White Witch, Black Curse

Five

Thanks, Alex!” I shouted, waving to the FIB officer as he drove down the shadowy, snow-quiet street to leave me standing on the sidewalk outside our church. Ivy was already halfway up the walk, anxious to be on her own turf where she had her ironclad ways of coping. She’d been quiet all the way home, and I didn’t think it was from us needing a ride because I was too chicken to open my car door and see if I exploded.

Alex’s taillights flashed as he rolled through a stop sign at the end of the road, and I turned away. The church that Ivy, Jenks, and I lived in was lit up and serene, the colors bleeding out of the stained-glass windows and onto the untouched snow in a fabulous swirl. I studied the roofline to try to spot Bis, our resident gargoyle, but there was nothing between the white puffs of my breath. The church was pretty with its Christmas and solstice decorations of live garlands and cheerful bows, and I smiled, glad to live in such a unique place.

This last fall, Jenks had finally fixed the spotlights angling onto the steeple, and it added to the beauty. The building hadn’t been used as a church for years, but it was sanctified-—again. Ivy had originally chosen the church to operate our runner firm from to tick off her undead mother, and we’d never moved to more professional digs when the opportunity had arisen. I felt safe here. So did Ivy. And Jenks needed the garden out back to feed his almost four dozen kids.

“Hurry up, Rache,” Jenks complained from under my hat. “I’ve got icicles hanging.”

Smirking, I followed Ivy up the walk to the worn front steps. Jenks had been silent on the ride home, too, and I’d have almost been willing to find out what happened on the ninth day of Christmas just so I wouldn’t have had to keep the conversation going with Alex all by myself. I couldn’t tell if my roommates, Ivy especially, had been thinking or just mad.

Maybe she thought I’d shown her up by discovering that the Tilsons were impostors before she had. Or maybe she was upset that I wanted her to go out to Kisten’s boat. She’d loved him, too. Loved him more deeply than me, and longer. I’d have thought she’d be eager for the chance to find his killer and the vampire who had tried to turn me into a blood toy.

Ivy’s pace ground to a stop on the salted steps, and my head came up when a soft curse slipped from her. Halting, I sent my gaze to follow hers to our business sign, over the door. “Damn it all to the Turn and back,” I whispered, seeing the spray-painted Black Wit and a half-scripted c trailing down the brass plaque to drip onto the twin oak doors.

“What is it?” Jenks shrilled, unable to see and tugging on my hair.

“Someone redecorated the sign,” Ivy said blandly, but I could tell she was mad. “We need to start leaving some lights on,” she muttered, yanking open the door and going inside.

“Lights?” I exclaimed. “The place is already lit up like a…a church!”

Ivy was inside, and I stood there with my hands on my hips, getting more and more pissed. It was an attack on me, and I felt it to my core after the hint of FIB animosity at the crime site. Son of a bitch.

“Bis!” I shouted as I looked up and wondered where the little guy was. “You out here?”

“Rache,” Jenks said as he tugged on my hair. “I gotta check on Matalina and my kids.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. Pulling my coat tight about me, I passed into the church and yanked the door shut. Angry, I let the locking bar thump down, though technically we were open until midnight. There was a soft lifting of my hat, and Jenks darted off into the sanctuary. I slowly took my hat off and hung it on the hook, my mood easing at the high-pitched chorus of hello-o-os from his kids. It had taken me four hours to scrape the paint from the brass the last time. Where in hell was Bis? I hoped he was okay. The “artists” had clearly been interrupted.

Maybe I should spell the sign, I thought, but I didn’t think there was a charm to make metal impervious to paint. I could put a black spell on it to give whoever touched it acne, but that would be illegal. And despite what the graffiti said, I was a white witch, damn it.

The warmth of the church soaked into me as I hung my coat on a peg. Past the dark shadow of the windowless foyer was my desk, at the back of the sanctuary where the altar used to be, the oak rolltop currently covered with plants and serving as a winter home for Jenks and his family. It was safer than hibernating in the stump in the backyard, and since I didn’t ever use my desk, it was only a matter of enduring the indignity of finding pixy girls playing in my makeup or using the hair in my brush to fashion hammocks.

Across from my desk was an informal grouping of furniture around a low coffee table. There was a TV and a stereo, but it was more of a place to interview clients than a real living room. Our undead patrons had to come around to the back and the unsanctified part of the church and our more private living room. That’s where Ivy’s Christmas tree was, with one present still under it. After ruining David’s coat trying to tag Tom, I’d had to get him a new one. He was in the Bahamas right now, at an insurance seminar with the ladies.

One front corner of the church held Ivy’s baby grand piano—out of sight from where I now stood—and across from that, a mat where I’d taken to exercising when Ivy was out. Ivy went to the gym to keep her figure. At least that’s where she said she was going when she left anxious and came home rested, relaxed, and satiated. In the middle of it all was Kisten’s battered pool table, rescued from the curb whereas Kisten himself hadn’t been.

