“Go.” Smiling, I rolled down the cookie bag and handed it to him with a little kiss. “Will you be done by tonight?”

  “Absolutely.” Standing, Trent texted someone. “You. Me. Date night.”

  “Oh, goodie . . .” Pike grumped, and I “accidentally” kicked his foot under the table. Date night would become date weekend if Finnis didn’t drag his dead ass into the party.

  Trent tucked his phone away, his smile widening as he looked into the bag. “What’s your afternoon like in case I wrap this up early?”

  “Spelling.” I relaxed comfortably where I sat, content that between Pike, Trent, Jenks, and Ivy, we could settle this without anyone dying or turning into a mouse—or both. Behind him, Mark convinced someone to delete the video they were taking of us for a month of free coffee. Thanks, Mark. “I need to make up a couple batches of splat balls,” I added. “Maybe go shopping for something that says city ruler.” Ivy was coming in. I wanted to look nice.

  “Shopping?” Trent hesitated. “You’re, ah, taking Jenks, right?”

  I made a face at Pike’s confusion. Jenks wouldn’t be backup but shopping consultant, making sure I didn’t come home with something totally inappropriate. I could pick out something nice on my own . . . even if I was a sucker for sequins and mismatched glitz. “Jenks, right,” I said sourly, and Trent’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Oh, and I’ve got to call the university library. Someone broke into their ancient book locker, but I won’t be doing anything there until Monday, the earliest.”

  Trent’s brow furrowed. “Really? I thought they upped their game after you and Nick—”

  “They did,” I said, interrupting before Pike got interested and asked. “It would take a demon to get in there now,” I said flippantly, but then I thought about it. If it was a demon, I had a big problem, and my gaze went to Dali behind the counter, his supercilious attitude firmly in place as he slung drinks in his apron uniform. They’d promised to behave, but that was nearly a year ago—and demons were extremely high-risk when they got bored.

  “University work. Nice. I’ll see you later, then.” Trent’s fond attitude vanished as he turned to Pike. “Pike,” he added flatly.

  “Trent,” Pike said, just as blandly, and then Trent started for the door, head down over that bag.

  “I should go, too.” Pike downed the last of his coffee and slid to the edge of the table. “Kip is probably out of the tunnels by now.”

  “You need a ride?” I asked, and he stood, the motion slow and languorous, like a big tomcat as he tested his range through the bruises.

  “No. Thanks, though.” His attention went out the window to a black, four-door truck. The windows were illegally tinted, and Trent was watching it in passing. “My ride is here. Hey, do you want to take these?” he added, holding out the napkins he had been scribbling on. “Give them a look. Tell me which one you like the best.”

  “Sure.” I took them with a thin smile, stuffing them in my bag. “Pike, I know you want to pay Finnis off, and I agree, it sounds easy, but easy always comes back to bite me on the ass. Let’s see what he wants before we start writing checks.” I’d finally paid off the bill to repair the church, and the last thing I wanted was to dip into the red again, and not for a vampire.

  “I hear you,” Pike said, but he was walking away, his mood distant.

  Sighing, I sipped at my cinnamon raspberry coffee and scrolled through my phone to see how long it had been since I’d talked to Vivian. Teaching night classes meant her schedule was as wonky as mine, and chances were good that I could snag some advice, not only for Finnis, but a dress as well. It would do my stinging pride good to prove to Jenks that I could pick out something nice to wear without his help.

  But my motion to call and find out if she was available faltered as I noticed Dali staring at me as he made someone’s high-priced, high-calorie caffeine monstrosity complete with whip and sprinkles. Though across the room, I knew he had heard everything, and my vague feeling of nervousness grew as he turned away, eyes narrowed and holding a knowledge he wasn’t going to share.

  If the demons had decided it would be more fun to watch me try to make them play by our rules than it would be to exploit every loophole within them, I was in deep troll doo.

