The Outlaw Demon Wails th-6

by Ким Харрисон

  David had stopped by earlier to wish me well and loan me his long leather duster. He had left when Quen showed up, looking ill but determined to try to change Trent's mind. I think the Were was rightly concerned that the perceptive elf would see the focus within him.

  At any rate, after a hushed argument, Quen agreed to Trent's plan, then spent the next half hour trying to convince Trent to return with him to his compound and prepare. I figured Quen was trying to get him home where he could lock him in a box. Trent must have figured the same thing since he refused to leave and had Jonathan bring over the items on Quen's wish list. Hence the general weirdness of elves eating hot dogs in my backyard.

  Quen wasn't happy. I wasn't either. I was going into the ever-after to steal a demon's DNA with a freaking tourist for backup. Just peachy damn keen.

  Sensing my frustration, Ivy turned to me from the distant picnic table. I shrugged, and she went back to whatever Jenks was saying. The pixy had been questioning Ceri all day, and I couldn't help but notice that Trent, way on the other side of the table, had been listening with rapt attention. Seeing them there in a noisy bunch trying to pretend everything was normal, I was reminded of my mother's occasional family reunions. Here I was again, watching from the outskirts. It always seemed to be that way. Maybe they had known I was a bastard child.

  I smoothed my brow and straightened when Marshal headed my way with a plate of food. He'd shown up a few hours ago trying to fit in, and doing a damn fine job of it after his initial stammering reaction to finding Trent in my backyard. He had taken over the grilling to stay out of the way yet be in the thick of things. I wasn't quite sure what to think. I wasn't going to repeat old patterns and let this slide into something simply because he was nice looking, fun to be with, and somewhat interested. Especially if Jenks was right and he was here with a white-knight complex and thought he could save me.

  "Hungry?" he said, smiling as he put the paper plate on the rickety table beside me and sat in the folding chair beside mine.

  His almost-there eyebrows pinched, and I forced a smile. "Thanks." My gut clenched at the smell of the food, but I dutifully pulled the plate onto my lap. It was the first time today we'd been alone. I knew he wanted to talk, and my blood pressure spiked when he took a deep breath. "Don't start," I said, and his brows arched in surprise.

  "You're a psychic, too?" he said with a little laugh, and I crunched through a chip. The salt hit my tongue, and my hunger woke up.

  "No," I said, seeing Jenks past him. The pixy was watching us with his hands on his hips. "But I've heard this argument before." I crossed my legs and sighed when Marshal took a breath. Here it comes.

  "The ever-after?" he asked. "Isn't there someone else who can do this? My God, the man has enough money to hire anyone to gather samples for his genetic mapping program."

  I stared at my plate because of fatigue, not because of the lie we had told Marshal to hide that Trent was an elf and wanted the sample to revitalize his species. "No," I said softly. "There isn't. This is what I do. Seemingly stupid stuff that most people die doing." I tucked a strand of hair as my frustration grew. "You don't think I know this is one of the most risky things I've ever done? I appreciate your concern, Marshal, but I need that demon sample, and Trent can get me there and back. If you're going to be the voice of common sense and tell me that I'm likely not going to survive, then you need to leave."

  My voice had risen, and I exhaled. I knew Jenks and Ivy could hear if they tried. Marshal looked hurt, and I slumped. "Look," I said, lowering my eyes in guilt. "I'm sorry. I really am. You simply knowing me has put you in danger." I thought of Kisten, dying to protect me, and I bit my lip. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't even know why you're here."

  His face took on a severe cast, and he leaned to block my view of the picnic table. "I'm here because I thought I could talk some sense into you," he said tightly, and my gaze jerked to his at the frustration in his voice. "It's hard to watch someone do something this incredibly stupid, especially when there isn't a damn thing you can do to help them." His fingers found my hands. "Rachel, don't do this."

  His fingers, twined in mine, were warm, and I slowly pulled away. This is so not what I need. "I'm doing this," I said, starting to get mad.

  Marshal's brow pinched. "I can't help you."

  I jerked my fingers from him. "I never asked you to help me." Damn it, Jenks. Couldn't you be wrong once in a while?

