For a Few Demons More (5 page)

My stomach clenched when she added softly, “How much to do just the bedrooms?”

I looked at Jenks, guilt rising thick in me. Maybe we could get the city to defray the cost if we refiled as a city shelter. It wasn't as if we could ask the landlord to fix it. Piscary owned the church, and though Ivy had dropped the facade of paying rent to the master vampire she looked to, we were responsible for the upkeep. It was like living rent free in your parents' house when they were on an extended vacation—vacation being jail in this case, thanks to me. It was an ugly story, but at least I hadn't killed him…uh, for good.

Ivy's sigh was audible over the sound of my work. “Can you get out here before tonight?” she asked, making me feel marginally better.

I didn't hear the answer to that, but there was no more conversation forthcoming, and I focused on rubbing out the smears, moving clockwise as I went. Jenks watched for a moment from the rim of the bucket, then said, “You look like a porno star on your hands and knees, mopping in your underwear. Push it, baby,” he moaned. “Push it!”

I glanced up to find him making rude motions.
Doesn't he have anything better to do?
But I knew he was trying to cheer me up—least that's what I was telling myself.

As his wings turned red from laughter, I jerked my robe closed and sat back on my knees before I blew a shoulder-length red curl from my face. Taking a swing at his smirk would be useless—he had gotten really fast since his stint under a demon curse that made him people-size. And turning my back to him would be worse.

“Could you straighten my desk for me?” I asked, allowing a touch of annoyance into my voice. “Your cat dumped my papers.”

“You bet,” he said, zipping off. Immediately I felt my blood pressure drop.

Ivy's soft steps intruded, and Jenks cussed fluently at her when she pulled the papers off the floor and set them on the desktop for him. Politely telling him to shove a slug up his ass, she strode past me to her piano, a spray bottle in one hand and a chamois cloth in the other.

“Someone's coming out this morning,” she said, starting to clean Ceri's blood from the varnished wood. Old blood didn't flip any switches in living vamps—not like the chance to take it did. “They're going to give us an estimate, and if our credit checks out, they'll do the entire church. You want to pay the extra five thousand to insure it?”

Five thousand to insure it? Holy crap. How much was this going to cost?
Uneasy, I sat back up on my heels and dunked the brush. My rolled-up sleeve slipped, soaking in an instant. From my desk Jenks called out, “Go for it, Rache. It says here you won a million dollars.”

I glanced behind me to find him manhandling my mail. Irritated, I dropped the brush and squeezed the water from my robe. “Can we find out how much it's going to cost first?” I asked, and she nodded, giving her piano a heavy coat of whatever was in that unlabeled spray bottle. It evaporated quickly, and she wiped it to a shine.

“Here,” she said, setting the bottle down beside the bucket. “It will get rid of the—” Her words stopped. “Just wipe the floor with it,” she added, and my eyebrows rose.

“Oka-a-ay.” I bent back over the floor, hesitating at the circle Ceri had scribed to call Minias, then smeared it to nothing. Ceri could help me make a new one, and I wasn't going to have demonic blood circles on the floor of my church.

“Hey, Ivy,” Jenks called. “You want to keep this?”

She rocked into motion, and I shifted to keep her in my view. Jenks had a coupon for pizza, and I smirked.
Right. Like she would even
consider
ordering anything but Piscary's Pizza.

“What else does she have in here?” Ivy said, throwing it away. I turned my back on them, knowing that the chaos I kept my desk in drove Ivy insane. She'd probably take the opportunity to tidy it. God, I'd never be able to find a thing.

“Spell-of-the-Month Club…toss,” Jenks said, and I heard it thunk into the trash can. “Free issue of
Witch Weekly
…toss. Credit check…toss. Crap, Rachel. Don't you throw anything away?”

I ignored him, having only a small arc to finish.
Wax on, wax off.
My arm was hurting.

“The zoo wants to know if you want to renew your off-hours runner's pass.”

“Save that!” I said.

Jenks whistled long and low, and I wondered what they had found now.