My mood slowly shifted from anger to melancholy as I took off my boots and left them under my coat. A passel of Jenks’s kids were in the open rafters singing carols, and it was hard to stay upset with their ethereal three-part harmony mixing with the smell of brewing coffee.

Coffee, I thought as I flopped onto the couch and pointed the remote at the stereo. Crystal Method filled the air, fast and aggressive, and I tossed the remote to the table and put my feet up, out of the draft. Coffee would make everything better, but I probably had at least five minutes until it was done. After that close ride in the cop car, Ivy needed some space.

Jenks dropped down onto the elaborate centerpiece Ivy’s dad had brought over one night. The thing was all glitter and gold, but Jenks went well with it, standing on the painted sticks that looped in and around. He had one of his kids with him; the little pixy boy had his wings glued shut again, tear tracks giving away his misery.

“Don’t let it get to you, Rache,” Jenks said as he sifted dust from himself and wedged it in the fold his son’s wings made. “I’ll help you clean the paint off tomorrow.”

“I can do it,” I muttered, not relishing the idea that whoever put it up there would probably do a drive-by to see me busting my ass on a ladder. Jenks helping me was a nice thought, but no way would it be warm enough.

“I don’t get it,” I complained, then did a double take at the tiny cut-out snowflakes now decorating the windows. That’s why the glue. They were the size of my pinkie nail, and were the sweetest things I’d ever seen. “No one cares about the good stuff I do,” I said as Jenks’s son squirmed under his dad’s attention. “So what if I had to summon a demon if it all ended well? I mean, you tell me Cincinnati isn’t better without Piscary. Rynn Cormel is a way better crime boss than he was. Ivy likes him, too.”

“You’re right,” the pixy said as he gently pulled his son’s wings apart. Behind him, Rex, Jenks’s cat, peeked in from the dark foyer, pulled from the belfry by the sound of her four-inch master’s voice. Just last week, Jenks had installed a cat door in the belfry stairway, tired of asking one of us to open the door for his cat. The beast loved the belfry with its high windows. It made easy access for Bis, too. Not that the cat-size gargoyle came in much.

“And Trent,” I said, watching Rex since Jenks was preoccupied with a flightless child. “Beloved city son and idiot billionaire goes and gets caught in the ever-after. Who has to bust her butt and make a deal with demons to get him back?”

“The one who got him there?” Jenks said, and my eyes narrowed. “Hey, kitty, kitty. How’s my sweetest fluff ball?” he crooned, which I thought risky, but hey, it was his cat.

“It was Trent’s idea,” I said, foot bobbing. “And now it’s my tail in the ever-after paying for his rescue. Do I even get one thank-you? No, I get trash painted on my front door.”

“You got your life back,” Jenks said, “and an end to Al trying to kill you. Got an understanding in the ever-after that any demon messing with you is messing with Al. You got Trent’s silence as to what you are. He could have brought you down right there. It wouldn’t be graffiti on your door but a burning stake in the front yard, with you tied to it.”

I froze, shocked. What I am? Trent kept silent as to what I am? I should be thankful he didn’t tell anyone? If he told anyone what I was, he’d have to explain how I got that way, which would put him on the stake next to me.

But Jenks was smiling at his son, oblivious. “There you go, Jerrimatt,” he said fondly as he gave the youngster a boost into the air where he hung, shedding bright sparkles to pool on the table. “And if glue should somehow end up in Jack’s mittens, I won’t have any idea who did it.”

The small pixy’s wings fanned into motion and a cloud of silver dust enveloped both of them. “Thanks, Papa,” Jerrimatt said, and his tear-wet eyes took on a familiar glint of deviltry.

Jenks watched his son fly away with a fond look. Rex watched, too, tail twitching. Turning back to me, Jenks saw my sour mood. Trent kept silent as to what I am, eh?

“I mean,” the pixy backpedaled, “what Trent’s dad did to you.”

Mollified, I took my feet from the table and put them on the floor. “Yeah, whatever,” I muttered as I rubbed my wrist and the demon mark there. I had another on the bottom of my foot, since Al hadn’t traded it back for his summoning name yet, enjoying my owing him two marks. I lived with the worry that I’d be pulled into someone’s demon circle some night, but no one had summoned Al and gotten me instead—yet.

The demon marks were hard to explain, and more people than I liked knew what they were. It was the victors who wrote the history books, and I wasn’t winning. But at least I wasn’t living in the ever-after, playing blow-up doll to a demon. No, I was just playing his student.

Leaning my head back and looking at the ceiling, I shouted, “Ivy? That coffee done?”

