Dead Witch Walking

Chapter Sixteen

  I woke from a sound sleep, jolted by the distant sound of glass breaking. I could smell wood incense. My eyes flashed open.

  Ivy was bending over me, her face inches from mine.

  "No!" I shouted, punching out in a blind panic. My fist caught her in the gut. Ivy clutched her middle and fell to the floor, struggling to breathe. I scrambled to crouch on my bed. My eyes darted from the gray window to the door. My heart pounded, and I went cold in a painful rush of adrenaline. She was between me and my only way out.

  "Wait," she gasped, her robe sleeve falling to her elbow as she reached to catch me.

  "You backstabbing, bloodsucking vamp," I hissed.

  My breath caught in surprise as Jenks - no, it was Jax - flitted from the windowsill to hover before me. "Ms. Rachel," he said, distracted and tense. "We're under attack. Fairies. " He nearly spat the last word.

  Fairies, I thought in a wash of cold fear as I glanced at my bag. I couldn't fight fairies with my charms. They were too fast. The best I could do would be to try and squish one. Oh God. I'd never killed anyone in my entire life. Not even by accident. I was a runner, damn it. The idea was to bring them in alive, not dead. But fairies. . .

  My gaze shot to Ivy, and I flushed as I realized what she was doing in my room. With as much grace as I could find, I got off my bed. "Sorry," I whispered, offering her a hand up.

  Her head tilted so she could see me past the curtain of her hair. Pain barely hid her anger. A white hand darted out and yanked me down. I hit the floor with a yelp, panicking again as she covered my mouth with a firm hand. "Shut up," she wheezed, her breath on my cheek. "You want to get us killed? They're already inside. "

  Eyes wide, I whispered around her fingers, "They won't come inside. It's a church. "

  "Fairies don't recognize holy ground," she said. "They couldn't care less. "

  They were already inside. Seeing my alarm, Ivy took her hand from my mouth. My eyes went to the heating vent. Reaching out a slow hand, I closed it, wincing at the squeak.

  Jax lit upon on my pajama-covered knee. "They invaded our garden," he said, the murderous cast on his childlike face looking terribly wrong. "They're going to pay. And here I am, stuck babysitting you two lunkers. " He flitted to the window in disgust.

  There was a bump from the kitchen, and Ivy yanked me down as I tried to rise. "Stay put," she said softly. "Jenks will take care of them. "

  "But - " I bit back my protest as Ivy turned to me, her eyes black in the dim light of the early morning. What could Jenks do against fairy assassins? He was trained in backup, not guerrilla warfare. "Look, I'm sorry," I whispered. "For hitting you, I mean. "

  Ivy didn't move. A seething mix of emotion had gathered behind her eyes, and I felt my breath catch. "If I wanted you, little witch," she said, "you couldn't stop me. "

  Chilled, I swallowed hard. It sounded like a promise.

  "Something's changed," she said, her attention on my closed door. "I didn't expect this for another three days. "

  A sick feeling washed over me. The I. S. had changed its tactics. I had brought this on myself. "Francis," I said. "It's my fault. The I. S. knows I can slip past their watchers now. "

  I pressed my fingertips into my temples. Keasley, the old man across the street, had warned me.

  There was a third crash, louder this time. Ivy and I stared at the door. I could hear my heartbeat. I wondered if Ivy could, too. After a long moment, there was a tiny knock at the door. Tension slammed into me, and I heard Ivy take a slow breath, gathering herself.

  "Papa?" Jax said softly. There was a whine of noise from the hall, and Jax darted to the door. "Papa!" he shouted.

  I lurched to my feet, shoulders slumping. I flicked on the light, squinting in the sudden glare at the clock Ivy had lent me. Five-thirty. I'd only been asleep an hour.

  Ivy rose with startling quickness, opening the door and stalking out with the hem of her robe furling. I winced as she left. I hadn't meant to hurt her. No, that wasn't true. I had. But I thought she was making me into an early morning snack.

