Chapter Twelve
The warmth of the sun on my face turned into an irritating come and go of shadow and light, and I stretched. The crackle of a fast-food bag reminded me of why my back ached and why I was sleeping sitting up. Feeling fuzzy, I opened my eyes, glancing at Vivian, currently alternating her attention between the busy urban street and the clock she was trying to change. It must have been the beeps that woke me up. Apparently we'd crossed into another time zone. Six-eighteen. But I felt like it was nine. Somewhere, I'd missed another meal.
Vivian gave me a quick, neutral smile, and turned away. I looked up at the washed-out buildings on either side, wishing I had my sunglasses. We were off the interstate, and there were palm trees, but it didn't look like L.A. The timing wasn't right, either.
The street was busy, clogged with traffic and people. Pedestrians were everywhere, and my eyes widened at the three guys dressed in velvet capes. Vampires in the sun? Living, to be sure, but they were Gothed to the max. "Where are we?" I asked.
"Las Vegas," Trent said from the back, his voice sour.
"Vegas?" Lips parting, I sat up and looked a little closer. Oh yeah. Where else would you get a pyramid and the Eiffel Tower on the same street? Leaning over, I found the map at my feet. "Why are we in Vegas? I thought we were headed for L.A." Which probably had vampires roaming the streets in capes as well, come to think of it.
Vivian tightened her grip on the wheel as if I'd brought up a sore subject. Her professionalism was running thin, and the petite woman frowned. "I'm not driving 40 to Bakersfield," she said through clenched teeth. "We're going the long way."
My gaze went to Ivy in a question, and she shrugged. "What's wrong with Bakersfield?" I finally asked, feeling the tension between Vivian and Trent.
"Nothing." Vivian frowned, but she still looked cute. Tired, but cute. "It's 40 I'm worried about. There are no gas stations after Kingman, and we would have run out."
"Someone's bad planning," Trent said softly. "The right person could make a killing."
Vivian made a huff of noise. "Someone's good planning, and make a killing is right. The people there don't want anyone driving through. Going to Vegas doesn't add much time. Stop complaining. We all want to get to the West Coast as soon as possible."
I hid a smile. Apparently Vivian and Trent hadn't been getting along, either. Settling myself, I ogled the people and buildings, acting like the Midwestern goober I was. I'd never seen so many flamboyant people flaunting their differences. It was easy to pick out the tourists with their pale faces and cameras. I'd never thought of myself as a conservative person, but this was like Halloween and Mardi Gras lumped together, a true Inderland playground.
"As long as we don't stop," I said, thinking it would be easy to lose a day here.
"We're stopping," Ivy said, voice low and confident.
From behind me, Trent muttered, "She speaks, so we must obey."
"You showered this morning," Ivy said, more loudly than she needed to. "I showered this morning. Vivian and Rachel didn't, and Rachel fought off a demon in hundred-degree heat. We can stop for an hour." There was a hesitation, followed by a soft "Besides, I'm hungry."
"Fine," Trent said, sounding like a passive-aggressive teenage girl. "But when we get back in the car, I'm driving."
A shower sounded more than good, and worried about the backseat dynamics, I stretched again. "Could you pick me up a burger or something?" I said around a yawn, eying a tall, blond vamp pacing down the sidewalk in six-inch heels, her clothes hardly covering her important bits. "The faster we get out of here, the better."
"Burgers?" Trent's voice dripped disdain, and my tension spiked. "We are in Vegas. This is the first time we might find something that passes for food, and you want burgers?"
I turned in my seat, surprised by how tired he looked, washed out and worried. Trent was never worried. Not enough to let it show, anyway. "Dude, why don't you stop and think about what your mouth is saying?" I said tightly.
"Children," Vivian said, not entirely joking, "if you don't stop arguing, I'm driving right through."
I turned back around, and Trent muttered, "I get to pick the restaurant."
Ivy sighed.
"And the hotel," he added, and she growled in annoyance.
I suddenly felt a whole lot ickier. And hungry. Leaning forward, I began tidying the front seat, tucking the map away and picking up trash. More Milk Duds boxes? "Jenks, you okay?" I asked, still not having seen him. It wasn't like him to miss a chance to join in with picking on Trent, and he wasn't on his usual seat on the rearview mirror.
"Peachy," came his voice from under the napkin draped over the open dash ashtray.
"He's altitude sick," Ivy said.
I resisted lifting the napkin, but just. "Are you okay?" I asked again, eying the white square. "You don't sound good."
"Leave me alone," he said, a green dust spilling over the rim of the ashtray, then sifting to the floor of the car. "I'll be fine."
"You want some pop or anything?"
It wasn't the right thing to say. In a flurry of motion, Jenks flung the napkin off, flying to an empty cup and throwing up in it, his wings flat against his back as he retched.
"Oh God!" Trent exclaimed. "He's doing it again."
"Jenks!" I exclaimed, almost frantic. I mean, when someone throws up, you're supposed to hold their hair back or make sure nothing hits their shoes, and I was way too big to do either.
"He's fine," Trent said so callously that I glared at him. "There's some honey on the dash. It helps."
I was ready to smack him, but Vivian handed me the packet, saying, "Flagstaff was really hard. He'll be okay."