Rex skittered under the pool table at my voice, and at Ivy’s positive call, I clicked off the music and lurched to my feet. Jenks went to help Matalina break up a fight about glitter, and I paced down the long hall that bisected the back end of the church. I passed the his-and-her bathrooms that had been converted into Ivy’s opulent bathroom and my more Spartan facilities that also boasted the washer and dryer. Our separate bedrooms were next, my best guess putting them originally as clergy offices. Though the dark hallway didn’t change, the feeling of the air did as I entered the unsanctified back end of the church, added on later. This was where the kitchen and private living room were, and if it had been sanctified, I would have slept here.

Put simply, I loved my kitchen. Ivy had remodeled it before I had moved in, and it was the best room in the place. A blue-curtained window over the sink looked out on the small witch’s garden. Beyond that was the graveyard. That had bothered me at first, but after mowing the site for a year, I had a fondness for the weathered stones and forgotten names.

Inside, it was all gleaming stainless steel and bright fluorescent light. There were two stoves—one gas, one electric—so I didn’t have to do my spells and cook on the same surface. The counter space was expansive, and I used it all when I spelled, which was often, since the charms I used were expensive unless I made them myself. Then they were dirt cheap. Literally.

In the center was an island counter with a circle etched into the linoleum around it. I used to keep my spell books in the open rack under it until Al had burned one in a fit of pique. Now they were in the belfry. The counter made for a secure place to spell, unsanctified or not.

Up against the interior wall was a heavy antique farm table. Ivy was sitting at the back corner of it, near the archway to the hall, with her computer, printer, and stacks of carefully filed papers. When we’d moved in, I had the use of one end of it. Now I was lucky if I got a corner to eat on. So of course I’d taken over the rest of the kitchen.

Ivy looked up from her keyboard, and I dropped my bag on yesterday’s unopened mail and collapsed in my chair. “You want some lunch?” I asked, seeing as it was nearing midnight.

She shrugged, eyeing the bills. “Sure.”

I knew it bugged her, so I left the mail where it was under my bag, and I lurched back to my feet with tomato soup and cheese crackers in mind. If she wanted something more, she’d say so. A pang of worry went through me as I pulled a can of soup off the pantry shelves. Glenn liked tomatoes. God, I hoped he was okay. That he was unconscious had me concerned.

Ivy clicked through a couple of Web pages as I made good with the can opener. I hesitated at the sight of my copper spell pots, then reached for a more mundane saucepan. Mixing spell prep and food prep wasn’t a good idea. “Research?” I asked, hearing in her silence that she was still upset about something.

“Looking up banshees,” she said shortly, and I hoped she didn’t know how coy she looked with the end of the pen between her teeth. Her canines were sharp, like a cat’s, but she wouldn’t get the extended ones until she was dead. She wouldn’t get the light sensitivity or the physical need for blood to survive until then either. Ivy still had a taste for it, however, and though it made her devilishly hard to live with, she could do without.

The lid came off with a ting, and I sighed. “Ivy, I’m sorry.”

Her foot moved back and forth like an angry cat’s tail. “For what?” she said mildly, then stilled her foot’s motion as she saw me notice it.

That my methods are getting faster results than yours, I thought, but what I said was, “For sending you out to Kisten’s boat?”

I hated the question in my voice, but I didn’t know what was bothering her. Ivy looked up, and I studied the rim of brown around her eyes. It was wide and full, telling me she had control of her emotions. “I can handle it,” she said, and I frowned, hearing something else.

Turning my back on her, I shook the congealed soup into the pan with a dull thwap. “I don’t mind going out with you.” I did, but I was going to offer.

“I’ve got it covered,” she said more forcefully.

Sighing, I searched for a wooden spoon. Ivy dealt with the uncomfortable by ignoring it, and though I wasn’t averse to avoiding issues to maintain a pleasant living space, I tended to poke sticks at sleeping vampires when I thought I could get away with it.

The phone rang, and I caught Ivy’s dark glare as I whipped around to answer it.

“Vampiric Charms,” I said politely into the receiver. “How can we help?” I used to answer with my name, until the first graffiti incident.

“Rachel, it’s Edden,” came the FIB captain’s gravelly voice. “Glad you’re home. Hey, we’re having trouble getting the fingerprints out—”

“Re-e-e-eally?” I interrupted, making a mocking face at Ivy and turning the receiver so she could hear him with her extraordinary vamp hearing. “Imagine that.”

“They keep going to the wrong office,” the man continued, too intent to hear my sarcasm. “But we do know the banshee tear belongs to a Mia Harbor. The woman’s been around since Cincinnati was a pig farm, and I wanted to ask you to come down tomorrow about nine and help us interview her.”

I leaned against the counter with a hand to my forehead. What he wanted was for me to bring a truth amulet. Humans were adept at reading body language, but a banshee was devilishly hard to interpret. Or so I’d heard. The I.S. never sent witches after banshees.

