Pale Demon th-9 Page 12

  Trent’s pace was stiff as he walked to the car. I turned to the nearby field, squinting for Jenks. Not a wing caught the light or broke the stillness, and a sliver of worry colored my anger. “Do I smell better?” I heard Trent ask Ivy sarcastically as he got in the back of the car.

  “I liked the way you smelled before, Trent. That was the problem.”

  I dumped the candles, transfer media, and finger stick into the barrel with Trent’s bloody shirt and our trash. Tapping a line, I made the appropriate ley-line gesture, and with the final words, leno cinis, I threw a ball of unfocused energy in on top to get the entire thing burning. Flame whooshed up, fueled by my anger as well as the demon curse. Ivy looked at me through the open window, her eyebrows high as I destroyed any evidence of us and the curse.

  Without a word, she started the car. Hands on my hips, I looked to the field for Jenks. A sneeze tickled my nose, and I let it come, hearing it echo against the broken buildings. My eyes narrowed, and sure enough, I sneezed again. There was only one reason I sneezed more than twice in a row, and I held my breath until the third one ripped through me.

  Damn. It was Al. Maybe he’d felt the familiar emancipation curse being registered.

  “Ivy, we got a minute?” I asked as I tossed my bag in through the open door, then sat down sideways with my feet still on the cracked cement.

  She knew what my sneezing meant, too. “A minute.” Still reclining, she honked the horn. “Jenks! Let’s go!”

  The tightening in my gut eased as Jenks flew up, a veritable cloud of pretty dresses and flashing wings left hovering forlornly over the meadow. “Crap on toast!” the pixy said, his long hair loose and looking disheveled as he straightened his clothes. “I think I almost got married.”

  There was a flash of red on his feet, and as I placed the scrying mirror on my knees, I blinked in surprise. “Where did you get the boots, Jenks?”

  “You like them?” he said as he landed on the glass to show them off. “Me, too. I told them about you, and they gave them to me. They think I’m some kind of wandering storyteller, and it was either take these or the nasty honey made from sedge flowers.” He made a face, his angular features twisting up dramatically. “What does Al want?”

  I sneezed in the middle of saying, “Three guesses,” and he took off, flying to the back to show his boots to Trent. “I’m coming!” I shouted at Al as I placed my hand on the center glyph and tapped into the ley line. Feet in the sun, I set my thoughts on Algaliarept, his ruddy complexion, his overdone British accent, his cruelty, his crushed green velvet coat, his cruelty, his voice, and his cruelty. He was nice to me, but he really was a depraved, sadistic…demon.

  “Can’t you do this while we’re on the road?” Trent asked from the backseat.

  “Al!” I said aloud when I felt the connection form to the demon collective, and my thought winged away to be immediately answered. A second consciousness expanded mine, and I heard Jenks clatter his wings.

  “You ever see anything freakier than that?” he said to Trent.

  “Yes, about three minutes ago,” Trent answered back.

  What in the arcane are you doing? came Al’s unusually angry thought within mine, and shoved away the whisper imagery of him either cleaning his spelling kitchen or tearing it apart.

  “Filing an emancipation curse,” I said aloud so Ivy and Jenks could hear half the conversation. “And before you start, what I do with my familiars is my business.”

  Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Al shouted, and I winced. Please tell me you didn’t teach him anything. Al hesitated. Did you?

  I shook my head even though Al couldn’t see it. “I didn’t teach Trent anything. Not even respect,” I said, and I felt Al sigh in relief.

  Itchy witch, Al thought, his dark musings seeming to insert themselves into my head. There’s a reason we kill familiars when we’re done with them. He’s got a new mark, doesn’t he?

  “His familiar mark turned into a smiley face,” I said, feeling myself warm.

  From the backseat, Jenks exclaimed, “No way! Let me see!” and Trent’s negative growl.

  Damn my dame, Al thought, seeming to fall back into Ceri’s comfortable chair by the small hearth in his kitchen if I was interpreting his emotions right. You did it correctly. Nice going, Rachel.

  “Hey, you’re the one who gave me the recipe,” I shot back, thinking the modern phrase sounded funny coming from the old-world-charm demon.

  I gave that one to you because it’s bloody impossible and I thought you wouldn’t be able to do it! he exclaimed, loud enough to give me a headache. You just made Trent able to call any demon without fear of being snatched. Nice going.

  Fingers pressed to the glass to maintain our link, I looked back at Trent. So? You can still smack him around, can’t you? I said, and the demon chuckled, making me shiver.

  Technically, no, but that’s a matter of interpretation.

  I pushed my fingers into my forehead, tired of it all. Demons. Their society’s rules were not worth the blood they were written with unless you had the personal power to force everyone to abide by them. But the snatching thing? That was probably ironclad.

  “What did you say?” Jenks asked belligerently. “Hey! You’re talking and not telling us. That’s rude, Rache.”

  “Tell you later,” I said, turning to look at Ivy, her hands on the wheel as she waited. She looked worried. Hell, I knew I was.

  “Look, I wasn’t going to use him as a familiar,” I said to Al. “And now he’s going to help get my shunning removed.” The part about the West Coast elves trying to cack him, I’d keep to myself, not because it made this look more dangerous, but because Al wouldn’t care. He’d just as soon see me fail. If I lost our bet, I’d be living with him in the ever-after—hence the reason he wouldn’t just pop me over there.

  Trenton Aloysius Kalamack? Al thought, a tweak of magic running through me when he lit a candle. Why? You going to be his little demon in return for his vouching for your sterling character, dove?

  “Absolutely not,” I said with a huff. “Trent’s on some elf quest. I promised I’d see him to the West Coast is all. I’m his mirror, sword, and shield all in one. It was a deal, Al. Just because I can break them with impunity doesn’t mean I will.”

  “You’re on an elf quest?” Jenks said loudly, and Trent sighed. “You shitting me?”

  You make the most interesting mistakes, my itchy witch, Al thought, and I didn’t care if he could sense me slump in relief. If he was back to calling me itchy witch, we were okay. Don’t teach him anything, he finished. Nothing.

  “Not a problem,” I said and lifted my hand, breaking the connection before Algaliarept caught my first whisper of unease.

  Don’t teach him anything, Al had said. Like how to free a familiar, maybe? Too late.

  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 tr
ying 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.