  Jenks careened in, nearly crashing into the window as he tried to land.

  "Jenks?" I said, deciding my apology to Ivy could wait. "Are you all right?"

  "We-e-e-e-ell," he drawled, sounding as if he were drunk. "We won't have to worry about fairies for a while. " My eyes widened at the length of steel in his hand. It had a wooden handle and was the size of one of those sticks they put olives on. Staggering, he sat down hard, accidentally bending his lower set of wings under him.

  Jax pulled his father to his feet. "Papa?" he said, worried. Jenks was a mess. One of his upper wings was in tatters. He was bleeding from several scratches, one right under his eye. The other was swollen shut. He leaned heavily on Jax, who was struggling to keep his father upright.

  "Here," I said, tucking my hand under and behind Jenks, forcing him to sit on my palm. "Let's get you to the kitchen. The light's better in there. Maybe we can tape your wing. "

  "No light there," Jenks slurred. "Broke 'em. " He blinked, struggling to focus. "Sorry. "

  Worried, I cupped my hand over him, ignoring his muffled protests. "Jax," I said, "get your mom. " He grabbed his father's sword and darted out just below the ceiling. "Ivy?" I called as I edged my way through the dark hall. "What do you know about pixies?"

  "Apparently not enough," she said from right behind me, and I jumped.

  I elbowed the light switch as I entered the kitchen. Nothing. The lights were busted.

  "Wait," Ivy said. "There's glass all over the floor. "

  "How can you tell?" I said in disbelief, but I hesitated, not willing to chance my bare feet in the dark. Ivy brushed past me in a whisper of black, and I shuddered as the breeze of her passage chilled me. She was going vampy. There was the crunch of glass, and the fluorescent bulb over the oven flickered into life, illuminating the kitchen in an uncomfortable glow.

  Thin, fluorescent lightbulb glass littered the floor. There was a pungent haze in the air. My eyebrows rose as I realized it was a cloud of fairy dust. It caught in my throat, and I put Jenks on the counter before I sneezed and accidentally dropped him.

  Breath held, I picked my way to the window to open it farther. Mr. Fish was laying helpless in the sink, his bowl shattered. I gingerly plucked him from between the thick shards, filling a plastic cup and plunking him in. Mr. Fish wiggled, shuddered, and sank to the bottom. Slowly his gills moved back and forth. He was okay.

  "Jenks?" I said, turning to find him standing where I had left him. "What happened?"

  "We got 'em," he said, barely audible, listing to the side.

  Ivy took the broom from the pantry and began sweeping the glass into a pile.

  "They thought I didn't know they were there," Jenks continued as I rummaged for some tape, starting as I found a severed fairy wing. It looked like a Luna moth's wing rather than a dragonfly's. The scales rubbed off on my fingers, staining them green and purple. I carefully set the wing aside. There were several very complicated spells that called for fairy dust.

  Jeez, I thought, turning away. I was going to be sick. Someone had died, and I was considering using part of him to spell.

  "Little Jacey spotted them first," Jenks said, his voice falling into an eerie cadence. "On the far side of the human graves. Pink wings in the lowering moon as the earth slipped 'round her silver light. They reached our wall. Our lines were strung. We held our land. What's said is done. "

  Bewildered, I looked at Ivy standing silent with her unmoving broom. Her eyes were wide. This was weird. Jenks wasn't swearing; he sounded poetic. And he wasn't done.

  "The first went down beneath the oak, stung by the taste of steel in his blood. The second on holy ground did fall, stained with the cries of his folly. The third in the dust and salt did fail, sent back to his master, a silent warning given. " Jenks looked up, clearly not seeing me. "This ground is ours. So it is said with
broken wing, poisoned blood, and our unburied dead. "

  Ivy and I stared at each other through the ugly light. "What the hell?" Ivy whispered, and Jenks's eyes cleared. He turned to us, touched his head in salute, and slowly collapsed.

