White Witch, Black Curse

  Jiggling the phone, I pulled a bottle from the oven and turned it off. Jenks’s wings had hit a high pitch, and I tried to tell him with my eyes that this was not going to happen. “On New Year’s Eve?” I quipped. “How much are you paying these guys? Half of Cincinnati is going to be at a party.”

  “I want you to come with me to one in particular,” he continued, his voice tired.

  “Golly, Edden. I don’t date people I work with.”

  I could hear him puff his breath out in annoyance. “Morgan, stop messing with me. There’s an eighty-three percent chance Mia will show up at this one.”

  The bottle was warm in my hands as I filled it, and I gave the mix a good shake before setting it beside the first with a sharp tap. “I’ve got spelling to do tomorrow. Personal spelling.”

  “I’ll give you time and a half,” he coaxed.

  I crossed one arm over my middle. He wasn’t getting it. “That woman’s baby almost killed me,” I said, trying the direct approach. “She tried to finish the job last night in front of a freaking jail, damaging my new aura and pretty much stripping Ivy’s down to nothing. Do you know how hard it would be to live with Ivy if she were dead? I’m not going to risk us on some lame attempt to tag her and her psychotic boyfriend. Did you know I can’t tap a line without convulsing if I don’t have a good aura? I’m helpless, Edden. Not going to happen.”

  “Make some charms. I’ll double your rate,” he said, and I heard a burst of muffled noise when someone came into his office.

  Make some charms. Stupid human. “No,” I said, eyeing my potions. “Maybe when it gets warmer and all three of us can work.”

  “Rachel…People are dying. Don’t you want to get even with this piece of work for what she did to your roommate?”

  I got mad at that. “Don’t you guilt me, Edden,” I said, hearing Jenks’s wings clatter. “There’s a reason the I.S. is ignoring her. She’s a freaking apex predator, and we are zebras at the watering hole to her. Trying to goad me into it by waving the flag of revenge is low. You can just take your guilt and your manipulation and shove it!”

  Jenks looked pained, and I lowered my voice so I wouldn’t wake up his kids. From the phone came Edden’s cajoling voice saying, “Okay, okay, that was unfair. I’m sorry. Can I come over and talk to you about it? Bring you flowers? Candy? Does bribery work with you?”

  “No. And you can’t come over. I’m in my pajamas,” I lied. God, I couldn’t believe he had tried to use revenge to get me to do what he wanted. Thing was, last year, it might have worked.

  “You are not. It’s only midnight.”

  I leaned to look at the clock. By golly, he’s right. “I took a bath,” I lied again. Tired, I turned to look at my reflection in the black window. “Remus is a psychotic murderer, but Mia is a power-hungry psychotic murderer who is also an Inderlander. She thinks she owns this city, built it, even, and she’s been alive longer than most undead vampires. Edden, she said if you don’t back off, she’s going to start picking targets according to her political agenda instead of thinning the herd. You need to slow down and think. I know people are dying, but bringing her in is going to take a lot of finesse and luck, and I’m fresh out of both.”

  Apart from a slow breath, there was silence on the other end. “Her threatening the FIB doesn’t surprise me. It goes along with the profilers’ report.”

  I rolled my eyes. Damned profilers’ report. Upset, I put my back to the window and leaned against the sink. I am not going to do this. It is too risky. “Mia is not your average psychotic killer. She doesn’t need to go to a party,” I said, tired. “If she goes out at all, it will be to a private party where she already knows the victim, and the poor guy will probably die of a heart attack or choke on an olive.”

  He said nothing, and I blurted, “Look, I agree, we have to get her, but staking out parties isn’t going to do it! You can’t catch her! The I.S. can’t catch her. She keeps slipping your lines because she knows the city better than you, and she’s like a poisonous snake you can’t get within ten feet of. You’ve got to get her to come in voluntarily.” Frustrated, I looked at my demon books beside Ivy’s maps and charts. “I’ve done the research, and there’s nothing I can do to protect your auras from her, so short of gunning her down, you don’t have a chance.”

  “Then we’ll dart the bitch with an animal sedative,” he said grimly. “Don’t you guys do that with Weres?”

