The Outlaw Demon Wails (46 page)

Ivy's stiffness grew, and I let go of her with one hand so that we stood
more shoulder-to-shoulder than front-to-front. She was nervously watching Glenn for his reaction, but I couldn't care less. “I didn't go after him,” I said as she helped me up the stairs. “It sort of happened.”

The door was open, and in the darkness of the foyer and the confusion of two dozen pixies swirling around us and Glenn, I pulled her attention to me by taking her arm. “I'm so glad to see you,” I whispered. “I don't know what's going to happen at sunrise. I need your help.”

“What?” she said, concern replacing all her fear-based anger.

But Jenks had cleared the room of his kids, and I pressed my lips together, trying to tell her that I had to talk to her alone. Or at least without Glenn listening.

Her perfect oval face went blank, and I saw her understanding. She turned her upper lip in as she thought, and I let go of her arm. “You want some coffee, Glenn?” she asked suddenly.

My shoulders eased. We'd get Glenn out of here fast by pretending everything was okay. And frankly, I needed to pretend everything was okay—if only for a few minutes.

Glenn's brow rose suspiciously at the offer, but he ambled in after us. He did a good job of hiding that he knew we were trying to get rid of him, but he looked like a cop when he settled himself at the table. Telling Ivy he didn't mind waiting for a new pot, he arched his eyebrows at me and crossed his arms over his chest—and stared. He wasn't going to leave until he heard it all.

Jenks was hovering over my shoulder like there was a string between us. My worry crashed down as I slumped into my spot at the table and tried to decide where to start. The familiar noises of Ivy making coffee were incredibly soothing, and my eyes scanned the kitchen, marking the empty spots where I had moved spelling supplies into the belfry.

A sudden clenching of my chest took my breath away. I was a demon. Or so close to one that it didn't matter. That I had made a human my familiar should have been the first clue. I felt filthy, like the smut on my soul was leaking off and staining everything I loved.

And as Glenn eyed the basket of cherry tomatoes with avarice and prattled on about how he liked a good strong cup of coffee while he waited
for me to get on with it, I felt the bolts of my life lock the door to my past. I had only one way to go, and it was going to be hard as hell. Logic said there was no way to rescue Trent. He had accepted his failure and asked me to save his species. But I didn't live or die by percentages, and I wouldn't sit and accept it. It would prey on me forever.

“I…I have to talk to you,” I said, and the conversation cut off with the startling suddenness of a kite smacking headfirst into the ground.

Ivy turned from the coffeemaker, arms over her middle and her face pale. The pitch of Jenks's wings faded to nothing as he landed on the napkin holder. Glenn's breath slid out of him in anticipation, and I steadied myself, trying to find a way to say what I needed to without telling them what Trent's dad had done to me.

“You didn't get back here on your own,” Ivy guessed, and Jenks's wings stopped. “Did you have to buy another mark?” I shook my head, and Ivy's relief turned to a wary suspicion, then horror. “Where's Trent?”

Oh, God, she thought I had bought my freedom with Trent. Everyone would. Vision blurring, I shook my head, my gaze on a series of lines indented into the table, realizing they were Ivy's name in a careful, preschool print.

Why am I here?
I thought as I tried to find a way to tell them what I was. I was a demon, and I was likely going to be pulled back into the ever-after in a few hours.

I was a demon, but they were my friends. I had to believe that they wouldn't turn me away. My head hurt, and taking a slow breath, I looked up. “Jenks, could you clear out your kids?”

His wings increased in pitch, and Ivy winced. “Sure,” he said, his unease obvious as he made a series of three whistles. A smattering of complaints rose, and the room went silent as the children left. Jenks rubbed his wings together in a harsh discord, and three more darted out from under the sink and were gone.

My gaze dropped, and I pulled my knees up to my chin, grasping my shins awkwardly so my heels almost slipped off the chair. I wanted to be mad at Trent for everything, but this wasn't his fault. I thought of my
demon scar, and a bitter anger lifted through me.
I'm a demon; I ought to just accept it
.

But I wouldn't. And I didn't have to.

I looked up to fasten on Ivy's stillness. Her face was empty of emotion, but her eyes were swimming. “I got out,” I said in a monotone. “Trent didn't.”

