The Outlaw Demon Wails (47 page)

For a moment, Jenks said nothing, his fists on his hips as he pressed his lips together and frowned up at me. From the window came a high-pitched hush for someone to be quiet. “So how much is your life worth, Rache?” he asked.

I turned away so he couldn't see my eyes. “I killed Kisten,” I said. “I'm not going to risk either of you.” My jaw clenched, and the hurt swelled. I
had
killed Kisten—maybe not directly, but it had been my fault.

Ivy's feet scuffed the linoleum, and Jenks went silent. I couldn't love anyone without putting them in danger.
Maybe this is why Dad told me to work alone.

Ceri touched my arm, and I sniffed back the misery. “It wasn't your fault,” she said, but Ivy's and Jenks's silence said different.

“I know how to do this,” I said, shoving the pain down. “I was summoned out—like a demon. I can kindle demon magic—like a demon. I have a name registered in their database—like they all are. Why can't I just claim Trent as mine and bring him home? I know he'd go along with it.”

“Oh for the sweet humpin' love of Tink!” Jenks shouted, and even Ivy looked discomfited. Ceri, though, put her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her cupped palm with a thoughtful look on her face. It was the first hint of hope, and my hands grew damp.

“You can't jump through the lines,” she said, as if that were the deciding factor. “How will you get there?”

I fiddled with the bowl of crackers, nervous. I had to make a deal with a demon. Damn it, I had to make
another
deal with a demon. The difference this time was that I was making this choice with a clear head, not being forced into it with death as the only other option. So I dealt in demons. So the
hell
what. It didn't make me a bad person. Or stupid. Or
rash. It made me dangerous to everyone around me is all. “So I buy a trip,” I said softly, knowing I'd never look at demon summoners the same way again. Maybe I'd take them seriously now, instead of writing them off as idiots. Maybe I'd been really wrong to accuse Ceri of not knowing what she was doing.

Ceri sighed, oblivious to my thoughts. “Back to the beginning,” she muttered to her legal pad. I looked down at it to see a second pair of eyes, decidedly masculine this time.

“So I buy a trip from Al,” I finished.

Ivy jerked, and Jenks took to the air. “No,” Jenks said. “He will kill you. He will lie and kill you. He has nothing to lose, Rache.”

Which is exactly why it will work
, I thought, but didn't say it. Al had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

“Jenks is right,” Ivy said. Somehow she had crossed the kitchen without me seeing and was right over me.

Ceri's expression was thick with alarm. “You said Al is in jail.”

I nodded. “They incarcerated him again when they realized I can spindle line energy. But he can still bargain. And I know his summoning name. I can summon him out.”

Her pretty little mouth open, Ceri looked at Ivy and then Jenks. “He might kill you!”

“And he might not.” Discouraged but seeing no other options, I pushed the legal pad of sketched maps away from me. “I have something he wants, and holding on to it will not do me any good. Giving it to him might get Trent free….”

Ceri gave Ivy a pleading look, and the vampire dragged her chair to the other side of me and sat down. “Rachel,” Ivy said, her voice soft and full of pity, “there's nothing you can do. I don't want Trent stuck there any more than you do, but there's no shame in not waging a battle that can't be won.”

Jenks stood before me with his head bobbing, but his relief made me even more angry. They weren't listening, and I really didn't blame them. My tension rose, and I scrubbed a hand across my face. “Okay,” I said shortly, and Jenks flew backward as I stood. “You're right. Bad idea.”
I
have to get out of here.
“Just forget the entire thing,” I said, looking over the kitchen for my coat.
The foyer…I think.

I headed for the front door with no bag, no wallet, and nothing but my spare keys, which I had stashed in the safe with Ivy's living-will papers. Someone had brought my car home, but I had yet to find my bag.

“Hey!” Jenks said from the table. “Where are you going?”

My pulse hammered, and my steps jarred all the way up my spine. “Eden Park. Alone. I'll be back after sunrise. Unless I'm dragged into the ever-after,” I added, sounding dry, sarcastic, and bitter. The clatter of pixy wings following made me tense.

