by Kiki Howell
“I don’t know that it’s a calling,” he said, glancing at her. “It’s just what I wanted to do.”
Her braid was bouncing back and forth across her back with each stride, a light sheen of perspiration gleaming on her forehead and temple. The rhythm of her feet hitting the ground could have served as a metronome.
“All right.” A small smile flickered on her lips. “Since when have you wanted to do it?”
He chuckled quietly. By now, he knew her well enough to realize she wouldn’t let the question drop until she was satisfied with his answer.
“Don’t tell Andrew,” he warned her. “But pretty much since I understood what my dads did. I don’t know, four years old maybe. Five. Something like that.”
He thought she would comment on how young that was, but instead she asked, “Why shouldn’t I tell Andrew? Doesn’t he know?”
They emerged from a cluster of trees and Jacob had to blink a few times for his vision to adjust to the glare of sunlight again. It was a hot day and his tee-shirt was clinging to his back. Rachel’s tank top was clinging to her, too; Jacob was trying very hard not to notice how tightly it fit her.
“He doesn’t know how far back I was already thinking about it.” Or if he suspected, Jacob thought ruefully, Andrew didn’t need confirmation. “He already blames himself for my choice of career. He’d feel even worse if he knew how young I was when I made up my mind.”
They’d finished another loop again and started slowing down together until they were walking toward the water fountain. For a little while, Rachel remained quiet, but from the corner of his eye Jacob could see her glance at him several times, as though she wanted to say something but was hesitating. She finally did after taking a few gulps of cool water.
“I don’t know about him blaming himself,” she said, her eyebrows drawn into a light frown. “But I do know he’s proud of you. Anyone can see that. They both are. You know that, right?”
Jacob froze and stared at her, a sense of déjà vu slamming into him with all the subtlety of a charging demon. Kirsten had told him the same thing, years ago, when Jacob had persuaded Andrew to let him enroll at the Academy. He’d been underage by the application deadline and had needed a parent’s signature, or he would have had to wait another year. Nicholas could have done it, but he had asked Jacob to try to convince Andrew first. After a lot of discussions, Andrew had signed on the dotted line, but he’d been unhappy enough about it to spoil Jacob’s excitement for a while.
“You know he’s just worried,” Kirsten had said, and Jacob could still see her soft smile in his mind, like he could still feel the warmth of her hand when she had cupped his cheek. “It’s his job to worry about you. But he’s proud, too. You just need to look at him to see that. They both are. And you know it.”
Kirsten and Jacob had already been dating for two years by then. That Rachel could see the same thing when she had only known them for less than a month said a lot about how perceptive she was.
“Hey. You okay?” she pushed his shoulder lightly, almost playfully. “You’re zoning out on me. Did I tire you out?”
Forcing a grin to his lips, Jacob shook his head.
“Not even close. Wanna race back to the agency?”
She was already twenty yards away before she shouted, “Last one there pays for take-out!”
Laughing, Jacob ran after her. He caught up with her in no time, but in the end he let her win. He was still grinning when they reentered the agency; he’d been grinning a lot, lately.
“Pizza?” he asked Rachel.
She snorted.
“Again? I don’t think so. Surprise me.”
And, throwing a wink over her shoulder, she started toward the training room, presumably to clean up in the locker room attached to it.
A flash of panic ran through Jacob and his grin faded away. Surprise her? What did that mean? The last time a girl had told him to surprise her...
He threw a guilty look toward Kirsten’s office. The door was closed but her car was still in the driveway, so she had to be there. Part of him wanted to ask if she cared to join them. Most evenings, he, Rachel and Vinnie had dinner together in the lobby, but Kirsten usually left before they did and she had yet to join them. Friends, she had said that first day; why was it still so hard?
In the end, he went upstairs and pulled a take-out menu from the very bottom of a drawer in the kitchen. He hadn’t had Thai food in forever, it seemed, but it had more than likely been close to three years or so. He ordered enough for everyone—starting with Kirsten’s favorites.
