by Kim Harrison
“Be nice,” I suggested. “They aren’t keen on being in a church, and Jenks maxed out their ‘acceptable weirdness’ levels already.”
She smiled with her lips closed. “Not a problem. These are done then?” she asked, picking up the one she had dropped, holding it carefully between two fingers.
Nodding, I yanked a chair out and turned it before sitting in it backward. “Yup. Providing they aren’t hiding in a ley line, they should work. I had a great focusing object.” I frowned, remembering the HAPA knot I’d found while showering, snarled behind my ear. It was my hair, but their knot. It would work.
Tired, I put an elbow on the table, dropping my forehead into my hand and rubbing it. Ivy touched my shoulder, and I jerked my head up. “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked, a hint of a smile for having surprised me.
“I’m fine,” I said sourly. “Just . . . anxious.” Winona was safe, but as soon as HAPA set up shop again somewhere, they’d mutilate someone else. I had to find them first.
My hand went to my middle, and Ivy began stacking the charms in a small sack with a spell-house logo on it. I felt ill, jittery from the Brimstone and queasy on self-awareness hitting me from all sides. Eyes flicking to the messy counter, I wondered if Trent would still accept a curse from me to give him his fingers back. And why had I touched his face?
Ivy carefully creased the bag closed, the folding paper sounding loud. Her attention went to my jiggling foot. “I wanted to stay while they fixed the table, but if I go now, the amulets can be on the streets at the next shift change. Mind if I take your car?”
“No, go ahead,” I said, stopping my foot’s motion.
“Thanks. I’m going to see if Nina will talk to me after I drop them off. I’ll have my cell on in case Glenn calls.”
My gaze flicking to her, I nodded, absently biting a fingernail. The image of Nina choking that man to death flashed through me, and I stifled a shiver. The FIB had been there, making it hard for the I.S. to cover up the incident—and they would cover it up if they could. “Is the FIB prosecuting?” I cautiously asked, and Ivy put the bag in her purse.
“If it’s proved that the man she killed is HAPA, then no. That’s not what I’m worried about.” Ivy looked at my shoulder bag on the table, and I pulled it closer to get my keys for her. “Nina’s in trouble,” Ivy said as she caught the jingling keys. “Felix, too, and not because they killed a HAPA member. He severely misjudged his impact on her, and she doesn’t have the ability to handle alone what he’s been pumping into her the last couple of days. He can’t simply leave anymore. She’d kill the first person who touched her the wrong way. The longer he’s in her trying to give her control, the worse it gets.” Ivy’s eyes were haunted. “They’re both severely unbalanced. I don’t see how—”
Ivy’s words broke off, and she looked at me, more grief in her eyes than I’d seen in a long time. “They aren’t going to make it, are they?” I said, and Ivy closed her eyes as she shook her head. They were bright when they opened back up.
“Felix doesn’t have a clue about what to do. Rachel, she’s too good to die like that.”
“You can help her,” I said, and she dropped her head, her long hair hiding her face.
“I can,” she said softly. “Rachel . . .”
Chest tight, I shook my head. Ivy had a huge need to give, to nurture. Some of it was her vampiric nature, but most was her heart. She grieved for her own lost innocence, reviling the monster that Piscary had made her into, unable to love without hurting what she most desired. She’d been getting better, but if she could help Nina, it might allow her to see the beauty in her own soul. “If you can help her, you should,” I said, both scared for her and loving her for her sacrifices. “You know how to cope with the power and passion. I mean . . . if you want to.”
She pulled her head up, refusing to look at me. “I was exactly like her once,” she whispered. “It was so hard. I don’t know if I can help her without becoming her again.”
“I know you can,” I said confidently. “You survived. Nina will, too, with your help.”
“Yes, but . . .” She hesitated, her gaze finally coming to me. “I survived because I fell in love.” With you was unspoken.
My heart hurt, but I kept smiling. This was a good thing. Ivy needed to feel good about herself, and this might finally prove to her that she deserved positive things in her life. “Go,” I said, and she looked down at her hands.