  "Jenks!" Ivy and I cried, jolted into motion. Ivy got there first. She cupped Jenks into her hands and turned to me with a panicked look. "What do I do?" she cried.

  "How should I know?" I shouted back. "Is he breathing?"

  There was a sound of jangling wind chimes, and Jenks's wife darted into the room, trailing a wake of at least a dozen pixy children. "Your living room is clean," she said brusquely, her silk fog-colored cloak billowing to a stop around her. "No charms. Take him there. Jhem, go turn the light on ahead of Ms. Ivy, then help Jinni fetch my kit here. Jax, take the rest of this lot through the church. Start in the belfry. Don't miss a crack. The walls, the pipes, the cable and phone lines. Watch the owls, and mind you check that priest hole. You even think you smell a spell or one of those fairies, you sing out. Clear? Now go. "

  The pixy children scattered. Ivy, too, obediently followed the tiny woman's order and hotfooted it into the living room. I would have thought it amusing but for Jenks unmoving on her palm. Limping, I followed them.

  "No, love," the tiny woman directed as Ivy went to set Jenks on a cushion. "The end table, please. I need a hard surface to cut against. "

  Cut against? I thought, moving Ivy's magazines off the table and onto the floor to make room. I sat down on the closest chair and tilted the lamp shade. My adrenaline was fading, leaving me light-headed and cold in my flannel pajamas. What if Jenks was really hurt? I was shocked he had actually killed two fairies. He had killed them. I had put people in the hospital before, sure, but kill someone? I thought back to my fear as I huddled in the dark next to a tense vampire and wondered if I could do the same.

  Ivy set Jenks down as if he were made of tissue paper, then backed to the door. Her tall stance hunched, making her look nervous and out of place. "I'll check outside," she said.

  Mrs. Jenks smiled, showing an ageless warmth in her smooth, youthful features. "No, love," she said. "It's safe now. We have at least a full day before the I. S. can find another fairy clan willing to breach our lines. And there's not enough money to get pixies to invade other pixies' gardens. It just proves fairies are uncouth barbarians. But you go search if you like. The youngest bairn could dance among the flowers this morning. "

  Ivy opened her mouth as if to protest, then realizing the pixy was entirely serious, she dropped her eyes and slipped out the back door.

  "Did Jenks say anything before he passed out?" Mrs. Jenks asked as she arranged him so his wings were awkwardly splayed. He looked like a pinned bug on display, and I felt ill.

  "No," I said, wondering at her calm attitude. I was nearly frantic. "He started in like he was reciting a sonnet or something. " I pulled my pajama top tighter to my throat and hunched into myself. "Is he going to be all right?"

  She sank to her knees beside him, her relief obvious as she ran a careful finger under her husband's swollen eye. "He's fine. If he was cursing or reciting poetry, he's fine. If you told me he was singing, I'd be worried. " Her hands slowed their motion over him, and her eyes went distant. "The one time he came home singing, we nearly lost him. " Her eyes cleared. Pressing her lips together in a mirthless smile, she opened the bag her children had brought.

  I felt a flush of guilt. "I'm really sorry about this, Mrs. Jenks," I said. "If it hadn't been for me, this never would have happened. If Jenks wants to break his contract, I'll understand. "

  "Break his contract!" Mrs. Jenks fixed her eyes on me with a frightening intensity. "Heavens, child. Not over a little bit of a thing like this. "

  "But Jenks shouldn't have to fight them," I protested. "They could've killed him. "

  "There were only three," she said, spreading a white cloth next to Jenks like a surgical kit, laying bandages, salve, even what looked like artificial wing membrane on it. "And they knew better. They saw the warnings. Their deaths were legitimate. " She smiled, and I could see why Jenks had used his wish to keep her. She looked like an angel, even with the knife she held.

