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“I don’t need her to slip your leash, demon spawn,” Pierce said darkly, and something in his voice twisted in me. It was threatening, decisive, and utterly unafraid. I went cold at the sight of Pierce, his feet spread wide, a flicker of black vanishing from his spread fingers as he made them into fists. His eyes promised violence.
“I’ve been free since the moment you caught me,” he boasted, making it into a threat. “I’m here to keep her alive among the putrid stink of you all, not wash your dishes and twist your curses. A needed post, if you’re passing off soul-stealing curses as an aura supplement.”
God help me, I think I’m going to be sick. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I said.
Pierce looked at me, deadly serious. “I swan you do, Rachel,” he said, and my eyes narrowed.
Al harrumphed. His hand, once poised to smack me, had turned and was now offered to help me up instead. “How long have you known he could slip his charmed silver?” he asked.
“Not until he just did it,” I said truthfully as he yanked me up. He let me go, and I flicked my eyes to Pierce. “You need to stop underestimating him, Al,” I said, not wanting to be caught between them again. “You’re right. He’s going to get me killed.” My gaze went from Al to Pierce. “Through his own arrogance.”
Pierce’s eyebrows rose as he felt the sting of that, but I wouldn’t drop his gaze, still angry. Al, though, couldn’t have been happier. “Indeed,” he almost growled, clearly hearing more in my words than what I had said. “I think we’ve made enough progress for today, Rachel. Go home. Get some rest.”
My lips parted, and my fingers fell from the blanket over my shoulders. I could not seem to stop shivering. “Now? I just got here. Uh, not that I’m complaining.”
Al glanced at Pierce, looking as if he was mentally cracking his knuckles. Pierce was glaring right back, grim faced and determined. Idiot. As soon as I left, they were going to have a “demon to familiar chat.” I wasn’t going to be the one to clean up after it, though.
“Come along,” Al said, taking my elbow and letting go when I hissed in pain.
“You’re coming with me?” I questioned, and Al took my other, undamaged arm instead.
“If you’re not here when I get back,” the demon said to Pierce, “I will kill you. I may not be able to restrain you, but I can find you easily enough. Yes?”
Pierce nodded, grim new lines showing on his face.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Al had reached out and tapped a line. In an instant, I dissolved to a thought and was pulled into the nearest ley line, ribbons of energy that strung like threads between reality and the ever-after. Instinctively I flung up a protective circle around my thoughts, but Al had beaten me to it.
Al? I questioned, surprised that he was with me since it more than doubled the cost.
I told you to do nothing. I come back and find you possessed? I had to ask Newt for help. Do you know how embarrassing that is? How long it will take me to pay that off?
Our minds were sharing space, and though I couldn’t hear anything he didn’t wanted me to, he couldn’t hide his anger with me and his unexpected worry about Pierce. Al was getting a dose of my anger at the man, too. Maybe that was why Al was taking me home when he could just as easily have dumped me off in the church’s graveyard. He wanted a peek at my emotions.
The memory of my lungs was aching, but I felt him twist something sideways, and I stumbled as we popped back into existence, the fog that had been here when I left even thicker now. The glow from the back porch was a hazy blob of yellow, and I pulled the damp, foggy spring night deep into me. Four hours, and I was home.
“Student?” Al questioned, somewhat softer now that he’d seen my anger at Pierce, and I turned to him, thinking he looked like he belonged in the fog, wearing his elegant coat, tidy boots, and smoked glasses. “Do you have any idea the pressure I’m under?” he added. “The accusations you never hear about, the threats? Why do you think I double-checked that bottle Newt gave me? She wants you, Rachel, and you are giving her excuses to take you in any form she can!”
“I lit the candle because I was not going to sit in the dark when your familiar left and the lights went out!” I said, not about to take this meekly. “I didn’t mean to drop it. The paper caught fire, and I dumped the water on it to put it out. The soul was freed. The soul, Al, you bastard. You knew I wouldn’t do it if it was a soul.”
He dipped his head, the fog blurring his features. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Don’t lie to me anymore,” I demanded, braver now that I was back in my own reality. “I mean it, Al. If I’m going to go bad, let me make my own grave, okay?”
I had meant it to be sarcastic, but it rang frighteningly true. Frowning, Al began to turn away, hesitated, and then … came back. “Rachel, you don’t seem to understand. Newt doesn’t care if it’s you or someone else who is able to kindle demon magic and begin a new generation of demons. She just wants to control who can. If Krathion had gained your body, she would’ve taken custody of you to protect the rest of us, because I certainly can’t control a lunatic with the ability to invoke demon magic and jump between the ever-after and reality at will.” He hesitated, his eyes meeting mine. “She doesn’t care about you, Rachel. She only cares about what your body can do, and she wants to control it. Don’t let her.”
