Chapter Eight
The hum of the engine shifted, becoming deeper. It stirred my unconsciousness, waking me more than the bright sun determined to wedge itself under my eyelids. Beyond the cover of my coat draped over me, it was cold, so I didn't move. Somewhere between Ohio and Texas, the cinnamon and wine smell of elf had joined the familiar scent of vampire and witch, mixing with the leather of my coat. Under that was the faint hint of lilac perfume, evidence of my mom lingering yet in the cushions of the backseat of her car. It was relaxing, and I lingered, dozing and slumped against the door. If I woke up, I'd have to move, and I was stiff from riding in the car for the last twenty-four hours.
A sigh that wasn't mine moved me, and I jerked awake. Crap, I wasn't slumped against the door. I was leaning against Ivy!
Great, I thought, carefully sitting up and trying not to wake her. I wasn't being phobic, but I didn't want a misunderstanding.
Her eyes opened as I pulled away, and I met her sleepy expression with my own, taking my coat and covering her up where my warmth had been against her. Ivy's smile turned sly even as her eyes closed again, and I shivered at the slip of teeth. The clock on the dash said it was about nine. Way too early for me to be up. Jenks must have changed it to Central time.
Scooting to my side of the backseat, I flicked my attention to Jenks sitting on the rearview mirror. He had on a new red coat I didn't recognize, matching his boots. Seeing me look at them, Jenks shrugged and continued his conversation with Trent about financial trends and how they parallel the size of successful pixy broods. I vaguely remembered hearing them talking in my dreams, and I sat there, ignored, as I tried to figure out what was going on.
The last thing I remembered was Ivy stopping for gas and Trent waking up from his midnight nap to take over the driving. We'd been in Oklahoma, and it had been dark, flat, and starless. Now, as I sat slumped in the back and blinked at the bright sun, I wondered where we were. The terrain had changed again. Gone was the sedge that had dotted the dry, rolling plains and turned everything in the distance into a pale green carpet. It was true desert now, the vegetation dry and sparse. Under the glaring sun and cloudless sky, the colors were thin and washed out: tans, whites, with a hint of mauve and silver. I'd never seen such a lack of anything before, but instead of making me uneasy, it was restful.
My mouth tasted ugly, and I checked my phone, my brain still fuzzy as it tried to work without caffeine. I'd missed another call from Bis, and I frowned, concerned. He'd be asleep now, but if it was anything important, the pixies would call Jenks. Bis was probably just checking on me again, still worried about me having pulled on St. Louis's line so heavily. He'd called yesterday shortly before sundown, throwing me until I realized it was dark where he was. But what bothered me now was that he'd felt me pull on a line when he'd been asleep.
Trent's voice was pleasant as he talked to Jenks, and I tucked my phone away, wondering what it might feel like to have that voice directed at me. I was not crushing on him, but it was hard not to appreciate a man who was rich, sexy, and powerful. Trent was all of that and scum, too, but the respect in his tone as he talked to Jenks was surprising. Respect, or perhaps camaraderie.
But Trent and Jenks were a lot alike in many ways, stuff that went beyond their similar sleep schedules. Jenks had the same frontier-justice mentality that irritated me when I saw it in Trent. I knew Jenks killed fairies to protect his family, and I didn't think any the less of him. Ivy, too, had killed people to survive until she had managed to escape Piscary. I was sure Pierce had, though he hadn't told me of any except the four hundred innocents in Eleison, dead because of his previous lack of skill. Everyone made sacrifices of some kind to save what was important to them. Maybe Trent had a lot more things that were important to him than most people.
"Where are we?" I said softly as I pulled on my boots, not liking where my thoughts had taken me. I felt fuzzy, like I'd been asleep a long time.
Jenks shifted to face me, his wings catching the light and sending snatches of it about the car. "About an hour outside Albuquerque."
Albuquerque? As in New Mexico? "You're kidding," I said, scooting forward to drape my arms over the passenger seat into the front. There was a fast-food bag on the floor. No, it was a take-out bag from a chain of high- priced gourmet eateries. "What time is it?" I asked, looking at the clock on the dash. "And where did you get the red coat, Jenks?"
