Pale Demon th-9 Read online

  “Totally his fault,” I said, and Jenks poked his head out, not looking that good. “And you got a vacation,” I offered, my own mood brightening. It had been a long, tiring run out here, and I’d be glad to see it done.

  Jenks laughed, sounding like wind chimes in the snow. “Vacation. The Tink-blasted arch fell on him.”

  “Again, his own fault,” I said, blinking innocently at Trent. “Gee, Trent. Maybe we should have left you at home after all.”

  Trent said nothing, his gaze fixed on the road stretching out before us, and I fiddled with the heat until it blasted out to warm Jenks. “I think you enjoyed this,” I said, and Trent looked askance at me, appearing charmingly irate. “You had the chance to see what it was like to be in a family,” I added, and his eye stopped twitching.

  “And to answer your question, yes, it was exactly like being in a family,” I said as I leaned to dig out one of Ivy’s bottled waters from the bag at my feet. I’d rather have had a coffee, but I knew he wouldn’t stop. “And really, I couldn’t just pop you there whenever I felt like it,” I said as I opened it. “Al owes me big. He wouldn’t have done it before.”

  Silent, Trent shifted in his seat as he angled the vents away from himself. Sighing, I looked in the back at Vivian, slumped between my vampire roommate and my black-magic-using, shunned, demon-familiar beau whom I didn’t trust.

  All the black magic that I’d done in front of Vivian—asked her to help with; maybe now that she’d seen what they faced if they ignored the coming problem with the demons, they might think more kindly of me. Maybe having Ku’Sox attack us would help my case. Would they really try to kill me if there were worse uglies out there, uglies they couldn’t handle? People had died in the last few days, but not because of my magic, and more would have died if I had feigned ignorance and let Ku’Sox do whatever the hell he wanted.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing, Trent?” I whispered, hoping he knew I was talking about Ku’Sox, and his fingers stiffened slightly. “I won’t say it’s not like you, because using dangerous things like they’re flash paper has you written all over it, but do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Jenks was basking in the new warmth, but his eyes flicked from mine to Trent.

  “Is it Ceri?” I guessed. “Are you trying to impress her? Be the elf she thinks you should be?”

  Lips twitching, Trent ran a hand over his head to get his vent-blown hair to lay flat. It was one of his tells, and he caught himself, lowering his hand to grip the wheel. “I have my reasons,” he said simply.

  “Yeah, because you don’t trust me to keep you alive.” I set the bottle in the cup holder and put my boots on the dash, knees bent as I tried to find a comfortable position.

  “Trust has nothing to do with it,” Trent said as he glanced at my boots, and Jenks made a rude noise. “I trust you, Rachel. I never would have left Cincinnati if I didn’t. I trust you, though you’re quick tempered and jump to conclusions too fast. God knows why.”

  My brow smoothed out, and I took my feet down. “Really?”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “It’s important to you, isn’t it?”

  I looked out at the world starting to go from black to gray. “Yes, it is. No one likes to be given a compliment, then find out it’s fake.”

  A small noise came from Trent, and he frowned. “I never thought of it like that. Sorry.”

  “Tink’s a Disney whore,” Jenks swore from the ashtray. “Did he just say he was sorry?”

  Trent glanced at him in irritation, but I was grinning. “Shhhh, don’t ruin the moment, Jenks,” I said. “It might never come again.”

  Trent chuckled, his good mood returning. I could fix that, though, and after a moment, I asked again, very softly, “So why did you do it?” You little goober, I added in my head.

  Eyes on the mountains, he was silent. “I didn’t do it because I didn’t trust you. I did it because he’s part of my…quest,” he finally said, clearly embarrassed.

  “Oh my God!” Jenks exclaimed. “Take me with you, Trent. I’ve never been on an elf quest before! Ple-e-e-e-ase?”

  “Quiet, Jenks,” I murmured, not wanting Trent to stop talking, then turned to Trent. “So you’ve got a way to take care of what you, um, started, right? When it’s over?”

  “I won’t know until I finish it,” Trent said. Looking at me in snatches, he shrugged. “I never intended all this to happen.”

  I turned away, having a hard time getting mad at him. I was too tired. “Welcome to my world,” I said, thinking I’d done some pretty stupid things in my day, too.

