by Ким Харрисон
"So…" Jenks hedged. "What are you going to do?"
I gave him a mirthless smile. His unconditional acceptance was a balm, and the tension eased. He didn't care what Ivy and I did, as long as we stayed together and didn't kill each other. "How should I know?" I said as I stood. "Can we talk about something else?"
"Hell, yes," Jenks said, rising up with me. "You just keep thinking whatever you need to think. As long as you don't leave."
Setting my water on the sill, I took up the broom and started to sweep our brand-new floor again. I wasn't going to leave because Ivy had kissed me. She'd said she wasn't going to do it again, and I believed her, knowing how she'd wanted this since our moving in together, and me being as dumb as a stone because of her ability to hide her desires the way she could. It had been a taste to show me what might be, then a return to the distance we kept to give me the time I needed to think about it. Figure things out. The Turn take it.
Jenks hovered for a moment, then landed on the sill and in the sun. "This is better," he said, scanning the bare walls. "I don't know why you didn't let the guys do it. It wasn't that much, and the amount you saved won't make a dent in what we need to resanctify the church." His face grew worried. "And we are going to resanctify it, right? I mean, we can't move."
Rising from sweeping the dust into the pan, I turned to him, hearing the worry he was trying to hide. It didn't matter how uncomfortable things got between Ivy and me. If the firm fell apart, Jenks would probably lose control of the garden. He had way too many kids, and Matalina wasn't up to staking out new territory. Jenks said she was okay, but I worried.
"We aren't moving," I said flatly, and I dumped the pan in the black contractor bag. "We'll find a way to get the church resanctified." Ivy and I will deal with the uncomfortable situation like we always have… by ignoring it. It was something we were both good at.
Reassured, Jenks glanced into the garden, the sun glinting on his shock of bright yellow hair. "I still say you should've let the guys fix the walls," he said. "What did you save? A hundred bucks? Tink's knickers, that's nothing."
I set the broom aside and shook the trash down in the bag, looking for a twist-tie. "I'll have a big chunk after Trent's wedding. Unless nothing happens, but what are the chances of that?"
Jenks snickered. "With your luck, nothing will."
I scanned the living room and tried to decide how to pick up the bag of trash without getting poked by a stray nail or jagged sliver. Though the space was empty and echoing, the walls were back together and the newly uncovered floor was clean. A quick trip to the store for a new piece of baseboard and we could move everything back. Actually, there was no reason to wait for the baseboard. I could move everything back in now, and finish it later. If I hustled, I could get it back before Ivy returned. It might be easier to do it myself than our doing it together.
"Phone's going to ring," Jenks said from atop the broom's handle, and I froze, jumping when it did.
"God, Jenks, that's creepy," I muttered as I dropped the bag and went to the hearth. I knew he probably heard the electronics click over, but it was still unnerving.
He was grinning as I plucked up the receiver. "Vampiric Charms," I said, adopting my most professional voice. I stuck my tongue out at Jenks, and he merrily flipped me off. "This is Morgan. We can help. Day or night, dead or alive." Where are the freaking pen and paper?
"Rachel? It's Glenn."
My breath puffed out, and I relaxed. "Hi, Glenn," I said, looking for something to sit on and finally moving to the kitchen. "What's up? You got another job for me? Maybe want to arrest another one of my friends?"
"I didn't arrest Mr. Hue, and it's the same job."
He sounded tense, and since the chance to get money out of the FIB didn't come very often, I dropped into my chair at the table. My gaze flicked to Jenks, the pixy having followed me in and clearly listening to both ends of the conversation.
"There's been another Were murder made up to look like a suicide," Glenn said around the noise of FIB scanners and birds, and I wondered if he was on site. "I'd like you and Jenks to give me your Inderlander opinion before they move the body. How soon can you get here? "
I glanced at my construction-dusty jeans and T-shirt, wondering just what he thought I could do that he couldn't. I wasn't a detective. I was a hired spell caster/bounty hunter. Jenks took to the air, darting out the pixy hole in the kitchen screen. "Ah," I hedged, "can't I just come to the morgue and look at the body?"
"You have something better to do?"
