American Demon

by Kim Harrison

  “Is this okay, Rachel?” Bis whispered, and I shook my head and let my second sight drop.

  “I don’t know,” I muttered, and the demon arched one eyebrow wryly.

  “You do elf magic,” he stated, gesturing as if that explained everything. “The Goddess recognizes you. They all know it.”

  My lips pressed, and I hated that I flushed. Where has this guy been the last two years? A hole in the ground? “Yeah? What about it?” I said, working to keep my voice low lest I wake up Ivy. Bringing her into this was a really bad idea.

  He stared at me for a heartbeat or two as if trying to comprehend the words that had just come out of my mouth. “I’ve been watching you for three weeks trying to figure this out. They know who you are, what you do,” he said firmly. “They let you live. Free and, well, probably not on equal footing, but they let you live. Why haven’t they killed you?”

  I glanced at Bis and cocked my hip. “Didn’t I just say it’s been a hard couple of years?”

  “But you openly consort with . . . an elf,” he said, gesturing weakly. “You strive to keep him safe in uncertain situations. He pays you for it.”

  Okay. I didn’t know who this guy was, but he wasn’t doing anything but asking stupid questions. Annoyed, I dumped the used bowl of wine down the sink. “You got a problem with that?” He’s been watching me for three weeks? I thought as the wine went trickling down. And then my eyes narrowed. Demons could be anything. Not only a pixy, but like a crow, maybe. Damn it to the Turn and back again. Three weeks?

  “Me? No, but they do,” he said pointedly, and then my gaze lifted at the sound of pixy wings coming from the delivery entrance.

  “Hey, Rache.” Jenks darted in, dressed in a robe and barefoot. “I heard you yellin’.”

  My eyes went to the demon as my thoughts returned to Jenks’s son, Jumoke. “From the boat?” I questioned, surprised, and he lowered his garden sword.

  “Oh, it’s a demon,” Jenks said around a yawn. “Bis! My man! How you doing, gray stuff?”

  Still on my shoulder, Bis exchanged a fist bump with a now-glittering Jenks. “Okay. Heat’s back on. You coming back to the church?”

  “Not until we get a dwelling permit, and we need a kitchen first. You checkin’ on Rache?” Jenks asked, wings dripping silver when Bis made a jumping hop to the bag of salt on the counter.

  “Yes, but she doesn’t need me for this,” the small gargoyle said as his tail wrapped securely around the large bag.

  Satisfied, Jenks wedged his sword into the belt of his robe and alighted next to the cat-size gargoyle as if he was settling in to watch a movie. “What did you do to piss her off, Home Slice?”

  “He said he’s been spying on her,” Bis said, and Jenks laughed.

  “Bad life choice, dude.”

  The demon frowned, not at all thrown by the sight of a pixy and a gargoyle sitting together as best friends. “Do they deem being witch-born puts you beneath their laws?” he asked.

  Jenks’s wings clattered at the insult, and I dried my hands with a short, abrupt motion. “You need to leave,” I said, wondering how much trouble I’d start if I snapped the towel at him. “Now, before I circle you and make you leave.” It was an iffy warning, seeing it was no longer possible to summon or banish demons since the original banishment curse had been broken. Being circled would be embarrassing, though, and anger colored his cheeks, highlighting his light stubble.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Motions slow and deliberate, I scraped my ceremonial knife across the counter and hefted it in a useless threat. He’d only go misty to avoid it, but it made me feel better. On the bag of salt, Jenks poked Bis’s elbow to keep the kid awake. Three weeks . . . “And if I even see so much as a feather, I’m going to track you down and find out how crow really tastes.” Which was about the stupidest thing I’d ever said, but I was mad, damn it. I’d worked darn hard to get the demons to consider me as an equal. I didn’t need him adding to my self-doubt.

  Jenks clattered his wings, looking mean as he stuck his sword into Bis to wake him back up. The gargoyle jumped, arching his wings over his head to look bigger and turning a threatening black. The demon’s gaze slid from them to me and then back to my scrying mirror. Unclenching his jaw, he made a stiff half bow of sorts. “I apologize,” he said formally. “I meant no slur.”

