The Outlaw Demon Wails (7 page)

David had started at her voice. Shifting his long coat closed, he took a step back as he turned. “Thanks, but no,” he said, eyes down. “I'm going for a run with the ladies. Howard might want to come back after dropping us off, though.”

Howard mumbled something about a meeting, and Ivy turned to the stained-glass window and the moon, just shy of full but hidden behind clouds. Weres could change anytime, but the three days of a full moon were the only time it was legal to roam the city's streets on four paws, tradition turned to law by paranoid humans. What Weres did in their own houses, though, was their own business. The moonlit trail would be busy tonight.

Ivy's foot twitched like a cat's tail as she sat, turning her magazine over to hide the headline. I had to work to keep a straight face. It wasn't often that she was smitten enough by anyone to look like a high schooler with a crush. And it wasn't that she was obvious about it, but she was so closed with her emotions that any indication of attraction was as clear as finding love notes strewn on her bedroom floor. She'd probably recognized the sound of his car and had gone to tidy up, using the excuse of lowering the music.

“You should have called me when the demon showed,” David said, edging to the door.

Jenks's wings clattered as he darted from the desk to the center of the
room. “I was there to save her ass,” he said belligerently, then added a belated, “Hi, David. Who's your friend?”

“This is Howard, my old partner,” David said, and Jenks's head bobbed up and down.

“Oh, yeah. You stink for a witch. Whatcha been doing?”

Howard laughed, the sound echoing into the rafters and setting the pixies giggling. “Some freelance work. Thank you, Mr. Jenks. I'll take that as a compliment.”

“It's just Jenks,” the pixy muttered, giving Howard an unusual, cautious look as he landed on my shoulder.

Ivy was making eyes at David from over the crackers, and the small man started edging toward the door in earnest. “Do you want me to stay until sunup? Just in case?”

“Good God, no!” I exclaimed. “I'm on holy ground. I'm as safe here as if I was in my mother's arms.”

“We've met your mother,” Ivy said lightly. “That doesn't instill any confidence.”

“What is this, pick-on-Rachel night?” I said, tired of it. “I can take care of myself.”

No one said anything, the silence broken by a stifled laugh from the rafters. I looked up, but the pixies had hidden themselves.

“Guess what she's doing tonight?” Jenks said, leaving me to escort a quickly retreating David and Howard to the door. “Making a list of people who want to kill her, followed by ways to detect demon summoning.”

“She told me.” David retied his coat closed and headed for the door. “Don't forget to put Nick on there.”

“Got him,” I said, flopping into my chair and scowling at Ivy. She chased David away almost every time. “Thanks, Jenks,” I shot at the pixy, but he wasn't listening as he opened the door for David and rose up out of the cold draft.

David turned at the threshold. Behind him, Howard was heading down the steps to an unfamiliar station wagon. Parked by the curb was David's gray sports car. “'Bye, Rachel,” David said, the light over the door
glinting on his black hair. “Call me tomorrow if I don't see you. Summoning demons usually results in a claim or two being filed. When I get back to the office, I'll see if anything unusual has come in.”

My eyebrows rose, and I made a mental note to add insurance claims to the list. David worked at one of the largest on-paper insurance companies in the United States and had access to just about everything, given time. Actually, maybe I'd call Glenn at the FIB to see if they had any complaints recently. They kept great records to compensate for their utter lack of Inderlander talents.

“Thanks, I'll do that,” I said as David followed his old partner out and shut the door.

Ivy frowned at the dark foyer, sipping her drink as one foot bobbed up and down. Seeing me track the motion, she forced it still. I jumped at the high-pitched burst of noise from my desk, eyes widening as four streaks of silver raced out from it and into the back of the church. A crash brought me around in my seat, and I wondered what had just fallen off the overhead rack in the kitchen.

And so it begins….

“Jack!” came Matalina's shrill cry, and she zipped out of the desk after them. Jenks intercepted her, and the two had a rapid high-pitched discussion in the hallway punctuated by bursts of ultrasonic sound that made my head hurt.

“Honey,” Jenks coaxed when she slowed enough that we could hear them again. “Boys will be boys. I'll talk to them and make them apologize.”

“What if they had done that when your cat came in!” she shrilled. “What then?”

“But they didn't,” he soothed. “They waited until she was secure.”

Hand shaking as she pointed to the back of the church, she took a breath to start in again, gulping it back when Jenks kissed her soundly, wrapping her slim form in his arms and body, their wings somehow not tangling as they hovered in the hallway.

“I'll take care of it, love,” he said when they parted, his emotion so earnest that I dropped my eyes, embarrassed. Matalina fled to the desk in
a dusting of mortified red, and after grinning at us in some masculine display of…masculinity, Jenks flew to the back of the church.

