[English] THE WITCH WITH NO NAME

The Witch With No Name
The Witch With No Name Page 60



I swayed into him, my eyes on Takata’s little piece of the room and wondering if Trent was going to claim it, but by the gleam in his eye, I thought not.

He was going to help, whether I wanted him to or not, and that was the best feeling in the world.

Chapter 13

The sound of the water through the open windows echoed my intent as I sat cross-legged atop the slate counter within a protective pentagram and carefully etched an ever-smaller spiral into the bottom of the tiny bottle. I barely breathed, my entire world cycled down to the golden glow of glass and the thin tracing of silver flowing from the stylus. The shushing of the waves was the heartbeat of the world, ever present, seldom noticed, and linking every moment together from before there was life to now.

To say it felt as if I was connected to the all, to everything, was an understatement.

I reached the center. The stylus lifted, but I didn’t want to move. I was content, still, and I knew with an unshakable certainty what was important and what wasn’t.

Ivy, I thought, and a stab of fear broke through my muzzy peace. A drop of silver quivered at the tip of the stylus, and I held my breath as I moved the pen from the bottle.

“I thought I lost you there,” Trent said, startling me, and I looked up, smiling even as the silver dripped onto the counter.

“I should take a break,” I said, handing him the bottle. Beside me were over a dozen rejects making me feel guilty about using my mom’s silver ink. It wasn’t exorbitantly expensive, but we couldn’t melt the silver down and reuse it either. They had to be trashed, bottles and all.

Saying nothing, Trent put the bottle under the scope modified to look at odd-shaped things. I stretched for the ceiling. My back cracked and my legs protested as I slid to the edge of the counter and my feet hit the tile floor. The sun was past its zenith, not close to setting but still making a bright glare on the water that reflected in with a wavy, relaxing pattern. “Good?” I said around a yawn, and he pulled back from the scope. I rather liked his smile.

“Looks good on the scope,” he said, taking the bottle out from under it. “Let’s see if it resonates.”

This was the real test, and I watched his focus become distant as he somehow put his consciousness into the spiral. He began to whisper the elven words to resonate along the silver, and I shivered as I felt a slight pull when my soul recognized the summons.

“Perfect.” Exhaling in a puff, he came blinking back to me. “Take a look. The lines actually glow.”

Flustered, I shook my head when he extended it. “Ah, no thanks,” I said, then added when he gave me a questioning look, “I might attract more attention than I want.”

“Mystics?” Green eyes expressive, he put the bottle in my hand. “Your aura lost most of its sparkle yesterday. I think you slipped them. They’re probably halfway to St. Louis.”

My lips parted, my relief surprising in its depth. “Seriously?”

He nodded, and I took the bottle, smiling at the thought of the mystics stymied and slowly crossing the same terrain that we had last year. Exhaling, I tried to put my awareness into the bottle. It was kind of like focusing on my navel, and I whispered the words of invocation. “Tislan, tislan. Ta na shay cooreen na da.”

The world became less important . . . and a remembered soothing numbness stole out from between the cracks of reality, rising up to envelop me, dissolving me in the words slowly spinning in the circle of sound and lassitude.

Until a sharp jerk pulled through me. My head snapped up, and I blinked as I stared at Trent. He was right in front of me, his hands on mine still wrapped around the bottle. Concern, quickly hidden, flashed over him.

“I take it back,” he said, using more force than expected to yank the bottle away. “Don’t do that again.”

“So it works?” I was breathless, and I unkinked my hands and rubbed at their stiffness.

“I think you almost put yourself in there.” Brow furrowed, he set the bottle on the opposite counter where there was no chance of mixing it up with the discards. “I think it works fine, but I’d still put a drop of blood in it as an attractant.”

I nodded, not as pleased as I thought I would be. My intent was to help Ivy, but what if it worked on pulling healthy souls from healthy people, too? Crap on toast, had I just reinvented a demon curse from an elven one? “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

The clatter of flawed bottles shocked through me as Trent ran a hand over the counter to dump them into the same box we’d found them in. “I see what you’re thinking,” he said, the box going back on the counter. A faint smile on his face, he came close. “I didn’t lose myself. I think it’s only because you scribed it. Or maybe because you’ve been centering yourself all afternoon drawing spirals.” He squeezed my shoulder to bring my eyes up to his. “It’s not going to pull anyone in without an attractant.”

“I suppose.” My thoughts turned to the question of whose blood I should use. Ivy’s was what her soul was used to, but mine might be what her soul longed for.

“You did good,” he said confidently as he slid the unused bottles to the back of the counter. My mom had a most excellent spelling area. We’d used about a third of it, spreading out to help minimize possible contamination. It was getting late, and I squinted at the lowering sun as my stomach rumbled. We’d been here all day, not even breaking for a real meal, though Trent had raided the kitchen to bring up cider, sliced apples, and more strawberries. My eyes drifted to the empty plate by the fireplace. My mom had a little piece of heaven here. She deserved it.

“It’s a great spell,” Trent said, concern furrowing his brow at my continued silence. “I think you should register it before someone else copies it.”

A flash of pride pushed my anxiety out. “We don’t even know yet if it works.” Flustered, I took a salt water–soaked rag and began to wipe down the counter. We had no real way to test it, but my thoughts turned to Ivy as I slowly cleaned the counter. If I didn’t have two bottles, she’d only give hers to Nina.

My eyes went to the sun, still fairly high over the water. It was dark in Cincinnati. “I can make another one before the sun goes down,” I said softly. I knew Trent wanted to get out on the beach, but I didn’t know how long this interlude of peace would last.

“We’ve got time.” Leaning in, he gave me a quick kiss before taking up the box of waste bottles and starting for the stairs. “I bet there’s a grill somewhere. I can make kebabs and rice.”

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My cheek was tingling from where he’d kissed me, and I touched it. “Mmmm, sounds good. This shouldn’t take long. I can chop veggies.”

Nodding, he headed down the open hallway, box of bottles in his arms.

The sound of the ocean became obvious again, a heady warmth radiating from the sand coming in with it. My hands were damp with salt water, and I went to rinse them. I’d have to redraw the pentagram for the new charm. I knew the recitation words by heart now after having done this for each of the flawed bottles. It wasn’t just the bottle that made this work, but the twenty minutes’ prep work of intent and sympathetic magic that went along with it.

Hands dripping, I reached for a paper towel with Halloween bats and tomatoes on it. A quiver rippled through my chi, shocking me to stillness. From nowhere, malevolent intent spilled over me. The shush of waves slowed, ebbing as the sound of ancient drums pulsed within me, rising, ebbing, coming back even more insistently with thoughts of revenge and the intent to punish. Focus blurring, I reached for the counter. The sensation of hatred rose until it leaked through my aura to sheen like an evil sweat. It was an attack . . .

Dizzy, I stumbled into the counter, hand to my middle, a sparkling, breathless pull shifting through me as if searching, looking under the puddling black smut on my aura for something. My eyes widened as I felt the searching intent wrap around my chi . . . and take me with it.

