American Demon

by Kim Harrison

  “If you’re four inches tall,” Jenks said, then snickered when Trent stiffened. “Relax. I wouldn’t have let you up here if there wasn’t a way out.”

  Trent gestured to the maintenance ladder, and I reached for it, the cold in the iron seeming to soak into me. My pulse quickened from excitement as I rose, feet scuffing as I pushed myself into a faster pace. The bag holding the soul bottle hit me in rhythmic thumps in time with my lurching. It felt odd knowing I was going to use something that had saved my life to capture the baku. Bis had held the small glass bottle holding my soul the entire three days, according to Jenks.

  I exhaled in relief when I reached the top, wrestling with the twin panel door until Trent noticed and scrambled up beside me on the ladder. “Go,” Trent grunted when the thick, age-darkened slabs slid aside with a squeak of dusty metal to show a dimly lit attic the length of the building. “You first.”

  The doors weren’t under any pressure to close, so I slipped under his arm and made the step to the old floorboards. Trent easily swung himself in behind me, turning to close the doors behind us.

  It was even colder up here and, arms about my middle, I squinted into the dusky gray to see that there wasn’t a shred of insulation, just bare boards and open rafters. Jenks’s glowing dust was enough to make out the occasional sheet-draped lump as he buzzed about to satisfy his pixy curiosity. Almost immediately he came back, his glow dimmed as he landed on my shoulder. It was colder than the outside, where at least the sun shone. There was no light but for Jenks and the glow of Trent’s phone as he angled it about. I could hear traffic on 71 and the sporadic sound of jays, but it only made me feel more alone.

  “How you doing, Jenks?” I whispered.

  “Stop being my mother,” Jenks griped, but his wings were cold as they pressed against my neck for warmth, and I was worried.

  “Seriously, Trent and I have this. Go back downstairs and warm up,” I whispered.

  “I’m fine,” Jenks said sourly. “Just keep walking straight. There’s another elevator about halfway down, and a third, smaller one at the end that I think will put us right beside Landon’s front door. Trent, what does your GPS say?”

  Trent grunted a soft agreement, the glow of his phone lighting his face. I started forward, more worried about Jenks than about someone hearing us. I jerked, sputtering when I ran into a spiderweb. No one had been up here in years.

  “Almost there,” Trent said, and Jenks’s dust brightened. “Rachel, I like your no-plan thing. It’s going to take them an hour to get the elevator open, and by then, we’ll be gone.”

  “This isn’t no plan,” I said as I fumbled for my own phone to add to Trent’s light. See, I can do this without magic. But a faint pull drew my attention and my expression blanked. There was an old hearth up here, surrounded by unfamiliar ancient glyphs. “You see that?” I whispered, and Trent shifted his phone to it as well, his light following the smoke marks to the rafters.

  “Guys, you can play archaeologist later. I’m freezing my nubs off,” Jenks complained.

  “Take a picture,” I suggested, leaving Trent to do just that as I hustled forward with Jenks, my cell phone light swinging as I followed his terse instructions to an old elevator cage on the far side of the building. It was larger than the one we’d come up in, and clearly for freight. Storage boxes were stacked beside it, and a few sheet-draped pieces of furniture. Landon had been redecorating maybe.

  “Trent,” I whispered, and he left the hidden hearth, his phone angling about to light the odd slice of attic. There was a call button, but using it might have triggered security. There wasn’t even a lock on the elevator cage, and when I shook my head at Trent’s offered hand, he tapped his phone off and lifted the hatch to the maintenance ladder. Together we looked down into the darkness. The elevator car was somewhere in the shaft. I only hoped it was below where we needed to be.

  “Watch your step,” Trent whispered as he started down. Jenks wasn’t dusting, and I didn’t like that he was still on my shoulder instead of lighting our way.

  “Jenks, how’re your temps?” I whispered as I gripped the ladder and found the first step.

  “Not good,” he admitted, and I moved faster.

  The echoes of our scuffing feet hissed as Trent and I descended into the cold shaft that had never seen sun. I was never going to risk Jenks like this again. This was beyond reasonable expectation. We could’ve waited for nightfall and Bis.

