Bubbles, I thought, ought to be marketed as a medicinal inducement for well-being. I sighed, scooting myself up before my neck could slip under the water. Dulled by amulets and warm water, my bruises had retreated to a background throb. Even my wrist, propped high and dry on the side of the tub, felt reasonable. Faintly through the walls, I could hear Nick talking to his mother on the phone, telling her that work had gotten really hectic the last three months and that he was sorry he hadn't called. Otherwise, the church was quiet. Jenks and Ivy were gone. "Out doing my job," I whispered, my complacent mood going sour.
"What's that, Ms. Rachel?" Matalina piped up. The small pixy woman was perched on a towel rack, looking like an angel in her flowing white silk dress as she embroidered dogwood blossoms on an exquisite shawl for her eldest daughter. She had been with me since I got in the tub, making sure I didn't pass out and drown.
"Nothing." I laboriously lifted my bruised arm and drew a mound of bubbles closer. The water was going cold and my stomach was rumbling. Ivy's bathroom looked eerily like my mother's, with tiny soaps in the shape of shells, and lacy curtains over the stained-glass window. A vase of violets rested on the back of the commode, and I was surprised a vamp cared about such things. The tub was black, contrasting nicely with the pastel walls and rosebud wallpaper.
Matalina set her stitching aside and flitted down to hover over black porcelain. "Should your amulets get wet like that?"
I glanced at the pain charms draped around my neck, thinking I looked like a drunken prostitute at Mardi Gras. "It's okay," I breathed. "Soapy water won't dissolution them like saltwater does."
"Ms. Tamwood wouldn't tell me what she put in your bath," Matalina said primly. "There might be salt in it."
Ivy hadn't told me, either, and to tell the truth, I didn't want to know. "No salt. I asked."
With a small harrumph, Matalina landed on my big toe, poking above the water. Her wings blurred to nothing, and a clear spot formed as the bubbles melted. Gathering her skirts, she cautiously bent to dip a hand, to bring a drop up to her nose. Tiny ripples spread out from her touch on the water.
"Vervain," she said in her high voice. "My Jenks was right, there. Bloodroot. Goldenseal." Her eyes met mine. "That's used to cover up something potent. What is she trying to hide?"
I looked at the ceiling. If it took away the pain, I really didn't care.
There was a creak of floorboards in the hall, and I froze. "Nick?" I called, looking at my towel just out of reach. "I'm still in the tub. Don't come in!"
He scuffed to a halt, the thin veneered wood between us. "Uh, hi, Rachel. I was just, uh, checking on you." There was a hesitation. "I - um - need to talk to you."
My stomach clenched, and my attention fell upon my wrist. It was still bleeding through a wad of gauze an inch thick. The rivulet of blood on the black porcelain looked like a welt. Maybe that's why Ivy had a black tub. Blood didn't show up as well on black as it did on white.
"Rachel?" he called into the quiet.
"I'm okay," I said loudly, my voice echoing off the pink walls. "Give me a minute to get out of the tub, all right? I want to talk to you, too - little wizard."
I said the last snidely, and I heard his feet shift. "I'm not a wizard," he said faintly. He hesitated. "Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat?" He sounded guilty.
"Yeah. Thanks," I replied, wishing he would get away from the door. I was ravenous. My appetite probably had everything to do with that cakelike cookie Ivy made me eat before she left. It was as appetizing as a rice pancake, and only after I had choked it down did Ivy bother to tell me it would increase my metabolism, especially my blood production. I could still taste it on the back of my throat. Sort of a mix between almonds, bananas, and shoe leather.
Nick scuffed away, and I stretched with my foot for the tap to warm the water. The water heater was probably hot by now.
"Don't warm it, dear," Matalina warned. "Ivy said to get out once it went cold."
A wave of irritation swept me. I knew what Ivy had said. But I refrained from comment.
