Chapter Twenty-two
The pool cue slid between my fingers in a steady motion that Kisten had taught me. Squinting in the sun, I pulled back, staring at the one ball perched at the top of a very tight rack. I'd watched Wayde set them up, and he knew what he was doing, jamming everything to the front of the rack before carefully lifting up and away. A tight rack was crucial for a good break. With that you didn't need a lot of power, just a wee bit of accuracy.
Sending the cue stick forward, I hit the ball, sending it into the others with a satisfying crack. Pixies squealed and scattered, making a rainbow of dust over the sunlit table as I slowly straightened, my smile satisfied but a bit melancholy. The balls rolled and bounced, but none went in. I stepped to the side, my fingertips trailing across the smooth varnish of the bumper. It was cold and hard, not like Kisten's skin - but I still felt like he was here somehow. Sort of.
"Nice break." Wayde's eyebrows were high, his estimation of me rising by the looks of it. Smiling my thanks, I extended the cue to him. It was the only decent one we had, but now that the table was again usable, we might invest in a stick or two.
"Jenks, get your kids off the table," I said as I dropped back about four feet to give Wayde some mental as well as physical space. "They're getting their dust all over it."
Jenks's wings hummed at a higher pitch, and the three or four pixy bucks watching rose up into the lights. "You never worried about their dust before," Jenks said, darting over to snag his daughter before she got in the way of Wayde's shot.
His motions quick and sharp, Wayde took aim at the two ball. With a short tap, the ball plunked in, and the cue ball rolled backward a good two feet. I exhaled, recognizing his skill. It wasn't hard to make a ball back up, but to get it to stop right where you wanted it to line it up for the next shot wasn't easy.
"You want to play the winner?" I called out to Ivy, lounging on a chair with her back to the wall as she pretended to read a magazine and watch us without being obvious about it. She'd put herself right in the sun, which told me she'd had a rough morning. She sat in the sun only when she was frustrated.
"No."
She didn't look up, but the pages of her magazine crackled as she turned them. Ivy was casual this afternoon: jeans and a baggy sweater, her hair down and her phone on the table. Though she looked comfortable, there was a quickness to her motions and a slight widening of her pupils that told of a rising excitement. It could have been from her morning with Nina, but it had been almost twenty-four hours since my curses had hit the street, and I was betting it was that. The sun was streaming into the westernmost windows, but it would be dark in a few hours. We could bring in a bunch of bad-behaving humans in the dark, but I'd much rather do this before the dead people came out to play. Especially Felix. I was starting not to like him. His lack of ability was starting to impact Ivy, and I didn't like it.
From behind me, I heard another ball thunk into a pocket. Spinning, I looked quickly at the table, seeing the nine ball gone and Wayde lining up a bank shot with the five. "You're good," I said as I sat on the back of the couch and waited my turn.
"I think he's been sandbagging the last month, Rache," Jenks said as he sifted a gold sunbeam right onto the cue ball.
Wayde stood from where he'd been bending over the felt, stoically waiting for the ball to stop glowing. "The table was crap," he said, eyes meeting mine from under his shaggy bangs. "Pool is a game of absolutes. You can't play well on a crappy table." With a smooth, unhurried motion, he pulled back and sank the five. "And it was a crappy table."
I couldn't argue with him, but I had just gotten used to having to compensate for that dip by the far pocket. Sighing, I got up from the back of the couch and went to press my forehead to the cold stained glass, seeing the blurry world through a rose tint. He might clear the table before it was my turn. It made for a lousy evening of play, but I was too antsy to play anyway. The longer it took for my amulets to find HAPA, the more likely they were going to mutilate another innocent. My fingers twitched. Was I a demon, or was I a demon?
The crack of the balls broke the stillness, and I turned around when there was no accompanying thwap of a ball hitting the bottom of a pocket. "Nice of you to get your balls off the table so I have some room to play," I said as I took the offered cue. Wayde smiled at the innuendo, Jenks snorted, and Ivy gave me a one-raised-eyebrow look. I shrugged, refusing to acknowledge the sexual banter that just seemed to flow out of my mouth when I got a cue stick in my hand. I knew it was from Kisten, and it sort of hurt.
Wayde, though, took it in stride, looking cocky as he dropped back a few steps to watch. Nervous, I lined up an easy angle shot to a far corner pocket with the ten. I always had trouble with the ten ball. I didn't know why. Sure enough, I hit it wrong, and the ball bounced off the tip of the pocket and rolled to the rail. "The Turn take it," I swore softly, frowning as I held the stick out. I was going to get in three shots this game, max.