  "But they weren't after you," I insisted. "They were after me. "

  Her head shook to send the tips of her wispy hair waving. "Doesn't matter," she said in her lyrical voice. "They would have gotten the garden regardless. But I think they did it for the money. " She nearly spat the word. "It took a lot of I. S. money to convince them to try my Jenks's strength. " She sighed, cutting out portions of the thin membrane to match the holes in Jenks's wing with the coolness of someone mending a sock.

  "Don't fret," she said. "They thought that because we had just taken possession, they could catch us off balance. " She turned a smug eye to me. "They found out wrong, didn't they?"

  I didn't know what to say. The pixy/fairy animosity went far deeper than I had imagined. Being of the mind-set that no one could own the earth, pixies and fairies shunned the idea of property titles, relying upon the simple adage might makes right. And because they weren't in competition with anyone but each other, the courts turned a blind eye to their affairs, allowing them to settle their own disagreements, up to and including killing each other, apparently. I wondered what had happened to whoever had the garden before Ivy rented the church.

  "Jenks likes you," the small woman said, rolling up the wing membrane and packing it away. "Calls you his friend. I'll give you the same title out of respect for him. "

  "Thanks," I stammered.

  "I don't trust you, though," she said, and I blinked. She was as direct as her husband, and just about as tactful. "Is it true you made him a partner? For real and not just a cruel prank?"

  I nodded, more serious than I had been all week. "Yes, ma'am. He deserves it. "

  Mrs. Jenks took a pair of tiny scissors in hand. They looked more like an heirloom than a functional piece of equipment, their wooden handles carved into the shape of a bird. The beak was metal, and my eyes widened as she took the cold iron and knelt before Jenks. "Please stay asleep, love," I heard her whisper, and I watched in astonishment as she delicately trimmed the frayed edges of Jenks's wing. The smell of cauterized blood rose thick in the shut-up room.

  Ivy appeared in the doorway as if having been summoned. "You're bleeding," she said.

  I shook my head. "It's Jenks's wing. "

  "No. You're bleeding. Your foot. "

  I straightened, squashing a flash of angst. Breaking eye contact, I swung my foot up to look at its underside. A red smear covered my heel. I had been too busy to notice.

  "I'll clean it up," Ivy said, and I dropped my foot, shrinking back. "The floor," Ivy said in disgust. "You left bloody footprints all over the floor. " My gaze went to where she pointed to the hallway, my footprints obvious in the growing light of the new day. "I wasn't going to touch your foot," Ivy muttered as she stomped out.

  I flushed. Well. . . I had woken up with her breathing on my neck.

  There was a thumping of cupboard doors and a rush of water from the kitchen. She was mad at me. Maybe I ought to apologize. But for what? I already said I was sorry for hitting her.

  "You sure Jenks is going to be okay?" I asked, avoiding the problem.

  The pixy woman sighed. "If I can get the patches in place before he wakes up. " She sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, and said a short prayer. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she took up a dull blade with a wooden handle. She set a patch in place and ran the flat of the blade along the edges, melting it to Jenks's wing. He shuddered, though didn't wake. Her hands were shaking when she finished, and pixy dust sifted from her to make her glow. An angel indeed.

  "Children?" she called, and they appeared from everywhere. "Bring your father along. Josie, if you would go and make sure the door is open?"

  I watched as the children descended upon him, lifting him up and carrying him out through the flue. Mrs. Jenks wearily go
t to her feet as her eldest daughter packed everything away in the bag. "My Jenks," she said, "sometimes reaches for more than a pixy ought to dream for. Don't get my husband killed in his folly, Ms. Morgan. "

  "I'll try," I whispered as she and her daughter vanished up the chimney. I felt guilty, as if I were intentionally manipulating Jenks to protect myself. There was a sliding clatter of glass into the trashcan, and I rose, glancing out the window.

  The sun was up, shining on the herbs in the garden. It was way past my bedtime, but I didn't think I could go back to sleep.

  Feeling weary and out of control, I shuffled into the kitchen. Ivy was on her hands and knees in her black robe, swabbing up my footprints. "I'm sorry," I said, standing in the middle of the kitchen with my arms clasped around myself.

