by Kim Harrison
I reached out, but Trent was faster, snatching it before I could. “She’s not signing anything until my people look at it.”
I was going to fall down if we didn’t finish this soon. My feet were soggy, hidden by the dry grass, and I reached for the pen stuck in Trent’s pocket, making him blink in surprise. “Why?” I said, taking the paper from him as Al smiled. “If it’s not what I agreed to, I will burn Al’s gonads off the first chance I get. Turn around. I need to use your back for a second.”
“Ah, hold on a tick,” Al said, snapping his fingers again and catching the new paper drifting down. “How silly of me. This is the one. Here.”
I crumpled the first and dropped it. Al burst it into a quick flame that vanished before it could reach the dry grass, ashes melting into the gritty wind. “Mmm-hmm,” I said, satisfied, as I slapped the paper on Trent’s back and signed my name. Al would need it to get at my funds, and apparently there was a lot there if he wanted physical proof of our agreement.
The demon was smiling as Trent stood and I handed the signed paper across him. Al was standing a bare three feet away, his mood almost jovial as he took the paper and it vanished in a wash of black sparkles. “Thank you, Rachel,” he said, carefully reaching for my hand as Trent stiffened. “Welcome back, my itchy witch.”
I couldn’t help my smile, feeling a wash of energy flowing from him to me as he kissed the top of my hand in an overdone show of flair. Trent was glowering, clearly unhappy, as he stood within yanking distance while Al flirted. I was ready to cry in relief. I was back, alive, with the line in me and on good terms with my teacher. Somehow we had done it.
“Bye, Al,” I said as he eyed me from over his glasses.
“If I ever see you in sweats again, I swear by Bartholomew’s balls I will flay you.” Al dropped my hand. His smile faded as he looked at Trent, and then he was gone, the grass he had displaced whispering back into place.
I took a deep breath, exhaling the gritty wind and feeling my feet go cold. I’d done it. No, we’d done it.
“Signing an unread contract with a demon wasn’t very smart,” Trent said, and I dropped my second sight. The hum of the line fell to nothing in me as I dropped it, too, but I could feel it just within my reach, easing my headache away with the heartbeat of creation.
Reality superimposed itself over the red-sheened ever-after. My hair settled, and I looked at the ruin of Trent’s office. Smiling, I walked over to the desk to see how much of that coffee was left. “Oh, I beg to differ,” I said smugly, dropping my crutch on the rolling chair in passing.
He looked mad, but I was in a great mood even if I had one hell of a night facing me.
“My office is trashed,” he grumped as he squished across his damp carpet and took the coffee that I was holding out to him. “Why are you smiling? My fish are dead.”
“Because Al and I are okay,” I said, taking a sip from my cup and musing silently over the rim of it. “And that’s important to me. But I’m sorry about the fish.”
“You think that was okay?”
I sat back against Trent’s desk, trying to look sexy in sweats. “Yup. Al fixed my leg.” I smacked it to prove my point, and it made a dull thwack of sound. “He could have taken me any time he wanted, but he listened.” I’d known it from the start but Trent wouldn’t have believed me. “I told you not to do anything. That show you put on for him told him one thing, and one thing only.”
Trent looked up, his eyes running from my dangling foot, up my curves, and finally to my face. “What’s that?”
I smiled, taking a sip. “You’re willing to risk death to help me.”
Trent’s eye twitched as he thought it over, realizing what he must have looked like to the demon. “Your hair is a tangled mess.”
“Is it?” I couldn’t stop smiling, my relief buoying me up. “You have ever-after dust all over your face.” I slid from his desk, feeling frumpy in my black sweats but bursting with success. “Right here,” I said as I set the coffee down on the low table beside him, leaning over him and brushing my thumb under his eye.
Trent jerked, his hand reaching up to grip my wrist.
“What are you doing?” he said, and I hesitated, not knowing.
We both turned as muttering voices grew loud outside the door, and the snick of a key sounded.
