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The whine of Jenks’s wings increased as I propped the door open. “Uh, something like that. But no one died. Hey, I tried to keep them out of your stuff. I’m sorry. It was just Belle and me after the sun came up and we had to pick our battles.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your … fault …” I stopped just inside the sanctuary, lips parting as I took in the empty bowls, smeared glasses, crushed beer cans, and chips bags. The furniture had been rearranged, and someone had drawn a mustache and beard on the TV, presumably on someone’s face at the time. Kisten’s pool table had a cooler on it, and a dark stain spread under it as water dripped from the long crack running the width of the plastic. It was worse than the time my high school boyfriend had volunteered my house for the homecoming party because he knew my mom was working.
“Is Belle okay?” I said as Trent made a sorrowful noise. “Jumoke and Izzy?”
I could re-felt the table, but I knew I never would. I’d have to look at that stain on Kisten’s memory for the rest of my life.
“They’re okay.” Jenks hovered by my ear, a depressed bluish-orange dust slipping from him. “Jumoke and Izzyanna kept to the garden, but Belle was with me. I couldn’t have saved the kitchen without her. That fairy is something else.”
A faint smile found me, and I started to think again. It was a God-awful mess, but I almost didn’t care if it meant Jenks and Belle had attained a deeper level of respect. “Ah, sorry about your room,” Jenks said as I ran a hand down the smooth finish of the pool table’s bumper. “I figured you’d rather I save your kitchen, and ah, they really wanted the bed.”
Oh God. My bed. “Don’t worry about it. You saved the kitchen?” Tired, I started for the hallway. I’d send Cormel the cleanup bill if I thought he’d pay it.
Sure enough, the bathrooms were trashed. I think every vampire in the Hollows had used my shower. I’d probably just throw what was left of my soap away. Even so, it wasn’t as bad as my bedroom.
“I’m really sorry, Rache,” Jenks said as I peeked in, nose wrinkled as I hustled to prop the stained-glass window open. I couldn’t deal with this just yet, and Trent went across the hall to make sure Ivy’s window was open as well. Someone had been through my closet and my clothes were everywhere. My perfumes, too, were knocked over, most of them empty. More clothes spilled from my open drawers, and I began to get mad. Multiple someones had had sex in my bed by the look of it. There were nasty scratches in the headboard and the top of the footboard had been snapped off as if someone had kicked it in the throes of passion.
“Oh, Rachel,” Trent breathed, his words making a warm spot on my shoulder. “This was totally uncalled for. I am so sorry.”
Angry, I turned to the kitchen. “Not half as sorry as Cormel is going to be.”
Belle, looking small without Rex beside her, stood at the threshold to the kitchen. She slumped, clearly fatigued as she leaned on her six-inch bow. “Rachel.” Her lisping, raspy voice, too, lacked its usual flair. “Is-s-ss Ivy well?”
Damn it, Cormel, if your people have hurt my cat … “Yes,” I said, again finding a drop of good in the ugly. “Your sister and brothers are keeping her safe.”
Jenks’s wings cut out for a brief second. “Holy pixy piss, really?”
Trent nodded, a faint smile on his face as he put a hand on the small of my back and almost shoved me into the untouched kitchen. “I’ve let most of my security go, and at Quen’s urging, I’ve come to an agreement with the clan that’s been living in my gardens. I’ve been told that pixies would have been better—”
“Not likely,” Belle interrupted as we came in.
“But I appreciate their unobtrusiveness and good manners,” he added, and Jenks frowned.
Slowly my shoulders eased. After the disaster of the rest of the church, the dishes I’d left in the sink yesterday looked like heaven, even if everything was covered in pixy dust. Da-a-amn, Jenks must have worked his wings to bare veins to keep them out.
