“Sure. No problem.” Lee paused as if lost, motions slow as he draped his scarf around his neck. “I’ll say one thing. Your life is not predictable.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said, and Bis chuckled, giving my shoulder a quick pinch before flying up into the rafters.

  I set Hodin’s elven-magic book on the end table and sat on the couch to put my boots on. Despite it all, we were still okay, the pattern of irritation and forgiveness ingrained from three years of camp, and my lips curved up as one heel went thumping into my boot. “You’re coming to Trent’s Halloween bash, right?”

  Lee nodded, his eyes on Jenks as the pixy went to sit with Bis. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Yeah?” Wouldn’t miss it? He had never come before. “You do know it’s a costume party. You got a costume yet? The only thing left now is sexy witch.”

  The man’s eyes dropped down, flicking between Trent and me. “You’ll see,” he said mysteriously.

  Which meant he hadn’t gotten a costume yet and would probably come as a hippie. I stood, eager for him to leave so I could get going. “Seriously, thanks for your help getting into Hodin’s room. I could not have done it without you.”

  “Clearly.” Lee faced Trent, his expression open and honest. Trent, though, was obviously not ready to let it go even as he reached for Lee’s proffered hand. “We still on for the festival?”

  “Absolutely.” Trent took his hand back, a professional smile gracing his face. “You want to bump it out to ten?”

  Lee exhaled in relief as he nodded, made an insulting shooting gesture to Jenks, then smiled at me. “Ten sounds great. See you then.” Turning, he walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into the rainy night.

  Finally. “I’m going to stash the lens and the book in my room,” I said, boots thumping as I strode to the foyer. “Jenks, you okay with the temps? It’s wet out there.”

  “I got this!” Jenks said, voice faint behind me as I took the stairs two at a time. “Give me a second to find Getty and tell her where I’m going.”

  “Coat,” I said as I stomped up the stairs and blew into my room, making a satisfied mmmm as I plucked it from my makeshift closet. I loved jacket weather. I can move downstairs, I thought, but the idea immediately soured. Al had put wards and spells of protection on my belfry room, and the thought of sleeping in the same room where Hodin had? Not happening.

  Rain jacket rasping, I turned to my growing collection of books. After I gained four of Newt’s demon tomes, Trent had given me a lockable, glass-faced cabinet for my birthday. It was down in the kitchen, where I did all my spelling, but I had yet to move anything into it apart from a few ley line gadgets. I hadn’t liked seeing the yellowed glass in Lee’s hand, and my books felt safer up here on the shelf where they had always been. “There you go,” I said as I wedged the tattered elven tome between two demon texts and set the lens in front of it.

  And then I hesitated, pulse quickening. Vivian was going to be there. I could show her Brad’s curse tonight, and not only free up my day tomorrow, but maybe earn some trust from the rest of the coven members. The chance that she might confiscate it right then and there would be less if I had just uncursed Cassie’s employees. Right?

  Wanting to believe, I cast about my room for something to protect the book from the rain. The plastic bag that Ivy’s paper-whites had been in was perfect, and I shook out the papery bulbs, sending them thumping and rolling onto the marble-top dresser before dropping the book in. Hesitating, I carefully added the elven spell book with the chakra curse. I hadn’t twisted it, so showing it to her was far less risky despite its obvious dark status—a reminder that there were far more ugly curses than the one I’d hit Brad with.

  Tucking them under my arm, I sighed at the mirror and my wild hair before flicking off the belfry light. Out at the curb, I heard Lee roar off. My boots a cheerful thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump on the stairs, I careened down, shoulders bumping as I scrolled through my phone for Vivian’s number. “Hey, Trent? I’m going to show Vivian Brad’s curse tonight so I don’t have to break up my day tomorrow!” I shouted before I reached the bottom, and my attention flicked to the phone when it connected.

  “Hi, this is Vi. Leave a message.”