  “I’ve got a way to take care of things,” Trent insisted, but I doubted it. And his usual tells weren’t telling me anything. My gaze dropped to Jenks, and he shrugged, at a loss as well. Jenks’s going with him was looking better to me. I wanted to know what Trent was doing that was so risky he needed a demon to help him. God, what was wrong with us?

  Still…

  I looked inquiringly at Jenks, twitching my fingers in the pixy signal that meant scout, and he nodded. Maybe that had been Jenks’s intention all along. Sitting up, I looked over the seat at Ivy, lurking under a blanket. She was awake, her eyes black in the dim light. She grimaced, rolling her eyes at Trent and nodding as well. It was unanimous, then.

  “I think you should take Jenks with you,” I said as I turned back around.

  His grip tightened on the wheel. “No.”

  “No-o-o-o?” Jenks whined. “Hey, if it’s about the altitude sickness, Seattle is lower than Cincy. I’ll be fine.”

  I exhaled loudly, gathering my strength. “Jenks is right. If you’re allowed a pixy on an elf quest, you should take one.”

  “I’m not having this conversation,” Trent said, and Jenks’s wings hummed.

  My eyes narrowed, and I turned the heat up even more. “Trent, you are a stiff-necked, overbearing, cold—”

  “I’m not cold.”

  “—impersonal son of a bitch. Try making a decision by looking at something other than logic. You might have more friends that way.”

  Jenks’s mouth shut, and he looked surprised. Trent, too, seemed taken aback. “Just because I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve—”

  “You don’t even wear your heart in your chest,” I interrupted. “But one thing you aren’t is stupid.” I flung a hand in the air, exasperated with him and not even knowing why I was trying to help. He’d given me nothing but grief. And a chance to save myself.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing,” I said. “Frankly, I don’t care as long as you don’t land your butt in jail when I need you standing up for me at the coven meeting. So just consider this me being selfish, asking you to let Jenks help you. Do me a favor, huh?”

  Jenks’s wings shifted, and Trent stared out at nothing as we drove into the dark.

  “Or are you so proud that you can’t accept a sidekick?”

  Trent looked at Jenks. “He’s not a sidekick,” he said, and I blinked. A compliment?

  “Awww, I think I’m going to fart fairy dust,” Jenks said, clearly pleased as he managed to make the flight to the rearview mirror now that he was warm again.

  From the back, Ivy piped up, “Take him. It will save me from pounding you when you don’t show up by midnight tomorrow.”

  Trent jerked his head to glance at her. “You’re awake, too?”

  Vivian stretched, yawning. “I think you should take him,” the coven member said. “You can’t be expected to work alone. No one but a fool works alone.”

  Trent cleared his throat dryly, and I exchanged a worried look with him, hoping she hadn’t pieced together that the “thing” we’d been talking about was Ku’Sox. “How about you, Pierce?” I said, trying to distract her. “You want to weigh in on this decision?”

  “Aye,” he said, the lump he made not moving. “I’m of a mind you should do it alone.”

  Surprised, I turned to look at Pierce as he sat up, his mood surly.

  “But only so th
at devil of a demon doesn’t eat Jenks,” he added. “I wouldn’t give a horse apple for the son of a Kalamack, but Jenks is a fine warrior, and I’d be sad to see him make a die of it for whatever foolish quest you’re on.”

  Oooooh, strike one.

  Not a twitch, not a single movement gave away Trent’s thoughts. He wasn’t going to go for it, and whatever idiotic thing he was about to do in Seattle was going to bitch-slap me with no advance warning, probably at the least opportune time. I glanced at Jenks.

  Jenks shrugged, the slight rise of his shoulders almost unnoticed with the thin glow of pixy dust sifting from him. “Face it, you little cookie maker,” Jenks said, almost sounding fond, “in the last couple of days, you’ve seen what it’s like to be in a family, with all the touchy tempers and irritation that goes on. Now you get to see the other side, where we do stupid stuff for each other just because we like you. Rache is the little sister. Ivy’s the big sister. I’m the uncle from out of state, and you’re the rich nephew no one likes but we put up with you anyway because we feel sorry for you. Just let me help, huh? It won’t kill you.”