EVEN WITH HER DOOR closed, Kirsten could still hear them. Vinnie’s big, booming laugh, Rachel’s high-pitched giggle, Nicholas’ baritone, and Jacob’s chuckle, warm and deep; she could have recognized it anywhere.
What could possibly be so amusing?
She regretted now having declined Rachel’s invitation to join them. She’d been so surprised that she had answered without thinking about it. It wasn’t that she disliked Rachel, the girl was nice enough, she supposed, but they didn’t have anything in common except for the fact that they worked for Andrew.
And as far as work went anyway, she’d had enough for now. If she read one more line of Julie’s tiny handwriting, her eyes might remain crossed for the rest of the night. Pushing away from her desk, she grabbed her purse and started for the door. As soon as she opened it, a familiar smell jumped at her. Thai food. They were having Thai take-out. Not just any Thai food either, judging from the logo on the boxes on the coffee table, but her favorite restaurant in town. She hadn’t had a chance to dine there yet since her return. A pang of nostalgia rang through her like a deep gong. Maybe if they had enough for her...
She took her first steps toward the sitting area on the other side of the lobby where Rachel, Vinnie, Nicholas and Jacob were sprawled on the sofa and armchairs. At the same moment, Andrew strode out of his office. He threw her a quick nod as he passed by her before approaching the others. They fell quiet at once, their collective attention suddenly laser-sharp.
“The Metroparks East Trail again,” Andrew said without preamble.
Already, Nicholas and Jacob were setting down their food and standing. Vinnie was only a heartbeat behind them.
“How many?” Nicholas asked.
“Four.”
Vinnie swore under his breath. Kirsten’s heart skipped a beat. She’d wanted for a while to accompany them to try her spells, but four demons at once sounded like a lot.
“Jacob? Is she ready?” Andrew asked.
For a moment, Kirsten was sure he was talking about her. The look Jacob turned to Rachel proved her wrong. The girl sat up straighter under his stare, meeting his eyes full on, the barest hint of a hopeful smile on her lips. She hadn’t been allowed to take part in a fight against demons yet, Kirsten knew. After a couple of seconds, Jacob returned the smile and looked back at his father.
“Yeah, she’s ready.”
Rachel practically bounced off the sofa like an excited child. Struggling not to roll her eyes, Kirsten turned on her heel and walked back into her office. Ready? The girl had better be after all the one-on-one training she had received from Jacob.
Pushing those thoughts away, Kirsten started going through a mental list of ingredients she wanted to take with her. What she called her ‘magic kit,’ a messenger bag with a host of inner pockets, contained some supplies for magic, but so far the only spells she had done concerned vampires, whether the removal of an invitation into a human’s home or a localization spell on someone Vinnie had needed to interview. This would be her first time facing—and doing magic on—a demon; until now, she’d always already left the office for the night whenever the agency received a call about demons. She couldn’t wait to get to work.
For the past couple of weeks, she had spent her time at the agency cataloguing what Julie had left behind as well as reviewing her notes about the spells she had tried during the years she had spent working for Andrew. Some of those spells had been close to what Kirst
en had on her ‘to try’ list, so she’d need to work on those and either transform them or scrap them altogether. She still had some tricks up her sleeve, though, and even if they didn’t work on the first try, she might manage to adapt them.
She could hear the others in the lobby, talking about weapons. She had to hurry so they wouldn’t have to wait for her.
“Kirsten. Don’t bother. You’re not coming.”
She only threw a quick look up at Jacob where he stood on the threshold before picking up three more bags of herbs; she should have been ready, and she was annoyed with herself that she wasn’t.
“Yes, I am coming,” she said. “There's a few spells I've been meaning to try on a demon.”
One last vial of powder... There. She had everything. She closed her messenger bag and slid the strap over her shoulder. Still on the threshold, Jacob shifted but he did not get out of her way when she moved forward.
“You’re not coming,” he said again. “Not tonight. There's four of them out there. You'll try your spell when it's just the one. It'll be easier to monitor if it has any effect.”
