There was a hollow place in my middle that wasn't from not having eaten all day. The sun was nearing the horizon, and the leaves that hadn't been burned were stark against the blue and pink of sunset. Almost like an oil, the scent of ash coated me. The heat from Jenks's stump burning was a gentle warmth this close to the ground instead of the expected inferno.
To one side of me, Pierce stood, his hands clasped before him with a white-knuckled strength, his expression pained from a memory he wouldn't share. Sunset would be here soon, and he'd ignored all my suggestions to leave. He claimed Al would leave him alone as long as he was "protecting" me. I didn't need protecting. Okay, maybe I did.
One of Jenks's returning children had given Pierce a heavier coat, garden stained and looking like it hadn't been washed since last fall. It went all the way to the ground, and Pierce looked odd with his dirty bare feet peeping out from under it.
Jenks was a tortured presence at my other side as his home burned with Matalina inside it. Tears glittered into dust as they fell from him, a pure silver that gave him an unreal glow, almost as if he were a ghost. Each breath was pained, rising from deep within him, hurting.
His children were in the garden, silent. All but Jax had returned, their grief tempered with the unknown. Never had a pixy tried to live past his or her spouse, and though happy they were together, there was no understanding of what came next - joyful that their father was alive, yet mourning their mother. They were confused, not understanding how they could be both.
The flames took on rims of blue and green as the rooms laden with pixy dust caught, a funnel of heat making the flame swirl into a spire, as if reaching for the heavens. Jenks's fingers brushed mine and took them. Fire cleansed, but nothing could stop the heartache.
"Tears could not be equal, if I wept diamonds from the skies," Jenks whispered, empty and bereft. "My word silent, though I should howl. Muffled by death, my wings can't lift me high enough to find you. I feel you within. Unaware of my pain. Not knowing why I mourn."
He lifted his eyes to mine, a glimmer of tears showing. "And why I breathe alone."
I shifted my bare feet, cold on the earth. I wasn't a poet. I had no words. Tears blurred my sight as we stood and watched his life burn.
Today had been harder than anything I'd ever endured, watching Jenks's children come home, one by one, each not knowing why they were drawn back or how to react. I could imagine what usually happened to the lonely souls that were cast into the world, hurting and alone. Watching them realize that they had one another to share their grief with was both painful and a joy. Jenks was the binding force, the gravity that had brought them back. Even the fairies, now released from their prison to find food, were subdued.
"I'm sorry, Jenks," I whispered when the flames grew higher, warming my face but for the tear tracks. "I want you to stay in the desk."
Taking a deep breath, his wings shifted, then stilled, lying like gossamer on his back. Saying nothing, he pulled his hand from mine and looked up at the faint noise the fairies were making as they hunted for spiders in the chill evening. Apparently their wings were why they destroyed a garden in their efforts to reach food, and they were amazed by their new dexterity, relishing being able to duck into small places. Better yet, they weren't damaging the garden.
"No thank you," Jenks said, his voice low as he watched the trees. "I couldn't live in the stump anyway." His faint smile was because of parental pride. "The kids will be fine. They have huts all over the garden. I'll just sleep in my office."
I couldn't bear thinking of him setting up residence in the flowerpot he'd turned into an office at the edge of the property. I was itching to push him into taking the potion that Ceri had made to turn small things big, but I daren't mention it yet. I shivered, and Jenks turned from the fire, his shoulders slumping. "You should get big again. It's too cold out here for you.
"I'm fine," I said, clearly not.
At Jenks's pointed look, Pierce took his coat off and draped it over me. I would have protested, but it was warm and smelled like him and the garden both. A puff of redwood rose as I tugged it close, and Jenks eyed the witch, the first glint of anything other than grief in his eyes.
"You're smaller than I thought you'd be my size," he said dryly, attention going to his home as a weird keening rose. The flames had eaten through the ceiling, and the wind was being sucked in through the tunnels, feeding the fire. It sounded like the wood itself was moaning, and it gave me the creeps. "Maybe I should hit you now for when you make Rachel cry."
"I'm not going to make her cry," Pierce said indignantly.
Jenks's wings lifted slightly, turning red from the increased circulation and heat. "Sure you will. All her boyfriends do. Why would you be any different?"
"Because I am," he offered.