The soft creak of the back door closing brought Ivy's head around, and I looked to the hallway. Ceri was standing in the threshold, her filmy white dress edged in purple and green floating about her bare feet, and her hair wild. Tears marked her face, and she looked beautiful. “Rachel?” she warbled, guilt and fear heavy in her voice.

And with that, I realized that Ceri had known. She had known I was a demon, and that was why she hadn't wanted me to go to the ever-after, lest I figure it out myself.

My face bunched up, and I held my knees tighter. “Why didn't you tell me?” I asked.

She took three steps in and stopped. “Because you aren't,” she said, pleading. “You are a witch, Rachel. Never forget it.”

It wasn't her words but the vehemence she said them with that convinced me she'd rather believe a happy lie than a harsh truth. Damn it, she had known. I could almost pin the moment she'd realized it. She'd been treating me differently ever since Minias had pulled the focus from me and put it into David. No, it had started before that, with the scrying mirror.

My eyes must have given me away, for she strode across the room with a familiar righteous anger. “You are a witch!” she shouted, spots of color showing and her hair flaring out magnificently. “Close your mouth! You are a witch!”

Jenks was hovering in questioning shock. “Why wouldn't she be?” he asked, and Ivy slumped. I looked at her and bit my lip, tears of frustration slipping from me. I think Ivy had figured it out.

“I'm a witch,” I said, continuing the lie. But Ceri hadn't touched me yet.

“I didn't want you to go,” Ceri said, standing helplessly before me.

Unable to bear it, I put my feet on the floor and took her hand. It was
cold, and she didn't pull away. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Am I going to stay here, or will I be pulled back?”

Ivy moaned softly, turning to grip the sink and look into the black garden. Ceri glanced at her, then at Jenks's confusion, and finally, back to me. “I don't know,” she said softly.

Jenks rose up high, his wings clattering aggressively. “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on, or I'm going to pix the lot of you.”

Blinking fast, Ivy turned, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other holding her head. “You said Rachel twisted the curse. She has Al's summoning name,” she said to the floor. “She didn't buy a way back and she didn't learn how to travel the lines. She was pulled back to reality when Tom summoned Al.”

“So?” Jenks said acerbically, then hesitated, dropping to the table. “Oh. Shit.”

A flash of fear took me, and the shame of being summoned into someone else's circle.

“Rachel is not a demon,” Ceri said, and Glenn finally got it, his broad shoulders turning sideways as he gaped at me.

“No,” I said bitterly, twisting in my chair and not looking at anyone. “I'm a witch whose blood can kindle demon magic, and who has been integrated into their system so well that I'm bound by their rules of summoning.”

“No, you aren't.”

I wanted to believe Ceri, but I was afraid to. “Then what am I?” I whispered. She had to know. She had lived among them.

Ceri's face went frightened. “You are what you are.”

My gaze met Ivy's to find a sliver of fear.

I couldn't take it anymore. Rising, I ran to the bathroom, slamming the door and slumping onto the closed toilet, miserable. There was a commotion in the hall: worried voices and frustrated accusations. A tear slid down, and I let it. I should cry. I should be crying my freaking eyes out. I think my dad had known, too. Why else would he have asked Cincinnati's top ley line instructor to flunk me, then collect a library of demon texts for me?

“Rachel?” came Jenks's voice amid a close clatter of pixy wings, and I pulled my head up.

“Get out!” I shouted, lashing out with a flick I knew would never land. “Damn it, you stupid pixy, get out!”

“No!” he exclaimed, getting in my face. “Rachel, listen to me. You smell like a witch. Well, you stink like the ever-after right now, but when you wash it off, you'll smell like a witch. And come sunup, you will be here. You won't be pulled to the ever-after. I won't let you!”

His expression was desperate, and I listlessly extended a hand for him to land on. I held my breath and caught my misery back behind a throat-hurting gulp. He landed on it, flying up briefly when Ivy barged in, sending the door swinging into the wall.

“God save you!” I exclaimed, jumping. “I shut the door because I wanted to be alone!”

Ivy's usually placid face was pinched with worry. Tension had pulled her shoulders up, and her movements to tuck her short hair behind an ear were sharp. “You are not a demon,” she said, her words precise. “You're sitting in a church. No demon can do that. Glenn said you lied to get out of that circle, and nothing happened to you. You weren't held accountable. You're not a demon, and you won't be pulled back when the sun comes up.”

