Light My Fire
Aisling Gray 3
1
“Just leave everything to me.”
“Famous last words, Ash. Your record hasn’t been too
good so far, has it?”
The burly black shape in front of me that tossed the
words over its furry shoulder didn’t stop, but I did, frown
ing. Jim, my demon in
not be Little Mary Sunshine, but it didn’t normally say things that it knew were deliberately cruel.
Around us in
rented park chairs or lying on the ground sunbathing, every
one happily enjoying the English September sunshine...
everyone but my crabby demon.
“I have, if you haven’t noticed, been rather busy these last three weeks getting moved from
But I said I’d find someone to dremel your toenails, and I meant it. There have to be dog groomers in England
who grind away nails with a dremel rather than clip them.”
“That last woman you took me to was nothing more
than a butcher,” Jim snapped, marching forward with enough force to get me moving again. “I’m lucky I have
all my toes. Minus the two you enchanted away, that is.”
“I said I’m sorry fifteen times already—I’ll say it for a
sixteenth if it gets you out of this grouchy mood. I’m
sorry she nicked your quick and made your toenails
bleed. And that other toenail issue is
so
two months ago.”
“Too little, too late,” was the grumpy answer.
“Right.” I stopped near a tree that was relatively pri
vate. “That’s it. I’ve put up with your snarky comments
the last couple of weeks because I know that transitions
like the one we’re making aren’t easy for anyone. Lord
knows I’ve heard nothing but horror stories from my fam
ily about Americans living abroad, but I expected better
from you, Jim. You
like
Nora! You were looking forward
to coming here. Why are you being so unpleasant about
everything now?”
Jim turned to face me. I hadn’t thought it possible for
a Newfie’s face to look sour, but Jim had pulled it off.
“My heart is broken, in case you’ve forgotten! You
shouldn’t have, since you’re the one who stomped all over it.”
“Oh, that.” I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck,
stiff with tension.
“Yes, that.”
“Well, I know it’s no substitute for a corgi, but you’ve got a dog for companionship. You’ve got Paco now.”
“Paco isn’t a dog. Paco is a snack.”
Secretly, I agreed with Jim. Nora’s
nice enough but was a little light in the character depart
ment. Then again, Jim could have ruined me for all nor
mal dogs. “I told you I’d take you to Paris to see Amelie and Cecile just as soon as I know .. .” The words trailed
off to an awkward stop.
“As soon as you’re sure that Drake is gone; yes, I
know. But since he lives there, that’s not likely to be for a long time, now, is it? And Cecile isn’t getting any
younger. I’d like to see her before she’s dead, my lord.”
I sighed again, leaving the slight shade of the tree to
brave the crowds filling the park. During the four days I’d been in London, I’d learned to avoid the edge that borders
that the dog who marched so determinedly in front of me
was speaking. “I hate it when you call me that, but we
both know you know that, so I won’t humor your bad
mood by arguing about you trying to get in a few ‘you’re a demon lord now, Ash’ digs. And since you’ve appar
ently forgotten, I’ll remind you that Drake also has homes in Hungary and the Cayman Islands, and probably a cou
ple other places that never came up during our short time
together.”
“Short because you walked out on him.
Again.”
I ground my teeth. The park was too public a place to
have it out with Jim. Nonetheless, I lowered my voice and
whispered with as much threat as was possible, “I am not
going to discuss my relationship with Drake.”
“Ha! Relationship. Is that what you’re calling it now?
You two get together; you break it off. You get together again; you agree to be his mate; you take an oath of fealty
to the sept; you get pissy; you leave him. Doesn’t sound like much relationship is going on there.”
Now, that stung. Jim knew full well the circumstances
of my breakup with Drake. It had even agreed with me at
the time that Drake had pulled a nasty on me and that I
was fully justified in walking away from him.
“Demon, I command thee to zip thy lips until you get
over your case of the grumps,” I said instead of the
gazillions of snappy comebacks that I knew would occur
to me hours later. “I’m not going to defend myself or my
actions. We’re here, we’re going to stay here, and I’ll
get you to Paris just as soon as I know the coast is clear.
I’m sorry if that’s broken your heart, not that demons
have a heart to break, but it’s the best I can do. Now, if
you’re done watering everything, let’s get back to the
apartment. Our stuff should be arriving today, and I want to get everything put away before Nora comes back from Liverpool.”
