by Kim Harrison
“David doesn’t want a pack,” I said, my jaw starting to clench.
Cormel crossed his knees and a grimace colored his expression. “Humans breed like flaming rabbits from hell, but we’ve been dealing with that for centuries. You, however, are responsible for the elves and Weres. Population wise,” he amended before I could protest. “From what I understand, the elves would just as soon see you dead for some reason I haven’t fathomed yet, which leaves the Weres to back you, and if they do, it will be with the power of the focus.” He paused. “Which will increase their numbers,” he finished.
I slumped back into the couch and sighed. No good deed and all…
Rynn Cormel mimicked my position, doing so with slow grace instead of dejected suddenness. “What can you do for us, Rachel?” he said, glancing at a very quiet Ivy. “We need something so that we may think more kindly of you.”
I knew what he was asking. He wanted me to find a way for vampires to keep their souls after death, and he thought I’d do it to save Ivy. “I’m working on it,” I muttered, arms crossed over my chest and staring at the fire.
“I don’t see any progress.”
My brow furrowed, and I gave him a look. “Ivy—”
“Ivy likes things the way they are,” he interrupted, as if she wasn’t sitting between us. “You need to be more aggressive.”
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “That is none of your business.”
Jenks took flight, hovering a careful three feet from him. “You need to keep your stick in your own flowers,” he said, hands on his hips.
“Rynn,” Ivy pleaded. “Please.”
But the man proved who he was—what he was—when his eyes flashed black and his aura slammed into me. “Tell me you don’t like this…,” he whispered.
I gasped, shoving away from him when his eyes touched my demon scar. I was against the back and arm of the couch, and I could go no farther. My exhalation turned into a moan as feeling shivered over my skin, delving deep where my clothes touched me. I couldn’t think—there had never been anything so shockingly intimate—and my blood pounded, telling me to submit, to give in, to take what he offered and revel in it.
“Stop!” Jenks shrilled. “Stop now, or I’ll jam this stick so far up your nose, you’ll be able to do calculus with it!”
“Please,” I panted, my knees at my chin as I nearly writhed on the couch, the leather feeling like skin against me. The sensation had come from nowhere…and God, it felt so good. How could I ignore this? He had flung it in my face, showing me what Ivy and I had shunned.
“Rynn, please,” Ivy whispered, and the sensation cut off with the suddenness of a slap.
My gasp was harsh, and I felt the dampness of tears. I realized my face was against the couch, and I was curled up, hiding from the passion, from the ecstasy. Panting, I slowly unkinked my arms and legs. I couldn’t focus well, but I found him easily enough, sitting comfortably on his chair. Jenks hovered between us with a chopstick. God, the vampire looked as unruffled as stone, and about as compassionate. He wore a superb mask, but he was an animal.
“If you touch my scar again…,” I threatened, but what could I do? He protected Ivy, protected me. Slowly my pulse eased, but the shaking of my legs didn’t. He knew my threats were nothing, and he ignored me.
I followed his gaze to Ivy, and I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Ivy,” I whispered in heartache. Her eyes were black and desperate. She was fighting every instinct she had. Her master had gone for me in front of her, then had drawn back, practically saying, “You finish.” We struggled with this, and for him to callously break everything we had worked for pissed me off. “You have no right,” I said, my voice shaking.
“I like you, Rachel,” he said, surprising me. “I have since I first heard Ivy’s impassioned description of you and then found it accurate. You’re inventive, intelligent, and dangerous. I can’t keep you alive if you continue to ignore the fact that your actions reach farther than next week.”
“Don’t do this to me and Ivy again,” I seethed. “Do you hear me?”
“Why?” he said, and his confusion was too real to be faked. “I did nothing you didn’t enjoy. Ivy’s good for you. You’re good for Ivy. I don’t understand why both of you are ignoring this…perfect match.”
I couldn’t edge away from Ivy. She was balanced. Ignoring her was the only armor I could give her. “Ivy knows there can’t be blood shared without dominance given. I won’t, and she can’t.”
He seemed to think about that. “Then one of you needs to learn to bend.” As if that was all there was to it. “To become second.”
