Pale Demon (14 page)

“I fix things,” Vivian added to make sure Trent understood. “Make things run smoothly. That’s why I…” Her words faltered, and she looked embarrassed as she took another pull on her straw.

“Got this gem of an assignment,” I said, and she nodded. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s what I like,” she said, shrugging. “Usually.”

The last was said rather dryly, and I wondered if it was for our listener’s benefit.

“Just be careful,” I said, not entirely in jest. “That’s what Pierce was before they cemented him into the ground.”

Trent was still eying my syrup, even as he scraped his spoon to get the last dregs of the soup, and I pushed the little container to him.

Vivian’s face showed her disgust. Pierce had beaten her up last spring, and that was not easy for the self-assured woman. “Pierce,” she said, mouthing his name like it tasted bad. “He was dead. You brought him back.”

I could almost hear her think
black witch,
and my jaw clenched. Why was everyone so fixated on labels? Across the table, Trent dunked his clean fork in the syrup, pushing the little container back after he’d tasted it. If he didn’t like it, then Jenks wouldn’t, either, and I left it as I put my napkin over my last pancake. I was done.

“I didn’t bring Pierce back to life,” I said, not seeing what difference it made, but wanting to clear it up. “He was in purgatory, and I accidentally woke him while using a white spell to talk to my deceased father for some parental advice. Did it on a dare. I got Pierce instead. Al was the one who made him alive again so he could use him as a familiar. Dead witches can’t tap lines, and they make lousy familiars.”

I sipped my coffee, trying not to think about it. Pierce was living out the rest of his life in another’s—a dead man’s—body. It gave me the willies, and I only hoped I’d never find myself facing such a decision. It was hard to blame the guy. I just wished he had given me a chance to find a better way before he’d given himself to Al until death do them part.

“But you woke him first?” Vivian said intently, her eyes red rimmed from lack of sleep.

“It’s a white spell,” I said, glancing at Trent. He had known for a while that I could do this. “And it doesn’t work on the dead, only on those in purgatory.”

Vivian moved her straw around to remix her milk shake. “I know it’s white,” she said. “I’ve tried it. You got it to work when you were how old?”

Oh. That.
Uncomfortable, I looked out the window at my mom’s car. “I don’t remember,” I lied. I’d been eighteen and stupid, but clearly there was someone under the grass Vivian wanted to talk to. “Pierce started haunting me last year. He was buried in my churchyard.” I started to warm, getting angry. “It was your precious coven that killed him.”

“I know,” Vivian said, as eager as if she was talking about someone from a history book, not a real person I once had breakfast with, hid in a little hole with, owed my life to. “I read up on him after he…after we met,” she said slowly. “He was a coven member gone bad. They had no choice but to kill him.”

Trent was silent, drawing back as I pointed a finger at her. “He wasn’t just killed. He was buried alive.”

“Because of Eleison—” Vivian said, eyes alight as if discussing a long-argued point.

“Eleison was a mistake,” I interrupted. “It wouldn’t have happened if he had known even the basic defensive arts for demonology. Your coven turned on one of their own. Gave him to an ugly rabble instead of trying to understand what he was warning them about.” Frustrated, I leaned forward. “Vivian, this lily-white crap the coven sticks to can’t protect you anymore. It took five of you to subdue me, and I didn’t use a black curse. A real demon would have. You saw how easily Al took Brooke.”

“Rachel—” Trent said, and I cut him off.

“Knowing how to twist curses doesn’t mean that you’re evil,” I said, hoping I believed it myself. “Using demon magic doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad. It just means you created a whole lot of imbalance.”

“You,” Vivian said hotly, “are rationalizing. White is white. Black is black.”

Trent picked up both bills, pulling a wallet from his back pocket and dropping enough cash on the table to cover them both. “Madam Coven Member disagrees with you,” he warned me, and I frowned, my gut tensing.

“Look,” I said, aware that I was probably sealing my fate, but this might be my only chance to actually say anything in my defense. “Knowing demon magic has saved my life. I never use curses that require body parts or ones that kill…”
Shit,
I thought, hesitating. “I’ve never killed…” Sighing, I paused once more. “I’ve never used it to kill anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me first.”