“An invitation to Ellasbeth Withon's wedding?” Ivy drawled in question.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

“Tink knocks your kickers,” Jenks exclaimed, and I sat back on my heels. “Rachel!” he called, hovering over the invitation that had probably cost more than my last dinner out. “When did you get an invitation from Trent? For his wedding?”

“I don't remember.” I dunked the brush and started in again, but the hush of linen against paper brought me upright. “Hey!” I protested, wiping my hands dry on my robe to make the tie come undone. “You can't do that. It's illegal to open mail not addressed to you.”

Jenks had landed on Ivy's shoulder, and they each gave me a long look over the invitation in her grip. “The seal was broken,” Ivy said, shaking to the floor the stupid little white tissue paper I had carefully replaced.

Trent Kalamack was the bane of my existence, one of Cincinnati's most beloved councilmen, and the Northern Hemisphere's most eligible bachelor. No one seemed to care he ran half of the city's underworld and worked a good slice of the world's illegal Brimstone trade. That wasn't even considering his punishable-by-death dealings in genetic manipulation and outlawed medicines.
My
being alive because of them was a big part of
my
keeping quiet about it. I didn't like the Antarctic any more than the next person, and that's where I'd end up if it got out. That is, if they didn't just kill me, burn me, and send my ashes to the sun.

Suddenly having a demon trash my living room didn't seem so bad.

“Holy crap!” Jenks swore again. “Ellasbeth wants you to be a
bridesmaid
?”

Jerking my robe closed, I stalked across the sanctuary and snatched the invitation out of Ivy's hand. “It's not an invitation, it's a badly worded request for me to work security. The woman hates me. Look, she didn't even sign it. I bet she doesn't even know it exists.”

I waved it in the air and shoved it into a drawer, slamming it shut. Trent's fiancée was a bitch in all ways but the literal. Thin, elegant, rich, and bitingly polite. We had gotten along really well the night we had breakfast together, just her, me, and Trent caught between us. Course, part of that might have been from my letting her believe that Trent and I had been childhood sweethearts. But she was the one who decided I was a courtesan. Stupid Yellow Pages ad.

Ivy's expression was wary. She knew better than to push me when it came to Trent, but Jenks wouldn't let it go. “Yeah, but think of it, Rache. It's going to be a hell of a party. The best of Cincinnati is going to be there. You never know who will show up.”

I lifted a plant and ran my hand under it—my version of dusting. “People who want to kill Trent,” I said lightly. “I like excitement, but I'm not insane.”

Ivy moved my bucket and mop to a dry part of the floor and sprayed a heavy layer of that unlabeled bottle. “You going to do it?” she asked, as if I hadn't already said no.

“No.”

In one motion I swept all the papers off the desktop and into the uppermost drawer. Jenks landed on the clean surface, his wings stilling as he leaned against the pencil cup and crossed his ankles and arms to look surprisingly alluring for a four-inch-tall man. “Why not?” he accused. “You think he's going to stiff you?”

Again,
I added in my thoughts. “Because I already saved his freaking elf ass once,” I said. “You do it once, it's a mistake. You do it twice and it's not a mistake anymore.”

Mop and bucket in hand, Ivy walked out, snickering.

“It's RSVP by tomorrow,” Jenks needled. “Rehearsal is Friday. You're invited.”

“I know that.” It was my birthday, too, and I wasn't going to spend it with Trent. Ticked, I headed into the kitchen after Ivy.

Flying backward, Jenks got in my face and preceded me down the hallway, slices of sunlight coming in from the living room. “I've got two
reasons you should do it,” he said. “One, it will piss Ellasbeth off, and two, you could charge him enough to afford to resanctify the church.”

My steps slowed, and I tried to keep the ugly look off my face. That was unfair. By the sink, Ivy frowned, clearly thinking the same. “Jenks…”

“I'm just saying—”

“She's not working for Kalamack,” Ivy threatened, and this time he shut his mouth.

I stood in the kitchen, not knowing why I was here. “I gotta shower,” I said.