Scared, I tugged the blanket tighter around me, my feet getting damp in the long grass. No wonder the coven of moral and ethical standards had shunned me and Trent had bashed my head into a tombstone. I wasn’t being smart about this. A simple curse like possession could negate me completely—give someone with less moral standing everything I had the potential for. And I had been ignoring that.
I exhaled, finally getting it. Standing there in my familiar graveyard, I felt a new chill of mistrust seep into me. Son-of-a-bitch demons.
Seeing it, Al grunted, seeming pleased. “Until next week,” he said, turning away.
“Al? “I called out after him, but he didn’t stop. “Thank you,” I blurted out, and he halted, his back to me. “For getting that thing out of me. And I’m sorry.” My thoughts went to Pierce and I grimaced. “I’ll be more careful.”
The door to the church squeaked open, and the sound of shrill pixy children carried out into the damp air. Al turned, his gaze going past me to Ivy’s black silhouette waiting in the threshold. I’d said thank you. And apologized. It was more than I thought I’d ever do. “You’re welcome,” he said, his expression lost in the shadows. “I’ll see what I can do about the no lying … thing.” And inclining his head, he vanished.
Two (#ulink_9795f091-2148-58f6-8577-e91a64e05646)
I’ll be over there,” Ivy said like I was a three-year-old as she looked across the produce section to the meat counter and pointed.
“Oh for the love of the Turn!” I protested, exasperated. “Al let me have the day off because he wanted to beat Pierce to a pulp, not because I damaged my aura. I’m fine! Just … go pick out something for the grill, okay?”
The tall woman raised an eyebrow and cocked her hip as if she didn’t believe me. I could understand why. Al rarely let me have his night off, and I think my coming back early had interrupted her plans. Though I’d seen no evidence of it, I was sure the living vampire took my weekly twenty-four-hour absence as an opportunity to slake her “other” hunger—the one that we couldn’t find a bottle of in the grocery store.
“I said I’m fine,” I growled, tugging the eco-friendly sack she made me shop with higher up on my shoulder. “Will you let me breathe?”
Giving me a look, she turned on a booted heel and walked through the produce section, looking like a model in jeans and a short black-and-dark-green jacket. Spiked boots made her even taller. Her lightweight cloth coat was a step away from her usual leather, but the gold trim made it scrumptiously rich. She was growing her hair out again, and the straight black was almost down to her shoulders once more. Ivy could have been a model. Hell, Ivy could be anything she wanted. Except happy. Ivy had issues.
“Good God,” I muttered. “What a pain in the ass.”
Ivy didn’t miss a step. “I heard that.”
Alone for the first time in hours, my tension eased. Today had not been fun. I hadn’t slept well after getting back to the church. The sliver of trust I’d put in Al was seriously in doubt. Not that I ever trusted him, but I’d thought our arrangement had bestowed a measure of honesty between us. Guess not. I wasn’t happy with Pierce either. He was a teenage crush from a time when life spread long and wide, and consequences reached only to Friday, date night. I was done entertaining crushes, angry with Pierce for having risked everything to impress me. I wasn’t impressed, and he could fall into a volcano for all I cared.
It had almost been a relief to be awakened from a restless sleep at an ungodly ten in the morning by the sound of Jenks’s cat, Rex, crashing into walls while chasing pixy kids. Ivy had actually made me breakfast, then hung around in the kitchen messing with her computer while I’d whipped up a batch of sleepy-time charms. Then she made me lunch. I’d finally told her I was going grocery shopping just to have some time alone. I figured she’d stay home, but no-o-o-o. Jenks had all but laughed his wings off and said he’d watch the church. Smart man.
Apparently I’d told Ivy just enough about Al’s trickery to worry her. She knew enough about witch magic to realize that messing with auras might give me insight into how to save her soul. Maybe that was her problem. I was sure that my “progress” would make it to Rynn Cormel’s ears, her master vampire and the man we both looked to for protection from other vampires. I should be thankful, but I really detested the dead vamp.
A soft prickling of my skin came from nowhere, and I turned to find Ivy at the meat case, her back to me as she leaned on the counter flirting with the butcher. The only other person in sight was a petite woman in an uptight office dress, her head cocked as she studied the cracker labels. She looked bland enough, but something had tripped my warning flags.