Exhausted in mind and soul, I looked up at her, wanting to believe, but too afraid to do so. “I hope so,” I whispered, knowing they wouldn't like what I was going to say next. “But if I was, it would make rescuing Trent easier.”

It was quiet now, just the small agitated ticks of Jenks tapping his foot against Ceri's porcelain teacup to mar the stillness. I felt bad about screwing up everyone's lives, but in a few hours I'd either be dead or a permanent fixture in the ever-after. Settling this with a happy ending was still a possibility, but the odds were looking really slim. I was hoping for it of course, but honestly, what were the chances?

Glenn had left to get my mother after I'd kicked everyone out of the bathroom to take a shower, so it was just the four of us now, the mood tense and the feeling of harsh words yet unsaid heavy in the air. God, I was tired. The cup of coffee in my grip wasn't helping at all. A bowl of baked cheese crackers was within my reach, and I put one in my mouth. The sharp cheddar flavor bit at the sides of my mouth, and I slowly chewed. Grabbing a handful, I ate them one by one, feeling guilty that I was clean and eating cheese crackers when Trent was in a cell.

Seeing me moving, Jenks took to the air to try again. “Why?” he said belligerently, a thin trace of red dust spilling from him to pool on the table as he landed in his best Peter Pan pose. “Why do you give a fairy's hairy ass about what happens to Trent?”

I rubbed my finger over Ivy's dented signature, feeling the past. She had been innocent once. So had I.
So Trent can tell me what the hell his dad did to me? Because I need him to say that I'm not a demon? So he can find a way to reverse it?
“Because if I don't,” I said softly, “everyone will think that I bought my freedom with his life.” Jenks snorted, and my blood pressure rose. “Because I promised I'd get him home,” I said more forcefully. “I'm not going to let him rot there.”

“Rachel…,” Jenks cajoled.

From her computer, Ivy glowered at him. “She promised to get him home if he paid for her way there and back. I don't like it any more than you do, but you're going to shut up and listen. If we can find a way, we'll do it.”

“But he didn't get her home,” Jenks protested. “She did that herself. And who cares if he rots in the ever-after?”

Ivy stiffened, and Ceri silently watched, evaluating.

“I care,” I said, pushing the crackers away and trying to get the cheese out of my teeth.

“Yeah, but Rache—”

“He's not home!” I shouted, ticked. “That was the deal!”

Jenks's feet hit the table, and he turned his back on me. Wings still, he bowed his head.

Ceri eased into the chair beside me and set an open spell book on the table. There was a pair of glasses perched on her nose and a pencil between her teeth. The pixies had braided her hair while I had cried in the shower, and she looked decidedly studious. She had reddened when I noticed her new glasses, but I hadn't said anything. I think she was proud that she was aging again and needed them.

Frankly, I was surprised Ivy was siding with me. I'd like to think that it was because she considered holding to one's word important, or because she thought Trent was worth going back for on his own merits, but the truth was Trent's absence would cause big problems in Cincy's underground power balance. Rynn Cormel flexing his muscles and reasserting control was something she wasn't looking forward to. It's harder to fall in love with a man when he's killing people.

Glancing up, I blinked at the odd figure Ceri was idly tracing over and
over on the yellow legal pad she had on the open spell book. I was sure the glyph was from a demon curse; there was a faint haze of black emanating from it. I caught her gaze, and she winced, drawing a circle around it to contain whatever force she had drawn into existence before crumpling the paper up, dropping it into her empty teacup, and setting fire to it with a ley line charm.

Jenks sputtered at the black flame, but Ivy stopped his budding harangue with a hissed comment I didn't quite catch.

“What if I learn how to jump the lines?” I said, searching for the first hints of a plan. “If I could get in undetected, that would be half the battle. Maybe more. Simple snag and drag.” It wasn't, but I could build on the idea.

Ceri took the end of her pencil and crushed even the ash to dust. “Learn how to trip the lines before sunrise? No. I'm sorry, Rachel. It takes decades.”

Ivy leaned past her cracked monitor. “Why sunrise?”

The pretty elf 's shoulders drooped. “That's when the lines will close to summoning travel and they will make a decision. Right now, Trent's probably still in holding, but as soon as they're sure no one will be pulled out of negotiations, he will be sold.”