"Nice, isn't it?" he said, rising up to show it off. "I got it when Trent picked up some breakfast around sunup. All I had to do was tell a story, and the pixy girls gave it to me. I don't know what time it is anymore. My internal clock is all screwed up."
Trent glanced at me, his eyes showing the strain of too much driving. "We crossed into another time zone. The clock is right, but I feel like it's eleven. I'm tired."
I did the math, and I looked at the speedometer, seeing it was a mere sixty-eight miles per hour. "Holy crap!" I exclaimed, then lowered my voice when Ivy moved. "How fast have you been driving?"
Jenks's wings hummed as he returned to the rearview mirror. "Ninety mostly."
Silent, I turned to Trent, seeing a smile lifting his lips. "I have to make up the time somewhere," he said. "You sleep a lot, and the roads were empty."
I tried to stretch by pressing my palms into the roof of the car, but that wasn't doing it. "I don't sleep any more than you do," I said as I collapsed back over the seat. "I just don't have to do it every twelve hours." Trent raised an eyebrow, and I added, "You want to stop for some breakfast? Maybe rent a room for a shower or something?"
"Lunch," Jenks said brightly. "We ate at sunup."
I stifled a smile at Jenks's satisfaction.
From the backseat came Ivy's low, gravelly "I'm hungry," and Trent smoothly took the next exit, the off-ramp clean of debris, indicating that it was well used and likely had civilization at the end of it. Though the space between the cities was mostly abandoned, there were clusters of oddballs for gas and food holding back the emptiness.
"Breakfast for the witch and the vamp it is," Trent said, sounding like he was in a good mood. Relaxed almost. I ran my eyes over his clothes, seeing that he'd changed into a pair of dark slacks at some point. Not jeans but still casual. His boots were gone, and soft-soled shoes had taken their place. I'd be willing to bet they were still pricey, but the shine was gone. The businessman was vanishing, being replaced by...something else. Quen, I thought as I slumped back into my seat, might not be pleased.
"Good," Jenks said as Ivy pulled herself together. "I gotta pee. Maybe get me a red hat or something. I gotta call my kids, too."
"Taking up a new profession, Jenks?" I asked, and he slipped a silver dust.
"I like the color," he said, flushing. "And where else am I going to get new clothes?"
My gaze went to the weird landscape as I thought of Matalina. Most pixies died of heartache when their spouses passed, but Jenks had lived, partly due to a demon curse that had accidentally given him a new lease on life, and partly due to his desire to see beyond what was real and into what might be. He had spent half his life breaking pixy traditions, learning about both the grief and the reward that came from taking chances. Matalina had told him to live, and somewhere he'd found the courage to do it. It was the smaller things, like who was going to make his clothes or cut his curly hair, that tripped him up. The obvious choice would be one of his daughters, but the thought had probably never occurred to him.
I slumped as Trent pulled into the single cluster of buildings on the right, sporting a tidy-looking gas station, a small motel, and an eatery. The southwestern flavor made everything look alien. Tires popping on gravel, Trent parked in front of the long, low restaurant. Behind us, a green two-door Pinto slowly turned into the lot and parked at the outskirts.
"Hey, look who caught up," Jenks said, wheezing slightly as he landed on my shoulder.
Alarmed, I turned to look closer, relaxing when I recognized the woman. It was Vivian, the youngest member of the coven of moral and ethical standards. Of the five remaining members, I liked Vivian the best, and might even count her as a friend if circumstances were different. She'd given me a bit of blackmail to use against Oliver, and had enough guts to think on her own. She drove a Pinto? I'd put her down as a BMW kind of girl.
"I saw her at the airport, too," Ivy said sleepily. "I'm surprised she found us at all."
"Hey, I got all the bugs off," Jenks said in a huff. "Don't look at me."
I eagerly opened my door, and the new air coming into the car smelled of dry grass. My faint headache seemed to ease. Vivian was a concern, but if she'd wanted me dead, she would have done something by now. The woman was lethal despite her diminutive looks and childlike voice. "Think we should go talk to her?" I said, and Trent stared at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears.
"You think you can knock her out? Buy some time to slip away from her?" Trent asked, totally misreading my words.
