by Ким Харрисон
I turned off the tap. "Thanks for the warning," I said bitterly.
"Mine didn't hurt," he said. He looked worried and confused, and oh so bewildered. Grabbing a dish towel and the scissors, I went to my spot at the table. Wedging the blade through the gauze, I sawed at the soggy wrap. I flicked a glance up at him. Tall and awkward, he stood by the sink, guilt seeming to pour from his hunched posture. I slumped.
"I'm sorry for being such a crab, Nick," I said as I gave up on cutting it off and started to unwind it instead. "I would have died if it hadn't been for you. I was lucky you were there to stop it. I owe you my life, and I'm really thankful for what you did." I hesitated. "That thing scared the hell out of me. All I wanted was to forget about it, and now I can't. I don't know how to react, and yelling at you is very convenient."
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth, and he turned a chair so he could sit before me. "Let me get that for you," he said, reaching for my hand.
I hesitated, then let him pull my wrist onto his lap. He bowed his head over my wrist, and his knees almost touched mine. I really owed him more than a simple thanks. "Nick? I mean it. Thank you. That's twice you saved my life. This demon thing will be all right. I'm sorry you got a demon mark helping me."
Nick looked up, his brown eyes searching mine. I was suddenly very conscious of how close he was. My memory went back to feeling his arms around me, carrying me into the church. I wondered if he had held me all the way through the ever-after.
"I'm glad I was there to help," he said softly. "It was kind of my fault."
"No, it would have found me no matter where I was," I said. Finally the last wrap was gone. Swallowing hard, I stared at my wrist. My stomach twisted. It was entirely healed. Even the green stitches were gone. The raised white scar looked old. Mine was in the shape of a full circle with that same line running through it.
"Oh," Nick murmured, leaning back. "The demon must like you. It didn't heal me, just stopped the bleeding."
"Swell." I rubbed the mark on my wrist. It was better than a bandage—I guess. It wasn't as if anyone would know what the scar was from; no one had been dealing with demons since the Turn. "So now I just wait until it wants something?"
"Yeah." Nick's chair scraped as he stood up and went to the stove.
I propped my elbows up on the table and felt the air slip in and out of my lungs. Nick stood at the stove with his back to me and stirred a stewpot. An uncomfortable silence grew.
"Do you like student food?" Nick said suddenly.
I straightened. "Beg pardon?"
"Student food." His eyes went to the tomato on the sill. "Whatever's in the refrigerator over pasta."
Understandably concerned, I pushed myself upright and tottered over to see what was on the stove. Macaroni spun and rolled in the pot. A wooden spoon sat next to it, and my eyebrows rose. "Have you been using that spoon?"
Nick nodded. "Yeah. Why?"
I reached for the salt and dumped the entire canister into it.
"Whoa!" Nick cried. "I already salted the water. You don't need that much."
Ignoring him, I tossed the wooden spoon into my dissolution vat and pulled out a metal one. "Until I get my ceramic spoons back, it's metal for cooking and wooden for spells. Rinse the macaroni well. It ought to be okay."
Nick's eyebrows rose. "I would think you would use metal spoons for spells and wooden for cooking since spells don't stick to metal."
I made my slow way to the fridge, feeling my heart pound from even this little exertion. "And why do you suppose spells don't stick to metal? Unless it's copper, metal screws everything up. I'll do the spell crafting if you don't mind; you do dinner."
Much to my surprise, Nick didn't get all huffy and testosterone laden but only gave me that lopsided smile of his.
A jolt of pain broke through the amulets as I tugged the fridge open. "I can't believe how hungry I am," I said as I looked for something that wasn't wrapped in paper or plastic foam. "I think Ivy may have slipped me something."
There was a whoosh of water as Nick dumped the macaroni to drain. "Little cake thing?"
I pulled my head out and blinked at him. Had Ivy given him one, too? "Yes."
"I saw it." His eyes were fixed on the tomato, steam billowing around him as he rinsed the macaroni. "When I was doing my master's thesis, I had access to the rare-book vault." His brow pinched. "It's right next to the ancient-book locker. Anyway, the architectural designs of preindustrial cathedrals are boring, and one night I found a diary of a seventeenth-century British priest. He had been tried and convicted of murdering three of his prettiest parishioners."