  “I think this is the right door,” Trent whispered, and I scraped to a halt, arm hooked on the ladder as I leaned to look down. “Jenks, you want to do a quick recon?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said, but Jenks had already lifted off, his dust utterly absent as he dropped the six feet to where Trent had wedged the silver doors open a crack. He vanished into the sudden light, and Trent let the door shut, sealing us back into the dark.

  “It’s warmer in the hallway,” Trent said, and I nodded, only now understanding.

  “How are you doing?” Trent asked, his soft voice whispering up from the dark, and my foot scraped on the ladder.

  “Me? I’m fine.” I stifled a shiver, more than a little jealous of how Trent never seemed to feel the cold. It was an elf thing.

  “Ah, I didn’t mean it when I asked if you were breaking up with me.”

  “I know.” I was glad it was dark, and I shifted, uncomfortable. My fingers were beginning to cramp up from the cold, and I tried to flex them as I hung there.

  “You just surprised me. Bringing up Ellasbeth like that.”

  I grimaced, not wanting to talk about it, my arm aching and worry pinching my brow. “Jenks should be back here by now,” I said, and Trent sighed, silent as he wedged the silver doors open again. Relief filled me when Jenks darted in, his dust lighting the shaft when Trent let the doors shut and entombed us in the dark. “Well?” I asked as Jenks lit on Trent’s shoulder.

  “Empty hallway,” he said, his dust already beginning to dampen. “I’m guessing Landon’s apartment is around the corner since there’s a big man standing in front of the door playing on his phone, but if you’re quiet, he’ll never hear you getting out of the shaft. Easy stuff.”

  Which is right about when it falls apart, I thought as Trent wedged the door open wide enough to slip through. Cold, I unhooked my arm and went down the last few rungs. Trent took my hand, and I almost fell as he pulled me into the hallway. “You good?” he asked when I found my balance, and I flashed him a smile.

  “Let’s do this and get in a tub of warm water before the curse wears off,” I said, and he managed a smile as well.

  Jenks was hovering at the ceiling to peek around the corner, and at his gesture, both Trent and I angled for a quick look-see. As Jenks had said, there was one guard outside a pair of elaborate double doors. The heavy man practically reeked of magic, and several amulets showed against his security-black slacks and shirt. There was an actual gun in a side holster, and I felt my bag for the outlines of my splat pistol. It was magic without using the lines, and my adrenaline spiked.

  “Zack’s code better be good,” Jenks grumped. “Give me a second, and I’ll lure him down the other hallway. You can slip in with him none the wiser. Panel is by the door.”

  “Got it,” Trent said, focused on the guard. “Ready?”

  “If Jenks is,” I whispered, gauging Jenks’s color to be good.

  “I know what I’m doing,” the pixy said. “Be ready to move when you hear the crash.”

  “Crash?” I questioned, but he was gone with an annoyed wing snap.

  Trent was silent for a moment, and then he leaned close, expression worried. “If this all goes south, I want you to know that the last year with you has been the best of my life.”

  My thoughts jerked from the potential fight, surprised, but not. “Me too,” I said, remembering how much I’d thought I hated him. “Let’s make sure nothing goe
s wrong.”

  I held up my crooked pinkie, and smiling, he hooked it with his own. A vague memory threatened to spill through me as our energy balances equalized: a dusty stable, the fear of being caught, the thrill of what-if, of a shared goal and a belief that what we were doing was just, if not entirely within the rules. Jeez, how long had Trent and I been righting our personal wrongs together anyway?

  Our fingers parted at the sound of a distant crash, and Trent peeked around the corner. His lips curled in a slow, faint smile. “We’re clear,” he said, and I followed him into the hall.

  I was grimy and probably smelled like dust and grease, and I needlessly checked the propellant in my splat gun as Trent went to Landon’s door and casually punched in the code. My pulse quickened when nothing happened. “Did they change it?” I whispered as I leaned close.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, eyes on the mechanism. “Quen told me about these. It takes a pulse of line energy to open it. You want the honors? You seem to have better control than me.”