“You guys are the best,” I said, miserable as I stood beside the center island counter and looked at my spelling supplies hanging from the rack, the twin stoves sporting a thin layer of sparkles, and the huge antique farmhouse table shoved up against the interior wall. Ivy’s latest research was in her usual careful disarray, and the bag of cookies I’d had for breakfast yesterday looked untouched. “I can’t believe you kept them out of here.” Crap on toast, I was almost crying, and Jenks’s wings shifted to an embarrassed red.
Trent set his book on the center counter with a soft thump. A thin cloud of spent pixy dust rose and vanished into nothing. “So is the rest of the church as bad as the front?” he asked as I slid the single window open. Thank God Al’s chrysalis is still here. The church stank, far worse than if it had simply been living vampires. It had been an all-access party. The sanctity of the church had been broken by Newt three months ago. I should have gotten it reinstated, but it was expensive, and insurance wouldn’t cover it a second time. Cheaper to just move. I can’t move, this is my home.
“I’ve yet to s-s-s-survey the damage in the garden,” Belle said, having snaked up a thin line to stand on the counter. “We kept them from the kitchen, though it was a mighty task.”
I shook my head, imagining it. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t ever repay you.”
Jenks looked pleased, but Belle scowled, sullen. “If I had a flight under my direction, the entire church would have been untouched.”
“They would have just burnt it to the ground,” I said, eyes on the ceiling. “You chose what I would’ve saved.” It was going to be hard to find any sleep tonight, but then again, I probably wouldn’t get the chance to sleep. My face scrunched up as I thought of my bed. No way. I was buying a new one.
“I’ll check everything out if you make coffee,” Trent offered, and I nodded. He wasn’t being sexist, he just didn’t want me to see anything until he had a chance to maybe fix it. Half of me wanted to go through the church from the belfry to the most distant tombstone and use that anger to get through the next twelve hours, but the other half just wanted to get my sheets in the washer, ignoring the rest until I could deal with it.
The cat door in the back room squeaked as Belle went into the garden. I ran a finger across the pixy dust, head coming up in surprise when Trent pulled me into an unexpected hug. I went willingly, and for a moment, we just stood there, taking strength from each other as I breathed him in, finding his cinnamon and wine scent under the chaotic vampire mashup. The sound of Jenks’s wings grew loud, then vanished as he followed Belle out. Trent’s grip was firm without being binding, and the faintest hint of energy slipped between us as our auras tried to mix.
“You going to be okay?” he said, and I nodded, pushing back even as I made sure he didn’t slip away completely. Oh, I was still pissed, but after enough people try to kill or imprison you, the stuff that can be fixed and forgotten in a week tends not to matter as much.
“Thanks,” I said, and his smile became devious. “Could you do me a favor and open the windows in the belfry first? With them and the back door open, the place airs out remarkably fast.” Most of it was surface stink. They hadn’t been here long enough for the pheromones to soak into the paint and woodwork.
“You bet.” Trent rocked back, and my hand slipped reluctantly from his waist. He was looking at my lips as if wanting to kiss me, but then he turned and headed down the hall. Just the idea that he was thinking about it was almost as good as the kiss would have been, and I found a smile. I could tell the instant the belfry windows opened as the pixy dust vanished in the fresh air. I could never repay Jenks for keeping the kitchen untouched, and as I ran the tap for warm water to make up some suds, I pulled Trent’s book closer.
It wasn’t the first elf spell book I’d ever seen, but again I was surprised that most of the charms I browsed past had the same mix of earth and ley line magic that demon magic did. I’d be willing to bet the two branches of magic had developed hand in hand despite the long-standing anger between them.
Remembering that I’d promised coffee, I set the book aside. The charm to capture a soul looked easy, I thought as I dumped yesterday’s grounds and changed the water to cold. Easy, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it without asking the Goddess for help. Lots of elves didn’t believe and still got the job done. Landon, for example, though he probably believed in her now.
