Black Magic Sanction (25 page)

"Garage," I corrected him, and he softly repeated the word, brow furrowed.

Nick's steps were soundless as he reached the top. A building-long hallway stretched with doors on one side, windows on the other. It looked like it had once been an open balcony looking out onto the side street, long since bricked up to give some protection from the elements.

"It's the one at the end," Nick said, seeming as eager as us to avoid any more encounters.

Someone was yelling at someone about their choice of TV and eating all the yogurt as Nick hustled down the hall, me trailing behind with my sore knees, looking out to the blah brown building across the street in the cold spring sun. I felt a tweak on my awareness, and I wasn't surprised when Pierce shuddered, and I looked to see him like himself again. Even his fingers were different. Not so thick, smaller, more dexterous.

Nick stopped at the last door, doing a double take as he saw Pierce. "That's a good one," he said as he fished out a second key. "I'd never have known it was you if you hadn't been sitting next to Rachel. Demon magic? Must have cost a lot."

Pierce shrugged, eyes on the brown building across the street. "Someone died for it. And this is the disguise, sir."

Nick hesitated with the key in the door, clearly having second thoughts.

"Thanks for letting us crash at your place," I said, not wanting to have to go back downstairs and grab a bus. "I'm amazed you found us, with me looking like an old lady."

His expression softening, Nick twisted the key and unlocked the door. "Remember the library? When we broke in to see the restricted section? You were wearing the same thing."

I laughed, but Pierce was appalled. "You are a hoister, Rachel? Lifting books from a... public institution?"

My smile grew fond. "I just wanted to see them. I didn't walk off with anything."
Nick had, though.
Slowly my smile faded. That had been the night I'd met Al. He'd torn my throat out at the request of Ivy's old master vampire. I'd survived, obviously, but that was the beginning of everything that put me here, shunned and beholden to the very demon who'd tried to kill me. "I needed a look at the spell books," I finished softly.

"Then why didn't you simply ask?" Pierce asked. "Surely if you had impressed upon the librarian your plight, he would have allowed you
access."

"They wouldn't have made an exception," I said sadly, knowing I was right. "People just aren't that way anymore."

Good mood thoroughly gone, I entered Nick's apartment. As I crossed the threshold into the one large room, I rubbed at the demon mark I'd gotten that night, wondering if that one decision could be responsible for the entire rest of my life. Why Pierce was scowling, I hadn't a clue. It couldn't be Nick's place. It was nice. Really nice. In-any-neighborhood nice.

It was a corner apartment with windows on two sides and a rack of plants under a skylight in the kitchen. Jax was dusting heavily among the greenery already, and the place smelled like a conservatory: green and growing. The kitchen was faded, small, and clean.

"Make yourself at home," Nick said as he dropped the single key conspicuously on the Formica kitchen table and sat down to take off his tatty sneakers.

I came farther in as Pierce shut the door, his flat black shoes making a slow turn on the low carpet. It was all one big room, with trifold screens to loosely define areas. Shelves lined the walls between the windows, each holding stuff that I'd classify as knickknacks if I hadn't known they were probably priceless. Some had spotlights. It reminded me of a museum, and I couldn't help but wonder if Nick had had this place before we broke up.

The living room was a couch before a wide-screen TV bolted to the wall, out of view from the windows thanks to the screens. Beside it in the corner—also out of sight—was a stack of expensive equipment, everything black and silver and piled as if they were worth nothing, but
nothing
was likely what he'd paid for them. The last corner between two windows had a gray slab of slate propped two feet up on cinderblocks, probably to get the underside of a circle free of pipes or lines. Beside the raised stone was a locked box. It had demon summoning all over it, and I think Pierce had come to the same conclusion, since his lips were pressed tight in disapproval.

But it's okay for you to do black magic, eh?

"This is nice," I said as I dropped my bag on the couch. The fabric was faded, and I sat gingerly on the edge and wiggled out of my coat, leaving it to slump behind me. It was warm in here, for Jax, and the windows dripped condensation.

Nick looked satisfied as he came out from the fridge with a bottled water. "Pierce, you want a beer?" he said as he threw it to me.

The water thunked into my raised hand, and I set it on the coffee table unopened, thoughts of Alcatraz's spice drifting through my head.