"I don't feel so good," Jenks said, flying wobbly as he got back to his nest.
I shoved the cup in the bag with the rest of the trash, really worried. I knew Jenks tried to hide it, but if he didn't eat every couple of hours, he suffered. Throwing up could be a big problem. "Are you sure you're okay?" I asked as I tore open the packet and set it next to him.
Looking pale, he pulled a pair of chopsticks from his back pocket, nodding. "My head hurts." Eating a bit, he sighed, slumping to fall back when Vivian stopped at a light. We were right on the Strip, but worried about Jenks, I couldn't look up to see the sights.
"Better," he said with a sigh, then gave me a look of clarity before the honey kicked in. "I'll be okay. Just keep the honey coming."
I exhaled, relieved. He'd tell me if there was a real problem, wouldn't he? "Just what we need," I said, finding a smile. "A drunk pixy in Vegas. We'll fit right in."
"Not if I eat it slow enough," he said, easing back, looking relaxed but worn out. "Crap, now I have to pee."
My smile turned real, and I looked out the window at the people. I wished I had my camera, but then I'd stick out. Well, stick out more than two witches, a vamp, an elf, and a pixy in a powder blue Buick with Ohio plates already did. But then I saw the pack of Weres trotting down the sidewalk, and I decided we didn't stick out at all.
"I said, I have to pee," Jenks said again, louder this time, and I appreciated that he wasn't going to go in a cup.
Vivian leaned forward as she made a turn. "Hold on. I know a quiet hotel off the Strip."
"Off the Strip?" Trent complained, and I realized just how this trip was wearing on all of us. "We are not stopping at some Were-bitten hole in the wall when we can stay at a decent establishment."
Vivian said nothing as she pulled my mom's car into a low-budget chain with very little neon on the sign. "We're not staying," she said when Trent voiced his disgust. "We're taking a break, and we're stopping here because you won't get past the front desk of one of the big hotels without being recognized." She turned to him, her childlike face smiling cattily. "You want to be recognized?"
Trent said nothing, and satisfied, she put the car in park at the front office. "You've been nothing but a pain in the ass," she said as she grabbed her purse, just about the only thing she had since we'd kidnapped her. "No wonder Rachel doesn't like you. I don't like you, and I like everyone."
His hand went to his chin, and Trent silently looked out the window, clearly peeved but seeing her logic. Ivy, though, was stirring, putting her boots back on and grabbing her purse.
"Is that Elvis?" I had to ask, seeing a Were in a white leisure suit and gold boots coming out of the office door. The stitching was glowing in the shadows. The man was wearing neon, and he had a Chihuahua in his arms. The dog's collar was neon, too.
Vivian reached for the door handle, barely glancing at him. "That's Bob and Chico," she said shortly. "I lived here before I moved to the coast. Well, not here, exactly, but just outside town. The ley lines are spectacular."
Really? I thought as she opened her door and got out. I'd heard they were numerous, but I had always thought it was part of the sell line.
"Everyone stays here, okay?" she said from outside, looking harassed, a hand on her hip and her clothes rumpled. She hadn't put on any makeup, and her once-slick hair was more like straw now. It made her trendy purse look like a cheap knockoff. "I'll get a room and then you can all go get something to eat," she said, eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I don't need a bunch of you in the office with me. I can handle this."
Ivy, of course, was getting out, and Vivian gave her a tired look. "I don't trust you," Ivy said with absolutely no remorse or guilt. "No hard feelings."
"None taken," the small woman said with the same detachment. "The rest of you stay."
Jenks's wings hummed, but he didn't move from the tissue-lined ashtray. "I gotta pee," he grumbled, but Vivian had shut the door, and the two walked in together, Vivian looking small next to Ivy's bruised and battered height.
"I really have to pee," he said again, this time his eyes beseechingly on mine.
I cranked the window all the way down, and he rose unsteadily into the air. "When did Vivian become everyone's mother?" I said, and he flew in a wobbling path outside. "Stay close, okay?" I said, noticing that he didn't have a scrap of red on him.
"Yeah, whatever," he said, then flew giggling to the sheared rosemary lining the path to the door.
I watched him, unable to stop my sigh. Silence descended, and as the insects buzzed, I became keenly aware of Trent, in the back. He had summoned a demon, not once, but twice. A day-walking demon. He said he'd done it to help. I wanted to believe him, but this had to stop. He wasn't proficient with magic, and he was doing more harm than good.
Twisting to see Trent, I said, "We need to talk."
His eye twitched. Without a word, he unlocked his door and pushed it open, his foot catching the heavy door as it bounced back into him. Getting out, he shut the door and leaned against it, his back to me as he looked toward the Strip, a few blocks away.
Peeved, my eyes narrowed. I was too tired right now to push the issue. After I had a burger, I'd pin him to the wall and demand some answers.
Even though we were off the Strip, there was a definite flow of people headed for it, passing us with either a fast pace with loud chatter or silent with a dull drudgery. The high-magic amulet detector on my bag was glaring red, but the lethal-magic one was quiet. Remembering what Vivian had said, I reached for a ley line to see how some little city in the desert stacked up to my Cincinnati.
