Page 34 of Demon's Bluff
My fingers tingled as theytraced the cramped text of my recovered book, but with both that bounty hunter Laker and Elyse’s crow at the curb, I didn’t dare let go completely of the ley line out in the graveyard, and I simply made a fist to squeeze the extra energy out of my hand. The unharnessed power hit the page with a little hiss, and I shifted uneasily, glancing at the hall where Ivy lay sleeping in Stef’s old room before turning to the kitchen counter where Getty and Jenks were busy stringing her loom.
I’d been in a bad mood all morning, and yet a small smile found me. Matti had always asked her daughters to help set up her loom, and that Jenks and Getty had found something to do together that didn’t touch upon his wife’s memory seemed…important. The dark-haired pixy was making a point of including him in her design concept, and I was hoping that he might buck pixy tradition and wear something his late wife hadn’t made. The two of them needed each other, did better in each other’s company. Again important. It wasn’t always about attraction—though that’s what had moved me once, apparently.
Exhaling, I dropped my gaze to my demon book that held the curse I’d accidentally used on Brad. I’d been standing at the center island counter now for a good hour, head down as I yet again went through it carefully, page by page, looking for any hint of a substitute for that damnedAtlantean mirror within the multitudes of other curses. Newt’s spell books kind of sucked. There was never a table of contents and she left things out. All the time.
The sliver of cold November sun that had been here this morning was gone, and yet a good feeling suffused me despite my frustration. The church felt different, more complete with the light scent of vampire mixing with the rich aroma of brewed coffee, the tang of burnt amber, and a hint of pixy dust. After seeing Ivy’s grief, I had insisted that she spend the night in Stef’s old room. My former roommate had wisely moved out shortly after getting her first paycheck from the hospital, and though Ivy had stronger ties across the river in the Hollows with Nina, it was more than reassuring having her here—not for my or Jenks’s sake, but for hers.
There was no way Jenks or I was going to let Ivy go home last night—not with that old grief finding her anew. My excuse that I was worried about the coven showing up had been met with a sour, eyebrow-high expression, but she had stayed, and the scent of anxious vamp was now everywhere. Most might find it unnerving, but Ivy had always been uptight, and the tangy pheromones felt like home. My life in a nutshell.
Not helpful…I mused as I flipped from a curse that colored a lock of hair permanently gray. Time would do the same thing, and it wouldn’t leave any smut on your soul.And somewhat innocuous for Newt?I thought, stretching until my spine cracked.
I collapsed back into myself, my gaze going to the plate of croissants. I’d picked them up for Trent, but he hadn’t shown, and yawning, I took a bite of one before returning to the book.
“Oh, that’s just nasty,” I said as I realized the intent of the curse before me wasn’t to lightly siphon off a person’s energy to give to another in need, but to rip the person’s aura away entirely and use it to extend the practitioner’s life.What an ugly bunch of hocus-pocus,I mused, shuddering. It was clearly illicit magic, and I hoped that Scott hadn’t seen it. I didn’t need any more dings questioning my reputation.
“Hey, Rache.” Jenks’s wing hum gave me bare warning before he landed right on the pages. “Any luck?”
“Only bad.” His dust was making the print glow. With a sudden thought, I flipped to Brad’s countercurse and pulled my bag closer, rummaging to find that flat stone with the hole in it. “Is Ivy showing any signs of wakey-wakey?” One eye squinted shut, I peered through the stone at the pages. Jenks’s dust vanished, but no secret words or phrases appeared to replace them.
“Yeah.” Jenks used his chopsticks to pull a long flake of croissant from one of the untouched pastries. “This is your five-minute warning. She’s going to want coffee.”
“There’s a cup still in there.” Intent, I set my hand on the page and ran a light trace of energy through it. Again, the print seemed to burst into glowing relief, but nothing extra showed, even when I looked at it through the stone.
Slumping, I pushed away from the counter. Crap on toast, I wasn’t going to let them put me into Alcatraz because I had trusted the wrong person—even if a significant fraction of the population there was incarcerated for that reason.
“How is she doing?” I asked as I picked at my croissant.
Jenks’s wings went still, the veined gossamer angled low on his back. “She’s handling it better than I would have thought. Which means her grief will show in inappropriate ways.”
I winced. “Not necessarily bad, if it can be channeled.” Cincy, though, had been on an even keel for a while, and now that Brice wasn’t aiming to take over the city, there was no one for Ivy to take her grief out on. “I practically promised her I could raise Kisten’s ghost,” I whispered. “It’s as if she’s in mourning all over again.”
Jenks’s wings blurred into motion at the soft squeak of a door. “I’m glad you made her stay the night,” he whispered as Ivy went into the bathroom.
“I know how she gets.” Eyes down, I pulled my croissant apart. “She wouldn’t have taken it out on me, but there was bound to be some stupid ass at Piscary’s who would push her too far. And then she’d hate herself in the morning. Probably insist on cleaning up all the blood by herself.”
The pixy’s sharply angled features twisted into a bittersweet smirk. “Like I said, I’m glad you made her stay the night.”
No one couldmakeIvy do anything, but the sentiment was there, and I pulled the book closer and studied it to at least pretend we hadn’t been gossiping about her. Her empty expression last night at Elyse’s bungalow had torn me up, all the way back to the church, all the way through a late, uncomfortable dinner. She’d gone straight to her old room afterward under the excuse of being tired, but I had heard her muffled sobs.
To say that I was pissed at Elyse for dangling a hope that didn’t exist before us was an understatement. I’d refuse to work with them for that alone, and I was really glad I’d realized that the coven’s half-ass invitation was in truth a calculated way to limit me. Still, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do now. I was no closer to uncursing Brad. Come June, the coven would choose a sixth member and they would vote me into Alcatraz.
My attention rose when the bathroom door opened, but Ivy made a beeline to her room, and I exhaled, feeling as if we were already walking on eggs.
“I’ll see how bad it is,” Jenks said, and I bobbed my head as he took off.
Head down, I flipped through pages. I had half expected Elyse to show up on my doorstep this morning and demand her book back. Embarrassment might have kept Scott’s mouth shut concerning our chat, and if no one opened the glamouredReader’s Digest, the switch might not have been discovered.Maybe…
Getty’s warning wing rasp sounded like summer itself, and my pulse quickened in anticipation at the soft knuckle-knock on the porch railing.
It wasn’t Trent but Al, and the imposing demon hesitated on the stair as my flash of libido died. Annoyed, he stomped across the covered porch, looking odd in an enormous bearskin coat.
Oh, yeah. The other book,I thought as I glanced at it sitting atop the counter. I should have taken it to him last night—a loan until he deemed my skills enough to handle it.
“Hi, Mr. Al,” Getty sang out as Al opened the French doors and camein, an extravagant mood full upon him once more. But he had seen my disappointment that he wasn’t Trent, and I was embarrassed.
“Hey, Al.” I focused on my book as my neck warmed. “The book with the curse to bring back the undead is by the fridge. Sorry. I should have brought it out last night. You want a croissant?”
“No, thank you…” he drawled. Ignoring the book, he took off his coat to show a more typical thick wool slacks, pressed shirt, and embroidered vest, plus a handmade scarf I had never seen before. I couldn’t help but wonder who had knitted it. Ceri, perhaps?