“Sa’han!” Quen said as he pushed open the door, stopping dead in his tracks as his feet squished into the soggy carpet and he saw the broken video screen and the busted fish tank. Behind him was David. Both men were looking at us, and Trent let go of my wrist. Slowly I straightened, confused. What was I doing?
“Ah, thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said as I dropped back, my feet damp and my enthusiasm fading.
What in hell was I doing, indeed?
Twenty
The foyer was dark, seeing that it still had no lights or windows, and I smiled blandly at David as I almost pushed him out the door, my band of defunct silver making a dull bump in my pocket. He’d been reluctant to leave since bringing me back from Trent’s, and though having a self-assured, handsome man in the church was always a pleasure, I was just about at my wit’s end trying to get my curses made with him hanging around sneaking glances at my recipes. I kept telling him everything was okay, but he knew it wasn’t, even if a zing of excitement ran through me every time I reached for a ley line and found it waiting for me.
I’d known that breaking Trent’s charm wasn’t the magic pill that would make everything better, and indeed, now that the excitement had worn off, I found myself dealing with a moody vampire who was worried about keeping Nina out of jail, and Wayde sulking in his room because I’d gotten snagged a hundred feet from him. At least Jenks had forgiven me for having broken Trent’s charm without him. And I still didn’t know why I had touched Trent so . . . familiarly.
But what was bothering me the most was the demon texts open on my kitchen counter, making me wonder what I might have to do to keep my promise to myself. Was it okay to use a demon curse to catch a person committing a horrendous crime? What if the curse looked benign? Was using “dead-man’s-toe” morally okay if the man’s relatives had knowingly sold him for parts? Was it okay if they hadn’t, but using it would keep a sick wacko organization from making more tragedies such as Winona? I didn’t know, and I was too tired to figure it out. No wonder Trent always looked stressed under his facade of cool. Finding effective curses that didn’t violate my moral code was getting harder, but I wasn’t going to succumb to fast, easy, cheap, morally wrong magic. I was a demon, but I was not demonic.
“Thanks again for bringing me home, David,” I said as I leaned into the early evening, one hand on the door frame. Cold air spilled in, holding the hint of rain yet to fall. The sun was near setting, and the sky was fabulous with pink and blue and white, the wind pushing the darkness before it. The street itself was gray and silent—expectant, maybe, and I was stuck in the church making curses while everyone was looking for HAPA. Maybe that’s why David hadn’t left sooner, wanting to make sure I wasn’t headed out after them alone.
Sure enough, David eyed me in suspicion as he hesitated on the stoop, his long coat touching his toes and his hat on his head, looking yummy and delish in a lone-wolf kind of way.
“Really, we’re all good here,” I lied, wincing when the pixies flowed out of the church over us in a shrill wave to test their cold tolerance.
Shrugging his coat higher up his neck, David squinted at me. “Just don’t go out alone,” he said, glancing behind me and into the sanctuary, bright with electrical light. “Even with your magic, you need to be more careful, not less. That guy . . . Eloy. He’s a sniper. You can’t protect yourself against that. Bullets travel faster than sound.”
I frowned at his sharp gray sports car, at the curb, wishing he’d get in it and go away so I could make my curses in peace. “You’re right. I’ll be careful.
”
He shifted his shoulders, uncomfortable. “Watch the I.S. and the FIB, too.”
“Glenn?” I said, surprised, and he shook his head.
“Not Glenn. The I.S. and the FIB. They’re watching you tighter than HAPA now that you have access to your full range of magic. They don’t trust you, and probably for good reason. Why do you think they wanted that list of magic you could do?”
My gaze went down, hearing the truth of it.
“Promise me you’ll stick with Ivy or Jenks,” he said, touching my sleeve to bring my eyes back to his. “Outside your pack, you’re vulnerable. Friends are there to watch your back.”
Friends. Again my eyes couldn’t meet his as I remembered why I’d faced down Al with Trent, not Ivy and Jenks. I hadn’t wanted to risk my friends. Trent wasn’t my friend. I didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t my friend.