  CHAPTER

  3

  The drive from Junior’s across the river and to my church was short in terms of distance, but long in attitude, and the shift from busy metropolis to shady streets and abandoned bikes on green lawns was welcome. Even so, it wasn’t until I pulled into my carport that the worry Dali had instilled in me began to ease. The church was in a pleasant neighborhood made up of middle- to low-income families, mostly Inderlanders. They were quiet about it, though. The Turn, where all of us apart from the elves had come out of the closet to save humanity, had been over forty years ago. Regardless, no one was eager to stand out, even if some of the basketball hoops were twice regulation height and most of the basement windows were boarded up. Flowers were planted in friendly hexes, and the chalk on the sidewalk was as likely to be runes as ABCs.

  Jenks’s coffee was a yucky cold when I took it out of my car’s cup holder, and I warmed it up with a quick thought and burst of ley line energy as I got out. The thump of my door was loud, and a flash of pixy dust high over the graveyard showed that I’d been seen by the sentry.

  The church itself was small, with stained glass on two sides and a respectable steeple. Worn concrete steps led up to twin wooden doors that opened into a foyer that still didn’t have any electricity in it. The empty sanctuary was a mix of living room and dojo at the moment, with Ivy’s baby grand on the raised stage and Kisten’s pool table by the entrance. The hallway led to the original two bathrooms and small clergy offices turned bedrooms, but the large kitchen/spelling area and covered porch were new, having just been rebuilt after a misunderstanding with Cincy’s vampires.

  Coffee in hand and bag over my shoulder, I scuffed my way up the worn steps. My leg hurt even with the pain amulet, and I wondered how much grief I’d get from Jenks if I added a second. “Jenks?” I shouted as I came in, then halted, blinking at the chaos beyond the foyer.

  Pixies and fairies darted in the bands of hazy light, dust sifting like living sunbeams as they shrilled at each other to make my ears hurt. In a calliope of color and noise, they flowed from one side of the sanctuary to the other, the rasping of pixy wings lost under the piercing calls and almost subliminal screeching of fairies.

  “What the Turn?” I whispered, breath catching when I noticed the hapless bumblebee caught in the mix. The pixies were trying to drive it away as the fairies fought to push it deeper into them. At least, that’s what I thought was going on until they all cheered and the bee rose up, fleeing to bump against a window.

  “Point to pixies!” Jenks shouted, wings chirping as he rose high.

  It’s a game? Bemused and ears hurting, I came in, waving at the spent pixy dust. “Jenks?” I called hesitantly, and immediately he arrowed down, his gaze never leaving the game. Everyone seemed to be involved, and there didn’t seem to be any rules.

  “No fair!” one shouted from the open rafters when three fairies rose up with a tissue box, dropping it on the pixies’ line to scatter them.

  “No penalty!” Jenks exclaimed. “You don’t like it, keep your Tink-blasted eyes open!”

  Wincing, I leaned against the pool table, watching the chaos. “Don’t come crying to me if someone gets stung and dies.” I glanced at the injured pixy. “Where are Rex and Boots?”

  “Hiding.” Jenks hovered beside me, hands on his hips. “Way too much stimulation.”

  No doubt. The noise was atrocious. “But a bee?” I said, remembering Jenks telling me he had once nearly died from a sting.

  “Relax.” Lips twisted into a smirk, he showed me a nasty-looking needle about the length of his hand before hiding it. “It’s safe.”

  “Damn, Jenks,” I whispered, wincing when the excited flow of pixies and fairies knocked a lamp to the floor. “How did you . . . that’s like defanging a snake.”

  He shrugged, his focus shifting from the game. His devilish smile made me feel good. I hadn’t seen it enough since his wife died. “It’s the first time I’ve been able to get them to cooperate,” he said, and then his attention dropped to the cup in my hand. “Is that my coffee?”

  “And scone,” I said as I took it out of my shoulder bag.

  “Great. Thanks,” he said, then darted straight up into the open rafters, his dust an unusual gray. “Time!” he shouted. “I’m calling it! Game over!”

  An ear-hurting protest rose up as the watching pixies dropped from the ceiling. The fairies were in a tight group congratulating themselves, looking like little grim reapers with butterfly wings, their spiderweb clothes giving them a goth mien. Their wicked long fangs used to kill spiders were enough to leave me with nightmares, even if they were only six inches tall.