Ivy was staring at me, brown-rimmed eyes wide. She looked surprised. No, shocked. “Nine is too early,” I said, wondering what was up with her. “How about noon?”

“Noon?” he echoed. “We need to move quickly on this.”

So why did you kick me out when I was making progress? “I need the morning to make up a truth charm. Those things are expensive. Unless you want a five-hundred-dollar bill for it tacked onto my consultant’s fee?”

Edden was silent, but I could hear his frustration. “Noon.”

“Noon,” I said, feeling like I’d won some points. Actually, I had a truth amulet in my charm cupboard, two feet away, but I didn’t get up until eleven most days. “As long as we’re done by two. I’ve got to pick up my brother at the airport.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “I’ll send a car. See you here.”

“Hey, has anyone looked at my car yet?” I said, but the line had gone dead. “Tomorrow,” I said with a smile, setting the phone back in its cradle. I waltzed to the fridge for the milk, then looked at Ivy when I realized she was still just sitting there. “What’s the matter?”

Ivy leaned back into her chair, her expression worried. “I met Mia Harbor once. Right before I was assigned to work with you in the I.S. She’s an…interesting lady.”

“Nice lady?” I asked as I dumped in the milk. If she had been around since Cincy was a pig town, then she was probably a really old nice lady.

Ivy’s brow was furrowed when I glanced at her, and she put her eyes on her screen. Her behavior was off. “What is it?” I asked as neutrally as I could.

The pen she was tapping stilled. “Nothing.”

I made a scoffing sound. “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”

“Nothing!” she said loudly and Jenks buzzed in.

Grinning, the pixy landed on the island counter between us in his best Peter Pan pose. “I think Ivy’s pissed ‘cause you found the banshee tear and she didn’t,” he said, and Ivy’s pen started tapping again. It was so fast, it almost hummed.

“Nice going, Jenks,” I muttered as I stirred the milk into the soup. The ticking of the burner was loud until the gas lit with a whoosh and I turned it to low. “Where’s that buddy gargoyle of yours? He’s supposed to keep watch at night.”

“I don’t know,” he said, not worried at all. “But he’s as hard as a rock. I wouldn’t worry about him. Maybe he’s visiting his folks. He does have a life, unlike some of us here.”

“I think Rachel finding that tear was great,” Ivy said tightly.

I glanced over my shoulder at Jenks, and at my encouragement, he went to make irritating circles around her. He could get away with a lot I couldn’t, and if we didn’t find out soon what was bothering her, it might be too late to head it off when we did.

“Then you’re mad because you’ve been working on Kisten’s murder for six months, and Rachel got farther in six minutes by sniffing the floor,” he guessed.

Ivy leaned her chair back on two legs, balancing as she measured his flight, probably calculating where she’d have to be to catch him. “Both are valid ways of investigation,” she said, her pupils widening. “And it’s only been three months. I didn’t look the first three.”

I continued to stir the soup with a clockwise motion as Jenks rose up in a column of sparkles and darted out of the kitchen. The pixy noise in the sanctuary had reached dangerous levels, and I knew he wanted to handle it to give Matalina a break. She was doing great this winter, but we were all still worried about her. Nineteen was old for a pixy.

That Ivy hadn’t done anything to find Kisten’s killer for the first three months wasn’t a surprise. The hurt had been that bad, and she thought she might have been the one who had done it. “I don’t mind going out with you tonight,” I offered again. “Ford left the ladder.”

“I’m doing this myself.”

I bowed my head over the soup, breathing in the acidic scent and feeling Ivy’s pain now that Jenks wasn’t here cluttering everything up. I’d been Kisten’s girlfriend, but Ivy had loved him, too—deeper, on a gut level, with the strength of the past, not like my new love, based on the idea of a future. And here I was, making her deal with the pain. “Are you okay?” I asked softly.

“No,” she said again, her voice flat.

My shoulders slumped. “I miss him, too,” I whispered. I turned to see her perfect face frozen in grief. I couldn’t help it, and risking a misunderstanding, I crossed the room. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, touching her shoulder for an instant before I withdrew and went into the pantry for the crackers.

Ivy had her head bowed when I came out, and I said nothing as I found two bowls and set them on the table with the crackers between them, shoving my bag and the mail out of the way. Uncomfortable with the silence, I hesitantly stood before her. “I’m, uh, starting to remember a little,” I said, and her dark eyes flicked to mine. “I didn’t want to tell you in front of Edden because Ford thinks he’ll reopen the case when he finds out.”

Fear flickered behind her eyes, and my breath caught. Ivy is scared?

“What did you remember?” she said, and my mouth went dry. Ivy was never scared. Ticked, seductive, chill, occasionally out of control, but never scared.