Pierce didn't look away from a rack of leather books, his hands behind his back as he squinted at the titles. They were regular spell books, then. Demon texts had no names. "No. I'm of the mind to remain clearheaded," he said, his voice flat.

Deciding that Nick wouldn't magic my drink, I cracked the lid and took a sip. My gaze landed on a statue of an Incan god, and I moseyed over to the ugly thing. "Is this real?"

Nick leaned against the counter with his ankles crossed. "Depends on who you ask."

Depends on who you ask,
I mocked in my thoughts. Stupid ass.

Pierce's hands came out from behind him to touch a long, curved knife resting on a wooden stand before the leather-bound books. It was almost a dagger, really. "This is real," he said, turning it over and examining the detail on the engraving.

"Is it?" Carefully casual, Nick pushed himself into motion, beating me to Pierce and taking the knife from him. "I found it at an estate sale," he said as we peered at it, the lie coming so easily it was disgusting. "The woman said it belonged to a sea captain who refused to sail back to England. I thought it was pretty. Someday, I'll find out what the words on the handle mean." Setting it on a higher shelf over our heads, he put his beer on the coffee table and moved to the bedroom, defined by a large folding screen.

The words on the handle were in Latin, and though I hadn't been able to read them, I think Pierce had by his grim expression.

Tired, I turned to the big TV affixed to the wall. "I'd think you'd be worried about thieves," I said, looking at the equipment piled under it. I didn't see any security system, and though Jax was better than any detection setup known to man or witch, he wasn't here 24/7.

"Not since the first one had a heart attack in the hall, no," Nick said, and I turned to see him bring a shirt out of his dresser and drop it on the bed.

From the far corner by the kitchen, Jax piped up, "He walked right into the ward, bam! It took three days for the stink of burnt hair to go away. Annie was pissed."

Feeling ill, I sat on the couch with my back to him. That's why Jax had gone ahead of us. Bringing my focus back, I casually brought out my big-mojo amulet, glowing a very faint, almost-not-there red. Whatever safeguards Nick had, they were nasty even when uninvoked. "Got yourself a rep, eh?" I needled Nick, watching his reflection in the blank TV as Pierce tried to figure out the blinds.

Nick took his shirt off in one easy move. "Not as bad as yours."

Pierce's eyes snapped in ire, but the words never made it past his lips when he saw Nick's battered and scarred body. I'd forgotten, but Nick was covered in scars; the deep gouges never properly taken care of had mellowed to lumpy white scar tissue, crisscrossing his chest and shoulders in a bizarre pattern. Most had probably come from the rat fights where we'd met. Even more disturbing was the new demon scar with two slashes on his shoulder. Nick's gaze flicked away when he realized I'd seen it. Motions fast, he put on a lightweight T-shirt.

Peeved, I crossed my arms and sank back into the cushions to stare at the black TV. An uncomfortable silence grew, broken only by Jax's wings. In the almost-mirror of the TV, I watched Nick sit on the edge of the bed to pull a pair of stained blue overalls over his pants. I wondered if it was the same pair he'd used when he had helped me break into Trent's grounds. Maybe I was as bad as he was.

"Bathroom is behind the kitchen," Nick said as he stood and adjusted the straps about his shoulders. "I've got extra blankets under the bed if you're cold or on the off chance you're not sleeping together and one of you wants the couch."

Lips parting, I turned to give him an ugly look. Pierce's attention lifted from a rack of preindustrial buttons, his stance stiffening as he eyed Nick from under his loose black curls. "Rachel is a lady, sir, not an adventuress. If I was not obliged to abide by good manners for the turn you gave us, I'd be of a mind to settle this off the reel directly."

Nick said nothing, no emotion at all. Not watching his hands, he opened his top drawer and raked his arm across his dresser to dump everything in. Turning, he pulled something from his coat, on the bed, and dropped it in there, too, hiding what it was with his body. "Rachel isn't a lady," he said as he shut the drawer with a bang. "She's a witch, rhymes with bitch, randy and ready. Rachel, how many men have you slept with? A dozen? Two?"

"Nick!" I protested as I stood, first flustered, then alarmed when Pierce headed for him. "Pierce, don't!" I shouted as I got between them, my splayed fingers on his chest and stiff arm stopping him dead in his tracks. I felt a jump in energy between us, and he reddened, backing out of my reach with his eyes down and his jaw clenched.