"Pierce is not my boyfriend." Frowning, I shifted from foot to foot and glanced at Ivy, a good six feet back from the stump as it burned. Her jaw was set and her feet were spread wide, hands on her hips and just about daring the coven to bother us. To anyone else, it'd look like she and Ceri were doing some garden burning, oblivious to the funeral and the fairies scattered in the garden like, well, fairies.
"Maybe you should go, Pierce," I said to the sky. "It's almost sundown. You think getting away from Al is hard now, I imagine it's impossible when you're only four inches tall."
Pierce glowered at me. "In all my born days, I've not seen a witch as skeerylike as you about being demon snagged. Al won't bother me. I'm watching you. He can't touch me, or Newt will have his - uh. Never mind," he stammered, face reddening.
Grimacing, I turned back to the flames. I thought it odd that fire looked the same no matter what size I was. A hiss of fabric whispered behind me, and I spun to the silken thread coiling on the ground. It was Sidereal, and as he snaked down it, Jenks spit on the ground.
Slightly more subtle, Pierce sidled closer to me. "I don't like them," the witch said, eying the much larger fairy. Pierce and I were pixy size, which put the fairies two inches taller than us. Or like two feet, in pixy terms.
"Yeah, me neither," I said, remembering that poison dart Pierce had burned from me. But when Jenks loosened his sword, I felt a moment of worry. "Easy, Jenks," I murmured, not wanting a repeat of this morning. "Let's hear what he has to say."
Sidereal found his feet, his expression pained as he shifted his shoulders and adjusted his raggedy, spiderweblike attire. He looked like he was smelling something rank, his lips curled back to show his vampirelike teeth. Honestly, with their pale complexions, long faces, and those teeth designed to eat insects, they were some of the scariest Inderlanders I'd ever met.
"I'd thank you for letting us out of your prison, but it would show weakness," the fairy said, lisping around his long teeth.
"I'd apologize for burning your wings, but it would do the same," I said, wishing Jenks would back off a little, but I could understand. They'd killed his wife.
"You... I should have slit your throat!" Jenks shouted, his wings a blur as he rose a breath from the ground. "You killed my Matalina!"
The fairy bared his teeth again, and I felt a moment of panic. "Jenks, it's my fault Matalina is dead," I said. "I'm the reason they attacked. I'm sorry! If I could do it again..." I closed my eyes in a long blink and tried not to cry. Damn it, it was all my fault.
Immediately Jenks's face went ashen. "That's not what I meant."
"But it's true," I said, not knowing what I could have done differently - except kill them. "They never would have attacked if it hadn't been for me."
Pierce edged closer to Jenks, eying the tension between Sidereal and the pixy. "Jenks," he said cautiously. "Can I speak to you alone for a moment?"
Jenks frowned, clearly knowing that Pierce was trying to separate them. His angular features were tight and his fingers moved to rest on the hilt of his sword. Sidereal started to hiss, and I pleaded with Jenks with my eyes. No more. Please, no more. Not today.
Abruptly Jenks spun, stiffly walking away with his head down. Pierce draped an arm over his shoulders and went with him, his head close as he talked. Uneasy, I turned back to Sidereal, surprised again by how tall he was. Imagine a seven-foot, skinny vampire in white ragged robes and with two rows of sharp teeth, and you might have it.
Sidereal was watching Jenks's home burn, confusion on his face. "I never would have guessed he'd burn his house. Perhaps pixies can be civilized after all."
Anger tickled deep in me. Jenks wasn't burning his house, he was burning his past.
I cleared my throat, and Sidereal looked at me, his dark eyes reflecting the fire and turning red, like a demon's, but with round pupils. "Are we to be let go?" Sidereal asked when our eyes met. "Is it a slow death you give us? To die of starvation or the cold of winter?" His attention slid to Jenks and Pierce. It was likely they were listening in thanks to Pierce's eavesdropping spell.
"Mmmm," I said, giving Pierce a look to make him cringe. "Do you want to sit down?"
Sidereal sighed. "It must be bad," he said. "I never ask anyone to sit unless it is bad."
A faint smile quirked my lips, and I moved to a pixy-size bench. Nearby was a loom and a vat where Matalina had soaked spider nests for the silk. It made me heartsick. The bench was too small for Sidereal, and after looking at it and indicating that he'd rather stand, I sat, bringing one cold foot up onto the bench to try to warm it. The soles of my feet were black, but I didn't care; there was no demon mark on them.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, and a flash of pain crossed Sidereal as he winced. I belatedly realized he had tried to shift his wings, a fairy's version of a shrug.
