"Pale Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Kim)

Ten

My grip on the wheel tightened until my knuckles hurt. I was trying to keep my worry from turning into anger, but it was hard. Especially now that Trent was awake. “I don’t care how far we’ve not gotten,” I said tightly, glaring at Trent by way of the rearview mirror. “If we only make three hundred miles today, then we’ll deal with it. They have to stop sometime.”

“I understand you’re concerned about your partner,” he said in that same persuasive voice that was starting to sound patronizing, “but I doubt they’re planning on sacrificing him to their local god. You have a locator amulet. You’ll find him. Slow down. Let them land. They’re running because they know you’re chasing them.”

It was a nice thought, but they weren’t running because of us. They were running to somewhere, their path arrow straight and their pace unflagging. I wasn’t about to slow down, and Ivy didn’t look up from her map, a long white finger touching where our paths might cross again.

Vivian kicked the back of my seat as she tried to find a more comfortable spot. On the other side of the backseat, Trent frowned out the window. Okay, so maybe I was going a little fast, but I’d been driving a huge, frustrating zigzag for the last four hours. I had raced down I-40, then gone south on 602 to get in front of them, as Ivy had suggested. We had, only to see them rise up right over the car and swear at us. We spent another hour on 61, watching them go a rather speedy forty miles an hour, paralleling us until we roared ahead to where 191 crossed their theoretical path. They simply flew higher, shooting arrows at us when I demanded they stop.

From there, we’d taken 191 north in an effort to get back to the interstate. We didn’t know the next time we’d find gas, and Ms. Worries-a-lot in the front seat next to me was getting fidgety. By now, Ivy had enough data points to predict where they’d cross the road next. I was hoping that if we could get far enough ahead of them in time, I could hide behind a rock and simply catch them in a big bubble. Every time they saw the car, they raced out of my reach.

Right now, they were somewhere behind us, me going about eighty and the pixies hitting a steady forty miles an hour. It was their top speed—which meant Trent was wrong and that this was a planned snag-and-drag; pixies couldn’t go that fast for that long. They were switching off and carrying Jenks. Carrying Jenks who knew where.

It was about two in the afternoon and hot. I was frazzled and ready to snap. Ivy wasn’t much better, leaning over the seat to shake Vivian awake every half hour in case she had a concussion—which was totally pissing off the coven woman. Trent had been up for only a few minutes, but he already looked bored, staring out the window and clearly irate that the time he’d made was being wasted. It was all I could do not to reach over the seat and slap him.

As I fidgeted, Ivy rolled her window down to let in a warm blast of air, overpowering the hefty air-conditioning my mom’s car had. Her eyes had gotten dark and her posture was tense. She wasn’t hot, she was randy, and I rolled my window down a bit as well.

“I think they stopped,” she said, eying the amulet. “Somewhere by 180. See?”

She held out the map with her notations and calculations. I didn’t look, teeth clenched as I blew past a van with a wizard painted on the side.

“Rachel?”

“Just tell me what road to take,” I muttered.

She pulled a strand of her blowing hair out of her mouth. “The next exit,” she said, putting on a pair of dark glasses to hide her eyes. “You’re going to have to go north for a few miles before it loops around and goes under the interstate.”

“More backtracking?” Trent said, hardly audible.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” I yelled, then exhaled, trying to relax. “I mean, I understand your concern,” I said softly. “I’ll get you to the West Coast in time if I have to buy a trip for you from Newt.” If only Al would’ve jumped me there, but he wanted me to fail. “But if you don’t shut up, I’m going to pull this car over and shove you in the trunk!”

Trent sighed and shifted his knees, and Ivy looked up from the map, eyebrows raised.

“I’m trying,” I said softly to her. “He’s got about as much empathy as a demon. It’s always me, me, me. What if it had been Quen who was kidnapped? I bet he’d be all over that like pixies on elf trash.”

Trent cleared his throat, and I huffed. Point made.

“You want me to drive for a while?” Ivy said. “You need a break.”

“No, I’ve got this,” I said quickly, then added, “If I don’t do something, I’ll snap.”

I waited for Jenks’s comment that I had already snapped, but of course it never came. Checking the speedometer, I pressed the accelerator. We had to stay in front of them, and there was a whole lot of distance left.

“We’ll find him,” Ivy said, the amulet getting dark as she set it aside to fold up the map.

