by Ким Харрисон
I'd been born with a fairly common genetic defect among witches, Rosewood syndrome, where my mitochondria kicked out an enzyme my body determined was an invader, the result being that I should have died before the age of two. Because my dad had secretly been working closely with Trent's dad trying to save his species at the time, Trent's dad had tinkered with the genetic makeup of my mitochondria, modifying something just enough that the enzyme would be ignored. I truly believe that he hadn't known the enzyme was what allowed my blood to kindle demon magic, and I thanked God the only people who knew it were me and my friends. And Trent. And a few demons. And whatever demons they told. And whomever Trent told. And Lee, of course, the only other witch Trent's dad had fixed.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't that good a secret anymore.
Trent and I were currently at an impasse, with me trying to put him in jail and him trying to buy my services or kill me—depending on his mood—and while I could bring the house down on him if I went public about his illegal biodrugs, I'd probably end up in medical confinement in Siberia—or, worse yet, surrounded by salt water like Alcatraz—and he'd be back on the streets and campaigning for reelection in less time than it takes a pixy to sneeze. That's just the kind of personal power the man had.
And it is really irritating, I thought, shifting my weight to my other foot as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
Immediately I got out and jabbed at the "down" button. No way was I going to go through the halls to the closet-size secondary elevator and up to the roof with Quen. I was impulsive, not stupid. Quen ghosted out as well, looking like a bodyguard as he stood in front of the elevator doors until they closed again.
My eyes went to the camera in the corner, its friendly red light blinking. I'd stay there until another car arrived. "Don't touch me," I muttered. "There isn't enough money in the world for me to work for Trent again. He's a manipulative, power-hungry, spoiled only-child who thinks he's above the law. And he kills people like a homeless man opens a can of beans."
Quen shrugged. "He's also loyal to those who have earned his trust, intelligent, and generous to those he cares about."
"And those he doesn't care about don't matter." Hip cocked, I silently waited, getting more annoyed. Where in hell is the elevator?
"I wish you'd reconsider," Quen said, and I jerked back when he pulled an amulet from his sleeve. After giving me a high-eyebrow look, he turned a slow circuit, attention lightly fixed on the redwood disk glowing a faint green. It was probably a detection amulet of some kind. I had one that would tell me if there were any deadly spells in my vicinity, but I'd quit wearing it when it kept triggering the anti-theft wards in the mall.
Apparently satisfied, Quen slid the amulet away. "I need you to go into the ever-after to retrieve an elven sample."
I laughed at that, and anger flickered over the older man. "Trent just got Ceri's sample," I said, pulling my shoulder bag tight to me. "I'd think that would keep him busy for a while. Besides, you couldn't pay me enough to go into the ever-after. Especially not for a chunk of two-thousand-year-old dead elf."
One of the elevators behind me dinged, and I backed up to it, ready to make my escape.
"We know where a tissue sample is. We just need to get it," Quen said, his gaze flicking behind me as the doors opened.
I backed into it, standing so he couldn't follow me. "How?" I said, feeling secure.
"Ceri," he said simply, fear flashing in the back of his eyes.
The doors started to close, and I hit the "open" button. "Ceri?" I questioned, wondering if this was why I hadn't seen much of her lately. She knew I hated Trent, but she was an elf and he was an elf—and seeing as she had been born into royalty and he was a zillionaire, it would be foolish to think that they hadn't had some contact the last few months, whether they liked each other or not.
Seeing my interest, Quen took a more confident stance. "She and Trent have been having tea every Thursday," he said softly, sneaking a guilty glance at the hallway. "You should thank her. He's absolutely obsessed with her even as her demon smut terrifies him. I think that's part of the attraction, actually. But he's starting to consider that demon smut might not equal a bad person. She saved my relationship with him. She is a very wise woman."
She ought to be, seeing as she had over a thousand years of servitude to a demon. The doors started closing again, and I hit the button for a few more seconds. "Everything went to hell when Trent found out you use black magic to protect him, eh?"
Quen didn't shift, even maintaining his sedate breathing, but his very stillness told me I was right.