"Better now that my middle is full and I can pee without people watching," he said dryly.
I nodded, my memory of Alcatraz surfacing for a moment. "If you were able to live in a secure space with room to grow, could you stay as you are?" I asked, and Sidereal stiffened.
"I won't ask my people to exist at the mercy of pixies. You can make us whole. You owe us - "
"Nothing," I interrupted calmly, setting one foot down to bring up the other. "I was defending my garden. You attacked, and I spared your life. I don't owe you anything but what my conscience demands, and you'll be happy with what I give you."
He hissed at me with those long teeth, and I lowered my voice before Jenks stormed over and cut his tongue out. "I want to ask a favor," I said softly.
Sidereal's hiss cut off, and his silver eyebrows rose. "A favor? Of your vanquished?"
My insides quivered. God, I hoped he'd go for it. I really needed to make something good come out of this. "What do you think about her?" I said, pointing with my chin to Ceri, now standing next to Ivy and talking to three of Jenks's kids.
Sidereal's expression became guarded. "She twisted the curse that made you small."
I nodded. "She was also a third of the spell that would have killed you. She's mad at me because I stopped it. What do you think about that?"
"I'd be angry, too, if a trusted warrior stayed my hand," he said cautiously. I could understand his dilemma. Ceri had tried to kill him, but she also had the skill to make them whole, and he knew it. "I've heard it said that elves were once valiant savages," he added.
"She's my friend," I said, pulling my first foot up again to sit cross-legged, the pain in my knees utterly gone. "She's taken it upon herself to live among my enemies as a spy. She wants to go back, but she needs eyes with her. I want you to go with her. All of you."
Sidereal looked at Ceri, then me. "Why would I help her?" he said, anger in his lisp.
"I brought you to this, not her." Sidereal ran his hand forward from his chin outward, and guessing that was fairy for "say your piece," I took a breath. "She lives in Kalamack's gardens."
His silver eyebrows rose again. He was interested, and I felt a stirring of hope. "There are no birds, no pixies, nothing," I said, and Sidereal glanced up into the tree, clearly wanting to share this with someone. "You could live there unnoticed, spying for her. For my benefit."
Sidereal's wicked grin made me shiver. "That might be acceptable to my people," he lisped. "I want to leave someone here, though."
Oh, really? Curious, I held my filthy foot, trying to warm it. "Why?"
The fairy's shoulders slowly rose and fell as he tried a human shrug. "To better kill you if you plan treachery."
I smiled, liking his honesty, and after a shocked moment, he smiled back. It was a fair answer. Behind him, Ceri was teaching Jenks's kids a song of loss to help them deal with their grief. The four-part harmony was enough to break your heart.
"I won't be able to get Jenks to go for it, so pick someone who can hide well," I said, and he hissed. I looked at him in alarm until I realized he was laughing. "Talk to your people," I said as I stood and a whiff of pixy and witch came up from the coat. My hand came out, and he stared at it. "I have to get big," I explained. "This is likely the last time I'll see you my size. Big people clasp hands when they meet and part in goodwill."
His hand came up, and we touched. "In goodwill," he said, brow pinched.
Sidereal's fingers were too big around mine, and curiously rough. I felt like I was shaking hands with my dad. "And trust," I said and our hands parted.
The fairy smiled, making me shiver. Stepping back, he tangled his foot in the silken line, but then he paused. "When my people part, they say gentle updrafts."
"Gentle updrafts, Sidereal," I said softly. "I wish this hadn't happened, but maybe some good can come of it."
Long face quirking in a terrifying smile, he glanced up into the tree. "Who's to say why the Goddess chooses." He plucked the silken strand, and with the signal, he was hoisted up.
I didn't watch him go, instead turning to find Jenks. I was confident they'd go for it. All I'd have to do then was roll with the consequences of inviting dewinged, fanged fairies into Trent's backyard. God, they were savage looking. Served him right.
"Jenks?" I called, wanting to say good-bye.
Strands from my tattered braid flew everywhere when Jenks landed beside me. Clearly he'd been watching. His face was sallow, but anger still colored it.
"I don't like them creeping around the garden like spiders," he said, his feet still not touching the ground as he looked into the trees. His face turned to me, and the anger shifted, almost to panic, when he saw my expression. "You're leaving."