I snorted, and even Jenks laughed. "Vivian is not the one trying to kill us," I said as I gathered up the trash. "And the last thing I want to do is lose her. They might give the job of tailing us to someone else, someone more likely to throw spells and ask questions later." No, Vivian and I understood each other, and that was more conducive to a good night's sleep than a cauldron of sleep charms. Even so, I was glad she hadn't been around when I'd done the demon curse to free Trent. That would have been hard to explain.
Trent opened his door, and the breeze went right through the car. "You do make the oddest friends, Rachel."
"You want me to buzz her anyway?" Jenks asked. "Pix her, maybe?"
I shoved another empty box of Milk Duds in the garbage. Who is eating the Milk Duds? I glanced at Trent and Ivy, and seeing that they were leaving it to me, I shook my head.
"Good," Jenks said from my shoulder. "The elevation is kicking my ass. I can't fly worth a Tinker's damn."
I carefully got out, catching my hair before it could hit Jenks. Vivian had her head against the steering wheel as if exhausted, her straight blond hair falling to hide her face. She was alone, and therefore likely hopped up on a charm or a spell. She'd pay for it later. Big-time.
"Trent, will you pop the trunk?" Ivy said, standing beside it. "I'm going to shower."
I plucked my chemise away from my skin, thinking a shower sounded fantastic. Breathing deeply, I took in the air, tasting the differences. My body felt like it was almost noon, but the sun wasn't that far above the horizon. Nine o'clock and the sun was already warm as it hit my shoulders. It felt good to be warm, and I squinted at the distant horizon, missing my sunglasses. The hard-packed earth had a pink tint to it. Rusty, almost. It was as if I could sense the salt beneath the earth, just under the surface. The wind moving my limp curls had the feeling of distance.
While Ivy stretched in what I recognized as her martial-arts warm-up, I reached out a finger of awareness and looked for the nearest ley line. My lips curled up in a smile. There was so little water in the ground here that it seemed as if I could feel the earth forever. The mental landscape of ley lines stretched as far and as clear as the flat horizon. There was space here, both visually and in the more nebulous regions of the mind. Lots of space, and nothing to stop any of the senses until the very earth curved from you. It was odd, and I took a moment to just taste it.
Breaking my line of sight, Ivy grabbed her overnight bag from the trunk. "I'll see if they'll rent us a room for an hour," she said, flicking her gaze at Trent, daring him to protest. "You want to shower, Rachel?"
"Absolutely," I said. "After I eat. Want me to order you something?"
Ivy shook her head, her gaze on the interstate. It was almost empty at this hour. "No. I'll get something to go while you're cleaning up."
Moving with an uncharacteristic stiffness, Trent started for the cloudy pair of restaurant doors. Jenks took to the air as if unsure of who to follow. His new boots and jacket caught the light, shining brilliantly.
"Trent, you going to want a shower?" Ivy called.
"Yes," he said, not turning. "Then I'm taking a nap."
Jenks's wings clattered in relief. "We'll get a table," he said quickly, then hummed heavily after Trent.
Ivy's smile was faint but sincere. "Someone found a new friend," she said dryly.
I chuckled, thinking Trent looked dead tired. It was weird seeing him like that, so far from the usual polished, put-together face he showed the world. "Can you believe where we are? It's not fair. If I drove ten miles over the limit, I'd get pulled over."
She made a sound of agreement, then glanced at Vivian, sleeping with her head propped up on the steering wheel. "You sure you don't want to shower first?" she asked.
Grabbing my bag from the backseat, I flicked my lethal-magic detector. "Nah. I'm hungry. I'll babysit Trent until you're done. I don't mind going last. Save me some water."
Nodding, Ivy turned on her heel and headed for the faded OFFICE sign and the wilted flowers in the huge earthen pots decorated with Aztec-looking figures that reminded me of ley-line glyphs.
I pulled my suitcase to the front of the trunk to grab a new shirt, bra, panties, and socks. My jeans were okay for another day. I shoved everything in my shoulder bag, and slammed the trunk shut. Across the parking lot, Vivian jumped awake. Waving at her, I went in. Poor girl. You'd think they'd give her some help in spying on us. Maybe it was a punishment of some sort.
The windows fronting the road had been tinted, and only the barest glimmer of light and warmth made it inside. As soon as the milky glass doors shut behind me, I felt cold, as if I had stepped into a cave. My attention went to the cash register, hoping for a stand of sunglasses, but there was nothing. Maybe the next stop.