"So?" I said belligerently.
"So he's starting to entertain the thought that you might be trustworthy, too. Will you at least consider it? We need the sample."
The reminder of my own demon-smut-laced soul bothered me, and I jabbed at the "close" button. No freaking way. "Get back to me later, Quen. Like a hundred years later."
"We don't have a hundred years," Quen said, desperation entering his voice. "We have eight months."
Oh, shit.
I pushed myself into motion, my shoulder bag catching on the doors as I shoved my way past them. Quen had moved back. His lips were tightly pressed, as if he wished he hadn't had to say that to get me to listen. "What do you mean, eight months? As in one less than nine?"
Quen said nothing. Didn't even look at me. And I didn't dare touch him.
"He got her pregnant?" I exclaimed, not caring who heard me. "The son of a bitch! The stinking son of a bitch!"
I was so angry, I was almost laughing. Quen's jaw had clenched so tight his pox scars stood out white and stark. "Will you do it?" he said stiffly.
"I want to talk to Trent," I said. No wonder Ceri was avoiding me. The woman was recovering from a thousand years of demon servitude, and Trent goes and gets her pregnant! "Where is he?"
"Shopping."
My eyes narrowed. "Where?"
"Across the street."
He was shopping. A hundred to one it wasn't for baby booties or a car seat. Remembering Marshal and our coffee date, I glanced out the cloudy window to estimate the time. It couldn't be much past one o'clock. Plenty of time. Unless this was a ruse and Trent was going to try to kill me—in which case I might run a little late.
I hit the "down" button hard, and the elevator doors opened immediately. Shopping? He was shopping? "After you," I said, and followed Quen into the lift.
Seven
The thin heat from the sidewalk vanished when I turned the corner and entered the shadow of tall buildings. "Where is he?" I said, holding my hair out of my face when I looked to Quen. He was beside and a little behind me, and it gave me the creeps.
The quiet, powerful man pointed with his eyes across the street, and when I followed his gaze, I felt a wash of apprehension. OTHER EARTHLINGS COSTUMER, INC. Holy crap, Trent was picking out a Halloween costume?
I pushed myself into motion and headed for the exclusive costumer. Well, why not? Trent had parties to go to like anyone else. Probably more of them. But Other Earthlings? You needed an appointment just to walk in, especially in October.
Hesitating at the curb, I felt Quen's presence slide up behind me. "Will you stop guarding me?" I muttered, and Quen made a little start.
"Sorry," he said, then hastened to catch up when I crossed in the middle of the street. I caught him glancing at the crosswalk and snickered. Yeah, me bad.
After a moment's hesitation at the brass BY APPOINTMENT ONLY sign, I reached for the door only to have someone from inside pull it open. The doorman looked seriously brain-dead when I entered, but before I could say anything, an older woman in a crisp peach skirt and jacket click-clacked to us, the sound of her heels muffled when they found the thick white carpet. "I'm sorry. We're closed to walk-ins," the woman said, her face a mix of cool professionalism and polite disdain at my jeans and sweater. "Would you like to make an appointment for next year?"
My pulse quickened and I cocked my hip at her obvious but
unspoken opinion that hell would freeze over before I'd ever have enough money to buy even a complexion charm from them. I took a breath to demand to see their hair straighteners, knowing their claim to be able to straighten any hair wouldn't be able to touch mine, when Quen settled in behind me, too close for my comfort.
"Oh! You're with Mr. Kalamack?" she said, only the faintest blush marring the aged whiteness of her complexion.
I glanced at Quen. "Not really. I'm Rachel Morgan, and I've got something to say to Mr. Kalamack. I understand he's here?"
The woman's mouth dropped open, and she came forward to take my hands. "You're Alice's daughter?" she said breathlessly. "Oh, I should have known. You look just like her, or you would if she wouldn't spell herself down. It is such a pleasure to meet you!"
Excuse me? She was pumping my arm up and down enthusiastically, and when I looked at Quen, he seemed as mystified as me.