“I’ll be with Nina if you need me,” she said, and I blinked in surprise as she bent down and gave me a chaste peck on the cheek, like you might see any two friends give each other in parting. In a swirl of vampire incense, she was gone, her boot heels click-clacking in the hall.
“Thank you,” I whispered, touching my cheek. There hadn’t been a twinge of reaction from my scar. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Demons couldn’t be bound, so it stood to reason that I couldn’t, either. Were the toxins finally wearing off, or had she truly let me go?
I sat where I was, listening to her speak to the Weres for a moment, and then the door shut, leaving only the Weres talking among themselves. My heart ached, but it was an old feeling, one now laced with pride in her. The revving of my car was a faint hint, and then even that faded, leaving the soft rumble of Weres talking and the rising scent of curing polymer.
The kitchen was a mess, as disorganized and jumbled as my thoughts because I hadn’t cleaned anything while I spelled, as I usually did. Throat tight, I lurched to my feet. If I hustled, I could get this tidy in ten minutes. Sighing, I looked over the clutter. Maybe twenty.
From the front, I could hear the guys going in and out, bringing in more tools. I was glad Ivy was moving on. Really. I just wished I wasn’t quite so alone.
One of the Weres yelled back, “Red or green, ma’am?”
“Green!” I shouted as I looked down at the open demon texts, my fingers cramping as they skated across the dark, perhaps blood-based print. I’d had a surprising amount of luck with finding a curse to thwart a memory charm. Demons apparently didn’t like to forget. It was a communal curse. Say the words and pay the cost, and you were good to go. And since I’d gotten rid of the damn bracelet . . .
Was it easy, like a wish? Or was it using my resources to their fullest potential?
I didn’t know anymore. But I did know that I didn’t want to be ignorant and oblivious of what happened when all was said and done. The I.S. didn’t have a problem using illegal memory charms, and I wanted to remember.
Running a finger under the print, I whispered the words, trying to practice the cadence before I actually tapped a line and did it. I hadn’t accessed the collective since taking off the bracelet, and the last thing I needed was to do it wrong and attract attention. Certo idem sum qui semper fui. I am the same as I was before—or something like that. My Latin sucked.
Settling myself at the center counter, I took a deep breath and tapped the line out back in the garden. I couldn’t help but close my eyes and smile as it spilled into me, seeming to bring with it the shiny, clean sensation of a thin, new ice. It was different every time, and yet the same. I let the line course through me, humming like the pulse of the universe. Thank you, Trent, I thought. Thank you for taking this away so I would know it for the gift it is.
Slowly my pleased smile faded and my eyes opened. Faint, at the edge of my awareness, something wasn’t resonating right, not in this line, but somewhere. The tear, I thought, and my gut clenched. I’d fix it. Somehow.
I looked back down at the words, feeling guilty not for the tear, but that this curse wouldn’t work on anyone but a demon. “Stop it,” I whispered, head bowed over the print and the energies of the line building in me, demanding action. Guilt. Was I going to feel guilty about everything? I was a demon, damn it. I wouldn’t even need this curse if I was a normal witch.
Head up, I shoved the guilt down deep. If th
e I.S. wiped Jenks’s and Ivy’s memories, I’d find a way to fix them. The important thing was that someone remembered.
“Certo idem sum qui semper fui,” I said softly, shivering as I felt a sliver of my awareness dart from me, arrowing through the theoretical collective of whispering demons’ thoughts, down to the dark annexes where no one went. I shivered, my fingers sliding over the textured paper as the sensation of my soul melting around a stored curse shook me. And then, like folding space, my splinter of awareness and my soul merged like water drops, bringing the curse within me forever.
“I accept the cost,” I whispered, blinking fast as I felt the curse spread through me with the sensation of burning warmth, tingling through my skin and recoiling at the edges of my aura. It was done. I would never forget again.
Maybe that’s why Newt went crazy, I thought as I severed my connection to the line with abrupt haste. Someone had felt me tapping into the collective and had come to investigate.