I thought of his scion, sent away because it was easier to do this without her here. “Neither of us will,” I said. “That’s why we can live together. Leave. Ivy. Alone.”
A small noise came from him. “I was talking about Ivy bending, not you.”
I shook my head, disgusted. “That’s what I love about her,” I said. “If she bends, I walk away. If I bend, she gets nothing but a shell.”
His brow furrowed and the fire snapped as he thought. “Are you sure?” he asked, and I nodded, not sure if it would save or damn us. “Then maybe this won’t work,” he said distantly.
Jenks, silent until now, dropped the chopstick. “It will!” he protested as it clattered. “I mean, Rachel has found out so much already. She’s working with a wise demon. She’ll find a way for Ivy to keep her soul!”
“Jenks, don’t,” I said, but Cormel was thinking, even as I could see his unease that the wisdom to further his species would come from demons.
“Al might know a way for souls to be retained after death,” Jenks pleaded, his angular features scrunched up in fear for me.
“Shut up!” I shouted.
Ivy was breathing easier, and I risked a look at her. Her hands were unfisted, but she was still looking at the floor and breathing shallowly.
“Ask your demon,” Cormel said as Jeff cautiously came in with a fax. The man glanced at Ivy in alarm, then handed it to Cormel. Without even looking at it, the undead vampire coolly handed it past Ivy to me. “Your AMA.”
I shoved it in my pocket. “Thank you.”
“What good timing,” Cormel said lightly, but I could see everything now. All the pretty talk and clever smiles wouldn’t snare me again. “Now we can eat with relaxed stomachs.”
Yeah. Right.
I turned to Ivy, and when she met my eyes with a growing band of brown around her pupils, I stood. “Thank you, Rynn, but we’re leaving.”
Jenks dropped to the arm of the chair and hurriedly wound fabric around himself, his wings drooping and rising as he worked.
“Ivy…,” Rynn Cormel said, as if confused, and she backed away from him, closer to me.
“I’m happy,” she said softly as she handed me my coat. “Please leave me alone.”
We started for the kitchen, Jenks flying heavily behind us as a vanguard, trailing the last of his wrap along instead of sparkles. “There’s more here to think about than two people’s happiness,” Cormel said loudly, and Ivy stopped, her hand on the swinging doors.
“Rachel won’t be pushed,” she said.
“Then pull her, before someone else does.”
As one, we turned and left. Behind us was the sharp clatter of chopsticks and little ceramic dishes hitting the stone fireplace. The kitchen was empty, and I imagined everyone had gone somewhere else and out of Cormel’s angry path. Jenks dove for my scarf as I wrapped it about my neck, and I sighed as I recalled how erotic a covered neck was to a vampire. God, I was stupid.
Ivy hesitated at the door to the loading dock. “I’ll be right back,” she said, a dangerous slant to her eyes.
“Are you sure?” I asked, and she strode away. Uncomfortable, I hustled into the cold garage. We weren’t going to get home in the Hummer, so I got my bag out from the backseat, and with a grunt, shoved the door up, panting as the silent night met me. We’d be taking Ivy’s bike, and it was going to be
a very slow, very cold ride.
But I had to get home. We had to. We both needed to get back to the church and the patterns of behavior that kept us apart and together—sane. I had to call Al before the sun came up and beg for the time off. And now I had to ask him if he knew of a way to save a vampire’s soul, because if I didn’t, I might find myself dead.
The sound of Ivy’s boots brought my attention up, and she strode down the stairs with her arms crossed. “You okay?” I asked as I pulled the tarp from Ivy’s bike, and she nodded.
From my scarf came Jenks’s snotty “I’m okay, you’re okay, Ivy’s freaking okay. We’re all okay. Can we get the hell out of here?”
Ivy stashed my bag, got on the bike, and turned to look at me, waiting. “Are you going to pull me?” I asked, heart pounding as I stood on the hard cement with my feet going cold in my boots.
Her eyes were like liquid brown in the dim light, and I could see her misery. “No.”
I had to trust her. Swinging my leg over, I got on the bike behind her and held on tight as Ivy idled the bike out of the sheltered warmth and into the cold snow of the last of the year.