“Go,” Ivy said, meticulously—and needlessly—washing the bucket with soapy water before putting it away. “I'll wait up for the man coming over with an estimate.”

I didn't like that. She'd probably fudge on the quote, knowing that her pockets were deeper than mine. She had told me she was nearly broke, but nearly broke for the last living member of the Tamwood vampires was not my broke, rather more of a down-to-six-figures-in-her-bank-account broke. If she wanted something, she got it. But I was too tired to fight her.

“I owe you,” I said as I grabbed the cooled tea Ceri had made for me and shuffled out.

“God, Jenks,” Ivy was saying as I avoided my room with my scattered clothes and just headed for my bathroom. “The last thing she needs is to be working for Kalamack.”

“I just thought—” the pixy said.

“No, you didn't think,” Ivy accused. “Trent isn't some pantywaist rich pushover, he's a power-hungry, murdering drug lord who looks good in a suit. You don't think he's got some reason for inviting her to work security other than his welfare?”

“I wasn't going to let her go alone,” he protested, and I shut the door. Sipping the tart tea, I dropped my pj's into the washer and got the shower going so I wouldn't have to listen to them. Sometimes I felt as if they thought I couldn't hear at all just because I couldn't hear a pixy belch across the graveyard. Yeah, they'd had a contest one night. Jenks won.

The water's warmth was wonderful, and after the sharp scent of pine soap washed away the choking smell of burnt amber, I stepped from the shower feeling refreshed and almost awake. Purple towel
wrapped around me, I rubbed the mist from the long mirror, leaning close to see if I had any new freckles. Nope. Not yet. Opening my mouth, I checked out my beautiful, pristine teeth. It was nice not having any fillings.

I may have coated my soul in blackness when I had twisted a demon curse to turn into a wolf this spring, but I wasn't going to feel guilty over the beautiful unmarked skin I had when I turned back. The accumulated damage of twenty-five years of existence had been removed, and if I didn't find a way to get rid of the demon smut from twisting the curse before I died, I was going to pay for it by burning in hell.

At least I'm not going to feel
too
guilty about it,
I thought as I reached for my lotion, heavy on the SPF protection. And I certainly wasn't going to waste it. My mother's family had come from Ireland long before the Turn, and from my mom I got my red hair, my green eyes, and my pale skin, now as satisfyingly soft and supple as a newborn's. From my dad I got my height, my lean, athletic build, and my attitude. From both of them I got a rare genetic condition that would have killed me before my first birthday if Trent's father hadn't set himself above the law and fixed it in his illegal genetic lab.

Our fathers had been friends before they'd died a week apart under suspicious circumstances. At least they were suspicious to me. And that was the reason I distrusted Trent, if his being a drug lord, a murderer, and nastily adept at manipulating me weren't enough.

Suddenly overcome with missing my dad, I shuffled through the cabinet behind the mirror until I found the wooden ring he'd given me on my thirteenth birthday. It had been the last one we'd shared before he died. I looked at it, small and perfect in my palm, and on impulse I put it on. I hadn't worn it since the charm it once held to hide my freckles had been broken, and I hadn't needed it since twisting that demon curse. But I missed him, and after being attacked by a demon this morning, I could use some serious emotional security.

I smiled at it circling my pinkie, feeling better already. The ring had come with a lifetime charm reinstatement, and I had an appointment every fourth Friday in July. Maybe I'd take the madam out for coffee instead. Ask her about maybe changing it to a sunscreen charm—if there was such a thing.

The give-and-take of masculine and feminine voices from the
kitchen became obvious as I toweled my hair. “He's here already?” I grumbled, finding a pair of underwear, jeans, and a red camisole in the dryer. Slipping them on, I dabbed some perfume behind each ear to help block my scent and Ivy's from mixing, combed my damp hair back with my fingers, and headed out.

But it wasn't a holy man I found in the kitchen covered in pixy children, it was Glenn.

“Hi, Glenn,” I said as I slumped barefoot into my chair. “Who's pinching your ass today?”