Stop! I thought as I yanked myself back, panicking as the alien sensation redoubled its effort, assaulting my soul with more demand. The drums fell back to my core, and I gasped as ancient rhythms beat out a punishment and my fear opened cracks for it to delve deeper.

Let me go! I screamed when the curse fastened on a different part of me. It was an attack, looking for something in me to trigger its full strength.

Get out! I demanded, but I couldn’t wrap my will around it. It was like smoke, evading me as if I wasn’t even there. I reached for a ley line, shocked when it slipped my grasp. It was damaged from a thousand years of earthquakes, and I didn’t have the knack of cradling it to me like those who lived on the coast did.

My pulse hammered. My knees gave way and I hit the floor as the curse dug in, using my own fear to protect it. The world tilted and jerked as it adjusted its grip like a shark on a fish. The drums thundered. My heart beat in time with it. I didn’t have what it needed to invoke, but pulse by pulse, it swallowed me further.

Groaning, I felt my palms hit the tile floor. For one instant, the drums and the thundering beat of the curse were contrary. My breath came in with a gasp, and I caught a glimpse of sun and blue tile. With it came the realization that I was caught in a rhythm-based curse. If I could find one tiny bit of separation, I could wedge it off. I had to make my pulse erratic, out of sync with the drums.

Terrified, I held my breath and huddled on the tile. My knees pressed to my chest, and I closed my eyes. My pulse had matched the drums, and the curse grew stronger. Panic was a white-hot wash, and my lungs burned. I had to shift my pulse. It was my only chance.

Let . . . go, the curse demanded as sparkles flashed before me and my lungs burned. I. Would. Not. Breathe.

And then . . . my thudding heart stuttered again, missing a beat.

It was enough.

With a snap, the curse’s hold on me broke. I gasped as if coming up from the ocean depths, sucking in the air as if it was heaven itself. My pulse raced. The drums were counter to my body rhythm—and they couldn’t find it again. My hands pushed on the cold mosaic tile, weak as I lay there and breathed. My head hurt, and I wanted to throw up.

“Rachel!”

It was Trent, and I groaned as he sat me up. His hands were hot, burning almost. “Not so fast,” I whispered, eyes still closed.

“My God,” he said as he sat on the floor and held me. “You’re ice cold. What happened? I felt it all the way downstairs!”

Shivering, I managed to crack my eyelids. “Nothing,” I croaked. “I didn’t do anything. I was cleaning the table. It felt like—” I was hyperventilating, and I stopped breathing to try to slow it down. “Something attacked me,” I said, then took a deep breath. I couldn’t help it, and I fell against him, cold and nauseated. “It was aimed at me. It was aimed at me, but not me.”

He was silent, and realizing I wasn’t making any sense, I forced my eyes open. I’m on the floor, I thought, then lifted a hand to touch his shoulder. It took a lot of effort.

“I’m okay,” I said, but he wouldn’t let me get up. “It was a curse. It never fully invoked. The invocation element was missing. I didn’t have it.”

Okay, that didn’t make much sense either, but it was hard to explain. Who makes a curse that needs something from the victim to invoke? A highly complex, person-specific charm? But then why hadn’t it found what it needed?

“The invocation element was missing?” he echoed, and I bobbed my head.

“It searched my mind, and when it didn’t find it, it tried to invoke anyway. I managed to beat it off. I don’t think I could have stopped it if it had found what it wanted.”

Trent’s brow furrowed. “Okay,” he said, arms going all the way around me. “No more spelling today,” he added, and my stomach lurched as he lifted me.

“Trent, I’m fine,” I protested, but it was all I could do to put my arms around his neck and hold on. “I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything.”

“And you haven’t had anything to eat today but half a waffle and a handful of chips.”

I looked over his shoulder at the dishes by the fireplace. It hadn’t been a real sit-down lunch, but there’d been a lot of calories in it, and it hadn’t been that long ago. “I ate more than that!” I said, making a little wiggle. “If you felt it, then it wasn’t anything I did.”

“Right.” Huffing, he started for the hallway. “We’re done for today.”

“Trent. I’m fine. Put me down.” I stiffened. Feeling it, he hesitated at the top of the stairs, his jaw tightening before swinging me down.

My feet hit the floor, and I staggered, hand going behind my back to prop myself up on the rail without him seeing. I held my breath, pulse thundering as the world swam and steadied. Maybe that curse had taken something from me after all. But I knew it hadn’t. I had just needed everything I had to fight it off. Trent looked mad, his hand ready to catch me. I thought of the dwindling daylight, then my queasy feeling. I couldn’t spell like this and get any usable results.

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“Maybe we should turn on the news,” I said meekly.

Immediately Trent’s irate expression eased, telling me how hard it had been for him to stand there and wait for me to come to the same conclusion he had. I couldn’t help a tiny little smile. He cared, not only that I was okay, but that I made my own decisions even if he felt they were the wrong ones.

“Why are you smiling?” he grumbled as he followed me down the stairs, hovering almost.

“Because I love you, too,” I said, and he chuckled, the last of his anger vanishing.

My balance shifted as I stepped down for the next step, and I froze, unable to move as a sudden uproar exploded in my mind. I cowered, hands over my head. It was the collective. Something had happened in the ever-after. Thoughts of revenge and joy were a slurry of contrasts. Trent’s hand touched me, and like a knob twisting the focus, it swamped me.

I woke up at the bottom of the stairs. My elbow hurt, and I stared up at Trent as he held my head to his chest. He looked scared. I was too.

“Trent, what’s going on?” I warbled, and his expression hardened.

“I don’t know.” His eyes looked deep into mine until he was sure I was okay. “I’m carrying you to the couch. Don’t try to stop me.”

Fear kept me silent. The memory of being helpless sifted to the topmost of my thoughts, scaring me even more as he lurched upright with me. I knew how to be passive. I knew how to be still to preserve my strength. That didn’t mean I liked doing it. This too will pass, I thought, pinning my fraying calm to it. Something had happened. I was okay. But it might happen again.

Trent set me gently into the cushions. It felt different from this morning, and I pulled my knees to my chin, making room for him as he pointed the remote and turned on the TV.

A sitcom blared out, the laugh track sounding trite. Trent began flipping through the channels. My tension wound tighter, fear growing as I put distance between myself and both the attack and the outcry from the demon collective. I couldn’t have been the only one who’d felt it.

Trent paused at a news station. The woman was professionally charming, and the man flirted harmlessly as they discussed the new school format being implemented. “Nothing on ICTV,” he said, arm extended to change the channel.

“Try the weather channel,” I said, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Are you serious?”

I nodded. “They don’t have to check the vali***y of their stories like the national news.”

Frowning, Trent looked at the back of the remote where Takata had taped a mini guide. “Okay. The weather channel.” Arm pointed, he clicked again.

“. . . strange phenomena in the sky observed over the Atlantic Ocean tonight,” an uncomfortable-looking woman on the beach was saying, the wind shifting her jacket even as her eyes kept darting to the surf. “Experts at the local marine study outpost are trying to link it to the sudden crab migration you see about me.”

She jerked, kicking at something outside of the camera’s lens. “The beaches are covered with the rarely seen but not uncommon tomato crab. Most mass migrations are tied to full moons and high or low tides, and it has local and international animal behaviorists stumped.”

