by Kim Harrison
Jenks spilled a silver dust and rose an inch before dropping back down. “Daryl, turn it up!” he exclaimed as BRIMSTONE BUST AT LIBRARY flashed up on the screen and the lady announcer in her lavender suit began talking. The pretty, petite warrior woman licked her fingers and snatched up the remote, knowing how to work it as if she’d been born with one in her hand. Magic, technology—sometimes I failed to see the difference.
The announcer’s voice became loud and I leaned forward, straining over the hum of Jenks’s wings. “If you tried to use the downtown branch of the library this afternoon, chances are good that you were turned away as the FIB and the I.S. took part in a rare combined effort to catch one of the country’s slipperiest Brimstone distributors.”
“Brimstone?” Jenks shouted, and I shushed him.
“In a late hour of action, officials stormed the lower levels of the downtown branch of the Cincinnati library. The chase ultimately covered almost two city blocks through some of Cincinnati’s old bioshelters, created during the Turn, until Eloy Orin was apprehended trying to emerge from Central Ave.’s access doors.” The woman turned to the attractive, gray-tinged man sitting beside her and smiled. “Brimstone in the library? It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘hooked on reading.’ Right, Bob?”
The TV changed to a shot of Central Ave., bright under a low sun. The picture was blurry, clearly taken from some distance. “Look!” Jenks exclaimed, hovering to block the TV. “Rache! That’s you!”
I leaned forward to see a figure in a red shirt being carried out by a man in a suit, Trent, obviously. “Good God, I look Brimstoned,” I said, hoping this wouldn’t be syndicated out to the West Coast. My mom would pee her pants, then call her neighbors to brag.
“Which is why you’re sitting,” Ivy said. “Eat your pizza. You’ve hardly touched it.”
“Quiet,” Wayde muttered from the kitchen. “I didn’t get a chance to see this.”
“You didn’t miss anything,” I said as I lifted my wedge of pizza while the announcer gave a brief history lesson on the tunnels and how there was no record that they connected with the library.
Again Wayde shushed me, his eyes bright. “She’s talking about you!”
I chewed quietly, not excited. Most times my name made the news, I had to hide in the church for two weeks.
“Though sources haven’t verified it, witnesses claim that Cincinnati’s very own demon witch Rachel Morgan was on the scene. Phone calls to the firm she calls one-third her own have gone unanswered—”
“Because I’m eating,” I muttered, shushed by both Daryl and Wayde.
“But Vampiric Charms is known to have worked with the FIB in the past.”
“Oh, crap!” I exclaimed as the thirty-second video of me wearing nothing but an FIB coat flashed up on the screen. I didn’t care if the important bits were being blocked out. I looked awful, my hair wild and the coat riding up to show my fuzzed ass.
“Whoa! I didn’t know the station had that,” Glenn said, and I flushed.
“Trent’s in the background,” Jenks said, and horrified, I looked to see the elf, his eyes averted.
“Oh God. Can we please turn this off?” I pleaded, and Daryl worked the remote to turn the volume down, her little mouth drawn up as she laughed at me.
Glenn stood behind Ivy, a beer in one hand, smiling at last. “Thank you, Rachel, Ivy, and Jenks,” he said, raising the bottle in salute. “You were the difference between success and failure. Good tag.”
Ivy shifted in her chair and raised her glass above her head, clinking with him. “I wish I’d been there at the end. I would’ve enjoyed smacking Eloy under the flag of justice.”
I would have enjoyed smacking Eloy a little more, too, and as the announcer flirted with her male counterpart, I set my pizza aside. Caught not once but twice with my own magic, I thought as I spun Trent’s ring on my pinkie. But at least we’d gotten him. My smile faded as the memory of the-men-who-don’t-belong surfaced. If their radio had been working, things might have turned out differently. I might not be so banged up, for instance. They had left, and that was just . . . wrong.
Focus blurring, I remembered Trent’s casual acceptance of everything, his matter-of-fact recitation of all the things wrong with me before the ambulance personnel had their look and confirmed it. He hadn’t panicked when finding me beat up and broken. Instead, he quietly sat beside me and looked for the-men-who-don’t-belong. A part of me thought I should be mad that he let me sit there in pain, but I wasn’t. He’d known what was wrong with me before the ambulance personnel had. Nothing had been life threatening, but finding the-men-who-don’t-belong had been then or never. Besides, I had told him no ambulance.