A cold annoyance slid over Kirsten like ice creeping in over a pond. She’d just watched Jacob proclaim that other girl ready for a fight, and now this?
“What you mean,” she said slowly, “is that it’ll be less dangerous. Am I right?”
Jacob only shrugged. She’d always been ticked off when he did that, retreating behind gestures when he knew she wouldn’t like his words, whatever they were.
“It's not up to you to decide what’s too dangerous for me,” she said, not bothering to disguise her growing anger. “I'm a grown woman. This is my job.”
“And it's my last name on your paychecks.”
Coming forward, he picked up the strap from her shoulder and lifted the messenger bag away from her. The gesture was striking by its familiarity; when they’d been in high school, he’d always carry her book bag for her, and she used to tease him about it while not-so-secretly enjoying it. Now, though, rather than sliding the strap over his shoulder, he set the bag down on her desk.
“You're not coming,” he said again, meeting her gaze with cool eyes.
She blinked away memories that had no place there and then, and stared at him, baffled by his argument. He wasn’t her boss, his father was, and if he thought for a second that she couldn’t see past his over-protective boyfriend act...
It was only after she had pushed past him to go find Andrew that she caught up with her own thoughts.
Ex-boyfriend. Why was it getting harder to remember that? Why did every little gesture remind her of what they’d shared?
Andrew was in front of the weapons cabinet. Already, Rachel and Vinnie were walking out the front door, each with a sword in hand and the same excited spring to their steps.
“Andrew? I’ve been working on a spell, I think—”
“I heard,” Andrew cut in, softening the interruption with an apologetic smile. “And Jacob is right. A mage on the battlefield needs to be protected. We won’t be able to keep you safe with four demons there. Another time.”
Kirsten could hardly believe her ears. Why had they hired her if they were going to keep her on the sidelines?
“But...”
Words failed her as she watched Jacob accept a sword from his father. Rather than following the others out, he stood there, his eyes flat and unreadable as he looked at her.
“You’ll have your moment soon,” Andrew said with another awkward smile. “Just wait—”
But Kirsten had heard enough. She strode out, glaring at Jacob on her way to the door, wounded that they wouldn’t let her do her job, and even more so that Jacob had been the one to say no. A few years earlier, she thought bitterly, her eyes narrowing as she watched Rachel and Vinnie wait by the cars, Jacob would have been unable to say no to her. He wouldn’t have looked at Rachel twice.
And these thoughts were not helping anything, she realized, now angry with herself, as she climbed into her car and drove home.
THE SWORDS CLANKED loudly when Andrew dropped them in the trunk. It wasn’t like Jacob to leave his weapon behind; he must have been spooked. Andrew winced, wondering how much damage control he’d have to do. It was only one more lesson Jacob had to learn, but it had never been easy for Andrew to accept that he couldn’t always protect his people, and he doubted Jacob would find it any easier. At least Rachel hadn’t been hurt too badly, from what Andrew had seen—and he had seen enough injuries in the past twenty years to be a good judge of such things.
Strangely enough, he was more bothered by the way Kirsten had left the office, with waves of anger and hurt pride wafting from her.
“She was pissed.”
Although Andrew had not named that ‘she,’ he had no doubt that Nicholas would know whom he meant. And indeed, after sighing and settling into the passenger seat, Nicholas replied, “She had a reason to be. The kid pulled rank on her.”
Andrew started the car, leaving behind the pulsing blue lights of the clean-up crew. He had no idea, even after all these years, what the authorities did with the bodies of dead demons; in truth, he didn’t care all that much. It was a nuisance more than anything that they had to wait for the crew to show up before they could leave.
“He’s not a kid,” he protested half-heartedly.
“He’s also not her boss,” Nicholas said with a snort. “You are. So why did you let him call the shots?”
From the corner of his eye, Andrew could see Nicholas rubbing his arm. There was no tell-tale scent of blood, but Andrew remembered seeing one of the demons trip up Nicholas and send him crashing, arm first, into a tree. There was probably an ugly bruise forming on his skin, and the rubbing wouldn’t help.