Tucking my hair behind an ear, I glanced to the front of the store and into the parking lot past the big plate-glass windows. It was dusk—the time when humans started to shun mixed areas of the city and stick to their own streets as Inderlanders took over—but the sun was still up, which meant the woman wasn’t a dead vamp. It was unlikely she was a living one on her own this deep into the human side of things. She probably wasn’t a Were for the same reason. That left a human looking for some magical help—highly doubtful—or a witch looking for the same.
She couldn’t be a witch. I was shunned, and Cincy’s entire witch population knew it.
Drifting to a stand with early strawberries, I mentally went through my short list of who might have followed me this deep into traditionally human territory, then winced when I went through the even shorter list as to why.
I snuck a furtive glance at her, her sensible brown shoes, nylons, and blah brown skirt giving me the impression of sophistication coupled with an appalling lack of imagination. The woman was as thin as a mannequin, but not nearly as tall, and her blond hair was slicked back as if she thought she had to eliminate all softness to make it in a man’s world.
She looked up and I froze when we accidentally made eye contact. Damn, I thought as the woman blinked, her blue eyes wide, and smiled slowly—shocking the hell out of me. Double damn. She’d seen me come in with Ivy and was checking me out!
My face warmed. Eyes averted, I angled to put the display of strawberries between us. I was straight, but after losing three boyfriends in two years—one to illegal activity; one to the grave; and a third, not really a boyfriend but gone all the same because I’d been shunned—I wasn’t up to trying to explain things to a nice-looking woman who had misread the nonverbal communication between Ivy and myself.
Undeterred, the woman drifted closer. One hand was in the pocket of her skirt-length, white cashmere coat, the other was holding the latest gotta-have purse, one that probably wasn’t a knockoff. She must go to a tanning salon, because her soft amber glow was impossible to get during early spring in Cincinnati. Her nails were short, professionally polished,with white tips gleaming. The woman’s upscale mien was completely at odds with the instrumental eighties being piped in, the bleach-faded tile, and the occasional blaring loudspeaker.
My frown deepened when a faint whiff of redwood overtook the smell of chlorine and the tart scent of strawberries. She’s a witch? Crap, if she was a witch, then she knew damn well who I was. And if she knew who I was, she wasn’t trying to pick me up. At least, not for a date. It was a job—one that involved black magic.
Slow down, Rachel. Relax, I told myself, not even seeing the fruit as I picked up a carton of strawberries, fidgeting. Maybe she needs help and is scared to ask. Hell, I’d be. When I wasn’t playing demon student in the ever-after, I was an odd mix of bounty hunter, escort-through-troubled-waters, and a magical jack-of-all-trades—able to rescue familiars from trees and bring in the big bad uglies that no one else wanted to touch. I’d been shunned, yes, but maybe the trouble she was in was greater than her fear of being shunned for asking for my help. But she didn’t look scared; she looked confident and in control.
Setting the carton of strawberries down, I retreated, my thoughts spinning to the last time I’d been accosted by a black coven member on a recruitment drive. He’d taken offense when I’d told him to shove his dark coven somewhere even darker, and then they’d tried to kill me.
Adrenaline seeped into me, slow and sweet, making my heart pound and my senses come alive. It felt so good, it scared me. A quick look told me Ivy was gone. The butcher, too. My kick-butt boots scuffed, and I pulled out my phone as if checking the time, sending a 911 to Ivy before shoving my cell into a back pocket. Even if Ivy was checking out the meat behind the counter, she’d come.
My jaw tightened as I stood before a bank of green veggies against the wall. My back was to the woman in a show of nonchalance, but I stiffened as her sensible shoes tap-tap-tapped to a halt eight feet away. Before me was a display of carrots. Back off, babe, or I’ll kill you with this carrot.
“Excuse me,” the woman said, and damn it if I didn’t jump. “Are you Rachel Morgan?”
Her voice was high, almost too childlike to take seriously, and I turned, my fingers sliding off the damp carrots. Her height came in a few inches shorter than mine, heels and all. That hand was still in her pocket, and her smile had a touch of mockery. I didn’t want any trouble, but I’d finish it if she started some.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I said just as sweetly, putting a bunch of carrots in my canvas bag. Not very heavy. Need more weight.
My gaze flicked past her. Damn it, Ivy, where are you? There could be anything in that pocket of hers. The woman didn’t look like much, but then I didn’t either in my jeans, boots, short red leather jacket, and scarf.
“Are you Rachel Morgan of Vampiric Charms?” the woman asked again, and I shifted to a stand of organic potatoes, trying to put distance between us. “Cincinnati’s famously shunned witch. Right?” she insisted, her hand still in her coat pocket as she followed me.