Silent, I scanned the distant horizon for cops, my senses stretching as I took in every nuance of light and shadow. Jenks was out there somewhere. My stomach clenched. This shouldn’t have happened. He didn’t need me to watch him, but this altitude thing had caught us all by surprise. I should have made him take that curse.

Ivy shook the map out with a rattle. “Trent, jiggle Vivian. Ask her what her name is.”

“My name is Vivian,” the irate witch grumbled, clearly awake. “And if you touch me, Kalamack, I’ll turn your hair pink. I do not have a concussion! Leave me alone and let me sleep!” In a huff, she repositioned herself in the corner, her feet kicking the back of my seat as she shook out my mom’s shabby car blanket and rearranged it over her head.

“I think she’s fine,” Trent said sourly as he looked out at the changing nothing.

The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo!

I sniffed, my stomach hurting from too much stress and not enough food. I was upset, but it was hard not to see the scenery and call it beautiful. It was nothing but dirt and rock, but it looked clean, pure, the angles and gullies standing out in the strong sun. I could tell that Trent was hot with the window open and the air-conditioning going full bore, but I was comfortable. He’d have to suck it up.

“That’s our exit,” Ivy said suddenly, and I slowed, not wanting to take it at ninety miles an hour. Trent sighed again, and I tapped the brake to shake him up.

“It’s a state park,” I said, seeing the faded PETRIFIED FOREST sign. “Maybe this is where they’re heading.”

“The Petrified Forest?” Trent said, sounding interested. “I read about this place.”

Ivy leaned forward. “Everyone who’s been to school has read about this place.”

“I’ve never been here,” Trent said, his words clipped as he tried to hide his interest. “It’s not the kind of thing that—”

“They let you do, huh?” I finished for him, pissed for some reason. I’m chasing down my partner from kidnappers, and Trent’s more interested in chunks of rock?

Ivy handed the map to him over the seat. “Now’s your chance, Johnny Boy Scout,” she said, apparently not needing it anymore. “We’re going right through it.”

My heart gave a thump before settling into a faster pace. There was a park-ranger hut straddling the road. Crap. “Vivian? Are you going to give us any trouble? Tell me now.”

“Just let me sleep,” she grumbled. “Let me sleep, and I’ll sign a paper that you’re a fucking angel.”

“I didn’t know they let coven members talk like that,” Trent said dryly, probably trying to cover his curiosity, but he was leaning forward, wanting to see more.

“Fuck you, Kalamack,” the usually posh woman shot back.

Oh yeah. We were all having fun now.

Ivy shrugged, so I pulled up and rolled my window completely down.

“Hi. Can we have a day pass?” I asked after reading the rates painted on the brown sign.

“That will be five fifty,” the weathered woman said, and Trent shoved some money at me over the seat.

“Let me get you a receipt,” she said, ducking inside her window to hit a few buttons. “Are you camping?” she said as she leaned back out and handed me a receipt stapled to a brochure. “We don’t suggest it this time of year. And you’ll need to take a class before you can get your camp permit. If you’re not prepared, the desert can be deadly. The class just takes twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes to preserve your life? I thought. Is that all? “We’ve got lots of water.”

Seeing Trent’s eager hand on the seat, at my shoulder, I handed him the brochure, and he settled back like a kid with a new toy.

“It’s not just the water, it’s the heat and elevation,” the ranger said, her gaze on Vivian. “Is she okay?”

The bar ahead of us was still down, and I took a deep breath.

“Too much partying,” Trent said over the crackle of new paper, surprising me. “She’s not even going to get out of the car.”

The ranger smiled, and the bar rose. “The gift shop is up on the right. If you change your mind about the class, they start every half hour.”

“Thanks,” I said, wanting to floor it, but she hadn’t given me our sticker yet.

“Well, enjoy the park. There’s a large group of Weres out at the hotel for a company retreat, but other than that, all the exhibits are open.”

Finally the little yellow sticker was stuck to the inside of my window, and I exhaled, turning it into something I could blame on the heat instead of relief. “Thanks! Bye now!”

Waving, the woman went back into her air-conditioned hut, and I crept forward at the posted forty miles an hour. After blowing down the interstate at ninety, it felt like I was crawling. I started to fidget.

“It says here the average person needs a gallon of water per day,” Trent said, reading from the brochure. “How much do we have?”

“None.” I eyed the empty water bottles in the cup holders. “It’s twenty miles to any road. I think we’ll be okay.”