Sold. It was an ugly word, and I felt my face twist. Seeing it, Ceri shrugged. “Anything you want to do, you need to do before someone buys him, or you will be dealing with a specific demon, not a committee. Committees are difficult, but a single demon is tenacious where a committee will only want to make sure they all get something.”

This was wrong. Really wrong, and I sighed when Jenks swore at Ivy, dramatically crossed his chest as if making a promise, then flew to my cracker bowl.

“Trent doesn't have a great deal of value as a familiar,” Ceri was saying, her eyes down in what looked like embarrassment, “but it's not often that a potential familiar stumbles into the ever-after without a preexisting claim by another demon. There are a lot of demons who will pay, not caring that there will be a long downtime to bring him up to usefulness. That's what Al does to make his bread and butter.”

I hesitated, thinking it might explain why Al was so hot for Nick and then me. “He trains familiars?” I asked, and Ceri shook her head. She had begun to doodle again, and I stared at the pair of tortured eyes taking form on the yellow paper, trapped behind lines of blue.

“In a manner of speaking,” she said softly. “He finds suitable candidates, instructs them enough to make them profitable, then tricks them into the ever-after to be sold for his gain. Al is good at it, and he's made an exceptional life selling people to those unwilling to cross the lines to get their own.”

Jenks's wings clattered and Ivy clicked her computer off, not bothering to pretend to be working anymore. “He's a slave dealer?” she asked, and Ceri drew a slumped figure of a man at the base of a tombstone.

“Yes. Which is why he's so angry you have his summoning name. It takes finesse to build a list of people who know his name and are potential familiars. Not to mention the effort invested in the pre–soul stealing stage, the drudgery of building them up and teaching them something to increase their value, maintaining the balance of having enough people know his name without having so many that it becomes tedious. And then there's the risk that after all the smut he takes on building up a potential familiar, he will take a loss if they don't bring in a high enough price.”

I snorted, leaning back in my chair and crossing my knees as I thought of Nick. “He's a freaking familiar pimp.” Tom had better watch out, or he was going to be next. Not that I cared.

Jenks rose, and a column of silver sparkles fell to fill the bowl like frosting. “Ivy, stealing people is his job. You gotta help me here. Rachel doesn't need to do this. It's stupid, even for her!”

My eyes narrowed, but Ivy stretched casually, her belly button ring showing. “If you don't stop badgering her, I'm going to smack you into the wall so hard you won't wake up for a week,” she said. Jenks lost altitude, and Ivy added as she headed over, “Someone has to pull Kalamack's ass out of the ever-after. You think I can do it?”

“No,” he protested weakly, “but why does Rachel have to? Trent knew the risks.”

He knew the risks and trusted me to get him out
, I thought, unable to meet Ceri's gaze.

Ivy leaned with her elbows on the center island counter. “Why don't you stop trying to convince her not to go and start trying to figure out how you can go with her.”

“She won't let me!” he shouted.

“No one is going with me,” I said firmly, and Jenks let a burst of silver slip from him.

“See!” he exclaimed, pointing.

My teeth clenched, and Ivy cleared her throat in warning. “I said I'd get him out,” I muttered, flipping through the sketches that Ceri had drawn of the underground demon city.

“And I'm coming with you,” he said belligerently.

I exhaled, trying to get my jaw to relax, but it wasn't working. In the past year, living and working with Ivy and Jenks, I had learned how to trust others. It was time to remember that I could trust myself, too. That I could do this on my own. And I would. “Jenks—”

“Don't ‘Jenks' me,” he said, landing on the rolled-over seam of the yellow tablet, his wings going for balance and his finger pointed. “We pop in, grab him, and pop out.”

“That won't work,” Ceri interrupted softly, and Jenks spun.

“Why the hell not? Plan B worked with that fish. It will work for Trent!”

Ceri's eyes darted to mine and then back to Jenks's. “Whoever Rachel buys the trips from will simply snag her. Or tell Newt, who now has a solid claim on her.”

I scuffed my foot, almost able to feel the raised, slashed circle on the bottom of it. “What if I just go through Newt?” I threw out there, desperate. “She might forget about it.”

Ceri stiffened. “No,” she said, and Ivy's expression went guarded at the woman's almost-panic. “Not Newt. You already wear one mark from her. She's insane. She says one thing, then does another. You can't trust her. She doesn't follow demon law, she makes it.”

