by Kim Harrison
Eloy was there, and I cried out when his foot slammed into my raised hands, knocking the pistol free and probably breaking a finger.
“You son of a bitch!” I shouted, trying to sit up with my hands clenched to my chest. Trent’s ring burned on my finger, and I panted, feeling the pain where Eloy’s foot had jammed it into my skin, cutting me.
“Some demon,” Eloy said, swooping down to pick up my splat gun. “You’re going to be downed by your own spells. Pathetic.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said, reeling from the pain in my hand. What in hell kind of demon was I? But then I stared at the ring, glinting with my own blood, and had a sudden idea. It would jump me to Trent, but with that net sink in place . . . it would jump me—and anyone I was touching—into a jail cell.
Hope pulled my head up, and Eloy stared at my grim smile as I clutched my bruised hand and spun the ring on my finger to prime it. Slowly Eloy’s own smile failed as he realized I wasn’t giving up.
He began to raise my gun.
Screaming, I lunged at his knees. He cried out in surprise, and we went down together, me on top.
The world spun as he shoved me off, and I took the foot he was swinging at me right in the ribs. Grabbing it, I tapped a line, thought of Trent, and shouted, “Ta na shay!”
“Let go!” he shouted, kicking until my fingers gave way and he danced back, shaking in anger. “Don’t you ever touch me again, you putrid animal!” he shouted, and I curled into a ball as he drew his foot back and kicked me, lifting me from the concrete. Agony thumped into my middle, and I cowered, holding my bruised arms over my head. I didn’t understand. The charm was supposed to jump me to Trent! It hadn’t worked! I had spun the ring, I had said the words, and I had thought of Trent—seeing him in my mind not as the businessman he showed the world, but as he had been in the woods, a shadow crouched on a tree, wild and ephemeral. Maybe he was the businessman after all . . .
Gasping for air, I looked up, my lank hair falling into my eyes. Eloy stood before me in a patch of sun, my gun in his hand. “Was that supposed to have done something?” he shouted.
My lips parted as my eyes went to the taut form standing behind him. Trent?
“Something did,” Trent said, and Eloy spun.
Sweet and golden as honey, Trent pulled back and rabbit-punched the man square in the jaw. Eloy’s head snapped back, and he dropped like a stone. I stared as his body hit the ground, the displaced air shifting my hair from my eyes for a second. Trent is here? The charm had worked—sort of.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Trent whispered, hunched over his hand, his expensive suit and perfect hair looking wrong against the dull concrete walls. “Is it supposed to hurt that much, or did I do it wrong?”
Still clenched over my bruised ribs, I managed to sit up. “That’s why I always use my foot. I thought I was supposed to go to you!”
Sidestepping Eloy, Trent picked his way to me, his nose wrinkled as he glanced up at the ceiling and the obvious street noise. “You were trying to bring him to me?” he said, incredulous, and I shook my head as he extended his hand to help me stand. He had a ring, twin to my own. “I was in a meeting. Oh my God. I was in a meeting. I vanished right in front of them.” He slapped his pants pockets. “I don’t have my phone. My wallet.”
“Welcome to the club,” I said, then groaned as I got to my feet, waving off his help since my hands were swollen and bruised. “No, I wasn’t trying to bring him to you. The I.S. has a net sink up,” I said as I bent over my knees and tried to stand up straight. I think I had a bruised rib—I couldn’t even breathe right. “I was going to jump us to you and land in a cell. I didn’t expect you to show up.” Still hunched over, I tilted my head and found his eyes. “Thank you.”
His lips twitched. “You’re welcome.”
I looked at Eloy, resisting the urge to kick him, but only just. “I think you saved my life again. They know about Lee. You need to warn him. Eloy was going to come back for me.”
“I will.” Trent met my eyes as I tried to straighten up, making it only halfway. His gaze held pity, and I looked away, unable to stomach it. “He beat you?” he said, his voice holding unexpected anger.
Like I’d do this to myself? “I’m fine. It’s part of the job,” I whispered, still unable to breathe right. My fingers searched my ribs, and I winced.