Vivian’s lips parted, and her fingers slipped from the condensation-wet glass. “You admit you killed someone? With black magic?”

Trent’s expression was questioning as he sat back down. My shoulders slumped, and I grimaced. “The fairies your precious coven sent to kill me,” I admitted.

“No,” Vivian said, shaking her head. “I mean people.”

“Fairies
are
people,” I said hotly. “I saved the ones I could, but—” Frowning, I shut up, glad Jenks hadn’t heard.

Vivian was silent, her milk shake gone and her fingers damp as she dried them on a white paper napkin. “Well, I have to use the little girls’ room,” she said, looking uneasy. “Don’t leave until I get out, okay?” she said hopefully. God, she didn’t even know why I was insulted.

“No promises,” Trent said as I continued to steam. “The road calls.”

Vivian stood, her chair bumping on the floor. “I’m going to pay for this little chat when this is over,” she said as she flicked the amulets around her neck. “See you at the finish line.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Vivian,” Trent said, standing as well, his hand extended, and I huffed when they shook. Vivian, though, was charmed, beaming at him.

She turned away, and I cleared my throat. “You going to vote for or against me?” I asked bluntly, and the woman’s eyes pinched.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Our pleasure,” Trent said as he sat back down.

Vivian paused, looking like she wanted to say more, but then turned for the short corridor with
RESTROOMS
over it. She turned a corner and vanished with a squeak of a hinge.

Trent wrapped his hands around his mug and took a sip. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “I truly don’t. You know they were listening, right? Editing it and putting it on the closed-circuit TV at the convention hotel?”

“I know,” I said, depressed. “The sad thing is that she’s probably the only coven member who might side with me, and I think I just alienated her.” Disgusted, I pushed my plate away, trying to shove my dark thoughts along with it. Looking up, I caught the waitress’s eye and pointed to my coffee cup, signaling another one for the road in a to-go cup. “You want another coffee?” I asked.

“No. Mind if I shower next?” he asked, and I gestured for him to have at it.

“Be my guest,” I said, hoping he left me more than a hand towel.

Trent tapped the table once with his knuckles, hesitated, then left. The Weres at the end of the bar watched him as he walked to the door. There was a flash of light and a jingle as he opened it, and then the restaurant returned to a dim coolness.

The waitress sashayed to my table, a jumbo disposable cup in her hands. It was Were size, and if I drank it all, I’d be stopping to pee more than Jenks. “Thanks. That will wake me up,” I said, reaching for my bag and wallet as she set the cup down.

“We’re good,” she said as she picked up the bills Trent had left behind and smiled.

Standing, I slung my bag over my shoulder and lifted the huge cup of coffee. It took two hands. This thing was not going to fit in my mom’s cup holders, and I walked carefully to the door, opening it by leaning against it and walking backward.

The heat and light hit me, and I carefully let the door slide off me and close. This time-zone jumping got to a person. Two hours in one day was hard. Squinting, I shuffled to the car, now parked under the gas station overhang with a hose stuck into it. Trent wasn’t anywhere, but Ivy was standing halfway across the lot, confronting a heavy, grungy trucker who looked not scared but concerned.

Her long hair, wet from her shower, glinted, and I paused at the car to set my coffee down and sigh at how much it took to fill the tank. Ivy had changed her clothes, her long legs managing to make the retro bell-bottoms look work. Her white shirt set off her figure nicely, and the short sleeves were going to make her day a lot cooler. She looked upset, and a faint feeling of unease tightened in me.

“Ivy?” I called, and she spun, the fear on her face striking me cold. She was moving fast—vampire fast—and her eyes were fully dilated in the bright sun.

“He’s gone,” Ivy shouted across the lot, and the fear dropped and twisted.

“Who?” I said, already knowing.

“Jenks,” she said, eyes wide.

Coffee forgotten, I ran across the lot, squinting when the sun hit me. “Gone! Where?”

The trucker looked forlorn in a bearish sort of way, clearly wanting to help us but not understanding why we were upset. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, holding his hands like a fig leaf. “I don’t pay much attention to the little winged critters unless they hit my windshield. They’re a bitch to get off.”

God help me,
I thought, panicking.