I slowly sat up and moved to sit on the edge of the tub. The room seemed to darken around the edges, and I abruptly wrapped a fluffy pink towel around myself in case I passed out. When the room stopped going gray, I pulled the plug on the tub and carefully stood. It drained noisily, and I wiped the mist from the mirror, leaning against the sink to look at myself.
A sigh shifted my shoulders. Matalina came to rest on my shoulder, watching me with sad eyes. I looked as if I'd fallen out of the back of a truck. One side of my face was welted with a purple bruise that spread up into my eye. Keasley's bandage had fallen off, showing a red gash following the arc of my eyebrow, to make me look lopsided. I didn't even remember getting cut. I leaned closer, and the victim in the mirror mimicked me. Gathering my resolve, I pulled my damp, stringy hair away from my neck.
A sound of resignation slipped from me. The demon hadn't made clean punctures, but rather, three sets of tears that melted into each other like rivers and tributaries. Matalina's tiny stitches looked like a little railroad trellis running down to my collarbone.
The remembrance of the demon pulled a shudder from me; I had nearly died under it. Just that thought was enough to scare the hell out of me, but what was going to keep me awake at night was the niggling awareness that for all the terror and pain, the vampire saliva it had pumped into me had felt good. Lie or not, it had felt... staggeringly wonderful.
I gripped the towel closer around me and turned away. "Thank you, Matalina," I whispered. "I don't think the scars will be that noticeable."
"You're welcome, dear. It was the least I could do. Would you like me to stay and make sure you get dressed all right?"
"No." The sound of a mixer came from the kitchen. I opened the door and peeked into the hall. The smell of eggs was thick in the air. "I think I can manage, thanks."
The small pixy nodded and flitted out with her needlework, her wings making a soft hum. I listened for a long moment, and deciding Nick was safely occupied, I hobbled to my room, breathing a sigh of relief upon reaching it undetected.
My hair dripped as I sat on the edge of my cot to catch my breath. The thought of putting on pants made me cringe. But I wasn't going to wear a skirt and nylons, either. I finally settled on my "fat jeans" and a blue button-up plaid shirt that was easy enough to get into without bringing on too much pain from my shoulder and arm. I wouldn't be caught dead in such an outfit on the street, but it wasn't as if I was trying to impress Nick.
The floor kept shifting under my feet as I dressed, and the walls tilted if I moved fast, but eventually I emerged with my damp amulets clanking about my neck. I scuffed down the hallway in my slippers, wondering if I ought to try to cover my bruise with a complexion spell. Standard makeup wasn't going to cut it.
Nick blundered out of the kitchen, almost running me down. He had a sandwich in his hand. "There you are," he said, his eyes wide as he ran his gaze down to my pink slippers and back up again. "Do you want an egg sandwich?"
"No, thanks," I said, my stomach rumbling again. "Too much sulfur." The thought flashed through me how he had looked, that black book in his grip as he flung out his hand and stopped that demon dead in its tracks: frightened, scared... and powerful. I'd never seen a human look powerful. It had been surprising. "I could use some help changing my wrist bandage, though," I finished bitingly.
He cringed, thoroughly destroying the picture in my head. "Rachel, I'm sorry - "
I pushed past him and went into the kitchen. His steps were light behind me, and I leaned against the sink as I fed Mr. Fish. It was fully dark outside, and I could see tiny flashes of light as Jenks's family patrolled the garden. I froze as I saw that the tomato was back on the windowsill. A wash of worry hit me as I mentally cursed Ivy - then my brow furrowed. Why did I care what Nick thought? It was my house. I was an Inderlander. If he didn't like it, tuff toads.
I could feel Nick behind me at the table. "Rachel, I'm really sorry," he said, and I turned, bracing myself. My outrage would lose all its effect if I passed out. "I didn't know it would demand payment from you. Honest."
Angry, I brushed the damp hair from my eyes and stood with my arms crossed. "It's a demon mark, Nick. A freaking demon mark."