The few people were clustered in such a way that it was obvious they didn't know one another. A pinball machine flashed silently, trying to attract a quarter, and the carpet was almost threadbare. It smelled like Were more than vampire in here, but they had an MPL posted on the door, so I knew it was a mixed-population restaurant. Not that humans ever drove much through the between places anymore. Entire human populations had died in small towns during the Turn, and the fear lingered. It was only in the cities that there had been enough of a support structure to keep them alive in any numbers.
No one looked up as I entered except the waitress, and after I pointed at Trent, she turned away. True to his nature, Trent had taken a table in the center of the place, not in the sun but close. Oddly enough, even though he didn't fit in with the rough Weres and brooding witches smoking I-don't-want-to-know-what, he didn't look out of place. It might have been Jenks on the napkin dispenser.
"We can't take all day with this," Trent said as I pulled out the seat across from him, sitting down with a tired thump.
"We can skip your shower if you want," I said, arranging my bag so I could see the lethal-amulet detector hanging off it.
Green eyes looking black in the dim light, he frowned. "I didn't drive ninety miles an hour all night so you two could waste it under a shower-head."
"I still have the dust from the arch in my hair," I said, turning my mug over to hopefully get something in it soon. "I know we're in a hurry. I want to get there as much as you do."
Trent was silent, and Jenks looked between us, an unhappy expression on his face.
"You look tired," I finally said when Jenks made a motion for me to say something.
Trent's pinched brow eased. "I am," he admitted, and Jenks perked up.
"Me, too," he offered.
"I don't mind driving for a while," I said, trying to catch the waitress's eye.
"That'd be nice, Rache," Jenks said snidely, hands on his hips and slipping a silver dust. "Since you've only driven about two hundred miles so far."
"No," Trent offered. "You need to stay hands free in case the coven..." He hesitated, lifting a shoulder and letting it fall. "In case the Withons send someone else," he finished.
"Yeah, okay," Jenks said, but I was surprised he'd taken Trent's side in the first place.
The waitress finally came forward, two pots in her hands. She looked about sixty and smelled of both Were and witch, so I couldn't easily tell what she was. She had cowboy boots on and an apron, wearing both like they were comfortable slippers. "Morning, folks," she said, her sharp-evaluation look clearly trying to peg us as well. "Regular or decaf?"
"Um, regular," I said, and Trent put a hand over his mug.
"Decaf," he said, and the smell of the coffee rolled over the table as she poured first mine, then Trent's. Jenks flew to my cup and dipped a pixy-size portion out, the waitress watching the entire time. She looked suspicious, not charmed, and I guessed that she had had dealings with pixies before.
"What can I get you?" she said as Jenks lifted from the rim of my cup and I took a sip.
"Oh God, this is good," I said, and the woman beamed, her wrinkles folding in on themselves to make her look wind-beaten beautiful.
"Thank you, hon. We've got some batter in the back. Want me to have Len make up some pancakes for you?"
I nodded, willing to put myself at the woman's mercy if she gave me coffee like this.
"I'll have the tomato soup," Trent said as he slid his menu to her, and the woman made a small sound. Jenks, too, turned to Trent. Ordering tomatoes wasn't unusual, especially out in the wild where there weren't many humans, but for Trent it was. He'd been masquerading as a human his entire life. Getting out of Cincy must be a new experience for him. Freeing, perhaps. "That is, if Len makes a good soup," he added, smiling up at her.
"The best this side of the Mississippi," she said, tucking the menus under her arm. "You want the spicy or mild?"
"Mild."
Leaving both carafes, she wandered back to the kitchen. For a moment, silence but for the pinball machine and the comfortable kitchen noises swirled around us as we all lost ourselves in the pleasure of sitting somewhere other than in the car, drinking something that wasn't coming out of a can or a bottle.
"The best coffee I ever had in a restaurant was in this little place in downtown Cincinnati," Trent said suddenly, looking like a different person as he set his chipped mug down. The memory of the smile he'd given the woman, genuine and sincere, wouldn't leave me. "It had pictures on the walls of babies-"
"Dressed like flowers?" I blurted out, and Jenks let a flash of gold dust slip from him.
"You know it?" Trent asked, eyes wide.
"Know it? She's been banned from it," Jenks said, laughing.