  Short and sweet, I thought. Not unlike the woman herself. “Hi, Vivian. It’s Rachel. I have the invocation phrase to untwist the chakra curse. I’m on my way to the hospital now to wake them up. I’ve got the book that was used to twist Brad’s curse, too. If we find a quiet corner, you can look at it.” And maybe let me off the hook, I thought, my words unsaid. “Ah, see you there?”

  I closed the phone down, smiling as I swung into the foyer to find Trent ready and waiting.

  “Good?” he asked, and I nodded, barring the church’s front door and turning to go out the back. It was an unusual precaution, but I hadn’t liked Lee trying to steal from me.

  Something told me he had once . . . in our shared past.

  CHAPTER

  17

  “Still can’t reach her?” Trent asked, and I set my phone in my lap. The swish-thump, swish-thump of the wipers was pleasant in the warmth of the car, and, frustrated, I dropped my phone into my shoulder bag. We’d taken the side streets to avoid the bridge traffic, and now that we were in Cincy, we were hitting every light wrong. It was taking forever to get to the hospital.

  “I can’t tell if she’s ignoring me or having a conference call with someone on the West Coast.” Because if she was talking with the coven of moral and ethical standards, she would not hang up to take another call, even if she was the lead member now.

  Bis shifted his wings in a nervous tell, the sound of them sliding obvious in the well-insulated sports car. Trent’s attention flicked to the dark back seat where the kid was, his thoughts clearly on what Bis’s claws might be doing to his upholstery.

  “Relax, Rache.” The pixy was in his usual spot on the rearview mirror, heels thumping the glass. Though the rain had yet to let up, his dust making a slow, steady stream to the cup holders was as dry as ever, the pixy having made the trip to the car under Trent’s hat. “Vivian is busier than a pixy mother with twelve newlings. You left her a voice mail. She’ll show.”

  My grip on my bag tightened, and I dragged it farther up onto my lap. The two spell books made it heavier than usual, and now that I had them with me, I was having second thoughts. “I’ve left three,” I whispered, squinting as the bright lights of the hospital entrance fell over us to shift midnight to noon. A shiver rippled over me, drawn into existence by the memory of pulling up under the lights as a kid, struggling to breathe, my mother scared to death as she carried me in, her stream-of-consciousness babbling an effort to hide her fear.

  But that was ages ago.

  “Ah, the front might not be a good idea,” I said as the parking attendant glanced up, and Trent gave the man a short wave and continued through the turnaround. “I’ve got two dark magic books with me, and the coven is already thinking about charging me with Walter’s death.”

  Trent’s hands clenched the wheel and then eased. “It’s easier to blame the demon you know than find the one you don’t,” he said, and I winced, glad when the comforting, rainy darkness found us again.

  “I don’t want to spend thirty minutes in the security office trying to explain,” I said. “Take a right there. We can go through radiology, where they don’t have spell detectors.”

  “Radiology it is.” Trent obediently turned the car, and I caught a glimpse of Bis rolling his big red eyes. “I didn’t know they had entrances that lack spell detectors,” Trent added, slowing as we entered a narrow drive. Experience told me it wound around behind the main building to a small parking lot that few people knew about.

  “My mom used to sneak all kinds of contraband in through radiology,” I said, a smile finding me as the streetlights became even fewer and the darkness deepened.

  “I think I would’ve liked knowing you when you were young,” Trent said, and I touched his knee, easy in the tight confines of his sports car.

  “You did.”

  “I guess I should have said ‘remembering you,’ ” Trent amended, and, loving him, I leaned across the car to give him a quick kiss. He unexpectedly shifted his head, and our lips met, sending a snap of ley line energy through me as our internal balances equalized. The surprise sent a quiver of need rising in me. But me getting randy and us sneaking in to avoid security sort of went hand in hand.

  “Oh, for Tink’s titties,” Jenks complained. “Do you have to sift dust right in front of us?”

  Bis giggled, sounding like rocks in a blender, and I pushed deeper into my seat. Trent was right there, a hint of power lifting his fair hair to make him smell of wine and snickerdoodles. The need to fix what Hodin had done to Cassie’s employees was riding high in me, and the anxiety of that was an easy spill into other, more earthy releases.