"Oh my God," I breathed as the reason for my slight headache became apparent. The ley lines were everywhere, thick, thin, long, and short, crisscrossing in a chaotic mess in every compass direction. It looked like someone had dropped a handful of pickup sticks. Las Vegas was on a damn rift or something, time fractured and barely holding together. Awed, I shook myself from the mental sight of so much power hovering over the desert sand, then promptly sneezed, my hair flying in my face at the quick jerk.
Oh, great, I thought as I wiped my nose, but the sun was still up, so there was no reason not to answer Al, if Al it was. Leaning over to the driver's seat, I popped the trunk and got out.
"What are you doing?" Trent asked belligerently as I shuffled through the trunk for my scrying mirror, giving him an insincere smile as I pulled it out.
"You ever use my mirror without my knowledge again, and I'm going to bust it over your head," I said. "And we are going to talk. We could all have gotten killed back there, or worse. Leave the magic to the professionals. Businessman."
He frowned as he took in my threat, and he looked like a spoiled brat standing there with his arms over his middle, wearing black from head to toe, a slight flush to his cheeks. Damn, he looked good, though, and I sneezed again as I sat down, leaving my door open for the cross breeze.
Trent turned to watch me set the mirror on my lap, and I shivered as the cold glass seemed to adhere to me, going right through my jeans. The silver-and-wine color threw back the haze of the setting sun, looking more beautiful yet. Another sneeze shook me, and I frowned. Yup, it was Al.
Ignoring Trent as he moved around the car to better spy on me, I put my hand on the scrying mirror in the cave of the pentagram. I connected to one of the smaller lines, and the rest was easy. Rachel calling Al, come in Al..., I thought dryly.
The link formed in an instant, with a fury that left me blinking. Son of a bitch! echoed in my thoughts, foreign adrenaline slamming into me. Al was in pain. He wasn't talking to me; he was in excruciating, mind-numbing pain.
Al? I thought, confused as flashes of power and half-understood spells roared through my consciousness, too fast to be realized. My lips parted, and I pressed my hand more firmly into the glass. Furious Latin uncoiled from his mind as he twisted communal stored spells. They rose from the depths of two thousand years, created during a time of war, and all the uglier for having been roused and thrust into existence with no warning. Black and sickly, I felt them pass through my mind, coating me in Al's memory of what it was like to be in pain and how to crush another with one's thoughts.
Al! I screamed into our shared thoughts, scared that the magic might turn on me. He was pulling on a line through me, and damn it if it didn't feel good even as I tried to cut him off.
Get over here, Rachel. I need your-ow! Al thought as he finally heard me, but then his splinter of awareness jerked away, and his howl at a burst of energy created to liquidize fat burned itself into my brain. He nullified it in an instant, leaving me dizzy and panting but knowing how to do it.
Al! I thought, but I must have said it aloud because Trent's shadow covered me.
"What's going on?" Trent asked, more irritation than concern in his tone.
Heat exploded in my chest, and Al and I both reacted-him with a furious shout and a thrown counterspell, me slamming my rising palm back to the mirror before my fingertips could leave the glass.
Line. Give me a line! Al thought, and I did, loosening my grip and letting the energy flow through my hand and into his mind.
The pain cut off, and I groaned in relief. My hand was trembling, and I pressed it more firmly into the scrying mirror. I looked up, feeling unreal. Past the car windows, the sky had gone hazy with red, and the gritty wind was blowing. Somehow I was using my second sight, seeing Las Vegas as if it was on fire. It looked like hell, the casinos and buildings burning, crumbling, and re-forming to crumble again. It had to be from the ley lines. There were so many that nothing was stable. I stared, transfixed, as, in the back of my mind, Al moved, dodged, and fought someone using spells so complex they looked like another language.
"Rachel, what's going on?" Trent asked again, his voice a faint buzzing as I struggled to hold my connection to Al. He'd all but forgotten me as he fought. Al was fighting hand-to-hand, teeth clenched as he struggled to keep something from his eye.
"Al!" I shouted, shoving the line into him. It burned through his mind, and he groaned, directing it into his attacker's face. Outside the car, an explosion in the ever-after ripped off the corner of a building. I watched in awe as it fell in slow motion, a red dust rising from the impact. In Al's kitchen, I felt him shove someone away, and Al rolled to his knees, his savagery making my lips pull back in a snarl.
I blinked, and I was suddenly seeing reality-the demolished building became whole and serene, its elevator rising up, the windows glittering with neon.
Trent touched my shoulder, and I jumped as our auras connected.
From Al's kitchen, a savage explosion shook me. The curse falling from Al's lips was like tinfoil between my teeth, serrating into my spine and brain, and Trent felt it, too. I gasped as Al pulled on not only me, but Trent, and with a bellow of rage, Al flung the ball of death he'd pulled from us across his kitchen, exploding it against a quick black figure with silver hair. The attacker hit the wall, the tapestry that I hated going up in green flames. The fabric screamed, and with a clap of rushing air, the figure attacking Al vanished. On the floor, the tapestry shrieked and writhed as if in pain.