"Junior's," I said over the rim of my coffee, then set the mug down. I could smell pancakes, and my mouth began to water. "Mike's," I said, correcting myself. "He banned me when I got shunned. That was the night I tried to arrest the banshee that had been terrorizing the city last New Year's. Remember the fires at Aston's roller rink and Fountain Square?"
Depressed, I looked into the depths of my coffee. I'd never gotten any public credit for that one, either.
"His name is Mike?" Trent asked, and my attention came back up at the amazement in his voice, and when I nodded, Trent shook his head. "You know a lot of people."
I lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "So do you."
This was kind of freaky. I was sitting with Trent, and neither one of us was baiting the other. Maybe my mom was right. Whenever Robbie and I got on each other's nerves, she would make us clean the garage or something. My mom had had a very clean garage.
"Food's here," Trent said, sounding relieved as he pushed back from the table to make room for his bowl.
"One stack of hotcakes," the woman said, setting a plate of three very brown pancakes before me. "And a bowl of tomato soup."
Trent was already reaching for the bowl. "Thank you, ma'am," he said with such eagerness that she smiled.
"Can I get you anything else?" she asked, setting the bill between us, facedown.
Jenks clattered his wings for attention but didn't take flight. "Would you mind if I browsed in your flowerpots? I'm just about dead on refined sugar and processed peanut butter."
The woman's brow pinched. "You're welcome to what you can find, but it will be a mite thin. There's been some singing in the rills lately. We've got a rove clan about somewheres. Not that they bother us big folk, but they might not take kindly to you."
Jenks beamed. "I'll be fine. Thanks," he said, taking a slurp of his coffee to make his wings hum faster. "One more cup of coffee, and I could take on an entire fairy clan."
"You just be careful," she said as she went back to the kitchen.
The smell of my pancakes was heavenly, and shunning a knife and fork, I rolled the top one up in a tube and took a bite. Trent sighed heavily, carefully polishing his soup spoon with a paper napkin before taking a cautious taste.
His eyes blinked and started to water. "It's hot. She gave me the spicy. This is good." Still gasping, Trent started eating in earnest, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose on his napkin.
I doubted she gave him the hot. It was more likely that the mild was hotter than most volcanoes. The light shifted as the door opened, and I turned to see Vivian standing alone and small in the narrowing band of sun arching to nothing. Giving us a halfhearted wave, she shuffled to the bar and ordered something, putting her head down on her crossed arms when the waitress yelled back to the cook to make up a milk shake.
I chewed, looking at her slumped petite form at the bar, remembering her honesty at Loveland Castle, and then her phone call that had given me leverage with Oliver, the coven's leader. When I'd first met her, she'd been polished and refined, wearing a cashmere coat and having a trendy bag. By the end of the week, she was begrimed, sore, and full of the knowledge that everything she'd been told had been a lie. Right now, she was somewhere in between, wearing jeans and a sweater that looked too hot. Everything was designer label, though, and her makeup, though thin, had been expertly applied.
"You mind if I ask her to join us?" I asked Trent, and he looked up, green eyes watering.
For an instant he was silent, and then his spoon clattered against the white porcelain. "Why not?" he said as he stood. "Since you're so sure she's not going to kill you. I've not yet made her acquaintance."
"I was going to do it," I said, but he'd already crossed the room.
"Why not?" Jenks mocked, his wings a bright red from the caffeine. "Get him away from Quen and he thinks he's cock of the world."
"You noticed that, too?" I said softly. "I like his new shoes."
"Thief shoes," Jenks said around a belch. "I wonder what he's stealing."
"Not our problem." I hope. Taking another bite, I watched Vivian sit up, startled when Trent came up beside her, and then her quick glance at me. "Are you doing okay?" I asked Jenks, seeing his flushed face and slowly moving wings.
"I'll be fine." Jenks tugged his new red jacket straight and rinsed his cup out in my glass of water, leaving a thin ribbon of coffee trailing down. "I want to see if she put a bomb under our car. You going to be okay alone with them?" Thinking of Ivy in the shower, I nodded, and he rose up to leave a fading glow of yellow sunbeam on the table. "I'll be in back in five."
"Be careful," I said as he flew off, and he gave me a flash of red dust, the pixy equivalent of rolling his eyes.