  But I couldn’t tell if he meant it, and that made me more angry.

  “It’s just . . .” At a loss, he motioned to me. “Why haven’t they put you in a bottle for practicing elf magic?”

  “Because they’re tired of fighting that damned war of yours,” I said as I gestured haphazardly with my knife. “Or maybe because I used elven magic to break the curse keeping you all trapped in the ever-after,” I added, setting the knife down. “Or maybe because I needed elven magic to steal the Goddess’s power to help Bis make a new ever-after when the ley lines fell and magic went down.” I frowned at his obvious disbelief as he stared at Bis struggling to stay awake. “But I’m guessing that was when you escaped,” I finished, because it was growing obvious that someone had stuffed him away and forgotten about him, probably for practicing elven magic by his overwhelming preoccupation with it.

  The demon nodded a cautious agreement as I moved Bis to my shoulder. His tail curled around my back and under my arm, and with a little sigh, he closed his eyes. “How long has it been?” I asked, and when he didn’t answer, I reached for my mirror to call Al. I didn’t know this guy, and I was vulnerable with half an aura.

  “No. Don’t bring them into this,” the demon said, his threat heavy, and I hesitated. Shit, I’m standing in an uninvoked circle, unable to jump out. “I’m trying to piece this together,” he added, brow furrowed. “Give me a moment.”

  Yeah, I’d been there, forced to react before I was able to get that last little nugget of information that would’ve kept me from overreacting and making things worse. But I think it was how many times “authority” had rolled in and screwed up something that should have been simple that made me pull my hand back with fake casualness. He hadn’t truly threatened me apart from hovering in my face.

  “Sure, we can talk.” I casually backed out of my salt circle. “What’s your name?”

  “Dali knows what you do,” the demon said, a finger raised as if ticking off facts. “Accepting that you practice elven magic.”

  “It’s more like ignoring it, but okay,” I said. “And you are . . . ?”

  “You’re in the collective,” he said, two fingers raised now as he moved closer, almost to my salt circle. “And they haven’t . . .” He rocked to a halt, the light of possibility in his red eyes as his fingers curled under to make a fist. “I’ve been watching you. You’re good. But not several-thousand-years good.” His arms went over his middle and his boots edged the salt circle. I winced, knowing he wouldn’t move an inch farther. Not that it mattered. If I invoked it to trap him, he’d only jump out. “What do you have on them?”

  “Nothing.” I leaned against the counter and tried to look confident. It was hard with Bis snoring on my shoulder. “Every time they tried to put me in a hole in the ground, I fought back.” I raised my eyebrows mockingly. “But you didn’t, did you. Or did you, and your precious Goddess wasn’t there when you needed her?”

  The demon’s expression twisted. “She is not precious,” he barked, clearly not getting my sarcasm, and I shrugged, familiar with the demons’ prejudice toward the elvens’ living deity.

  It was growing obvious that this guy had been imprisoned until the lines had gone down. Which might account for him all but reeking of old magic, stuff older than what the weapons locker held, stuff more ancient than when the original ever-after was clean and a paradise, and I shifted my damp hair so Jenks, now satisfied with the security of the kitchen, could sit on my big hooped earring.

  “Hey, Rache,” Jenks said as a wash of gold sp
arkles slipped down my front. “If Home Slice here got himself put in a jar for practicing elven magic and you didn’t, that makes you the stronger demon, right?”

  “No.” I grimaced, looking the demon up and down. “Just luckier.”

  The demon stiffened. “My name is Hodin, not Home Slice.”

  I nodded. Finally. “Rachel Morgan. Witch-born demon. Nice to meet you.” But I didn’t put my hand out, and Hodin’s gaze met mine with an odd intensity. Being female, I could hold and wield more line energy than him—but not with my aura compromised. And he’d know that.

  “So”—I eyed my nearby mirror, wondering if I should call Al—“how long have you been, ah, out of circulation?”

  “Long enough that nothing is familiar.” His eyes followed mine to my mirror, then narrowed in threat. “I’m leaving. If you tell them about me, I will kill you.”