  “Uh, sure.” Careful to allow only the barest thread of energy to spill into my hand, I winced and touched the panel.

  A soft click sounded, and Trent shot me a grin. His eagerness went right to my core, and I smiled back, relieved. “See, we can do this. It just takes a light touch,” he said as he turned the handle and one side of the double doors silently opened. “After you.”

  That light touch is going out the window as soon as the spells start flying, I thought as I stepped into the natural light now pouring into the hall. Trent followed me in, and we hesitated on the raised-tile foyer, waiting for Jenks. A bank of closets stood to one side, but from there, it opened up to a warehouselike apartment. The ceiling stretched a good twenty feet, and the thick, narrow windows cut the fabulous view of the surrounding city into little slices. The air was warm, and it was silent apart from a ticking clock. Between us and the view was a living room done in creams and browns. The floor was either tile or polished wood. I couldn’t tell from here.

  “Light touch, light touch,” I whispered as Jenks darted in through the cracked door, and Trent closed it. The security panel on this side of the door blinked green, and we all sighed in relief. Ten minutes, I thought, feeling the outline of the soul bottle in my bag.

  “I’ll find him,” Jenks said as he hummed off, the sound of his wings lost in a heartbeat.

  Trent and I inched forward, senses searching, but the room was empty. The wet bar was shiny, and the TV was so huge, it was ugly. “Cat,” I whispered, nudging Trent’s elbow, and he crouched to lure the feline closer. True to form, the white longhair sat where she was and stared. But then her ears pricked and her head swiveled to fixate on Jenks.

  “Cat!” I whispered again, louder, and Jenks made a wide swoop up to avoid it.

  “Three bedrooms that way,” Jenks said, pointing. “They look like Aladdin vomited up the decor, but Landon’s not there. Give me a sec, and I’ll check out the other side.”

  I nodded, and he took off under the watchful eye of the cat. “Absidium fortum,” I whispered, pulling lightly on the ley line. Clearly feeling it, Trent flattened his hair as he waited for my charm to fade. But the cat was only a cat, not a person disguised or trapped as one, and I frowned when it padded off after Jenks.

  “He should be back by now,” Trent whispered.

  “Follow the cat,” I said, worried, and Trent nodded, graceful as he pushed into motion. His steps were silent in his office shoes as he wove between the cream cushions and modern art, but I paused to slip my low heels off before following, holding them as we traced the cat’s path through the living room, down a long, narrow hall set against the windows, and finally to a large open dining room with a spacious kitchen at the back.

  “Wow,” I said softly, one hand holding my shoes, the other my splat gun as I took in the view. It was the corner of the building, and there was even an outside space, potted evergreens and grasses to break up all the pale stone out there.

  “Just in time for tea,” Landon said from the kitchen, and both Trent and I spun.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Crap on toast, I thought, dropping my shoes and raising my splat gun. It would have been easier to down him while he slept, set up the curse, and wake him up when it was over.

  Landon stood easy in the open kitchen behind the lengthy counter. He was in slacks and a button-down-collar shirt, his suit coat and ribbon of office draped over a barstool. His eyebrows were high in amusement, and I went cold when I saw Jenks plastered to the wall with sticky silk. The pixy was pissed, green sparkles sifting from him, and when the cat stretched to pat the wall under Jenks, fear slid cleanly through me.

  “We came to talk,” I ad-libbed as I hiked my bag farther up my shoulder. “Your life is at risk,” I said, and Landon chuckled as he set the damp pot on the stove and lit the burner with a whoosh of flame. I couldn’t hit him from here. He’d just bubble himself to avoid it. Actually, it might have been safer to throw my splat gun under a chair in case he knew how to burst the charms in my hopper and put me out with my own spells.

  “Not from that gun,” he mocked, and I spun it in my grip, holding it by a finger until I set it on the nearby glass table and pushed it away. It was only good against a nonmagic user or in surprise anyway. My mouth could do far more damage.

