Every Which Way But Dead (14 page)

He gurgled again, and my anger started to slow. Ivy was staring at him with a shocking intensity. The scent of his fear had tripped her past her limits. She was vamping out at noon. This wasn't good, and I took a step back, suddenly sobered. “Um, Ivy?” I said.

“I'm okay,” she said huskily, her eyes saying different. “Want me to bleed him quiet?”

“No!” I exclaimed, and I felt another drop in me. Quen was tapping a line. I took an alarmed breath. Things were spiraling out of control. Someone was going to get hurt. I could set a circle, but it would be around me, not him. “Drop him!” I demanded. “Jenks, you too!” Neither of them moved. “Now!”

Shoving him up the wall, Ivy dropped him and stepped away. He hit the floor in a slump, his hand at his neck as he coughed violently. Slowly he moved his legs into a normal position. Flipping his very black hair from his eyes, he looked up, sitting cross-legged and barefoot. “Morgan,” he said roughly, his hand hiding his throat, “I need your help.”

I glanced at Ivy, who was tightening her black silk robe about herself again.
He needed my help? Ri-i-i-i-ight.
“You okay?” I asked Ivy, and she nodded. The ring of brown left to her eyes was too thin for my comfort, but the sun was high, and the tension in the room was easing. Seeing my concern, she pressed her lips together.

“I'm fine,” she reiterated. “You want me to call the I.S. now or after I kill him?”

My gaze ran over the kitchen. My cookies were ruined, sitting in soggy clumps. The globs of frosting on the walls were starting to run. Saltwater was venturing out of the kitchen, threatening to reach the living room rug. Letting Ivy kill him was looking really good.

“I want to hear what he has to say,” I said as I slid open a drawer and put three dish towels in the threshold as a dike. Jenks's kids were peeking around the corner at us. The angry pixy rubbed his wings together to make a piercing whistle, and they vanished in a trill of sound.

Taking a fourth towel, I wiped the frosting off my elbow and went to stand before Quen. Feet spread wide and my fists on my hips, I waited. It must have been big if he was willing to risk Jenks figuring out he was an elf. My thoughts went to Ceri across the street, and my worry grew. I wasn't going to let Trent know she existed. He would use her some way—some very ugly way.

The elf felt his ribs through his black shirt. “I think you cracked them,” he said.

“Did I pass?” I said snidely.

“No. But you're the best I've got.”

Ivy made a sound of disbelief, and Jenks dropped down before him, staying carefully out of his reach. “You ass,” the four-inch man swore. “We could have killed you three times over.”

Quen frowned at him. “We. It was
her
I was interested in. Not
we.
She failed.”

“So I guess that means you'll be leaving,” I said, knowing I wouldn't be that lucky. I took in his subdued attire and sighed. It was just after noon. Elves slept when the sun was high and in the middle of the night, just like pixies. Quen was here without Trent's knowledge.

Feeling more sure of myself, I pulled out a chair and sat down before Quen could see my legs trembling. “Trent doesn't know you're here,” I said, and he nodded solemnly.

“It's my problem, not his,” Quen said. “I'm paying you, not him.”

I blinked, trying to disguise my unease. Trent didn't know. Interesting. “You have a job for me that he doesn't know about,” I said. “What is it?”

Quen's gaze went to Ivy and Jenks.

Peeved, I crossed my legs and shook my head. “We're a team. I'm not asking them to leave so you can tell me of whatever piss-poor problem you've landed yourself in.”

The older elf's brow wrinkled. He took an angry breath.

“Look,” I said, my finger jabbing out to point at him. “I don't like you. Jenks doesn't like you. And Ivy wants to eat you. Start talking.”

He went motionless. It was then I saw his desperation, shimmering behind his eyes like light on water. “I have a problem,” he said, fear the thinnest ribbon in his low, controlled voice.

I glanced at Ivy. Her breath had quickened and she stood with her arms wrapped about herself, holding her robe closed. She looked upset, her pale face even more white than usual.

“Mr. Kalamack is going to a social gathering and—”

My lips pursed. “I already turned down one whoring offer today.”

Quen's eyes flashed. “Shut up,” he said coldly. “Someone is interfering in Mr. Kalamack's secondary business ventures. The meeting is to try to come to a mutual understanding. I want you to be there to be sure that's all it is.”

