“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.
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.”
“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 havin
g 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. “Shit, 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 cocked, 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.
So far, so good. Let’s push it a little more. “You really should reevaluate your life choices,” I said as I leaned against the counter, thumbs in my pockets. The demon looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t think I’d ever done business with him. Like the rest of the demons here, he was in a business suit, jewelry flashing and hair slicked back. Only Newt and Al maintained their usual attire, Newt in her androgynous robes and elven dewar hat, and Al in his green crushed-velvet finery. His anger that Trent was still with me was almost palpable.
My skin tingled as someone pulled heavily on a line. I didn’t think it was Trent, and my knees went wobbly when two more demons did the same. “Why are you here? With that elf?” the demon said, voice oily with domination.
His barest hint of doubt was like a spark on a dark night, and I pulled it to me, fanning it higher with a confident smile. He was unsure, not about his skills but that this might end when the sun came up. I could use that, give them a fairy tale to think about so they’d go away and ponder the truth of it for a few hours until they knew for sure.
Smiling, I leaned over the table between him and the couple, showing him some cleavage in exchange for their freedom. “You remember Trent. He’s my boyfriend,” I said, and the couple rose at Jenks’s urging, racing for the door. “He’s taking me to his place and I’m making spaghetti, but the FIB asked me to stop on the way and give you a little welcome-to-reality message.” The door chimes jingled, and I straightened. “Seeing as you might be here for good and need to start being . . . what’s the word . . . accountable?”
He laughed at that, ugly and mean. Pulse racing, I backed up, glad Trent had put himself at the door. Past the windows, a car’s engine revved and the small Pinto drove right over the sidewalk, taking the curb hard enough to leave sparks as it found the street and drove away. If he had really wanted them, my cleavage, such as it was, wouldn’t have stopped him. “Mark, my usual!” I called out, making a finger motion for Jenks to join Trent in a doomed attempt to keep my way open.
“S-s-sure, Rachel. Double espresso grande latte, no fat, no foam, with a pump of raspberry in it. Extra hot.”
I felt better. Mark had been through this before. He had the emotional skills and a circle behind the counter to hide in. “With cinnamon on top,” I added, and the demon I’d just flashed snorted. “You got a problem with my drink order?” I said, and he raised a hand, his expression mocking. I gave him a long look before turning my back on him to go to the pickup window. The speakers blew with a pop, and chuckles rose when I jumped.
Shaking my hair out, I leaned against the counter. More demons were jumping in, and I was getting nervous. Well, more nervous than I had been. Even with Trent at the door, I’d never make it out of here unless they let me. I thought it interesting that no one had gone to the other side of the globe and to the sun. They were afraid it wouldn’t last.
“I know you’re having a g
ood time on a Sunday night, being freed from the ever-after and all, but if you’re going to stay, we have some rules,” I said, smile wide.
Al clenched his jaw, but Newt was delighted even as that demon, Mica, I think, brought his cold stare from Trent to me. “We weren’t freed, we fought our way out,” Mica said.
“You’re Mica, right?” I said, and he nodded. “Sure, you fought your way out,” I agreed, “but tomorrow is a weekday and you should be thinking about finding somewhere to work and a place to live because you’re not bunking with me.” They were laughing, Mica’s face holding the most amusement of all. “You don’t want to exchange one prison for another, do you? I won’t say Alcatraz is inescapable, but they plugged the hole I used.”
“My God, is she serious?” Mica turned his back on me, but I thought it telling that he was looking for support among the rest. It was a new world despite their boasting and power, and they didn’t know if they were going to see the sun. Such a small thing, but it would chart their every thought until they knew.
Trent’s hold on the line strengthened, and my gaze flicked to his. Not yet, Trent. Not yet.
“This is our world now,” Mica bragged, but more than one set of eyes was pinched in concern. I had a scant few hours to convince them that condescending to play in our rule set was better than them playing out of it.
“The elves will fall first,” he said, and those who’d just popped in agreed with him. “Vampire society will falter if they lose their souls again. It will fall if they retain them. The witches will align with us as our poor cousins, and the Weres will heel or be leashed. The world will change.”
“Why even bother shifting realities if you’re going to make it just like the ever-after in your new war?” I said, and more than one demon furrowed his brow in thought.
“Coffee up!” Mark said, and I took it, eyes closing in bliss as the first sip hit my tongue, warm, sweet, and bitter, all at the same time.