Pale Demon. Kim Harrison

thing she’s done,” Jenks said, making the short flight to the chocolate and using his sword to cut off a slice the size of his hand.

      “Maybe, but something isn’t right,” Ivy said, clearly not convinced, and I followed her gaze as she took in the assembled ingredients for Trent’s curse, next to the assassins’ splat guns and knives and my broken sunglasses. An unsettled feeling tightened around my chest, and I fidgeted. I was glad I’d said what I had, and I wasn’t going to “escort” Trent to the West Coast, but if truth be told, I agreed with Ivy. Something wasn’t right, and I didn’t think it was over yet.

      Three

      Hollows International wasn’t a huge airport, but it was busy with early-morning flights, even at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning. It was way too early for me to be up, and I felt numb, the lukewarm cup of blah coffee almost slipping from my grip. Our flight was boarding in half an hour; we had lots of time. The air smelled like floor polish and plastic, and I sat in the fake leather chairs across from the check-in counter and people-watched as Ivy bought a ticket and checked our luggage. After the incident with Trent, she had gotten leave from her master vampire to come with Jenks and me.

      Trent’s prediction that I wouldn’t be allowed on the plane had convinced me that the less I interacted with the gods and goddesses of air travel in their polyester blazers and winged lapel pins the better. So I sat waiting, our carry-ons strewn around me. Nervous, I pushed myself to the back of the chair and slouched. Jenks, though, wasn’t fooled by my show of nonchalance.

      “Trent’s an ass, but he’s right. We’re not getting through security,” he predicted, making his wings hum for some extra heat. It was chilly this morning, and all the warmth was escaping through the big plate-glass windows and the endless opening of the doors.

      I didn’t look at him, watching Ivy’s slowly moving line. “Trent’s just trying to scare me,” I said, but when I realized I was spinning my wooden pinkie ring around and around on my finger, I stopped. I didn’t need it to hide my freckles anymore, but if I didn’t wear it, my brother, Robbie, would ask where my freckles had gone. What if we couldn’t get on the plane? I had to be there in three days or my shunning would become permanent.

      “Is it working?” Jenks landed on my knee where he could lecture me better. He was wearing his garden best, convinced that he wasn’t even going to have to use the potion in my bag to go big to handle the air-pressure shifts. He hadn’t even arranged for anyone to watch his kids, thinking we’d be back in an hour. His confidence in me was breathtaking.

      I cocked my eyebrows, and he put his hands on his hips, finally starting to dust a little as he warmed up. “Rache, even if Trent is telling the truth and the Withons are gunning for him, that doesn’t change that you being dead would make the coven’s life a lot easier. You are not getting through security,” he said, glancing nervously at a little girl in pink who had noticed him. “We should be thinking about how we’re going to get you two thousand miles in three days, not chilling at the airport.”

      “I already have my ticket,” I said sourly, noticing that Ivy had reached the front of the line. “How are they going to stop me?”

      “Rache …,” he coaxed, and I shifted my shoulders, acknowledging that he had a point.

      “Look,” I said, slouching even lower. “If they don’t let me on the plane, we’ll take the train. Be there in no time.”

      His sigh was tiny, but I heard it despite the loudspeaker paging someone.

      Silence grew between us, and I took in his pulled-back hair and his sharp black-and-green outfit with bluebells on the hem. It was the last outfit that Matalina had made for him, and I knew he wore it to feel close to her. It had been a very hard two months, even if he now knew for sure that his biological clock had been reset and he had another twenty years ahead of him. I, too, had my first twenty-six years back, and I figured this was why demons lived so long. By next spring, Jenks would be the world’s oldest pixy. I didn’t care that it had taken a curse to do it—as long as he was happy. He was happy, wasn’t he?

      Worry filled me as I watched him watch everyone else, his attention mainly on the cameras in the corners. “How you doing, Jenks?” I asked, the tone of my voice telling him I wasn’t asking about the temperature. He turned, his sharply angular face showing a neutral nothing until I added, “Don’t lie to me.”

      Jenks looked away as the sun started to stain the sky. “Fine,” he said flatly.

      Fine. I knew what fine was. I had been “fine” for the better part of a year after Kisten died. Since then I’d dated Marshal, had gotten shunned, and had sex with a nineteenth-century ghost named Gordian Pierce who’d been bricked into the ground alive in 1852 by the same group currently trying to give me a lobotomy and steal my ovaries.

      Much as I hated to admit it, Pierce was everything I liked wrapped up in a package that might be able to stay alive through the crap my life dished out. He was Al’s familiar, and I saw him every week when doing my stint as a demon student in the ever-after. We’d not had a moment alone together since he’d helped me get a temporary reprieve on my shunning, and it was aggravating, even if I didn’t quite know what to think of Pierce anymore. He’d seen me through one of the most terrifying moments of my life, and we had opened up to each other in ways that left me wondering why I was still hesitant. He was a good man. But the same things that had once attracted me—power, tragic history, and a sexy body—now left me with a mild sense of unease. Ivy would say I was getting smarter, but I just felt … empty.

      Twisting, I felt my back pocket for my phone, wondering what time it was.

      “Seven thirty-two,” Jenks said, knowing me better than I did myself.

      “Thanks.” Sighing, I tucked the phone away. Jenks didn’t like Pierce, agreeing with Al that the charismatic witch would be the death of me, but Pierce wouldn’t hurt me. He loved me. The hard part was I thought I might love him, too, someday. I just didn’t know, and Al wasn’t letting me figure it out. It worried me that Pierce was a little too free with the black magic, even if it had been to help me. I was trying to prove that black magic didn’t make you bad—but still I hesitated, whereas a year ago I’d have been head over heels and damn Al back to the Turn for getting in the way.

      “Here she comes,” Jenks said in warning, and I looked up. Sure enough, Ivy was making her way toward us, our two bags left behind on the conveyor belt and a blue-and-gold envelope in her hand. She was wearing an unfamiliar black business suit to make her look both sexy and capable, a mix of brains and body able to get anything done in the boardroom. I’d never be able to carry off that look, but for Ivy, it was easy.

      “See?” I said as I sat up. “She got her ticket okay.”

      Jenks whistled softly as she maneuvered gracefully through the throng, ignoring the stares behind her. “The woman needs her own theme music,” he said dryly.

      I stood and he took to the air. “Cake. ‘Short Skirt, Long Jacket.’”

      “That’d do it,” he said as Ivy picked up her briefcase with her laptop in it.

      “So far, so good,” she said, glancing at the nearby security line.

      Jenks wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, they just confiscated your luggage, Rache. Good job.”

      “Jenks …,” I complained, then turned to Ivy. “What gate? All my ticket has is the flight number.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Jenks said bluntly. “We’re not getting through security.”

      “A5,” Ivy said, not looking at her ticket.

      Ignoring Jenks humming a dirge, I grabbed my garment bag with my bridesmaid’s dress in it. It had been easier than I had thought possible to coordinate Cindy’s bridal shop with the one I’d worked with in downtown Cincinnati, making sure my hem length would match everyone else’s. And for once, I liked this dress, steel blue-gray with no lace. I’d give Robbie’s fiancée one thing—she