Famous and shunned didn’t go together as much as one might think, and I sighed. My first thought that she was a black witch seemed to be correct. Hefting my bag, I dropped a potato into it and felt my arm stiffen against the extra weight. “Not interested,” I said tightly, hoping she’d do the smart thing and go away.
But I was never that lucky, and she leaned over the potatoes, eyes mocking. “Black magic doesn’t scare me, and neither do you. Come with me.”
Like hell I will. Disgusted, I set another potato in my bag and opened my second sight to take a look at the more nebulous view of the situation, managing to keep my reaction to a mild “mmmm.” The woman’s aura was spotless. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a black witch. She could be sloughing her smut onto someone.
“According to the press,” I said as I dropped my second sight, “Rachel Morgan dresses in skintight leather and has orgies with demons. Do I look to you like I’m wearing skintight leather?” A third potato went in with the rest. Almost heavy enough to knock you on your ass.
Angular face smug, the woman tucked her clutch bag under her arm. Her hands were free now, and my smile vanished. “It’s the demon part I’m interested in,” she said.
Damn it, she was a black witch. All I wanted to do now was leave before I got banned from another store. “Not interested,” I said tersely. “I don’t do black magic. I don’t care what the papers print.”
“Tell me your name,” she insisted, fingers twitching in what I hoped wasn’t a ley-line charm. “Maybe I’ll go away.”
She wanted a positive ID. Crap, was there a warrant out on me again? Maybe she wasn’t from a black coven at all, but from the I.S., fishing for an excuse to bring me in. I took a quick breath, a new worry filling me. I didn’t want to be tagged with resisting arrest. “Okay, that’s me,” I admitted. “Who are you? Inderland Security? Where’s your ID? If you have a warrant, let me see it. Otherwise, we don’t have anything to talk about.”
“I.S.?” she said, the skin around her eyes tightening. “You should be so lucky.”
Damn it, Ivy, get your ass out here! I backed up, and she moved with me. “I wouldn’t,” I threatened, stumbling to a halt when my butt hit the produce shelf. “I really wouldn’t.”
But she reached into her pocket, her free hand up in a laughable display of asking for trust, and came out with a zip strip. “Put this on and come with me. Everything will be fine.”
Oh yeah. Like I believed that. I didn’t even know who she was. Head hurting, I eyed the thin band of plastic-coated charmed silver, then flicked my attention to Ivy, who finally breezed back into the produce area, coming to a wide-footed stop beside the strawberries to take in the situation. The zip strip was basically a cheap but effective version of Pierce’s leash that would prevent me from doing any ley-line magic.
My heart pounded. “Everyone see this?” I shouted, and the whispers at the front grew louder. “I don’t want to go with this woman, and she’s forcing me to!” It was a thin attempt at CYA for the crap that was about to hit the fan, but I had to try.
Sure enough, she smiled—and then she reached for me.
I jerked back, but her fingers brushed mine. A twinge of ley-line energy threatened to equalize between us, strong and tingly. Hand pressed to my chest, I stared, shocked. She had a whopping big chunk of ever-after energy in her chi. Tons more than the average person could hold. Who in hell is this woman?
“Ivy?” I called out. “She’s hot! Watch it!”
Taking that as fear, the woman reached for me again. Bad idea. My breath came in smoothly. I jumped backward and up—which is a lot harder than it sounds—my heels landing on the low produce shelf. Lettuce squished under my boots.
Ivy grabbed the woman by the shoulder and spun her around.
“You first, vamp,” the small woman snarled, her blue eyes squinting in threat.
Grunting, I swung my potato-heavy bag, aiming at the back of the woman’s head. Shock reverberated up my arms when it hit and she stumbled, one hand reaching for the floor before she went down. Ivy danced back when the woman rolled, finding her feet and looking pissed as she brushed at the grime on her nice white coat. From the front a frantic high-pitched masculine voice called for security.
Damn it, I’m running out of places to shop, I thought as I dropped the bag and jumped to the floor. The woman had fallen into a defensive stance. Breathing fast, I looked at Ivy. “Mind if I finish this?” I asked.
Ivy shrugged. “Go for it.”
I was sure I was already banned, so, smiling, I went for it. The woman’s eyes widened, and she retreated. Crescent kick, side, side, side … I backed her up to the broccoli without ever touching her. I could use magic, sure, but this way when the I.S. showed up—and they would—I could stand under a truth amulet and say I hadn’t used magic. Which was exactly why my splat gun was safely at home in my nested bowls. Prudence sucked dishwater.