"This coming from a man who lives in a house of assignation?" Pierce muttered.

Stiff, Nick crossed to the kitchen to put his shoes on again. I was about ready to smack Nick myself, but it wouldn't do anyone any good.

"What Rachel does is no one's funeral," Pierce said. "I'll allow it takes a coward to invite a woman to his diggings only to cast doubt upon her standing. Apologize at once."

Nick's foot thumped down as he slipped his second sneaker on. "I'll apologize if it's not true. Rachel? How about it?"

I couldn't say anything, staring at him with my arms over my middle.
Why is he doing this? To hurt me?
It was working, and finally Nick turned away.

"I have to go to work," he said, grabbing a torn coat from the hook beside the door. "There are eggs in the fridge, and some apples. Help yourself.
I'll bring something back about six. If you leave and arent coming
back, lock the door. Jax can get me in."

My jaw clenched. He was goading me into leaving, hoping pride would rob me of a good day's sleep and a chance to shower. "Thanks, Nick," I said dryly. "I appreciate this."
Bastard.

Pierce was stiff, and Nick's eyes flicked to him before he opened the door. A faint argument filtered in, and Jax flew out, green sparkles of discontent slipping from him. "I'm not a monster, Rachel," Nick said, hand on the door and feet in the threshold. "You loved me once."

The door shut, and I found myself shaking. "Yeah, well, we all make mistakes," I whispered. I wouldn't feel guilty. Nick had lied to me. Kept secrets from me. Still did.

Pierce cleared his throat, and I went warm, probably as red as my hair. Taking a deep breath, I turned. "Pierce," I said, wanting to explain, but he held up a hand.

"What a spit-licked son of a bitch," he said, shocking the hell out of me. Steps slow, he went to the couch and sat, his long coat falling open and his elbows on his knees. His hat he dropped on the table. For a moment, he was silent, then, "You sparked with him when you were younger?"

I didn't know if sparking meant dating or sex, but it didn't matter. Uneasy, I sat on the other end of the couch with lots of space between us. I felt like a whore, and mirroring him with my elbows on my knees, I took a drink of water and swung the bottle between my knees. I wasn't trying to impress Pierce, but who wants to be thought of as a whore?

"Yes," I said, not looking up. "A couple of years ago. I got my first demon mark because of him. I didn't know he was a thief at the time." I looked at Pierce, seeing his gaze lost in thought. "Or maybe I did and I was ignoring it. I've got a problem with bad men."

Pierce's focus sharpened, and when our eyes met, he looked away. He may as well have it all. "Nick's right, though," I admitted, watching the water swinging in my grip. "I'm not a particularly chaste woman. Compared to the women of your time, I'm probably a whore."

"You're not," Pierce protested a little too stridently, and I set the bottle down beside Nick's beer, wanting that instead. God, I was tired. And my knees were throbbing.

"I swear, and cuss," I said, giving in and taking a swig of the beer. The bitter taste tightened the back of my mouth but it was marvelously cold. "I don't take slights politely but tell people to kiss off." Ticked, I set the bottle down hard. "And I like beer."

"I opine—I think you're a woman of your world," he said from the far end of the couch. "I would have a hard time seeing you pressed and powdered, dreading a life of servitude under the name of marriage. You'd die in that mold. I like you as you are, fiery and ill tempered."

Silent, I looked at him, not knowing if he really believed it or was being polite.

My face must have given me away, because Pierce reached for me. Moving fast, I stood up, out of his reach. I went to the window to close the floor-to-ceiling blinds with fast, abrupt motions, careful to never get directly in an outsider's view. The room darkened but for the light from the skylights. Pierce never said a word.

The last blind shut, I turned, freezing when I found him right behind me. "Ah, you want the bed or the couch?" I asked, even more uncomfortable. I mean, I'd seen him look at me with abhorrence for breaking into the library. His disgust that I'd slept with Nick, slimeball and thief, had been obvious. Sure, he had started this grand adventure as a way to get out from under Al's thumb, but he knew that I was shunned, tied to demons more than my own kind. He was a demon killer—or wanted to be—and I was the student of one.

Then again, we were both dirty. His very existence hinged on Tom's untimely death and a black curse. And when the memory of him standing at my door with his hands dripping black power sifted through my mind—I shivered.