My heart gave a thump. "I'm just going to get big. I'm still here."
The winds of his emotions shifted, and his feet touched the ground. His eyes began to glitter, and he wiped them, disgusted with himself. "Tink's titties, I can't stop leaking dust." He took a breath and exhaled. Me getting big was going to be hard. I wished he'd come with me.
Heartache hit me again, and I gave him another hug, surprising him. His arms went around me, and I felt him hesitate when he didn't find wings at my back. The silken whisper of his brushed my fingers, and when he went to go away, I tightened my grip to linger a moment more. "I would have twisted a thousand curses to be with you today," I whispered.
Slumping, Jenks let his forehead thump into me. "It hurts," he whispered, his hands falling to his sides. "All the time. Even when I try."
Tears warmed my eyes, and I pulled back so I could look at him. "It will stop one day," I said as I gave his shoulders a squeeze. "Even without your trying, and then you'll feel guilty. After that, you'll wake up one morning, remember her, and smile."
He nodded, gaze directed down. God, it hurt to see him with such heartache.
"Are you sure you don't want to become big with me?" I asked again, and my hands fell from him as he wiped his eyes, shaking the glittering sparkles from himself.
"I don't like being your size," he admitted. "Nothing smells right. And my kids need me."
His kids needed him, I thought, feeling the fingers of relief steal into my soul. He felt needed. It was a start. Damn it, Matalina was really gone. "Come with me to the church?" I asked rather weepily. "Just to the door. Those pill bugs scare me."
Saying nothing, Jenks stilled his wings and dropped to the ground. Side by side, we started through the shoulder-high grass to the looming presence of the church. The steeple stood out black and strong against the pale blue of the sunset sky, and I wondered how Bis would take it when he woke up. Must be a bitch to be out of it so deeply.
"I don't know how you do this," I said as we detoured around a rock that was probably only the size of my thumb.
Jenks's wings shrugged. "It's easier when you can fly. They'll have a hard time of it."
He was talking about the fairies. "Feeling sorry for them?" I asked.
"Tink's panties, no!" he protested, but it was wispy and drained. Jenks turned at a thumping of feet, and I wasn't surprised to see Pierce jogging to catch up with us.
"You're of a mind to untwist the curse?" he asked, face shadowed in the dusk and the fire behind him. His features were indistinct, and I shivered again. It was so cold.
Pierce was on one side of me, Jenks on the other, and it was the safest I'd felt in a long time, though a snake could eat me. "I have to talk to Ceri about the fairies. I asked them to live with her," I said, and Pierce started, a happy grunt coming from him.
"That's an all-fired good scheme," he said, and Jenks looked over my head at him.
"Of course it's a good plan. Rache doesn't come up with stupid plans. She's always got an out. You just think she doesn't know what she's doing."
I wish. I held the coat tighter, my feet numb with cold. I'd been thinking all day about how I might get the coven off my back. They seemed to think that Trent could control me, so if I could control Trent, I might have a chance. Not through the familiar bond, but good old-fashioned manipulation. The Pandora charm had reminded me of an old tradition, one I needed to start again.
"Fairies in his garden," Jenks said, clearly liking the thought. "And wingless ones at that? Trent is going to be more unhappy than a skunk in a troll's garden."
Seeing him nearly smile, something went to my heart and twisted. God, I hoped he found a new love. But where? In a few years, he'd be the oldest pixy to ever live. He wasn't going to find anyone with the emotional experience he now had. He'd need that. Deserved it.
We reached the steps, and I looked up. It was only four steps, but they looked huge. Turning, I found Ivy watching. Ma-a-a-an, I did not want to be carried in like a baby.
Jenks's arm slipped around from behind me, and I gasped when my toes lifted and I was airborne. In three seconds flat, my bare feet were stumbling on the faded wood of the stoop.
"Holy crap! How about some warning?" I exclaimed, but I turned in his arms, not letting him go. This might be my last chance. "I'm sorry, Jenks," I said, giving him another hug. "Take what time you need. Ivy and I can finish this coven thing. I've got an idea."
He gave me a squeeze, then space appeared between us. "Just tell me where to fly, Rache. That's what I'm here for. I'll be ready."
Ivy was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, her hand on her hip. She could just stand there for a few moments more. Pierce, too. "This is hard," I said, sniffing.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, his roving eyes returning. "You're going to be all right?"
Jenks looked across the garden to the sound of his children. "I think so. I've never done anything like this before."