Wayde ignored the stick, instead moving both the ten and the cue ball back to their original places. "Try it again," he said as the light over the table glistened like gold in his stubbly beard when he pulled back and smiled. "And angle it a little more."
My eyes narrowed at the show of chivalry. "I don't need your pity handicap," I said, and Jenks flew to Ivy, his wings clattering loudly.
"This isn't pity," Wayde said as Ivy rattled a page to cover Jenks's badly whispered comment. "You're a good shot. You just need to slow down, pay attention."
My hand closed around the cue ball, and I set it down hard where it had come to rest earlier. "Your turn."
"Hey! Watch the slate!" Ivy exclaimed, and the slant to my shoulders shifted.
"Sorry," I said, then turned to tell Wayde to take the stick before I jammed it somewhere, but my jaw dropped when I realized he had moved the cue ball again. "I said, it's your turn!"
"Line it up." Wayde's eyes were on the table, not me. "Exhale on the down stroke."
"Yeah, stroke it, baby!" Jenks said, his hips gyrating as he hovered over Ivy.
"Oh my God," I muttered, but then, because I really should have made that shot, I tugged down my T-shirt and bent over the table. I exhaled, sending all the tension out of me, my thoughts about Kisten, my anger at HAPA, my worry over Winona - my new doubt that Trent was simply trying to get me to work for him . . . With a smooth motion, I hit the ball. It hummed over the felt as if pulling my aura with it, barely tapping the ten, shifting the momentum to it and sending it into the pocket with a satisfying little thump.
Pleasure sifted through me as I straightened and smiled while I handed the cue stick to him. "Nice, but it's your turn," he said, even as he took it.
"Nah, you gave me that one," I said, appreciating the gesture. "Your go."
Wayde nodded. Moving gracefully around the table, he lined up a shot that should have been easy - until he muffed it, sending the cue ball bouncing around to miss everything and come to a halt inches from where it had started.
Jenks whistled, impressed. I was, too, even if my smile had gone a little dry. He'd done it intentionally, but what could I do? Cry foul and not play anymore? "That was tighter than Tink's . . . ah, he's good," Jenks said to Ivy, then darted up to rescue the chalk from where his kids had snatched it again.
I held my hand up, and the chalk dropped into it. He is good, I thought as I chalked my cue. Maybe a little too good. Feeling centered, I lined up the thirteen and easily tapped it in.
Wayde's teeth showed and he ran a hand over his beard. "Anyone want some chips?" he asked as he headed for the kitchen, mistakenly thinking I would sink a few more before it was his turn again. Yeah, that was likely.
Ivy winced when Jenks's kids began a high-pitched, shrilling demand. I knew they were speaking English, but it was so fast I couldn't keep up. Wayde, too, looked pained, and in a noisy cloud of blue-faced pixies, they vanished into the hallway, Jenks trailing along behind. There was a crash from the hanging rack, and Wayde yelled that nothing broke.
I sighed, leaning on the stick as I looked over the sunlit table. From behind me came Ivy's somewhat threatening "They're going to get grease on everything."
I sashayed to the table, deciding to try the trickier bank shot if Wayde wasn't here to tell me how to do it. "You weren't worried about it last week."
"Last week, it was a crappy table."
Her magazine rustled, and I took my shot and missed. Standing, I looked over the table again, deciding to take another. It wasn't a serious game, and if he said anything, I'd just play stupid. My lips curled up in a smile as I bent over the table.
"Jenks tells me the charms on the counter are Trent's," Ivy said, her tone rising in question. I could understand why. I hadn't touched them: him making me a macaroni statue would have been better. If I used them, I'd feel like I owed him a favor. But to leave them there would be stupid if they would help. Damn it, why did I see ulterior motives in everything?
Disconcerted, I ignored her question, exhaling as I sent my cue gently forward. The balls cracked together, and one dropped in. It was Wayde's. Sloppy. "Yup," I said, avoiding her eyes as I maneuvered around the table. She was silent, and I looked up from where I was leaning over the table. Ivy was waiting for more. "He made them. In his spare time. Wild magic." Which was another reason not to use them. Who knew how the magic had to be broken?
"Mmm," she said, attention returning to her magazine.