  I’m the little sister? I thought, looking back at Ivy for her opinion, finding her smiling a soft, closed-lips smile.

  Silent—thinking, I hope—Trent drove, not really seeing the road as we barreled into the mountains. “Fine,” he eventually said, to make Jenks explode with a burst of pixy dust. “But I’m not telling you what I’m doing until we get there.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Jenks said, making a swooping flight to his shoulder. Both Trent and I stiffened, but Jenks was oblivious. “Tell me when we get there. I can adapt. Damn! Rache, this is going to be fun!”

  “Yeah, fun,” I said, giving Trent a sharp look. If Jenks didn’t come back, I would be all over Trent like a pissed…demon. “No airplanes on the way home,” I added, and Trent nodded carefully, so as not to unbalance Jenks.

  “No airplanes,” Trent said.

  “And keep him warm. He likes it warm.”

  “God, Rache. Shut up!” Jenks said, sitting down, looking right on Trent’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine. We’re probably just going to steal his grandmother’s ring back.”

  Somehow, as I settled back into the leather, I doubted that, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d just saved or damned my ass.

  Sixteen

  The sun was almost up, and I stretched beside the car in the brightening, predawn damp, feeling all the bruises that I’d gotten in Margaritaville. There weren’t many people around this time of day, either Inderlanders or humans, and a quiet hush held our voices down. It was either that or we were all too numb to say anything. Here among the buildings, the fog had retreated, but the glimpse I got of the bay on the way in said that it would be a while before it lifted and I’d get a glimpse of Alcatraz.

  Squinting up at the brightening sky, I breathed deep to bring in the scent of salt, old garbage, exhaust, and the sticky smell of the petunias in the huge planters outside the hotel. The air felt slippery from the salt, and I shifted my shoulders as if trying to fit in a new skin. The hotel stretching above us looked nice, I guess. Ivy had made the reservations, so it would have to be. Trent had a room here, too, which was convenient. He was currently with Vivian and the doorman. I lifted my bag out of the trunk, then Trent’s. Ivy already had her bag, and was heading in, the small carry-on rolling quietly behind her. I hurt all over, and I set the bags down with a click of plastic.

  “Jenks, stay close,” I said when I caught sight of the pixies tending the huge flowerpots. They looked almost militant. A traveling pixy was almost as rare as a sole traveling vampire.

  Jenks darted from me to prove he wasn’t scared, the overhead light glinting on his sword. “God, it feels good to be at sea level,” he said, facing the unseen bay. “Smell that?”

  I winced, my thoughts drifting to Alcatraz. It seemed a whole lot more real that I might end up there now. “Sure. Nice.” But it did feel good to get out of the car. “You want to go in and check the lobby for lethal charms?” It might be overkill, but we did have reservations, and I wouldn’t put it past the coven to hit me here—seeing that Vivian had ridden almost the entire way with us and they probably didn’t want a credible witness to my death.

  Giving me a thumbs-up, he followed Trent inside when the doorman returned to his station to call a cab for Vivian. She was staying down on the bay with the rest of the coven in someone’s house. Glancing at Pierce, who was standing alone and looking like a doorman himself with his vest and hat, she came up to me, smiling.

  “I don’t know if I should thank you or not,” she said, her purse over her shoulder. Her hair was mussed and her clothes were wrinkled. She was far away and distant from the trendy, polished coven member I remembered from the grocery store this last spring. The confidence was still there, though.

  She stuck out her hand, and I took it, feeling an odd sense of peace when her small fingers met mine. “I’ll say it, then,” I said. “Thank you. For helping.” Hesitating, I pulled my attention from Pierce trying to talk to the hotel pixies. “I’m glad you saw everything.”

  Vivian squinted as she ran a hand over her tangled, car-trip hair. “I have to tell them.”

  I nodded, thinking she looked positively bedraggled. “Good. Maybe they’ll begin to understand the inherent problems in shunning black magic to the point of ignorance.”

  My gaze went to Pierce. I didn’t know what to think anymore. My world had gone from black and white to shades of gray a long time ago, and there were no answers, easy or otherwise. I couldn’t condemn Pierce for trying to kill Al by using magic unless I condemned myself for having tried to kill Ku’Sox with the same. Sure, Ku’Sox was bad, but so was Al. That Al was important to me wasn’t a good enough reason. Everyone was important to someone.