At the bar, Vivian was sliding off her stool, one hand holding a tall glass of milk shake and a dangling napkin. Behind her, Trent followed, smiling as if he were crossing a ballroom floor, not a bar/restaurant surrounded by nothing in the middle of New Mexico.
"Ah, I don't know what to say," the small woman said as she approached, and I pushed out a chair for her.
"Sit," I said, smiling. "Trent won't bite. It's Ivy you have to worry about, and she's in the shower."
Her milk shake hit the table, and she sat. The heavy-magic detection amulet on my bag started to glow, but the lethal one remained dark. It didn't go unnoticed by Vivian, and she took a sip of her drink while Trent resettled himself. I couldn't help but be reminded of the last time I'd sat with her and had coffee. It had been in Mike's, actually, and she'd been prepared to shoot me if I hadn't gone with her. But that had been before she'd watched me stand next to a demon and try to save her mentor, Brooke.
"Ivy said you were at the airport," I said, taking a sip of coffee and probably getting Jenks's glitter on my lips. "You're not going to kill me, are you?" I asked, and Trent choked on his tomato soup.
Eying Trent, she shook her head, her eyes red rimmed and tired looking. "They're hoping you do something demonic on the way, and if so, I'm to report it," she said, nervous until Trent stopped coughing. "Not that everyone isn't pretty much set on how they are going to vote already. Except for whoever they elect to take Brooke's spot. Oh, anything you say to me is going to be used against you in the vote."
Vote? I thought, my gaze going to Trent as I realized he'd been right. They were going to try to put me away despite what Oliver had promised. "This was a done deal!" I said, then lowered my voice. "Oliver said if I dropped my claim that the council is corrupt, you'd pardon me!" I almost hissed.
Vivian shrugged as she sucked on her straw, and Trent wiped his mouth, red faced but finally under control. "Ms. Morgan is somewhat naive when it comes to world powers," he said.
"Why? Because I expect them to keep their word?" I said darkly.
Looking innocent drinking her milk shake, Vivian sat back, her blue eyes downcast. The diamonds on her watch glittered, and the time was off. "It would help a lot if you brought back Brooke. She'd vote for you then."
I couldn't stop my rueful laugh. "No, she wouldn't."
Trent had gone back to his soup, watching us both. It made me feel like I was on trial not once, but twice.
"And we're not corrupt," Vivian said, almost as an afterthought.
Why is she saying this crap? I thought, rolling up a second pancake and taking a bite. It was like she was reading a script. Maybe she was afraid of what Trent thought? Maybe she was bugged and this entire conversation was going to end up in someone else's ears?
Regardless, I couldn't let that one go without a rebuttal, so, taking a huge bite of pancake, I mumbled, "Right. Okay. Let's just say the coven is lily-white, but Brooke was dabbling in demonology." Swallowing, I added, "She summoned Big Al all on her own, knowing that's who she was going to get, not me. She didn't pay or threaten anyone into doing it, she did it herself. I warned her not to. I went out of my way to try to stop her. Burned my synapses and fried my brain trying to jump a line to get to her in time. If I'm to be shunned, then she should be, too."
Sure enough, Vivian didn't look appalled or insulted. Though we were alone, we were not unheard. "Can you..." She looked at Trent, hesitating.
"No," I said, knowing where her thoughts were. "I can't rescue her. Brooke summoned Al. He broke her circle because she didn't know what she was doing. I'm sorry. I know you think I control him, but I don't. I'm just trying to stay alive here."
Vivian bent her head back over her milk shake. "I had to ask," she said, her thin fingers looking cold on the glass.
The table grew quiet. I kept shoveling pancake in my mouth, not knowing what to say now that I knew we were being eavesdropped upon.
"Vivian," Trent said, his attention lifting from my unused syrup as he broke the awkward silence. "What role do you have in the coven? You seem to be involved in everything."
"I'm the plumber," she said with pride. "It's traditional for the junior ley-line magic user."
Plumber was a nice way of saying that she plugged information leaks and kept the crap moving. And I almost laughed at the junior tag. Junior or not, she could smear my face in the playground dirt with her white magic.
"I fix things," Vivian added to make sure Trent understood. "Make things run smoothly. That's why I..." Her words faltered, and she looked embarrassed as she took another pull on her straw.