I thought about the living room and how I wanted our stuff back in it before Ivy got back. "Well, actually…"
"They're going to try to jerk it out from under me again," Glenn said, drawing my attention back to him, "and I want you to see it before the I.S. has a chance to doctor the body. Rachel…" His voice took on a hard edge. "It's Mrs. Sarong's accountant. You know… the Howlers? He was high in the pack, and no one is happy."
My eyebrows rose. Mrs. Sarong was the owner of Cincinnati's all-Inderland baseball team, the Howlers. It was their fish I had tried to recover from Mr. Ray—the same Mr. Ray whose secretary was already in the morgue. I had forced the woman to pay me for my time, actually meeting her in the process. That there had been two "suicides" from two of Cincinnati's most prominent packs in as many days was not good.
It was obvious someone knew that the focus was in Cincinnati and was trying to find out who had it. I had to get rid of it. The chaos would be astounding if an entire pack could turn humans. Vampires would start culling them. My fingers started to tap the table. Maybe that's what was already happening? Piscary was in jail, but that wouldn't stop him.
The sound of wings was a relief, and Jenks came back in dressed for work, a sword and belt in one hand, a red bandanna in the other. "The murdered Were is Mrs. Sarong's accountant," I said to him as I stood and looked for my shoulder bag.
"Oh." Jenks dropped several inches, a guilty look coming over him. "A-a-a-ah, that might explain the message on the machine."
I covered the phone receiver, unable to hide my exasperation. Jenks…
He made a face, leaking silver sparkles. "I forgot, okay?"
"Rachel?" came Glenn's tiny voice, pulling me back to him.
"Yeah…" I held a hand to my forehead. "Yes. Glenn, I can come out there…" I hesitated. "Where are you?"
Glenn cleared his throat. "Spring Grove," he muttered.
A cemetery. Oooooh, how nice. "Okay," I said, standing up straight and scuffing into my sandals. "See you in a bit."
"Great. Thanks." He sounded preoccupied, as if he were trying to do two things at once.
I took a breath to say good-bye, but Glenn had hung up. Eyeing Jenks, I thumbed the phone off and cocked my hip. "I have a message?" I said dryly.
Jenks looked uncomfortable as he put the bandanna on, to look like an inner-city gang member in his black working clothes. "Mr. Ray wants to talk to you," he said softly.
I thought about his secretary having been murdered and the I. S. not only looking the other way but trying to cover it up. "I'll bet." Grabbing my bag, I looked to make sure I had all my usual spells. The thought occurred to me that Mr, Ray might be the one killing the Weres, but why would he kill his own secretary first? Maybe Mrs. Sarong had murdered the woman and the second killing had been in retaliation? I was getting a headache.
Remembering my suspended license, I hesitated, but what kind of image would I have if I arrived on a crime scene by bus, and I pulled out my keys. My gaze went to the shelves under the center island counter. Leaning, I smiled when the smooth, heavy weight of my splat-ball gun filled my palm. The metal parts clicked comfortingly as I checked the reservoir. Spells stored in amulets were good for a year, but unstored, invoked potions lasted only a week. These were three weeks old and useless, but waving my gun around made me feel good and ticked Glenn off. I dropped it into my bag as Jenks finished writing a note for Ivy. "Ready?" I asked him.
He flew to my shoulder, bringin
g the delicate scent of the soap Matalina washed his clothes in. "You want to take his ketchup?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah." I strode into the pantry, coming out with the gallon jar of super-duper belly-buster hot jalapeño salsa and the big red tomato I had gotten him as a surprise. Pulse fast, I headed for the hall, a gallon of salsa on my hip, a tomato in my hand, and a pixy on my shoulder.
Yeah, we bad.
Fifteen
The afternoon sun was hot, and easing my car door shut, I gave it a bump with my hip to latch it. My fingers were sticky from the pastry I'd eaten en route, and I scanned the sparrow-noisy grounds while I dug a tissue out of my bag. Wiping my fingers clean, I wondered if I should have taken five minutes to change into a more professional outfit than shorts and a top-professionalism being something I desperately needed, seeing as I was skulking around the mausoleum that I'd parked my car behind.
