A smile overcame me, and excitement zinged down to my toes. That was how I was going to get Al to grant me some respect. If I snatched Pierce from him, Al would come to me. I’d be in a position of power, whether real or pretend. New Year’s Eve was tomorrow night. All I needed was the recipe to make sure I did it right! I didn’t even need to tap a freaking line!
Excited, I turned to the door. I needed that book. Robbie. Suddenly wanting to be somewhere else, I jiggled on my feet, settling back into an anxious bother. I’d see Robbie tonight, and I wouldn’t leave until I had that book and everything that went with it.
Jenks zipped around a display, almost running into me. He was spilling a bright copper glow and I figured he had found something. Behind him, the woman next to the register looked up from her newspaper, tucking her straight purple-dyed hair back behind an ear as she eyed Jenks’s sparkles. “Let me know if you need any help,” she said, and I wondered if her hair was really that enviably straight or if it was a charm.
“Thanks, I will,” I said, then held out my hand for Jenks to land on. He was darting back and forth like an excited kid. He must have found something he thought would help Matalina.
“Over here,” he said, zipping off the way he had come.
Smiling at the woman behind the counter, I followed Jenks’s trail of slowly sifting gold sparkles. My boots clunked on the dark hardwood as I passed the racks of herbs to find him at a nasty-looking weed hanging in the corner beside the gnarly lengths of witch hazel.
“This one,” he said, hovering over the sparsely leafed, mangy-looking sprig of gray.
I eyed him, then the tansy. Right next to it was a much nicer sheaf. “Why don’t you want this one?” I asked, touching it.
Jenks buzzed harshly. “It’s hothouse grown. The wild one is more potent.”
“Gotcha.” Being careful not to break anything off, I set it gently into one of the woven baskets stacked at an end cap. Satisfied, Jenks finally parked on my shoulder. I slowly headed to the front, lingering over a pouch of dandelion seed and smiling. We had a little time yet. I should ask her about the carbonic wax.
The hushed sound of the clerk on the phone drew my attention. She was arguing with someone, and Jenks buzzed his wings nervously.
“What’s going on?” I asked softly as I pretended to look at a display of rare-earth muds. Holy crap, they were expensive, but they were certified and everything.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Something doesn’t feel right all of a sudden.”
Much as I hated to admit it, I agreed. But the question of what I’d done wrong with the locator amulet still remained, and I headed to the register.
“Hi,” I said brightly. “I’ve been having some trouble getting a locator potion to work. Do you know how fresh the carbonic wax has to be? I’ve got some, but it’s like three years old. You don’t think a salt dip would ruin it, do you?” She stared at me, like a deer caught in the headlights, and I added, “I’m working a run. Do you need to see my runner’s license?”
“You’re Rachel Morgan, aren’t you,” she said. “No one else has a pixy with them.”
A faint feeling of apprehension slid under my skin at how she’d said it, but I smiled. “Yup. This is Jenks.” Jenks buzzed a wary greeting, and she said nothing. Uncomfortable, I added, “You really have a great store.”
I set the tansy on the counter, and she backed away, looking almost embarrassed. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “Will you please leave?”
My eyebrows rose, and I went hot. “Excuse me?”
“What the hell?” Jenks whispered.
The young woman, eighteen at the most, fumbled for the phone, holding it like a threat. “I’m asking you to leave,” she said, voice firm. “I’m calling the I.S. if you don’t.”
Sparkles dripping, Jenks got between us. “What for? We didn’t do nothing!”
“Look,” I said, not wanting an incident, “can we pay for this first?” I nudged the basket, and she took it. My blood pressure eased. It lasted all of three seconds—until she set the basket out of my reach, behind her.
“I’m not selling you anything,” she said, eyes darting to tell me she was uncomfortable. “I have the right to refuse anyone service, and you need to leave.”
I stared at her, not understanding. Jenks was at a loss. But then my eyes fell on the newspaper with yesterday’s story of the riot at the mall. There was a new headline. BLACK MAGIC AT CIRCLE MALL—THREE IN HOSPITAL. And suddenly I got it.