I flipped to the next sketch, which showed what looked like the layout
for the university library, and Jenks moved to my shoulder, where I was able to judge his agitation by the strength of the draft he was making on my neck. It was cold, and I reached back and covered my bites with my hand.

“Minias maybe?” Ivy suggested, and Ceri shook her head.

“Minias is trying to get back into Newt's good graces. Rachel may as well wear a big bow and sing ‘Happy Birthday.'”

I flipped the maps closed. “Why?” I asked, eating another cracker. “They fired him.”

Ceri's gaze went serious. “Because Newt is the only female demon left. And just like everyone else, he would risk his life for the chance to engender a child. That was his job. They took a vote and he lost. I told you this before.”

Her voice had gotten sharp, but her temper was her way of hiding her fear. Excising it, maybe. “You didn't tell me he was trying to seduce her,” I said tartly, egging her on for some inane reason. Perhaps I needed the release of yelling at someone, too. “You told me he was babysitting her.”

Jenks's wings brushed my neck, tangling in my hair. “He's been with her, what? A few hundred years? What's his problem? Can't get it up?”

Ceri's eyebrows went high, and she replied dryly, “She killed the last six demons she became intimate with. Pulled an entire line through them and—”

“Fried their little kitty brains,” Jenks finished.

I looked for Rex in the threshold, but the cat had yet to come out from under my bed.

“Minias is understandably cautious,” Ceri said, and Ivy snorted as she pushed her forearms up from the counter and went to the coffeemaker.

“If it's just a matter of getting there, can't Rachel just stand in a line and…move?” Ivy asked, her unusual look of ignorance hinting at her fright.

Ceri shook her head, and I dropped the pad of paper onto the table. I remembered the time I had stood in Trent's office, one foot in the here and now, and one in the ever-after. I had been entirely safe, unless Al had got a grip on me and pulled me through. “Not unless there's a demon to
pull you through,” I said, rubbing the goose bumps from my arms. “And I'm the only one going in. Not you, not you, and not you.”

I looked at them in turn, reading Ceri's relief, Jenks's ire, and Ivy's annoyance.

“I don't mind a little demon smut,” Ivy said defensively.

“Me either,” Jenks chimed in, and Ceri shook her head with a soft no. That Jenks had popped back to reality when the sun had come up didn't bode well. “I'm going with you, Rache,” he said loudly. “Even if I have to ride in your armpit!”

Ooh, that's a pretty picture.
“You don't get it,” I said, trying to burn the image from my consciousness. “There is no reason for you to go!”

Jenks rose up, his wings clattering. “Like hell there isn't!” he yelled, shooting nervous glances at Ivy. “You need backup.”

Frustrated, I slammed my hand down on the table, and two pixies shot out of my charm cupboard, shrieking. I hesitated as they flew down the hall and into the night. Great, now Matalina would know Jenks was trying to come with me. The woman wouldn't stop him, but I'd be damned before I took him away from her again.

“I'm not going in there to kick some demon ass,” I said softly, trying to be reasonable. “Even with your help, I can't beat off more than one demon at a time with magic, and as soon as they realize I'm there, it's going to be a bunch of demons.” I glanced at Ceri, and the pale woman nodded. “I've thought it over, and I can't do it with muscle or magic. I have to do it with trickery, and I'm sorry, but much as I'd like one or both of you there, you can't help me.” I looked at Ivy by the fridge, feeling the frustration coming off her in a wave. “You can do more good by staying here and summoning me home.” My face burned with shame that I had a demon name, and fear made my voice soft. “Once I've got him.”

“This is crap!” Jenks shouted. “Green fairy crap.”

Ivy rubbed her temples. “I have a headache,” she breathed, one of the few times she had ever admitted to me that she hurt. “Can you at least take Ceri?”

Ceri's rasp of incoming breath was harsh and quick. “No,” I said, touching the woman's shoulder in support. “I'm going alone.” Jenks bristled, and
I leaned over him. “I'm going alone!” I exclaimed. “I couldn't have gotten the sample without you, Jenks, but this is different. And you taking on a bucket of smut so you can hold my hand while I do this isn't going to happen. Don't you get it!” I almost shouted, starting to shake. “Until I met the two of you, I worked alone, even when I
did
have backup. I'm damn good at it, and I'm not going to put you in danger if I don't need to, so drop it!”