Pale Demon th-9 Read online

  “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been a curse of some sort, because Pierce stiffened, shuddering as a sheet of red ever-after coated him, changing his outdated clothes into something more modern.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.

  Thirteen

  If it wasn’t for the lack of an ocean, I would have believed I was in Florida, sitting at a tourist-trap, beach-themed restaurant whose target audience was college kids on spring break. The flo
or was of gray dock planks. The stairs had stiff rope railings. Fishing nets that had never seen the water were strung under the high ceiling. It was busy, and Trent’s hundred bucks had bought us a booth in front of the stage, bypassing the forty-minute wait. Maybe money couldn’t buy happiness, but it could get you a table that looked like the back end of a deep-sea fishing vessel.

  Tired and disillusioned, I looked over the booth. It even had fake fishing poles out the back between us and the stage where a scruffy Were was singing about a last shaker of salt. No, his lost shaker of salt, according to the paper place mat. It must bother Jimmy Buffett that no one could understand his slurred lyrics even if he had them painted on the thick support beams, too. Yep, we were in Margaritaville, and it was steaming Trent’s shrimp that we were still in Vegas.

  Uptight, I ate my last piece of shrimp cocktail and took a sip of soda, eying the beautiful servers moving around the tables. Every last one of them was a living vampire, and I thought it odd that vampires and the beach seemed to mix so well.

  Still hungry, I ran my finger through the shrimp sauce and licked it off. I was on the outside of the semicircle with my back to the kitchen. Ye olde demon killer was to my left, then Trent, Vivian, and Ivy on the other end. Jenks was on the candle centerpiece, almost asleep despite the noise. My phone said it was seven thirty, but it felt like ten thirty, naptime for pixies and elves on East Coast time. Jenks looked better now that we’d quit moving. I was feeling better now that I’d had a shower and was in a fresh pair of jeans and a black camisole. I hadn’t yet talked to Trent about his new friend, Ku’Sox; I was still trying to wrap my mind around Pierce. He was a black witch. There was no denying it. Maybe instead of trying to figure out if it was wrong to like him or not, I should do the smart thing and…forget about him.

  Grimacing, I turned my phone to vibrate and tucked it in a back pocket. Jenks had talked to his kids earlier, and I’d fielded another chat with Bis. Apparently he’d woken up this afternoon for a few minutes and wanted to talk to his folks about having seen the sun. They were at the basilica, a good five minutes’ flight away, and he didn’t want to leave the pixies alone unless we knew about it. He was a good kid. I was surprised, though. Most gargoyles couldn’t stay awake during the day until they were much older.

  “Hey, Ivy,” I said, leaning across the table. “How come everyone working in here is a vampire? Some kind of union thing?”

  Vivian looked up from her corn chips, clearly eager to answer, but Ivy was quicker. I’d seen her watching some of the prettier ones with more than a passing interest. “They’re working off their debts,” she said as she sipped her soda, looking as sexy as a vodka commercial.

  I glanced at our server flirting with a table of four businessmen, then the vampire stud Ivy had been eying since we walked in. “Really?”

  “Really,” Vivian said when Ivy air-kissed her chosen one. “The head vampire in Vegas has a policy of free movement on his turf. Otherwise there might be a drop in revenue from the gambling. No one leaves with an outstanding debt. Dead or alive.”

  Trent was nodding as if he’d known, but I’d never heard of an undead vampire having control of another vampire’s family member, even temporarily. I turned to Ivy to see her blushing a faint, eager red. “That’s why we’re stopping in Vegas,” I guessed, and she nodded, eyes on the table as Jenks snorted himself awake with a burst of yellow dust.

  “Fewer issues to deal with when I—” She stopped, eyes on the vampire she’d culled from the herd. He was pretty enough, I guess. “You think a human is bad at not knowing when to quit at the gambling table?” she said, chewing the toothpick the cherry had come on. “Try being a vampire, bored and seeing an eternity to find the money you might lose tonight.” She licked her lips for someone else’s benefit, and I stifled a shiver. My eyes flicked to Trent and Pierce. Okay, they were watching her flirt, too, both of them weirdly intent and detached.

  Pierce was not happy to be here, which I thought rude since his other option was Al’s box in the ever-after. He’d showered as well, so he smelled like hotel shampoo instead of burnt amber. Frowning, he watched everyone from under his funny hat—it had shown up during his shower—gulping his bubbly soda and wiping his eyes when he drank it too fast. Tumbling his clothes in the hotel drier had taken care of most of the stink on them, and he was back in his tidy slacks, casual shirt, and a vest that was probably from his 1800s closet but looked new. He was still wearing that silver amulet. I had no idea what it was, but I thought it telling that Pierce hadn’t taken it off, even when he’d been in the shower.