Sixteen
The kitchen was warm, smelling of brown sugar, chocolate chips, and butter. I was making cookies with the excuse that they would soften Al up, but the reality was, I wanted Jenks to have the chance to get excessively warm. The ride home had been bitterly cold, and though he’d never admit it, Jenks was almost blue by the time Ivy parked her cycle in the garden shed and I hustled into the church with him. His kids had long since tired of playing in the oven’s updrafts, but he was still in here, his wings slowly moving back and forth.
As expected, a stone-faced I.S. agent had been waiting for us when we cycled in, silently taking his copy of the AMA and driving off. If not for that stupid piece of paper, I’d be back in the hospital under guard, but as it was, I was pulling the last tray of cookies out and feeling better. Tired, but better. Take that, Dr. Mape.
It was almost four in the morning, just about the time I usually crawled into bed. Ivy was at her computer, each key getting a harder tap than the one before it as she not so patiently waited for me to call Al and ask for the night off, but talking to demons was tricky. I wanted Jenks warm and mobile before I did it. And a little comfort food never did anyone any harm.
“It’s getting late,” Ivy muttered, the rim of brown around her pupils narrowing as she tracked something on her monitor. “You going to do this anytime soon?”
“I’ve got hours,” I said as I slid the last cookie onto the cooling rack. Propping the tray in the sink to sizzle, I leaned to look at the clock above me. “Relax.”
“You’ve got four hours, sixteen minutes.” Her eyes flicked to me, and she arranged her colored pens in the mug she used for a pencil cup. “I just pulled up the almanac.”
Putting five cookies on a plate, I set them next to her keyboard and took the topmost for myself. “I wanted to make cookies. Everyone likes cookies,” I said, and she smirked, delicately taking a cookie with her long, slim fingers.
Jenks rose up from the oven, warm at last. “Oh yeah. Cookies ought to do it.” He laughed, and a slip of dust fell from him. “Al had a fit the last time you asked for a night off. He said no, too.”
“That’s why the cookies. Duh. I wasn’t recovering from a banshee attack either. Tonight will be different.” I hope.
Hands on his hips, Jenks got an unusually bitter look on his face as he landed by my scrying mirror on the center island counter. “Maybe you should offer him a bite out of something else? Bet he’d give you the freaking year off.”
“Jenks!” Ivy snapped, and the pixy turned his back on us to look out the dark window.
“What’s the matter, Jenks?” I said tightly. “You don’t want me talking to the wise demon? Didn’t I hear you tell Rynn Cormel he was a wise demon?” Okay, maybe that had been a little nasty, but he had been picking on me all night, and I wanted to know why.
He stayed where he was, his wings moving fitfully, and tired of it, I sat in my spot at the table and leaned toward Ivy. “What’s with him?” I said, loud enough for him to hear. Ivy shrugged, and I wiped the cookie crumbs from my fingers. Rex was staring at me from the threshold, and on the off chance, I dropped my hand in invitation.
“Oh my God!” I whispered when the cat stood and, her tail crooked happily, came to me. “Look!” I said as the orange beast bumped her head under my palm as if we were great friends. Ivy leaned over to see, and feeling brave, I sent my hand under the cat’s middle. Not breathing, I lifted, and without even a squirm, the cat was on my lap.
“Oh my God!” I whispered again. She was purring. The freaking feline was purring.
“It’s the bloody apocalypse,” Jenks muttered, and I fondled the young cat’s ears. My wonder turned to contentment when Rex settled in with her paws tucked under herself. Ivy shook her head and went back to work. No way was I ruining this with calling Al. Al could wait. I was guessing that Pierce was in the kitchen, and he was happy.
Rex still on my lap, I ate another cookie as thoughts of Pierce sifted through me. It had been eight years, and though I’d changed—moved out, gone to school, been hired, fired, run for my life, saved a life, put my boyfriend to rest and learned to live again—he probably hadn’t changed at all. The last time I’d seen him, he had been an attractive mix of power and helplessness, not any older than I was now.