Expression hard, the small woman fell back into a produce shelf, and I landed a side kick square in her middle to push the air from her and maybe bruise a rib. “I said I wasn’t interested!” I shouted as she wheezed, and I grabbed her coat and hauled her up. “You shoulda just walked.” I thumped her head gently into the broccoli, then let go, leaving her dazed but not incapacitated. I didn’t want a lawsuit, just for her to go away.
Still muddled, the woman darted her hand out and gripped my wrist. Fearing an influx of raw power I yanked back, but the sound of plastic ratcheting closed accompanied the sudden wash of ever-after spilling out of me. Like squeezing a tube of toothpaste, I felt my untapped strength vanish as I fell back, dizzy with the sudden absence in my chi. Dazed, I looked to see a zip strip around my wrist. She’d let me hammer at her just so she could get it on me? Ah, shit. Jenks is going to laugh his wings off.
I stared at the woman as she reclined against the display, smiling grimly at me, though her chest had to hurt. “Got you, Morgan,” she said breathily as she held her middle, bits of lettuce in her hair. “You’re not such a badass. We got you.”
And who is we? “I don’t work for black-arts witches,” I said, not liking the tight feel of the strip against my skin. “I don’t care what you heard.”
“Black witch?” she panted, shoving me back so she could get up. “That’s a laugh. Let’s go.”
“You just don’t get it,” I said, disbelieving. “Zip strip or not, I’m not going!”
The woman’s eyes darted behind me at Ivy’s soft scuff. Fingers dipping into her pocket, she flung out her hand and threw what was probably a splat ball.
“Ivy, no!” I shouted, spinning, but I was too late. True to form, Ivy had caught it, breaking the thin skin and soaking her hand. For an instant I thought it might be okay, but then Ivy gasped. Fear slid through me on seeing her fist covered in a black goo that crawled up her arm, growing as it went. What in hell?
“Dunk it!” I shouted, pointing to the lobster tank. “Ivy, douse it in saltwater!”
The watching employees shouted their approval as the living vampire ran to the meat department. Ripping the top off the tank, she shoved her arm in up to her elbow. Water sloshed out, and the fear etched on her face eased. Turning, she looked at the small woman—and smiled to show her pointed teeth. It was about to get nasty.
Skirt swaying and hair mussed, the woman backed up, but the eager look on her face as she mumbled Latin told me she wasn’t afraid. Her hands were moving in ancient ley-line gestures. I had seconds to keep her spell from completion.
“That was a mistake, bitch,” I said softly. Scooping up a melon, I threw it at her, trying to break her charm before it was set. She ducked, flinging a glowing ball of reddish ever-after as she fumbled for her footing. I dove to escape her charm, spinning to see it hit the tile with a hissing sound. My eyes widened at the sight of a putrid-looking mass of seething bubbles growing larger by the second, bubbling evilly. What is she throwing? That can’t be legal! But by the look of savage eagerness on her face, I didn’t think she cared.
“Who the hell are you!” I shouted.
“Dilatare!” she shouted, invoking her next curse right before she slipped on the squished lettuce and went down with a pained-sounding grunt. Her magic, though, had been loosed.
“Fire in the hold, Ivy!” I shouted when the woman frantically scrabbled away from the glowing ball of unfocused magic, diving behind an apple display. Her magic drifted like a ball of lightning until it rolled under the strawberries, where it exploded.
Employees screamed. Red stuff went everywhere. I ducked as sodden splats and thumps of containers rained down.
“What is wrong with you!” I shouted as I got to my feet and flicked away the sticky goo. Not only was this woman better than me at magic, she didn’t mind getting dirty. Though bruised and covered in grime and strawberries, she was still smiling. She had the look of someone who didn’t care, someone who knew no one would make her accountable for what she did. The bitch was above the law, or thought she was.
I glanced at Ivy, standing nearby and casually going through the woman’s bag. Finding her ID, she held it up between two fingers and nodded. Taking that as a good sign, I ran for the woman. Shunned or not, we were going to settle this now. Just because I couldn’t do magic didn’t mean I was helpless.
White coat furling, she ducked out of my swing and I shifted away from her kick. It was sloppy. You know just enough to get yourself in trouble, I thought, then whipped my scarf off, tangling her wrist as she punched again. She pulled away, and I yanked her forward and down into my raised knee. Her breath came out in a whoosh and she bent double.
I let go of the scarf and shifted behind her, jabbing my heel at the back of her knee. Her leg collapsed, and she went down, still trying to breathe. “Oooooh, sorry,” I said, then untangled my scarf, wincing at the sticky strawberry mess it now was.