“All I’m saying is if we have to walk, we don’t have any water.”

Ivy glanced at him. “You’re not walking anywhere. You’re staying in the car.”

From the lump of blanket came an irate, “I’m trying to sleep! Will you shut up!”

Ivy settled back, and I said nothing, dividing my attention between the unmoving dot of Jenks on the amulet, the winding road, and the shocking views of sharp-angled ravines and colors that were like nothing I’d ever seen before. We passed pull-off after pull-off, Trent rolling his window down, sucking the cooler air out of the car, the flat of his arms on the frame to get a look at the admittedly spectacular views. It wasn’t until we found flat desert again that he sank back into his seat. As expected, we crossed under the overpass and headed south.

“Think we’ll get to the place in time?” I asked, my mood vacillating wildly between relief and impatience as I hit the gas.

“Lots of time,” Ivy said, fingering the amulet. “They aren’t moving anymore.”

“He can’t fly. Not at this altitude.” Damn it, I was babbling.

“He’s wearing his red,” Ivy said, pointing out the sign for the auto tour. It went into the desert, and Trent perked up, his gaze going up and down as he traced our path on his brochure. “They might have taken him because he collapsed. Maybe they were trying to help.”

“Yeah, and that’s why they were swearing at us when we caught up with them,” I said. Double damn, what if I found him, only to find that the size difference prevented me from doing anything? The curse in my bag was for making little things big, not the other way around.

Driving with one hand, I looked at my bag, where my phone was. If worse came to worst, I could call Ceri for the curse to make myself smaller. I’d do it in front of Vivian if I needed to.

Again Trent put his window down, and the dry smell of the desert lifted through my hair as we drove a level course on the top of the world, the canyons dipping an impossible distance down, colored with purples, grays, and blues—like mountains in reverse. It was a weird way to see things. We’d met no one since entering the park, just seen a few ravens and buzzards. Silence, still and uncomfortable, and the sun hammering at everything without mercy.

“Slow it down,” Ivy said, eying the amulet.

“Are we there yet?” Trent said sarcastically, and Vivian groaned, pulling the blanket over her head despite the heat.

I drove past a sign about an ancient ruin, and Ivy stiffened. “Back up. Rachel! We’re close. I think they’re at the ruins!”

My heart pounded as I jerked the car to a halt so fast that Vivian hit the back of my seat, and even Trent had to catch himself. Ignoring Vivian’s snarl, I flung my arm over the back of the seat and put the car in reverse. Trent’s eyes widened as I whipped the car around, landing it between two white lines and jamming it into park. Intent, I turned the engine off and bolted out of the car, my boots scraping on the pavement as it threw up a wave of heat.

The silence hit me, and I hesitated, shocked almost.

There was nothing out here, impinging upon me the impression of magnitude. The hot wind shifting my hair had been in motion for hundreds of miles without impediment, giving it a slippery feel as it molded around me and continued on, elastic and not even recognizing me. I couldn’t see far enough, my eyes failing due to their own limitations for the first time in my existence. It was…immense. Jenks…

The sun beat down, making even the shadows hot. I sent my senses out as I stood on the road to the ruins, looking out over the purples and mauves, searching for anything, every part of me taking in the feel of the air, listening for the hum of a wing and hearing only an aching emptiness. I looked for a ley line, finding a crisscrossing of faded nothing, like hints of what had once been but was now gone. Empty. Everything was empty.

My head ached from the echo, and I took in every nuance as I looked for a sign, a breath, a wing chirp. Every chip of rock, every shadow stood out in sharp relief as I searched for him, the image of the desert almost scratched on the inside of my mind and built around the faded images of ley lines that no longer existed. They whispered, hinting at a time when there was grass and trees here, and huge animals roaming, living, dying…until they vanished along with the ley lines. I wondered which had disappeared first.

Al had once told me that demons made the ley lines in their efforts to escape the ever-after, but magic was older than that. Was what I was seeing now the faded remnants of lines gone dead? Had the demons destroyed the original source of magic in their attempt to banish the elves? I squinted, closing my eyes and reaching for a breath of understanding, wrapping my awareness around an empty shell of a scratch between the present and the past, finding no energy but only the lingering idea that power had once run here, now gone, leaving only the skeleton, dry and dusty, to hint at what had been. It made me feel so damned alone.