Trent's yelp of shock echoed in me as he pulled away. Stunned, I sat alone with my hand on the mirror. A slithering blackness had risen, and I felt it settle over Al as he huddled on his cold black floor, whispering, I take this, I take this, before the smut could hurt him. I shivered as the smut lapped about my consciousness, touching me and recoiling like a living thing before it slid back to Al.
Sweet everlasting shit. We're in trouble, I felt in our joined thoughts.
The attacker was gone, and I cut off the energy flowing between us. Al? I cautiously offered, and I felt his consciousness gather, trying to pretend that he hadn't almost just died.
Rachel..., he started, and then we both clenched in pain. A new rush of adrenaline poured into me, and I heard in our joined thoughts, You little runt!
There was another grunt of pain, and I doubled over. With a pop, I felt Al's thoughts leave mine. It wasn't the snap of disconnection because I could still feel what he was feeling. It was something else. Something was wrong, and this time, Al was in trouble. His mind wasn't working. At all.
"Al!" I shouted, forcing my thoughts into his and finding a glimmer. "Bring me across!"
I gasped as my body dissolved in a flash of thought. There was the burst of an expanded awareness, and then the awful division of self when I was again alone in the universe. A ping of fear lit through me. With a speed that left me reeling, I was yanked through the nearest ley line, stumbling as I suddenly found myself holding my scrying mirror and standing in Al's acrid-smelling kitchen. A thick haze of dust in the air, stinking of burnt amber, choked me, and the only light was coming from a book burning in the corner.
Chunks of rock had been gouged out of the raised circular fire pit where Al twisted his larger curses. More chunks of rock from the ceiling littered the floor. If it was wood, it was charred. If it was glass, it was broken. The tapestry was silent, a liquid black dripping from it like blood as it hung askew, half on the floor.
Before the smaller hearth, on his back, was Al, out cold and bleeding from several gashes as he lay before the black fireplace. And over him was Pierce, a black ball of death in his hand.
"Pierce!" I shouted, and he turned, shocked.
"What are you doing here?" he exclaimed, the blackness in his hands flickering.
Al groaned. Pierce spun to him, Latin coming from him fast as Al's eyes opened in fear.
I didn't think, just moved. Slipping on the chalky stone dust, I lunged at Pierce, knocking him from Al and landing front first across the demon. Frantic, I scrambled up, hearing Al grunt in pain as my elbow dug into his gut. Almost in the fireplace, Pierce had gotten to his feet as well, the invoked curse still in his grasp.
For an instant, our eyes locked, and then, after shaking his head, he threw the spell at Al.
What is he doing?
"Rhombus!" I shouted, and Pierce's curse hit, pinging through my awareness as I slapped his magic aside. It went spinning into the broken remains of Al's kitchen, and my anger peaked.
"Are you addled?" Pierce yelled, his blue eyes showing his anger as he stood, his hands bereft of magic. "What the blazes are you doing?"
At my feet, Al groaned, and I felt a twinge on my awareness as a red-sheened sheet of ever-after coated him, dropping away to leave him looking half dead but no longer bleeding.
"I had him!" Pierce shouted, arms waving. "I bloody had him, and you knock me away? Deflect my curse? What's wrong with you, woman! I could have been free!"
My mouth dropped open, and I glanced down at Al gazing up at me. Holy crap, had I just saved Al's life? "Uh," I stammered as Al levered himself up onto one elbow, his head drooping to the floor and his dark hair covering his eyes.
"I had one chance!" Pierce shouted, shaking as he stood by the fireplace. "And-"
"Septiens," Al wheezed, and Pierce collapsed, seizing as if having hit an electrical field.
"Al! Wait!" I shouted, seeing Pierce writhe.
"And you blew it," the demon said, ignoring me as he staggered to his feet before the small hearth. His red, goat-slitted eyes fixed on Pierce. "Killing me when I'm down...not very sporting."
My heart pounded, and I remembered the ugliness leaking out of Pierce's hand. Pierce was a demon killer, and I was basically a demon. Would he try to kill me next? I had to believe no, but I hadn't thought he'd try to kill Al, either. I hadn't thought at all, apparently.
"Let him go," I pleaded as Pierce shook, his neck muscles straining as he tried to breathe. "Al!" I shouted, smacking the demon's shoulder. It wasn't hard, just enough to get his attention.
For a long second, Al looked at me, his goat-slitted eyes searching mine. Then Pierce's breath rasped in, and his entire body went flaccid. Panting, he lay on the floor and didn't move.
"Perhaps you're right," Al said, looking disheveled as he leaned against the fireplace and eyed his kitchen. Half-burned wood was scattered on the floor, and the book in the corner was going out. Seeing it, Al snarled and muttered a word at Pierce. Pierce screamed, shocked into pain again as his back arched. "Selling him might pay for this mess," Al finished, his expression ugly.
I reached out to protest, then hesitated. Pierce had saved my life, but he had tried to kill Al. "Stop," I finally whispered, touching Al's sleeve, but what I was thinking was, Why did I help you? If I'd let Pierce kill him, all my troubles would have been over. Except they wouldn't have been. Al was my protection in a world that I was probably going to be trapped in very soon.