David squinted in distrust, and I plastered on a fake smile. “Rachel,” he said, a small but sturdy hand landing on my shoulder. “I know you’re capable, but perhaps you should let the I.S. and the FIB handle this from here on out. You’ve done your part for home and country.”
“That’s funny. I don’t feel like I’ve done anything except get caught, get shot, and limp away with nothing to show for it.” My jaw clenched when the pixies streamed back in, shouting about invaders coming. Must be the Were Scouts canvassing again for pop bottles. “The FIB is outclassed, and the I.S. keeps making stupid mistakes. I need to be at the next take—if only to prove they can trust me. That’s what I’m aiming for. Trust.”
His expression was just shy of pity, and I looked past David to the diesel truck, COOLE’S POOLS AND TABLES on the side, that was squeaking to a stop at the curb. I’d forgotten that I’d made the appointment, and I’d almost canceled when Ivy had reminded me of it. But the need to have something, anything, done and accomplished, even if it was nothing more than having Kisten’s pool table fixed, had stayed my hand. David eyed the truck, then me, his hands in his pockets.
“I will not go out alone,” I said as the truck’s door slammed and three scruffy Weres got out. Apparently their numerous tattoos gave them protection against the cold as they had no coats. The tidiest had a clipboard, and the others a satchel of tools each.
Seeing them, David seemed to relax. “Promise?” he said dryly, and I winced.
From my shoulder came a tiny “Promise, promise!” as Jrixibell, one of Jenks’s youngest daughters, mocked the serious Were. The curses to find HAPA were sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for Ivy to take them to Glenn. Apart from getting in a car and driving around the city, there wasn’t much I could do until one pinged on HAPA. I could sit and watch nature documentaries with Jenks and the kids the rest of the night if I wanted. And trust me, watching a dozen pixies scream as a crocodile chomped on a zebra was something not to be missed. They invariably cheered for the crocodile, not the zebra.
“Promise,” I said with a sigh, and Jrixibell squealed and took off, leaving a bright spot of sunshine that slowly faded from my shoulder.
“That’s my girl,” David said. Ducking his head at my puff of annoyance, he went out, turning back when he was only one step down. “The tattoo looks good. You like it?”
I couldn’t help my smile as I remembered Trex from the bus. “Yes,” I blurted out as I briefly covered it with my hand. “Thanks. For everything, David. You’re too good to me.”
He tugged his hat down over his eyes, but I could still see his smile. “I could say the same thing,” he said softly as the three pool table repair guys started up the walk.
“See you later,” I said, fidgeting as I breathed in the coming night, wanting only to be out in the pink and blue—hunting. The FIB didn’t trust me?
David headed for his car, nodded to the Were with the clipboard in passing, sort of a nonthreatening threat that one Were gives to another entering his territory. The two behind the first slid to the side to give David lots of room on the sidewalk. I waited for them, leaning against the door frame when the Were with the clipboard hesitated, watching David get in his car. Turning to me, the rough man cleared his throat.
“Ah, Ms. Morgan?” He glanced at his clipboard. “I’m Chuck, from, ah, Coole’s Pools and Tables. We’re here for a table repair?”
He looked understandably confused. It was a church. “I’m Rachel.” I slid backward into a cloud of pixies. “You’ve got the right place,” I said, trying not to sneeze at the cloud of pixy dust. “Come on in. The table is just inside.” I held my breath and stiffened as the pixies swirled and retreated deeper into the church. The light coming in was eclipsed as the Weres followed, shuffling. “Sorry about the pixies,” I added as one shut the door.
Weres generally didn’t like sanctified ground, and the three repair guys shifted their shoulders as if trying to fit into a new skin while they looked the space over. The pews had been removed long ago, leaving the worn oak floors, but you could still see where the shadow of a cross had once hung over the altar up front. Tall ceiling-to-knee-high windows of stained glass let in light when the sun was up. Ivy’s baby grand piano was just inside the entrance, and my unused rolltop desk sat alone at the opposite far end where the pulpit used to be. Across from it was a coffee table, chairs, couch, and TV making up sort of a makeshift waiting room. In the middle of the high-ceilinged space was the pool table, under a long light, almost making an altar to Kisten’s memory.
