Every Which Way But Dead. Ким Харрисон

took up one corner in the front, dusted and cared for but played only when I was out. My plant-strewn, rolltop desk was kitty-corner to it, way up in the front on the ankle-high stage where the altar once sat. The huge image of a cross still shadowed the wall above it, soothing and protective. The pews had been removed long before I moved in, leaving an echoing wooden and glass space redolent of peace, solitude, grace, and security. I was safe here.

      Jenks stiffened, sending my instincts flaming.

      “Now!” shrilled a piercing voice.

      Jenks shot straight up, leaving a cloud of pixy dust hanging where he had been like an octopus inking. Heart pounding, I hit the hardwood floor, rolling.

      Sharp patters of impacts hit the planks beside me. Fear kept me spinning until I found a corner. Heady, the strength of the graveyard’s ley line surged through me as I tapped it.

      “Rachel! It’s my kids!” Jenks cried as a hail of tiny snowballs struck me.

      Gagging, I choked on the word to invoke my circle, yanking back the cresting power. It crashed into me, and I groaned as twofold the ley line energy suddenly took up the same space. Staggering, I fell to a knee and struggled to breathe until the excess found its way back to the line. Oh God. It felt like I was on fire. I should have just made the circle.

      “What in Tink’s knickers do you think you’re doing!” Jenks yelled, hovering over me as I tried to focus on the floor. “You should know better than to jump a runner like that! She’s a professional! You’re going to end up dead! And I’m going to let you rot where you fall. We’re guests here! Get to the desk. All of you! Jax, I am really disappointed.”

      I took a breath. Damn. That really hurt. Mental note: never stop a ley line spell midcast.

      “Matalina!” Jenks shouted. “Do you know what our kids are doing?”

      I licked my lips. “It’s okay,” I said, looking up to find absolutely no one in the sanctuary. Even Jenks was gone. “I love my life,” I muttered, and I worked myself carefully up from the floor in stages. The flaming tingle in my skin had subsided, and pulse hammering, I let go of the line completely, feeling the remaining energy flow out of my chi to leave me shaking.

      With the sound of an angry bee, Jenks flew in from the back rooms. “Rachel,” he said as he came to a halt before me. “I’m sorry. They found the snow that Kist brought in on his shoes, and he told them about snowball fights when he was a kid. Oh, look. They got you all wet.”

      Matalina, Jenks’s wife, zipped into the sanctuary in a billow of gray and blue silk. Giving me an apologetic wince, she slipped under the crack in my rolltop desk. My head started to hurt and my eyes watered. Her scolding was so high-pitched that I couldn’t hear it.

      Tired, I straightened to my full height and tugged my sweater straight. Small spots of water showed where I’d been hit. If they had been fairy assassins with spells instead of pixies with snowballs, I’d be dead. My heart slowed, and I snatched up my bag from the floor. “It’s okay,” I said, embarrassed and wanting Jenks to shut up. “No biggie. Kids will be kids.”

      Jenks hovered in apparent indecision. “Yeah, but they’re my kids, and we’re guests. They’ll be apologizing to you, among a few other things.”

      Gesturing it was okay, I stumbled down the dark hallway, following the smell of coffee. At least no one had seen me rolling on the floor evading pixy snowballs, I thought. But such commotions had become commonplace since the first hard frost and Jenks’s family moved in. There was no way I could pretend I wasn’t here now, though. Besides, they had probably smelled the flush of fresh air when I opened the door.

      I passed the opposing his-and-her bathrooms that had been converted into a conventional bathroom and a combination bathroom/laundry room. The latter was mine. My room was on the right side of the hallway, Ivy’s was directly across from it. The kitchen was next, and I made a left turn into it, hoping to grab some coffee and go hide in my room to avoid Kisten entirely.

      I had made the mistake of kissing him in an elevator, and he never missed an opportunity to remind me of it. Thinking at the time I wouldn’t live to see the sunrise, I had let my guard down and enjoyed myself, all but giving in to the lure of vampiric passion. Even worse? Kisten knew he had tipped me over the edge and that I had been a breath away from saying yes.

      Exhausted, I elbowed the light switch and dropped my shoulder bag on the counter. Fluorescent lights flickered on, sending Mr. Fish into a frenzy of motion. Soft jazz and the rise and fall of conversation filtered in from the unseen living room. Kisten’s leather coat was draped over Ivy’s chair before her computer. There was a half-full pot of coffee, and after a moment’s thought, I poured it into my gigantic mug. Trying to be quiet, I started a new batch. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but Kisten’s voice was as smooth and warm as a bubble bath.

      “Ivy, love,” he pleaded as I got the grounds out of the fridge. “It’s only one night. An hour, maybe. In and out.” “No.”

      Ivy’s voice was cold, the warning obvious. Kisten was pushing her past where I would, but they’d grown up together, the children of wealthy parents who expected them to join their families and have little vamp brats to continue Piscary’s living-vampire line before they died and became true undead. It wouldn’t happen—the marriage, not the dead part. They had already tried the cohabitation route, and while neither would say what happened, their relationship had cooled until all that was left was more of a warped sibling fondness.

      “You don’t have to do anything,” Kisten persuaded, laying his fake British accent on heavy. “Just be there. I’ll say everything.”

      “No.”

      Someone snapped off the music, and I silently pulled the silverware drawer open for the coffee scoop. Three pixy girls darted out, shrieking. I bit back my yelp, heart pounding as they vanished down the dark hallway. Motions quick from adrenaline, I poked around to find the scoop missing. I finally spotted it in the sink. Kisten must have made the coffee. If it had been Ivy, her asinine need for order would have had it washed, dried, and put away.

      “Why not?” Kisten’s voice had taken a petulant tone. “He’s not asking for much.”

      Tight and controlled, Ivy’s voice was seething. “I don’t want that bastard in my head at all. Why would I let him see through my eyes? Feel my thoughts?”

      The carafe hung from my fingers as I stood over the sink. I wished I wasn’t hearing this.

      “But he loves you,” Kisten whispered, sounding hurt and jealous. “You’re his scion.”

      “He doesn’t love me. He loves me fighting him.” It was bitter, and I could almost see her perfect, slightly Oriental features tighten in anger.

      “Ivy,” Kisten cajoled. “It feels good, intoxicating. The power he shares with you—”

      “It’s a lie!” she shouted, and I started. “You want the prestige? The power? You want to keep running Piscary’s interests? Pretend you’re still his scion? I don’t care! But I’m not letting him in my head even to cover for you!”

      I noisily ran the water into the carafe to remind them I was listening. I didn’t want to hear more, and I wished they’d stop.

      Kisten’s sigh was long and heavy. “It doesn’t work that way. If he really wants in, you won’t be able to stop him, Ivy love.”

      “Shut. Up.”

      The words were so full of bound anger that I stifled a shudder. The carafe overflowed, and I jumped as water hit my hand. Grimacing, I shut the tap off and tipped the excess out.

      There was a creak of wood from the living room. My stomach clenched. Someone had just pinned someone else to a chair. “Go ahead,” Kisten murmured over the tinkling of the water pouring into the coffeemaker. “Sink those teeth. You know you want to. Just like old times. Piscary feels everything you do, whether you want him to or not. Why do you think you haven’t been able to