  “No. We don’t,” I said tightly, thinking it was barbaric to even suggest it. “Listen to me. You cannot risk alienating this woman. Even if I do hit her with a sleepy-time potion and down her for you, in about eighteen years, you’re going to have another one of these women on the street, and you won’t be able to distinguish her kills from natural causes. You saw Remus. He’s alive because of some stupid wish, and from watching Holly interact with him, Mia learned how to push energy into people, not just take it.”

  “So,” the FIB officer prompted. “That sounds good to me.”

  “So like every good thing we can think up to make our lives better, it can be turned into a weapon. Mia goes in, makes some poor sap think she’s in love with him, and because she’s feeding him emotion, he believes it. His guard goes down, and he dies without a whimper or an emotional stain. Of natural causes.”

  “Like Glenn’s friend,” he said, and I picked up the bottle of wine, looking at it. No, Rachel. You’ll have a migraine in the morning.

  “Exactly,” I said, filling the graduated cylinder right to the top. Not looking at Jenks, I drank half of it, then topped it off to get to the right mark. Who would have thought that so much trouble could come from one lousy wish? No wonder Ivy felt responsible.

  Edden was silent, and I let him stew while I dropped another leaf of holly and some ivy roots into the mortar and started working them over. “I have to get this woman,” he finally said. “Will you just come with me to the party?”

  Frustrated, I shifted the phone to the other ear. He wasn’t getting it. “Mia is not afraid of you,” I said. “The only thing you have to bargain with is Holly, and that’s pretty thin. The woman doesn’t want The Walker to have her. If you can promise me that there will be no wards of the court, no temporary custody, and that you can keep Holly with Mia all the time, she might come in just so she can impress you with how low and scummy you are.”

  “I will not promise that woman anything,” Edden said, his anger so deep that Jenks clattered his wings in concern. “She left my son to die. Her child is social service’s problem, not mine.”

  Angry, I huffed, “That’s right. You’ll be retired by the time Holly is out on her own.” Me, I’ll probably be just coming into my own—if I am still alive. “Come on,” I coaxed when he was silent. “Look at the bigger picture. You tell me Mia’s daughter can stay with her, and maybe I can get Mia to come in as a gesture of goodwill. Everyone wins, and you look like a benevolent human being allowing a helpless woman in jail to keep her baby. She’ll do her time for beating up Glenn, and then peacefully reenter society, promising to be good. You’ll have a handle on her, and better yet, one on Holly.”

  “What about the Tilsons?” he asked, and I made a face he couldn’t see. Oh yeah. I forgot about them.

  I continued to grind away, shoulder starting to hurt. “She’ll probably blame it on Remus, and God knows he deserves whatever comes to him. Once you have her behind bars, you have control. One step at a time.”

  Again there was a long silence. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  It had been a sour-sounding admission, and the circuit clicked closed. “Edden!” I exclaimed, but it was too late. I couldn’t go to Mia with “I’ll see what I can do,” and upset, I set the phone in its cradle and made a frustrated noise at the ceiling. “CYA bull crap,” I muttered.

  Jenks flew to the island counter, stilling his wings when I finished weighing out the last bit of dust. “Why are you helping her, Rachel?”

  Eyes on the scale, I blew some of the dust off, then held
my breath until it gave me a reading. “I’m not.” I said, satisfied with the amount. “I’m trying to not get blamed for the resurgence of a deadly Inderlander species. If we can keep her in jail long enough, Remus will be dead when she gets out, and she can’t easily have another child.”

  I dumped the dust into the wine mix, watching it turn black and the clumps settle to the bottom. Jenks rose high again, bringing me a strand of my hair. I carefully put it in the mix and gave a couple of twists with the pestle.

  The shavings from the watch were next, and finished, I opened the oven for the last bottle. Jenks came close to ride the updraft from the heat, and as I dumped everything into it and stoppered it up, I felt a twinge on my awareness. It wasn’t someone tapping my ley line out back, but rather a sensation that I could sense it almost without trying. My eyes went to the ceiling, and I wasn’t surprised to see Bis crawling in, his usually dark skin a pale white to match the color of what he was clinging too. My welcoming smile faded when his red eyes met mine and I noticed that his huge, white-tufted ears were at a worried slant, almost parallel to his head.

