A Fistful of Charms th-4

by Ким Харрисон

  "I've got a bad feeling about this," I said.

  "What?" Nick said softly. "That she's walking into a trap?"

  I turned to him. "No. That she's not going to leave until it's over."

  Worry filled his eyes; he was going to say something I didn't want to hear. "Rachel—"

  "By the Turn, I'm hungry. I hope she hurries up," I babbled.

  "Rachel, please. Just listen?"

  I closed the console and eased into the seat. This conversation would happen whether I wanted it to or not. Breath slipping from me, I looked at him, to find his haggard face determined.

  "I didn't know you were alive," he said, panic in his eyes. "Al said he had you."

  "He did."

  "And you never answered your phone. I called. God knows I did."

  "It's at the bottom of the Ohio River," I said flatly, thinking he was a wimp for not calling the church. Then I wondered if he had and Ivy simply hung up on him.

  "The paper said you died in a boat explosion saving Kalamack's life."

  "I almost did," I said, remembering waking up in Trent's limo, having passed out after I pulled the man's freaking elf-ass out of the freezing water.

  Nick stretched a swollen hand across the consol between us, and I jerked out of his reach. Making a frustrated sound, he put an elbow on his closed window and looked at the nearby semi. "Damn it, Ray-ray, I thought you were dead. I couldn't stay in Cincinnati. And now that I find you're alive, you won't even let me touch you. Do you have any idea how I mourned?"

  I swallowed, the memory of the budded red rose in the jelly jar vase with the pentagram of protection on it lifting through me. My throat tightened. Why did it have to be so confusing?

  "I missed you," he said, brown eyes thick with pain. "This isn't what I had planned."

  "Me neither," I said, miserable. "But you left me long before you left Cincinnati. It took me a long time to get over you lying to me about where you had been, and I'm not going back to the way things were. I don't care that it wasn't about another woman. Maybe that I could understand, but it was money. You're a thief, and you let me believe you were something else."

  Nick slumped into a defeated stillness. "I've changed."

  I didn't want to hear this. They never changed, they simply hid it better. "I'm seeing someone," I said, my voice low so it wouldn't shake. "He's there when I need him, and I'm there for him. He makes me feel good. I don't want to return to how things were, so don't ask me to. You were gone, and he—" I wiped a hand under my eye, embarrassed that they were wet. "He was there," I said. He helped me forget you, you bastard.

  "You love him?"

  "Whether I love him or not isn't relevant," I said, hands in my lap.

  "He's a vampire?" Nick asked, not moving one inch, and I nodded.

  "You can't trust that," he protested, long hands gesturing weakly. "He's just trying to bind you to him. You know that. God, you can't be that naive! Didn't you just see what happened with your scar? With Ivy?"

  I stared at him, my feelings of betrayal rising anew, both angry and frightened. "You told me once that if I wanted to be Ivy's scion, that you would drive me back to the church and walk away. That you loved me enough to leave if it meant I would be happy." My heart was pounding and I forced my clenched hands apart. "Well, what's the difference, Nick?"

  He bowed his head. When he looked up, his face was tight with emotion. "I hadn't lost you then. I didn't know what you meant to me. I do now. Ray-ray, please. It's not you making decisions anymore, but vampire pheromones. You've got to get out before you make a mistake you can't walk away from!"

  A movement in the mirror caught my eye. Ivy. Thank God. I reached for the door handle. "Don't talk to me about making mistakes," I said, grabbing my bag and getting out.

  I slammed the door, glad to see Ivy for the distraction if nothing else. The van was now gray at the bottom, shading to white at the top and plastered with professional-looking decals. The cloying scent of fixative was a fading hint. Ivy was watching the nearby road as she approached, her subtle finger motions telling me to stay between the shelter of the dirty trucks.

  Rocking to a halt, I crossed my arms and waited by the back bumper, lips pressed while Nick shut his door and shuffled forward. "All clear inside?" I said brightly when Ivy joined us. "Good. I'm starved."

  "Just a minute, I want my stuff." Slipping past me, she yanked the driver's side door open and retrieved a rolled-down paper bag from under the front seat. She shut the door hard before pushing past Nick and pulling me into her wake. A pause at the head of the shelter the two semis made, and we started for the restaurant, my flip-flops noisy next to her vamp-soft steps. Behind us, I could hear Nick. By all rights, as the most vulnerable member of the group, he should have been between us, but I didn't feel like protecting him, and the danger was minimal.

