6
“Coffee up!” a bored, cultured, and familiar voice called into the sound of grunge music and light chatter as I walked into Junior’s. It was Dali, dressed in a green apron as he worked behind the counter, gracefully moving the middle-aged bulk he favored. A few patrons sat at the window tables, and a short line stretched before the cold shelves and again at the pickup window. It wasn’t busy, but there was a rise of excited voices and the click of cameras as I walked in with Jenks on my shoulder. Swell. That didn’t take long.
That Dali had chosen to work as a barista in downtown Cincinnati was only weird on the surface. He’d owned his own restaurant in the ever-after and was probably taking the time to learn not only what the population wanted, but how to work within the system before opening his own place. I’d talked to Mark about it last month, but the kid said he was good for business, and he felt better having a demon behind the counter when he could have a handful of them in front of it at any given moment. I’d made Mark promise to never buy a curse, but the temptation had to be there. Seeing me, the older demon brightened.
“Rachel. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” he said as he poured juice into a cup under the ice grinder.
“You’re on my way to my next appointment,” I said, not wanting to bring up Trent.
Dali frowned, and a ripple of something coated me, making me shudder as he looked at me over his wire-rimmed, purely for-show glasses. “Your aura is too thin to be out of your spelling studio unaccompanied,” he said, his low voice audible even as he hit the button to crush the ice. Clearly a sound-dampening spell was in use. Point two for Mark to employ the demon.
“She’s not unaccompanied. She’s got me,” Jenks said, and the demon’s eyebrows rose.
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said as I settled into the back of the line. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to tell him about Hodin. Fish for information, yes—tell him a demon stuck in a hole for the last two thousand years had dropped from my ceiling . . . maybe.
Dali slid the iced fruit drink across the counter to the waiting patron before leaning to look to the back of the store. “Mark, I’m going on break!” he called, and the guy waiting in front of me grumbled. “He’ll have your drink up shortly,” Dali said, smiling to show his thick, blocky teeth, and the man went ashen.
“Rache, you want anything?” Jenks asked, looking like a tiny thief in his cumbersome black winter clothes as Dali came out from behind the counter.
“Tall latte, double espresso, skim milk, light on the foam, with cinnamon and a shot of raspberry?” I said over my shoulder as Dali took my elbow and pulled me to an empty table. “In a to-go cup. We can’t stay long,” I added.
Mark came out from the back, his worried brow smoothing when he saw me. “I’ll get it,” he said to the barista manning the drive-through, adding, “Tall skinny demon to go!” and a bell behind the counter rang of its own accord.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to Mark as I sat with Dali, his apron and polyester uniform dissolving to a more familiar suit and tie. I had no idea why the demon wanted to look like a slightly overweight white guy with no family, a bad haircut, and a grudge with life. Maybe it granted him some level of respect with the rest of the demons, who preferred pretty or dangerous. I could hear phones clicking. We’d be online in a matter of seconds. At least I didn’t smell like zombie anymore.
“Ah, what did you want to talk to me about?” I said, and when Dali said nothing, I looked up, shocked at his expression, which was somewhere between nervousness and . . . embarrassment?
“I’d ask to engage your services as an escort,” he said, and I blinked, truly surprised.
“What for?” I asked, following his gaze to Jenks, his dust spilling over the yellowing bananas and protein bars at the register. “No one will know you’re a demon if you wear sunglasses. Your aura doesn’t have any smut on it. Well, not much anyway.”
Dali hunched, his bulk looming between me and everyone else. “You misunderstand. To be other than a demon would be counterproductive.”
My eyes narrowed and I leaned in so close, I could almost pretend to smell burnt amber lifting from him. “I’m not going to help you make nasty deals with people,” I said softly. “You and the rest of the lost boys have one shot at making it work in reality. Don’t blow it, Dali. I worked too hard to get you here to be forced to curse you back into the ever-after one by one.”
Dali’s lip twitched in amusement at my claim that I could, and then the embarrassment was back. “No. I want to meet someone, and the last time I tried, it didn’t go well.”
Surprise kept me sitting. That, and my coffee wasn’t up yet. “You want help getting a date?” I asked, incredulous, and Jenks, talking with Mark at the counter, turned.
Dali’s lips pressed into a bloodless line, clearly not liking that Jenks was hearing this. “I want—,” he started, then hesitated. “There’s the chance—” Again his words cut off, but at my sigh, he held up a hand for patience. “The Rosewood children that Ku’Sox stole,” he said, eyes fixed on mine. “I want to meet the boy living in Cincinnati. His name is Keric.” A frown creased his brow. “Can you imagine giving a demon the call name of Keric?”