"We don't have any openings today, sweetheart," she said, and I blinked at her familiarity. "But let me talk to Renfold. He'll stay late for you. Your mother's straightening charms have saved our reputation too many times."
"My mother's hair straighteners?" I managed, grabbing her wrist and extraditing my hand from hers. I was going to have to talk to my mother. This was so not-good. Just how long had she been making bootleg charms?
The woman, Sylvia, according to a name tag outlined in green pearls, smiled and winked at me as if we were grand friends. "You don't think you're the only person who has difficult-to-charm hair?" she said, then reached to touch my hair fondly as if it were a thing of beauty, not a constant bother. "I will never understand why no one is satisfied with what nature gives them. I think it's wonderful that you appreciate yours."
"Appreciate" wasn't the right word, but I didn't want to stand here and discuss hair. "Uh, I need to speak to Trent. He's still here, right?"
The woman's surprise that I was on a first-name basis with the eminently eligible bachelor flashed across her face. She glanced at Quen, who nodded, and with a soft "This way, please," she led us through the store.
I felt better now that we were moving, even if the staff was whispering as Sylvia led us along a wandering path through racks of scrumptious clothing. The store smelled wonderfully of expensive fabrics and exotic perfumes, plus the snap of ozone that said ley line charms were made and invoked here. Other Earthlings was an all-encompassing costumer, supplying the clothes, prosthetics as needed, and charms to make anyone into anyone else. They weren't online, and the only way you could get their products was to make an appointment. I couldn't help but wonder what Trent was going for, costumewise.
Quen was behind me again, and Sylvia led us past a small back counter and to a short hall with four doors. They were set back like the entries to high-class hotel rooms, and from behind the last, I could hear Trent's voice.
The soft murmur of it went right to my middle and twisted something. God, he had a beautiful voice: low, resonant, and rich with unexplored undertones—like shadowed moss in the sun-dappled woods. I was certain his voice contributed to how well he did in the city elections—if the generous donations to underprivileged children and hospitals weren't enough.
Clearly not hearing anything in Trent's voice but words, Sylvia knocked smartly on the door and entered without waiting for an invitation. I hung back and let Quen go in ahead of me. I didn't like being burst in upon by rude salespeople, and they did sell clothes here. And while seeing Trent in his tighty-whities would make my decade, I'd found out long ago that I couldn't stay mad at a man wearing nothing but underwear. They looked so charmingly vulnerable.
The rich smell of wool and leather struck deeper as I entered. The lights were low at the perimeter of the comfortably warm, low-ceilinged room, helping to hide the open cupboards filled with racks of costumes, hats, feathers, wings, and even tails—things that ley line charms couldn't easily create. To my right in the shadows was a low table holding wine and cheese, to my left a tall screen. Smack in the middle and under can lights was an ankle-high round stage cradled in the lee of a trifold mirror. Low racks of amulets surrounded it, the wood structures having the smoothness and color of hundred-year-old ash. And in the center of it all was Trent.
He wasn't aware I was in the room, clearly trying to fend off the overenthusiastic attentions of the witch helping him try on ley line amulets. Beside him was Jon, his freakishly tall lackey, and I bristled, remembering him tormenting me when I had been a mink trapped in Trent's office.
Trent frowned at his reflection and handed the clerk an amulet. His hair flashed back to its usual transparent whiteness that some children have, and the witch began babbling, deducing that he wasn't doing well. Trent was clean shaven and comfortably tan, with a smooth brow, green eyes, that gorgeous voice, and a cultivated laugh. A politician through and through. He wasn't much taller than me when I was in heels, wearing his thousand-dollar silk-and-linen suit with the VOTE FOR KALAMACK pin well. It accented his trim form, making me believe he actually got out and rode his race-winning horses more than once every new moon when he played The Huntsman in his fenced-in, old-growth planned forest.
He gave the witch a professional smile as he refused another amulet, his unworked hands gesturing smoothly. There were no rings on his fingers, and seeing as I broke up his wedding by arresting him, it was likely it would stay that way, unless he was going to make an honest woman of Ceri, which I doubted. Trent lived by appearances, and him publicly joining with a demon's ex-familiar covered in smut any witch could see with their second sight probably didn't fit into his political agenda. He hadn't seemed to have a problem knocking her up, though.