  Seeing me notice him, the young gargoyle dropped to the counter.

  “Holy sweet mother of Tink!” Jenks yelped, shooting halfway across the kitchen and leaving a spot of dust like an octopus inking. “Bis! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I set the bottle beside the first two, lined up beside my dissolution vat, and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Hi, Bis,” I said. “Come in to get warmed up?”

  Bis shook his wings straight and wound his lionlike tail around a back haunch, as if nervous. “There’s two cars out front. I think it’s Rynn Cormel.”

  My breath hissed in and a spike of adrenaline jumped, making my head hurt. “Is Ivy with them?” I asked, already moving.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jenks was way ahead of me, and I almost jogged to the front of the church, hitting lights as I went. The gong of the farm bell we used as a doorbell clinked once, not very loud, and I brushed bits of the spell off my shirt.

  Though the sanctuary was blazing with light, the foyer was dark. Relief that Bis had gotten the graffiti off the sign flitted through me. It was followed by the thought that I really needed to invest in a peephole. Or some lighting. Pulse racing, I reached for the handle, ducking when Bis landed beside the door to cling to the wall like a huge bat. His ears were pinned to his head, and he shifted upward to hang at head height. Jenks was at my shoulder, and hoping the pixies stayed asleep, I opened the door.

  Rynn Cormel was on my front porch, standing somewhat sideways in the yellowish light shining on the sign above the door. He looked about the same as he had a few hours ago: long coat, round hat, snow dusting his shiny shoes, hands in his pockets. Behind him were two long cars in the dark street. Not limos, but close.

  Giving us a welcoming smile, he inclined his head at Jenks and me, his eyes flicking briefly to where Bis was lurking inside, almost as if he could see through the paint and shingles.

  “Is she okay?” I said breathlessly.

  “More than,” he said in his rough voice, his New York accent obvious. “She’s a masterpiece.” Bringing a gloved hand from a pocket, he gestured to the second car.

  Jenks’s wings clattered as he dropped beside my neck to find some warmth, and my eyes narrowed. People were getting out of the second car, but there was no sign of Ivy, and I hadn’t appreciated his comment.

  Rynn Cormel smiled at my obvious anger, ticking me off all the more. “I did not take advantage of her, Rachel,” he said dryly. “Piscary is an artist, and I can appreciate a work of art without having to get my fingers on it, spoiling it.”

  “She is a person,” I snapped, arms crossed over me against the cold, and not going out on the stoop.

  “And a magnificent one at that. You have a discerning eye.”

  God! This was just sick. Jenks’s wings moved against me, and I looked past Rynn to the street, seeing in the dim light Ivy slumped in a husky guy’s arms. He was in a black T-shirt, arms bulging while he carried Ivy as if she were nothing. Behind him was a second man with her boots and coat.

  “You said she was okay!” I accused, realizing she was unconscious.

  The master vampire moved aside as they mounted the steps, and I got out of their way as they walked in, nice as you please, the heavy scent of vampire trailing behind them. “She is,” he said as they passed me. “She’s asleep. She will likely stay that way until well after sunrise. Her last words made it quite clear that she wanted to come home.” He smiled, ducking his head to look perfectly normal, perfectly alive. Perfectly deadly. “She used words that left no doubt. I didn’t see the harm in it.”

  I could imagine. “Her room is on the left,” I called after them, not wanting to follow and leave a past U.S. president standing on my porch. Jenks took off from my shoulder, and dusting heavily from indecision, he finally took off after them.

  “I’ll show you,” he said. “This way.”

  I turned back to Cormel, arms still over my chest. I didn’t care if I looked defensive. “Thank you,” I said stiffly, thinking I’d give him something more sincere once I found out how messed up she was.

  Again the tall man inclined his head. “Thank you.”

  He said nothing else, and the silence became uncomfortable. Bis twitched his ear, and Cormel’s eyes shifted. There was a soft thump from inside the church, then nothing.

  “I am going to try to find a way for her to keep her soul after death,” I said.