A door slammed shut, and I turned, my last thought heavy in my heart. “Get back in the car,” I said to Trent, and Ivy slowly got out, her head bent over the amulet in her hand.

Trent looked me up and down, his expression closed. “It’s an oven in there,” he said, turning to the map on the brochure. “And besides, it’s a bunch of pixies. How bad can it be? Just go and get him. You’re a thousand times their size.” Irate, he leaned against and squinted at me in the sun. The wind playing with his wispy hair, and the heat, made him look tired. “I’ll stay here unless you scream for me. Promise,” he said sourly.

Yeah, like that will happen. Jittery, I looked at the map sketched on the big brown sign beside a trail, seeing that there was a quarter-mile footpath that circled around a ruin. According to it, about four hundred people had once lived here, almost a thousand years ago.

Ivy shut her door with a backward kick, the thump not going on for long before the silence soaked it up. “You should listen to Quen more,” she said, looking up from the amulet to frown at the slight rise of land before us. “Pixies are deadly.”

Trent frowned at the sky, and I ran a finger between my ankle and the heel of my boot. “A clan of wild pixies kidnapped an experienced runner,” I said. “They live in the desert. What does that tell you?”

“They aren’t smart enough to move?” Trent said, and I made a noise of disgust. Ivy headed for the narrow footpath of paved asphalt, and I turned to follow. According to the plaque, archaeologists had begun to reconstruct the village site, but there were no walls higher than my knees.

Reaching my awareness out past the faint scratchings of what might once have been ley lines, I tapped the nearest real one. My eyes closed as I found hundreds of them, some as far away as the next state. The lack of water had extended my reach, much like the lack of trees expanded my sight. Having so much visual mindscape to play in was almost nauseating, and I quickly spindled a wad of ever-after energy in my head. I remained holding on to the line, knowing this was not going to be easy. I didn’t want to resort to magic. If I couldn’t convince them to let Jenks go, I wasn’t sure if I could force them to without hurting them.

The click of Vivian’s door opening was loud as I started out after Ivy, but she was only propping it open to get a cross breeze.

Yeah, there was the Vivian angle to consider, too. Anything I did was going to land in the coven’s ears. Frowning, I picked up the pace until I caught up with Ivy, my heart pounding as we went up the slight rise. The altitude was getting to me. I tried to walk softly to listen for the clatter of pixy wings, but there was only the wind.

How anything could survive out here was beyond me, much less flower-loving pixies. The only plant life I’d seen was tough and herbaceous, something that I’d never give a second glance at if I was home, but here, the tiny flowers stood out. “Trent is dumb enough to make me want to cover him in honey and toss him into the middle of them,” I said tightly as we passed down a narrow alley, slumps of rocks to either side.

Ivy didn’t look up from the amulet, too worried to notice the stark beauty around her. It felt good to be moving, even though the idea that I was a ghost walking down an abandoned alley lost to history was creepy. I didn’t like the fatigue creeping up my legs. We’d walked only twenty yards, but it felt like a mile in the heat and elevation. No wonder Jenks couldn’t fly.

The path turned, and we halted at the end of the village, looking over what was once probably the refuse dump. Below us at the bottom of a steep drop-off were figures etched into the rock, the dark surface chipped off to show the white stone underneath. Most of the glyphs were indecipherable circles and spirals, but the one with the bird holding a man in his beak was clear enough. It looked kind of Egyptian, and I wondered if demons had been here.

“Look at those cave drawings,” I said, pointing out the one with the storklike bird.

“They’re called petroglyphs.” Ivy didn’t even look at them, focused on the amulet.

“Okay, but that huge bird is eating that man,” I said, and she glanced up.

“I think it says ‘stay close to the village, or the boogie man will get you.’”

I lifted my eyes to the open spaces over the glyph, feeling like we were being watched.

“Right,” I said, not convinced. “And those little tally marks under it are what?”

She shrugged, and I hugged myself, wanting to scream for Jenks. “Where is he?” I said, stifling my urge to take the amulet from her, knowing better. Ivy felt helpless, too.

“I can’t tell.” Ivy turned in a slow circle, her expression one of the lost. “I know they’re watching us.” Pursing her lips, she whistled.

Below us in the parking lot, Trent pushed from the car. I waved him to stay, and he kicked a stone as he crossed the parking lot to crouch and feel the dirt between his fingers.