My mouth dropped open, and I closed it with a snap. I had dreamed about Keric this morning, all grown up and marrying Ray. Coincidence? “You can’t have him,” I said tightly. “Or any of the Rosewood babies. This conversation is over.”
I grabbed my bag to stand, freezing when Dali pinned my wrist to the table. The faint wash of tingles as the levels of our stored magic equalized went straight to my core. At the pickup counter, Jenks’s wings hummed threateningly. Dali leaned in, red goat-slitted eyes locked to mine. “I don’t want a child,” he said, practically biting the words off. “I want a student.”
“You want to teach him,” I whispered, relaxing, and Dali let go.
“When his aptitude begins to show, it would be best if someone is there to direct it,” he said, clearly discomfited. “I’ve tried repeatedly to make his acquaintance, but his parents become upset and he cries. I’ve seen nothing of him but his voice. He has a good voice.”
“He’s not even a year old,” I protested, but then I recalled Al teaching Lucy how to make winged horses. The hours my dad and I spent with pentagram flashcards . . . Okay. Apparently it was never too early to teach a good curse.
“I need an introduction,” Dali continued, but his tone had become stiff at my resistance. “With the great and wondrous Rachel Morgan there, his parents might be more open to me teaching him, less likely to think my goal is abduction. Perhaps you could tell him how Gally, ah, Al babysits for Kalamack. When Keric gets older, he will need someone, and the sooner you start, the fewer bad habits there are to break.”
Dali looked me up and down as if cataloging my faults, and I smothered the rising feeling of deficiency that Hodin had started in me. “I need to think about this,” I said as I resisted the urge to smooth my hair, and his expression shifted to one of annoyance. It had probably been a while since someone had said no to him.
“Rachel,” he intoned, and I held up a hand, wishing there weren’t so many people around. Besides, Mark was on his way over with Jenks and my coffee.
“I didn’t say no. I said I need to think about it,” I said, and Dali’s expression eased. “I need to weigh your desire against my willingness to take on angry parents if you do something stupid because you don’t respect them and their wishes. Keric may be a demon, but he’s their child first. He’d be your student a faraway third or fourth.”
Dali made a low growl of complaint, but he settled back into the chair as Mark set my coffee down. There was a price for treating people without respect simply because you were stronger than they were, and he was starting to see it in the hidden fear and reticence of people he was dealing with every day.
“On the house,” Mark said as I reached for my bag, and I beamed, sitting a little straighter. “Dali, I don’t want to rush you, but we’re filling up.”
“So I see,” the demon said flatly, eyes on the new line snaking past the cold shelves, and Jenks snorted as he went to the flower centerpiece with his own tiny cup. They were almost perfect pixy size, and I made a mental note to ask Mark where he got them.
“Thanks, Mark.” I took a sip, eyes closing in bliss as my skimpy-aura-induced headache eased, and with a nod, Mark hustled back behind the counter. Word had gotten out that there were demons at Junior’s, and as Mark had said, the place had gotten busy. “What did Mark call this, a skinny demon latte?”
“Excuse me. My presence is required if you cannot give me a firm answer.” Dali gathered himself to stand, and my pulse quickened. Now or never . . . Al would know I was fishing, but Dali might not.
“Dali?” I buried my attention in my coffee, pretending indifference. “Has there ever been a demon besides me who practiced elven magic?”
Dali’s lip curled, his attention on the register line. “No. It shortens their lives considerably.”
I sipped my raspberry coffee, pulse fast. “Ceri mentioned one called Odoe . . . Odin. . . .”
I blinked innocently as Dali’s eyes landed on me. “Hodin?” he offered, and I beamed.
“That’s it, Hodin,” I said. Jenks’s mouth was open, and I twitched my finger at him to stay quiet. Slowly the pixy’s dust vanished as his wings went still. “Ho-odin,” I said again, as if memorizing it, but my fake brainless smile faltered when Dali sat back down.
“Ceri told you of Hodin?” Dali leaned in, a dangerous light in the back of his eyes, and I fought to not shrink back. Great. Just what kind of a demon had been spying on me?
“Yeah,” I said, doubling down, and Jenks’s wings dusted a nervous orange.
Dali’s goat-slitted eyes narrowed, and for a moment, I thought he was going to call me out on my lie. But then he rubbed a hand over his chin in a rare show of worry. “Hodin belonged to the dewar,” Dali said. “Back when we all belonged to someone. Back before Newt twisted the curse that gave us the ability to fight for our freedom. Of all of us, he held to the belief that the Goddess could be trusted. It ended up killing him.”
