For A Few Demons More

Jenks snickered. “Yeah, Rache. Why bother? I mean, this could be good. Ivy could invite her mom over for a housewarming. We’ve been here a year, and the woman is dying to come over. Well, at least she would be if she were still alive.”

Worried, I looked up from the phone book. Alarm sifted over Ivy. For a moment it was so quiet I could hear the clock above the sink, and then Ivy jerked, her speed edging into that eerie vamp quickness she took pains to hide. “Give me the phone,” she said, snatching it.

The black plastic slipped from my lap, and Ivy drew the heavy book off the table. Retreating to her end of the table with quick steps, she set the directory on her knees and pulled a legal pad from a stack. While Jenks laughed, she sketched a graph with columns headed by phone number, availability, cost, and religious affiliation. Confident we’d be on holy ground before the week was out, I stifled my ire that she had taken over.

Jenks was smiling when he flitted from the windowsill, gold sparkles landing in my teacup before he settled beside it. “Thanks,” I said, knowing Ivy would hear me even if I whispered. “I don’t think I’m going to sleep again until we’re resanctified—and I like sleeping.”

Head bobbing in an exaggerated motion, he nodded. “Why don’t you just put the church in a circle?” he questioned. “Nothing can get through that.”

“It wouldn’t be secure unless we removed all the electricity and gas lines coming in,” I explained, not wanting to tell him that Newt could apparently get through any circle with enough reason. “You want to live without your MTV?”

“Oh, hell no,” he said, glancing at Ivy when she offered the person on the phone double to get the job done before sunset tonight. Ivy didn’t get along with her mother very well.

Tired, I slumped back into my chair, feeling the weight of the insane morning hour fall on me. Jenks’s wife, Matalina, had gotten the pixy kids out of the living room, and the sound of them in the garden slipped in with the morning breeze. “Ceri said if Newt doesn’t show up in the next three weeks, she’ll probably forget about us,” I said around a yawn, “but I still want to get the church resanctified.” I looked at my chipped nail polish in dismay. “Minias hit her with a forget charm, but the demon is freaking crazy. And she shows up without being summoned.”

Ivy stopped talking on the phone, and after she and Jenks exchanged a look, she clicked it off without saying goodbye. “Who is Minias?”

“Newt’s familiar.” I gave her a tight-lipped smile to soften the shortness of my answer. Sometimes Ivy was like an ex-boyfriend. Hell, she was like that most times, as her vampire instincts fought with her reasoning. I was not her shadow, aka source of blood, but living with her blurred the lines between what she knew and how her instincts said she should feel.

She remained silent, clearly having heard the lack of completeness. I didn’t want to talk about it, the fear being too damn close to my skin. Literally. I stank like the ever-after, and all I wanted was to clean up and hide under my covers for the next three days. Having had Newt in my head gave me the willies, even if I’d regained control almost immediately.

Ivy took a breath to press for more, dissuaded when Jenks clattered a warning with his wings. I’d tell the whole story. Just not now. My blood pressure dropped at Jenks’s show of support, and, lurching to my feet, I went to the pantry for the mop and bucket. If we were going to have a holy person in our church, I wanted the blood circles gone. I mean, really …

“You’ve been up since noon yesterday. I can do that,” Ivy protested, but lack of sleep had made me bitchy, and I dropped the bucket in the sink, slamming the cupboard door under it when I brought out the disinfectant and tossed the scrub brush in.

“You’ve been up as long as I have,” I said over the rush of water. “And you’re arranging who’s going to bless the grounds. The sooner we get that done, the better I’ll sleep.” Something I was taking care of until you butted in, I thought snarkily as I took off the metallic bracelet Kisten had given me and draped it around the base of Mr. Fish’s bowl. The black gold of the chain and mundane charms glittered, and I wondered if I should take the time to try to put a ley line spell into them, or just leave them as something pretty to wear.

The sharp orange scent tickled my nose, and I shut off the tap. My back protesting, I lugged the bucket over the edge of the counter, spilling some. I awkwardly rubbed the mop over the drops and headed out, bare feet squeaking. “It’s not a biggie, Ivy,” I said. “Five minutes.”

The clatter of pixy wings followed me. “Isn’t Newt’s familiar a demon?” Jenks asked when he landed on my shoulder.

Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been a show of support but merely him wanting to feel me out as to what info to give Ivy. She was a worrywart, and the last thing I wanted was her thinking I couldn’t go out for a can of Spam without her “protection.” He was a better judge of her mood than I was, so I set the bucket by the circles and whispered, “Yeah, but he’s more of a caretaker.”

“Tink’s a Disney whore,” he swore, taking a potshot at his infamous kin, as I plunged the mop up and down a few times before squeezing out the excess water. “Don’t tell me you got another demon mark?”

He left my shoulder when I sent the mop across the floor, apparently finding the back-and-forth motion too much to take. “No, he owes me,” I said nervously, and Jenks’s jaw dropped. “I’m going to see if he’ll take Al’s mark off me in exchange. Or maybe Newt’s.”

Jenks hovered before me, and I straightened, tired as I leaned on the mop. His eyes were wide and incredulous. The pixy had a wife and way too many kids living in a stump in the garden. He was a family man, but he had the face and body of an eighteen-year-old. A very sexy, tiny, eighteen-year-old with wings, and sparkles, and a mop of blond hair that needed arranging. His wife, Matalina, was a very happy pixy, and she dressed him in skintight outfits that were distracting despite his minute size. That he was nearing the end of his life span was killing me and Ivy both. He was more than a steadfast partner skilled in detection, infiltration, and security—he was our friend.

