Pale Demon th-9 Read online

  I nodded, wiping the grit from the sidewalk off my feet. Good Lord, I had tagged an assassin in my bare feet and a bikini. If this showed up on the Internet, I was going to be peeved. “Last I knew, he was. I told him to go into the kitchen and wait.” Assassins usually traveled in threes, but these were elven. I didn’t know their traditions.

  “He’s in there,” Jenks said derisively as he dropped down to us. “I don’t think they’re real assassins. They didn’t know any ley-line magic.”

  “You don’t need magic to be deadly, Jenks. You of all people should know that.”

  Jenks snorted. “I don’t think they know any. They stink like elves, but they’ve got so much human in them, they might not have any magic.”

  I shrugged, guessing as much by the almost indifference Jenks’s kids had shown the two attackers. The man in front of us glanced back as we entered the dark hallway, and I smiled mockingly. “All the way to the end,” I directed as we passed the his and her bathrooms and twin bedrooms and headed to the huge, industrial-size kitchen. I cleared my throat in warning as Jack and Jill whispered between themselves, and they shut up.

  The pixies were singing about blood and daisies as we entered the sunlit kitchen to find Trent safe within a circle of his own making between the cluttered center counter and the sink, full of dirty spell pots. The bright, cheerful gold of his circle was free of any demon smut, making me uncomfortable. He’d just been under my aura and had seen the mess I’d made of it. Demon smut. Ugly. Black. Permanent—mostly.

  The kitchen was hands down my favorite room in the entire church, with its expansive stainless-steel countertops, fluorescent lighting, and center island counter with my spelling equipment hanging above it and in the open cabinets below it. There were two stoves, so I didn’t have to stir spells and cook on the same surface. My mom’s new fridge took up a wall. Bis, perched atop it, was asleep next to the skull-shaped cookie jar. The little gargoyle had probably been trying to stay awake after sunup and misjudged. He’d be down until sunset no matter how noisy we were, and it was getting noisy. Pixies were flitting in and out through the one small window over the sink. Ivy’s computer was set up on the big farm-kitchen table against the inside wall, but the space felt like mine. That Trent had been in here alone sort of bothered me.

  Jenks’s kids were flitting everywhere, too excited to perch in one place, and they were starting to give me a headache. Trent, too, looked like he was hurting. “Look, Ivy! Elf under glass!” Jenks said, and I sighed, even as a small twinge on my awareness went through me and Trent dropped his circle.

  Like one entity, Jenks’s kids swarmed Trent. He stiffened, but did little other than grimace when Jrixibell asked if she could make a dandelion necklace for him. Yeah, Jack and Jill might be elves, but they weren’t full-blooded like Trent. The pixies were almost ignoring them.

  “Jenks…,” I prompted, my own head splitting from their noise as I glanced at Bis. How the cat-size, gray-skinned kid could sleep through this was a wonder, but he was, his leathery wings lying close to his back, his black-fringed ears drooping, and his lionlike tail wrapped around his clawed feet in slumber.

  Jenks clattered his wings for their attention. “Okay, you lot!” he shouted. “Jumoke, Jack, Jixy, Jhan can stay if you’re quiet! The rest of you, hit the garden. Evens take cleanup. Odds on perimeter. Not a butterfly crosses the lines without someone knowing! And watch the splat-ball marks. Stay back until we have a chance to get out there with salt water. And no dropping moths into the puddles to see what the charms do! Clear?”

  In a chorus of affirmation and disappointment, they dispersed, the eldest children Jenks had asked to remain retreating to the overhead rack. I exhaled in relief, and realizing that I was standing like Jenks with my bare feet spaced wide and my hands on my hips, I dropped my arms.

  “Sit,” I said to the would-be assassins, pointing at the floor beside the fridge, and they gingerly lowered themselves. With a languorous stretch, Ivy shoved the magazines off her chair with a booted foot. They hit the floor with a thump and slid into a long pile against the wall. Deceptively calm and relaxed, she drifted back to the doorway, standing to look aggressive as she took her hair out of its ponytail and let the strands fall where they might. Unless the assassins went through the window, they were stuck.

