Ever After th-11 Read online

  “No.” I shook Nina’s hand, struggling with my desire to wipe it off. Her fingers had been cool and dry, but the man animating her bothered me. “Was it a demon attack?”

  “It would be a lot easier to tell if you hadn’t exploded three trees over the entire crime site.” Nina squinted uncomfortably. “Can we move this inside?”

  “No,” I said again, shifting my bag up higher on my shoulder. “Can I leave, or do you want something?”

  Jenks’s wings shifted against my neck in warning. Okay, it wasn’t smart to antagonize a vampire, especially a dead one, but Ray wasn’t the only one tired here.

  “I need a statement, if you would please. Before you leave.”

  I sneezed, my entire body contracting and the noise making Ray crack her eyes. Al was getting impatient. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have obliterated the evidence,” Felix said, Nina’s beautiful white teeth bared at me in a threat thinly disguised as a smile.

  “Oh. My. God,” Jenks said, safely parked on my shoulder but his dust shifting a bright red. “Rache, they think you did it. Do you really believe the crap that is coming out of your mouth,” the pixy added as Nina reflectively steepled her fingers as I’d seen older men do, “or do you just make shit up to see how stupid people might think you are?”

  I knew I was filling the air with my anger, a close second to a vampire’s favorite smell after fear. The wind helped, but by Nina’s smirk I knew that she was picking up on some of it.

  “You are a demon,” Nina said, making Jenks’s wings seem to hum in anger. “And yes, this has all the markings of a demon attack. It occurred in the daylight, meaning you are the only one who could accomplish it.”

  “That’s dumber than Tink’s dildo!” Jenks exclaimed, and I raised a hand to keep him from flying at her; the vampire might be quick enough to catch him. I doubted Felix truly believed I’d done this, or he would’ve had a dozen other magic users out here to bring me in. Unless he knew even that wouldn’t be enough, and I’d been moved to the level of a banshee where they’d just kill me outright with a sniper’s spell. Grea-a-a-at.

  “Then there is option number two,” Nina said brightly as I fumed, and she turned to include Trent. “Do you wish to start an investigation on the Withons?”

  “Ellasbeth didn’t do this.” Trent’s voice was soft because of Ray, but it had the sureness of wind and water. Slumped against him, Ray slept, at peace at last. Nina tilted her head as if unsure, and I agreed with Felix. Ellasbeth’s family was one of the wealthiest on the West Coast. She had motive, opportunity, and the clout to buy a demon attack. I wished it was her. It would make my life easier. But with Nick involved . . .

  Nina eyed Trent, a cruel twist to her lips. “Isn’t that what you did to her? Steal her child?” she said as she held her hair against a gust of wind. “What’s good for the goose, eh?”

  Jenks’s wings clattered, tickling my neck, and Trent frowned, letting a hint of his anger show. Beyond the gates, the press teams were coiling cords and packing away lights, but their long-range cameras were reading lips. “Ellasbeth did not arrange this,” Trent said shortly, his back to them. “I stole Lucy with my own efforts under an arranged tradition older than your species, vampire. If Ellasbeth had come here and taken Lucy by herself, then I’d be angry for having allowed it. I wouldn’t deserve her. But this wasn’t Ellasbeth.”

  Nina swung back to me. “Which brings us back to you, Rachel.”

  Exasperated, I dropped back to my car, sneezing and trying not to look pensive. “Just because a demon can’t come to reality doesn’t mean that his influence ends at the ley lines. I saw Nick Sparagmos leaving the hospital in a hurry yesterday amid that media circus you instigated. I did some asking around and found out he belongs to Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’ru. Ku’Sox could have done this through Nick.”

  Not easily, but he could have.

  “And why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Nina almost purred, making me think Felix had known about it all along. Damn it, I hated when I fell into their mind games.

  “Because up until today, Nick was stealing thriving Rosewood syndrome babies, not Trent’s family.”

  Nina squinted, her guile replaced with a frown. “You think the two crimes are linked?”

  I nodded, pulling my jacket tighter around my shoulders to make Jenks take to the air. Just as well since I sneezed again. Both the pixy and Trent eyed me in concern. “There’s no way in the two worlds that you’ll find him. You want his phone number? That’s all I got, and it’s probably not going to work anymore.” I dug in my bag for a tissue. If I didn’t get to my scrying mirror soon, Al was going to be pissed.