The smell of clean laundry grew stronger, and I went to shove his hands off me as he tried to help me, but he was determined and my hands hurt. My jaw clenched, and when I had to sniff back a tear, I got mad. Damn it, I was not going to cry! “I said I’m fine!” I exclaimed, and he fell back at the sound of pixy wings.
“Jenks, what took you so long!” I said, then winced when my chest ached. Yep, at the very least they were bruised.
“Oh, for sweet mother-loving Tink!” he exclaimed in disgust. “I leave for five minutes, and you ask Trent to help you? Damn, girl, why didn’t you just ask me to leave if you wanted some alone time to beat up the bad guy? Ah, his aura is brightening, by the way.”
The grit ground under Trent’s thousand-dollar shoes as he crouched at Eloy’s head, lifted it up by his hair, and slammed it back down. Eloy groaned, his entire body becoming slack.
“Yeah, that did it.” Jenks tried to land on my shoulder until I waved him away.
“Not bad, Trent. Not bad,” I said as I began limping to the stairway. I could hear people, blessed people, coming to help me. “Hey! We’re down here!” I shouted, then almost passed out when I began to cough.
“I’m okay. I’m okay!” I said, thankful there was no blood as Trent’s arm went around me, holding my ribs so I wouldn’t fall apart.
With a clatter and a boom of sound, the twin metal doors at the top of the stairway were flung back. The late-afternoon sunlight poured in, blinding me. “It’s us! We’re good!” I tried to shout, but Trent had swung me up in his arms and the clean smell of his silk suit poured over me. I couldn’t see through my squint, but I heard men shouting and feet stomping down the stairs.
“He’s over there,” Trent said, then, “No, I’ve got her. Is there an ambulance on-site? She’s banged up pretty bad. I don’t know. Jenks?”
“How the hell should I know what happened?” the pixy said, and I shut my eyes against his sparkles; they were giving me a migraine. “I was out looking for the FIB!”
“I’m okay,” I insisted, squinting. “I just need a pain amulet. Does anyone have a pain amulet?” Ivy had a pain amulet. Ivy was somewhere else.
“I’ll get you to an ambulance,” Trent said softly, the obvious cost of his clothes granting him passage to the surface as he went up the stairs against a tide of uniformed people flowing underground.
“Rachel?” came Glenn’s voice as our heads broke the surface and the wind blew my tangled hair into Trent’s face. “Jenks said . . . My God! What did he do to you?”
“I’m fine,” I said, feeling dizzy as Trent stopped and the two tall black men peering at me coalesced into one. “We played chicken with his bullets, and I won. You mind getting that light out of my eyes? I can’t see crap.”
Glenn and Trent exchanged uneasy glances, and I realized it wasn’t a light in my face, but the sun. “Close your eyes, Rachel,” Trent said, and I did, a faint feeling of fear sliding to the back of my head and making me shut my mouth, too. Some of those blows had been to my head.
“Is she okay?” Glenn whispered. “How did you get down there, Mr. Kalamack?”
“She tried to jump out and jumped me in instead,” he said simply. “She just needs some shade. I’ve got her okay. Can you get those reporters out of here?”
“Lord have mercy, they found us already,” Glenn said, and I cracked an eye, almost smiling at the phrase and the hint of his southern background showing. “Ah, the ambulances are over there. You got her?”
“Yeah, we got her,” Jenks said, and I winced as his dust hit my fa
ce.
“No ambulance,” I whispered. “Trent, no. I want to see Eloy put in a car and leave. If you put me in an ambulance, they’ll take me to a hospital. Promise me.”
“No ambulance,” he said, and I relaxed—until I realized I was still in his arms as he marched through the stopped traffic to a bus bench and set me down. His arms slid from me, and I shivered in the heat of the afternoon.
Slowly, bleary and blinded by the sun, I started to notice things. Traffic was stopped both ways, and Trent slowly sat down beside me, propping me upright without appearing to. Jenks was between us on the back of the bench, dusting in worry. FIB guys were everywhere, their successful mood making it feel like the Festival of Honking Horns. I could see the opening into the tunnels and the official vehicles arriving on the scene. Numb, I sat and shallowly breathed the good Cincy air, the late afternoon thick with the scents of a million people. The delicate scent of cinnamon and wine laced with green sherbet seemed to grow stronger.