  "Your hair is longer," Ivy said as we crossed the paved lot to the low wood-slatted building snuggled in among the pines. Squirrel's End? How…redneck.

  "You aren't kidding," I said, wincing at the memory of my legs. "You didn't happen to bring a razor with you, did you?"

  Her eyes widened. "A razor?"

  "Never mind." Like I was going to tell her I looked like an orangutan?

  "Are you okay?" she asked again, her voice heavy with concern.

  I didn't look at her. I didn't need to. She could read my emotions on the wind easier than I could read a billboard at sixty miles an hour. "Yeah," I said, knowing she wasn't asking about the run, but about Nick.

  "What did he do?" she said, her arms moving stiffly. "Did he make a pass at you?"

  I glanced askance at her, then back to the nearing door. "Not yet."

  She snorted, sounding angry. "He will. And then I'll kill him."

  Annoyance sifted through me, the jolts from my steps going all the way up my spine. "I can take care of myself," I said, not caring that Nick was listening.

  "I can take care of myself too," she said. "But if I'm making an ass out of myself, I'd hope you'd stop me."

  "I am handling this," I said, forcing my voice to be pleasant. "How about you?" I asked, turning the tables. "I didn't think you could leave Cincinnati."

  Her expression went guarded. "It's only for a day. Piscary will get over it." I was silent, and she added, "What, like the city will fall apart because I'm not there? Get real, Rachel."

  My head nodded, but I was still worried. I needed her help planning how to get out of my latest fix, but she could do it by e-mail or phone if she had to.

  "We should be safe enough here for a while," she said, her eyes canvassing the building as we slowed at the door and Nick came even with us. "It's all humans."

  "Good," I replied faintly, feeling out of place and vulnerable. Paper sack crinkling, Ivy opened the door for me with her free hand, leaving Nick to handle the swinging, blurred-glass door by himself. I had shifted back to witch with absolutely nothing in my stomach at all, and starved, I breathed deeply of the smell of grilled meat. It was nice in there: not too bright, not too dim, no smoky smell to ruin it. There were animal parts on the walls and few people, seeing as it was Tuesday afternoon. Maybe a tad too cold, but not bad.

  The menu was on the wall, and it looked like basic bar food. There were no windows but for the door, and everyone seemed willing to mind their own business after their first long look. The short bar had three fat men and one skinny one, each sitting on green vinyl stools torn to show the white padding. They were shoving food in their mouths as they watched a recap of last week's game, talking to a matronly woman with big hair behind the bar.

  It was only three in the afternoon—according to the clock above the dance floor whose hands were fishing poles and numbers were fly lures. A dark jukebox filled a distant corner, and a long light with colored glass hung over a red-felted pool table.

  The bar had Northern Redneck all over it, which made me all warm and fuzzy. I didn't like being the only Inderlanders in the place, but it was unlikely anyone would turn ugly.
Someone might get stupid after midnight with seven shots of Jäger and a room of humans to back him, but not at three in the afternoon and only five people in the place counting the cook.

  Jenks and Jax were at a table in the rear, a bank of empty booths between them and the wall. The large pixy waved for us to join them, and I felt a moment of worry that he had his shirt open to show his scent amulet. I was guessing he was proud he was big enough to have one and wanted to show it off, but I didn't like flaunting my Inderland status. They had an MPL—a Mixed Public License—posted, but it was obvious that this was a local human hangout.

  "I'm going to the restroom," Nick muttered.

  He made a beeline for the archway beside the bar, and I watched him, the idea flitting through me that he might not come back. I looked at Jenks, and after I nodded, the big pixy sent Jax to follow him. Yeah, I was stupid when it came to matters of the heart, but I wasn't stupid.

  Ivy's presence hung a shade too close for comfort as we wove through the empty tables, past the pool table and the gray-tiled dance floor. Jenks had his coat off and his back to the wall, and Ivy took the chair beside his before I could. Peeved, I put my fingers on the worn wood of the chair across from her, twisting it sideways so I could see the door. The guys at the bar were watching us, and one moved down a stool to talk to his neighbor.