“I don’t know if it was pixies or fairies,” the man said, “but a whole mess of noise of ’em just rose up, taking a little fella in red with them. He didn’t look like he was hurt any.”

My heart was thudding, and I backed up, sharing a terrified look with Ivy. Oh God, we were in the desert. There was nothing between me and the horizon but wind, sand, and scrub. Pixies could fly faster than I could run and in every direction.

We’d never find him.

T
rent!” I shouted, hammering on the bathroom door. It was thin and hollow, and I could hear the water running in the shower. He had to have heard me, but he didn’t answer.

Fidgeting, I hammered on it again. “Trent! We have to go!”

“I’ve been in here two minutes!” he shouted back.

My breath came fast, and I looked out the open door to the parking lot. Ivy was still talking to the trucker, explaining the difference between pixies and fairies to hopefully narrow down who had taken him. We’d never find him if fairies had taken him. Not in time.

I should have insisted that he use that curse to make him big,
I thought.
I should have made him safe.
“Get out!” I shouted, my voice muffled by the low ceiling and faded curtains. “We have to go.”
Go? Go where? I had no idea, not even in which direction.

“I just got in here,” Trent muttered.

My eyes narrowed to slits. I looked at the door, took a deep breath, grabbed the chintzy fake-brass handle, and twisted. It wasn’t locked, and the door cracked open. A moist, foggy warmth spilled out over my feet and then my face. I peered into the tiny room, grimacing. It was clean but old. An ugly toilet was right before me. A simple pedestal sink on two spindly, rusted legs was beside that. There was a small, tidy bathroom kit open on it with clean stuff laid out. The tiny window had peeling self-stick privacy film. The tub/shower combo was to my right, with a masculine shadow moving behind the thin curtain.

“Trent,” I said, and the shadow jumped with a half-heard oath.

“What are you doing in here?”

My heart pounded. “They took him,” I said, reaching through the curtain to turn the water off. Trent protested, but he moved to the back of the tub. “They took him, and we have to get moving,” I said, handing in a large towel.

The curtain shifted open, and I jerked my attention up to Trent’s face. He was rubbing it dry with the towel.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down,
I thought, though I don’t know why. He’d seen me naked in Fountain Square.

Hair still dripping, he draped the towel around his hips and tucked the end in the folds to hold it there, looking more appealing than if he’d been stark naked. “Took who?” he said calmly.

Flustered, I stared at his face, avoiding his damp, taut skin sliding easily over his muscles. His hair still looked pale, plastered to his face. The tub gurgled as the last of the water drained away, and still I stood there.

“Who did they take, Rachel?” he asked again, and I shook myself.

“Jenks.” My eyes suddenly started to swim, and I looked away. “You have two minutes to get dressed and get in the car, or we leave without you. They took Jenks.” My throat closed, and I choked out, “The longer I’m standing here, talking to you, the farther away they’re getting.” Damn it, I was almost crying. “It’s a desert out there!” I shouted, pointing. “He can’t fly at this altitude. I have to find him!”

Trent’s head dropped. “Okay…,” he said tiredly, and I just about lost it.

“It’s not okay!” I yelled. “Get moving!”

Trent stepped from the shower, and I flung myself back, jumping when his shower-wet hand gripped my arm and propelled me toward the door. “Okay. Get out so I can get dressed.”

“Oh.” Heart pounding, I blinked. “Okay.” Only now did I look at his feet.
Nice feet.

Trent cleared his throat, and I backed out of the bathroom. “Two minutes,” I affirmed.

“Two minutes,” Trent said, and the door shut between us.

I backed up until my calves found the bed. Not looking, I sat on it. The air was cool and dry out here, and I nervously smoothed the coverlet, my fingers catching where the stitching had pulled. It smelled, and I stood, arm around my middle as I looked out the door to Ivy and the trucker. I could hear Trent moving around, and I wiped my eye. Damn it, I was crying. I had to find Jenks. He had saved my life so many times. I couldn’t imagine a day without him.

“Rachel, are you still in here?”

I spun, finding the door cracked, a slip of fog drifting out like Trent’s irritation given substance. “Yes.”