The three guys took it all in with their mouths hanging open. The pixies playing in the open rafters didn’t help. There’d probably be a gargoyle up there when the sun went down. God, my life was weird.
“Shit, man,” the dark-haired Were with the starburst tattoo said when he finally looked at the torn and battered pool table. “Who burned your table?”
“Shut up, Oscar,” the Were with the clipboard growled.
“We had an incident,” I said, looking at the ring of burnt felt and wishing I’d fixed it sooner. But stuff kept interfering.
Jenks dropped from the rafters, startling the crap out of Chuck. “Some nasty bitch of a woman from the coven of moral and ethical standards tried to fry Rache,” the pixy said, apparently proud of it. “I pixed the Tink-blasted dildo, and Rache’s black-arts boyfriend blew her right out the front door. Bam!”
I cringed as the Weres hesitated. “Ah, we had an incident,” I insisted. “Can you fix it?”
Jenks laughed, then flew off, yelling at his kids to get out of their stuff.
Chuck was running his hand on the flat surface, picking the edges of the felt where it had been burned. “We can fill the gouges with a composite, sure. Level it. Wax the cracks. Put some new felt on it.” He looked up, then blinked at the three pixies watching him from the overhead light. “Uh, it will take a couple of hours with that gouge. We might have to do two thin layers instead of one thick one.”
“Whatever it takes.” My fingertips brushed the nicked varnish. Kisten, I still miss you. “I’ll tell Ivy you’re here. She’s probably going to want to watch to make sure you get it level.”
“We guarantee it,” Chuck said, then stiffened. Two giggling pixies rose up with a piece of equipment from one of the satchels. “Hey!” he shouted, then glared at Oscar, who was staring, transfixed, his hands spread wide but clearly at a loss as to what to do, afraid he might hurt them. “Bring that back!” Chuck yelled, staring at the ceiling where a cloud of pixies hung, screaming at the top of their lungs, fighting over it.
“Jenks!” I said, exasperated. “Will you get your kids under control!”
A piercing whistle just about split my head open, and the kids scattered. The instrument dropped, and I gasped as Jenks darted under it, catching it and falling a good three feet before getting his wings under him and halting his motion. Adrenaline made my head hurt, and I exhaled loudly as Jenks dropped the gadget in Oscar’s hands.
“Sorry,” he said, looking as frazzled as
I felt. “They’ve been cooped up all day. I’ll get them outside now that the rain’s quit.”
The three Weres had clustered, looking at the finger-size level as if the pixies might have damaged it. “Thanks,” I breathed to Jenks. “I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just . . .”
Jenks grinned as he dusted. “Don’t worry ’bout it, Rache. I yell at my kids all the time.”
Still, I felt guilty about the lapse, but he had already zipped to the top of the hallway to shout at his kids about getting their asses outside and cleaning their huts for winter before he bent their wings backward. Things had been different since Matalina died, but seeing him handle his fifty-plus children alone had granted him a new respect from me. He was a good dad, if a little unconventional.
I smiled hopefully at the suspicious Weres as the church emptied of pixies, Jenks included. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything,” I said, wanting to make my exit before they decided we were too weird and left. “And thanks for coming out on such short notice. I really appreciate it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Chuck had his eyes on the rafters and the single pixy Jenks had let stay.
Spinning on my heel, I stepped lightly down the hall and to the kitchen. Ivy was standing at the table, in her coat, fingering my prepped curses as if trying to figure out how they worked. Her purse was on her chair, and she looked as if she was ready to leave.
“Oh!” she said, flushing as she dropped the charm and it clanked back into the rest. “Ah, are they the pool table guys?”
I nodded and came farther in, still feeling like we were walking on eggshells. Jenks had told me she’d gone scary evil when she’d found out I’d been taken. It had been Nina—Nina, not Felix—who had kept Ivy from hurting herself or anyone else until she’d finally broken down and cried in frustration before focusing her soul on getting me back. I thought it telling that Ivy had been there trying to help Nina, but it was Nina who had helped her.