Ivy and I strained to hear something, but not even an insect broke the sound of wind on stone. I didn’t like this. If they took Jenks to ground, we’d never find them. “Jenks!” I shouted, then spun at a tiny rock falling.

“Careful…,” Ivy said, her hand on my arm, and we went forward together, following the path over a small ridge and out of sight of the parking lot.

I crept along, uncomfortable under the sun as the heat evaporated the sweat before it dampened my skin. Twenty feet ahead of us was another part of the village, the corner wall rebuilt almost to waist height. A small motion caught my attention, and I stumbled to a halt.

There atop the wall, hogtied and with his own bandanna shoved into his mouth, was Jenks. I couldn’t see his face, but his quick motions told me he was ticked, squirming with his words muffled by distance and his bandanna. His wings weren’t moving, either. A black dust sifted from him. He looked like a sacrifice, and Ivy’s words about the local gods echoed in my thoughts along with the image of that bird with a man in his beak. Maybe it was a pixy.

“Son of a bitch!” Jenks shouted, finally getting the bandanna off his mouth. “You cowardly sons of bitches!” he said again, then accidentally rolled off the wall to vanish behind it with a yelp.

“Jenks!” Ivy shouted, lunging forward.

“No, wait!” I shouted, reaching after her and feeling like the earth was going to drop out from under us. A piercing whistle echoed. My adrenaline pulsed.

“Rhombus!” I shouted, cowering as my molecule-thin layer of ever-after rose up around us. The protection circle snapped into place with a mind-jolting echo, and I looked up as tiny arrows plunked into it. The sun seemed darker, scaring me. Have I put that much smut on myself already?

“Stop!” a shrill pixy voice cried out ahead of me. “Or we kill the black-haired woman!”

“Rachel, stop!” Jenks shouted, and I looked up. And blanched. Thirty. No, fifty, maybe more, pixies surrounded Ivy, all with a bow or a sword or both. She wasn’t in my circle. Her vampiric speed had moved her too far.

“Ivy!” I called out, and she slowly licked her lips, fingers spread as she put her arms up in capitulation. Her face was deathly pale, and she barely breathed as the pixies, in shades of brown and violet, hovered over her, their dust coating her in a sheet of red, savage as they hooted and brandished their weapons. I had the ugly realization that this was how they survived out here—bringing down animals to supplement the traditional pixy diet of pollen and nectar. Shit, we were in trouble.

“Ah, sorry about this,” Ivy said, freezing when the pixies above her told her to be still.

“If you hurt her,” I threatened, and my gaze darted to the ridge. Trent was there, tense and looking like he was ready to do something. Damn it, I couldn’t protect both of them. What was he doing? If they saw him, they’d attack, and I tried to tell him with my eyes to get the hell out of here.

The bright flash of yellow drew my attention back, and I frowned at the colorful pixy dressed in a flaming yellow, billowing outfit as he hovered before me. He looked like an ill eighteen-year-old who’d been into the Brimstone too much, his dark skin wrinkled by the sun and too little rest. His grip on his six-inch toad sticker of a spear was firm enough, though, and his green eyes were as sharp as any I’d ever seen.

“Why are you following us, witch?” he demanded, hovering inches from my barrier. His words were so fast, I almost couldn’t understand him. My eyes flicked back to Trent, and I shifted my shoulders as I realized he was gone. Just start the car and wait, I thought, knowing that was too much to ask. He was going to do something, and it probably was going to make things worse. Stupid elf.

From behind the wall, I heard Jenks shout, “What the Turn is wrong with you? They’re my friends!”

The pixy confronting me darted to the wall. “Liar!” he exclaimed, gesturing for two pixies to get him. “They’re lunkers!”

“They’re my friends.” Two pixies dropped down, depositing Jenks back on the wall right where he’d started from. Looking pissed, Jenks stood, wobbling as he tried to find his balance. It looked like they’d weighted the tip of one wing to keep him from flying.

“I’m not making this up,” Jenks said in disgust. “I’m Jenks! Of Cincinnati. I’m traveling to the West Coast on a job, and I can’t stay here. And I’m not going to marry any of your women! I have a wife!”

I exchanged a shocked look with Ivy, and she rocked back, centering herself. They had kidnapped him as stud material?

“Liar!” the head pixy shouted, his wings moving fast in the heat. “You said she died!”