The clearly uncomfortable, rather tall FIB detective was in a suit, which didn't bode well. He had Jenks's kids all over him, which was really weird. And Ivy was glaring at him from her computer, which was mildly troubling. But considering that the first time she met him, she almost bit him in anger and he almost shot her, I guessed we were doing okay.

Jenks scraped his wings, and his kids scattered, rising up through my rack of spelling supplies and herbs in a swirl of silk and shouts that hurt my eyeballs before flowing into the hall and probably out the chimney in the living room. I hadn't seen him on the sill until now, standing by his pet sea monkeys.
How come a pixy has more pets than I do?

I smiled tiredly at Glenn across the table, trying to make up for my roommate's stellar attitude. There was a paperboard tray with two cups steaming between us, and the warm breeze coming in from the garden was pushing the heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee right to me. I wanted one in the worst way.

Ivy's fingers hit her keyboard aggressively as she weeded out her spam. “Detective Glenn was just leaving. Weren't you?”

The tall black man silently clenched his jaw. Since I'd seen him last,
he had gotten rid of his goatee and mustache and replaced them with stud earrings. I wondered what his dad thought about that, but personally, I thought it added to his carefully maintained, polished image of young and capable law enforcer.

His suit was still off-the-rack, but it fit his very nice physique as if made for him. The tips of his dress shoes poking out from under the hems looked comfortable enough to run in if he had to. His trim body certainly seemed up to it, with that wide chest and narrow waist. The butt of a weapon glinted from a holster on his belt to give him a nice hint of danger.

Not that I'm in the market for a new boyfriend,
I thought. I had a damn fine boyfriend, Kisten, and Glenn wasn't interested, though I'm sure if he “tried a witch, he'd never switch.” And since I knew that his lack of interest wasn't born of prejudice, that was cool.

I exhaled, my fingers shaking from fatigue. My eyes went from his expressive brown ones pinched in worry and annoyance to the coffee. “Is one of these mine, by chance?” I asked, and when he nodded, I reached forward, saying, “Bless you back to the Turn.” Pulling off the plastic lid, I took a gulp. My eyes closed, and I held the second swallow in my mouth for a moment. It was a double shot: hot, black, and oh so what I needed right now.

Ivy kept typing, and while Jenks excused himself to help the forgotten toddler crying in the ladle back to the stump in the garden, I took the time to wonder what Glenn was doing here. And so obscenely early. It was seven in the freakin' morning. I hadn't done anything to tick off the FIB—had I?

Glenn worked for the Federal Inderland Bureau, the human-run institution that functioned on a local and national level. The FIB was way outclassed by the I.S., the Inderlander-run side of the coin, when it came to enforcing the law, but during a previous investigation on which I'd helped Glenn, I'd found that the FIB had a scary amount of information on us Inderlanders, making me wish I hadn't written up those species summaries for his dad last fall. Glenn was Cincy's FIB Inderland specialist, which meant that he had enough guts to try working both sides of the street. It had been his dad's idea, and since I owed his dad bigtime, I helped when he asked.

No one was talking, though, and I figured I'd better say something
before I fell asleep at the table. “What's the run, Glenn?” I asked, taking a sip and wishing the caffeine would kick in.

Glenn stood, his thick hands adjusting his ID badge on his belt. Square jaw tightening, he gave Ivy a wary glance. “I left a message last night. Didn't you get it?”

The depth of his voice was as soothing as the coffee he'd brought, but coming back in through the pixy hole in the screen, Jenks did an about-face. “I think I hear Matalina,” he said, vanishing to leave behind a sifting ribbon of gold sparkles. My eyes went from the haze of pixy dust to Ivy, and she shrugged. “No,” I prompted.

Ivy's eyes switched to black. “Jenks!” she called, but the pixy didn't show. I shrugged and gave Glenn an apologetic look.

“Jenks!” Ivy yelled. “If you're going to hit the message button, you'd damn well better write it down!”

I took a slow breath, but Ivy interrupted me. “Glenn, Rachel hasn't been to bed yet. Can you come back about four?”

“The morgue will have changed shifts by then,” he protested. “I'm sorry you didn't get my message, but will you look anyway? I thought that's why you were up.”