  “Winners divide the scone,” Jenks said as he handed the oldest fairy a wooden garden sword. “And the loser picks who gets what half.”

  I smiled as a lisping, hissing groan rose up from the gathered fairies. Jenks had been a great dad. Never would I have believed that fairies and pixies could do anything together but fight, and I watched, smirking, as the fairy cut the scone in two, sharing it with hardly more than a grimace as the pixies darted down and absconded with their half.

  “Have I told you recently that you are amazing?” I said as I headed for the kitchen, Jenks flying backward to keep them in sight even as he followed.

  “Yep. Every day and twice on Sunday,” he said as we passed the his-and-her bathrooms, long since converted into something a little less industrial and more functional. The old church offices were to either side, now Hodin’s room on the left, Stef’s on the right, though I had a suspicion that they might be sharing a bed.

  I was bunking in the belfry. It was hot up there despite the windows and insulation, and I suspected it would be cold in the winter, but my agreement with Hodin would be up in October and he’d be obliged to find new lodgings. I was already looking forward to it.

  I checked my phone as I entered the kitchen, disappointed to see that Vivian hadn’t returned my text yet. “No news is good news,” I whispered, and Jenks’s wings clattered as he darted to the top of the fridge, where he kept his food stash.

  “Hi, Stef,” I said as I noticed the young woman at the center counter in the middle of the large room, her strong shoulders moving evenly as she grated something.

  “Oh, hey. Hi!” the average-height, early-thirties woman said as she glanced up from what seemed to be spell prep. She wore a faint flush, either from her work or surprise, and her hazel eyes darted away as if embarrassed. Her auburn hair was darker than mine, but enviably straighter, the short cut professionally styled to frame her long face. She’d lost some of her chair weight in the last few months, and whereas I wouldn’t say she was athletic, her curves showed more. She’d always been strong. Most nurses were. A good half-dozen ear piercings shifted with her movement, the silver rings all in a row along the arch of her ear. She’d been paying Jenks rent for a good five months after having been kicked out of her apartment in Constance’s grief-and-annoyance campaign. That Stef had stayed when her apartment had become available again gave me hope that she was beginning to loosen up. I felt as if I didn’t know her; I was always busy, and she kept to herself when she wasn’t at the hospital.

  “I thought you were working today,” I added as I set my bag on the counter and leaned against the long eat-at bar between the kitchen and the open-aired porch. The half-wall, half-glass partition looked out onto the garden, and I loved it. The porch itself was even better with a full roof, fireplace on one wall, and open to the garden and graveyard on another. I was already studying up on how to make a ward so as to close the huge opening come winter. Sitting in front of the fire with a book and hot cocoa to watch it snow sounded divine. Lee had made the ward at Trent’s estate, and if worse came to worst, I’d ask him.

  My contractor, Finley, rebuilt the back to create space that had multiple uses in case the church ever became a paranormal shelter again, meaning the kitchen could function as a soup kitchen and my winter reading area could double as a dining area. With only me, Stef, Hodin, and Jenks in the church, much of the space was going to waste, but I appreciated that Hodin and I had multiple areas to spell in without stepping on each other’s robes.

  The double-size lot with both a formal garden and the wild meadow among the tombstones was a welcome relief in the city. Pixies zipped about like hummingbirds, and fairies flew like giant butterflies to make a singularly pleasant sight, and I felt my shoulders ease. Even the soft sounds of Stephanie working at the island counter were soothing. Boots, Stef’s cat, watched Jenks from his cat tower, set where he could see the garden, only the tip of his tail moving. He was missing three whiskers and a chunk off his right ear, all of which had been intact when he moved in. Pixies took no prisoners.

  “So . . . no work?” I asked again. I’d been finding her home unexpectedly lately, making me wonder if she’d lost her job, as unlikely as that seemed. Stef was nothing if not conscientious.

  “Ah, I wanted to work on something today, so I switched schedules with Hank,” she said, but she looked up, and I wondered if she was stretching the truth.