“You think the demon will do that?” Jenks said. “Damn, Rache. That’d be great!”

I shrugged. “It’s worth a shot, but all I did was tell him where Newt was.”

From the kitchen came Ivy’s voice raised in irritation. “It’s 1597 Oakstaff. Yes.” There was a hesitation, then, “Really? I didn’t know you kept those kinds of records. It would have been nice if someone had told us we were a paranormal city shelter. Shouldn’t we be getting a tax break or something?” Her voice had gone wary, and I wondered what was up.

Jenks lighted on the edge of the bucket, wiping a spot to sit before settling himself, his dragonfly wings stilling to look like gossamer. The mop wasn’t doing it; I would have to scrub. Sighing, I dropped to my knees and felt around the bottom of the bucket for the brush.

“No, it was sanctified,” Ivy continued, her voice growing louder, clear over the hiss of the bristles. “It isn’t anymore.” A slight pause and she added, “We had an incident.” Another hesitation and she said, “We had an incident. How much to do the entire church?”

My stomach clenched when she added softly, “How much to do just the bedrooms?”

I looked at Jenks, guilt rising thick in me. Maybe we could get the city to defray the cost if we refiled as a city shelter. It wasn’t as if we could ask the landlord to fix it. Piscary owned the church, and though Ivy had dropped the facade of paying rent to the master vampire she looked to, we were responsible for the upkeep. It was like living rent free in your parents’ house when they were on an extended vacation—vacation being jail in this case, thanks to me. It was an ugly story, but at least I hadn’t killed him … uh, for good.

Ivy’s sigh was audible over the sound of my work. “Can you get out here before tonight?” she asked, making me feel marginally better.

I didn’t hear the answer to that, but there was no more conversation forthcoming, and I focused on rubbing out the smears, moving clockwise as I went. Jenks watched for a moment from the rim of the bucket, then said, “You look like a porno star on your hands and knees, mopping in your underwear. Push it, baby,” he moaned. “Push it!”

I glanced up to find him making rude motions. Doesn’the have anything better to do? But I knew he was trying to cheer me up—least that’s what I was telling myself.

As his wings turned red from laughter, I jerked my robe closed and sat back on my knees before I blew a shoulder-length red curl from my face. Taking a swing at his smirk would be useless—he had gotten really fast since his stint under a demon curse that made him people-size. And turning my back to him would be worse.

“Could you straighten my desk for me?” I asked, allowing a touch of annoyance into my voice. “Your cat dumped my papers.”

“You bet,” he said, zipping off. Immediately I felt my blood pressure drop.

Ivy’s soft steps intruded, and Jenks cussed fluently at her when she pulled the papers off the floor and set them on the desktop for him. Politely telling him to shove a slug up his ass, she strode past me to her piano, a spray bottle in one hand and a chamois cloth in the other.

“Someone’s coming out this morning,” she said, starting to clean Ceri’s blood from the varnished wood. Old blood didn’t flip any switches in living vamps—not like the chance to take it did. “They’re going to give us an estimate, and if our credit checks out, they’ll do the entire church. You want to pay the extra five thousand to insure it?”

Five thousand to insure it? Holy crap. How much wasthis going to cost? Uneasy, I sat back up on my heels and dunked the brush. My rolled-up sleeve slipped, soaking in an instant. From my desk Jenks called out, “Go for it, Rache. It says here you won a million dollars.”

I glanced behind me to find him manhandling my mail. Irritated, I dropped the brush and squeezed the water from my robe. “Can we find out how much it’s going to cost first?” I asked, and she nodded, giving her piano a heavy coat of whatever was in that unlabeled spray bottle. It evaporated quickly, and she wiped it to a shine.

“Here,” she said, setting the bottle down beside the bucket. “It will get rid of the—” Her words stopped. “Just wipe the floor with it,” she added, and my eyebrows rose.

“Oka-a-ay.” I bent back over the floor, hesitating at the circle Ceri had scribed to call Minias, then smeared it to nothing. Ceri could help me make a new one, and I wasn’t going to have demonic blood circles on the floor of my church.

“Hey, Ivy,” Jenks called. “You want to keep this?”

She rocked into motion, and I shifted to keep her in my view. Jenks had a coupon for pizza, and I smirked. Right.Like she would even consider ordering anything but Piscary’sPizza.

“What else does she have in here?” Ivy said, throwing it away. I turned my back on them, knowing that the clutter I kept my desk in drove Ivy insane. She’d probably take the opportunity to tidy it. God, I’d never be able to find a thing.

“Spell-of-the-Month Club … toss,” Jenks said, and I heard it thunk into the trash can. “Free issue of Witch Weekly … toss. Credit check … toss. Crap, Rachel. Don’t you throw anything away?”

I ignored him, having only a small arc to finish. Wax on,wax off. My arm was hurting.

“The zoo wants to know if you want to renew your off-hours runner’s pass.”

“Save that!” I said.

Jenks whistled long and low, and I wondered what they had found now.

“An invitation to Ellasbeth Withon’s wedding?” Ivy drawled in question.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

“Tink knocks your kickers,” Jenks exclaimed, and I sat back on my heels. “Rachel!” he called, hovering over the invitation that had probably cost more than my last dinner out. “When did you get an invitation from Trent? For his wedding?”