"Got this gem of an assignment," I said, and she nodded. "Sorry about that."
"It's what I like," she said, shrugging. "Usually."
The last was said rather dryly, and I wondered if it was for our listener's benefit.
"Just be careful," I said, not entirely in jest. "That's what Pierce was before they cemented him into the ground."
Trent was still eying my syrup, even as he scraped his spoon to get the last dregs of the soup, and I pushed the little container to him.
Vivian's face showed her disgust. Pierce had beaten her up last spring, and that was not easy for the self-assured woman. "Pierce," she said, mouthing his name like it tasted bad. "He was dead. You brought him back."
I could almost hear her think black witch, and my jaw clenched. Why was everyone so fixated on labels? Across the table, Trent dunked his clean fork in the syrup, pushing the little container back after he'd tasted it. If he didn't like it, then Jenks wouldn't, either, and I left it as I put my napkin over my last pancake. I was done.
"I didn't bring Pierce back to life," I said, not seeing what difference it made, but wanting to clear it up. "He was in purgatory, and I accidentally woke him while using a white spell to talk to my deceased father for some parental advice. Did it on a dare. I got Pierce instead. Al was the one who made him alive again so he could use him as a familiar. Dead witches can't tap lines, and they make lousy familiars."
I sipped my coffee, trying not to think about it. Pierce was living out the rest of his life in another's-a dead man's-body. It gave me the willies, and I only hoped I'd never find myself facing such a decision. It was hard to blame the guy. I just wished he had given me a chance to find a better way before he'd given himself to Al until death do them part.
"But you woke him first?" Vivian said intently, her eyes red rimmed from lack of sleep.
"It's a white spell," I said, glancing at Trent. He had known for a while that I could do this. "And it doesn't work on the dead, only on those in purgatory."
Vivian moved her straw around to remix her milk shake. "I know it's white," she said. "I've tried it. You got it to work when you were how old?"
Oh. That. Uncomfortable, I looked out the window at my mom's car. "I don't remember," I lied. I'd been eighteen and stupid, but clearly there was someone under the grass Vivian wanted to talk to. "Pierce started haunting me last year. He was buried in my churchyard." I started to warm, getting angry. "It was your precious coven that killed him."
"I know," Vivian said, as eager as if she was talking about someone from a history book, not a real person I once had breakfast with, hid in a little hole with, owed my life to. "I read up on him after he...after we met," she said slowly. "He was a coven member gone bad. They had no choice but to kill him."
Trent was silent, drawing back as I pointed a finger at her. "He wasn't just killed. He was buried alive."
"Because of Eleison-" Vivian said, eyes alight as if discussing a long-argued point.
"Eleison was a mistake," I interrupted. "It wouldn't have happened if he had known even the basic defensive arts for demonology. Your coven turned on one of their own. Gave him to an ugly rabble instead of trying to understand what he was warning them about." Frustrated, I leaned forward. "Vivian, this lily-white crap the coven sticks to can't protect you anymore. It took five of you to subdue me, and I didn't use a black curse. A real demon would have. You saw how easily Al took Brooke."
"Rachel-" Trent said, and I cut him off.
"Knowing how to twist curses doesn't mean that you're evil," I said, hoping I believed it myself. "Using demon magic doesn't necessarily mean you're bad. It just means you created a whole lot of imbalance."
"You," Vivian said hotly, "are rationalizing. White is white. Black is black."
Trent picked up both bills, pulling a wallet from his back pocket and dropping enough cash on the table to cover them both. "Madam Coven Member disagrees with you," he warned me, and I frowned, my gut tensing.
"Look," I said, aware that I was probably sealing my fate, but this might be my only chance to actually say anything in my defense. "Knowing demon magic has saved my life. I never use curses that require body parts or ones that kill..." Shit, I thought, hesitating. "I've never killed..." Sighing, I paused once more. "I've never used it to kill anyone who wasn't trying to kill me first."
Vivian's lips parted, and her fingers slipped from the condensation-wet glass. "You admit you killed someone? With black magic?"
Trent's expression was questioning as he sat back down. My shoulders slumped, and I grimaced. "The fairies your precious coven sent to kill me," I admitted.
"No," Vivian said, shaking her head. "I mean people."