Al frowned, and he looked at me as if only now seeing the dirt, grime, and bruises. He twitched, and I heard Pierce collapse behind me. My gut unclenched as it grew quiet, Pierce's breath sobbing in and out in relief. Part of me was angry, part of me wanted to lift Pierce up and wash off his face. I didn't know which part was stronger.
Moving slowly, Al staggered to the stone bench circling the center fire pit, coughing on the dust as he began arranging sticks for a fast fire. His fingers were shaking. It was dark, and I looked for a candle to light. All I found were puddles of wax, spattered like blood. At a loss as to what to do, I looked at the devastation, then went to help Pierce.
"You did this?" I asked as I pulled him upright against the broken remains of a bookcase, and Pierce winced, his eyes still closed. The shelves were leaning askew, and a thick tome fell, glancing against his shoulder. Still, he didn't open his eyes, but pushed me away, grimacing. I'd seen them fight before. Almost a year ago, Pierce had gone into this familiar partnership with the intent to kill Al. I hadn't thought he might actually do it.
"He wishes." Al's tone was flat, and I turned to see his thick fingers nursing an infant fire in the circular fire pit. "He's a cowardly runt."
The new flame flickered, lighting Al's features into an ugly mask, and from Pierce came a ragged "I utilized my resources to the fullest, demon spawn."
"You're a bloody coward!" Al shouted, then coughed. "Trying to kill me when I was down."
I stood between them, not knowing who to help. He had tried to kill Al. "What happened?" I asked, remembering the deadly, world-killing curses that Al had drawn through me. My God, the power they could use and didn't...I was like a child playing, and I suddenly felt both scared and stupid.
Al looked up, his wavering gaze landing immediately on Pierce. "You. Go," he said, pointing, and before Pierce could do more than widen his eyes, he vanished.
"Hey!" I exclaimed, and Al pushed himself up. He looked beaten, and his clothes were dusty, showing blood and rips, though the skin under them was unmarked.
"He's alive," the demon muttered, dropping a chunk of what had once been his chair on the flames. "I simply shoved him in a box for when I decide what to do with him. He tried to kill me. Please tell me you aren't still clinging to the idea that he lo-o-o-o-oves you?" he mocked. "That witch is a demon killer. You're simply lower on his list than I am. Grow up and accept it."
I didn't want to believe it, and I searched the floor, hoping I hadn't cracked my scrying mirror. Pierce had said he loved me, and I truly believed he hadn't been lying. But the memory of him standing over Al, hurt and unconscious, with a black curse flickering over his aura, ready to kill him...Could I afford that kind of blind trust?
Depressed, I picked my way through the devastation to get my scrying mirror, breathing shallowly to avoid the dust. Feeling awkward, I sat beside Al, the slight curve of the bench between us. "You don't look good," I said, my thoughts on Vivian. Trent would tell them what had happened. Jenks would be angry that he hadn't been there. Ivy would be ticked because Trent hadn't done anything, and Vivian would have another chapter in her "Let's Shun Rachel" book. Even better, I was going to stink like burnt amber when I got back. If I got back.
"I don't look good?" Al wiggled his fingers at his own scrying mirror, just out of reach, and I leaned over to get it, feeling a dizzying amount of other selves trying to get through to him as I handed it over. He wasn't wearing his usual gloves, and it made him look vulnerable.
Exhaling heavily, Al put his thick-fingered, shaking hand on the mirror and it fogged up. "You say I don't look good, but you're the one in trouble."
My gaze went from his foggy mirror to my crystalline one. "But I stopped him!"
"Not that," Al said, and he let his mirror slide to the bench. Sighing, he rubbed his forehead, leaving a smear of black ash. "I've temporally blocked the collective because I can't answer that many calls at once, but pretty soon, I'm going to be entertaining. Lots and lots of irate, angry demons in my tiny little living room. It will be embarrassing. My reputation will be utterly ruined. I don't have enough chairs," he finished lightly, turning his lip in and chewing on it.
"You mean Trent?" I said, standing up and distancing myself with the excuse of gathering bits of broken furniture. "I told you already, I didn't teach him anything." But a sliver of worry had started to wiggle in me. Trent had summoned a demon. I hadn't taught him that, but they wouldn't believe me.
Al chuckled, low and long, and I stifled a shiver. "If only it was that," he said wryly. "I know you're driving to your little witches' meeting. Tell me you weren't in St. Louis yesterday."
Oh God. I'm in trouble. "The arch falling was not my fault," I babbled, the broken chair leg in my hand clattering to the floor. "It was Trent! He did it, not me!"
"Damn my dame. It was you," Al said, grimacing as if he'd eaten something sour.
"It was Trent," I said, wondering how he knew the arch had fallen, but my voice lacked conviction, and I became more worried yet when Al wouldn't look at me. Nervous, I tucked my rank hair behind an ear and fidgeted.
"I don't know what kind of spin I can put on this," Al finally said, his eyes on his dirty fingers and his shoulders slumped.
"Al?" I said, really concerned. He looked up, and I blanched at his empty expression.
"And then this afternoon," he said, reaching out to rub my hair between his fingers. I didn't pull away, and he leaned forward to sniff it. "You were in the badlands of Arizona. Yes?" he asked, looking up at me from around his sweat-soaked bangs.