Annoyance tightened my shoulders. I was tired and cranky, and I didn't like Ivy trying to field my business. In a sudden wash of bitchiness, I stood.

Framed by her new haircut, Ivy's oval face looked questioning. “Where are you going?”

I grabbed my bag, already packed with a variety of spells and charms, then snapped the top back onto my coffee. “To the morgue, apparently. I've been up this late before.”

“But not after a night like you just had.”

Silent, I pulled my bracelet from around Mr. Fish and wrangled the clasp. Glenn slowly stood, his posture holding a wary slant. He had once asked me why I lived with Ivy and the threat she posed to my life and free will, and though I knew why now, telling him would make him worry more, not less. “Jeez, Ivy,” I said, aware he was analyzing us professionally. “I'd rather do it now. Consider it my bedtime story.”

I headed into the hall, trying to remember where I'd left my sandals.
The foyer.
From the kitchen Ivy said, “You don't have to go running whenever the FIB crooks their finger.”

“No!” I shouted back, fatigue making me stupid. “But I do have to come up with some money to resanctify the church.”

Glenn's steps behind me faltered on the hardwood floor. “It isn't holy anymore?” he asked as we emerged into the brighter sanctuary. “What happened?”

“We had an incident.” The darkness of the foyer was soothing when I found it, and I sighed when I scuffed into my sandals and pushed open the heavy door to the sanctuary.
Good Lord,
I thought, squinting at the bright glare of a late-July morning. No wonder I slept through this. It was noisy with shrieking birds, and already hot. If I had known I was going out, I would have put on shorts.

Glenn took my elbow when I stumbled on the step, and I would have spilled my coffee if I hadn't replaced the top. “Not a morning person, eh?” he teased, and I jerked away.

“Jenks!” I shouted when my sandals reached the cracked sidewalk. The least he could do was come with me. Seeing Glenn's cruiser parked at the curb, I hesitated. “Let's take two cars,” I offered, not wanting to be seen riding in a FIB cruiser when I could be driving my red convertible. It was hot; I could put the top down.

Glenn chuckled. “With your suspended license? Not a chance.”

The scuffing of my sandals slowed, and I looked askance at him, bothered at the amusement in his dark eyes. “Crap, how did you find out about that?”

He opened the passenger-side door for me. “Duh, I work for the FIB? Our street force has been running interference for you every time you go out for groceries. If you get caught driving with a suspended license, the I.S. is going to jail your ass, and we like your ass on the street where it can do some good, Ms. Morgan.”

I got into the front seat and set my bag on my lap. I hadn't known the FIB had even
heard
about that, much less had been distracting the I.S. “Thanks,” I said softly, and he shut the door with a grunt of acknowledgment.

Glenn crossed in front while I buckled myself in. It was stuffy, and I fiddled with the window control to put it down. The car wasn't on yet, but I was irritated. I jammed my coffee in the cup holder and kept messing with the window until Glenn folded his height into the front seat and gave me a look. My brow furrowed in frustration. “It's not fair,
Glenn,” I complained. “They had no right to take my license. They're
picking
on me.”

“Just take the driver's-ed class and get it over with.”

“But it's not fair! They're intentionally making my life difficult.”

“Golly, imagine that?” The key slid into the ignition, and Glenn paused to tug a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on to up his cool factor by about ten. Face easing in relief, he looked down the quiet street shaded with trees almost eighty years old. “What do you expect?” he said. “You gave them an excuse. They took it.”

I drew a frustrated breath, holding it. So I ran a red light. It was yellow most of the way. And I went a little fast on the interstate once. But I suppose letting my ex-boyfriend run into me with a Mack truck to help a vampire start his undead existence might be cause for a few points. No one had died but the vampire, though—and he wanted to.

I fiddled with the button again, and Glenn took the hint. Warm air sifted in as the window whined down, replacing the scent of my perfume with the aroma of cut grass. “Jenks!” I called as he started the car. “Let's
go
!”