  Seeing that, Ivy frowned. "Stand up, pixy," she said, her low voice carrying an obvious threat. "I don't want Rachel sitting next to crap for brains."

  In a heartbeat Jenks's amusement turned to defiance. "No," he said, crossing his arms. "I don't want to, and you can't make me. I'm bigger than you."

  Ivy's pupils swelled. "I would have thought you'd be the last person equating greater size with greater threat."

  His foot under the table jiggled, squeaking. "Right." With an abrupt motion he pushed his chair out, snatching up his coat and edging from behind the table to take the seat next to mine. "I don't like sitting with my back to the door either," he grumbled.

  Ivy remained silent, the brown returning to her eyes quickly. I knew she was carrying herself carefully, very aware that the clientele wasn't used to vampires and voluntarily putting herself on her best behavior. That Jenks had moved to suit her hadn't gone unnoticed, and I fixed a cheerful smile to my face when the woman approached, setting down four glasses of water with moisture beading up on them. No one said anything, and she fell away a full four feet, pulling a pad of paper from her waistband. What she wanted was obvious. Why she hadn't said anything in greeting was obvious too; we had her on edge.

  Ivy smiled, then toned it down when Becky, by her name tag, paled. Putting the flat of my arms on the table, I leaned forward to look brainless. "Hi," I said. "What's the special?"

  The woman darted a glance at Ivy, then back to me. "Ah, no special—ma'am," she said, reaching nervously to touch her white hair, which had been dyed blond. "But Mike in the back makes a damn, uh, he makes a good hamburger. And we've got pie today."

  Nick silently joined us, with Jax on his shoulder, looking uncomfortable as he took the last seat next to Ivy and across from Jenks. The woman relaxed a notch, apparently realizing he was human and deciding the rest of us were probably half tamed. I didn't know how they did it since they couldn't smell Inderlander on us, as we could on ourselves. Must be some secret human finger motion or something.

  "Hamburger sounds good," Ivy said, her eyes down to look meek, but with her stiff posture it only made her look pissed.

  "Four hamburgers all around," I said, wanting to be done with it and eating. "And a pitcher of Coke."

  Nick scooted his chair closer to the table, Jax leaving him for the warmer light hanging over the table. "I'd like two hamburgers, please," the gaunt man said, a hint of defiance in his voice, as if he expected someone to protest.

  "Me too," Jenks chimed up, bright eyes wickedly innocent. "I'm starved."

  Nick leaned to see the menu on the wall. "Does that come with fries?"

  "Fries!" Jenks exclaimed, and Jax sneezed from the lamp hanging over the table. Pixy dust sifted down along with the mundane type. "Tink-knocks-your-knickers, I want fries too."

  The woman wrote it down, her plucked and penciled-in eyebrows rising. "Two half-pound burgers with fries for each of the gentleman. Anything else?"

  Nick nodded. "A milk shake. Cherry if you have it."

  She blew out her breath, taking in his gaunt frame. "How about you, hon?"

  Becky was looking at Jenks, but he was eyeing the jukebox. "Coke is fine. Does that thing work?"

  The woman turned, following his gaze to the machine. "It's busted, but for five bucks you can use the karaoke machine all you want."

  Jenks's eyes widened. "Most excellent," he said in a surfer-boy accent. From above us came Jax's exuberant shout that all the bugs in the lamp shade had been dried out by the heat and he was going to eat their wings like chips if she didn't mind.

  Oh God. And it had been going so well.

  Ivy cleared her throat, clearly appalled when Jax flitted from lamp to lamp, growing more excited by the amount of pixy dust he was letting slip. "Ah, I think that will do it," I said, and the woman turned away, bumping into a table as she watched Jax on her way to the kitchen. The hair on the back of my neck had pricked; everyone in the bar was looking at us. Even the cook.

  Jenks followed my gaze, his blond eyebrows high. "Let me take care of this," he said, standing up. "Rache, do you have any money? I spent mine at The Butterfly Shack."

  Ivy's eyes darkened. "I can handle this."

  A small noise came from Jenks. "Like at the FIB?" he scoffed. "Sit down, weenie vamp. I'm too big to get shoved into a water cooler."