I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant when I pulled back, a sliver of my own fear sliding under my skin. “I know for sure it’s a man. I got that today. He caught a splat ball without breaking it when I tried to shoot him. And he dragged me down the hall on my stomach after I tried to get out.” I looked at my fingertips, then put a hand to my middle. Eyes on the hallway behind her, I whispered, “I tried to claw my way out through a wall.”

Ivy’s voice was a thin whisper. “A man. You’re sure?”

She doesn’t still think it was her, does she? I nodded, and her entire posture slumped.

“Ivy, I told you it wasn’t you,” I blurted. “God, I know what you smell like, and you weren’t there! How many times do I have to say it!” I didn’t care that it was really weird I knew what Ivy smelled like. Hell, we’d been living together for a year. She knew what I smelled like.

Ivy put her elbows on either side of her keyboard and dropped her forehead into the cradle of her fingers. “I thought it was Skimmer,” she said flatly. “I thought Skimmer had done it. She still won’t see me, and I thought that was why.”

My lips parted as it started to make sense. No wonder Ivy hadn’t been hell-bent on finding Kisten’s killer. Skimmer had been both her best friend and girlfriend in high school, the two sharing their blood and bodies while Ivy was out in a private school on the West Coast. The intelligent, devious vampire had moved east to get Piscary out of prison and hopefully become a member of a foreign camarilla to be with Ivy, and the top-of-her-class lawyer would cheerfully kill Kisten or me if that’s what it would take. That the petite but deadly woman had killed Piscary only added to the travesty of vampire logic. She was in jail for the crime of killing a city master—in front of witnesses—and would likely stay there until she died and became an undead herself.

“Kisten couldn’t be taken down by another living vampire,” I said, pitying Ivy for having lived with this alone for six freaking months.

Her deep brown eyes had lost their fear when they met mine. “He’d let Skimmer kill him if Piscary gave him to her.” Ivy looked at the mirrored black square the night had turned the window into. “She hated him. She hates you—” Ivy’s words caught, and she shifted her keyboard in a nervous reaction. “I’m glad it wasn’t her.”

The bubbling soup was threatening to run over, and I got up, giving her shoulder a squeeze of support before I went to turn it down. “It was a man,” I said, blowing on the top and flicking the gas off. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find him, and we can put an end to it.”

My back was to her, and I froze as a faint tingle started at my neck, the scar she’d given me hidden under my cursesmoothed skin. I felt the muscles in my face grow slack, and my motion of stirring the soup slowed as the feeling deepened into a soft anticipation that struck the pit of my being and rebounded. Knowing Ivy couldn’t see, I let my eyes close. I knew this feeling. Missed it, even as I struggled, against my instincts, to push it away.

In her relief that Skimmer hadn’t killed Kisten, Ivy had unconsciously filled the air with pheromones to soothe and relax a potential source of blood and ecstasy. She wasn’t after my blood, but she’d been uptight for the last six months, which was probably why just this hint of pheromones felt really good. I breathed them in, enjoying the rush of desire that tightened my gut and set my thoughts spinning. I wasn’t going to act on it. Ivy and I had a safe, secure, platonic relationship. I wanted to keep it that way. But that wouldn’t stop me from this tiny little indulgence.

Sighing, I forced myself to focus on what I was doing. I adjusted my posture and shoved the whisper of desire deep, where I could ignore it. If I didn’t, Ivy would sense my willingness, and we’d be right back where we’d been six months ago, unsure, uneasy, and way too confused.

“Are you going to open your mail sometime this century?” Ivy asked, her voice distant. “You’ve got something from the university.”

Glad for the distraction, I tapped the spoon and set it in the spoon cozy. “Really?” I said, turning to find her eyeing the half-hidden stack of mail. Wiping my fingers off on my jeans, I came closer, pulling the slim envelope with the university emblem on it out from under my bag but leaving the rest, as it so clearly bothered her. I’d registered for a couple of ley line classes right before winter break, and this was probably the confirmation. I could use ley lines, but everything I knew had been learned by the seat of my pants. I was in desperate need of some formal classes before I fried my synapses.

Ivy shifted her crossed legs and focused on her computer as I ran my finger under the seal, having to tear the envelope to actually get it open. I pulled the letter out, hesitating as my check floated to the floor. Ivy was on it in a flash, short hair swinging as she bent to pick it up.

“I’ve been denied entrance,” I said, bewildered as I scanned the formal letter. “They say there was a problem with my check.” My eyes shot to the date under the letterhead. Crap, I had missed early registration and now I’d have to tack on another fee. “Did I forget to sign it or something?”

Ivy shrugged, handing it to me. “No. I think this has more to do with the professor dying the last time you took a class.”