And the woman standing there with them creeped out, I thought.

Trent’s arm lowered. “That’s . . . odd.”

My lip curled. Revenge and thoughts of punishment had searched my soul, tried to take me. There was usually a reason for the myths and symbols that dogged some animal species like flies, snakes, and . . . crabs. Crabs were the worst.

“The crabs are steadily moving inland,” the woman was saying, making an awkward jump as she almost stepped on something. “Apparently it’s happening up and down the coast as far north as Maine and as far south as lower Georgia.”

“Not Florida?” I wondered, stifling a shiver as Trent sat beside me.

“No one’s lived in Florida since the Turn. They probably haven’t checked yet.”

The newscaster handed it off to the station, which had somehow gotten an interview with a local marine biologist. “See what Inderland Entertainment Tonight is saying,” I asked, knowing their programming wouldn’t have to be cleared or verified either.

Trent turned the remote over to find the channel number. “IET isn’t on until six.”

“It’s six in Cincinnati,” I said, and he grunted, hesitated in thought, frowned, and clicked the right number. Yeah, I didn’t like that the sun was down on the East Coast either. Whatever was happening there would probably hit us in three hours.

“Inderland Entertainment Tonight,” he said, eyes fixed forward. “What do you think they will know that CNN doesn’t?”

“CNN is an hour late in breaking anything new,” I said, listening to the trendy, size 1 woman in six-inch zebra heels interviewing a beatnik college kid with wide eyes and too many friends in the background trying to get on TV. “Ghosts?” I said, turning to Trent. “Are they talking about ghosts?”

“I think we should try CNN,” he suggested.

“No, wait!” I said, grabbing for the remote, but he was too fast, jerking it away. “Go back!” I demanded, breathless until he did.

“He like came right at me!” the kid was saying. “Creepy as **** and ragged. I thought it was a joke until it grabbed me. I tried to get it off me, but I sort of went through it a little. My friends pulled it off me, and we got the hell out of there. I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t even real except where it grabbed me!”

“It was a surface demon,” I said, pulse quickening.

Trent’s wandering attention snapped back. “No.”

But the skinny woman was talking, a still shot of an underground train platform behind her. “Reports of similar incidents have been coming in from all over Manhattan,” she said, and I wondered if she was going to change to more sinister makeup before the night was over. Maybe put a bat in her hair. “The first indications that this is a belowground-only assault seem untrue as the wraiths are beginning to venture above on the streets, causing havoc.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of hard to grasp the concept of polite society when you’ve been out of it for a hundred years,” I said, grimacing as a blurry, shaky shot clearly taken from a phone showed a surface demon hissing at a car before diving behind the stone wall at Central Park.

“Those are surface demons!” Trent blurted out, sounding almost betrayed.

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Great. Just great. Depressed, I unkinked my hands from around my knees and put my feet on the floor. “Damn it, Trent,” I complained. “I never would have played dead if I had thought they could actually do it!”

“But they can’t!” Trent’s gaze was fixed on the TV, his shock obvious.

Tired, I rubbed my forehead. “Maybe that’s what I felt. What we both felt,” I added, even though he hadn’t said anything about an elf-born curse ripping through his soul.

He jerked straight, and I could almost see the thoughts aligning. “I didn’t feel an attack. I felt a call to arms.” Hand rubbing over his face, he leaned back into the cushions, his brow lowering and his expression getting darker.

Subdued, I took the remote and set it on the table before it fell between the cushions. Elven magic had attacked me. It had passed over him and struck me—even if it hadn’t found what it needed to fully invoke. I had a bad feeling that whatever it had been, it had been aimed at the demons, not just the surface demons.

“You’re a demon,” Trent said softly, and I nodded, taking his hand in mine. “You’re in the collective.”

I’d felt an outcry, one so violent and explosive it had reached me even without a scrying mirror, knocking me flat on my ass. Depressed, I watched a group of people on a bus try to catch a surface demon only to have to beat it off a woman when it turned the tables on them.

“How did they manage it?” Trent said, distraught. “It can’t be done.”

But they did it. “Try the regular news now,” I said, and Trent let go of my hand to stretch for the remote.

“. . . new phenomena of what spellogists are calling a spontaneous release of surface demons from the ever-after. Elven Sa’hans are telling us these are actually the material manifestation of the souls of the undead and to leave them alone as they search for their bodies.”

Trent grimaced. “They are not Sa’hans. They’re frauds.”

Frauds or not, they’d managed to get the surface demons into reality. I was starting to think again, and my shoulders scrunched up almost to my ears. Something had happened in the ever-after, something bad. Uneasy, I looked over my shoulder to my mom’s unseen spelling room. I’d been through most of the cupboards, and there’d been no scrying mirror. I could probably summon Al without it, but he was pissed at me.

Unless he’s trapped somewhere. He won’t kill me if I rescue him, will he?

“The ghostly, frightening images with half substance are showing up in most major East Coast cities,” the newscaster was saying, “the vampiric souls appearing in a steady progression west with the setting sun.”

Trent crossed one ankle over his knee. I’d never seen him look so confused. “I don’t get it,” he said, gesturing. “There isn’t a way to move them to reality.”

I glanced at the clock on the cable box. It was very close *****nset in Cincinnati. Stretching, I took the remote and clicked over to CNN. Sure enough, an excited, somewhat nervous man was standing at Fountain Square, the sky still holding the pink from the sun. I had figured they’d be either there or in Detroit. It was too early for Chicago. Behind the reporter were clusters of living vampires. The atmosphere was one of breathless anxiety.

“Sunset . . . ,” Trent whispered, and the newscaster spun, voice rising as he described the sudden appearance of nearly twenty surface demons. My expression twisted as the cameras zoomed in on them, their ragged auras and gaunt limbs standing out against the sunset-red sky, making it look like the ever-after. People squealed, and most of the surface demons ran for the street, looking for somewhere to hide.

Two, though, hesitated, hunched and furtive as they hissed at the vampires coaxing them closer. Trent said nothing, and I clicked back to New York. The undead there had probably figured it out and were likely in the streets looking for their souls.

“Mmmm,” Trent grunted, easing closer to the TV as a news reporter tried to stay in the limited streetlight as she nervously explained what was going on behind her. The sun had been down for a while. It was dark enough for the undead.

My lips parted as the camera swung and steadied to show a surface demon melting into a rapturous vampire. He wasn’t a master vampire. He was hardly a vampire at all, actually, one of New York’s homeless vamps living under the streets and existing on addicts until someone bigger took him out. But he’d found his soul—and it was trying to bind to him.

“My God, Landon did it . . . ,” Trent breathed, but I wasn’t so sure this was going to have a happy ending. You couldn’t see an aura through a TV, but it still didn’t look like a repeat of what had happened up in Luke and Marsha’s apartment, even if the vampire was sobbing, holding on to the corner of the building as the guilt and shame of his soulless existence crashed down upon him.

Spontaneous joining? I wasn’t buying it. “What’s to keep it from spontaneously leaving?” I asked. We’d had to burn the gateway through which Felix’s soul had entered him to keep it from simply going back out.