Trent ran his fingers over his carefully styled hair to flatten a few floating strands as Sylvia approached. Shifting my shoulder bag forward, I said loudly, "That suit would look better with a burping pad."
Trent stiffened. His eyes flicking to the mirror, he searched the shadows for me. At his side, Jon pulled himself upright, the distasteful man holding a thin hand to his eyes to see through the glare. The witch at his feet fell back, and Sylvia murmured an apology, flustered, as her most valuable client and the daughter of one of her suppliers glared at each other.
"Quen," Trent finally said, his voice now hard but no less beautiful. "I don't doubt you have an explanation for this."
Quen took a slow breath before he started forward. "You weren't listening, Sa'han. I had to try another method to bring you to see reason."
Trent waved the clerk away, and Jon strode across the room to flick on the main lights. I squinted as light blossomed, then smiled cattily at Trent. He had regained his composure remarkably fast, with only the slight tightening of the skin around his eyes giving away his annoyance. "I was listening," he said, turning. "I choose to think other than you."
Stepping from the stage, the multimillionaire shook his sleeves down. It was a nervous reaction he had yet to break himself of. Or maybe his jacket was too tight. "Ms. Morgan," he said lightly, not meeting my gaze. "Your services are not required. You have my apologies for my security officer wasting your time. Tell me what I owe you, and Jon will draft you a check."
That was kind of insulting, and I couldn't help my snort. "I don't charge if I don't do the run," I said. "Unlike some people." I held my arms over my chest as a flicker of annoyance crossed Trent's face and vanished. "And I didn't come here to work for you," I added. "I came because I wanted to tell you to your face that you're a lowlife, manipulative bastard. I told you if you hurt Ceri that I'd be ticked. Consider yourself warned." Angry was good. The pain from losing Kisten disappeared when I was angry, and right now, I was pissed.
The witch who had been helping him gasped, and Sylvia started for me, rocking to a halt when Trent lifted his hand to stop her. God, I hated that—as if he had given me permission to call him names. Ticked, I tilted my head, waiting for his response.
"Is that a threat?" Trent asked softly.
My gaze went to Jon, who was grinning as if my saying yes would please him i
mmensely. Quen's expression had gone dark. He was mad, but what had he really expected me to do? Still, I did want to get out of here on my own power and not at the end of an I.S. leash, arrested for harassment…or whatever Trent wanted. He might own the I.S. now that Piscary was gone.
"Take it any way you want," I said. "You are scum. Absolute scum, and the world would be better without you." I wasn't sure I truly believed that, but it felt good saying it.
Trent thought for all of three seconds. "Sylvia, if we might have the room?"
I stood, smug, as the room emptied with soft murmurs of apologies given and reassurances offered.
"Jon," he added as Sylvia headed out, "see that we are not disturbed."
Sylvia hesitated by the open door, then vanished into the hallway to leave the door open. The older man's craggy face went pale. He was being gotten rid of, and he knew it.
"Sa'han," he started, cutting it short when Trent's eyes narrowed. What a sissy-pants.
Jon's thin, long hands clenched as he shot me a look and left. The door shut softly behind him, and I turned to Trent, ready to blast him. I wasn't about to air Ceri's dirty laundry where it might get into the tabloids, but now, I could really say what I thought.
"I can't believe you knocked Ceri up. God, Trent! You are unbelievable!" I said, gesturing. "She is just starting to rebuild herself. She doesn't need this emotional crap!"
Trent glanced at Quen. The security officer had taken a wide-footed stance before the closed door, his arms loose at his sides and his face lacking emotion. Seeing his nonchalance, Trent stepped back onto the stage and began sifting through the charms. "None of this is your business, Morgan."
"It became my business when you romanced information from my friend, knocked her up, then asked me to do something you're afraid to," I said, taking offense at his cavalier attitude.
