The Hollows Series Books 1-4. Kim Harrison

used to. And it won’t set off any spell-check amulets, either.”

      Jenks made a face as he levered himself up on the sill. “Much as I enjoy this horrific outpouring of estrogen, I’m going to go say good-bye to my wife. Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be in the garden—probably next to the stink weed.” He wobbled into flight and out the window. I turned back to Ivy, still amazed.

      “I’m surprised it still fits,” Ivy said as she looked down at herself. “It used to be my mother’s. I got it when she died.” She eyed me with a severe frown. “And if she ever shows up on our doorstep, don’t let on I have it.”

      “Sure,” I offered weakly.

      Ivy tossed her purse to the table and sat with her legs crossed at the knees. “She thinks my great aunt stole it. If she knew I had it, she’d make me give it back.” Ivy harrumphed. “Like she could wear it anymore. A sundress after dark is so tacky.”

      She turned, a bright smile on her face. I stifled a shudder. She looked like a human. A wealthy, desirable human. This, I realized, was a hunting dress.

      Ivy went still at my almost horrified look. Her eyes dilated, sending my pulse hammering. That awful black drifted over her as her instincts were jerked into play. The kitchen faded from my awareness. Though she was across the room, Ivy seemed right before me. I felt myself go hot, then cold. She was pulling an aura in the middle of the freaking afternoon.

      “Rachel …” she breathed, her gray voice enticing a shudder from me. “Stop being afraid.”

      My breath came quick and shallow. Frightened, I forced myself to turn so my back was almost to her. Damn, damn, damn! This wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t done anything! She had been so normal … and then this? From the corner of my sight I watched Ivy hold herself still, scrambling for control. If she moved, I was going out the window.

      But she didn’t move. Slowly my breath came easier. My pulse slowed, and her tension decreased. I took a deep breath, and the black in her eyes diminished. I flipped my hair out of my face and pretended to wash my hands, and she slumped to her chair by the table. Fear was an aphrodisiac to her hunger, and I had been unwittingly feeding it to her.

      “I shouldn’t have put this on again,” she said, her voice low and strained. “I’ll wait in the garden while you invoke your spell.” I nodded, and she drifted to the door, clearly making a conscious effort to move at a normal speed. I hadn’t noticed her standing up, but there she was, moving into the hallway. “And Rachel,” she said softly, standing in the threshold. “If I ever do start practicing again, you’ll be the first to know.”

       Eighteen

      “I don’t think I’ll ever get my nose clear of the stink in that sack.” Jenks took a dramatic breath of the night air.

      “Purse,” I said, hearing the word come out as a bland squeak. It was all I could manage. I had recognized right off what Ivy’s mother’s purse smelled like, and the thought that I had spent a good portion of my day in it gave me the willies.

      “You ever smell anything like that?” Jenks continued blithely.

      “Jenks, shut up.” Squeak, squeak, chirp. Guessing what a vamp carried when she went hunting wasn’t high on my list. I tried really hard not to think about Table 6.1.

      “No-o-o-o,” he drawled. “It was more of a musky, metallic kind of—oh.”

      But the night air was pleasant enough. It was edging toward ten, and Trent’s public garden had the lush smell of rising damp. The moon was a thin sliver lost behind the trees. Jenks and I were hidden in the shrubbery behind a stone bench. Ivy was long gone.

      She had tucked her purse under the seat this afternoon, pretending to be faint. After blaming her weariness on low blood sugar, half the men on the tour had offered to run up to the pavilion to fetch her a cookie. I had nearly blown our cover laughing at Jenks’s nonstop, overly dramatic parody of what was going on outside her purse. Ivy had left in a swirl of manly concern. I hadn’t known whether to be worried or amused at how easily she had swayed them.

      “This feels as wrong as Uncle Vamp at a sweet-sixteen party,” Jenks said as he edged out of the shadows and onto the path. “I haven’t heard a bird all afternoon. No fairies or pixies, either.” He peered up at the black canopy from under his hat.

      “Let’s go,” I squeaked as I looked down the abandoned path. Everything was in shades of gray. I still wasn’t used to it.

      “I don’t think there are any fairies or pixies,” Jenks continued. “A garden this size could support four clans, easy. Who takes care of the plants?”

      “Maybe that way,” I said, needing to talk even though he couldn’t understand me.

      “You’ve got that right,” he said, continuing his one-sided conversation. “Lunkers. Thick-fingered clumsy oafs who rip out an ailing plant instead of giving it a dose of potash. Uh, present company excepted, of course,” he added.

      “Jenks,” I chittered, “you’re a real piece of work.”

      “You’re welcome.”

      I didn’t trust Jenks’s belief that there might be no fairies or pixies, and I half expected them to descend upon us at any moment. Having seen the aftermath of a pixy/fairy skirmish, I wasn’t in any hurry to experience it. Especially not when I was the size of a squirrel.

      Jenks craned his neck and studied the upper branches as he adjusted his hat. He had told me earlier that it was a flaming red, and that the conspicuous color was a pixy’s only defense when entering another clan’s garden. It was a promise of good intent and quick departure. His constant fussing with it since leaving Ivy’s purse had nearly driven me crazy. Being stuck behind a bench all afternoon had done nothing for my nerves, either. Jenks had spent most of the day sleeping, stirring back to wakefulness when the sun neared the unseen horizon.

      A flash of excitement raced through me and was gone. Pushing the feeling away, I chittered for Jenks’s attention and started toward the smell of carpet. The time spent in Ivy’s purse, and then under the bench, had done Jenks a lot of good. Still, though, he was lagging behind. Worried the slight noise of his labored flight might alert someone, I came to a rolling halt, motioning Jenks to get on my back.

      “Whatsa matter, Rache,” he said, tugging his hat back down, “got an itch?”

      I gritted my teeth. Crouched on my haunches, I pointed to him, then my shoulders.

      “No freaking way.” He glanced at the trees. “I won’t be carted about like a baby.”

      I don’t have time for this, I thought. I pointed again, this time straight up. It was our agreed sign that he was to go home. Jenks’s eyes narrowed, and I bared my teeth. Surprised, he took a step back.

      “Okay, okay,” he grumbled. “But if you tell Ivy, I’m going to pix you every night for a week. Got it?” His light weight hit my shoulders, and he gripped my fur. It was an odd sensation, and I didn’t like it. “Not too fast,” he muttered, clearly uncomfortable as well.

      Apart from his death grip on my fur, I hardly noticed him. I went as fast as I dared. I didn’t like that there might be unfriendly eyes holding fairy steel watching us, and I immediately struck out off the path. The sooner we were inside, the better. My ears and nose worked nonstop. I could smell everything, and it wasn’t as cool as one might think.

      The leaves would shiver at every gust, making me freeze or dart deeper into the foliage. Jenks was singing a bothersome song under his breath. Something about blood and daisies.

      I wove my hesitant way through a barrier of loose stone and brambles and slowed. Something was different. “The plants have changed,” Jenks said, and I bobbed my head.

      The trees I wove between as I moved downhill were markedly