Someone had stopped to help the vampire, now weeping inconsolably. The newscaster looked uncomfortable as she told people to stay off the streets and out of the way as the vampires found their souls.

“I guess they think we’re dead,” I said, not feeling at all good. I wanted to call Ivy and see how Felix was doing. “The surface demons will be showing up here in about three hours,” I said as I looked at the bright golden light.

His eyes on the TV, Trent got to his feet. “They seem to be staying in the main population centers.”

So far, I thought glumly. “You really think they’re free? For good?” If they were, then that soul bottle I’d made was going to be more than useless.

Trent hesitated, watching the TV as if it might have the answers. “I’ve no idea. Maybe their release was what you felt on the stairs.”

Or the attack in my mom’s spell room, I mused, an ugly thought trickling through me. If it had almost taken me, then maybe it had hit the demons, too.

I jumped as he spun, almost running to the stairs. “Where are you going?”

“To get Bis!” he shouted.

Fidgety, I looked out the big windows at the bright sun. “Trent? He won’t be awake,” I called, then gestured as if to say “I told you so” when Trent came back with Bis perched on his arm like a huge sleeping owl. My bag was over his other arm, looking funny against him.

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“We have to get to the ever-after. Find out what happened.” Trent stumbled into the living room. He thrust my bag at me as he sat down on the edge of the couch. Motions tense, he tickled Bis’s ear. “Bis, wake up.”

The little guy scrunched up his eyes and pushed at him with one leathery wing. One red eye opened, saw me, and squinted closed in the sun. “It’s kind of hard when he’s in the sun like that,” I said as I shifted to put him in my shadow. “Bis!” I shouted, pinching his wing.

That sort of worked as Bis flung his wings out to smack Trent in the face. “Bis, wake up!” I shouted again. Kind and gentle wouldn’t work. We’d be lucky to get even an eye open again. “Bis, we need to get to the ever-after. Bis? Bis!”

But he didn’t even stir.

Trent stared at me, and my teeth clenched. “I’ve got an idea. Trust me?” I said.

“Uhhh,” Trent stammered, and I tugged my shoulder bag onto my lap and grabbed his arm.

“Bis!” I shouted, touching that awful ley line and shifting all our auras into it.

“Rachel!” Trent exclaimed, but I wasn’t sure if it had reached my ears or was only in my head as we suddenly were in the line, broken and tasting of earth and sky all at the same time.

With a mental gasp, Bis was awake, startled as he suddenly found himself floundering.

Dalliance, I thought, and with a curious flip of awareness that I had yet to master, Bis tuned our auras. If I could get any answers at all, it would be at Dalliance.

Chapter 14

What is wrong with you!” the little gargoyle shouted, red eyes glaring, his voice echoing in the empty space as we materialized. “I was sleeping! I could’ve dropped you!” His voice came back again, all the louder. But then he turned, wings drooping as he saw where we were.

Dalliance was currently an Asian eatery, the low tables holding bowls of steaming rice and pots of tea, overlooking a courtyard complete with a koi-stocked pond, raked pads of sand and gravel, and tiny trees. A jukebox, out of place and time, stood as the only indication that everything was a solid illusion. Several cups of tea had spilled, and the place was empty.

“Where is everyone?” Trent said, his tension evolving into a cautious investigation as he lifted a lid and breathed in the steam. There was no damage, no evidence of threat apart from the spilled tea. They simply were not here. Anyone. Not even the staff.

The teapot clinked as Trent set the lid back in place. An elven spell had attacked me. I’d barely fought it off. But I wasn’t a cursed demon. Al . . .

“Bis, take us to the mall,” I said, scared. I could probably find someone at the mall who’d talk to me without charging me for it.

Subdued, the little gargoyle nodded. Trent stepped to us, and with hardly a breath of displaced air, the varnished wood and rice paper screens melted into loud eighties music and a steamy warmth.

My mouth dropped open. People were everywhere, howling, dancing, swinging from the banners the demons had hung to try to dampen the echo. Shocked, I fell back against the fountain. Foam spilled up behind me, and I jerked forward. There was a bubble charm in it, and blue-and-pink froth spilled over and onto the floor.

“What happened?” Trent gripped my elbow and pulled me off the jump-in circle.

Speechless, I shook my head as I tried to take it all in. People were everywhere. They were ecstatic, even the familiars in charge of the shops had left them to get slushies and ices from the abandoned pushcarts. It was as hot as always, but goose bumps rose when I realized that there were no demons here. None.

“Bis, take me to Al,” I said, and both Bis and Trent turned to me, aghast. “Take me to Al!” I demanded, hiking my shoulder bag up higher. “The demons are gone! That’s what I felt! Something attacked them!”

“How?” Trent whispered, but I was already pulling him back onto the jump-in circle.

The demons were gone. Every last one of them. Something had tried to kill me. Al had to be alive. He was stronger than I was.

But as Bis’s field enveloped us, I realized what had happened. I was a witch-born demon, free of the original elven curse. Al wasn’t. That’s what the elven spell had been looking for to invoke on—and Al had it.

My heart pounded as the heat and noise of the mall vanished, echoing in my thoughts as the scent of woodsmoke filled my lungs and the stone floor of Al’s spelling kitchen formed under my feet. If not for the accompanying glow from a nearly dead fire and the subliminal whisper of voices from that creepy tapestry, I’d never know we’d arrived. Bis was getting good at these short hops, and I touched his wide-spaced claws on my shoulder as I looked to the small hearth and then the shadowed ceiling. It was dark, but I could tell that Al wasn’t here.

That doesn’t mean he’s dead, I thought, my shoulders nearly to my ears as I handed my bag to Trent and went to stir up some light from the fire. There was a stack of actual wood logs instead of Al’s usual peat-moss chunks that reeked of burnt amber, and I put the smallest on the coals. Orange sparks flew when I dropped it on, and I wiped my fingers free of the greasy bark, turning to take in the room as it brightened.

Mr. Fish sat on the bottom of his glass, gills pumping, and I frowned at the tall glass-fronted cabinets, all open and the books and ley line equipment gone. The small table between the two hearths was clean, not a notation or hint of script remaining. Anything smaller than a bread box was missing.

“Where’s his stuff?” Trent said, and a muffled, surprised grunt came from the bedroom.

I spun to the archway as the thick wooden door engraved with spells and embedded with metallic symbols swung inward. Light spilled out, and I squinted at Al’s trim silhouette, his gloved hands holding a mundane oil lamp. I backed up in relief, both happy to see him and unsure how he might react. He was okay, but that didn’t translate into his being glad to see me.

“Newt?” he said cautiously, low voice utterly devoid of his usual British lord accent.

“It’s me,” I said. “Thank God you’re all right. Wha—”

I gasped, backpedaling. My back hit the slate table, and then Al was on me, his hand across my neck. “Al!” I cried out, and then my voice gagged to nothing. I smacked his arm, digging at his fingers, and he let up enough for me to breathe.

“I said I’d kill you if you ever showed up in my rooms again!”

“Stop!” I cried out as Trent grabbed Al, and my air choked off again.

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“Detrudo!” Al snarled.