Nick folded his lanky body into one of the hard-back chairs. Elbows on the table, he dropped his head into the cup his hands made. Looking at the table, he said flatly, "Demonology is a dead art. I didn't expect to be putting the knowledge to practical use. It was only supposed to be a painless way to fulfill one of my ancient language requirements."
He looked up, meeting my eyes. His worry, the need for me to listen and understand, halted my next caustic outburst.
"I'm really, really sorry," he said. "If I could move your demon mark to me, I would. But I thought you were dying. I couldn't just let you bleed to death in the back of some cab."
My anger trickled away. He had been willing to take a demon mark to save me. No one made him do it. I was an ass.
Nick lifted the hair from over his left temple. "Look. See?" he said hopefully. "It stops."
I peered at his scalp. Right where the demon had hit him was a newly closed wound, red-rimmed and sore looking. The half circle had a line through it. My stomach clenched. A demon mark. Damn it all to hell, I was going to have to wear a demon mark. Black ley line witches had demon marks, not white earth witches. Not me.
Nick let his shock of dark hair fall. "It will vanish after I pay back my favor. It's not forever."
"A favor?" I asked.
His brown eyes were pinched, pleading for understanding. "It will probably be information or something. At least, that's what the texts say."
One hand clasped about my middle, I pushed my fingertips into my forehead. I really didn't have a choice. It wasn't as if Kotex made a pad for this kind of a thing. "So how do I let this demon know I agree to owe it a favor?"
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"You just did, then."
I felt ill, not liking that a demon had such a tie to me that it would know the moment I agreed to its terms. "No paperwork?" I said. "No contracts? I don't like verbal agreements."
"You want it to come here and fill out paperwork?" he asked. "Think about it hard enough and it will."
"No." My gaze dropped to my wrist. There was a small tickle. My face went slack as it grew to an itch and then a slight burning. "Where are the scissors?" I said tightly. He looked around blankly, and my wrist started to flame. "It's burning!" I shouted. The pain in my wrist continued to grow, and I pushed at the gauze, frantically trying to get it off.
"Get it off! Get it off!" I shouted. Spinning, I flipped the tap on full and shoved my wrist under the water. The cold water soaked through, quenching the burning sensation. I leaned over the sink, my pulse pounding as the water flowed, pulling away the pain.
The damp night air breezed in past the curtains, and I stared past the dark garden and into the graveyard, waiting for the black spots to go away. My knees were weak, and it was only the rush of adrenaline that kept me upright. There was a soft scraping sound as Nick slid a pair of scissors to me across the counter.
I turned off the tap. "Thanks for the warning," I said bitterly.
"Mine didn't hurt," he said. He looked worried and confused, and oh so bewildered. Grabbing a dish towel and the scissors, I went to my spot at the table. Wedging the blade through the gauze, I sawed at the soggy wrap. I flicked a glance up at him. Tall and awkward, he stood by the sink, guilt seeming to pour from his hunched posture. I slumped.
"I'm sorry for being such a crab, Nick," I said as I gave up on cutting it off and started to unwind it instead. "I would have died if it hadn't been for you. I was lucky you were there to stop it. I owe you my life, and I'm really thankful for what you did." I hesitated. "That thing scared the hell out of me. All I wanted was to forget about it, and now I can't. I don't know how to react, and yelling at you is very convenient."
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth, and he turned a chair so he could sit before me. "Let me get that for you," he said, reaching for my hand.
I hesitated, then let him pull my wrist onto his lap. He bowed his head over my wrist, and his knees almost touched mine. I really owed him more than a simple thanks. "Nick? I mean it. Thank you. That's twice you saved my life. This demon thing will be all right. I'm sorry you got a demon mark helping me."
Nick looked up, his brown eyes searching mine. I was suddenly very conscious of how close he was. My memory went back to feeling his arms around me, carrying me into the church. I wondered if he had held me all the way through the ever-after.