"Fairies are people," I said hotly. "I saved the ones I could, but-" Frowning, I shut up, glad Jenks hadn't heard.
Vivian was silent, her milk shake gone and her fingers damp as she dried them on a white paper napkin. "Well, I have to use the little girls' room," she said, looking uneasy. "Don't leave until I get out, okay?" she said hopefully. God, she didn't even know why I was insulted.
"No promises," Trent said as I continued to steam. "The road calls."
Vivian stood, her chair bumping on the floor. "I'm going to pay for this little chat when this is over," she said as she flicked the amulets around her neck. "See you at the finish line."
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Vivian," Trent said, standing as well, his hand extended, and I huffed when they shook. Vivian, though, was charmed, beaming at him.
She turned away, and I cleared my throat. "You going to vote for or against me?" I asked bluntly, and the woman's eyes pinched.
"I don't know," she said softly. "Thanks for breakfast."
"Our pleasure," Trent said as he sat back down.
Vivian paused, looking like she wanted to say more, but then turned for the short corridor with RESTROOMS over it. She turned a corner and vanished with a squeak of a hinge.
Trent wrapped his hands around his mug and took a sip. "I don't understand you," he said. "I truly don't. You know they were listening, right? Editing it and putting it on the closed-circuit TV at the convention hotel?"
"I know," I said, depressed. "The sad thing is that she's probably the only coven member who might side with me, and I think I just alienated her." Disgusted, I pushed my plate away, trying to shove my dark thoughts along with it. Looking up, I caught the waitress's eye and pointed to my coffee cup, signaling another one for the road in a to-go cup. "You want another coffee?" I asked.
"No. Mind if I shower next?" he asked, and I gestured for him to have at it.
"Be my guest," I said, hoping he left me more than a hand towel.
Trent tapped the table once with his knuckles, hesitated, then left. The Weres at the end of the bar watched him as he walked to the door. There was a flash of light and a jingle as he opened it, and then the restaurant returned to a dim coolness.
The waitress sashayed to my table, a jumbo disposable cup in her hands. It was Were size, and if I drank it all, I'd be stopping to pee more than Jenks. "Thanks. That will wake me up," I said, reaching for my bag and wallet as she set the cup down.
"We're good," she said as she picked up the bills Trent had left behind and smiled.
Standing, I slung my bag over my shoulder and lifted the huge cup of coffee. It took two hands. This thing was not going to fit in my mom's cup holders, and I walked carefully to the door, opening it by leaning against it and walking backward.
The heat and light hit me, and I carefully let the door slide off me and close. This time-zone jumping got to a person. Two hours in one day was hard. Squinting, I shuffled to the car, now parked under the gas station overhang with a hose stuck into it. Trent wasn't anywhere, but Ivy was standing halfway across the lot, confronting a heavy, grungy trucker who looked not scared but concerned.
Her long hair, wet from her shower, glinted, and I paused at the car to set my coffee down and sigh at how much it took to fill the tank. Ivy had changed her clothes, her long legs managing to make the retro bell-bottoms look work. Her white shirt set off her figure nicely, and the short sleeves were going to make her day a lot cooler. She looked upset, and a faint feeling of unease tightened in me.
"Ivy?" I called, and she spun, the fear on her face striking me cold. She was moving fast-vampire fast-and her eyes were fully dilated in the bright sun.
"He's gone," Ivy shouted across the lot, and the fear dropped and twisted.
"Who?" I said, already knowing.
"Jenks," she said, eyes wide.
Coffee forgotten, I ran across the lot, squinting when the sun hit me. "Gone! Where?"
The trucker looked forlorn in a bearish sort of way, clearly wanting to help us but not understanding why we were upset. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he said, holding his hands like a fig leaf. "I don't pay much attention to the little winged critters unless they hit my windshield. They're a bitch to get off."
God help me, I thought, panicking.
"I don't know if it was pixies or fairies," the man said, "but a whole mess of noise of 'em just rose up, taking a little fella in red with them. He didn't look like he was hurt any."
My heart was thudding, and I backed up, sharing a terrified look with Ivy. Oh God, we were in the desert. There was nothing between me and the horizon but wind, sand, and scrub. Pixies could fly faster than I could run and in every direction.
We'd never find him.