I heard Trent and Bis slam into one of the cabinets, glass and wood shattering.

“I had to know if you were okay!” I said, and then his fist tightened again, choking off my air. Reaching up, I pinched his nose, and he jumped, fingers easing enough to let me breathe.

My air came in quick, thin pants as he lowered his face until inches separated us. “You came to steal my things!”

I fixed on one of his eyes, seeing myself in their red, goat-slitted pupil. “I came to see if you were alive,” I said, and his grip tightened, his eyes narrowing as my breath gurgled to a stop.

“Let her go, you ass!” Trent shouted from the floor, and the sounds of sliding glass became obvious as he shook the shattered cabinet off. “She’s here because she thought you might be dead.”

“To steal what’s left of my miserable life,” he breathed. My hands ached and my arms began to shake as I kept trying to wedge him off me. If I used magic, he would, too, and he knew more than I did.

“She thought you were hurt!” Trent said, his voice between us and the fire. “She doesn’t care about your things. She thought you needed help!”

Snarling, Al pressed into me, fingers tightening until black stars began to blot my vision.

“You are killing her!” Trent said, and I heard a dull thud as his fist met Al’s face.

Al’s fingers let go. My breath came in with a gasp, and I rolled to my front, the cool slate of the table soothing against my flushed cheek. Hand to my neck, I choked and gagged, eyes watering as I pushed myself up. Bis was on the mantel beside Mr. Fish, scared to death.

“You are going to kill her, you putrid little elf!” Al snarled, and Trent drew himself up, his face white and his expression hard. “There is nothing that will survive what’s coming. And it’s your fault.”

“I’m okay,” I croaked, trembling as I waved Bis off, and he landed on the back of Ceri’s old chair, still in its accustomed place. Seeing me upright, Al scooped up a carpetbag and tried to shove the rolled-up tapestry into it. Trent was going to kill me? Nothing here was his fault. It was sort of mine. Trent stood between us, my bag spilling out over the floor behind him, and I don’t think I appreciated him more than at that moment. “What’s coming?” I whispered, voice raw.

“The end,” Al muttered, his frustration growing as he fought to get the tapestry into the bag, clearly bigger on the inside than the out. “I see you washed the Goddess slime off you. Too bad it will keep coming back.”

He was talking about the mystics, and I squared my shoulders. It was going better than I had thought it would. I was just glad he wasn’t dead. “An elven spell tried to kill me,” I said, and Al turned the tapestry end over end to fit it in the bag, but it unrolled as if trying to stay out. “It wasn’t the Goddess, it was the dewar and the enclave.”

“Surprise, surprise,” he muttered.

“It couldn’t get a grip on me,” I said, gently pushing Trent’s hand off me when I edged past him. “But then I heard the collective cry out. I thought . . . it took you.”

Shoulders hunched, Al threw the tapestry at the wall in frustration. It hit with a thud, the sliding fabric sounding like a muffled scream as it landed on the floor and slowly uncurled. “It was . . . ,” he said, eyebrows lowered as he stared at me, “. . . a cry of joy, Rachel Mariana Morgan.”

My chest hurt. “Please don’t call me that. You left me. I didn’t leave you.”

Al flicked his eyes at Trent as he yanked his carpetbag up. I stepped closer, feet scuffing to a halt when Al growled, “Yes. You did.”

“Because he’s an elf?” I exclaimed, frustrated.

Al’s expression twisted even more. “Exactly,” he said, the words dripping scorn and hatred. “Love has made you into a tool, Rachel, and like a tool, you are oblivious and will be cast aside when your job is done.”

“I am not,” I whispered, cold, but the thought that Trent would soon remember his place among his people weighed heavily on me. Quen was right. I was a phase, a happy dalliance.

“You are blind, Rachel, even as you are a part of it.” Al pointed at me, his anger stemming from a deep wound. “Elves ask too much. They bring only destruction. That is what they are. They’ve always been such, even when we tried to crush them from existence. And it will kill you.”

“But you loved Ceri,” I pleaded, and Trent grunted as if only now getting it.

Al’s pointing finger slowly dropped, his depth of hatred chilling me.

“Just so,” he said bitterly, looking at his empty room. “You begin to understand?”

“You can’t blame this on Ceri,” I said, a new fear slithering through me. He’d loved her, loved her enough to break the rules and free her from her servitude in such a way that I could save her life. From there the world changed as Trent used her to begin to pull his people back from extinction. Love had turned my goals to his, and I found a pre-curse DNA sample so Ceri’s baby would be free of the curse. And now, bolstered by the mere hint of success, the elves had begun to eliminate everyone more powerful than themselves. Perhaps Al was right.

Horrified, I watched him stuff the last of the things on the mantel into the bag like Santa in reverse. His thick fingers hesitated at Mr. Fish, and then he closed them, leaving the brandy snifter where it was. “Where has everyone gone?” I asked, scared.

Gaze flicking to Trent, then Bis, sitting wide-eyed on Ceri’s chair, he hesitated. “Anywhere they want,” he said, waving at Bis until he moved to Trent’s shoulder.

Anywhere? My thoughts went back to the empty state of Dalliance, and then the celebration of familiars at the mall. He said it had been a cry of joy . . .

“Oh, your elven brethren have made a large mistake,” Al said to Trent as Ceri’s chair was wreathed in a haze of black and shrank down to the size of my hand. “One we will exploit to the fullest and wipe them from existence once and for all,” he said, using both hands to shift the smaller but clearly just as heavy chair into the bag. “Revenge is a tricky beast. Her claws face both ways. I don’t mind a few more scars. They’ll be unnoticed among the rest.”

Trent paled. “The curse that attacked you . . . ,” he whispered, and then he reached for the slate table, his balance gone. “The Goddess help us,” he whispered, expression haunted. “That’s what I felt. It was a call to break the curse.”

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“What curse?” I said, feeling as if I was on the brink of a precipice.

Al snapped the bag shut and lifted it easily. “Not break exactly, but when they modified it to force the surface demons to reality, they created a loophole.” He spun to his fire and took the iron, rapping the ash from it. “I’m leaving now. You can have the tapestry. I never liked that thing anyway.”

My heart thudded. “Al, wait!” I called out, but with a tweak on my awareness, he vanished in a curl of black-tainted ever-after.

Bis shifted his wings, and the room abruptly seemed a lot colder. I turned to Trent at his soft scuffing of feet. He had sat down, sinking into Al’s simple three-legged stool, elbow on the table and head in his hand as his thumb ran over a tiny scratch in the surface. I’d seen Al like that more than once. The hatred between the elves and the demons went far deeper than I’d thought. “Trent? What happened?”

He looked up, a hint of the fear of the unknown in the back of his gaze. “It must have taken the dewar working in concert with a good portion of the enclave,” he said, and then his focus sharpened on me. “That’s what you felt in your mom’s spelling room. The unbinding spell recognized you as a demon, and when it couldn’t find the curse keeping you in the ever-after, it just kept trying to take something, anything. The demons figured out what was going on, and now they’re free.”

My lips parted. Free? As in reality?