Nick dumped the pasta back in the bowl and opened a jar of alfredo. "He made reference to such a thing. Said it made the vampire's orgies of blood and lust possible on a nightly basis. From a scientific point of view, you should consider yourself lucky. I imagine it's only rarely offered to someone not under their sway and compelled to keep their mouth shut about it."
I frowned in unease. What the devil had Ivy given me?
His eyes still on the tomato, Nick dumped the sauce over the pasta. A rich smell filled the kitchen, and my stomach growled. He stirred it in, and I watched Nick watch the tomato. He was starting to look rather sick. Exasperated with humanity's groundless revulsion of tomatoes, I closed the fridge and hobbled to the window. "How did this get in here?" I muttered, pushing it through the pixy hole and into the night. It hit with a soft thud.
"Thanks," he said, taking a relieved breath.
I returned to my chair with a heavy sigh. One would think Ivy and I had a decaying sheep's head on our counter. But it was nice to know he had at least one human hang-up.
Nick puttered about, adding mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce, and pepperoni to the concoction. I smiled as I realized it was the last of my pizza fixings. It smelled wonderful, and as he plucked the ladle from the island rack, I asked, "Enough for two?"
"It's enough for a dorm room." Nick slid a bowl before me and sat down, curling his arm protectively about his bowl. "Student food," he said around a full mouth. "Try it."
I glanced at the clock above the sink as I dipped my spoon. Ivy and Jenks were probably at the FIB right now, trying to convince the front guy they weren't loons, and here I was, eating macaroni alfredo with a human. It didn't look right. The food, I mean. It would have been better in a tomato sauce. Dubious, I took a taste. "Hey," I said, pleased. "This is good."
"Told you."
For a few moments there was only the scraping of spoons and the sound of the crickets in the garden. Nick's pace slowed, and he glanced at the clock over the sink. "Hey, uh, I've got a big favor to ask," he said hesitantly.
I swallowed as I looked up, knowing what was coming. "You can crash here for the night if you want," I said. "Though there are no guarantees you'll wake up with all your fluids intact or even at all. The I.S. is still spelling for me. Right now it's just those tenacious fairies, but as soon as the word gets out that I'm still alive, we might be up to our armpits in assassins. You'd be safer on a park bench," I finished wryly.
His smile was relieved. "Thanks, but I'll risk it. I'll get out of your hair tomorrow. See if my landlord has anything left that's mine. Go visit my mom." His long face puckered, looking as worried as when he thought I was bleeding to death. "I'll tell her I lost everything in a fire. This is going to be a rough one."
I felt a stab of sympathy. I knew what it was like to find yourself on the street with only a box left of your life. "Sure you don't want to stay with her tonight?" I asked. "It'd be safer."
He went back to eating. "I can take care of myself."
I bet you can, I thought, my mind going back to that demon book he took from the library. It wasn't in my bag anymore, a tiny smear of blood the only thing to say it had ever been there. I wanted to come right out and ask if he worked black magic. But he might say yes, and then I'd have to decide what I was going to do about it. I didn't want to do that right yet. I liked Nick's easy confidence, and the no
velty of seeing that in a human was decidedly… intriguing.
A part of me knew and despised that the attraction probably stemmed from my "hero rescuing the damsel in distress syndrome," but I needed something safe and secure in my life right now, and a magic-working human who could keep demons from tearing my throat out fit the bill nicely. Especially when he looked as harmless as he did.
"Besides," Nick said, ruining it, "Jenks will pix me if I leave before he gets back."
My breath slipped from me in bother. He was a babysitter. How nice.
The sound of the phone ringing echoed through the walls. I looked up at Nick and didn't move. I was sore, darn it.
He gave me that half smile of his and stood. "I'll get it." I took another bite as I watched his vanishing backside, thinking I might offer to go shopping with him when he bought himself some new clothes. Those jeans he had on were way too loose.
"Hello," Nick said, his voice dropping and taking on a surprisingly professional tone. "You've reached Morgan, Tamwood, and Jenks. Vampiric Charms Runner Service."