I opened my mouth, but Jenks beat me to it, shouting, “I don’t want a new wife! I love my old one. Do you have troll turds in your ears? Get this thing off me!” Jenks shook his wings, dusting heavily as the clip weighed him down.

Two more pixies, both in matching shades of sage green, had risen to flank the head pixy. “He did complain the entire way,” the one with the length of steel said.

“Lifted his ass 150 miles, him bitching nonstop,” the other with the bow said. This was weird. I’d swear they were the same age, but they didn’t look like they were from the same clan. Pixies didn’t cooperate like this. At least, pixies east of the Mississippi didn’t. Maybe they had to band together in the desert to survive. That might explain why they thought Jenks should take a new wife, too.

“He can’t even fly,” the second one said, pointing at Jenks with his bow. “Even without the shackles. I say let him go. They want him, and for all his finery and height, he can’t fly.”

“He’s from the east,” the pixy in yellow said. “He’ll adapt. He’s not used to the air. Look at how water fat his flesh is. And his sword,” he said, hoisting the one in his hand, and my eyes narrowed. It was Jenks’s. “This is pixy steel. Pixy steel! Fifty-four kids he says he has. All living.”

At that, the surrounding pixies rose up, gossiping in words too fast for me to understand.

“He lies!” a pixy said. “You can’t keep that many children alive.”

“Jenks can,” I said.

“You’re not helping,” Ivy called out, and I winced.

“I bet he can!” The head pixy in yellow waved Jenks’s sword around. “Look at him!”

Jenks stood with his hands tied before him and his gossamer wings dripping a black dust. Even I had to admit he looked good, especially compared to the gaunt, smaller pixies surrounding him. In another world, in another time, in another size…but he was Jenks, my friend, and my anger grew. I daren’t move, though. Not with Ivy having a dozen poisoned arrows pointed at her.

Around us, the pixy women tittered, and I burned when one said loudly, “I don’t care if he can fly or not. I’d just unwrap him and wear him like a fur.”

“We stole you,” the head pixy said to Jenks, gesturing for them to back off. “You belong to us.”

“Jenks doesn’t belong to anyone!” I shouted, but Ivy was silent. She was a vampire, and vampires were born to be treated like objects, given to others as favors for a day or a lifetime.

At my exclamation, the pixy flew to the bubble and poked at it with Jenks’s sword. “You’re not big enough to stop us. Get in your car and leave, or we’ll kill the vampire.”

I swallowed, feeling cold. “Please. I know this is weird, but Jenks has been working with us for over two years. He owns the church we live in. I pay him rent. You can’t keep him. He has responsibilities. A job. A mortgage. He’s got to get back to his kids because I’m not going to watch them!”

“He owns property?”

It had been the one with the bow, and I nodded as the pixies buzzed over that.

“His garden has so many flowers you can’t step without crushing one,” I said. “The grass grows so fast, I have to cut it every week. His children are so clever, they stay awake all winter. They play in snow.”

“It sounds like paradise,” a pixy wearing a flowing brown tunic said with a sigh.

“You aren’t helping…,” Ivy said softly, her voice rising and falling like music.

The pixy with the bow frowned, taking a higher position than the other two. “I told you we should have asked. They do things differently across the Mississippi.”

“We caught him!” the leader insisted, but hope rose in me as I saw a crack in their resolve. “Dragged his sorry ass across six clans, and you want to give him up? His wife is dead, and he’s on a quest to spread his seed to the wind. Why else would he be wearing all that red?”

Excuse me?

Ivy made a small sound of disbelief, and I turned to Jenks. He looked as mystified as me.

“Uh, that’s what we do where I come from to get safe passage through another pixy’s territory,” Jenks said.

“You don’t just let them cross?” a pixy woman asked, her brown silk furling as she darted up. “How do you find enough food to survive?”

A cultural difference? I thought. The entire mess was the result of a misunderstanding over the color red? “I’m sorry for the mistake,” I said, for the first time thinking we might get out of here without a fight. “Can we have him back? He won’t wear red anymore. We didn’t know.”

The pixies were flitting in the sun, the shadows of their wings flashing over Ivy as they argued in small knots. Slowly I began to relax.

“He’s a proven provider!” the head pixy said. “We need new breath in our children!” But the bows had been eased and the sword tips had fallen.

“Look,” I said, taking a half step forward and halting when the pixies bristled anew at me. “He didn’t know wearing red meant that he was trying to spread his, uh, seed.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know!” Jenks said, flushing. “I can’t stay. I gotta get back to my kids!”