Head down, I spun the ring on my finger, squinting as I noticed that one of the three bands had turned black. It was a three-charm spell, I thought in surprise. It still had some power.
Wayde wandered out of the kitchen with a plate of pizza in one hand, pop in the other, and looked over the seating arrangements. Seeing the Were at a loss, I shifted my legs so he could sit between me and Daryl. “Thanks,” he said as he sank and a puff of vampire- and dryad-scented air rose. “I still don’t believe that you eat pizza,” he said to Glenn as he inched himself forward and out of the cushion trap to set his plate on the coffee table. “You’re okay, FIB man. You can run with me anytime.”
Glenn gave him a look, his expression one of wondering mistrust. “Thanks.”
Ivy picked a pepperoni off her pizza and gave it to Glenn. He was still standing over her, watching his bust through the newscaster’s eyes. “You should tell everyone at the FIB you eat pizza,” Ivy said. “It will do wonders for your street cred.”
“My street cred is fine,” he said. “And they already think I’m insane. Seeing that I like working with witches and vampires.”
Jenks hummed over my pizza, and I gestured that he could have it. “But it’s a good kind of insane,” the pixy said as he sat on the crust and used his chopsticks to nibble the tomato sauce.
Glenn made a noise deep in his throat, then headed back into the kitchen, clearly not convinced. Ivy stood with her empty plate and followed him. She was looking a little sultry, and I’d be surprised if she came back to the church with me tonight. Good thing Wayde was here to get me home. It’d be hard to drive with my ankle and wrist messed up.
Wayde choked, and I looked up from my bruised hand when he shouted, “Turn it up!”
Daryl was already reaching for the remote, but Jenks beat her to it, stomping on the button until the announcer’s voice blared, “ . . . tonight when Orin escaped, while being moved to a more secure FIB facility.”
“What?” Ivy exclaimed from the kitchen, and suddenly her scent poured over me as she stood at my shoulder, mouth agape.
“Son of Tink!” Jenks said, and Glenn bellowed for everyone to shut up. He had escaped? How?
“Authorities are asking for your help if you see this man,” the woman in lavender said as her face was replaced by a shot of Eloy, recent by the apparent bruise from where Trent had hit him and the swollen bump on his head from where he’d further slammed his head on the floor. Eloy’s head was cocked and he looked determined, angry, and disdainful. Anger stirred in me. He hadn’t escaped. Someone had broken him out. Eloy had said they were everywhere. The-men-who-don’t-belong, maybe?
“Orin is considered highly dangerous and should not be approached,” she was saying as another picture of him popped up, this time a full-body shot. “Please call one of the numbers below if you see him.”
Two numbers: one for the FIB, the other for the I.S. “Call the I.S.,” Jenks said, hovering before the TV with his hands on his hips. “The FIB can’t even hold their farts.”
“You’re in the way!” Wayde leaned to see around him, but they’d gone back to a wide angle of the studio showing the newscasters sitting side by side.
“Sounds lik
e a dangerous man,” the guy was saying, “evading both the I.S. and the FIB. Let’s hope they get this one soon.”
The woman smiled brightly. “If it were me, I’d be halfway to Brazil. You know how I like my sun. And speaking of sun, is there any sun in our forecast for tomorrow, Susan?”
I stared at the map of the East Coast, with the low pressure dropping down from the Canadian wilds, stunned. Nice segue.
“Glenn?” Ivy said, and I twisted in the couch and saw her staring at an empty kitchen.
Jenks rose on a column of silver sparkles. “He’s in the bedroom, on the phone. Oh, he’s pissed.”
I grabbed the arm of the couch and tried to get up, failing. Daryl was already halfway across the room. Ivy joined her at the locked door, hammering on it when a polite knock got no result. Her jaw clenched. “Glenn?” she shouted, and Jenks hummed by her ear, telling her to be quiet so he could hear.