“Ah, Trent? I think she needs an ambulance,” Jenks said suddenly, and I sighed, my eyes closing.
“She’s fine,” Trent muttered, propping me back up. “Can you point out any of those men you saw earlier? The ones that weren’t FIB or I.S.?”
Jenks’s wings clattered, and I touched my cheek, warm where Eloy had smacked me. “Ow,” I murmured, and Jenks rose up, his dust falling on me a worried black.
“I’m going to find Ivy.” Jenks darted off.
Trent shifted uneasily, squinting even though we were in the shade. The wind moved his fair hair fitfully, and I started to reach for it, to brush it out of his eyes, but he beat me to it. My chest hurt, but I smiled, wondering if he missed his pointy little ears. They would hold his hair back better than what he had now.
“Rachel, I don’t see anyone here not FIB or I.S.,” he said, oblivious to the fact that I was slowly starting to slide into shock, the pain from my ribs making it hard to breathe. “How confident are you in your assessment?”
“That’s because the guys with the radios bugged out when Eloy got free,” I said as I flipped the useless radio earbud hanging down my front, and he reached for it, his gaze sharp on its construction. “You want it?” I said, and he nodded, reaching back for the battery pack as I dropped the bud down my shirt and he pulled it through, scraping my skin. “Alpha and beta teams are meeting up at the bird nest,” I said, almost slurring. “Beaters and receivers. Personally, I would think they were HAPA’s extraction team. If HAPA had any money, that is.” I pulled my head up. “Look, Glenn isn’t having a very good day, either.”
The unlucky man had clearly been hijacked by Dr. Cordova in his quest to dissuade the newspeople. She looked pissed as she chewed him out in front of an FIB van, her arms pointing wildly. We had recaptured Eloy, so I don’t know what her problem was. The sound of Ivy’s footsteps drew my attention, and Jenks flew in to make nervous circles around me.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at Trent as she reached for me. “Look at her. She’s going into shock. And you have her sitting on a bench? What are you doing here anyway?”
“He’s saving my ass,” I said, smiling up at her until my face hurt. “Hi, Ivy,” I added, then hissed in pain when she tried to slide her shoulder under my arm and lift me. “Ow! Ow!” I cried out, and Jenks let a burst of yellow dust slip from him.
“Watch it!” he shouted, but Ivy had jumped back, her eyes going black as she pulled her hands from me.
Trent had gotten to his feet, and as I listed sideways, he propped me back up with a single, obvious finger as I tried to breathe, my ribs hurting. “Her ankle is broken,” Trent said as he held my shoulder, and Ivy’s eyes went even wider. “Her ribs are bruised, and her hand has suffered major damage. She’ll be fine, but—”
“She needs an ambulance!” Ivy hissed, dropping her pain amulet around my neck and carefully scooping me up. My shoulders slumped at the quick relief. It didn’t get rid of everything, but it at least took the edge off.
“She didn’t want one!” Trent said loudly.
“When does Rachel ever know what she wants?” Ivy said, her pace jarring as she walked away with me. I looked back, giving him a painful bunny-eared kiss-kiss as Ivy toted me away. The last I saw of him, he was standing beside that bench looking disgusted, his suit askew and the radio in his hand, probably wondering how he was going to get home. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Thanks for watching her, cupcake,” Ivy said dryly to Jenks, and he clattered his wings aggressively.
“Hey! I got you as soon as I could!” Jenks exclaimed as he flew alongside. “You were the ones who let him get away.”
“No ambulance,” I protested as she carried me, wincing when she took the curb hard. “I want to see Eloy get in a van, and then go home. My gun is still down there, too. And my bag.”
“You can get your gun later,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “I’ve already got your bag in one of the FIB cruisers. Do you think you could work with these guys just once without finishing a run needing stitches?”
Jenks laughed, and Ivy started in with unusually cheerful chatter as she led me to the waiting ambulance, her topics ranging from the celebration pizza party Glenn had invited us to, all the way to Dr. Cordova’s unique vocabulary that she’d shared with everyone when Eloy had gotten away. I let her words wash over me, soaking them in and thinking they were better than a bubble bath. She’d been worried on finding the shaft empty except for my shoulder bag, and I couldn’t help but feel loved.