Landon. My lips twisted in disgust. He’d used Trent and me to try to destroy the vampires. That the elven muckety-mucks of both the religious-oriented dewar and the political-faction enclave had disavowed any knowledge of his plot made it obvious that they’d each backed him. Though still in charge of the dewar, Landon had lost credibility. Trent had lost more.
At least no one had died, I thought, my mind going to Ivy, still at Trent’s mini-hospital.
Apart from the quiet and the vague unease, it almost felt like a normal, quiet Saturday as I measured out the grounds, the scent of it reminding me of how much I enjoyed living here with Ivy, even as hard as it was sometimes. Understanding didn’t come cheap, and I blinked back an unexpected surge of sadness at the thought that it might be ending. I wasn’t moving in with Trent, but this latest snag made it feel … over somehow.
“Stop it, Rachel,” I whispered. Nothing was really ending. Jenks, Ivy, and I had been through worse. We’d get through this, and everything would return to normal. Better even.
But how many times can we get back up as if nothing has changed?
I folded the bag of the grounds down and fastened it shut with one of Ivy’s binder clips. I wished I had a reset button. How far back would I take it? I wondered. To the day I made that deal with Cormel? Farther?
I snapped the coffeemaker on, then found a smile when I heard Trent and Jenks in the hallway. “Coffee ready yet?” Trent called loudly.
“Give it five!” I shouted back. Smile fixed, I leaned against the counter and waited for them to come in. But they didn’t, and I tiptoed to the archway, stopping when I heard Trent mutter, “I know how to wash sheets, Jenks. I’ve got two toddlers.”
He’s doing laundry?
“Hey, okay, cookie man,” Jenks drawled. “It’s your funeral if you shrink them.”
There was a hesitation, and I leaned closer. “Shrink them?” Trent asked.
“Those are one hundred percent cotton,” Jenks said importantly, “not your richy-rich linen stuff. If you use the sterilize cycle, you’ll not only shrink ’em, but set the oils carrying the vampire pheromones into the fabric. Look, Ivy’s got a bottle of no-nose up here.”
My brow furrowed. No-nose?
A cupboard creaked, loud over the sound of water filling the washer, and then Trent’s bemused “I’ve never seen this.”
“Put a splash in. It’ll take care of the vampire cooties and the pheromones, too.”
I could almost see the pixy preening in that he’d known something Trent hadn’t. Sure enough, Trent’s voice held a smidgen of humor and humility when he next spoke. “Thanks. I shouldn’t be so quick to prove I know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Jenks said, and I eased back into the kitchen. “That’s why Ivy has silk sheets. Me, I don’t like silk. The dust makes them as slippery as all hell.”
Smiling, I busied myself with Trent’s book. I felt bemused and loved. Trent was washing my sheets, the one thing that I wanted most and didn’t have time for. And I hadn’t known about the no-nose, either.
The coffee was gurgling its fragrant last when they came in, the book splayed open before me as my interest in it went from pretend to real. “Smells good,” Trent said, Jenks a humming shadow behind him.
“You want the rainbows or the smiley face?” I asked, reaching for the mugs.
Trent eyed the two overly happy mugs. “Ah, whatever. You need a fresh stick of yew. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll get the yew, cookie man.” Hands on his hips, Jenks yo-yoed before him. “I want to make sure no one peed on it.”
“I can get it,” Trent insisted, and Jenks darted forward, rocking the larger man back.
“I said … I’ll get it,” Jenks said, and I rolled my eyes as the pixy bristled. “Sit and drink your coffee. If I need your help, I’ll whistle. I want to check on, ah, Jumoke, anyway.”
Eyes wide in question, Trent took the rainbows. “I’ll sit and drink my coffee.”
“Good man.” With a relieved sigh, Jenks flew out the back door’s cat flap, whistling and calling coaxingly for Rex.
Eyebrows high, Trent leaned past me to look out the window. The scent of cinnamon and wine dove deep, and I almost sighed. “Ah, why doesn’t Jenks want me in the garden?” he asked.