I touched his arm, trying to smile. "You're good at doing new things."
Finally he looked at me, and the full force of his heartache hit me. My smile faltered, and tears threatened. "I... I'd better get Pierce," he said, and in a clattering of wings, he was gone.
Blinking hard, I looked at the fastened cat door. Where's Rex?
The stairs shook, and I stumbled when Ivy clomped up them. "You changing?" she asked quietly, but before I could answer, she opened the screen and interior door both.
An exuberant howl pulled my attention up to see Jenks flying past with Pierce dangling.
"That's something you don't see every day," Ivy muttered as they vanished into the hall and presumably to my bathroom where Ivy had put his clothes.
My kitchen looked awe inspiring from my new vantage point, and Ivy stayed behind me as I hugged the wall to my room. "I've got this!" I shouted, and she looked at me.
"I lost track of Rex," she said, not hearing me, but my waving hands were clear enough.
"Oh." Suitably subdued, I waited by the nicked floor molding while she pushed my door open and did a quick look for felines. "Uh, she's under the bed!" I exclaimed when a pair of yellow eyes looked at me from beside the laptop Ivy had given me last summer.
Ivy didn't hear, her head in my closet, and panic iced through me when the cat stood and started pacing forward. "Non sum qualis eraml" I shouted.
The breath in me turned inside out, and I reached for something, anything. Dizziness roared in, and I was already mumbling, "I take the smut, I take it," before even the hint of it could lay me out. Unlike an earth charm that changed a person, a demon curse didn't hurt - unless you refused the smut. My vision swam in a nauseating swirl, and I took another breath, my lungs starved for air as they formed, empty and slack.
"You okay?" Ivy asked, close and worried.
Blinking, I found she was holding my arm to keep me upright. Rex was at my feet, tail twitching in confusion. And I was stark naked, as hairy as an orangutan. "Oh, for God's sake," I muttered as I snatched my pillow and covered myself. Eaten by a cat. Wouldn't the coven love that?
Ivy grinned, her eyes black because of the emotions I was kicking out. "Welcome back," she said wryly, letting me go and sauntering out my door. I heard a thump and a sigh as she leaned her head back against the wall in the hall next to my door, and when I went to shut the door - which she'd left open - Ivy put a long hand in the way. "I want to talk to you," she said from the hall.
I hesitated, then tossed my pillow back on my bed before I yanked my top drawer open and pulled out a bright red pair of undies. Yeah. Red would be good today. Rex jumped up on my bed, chirping for attention, but I couldn't bring myself to touch her yet. A soft bong from the belfry told me the sun was down. Bis had taken to tapping it when he woke. My thoughts drifted to having gotten my own summoning name back, and I smiled. I could lounge around in my robe, or shower, or even shave, maybe, without worrying about being jerked out. Slowly my smile faded. I was not feeling bad for Al. No freaking way.
"Can I come in yet?" Ivy asked from the hall.
I pulled a camisole over my head, red to match my underwear. "I'm not dressed."
The click of my door closing pulled me around. "I said I'm not dressed!" I exclaimed, seeing Ivy with her back to it, her eyes a nice steady brown, but her expression grim.
"I, ah, looked Pierce up on the Internet," she said, and my anger shifted to worry.
Oh. Avoiding her, I dug around in my top drawer for a pair of ankle socks. My feet, once cold and dirty, were clean. My scars were gone again. Apart from the hair thing, demon curses were better than a shower. I glanced at my snarled hair in the mirror over my dresser. Almost. The neurotoxins from my vampire bite were still there, and the tweaking to my mitochondria, too. My ears, too, needed piercing. Again.
"How bad is it?" I asked, yanking open a lower drawer and pulling out my TAKATA STAFF shirt. I figured she would look him up, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear this. I was starting to like Pierce, which meant he was bad news. "Bad enough."
The shirt scraped my nose as I pulled it on, and feeling a little less exposed, I went to my closet for a pair of jeans. Ivy was sitting on my bed with Rex, her long fingers between the smiling cat's ears. "He told me he's a former coven member," I said, shoving first one leg, then another into the fresh cotton and zipping it up. Much better.
"Once a member, always a member," Ivy murmured when I turned around with my socks and sat on the end of my bed.