  A breath of self-preservation made me toss a roll of paper towels to the woman. Not only was her chin bleeding, but the man’s forehead was scraped where I’d thunked him into the sidewalk. Ivy would appreciate it, if nothing else. The harsh ripping of the paper sounded loud, and folding up a sheet, Jill dabbed at her jaw and passed the roll to Jack.

  “Move, and I’ll be on you like a demon,” Ivy said. “Do, please.”

  Jack and Jill looked at each other. Together they shook their heads. I kept one eye on them as I unloaded Ivy’s bag next to my broken sunglasses, setting the two splat guns and five knives on the counter, looking right at home among my magnetic chalk and scrying mirror. The knives had an elaborate, intricately raised design on the handles to help with the grip. I didn’t like that one of the guns looked like mine. I wondered what was in them. That first shot had been aimed at Trent, making me wonder about his story of Quen not letting him leave Cincinnati without me. He could’ve gotten himself on someone’s hit list, but these guys weren’t good enough to be taken seriously. And why would elves want me dead? No, I was betting they were here for Trent.

  “Did they tell you who sent them?” Trent prompted, and I tightened my robe again.

  “Not yet.” Turning to them, I smiled. “Who wants to go first?”

  No one said anything. Big surprise. I flicked a glance at Trent. It was a no-win situation. If I was tough, he’d think I was a thug. If I was too nice, I’d be a pushover. Why I even cared what he thought was beyond me.

  Jenks dropped down to the man. “Who sent you?” he barked, sword angled at the man’s eye.

  Jack remained silent, and Jenks’s wings began slipping an eerie black dust. In a whisper of sound, Jenks darted close and then away. The intruding elf yelped, his hand smacking his head where Jenks had been. I frowned when I saw the wad of hair in Jenks’s grip. I didn’t like this. Jenks was usually easygoing, more inclined to plant seeds in the ground than people, but his land had been violated, and that brought out the worst in him.

  “Ease up, Jenks,” Ivy said as she came forward to touch Jill’s face. “You need more finesse with the big ones.” She made a little trill of sound as the woman drew back in fear, and I sighed as Ivy started to vamp out.

  Think, Rachel, I mused silently. Don’t just react, think. “Guys,” I said, conscious of Trent watching. “We need to find out what’s going on without leaving any traces.”

  “I won’t leave a mark,” Ivy whispered, and Jill paled. “Not where you can find one.”

  “They might be a test from the coven,” I said, and Ivy’s finger, tracing the woman’s jawline, curled under and she straightened in disappointment.

  “We can’t simply let them go,” Ivy said. “Even if it wasn’t much of an attack.”

  I winced. “Maybe we should call the I.S.?”

  Jenks snorted, and from the overhead rack came a peal of high-pitched laughter. Yeah, bad idea.

  “Mind if I hurry this along? I have an idea.”

  It had been Trent, and, as one, we all turned to look at him.

  “You have an idea?” Jenks said sarcastically, hovering before him in his best Peter Pan pose, his hands on his hips and his red bandanna tucked into his waistband. “The day you have a good idea will be the day I eat fairy toe jam.”

  “He said it was an idea. He never said it was a good one,” I scoffed. But my lips parted at the sudden prickling of magic. Like a blanket rubbing the wrong way, wild, elven magic scraped across my aura, both an irritant and an enticement, pulling at my pores as if trying to draw my soul from my body.

  “Hey!” I shouted, knowing it was Trent. Elves were the only species that dared to use wild magic. Eve
n demons shunned the art. It had a horrible unpredictability along with the horrible power. It couldn’t be the two elves on the floor. They had zip strips on. “Trent, no!” I did not have a clue as to what he was doing, and with a satisfied glint in his eyes, he clapped his hands.

  “Volo te hoc facere!” he exclaimed, the sound pinging through me, making me both cower and jump as the force I felt him drawing from the line abruptly fell to nothing.

  I will you to do this? I thought, clutching my robe around me. An enthrallment spell?

  But I think it was, and I stood at the table and stared at Trent, aghast. The rims of his ears were red, and his jaw was clenched in determination. “That was a black spell,” I whispered, stepping forward and out of Ivy’s reach. “That was a black spell!” I yelled, and he retreated to the table, his eyes falling from Jack and Jill. They were motionless, almost slack-jawed, eyes unfocused and hands limp, unable to do anything apart from the most basic things to survive unless told. “You enthralled them, didn’t you!” I exclaimed, and he bowed his head. When it came back up, his eyes met mine with a fervent gleam, unrepentant.