Vampiric Charms Runner Service? I thought. A little of Ivy, a little of me. It was as good as anything else, I suppose. I blew on a spoonful, thinking his cooking wasn't bad, either.
"Jenks?" Nick said, and I hesitated, looking up as Nick appeared in the hallway with the phone. "She's eating. You're at the airport already?"
There was a long pause, and I sighed. The FIB was more open-minded and eager for Trent than I had anticipated.
"The FIB?" Nick's tone had shifted to concern, and I stiffened as he added, "She did what? Is anyone dead?"
My eyes closed in a long blink and I set my spoon aside. Nick's concoction went sour in my stomach, and I swallowed hard.
"Um, sure," Nick said, the skin around his expressive eyes crinkling as he met my gaze. "Give us a half hour." The beep of the phone as he turned it off was loud. He turned to me and blew out his breath. "We have a problem."
Twenty-nine
I fell against the side of the cab as it made a tight turn. Pain broke past my amulets, and I clutched one-handed at my bag in misery. The driver was human, and he had made it painfully clear he didn't like driving out to the Hollows after dark. His constant muttering hadn't abated until he crossed the Ohio River and was back where "decent people kept themselves." In his eyes, my and Nick's only saving grace was that he had picked us up at a church and that we were going to the FIB, "A fine and decent establishment upholding the right side of the law."
"Okay," I said as Nick helped ease me upright. "So those fine and decent people at the FIB were harassing Ivy, playing good-cop/bad-cop. Someone touched her and—"
"She exploded," Nick finished. "It took eight officers to bring her down. Jenks says three are in the hospital for observation. Four more were treated and released."
"Idiots," I muttered. "What about Jenks?"
Nick put an arm out, bracing himself as we lurched to a stop before a tall stone and glass building. "They'll release him to a responsible person." His grin looked a tad nervous. "And in the absence of one, they said you would do."
"Ha ha," I said dryly. Peering up through the dirty glass of the cab, I read federal inderlander bureau engraved deeply over the two sets of doors. Nick sidled out to the sidewalk first and extended a hand to help me. I slowly worked my way out and tried to find my bearings as he paid the cabbie with the money I slipped him. It was bright under the streetlights, and the streets themselves had remarkably light traffic for that hour. Clearly we were deep into the human district of Cincinnati. Looking up to find the top of the imposing building, I felt very much the minority and on edge.
I scanned the black windows around me for any sign of attack. Jax had said the fairy assassins left right after my phone call. To get reinforcements, or to set up an ambush here? I didn't like the idea that fairy catapults might be winching back as I waited. Even a fairy wouldn't be so bold as to tag me inside the FIB building, but on the sidewalk I was fair game.
Then again, they could have been taken off the run, seeing as the I.S. was sending demons now. I felt a flash of satisfaction, knowing the demon had ripped apart its summoner. They wouldn't send another any time soon. Black magic always swings back to get you. Always.
"You really ought to take better care of your sister," the driver said as he took the money, and Nick and I looked blankly at each other. "But I guess you Inderlanders don't care about each other as much as us decent folks. I'd pulp anyone who dared touch my sister with the back of his hand," he added before driving off.
I stared at his taillights in confusion until Nick said, "He thinks someone beat you and I'm bringing you in to file a complaint."
I was too nervous to laugh—besides, it would have made me pass out—but I managed a choking snicker, taking his arm before I fell over. Brow pinched, Nick gallantly pulled the glass door open and held it for me. A flash of angst went through me as I stepped over the threshold. I had put myself in the questionable position of having to trust a human-run establishment. It was shaky ground. I didn't like it.
But the sound of loud conversations and the smell of burnt coffee were familiar and soothing. Institution was written everywhere, from the gray tiled floor, to the chatter of loud conversation, to the orange chairs the anxious parents and unrepentant thugs sat in. It felt like coming home, and my shoulders eased.
"Um, over there," Nick said, pointing to the front counter. My arm was throbbing in its sling and my shoulder hurt. Either my sweat was diluting my amulets or my exertions were starting to cancel them out. Nick walked almost behind me, and it was bothersome.
The desk clerk looked up as we approached, her eyes widening. "Oh, sweetheart!" she exclaimed softly. "What happened to you?"