"Even when they kill you for knowing black magic." Sure, you could kill a busload of people by perverting a white spell, but they'd shun you for doing a harmless black one. Damn hypocrites. Twisting my foot up, I marveled at the pristine smoothness of its underside. "Pierce told me they blew his cover because they didn't like him summoning demons, but he was doing it to kill them."
"That's what I found," she said slowly, "but there's more."
There was always more. "He knows about the demon thing," I said, seeing her eyes downcast and clearly reluctant to say anything. "He's not going to hurt me."
But my confidence trickled away at her expression. "Ask him about Eleison."
I bent to reach my running shoes, under my bed. They'd cost me a fortune, but were the most comfortable pair of shoes I had since Alcatraz had one pair of my boots and my other was split between here and the ever-after. I had to talk to Al, tell him the gun wasn't my idea. What an ass, shooting at Al. "Is Eleison his girlfriend?" I asked. Dead girlfriends, I could handle.
Looking ill, Ivy shook her head. "It was an eighteenth-century southern town."
Was? Oh. My eyes went to the wall as if I could see through it to where Jenks was with Pierce. My breath tight, I asked, "What did he do?"
Ivy let Rex drop to the floor, and the cat waited impatiently under the doorknob. "He used black magic to vaporize it while trying to kill a demon."
"Mmmm." Good thing I didnt like the guy. "Are you sure it was him?"
Ivy nodded. "Four hundred innocents. Dead."
My fingers tying my shoes were slow. "I guess putting four hundred people in the ground might explain why he was in purgatory."
I looked up when Ivy shifted closer. "Rachel, I don't care if you sleep with the guy, but do it fast and get it over with. He's going to get you killed. He won't mean to, but he will. People die around him."
People die around me, too. Depressed, I let my foot hit the rug. "I'll be careful." Eyes rising, I found hers pinched in an inner pain. "I'll be careful, okay?"
She stood up as I did, her smile thin. "Okay."
Vll ask him about it. Get the whole story, I thought, feeling refreshed in my clean clothes and the entire night spreading out before me. I'm in control and not upset. I can work with this.
"Do we have anything to eat?" I asked, thinking about the now-useless sleepy-time charms I'd made last night. "I've got spelling to do tonight." Maybe find one that lowered your blood pressure. "I have an idea of how to get Trent and the coven off my back."
Ivy gave me a look before opening my door. "The coven isn't going to give up on you."
"I have to try," I said as I followed her down the dark hallway. Pierce was talking to Jenks behind my closed bathroom door, and my chest tightened. Good thing I didn't like him.
"I'll talk to Rynn," Ivy said, her voice wispy as she entered the kitchen and thunked the light on with her elbow. "Maybe he'll help now. Sending fairies to burn our church isn't right."
"My idea doesn't involve Rynn Cormel," I drawled as I headed for the fridge. Coming out with a carton of cottage cheese, I caught the spoon that Ivy threw me. "Do you have David's cell number? I need him to bird-dog some legal stuff for me."
Ivy smiled. "Way ahead of you," she said as she went to her computer.
I shoveled a huge spoonful of cottage cheese into my mouth, eyes closing in bliss at the soft bite. God, I was hungry.
But my eyes flew open at a soft tremble from under my feet. Ivy's eyebrows rose, and then a rumble rolled over the church like distant thunder. From the belfry, the bell bonged, and a shiver cascaded through me. The big mojo amulet on my bag flashed red, then went quiet. Holy crap. Someone had just rung the bells.
The bathroom door crashed open, and from the back of the church, I heard Ceri's steps as she came in from the garden. Jenks flew in, his dust carrying a hint of gray, but his wings were bright red in excitement. "It wasn't me!" I said as the pixy landed on the center island counter.
"That was an explosion!" Jenks said.
Ceri slid in with her hand to her hair to keep the fair strands from floating. "It was a magical explosion!" she said breathlessly. "Someone just rang the bells!"
Pierce came in behind her, and my heart clenched. He had shaved and was back in his usual dark pants and vest, his eyes wide and his hair tousled. He looked entirely in control, and yet... like he belonged in my chaotic life. Eleison, echoed in my thoughts. Four hundred people.
Looking away, I downed more cottage cheese, not knowing when I'd get another chance to eat. "I think it was Brooke," I said as I dug my spoon in. It was after sunset. She'd tried to summon me. Stupid woman. But I could make it work for me - twice over.