“I’m sure we can work out an exchange for your efforts in kidnapping him and bringing him here,” I added. “Honey or something. What do you want?”

I held my breath as the three leaders looked at one another and then at their surrounding people as if considering it. I’d buy them an entire tanker of honey if that’s what it took.

“Can you get us…maple syrup?” the pixy in yellow said. “A gallon, maybe? The real stuff, not that lizard shit with the corn syrup in it.”

I exhaled, my breath shaking in my lungs. “Yes,” I said, seeing the lines in Ivy’s face ease.

The head pixy’s wings became a neutral silver, and he turned to the other two leaders. “For each of us,” he added, wanting more after I’d given in so quickly, and I nodded, smiling.

“Three gallons. But Jenks gets his sword back.”

“Done!” the three pixies said simultaneously, raising their weapons in salute, and the pixy standing beside Jenks cut his bonds. Jenks gave the buck a nasty look, letting the cut rope fall to his feet. His wings still flat to his back, he raised his hand to catch his thrown sword. Clearly not happy, Jenks jammed his sword away.

It was over, and the pixies by the far rock slide rose up in a whirlwind of sound and color, shouting, “Ku’Sox! The Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’Ru!”

A party? I thought as the air around Jenks and Ivy was suddenly empty of pixy wings. In celebration of a peaceful resolution and three gallons of maple syrup? Smiling, I strode to Jenks, still perched atop the wall. “Are you okay?” I asked, falling to kneel before him, hands curling around him but unable to touch. Never able to touch.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, looking embarrassed as he wedged that clip off his wing and wobbled three inches into the air and back down. “Bought for the price of a gallon of syrup.”

Ivy’s shadow covered us, and I looked up at her as she chuckled. “It was three,” she said. “And better that than my life.”

Jenks nodded ruefully. “I’m never going to wear red again. Can we just write them a voucher and go?”

I stood, pushing my nasty hair from my shoulder in invitation. “One of us will run into town for it, and then we’ll get out of here. Trent will just have to suck it up.”

Jenks rose unsteadily and laboriously flew to my shoulder, and my earring pulled as he fell against it. I looked up the path to the unseen car, taking Ivy’s arm to be sure she was okay, too.

“You didn’t get hit by anything, did you?” I demanded, but she wasn’t listening, her eyes riveted to the outcrop of stone behind me. The pixies were shrilling at the piercing croak of a bird, and I turned.

A bird? I thought, and then everything shifted. The Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’Ru wasn’t a party; it was a bird. A big-ass bird, like a stork. And it was…“It’s eating them,” I whispered, horror filling me. “Oh my God, that bird is eating them!”

I stood frozen in disbelief, not comprehending it. The second and third leaders were shouting directions, so fast and high-pitched that I couldn’t understand them, but it was clear enough as the arrows and spears once pointed at us now fell on the bird. It cawed, the harsh sound crawling through my mind and making me shudder as it echoed off the stone.

“Oh my God,” Ivy gasped.

I spun, blinking when a new shadow fell over us. “You!” I exclaimed stupidly as Trent half-slid to a halt beside us, breathing hard and looking tired. “I told you to wait in the car! We’ve got this!”

“I can see that.” His words clipped, Trent eyed the battle, his lips pressed tight. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

Pixies were screaming, the sound becoming panicked. “What, now?” I exclaimed. “We have to help them!”

“The pixies who kidnapped your partner?” Trent said, frowning. “Why?”

“Why?” I echoed him. “Because it was a misunderstanding! We got it worked out. I just need three gallons of maple syrup!”

Trent’s face became white. “Oh.” He licked his lips and shifted from foot to foot. “Um, maybe we should leave anyway,” he said, taking my arm and pulling me a step up the path.

“Rache?” Jenks warbled. “I can’t fly.”

“Do you not see what’s going on here?” I said as I yanked out of Trent’s grip and pointed, my finger dropping when a pixy screamed, trying to free itself from the bird’s long beak, even as it vanished in a toss and a sharp snap. The pixy’s clansmen and women were stabbing at the gray, storklike bird, firing arrows and throwing spears, but it simply jerked its head to catch another warrior who got too close, wings flapping as it hopped to a rock where its footing was better. Feathers gave it protection, and it seemed immune to the poison.