“Jack!” he shouted, the dust slipping from him a brilliant gold. “You know better than that. Get your brothers and get out here. If I have to dig you out, I'm going to clip your wings!”

“Huh.” Ivy's long fingers carefully picked up a cracker. “I'll have to try that.”

“What?” I asked, shifting to prop my clipboard up on my knees.

Ivy blinked slowly. “Kissing someone from agitation into bliss.”

Her smile widened to show a slip of teeth, and a sliver of ice dropped down my spine. Fear mixed with anticipation, as unstoppable as jerking my hand from a flame. And Ivy could sense it as easily as she could see my embarrassed flush.

Pulling herself upright, she stood. I blinked up at her as she stretched, and brushing past me in a wave of vampire incense, she headed for the door as the doorbell rang.

“I got it,” she said, her pace provocative. “David left his hat.”

My exhaled breath was slow and long. Damn it, I was
not
an adrenaline junkie. And Ivy knew we weren't going to shift our relationship in either direction. Still…the potential was there, and I hated that she could flip switches in me as easily as I could flip them in her. Just 'cause you
can
do something, doesn't mean you
should
, right?

Exasperated with myself, I grabbed the empty cracker plate and headed for the kitchen. Maybe I needed a midnight run myself to clear my head of all the vamp pheromones in there.

“Cat in the house!” came Ivy's call, and then a different voice filtered in, stopping me cold.

“Hi, I'm Marshal.”

If the mellow, attractive voice hadn't jerked me to a halt, the name would have, and I spun in the hallway.

“You must be Ivy,” the man added. “Is Rachel in?”

“Marshal?” I exclaimed as my thoughts realigned and I figured out who was standing in our threshold. “What are you doing here?” I added as I headed back.

He shrugged and smiled, and the cracker plate dangled from my hand as I pushed past a belligerent Ivy to give him a one-armed hug. Dropping back a step, I warmed, but damn, it was good to see him. I had felt really guilty watching him swim back to his boat last spring, having to go on hearsay that he made it back all right and that the Mackinaw Weres were leaving him alone. But not contacting him had been the best thing to ensure his anonymity and safety.

The tall, wide-shouldered man continued to grin. “Jenks left his hat on my boat,” he said, extending the red leather cap to me.

“You did not come all the way down here for that,” I said as I took it, then squinted at the dark shadow of an infant beard on him. “You've got hair! When did you get hair?”

Taking off his knitted cap, he ducked his head to show its fuzz. “Last week. I brought the boat in for the season, and when I'm not wearing a wet
suit, I can let it all grow back.” His brown eyes pinched in mock agony. “I itch like crazy. Everywhere.”

Ivy had moved back a step, and setting the cracker plate on the table beside the door, I took his arm and pulled him in. The scent of his short wool coat was strong, and I breathed it in, thinking I could smell gas fumes mixing with the strong redwood smell that meant witch. “Come on in,” I said, waiting for him to finish wiping his boots on the mat before he followed me into the sanctuary.

“Ivy, this is Marshal,” I said, seeing her with her arms crossed over her middle and David's hat in her grip. “The guy who got me out to the island at Mackinaw and let me run off with his diving gear. Remember?” It sounded stupid, but she hadn't said anything yet, and I was getting nervous.

Ivy's eye twitched. “Of course. But Jenks and I didn't see him at the high school pool when we returned his stuff, so I never met him. It's a pleasure.” Dropping David's hat on the small table beside the door, she extended her hand, and Marshal took it. He was still smiling, but it was growing thin.

“Well, this is it,” I said, gesturing to the sanctuary and the rest of the unseen church. “Proof that I'm not crazy. You want to sit down? You don't have to leave right away, do you? Jenks will want to say hi.” I was babbling, but Ivy wasn't being nice, and she'd already driven one man out of the church tonight.

“Sure. I can stay for a minute.” Marshal took his coat off as he followed me to the furniture clustered in the corner. I watched him take a deep breath of the chili-scented air, and I wondered if he'd stay if I asked. Plopping myself down in my chair, I gave him a once-over as Marshal eased his lean swimmer's body down to the edge of the couch. Clearly not yet ready to relax, the tall man sat on the edge with his arms flat on his legs.

Marshal was wearing jeans and a dark green pullover that had a backwoods look to it, the color going well with his honey-colored skin. He looked great sitting there, even if his eyebrows weren't grown in yet and
he'd nicked himself shaving. I remembered how utterly in control he had looked on his boat, dressed in a swimsuit and an unzipped red windbreaker that showed skin so smooth it glistened and beautiful, beautiful abs. God, he had had nice abs. Must be from all the swimming.