Suddenly I got it—the entire mess. Landon had made a huge error. He’d freed the surface demons to get rid of the undead, but once they walked into the sun—which I was sure they would—it’d be the demons who’d replace them as the rule makers and breakers, not the elves.

Grimacing, I reached for Mr. Fish. I didn’t think Al was coming back. “We should go,” I said, bending to pick up my bag. There was nothing here. Everything that had meant anything had been taken, held in that little carpetbag.

“Cincinnati?” Bis spread his wings in anticipation. “But you’re supposed to be dead.”

Trent edged from the softly mewling tapestry. “It doesn’t matter now.”

No, it didn’t matter. And I was not going to help Landon save the world. He’d made his choice, and it wasn’t my responsibility.

But as I felt Bis’s aura slip around us, I had a bad feeling I was going to have to anyway.

Chapter 15

The steeple was a dark slash against the underside of the clouds, red with the reflected light of the Hollows. Stray gleams of streetlight eked through the unmoving trees, making lumps and shadows in the graveyard. There was no friendly glow from the back porch. There was no back porch at all, and I held Mr. Fish carefully as my steps through the damp, unmowed grass slowed and the extent of the damage became evident.

Trent steadied me as I stepped over the low stone wall separating the garden from the graveyard. His hand was warm on my elbow, and I leaned into him, trying to tell him with my touch that I didn’t believe what Al had said. He’s not using me, I thought, but the uglier part of me added, This might not have happened if you’d walked away six months ago. I slowed, pulling away from him as the heartache of my church fell on me.

The rank, acidic scent of things that shouldn’t be burned was choking. The kitchen and back living room were gone; only the broken remains of what wouldn’t burn were left to show there’d ever been anything there. What was probably the stove and the fridge poked through what was left of the roof, all of it well below the original floor and filling the crawl space. Gutter work, twisted from the heat, was the most recognizable thing.

The stones of the original church were black and glistening from the soot and heat. Plywood had already been fixed over the open hallway, and it looked oddly high up from the ground without a porch to ground it. It was worse than seeing it on TV—cold, dark, and sad with chunks of our lives out of place and hardly recognizable.

“I’m sorry,” Bis said, and I touched his feet, ignoring the lump in my throat as I pushed forward. My pace faltered when the ground became squishy from the water used to put out the fire. My coffeemaker: gone. The mug with the rainbows on it: gone. My spelling books: gone.

“There’s Jenks,” Trent said in relief, and somehow I smiled at the bright trail of sparkles arrowing down from the belfry.

Bis’s wings shushed against my head, and my smile became real as I continued my list of don’t-haves: no funerals, no songs of blood and daisies, no feeling guilty for surviving because I had fled. “Jenks!” I called as he circled, his wings a slow hum of indecision as he tried to read my mood. “Wow, they made a mess. You okay?”

“Hell yes!” Clearly relieved, he dropped down to Trent’s shoulder since Bis was on mine. “You’re lucky I’m not human size or I’d give you a smack,” he said, and Trent hid a grin. “Where’ve you been? Eww, the ever-after,” the pixy said, answering his own question. “Is that where you ***ched the mystics? Your aura looks great. The demons are here. In reality. Why by Tink’s little pink dildo did you let them out?”

“I didn’t,” I said, and Jenks looked at Trent, the shock on his angular features lit from his own dust.

“It was Landon.” Trent grimaced at his shoes, now three inches deep in the mud that had once been my backyard. “He made a mistake.” He took my hand, and I gave it a squeeze. His eyes held a thread of heartache, a need to talk. This wasn’t a mistake. Al was bitter and jealous, unable to look past his own hurt, and Trent loved me. But even I knew I wouldn’t be able to help him reach his goal. His goal of elf supremacy? God, I wasn’t going to do this right now.

Jenks’s wings brightened to a hot silver. “Landon? Figures.”

I shivered when a drop of water from the big tree landed on my back. The bark was singed, and I hoped the fire hadn’t killed the tree outright. “Apparently, if you engineer a curse loophole big enough to allow shambling zombies/surface demons through, real demons can follow.” I picked my way through the mud, both wanting and dreading to see what was left.

Jenks’s wings clattered. “Ah, you have to go in around the front if you want to go in. I wouldn’t. It’s pretty bad. They hosed everything down.”

Nice. How many times is my church going to be trashed this week?

Jenks winced, arms over his chest. “Cleaning crew comes Wednesday. I would’ve had them sooner, but the building inspector has to give it an all clear.”

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Again Trent’s hand found mine, his touch easing my clenched jaw when a soft warmth stole into me, sparkling where our fingers twined. “I know it’s uncomfortable with Ellasbeth there, but I could use your help with the girls,” he said, his anger at Ellasbeth making ugly, half-heard shadows in his voice.

“Tink’s panties, yes!” Jenks exclaimed, and Bis shifted his wings, clearly uneasy. “Your house. That’s a great idea. Jumoke and Izzy are already there.”

Jenks wants me to leave? Maybe it was worse inside than I imagined. My gut said Ellasbeth wasn’t doing anything other than trying to roll with the punches, but logic said otherwise. The chance to look her in the eye might tell me more.

“Thanks,” I said as I turned to the stone walk that led to the front. “I’ll take you up on that.” There were huge boot prints in the mud where there’d never been mud before. It made me feel violated in a way the missing kitchen didn’t. “Ivy knows I’m not dead, right?”

Jenks’s wings clattered as he left Trent. “Yep. She’s at her folks with Nina.”

“Everything okay?” I questioned.

“You think I’d be hanging out here waiting for you if she wasn’t?”

True.

“Cormel knows you’re not dead, too,” Jenks added, and I jerked to a stop. Mr. Fish’s water sloshed and Trent almost ran into me, his attention fixed on his phone. “Don’t look at me!” Jenks shouted. “I didn’t tell him! He came over about an hour ago. Told me to tell you not to interfere with the undead souls.”

The unsaid “or else” was obvious. My frown deepened as Trent’s phone went dark and he slid it away. “If you didn’t tell Cormel I was alive, who did?” I muttered.

“Your mom?” Jenks hovered just a little in front of me as I headed for the tall gate, his eyes darting nervously to Trent and back again. “She’s having too much fun arranging your funeral. The news has a wake watch going. Tink’s tampons, she’s a little scary, you know?”

Yeah, that sounded like my mom. Frustrated, I shoved the gate open with my foot. Bis left, making widening circles until he found the steeple. Jenks went with him, the pixy talking so high and fast I couldn’t follow it.

“Landon isn’t going to be happy you’re still alive,” Trent said softly.

“Too bad,” I said, tired, and Mr. Fish shuddered at the bottom of his glass.

“One thing an elf hates more than giving something for nothing is when a plan falls apart—and it’s falling apart. I doubt freeing the real demons from the ever-after was his intention. Cormel saw what we had to do to keep Felix’s soul bound. He knows this spontaneous melding isn’t going to stick.” He hesitated as I dug my car keys out. “Rachel, you’re not a tool.”

I jerked to a stop, shocked at the quick topic shift. Trying to smile, I met his eyes. “I know.” But my heart ached, and seeing it, he pulled me close, careful not to spill Mr. Fish.