  “I know you are.” He smiled the smile that saved the world, but I saw beyond it to the monster underneath. I had to keep Ivy from becoming this. It was foul.

  I didn’t look away from Cormel as the sound of footsteps and pixy wings grew behind me. Standing in the middle of my threshold with my feet spread and my arms crossed, I refused to move as the men brushed past me and went down the cement steps and into the dark. With a last inclination of his head, Rynn Cormel slowly spun on a heel and followed, getting in the first car when one of his men opened the door. Two more doors thumped shut, and they slowly accelerated down the street.

  Jenks landed on my shoulder as I exhaled long and loud. “In or out, Bis?” I asked, and the gargoyle launched himself deeper into the church. There was a delighted laugh from the open support beams, and I shut the door, sealing out the night. Jenks’s wings were cold, and I decided I’d bake cookies or something to warm up the church.

  Feet slow, I went into the sanctuary. Bis was on one of the support beams, three of Jenks’s older kids with him. His ears were flat as he tried to decide what to make of them, and it looked sweet as he tried to appear harmless, shifting to a bright white and holding his wings close. Bis didn’t come in often, but the entire church had the feeling of closing in, circling the wounded, bracing for a fight.

  “Is she okay?” I asked Jenks as I tiptoed into the hall.

  “She stinks like vampire” was his opinion. “But her aura looks really thick.”

  Really thick. Thicker than usual? I mused, not knowing if that was good or bad, sighing as I touched Ivy’s closed door in passing. I was glad to have her home. The church felt…almost right.

  Just a few more days, I thought as I reached the kitchen and turned the oven on to preheat. Just a few more days, and everything will be back to normal.

  But as I looked at the stoppered bottles all lined up and ready to go, I wondered.

  Twenty-five

  Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered, head bowed over my lap, making my hair drape onto the scrying mirror. The morning chill made me feel ill as it mixed with my nausea, and my hand shook as I pressed it into the cave of the pentagram engraved on the scrying mirror. The ley line spilling into me was still ragged lurches and jumps. Obviously my aura wasn’t yet back to normal.

  Rachel calling Al, come in, Al, I thought sarcastically, in a last-ditch effort to reach the demon, but as before, he refused to answer, leaving me in this dizzy, uncomfortable morass of e
xistence. I hunched suddenly, as it felt like the world suddenly dropped out from under me. My stomach gave a heave, and I broke the connection before I vomited on the kitchen floor.

  “Damn it all to the Turn and back!” I exclaimed, barely above a whisper. Shaking, I curbed my desire to fling the mirror across the kitchen, and instead leaned to shove it roughly away on the open shelves under the island counter. Slumping back in my chair, I stared at the silent room. It was about three in the afternoon. Ivy wasn’t up yet, but the pixies were at it, trying to be quiet so as not to wake her. I eyed the open box of cold pizza from last night, and feeling my nausea leave as fast as it had come, I yanked a piece and ate the point. “Crap, this is awful,” I muttered, tossing it back in the box. I was too old for this.

  It was really quiet. And cold. ’Course, being in my robe didn’t help. Rex appeared in the doorway, sitting on the threshold and curling her tail around her feet. Pulling a pepperoni off my abandoned slice, I offered it to her, and the cat padded in, taking it with a finicky precision. “Good kitty,” I whispered, giving her ears a little rub after she ate the morsel.

  I had way too much to do today to be sitting around in my robe feeding the cat cold pizza, and taking my cup, I refilled it, standing at the sink to look out at the glittering snow. Our perishables, stacked on the picnic table, looked funny, and I sighed.

  Tonight was New Year’s, and I was shunned. What a nice way to start the year. No wonder, really, if I was considering doing a spell to force a demon to come to me—in a public place. Maybe I should break into a vacant office that overlooked the square. Maybe I am a black witch.

  Mood souring, I took a sip of coffee, eyes closing as it slipped down and eased the last of my nausea. Turning, I started, almost spilling my coffee when I found Ivy standing in the doorway in her black silk robe, her arms crossed, watching me.

  “Holy crap!” I exclaimed, flustered. “How long have you been there?”