  Nina’s eyes narrowed. “I do not like you withholding information, Rachel Morgan.”

  I leaned forward to get into her face, emboldened by the news crews watching. “Then maybe you should stop accusing me of everything. I didn’t have any evidence, and one thing I’ve learned is no one acts on what I believe, only what I can prove.”

  “I would,” Trent said, and I smiled at him with a wash of gratitude. Jenks had moved himself to his shoulder, and he looked different with a baby on one side, a pixy on the other.

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” I said softly, and Nina’s stance became antagonistic.

  “I want a statement,” she insisted.

  “Am I a suspect?”

  Nina sighed dramatically. “No-o-o-o.”

  “A person of interest?” I pushed, and she rolled her head on her shoulders as if stretching into a new skin and finding it unpleasant.

  “No, not really,” she said flatly.

  “Then you can wait until I can come in tomorrow and give you a statement. Right now I have to talk to Al and find out what happened to the ley lines this afternoon. Okay? I’ll even tell you what he said. Deal?”

  Nina glared, brown eyes becoming black. I held her gaze, my heart hammering as I saw past the woman to the ugly old vampire speaking through her. Frightening ideas churned in him, whispers showing and vanishing like bursting bubbles of oil. He was old, maybe too old to adapt to the reality of demons among us and to make decisions to ease the coming chaos. His attention bore into me, and I took it without flinching. Would he accept me and the possible demon baggage I might bring to reality, or forever keep me in the “them” category? The second choice was familiar, comfortable, but it would lead to their damnation. I thought he was smart enough to see it. The question was, could he sell it to those who looked to him?

  “Very well. Tomorrow,” the vampire finally said, and I exhaled as our eye contact broke, trying to make it inaudible but knowing that Nina could sense my relief easier than she could feel the wind in her hair. I hadn’t gotten the full acceptance that I wanted, but rather a cautious maybe. It was enough for now. “Still, it would be easier if you hadn’t obliterated evidence of the attack,” she grumped.

  “I was trying to save Quen’s life,” I said darkly. The news crews were finally going into the gatehouse pressroom. Soon as they left, I’d head home. “You did a moulage, right?” I couldn’t see the imprint left by strong emotions, but vampires, whether they be living or dead, could. If Ivy was here, she could tell me, but she wasn’t. I had an uncomfortable thought that she’d much rather be helping Glenn than our investigative firm.

  Nina sniffed, clearly uncomfortable in the sun, but I leaned back against my car, enjoying the stored heat it was giving off. “Most has already evaporated with the sun,” Nina said. “The evaluation is still being scored, but even though neither I nor Nina is rated for the courts it’s obvious that there was violence, determination, frustration, and panic in large amounts. Mostly violence between two people.”

  “Gee, you think?” Jenks smart-mouthed. “You come up with that all on your own?”

  Quen and Ku’Sox, I thought, seeing frustration cross Trent’s face.

  “It seems,” Nina said, idly looking at her perfect nails, “as if Ceri did nothing. Perhaps she was knoc
ked out or protecting the baby.”

  Trent turned away, the rims of his ears red in the sun. Jenks had taken wing, hovering protectively. Seeing it, Nina smiled like a cat who’d cornered a mouse. “I sensed three, maybe four auras present, but only Quen and one other were active. I’d be comfortable guessing that there was one person who abducted Ceri and Lucy, someone proficient in magic. Quen fought him or her, realized he couldn’t overcome them, and the two females were taken.”

  How can she just stand there and say it? I thought, my frustration bubbling up. Lucy and Ceri were gone! Quen was possibly dying, having tried to save them. Trent . . .

  I glanced at him, wishing he didn’t have to deal with this. Demons sucked.

  Nina was silent, reading the emotions as neither one of us said anything. Ray was slumped against Trent’s shoulder, Jenks a silent presence of support I didn’t understand. It was obvious that Trent had never admitted to himself how much Ceri and Lucy had come to mean to him. He might not even know it now, so wrought with the pressure of dealing with the present that he couldn’t see clearly. He was suffering, though. He had no one. I didn’t think he realized it yet—he wasn’t angry enough. I could feel his realization coming. Maybe in a day. Maybe two.