  “What did he do to them?” Ivy said, sidling up next to me. Jenks wasn’t happy either, buzzing over them as they blinked vacantly.

  “He enthralled them,” I said, sure of it when Trent’s lips pursed. “And it’s black.” Damn it, I hadn’t known he could do something that sophisticated. It changed everything.

  “Black?” Jenks yelped, darting up in a wash of yellow dust.

  “Go ahead, ask them who sent them,” Trent said, standing stiffly as he gestured to them. “I know who did, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Not in time, anyway. Go on. It doesn’t last long.”

  Well, that was one bit of good news. “And then what?” I said harshly. “Do you know how illegal those are? This is my kitchen, and I’m the one who’s going to be blamed for this. Or is that your idea?” I said with a sneer, and Ivy caught my arm, thinking I was going to cross the room and smack him.

  “You need to hurry up,” he said, tossing his hair back in a rare show of nervousness. “I have this under control. I’ll hit them with another charm so they don’t remember.”

  I shoved Ivy’s hand from me, shaking as I stood there. “Is that your plan? Make them forget? God, Trent. This is, like, six times illegal!”

  Trent tugged his sleeves down as if unbothered, but his eyes were squinting. “True, but no one gets hurt this way. And I’d think you’d be the last person worrying about what’s legal. You’ve got thirty seconds. Tick tock, Rachel.”

  As I stood there fuming, Jack started to blink. Ivy took my arm again, this time in encouragement, but I couldn’t do it. It was wrong!

  “Oh for Tink’s little red shoes,” Jenks said suddenly, and he darted down to hover before the man. “Who paid you to attack Rachel?” he barked, his hand on his sword hilt.

  “No one,” Jack said, and I turned to Trent, my brow furrowed.

  Jenks’s dust turned green. “You mean you don’t know, or you weren’t paid for it?”

  Trent shifted his weight to his other foot. “They weren’t attacking Rachel, they were attacking me. Try again.”

  Giving me an apologetic shrug, Ivy slipped past me and crouched before Jill, lifting her chin to force her to look at her. “Who told you to attack Trent?” she asked calmly, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I wanted to know, but I’d rather scare it out of them than use black magic.

  “Walter Withon,” they said together, and a knot tightened in my gut.

  “This was a warning,” Trent said with a sigh, his shoulder easing to make him look somewhat embarrassed. No, guarded.

  “Ellasbeth’s dad?” I dropped back a step, my anger fizzling. Crap on toast. Ellasbeth was the woman Trent had been going to marry—until I’d arrested Trent at his own wedding. It was something Trent thanked me for later in a weird bit of honesty when we thought we were both going to die. Yeah, the Withons had the means for a hit, and they might be a little mad. But enough to take potshots at him?

  “Now will you help me?” Trent said, and I took a breath, snapping myself out of my funk. Seeing my eyes on his, Trent smiled wickedly, hands moving in a ley-line charm.

  “Trent, wait…,” I said.

  But it was too late, and I could do nothing when I felt the line he was connected to give a lurch and he whispered, “Memoria cadere.”

  Again, I jerked back, setting up a protection circle around myself since I didn’t know what the man was capable of anymore. Seeing its creation, Ivy flung herself almost under the table, and Jenks darted to the ceiling. I stood tall, heart pounding as a wash of my gold-tinted aura lapped over the circle with all the subtleties of a shadowy pearlescence. Bis, on the fridge, stirred, his bright red eye cracking open to find me before it slid shut again with a little sigh.

  “Damn it, Trent!” I exclaimed, furious as the assassins sat, wide-eyed, and stared at me, bewildered but clearly no longer enthralled. “What in hell are you doing?”

  “You’re kidding,” he said in disbelief. “You weren’t going to ask them anything, worried it might be ille-e-e-e-gal.”

  He drawled it, mocking me, and I squinted at him, fear of the Withons mixing with the worry of what the assassins could have told us before but now couldn’t. “You did that on purpose!” I shouted.

  His head bowed slightly, and his lips quirked as he eyed me, looking both mischievous and polished. “I told you I was going to.”