Jenks had run vanguard for me as I took the back roads to Spring Grove. If I had driven the interstate, the I.S. would have nailed my butt to a broomstick. It had made for slow travel—driving three blocks, parking, waiting for Jenks to do some recon, then moving forward another three blocks—but I couldn't stomach the idea of taking a cab. And as I hiked my shoulder bag higher and headed across the grass, I again thanked God I had friends.
"Thanks, Jenks," I said, stumbling when my sandals hit a dip the mower had hidden. His wings tickled my neck, and I added, "I appreciate you running rabbit for me with the I.S."
"Hey, it's my job."
There was more than a hint of annoyance to it, and, feeling guilty for having asked him to fly twice what I had driven, I said, "It's not your job to make sure my butt stays out of traffic court," then added softly, "I'll go to driver's-ed class tonight. I promise."
Jenks laughed. The tinkling sound brought out three pixies from the nearby bank of evergreens, but upon seeing Jenks's red bandana, they vanished. The obvious color was his first line of defense against territorial pixies and fairies, a sign of good intentions and a promise not to poach. They'd watch us but wouldn't start catapulting thorns unless Jenks sampled the meager pollen or nectar sources. I'd rather have pixies watching me than fairies, though, and I liked the idea that pixies had Spring Grove. They must be well structured, since the grounds were huge.
The sprawling cemetery was said to have been originally developed to tastefully "rehouse" cholera victims in the late 1800s. It was one of the first garden cemeteries in the Unites States; the undead liked their parks as much as the next person did. It had been hard to keep your newly undead relatives out of the ground back then, and being unearthed in such peaceful settings must have been a small favor. I had to wonder if the large, hidden vampire population Cincy had in those days had much to do with how the Queen City gained the dubious distinction of being known for grave robbing. It wasn't so much that they were supplying the multitudes of teaching hospitals with cadavers but pulling their relatives out of the ground and back where they belonged.
Scanning the quiet, parklike grounds, I wiped my mouth of the last of the frosting. The feel of my fingers across my lips brought Ivy to mind for obvious reasons, and I warmed. God, I should have done something, But no-o-o-o-o, I stood there like an idiot, too surprised to move. I hadn't reacted, and now I was going to have to think about how to handle this instead of settling it right then. Stupid-ass witch.
"You okay?" Jenks asked, and I pulled my hand down.
"Peachy," I said sourly, and he laughed.
"You're thinking of Ivy," he needled, and my flush deepened.
"Well, duh," I said, stumbling on a marker set even with the ground. "You have your roommate kiss you, and you see if you can just forget it."
"Hell," Jenks said, flying just out of my reach with a grin on his face. "If one of you kissed me, I wouldn't have to think. Matalina would kill me. Relax. It was only a kiss."
I plodded over the grounds, following the sound of radios. This was just what I needed. As if an insane demon tearing apart my church weren't enough, I now had a four-inch man telling me to lighten up, go with the flow, live life—don't analyze it.
Jenks's wing clatter softened, and he lit on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Rache," he said, his voice unusually solemn. "You're you, and Ivy is Ivy. Nothing has changed."
"Yeah?" I muttered, not seeing it that clearly.
"Angle to the left," he said cheerfully. "I can smell dead Were down there."
"That's nice," I answered, continuing on past a marker and cutting a soft left. Downslope and through the trees were the flashing amber and blue lights of a multispecies ambulance. I'm not too late, I thought, arms swinging as we passed a huge stone marked WEIL. Beyond a row of cedars was an artificial pond, and between that and the evergreens was a cluster of people.
"Rache," Jenks said, his voice introspective. "You think this has anything to do with—"
"The bushes have ears," I warned.
"The thing I picked up for Matalina on our last vacation?" he amended, and my lips twitched in amusement. I had twisted a demon curse to move the curse in the focus to a knickknack. That it had slowly changed form to look like the original statue was just plain creepy.
Eyes on my feet, I murmured, "Mmmm-hmm. I'd be surprised if it wasn't."
"You think this is Trent looking for it? "
"I don't think Trent knows it exists," I said. "I'd be more inclined to think it's Mr. Ray or Mrs. Sarong, and they're killing each other as they try to find it."
Jenks's wings sent a cool breeze across my neck. "What about Piscary?"
