“The men-who-don’t-belong,” we said together as the clip ended and the next, showing the new coaster at Six Flags, began.
“Why are they stealing zombies?” Trent’s focus was distant as he closed his phone down.
“Maybe it’s something to do with the baku,” I said, looking for Hodin among the yellow leaves.
“The what?”
Beaming, I met Trent’s startled gaze. “The baku. Singular. I just had an interesting conversation with a demon about it. He says it’s what’s been setting people against each other while they sleep.” I didn’t have to bring up Hodin. Trent would assume it had been Dali or Al, and I didn’t look up at the tight wing hum above me. Still here, huh? I thought. Coward.
“A demon weapon,” Trent whispered, brow furrowing.
“Ah, it’s elven, actually.” You’ll be okay, Al. I promise, I thought as I found my phone again. “Ivy said the I.S. lost some inmates when the lines went down last September. I bet the men-who-don’t-belong did, too. They let us do the work, then collected the zombies once they were all together.”
“And the baku?” Trent asked. “You think it’s theirs as well?”
“Maybe,” I said, head down over my phone as I brought up my contacts. “The demons are scared to death of it. I don’t blame them. It eats souls, not auras. Souls. And if you never heard of it, and the I.S. never heard of it, it’s a good bet that the men-who-don’t-belong have.” Which didn’t explain the zombies unless that was what was left when the baku finished with them.
“You have their number,” he said flatly as I scrolled through my contact list.
“Not exactly.” I smiled at him as I hit connect. “But I know someone who might.”
“Who?”
But the ringing clicked off and I sat straighter, beginning to see the threads if not how they all connected. “Glenn! Is this a good time?” I said, beaming at his cautious “Rachel?”
If I was right, we might have to set an extra place at the Thanksgiving table.
CHAPTER
13
“Skinny demon, tall! Straight black grande!” Mark called, and I turned from the rack of overpriced coff
ee beans as the bell over the counter rang. I’d lost my grinder with the church’s kitchen, but if I was honest with myself, coffee was coffee. Unless it’s a tall Italian blend in skim milk, light on the foam with a shot of raspberry in it and cinnamon on top, I thought as I reached for the two steaming cups in their environmentally conscious sleeves.
“Thanks, Mark,” I said, and he smiled warmly.
“I’ll have Mr. Kalamack’s salted caramel and sugar cookie up in a sec. I’m kind of short tonight.” Mark’s smile faltered as he noticed Jenks’s dust on the counter, and embarrassed, Jenks hovered back. “Dali called in sick. I didn’t think demons could get sick.”
“I think he wanted Saturday night off,” I said, again thinking the demon was a coward. “Take your time. We’re meeting someone,” I said, then spun, gasping as I almost ran into Trent. Eyebrows high, he took Glenn’s coffee from me before I spilled it on him.
A straight black grande, I thought with a fond smirk. It described Glenn perfectly. The former FIB detective gone rogue was comfortable, accessible, and street-smart, and his quick insight into a difficult problem could wake you up better than a shot of caffeine. I had missed the tall, athletic man with a flair for making a personal statement. I knew his dad, Edden, did, too. That he’d vanished with little warning to join the-men-who-didn’t-belong, only to have been in town for what was probably two weeks while the zombies were corralled, kind of hurt.
“Where do you want to sit?” Trent looked over the sparsely populated coffeehouse.
“Back,” I said, and Trent headed to a half-bench, half-chair table, Glenn’s drink in hand.
The sun was almost down, and as I suspected, Trent and I had never gotten to the museum. After verifying our suspicions concerning the matching auras of the attackers, Ivy had gone home to sleep and maybe dig up something on the baku, but Trent and Jenks had stuck with me in the hopes that Glenn, who was “amazingly and unexpectedly” in Cincinnati, might tell us something that Ivy’s laptop couldn’t.
I slid into the bench with my back to the wall, then looked up, startled when I realized that Trent was still standing. Clearly he didn’t want his back to the door, either, and when I slid down even more, he gratefully sat beside me.
“You sure you don’t want a pastry or a cookie?” he asked as Jenks landed on the rim of Glenn’s cup and dipped some into the pixy-size mug Mark had given him, gratis.
“No, I’m good, but don’t let that stop you,” I said as I took up my drink. “Sorry about this weekend. I didn’t have anything planned, but talking to a human task force stealing zombies wasn’t on the agenda. I really wanted to get to the museum.” Let’s just add a sprinkle of guilt onto this, I thought as I breathed in the warm steam and took a sip.
“We can try for tomorrow,” Trent said, and Jenks dramatically rolled his eyes. “I spent the afternoon with Mac, recording a spot for his show.” Trent wrangled his phone from a back pocket and set it on the table with a sigh of relief.
“You’re on the night show?” Jenks asked. “Damn. Who’d they bump for that?”
“No one.” Trent’s attention was on the big plate-glass windows looking out onto a narrow Cincinnati street. “It won’t be aired until sometime next week.”
“Even so, that was fast,” Jenks said.
Trent scratched his jawline in a show of unease. “Actually, it’s way overdue. Thank you for pulling my head out of the sand.”
His hand found mine under the table, and I gave it a squeeze. “You’re welcome.”
“I think you mean out of your ass, shoemaker,” Jenks smart-mouthed, and I hit the bottom of the table with my knee to make him dart up from Glenn’s coffee.
“After this, we should get something to eat,” Trent continued as if nothing had happened. “I need to sit somewhere and have people bring me food.” He slid his phone closer and brought it awake. “What sounds good?”