  Ivy looked up with narrowed eyes, playing the part of the martyr well. "For what?" she said, clearly wanting to drag me through the entire apology process.

  "For, er, hitting you. I wasn't awake yet," I lied. "I didn't know it was you. "

  "You already apologized for that," she said, going back to the floor.

  "For you cleaning up my footprints?" I tried again.

  "I offered to. "

  I bobbed my head. She had. I wasn't going to delve into the possible motives behind that, but just accept her offer as her being nice. But she was mad about something. I hadn't a clue what. "Urn, help me out here, Ivy," I finally said.

  She rose and went to the sink, methodically rinsing the rag out. The yellow cloth was carefully set over the faucet to dry. She turned, leaning back against the counter. "How about a little trust? I said I wasn't going to bite you, and I'm not. "

  My mouth dropped open. Trust? Ivy was upset about trust? "You want trust?" I exclaimed, finding I needed to be angry to talk to Ivy about this. "Then how about more control from you. I can't even contradict you without you going vampy on me!"

  "I do not," she said, her eyes widening.

  "You do, too," I said, gesturing. "It's just like that first week we worked together and we would argue over the best way to bring in a shoplifter at the mall. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm wrong. At least listen to me before you decide that I am. "

  She took a breath, then slowly let it out. "Yes. You're right. "

  I jerked back at her words. She thought I was right? "And another thing," I added, slightly mollified. "Stop with the running away during an argument. You stormed out of here tonight like you were going to rip someone's head off, then I wake up with you bending over me? I'm sorry for punching you, but you have to admit, you kind of deserved it. "

  A faint smile crossed her, then disappeared. "Yeah. I suppose. " She rearranged the rag over the spigot. Turning, she clasped her arms around herself, gripping her elbows. "Okay, I won't leave in the middle of an argument, but you're going to have to not get so excited during them. You're jerking me, around until I don't know which floor to stand on. "

  I blinked. Did she mean excited as in scared, angry, or both? "Beg pardon?"

  "And maybe get a stronger perfume?" she added apologetically.

  "I - I just bought some," I said in surprise. "Jenks said it covered everything. "

  A sudden distress pinched Ivy's face as she met my gaze. "Rachel. . . I can still smell me thick on you. You're like a big chocolate-chip cookie sitting all alone on an empty table. And when you get all agitated, it's as if you just came out of the oven, all warm and gooey. I haven't had a cookie in three years. Could you just calm down so you don't smell so damn good?"

  "Oh. " Suddenly cold, I sank down in my chair at the table. I didn't like being compared to food. And I'd never be able to eat another chocolate-chip cookie again. "I rewashed my clothes," I said in a small voice. "I'm not using your sheets or soap anymore. "

  Ivy's eyes were on the floor when I turned around. "I know," she said. "I appreciate it. It helps. This isn't your fault. A vampire's scent lingers on anyone they live with. It's a survival trait that tends to lengthen the life of a vampire's companion by telling other vamps to back off. I didn't think I would notice it, seeing as we were sharing floor space, not blood. "

  A shudder went through me as I recalled from my basic Latin class that the word companion stemmed from the word for food. "I don't belong to you," I said.

  "I know. " She took a careful breath, not looking at me. "The lavender is helping. Maybe if you hung satchels of it in your closet it would be enough. And tried not to get so emotional, especially when we're - discussing alternative actions?"

  "Okay," I said softly, realizing how complex this arrangement was going to be.

  "Are you still going out to Kalamack's tomorrow?" Ivy asked.

  I nodded, relieved at the change of topics. "I don't want to go without Jenks, but I don't think I can wait for him to be flightworthy. "

  Ivy was silent for a long moment. "I'll drive you out. As close as you want to risk it. "

  My mouth dropped open for a second time. "Why? I mean, really?" I quickly amended, and she shrugged.

  "You're right. If you don't get this done quickly, you won't last another week. "