“Rachel—”

“Let her go,” Ivy said softly, and he dropped back. “She's never had to deal with a situation there was no way to win. I better call Rynn,” she said as she headed down the hall. “Then go to the store to stock up. The shops might be closing for a while. There might be riots if the city has to reorganize the lower power structure. This is going to be a rough week. The I.S. is going to be too busy to pick its collective nose.”

I passed through the bat-filled sanctuary thinking I wasn't going to be around to see it.

It was cold, sitting on the top of the bench's back the way I was, my feet on the seat as I looked out from Eden Park over the gray Ohio River and across the Hollows. The sun was near rising, and the Hollows was hazy with a pinkish-gray mist. I was thinking—waiting, really. Just the fact that I was sitting here was a clear indication that the thinking portion of my life was done. Now I had to do something.

So I sat on the top of the bench and shivered in my short leather jacket and jeans, my boots doing little to stop the cold of a November morning. My breath made little puffs that existed about as long as my racing thoughts did: thoughts of my dad, my mom, Takata, Kisten, Trent trapped in the ever-after, Ivy trusting me to fix this, Jenks wanting to be a part of it.

Frowning, I dropped my eyes and brushed a smudge of dirt off my boot. My dad had brought me up here upon occasion. Usually it was when he and my mom were arguing or she had fallen into a funk, during which she would always smile and give me a kiss when I asked what was wrong. Now I wondered if her occasional depression had come from thinking about Takata.

I exhaled, watching the thought leave me like the mist from my breath
and vanish into the collective consciousness. My mother had quietly gone off her rocker trying to divorce herself from the reality of bearing Takata's children while being lovingly married to my dad. She had loved them both, and seeing Takata in Robbie and me every day must have been a self-inflicted torture.

“You can't forget anything,” I said, watching the words vanish into nothing. “And even if you do, it always comes back to bitch-slap you in the morning.”

The cool mist of the coming day was damp and pleasant, and I closed my eyes against the brightening sky. I'd been up way too long.

Turning where I sat, I looked behind me over the narrow parking strip to the two man-made ponds and the wide footbridge spanning them. Past the bridge was a ragged ley line, unnoticeable unless you were really looking. I'd found it while helping Kisten fight off a foreign camarilla trying to kidnap his nephew Audric last year, and I'd forgotten all about it until feeling its discordant resonance through Bis. Though weak, it would be enough.

Wondering how little Audric was, I wobbled off the bench, slapped the cold from my jeans, and headed across the lot. I ran a hand over the red paint of my convertible in passing. I loved my car, and if I did this right, I'd be back to get it before they towed it away.

I took the bridge with slow steps, looking down for the telltale ripple of Sharps, the park's bridge troll, but he was either hiding in the deeper water or they had chased him out again. To the left was a wide expanse of concrete tucked in the curve of the upper pond. Two statues were cemented into the ground, and hemmed in between them ran the ley line. The faint red visible to my mind's eye was growing weaker as the sun neared rising, but it was still possible to see where it ran, bound by a wolf on one side and a funny-looking guy with a cauldron on the other, both holding the midpoint of the line stretching from one end of the park to the other. It ran over the shallow water, which was why the line was so pathetically weak here. If the pond had been any deeper, the line wouldn't have been able to survive. As it was, it was leaking enough power to make my skin prickle as I found a fairly clean patch of concrete and sat down just outside it.

Taking a rock, I leaned to scratch a sloppy circle right in the line. Even
if the sun rose and broke my summons, I could still talk to Al if I stepped into the line, though he'd be under no obligation to stay and listen. I really didn't think getting Al to stay would be a problem.

My heart pounded, and with sweat breaking out to make me cold, I whispered, “Jariathjackjunisjumoke, I summon you.” I didn't need the trappings to force his appearance, I only needed to open a channel. And he came—using the name I had chosen for myself.

Al misted into existence in a seated, slouched posture, and I stared, fascinated and repulsed as he took on a gross parody of me. His legs were twisted akimbo, skinny shoulders slumped and bare, carrying red-rimmed scratches that held crusted blood. The slack-jawed face staring back at me was mine, but it was blank and empty, the red stringy curls lank. It was the eyes that were the worst—demon-red, goat-slitted orbs staring at me from my own face.

I hated it when he showed up as me.

“That's nice,” I said, easing back from the circle.