Wincing, I jammed everything back in the envelope. Problem with my check? I had money in my account. This was crap. “She’s not dead. She’s in Trent’s basement playing Ms. Fix-it with the elven genetic code. The woman is in heaven.”

“Dead,” Ivy said, smiling to show a slip of teeth.

I looked away, stifling a quiver at the sight of her fangs. “This is so unfair.”

The harsh clatter of pixy wings gave us a second of warning, and I dropped the letter in disgust as Jenks buzzed in. Ivy’s eyes were wide in question as she gazed at him, and turning, I was surprised to see a stream of red sparkles slipping from him. “We got trouble,” he said, and I jumped, looking down when a faint bump came from under the floor.

Ivy stood and looked at the faded linoleum. “Someone’s under there.”

“That’s what I’m telling you!” Jenks said, sounding almost snotty as he hovered between us with his hands on his hips.

There was a masculine, muffled shout and a series of thumps. “Holy crap!” I shouted, dancing backward. “That sounded like Marshal!”

Ivy was a blur headed for the back door. I jumped to follow, jerking to a halt when the rear door in the back living room thumped open unseen. Bis, who rented out the belfry, flew into the kitchen at shoulder height, his skin a stark white to match the snow and his eyes glowing like a demon’s. The cat-size gargoyle beat his wings in my face, and I backed up. “Get out of my way, Bis!” I shouted, squinting at the draft and thinking about Jenks’s cold sensitivity. “What the Turn is going on out there?”

There was a commotion in the living room, but Bis wouldn’t get out of my way, shouting in his resonant voice about how he was sorry, and he’d clean it up. That he had followed the kids with the paint and didn’t know it was a distraction. I was ready to smack him one when he landed on my shoulder.

I could barely feel his weight, but vertigo hit me and I slumped back into the counter, shocked into thoughtlessness. The sensation wasn’t unexpected, but it got me every time—with Bis’s touch, every single ley line in Cincinnati became clear and present in my mind. It was sensory overload, and I wavered on my feet, focus blurred. It was worse when he was excited, and I almost passed out. That Jenks’s kids were darting among the hanging pots didn’t help.

“Get. Off,” I breathed forcefully, and looking chagrined, the gargoyle beat his wings three times and perched himself sullenly on top of the fridge. The pixy kids scattered, shrieking as if he were death itself. Bis’s creased face scowled at me with teenage bad temper, and his pebbly skin shifted to match the stainless steel of the appliance. He looked like a sulky gargoyle peering over the edge like that, but that’s what he was.

My head jerked up when Ivy shoved a snow-and-dirt-covered man into the kitchen. His face was hidden by a hood, and frozen chunks of dirty snow scattered across the floor, leaving streaks of mud as the kitchen’s warmth thawed them. The odor of cold earth rose, and I wrinkled my nose, thinking it almost smelled like the man who had killed Kisten, but not quite.

Ivy sauntered in behind him to take a stance in the door with her arms crossed over her chest. Marshal was behind her, and he came in, sliding around Ivy with no hesitation and grinning from ear to ear, excited and bright eyed under his knit hat. His coat and knees were covered in dirt as well, but at least he hadn’t rolled in it.

The unknown man in the parka lifted his head, and I almost flew at him. “Tom!” I shouted, then checked myself. It was Tom. Again. Under my house instead of looking at my car. Fear slid through me, replaced with anger. “What are you doing under my house!”

Jenks was at the ceiling yelling at his kids to get out, and when the last fled, with their wooden swords and plasticcoated straightened paper clips, Tom pulled himself upright and pushed his hood back. His lips were blue with cold, and his eyes held an irritated anger. It was then that I noticed the ley line zip-strip on his wrist, where his gloves ended. He was basically magically neutered, and my estimation of Marshal went up a notch for not only knowing what to do with an experienced ley line witch, but for having a zip-strip to begin with.

“I was coming over to drop off that box you left in my car,” Marshal said, shifting to stand between Tom and me. “That’s when I saw this”—he gave Tom a shove and the man caught himself against the island counter—“coming over the far wall. So I parked and watched. He gave a couple of kids a can of black spray paint and a twenty, and after Bis chased them off your front door, he snuck around back and broke the lock on your crawl space access.”

Mouth open in anger, I thought about giving Tom a shove myself. “You paid someone to ruin our sign!” I shouted. “Do you know how long it took me to clean it the first time?”

Tom’s lips were starting to pink up, and he pressed them together, refusing to answer. Behind him, I saw Bis sneak out of the kitchen. The small gargoyle had gone entirely white to match the ceiling, and only the rims of his ears, his long clawlike nails, and a thick stripe down his whiplike tail were still gray. He was crawling along the ceiling like a bat, wings held to make sharp angles and claws extended. It just about broke my creepy meter.