The ambulance guys were great, patching me up and making me feel less like a battered woman and more like a battle-weary warrior. They even let me keep the door open as they gave me a shot for infection and wrapped my ribs—fortunately not broken, and my ankle—which was. I wanted to watch and make sure the van that Jenks told me Eloy was in left with no incidents. I wasn’t the only one.
Dr. Cordova stood by her car and watched, too, getting in and slamming her door before she drove off in the opposite direction.
We had gotten him, but I felt empty. It wasn’t the victory I had wanted.
It looked like it wasn’t the victory Dr. Cordova had wanted, either.
Twenty-Six
Silvers, grays, blacks, and browns had taken over Glenn’s apartment, Daryl’s touch turning the open floor plan from a rather sterile place of uncomfortably mixed styles to something pleasantly relaxed. It was masculine, calming and powerful, I mused as I sat on the overindulgent, black leather couch with my ribs taped and my ankle propped up, smiling as I took with my left hand the plate of pizza Wayde handed me. It had just come out of the oven and was too hot to eat, but the hamburger, tomatoes, and bacon set my mouth watering.
In the few months that Daryl had been living with Glenn, she had completely redecorated his space. If I had to choose, I’d say it was soft modern, having simple lines and clean surfaces, but mixing in plush and lavish textures. The couch I was drowning in was about the only thing left from his original furnishings. I’d be worried that the unemployed woman was taking over his life, but in all honesty, the place looked so great that I’d let the warrior dryad redecorate any time she wanted.
Seeing that I had a can of pop beside me, Wayde went back into the kitchen. Ivy was already in there, Daryl was on the far end of the couch with me, and Jenks was buzzing about, waiting for the vegetarian pizza to come out since too much animal fat gave him the Hershey squirts. His words, not mine. Glenn was fiddling with the TV, jumping among stations to find the evening news and the official explanation of what had happened at the library. So far it had been sports scores, pig prices, and the latest Cincy scandal. I’d been sitting here with my foot up for almost two hours while Glenn and Ivy made the pizza and decompressed. I wanted to get up, but I didn’t think I could, the couch was so plush and I’d had enough time to stiffen up. Besides, my ribs hurt, and it was easier to do nothing.
The sof
t hum of Jenks’s wings brought my attention up from the TV, and I took the napkin he held. “Here, Rache,” he said, landing on the arm of the opulent couch. “Big FIB detective had a royal hissy fit last time he found pizza sauce on his leather.”
“Hey, that wasn’t me,” I said, turning to Glenn.
“You were the one in the chair,” Glenn said as he stood and ambled into the kitchen. Ivy was just taking the veggie pizza out, setting the hot pizza stone on a thick pad stuffed with thyme, and it smelled wonderful.
Plate on my lap, I tried to lever myself up with my good hand and shift my back to the arm of the couch so I didn’t have to twist so much to see the kitchen. It was harder than it should have been, but I managed. “It was game night,” I said, catching my pizza before it slid off the plate. “It could have been anyone.”
Glenn didn’t say anything, and I watched the play of emotions as Ivy took a slice of vegetarian pizza and left the kitchen, her napkin dramatically waving as she handed the plate to Daryl, sitting on the edge of the couch, before going to her own chair and waiting pizza. We’d been coming over for game night for a few weeks now as Ivy and Glenn tried to get Daryl more socialized. The woman wasn’t healthy, and even the excitement of Jenga could set off her asthma. My thoughts went to her, Ivy, and Glenn, and then I wished they hadn’t. I wanted them to be okay, but still . . . there was a new space that hadn’t been there before.
Most of Daryl’s species had been wiped out in the industrial revolution, though there were some signs that they were coming back in the mountains—now that we weren’t cutting down hundred-year-old trees anymore. Frail, pale, and sensitive to pollution, the woman didn’t get out much. She was a warrior, though, and for all her delicate beauty and flowing clothes, I’d seen her pin Glenn with a cheese knife to his throat when she thought he was cheating.
My eyes went to the ozonator Glenn had put in last month, the machine purifying the air and leaving it with the smell of a thunderstorm. It seemed to help, and now that I noticed, all the new furnishings were eco oriented, with no petroleum or synthetic anything to make her condition worse. Method to her redecorating madness, perhaps?