His arms were warm, and he smelled of burnt amber. Tears threatened as his hand found the back of my head and he held me close, sighing heavily. “Al is trying to drive us apart,” he whispered, and I nodded, needing this. “He’s jealous that we made a stand and he didn’t.” He leaned back, smiling at the track of a tear on me. “I’m not going to walk away from you. I never wanted to see the elves destroy everyone, just not go extinct.”

“I know,” I said, voice wobbling. The “I’m not going to walk away from you” hit me hard. “But Landon does.”

“What Landon wants doesn’t mean anything. He’s not the Sa’han.”

I was starting to wonder if Trent was either, anymore. Maybe that was why he’d agreed to reopen relations with Ellasbeth. Damn it, he wasn’t using me, but I wasn’t going to come out of this where I wanted to be either. He couldn’t be both.

Jenks rose up from the carport, his dust an impatient red. I swallowed down my heartache, disentangling us and starting back to the front walk. Trent’s hand stole into mine immediately, and my chest hurt. “Thanks for coming back with me,” he said. “I know it’s going to be hard with Ellasbeth there, but I love you, Rachel, not her. This is for the girls, not me.”

For the girls? Yes, I’d put up with Ellasbeth for the girls. Somehow I managed a smile.

“And don’t worry,” Trent said, his hand trailing deliciously along the small of my back as we passed the untouched trash cans, “I won’t make you cook or anything.”

“I can cook,” I said, then louder, “I can so!,” when he arched his eyebrows.

“I’ve never seen it,” he muttered, and Jenks darted to us.

“Hey! You mind if I ride over with you?” he asked. “Jumoke, ah, he said I could bunk with him and Izzy. This is so weird.”

He was leaving the garden unguarded? I turned to look behind me at the destruction. Oh God, is it over?

“Bis is going to watch the church along with Belle,” he added, and my breath came rushing back. “He wants to talk to his dad if that’s okay with you.”

Squinting in the dark, I tried to find Bis, looking scary and solemn on the very top of the steeple, his red eyes glowing. “I think that’s a great idea,” I said, again wondering how much I’d messed the kid’s life up by being in the wrong place at the right time. But Mr. Fish’s water was showing little rings from my trembling hands. It wasn’t over. We weren’t going to live at Trent’s. It was temporary until we sorted everything out. I didn’t think any pixy or fairy would mess with the garden in the meantime. It was Jenks’s by law, and even the pixies respected that, in awe that humanity recognized one of their own as having rights and responsibilities.

“Rachel, are you okay?” Trent asked, and I nodded, gazing at the church as if I’d never see it again. The streetlight was brighter here, and I could just make out our names over the door. The I.S. tape across the door moved, and an official-looking paper fluttered under the bell.

“Mind if I drive?”

“No, I got it.”

Trent sighed as we headed for the carport, and my smile slowly faded. He is not using me. I knew it to the grit in my soul. But the end result might be the same, especially if the elves continued to refuse to follow him—because of me, because I was a demon. Landon’s fairy tale was one they could get behind, easy and satisfying. Learning to understand those you hate and fear is harder. I was pulling Trent down. Making his life impossible.

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My boots were silent on the stone walk. Three streets over I could hear shouting. Sirens were coming from downtown. Maybe we should take the long way to Trent’s. “Some things shouldn’t be changed,” I whispered, meaning the vampires but thinking it related to me, too.

Trent’s hands dropped to my lower back, and I shivered. “Convincing Cormel of that won’t be easy.” Head tilting, he eyed me. “That’s not my phone.”

Starting, I pulled my bag open, surprised when I found my phone glowing. I hadn’t even felt it ring. Six calls? I hadn’t been in the ever-after and out of service that long. My eyes flicked to the DON’T CROSS tape as I read Edden’s name.

“It’s Edden,” I said, setting Mr. Fish on the hood and flipping my phone open. “I gotta take it. It might be about the church.”

“I’ll drive,” Trent said, his worry obvious, and I handed the keys over. “Edden!” I said as Trent went to open the passenger-side door for me and I hustled around the front of the car. “What are you doing calling a dead woman?”

“No,” his preoccupied, muted voice said. “Yes. Yes!”

Settling into the seat, I held the phone closer. “Edden?”

“Rachel!” Edden’s voice became stronger. “Don’t you ever look at your messages?”

“Not when my answering machine is melted,” I said, and Jenks snickered, the pixy having parked it on the rearview mirror where he could hear.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour,” the FIB captain complained. “Why did you let the demons out?”

“I didn’t let them out, and I didn’t take your calls because I’m supposed to be dead!” I said, echoing the irritation in his voice. My jaw clenched at the thought of Al running around Cincinnati. But if he was truly free, wouldn’t he go somewhere sunny?

“If you didn’t do it, who did?” Edden said, and I heard a door shut and a new silence.

Grimacing, I wrangled the phone as Trent handed me Mr. Fish. “Landon,” I said, pleased when the brandy snifter fit perfectly into the cup holder.

“On purpose?” Edden barked, and then sighed, realizing how dumb that was. “You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?”

Trent settled behind the wheel, and we exchanged a worried look. “No.” Landon was AWOL? Great.

“I could really use your help,” Edden said, and then muffled, “No! You want them to end up as toads? Set up blocks and keep people back. That’s it.” There was a brief silence. “Rachel?”

The car had started with a satisfying brumm, and I watched the open top fold out, settling over us with a whine and a thump. “Any leads on who blew up my kitchen?” I asked, and when Edden said nothing, I added, “Sorry, I’m retired.”

Jenks made a burst of dust from the mirror, and Trent put up a finger for him to high-five.

“Rachel . . . ,” Edden complained.

“No.” Phone tucked between my shoulder and ear, I managed to lock my side of the top down. “Ask Landon to help you.”

“Rachel, the I.S. is focused on policing the soul parties in the big parks. They’re ignoring everything, demons included. We’re trying to handle it, but you can guess how that’s going.”

Trent leaned close as he turned to look behind us to back up, and I swear my skin tingled as I breathed him in, burnt amber and all. “Demons are terrorizing Carew Tower,” Edden was saying, but I was still enjoying Trent. “They let the big cats out of their enclosures at the zoo, and I’ve got multiple reports of them taking over the bus line. The demons, not the tigers. Sunrise is hours off, and I need your help!”

I pushed my fingers into my forehead, trying to decide if I wanted to tell Edden this might not go away with the sun, but my home had exploded and no one had admitted it had happened other than the building inspector. “And this is my problem why?” I asked as Trent backed up. Jenks clutching for the stem of the rearview mirror.

“It’s your problem because you’re the only one who can help!” Edden said. “With great power must also come great responsibility.”

“That is bull!” I shouted, and Jenks’s wings burst into a surprised red. “The only thing great power ever gave me was a dwindling bank account and a court order to stay out of San Francisco. Where was the FIB when my church was attacked, Edden? Where were you when you knew damn well the vampires were plotting to kill me? The I.S. I can understand, but what about you? Has anyone even been out to my church to investigate?”