Jim glared at me over its shoulder for a moment, but one of the fringe benefits of being a demon lord was that
a demon in my control couldn’t disobey a direct com
mand, so we had a silent trip as we headed back to the three-room apartment that Nora had inherited from an elderly relative. Located above a chic combination bakery
and bookstore, the apartment was a rare find in a city of
overpriced, undersized housing.
“After I get the stuff unpacked, I’ll call Amelie and let
you talk to Cecile if you like,” I said as we skirted a group
of tourists gawking in an expensive shop’s window. We
took advantage of a break in traffic to hurry across the
street. “Not that you deserve it. Honestly, Jim, you’re just about the most aggravating demon I’ve ever had the plea
sure to—bloody hell!”
I jerked Jim back as a black taxi ignored the laws re
garding pedestrians in a crosswalk and screeched to a halt
just millimeters away from my demon.
“That sounded very English. You are adapting well,
yes?”
The oaths that I was about to crack over the idiot
driver’s head dried up on my lips as I peered through the
window at the man behind the wheel. His voice was
smooth, thick with a French accent... and very familiar.
“What. .. who ...
Rene?”
“Mais oui C’est moi.
Good morning, Jim. You look
well. Did you have any trouble getting through customs?”
I stared at the pleasant-looking fifty-something man in the taxi, not sure I was really seeing him, my brain grind
ing to a halt at the sight. It couldn’t be Rene. It just couldn’t. Could it?
Jim glared at me in answer to the question asked of it.
“Ah,” Rene said, tipping his head to the side as he
blithely ignored the honking of horns from the cars
stopped behind him. “She has ordered you to silence, eh?”
“Rene, what in the he—Abaddon are you doing here?”
I asked, finally able to kick-start my brain into functioning.
He smiled and reached behind him to open the door. “I
will take you to where you are going.”
“Nuh-uh.” I could ignore the backed-up traffic just as
easily as he could. “Not until you tell me what you’re
doing here, in London, in a taxi. And it had better be
good, because you showing up in Budapest a few weeks
ago was really pushing the coincidence line.”
“Get in, and I shall tell you all.”
I gave him a long look to warn him he had better mean
it and opened the door to the taxi, herding Jim in before I
followed.
“Now, spill,” I said as the taxi started to move. “Oh, I’m going to 15 Warlock Close. That’s located—”
“I know where it is. North of Bury Street, yes?”
“Yes. How do you know where it is? How do you
know London that well? And what in god’s name are you
doing here? Why aren’t you home in Paris?”
Rene’s brown eyes twinkled at me in the mirror. I stiff
ened my immunity to his charm, sure something was
going on for him to show up in yet another country driv
ing yet another taxi. “You remember my cousin in Budapest,
the one I was helping out during the week you were
there?”
“Yes,” I said suspiciously. “What about him? You’re
not going to tell me that he also drives a taxi here, in
London
?”
“No,” Rene said, cutting across two lanes of traffic to
turn left onto the short dead-end street where Nora’s
apartment was located. “His brother, my cousin Pavel,
does, but that is not why I am here.”
“Your cousin Pavel drives an English taxi?” I asked,
refusing to budge when Rene pulled up with a flourish in
front of our building.
“Oui.
He is most good at it, as are all the men in my
family.” Rene didn’t even bother trying to look modest;
he just grinned at me in the mirror as he backed the taxi into a tiny loading area so it was no longer blocking the
road.
“I’m not buying that, you know. Why are you follow
ing me? Are you some sort of really nice, helpful French stalker? You’re not in love with me or obsessed with me
or anything, are you?”
Jim snorted and rolled its eyes.
“You can speak if you have anything helpful to say,” I
told it.
“The sun will never rise on a day when I say some
thing that’s not worth its weight in platinum,” my demon
answered. “Hi, Rene. How they hangin’?”
“Free and easy, my friend,” Rene answered, turning in
his seat so he could reach to ruffle the top of Jim’s furry
black head. “It is good to see you both. You look well.”
“No,” I said, holding up a warning finger at Jim. “No
long, maudlin tales of how your heart was broken because I didn’t take you to Paris to see Cecile the minute
we landed. Rene is telling us just why he’s here. In a taxi. When he lives and works in another country altogether.”
Rene laughed.
“Mon amie,
put your mind at the rest. I am not in love with you—I have a wife and seven small ones, recall you. And I am not a stalker, or obsessed with you, although I am very happy to see you both. I have
missed you these last few weeks.”
Now I felt like a great big heel. “I’m very happy to see
you, too,” I answered, leaning forward to hug him. “We
were planning on seeing you when we got to Paris. How
are you? How is your family? And what are you doing
here?”