"Maybe, but he wouldn't be having this much trouble covering it up," I said, glancing up when the men's tone of voice shifted, indicating that I'd been seen. I slowed at the hushed mutter of my name, but since everyone was looking at me, I didn't know who'd said it. There were two FIB vehicles, a black I.S. van, an I.S. cruiser, and an ambulance parked in the turnaround. Counting the third FIB vehicle at the cemetery's back entrance, the FIB presence was stronger than the I.S.'s, and I wondered if Glenn was pushing his luck. It had been a Were suicide.
The cluster of men surrounded a dark shadow at the foot of the cedars and a tall tombstone, and a second group in FIB uniforms and suits waited like cubs at a lion's kill. Glenn was with them, and while catching my eye he said a few words to the man next to him, touched the hilt of his weapon for reassurance, and headed over. People turned away, and I relaxed.
My feet scuffed the grass, and I cringed upon realizing I'd walked right on one of those markers set flush with the ground. Nervousness struck deep when a familiar bulk beside the tombstone straightened and Denon's brown eyes met mine. He was wearing a suit today instead of his usual slacks and polo shirt, and I wondered if he was trying to keep up with Glenn, who looked great in his suit. I'm not afraid of Denon, I thought, then gave in and sneered at him.
Denon's jaw clenched, ignoring the slight man in jeans and a lightweight short-sleeved shirt who had stepped forward to talk to him. I thought of my car and got worried. "Hey, Jenks," I said, lips barely moving, "why don't you flit around and see what you can overhear? Let me know if they find my car, huh? "
"You got it," he said, and with a sparkling of pixy dust he was gone.
Trying to look as if I'd been doing a reconnaissance of the surrounding area instead of hiking my way in, I angled to meet Glenn. He looked frustrated. The FIB was probably being pushed out of the investigation. I knew how bad that felt but had little sympathy, since he'd been the one pushing me out last time.
I took off my sunglasses as I stepped under the shade of the massive tree, tucking them to hang from the waistband of my shorts. "What's the matter, Glenn?" I said in greeting when he took my elbow and led me to an abandoned FIB cruiser. "Won't that nasty wasty vampire let you play in the sandbox? "
"Thanks for coming out, Rachel," he grumbled. "Where's Jenks?"
"Around," I said, and he sourly gave me my temp tag. I pinned it on before I leaned against the FIB cruiser, crossed my arms over my stomach, and wai
ted for the good news.
Running a hand across his smooth chin, Glenn sighed, turning so he could see me and the crime scene both. His dark eyes were tired, and there were faint worry lines at the corners, making him seem older than he was. His trim stature looked powerful even beside Denon, and his military background mixed well with his suit and loosened tie. Glenn had come a long way in a year as far as understanding Inderlanders, and while I knew he respected Denon's position, he didn't respect the man. He didn't mind telegraphing that either, which might be a problem. I had two big men with something to prove at a crime scene. Lucky me.
"How did you get out here?" he asked softly, his eyes envious as the I.S. collected their data. "I sent a car for you, but you'd left."
I put my arms to my side and fidgeted. Glenn slowly turned. "You drove?" he accused, and I flushed. "You promised me you wouldn't."
"No I didn't. I only said I wouldn't, not promised. I didn't know you were sending a car. And they don't have a bus run to the cemetery. There aren't enough pickups to warrant it."
He snorted, and both our postures eased. Glenn's weary gaze went to the body at the foot of the cedars, and I crossed my arms over my chest again. "You want to bull your way in there or wait until after they contaminate everything?" I asked.
Glenn rocked into motion, and I followed. "It's too late," he said. "I was waiting for you. Seeing as he's an Inderlander, I'm only going to get one look at him unless I can link him hard and fast to the murder of Mr. Ray's secretary."
I nodded, watching my feet so I wouldn't walk on any more markers. "I talked to Mr. Ray on the way over," I offered, and Glenn looked askance at me. "I have an appointment with him later today at his office." My hand went up when he took a breath. "You aren't coming with me, so don't ask—but I will tell you what we talked about if it touches on this." I couldn't bring a FIB detective to a client meeting. How lame was that?