I sank back into the cushions, stymied. I could not get up out of this damned couch. Wayde was looking at me, and I stared back. “You going to help me, or just sit there?” I asked, and he sighed and set his pizza down.
Wayde hauled me up, my ribs protesting. My foot was numb from human medicine, and I grabbed the crutch he handed me, hobbling to Glenn’s bedroom door. “What’s he saying?”
“Just a lot of swearing so far,” Jenks said. “He wants to know who approved the move.”
“Dr. Cordova,” Ivy whispered.
“You heard that?” Jenks said, impressed, and she shook her head.
“She was bitching about it under the library,” Ivy said, then frowned, brow furrowed as she listened to Glenn.
“I didn’t approve a transfer!” His voice came clear through the thin walls of the apartment. “I don’t care if Cordova told you to, she’s not your boss, I am!” There was a hesitation, and he growled, “Cordova has been trying to close my division ever since its inception. I think she wanted him to escape.”
At Glenn’s words, I blinked. A sudden thought stabbed through my head, and I staggered, almost falling when my crutch snagged on the rug. Ivy glanced back when Wayde caught me, and I waved her off, stunned as the new thought circled. I think she wanted him to escape.
“Rache?” Jenks said, concern in his features as, within me, old thoughts rearranged themselves into a new reality: the I.S. trying to catch HAPA without involving the FIB; Cordova being hands-on at a run she had no business attending; Jennifer gaining her freedom as Cordova reamed out the entire team; Cordova’s insistence that the FIB retain custody; Eloy’s boast that his people were everywhere; and the fact that when we did catch him, he escaped not once, but twice—the FIB-issued pistol in Eloy’s hand as he shot at me.
“Rache?” Jenks asked again, and I shook my head.
“I need to sit down,” I said, and Wayde took my elbow, helping me move to one of the bar stools instead of that couch made for entrapment. Seeing me there, he waffled between staying and going back to the door. I waved him off, and he retreated, leaving me to my awful thoughts. The FIB didn’t want HAPA caught. That’s what Felix had said. That’s what Felix had known.
I had a very bad feeling that Dr. Cordova was a member of HAPA. Glenn didn’t have a clue. No wonder he couldn’t catch them.
The memory of Cordova’s angry expression when Eloy was snared intruded. And her anger again when Glenn tagged him on Central Ave., how she’d driven off amid a media circus, not toward the FIB or the I.S., but somewhere else. Somewhere else to arrange a breakout?
“Oh my God,” I whispered, one hand gripping my crutch, the other holding my ribs. The FIB had access to every blueprint in the city. They’d know the best places to hide, and with a whisper, HAPA would know when to move. HAPA had infiltrated the FIB. It was the only answer that made sense.
My gaze rose to the closed door with the Inderlanders clustered before it, all of them hearing every word Glenn was saying, and as my ankle throbbed through the pain amulet, my phone, stuck in my back pocket, began to hum. If HAPA had infested the FIB, who were the-men-who-don’t-belong?
Mouth dry, I fumbled for the phone, seeing a text from Trent. Trent texts? I thought, thinking it odd, and then my expression blanked. RADIO IS ACTIVE. MEET ME DOWNSTAIRS. JUST U.
Crap on toast, it wasn’t over yet.
Feeling unreal, I slid from the bar stool, my ankle jarring all the way up my spine. Jenks turned, sympathy showing on his face. I froze, my hand still shoving my phone away. Alone. He had said alone. That wasn’t even considering how he knew where I was and who I was with. Trent knew something and wasn’t sure who he could trust—except for me.
“We’ll get him, Rachel. I promise,” Jenks vowed as he took in my cold face, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him we wouldn’t. Even if I told them my awful thoughts and we brought Dr. Cordova in, something would get fouled up. Human error, Eloy had called it.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I said, and Ivy turned. Wayde and Daryl were next, and I flinched under their combined looks.
“With your ankle like that?” Ivy said.
“A drive then,” I said, my eyes flicking to Glenn’s door and back as I made a barely perceptible head shake. If Jenks or Ivy came, then Glenn would follow. He’d call the FIB’s home office. It’d be the tunnels all over again.