  Taking my silence for indecision, Marshal stood. The dry clatter of dragonfly wings intruded, and I stared at Jenks, wondering how he could see people so clearly and I could be so dense.

  "Hey, Marsh-man," Jenks quipped lightly. "Ivy wants another burger."

  Marshal gave me a faintly sour sideways look. "I was just heading that way."

  "It's going to be okay," I said almost belligerently, and he hesitated. "I can do this."

  "No," he said with Jenks hovering uncertainly beside him. "It won't. This is bad. Even if you do come back, you're going to be really messed up."

  He turned and headed to the grill, his shoulders hunched and his steps slow. Jenks didn't seem to know what to do with his wings as he rose and fell in indecision. "He doesn't know you very well, does he," the pixy said nervously. "You're going to come out of this better than when you went in. I know you, Rache, and it's going to be okay."

  "No, he's right," I breathed, my hair moving in my exhaled breath. "This is a bad idea." Hiding in my church for the rest of my life was a bad idea, too, and if Trent was going to pay for my trip in and out of the ever-after, why shouldn't I take him up on it?

  Jenks darted away, clearly upset. My gaze landed first on Ivy—who was watching Jenks vanish into the graveyard, which was hazy with dusk—then moved to Quen and Trent arguing. Trent made a sharp motion, and Quen dropped back. The older man's face was dark with emotion, and showing his anger and fatigue, he walked away, hand to his face as he stifled a ragged cough. Trent blew out his breath in relief, then stiffened when he realized I'd seen it. I gave him a sarcastic bunny-eared kiss-kiss, and he frowned. Looked like we were still on for our date.

  Quen found his own solitude on my back porch steps, sitting slumped with his knees bent. He looked tired, but nowhere near like he'd been dying last night. Three pixy bucks dropped down a respectful distance beside him, and he started. A faint smile curved over my face as I watched the older man's mood shift from frustrated anger to fascinated relaxation. Yes, something was there. This was more than the usual enthrallment I'd seen humans exhibit when they talked to pixies.

  Ivy was watching Quen, too, and when Marshal brought her a burger, she ignored it, getting up and drifting over to the still-recovering elf. The pixies scattered at a sharp word from her, and she sank down beside him. Quen eyed her, taking the beer she handed him but not drinking it. I thought the two of them looked odd together, very unalike, almost adversaries, yet finding common ground in their unusual helplessness.

  Pixies were starting to show themselves with sporadic flashes of light hovering close to the ground in the chill, and I followed the low, sleek shadow of Rex padding out from the long grass to make a beeline to Ivy. It wasn't often that the vampire was on her level, and I sighed when Ivy casually picked the cat up and set it on her lap, all the while talking to Quen. It wasn't hard to figure out what their topic of conversation was. They kept looking at Trent and me.

  The sun had almost set, and I shrugged David's leather duster closer and dug my toes into the soles of my boots. I was tired. Really tired. Exhaustion had brought me down for a nap earlier, but that hadn't touched my mental weariness. Catching Ceri's eyes, I moved her attention to the setting sun. The woman nodded in acknowledgment, bowing her head as if praying. In a moment, she straightened. There was a new determination to her, a tightening of her jaw and a hint of fear. She didn't want me doing this, but she'd help.

  Silence fell at the table when she picked up her five-pound bag of salt and started across the grounds to the blasphemed spot of earth
surrounded by God's grace. In a breath, everyone was moving, and I watched in amusement as Quen tried to help Ivy rise, getting an insulted look from her for his trouble. Trent went inside to change, and Marshal grabbed another beer and sat beside Keasley at the picnic table.

  I looked up at an unfamiliar wing-clatter and got an eyeful of pixy dust. It was little Josephine, one of Jenks's youngest, with three of her brothers serving as babysitters/guards close behind. She was too young to be alone, but so eager to help maintain the garden and their security that it was easier to watch her from a distance.

  "Ms. Morgan," the pretty little pixy said breathlessly as she landed lightly on my offered hand and I blinked her dust away. "A blue car is at the curb, and a lady who smells like you and fake lilac is coming up the front walk. Do you want me to pix her?"