I felt a smile grow as I recalled him busting the doors to the I.S. building with a flung spell, knocking out their security, and then sealing them inside with a ward. All with an odd awkwardness that hit my little-boy-lost button. He’d taken down an undead vampire with power he had drawn through me so subtly that I hadn’t felt it, even when I’d known he was doing it.
Rex purred, and I kept my fingers moving to keep her with me. I was not stupid. I knew that Pierce, even as a ghost, had a mix of power and vulnerability that was a veritable Rachel magnet. And I wasn’t so blind that I wouldn’t admit I felt a twinge of attraction. But an unexpected sense of peace outweighed that. I wasn’t going to run willy-nilly into a relationship, even if one was possible. Kisten had taught me the dangers of letting my heart rule me. Call it gun shy, call it growing up, but I was happy as I was. I was in no hurry. And that felt good.
Ivy looked up at me, her typing stilling as she recognized that something had shifted in the air. Face placid, she glanced at Jenks. The pixy’s wings went red in agitation, and he flew to land on the cookie plate and demand my attention. “Marshal called,” he said, as if it was the most important thing in the world. “You were in the can. He says he’s bringing doughnuts over tomorrow for breakfast if you get out of your thing with Big Al.”
“Okay,” I said as I scratched Rex’s jawline, remembering that Pierce hadn’t been my first kiss. He’d been my first done-right kiss, though, and I smiled.
“Trent’s coming with him,” Jenks said, hands on his hips, “and Jonathan.”
“That’s nice.” I stroked Rex, then brought her to my nose so I could smell her sweet kitty fur. “Such a good kitty,” I crooned. “Such a clever kitty to know there is a ghost in the church.”
Jenks set his wings to blurring, not moving an inch. “See?” he said to Ivy, appalled. “She likes him. Rachel, he’s been spying on us! Start thinking with your head, huh?”
A flicker of annoyance went through me, but it was Ivy who said, “Jenks, get off it,” in an almost bored tone. “He’s not spying on us.”
“But she likes him!” Jenks yelped, wings so fast that the bit of red tape finally flew off.
Ivy sighed, looking up first at Jenks, then at me. “This is Rachel we’re talking about,” she said with a smile. “I’d give it three months, tops.”
“Yeah, but she can’t kill this one,” Jenks grumped.
That was in extremely bad taste, but I ignored him, just delighted to have the cat finally like me. “Don’t you listen to them, Rexy,” I cooed, and the cat sniffed my nose. “Rachel is
a smart girl. She’s not going to go out with a ghost no matter how sexy he is. She knows better. Jenkskie wenskie can just get bent.” I beamed at Jenks, and he made an ugly face.
“Rache, put my cat down before you mess with her kitty brain.”
Smiling, I let Rex puddle out of my arms and onto the floor. She rubbed against me, then sedately walked out. There was a cheering from the pixies up in the sanctuary, and her shadow slunk past the door to hide under the couch in the back living room.
The more agitated Jenks got, the more content I became. Smiling, I washed my hands and dropped a dozen cookies in a bag for Al, tying it with a little blue twist tie before setting them beside the scrying mirror. Seeing me getting ready, Ivy shut down her computer. “I’ll get our coats,” she said, and Jenks clattered his wings, angry he was going to be left behind.
“I’m doing this by myself,” I said suddenly. “Thanks, though.”
“Your aura is thin. Put us in a circle and do it here,” Ivy said as she stood.
Putting them in a circle really didn’t make them any safer. All Al had to do was shove me into it and it would fall. Same thing with standing in a circle with him. And putting Al in a circle alone wasn’t going to happen—not since he’d started treating me like a person after I told him I wouldn’t circle him anymore. Second-class person, but a person nevertheless.
“Why chance it?” I said, thinking of Jenks’s kids. The demon might turn them into popcorn for all I knew. “You can watch from the windows.” Coat…in the foyer. “It’s not a big deal!” I shouted over my shoulder as I headed for the front door. My boots were there, too. It was four in the freaking morning, the coldest part of the day, and I was going to go sit in a graveyard and talk to Al. Ah-h-h, I love my life.
Ivy caught up with me as I shrugged into my coat. Grabbing my boots, I took a step, jerking back when I almost ran into her. “I’m coming with you,” she said, eyes going dark.