"I'm glad I was there to help," he said softly. "It was kind of my fault."
"No, it would have found me no matter where I was," I said. Finally the last wrap was gone. Swallowing hard, I stared at my wrist. My stomach twisted. It was entirely healed. Even the green stitches were gone. The raised white scar looked old. Mine was in the shape of a full circle with that same line running through it.
"Oh," Nick murmured, leaning back. "The demon must like you. It didn't heal me, just stopped the bleeding."
"Swell." I rubbed the mark on my wrist. It was better than a bandage - I guess. It wasn't as if anyone would know what the scar was from; no one had been dealing with demons since the Turn. "So now I just wait until it wants something?"
"Yeah." Nick's chair scraped as he stood up and went to the stove.
I propped my elbows up on the table and felt the air slip in and out of my lungs. Nick stood at the stove with his back to me and stirred a stewpot. An uncomfortable silence grew.
"Do you like student food?" Nick said suddenly.
I straightened. "Beg pardon?"
"Student food." His eyes went to the tomato on the sill. "Whatever's in the refrigerator over pasta."
Understandably concerned, I pushed myself upright and tottered over to see what was on the stove. Macaroni spun and rolled in the pot. A wooden spoon sat next to it, and my eyebrows rose. "Have you been using that spoon?"
Nick nodded. "Yeah. Why?"
I reached for the salt and dumped the entire canister into it.
"Whoa!" Nick cried. "I already salted the water. You don't need that much."
Ignoring him, I tossed the wooden spoon into my dissolution vat and pulled out a metal one. "Until I get my ceramic spoons back, it's metal for cooking and wooden for spells. Rinse the macaroni well. It ought to be okay."
Nick's eyebrows rose. "I would think you would use metal spoons for spells and wooden for cooking since spells don't stick to metal."
I made my slow way to the fridge, feeling my heart pound from even this little exertion. "And why do you suppose spells don't stick to metal? Unless it's copper, metal screws everything up. I'll do the spell crafting if you don't mind; you do dinner."
Much to my surprise, Nick didn't get all huffy and testosterone laden but only gave me that lopsided smile of his.
A jolt of pain broke through the amulets as I tugged the fridge open. "I can't believe how hungry I am," I said as I looked for something that wasn't wrapped in paper or plastic foam. "I think Ivy may have slipped me something."
There was a whoosh of water as Nick dumped the macaroni to drain. "Little cake thing?"
I pulled my head out and blinked at him. Had Ivy given him one, too? "Yes."
"I saw it." His eyes were fixed on the tomato, steam billowing around him as he rinsed the macaroni. "When I was doing my master's thesis, I had access to the rare-book vault." His brow pinched. "It's right next to the ancient-book locker. Anyway, the architectural designs of preindustrial cathedrals are boring, and one night I found a diary of a seventeenth-century British priest. He had been tried and convicted of murdering three of his prettiest parishioners."
Nick dumped the pasta back in the bowl and opened a jar of alfredo. "He made reference to such a thing. Said it made the vampire's orgies of blood and lust possible on a nightly basis. From a scientific point of view, you should consider yourself lucky. I imagine it's only rarely offered to someone not under their sway and compelled to keep their mouth shut about it."
I frowned in unease. What the devil had Ivy given me?
His eyes still on the tomato, Nick dumped the sauce over the pasta. A rich smell filled the kitchen, and my stomach growled. He stirred it in, and I watched Nick watch the tomato. He was starting to look rather sick. Exasperated with humanity's groundless revulsion of tomatoes, I closed the fridge and hobbled to the window. "How did this get in here?" I muttered, pushing it through the pixy hole and into the night. It hit with a soft thud.
"Thanks," he said, taking a relieved breath.
I returned to my chair with a heavy sigh. One would think Ivy and I had a decaying sheep's head on our counter. But it was nice to know he had at least one human hang-up.