“The Goddess killed him?” I prompted, and Dali’s attention sharpened on me.
“The elves did. Hodin was a nightmare among demons,” he said, and my stomach clenched. “If the elves hadn’t murdered him for trying to turn the Goddess against them, we would have.”
“For what?” I whispered, sure I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Treating with the Goddess, of course. When you ask the Goddess to supplement your skills, your magic is stronger, deeper, more terrible than you dare imagine. But she will twist the answer to your prayer into something worse, something to benefit her at your detriment—for her amusement. You escaped her once. Tell me I lie. It’s for this that we forbid anyone to draw her attention to us, lest we again find ourselves slaves to the elves because she’s . . . bored.” His thin lips twisted. “That law is still on the books, by the way.”
My grip on my coffee tightened. Familiar territory. “You’d rather I had let you all die?”
Dali sighed as a group of twentysomethings came in, all of them probably wanting complicated, syrup, whip cream, sprinkle monstrosities. “No.” He stood in a sliding scrape of chair. “Which is why we ignored it. Don’t do it again, or we will not.”
“Then Hodin is dead.” I held my cup to warm my fingers, startled when Dali loomed over me—far too close.
“Is he?” he asked, eyebrows high. “Have you seen Hodin . . . Rachel?”
“How would I know? I don’t even know what he looked like,” I stammered, and Dali frowned at the register. The new group was ogling the sandwiches, slowing everything up.
“When not himself he favored a crow or black wolf,” Dali said. “But he survived the elves by amusing them with his shape-shifting and can be anything. It’s said that the reason pixies kill their dark-haired children even today is so they’ll recognize Hodin if they see a dark pixy.” Dali shuddered. “He was dangerous beyond belief, privy to the dewar’s most secret magics, having borne the brunt of them as they were developed. Becoming animals to play the toy and escape his torment was his only relief.”
“Oh.” My gaze went to Jenks, who shrugged. He’d refused to kill his son, Jumoke, and now the dark-haired, brown-eyed pixy lived in Trent’s gardens, where he wouldn’t be stoned.
“Elves are so unforgiving of nonconformity,” Dali said with an old hatred. “But whether demon or animal, there was always a lie upon Hodin’s lips. Perhaps that was why he understood the Goddess so well. Still, it didn’t serve him in the end.”
Dali vanished behind a haze of line energy to reappear in his apron. “When it became obvious that the dewar would fall, the elven holy man killed Hodin to prevent him from using the magic they’d practiced on him against the dewar. Hodin had belonged to the dewar’s most holy man, you see, and was said to have known all their secrets.”
Which made sense, if not morally right. As versatile as it was, demon magic couldn’t best the elves’ Goddess-based magic, though in reality, they sprang from the same source. It would likely be the Rosewood babies who’d ultimately bring the demons back to their full-spell capabilities, as yet unbiased against the Goddess. But that wouldn’t be for ages. My eyes flicked to Dali. And maybe not at all if the demons passed their hatred on to them in turn.
Still standing above me, Dali twitched his lip as he looked at the conspicuous circle etched into the floor at the back of the store. It was intentionally kept clear of tables and chairs, making a casual in-out jump spot to prevent accidents. Dali’s interest in it was the only warning I got as the surrounding people gasped at the ear-thumping shift of air. Jenks inked a startled gold when a demon popped in: blue smoked glasses, late-fifties bowler, black pin-striped suit, imposing height, and wide shoulders. It was Al, and by the looks of the suit, he was working. Not on the deadly domestic disputes for the FIB, though, and I felt a pang of sympathy.
“Ra-a-achel?” Al bellowed, and Dali smirked when the people coming in changed their minds and left.
Crap on toast, how had he known where I was? But Al was a social media junky, and the shot of me sitting at Junior’s sipping a latte with Dali and a pixy had probably landed in his feed.
“Hi, Al,” I said, and he strode forward to set a thick-knuckled hand possessively on my shoulder. A wave of relief spilled from him to me as his almost identical aura supplemented mine, and I sighed in thanks.
“It’s about time you got here,” Dali said sourly.
“You called him? Why?” I said. My latte went sour in my stomach. Not because of Hodin’s threat that I not mention him . . . exactly. Hodin had been imprisoned for the crime of doing Goddess-based elf magic, the same thing I kept finding myself being forced to do. Much as I hated to admit it, seeing Hodin confused and struggling for answers in Ivy’s kitchen had struck a chord. If he wanted to play dead while he figured things out, far be it from me to expose him. As long as he didn’t cause any trouble . . .