"I, uh…" I winced as I put my elbows on the counter to steady myself. My complexion charm wasn't enough to blur my black eye or stitches. Just what was I supposed to tell her? That demons were loose in Cincinnati again? I glanced behind me, but Nick was no help, turned away to the doors. "Um," I stammered. "I'm here to pick someone up."
She reached to scratch her neck. "Not the one who did that to you."
I couldn't help my smile at her concern. I was a sucker for pity. "No."
The woman tucked a strand of graying hair behind her ear. "I hate to tell you this, but you need to go to the Hillman Street office. And you'll have to wait until tomorrow. They won't release anyone after normal business hours."
I sighed. I hated the maze of bureaucracy with a passion, but I've found the best way to deal with it is to smile and act stupid. That way, no one gets confused. "But I talked to someone less than twenty minutes ago," I objected. "I was told to come here."
Her mouth made a round O of understanding. A wary expression settled around her eyes. "Ah," she said, looking at me sideways. "You're here for the—" She hesitated. "—pixy." She rubbed the beginnings of a small blister behind her neck. She'd been pixed.
Nick cleared his throat. "His name is Jenks," he said tightly, his head lowered. Clearly he had heard the hesitation, thinking she had almost said "bug."
"Yes," she said slowly, leaning to scratch her ankle. "Mr. Jenks. If you would take a seat over there," she pointed, "someone will be with you as soon as Captain Edden is available."
"Captain Edden." I took Nick's arm. "Thank you." Feeling old and creaky, I angled to the orange monstrosities lined up against the lobby's walls. The woman's attitude shift wasn't unexpected. In a breath I had gone from honey to whore.
Though having lived openly with humans for forty years, tensions ran high at times. They were afraid, and probably for good reason. It's not easy waking up to find your neighbors are vampires and your fourth-grade teacher really was a witch.
Nick's eyes rove over the lobby as he helped me sit. The chairs were as unpleasant as I had expected: hard and uncomfortable. Nick sat beside me, perched on the edge with his long legs bent at the knees. "How are you doing?" he asked as I groaned while trying to find a halfway comfortable position.
"Fine," I said shortly. "Just dandy." I winced, tracking two uniformed men passing through the lobby. One was on crutches. The other's black eye was just starting to purple up, and he was scratching vigorously at his shoulders. Thanks a heap, Jenks and Ivy. My unease filtered back. How was I supposed to convince the captain of the FIB to help me now?
"You want something to eat?" Nick said, yanking my attention back. "I, uh, could go across the street for some Graeter's. You like butter-pecan ice cream?"
"No." It came out more brusque than I had intended, and I smiled to soften my words. "No, thank you," I amended, my worry settling in my belly to stay.
"How about something from the candy machine, then? Salt and carbohydrates?" he prompted hopefully. "The food of champions."
I shook my head and set my bag between my feet. Trying to keep my breathing shallow, I stared at the scuffed tile floor. If I ate one more thing, I thought I was gonna ralph. I had eaten another bowl of Nick's macaroni before the cab picked us up, but that wasn't the problem.
"Amulets wearing off?" Nick guessed, and I nodded.
A pair of scuffed brown shoes came to a slow halt within my range. Nick slid to the back of his chair with his arms crossed, and I slowly pulled my head up.
It was a stocky man in a white dress shirt and khakis, trim and carrying the polish of an ex-marine gone civilian. He wore plastic-framed glasses, the lenses looking too small against his round face. There was the smell of soap about him, and his close-cropped hair was damp and stuck up like a baby orangutan's. My guess was he had been pixed and knew enough to wash before the blisters could start. His bandaged right wrist was in a sling identical to mine. Short black hair, short gray mustache. I hoped he had a long temper. "Ms. Morgan?" he said, and I straightened with a sigh. "I'm Captain Edden."
Great, I thought, struggling to stand up. Nick helped. I found I could look Edden right in the eye, making him rather short for all his official presence. I would almost say he had some troll blood in him if such a thing were biologically possible. My eyes lingered on the weapon holstered on his hip, and I spared a wish for my I.S.-issue cuffs. Eyes scrunched from my too strong perfume, he stuck out his left hand instead of the usual right, seeing as we were both unable to use them.