The soft scuff of shoes in the hallway was like sandpaper over my awareness, and I shut the book, my fingers trembling. Nothing had changed, but I felt different. I’d used curses before, but it had always been with too much soul searching. Now . . . I just used them.
It was Wayde, and I didn’t look up as I dropped down to shelve the demon book in with my regular cookbooks. I didn’t know if I was going to tell Ivy or Jenks about this. More choices. More guilt.
Wayde had halted in the threshold, and I rose when he cleared his throat. He had been in a snit all afternoon up in the belfry, and I wasn’t going to feed his pity party. Yes, I’d gotten snatched, but it hadn’t been his fault. It had been mine. Sure enough, he looked irate, his stance stiff. “Done sulking?” I said as I went back to the table and the rest of my demon library.
“It would’ve been different if I’d been with you,” he said, still in the doorway.
“Absolutely.” I couldn’t make an antimemory charm for Trent, but I had promised to get him his fingers back. I was on a roll, baby. “You might have stopped them completely.” I looked up, seeing his surprise. “Did Ivy tell you that their security guy was across the street with a sniper rifle, ready to take out his own people if he couldn’t kill everyone holding them?”
Wayde silently rubbed his beard. There were reasons he hadn’t been on the scene, and that was just one of them. Uncrossing his arms, he straightened to his full height. “The finding charms are gone?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I didn’t see the need to tell him they’d been curses, and I pulled the top book onto my lap and started turning pages. A standard transformation curse ought to do it, as it would return Trent to a pristine state, fingers and all. The question was, turn him into what? A fox, maybe?
Clearly uncomfortable, Wayde picked up a dirty bowl. My head snapped up, and he shrugged. “I’m hungry. Mind if I clean up while you read?”
He’s learning, I thought, smiling. Mixing food with spell prep was a bad idea. “Thanks,” I said as I shifted pages in earnest. “I’d really appreciate that.”
“Cool.” His eyes roved over the kitchen, and I could almost see him prioritizing. He really was a smart man, good with his hands and figuring things out. Feeling guilty, he wanted to do something for me, and my expression became weary as he set the largest bowl by the sink.
“My sister was a royal bitch if the bus’s kitchen was ever left dirty,” he said, and I flashed him another smile before he caught me thinking about him.
Propping an elbow on the table, I dropped my head in my hand. His sister was Ripley, Takata’s drummer. I’d found that out just last month. “That must have been a fun way to grow up,” I said. “On a bus. Every day being somewhere different. All that creativity around you.”
I looked up as the bowls clanked at the sink. “The band?” he said, his back to me as the taps started. “No, not really. It was a bitch in its own special way.”
“How could it have been that bad?” I said, trying to imagine it, then blinking as he bent to get the soap from under the sink. Damn, he looked good in tight jeans.
Coming up, he squirted too much soap into the pan and smacked the bottle closed. “People get careless when they lack stability,” he said as he set the bowls in the sink to fill. “If you’re somewhere new every day, you feel no accountability. You don’t care who you hurt. You do what you want and damn the rest because you won’t be there for the fallout.”
My focus blurred as I thought of the demons. They never moved but had the same attitude. Maybe they were fleeing their past?
“Too many drugs, too much meaningless sex.” Wayde leaned against the sink as the bubbles became mounds. “The demands of the music sort of suck everything out of a person unless he or she is tapped into something bigger.” His eyes touched on mine, and he smiled. “Like your dad. He’s like the ass end of a black hole, spewing the universe’s guts to the world.”
I couldn’t help my chuckle. “Still,” I said, not believing that it could be all bad. “You got to see things. Be a part of something that touches people. The music alone . . .”
Wayde turned the water off. Taking a dishcloth, he wrung it out and started wiping down the center counter. “Takata was cool,” Wayde said as he pushed everything to the floor instead of into his hand. “He treated me like a little brother. Watched out for me. Everyone knew my sister would jam her drumsticks up their, uh, noses if they messed with me. But the music?” Wayde lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “Not really. The shine . . . It’s fake, you know?” He dropped back to lean against the counter as if it bothered him. “By the time it’s been corralled by mixers and synthesizers, packaged into plastic, it’s dead. The magic that Takata gave it is mostly gone, even when he’s riding the high of a thousand people. His best gigs were always when he was so stoned he forgot there was an audience and just spilled his soul out to the gods as he looked for an answer and happened to take the rest of us along.”