I reeled, putting a hand to the counter for balance. The university returning my check. The hospital refusing to treat me on the witch floor. Cormel telling me he had to speak on my behalf. Tom saying he’d be around if I wanted to talk. They were blaming me for the riot. They were publicly blaming me, and calling it black magic!
“You’re shunning me?” I exclaimed, and the woman went red. My eyes flicked to the paper, then back to her. “Who? Why?” But the why was kind of obvious.
Her chin lifted, the embarrassment gone now that I’d figured it out. “Everyone.”
“Everyone?” I yelped.
“Everyone,” she echoed. “You can’t buy anything here. You might as well leave.”
I retreated from the counter, my arms slack at my side. I’ve been shunned? Someone must have seen me with Al in the garden, seen him abduct Pierce. Had it been Tom? The freaking bastard! Had he gotten me shunned so he’d have a better shot at Mia?
“Rache,” Jenks said, close to my ear but sounding faraway and distant. “What does she mean? Leave? Why do we have to leave?”
Shocked, I licked my lips and tried to figure it out. “I’ve been shunned,” I said, then looked at the tansy. It might as well have been on the moon. I wasn’t going to get it, or anything else in the store. Or the next. Or the next. I felt sick.
I shook my head in disbelief. “This isn’t right,” I said to the clerk. “I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve only helped people. The only one who gets hurt is me.” Oh my God, what am I going to tell Marshal? If he talks to me again, he might be shunned, too. Lose his job.
My demon mark seemed heavy on my foot and wrist, and I tugged my sleeves down. Red-faced, the clerk dropped the tansy in the trash because I’d touched it. “Get out,” she said.
I couldn’t seem to find enough air. Jenks wasn’t much better, but he at least found his voice. “Look, you lunker,” he said, pointing at her and dripping red sparkles that puddled on the counter. “Rachel isn’t a black witch. The paper is printing trash. It was the banshee that started the riot, and Rachel needs this stuff to help the FIB catch her!”
The woman said nothing. I put a hand to my stomach. Oh God. I didn’t want to spew in here. I’d been shunned. It wasn’t a death sentence, like it had been two hundred years ago, but it was a statement that what I was doing was not approved of. That no one would help me if I needed it. That I was a bad person.
Numb, my grip tightened on the counter. “Let’s go,” I whispered, turning to the door.
Jenks’s wings were a harsh clatter. “You need this stuff, Rache!”
I shook my head. “She won’t let us buy it.” I swallowed. “No one will.”
“What about Matalina?” he said, panic icing his voice.
My air slipped from me, and I turned back to the counter. “Please,” I said, Jenks’s wings making my hair tickle my neck. “His wife is ill. The tansy will help. Just let us buy this one thing, and I’ll never come back. It’s not for me.”
Her head shook no. All her fear was gone, washed away by the confidence she found when she realized I wasn’t going to give her trouble. “There are places for witches like you,” she said tartly. “I suggest you find them.”
She meant the black market. It wasn’t to be trusted, and I wouldn’t seek it out. Damn it, I had been shunned! No witch would sell to me. No witch would trade with me. I was alone. Absolutely alone. Shunning was a tradition that stretched back before the days of the pilgrims, and it was 100 percent effective; one wi
tch couldn’t grow, find, or make everything. And once shunned, it was seldom revoked.
Her chin lifted. “Get out or I’ll call the I.S., for harassment.”
I stared at her, believing she’d do it. Denon would love that. Slowly I pulled my hand off the counter.
“Come on, Rachel,” Jenks said. “I probably have some tansy under the snow somewhere. If you don’t mind getting it for me.”
“It’s wet,” I said, bewildered. “It might be moldy.”
“It will be better than the crap they sell here,” he shot back, flipping the woman off as he flew backward to the door.
Feeling unreal, I followed him. I wouldn’t be able to check anything out of the library either. This was so not fair!
I didn’t feel Jenks snuggle in between my scarf and my neck. I didn’t remember opening the door or the cheerful tingling of the bells. I didn’t remember walking to my car. I didn’t remember waiting for traffic before I edged into the street. Suddenly, though, I was standing at the door to my car with my keys in my hand, the bright sun gleaming on the red paint, making me squint.