I sipped my coffee, thinking the scent went well with content elf. “My guess is he’s looking for his cat and he doesn’t want you to scare her off.”
“Mmmm.” Expression concerned, Trent dropped back to his heels, steaming mug behind his laced fingers. “Cats like me.”
My head slowly shook. “Nah. A pixy dancing an inch off the ground is a lot more enticing than a man she barely knows. Besides, how often do we get the church to ourselves?”
His eyes flicked to mine and held for a telling moment. Introspective, he went to the large table, turning one of the chairs halfway around before sitting sideways in it. “My cleaning crew could be in and out of here in two hours.”
Again, I shook my head. The thought of more people in my church made my skin crawl. Besides, I should wait until I knew if I was going to survive the next couple of days. Book in hand, I set my mug next to his before I shifted Trent’s arm and sat right in his lap, curving his arm around me. He grunted in surprise, holding me almost in self-defense as I dropped the book open before us. “Oh, I like this,” he said, tugging me into a more comfortable position.
“I bet you do.” Smiling, I thumbed to the proper page. I felt vulnerable, and this helped. “I’ve been looking at the charm you dog-eared. Changed aura or not, I can’t imagine the Goddess won’t recognize me if I petition for her help.”
A memory of the Goddess shivered thorough me. Al had tried to kill me because of her, believing it was the only cure for the voices in my head. I’d had to trick Newt into admitting the Goddess was real. It wasn’t my fault the Goddess’s mystics liked living in mass better than the space between mass. If they ever found me, the only way to survive would be to kill the Goddess—turn her into something new.
Trent’s fingers were tracing a delicious path along the top of my waistband, and I jumped when he found my skin. The memory of the first time with him surfaced like bubbles in my thoughts, breaking with little tingles against the top of my mind. It had been in the kitchen. Well, we’d started in the kitchen. We’d ended in the back living room.
He was smiling when I turned to him, and I let the pages shift so I could trace the outline of his ear with a slow finger. “You want to find a different charm?” he asked, a new thought hazing the back of his eyes.
I slowly leaned in and found his earlobe with my lips, tugging suggestively as I breathed him in, waves of sensation spilling through me. “No,” I whispered, shivering when his fingers gripped the back of my neck. “I want you to do it. You’ve done it before. Right?”
I hadn’t meant to put a sexual innuendo in there, but there it was.
“Sort of.”
His sour tone slumped my shoulders, and I pulled back. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine, but his hands never fell from around my waist and kept me where I was. Wincing, he glanced at the book. “The charm I’m familiar with affixes souls based on aura identification. Felix doesn’t have his natural aura anymore.” My balance shifted as Trent flipped to a new page, his long fingers moving the paper like fingers over a keyboard. “We can use the first part to capture the soul, no problem,” he said when he found it, “but we’ll need to tinker with the second half to find something to affix it to, something not altogether alive and coated in someone else’s aura.”
“Al and Newt have collections of souls. I bet they have a way to affix them.”
Trent stiffened under me. “You’re not asking Al.”
“I know.” I leaned to put my head on his shoulder. It was awkward, but I didn’t care when his arms went around me again. “I’ll ask Newt unless you have something in your library.” This was nice. I didn’t want to move.
“Newt isn’t any better than Al,” Trent muttered, but we had little choice. Elves and witches seldom worked with souls, and never to affix them to a nonliving thing. The Were’s focus was kind of like a soul. Maybe I could use that curse?
Trent squirmed, and I got up knowing he probably wasn’t altogether comfortable. “We’ll find something.” I needed professional guidance, but my professional guide was pissed at me. Fidgeting, I looked at the cookies, wishing I had something better to offer Trent. I’d seen his taste in cookies, and I was a bohemian by his culinary standards. “You don’t have any more books on the subject, do you?” I asked as I pulled the bag to me and snapped one to check for staleness. Flat.
“No.”