  “Yeah, like we haven’t heard that before,” Jenks taunted.

  “Hey, wait!” I exclaimed, but Hodin was gone in a silver swirl of unfocused magic. Bis’s tail tightened to maintain his balance, and I put a hand to him. He never woke up.

  “He took your cookie,” Jenks said, and my lips parted when I realized Jenks was right. At least he hadn’t taken my mirror, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t have done him any good. I didn’t think he was in the collective. “Who was that guy?” Jenks added as he took off, my earring swinging as he angled to the honey pot that Nina left out for him. She thought drunk pixies were a hoot.

  “I have no idea.” I scuffed a break in the salt circle, and frowning, I tucked my new mirror in my purse beside my splat gun. My ceremonial knife went in beside them. I didn’t like that Hodin had been spying on me for a self-confessed three weeks and all I’d noticed was a crow outside my church. My nose wrinkled at the lingering scent of charred evergreen, evidence of his demon magic. What has he been doing to smell like burnt amber?

  “Jenks, you with me? I’m going to Junior’s before going out to the park,” I said, and the pixy swore and slammed the lid to the honey back down. “I need to talk to Dali. Now.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  “Coffee up!” a bored, cultured, and familiar voice called into the sound of grunge music and light chatter as I walked into Junior’s. It was Dali, dressed in a green apron as he worked behind the counter, gracefully moving the middle-aged bulk he favored. A few patrons sat at the window tables, and a short line stretched before the cold shelves and again at the pickup window. It wasn’t busy, but there was a rise of excited voices and the click of cameras as I walked in with Jenks on my shoulder. Swell. That didn’t take long.

  That Dali had chosen to work as a barista in downtown Cincinnati was only weird on the surface. He’d owned his own restaurant in the ever-after and was probably taking the time to learn not only what the population wanted, but how to work within the system before opening his own place. I’d talked to Mark about it last month, but the kid said he was good for business, and he felt better having a demon behind the counter when he could have a handful of them in front of it at any given moment. I’d made Mark promise to never buy a curse, but the temptation had to be there. Seeing me, the older demon brightened.

  “Rachel. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” he said as he poured juice into a cup under the ice grinder.

  “You’re on my way to my next appointment,” I said, not wanting to bring up Trent.

  Dali frowned, and a ripple of something coated me, making me shudder as he looked at me over his wire-rimmed, purely for-show glasses. “Your aura is too thin to be out of your spelling studio unaccompanied,” he said, his low voice audible even as he hit the button to crush the ice. Clearly a sound-dampening spell was in use. Point two for Mark to employ the demon.

  “She’s not unaccompanied. She’s got me,” Jenks said, and the demon’s eyebrows rose.

  “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said as I settled into the back of the line. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to tell him about Hodin. Fish for information, yes—tell him a demon stuck in a hole for the last two thousand years had dropped from my ceiling . . . maybe.

  Dali slid the iced fruit drink across the counter to the waiting patron before leaning to look to the back of the store. “Mark, I’m going on break!” he called, and the guy waiting in front of me grumbled. “He’ll have your drink up shortly,” Dali said, smiling to show his thick, blocky teeth, and the man went ashen.

  “Rache, you want anything?” Jenks asked, looking like a tiny thief in his cumbersome black winter clothes as Dali came out from behind the counter.

  “Tall latte, double espresso, skim milk, light on the foam, with cinnamon and a shot of raspberry?” I said over my shoulder as Dali took my elbow and pulled me to an empty table. “In a to-go cup. We can’t stay long,” I added.

  Mark came out from the back, his worried brow smoothing when he saw me. “I’ll get it,” he said to the barista manning the drive-through, adding, “Tall skinny demon to go!” and a bell behind the counter rang of its own accord.

  “Thank you,” I mouthed to Mark as I sat with Dali, his apron and polyester uniform dissolving to a more familiar suit and tie. I had no idea why the demon wanted to look like a slightly overweight white guy with no family, a bad haircut, and a grudge with life. Maybe it granted him some level of respect with the rest of the demons, who preferred pretty or dangerous. I could hear phones clicking. We’d be online in a matter of seconds. At least I didn’t smell like zombie anymore.