  Trent stood beside me, clearly uncomfortable in his ill-fitting suit. “We aren’t here to hurt you. We have vital information. The baku you’re hosting is slowly eating your soul,” he said lightly. “Once it takes you, the Order will turn you into a zombie to imprison it.”

  “The Goddess help you, you’re a mess, Kalamack.” Lips pressed, Landon took a clay-colored pot from an open shelf. His eyes went to Jenks struggling to reach his sword, swear words spilling from him. “What did you do?” Landon glanced at the splat gun on the table. “Crawl through the air ducts?”

  “The Order is using you,” Trent tried again. “The baku is using you. We can pull it out. Bottle it. But we need your cooperation.”

  “Pull it out? It took two weeks to convince it to work with me.” Landon smirked, his eyes never leaving ours as he opened a wooden box on the counter and filled the tea diffuser with something that smelled of lemons and Brimstone. “I know the Order’s plans. I know the baku’s, too. It’s in me. Right now. My thoughts are known to it, and its thoughts are clear to me. The only discrepancy is that we disagree on who will prevail. I’ll give you a hint. It’s going to be me. Either way, you will be dead, Kalamack, and with you goes the threat the demons pose, the threat you have let sex blind you to.”

  My lips parted at the affront, and behind him, Jenks reached his sword. Struggling, the pixy got one wing free.

  “Stupid bug,” Landon said, lip curled as he took the sticky silk spray can from the counter.

  “Hey! Knock it off!” I demanded when the thin webbing plastered Jenks to the wall again. I stumbled when Trent grabbed my arm, gasping as the line we were both holding sang in us. Shrugging Trent off, I wavered to find my balance, hating Landon. It wasn’t so bad when we weren’t stressed, but damn, the glyph worked better the more tense—or excited—we were.

  Landon looked too satisfied to live as he set the can of sticky silk down. “I’ll admit one thing you’re right about, Trent,” he said as he peeled film from his fingers and let it drop. “It is almost worth the collateral damage to know where you stand with your underlings. There’s only one person who knew the pass code to my apartments. I have sorely neglected Zack’s training. I’ll have to rectify that.”

  “Keep your claws off him,” I said, and Landon’s eyebrows rose in mock surprise.

  “Him too?” he said, hands spaced wide on the counter. “You can’t save him, Rachel. He has belonged to the dewar since before his birth.”

  “You can’t own a person,” I said, trying to keep him talking until Jenks could get free, but he was
making little headway, and that cat was still under him, trying to decide if she wanted to jump or not.

  “You can if you get permission before they die,” Landon said, and Trent went ashen.

  “My God,” I whispered. “You still use that curse to move an old soul into a new body?”

  Landon’s lip twitched at Trent’s disgust, and he set a teacup on the counter with a sharp click. “Youth and old age are easy to manipulate,” Landon said, his cheeks a faint red, but it was in anger, not shame. “Both are afraid because we’ve convinced them they’re weak.”

  “The Order—,” I said, steadfastly not looking at Jenks. He had one hand free, struggling.

  “Is outdated, outclassed, and no threat,” Landon said, voice rising.

  “The baku is using you,” Trent tried again.

  “No, I’m using it.” Expression sour, Landon peered at his watch and worked a side button. “Bart, get off your phone and get in here. I’ve got two intruders.”

  “Shontol!” Trent exclaimed, and my knees buckled from the energy jerking through me as he pulled on the ley line and threw the spell.

  Not knowing what it was other than elven, I ducked. The shimmer of a protection bubble flashed into play around Landon, but Trent’s magic slammed into Jenks, not Landon, dissolving the sticky silk and freeing the pixy. Landon had never been the target, and with a sparkle of pixy dust, Jenks was in the air. The cat leapt at the fast movement, falling back with her tail swishing.

  We can do this, I thought as Trent’s anger simmered like a thread through me, adding to my own. He had properly estimated the power needed and hadn’t fried Jenks. We had a chance.

  Landon snarled, his hand breaking his circle as he reached for the sticky silk. Jenks laughed as he darted in and out, making Landon spin and the cat skitter out of the way as he sprayed at him, missing.