The rumble of the big car hid the clatter of Jenks's wings as he zipped in. “Sorry about the message, Rache,” he muttered as he landed on the rearview mirror.

“Don't sweat it.” I stretched my arm along the length of the open window, not wanting to ream him out over it. I'd taken enough flak from my brother for doing the same thing, and I knew it hadn't been intentional.

I settled into the leather seats as Glenn pulled onto the empty street. It would stay empty until about noon, when most of the Hollows started to wake up. My pulse was slow from the early hour, and the heat of the day made me sleepy. Glenn kept his car as tidy as himself; not an old coffee-stained cup or clutter of paperwork marred the floor or backseat. “So-o-o-o,” I drawled around a yawn, “what's at the morgue besides the obvious?”

Glenn glanced at me as he yielded to a stop sign. “Suicide, but it's murder.”

Of course it is.
Nodding, I waved at the I.S. cruiser behind an overgrown bush, then made a bunny-eared “kiss-kiss” to the small Were in fatigues dozing on a bench in the sun watching them. It was Brett. The
militant Were had been kicked out of his pack for having failed at kidnapping me a few months ago, so of course I was the one he wanted to pack up with next. It made sense in a warped sort of way. I had bested his alpha; therefore I was stronger.

David, my alpha, wasn't having anything to do with it, seeing as he hadn't wanted a pack in the first place. It was why he'd bucked the system and started one with a witch in order to keep his job. And so Brett was reduced to lurking on the outskirts of my life, looking for a way in. It was flattering as all hell, but depressing. I was going to have to talk to David. Having a militant Were attached to my chaotic life wasn't a bad idea, and Brett truly wanted someone to look to. It was how most Weres were put together. David's protest that Brett was trying to get in good with his original alpha by spying on me to see if I had the Were artifact that had instigated the kidnapping attempt was crap. Everyone believed that it had gone over the Mackinac Bridge, though in truth it was hidden in David's cat box.

Jenks cleared his throat, and when I glanced at him, he rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal indication of money. My eyes followed his to Glenn.

“Hey,” I said, shifting in my seat, “this pays, right?” Glenn smiled, and, irritated, I sharpened my voice. “It does pay,
right
?”

Chuckling, the FIB detective glanced in the rearview mirror at Brett and nodded. “Why—” he started, and I interrupted.

“He wants into my pack, and David is balking,” I said. “What's so important about this body that you need me to look at it? I'm a lousy detective. It's not what I do.”

Glenn's square face was heavy with concern as he looked back at me from the Were behind us. “She's a Were. The I.S. says suicide, but I think it's murder and they're covering it up.”

I let the air pressure push my hand up and then down, enjoying the breeze in my shower-damp hair and the feel of my bracelet sliding against my skin.
The I.S. is covering up a murder? Big surprise there.
Jenks looked happy, silent now that we were working and the question of money had been raised, though not settled. “Standard consultant fee,” I said.

“Five hundred a day plus expenses,” Glenn said, and I laughed.

“Try double that, ketchup boy. I have insurance to pay.”
And a church to sanctify, and a living room to repair.

Glenn's attention on the road went distant. “For two hours of your time, that would be what? Two-fifty?”

Crap. He wanted to go hourly.
I frowned, and Jenks's wings slowed to nothing. That might pay for the paneling and the guys to put it in. Maybe.

“Okay,” I said, digging through my bag to find the calendar datebook that Ivy had given me last year. It wasn't accurate anymore, but the pages were blank and I needed somewhere to keep track of my time. “But you can expect an itemized bill.”

Glenn grinned. “What?” I said, squinting from the come-and-go sun.

He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “You look so…organized,” he said, and when Jenks snickered, I flung my hand out and bopped Glenn on the shoulder with the back of my fist.

“Just for that, no more ketchup for you,” I muttered, slouching. His grip on the wheel tightened, and I knew I'd hit a sore spot.

“Aw, don't worry, Glenn,” Jenks teased. “Christmas is coming. I'll get you a jar of belly-buster jalapeño that will knock your socks off if Rachel won't pimp tomatoes to you anymore.”