  Trent had always seemed to be alone, but he’d always had his assistant, Jonathan, as well as Quen. Then Ceri. Even Ellasbeth, though that hadn’t turned out very well apart from Lucy. And now even Lucy was gone. Soon he would understand that the demons had taken everything but a child who would remind him of what he lost. Things would get ugly then as the worst parts of Trent warred with the best.

  A chill went through me, and Nina looked at me in question, her eyes dilating in the strong sun as I shivered. Trent had power on multiple levels and he wasn’t averse to using it. I didn’t know which side of him would win. I’d seen both. There was little I could do. Except perhaps be there so he didn’t feel so alone.

  “Then you have nothing more to add?” Nina asked, her voice oily as she soaked in my sudden fear.

  “No.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel,” she said, and I looked at her outstretched hand, refusing to take it. She might kiss it or something. “Trenton.” Nina hesitated, inclined her head, and then spun slowly. Trent shifted to me slightly, and we watched her walk to the cars. You could tell when Felix left her: her head came up and she breathed as if coming out from a hole. As she paced faster, her heels clicked on the pavement until she got in a car.

  Arms still over my chest, I watched her slowly pivot the big car back onto the road, headed for the gatehouse. I’d stopped sneezing. That was good, right? “She thinks I’m not telling her everything,” I said, and Trent’s shoulders slumped.

  “Are you?”

  I touched Ray’s hair, smiling faintly. She hadn’t let go of that amulet, and it was still in her tight little grip even as she slept. “I don’t know. It’s ingrained not to tell the I.S. squat.”

  I opened my car door to leave, and Trent lingered, Ray in his arms and the sun glowing on him. “Felix is teetering on insanity,” he said, eyes concerned as he watched Nina’s car go through the gate. “You’ll be okay tonight?”

  “Sure, unless they decide to blame it on me.” I got in, finding my keys in my bag. Sitting there, I looked up at him. “It would be easier if Ellasbeth planned it,” I said, wanting to believe that. I didn’t like the woman, and by Jenks’s scoff as he darted in to sit on the rearview mirror, I knew he didn’t hold any love for her, either.

  “I called her from the hospital,” Trent said, a surprising tone of compassion in his voice. “She seemed shocked, and she doesn’t lie that well. Even if it were ten against one, Quen wouldn’t have—” His voice broke, and I felt a surge of pity when his jaw clenched and released. “He would have prevailed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His breath coming in was shaky, but it smoothed out when he exhaled. “Me too.”

  My chest hurt, and I watched him hold Ray. I knew he loved her, but the feeling that he had failed Lucy must be overwhelming. He had risked his life to find Lucy and bring her home, promised that she would be safe with him. “You’re a good father,” I said suddenly, and his lips parted. “No one can stop a demon when they make half an effort.”

  “You can,” he said quickly, and Jenks made a pained sound from the rearview mirror.

  The self-recrimination in Trent’s voice made me feel worse. “True, but I’m a demon.”

  Trent blinked with a sudden thought. His shoulders eased, and the horrid tightness to his jaw let up. “You are, aren’t you?” he said, as if I’d given him something new to consider, a fragment of knowledge that he could use as he began scheming, looking for a way to fix this.

  “What?” I said, hoping he’d tell me what my words had sparked, but he shook his head.

  “Nothing. Ellasbeth has promised to take Lucy from me, even if I can get her back. She’s already filing papers.”

  I wondered why he was telling me this, even as my heart went out to him. “You will get her back. Ceri too.” But I didn’t promise it.

  Still between me and my car door, he swallowed hard. I wanted to reach out to touch him, but didn’t know how he’d take it. Putting the key in the ignition, I sneezed. Then I sneezed again, jerking so hard my forehead almost hit the dash. Scared, I looked at Jenks. His eyes were wide. Shit. I’d waited too long to get to my scrying mirror.

  “Bless you,” Trent said dully, not paying attention. My eyes widened, and I sneezed again. Mouth dry, I grasped his free wrist.

  “Trent. I’m sorry,” I said, knowing I couldn’t stop this. He was going to lose me, too.

  He stared at my hand, and then his eyes widened as I sneezed again. “No . . .”