I didn't feel so good, and I sat down, a hand to my middle. "This is about Ku'Sox, isn't it," I said, more of a statement than a question.
He made a sighing groan, and I knew it was. "Then you've met," he said, his thoughts clearly on the day-walking demon. "Funny, you don't look dead." His hand touched my chin, shifting it so he could see where I'd been pixed, the blisters itchy and red. "I'm surprised you survived the little designer dump. I nearly didn't. At least he doesn't know who you are yet."
I winced, and Al's hand fell away. "He knows, doesn't he," Al said flatly, and I nodded, making the connection now between Ku'Sox and the shadowy figure I'd seen fighting Al before I'd come over and found Pierce ready to finish him off. Maybe I shouldn't have banished Ku'Sox to the ever-after.
"He lived my entire life in eight heartbeats," I admitted. I tried not to whine, but I knew by Al's "So what?" rise to his eyebrows that it was there.
"Bet that was fun," he said, and I wondered if Al could do the same and hadn't, knowing it for the gross violation of self that it was. Not rape, but worse almost. "That adds something a little unexpected to the mix," he said as an afterthought.
"Sorry," I said, and Al slumped, rubbing his forehead with his stubby fingers. From behind us, the tapestry finally became quiet, and the silence was almost creepier than the weird burbling sound it had been making. Licking my lips, I stood. "What is he?" I asked. A shiver went through me, and I wondered if it was the need to feel like I wasn't alone, that I wasn't a freak. "Is he like me?" I asked, lips barely moving.
Al's eyes were glowing in the light of the fire when I turned to him, the demon seeming to be gaining strength as the flames warmed him. Still he said nothing, and after dropping the broken seat of an upholstered chair on the fire, I stood next to the weary demon, seeing him slowly regain his strength and knowing that we were really, really in trouble. "Al?" I asked again.
"He's you."
Twin feelings of fear and excitement lit through me, but the fear won. If he was me and he was bad, then everyone would think I was bad by association.
"A link between demons and witches," Al continued, nodding to acknowledge that I realized what this meant. "But not made by Trent's father. Ku'Sox Sha-Ku'Ru was our attempt to bridge the gap when we found out what the elves had done. It didn't work," he said sourly, "and we decided not to do that...anymore. He's missing something."
"Yeah, he looks a little crazy," I said dryly.
"Crazy? Perhaps. He's missing something from his soul," Al said, and my lips parted.
"That might explain him eating pixies," I said, and Al cocked his head at me, the glimmer of his usual bluster returning.
"Ku'Sox was eating pixies?"
Cold, I wrapped my arms around myself and sat down while Al built the fire higher, his chairs burning with the smell of varnish and burnt amber. I shrugged, then scratched at a little welt under my shirt. "Trent thought we were in danger." My fingers slowed, and I tucked a foot under my leg as I gazed into the fire. "The idiot called Ku'Sox to get rid of the pixies. He showed up as a bird, and when Ku'Sox started eating them"-I looked up at Al-"I hit him with a curse. It sort of got his attention."
"You're a bright girl for someone so stupid," Al said, and I frowned, affronted, as he got to his feet and unsteadily went to his bookshelf, nudging the books scattered on the floor until finding the one he wanted and retrieving it. "I told you to take that elf firmly in hand, my itchy witch." Al sighed as he sat back down, closer to the fire than before. Square reading glasses had appeared on Al's nose, and he squinted through them as he turned the pages of the book on his lap. "That new mark of his makes him immune to everything." His eyes met mine, making me shiver despite my anger. "Everything, Rachel. He's probably the only person on the planet who could free Ku'Sox Sha-Ku'Ru without getting killed in the process."
"Free him?" I asked. Al made a questioning face at me, and I figured it out. The arch falling, the power I'd shoved back into someone. Ku'Sox saying he'd been gone for two thousand years, locked in the ground. "You mean Ku'Sox was imprisoned under the arch? Trent didn't summon him, he freed him?" I said, aghast.
Al had gone back to his book. "I told you..."
"To take him firmly in hand, yeah," I said, seething. Stupid on top of stupid. God! I was ready to smack Trent into next week. "But he loosed Ku'Sox before I gave him his freedom," I said, remembering the blood coming from Trent's ears and nose. Maybe Trent was stronger than I gave him credit for.
Al made an uninterested sound and turned a page. "And of course the first thing Ku'Sox did was find me."
"Because you're my teacher," I said, and Al laughed, the sound ending in a short cough.
"No," he said, clearing his throat and waving his hand. I shivered as the dust in the air fell like rain, and I brushed it off. "Not everything is about you, itchy witch. Ku'Sox and I go back a long way. The son of a bitch completely yanked Asia out of my grip just when things were becoming interesting. I couldn't get a familiar there for nearly a hundred years until Newt finally trapped him and tucked him safely away in reality. The demon is a genius."
Ku'Sox was Al's rival? Great. "And he can be under the sun," I prompted, wondering if he had meant Ku'Sox was a genius, or Newt.
Al blew the dust off a page and turned it. "That was the entire point of creating him," he said distantly, as if it bothered him and there was nothing he could do about it.