“Hand me my clothes, will you? Or leave. One or the other.”

I scanned the room, finding a pile of dark clothing on the chair beside the window. Moving fast, I strode to it, hardly feeling the softness of the fabric as I tried not to mess up the folds of his shirt and pants. “Here,” I said awkwardly. The door creaked open a little more, and the flush of warmth and steam rolled out.

“Thank you,” he said, and the door shut, leaving the clean scent of his deodorant.

“I’ll wait outside,” I said, glancing at the door.

“Thank you.”

It was short and clipped, and even through the door I could hear his irritation.

“Sorry,” I said as I moved away. He hadn’t been flustered at all by my bursting in on him. But then again, he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. The man was built like one of his horses. Not an ounce of flab on him.

What is wrong with me?
I thought as I snatched my bag up from the bed and went out, slamming the door hard enough to shake the windows and let Trent know I’d left. Jenks had been kidnapped, and I was thinking about Trent naked in the shower?

Ivy was walking toward me, the trucker revving up his diesel engine behind her, and she turned and waved when he yanked the horn cord to send an echo of it across the flat desert. I had to content myself with trying to guess her news by her posture as she made her slow way to me, arms wrapped around her middle and her head down. My head started hurting.

“It’s pixies,” she said when she got close enough, and my breath slid from me in relief.

“Are you sure?” I asked, hand on her arm.

She nodded. “He said they all had silver wings that made a lot of noise. The only noise fairies make is when they clank their swords against each other.”

I looked back at the motel, wishing Trent would hurry. “He’s probably alive then,” I said, my worry coming right back. Pixies wouldn’t kill an intruder wearing red, and Jenks had on enough to blind a horse. But why kidnap him at all?

The jingle of the restaurant door caught our attention, and we turned to see Vivian coming out, her head down as she looked at one of her amulets.

“Maybe she arranged it,” Ivy said, her dark eyes getting darker. “To slow us down. If you don’t make it in time, your shunning is permanent.”

Squinting at the slight but powerful coven member, I shook my head. “Not her style.”

Vivian looked up, blinking as she saw us standing in the parking lot. Turning, she looked to the west, then down at her amulet, then up again, clearly confused. Steps slowing, she halted on the covered wooden walkway that connected the motel to the restaurant.

My pulse hammered, and sweet, beautiful adrenaline poured into me. “She’s got a tracking amulet,” I whispered, knowing now how she’d been following us through the night.

“What?” Ivy said, but I was already moving to Vivian, arms swinging loose and free, my every motion full of intent. Vivian saw me, and her foot scraped as she took a step back.

“She’s got a tracking amulet tuned to Jenks!” I exclaimed without looking over my shoulder. “Like I made for Mia. That’s how she’s been following us!”

Vivian took another step back, her gaze darting from me to her Pinto.

“Rachel!” Ivy exclaimed. “Rushing a coven member might not be the best thing!”

I smiled at Vivian. That tracking amulet was mine.

Vivian’s eyes were wide. She swore, then turned and ran, her boots thumping on the walk running alongside the motel. She was headed for her car.

Instinct kicked in, and I bolted after her. Arms pumping, I gave chase, my boots hitting the dirt as I tried to head her off.

“Look out!” Ivy shouted, and my gaze shot to Trent, head down as he came out of the motel room. My pace faltered, and glancing at me, Vivian put on a burst of speed, turning her head just in time to smack right into Trent’s door.

The
thunk
of her head on the thick wooden door was loud, and I winced, slowing to a jog.

Trent scrambled, dropping his toiletry bag as he narrowly caught her. Her hand opened and the amulet dropped, going dark as it rolled off the raised wooden walkway and to my feet, falling on its side in a tiny puff of dust.

I snatched it up and looked at Trent, now holding Vivian as her head lolled and her feet splayed askew. “That wasn’t quite what I’d planned,” I said, then turned to the waitress leaning half out of the restaurant and waved, shouting, “Can we have a bag of ice? I think she’s okay.”

The woman ducked back inside, and I shifted to make room for Ivy.

“I missed the meeting, didn’t I?” Trent said, and I helped him ease her to the walk. She was breathing okay, and when Ivy lifted her lids, her pupils contracted equally. Given a little time, she’d likely be fine.