“Rachel,” Marshal said gently, “he did it to get rid of Bis.” Marshal took off his hat and unzipped his coat, sending a wave of redwood into the kitchen, heady from whatever magic he’d used to catch Tom. “What’s important is finding out what he was doing under your church.”

We all turned to look at Tom. “Good question,” I said. “Got an answer, witch?”

Tom was silent, and Ivy cracked her knuckles one by one. I hadn’t even known she could, but that’s what she was doing, pop, pop, pop.

“Ivy,” I said when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything. “Why don’t you call the I.S.? They might be interested in this.”

Tom snickered, his arrogance clear. “Sure, you do that,” he said. “I’m sure the I.S. would love to know a shunned witch was in your kitchen. Who do you think they’ll believe if I tell them I was buying charms from you?”

Oh shit. My gut twisted, and I frowned when Marshal’s eyes widened at the word “shunned.” Without a word, Ivy set the phone down. Her eyes a dangerous black, she eased closer. A threatening haze seemed to drift a few seconds behind her as she placed her finger under his chin and asked in a soft voice, “Is there a contract out on Rachel?”

Fear bubbled against my skull, and I caught it before it triggered something worse in Ivy. I’d lived with a death threat before, and it was hard. If not for Ivy and Jenks, I would have died.

Tom took a step back and rubbed his wrist. “She’d be dead already if there was.”

Jenks bristled, his wings a sharp clatter as he came to stand on my shoulder.

“Oooooh, I’m scared,” I said to hide my relief. “What are you doing here, then?”

The angry witch smiled. “To wish you a happy New Year.”

My eyes narrowed, and, fist on my hip, I looked at the dirty puddles his boots were making. Gaze slowly rising, I took in his white nylon pants and his gray coat. His face was calm but the hatred was there, and when Ivy shifted her feet, he jerked, tense. “I’d start talking,” she threatened. “If you’re shunned, no one will care if you don’t show up for church next week.”

The tension started to rise, and my gaze broke from Tom when Bis flew back in.

“Tink’s diaphragm!” Jenks shouted. “When did he leave? Rachel, did you even see him leave?”

“Here, Rachel,” the gargoyle said as he dropped an amulet and my hand flashed out to catch it. The metallic circlet hit my palm with a cool sensation, smelling like redwood and frozen dirt. “I found it stuck to the floorboards. It was the only one.”

Tom’s jaw went stiff as he clenched his teeth. My anger grew as I recognized it from the days when I’d sit with my dad while he prepped his spells for a night at work. “It’s a bug,” I said as I handed it to Marshal to look at.

Ivy’s face grew even grimmer, and spreading her feet, she tossed her short, gold-tipped hair out of her eyes. “Why are you bugging our kitchen?”

Tom didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. I’d found him in front of the Tilsons’ house. He had told me he was working. He probably thought we’d have the inside scoop on the situation, and since he didn’t have access to anything magical or the Inderland database, he was going to steal what we knew and use it to jerk the tag out from under us.

“This is about the Tilsons, isn’t it,” I said, and I knew I was right when his eyes went to the soup, scumming over. “You want to tell me now? Save me the trouble of having Ivy beat it out of you?”

“Stay away from her,” Tom said vehemently. “I’ve been watching that woman for five months, and she’s mine! Got it?”

I leaned back, nodding as he confirmed my thoughts. Tom knew they weren’t the Tilsons and was probably working on the murders already. He seemed to think the woman had done it. “I’m just doing my job, Tom,” I said, starting to feel better. Sure he had bugged me, but my car was probably not wired to explode; dead people don’t talk—usually. “Tell you what. You stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours, and the best witch will win. Okay?”

“Sure,” the man said, confidence suddenly flowing from him. “Good luck with that. You’re going to come begging to talk to me before this is all over. I guarantee it.”

Jenks’s wings made a cool draft on my neck. “Get the cookie out of here,” he said sharply, and Marshal came forward to manhandle him out. Ivy beat him to it, gripping Tom’s wrist and twisting his arm into a painful angle to propel him into the hall.

“Don’t forget his amulet,” I called after her, and Bis darted down to take it from Marshal and fly after them. I heard a muttered comment from Ivy, and then the back door shut. Bis didn’t come back. I assumed he’d gone with her.

“She can handle him okay?” Marshal asked, and I nodded, my knees suddenly shaky.

“Oh yeah. She’ll be fine. It’s Tom I’m worried about.” My stomach hurt. Damn it, it had been ages since anyone had dared to violate the security of my home, and now that it was over, I didn’t like it. Grimacing, I stirred the soup, nervous energy making me slop it over. Jenks was flitting like a mad thing, and while wiping up my spill, I muttered, “Park it, Jenks.”