“I asked for his opinion about Rachel,” Andrew said. Taking one hand off the wheel, he took hold of Nicholas’ wrist to stop him from rubbing at the bruise. “He had a right to give it about Kirsten, too. And I agreed with him, for that matter. She’s never faced a demon. Four on her first night sounded a bit much.”
Nicholas twisted his hand inside Andrew’s so that their fingers wove together, resting on his thigh.
“She has to start some day,” he said. “Like Rachel did. You didn’t keep her away from the fight.”
Andrew grimaced. His fingers tightened over Nicholas’ before he let go and returned his hand to the wheel.
“And how well did that work?” he muttered.
“It’s just a scrape,” Nicholas said, placating. “She’ll be fine. She knew something like that could happen.”
And she really did. Whenever he hired a new fighter, Andrew made sure that they understood the risks. It didn’t make it any easier when that first battle wound was sustained, but at least there was no surprise.
“What about Jacob?” he said after a little while. A light switched to yellow ahead of him. The traffic was sparse and he could have sped through the intersection, but he slowed down and stopped.
“What about him?” Nicholas repeated.
Andrew shrugged.
“He said she was ready. Now she’s hurt. You know him, he’s going to feel responsible.”
“Yeah, I know.” He waited until Andrew had started the car again before he added with a snicker, “No need to wonder where he learned that.”
Andrew all but growled at him, “Shut up,” but there was no heat behind the words. Jacob had indeed learned a lot from Andrew, even things that Andrew so wished his son hadn’t picked up from him.
When he turned into his driveway, however, and found not only Jacob’s car parked there, but Kirsten’s, too, surprise flashed through Andrew. The last thing he had imagined was that Jacob would call Kirsten for help. And after the way she had left earlier, he wouldn’t have believed either that she’d have come. Maybe she wasn’t as angry with Jacob as she had seemed.
Chapter Four
“JACOB? YOU MISSED the turn, man. Maybe you should slow down a bit.”
Vinnie didn’t exactly sound worried. They
’d just battled demons; after that, a car driving a little too fast couldn’t be all that scary. Still, there was an edge to his words, wariness if not fear. Jacob glanced at him in the passenger seat, then at Rachel in the back; she was pale, much too pale, and her lips were white from being pressed so tightly together. She wasn’t making a sound, but she was obviously in pain.
“I’m not taking her to the hospital,” Jacob said, his words clipped like the sound of metal striking metal.
“What the hell? Why not? She’s hurt.”
Jacob gritted his teeth and struggled not to push a little harder on the accelerator. His gaze flicked to the rearview mirror again. Rachel’s eyes were closed. He knew she was hurt. He knew it quite well, in fact. Just like he knew it was his damn fault. He was the one who had said she was ready. If not for him, she wouldn’t have set foot on the battlefield tonight—and she wouldn’t have been hurt.
“I take her to the hospital,” he said in a low voice, “they put her leg in a cast, she can’t walk for weeks. I take her home, Kirsten heals her, she’s walking by tomorrow. Not a hard choice.”
It made perfect sense in Jacob’s mind. From the moment he’d seen Rachel get hurt, he had known he wanted her healed right away. Vinnie, on the other hand, still didn’t seem to understand. He turned in his seat, looking back toward Rachel when he said, “Not to knock on Kirsten, but we haven’t seen her do healing tricks yet. And they’ve got mages at the hospital.”
“Which they reserve for massive trauma and life and death situations.”
And why was Vinnie still arguing about it anyway? It wasn’t his leg that needed attention. He was perfectly fine. He’d fought alongside Nicholas and Andrew; there wasn’t a scratch on him. Why hadn’t he stayed closer to Rachel?
Why hadn’t Jacob?
They were just a block away from the house. At a red light, Jacob turned to look at Rachel.
“Rachel? You okay?” he asked, feeling ridiculous to even voice the question yet unable not to.
She opened her eyes and gave him a weak smile.