" 'Mmm'?" I held the cue stick with both hands, hip cocked. "What does that mean?"
Ivy didn't look up, still reading as she said, "Maybe I misjudged the little cookie maker. Most of your ex-boyfriends would have told you not to do it. He gave you a weapon."
"Trent's not my boyfriend," I said quickly, and her eyes widened.
"Good God, no," she said just as fast. "That's not what I meant. I meant Nick would've told you to summon a demon to solve your problem. Marshal would've told you to not go at all. Pierce would probably have demanded to go with you, then gotten in the way and screwed it up. Trent, though, gave you a weapon. One you might use."
I couldn't help but notice that she'd left Kisten off the list. Lips pressed, I reached for the chalk. "Of course he gave me a weapon," I said as I chalked the tip and blew the excess off. "He's a murdering bastard, and he's protecting his investment." But it hadn't looked like he was worried about money when he'd told Al I was going to be of sun and shadow both. What in hell did that mean anyway? Sun and shadow both.
"Turn-blasted businessman," she said lightly, mockingly.
I leaned against the table, my focus becoming vacant. I was never going to call him that again.
"So are you going to use them?" she said, and shifted uncomfortably.
"The charms?" I thought about the Pandora charm he'd made that almost killed me, him freeing Ku'Sox with the singular intent of giving the world something worse than me to deal with and to make me look harmless, and then the finesse he'd needed to first weave a charm that cut me off from the universe, and second bring me back into it as well. "I don't think so."
"Mmm."
"Mmm" again? What is it with her and these one-word answers? "Thanks for taking my finding curses out to Glenn," I said. "What area are they concentrating on?"
Ivy played with the ends of her hair as she turned a magazine page. "He didn't tell me."
Her attitude was stiff, and I frowned as I smacked the balls around, not paying attention. "Is it Nina?" I carefully asked as the balls bounced, most of them ending up on the bumper.
Ivy's brow furrowed. "No. She's coping. Felix is taking the situation seriously, and with the three of us together, we might all make it out alive."
But her jaw was still tense, and I flicked a glance at the empty hallway, listening to pixies arguing over barbecue or ranch. "Daryl?" I asked, not knowing how much leeway I had when it came to her relationships - now that I wasn't one of them.
"No." She grimaced at her magazine. "Yes. But that's not what's bothering me."
Tension furrowed my brow, and I forced it smooth as I took a shot and missed. I'd asked. She knew I wanted to know. If I pushed now, she'd shut down.
"Glenn's not telling me something," she said softly, and I turned, sitting against the edge of the table to give her my full attention.
"You think he wants to break up?" I asked, fishing for an answer.
Ivy let her magazine fall forward on her lap. "Rachel, listen to me. It's this HAPA thing. He knows something, and he's not telling me."
"Oh." Moving around the table, I pushed half the striped balls to the center for better play. I was relieved that it wasn't anything to do with her, Daryl, and Glenn, but I didn't like the idea that he was withholding information. I didn't want to chalk it up to human/Inderland tensions, but what else could it be? David's warning drifted through me, and I shoved it away - but still the thought lingered.
"I think it seriously bothered him that we knew Nick was alive and didn't tell him," Ivy said, chewing on her bottom lip, her gaze distant.
"That was my decision, not yours," I said, and she shrugged. "I'll talk to him," I said, giving the cue ball a smack and sending the balls bouncing around the table.
Ivy was wincing when I looked up. "Don't. Please?" she asked, and I hesitated in my anger. "I'll talk to him myself. I don't know how long this is going to last anyway."
I stood up, leaning against the table. "Oh, man. I'm sorry. Is it his dad?"
Her expression twisting into one of doubt and heartache, Ivy shrugged. "Glenn is having a hard time keeping up, and it's starting to bother him." Her gaze became distant, and I wondered if she was thinking of Nina as she played with the collar of her baggy sweater.
"Oh." I looked at the table, not sure I liked the sound of this.
Ivy's head shifted, and I heard the hum of Jenks's wings. Half a second later, he darted into the room, his youngest daughter on his hip as she cried about the chips. Wayde followed him in with a bowl of chips and a garden of pixies wreathing him.
Wayde was eyeing the table as he set the bowl in front of Ivy, clearly oblivious to the fact that I'd been taking shots at his balls as well as generally moving things around. Sure it was illegal, but it wasn't as if we were playing a serious game. "Cool," he said as he noticed that a few of my balls had been sunk. "See? You just have to slow down." Then he frowned, and I watched his lips move as he counted his own set and came up short.