The kitchen grew quiet apart from the rasp of Marshal taking off his coat, but it was the gurgle of him pouring two cups of coffee that brought my attention back. I managed a thin smile when he brought me one. Jenks was on his shoulder, which was unusual, but the man had saved us a lot of trouble, and Jenks had to appreciate that since he couldn’t go outside and Bis was just one gargoyle—and a young, inexperienced one at that.

“Thanks,” I said, turning from the soup and taking a sip of coffee as I leaned against the counter. “For Tom as well as the coffee,” I added.

Looking satisfied and smug, Marshal pulled a chair around and sat with his back to the wall and his legs in the middle of the room. “Not a problem, Rachel. I’m glad I was here.”

Trailing a thin green dust, Jenks flew to land beside me, pretending to feed his brine shrimp on the sill. I knew Marshal thought my estimation of the danger I could attract was overrated, but even I’d admit that his catching a shunned ley line witch was impressive.

I breathed deep as I listened to the pixy play-by-play, filtering in from the sanctuary, of what Ivy was doing to Tom. The subtly masculine-flavored scent of redwood eased about me, a witch’s characteristic smell. It was nice smelling it in my kitchen, mixing with vampire and the light garden scent I was starting to recognize as pixy. Marshal was eyeing the ceiling in an expectant way, and chuckling, I went to sit with him.

“All right,” I said as I touched his hand encircling his coffee. “I admit it. You saved me. You saved me from whatever Tom had planned. You’re my great big freaking hero, okay?”

He laughed at that, and it felt good. “You want that box from my car?” he said, starting to gather himself to stand.

I thought about what was in it, and froze. “No. Will you throw it out for me?” I’m not throwing Kisten away, I thought guiltily. But to keep his last gift in my bottom drawer was pathetic. “Uh, thanks again for going with me out to the boat.”

Marshal shifted his chair, angling it to face me. “No problem. Is your FIB friend okay?”

I nodded, my thoughts drifting to Glenn. “Ford says he’ll be awake in a few days.”

Jenks had gotten himself a pixy-size mug of coffee from the still-dripping machine, and he settled between us on the box of crackers. He was unusually quiet, but he was probably keeping an ear on his kids. There was a sound of rising awe from the sanctuary when Ivy did something, and I winced.

My eyes went to the corner of the envelope, and in a sudden surge of irritation, I picked it out. “Hey, will you do something for me?” I asked as I handed it to Marshal. “I’m trying to pay for some classes, and I need to get this to the registrar’s office, like yesterday.”

“I thought registration ended,” Jenks piped up, and Marshal’s eyebrows went high as he took it.

“It did,” he said, and I shrugged.

“They sent my check back,” I complained. “Can you see if they will take it? Use your connections to get it in the system? I don’t want to have to pay the late fee.”

Nodding, he folded the envelope over and slid it into a back pocket to look at later. Brow furrowed, he leaned back in his chair, thinking. “You want some soup?” I asked, and Marshal smiled.

“No, thanks,” he said, then his eyes brightened. “Hey, I’ve got tomorrow off. It’s a teacher workday at the university, but it’s not like I’ve got any papers to grade. You want to go do something? Blow off some steam? After I get your check in, that is? I hear they opened up a new skate park on Vine.”

Whereas two months ago the offer would have tripped all my warning flags, now my lips curled up in a smile. Marshal wasn’t my boyfriend, but we did stuff together all the time. “I don’t think I can,” I said, annoyed that I couldn’t say yes and go. “I’ve got this murder I’m working on…and my sign to clean…”

Jenks’s wings clattered. “I said I’d help you with that, Rache,” he said brightly, and I smiled and curved my hand around him.

“It’s too cold, Jenks,” I protested, then turned back to Marshal. “Then I’ve got to pick up my brother at the airport at three, talk to Ford at six, and then go back to my mom’s and do the good-daughter thing by having dinner with her and Robbie. Saturday I’m in the ever-after with Al…” My words trailed off. “Next week, maybe?”

Marshal nodded in understanding, and suddenly seeing a golden opportunity to avoid being badgered at my mom’s, I blurted out, “Uh, unless you want to come with me to my mom’s for dinner? She’s making lasagna.”

The man laughed. “You want me to play boyfriend so your life doesn’t look pathetic, right?”

“Marshal!” I gave his shoulder a smack, but I was red-faced. God, he knew me too well.

“Well, am I right?” he needled, his eyes glinting under his hat-flattened hair.

I made a face, then said, “You going to help me here or not?”

“You bet,” he said brightly. “I like your mom. Is she making pi-i-i-ie?”

He stressed the word as if it meant the world to him, and I grinned, feeling better about tomorrow already. “If she knows you’re coming, she’ll make two.”

Marshal chuckled, and as I sipped my coffee and smiled back, content and happy, Jenks flew out of the kitchen on quiet wings, a green trail of dust spilling from him to slowly fade to nothing.