  Trent made a tight turn into the space by the door, the car easing to a soft halt before he put it in park and pocketed the key fob. The rain pattered down, louder now that the car was off. “So we go in and wait for Vivian?”

  I nodded. “Convincing the nurses that we have a viable cure will be easier than the pencil pushers up front who are more concerned about lawsuits.” I hesitated as Trent lifted his hat and Jenks tucked in under it. “Maybe Vivian will take a call if it comes from the hospital.”

  I got out, hugging my shoulder bag with the books close as I breathed in the damp air trapped in the small cul-de-sac at the end of the narrow drive. No one came back here except radiation patients and the people who treated them. There wasn’t enough room for the large delivery vans, and the light above the small, one-door entrance didn’t do much.

  The door was predictably open, and Trent gestured for me to go first. “Yellow line leads to the main hospital,” I said as I went in. Empty hallway . . . good. “Ah, Jenks, if you want to—”

  “On it.” Wings a soft hum, Jenks darted down the hallway, flying high where the conventional security cameras wouldn’t see. Bis went with him, little drops of water spotting the floor as he crawled along the ceiling like a bat. Trent shuddered at the eerie sight, and I slipped my hand in his.

  “Trent, can I ask you something? I’m not surprised Lee tried to take the lens, but how come we both gave him a free pass for it? Is it because we’ve known him so long? Or maybe it’s something from camp we don’t remember?”

  Trent’s damp grip on my fingers tightened. “That he put you in a place where you could have hurt yourself bothers me more than some trinket he tried to swipe.”

  It wasn’t a trinket, but that wasn’t the point. “Regardless, why do we keep forgiving him for the crap he dishes out?” I said. “Why is it he does the same for us?” I added. “He could have really hurt himself breaking that ward. I think Lee remembers more than we do.”

  “Possibly.” Trent’s pace remained even and unaltered as we passed doors and empty lobbies, the scent of disinfectant becoming stronger the closer we got to the regular hospital. “I took a look at our camp records a few years ago when I tried to lure you into working for me.”

  “Lure?” I said, chuckling. “You practically extorted me.”

  His hand gave mine a squeeze. “And you extorted me right back. Anyway, I don’t remember most of what we did, and it was, mmmm, interesting reading. I had to extrapolate for most of it, but you were clearly good with ley lines even then.”

  “Until I threw you into a tree.” I smirked. “I didn’t touch a ley line again until college.”

  “You must have scared yourself silly,” Trent said softly.

  “I scared my dad.” I went quiet at the memory of his pinched and frightened face as he earnestly tried to convince me to never use the lines to harm anyone ever again. To my younger self, that meant never use the lines, period. And then they kicked me out of the Make-A-Wish camp.

  “I’ve been racking my brains,” I added as we wove deeper into the building, my voice low as we began to see people. “Trying to figure out why we let everything roll off and he does the same. My God, Trent. I practically sold him to Al in exchange for my freedom. Do you think it’s because we felt as if we were in a club, saved by your dad’s illegal medicines when he let others simply . . . die?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Perhaps that’s what keeps us together, forgiving each other,” I said, brow furrowed.

  “Not the billion-dollar drug cartel?” Trent asked slyly.

  “Well, there is that, too,” I said, perking up when a familiar rasping of dragonfly-like wings drew my attention. “Find them?” I said to Jenks as he came to a dust-laden hover.

  “Yeah,” he said, and my smile faded at his worried blue dust. “You might want to hurry. Their auras are thinner than troll shit.”

  The pixy spun in the air, darting down the corridor the way he’d come. Trent quickened his pace, taking my elbow to guide me when I swung my book-heavy bag around to find my phone. Head down, I texted Vivian that I was at the hospital. The thought that she might be in trouble rose and fell, immediately dismissed. Sure, she’d done a three-hour stint as Dali’s strip-girl, but Hodin, the demon who had sold her to him, was gone, and the rest didn’t dare try.