“Thanks, Trent,” I said as I hefted the amulet, glowing again now that I was holding it. “You’re being useful today. I think you just saved me from beating up a coven member.”

Ivy looked from Vivian’s Pinto to my mom’s car. “Now what?”

I looked at the amulet, my heart pounding as I saw how far apart the two little red dots were. I wondered if Oliver had made it. Looping the cord around my neck, I crouched beside Vivian. “You take her feet, I’ll take her hands.”

Immediately Ivy shifted, and together we lifted her, me straining far more than Ivy.

Trent backed up a step, confused. “What are you going to do with her?”

“Put her in the car,” I puffed, moving awkwardly to my mom’s car.

Trent scooped up his toiletry bag. “You’re joking, right? Rachel, she’s coven. We can’t take her with us.”

“I’m not going to leave her here,” I said, and Ivy’s eyes flicked to him as the unconscious woman seemed to gain fifty pounds with every step. “Will you get the ice?”

Frowning, he turned away, but I couldn’t help but be impressed as he gave the waitress a story about us traveling together and knowing her and her friends, and that we’d make sure she got home okay. Pace fast, he caught back up with us in time to open the back door.

“You can’t be serious,” he started in again, his eyes pinched as he held the door open. “They want to kill you!”

“Maybe I’m trying sugar instead of vinegar,” I grunted as I scooted backward into my mom’s car, hitting my elbow as I pulled Vivian in after me. Ivy wrestled with her feet as Trent stood behind her and watched, his toiletry bag in one hand, the ice in the other. He looked totally different in his black clothes, his hair slicked back, his expression worried.

“You should be tucking her away in that hotel room you rented,” he said, “and throwing her keys into the desert. She’d never find us then.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it would just tick her off,” I said as I tossed my bag to the front seat and tugged Vivian farther in. My back hit the far door, and puffing, I opened it and backed out. Exhaling, I looked at him across the roof, tired. “I’m not leaving her unconscious in a hotel room a hundred miles from civilization to maybe wake up as someone’s desert-bunker wife. You put a zip strip on her, and she goes from coven to incapable. But frankly, the real reason she’s coming with us is that I’d rather have her tell the coven all our secrets than have a twenty-four-hour gap that they can use to invent stuff.” Seeing Vivian laid out on the seat, I carefully shut the door and looked out over the desert. “I’m driving. Who has the keys?”

Ivy opened the driver’s-side door. “I’ll drive, you work the amulet,” she said, and I just looked at her, my heart pounding and adrenaline surging through me like a sugar high.

Her eyes dilated at the fear I was giving off, and smiling wryly, she tugged the keys out of her pocket and dangled them for me. “Okay, you drive,” she said. “I’ll sit with my head hanging out the window like a golden retriever.”

“Thanks,” I said, shaky as I came around to her side, got in, and adjusted everything. Ivy slipped into the front passenger seat as I cranked the engine over, tossing her overnight bag with her dirty clothes in it over the seat at Trent. He barely got his hands up in time, having been trying to arrange Vivian in a somewhat upright position.

“You want to wait a minute so I can move some of this to the trunk?” he said, dropping the ice bag on the bump just now starting to rise on Vivian’s forehead.

“No.” Everyone’s arms and legs were inside the vehicle, and I put the car in reverse, hitting the gas hard.

Ivy already had her hand on the dash, but Trent went flying as the car jerked backward. Teeth clenched, I hit the brakes hard, and he was flung into the backseat where he belonged. His door, which had been open, bounced shut from the quick stop, and I jammed the gearshift into drive while ignoring Trent yelling at me.

“You think you like speed?” Ivy said as I spun the tires and we left a cloud of dust, bouncing wildly until we found the road. “You’ve never seen Rachel drive with purpose.”

Yeah, purpose. If purpose meant scared to death and to hell with everyone else, then I’d be driving with purpose.

The ride smoothed out, and my eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, not to see the restaurant grow smaller in the distance, but to see Jenks’s absence.

I had a chance to find him. A chance. And if he wasn’t okay, I was going to do some serious damage to my already wafer-thin credibility as a good witch, even if I was a black one.