Jenks slurped his coffee, and his sparkles shifted to an almost blinding white in the sudden caffeine buzz. “You gave Maggie the night off, didn’t you.”
“I gave her the entire weekend,” Trent admitted. “It’s not that I can’t cook—”
“But that you don’t want to. I get it,” I said. “How about we grab a burger at that bowling alley downtown?” I suggested.
“Awww, man-n-n-n . . . ,” Jenks drawled. “Bowling alleys don’t have no decent honey.”
But Trent’s eyes had lit up, and he put his phone away. “Burgers and fries. Deal.”
“Deal.” I licked my thumb and held it out to make the pact official, and while Jenks sulkily sifted a dark blue dust into Glenn’s coffee, Trent licked his thumb and we pressed them together as if we were kids making promises. A flash of memory took me when I wiped my thumb dry on my pants, something about Lee and a hole in the ground. . . .
“Ah, Trent?” I said softly. “Did I help you shove Lee into the well at camp?”
Trent’s head snapped up, his green eyes wide. “Uh, maybe?” he said, looking at his thumb, and I smirked. It wouldn’t have surprised me. There’d been memory blockers in the camp’s water. That both of us were now able to circumvent anyone trying to rub out hours or even weeks didn’t erase past damage. But things surfaced occasionally.
I thought it funny as hell that Lee and Trent had been forced to spend their summers together in an attempt to ease the tension between the East and West Coast drug cartel families. It had worked to a point. The rivalry was now friendly if still deadly serious. Stuffing Lee into a well for three days had gotten better results, though I hadn’t remembered until now that I’d been there.
“No wonder Lee doesn’t like me,” I grumped, and Trent tugged me close, amused.
“Lee likes you. He only tried to kill you the one time, and he thought you were Ku’Sox.”
“Two if you count the boat,” I said.
“Okay. Two. But he apologized,” Trent countered.
Jenks sat on the rim of Glenn’s coffee and kicked the cup with his heels. “You two are sweeter than a newling’s barf.”
“Salted caramel grande, no whip, with a cookie,” Mark said loudly, and Trent stood.
“You sure you don’t want anything else?” he asked, and I shook my head, my fingers trailing from his as he moved away.
“Excuse me,” Jenks said, rising up to follow. “I bet Mark has some honey. It’s colder than troll shit in April in here.”
“Nice, Jenks,” I said, but my shoulders eased when he and Trent began talking to Mark and the kid began searching under the counter. Smiling, I watched the parking lot for Glenn. It had gone dusky in the twilight, and again, I wished we’d gotten to the museum. An evening looking at ancient elven artifacts might not sound exciting, but most of them were thinly disguised weapons of war, and I was never one to turn down the chance to look at elven “guns.”
“Thanks, Mark,” Jenks said brightly, and my attention returned to Trent and Jenks. A small cup of something was wedged between Trent’s cup and cookie. It wasn’t honey, and I eyed it, curious, when Trent set it down and Jenks commandeered it. “Mark is thinking about catering to pixies next spring,” Jenks said as he took his chopsticks from his back pocket and wedged off a wad of what looked like commercially packaged bee pollen. “This here is a taste test.”
“Pollen? Cool,” I said, and Mark gave me a thumbs-up from across the room. Thank you, Mark, I thought gratefully, even if the idea of inviting pixies into a mostly human eatery was a bad idea. Maybe he was going to hire one to man his new drive-through or take orders.
Emotions mixed, I exhaled. “First demons and now pixies. Hey, I want your opinion on something, Trent. Dali wants an introduction to Keric’s parents so he can teach him.”
“For free?” Jenks said, words mangled from the pollen. “He’s like, what? Ten months?”
Paper crackling, Trent drew his cookie out and broke it in half. “No kidding,�
� he said as he offered me the larger piece, and I shook my head no.
“Mmmm.” I warmed my coffee with a tweak of magic. “You think it’s a bad idea?”
Trent tilted his head in consideration. “Not at all. Having a demon tutor will give Keric’s parents status, and maybe a night out. I imagine it’s hard to find a sitter for a baby demon.”
I smiled at that and sipped my now-hot coffee as I looked for Glenn’s tall shape. I was surprised Ivy hadn’t stuck around, but maybe she was mad at him for leaving the FIB to work with a humans-only vigilante group. I know I would have been.
“Thank you for convincing me to take the harder road with them,” Trent added so softly that my eyes flicked to his. “The children Ku’Sox stole?” he added, brow furrowed. “I don’t know if I could live with myself now if I’d let them die simply because it was easier than hiding them from the demons, hoping they never tried to steal them again. I never dreamed that a demon would be asking permission to teach them a few months later. You were right.”
“Hey, how about that, Rache?” Jenks said, the sharp point of his chopsticks working a chunk of pollen from his teeth. “You were right.”
Warming, I found Trent’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I was lucky.”
“No, you were right,” he insisted, and Jenks snorted. “If I hadn’t listened to you, there wouldn’t be demon children growing up happy and safe, and I wouldn’t have you here beside me, keeping me the person I want to be. Which is as scary as all hell,” he muttered, almost unheard. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you get more requests. There are nearly a dozen Rosewood babies.”
“Perhaps.” I took another sip. “But have you noticed how Al and Dali are the only two demons living openly?” I asked, and Trent looked up from brushing cookie crumbs from his shirt. “Al said they aren’t in the new ever-after. They’re here. Hiding.” I hesitated, watching Mark move competently behind the counter. “I think Dali and Al are their canaries in a coal mine.”