"And exhale on the downstroke, baby. Nice and slow," Jenks said, gyrating.
Ignoring Jenks, I handed the stick to Wayde. Ivy took a single chip, placing it between her teeth with a careful precision and crunching down. Jenks's kids shrieked, and my eyes widened as Ivy snatched up her phone an instant later. Seemed as if she had it on ultrasonic instead of her usual vibrate. Vamps and pixies could hear it, but not witches.
I watched her listen, and Jenks went to eavesdrop, hovering when she waved her hand at him to stay off her shoulder. I found I was holding my breath, taking the stick without looking when Wayde missed his shot and handed it to me.
"Got it," Ivy said, her voice tight, and her eyes went to the door. My gut tightened, and sweet adrenaline poured into me. The soft ache in my head from the lingering epoxy fumes vanished, and I smiled. We were on.
Saying nothing more, Ivy clicked her phone closed. She brought her attention from the door, smiled, and stood - all in a fluid motion that sent Jenks back-winging to get out of her way.
"Here," I said, handing Wayde the cue stick without looking at him. "You win."
"What?" he said, mystified for only an instant, and then his brow furrowed. "Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you about this."
Oh, for Pete squeaks. This was why I didn't have a boyfriend. Never, never, never.
Jenks rose up with a war whoop, whistling for his kids. From the belfry, Rex padded in with Belle on her shoulder, the gaunt fairy riding the cat like a horse, partly to stay warm, I think, in the drafty church. Things were going to move fast from here on out.
"Rachel?" came Ivy's voice from her room. "Where's my sword?"
The gray dimness of the hallway was soothing as I headed to the kitchen and my charms. "In the foyer where you left it last week when the evangelists were canvassing the neighborhood," I said as I passed her open door. Boots and leather jackets were strewn on her bed, and what looked like a new knife set. She'd taken a class last winter and was dying to try them out legally on someone.
I eyed Wayde when he paced into the kitchen behind me. "Have you given any thought to the fact that HAPA doesn't know your bracelet is gone?" he said, and I flung open my charm cupboard, intentionally almost hitting him.
"Yes, I have, actually. If they make a try for me, they'll be in for a surprise." And I hope they do go for me. "Ivy, where are we going?" I shouted, hands on my hips as I looked over my stash. Pain amulets, yeah. I always needed one of those.
Jenks zipped through the kitchen, Rex and Belle under him, the cat watching him with her tail up straight. "I've got some of that new nectar crap in the fridge," he said. "If it gets late and I'm not back, just warm it up. And you have to warm it, or it drops their core temp."
"I got this!" the irate fairy said. "I spent three years tending younglings before I became a warrior. That they're pixy brats instead of fairy fry don't mean troll turds."
Ivy walked in, intent on reaching the blade oil she kept in the pantry. She was in her working leathers, and I suddenly felt underdressed. "Damn, you look good," I said, ignoring Wayde beside the archway with his arms crossed over his chest.
Ivy looked down at herself, an oil-soaked rag in her hand. "Thanks. You wearing that? You're going to leave skin on the pavement if you have to run."
Jittery, I grabbed three pain amulets by their cords, then a couple of disguise charms just in case. I wanted them to recognize me, but someone else might want to use them. My gaze slid to Trent's charms on the table, and in a surge of decision, I shoved them in there, too. "If we have three minutes, I can get my leather on." I should have called Trent about that ring. Too late now.
She nodded. "We can wait that long. Glenn is sending a car. Jenks, get your kids to shut up, will you? I can't think with them yammering like that!"
He rose, his wings a bright silver I'd not seen in almost a year. "Where we going?" he demanded. "Cold? Warm?"
Wayde cleared his throat, and I stiffened. "I don't think you should go," he said, and the kitchen became silent.
A pixy giggled. Belle made a weird lisping whistle, and the kids followed her out, teasing Rex by flitting almost in front of the cat's nose. Ivy gave Wayde a look, then turned on her heel, leaving the kitchen and shouting over her shoulder, "Five minutes!" Jenks trailed behind her, still wanting to know if he needed his cold-weather gear.
Alone in the kitchen with Wayde, I closed my charm cupboard. Amulets clanking as I dropped them into my shoulder bag on the table, I turned to face Wayde. "You're not my alpha," I said, then brushed by him headed for my room. Five minutes would give me just enough time. I could even put on some makeup.