Suddenly shocked, I froze. Guilt turned my skin cold, and I settled into my chair, heartache riding high where enthusiasm had just flowed. I had loved Kisten. I
still
loved him. That I'd forgotten for even an instant was both a surprise and a pain. I'd been listening to Ivy and Jenks long enough to know this was part of my pattern of getting hurt and then finding someone to hide the pain with, but I wasn't going to be that person anymore. I couldn't afford to be. And if I saw it, I could stop it.

But it was really good to see Marshal. He was proof that I didn't kill everyone I came in contact with, and that was a welcome relief.

“Uh,” I stammered when I realized no one was talking. “I think my old boyfriend stole some of your gear before he went off the bridge. Sorry.”

Marshal's wandering attention lighted briefly on the bruise on my neck before rising to my eyes. I think he recognized something had shifted, but he wasn't going to ask. “The FIB found my stuff on the shore a week later. No problem.”

“I didn't have a clue he was going to do that,” I said. “I'm really sorry.”

He smiled faintly. “I know. I saw the news. You look good in cuffs.”

Ivy leaned against the wall by the hallway where she could see both of us. She looked left out, but that was her own fault. She could sit down and join us. I flashed her a glance, which she ignored, then turned to Marshal. “You didn't really drive all the way down here to give Jenks his hat, did you?”

“No…” Marshal dropped his head. “I'm here for an interview at the university, and I wanted to see if you were jerking me around or if you really did have a job where you thought you could take on an entire Were pack alone.”

“I wasn't alone,” I said, flustered. “Jenks was with me.”

Ivy uncrossed her ankles and pushed herself away from the wall an
instant before Jenks zipped in, wings clattering. “Marshal!” the exuberant pixy shouted, dust slipping from him to make a sunbeam on the floor. “Holy crap! What the hell are you doing here?”

Marshal's jaw dropped. For an instant, I thought he was going to stand up, but then he fell all the way back into the couch. “Jenks?” He stammered. His eyes were wide as he looked at me and I nodded. “I thought you were kidding about him being a pixy.”

“Nope,” I said, enjoying Marshal's disbelief.

“What you doin' here, old dog!” the pixy said, darting from one side of him to the other.

Marshal gestured helplessly. “I don't know what to do. You were six feet tall the last time I saw you. I can't shake your hand.”

“Just stick your hand out,” Ivy said dryly. “Let him land on it.”

“Anything to get him to stop
flying around
,” I said loudly, and Jenks settled on the table, his wings going so fast I could feel a draft.

“It's great to see you!” Jenks said again, making me wonder just why we were so glad to see Marshal. Maybe it was because he had helped us when we really needed it at great risk to himself when he owed us nothing. “Crap on my daisies,” Jenks said, rising up and settling back down. “Ivy, you should have seen his face when Rachel told him we were going to rescue her ex-boyfriend from an island full of militant Weres. I still can't believe he did it.”

Marshal smiled. “Neither can I. She looked like she could use some help was all.”

Ivy made a questioning face at me, and I shrugged. Okay, seeing me in a tight rubber suit might have swayed his decision, but it wasn't as if I had dressed up to romance help out of him.

Marshal's eyes darted to Ivy when she pushed herself into motion. Sleek and predatory, she eased onto the couch beside him, angling herself so her back was to the armrest, one knee pulled up to her chin, the other draped over the edge of the couch. Her magazine slid to the floor when she bumped it, and she pointedly set it on the table between us with the headlines showing. She was acting like a jealous girlfriend, and I didn't like it.

“Huh,” Jenks said, a smile on him as he looked at me sitting with my hands clasped primly in my lap and that unusual amount of space between Marshal and myself. “I guess you can teach a young witch new tricks.”

“Jenks!” I exclaimed, knowing he was talking about me distancing myself from Marshal, but the poor witch didn't have a clue.
Thank God.
Incensed, I made a snatch for the pixy, and the laughing four-inch man settled himself on Marshal's shoulder. Marshal stiffened but didn't move but for tilting his head and trying to see Jenks.

“You said you were here for an interview?” Ivy said pleasantly, but I didn't trust her mood as far as I could throw her. Which was about three feet on a good day.

Moving carefully as if Jenks might leave, Marshal eased into the cushions and away from her. “At the university,” he said, showing signs of nervousness.

“What's the job?” Ivy questioned, and I could almost hear her think “Janitor?” Though not saying one cross word, she wasn't being nice, like I'd asked him to come over to betray Kisten's memory.

Marshal must have picked up on it, too, for he shifted his wide shoulders and tilted his head to crack his neck, clearly a nervous tick. “I'd be coaching the swim team, but once I'm on the payroll, I can put in for a real teaching position.”

“Teaching what?” Jenks asked suspiciously.