  I let go of him, sitting in my car afraid to move. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t outdistance the summons. “I’m being summoned,” I said, turning away to sneeze again. A nauseating, pulling sensation had started. It was soft right now, but if I didn’t submit, it would grow until I had no choice. For a second, I panicked, thinking it might be Ku’Sox, but Al was the only one in the ever-after who knew my summoning name. And Nick.

  The panic returned.

  “Nick knows your summoning name!” Jenks shouted as he figured it out, too. “Rachel, fight it!”

  But there was nothing I could do, and I shook my head, trying not to show my fear. I didn’t have a choice. I had to go. At least the news crew couldn’t see me. “I’m sorry,” I said again, wincing. “This might be okay. I’ll do what I can.” I looked at Jenks. His face was white. “Give me an hour, then summon me back.”

  “No.” The snarl of denial had come from Trent, and I gasped as he knelt and grasped my wrist. My head snapped up as the interdimensional pulling sensation vanished. Sitting in my car, I stared at Trent, shocked as the world seemed to revolve and settle. The tips of his hair were floating. As time seemed to stand still, Jenks began to softly swear.

  Trent had stopped the summons? I hadn’t known he could do that. I mean, I knew he could channel a crapload of ever-after, but this? This was incredible!

  “Not you too,” he said fiercely, and I smiled, grateful even as a sudden pain lanced through my head.

  Trent cried out, and his hold on me vanished. Like the shocking snap of a rubber band breaking, the parking lot and my car vanished; Trent’s aghast face was the last thing that I saw, Ray’s startled cry the last thing I heard.

  Chapter Seven

  The scent of burnt amber pulled through my awareness first, dragging the rest of the ever-after behind it. I left the ley line gratefully, the harsh taste/sound of it making me shudder. Ku’Sox hadn’t summoned me, or I’d be fighting for my life by now, and I sighed in relief as I decided that I was in the ever-after, blue sky, white sun, and salty-tasting wind notwithstanding. Nowhere in reality stank so bad. My nose had adjusted to the smell even before I finished coalescing to find myself standing on a round dais of white rock, two toga-clad demons before me like judges, a crowd of th
em behind me muttering like the mob they were.

  I shivered, trying to throw off the wrong feeling of the line. I seemed to be in a Greek auditorium with rising benches of stone and stately pillars with white cloth strung between them to shade the demons from the fake sun. The horizon was lost in a stark white line, and I looked for the jukebox when I realized I was in Dalliance. It might look as if we were outside, but we were deep underground in the ever-after. The restaurant was a convenient meeting place, and I wondered why the demons were adhering to the dress rules since it was clearly not being used as an eatery, but rather . . . a courtroom? Irate demons filtered in, their varied clothing shifting to togas as they passed the threshold.

  Al was beside me on the dais, and finding the collected, slightly bitter demon there was a relief. He was in a toga as well instead of his usual crushed green velvet frock coat, the fine cloth tied with a crimson sash so bright that it made me squint. His hair was in oiled ringlets, making his somewhat blocky face look even more so. Sandals peeped from under his hem, and I stared at his black toenails. That was new.

  His manner was off as well, his red, goat-slitted eyes holding a sheen of nervousness as he gave me a quick once-over and frowned. This didn’t bode well. He was always confident, even when he shouldn’t be, and I followed his gaze to the long bench before us just on the other side of the shallow moat, making a pained smile at Newt and Dali. Not my favorite denizens of the ever-after.

  “So you always talk to Dali in front of an audience?” I quipped, and Al grimaced.

  “Stand up. Fix your hair,” Al said as he smacked me into a stiffer position, keeping to his usual British nobleman accent though he now looked like a Greek councilman. “My God, what is that you’re wearing? Jeans? You smell like horse.”

  “That’s because I was on one,” I said, becoming angry. “Someone from the ever-after stole Ceri and Trent’s daughter. Three guesses as to who. And why.”

  My tone was sarcastic, but Al made a noise as if he didn’t care, and I shivered as a cascade of ever-after fell over me, tainted with his aura. For a moment, the rising noise of the demons behind me muted, and then it returned as his aura fell away and I found myself in sandals and a homespun robe with purple silk lining. The moist wind tugged unfamiliarly at my hair, and I reached up to find a ring of wilting flowers. The entire outfit smacked of something that Ceri, Al’s ex-familiar, might have looked good in. Me, not so much.