“Maybe simply capturing Felix’s soul will buy us enough time.”
Depressed, I set the open bag down and sat in the chair next to him. He was silent, waiting until I took three cookies before he reached in and pulled out five. I swear, I didn’t know where the man put his calories. Maybe a box in his basement. “Al would know,” I said softly, and his eyes jerked to me. He took a breath to say something, then hesitated.
“Is that really how you eat those?”
I looked at the bite out of my cookie and flushed. “Yeah,” I lied, brushing the crumbs off. To be honest, I usually separated them, eating the cookie part first and scraping all the frosting into one gigantic wad. But I wasn’t going to in front of Trent.
“Huh.” Trent screwed his cookie open and scraped the frosting out with his teeth. “I thought everyone opened them up.”
Damn it, I was flushing, and saw him file my lie away for later. Trent leaned closer. “Don’t call Newt,” he said. “We’re not out of options yet. Landon owes you a favor.”
“Landon?” I said around a mouthful of crumbs. “The man is slime!” I exclaimed, and Trent bobbed his head, ruefully agreeing. “Nothing but a … politically perfect engineered piece of backstabbing elf slime who thinks only of himself and the hell with the rest.”
Leaning back and looking uncomfortable, he nodded. “I know.”
“He tricked his predecessor into suicide!” I said, hand flying up into the air.
“I know.”
Frustrated, I stood up. “Trent, I’m not asking Landon for help. I don’t trust him. If it wasn’t for him, I never would have damaged the Goddess to begin with!”
“I know. But it all worked out.”
Worked out? I sputtered, trying to find the words, and Trent took my hand and pulled me closer. “Rachel, I agree it’s risky. The elven dewar and enclave would still like to see the vampires die out—and you and me with them—but I’m not asking the elves, I’m asking Landon. He owes you, and I’ve got a little blackmail left in me.”
Expression sour, I pulled my hand from him, arms around my middle as I moved to stand beside the sink. Trent silently waited. I knew how much it had hurt Trent going from everyone’s owing him to his owing everyone. He was still making his genetic medicines in his basement labs, but now it was more to keep his customers from turning him in than the other way around.
“You think Landon knows how to fix souls to bodies?” I asked.
Sighing, Trent unscrewed another cookie, stacking the black cookie with the rest he’d already scraped clean. “Positive. If I can convince him that success will mean the end of the vampires, he’ll tell you.” Jaw clenched, he stared at nothing.
“You think he’ll believe that?”
Trent’s gaze sharpened on mine. “Why not? It’s a distinct probability.”
“But …” I thought of the chaos that had taken Cincinnati and the Hollows when the undead had fallen asleep for four days. Head cocked, I leaned back against the counter. “Remind me of why we’re doing this if you think it’s going to topple the vampires’ power structure.” Not like I really had a choice.
Trent put an ankle on his knee, looking totally yummy with that cookie in his hand. “The charm Landon would know works one to one, not en masse. One vampire going insane and walking into the sun isn’t going to have an impact on the world. And when Cormel understands that having his soul will send him into the sun, they’ll all accept that it’s not a viable way to extend their undead existence.”
I didn’t like the idea of even one vampire committing suncide because of a charm I twisted, and seeing it, Trent stood, coming to me and taking me in a hug. “Rachel, Felix won’t survive more than a few more months regardless of what happens.” Leaning back, he caught my eyes with his own. “Or it will work with no ill effects, and we’ll have a different issue to deal with. Either way, Landon will help if only for the chance to see the end of the undead.”
But I didn’t trust Landon. “What’s to stop them from just killing them all, then? I mean, after we prove it works? Elves can go to the ever-after, same as witches.”
Nodding, Trent reached into the bag of cookies. “True, but whoever was going to try would have to not only catch a surface demon, but catch the right one. It’s a miracle we found Felix’s. Besides, if elves can’t make money on it, they won’t do it, and witches know better than to try.”