A flicker of anger lit through his empty expression, and a shimmer of ever-after coated him. His form grew blockier, more solid. A whiff of lilac came to me, and the clean scent of crushed velvet. He faced me squarely, full of elegance and lordly refinement, sitting cross-legged on the cold cement: lace at his cuffs, boots shining in the light, ruddy complexion clean, and every vestige of a bruise or cut gone.

“I knew it was you,” he said, the hatred in his deep voice pulling a shiver through me. “You're the only one who knows it.”

I swallowed and tucked a curl behind my ear. “I never wanted your name. I only wanted you to leave me alone. Why the
hell
couldn't you just leave me alone?”

He sniffed, only now looking around with a haughty disdain. “Is that why you're calling me into…a park? You want to trade back? Afraid you're going to be drawn back to the ever-after when the sun rises?” His head tilted, and he smiled, showing me his flat, blocky teeth. “You should be. I'm most curious about that myself.”

My mouth went dry. “I'm not a demon,” I said boldly. “You can't scare me.”

The subtle tension in him rose. I saw it in the slight tightening of his fingers. “Rachel, honey, if you're not scared, you're not going to survive.” His manner turned cocky and bitter. “Well, you took my name,” he said, his noble British accent perfect and precise. “Isn't it pleasant, being at someone's mercy? Trapped by a hack in a little tiny bubble. Is it a wonder we try to kill you?” An eyebrow rising, he turned introspective. “Did Thomas Arthur Bansen escape?”

I nodded, and he smiled knowingly. “Look,” I said, glancing at the growing light, “for what it's worth, I'm sorry, and if you'd shut up about poor little you and listen, we might be able to both come away with something. Unless you want to go back to that cell of yours.”

Al was silent. Then he inclined his head. “I'm listening.”

I thought of Ceri advising me against this, of Jenks ready to risk his life on a run we couldn't win, and of Ivy knowing I was the only one who could get myself out and dying inside as she forced herself to let me do it. I thought about all the times I had brought in black witches, pitying them for their foolishness, telling myself demons were dangerous, manipulating bastards who you couldn't beat. But I wasn't trying to beat them, I was trying to join them…apparently. I took a steadying breath. “This is what I want.”

Al made a rude noise. As if for a nonexistent audience, he threw a lace-cuffed hand in the air. A hint of burnt amber tickled my nose, and I wondered if it was real or simply my memory inventing the scent.

“I want you to leave the people I love alone,
especially
my mother. I want Trent, unharmed and free from persecution for stealing the elven sample,” I said, voice low. “You are all collectively to leave him alone.”

His head moved back and forth, and he eyed me over his smoked glasses. “I'll say it again. You are not shy about asking for things. I can't bind anyone's actions but my own.”

I nodded, expecting this. “I want that same amnesty for stealing your sample.”

“And I want to rip your bloody fucking head off, but it looks like we're both going to be disappointed, now aren't we?” he mockingly crooned.

My breath shook as I exhaled. I glanced at the east, and my pulse
quickened. He had tortured my mom, not in anger but to get to me. Never again. “What is it worth to you if I can not only get you out of jail, but have the person who put you there apologize?”

Al sneered. “If you don't have anything constructive to say, you should let me go back to the ever-after and my cell. I had everything under control until you demonstrated to Minias that you could spindle line energy.”

“That's what's going to save your ass,” I shot back, belligerent. “I have an idea to benefit both of us. You wanna hear it?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, the lace fluttering. “And what is that? Buy a trip in to rescue Trent with your soul?” It was mocking, and my face burned. “It's not worth it,” he added. “In a few hours, I'm going to be banished to the surface, my belongings raffled off as novelty items and my living space given to someone else—my reputation destroyed. I'd rather have your head than your soul at this point in my
illustrious
career.”

“Good,” I shot back, “because you're not going to get it.” My heart pounded as I waited for him to get over his pity party. Sure enough, after about five seconds of miffed silence, he turned back to me. In a very small voice I asked, “Is there a system in place for a demon to teach another? Sort of a mentoring position?”
God, help me. Tell me I'm seeing things clearly and unclouded by pride.

Al threw his head back and laughed. The water surrounding us rippled, and I heard the echo of it come back from the new town houses across the street.