Ivy’s face paled, and her breath eased out slowly as she gained understanding. She knew I didn’t want Glenn to know. Something had broken between her and Glenn, and trust came too hard to the vampire. She’d keep them all here for me, and I was proud of her and me both as I hobbled to the chair by the door where my coat and shoulder bag were.
“I’ve got . . . my phone,” I said, to tell her I wouldn’t be alone, and she nodded, lower lip between her teeth. All I need now is a really big stick to hit Eloy with. I bet Trent would hold him down for me.
“Give me a minute to get into my cold-weather gear,” Jenks said, darting to the light fixture where he’d left it.
“She’ll be fine, Jenks,” Ivy said softly, and the pixy jerked to a stop, mistrusting it.
Wayde crossed the room as I dug my coat out from the bottom of the stack. “Sit down,” Wayde said, and I shoved my crutch at him to hold while I shrugged into my coat. “I know it’s a shock, but if you caught him once, you can do it again.”
Coat on, I reached for my crutch, and Wayde tightened his grip, not letting me take it. Behind him, Ivy shook her head at Jenks, telling him to leave off.
“Let go of my crutch,” I said, giving it a yank. “I’m going to take a walk. Clear my head.” Find Eloy. Smack his head into a wall, dance on his guts . . . I’d get creative. Spontaneous like.
“By myself, thanks anyway, Jenks,” I said as I slipped my shoulder bag up, and the pixy hovered at the ceiling in uncertainty, looking ticked but trusting Ivy. “I’ll be back in an hour!” I exclaimed, not liking the helpless feeling they were filling me with. “Save me a slice of pizza. Does anyone want anything while I’m out?”
Wayde was standing in front of the door as if he couldn’t believe they were going to let me leave, but there was no reason I shouldn’t apart from maybe having trouble driving. I thought of Winona and the wreck they had made of her body, and my eyes narrowed. I’d improvise, overcome . . . adapt.
“You sure you have everything you need?” Ivy said, and I almost smiled.
“Yes,” I said, and I pushed Wayde out of my way with a gentle pressure.
“You’re going to let her just walk out?” the Were said as I opened the door. Hobbling past him, I headed for the lift. “She can’t drive with a broken ankle.”
The hallway was empty, and my arm hurt from the crutch. God, I hated it.
“So she’ll sit in the parking lot until she gets cold,” Ivy said with false indifference.
“Besides, we’re good at putting the pieces back together,” Jenks said, and the door closed behind me.
&n
bsp; Yes, they were good at putting me back together, and I felt like Humpty Dumpty as I made my scuff-thumping way to the elevator. My ankle hurt and my ribs ached as I waited for it. I got in when the doors finally opened, punching the lobby button with a vengeance, hard enough to make my bruised hand complain. I should have made a healing curse, but the honest truth was that I was afraid I might get it wrong and end up worse off.
HAPA was deep in the FIB. How long, I wondered, had this arrangement been in force? Had they evolved together? Or had HAPA only recently infiltrated the nationwide organization? And how did the-men-who-don’t-belong fit in? Trent said the radio was active. Were they after Eloy themselves, or helping him escape? I was going to find out.
The doors opened, and the cooler air of the deserted lobby brushed my anger-warmed face. I got across the tiny divide and started for the twin glass doors, looking for Trent’s car and not seeing it. Hesitating, I heard the lift close and immediately start back up.
My eyes narrowed. Wayde, I thought, then frowned as I looked over the scantily decorated entryway. Three days ago, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to hurt him. Today, with a broken ankle, bruised ribs, a damaged hand, and a new outlook, I felt different.
I stood and watched as the light held steady on Glenn’s floor, then began to drop again. “Stupid, tenacious Were,” I muttered as the elevator dinged and I hobbled to stand next to it, out of sight. I dropped my bag as the doors slid open, pulled back my crutch . . . and as he walked out of the elevator, I swung it at him.
“Holy mother!” Wayde shouted, falling back into the elevator as my crutch hit the doors and splintered. I’d moved too soon.
“Don’t follow me, Wayde!” I said as I got in front of the elevator and stopped the doors from shutting with my broken crutch. Wayde was pressed flat against the back of the car, his eyes wide as he stared. “I’m telling you, don’t follow me! I need some time alone right now, okay?”