“There is a bird,” I said, “eating pixies. Do you have any idea how wrong that is?”

“We need to get out of here,” he insisted, and my attention snapped back to him. He tossed the hair from his eyes, and my heart seemed to stop. His ears were bleeding. Again.

“What did you do…,” I whispered, scared. Trent began walking away, and I glanced at Ivy, seeing her closed expression. Pushing into motion, I followed him, my heart pounding. He stank like cinnamon and spoiled wine. “What did you do?” I demanded, and he ignored me, not slowing down.

“I thought you needed help,” he said, and I yanked at his arm, pulling him to a stop at the top of the hill. Frightened, I grabbed his chin and shifted his head. He let me do it. There was a handprint on his neck, but it was the blood dripping from his ears and nose that struck fear in me. The arch. He had bled at the arch, too, and he smelled like elven magic. Thought we needed help?

“Tell me what you did!” I said as I looked down the hill to the car. The trunk was open, and my scrying mirror was out, glinting in the sun. Vivian was slumbering in the back as if immune to the noise. Sleeping or out cold? “Oh my God!” I exclaimed as I pieced it together. “Did you use my mirror to make a deal with a demon?”

The bird cawed. Ivy stood next to me, and Jenks started swearing. Trent’s jaw clenched, jerking as a horrible croaking came from over the hill. “Yes,” he said.

The single word hit me like a slap. “That was you under the arch?” I stammered, being drawn forward as Trent doggedly paced downhill to the car. “You put yourself in a ley line and called on a demon under the arch!” I accused. “That force I shoved into those assassins wasn’t from you, and it wasn’t from the assassins. It was from a demon! And when I pushed the energy back into him, he tried to bury us all under the arch. You asked a demon for help and it almost killed you. And now you go and ask for his help again? Are you insane?”

Jenks had taken to the air, hovering backward and watching our backs as well as our faces. He looked as scared as I felt.

“It can’t kill me now,” Trent said, his jaw clenched. “You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“Trust you!” I shouted, and Ivy grabbed my arm as I went to shove him. Feeling it, Trent stopped, looking angry and unrepentant as he turned to me.

“It can’t snatch you because of me!” I exclaimed, shaking off Ivy’s hold and pushing him in the chest. Trent stumbled back, but I was moving forward, getting in his face. “You used me! I freed you as a familiar, and you used me!”

Trent became more grim looking, his gaze darting behind me as the sound of fighting pixies grew loud and the harsh cawing of the stork echoed. Ivy was at my shoulder, a hand on her hip. “The coven might be interested in that. Trent Kalamack dabbling in demonology.”

“If you tell her, then Rachel doesn’t have a chance,” he said, and I realized it was true.

“Uh, Rache?” Jenks said nervously, perched on Ivy’s shoulder. “They’re coming this way.”

“You are an idiot,” I said softly, shaking inside. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

Trent tugged his clothes straight as if he were wearing a three-piece suit and not a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “I suggest we leave before it finishes eating them.”

I dropped back a step, almost laughing, as disgusted as I was. Ivy was staring at him in disbelief. “I’m not going to walk away from this. It’s eating them!”

“Rachel, no!” Trent shouted, but I was beyond listening, and I leaned back as he came forward, bringing my foot up just in time for him to run right into it. He hit with a jarring that shifted me, and he fell backward holding his middle, taking Ivy with him. They sprawled on the paved footpath, and as Jenks darted to my shoulder, I turned to the bird.

“Celero inanio!” I shouted, throwing a ball of glowing ever-after at the harshly croaking stork, its ugly neck skin flapping. Yes, it was a black curse, but it was a bird eating pixies—pixies I had found a way to deal with peacefully. I was already mumbling, “I take the smut,” as the curse to boil the blood in a living creature sped across the short distance, slamming into the bird to destroy it in a ball of curse-ridden magic.

Except it didn’t.

My ball of death exploded inches from the bird, breaking against a flash of black that had enveloped the large bird, protecting it. Sparkles lit the afternoon, falling like a cascade over the protection bubble. The pixies darted back with frightened cries, gathering in a hazing cloud as the bird shook itself and the protection circle vanished.

Cawing, the ugly black stork turned a red eye to me. My gut clenched as I noticed it was slitted like a goat’s.

“You stupid fool,” Trent gasped from the ground, his eyes tearing as he tried to catch his breath. “It’s not a bird. It’s a demon.”