I blinked, going still. My motions slow and deliberate, I stuck the key in the lock and opened it. I stood there a moment with my arm on the fabric roof, trying to figure it out. The sun was just as bright, the wind just as crisp, but everything was different. Inside, something was broken. Trust in my fellow witches, maybe? The belief that I was a good person, even if there was black on my soul?
I had an appointment in twenty minutes, but I had to sit for a while, and I didn’t know if the coffee shop on the tower’s first floor would serve me. Word of a shunning traveled fast. Slowly I got in and shut the door. Outside, a truck rumbled past where I’d been moments before.
I was shunned. I wasn’t a black witch, but I might as well have been.
Twenty
It was with a new feeling of vulnerability that I stood before the double glass doors of the Carew Tower and adjusted my hat in the murky reflection, and I jumped when the doorman leaned forward and opened it for me. A warm gust of air blew my hair back, and he smiled, tipping his hat in salute when I came in with small steps and whispered, “Thank you.”
He answered me cheerfully, and I forced myself to straighten up. So I had been shunned. Edden wouldn’t know. Neither would Ms. Walker unless I told her. If I walked up there looking like prey, she would chew me up and spit me out.
My jaw clenched. “Stupid department of moral and ethical standards has their head up their ass,” I muttered, determined to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court—but the reality was, no one would care.
The restaurant at the top of the tower had its own dedicated elevator, and I could feel the doorman’s eyes on me as I clicked and clacked my way to it, forcing myself to find a confident posture. The elevator, too, had a doorman of sorts, and I told him who I was and gave Edden’s name as he checked his computer for reservations.
I hiked my bag up higher on my shoulder and read the restaurant’s events sign as I waited. Apparently someone had reserved the entire restaurant for a party tomorrow.
My flagging confidence took another hit as I remembered Pierce. I was shunned, my ex-boyfriend’s killer was roaming free, I was doubting my ability to stir something as complex as a locator amulet, Al was abusing our relationship…I had to start fixing things.
Jenks moved, startling me as he wiggled out and sat on my shoulder. “Your pulse just dropped,” he said warily. “Is your blood sugar low?”
I shook my head, smiling thinly at the doorman when he got off the phone and pushed the button to open the elevator. “I’ve got a lot to do today,” I said as I got in the small, opulent lift.
“And we’re late,” Jenks grumbled as he took off his cap and tried to arrange his hair in the reflection of the shiny walls. He had flitted to the wide banister circling the inside of the elevator, and twin pixies made an impressive display of winged physique.
I forced myself to straighten as I checked that my complexion charm was in place. Shun me, would you? “It’s called arriving fashionably late, Jenks,” I murmured as I took my own hat off and tucked a curl behind an ear.
“I hate being late,” he complained, making faces to pop his ears as the pressure shifted.
“It’s a five-star restaurant,” I came back with. “They won’t have a problem waiting.”
The lift chimed and the doors slid open. Jenks moved to my shoulder with a huff, and together we looked out onto the revolving restaurant.
My posture relaxed in pleasure, and I stepped out, smiling, as my worries seemed to pale. Below me the river wound a slush gray ribbon through the white hills of Cincinnati. The Hollows lay beyond, peaceful in the coming dusk. The sun was nearing the horizon, painting everything with a red-and-gold sheen, and clouds reflected it all. Beautiful.
“Ma’am?” a masculine voice prompted, and I brought my gaze inside. He looked like the twin of the guy downstairs, right down to the black suit and blue eyes. “If you’ll follow me?”
I’d been up here only once before, with Kisten for breakfast, and I silently walked behind the host, taking in again the rich fabrics; the Tiffany lights; and the mahogany, pre-Turn tables with carved feet. Rosemary and pink rosebuds were on every table. The sight of the booth where Kisten and I had shared morning conversation over French toast made a surprisingly soft ache in me, more fond remembrance than hurt, and I found I could smile, glad that I could think of him without heartache.