"If David was here, he'd tell you to stay," Wayde said from behind me.
"All David said was for me not to be alone," I said, then stopped on the threshold to my room. I was never going to have another boyfriend. Ever. "Look, if you want to come along, come along. But I can tell you right now that Glenn won't let you on-site."
Ivy brushed past us on her way to the back living room, her unsheathed katana in her hand, and Wayde pressed back to get out of her way. "Ivy? Where we going?" I called, my thoughts on my closet, not the questionable smarts about going after a militant hate group again. This time, though, I had my magic. I had Ivy and Jenks with me, too - as well as a bunch of I.S. and FIB guys.
"Library" came from the back room, and then Wayde pressed back again when she came out. "Downtown Cincy. The one you broke into a few years ago."
My eyes widened, and I took a step back into my room. "No way!" I said, remembering the locked rooms down in the seldom-visited basement. Trent had said they were downtown. How had he known?
"Yes way," Jenks said in passing as he zipped over us, a whining preteen following him.
Ivy sent her gaze into the kitchen, shocking the hell out of me when she asked, "Can I have one of your pain amulets? Just in case?"
My mouth literally dropped open and I nodded. It was the first time she'd ever asked for my magic, and I wondered what it meant. "Sure," I said, and she vanished into the kitchen.
"Two minutes!" she shouted from the kitchen, and the pixies squealed from the sanctuary. She brushed past me in a swirl of vampire incense, and I looked at Wayde.
"I gotta go," I said, hand on my door to shut it in his face. "If you're coming, you might want to change."
"This is not a good idea!" he said loudly, and I closed the door.
No, riding behind you on a bike wasn't a good idea, I thought sourly. God! You show one tiny slip of softness, and they think you're a damsel in distress. At least Pierce let me fight my own battles, even if he did mess them up royally. Man, I hoped he was okay. Being Newt's familiar was not a good thing. At least he was alive. And probably having the time of his life trying to kill her, now that I thought about it.
From the other side of my door came Wayde's exasperated voice, saying, "You've already been targeted by them once. You think Glenn is going to let you out of the car?"
I stripped down to my sports bra and socks, then dropped to my hands and knees to look under my bed for my running boots. Low heel, good traction, supple leather. Ivy had gotten them for me for my birthday last year.
"Rachel?"
Grimacing, I threw the boots onto the bed and rose, snatching up my leather pants and shoving my feet into them. My fingertips touched the mended part where the bullet had gone through, and I sobered. "If I'm not there," I said loudly, "they'll get away. I know it!" I said, believing it to my core. "They're just too lucky to be believed."
A sparkle of dust slipped under my door, and I gasped. "Jenks, get out of here!" I shouted, grabbing my shirt and covering myself.
"Hurry up, Rache! Let's go!" he said, not caring I was still half naked.
"Get out!" I shrieked, and he blinked, wings becoming red when he saw me.
"Oh, crap," he murmured. "Sorry. The car is here . . ."
"I still have one minute," I said, adrenaline making my motions jerky as I gave up on modesty and put my shirt on. What could he see around a sports bra anyway? I felt like Cinderella as I jammed my boots on and opened the door to find Wayde still there, fidgeting.
My boots were still unzipped as I shoved Wayde out of my way and clomped through a cloud of cheerful pixies. Ivy was waiting at the front door, looking like a sexy predator with her leather jacket and sword, and she handed me my shoulder bag, already stocked with my charms, splat gun, and a slew of sleepy-time potions.
"You got your phone?" she said as I looped the bag over my shoulder.
"Yes." I patted my back pocket and hopped on one foot to get my boot fastened.
"Got minutes on it?" Jenks asked snidely.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, getting the other boot zipped. "Let's go!"
Ivy reached for the door, took a breath, and opened it. The late sun spilled in around me, and I headed out after her, waving to the pixies that wreathed us, thinning to nothing as we reached the curb. A black FIB van waited, and I looked up when Wayde ran down the steps and reached for the door's handle. "I'm coming," he said, and he shoved the wide sliding door open.
" 'Bout time he figured it out," Jenks said as he zipped in ahead of me, and accepting Wayde's help, I got in, settling myself on the far end. Ivy was already sitting next to Glenn, and I smiled at the FIB guy driving us.
Downtown, I thought as Wayde got in and slid the door to a firm, definite shut. How had Trent known?