Pierce edged past Ceri to stand beside me. I eyed him, then put my attention on my lunch. "She summoned Al," he said flatly. "The fool." Pushing from the counter, I ate one more spoonful and put the lid back on. Ivy's eyes were on me as I opened my charm cupboard and pulled out a pain amulet. Yeah. Yll need this.
"What are you doing?" Ivy asked.
Not turning, I pondered whether I could do this without my splat gun, deciding I'd have to. "Al is on this side of the lines. Brooke summoned him," I said.
"Rachel!" Ceri said brightly. "You don't have to worry about the coven coming for you anymore. Isn't that wonderful?"
I turned, an invoked pain amulet dangling. "Brooke summoned him, not the coven, and since everyone knows Al is my demon, I'm going to get blamed for it." I hated saying that, but it was true. This sucked. But I was going to make it work for me, damn it. Don't reject, rejoice? God help me, I'm in trouble.
One by one, they reacted as they figured it out. In a flash of dust, Jenks was on my shoulder, ready to go. Telling him he couldn't come wasn't going to be fun. There was only one person joining me. One person I was sure would be okay.
"Bis?" I called, and Jenks's wings hummed as the lumpy shadow above the fridge lost the yellow of the walls and became the young gargoyle. He was really getting good at this. Ivy started, and even Pierce seemed surprised, but I'd known he was somewhere close. I could feel the lines better when he was around.
Ceri's expression was worried as Bis crawled down the fridge like a bat and made the hopping flight to the counter beside me.
"What are you doing?" Ivy said, her pupils dilating.
"Trying to save Brooke's ass," I said shortly, then turned to Bis and wiped my fingers off on the dish towel. "Think you can jump me there? Can you follow Al's aura signature?"
The gargoyle nodded, but I didn't hear what he said as everyone protested at once.
"Have you been sniffing fairy farts?" Jenks shouted.
"You can't jump. You don't know how," Pierce said.
"You're going to get yourself killed!" Ivy said, more angry than afraid. "Al's going to think you gave Pierce that gun, and you want to parade in, telling him he can't have Brooke?"
"Yup." I put my elbows on the counter to have my head even with Bis's. "I might be able to create some goodwill between me and the coven if I'm not too late. They can't help Brooke - they probably don't even know she's in trouble."
Ceri was standing at the back of the kitchen, her uncertainty clear. "I'm coming with you," Pierce stated, coming around the center counter to join me.
"You're going to help me save Brooke?" I said. "From Al? After you tried to shoot him? I don't think so. You're staying here. I don't need you when I'm with Al."
Pierce went to protest, and I raised a pain amulet. "Unless you want to take your beating like a man?" I said, and he dropped back. I'm no ones ward to be babysat.
"You can't jump," Pierce warned me. "Bis can, but not with you!"
"What can it hurt to try?" I said confidently, and Bis shivered his wings, clearly eager. "Al himself said I was slipping into a line, and I didn't have a gargoyle helping. It's just a local jump. It's not like I'm trying to shift realities."
"Rachel...," he growled, but I wasn't listening. Ivy wasn't happy, and Ceri looked just as worried. I had to get out of here or they were going to sit on me.
"Glad we got that settled," I said brightly. "Bis, we're out of here." Jenks rose, horrified as Bis took to the air. "Rache! Pierce says you're not ready - "
But I didn't want to wait. I didn't have to. I had been snatched, jailed, drugged, and treated as less than a person. I doubted very much I could save Brooke, but the attempt might be enough to get the rest of the coven to listen to me. Besides, I did have to talk to Al.
Bis landed on my shoulder, his light weight barely recognizable. His tail wrapped around my neck, and his wings cupped behind my head, unexpectedly funneling the shouts of protest. I reeled - every line in Cincinnati was singing, and through Bis, I could hear them.
"We can do this," I said, reaching out and touching a thought to the nearby ley line. If I could shift my aura to match the tone of it, I'd be inside it, even though I stood in my church's kitchen. I could feel the line outside myself, warmer than I was, tasting of chlorophyll, sour like dandelion sap. My entire soul vibrated, and I let the line pour through me, trying to match its resonance. Warmth, taste, sound, they all blended, and with a gasp, I felt the line take me.
Bis's tail tightened, and I felt him do that curious step-the-mind-sideways twist that Al always did when he pulled me to the ever-after. Yes! I thought exuberantly as I mimicked it and felt my bubble snap into place around me as my body dissolved.
And we were gone.