Mutual understanding? It was an I'm-tougher-than-you-so-get-out-of-my-city party. “Saladan?” I guessed.

Genuine surprise washed over him. “You know him?”

Jenks was flitting over Quen, trying to figure out what he was. The pixy was getting more and more frustrated, his shifts of direction becoming jerky and accented with sharp snaps of his dragonfly wings. “I've heard of him,” I said, thinking of Takata. My eyes narrowed. “Why should I care if he assumes Trent's
secondary
business ventures? This is about Brimstone, isn't it?” I said. “Well, you can take a leap of faith and burn in hell. Trent is killing people, not that he hasn't done it before, but now he's killing them for no reason.” Outrage pulled me to my feet. “Your boss is moth crap. I ought to bring him in, not protect him. And you,” I said, louder, pointing, “are lower than moth crap for doing nothing while he does it!”

Quen flushed, making me feel vastly better about myself. “Are you that stupid?” he said, and I stiffened. “The bad Brimstone isn't from Mr. Kalamack; it's from Saladan. That's what this meeting is about. Mr. Kalamack is trying to get it off the streets, and unless you want Saladan taking over the city, you'd better start trying to keep Mr. Kalamack alive like the rest of us. Are you going to take the run or not? It pays ten thousand.”

From Jenks came an eyeball-hurting pulse of ultrasonic surprise.

“Cash up front,” Quen added, pulling a narrow wad of bills from somewhere on his person and throwing it at my feet.

I looked at the money. It wasn't enough. A million dollars wouldn't be enough. I shifted my foot, and it slid across the wet floor to Quen. “No.”

“Take the money and let him die, Rache,” Jenks said from the sun-strewn windowsill.

The black-clad elf smiled. “That's not how Ms. Morgan works.” His pockmarked face was confident, and I hated the self-assured look in his green eyes. “If she takes the money, she'll protect Mr. Kalamack down to her last breath. Won't you?”

“No,” I said, knowing I would. But I wasn't going to take his lousy ten grand.

“And you will take the money and the job,” Quen said, “because if you don't, I'm going to tell the world about your summers at that little camp of his father's. You're the only person who has a ghost's chance in hell to keep him alive.”

My face went cold. “Bastard,” I whispered, refusing to feel afraid. “Why don't you just leave me alone? Why me? You just smeared me into the floor.”

His eyes dropped from mine. “There will be vampires there,” he said softly. “Powerful ones. There's the chance—” He took a breath and met my eyes. “I don't know if—”

I shook my head, somewhat reassured. Quen wouldn't tell. Trent would be mildly ticked if I was packed up and shipped off to Antarctica; he still had hopes of luring me to his payroll himself. “If you're afraid of vampires, that's your problem,” I said. “I'm not going to let you make it mine. Ivy, get him out of my kitchen.”

She didn't move, and I turned, my ire evaporating at the blank look on her face. “He's been bitten,” she whispered, the wistful faltering in her voice shocking me. Hunched into herself, she leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes, and took a slow breath to scent him.

My lips parted in understanding. Piscary had bitten him, right before I clubbed the undead vampire into unconsciousness. Quen was an Inderlander, and so couldn't contract the vamp virus and be turned, but he might be mentally bound to the master vampire. I found my hand covering my neck, my face cold.

Big Al had taken the form and abilities of a vampire when he had torn open my neck and tried to kill me. He had filled my veins with the same potent cocktail of neurotransmitters that now ran through Quen. It was a survival trait to help ensure that vamps had a willing blood supply, and it turned pain into pleasure when stimulated by vampire pheromones. If the vamp had enough experience, they could sensitize the response such that they, and only they, could stimulate the bite into feeling good, binding the person to them alone and preventing easy poaching of their private supply.

Algaliarept hadn't bothered to sensitize the neurotransmitters—seeing as he was trying to kill me. I was left with a scar that any vamp could play on. I didn't belong to anyone, and as long as I kept vampire teeth on the right side of my skin, I wouldn't. In the ranking of the vampire world, an unbound bitee was the lowest of the low, a party favor, a pathetic remnant that was so beneath notice that any vampire could take what they wanted. Unclaimed property didn't last long, passed from vamp to vamp, soon drained of their vitality and will, left to rot in a confused loneliness of betrayal when the ugliness of their life started to show on their face. I'd be among their ranks if it wasn't for Ivy's protection.