  A deep breath went in and out of Vivian, and she couldn’t meet my eyes. “They’re afraid. Hell, Rachel, I’m afraid. We’re at such a disadvantage. They’re going to want to bury everything and hope we don’t have to deal with it for another generation.”

  My gaze flicked back to Pierce. It worked last time. Why try anything new?

  Clearly having heard her, Pierce turned, a mix of determination and irritation on his face. “That’s what I’ve abided by all along, and look where it got me.”

  Hands in her pockets, Vivian shrugged. She was one of six and the youngest.

  I carefully lifted my bridesmaid’s dress out and shut the trunk with a thump, hearing the solid sound echo. It was as if the world was still asleep, here on the verge of a new day. “They should be afraid,” I said as I draped the dress over my arm. “It’s not going to go away. They have to do something.” I hesitated, hoisting my duffel bag in my free hand. “Besides giving me a lobotomy, that is.”

  Vivian rocked back as her cab pulled up and the doorman opened the door for her. “Well, thank you,” she said, chuckling ruefully. “It’s been an education.” Her gaze went to Pierce, now standing beside me and trying to take my suitcase. “If I don’t get the chance to see you alone again, good luck.”

  Good luck. I’d need it. “Oh! Wait!” I said as she started to turn away, and I let Pierce take my bag, then made him hold my dress, too. “I’ve got something for you,” I said, head down as I rummaged in my shoulder bag.

  Vivian paused, and I held my breath in annoyance until my searching fingers found the little Möbius-strip pin. “This is yours,” I said as I handed it over, feeling flustered for some reason. “I didn’t magic it or anything. I thought you might want it back. Seeing as you don’t have one…anymore.”

  A huge smile spread across her face as she took it, pleasure and real gratitude in her expression. “Thanks,” she said softly, her smooth fingers curving over the pin possessively. “I’ll probably have to give it up because you touched it, but thank you. Brooke—” Her words broke off and her gaze dropped. “Brooke gave me hell for losing it.”

  There were new wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she looked up, and a deep sadn
ess. Leaning forward, she gave me a hug, her fist holding her pin, pressing hard into my back. She wasn’t very tall, and I was again struck by how someone so slight could be so powerful.

  “Thanks,” she whispered as she stepped back, her eyes flicking to mine as if embarrassed. She had smelled like redwood, and I wondered if she had sensed the stink of burnt amber on me when she turned and headed for her cab, her eyes unable to meet mine.

  The door thumped shut behind her, and she waved, looking worried as the car pulled away. The sound of the engine was muffled in the rising fog, and it was just Pierce and me standing outside a squat hotel in the middle of San Francisco, the doorman waiting for the keys so he could park my mom’s car.

  Pierce had my stuff, so I handed the attendant my keys along with a couple of bills, and the guy thanked me, his suspicions easing. Pierce’s eyes widened at the amount, but he was probably still running on eighteenth-century gratuities, and I don’t think a nickel would have done it. The car vanished in the same way as the first, and I looked at the hotel, almost losing my balance as I ran my eyes up to the brightening sky. The thought of earthquakes slipped through me, and I took my garment bag back from Pierce. It would be just like the coven to destroy an entire building to get to me.

  My lethal-amulet detector hung conspicuously from the side of my bag as I headed to the double doors with my dress over my arm. It felt like I was entering a war zone.

  A minor shiver lifted through my aura as I passed over the threshold, and my shoulders dropped. Pierce grunted as he felt it, too, and I was guessing it was a rather expensive calming charm, temporary, to be sure, but effective.

  “This looks nice,” I said as I looked over the deep reception/living room designed in solid blocks of color that were rich and sophisticated. The ceilings weren’t that high, but they were decorated to hide the retrofitted earthquake support. To my right was the reception desk where the night clerk was talking to Ivy. Trent was standing before it chatting amicably to the manager. He must have been dropping hundred-dollar bills again because the man in the suit was almost bowing and scraping. Ivy, though, was having trouble, clearly not happy with the woman behind the desk. Jenks was snarling something at her, a red dust pooling on her keyboard.