“I am not your babysitter, Gally,” Dali added as he went behind the counter.
Al’s hand fell away. “Rachel is capable of maintaining her own security,” he drawled, then frowned at Jenks. “Even if her aura does look like shit at the moment.”
“Thanks, Al.” I appreciated his confidence, but knowing that Hodin could have circled me in my own kitchen kept my voice soft. Why am I not telling them about Hodin, again? Oh, yeah. Death threat. Kindred spirit.
“I can protect her, you fairy-ass moss wipe,” Jenks said, hands on his hips. “Who do you think kept her alive when you were trying to kill her?”
Al narrowly eyed the pixy. “Just so,” he drawled. “Dali, if you please, a demon grande,” he said with a flourish, and Dali, now manning the register, stared malevolently at him.
“I really have to go,” I said as I gathered my bag, and Al eyed my nearly full cup.
“Do not get out of that chair,” he said, his tone suddenly sour. “The FIB can wait.”
FIB? I thought, confused. But I wasn’t about to tell him I was meeting Trent and the girls for ice cream. He’d try to horn in on it.
I had a few minutes yet, though, so I eased back. Satisfied, Al sat in an overdone show. “Dali thinks I owe you an apology,” he said as he peered at me from over his blue smoked glasses. “It never occurred to me you might need watching while your aura mended. You always seem so capable.”
“I’m fine,” I said. Dali called him? I thought, still not believing it.
“That’s what I told him you’d say,” Al said softly. “But perhaps he’s right.” He turned to the counter, visibly forcing the worry from himself. “Dali, is that coffee ready yet?”
The annoyed demon frowned. “I have three orders ahead of you, Gally.”
Sighing, Al settled back in his chair. He looked depressed, making me want to give him a hug and tell him it was okay, that the FIB was making a mistake and they were all crap heads. “Thanks for checking on me,” I said instead, and his eyes flicked to mine.
“You’re welcome,” he gruffly muttered, glowering at Jenks when the pixy snickered.
My headache felt better, and I knew it was probably Al’s aura temporarily filling in my gaps. Trent’s was close enough to mine that he could do the same. “But really, I have to go,” I said as I took another sip of cooling coffee. “I have an appointment.”
“You have a job? Splendid!” Al praised, but there was a tight bite to his voice that left me unsure. “You may want to consider showering. You still smell of zombie.”
“Still?” I said, wondering just how long the stink was going to linger, but then I hesitated. “Wait up,” I said as I set my bag on the table, and Al stiffened. “How did you know about the zombie?” My eyes narrowed. “You put it in my garden? It was you, wasn’t it?”
“That was you?” Jenks said, an angry red dust pooling on the table. “I’ve got chunks of dead human in my garden smelling like month-old unicorn piss!”
“I had to put it somewhere,” Al almost whined. “It was crashing about my backyard most horribly. I knew you’d take care of it. What with that soft heart that plagues you.”
“I didn’t know you had a place in reality,” I said, suddenly intrigued. Maybe he’d let Jenks and me move in for the winter.
“Fairy-ass zombie pus putrefying the soil. I’ll never get anything to grow there,” Jenks muttered, ignored.
“Of course I have a place in reality. We all do,” Al said as he eyed me over his glasses. “There’s nothing in that dismally small ever-after you made but trees and water. Bo-o-oring. Besides, my job required me to be available upon request at all hours, and unlike scrying mirrors, phones don’t work between realities.”
“Demon grande!” Mark shouted, and Al rose as that bell behind the counter rang.
“Maybe Jenks and I can move in with you for the winter,” I said, taking my coffee as I stood as well. “Split the rent.”
“No,” he said, and Jenks and I followed him through the tables to the pickup counter. “I will be escorting you to your meeting at the FIB for safety reasons.”
“I’ve got this, demon weenie,” Jenks said, clearly insulted.
“I’m fine. Really,” I insisted as I hitched my bag up my shoulder, but he wasn’t listening.
“Fine? You are barely adequate. Dali has seen your aura, and now I have to address it,” he said as he twisted to reach a thin wallet and leafed through a wad of cash from at least three different eras. “You are compromised. Wandering about Cincinnati without the ability to do magic makes us all look bad. Therefore, I’m with you when you’re out of your kitchen.”
Like my kitchen is any safer, I thought, and Jenks snickered, probably thinking the same thing.
“And a dollar extra for you, my good demon,” Al said in an overdone show as he stuffed a wad of bills in the tip jar to pay for his drink.
“Thank you so-o-o much,” Dali muttered sarcastically.