“There hasn't been a demon needing instruction for five thousand years!” he exclaimed. “I'm about to be exiled to the surface, and you want me to take you on as a student? Teach you everything I know for free
just because
?”

I said nothing, waiting as he followed my question to the reasoning behind it, and his ruddy face lost all expression. Eyes peering over those damned glasses of his, he stared as my pulse quickened. “Yes,” he said softly, almost breathing the word. “There is.”

My hands were shaking, and I wrapped my arms around myself and tucked them under the shelter of my jacket. “And if you said you had taken me on as a student instead of a familiar—because I could twist demon
magic—then you wouldn't be in trouble for letting me know how to spindle ever-after in my thoughts.”

His head moved almost imperceptibly up and down, his jaw tightening.

“You could tell them that you taught me, then left me here because I was learning more fighting you than I could in the ever-after.”

“But I didn't.”

His voice was so lacking in emotion, it sounded dead. “They don't know that,” I said.

Al's chest rose and fell in a sigh. I could see relief in him, and I wondered what it was like to be a demon and afraid. And how long he would let me live knowing I not only saw it, but had the answer to save him. “Why?” he asked.

I licked my lips. “I want Trent. If I'm your student, wouldn't I be entitled to a familiar? Hell, I made one of my boyfriends my familiar before you broke the bond,” I said, attention going everywhere as I tried to hide my shame even though I knew I'd never use another person like that. At least not intentionally. “Trent is wearing smut that I should have,” I added. “He took it voluntarily. That's what a familiar does.”

His fingers twitching with a repressed excitement, Al smiled. “And my reputation is restored.” The demon glanced to the east and adjusted his glasses to hide his eyes. “They aren't stupid,” he said dryly. “They will say it's a convenient story.”

This was the really scary part. I had trusted Al to give me a night of peace, but this was entirely different. “Which is why you're going to bring me through the lines so I can speak in your defense,” I said, fear clenching my heart. “Then you do what you have to for me to claim Trent as my familiar.”

“Trenton Aloysius Kalamack wears Minias's mark,” he said quickly.

“But he's wearing my smut of his own free will,” I offered, and Al pursed his lips, leaning back until he hit the bubble and jerked forward.

“I would need to buy your familiar's mark from Minias,” he mused aloud. Eyebrows rising, he shifted a hand in a gesture of possibility. “But I can do it.”

“Then Trent and I come back here, and we all go back to normal.”

Al snorted. “Sweet innocence be damned. What about my name?” he asked, making a moot face. “I want that back.”

I met his gaze, refusing to give on this. “You won't be in jail.”

His eyes narrowed. “I want my name. I need it.”

I remembered what Ceri had said about how he made his living. Would I be responsible for the people Al tricked into slavery if I gave it back to him? Logic said no, but emotion said I should stop him if I could. But what about me being summoned into Tom's circle? I didn't want that happening again. “Maybe,” I whispered.

His attention bore into mine as he took a slow breath. I didn't know what he was going to come back with. “Rachel,” he said, and the simple sound of it made my blood turn cold. Something was there that hadn't been before, and it scared the crap out of me. “I need to know something before I will bargain with you anymore.”

Hearing a trap, I edged back, my jeans scraping on the grit between me and the cement. “I'm not giving anything for free.”

His expression didn't change. “Oh, not free,” he said in a dangerous monotone. “Insight into another's thoughts is never free. You pay for it in the most…unexpected ways. I want to know why you didn't call Minias the other night. I saw your decision to let me go, and I want to know why you did it. Minias would have jailed me. You would have had a night of freedom. Yet you…let me go. Why?”

“Because I wasn't about to call a mouse of a demon when I could take care of it myself,” I said, then hesitated. That wasn't why. “Because I thought if I gave you a night of peace, you might give me the same.” God, I had been stupid. To think that a demon would respect that had been dumb.

But a slow, deeply satisfied smile came over him, and his breath quickened. “So softly it starts,” he whispered. “Foolishly clever and with an unsurvivable trust. It just saved your miserable life, that questionable show of thought, my itchy-witch.” Al's smile shifted, becoming lighter. “And now you will live to possibly regret it.”