  Anger grew in me, but I stayed where I was beside the table, sullen. It couldn’t be undone. Not easily, anyway. “Dr. Anders teach you that?” I muttered. Memory charms weren’t black; they were simply illegal as all hell. It didn’t make me feel any better, though.

  On the floor, the woman felt her chin, shocked when her fingertips came back wet with blood. “Um. Whoa,” she said, looking tense but harmless. “I guess that explains why I have no idea who you people are or how I got here.”

  Her companion nudged her to be quiet, clearly not remembering anything, either, but knowing enough to keep his mouth shut. Bad. This was so bad. Two illegal charms, and if Trent got to the West Coast, he’d probably try to pin them on me if I didn’t become his indentured servant. Damn it back to the Turn! I wasn’t going to play this game!

  Jenks dropped from where he’d been checking on his kids. His hand was on the butt of his sword, and he looked ready to give Trent a lobotomy. “I had more to ask them, even if she didn’t.”

  “You wanted to know who sent them. Now you do. It was wearing off,” Trent insisted, but I could see a hint of unease in him. “Our only other option was to kill them.”

  “Our?” I barked sarcastically. “There is no ‘our.’ This is your doing, not mine.” I spun as Jill started to get up, her alarm obvious. “Park it, Jill!” I said, but it wasn’t until Ivy cleared her throat that both of them checked their upward motion and slid back down.

  “My name isn’t Jill…” the woman started.

  “It is today. So sit down and shut up until I tell you that you can leave. Got it?”

  “Shit,” the man said sourly as he thumped his head back against the fridge and eyed me in mistrust. “I don’t know who was supposed to pay us. Do you?” Jill shook her head. She looked too confused for it to be an act. “Awww, man!” the guy added. “I don’t even know where I left my stuff. This sucks.”

  “See?” Trent said confidently, but that worry wrinkle above his eyes was still there. “It worked. Now we can let them go and be on our way with their employers still thinking we are here.” He smiled, and I hated him. “They won’t be expected to check in for twenty-four hours. We could be long gone by sunset.”

  Jenks’s wings hummed, and Ivy’s face lost its expression. “Sunset?” she said, and I grimaced. She wasn’t going to like this, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t helping Trent. Not after this. He had stood in my kitchen and performed two illegal charms, one of them black. Ceri was rubbing off on him and not in a good way.

 
“I’m not going anywhere with you, you little shoemaker,” I said, trying to figure out what to do with these two. “Especially after that little stunt. Not in a plane, not in a car, not on a train…you’ve gone too far.” I blinked. What the hell?

  “Ah, Rachel?” Ivy touched me, and I jumped. “What’s this about Trent needing your help. Help for what?”

  Jenks hummed his wings for her attention, smirking at Trent as he said, “Trent wants Rachel’s help. Quen won’t do it. Trent says it’s because Quen won’t leave Ceri, but I think the little cookie maker plans to speak out against Rachel at the, uh, big meeting to get her under his thumb again, and Quen refuses to be a part of it. Trent won’t have anything on her after she nullifies his familiar mark, so he has to move fast.”

  Jenks smiled at Trent, and Trent sighed. “It’s not like that at all,” he said, but his confidence was wearing thin.

  Ivy glanced quickly at me before turning back to Jenks. “Not going to happen.”

  Shrugging, Jenks landed on the center counter where he could watch everyone. “Or Trent’s telling the truth, and he’s afraid of the weenie assassins here.”

  Jack scowled, and Jill made a little huff of sound, but I was glad Jenks hadn’t dropped any names. They’d forgotten who had sent them and didn’t need any reminders.

  Trent frowned, one hand behind his back as he turned to me. Shoulders stiff, he asked, “Will you do it?”

  I could not believe this, and I pointed at the two assassins sitting in front of my fridge. “No!” I said firmly. “I’m not helping you. Especially now.”

  Trent shifted, his confident poise lost when his hand slipped from behind his back. “They tried to kill me,” he said, his brow furrowed as he glared at them. “You saw them!”

  “Yeah?” I spouted off. “They weren’t very good at it!”

  Jenks was laughing, but I was mad and ready to throw Trent out. Throw them all out. Standing by the table, I dropped my forehead into my hands and rubbed at my temples. From the floor Jack sighed. “My old lady is going to be pissed. Her, I remember.”