The place was empty but for the staff setting up for tonight, and after passing a small stage and dance floor, I spotted Edden at a window table with an attractive older woman. She was Ceri’s size, dark where the elf was light, with very thick black hair, falling straight on her back. Her nose was small, and she had thick lips and luscious eyelashes. It wasn’t a young face, but her few wrinkles made her look wise and venerable. Graceful, aged hands moved when she talked, and she wore no rings. She sat across from Edden, slim and upright in her stark white, full-length dress, not resting against the back of her chair. Ms. Walker had the view—as well as the poised presence that said she was in charge.
Jenks’s wings brushed my neck, and he said, “She looks like Piscary.”
“You think she’s Egyptian?” I whispered, confused.
Jenks snorted. “How the Turn should I know? I meant she is in control. Look at her.”
I nodded, disliking the banshee already. Edden hadn’t noticed us, fixated on what she was saying. He looked good in his suit, having worked hard to keep his shape through the late-thirties meltdown and into his midfifties. Actually…he seemed captivated by the woman, and a warning flag went up. Anyone as self-possessed and beautiful as she was was dangerous.
As if hearing my unspoken thoughts, the woman turned. Her heavy lips closed and she stared. Evaluating me, are you? I thought, sending my eyebrows high in challenge.
Edden followed her gaze, and his demeanor brightened. Getting to his feet, I heard him say, “Here she is,” and he came to greet me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said as he took my elbow to hustle me to the table. “Marshal made me get a massage to help with my aura.” Yes. Blame it on Marshal, not me needing to recoup after finding out I’m shunned.
“Really?” the squat man said. “Does it help? How do you feel?”
I knew he was thinking about his son, and I set my hand atop his. “Wonderful. Jenks said my aura looks tons better, and I feel great. Don’t let me leave without giving you the woman’s phone number. She makes hospital calls. I asked. No extra charge for the FIB.”
Jenks made a scoffing sound. “She says she feels great?” he said. “More like stinking drunk. The damned woman nearly smashed her car drifting it into a parking spot.”
“How’s Glenn?” I asked, ignoring Jenks as Edden helped me out of my coat.
“Ready to go home.” Edden gave me a look up and down. “You look good, Rachel. I never would have guessed that you had to get an AMA.”
I beamed as Jenks rolled
his eyes. “Thanks.”
The waiter holding out his hand for my coat was eyeing Jenks. Edden saw his gaze and moved his chin to make his mustache bunch up. “Can we get a honey pot?” he asked, trying to put Jenks at ease.
“I appreciate the offer, Edden,” Jenks said. “But I’m working. Peanut butter would be good, though.” His gaze went to the table in its white-and-gold perfection, and his expression became panicked, as if he’d asked for grits and pig’s feet instead of the source high in protein he needed because of the cold.
The waiter, of course, picked right up on his unease. “Pe-e-e-eanut butter-r-r-r-r?” he said in a patronizing tone, and Jenks let a wisp of red dust slip.
My eyes narrowed as the man implied with those two words that Jenks was a bumpkin, or worse, not even a person. “You ha-a-ave peanut butter, don’t you?” I drawled in my best Al impression. “Freshly ground, absolutely nothing out of a jar will do! Low salt. I’ll have a raspberry water.” I had sampled Kisten’s raspberry water after finding my French toast not to my taste. It had some fancy glaze on it. Okay, maybe I was a bumpkin, but making Jenks feel like one was rude.
The man’s face went blank. “Yes, ma’am.” Gesturing for a second waiter to get my water and Jenks’s peanut butter, he helped me with my chair, and then a menu—which I ignored since he’d given it to me. I had a view, too. Jenks hovered by my place setting as if reluctant to set down on something so fine. His flowing black outfit looked great among the china and crystal, and after I turned an empty water glass over for him, he gratefully sat on the elevated foot. Edden was to my right, the banshee to my left, and my back was presently to the door. But that would change as the hour advanced and the restaurant turned.
“Ms. Walker, this is Rachel Morgan,” Edden said as he settled back in his chair. “Rachel, Ms. Walker has been adamant about meeting you. She’s the administrative coordinator of banshee internal affairs west of the Mississippi.”
Edden seemed unusually flustered, and another flag went up. Jenks, too, didn’t seem to like that the usually levelheaded man looked almost twitterpated. But she was a banshee, beautiful and alluring in her sophistication and exotic beauty.