  The nurses’ desk was empty as we passed it, a cooling cup of coffee and half-eaten sub sandwich beside the keyboard; Jenks must have tripped another patient’s alarm to clear the hallway. We weren’t doing anything wrong—yet—but I appreciated Jenks’s discretion. It was always easier to get forgiveness than permission. Pulse fast, I followed Jenks’s faint dust trail to the last door at the end of the hall.

  Immediately I made a light knuckle knock and went in. Trent glanced up and down the hall before drawing the door shut behind us.

  “Rachel.” Cassie rose from the indulgent chair set beside the black, rain-spotted window. Bis was hunched atop a tall cupboard, and he shifted his skin from a camouflage white to his usual pebbly gray when he saw me. “Thank God. Jenks said you were on your way.”

  My damp boots squeaked as I gazed at the four narrow cots, and then I jumped, startled when Cassie practically fell into me. “I, ah, didn’t know you were here,” I said, gingerly patting her back. “Are you okay?”

  The woman blinked fast as if to ward off the tears. “Jenks said you found the countercurse?” she said, her tear-wet eyes following him as he went to sit beside Bis. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ll pay for it. Anythin’. They’re my family.”

  “Um, I have it,” I said as Trent studied a patient tablet. “We’re waiting for Vivian.”

  “The coven member?” Cassie asked, still flustered. “I come here to read to them when it gets quiet. Everyone keeps telling me they’re doing okay, but they’re dyin’.” She gestured listlessly at the four beds against the two walls. “I can’t see auras, and even I can tell that.”

  Trent set the tablet down, his brow furrowed. “We can invoke it when Vivian gets here.”

  “Vivian, hell. Do it now,” Cassie demanded, reminding me of a hospital mom, desperate for her miracle cure. “Look at them!” she shouted, pointing. “They can’t wait!”

  “Cassie might be right,” Trent said, his focus distant as if seeing through walls. Jenks, too, was nodding. “I’ve never seen that before,” Trent added, his worry obvious.

  I didn’t like using my second sight at night when the ever-after was easier to see layered over everything—even if the demon’s reality was pleasant now. Using it in the hospital was even worse as the faint images of what people used to call ghosts seemed to flit about within my blind spot. But Cassie’s hand-wringing worry and Jenks’s pale dust lured me into willing it forth.

  Gut tight, I ignored the image of wide spaces and starry skies spreading around and over me as the walls and floor became misty and indistinct. As expected, Trent’s aura was a cheerful golden yellow that nearly matched mine, right down to the streaks of red. Jenks’s aura was his usual rainbow. It was somewhat shallow in blue, but he was currently dusting that color, and my suspicion was confirmed when the blue returned and the yellow became sparse when his dust shifted color as well. Interesting. Bis’s aura, which I’d never paid much attention to, was his usual violet and blue, a warming of orange at his chest, and Cassie’s was a pleasant greenish blue, almost violet at her fingertips.

  But the four men . . .

  I blanched as I found the expected sickly green—only, it was fading, flickering about the edges and missing entirely from their legs and heads. “When was the last time they had their chakras balanced?” I asked, trying to hide my alarm. Holy crap on toast, they were more naked than a half-starved undead vampire.

  “Two hours,” Cassie whispered, her almost terrified expression fixed on them.

  Two hours? Shocked, I swung my bag around and let it drop heavily on the nearby counter. “I’m calling Vivian again,” I said as I reached for the landline phone by one of the nightstands. “Maybe she’ll answer if I use a hospital phone.”

  “Rachel?” Bis warbled, and I turned at Cassie’s gasp.

  “Oh no,” Trent said, and I followed his gaze to one of the men. He was in convulsions.

  “Kylie!” Cassie shouted, lurching to his side. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare leave me! Rachel, do somethin’!”

  A soft buzzing alarm rose from the nearby machinery, a louder version of it echoing in from the hall. Jenks took to the air as the door slammed open and three nurses raced in. Bis went white, not in fear, but to blend in with the walls, his wings tightly wrapped around himself to become nearly invisible. My second sight vanished. I needed to be in the here and now.