At that, Marshal smiled. “Minor ley line manipulations. More of a high school course than anything else. A primer to bring deficient students up for the hundred-level classes.”

Clearly Ivy wasn't impressed. But she probably didn't know that he had to be at a four-hundred level to instruct anyone in anything. I had no idea where my ley line proficiency put me, seeing as I was picking it up as I went along, learning what I had to when I needed it, not what was safe or prudent in a steady, progressive pace.

“Cincinnati doesn't have a swim team,” Ivy said. “Sounds like quite a job to build one.”

Marshal's head bobbed, and the stubble on it caught the light. “It will
be. Normally I wouldn't even try for the position, but I earned my bachelor's here, and coming back feels right.”

“Hey!” Jenks exclaimed, and I shivered in the draft from his wings. “You're a Cincy boy! What year did you graduate?”

“Class of 2001,” he said proudly.

“Holy crap, you're almost thirty?” the pixy said. “Damn, you look good!”

“Almost? No, I'm past it,” he said, clearly unwilling to divulge just how much. But since he was a witch, it didn't really matter. “It's the swimming,” he said softly, then looked at Ivy as if he knew she was going to look up his records. “I majored in business management, and I used my degree to start Marshal's Mackinaw Wrecks.” Disappointment flickered over him. “But that's not going to work anymore, so here I am.”

“Too cold?” Jenks said, either ignoring that we were likely the reason it wasn't working anymore or trying to make light of it. “God, I froze my nuggie plums off in that water.”

I winced, thinking Jenks's mouth was getting steadily worse. Almost as if he had to prove he was a man in front of Marshal, and the way to do it was to be as raunchy as he could. But I had heard the hint of blame in Marshal's words.

“The Mackinaw Weres found out you had something to do with me getting onto the island, didn't they,” I said, knowing I was right when he looked at his water-stained yellow leather boots.
Shit.
“I'm sorry, Marshal,” I said, wishing now I'd just knocked him on his head and stolen his stuff. At least he'd still have his business. I'd done the right thing, and it had hurt him in the long run. Where was the justice in that?

His smile was tight when he pulled his head up, and even Ivy looked apologetic. “Don't worry about it,” he said. “I didn't lose anything that mattered in the fire.”

“Fire?” I whispered, appalled, and he nodded.

“It was time for me to come back,” he said, one shoulder rising in a shrug. “I only started the diving business so I could build the capital to get my master's.”

Ivy's fingers, drumming on the couch, went still. “You're finishing your degree?”

Saying nothing, Marshal ran his gaze over her as if estimating how great a threat she was and nodded. “Hey, I have to go. I've got a couple of apartments I'm looking at tonight, and if I don't show on time, the Realtor will probably figure it was a Halloween prank and leave.”

He stood, and I found myself rising as well. Jenks darted into the air, grumbling about not having anything comfortable to put his ass on in the entire church before he landed on my shoulder. I wanted to go with Marshal so the Realtor wouldn't convince him to take a rattrap that would be noisy with humans after sunup, but he probably knew Cincinnati as well as I did. Not much changed fast, despite the size of the city. Besides, I didn't want to give him the wrong idea.

Ivy stood as Marshal shrugged into his coat. “Nice to meet you, Marshal,” she said, then turned her back on him as she walked out. Five seconds later, I heard her taking the lid off the slow cooker, and a new wave of tomato, beans, and spices wafted out.

“Can you stay for dinner?” I found myself asking, not knowing why, except that he had helped Jenks and me, and I owed him. “We actually cooked tonight. Chili.”

Marshal's eyes went to the top of the dark hallway. “No, but thank you. I'm having dinner with a couple of guys from school. I just wanted to bring Jenks his hat and say hi.”

“Oh, okay.” Of course he'd have friends here. I was being stupid.

I followed him to the door to see him out, my eyes landing on Jenks's leather cap, back after months of being with Marshal. I was glad to see him, and I wished he could stay, but it was tinged with depression from the guilt that I even wanted him to.

Glowing a hot gold, Jenks hovered at eye-height beside Marshal as I reached to open the door. “It's good to see you, Marsh-man,” he said. “If it was warmer, I'd show you my stump.”

The way he said it almost sounded like a threat, and I could see Marshal thinking about it as he slowly buttoned his coat, probably trying to
decide if he was serious or not. I wanted to talk to Marshal alone for a moment, but Jenks wasn't leaving.

Jenks suddenly noticed that neither of us was talking, and when I made a face at him, he dropped in height. “If you want me to go, you just have to say so,” he said sullenly, then darted off to leave a fading sprinkling of pixy dust to glow on the floor for a moment. My blood pressure dropped, and I smiled at Marshal.