Nick puttered about, adding mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce, and pepperoni to the concoction. I smiled as I realized it was the last of my pizza fixings. It smelled wonderful, and as he plucked the ladle from the island rack, I asked, "Enough for two?"
"It's enough for a dorm room." Nick slid a bowl before me and sat down, curling his arm protectively about his bowl. "Student food," he said around a full mouth. "Try it."
I glanced at the clock above the sink as I dipped my spoon. Ivy and Jenks were probably at the FIB right now, trying to convince the front guy they weren't loons, and here I was, eating macaroni alfredo with a human. It didn't look right. The food, I mean. It would have been better in a tomato sauce. Dubious, I took a taste. "Hey," I said, pleased. "This is good."
"Told you."
For a few moments there was only the scraping of spoons and the sound of the crickets in the garden. Nick's pace slowed, and he glanced at the clock over the sink. "Hey, uh, I've got a big favor to ask," he said hesitantly.
I swallowed as I looked up, knowing what was coming. "You can crash here for the night if you want," I said. "Though there are no guarantees you'll wake up with all your fluids intact or even at all. The I.S. is still spelling for me. Right now it's just those tenacious fairies, but as soon as the word gets out that I'm still alive, we might be up to our armpits in assassins. You'd be safer on a park bench," I finished wryly.
His smile was relieved. "Thanks, but I'll risk it. I'll get out of your hair tomorrow. See if my landlord has anything left that's mine. Go visit my mom." His long face puckered, looking as worried as when he thought I was bleeding to death. "I'll tell her I lost everything in a fire. This is going to be a rough one."
I felt a stab of sympathy. I knew what it was like to find yourself on the street with only a box left of your life. "Sure you don't want to stay with her tonight?" I asked. "It'd be safer."
He went back to eating. "I can take care of myself."
I bet you can, I thought, my mind going back to that demon book he took from the library. It wasn't in my bag anymore, a tiny smear of blood the only thing to say it had ever been there. I wanted to come right out and ask if he worked black magic. But he might say yes, and then I'd have to decide what I was going to do about it. I didn't want to do that right yet. I liked Nick's easy confidence, and the novelty of seeing that in a human was decidedly... intriguing.
A part of me knew and despised that the attraction probably stemmed from my "hero rescuing the damsel in distress syndrome," but I needed something safe and secure in my life right now, and a magic-working human who could keep demons from tearing my throat out fit the bill nicely. Especially when he looked as harmless as he did.
"Besides," Nick said, ruining it, "Jenks will pix me if I leave before he gets back."
My breath slipped from me in bother. He was a babysitter. How nice.
The sound of the phone ringing echoed through the walls. I looked up at Nick and didn't move. I was sore, darn it.
He gave me that half smile of his and stood. "I'll get it." I took another bite as I watched his vanishing backside, thinking I might offer to go shopping with him when he bought himself some new clothes. Those jeans he had on were way too loose.
"Hello," Nick said, his voice dropping and taking on a surprisingly professional tone. "You've reached Morgan, Tamwood, and Jenks. Vampiric Charms Runner Service."
Vampiric Charms Runner Service? I thought. A little of Ivy, a little of me. It was as good as anything else, I suppose. I blew on a spoonful, thinking his cooking wasn't bad, either.
"Jenks?" Nick said, and I hesitated, looking up as Nick appeared in the hallway with the phone. "She's eating. You're at the airport already?"
There was a long pause, and I sighed. The FIB was more open-minded and eager for Trent than I had anticipated.
"The FIB?" Nick's tone had shifted to concern, and I stiffened as he added, "She did what? Is anyone dead?"
My eyes closed in a long blink and I set my spoon aside. Nick's concoction went sour in my stomach, and I swallowed hard.
"Um, sure," Nick said, the skin around his expressive eyes crinkling as he met my gaze. "Give us a half hour." The beep of the phone as he turned it off was loud. He turned to me and blew out his breath. "We have a problem."