  Trent wasn’t good company, either, seeing that our planned pit stop had turned into a four-hour break at a restaurant he hadn’t picked out. We all had to get out of the car for a while, and I still wanted to talk to Trent about Ku’Sox—to find out if he knew how bad Ku’Sox was before he let him out or after.

  Ivy shifted, her motions screaming sex as she smiled up at our waitress when she came back with another soda for Pierce.

  “Do you know what you want?” she said as she set it down, voice raised over the music.

  “I’ll have the pasta,” I said, pointing to it on the menu.

  “Same,” Pierce said, and I wondered if he could read anything other than Latin. He’d been born in the early 1800s, and it was possible he couldn’t.

  “Clam chowder,” Trent said as he handed his menu over.

  “I’ll have the tilapia,” Vivian said brightly, a vestige of her usual polished self showing as she settled into a familiar haunt. “With asparagus.”

  “Oh God, save us,” Jenks said, dramatically holding his nose. “We do have over a thousand miles left to go in that tiny car.”

  “My mom’s car isn’t tiny,” I said, and Trent frowned.

  “It is with five people in it,” he muttered.

  Ivy was handing her menu to the woman. “I want the steak sandwich,” she said. “In a to-go bag.”

  I gazed at her in question, but the woman was nodding. “I’ll put these in,” she said, making a last note on our bill. “Anyone else need anything?”

  By the look of it, and the slight nudge Vivian was making at Trent to get him to slide over, Ivy needed someone’s neck. I shook my head, but Trent spoke up, handing the waitress a folded bill. “I want another beer,” he said. “And if you can get everyone’s meal out here in five minutes, there’s another one of those in it for you.”

  The woman looked at Ben Franklin’s face and tucked it away. “I’ll see what I can do, honey,” she said, smiling at Ivy before she sashayed away.

  “Beer and soup?” Jenks said as he dusted a thin sliver of silver, his own light hardly making a dent in the dusky shadows in here. “That’s going to mix well.”

  “You’d be surprised by how a good beer mixes with clams,” Trent said, his attention on the male waiter Ivy was blinking at slowly. God, this was getting uncomfortable, and I put a hand over my neck as it started to tingle.

  “He’s uptight about his timetable,” Ivy said, almost sighing the words.

  “And you’re not?”

  Trent’s expression froze when she turned to him, smiling to show her little fangs. “Excuse me,” she said as she got to her feet in one languorous move that made Pierce shiver. ’Course it could be the cold pop he’d just slammed down.

  No one said a word as Ivy sat on the back edge of the fake boat and swung her feet over. Moving with liquid grace, she made a beeline for the vampire she’d had her eye on. People were getting out of her way, and the vamp in question was smiling, waiting for her.

  “What is she doing?” Trent asked, but Vivian knew, her eyes cast down as she shifted on the bench to make more room for the rest of us. Hell, even our waitress knew what Ivy was doing.

  I took a sip of my soda, watching Ivy drape her arms around the man and whisper something in his ear. “Keeping the rest of us safe,” I said, trying not to worry about her. She’d be okay. And if Vegas had a freethinking master vampire, then this was pro
bably the only spot between home and the coast that she’d be able to take the edge off.

  Jenks frowned, clearly not happy, but as willing as I was to let her take care of her own needs. I didn’t know if I should feel upset or not. I wasn’t her keeper—but I was her friend.

  Pierce was ignoring everyone, and Trent didn’t seem to care apart from Ivy’s tryst possibly slowing us down. Vivian, though, pushed her glass around, clearly screwing up her courage, and I wasn’t surprised when she asked, “She and you—”

  “No,” I said before Jenks could offer his opinion. “We’re not sharing blood.” I felt Trent’s eyes on me, but Pierce didn’t look up from his drink. “We tried,” I said, talking to the entire table though my gaze was on Vivian. “Well, we tried it enough to know that for it to happen, one of us would have to change too much. If I bend, she’d lose what she loved in me, and if she bends, I lose what I love about her.” I shrugged, flaming red in embarrassment, but that was my problem.

  Jenks clattered his wings, rising up and down as if testing his strength. “I’ll keep an eye on her,” he said, then frowned when Pierce made a rude noise. “To be sure she stays safe!” he added sharply. “I’m not going to watch. Tink’s a Disney whore, I’m not a Peeping Tom.”

  Jenks gave me a meaningful head toss to Trent and flew away, taking a high path between the ceiling and the fake fishing nets.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Trent said suddenly, and I wondered if Ivy’s and my relationship bothered him. Curious.

  “You’re the one who wanted to eat,” I said.

  “I meant the rest of us could grab a decent meal while you showered, not a five-hour sightseeing excursion ending up in a sideshow restaurant.”

  That was just rude, not to mention an insult to Jimmy Buffett fans everywhere. “We’ve been trapped in that car for two days,” I said. “We need a break.” And I need to talk to you, stupid elf.