  “Oh.” I glanced at Jenks atop the enormous, twin-door fridge for his opinion, and he shook his head. The pixy could often see it when people lied. Apparently our auras flared. “You’re . . . making lunch?” I said, seeing the piles of carefully pulped and mashed garden.

  “It’s a spell, actually,” she admitted, voice breathless.

  My lips pressed together. There was no recipe on the counter. “By heart?” I questioned, and Jenks flew down to land on my shoulder.

  Her flush deepened, and finally her hazel eyes met mine. “Hodin is helping me get my witch degree. I need it to move into a managerial position,” she blurted, and my lips parted.

  “Oh!” I said in understanding. “That’s great!” Witch was a designation of ability, not sex, and once you proved you were able to stir a spell by heart, you moved up from warlock. My smile faltered. “I didn’t know you were going for certification,” I added, feeling bad that I’d been so busy that she hadn’t come to me first. But then again, I wasn’t tall, dark, and broody. “So, what are you making?” I asked as Jenks darted out of the room, drawn by a sudden, ear-piercing complaint and nearly ultrasonic uproar.

  Stef watched Jenks leave, her shoulders relaxing as she began to grate a white root. “A charm to clear acne?” she said, almost questioning herself, and I nodded even as I chided myself for thinking she should have come to me first. I was the last person who should assume that Hodin was up to no good simply because he was a demon.

  And yet, it wasn’t because he was a demon that I was concerned. In the last few months, Stef had lost all her fear of him, which was both gratifying and worrying. True, Hodin had been nothing but grudgingly helpful, but Al never gave his hate lightly, and it seemed more than sibling rivalry or the fact that Hodin mixed elven and demon magic that had set my estranged teacher off. Dali’s continued disapproval, too, was telling.

  But what I disliked the most was that their relationship wasn’t equal, and I wasn’t sure Hodin had any respect for that.

  “Good place to start,” I said, instead of what I wanted, as my gaze traveled over the prepped ingredients.

  Stef carefully gathered the grated root, weighing out an ounce on a set of unfamiliar scales. “Hodin has been a big help,” she said as if trying to convince herself.

  Suspicious, I tightened my grip on the nearest ley line and opened my second sight. Again, the world became overlaid with a second image of field and sun, but it was Stef’s aura I was concerned with. When we had met, her aura had been a spotless green apart from a healthy yellow around her hands and heart to show her giving nature. Now, a faint hint of smut darkened it. There was only one place she could have gotten it. Worried, I dropped my second sight and bit my lip. Going for her witch degree? “You know . . . if you ever need anything or want to talk—”

  My words cut off as the big bell in the steeple gave a faint bong, and I stiffened when a faint gray mist seemed to rise from the tiled floor between me and Stef. I backed up as Boots jumped to the floor, slinking out as the fog began to condense. It had to be Hodin, though it was hard to tell from just the demon’s red, goat-slitted eyes staring from a thickening haze.

  Frantic, Stef began to tidy her work area as the mist solidified into a tall, sinewy man with a dark complexion and thick wavy hair held at his nape in an ornate metal clip. His chin tended to narrow, but his jaw was strong and his body was trim, looking good in both a spelling robe and his more typical bad-boy black jeans and cotton shirt.

  This time, he chose to come in casual, and I eyed his biker boots in envy, even if it was pushing eighty in here. The demon liked his jewelry, and his hands glinted with old rings. I had a feeling his belt buckle was an amulet, and maybe the earring, too.

  “Stephanie has been more than an apt pupil,” the demon said, clearly having been eavesdropping.

  I flushed, hearing in his softly accented words a hint of jealousy that I might be trying to poach her from him. Far from it. The last thing I wanted was an apprentice. And I didn’t like the demon’s proclivity for lurking, either. That’s why the bell, though it lacked a little something when Hodin rarely left the grounds.

  “Hi, Hodin,” I said, glancing up as Boots tore back in, a chorus of pixy cheers loud behind him. Jenks followed, dusting heavily as the cat slid to a halt, stared at Hodin with a black-eyed stare, then slunk behind the stools at the eat-at counter.

  “It’s okay, Boots,” Stef cooed, and Jenks chuckled as he landed on my shoulder.