  “Ah, what did you want to talk to me about?” I said, and when Dali said nothing, I looked up, shocked at his expression, which was somewhere between nervousness and . . . embarrassment?

  “I’d ask to engage your services as an escort,” he said, and I blinked, truly surprised.

  “What for?” I asked, following his gaze to Jenks, his dust spilling over the yellowing bananas and protein bars at the register. “No one will know you’re a demon if you wear sunglasses. Your aura doesn’t have any smut on it. Well, not much anyway.”

  Dali hunched, his bulk looming between me and everyone else. “You misunderstand. To be other than a demon would be counterproductive.”

  My eyes narrowed and I leaned in so close, I could almost pretend to smell burnt amber lifting from him. “I’m not going to help you make nasty deals with people,” I said softly. “You and the rest of the lost boys have one shot at making it work in reality. Don’t blow it, Dali. I worked too hard to get you here to be forced to curse you back into the ever-after one by one.”

  Dali’s lip twitched in amusement at my claim that I could, and then the embarrassment was back. “No. I want to meet someone, and the last time I tried, it didn’t go well.”

  Surprise kept me sitting. That, and my coffee wasn’t up yet. “You want help getting a date?” I asked, incredulous, and Jenks, talking with Mark at the counter, turned.

  Dali’s lips pressed into a bloodless line, clearly not liking that Jenks was hearing this. “I want—,” he started, then hesitated. “There’s the chance—” Again his words cut off, but at my sigh, he held up a hand for patience. “The Rosewood children that Ku’Sox stole,” he said, eyes fixed on mine. “I want to meet the boy living in Cincinnati. His name is Keric.” A frown creased his brow. “Can you imagine giving a demon the call name of Keric?”

  My mouth dropped open, and I closed it with a snap. I had dreamed about Keric this morning, all grown up and marrying Ray. Coincidence? “You can’t have him,” I said tightly. “Or any of the Rosewood babies. This conversation is over.”

  I grabbed my bag to stand, freezing when Dali pinned my wrist to the table. The faint wash of tingles as the levels of our stored magic equalized went straight to my core. At the pickup counter, Jenks’s wings hummed threateningly. Dali leaned in, red goat-slitted eyes locked to mine. “I don’t want a child,” he said, practically biting the words off. “I want a
student.”

  “You want to teach him,” I whispered, relaxing, and Dali let go.

  “When his aptitude begins to show, it would be best if someone is there to direct it,” he said, clearly discomfited. “I’ve tried repeatedly to make his acquaintance, but his parents become upset and he cries. I’ve seen nothing of him but his voice. He has a good voice.”

  “He’s not even a year old,” I protested, but then I recalled Al teaching Lucy how to make winged horses. The hours my dad and I spent with pentagram flashcards . . . Okay. Apparently it was never too early to teach a good curse.

  “I need an introduction,” Dali continued, but his tone had become stiff at my resistance. “With the great and wondrous Rachel Morgan there, his parents might be more open to me teaching him, less likely to think my goal is abduction. Perhaps you could tell him how Gally, ah, Al babysits for Kalamack. When Keric gets older, he will need someone, and the sooner you start, the fewer bad habits there are to break.”

  Dali looked me up and down as if cataloging my faults, and I smothered the rising feeling of deficiency that Hodin had started in me. “I need to think about this,” I said as I resisted the urge to smooth my hair, and his expression shifted to one of annoyance. It had probably been a while since someone had said no to him.

  “Rachel,” he intoned, and I held up a hand, wishing there weren’t so many people around. Besides, Mark was on his way over with Jenks and my coffee.

  “I didn’t say no. I said I need to think about it,” I said, and Dali’s expression eased. “I need to weigh your desire against my willingness to take on angry parents if you do something stupid because you don’t respect them and their wishes. Keric may be a demon, but he’s their child first. He’d be your student a faraway third or fourth.”

  Dali made a low growl of complaint, but he settled back into the chair as Mark set my coffee down. There was a price for treating people without respect simply because you were stronger than they were, and he was starting to see it in the hidden fear and reticence of people he was dealing with every day.