Wayde turned away, his back to me as he dunked the rag in the mounds of bubbles. “But mostly it’s just a job,” he said to the evening-darkened window. “A hard job that left him emotionally and physically drained after every performance.”
“I wonder why he didn’t quit,” I said, thinking of the years between my dad’s death and finding out just recently that Takata was my birth father. Having a second parental figure might have been nice. But then, remembering Takata’s orange jumpsuits, I questioned my own logic.
Wayde was back at the counter, wiping it down a second time. “The money was a sure thing. Sometimes, the crowd would bring the soul back, make it alive. For a minute or two, the universe made sense. A year of hell is worth three minutes in heaven. Or so they say.”
He smiled deviously at me from under his reddish-blond eyebrows and turned away. Rolling up his sleeves, he plunged his hands into the suds and started to clean up my mess. I was silent, the book on my lap forgotten as I thought about what he’d said. My mind started to wander, straying back to him. He looked good there with his hair all over and that sexy butt of his. His sleeves were up to show some of the tattoos I normally didn’t get to see.
Stop it, Rachel, I thought, and I put my eyes back on the book in my lap. “So, ah, why did you leave?” I asked. “Tired of spending a year in hell for three minutes in heaven?”
Wayde was digging in the drawers for a dry dish towel, pulling out a gold one that was torn but really soaked up the water. “Takata asked me to,” he said as he began to dry the largest bowl. “He said his daughter needed someone to yank her back from the edge of the stage before she fell off.”
I frowned, wondering if Trent would mind being the size of a fairy for a day. He could talk to the newest tenants in his garden. “Gee, thanks,” I said sourly.
“Well, what about you?” Wayde leaned over to set the bowl between us on the counter. “Growing up to be a bad-ass runner must have had its perks.”
“Right,” I said dryly a
s I rubbed my forehead. “I was in and out of hospitals until I was almost eighteen, or didn’t Takata tell you that? Home-schooled most of the time, but with enough public school to know what it’s like to get beat up.”
Wayde winced, the cloth slowing on the next bowl. “Growing up sucks.”
I reached for one of Ivy’s sticky notes and started making a list. Ceri knew this curse. She would help make sure I got it right. Me trying out curses on myself was one thing. On Trent, it was completely different. “I would’ve given a lot to be somewhere new every day where no one knew who I was, that my dad was dead and my mom nuts.”
“That bad, huh?”
Suddenly I wished I hadn’t said so much. “Not really,” I said, trying to back out of my mini pity party. “I’m a drama queen tonight. Ford, the FIB’s psych, would say my childhood gave me trust issues, but hiding from my mom that I was getting beaten up and fighting off boys with sticky hands gave me a better perspective of what’s really important. I wouldn’t change it.” Much. I hadn’t talked to Ford in ages, and I wondered how he was getting on with Holly. I suddenly realized that a bunch of my friends needed babysitters and vowed to start screening my calls. All I needed was someone else’s kid on my hip as I took down a surprise assassin.
Wayde set a third pot inside the stack and dropped down to put them exactly where they belonged on the bottom shelf. “And what is important, Rachel Morgan?” he asked, and I looked at him through the open shelves.
“Friends you can trust.” I tapped the pencil against the book. “Maybe Ford was right.”
Wayde silently dropped the cloth and returned to the suds to wash the smaller stuff.
“I want these guys, Wayde,” I said into the silence, thinking about Chris dancing in delight as Winona withered in agony and turned into a monstrosity. “I want them to know they can’t do what they did to Winona with impunity.” My hands gripped the demon texts, and I forced them to open. The pages were beginning to glow. Responding to my anger, perhaps, even though I was not tapping a line right now? Damn, I’d missed the weird stuff like this. Everything was connected. I’d forgotten how that felt.