I wanted to go, but I thought he was working on something for me. The drip, drip, drip of the blood falling from the silent tapestry was loud, and sullenly I said, "I'm sorry."
A short guffaw broke from Al, and he looked at me. "That makes me feel so-o-o much better. I'll be sure to tell everyone that. My student freed her familiar, who let loose a demon we didn't want to kill and just barely managed to imprison? Newt will be most vexed. Honestly, you told me you were going to be smarter. This isn't it."
"It's not like you ever tell me anything," I said sourly. "If you'd said, 'Don't go to St. Louis and free the crazy demon under the arch,' I wouldn't have." Nervousness pulled me to my feet, and I went to the bookcase, shelving the scattered books one by one in no particular order-which might be a problem since none of them had names. "And I didn't free Ku'Sox. Trent did. What Trent does is not my responsibility."
A hint of deviltry was in Al's voice when he asked me, "You severed all responsibility?"
"Yes," I said as I shelved another book. "One hundred percent."
"You didn't even keep a call-back clause?" Al asked, then waved his hand and answered his own question. "Of course not. You've had the worst upbringing of any demon I've seen."
I turned, the book I held pulling the heat from me through the binding. "I'm not a demon," I said, and Al stood to bring me the book he was looking at, splayed open on his palm.
"Which emancipation clause did you use? This one, right?"
I leaned over to look at the curse he was pointing to, and though it was in a different book, I could tell it was the same. "That looks like it."
Al smiled, and seeing it, a knot of worry eased. For the first time, that awful smile of his made me feel...good. "Trent is bound to come to your aid when you ask. Did you know that?" Al snapped the book shut and shelved it beside the one I'd just placed there. "I think that puts him in a slightly higher standing, thus freeing you from responsibility for his actions."
"Really?" I said, willing to give Trent the high ground if he'd get in trouble, not me.
His pace a jaunty limp, Al crossed his kitchen, kicking bits of rock and wood out of his way. "I do believe your do-gooder tendencies have finally come home to save you," he said as he pulled a chest from the wreckage, opened it, and fingered through whatever was inside. "Trent's in trouble, not you. Go back to your little scavenger hunt."
"It's not a scavenger hunt," I said indignantly. "I'm trying to clear my name."
"Whatever." Al dramatically waved a silver amulet. "You're taking the runt with you."
"Pierce?" I came up from the floor with another book in my hand, the image of him standing over Al, ready to kill him, sifting through my mind. "He just tried to kill you!"
"Yes, but for all his anger, he still thinks he loves you." Al squinted at the black jewel centered in the amulet, muttering a word of Latin to make the stone glow a brilliant silver, and then darken. "You're going to need protection if Ku'Sox is free to come and go. A demon killer is just the thing to keep you safe. I'd do it myself, but I don't want any taint of interference to mar our agreement that if you can't get your shunning removed, you abandon reality."
"Al," I protested, thinking my strolling into the coven meeting with a witch they'd buried alive for black magic wasn't going to look good. "He's going to get me labeled a black witch."
Al looked at me over his glasses, almost pouting. "You're going to be labeled a black witch anyway, love." He smiled, snapping the chest closed and dropping it down the stairway to his herb cellar, to shatter by the sound of it.
Remembering the look of fury on Pierce's face, directed at me, I shook my head, reaching for books as fast as I could place them, as if helping Al clean up might win me some favor. "I do not want Pierce tagging along on this magic carpet ride." But just yesterday, I had.
"Which is why this is so perfect." Smug, Al dramatically snapped his fingers, cocky again. In a soft pop of displaced air, Pierce flashed into existence, his clothes disheveled and his hair everywhere. Immediately his confused look turned to one of anger-deepening when his gaze landed on me.
"You're a mess," Al said, almost his old self as he smacked the man so hard he stumbled.
The smack had been a curse of some sort, because Pierce stiffened, shuddering as a sheet of red ever-after coated him, changing his outdated clothes into something more modern. He was still wearing creased black pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but now there was a colorful patterned vest and a sharp-looking, trendy hat in his hand. He looked good, even with his hair disheveled, and I squashed the thought.
"You're going on a field trip, runt," Al said as he looped the amulet he'd taken from the chest over Pierce's head. "You will keep my student alive or die trying."
"Hands off," Pierce all but growled, and Al smacked his face, taking the hat out of Pierce's hand and smashing it smartly on the witch's head. I tensed, but clearly Pierce was used to the manhandling, and he only frowned more deeply.
"You will make sure that nasty demon Ku'Sox doesn't kill her," Al said conversationally. "Understand? You're angry, but you still like her, yes? Want to have wild demon sex with her even if she ruined your attempt to kill me? Keep her alive, and you might get some. Eh? Eh? You'd like that, mmmm?"
"Al...," I protested, and Pierce looked at me like I was trash.
"I'd sooner lie with a whore," Pierce said, and I gasped, affronted.
I half-expected Al to smack him again, but all the demon did was brush off the amulet and say, "Well, she's been called that, so where's the problem?"
"Al!" I exclaimed, but no one cared.
"Better," Al said, nodding once sharply as he took a step back and looked Pierce over. "All nice and pretty for itchy witch."