  Mom? What's she doing here? Ivy was watching me, wanting to know if we had trouble, and I shifted my finger to tell her we were fine. The exchange was noticed by Quen, which kind of irritated me.

  "It's my mom," I said, and the pixy girl's wings drooped in disappointment. "You can pix the next magazine salesman, though," I added, and she perked up, her tiny hands clapping. God, please let me survive to see Josephine pix a salesman.

  "Thanks, Ms. Morgan!" she chimed out. "I'll show her in." Then she darted over the church to leave a fading sunbeam of sparkles. Her brothers were in hot pursuit, and I couldn't help my smile. It slowly faded as I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees. Time enough to say good-bye to my mom, I thought when the back door opened, and my mother clattered down the back porch steps with a box on her hip. I'd told her what I was doing tonight, and I should have expected she might come over. Quen stood to murmur a greeting to her before he went inside after Trent, and I stifled a surge of annoyance. I didn't like the two of them in my house. Using my bathroom. Sniffing my shampoo.

  My mom was wearing jeans and a flowery top, looking younger with her short hair frizzing out all over, only somewhat contained with a ribbon that matched her shirt. Eyes bright, she took in the preparations in the middle of my graveyard with a worried cast to her.

  "Rachel. Good. I got here before you left," she said as she waved a distant hello to everyone and headed to me. "I wanted to talk to you. The Turn take it, Trenton has finished baking up to be quite the young man. I saw him in the hall. I'm glad to see you've gotten over your little childhood tiff."

  Relief was a warm wash through me when I saw her, her thoughts clearly back together. When I'd left her this morning, she'd been distraught, half out of her mind, but I'd seen her bounce back like this before. Takata clearly knew the right words to say, and I wondered, now that the truth was out, if we had seen the last of her breakdowns. If breakdowns were what they truly were. Living a lie tore at one's being and leaked out in the oddest of places.

  My thoughts went to Takata, then my dad. I couldn't be angry at her for loving two men and finding a child to love where she could, and as I stood to give her a hug, an unexpected feeling of peace took root. I was my dad's daughter, but now I knew where I got my ugly feet, my tall height…and my nose.

  "Hi, Mom," I said as she took me into a hug, but her attention was on Marshal at the picnic table.

  "Marshal is here?" she asked as I sat down, her expression wondering.

  I nodded, not looking at him. "He's trying to talk me out of it. Bad case of the white-knight syndrome." She said nothing, and alarmed, I looked up. Her green eyes were wide and panic swirled in them. Not her, too. "It's okay, Mom," I blurted. "Really."

  Dropping the box with a surprising thump, she sank onto the open chair, utterly miserable. "I worry so much about you," she whispered, nearly breaking my heart. Her eyes started to well, and she quickly wiped them. God, this is hard.

  "Mom, it's going to be okay."

  "I hope you're right, sweetheart," she said, leaning to take me into another hug. "It's your dad and Mr. Kalamack all over again, only this time, it's you." Whispering in my ear as she held me, she added, "I can't lose you. I can't."

  Breathing in lilac and redwood, I held her. Her shoulders were thin and I could feel every shift of her weight as she reined in her emotions. "It's going to be all right," I said. "Besides, Dad didn't die from going into the ever-after. He died trying to get rid of the vampire virus. This is different. It's not the same thing."

  She pulled back, nodding to tell me she had known how he had died all along. I could almost see another brick in her psyche being remortared into place, making her stronger. "True, but Piscary never would have bitten him if he hadn't tried to help Mr. Kalamack," she said. "Just like you're helping Trent."

  "Piscary is dead," I said, and her breath came in slowly.

  "He is, isn't he."

  "And I wouldn't go into the ever-after unless I had a guaranteed way out," I added. "And I'm not doing this to help Trent. I'm doing this to save my ass."

  At that, she laughed. "That is different, isn't it," she said, needing hope.

  I nodded, having to believe it was. "It is. It's going to be okay." Please let it be okay. "I can do this. I have good friends."

  She turned, and I followed her gaze to Ivy and Jenks in the graveyard, both looking helpless as Ceri directed everyone to their places. We were alone, everyone slowly milling around that weird angel statue in the graveyard and the slab of reddish cement fixing it to the ground. "They do love you," she said, giving my hand a light squeeze. "You know, I never understood why your dad always told you to work alone. He had friends, too. Friends that would have risked their lives for him. Though in the end, it didn't matter."