And Quen had either been bitten and left unclaimed like me, or bitten and claimed by Piscary. As I stared in pity at the man, I decided he had a right to be afraid.

Seeing my understanding, Quen rose smoothly to his feet. Ivy tensed, and I raised my hand to tell her it was all right. “I don't know if the bite has bound me to him or not,” Quen said, the evenness of his voice failing to hide the fear in him. “I can't risk Mr. Kalamack relying on me. I might…be distracted at a sensitive moment.”

Waves of bliss and promises of pleasure coming from that bite might indeed be a large distraction, even in the midst of a fight. Pity pulled me forward. Tracks of sweat marred his lightly wrinkled face. He was as old as my father would be if he were still alive, with the strength of a twenty-year-old and the sturdiness only maturity imparted.

“Has any other vamp made your scar tingle?” I asked him, thinking it was a really personal question, but he had come to me.

Never dropping my gaze, he said, “I've yet to get into a situation where it might.”

“Rache?” Jenks called, and there was a clatter of wings as he dropped to hover beside me.

“Then I don't know if Piscary bound you or not,” I said, then froze as I realized my scar was tingling, sending hints of deeper feelings to bring me to a wide-eyed alertness. Quen stiffened. Our eyes met, and I knew by his frightened look that he was feeling it too.

“Rache!” Jenks shouted, his wings red as he got in my face and forced me to back up. “Quen isn't the only one with a problem here!”

I followed his frightened gaze behind me to Ivy. “Oh…crap,” I whispered.

Ivy had pressed herself into a corner, her robe falling open to show her black silk nightgown. Her awareness was lost, black eyes unseeing as her mouth worked. I froze, not knowing what was going on.

“Get him out of here,” she whispered, a bead of saliva dropping from her teeth. “Oh, God, Rachel. He's not bound to anyone. Piscary…He's in my head.” She took a gasping breath. “He wants me to take him. I don't know if I can stop. Get Quen out of here!”

I stared, not knowing what to do.

“Get him out of my head!” she moaned. “Get him out!” Horrified, I watched her slide down the wall to huddle with her hands over her ears. “Get him out!”

Heart pounding, I spun to Quen. My neck was a flaming mass of promise. I could see by his expression that his scar was alight and flaming. God help me, it felt good.

“Get the door,” I said to Jenks. Grabbing Quen's arm, I pulled him into the hallway. From behind us came a frightening guttural groan. I broke into a run, dragging Quen behind me. Quen stiffened when we entered the sanctuary, breaking my hold.

“You're leaving!” I shouted, reaching for him. “Now!”

He was hunched and trembling, making the martial arts master look vulnerable. Lines from his internal struggle showed on his face. His eyes showed his broken spirit. “You will accompany Mr. Kalamack in my place,” he said, his voice haggard.

“No, I won't.” I reached for his arm.

Flashing alive, he sprang back. “You will accompany Mr. Kalamack in my place,” he repeated, his face falling back into despair. “Or I will give in and go back into that kitchen.” His face twisted, and I panicked that he might anyway. “He's whispering to me, Morgan. I can hear him through her….”

My mouth went dry. My thoughts spiraled to Kisten. If I let him bind me to him, I could end up like this. “Why me?” I asked. “There's a university of people better at magic than I am.”

“Everyone else relies on their magic,” he panted, bent almost double. “You use it as a last resort. It gives you…the advantage.” He gasped. “She's weakening. I can feel it.”

“Okay!” I exclaimed. “I'll go, damn it! Just get out of here!”

A sound of agony, soft as a brush of wind, slipped from him. “Help me,” he whispered. “I can't make myself move anymore.”

Heart pounding, I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the door. Behind us was Ivy's tortured cry of anguish. My stomach twisted. What was I doing, going on a date with Kisten?

A bright stab of snow-reflected light lanced into the church as Jenks and his brood worked the elaborate pulley system we had rigged so they could open the door. Quen balked at the cold blast of air that sent the pixies hiding. “Get out!” I exclaimed in frustration and fear as I pulled him out onto the stoop.