Pierce took his new hat off and dropped it to the dusty floor, even though I saw that he liked it. "You're doing this because I can kill you. I could kill you right this moment."
I gasped as Al reached out and slapped him, the sound of hand meeting flesh giving the fast movement away. Pierce reeled, catching himself against the broken chair that had once belonged to Ceri. "I'm getting rid of you," Al said calmly, "because you're a clever witch who won't stay in his box."
Glaring, Pierce straightened from his half fall, looking at me as if I was the source of his woes. Hey, dude, I wasn't the one trying to kill Al.
"Al. No. This is not a good idea," I said, seeing Pierce's anger as I backed up a step.
"It's a capital idea!" Al took three steps to close the distance between him and Pierce. The shorter man tensed, but Al only put an arm over his shoulder. He looked like a dad threatening a date, and I half-expected him to tell Pierce to have me home by ten, but what he said was "Keep her alive. Keep her alive, or I will know about it."
Pierce looked at me, and I remembered his hand, painful against my mouth, forcing me to be quiet as inches overhead Trent's horses and dogs searched the woods for my blood. He loved me. I was sure of it. But he had tried to kill Al with black magic-and as the memory of him leaning over Al with power leaking from his fingers replayed itself in my mind, I began to question my judgment of him.
My face became cold as I abruptly realized that for all Pierce's claims of compassion, for his clever mind and quick loyalty, for all his justifications of black magic as acceptable if the cause was good, Pierce truly was a black witch. He had tried to kill with magic. It didn't matter if the charm was white, black, or polka dotted with silver sparkles. The coven of moral and ethical standards had been right about him. They were right.
And if they were right about him, maybe they were right about me.
"I don't care if she dies," he said, and I looked away, remembering: And I will cry when I go, because I could love you forever.
Son of a bitch. I'd done it again.
Al smacked Pierce's face a little too hard. "Then let's just say you keep her alive, or I will give you to Ku'Sox like a free toaster for opening an account in the bank of degradation."
Pierce shoved Al's arm off him with an indignant look. "You'll be dead first."
Al shook his head. "I thought you might say that. You will excuse me and itchy witch for a moment."
Pierce opened his mouth to say something, and Al punched him. Hard.
I blinked, shocked, as Pierce dropped and the demon swore and wrung his hand. "Damn, I forgot how much that hurt!" he said, then reached down and hauled the unconscious would-be demon killer up by his vest front. It was silk and linen. Enough to put even Trent's wardrobe to shame. I stood there feeling like I should protest at the brutality, but I didn't know what to think anymore. Pierce was black. Was I?
"Rachel," Al said as he held Pierce like a drowned kitten. "I'm hanging by a thread, both my life and my reputation. Take Pierce and keep him away from me. Ku'Sox is not crazy. He is smart, clever, and has had two thousand years for his hatred of everyone on this side of the ley lines to fester into his chaotic nightmares. He knows everything I do, everything that Newt has forgotten. He can't be reasoned with or pacified. We're in trouble, and I can't have a familiar who is ready to take advantage of a moment's lapse. Pierce knows more than you, and you'll need him. Turn your feminine charms on and seduce him if you need to in order to have him save your scrawny witch ass."
God help me, I thought. No wonder the coven wanted to kill me. Pierce was a black witch, and I had been defending him.
Unaware of the confusion swirling through me, Al's attention lingered on Pierce. "I don't think he'll ever forgive you for saving my life. Pride. He's full of pride." I shivered as his eyes came to me, that same look of evaluation in them-but this time, it was tempered with gratitude. "Thank you," he said as he shoved Pierce at me. "For...helping me."
At a loss, I took Pierce's weight, staggering until I found a new balance. "No good deed and all," I said, not knowing how to say, "You're welcome." I was glad I'd done it, but did accepting his thanks mean that I was aligning myself with demons all the more? Did it even matter anymore?
Unaware of my thoughts, Al nodded, looking tired. "Don't forget your mirror," he said as he handed it to me, and I struggled to hold it and Pierce both. "And don't let your freed familiar use it again."
Better and better, I thought as I felt Pierce's weight vanish, and then me, too, dissolve into nothing for the trip back to reality. I hardly had time to form a protective bubble around myself and Pierce before we misted back into reality. My boot heels scraped as I got my balance. I was standing in the sun-drenched parking lot where the car had been. The shadows had shifted, and I let Pierce slide to the pavement, not caring how he hit the hot ground as long as my mirror didn't break. From a second-story walkway, Ivy, Vivian, and Jenks were collectively yelling at Trent as they looked for their room number.
The soft oof of Pierce hitting the pavement caught Jenks's attention, and his long whistle pulled everyone to a stop. Ivy's eyes found me next, and she was smiling as she looked down, leaning against a support pole. Trent was silent, plucking the key from Ivy and vanishing with a bang behind a red-painted door. Vivian stood in openmouthed awe, her small figure looking small next to Ivy.
"You're back!" she said, eyes wide as she recognized Pierce, just now starting to stir. "Is that...Gordian Pierce?"
I bent to help Pierce rise, and he pulled from me, holding his jaw and not meeting my eyes. "Yup," I said, feeling hurt somehow. We were back. But for how long, I didn't know.