  I shook my head, embarrassed about the love comment. But my mom only smiled. "Here," she said, nudging the cardboard box with her toe. "I should have given these to you before. But seeing how much trouble you got into with the first few I gave you, it was probably just as well I waited."

  First few? I thought when my fingers touched the dusty cardboard and a faint tingle of power cramped my joints. I quickly undid a flap and looked inside, and the scent of burnt amber was almost a slap. "Mom!" I hissed, seeing the dark leather and dog-eared pages. "Where did you get these?"

  She wouldn't meet my gaze, her brow furrowing as if refusing to look guilty. "They're your dad's," she muttered. "You didn't seem to mind the first ones," she said defensively as I stared at her, aghast. "And not all of them are demon texts. Some are straight from the university's bookstore."

  Understanding crashed over me, and I closed the box up. "You were the one who put the books—"

  "In the belfry, yes," she finished, standing up and drawing me to my feet. Ceri was done and we had to move. "I wasn't about to hand them over to an unfamiliar vampire to give to you, and the door was open. I knew you'd find them eventually, seeking out high, lonely spots the way you do. You lost everything when the I.S. cursed your apartment, and what was I supposed to do? Drive over here and give you a demon-text library?" Her green eyes were glinting in amusement. "You would have locked me up."

  Oh, my God! My dad had called demons?

  Trent came out the back door with Quen, and I felt a wash of panic. "Mom," I pleaded, my pulse racing. "Tell me he never used these. Tell me he was a collector of books. Please?"

  She smiled and patted my hand. "He was a collector of books. For you."

  My brief relief died, and I froze as she stood to pull out of my grip. My dad had known that I'd be able to kindle demon magic. He had collected a demon library for me. He had told me to work alone. What in hell had Trent's dad done to me?!

  "Come on, Rachel," my mom said, standing over me and touching my shoulder. "They're ready for you."

  I stood, wobbling. A small cluster of people waited at the warrior angel: Ceri, Keasley, Trent, Quen, Marshal, Jenks, and Ivy—the people who impacted my life the most. With my mom at my side, I started walking as she chatted on about nothing. It was a defense mechanism that I saw through to the fear she was struggling to come to grips with.

  David's coat enfolded me in the rich, complicated
scent of Were, a distant show of support. For all his strength, he'd known he could do nothing and so had given me what he could and vanished in the way of Weres. I shrugged it closer as the hem hissed against the long grass. It needed to be cut, and the dew-wet tips turned the hem a darker brown.

  Everyone turned as I approached, and my mom gave me a last hug before falling back to stand with Marshal in the grass. Ceri and Trent were already on the red slab with three concentric circles sketched on it, and eyeing the man's new outfit, I joined them. Trent had put on some sort of black jumpsuit with pockets, and if not for his fair hair poking out from under a close fabric cap, I wouldn't have known it was him at first glance.

  "You look like the military guy from a B movie," I said, and he frowned. "You know…the token human who gets eaten first?"

  "Is that what you're wearing?" he shot back. "You look like a wannabe private eye."

  "It's cold over there," I said defensively. "And leather will keep me from getting scraped up if I have to fall down. And if I get hit by a potion, it can't get through." If I get hit by a demon curse, I'll be dead. "I can't afford Kevlar and spell-resistant fabric."

  Trent gave me an up-and-down look and turned away, miffed. Ivy stepped forward to hand me the satchel that had all my stuff. "I put the map Ceri sketched in there," she said, her pupils fully dilated with worry. "I don't know how helpful it's going to be, but at least you know what direction to go."

  "Thanks," I said as I took the light bag. In it was my splat-ball gun with a dozen sleepy-time paint balls, three warmth amulets from Marshal, a scent charm from David I'd loaned him a while back, a small bag of salt, a piece of magnetic chalk, and a couple of other things from my dad's old stash of ley line stuff. Nothing much. Just what I needed to force my summoning name onto Al and take his in return. Soon as I had the sample, I was going to use it.