  Feeling the tension rise, I shuffled in my bag and handed Jenks my wallet. I didn't know what he had in mind, but it was probably a lot less scary than what Ivy had planned, and it wouldn't land us in the local jail either. "Leave some in there, okay?"

  He gave me a lopsided, charming smile, his perfect teeth catching the light. "Hey, it's me." Making a click to tell Jax to join him, he ambled to the bar, his pace more provocative than it ought to have been. The man couldn't have any idea how good he looked.

  "No honey toddies!" I shot after him, and he raised a backward hand. Ivy wasn't happy when I met her gaze. "What?" I protested. "You've seen him on honey."

  Nick snickered and set his glass of water down. Jax flew a glittering path to the karaoke machine ahead of his dad, Jenks's pace intent as he followed. Becky had her eyes glued to the small pixy as she talked on the phone, and I had a feeling he was intentionally dusting heavy. I wondered how this would get everyone's eyes off us. A distraction, maybe?

  The father and son clustered at the screen, a reading lesson ensuing while they looked at the song menu. Ivy glanced at them, then Nick. "Go help them," she muttered.

  Nick pulled his gaunt face up to hers. "Why?"

  Ivy's jaw clenched. "Because I want to talk to Rachel."

  Frowning, Nick rose, his chair scraping on the wooden floor. Our drinks arrived, and the woman set his cherry shake, three glasses of Coke, and a condensation-wet pitcher on the table. Milk shake in hand, Nick shuffled to Jenks and Jax, looking tired in his gray sweats.

  I sipped my Coke, feeling the bubbles burn all the way down. My stomach was empty and the smell of the cooking meat was giving me a headache. Setting the glass aside so I didn't slam it, I slumped, relying on Ivy to keep an eye on my back. I watched her relax muscle by muscle until she was calm.

  "I'm glad you're here," I said. "I really made a crap pit of everything. He was in the middle of a survivalist group, for God's sake. I never expected that." I should have done more recon, I thought, but I didn't need to say it. It was obvious.

  Ivy shrugged, glancing at Nick, Jenks, and Jax. "You got him out. I wasn't planning on staying," she added, "but since I'm here, I'll stick around."

  I blew my breath out, relieved. "Thanks. But is that…prudent?" I hesitated, then ventured, "Piscary's going to be royally ticked if you aren't
there by sundown."

  Her gaze tracked Jax flitting madly from Nick to Jenks. "So what?" she said, fingers fidgeting with her new earrings. "He knows I'll be back. It's only a six-hour drive."

  "Yes, but you're out of his influence, and he doesn't—" My words cut off when she rolled her fingertips across the table in a soft threat. "He doesn't like that," I boldly finished, pulse quickening. Here, surrounded by humans, was probably the only place I'd dare push her like this. She was on her best behavior, and I was going to use it for all it was worth.

  Ivy bowed her head, the black sheet of her shorter hair not hiding her face. The dusky scent of incense became obvious, and a soft tickle shivered through me. "It will be okay," she said, but I wasn't convinced. She lifted her head, and a faint blush of worry, or perhaps fear, colored her. "Kisten is there," she said. "If I leave, no one cares but the higher-ups—who aren't going to do anything anyway. Kisten is the one who can't leave. If he does, it will be noticed, talked about, and acted upon by idiots who haven't had their fangs for a month. We're fine."

  This really wasn't what I had been worried about. Part of me wanted to take her explanation at face value and drop it, but the other part, the wiser, stupider half of me, wanted her to be honest so there would be no surprises. I turned when the front door opened and a woman came in, talking loudly to Becky as she shrugged out of her coat and headed for the back.

  "Ivy," I said softly, "what about your hunger? You don't have your usual…" I stopped, not sure what to call the people she tapped for blood. Donors? Special friends? Significant others? I settled on, "Support net?"

  Ivy froze, sending a jolt of adrenaline through me. Crap. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut. "Sorry," I said, meaning it. "It's not my business."

  "Your timing sucks," she said, and the tension eased. I hadn't overstepped the friendship boundaries.

  "Well…" I said, wincing. "I don't know what you do."

  "I can't go out and knock up a streetwalker," she said bitterly. Her eyes were hard, and I could tell she wasn't responding to me but to a deeper guilt. "If I let it be a savage act that I can satisfy with anyone, I'll be a monster. What kind of a person do you think I am?"