“I can do magic,” I protested, but the reality was that I had a splat pistol that could easily be circumvented and a ceremonial knife that was too long to be legal even in my purse. Earth magic was great, but it had to be prepared hours before use. But still . . . an escort? That was my job.
Al beamed at the barista as he took his coffee. “I shall accompany you to the FIB.”
“Um,” I said, not seeing a way out of it. “I’m not going to the FIB. I’m going to the park.”
“The park?” Al took the lid off his coffee to sprinkle a heavier layer of cinnamon into it. “I thought the FIB had a job for you,” he said, the leashed anger back in his voice.
“I’ve already been to the FIB.” Arms over my chest, I stared out the window in the general direction of the FIB building, my anger at Edden—at the world—flashing high again.
The snap of the lid going back on seemed loud. “You’re working a run for them?” he said blandly.
My attention flicked to Al. It was the second time he had brought up the FIB, and I looked at his previous words more carefully. He had said his job required him to be available at all hours. Required, as in not anymore. Had they fired him?
“I’m meeting Trent and the girls at the park for ice cream,” I admitted. “Um, Al?” I said as he headed for the door, coffee in hand and a new tightness in his jaw. I knew his anger was born in the FIB’s mistrust, and I understood it all too well. “Hey, as soon as I found out why Edden asked me to talk to one of their witnesses, I quit.”
Al jerked to a halt, a gloved hand on the door, and then, as if he was realigning his thoughts, his shoulders slumped. His hand pulled back, and still not looking at me, he took a long draft of his coffee. “Damn my dame, that’s good without the stink of burnt amber.”
Head down, he gestured for me to go before him. Throat tight, I did. I knew he’d never say anything about it, but I’d stood up for him, and that was all that mattered. Maybe with both of us out of work, we could spend some time and make some tulpas, though it might be cheaper now for the demons to buy what they wanted instead of creating it from energy made real. Besides, a good tulpa put me out for a week.
“You’re going to see Lucy and Ray?” Al said as he followed me out the door, and I hunched deeper into my jacket at the chill November breeze coming up off the river. On my shoulder, Jenks rattled his wings and tucked in behind my collar. “And ice cream. Mmmm,” Al added. But I knew it was the girls’ unconditional delight with him that he craved.
“I am. You aren’t invited,” I said, and he pouted dramatically from behind his blue-tinted glasses. “Ellasbeth will be there, and you’re a huge distraction. They get little enough time with her as it is.”
“I will be as quiet as a mouse,” he promised, but I knew better, and I winced at the imagery of exploding winged horses. “I will accompany you to the park,” he said, but there was genuine gratitude hidden in his flamboyant words now, and it made me feel good. “And I will drive,” he added as he put a hand on the small of my back and pushed.
“Really, Al, I’m okay,” I said, feeling as if I belonged again.
Al glanced over his shoulder at Junior’s. “I know you are, but Dali has accused me of shirking my parental duties, so until your aura is full strength, I’ll be with you when you’re out of your dwelling.”
“Parental,” Jenks snorted from behind my collar, and I flushed. Al wasn’t my parent or my teacher at this point, though I did go to him with questions he rarely answered. Chaperone, maybe? Bailer out of trouble? Okay, maybe parent was accurate.
“That’s a lame excuse to horn in on ice cream with the girls,” I said, but I was still riding the high of knowing that Al appreciated me standing up for him. “And when did you get a license?”
“Three days ago.” The satisfaction was clear in his voice, and he set his cup on the hood of my car to open the passenger-side door for me. It wasn’t the usual pride of a new driver getting a permit, but rather the affirmation that reality was making room for them, stretching the rules to accommodate their needs, and demanding that they adhere to the same laws as everyone else—at least on paper. For a demon craving the need to belong, it was heady. Edden’s mistrust had hurt him, and I doubted that Al would ever step foot in the FIB again. I knew I was questioning if I ever would.
“I heard it took six months and Kalamack three lawyers to reacquire your license. Thank you for getting that box on the form,” he added softly. “In you go, my itchy witch.”
Hearing more than the thanks for getting demon on the license permit, I slid in and he shut the door with a careful motion.
“He’s worried about your aura?” Jenks said as I dropped my coffee in the cup holder before fitting my key and starting the car up from the passenger’s side. Hot air blew from the vents, and I angled it toward Jenks.
“I know, right?” I said, my mood tarnishing as Al strode around the front of the car, his eyes on the nearby colorful trees. Dali freaking out over a thin aura was just weird. And then I realized Al wasn’t looking at the beauty of the leaves, but for the shadow of a ragged crow among them.
It wasn’t my aura they were worried about. It was that Hodin might be alive.