Trent’s grip on the wheel tightened, and I settled back in my seat and angled the vents to me. “Look, I gotta go make spaghetti for Trent. He doesn’t think I can cook.” Little girls like spaghetti, don’t they?

Edden’s sigh only made me angrier. “Making the vampires accountable will take more money than rebuilding the church,” he muttered.

“So they get away with it?” I said bitterly as Trent took a turn too fast and Jenks swore at him to slow down.

“You’re a demon, Rachel. What can we do that you can’t?”

Pissed, I held the phone closer. “I’m not saying you should’ve tried to stop them, but you are ignoring the fact that it happened! If you don’t say it’s wrong, then you’re telling them you agree. And now you want me to bail you out of trouble because I have the balls and skills and associates to make a fist of it?”

Make a fist of it? Crap on toast, where had that come from?

Jenks was looking kind of worried, and I resolved to ease up a little. Edden was way over his head and the I.S. wouldn’t help. I was going to do what I could, such as it was, but I wanted to know I wasn’t out there by myself. Edden, though, hadn’t said anything, and not wanting him to hang up, I said, “Look. I agree that master vampires crying in their cups isn’t a good thing and that demons laughing in theirs is even worse, but either I’m a part of this world or I’m not. Either you stand up and say something, or you ignore it and tell them it was acceptable to try to kill me.”

I jumped when Trent’s hand landed on mine and he gave it a squeeze.

“I see your point,” Edden finally said, and I exhaled. “I should have lodged a formal protest, posted on the FIB news feed, gotten a team out there to make a report. We’re too used to ignoring things out of our control.”

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“Thank you,” I whispered.

“But the I.S. isn’t functioning and demons are causing trouble.” Edden’s voice quickened. “Can you get them to back off? We’ve got laws on the books for demons now, but no way to administer them.”

Laws on the books. If there was one thing demons understood, it was rules. The trick was to get them to go along with them because I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life enforcing them—even if I was the only one who could. Damn it, how did I get here? Fingers pushing into my forehead again, I hoped Ivy was okay. “Where are they?”

Jenks sighed, and Trent’s grip tightened on the wheel once more. We’d stopped at a red light, and when it turned green, he sat there and waved at the car behind us to go around.

“I’ve got a group at a coffeehouse two blocks from the FIB,” Edden said, and Trent flicked the turn signal on. “We’ve got it cordoned off but . . .”

“Junior’s? I mean Mark’s?” I asked, wincing. Sweet ever-loving pixy dust. What was it with that place?

“Ah, yes. I think that’s the name of it.”

I had my shoulder bag, but there wasn’t anything in it that would be of use against uncooperative demons. Damn it back to the Turn. “Okay,” I said around a sigh. “I’ll talk to them. Keep your men back. Just having them there is enough of a statement. I don’t want anyone turned into a toad.”

“Rachel, I’m sorry,” Edden said, his entire demeanor shifting now that I’d said yes. “I never thought of it that way. You seem so capable of anything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, not liking the empty streets as we sped over the bridge and into Cincinnati. No one was out here, and it was creepy. “I’m still going to send you a bill.”

I could hear the smile in his voice, the relief, when he next spoke. “I’ve got a couple of tickets for the FIB picnic with your name on them. Oh, and don’t get Trent killed, okay?”

Trent’s teeth caught the gleam of the streetlight as he smiled, and I felt his hold on a ley line tingle through me. “Hey, tell the I.S. I could use a couple of vans designed for ley line witches, eh?”

A burst of dust lit the car. “****, Rache! You’re going to arrest them?”

I didn’t have time for this. “Maybe.”

“You got it,” Edden said, and I nodded as I hung up and closed my phone.

My stomach quivered, and I dropped my phone in my bag. Splat gun, lethal detection charms, gum, key-chain flashlight, a pair of ankle socks I’d worn the last time Trent tried to teach me golf. Mr. Fish.

Yeah, that ought to do it.

Chapter 16

You sure you want to do this with Jenks and me?” I said as we slowed at an FIB blockade.

Trent waved at the FIB guys, and recognizing us, they gestured us through. “Absolutely,” he said distantly, and I felt warm, loved in a way. This sucked. It really sucked. It was so not fair to have Trent this close and finally understand what Al and Quen and Jonathan had known all along. What Trent and I wanted was never going to happen. I couldn’t keep dragging him down like this. He could end all of this by taking control of the enclave. But he couldn’t do that with me at his side . . .

What we wanted might not make any difference in a few minutes, though. The lights were up high at Mark’s, and I could see figures at the tables even before we parked. My grimace deepened as Jenks checked his sword, and I pulled my shoulder bag onto my lap. Ivy would be fine at her folks’ house, and she was in no state of health to help me.

“I swear, this place has got to be on an invisible ley line or something,” Trent said as we pulled in. There were only a couple of cars, and my brow pinched seeing the people afraid to move as they sat between demons in suits. Crap on toast, Mark is probably in there, too.

“What’s the plan, Rache?” Jenks asked, the snick of his sword catching my attention.

Plan? I looked up from Mr. Fish. “Ah, yeah. Right. Plan.”

Trent put the car in park, and I got out. Hip ****ed, I waited for Trent, knowing he probably had that cap and ribbon of his somewhere and needed a moment to get it in place, but he immediately joined me. The music was loud, and there was masculine, aggressive laughter.

“Plan?” Jenks said again, and I waved to the FIB guys at the end of the street. I felt good with them there, even knowing they couldn’t do anything.

“Plan,” I said, rocking into motion when Trent’s shoes scuffed. “How about, let’s go in.”

Jenks’s dust flashed an irate red. “Tink’s titties, that’s her plan? Go in?”

Trent shrugged, relaxed on the surface as he pulled the door open. “Works for me.”

“Just like old times,” Jenks said, cracking his knuckles as he darted in over my head.

“I’ll take the ones on the right,” Trent muttered as the door closed, chimes jingling.

The laughter stopped as they noticed us. Trent was pulling deeper on the ley lines, but I did little more than make a casual connection. I couldn’t best one demon, much less eight. No, there were nine now, and they were shifting in their chairs to face us. If I couldn’t do this without turning it into a magic slugfest, then it was over before it had begun. When you got right down to it, magic was an asset only if you were up against someone who didn’t have any.

My heart thudded. Demons hated elves. Sure, they had ridden with Trent to bring down Ku’Sox, but bringing Trent in here had been either really stupid or really smart. He had some protection as a freed familiar, but “accidents” happened.

Al was in a corner booth with Dali and Newt. Six paper-and-wax cups of coffee in various stages of emptiness sat between them. Newt beamed at me, in contrast to Al’s outright hostility. Most of the demons were at the long center table tormenting those two couples. The people were terrified, unable to leave with the demons draping their arms over their shoulders. Their relief when they saw me made me angrier still.

Plan. “We get them out first,” I said, boldly striding to the counter. Mark was there making something with crushed ice and hadn’t heard us come in. He was holding up pretty well, but his relief when he saw me was astounding.

Trent moved behind a couple. “Go,” he said, and they stood, chairs sliding and demons staring at Trent in uncertainty as the couple scrambled to leave. Seeing them headed for the door, the remaining two people stood, sinking back down when the demon beside them growled.