Pale Demon (51 page)

He wanted to show the kids. Subtle phrasing, but significant. He was seeing himself as less of a kid and more of an adult. I’d seen it on the jet when he settled into a watchful mode with a magazine, and how he kept an eye on the people in the airport instead of being distracted by the jets or the people staring at him. Growing up wasn’t bad, but I kind of missed the old Bis and his wonder at everything. He still had that inquisitive good nature, but now it was tempered with the knowledge that life wasn’t fair and that bad things happened, even if you watched for them.

“You bet,” I said, opening the snaps of my overnight case. Still in a huff, Jenks landed on the open lid. We had spent a day at Disneyland before coming home, and Jenks had gone a little nuts, buying out a gift shop and generally acting like a chipmunk on Brimstone. Bis had contented himself with a tourist T-shirt, but Ivy and I sat on a curb for almost an hour waiting for Jenks to come out of the Tink history exhibit. Since then, there hadn’t been a single swear word using the “Inderlander pioneer,” as he now called her.

I pulled Bis’s tank top out, carefully folding the brightly patterned bag with Tinkerbell on it after Jenks started making tiny, pained noises when I crumpled it up. I couldn’t help but wonder if we had a little crush going. Finally I snapped the bright red shirt to get out the wrinkles and held it up to Bis. “I don’t think we’re going to have to make wing slits for you,” I said, seeing a glimpse of his old self in his delight at the screened picture of characters in the latest gargoyle flick.

“Too cool,” he said, holding his arms up, and I settled the soft cotton tank top over his head, tugging gently to get it around his ears. I tried to imagine him my size but failed. He was still a kid—and my responsibility. Damn, how had my mom done this?

“Belle says the battle was Sunday,” Bis said, his voice muffled. “After I left.”

“Yeah?” Jenks barked, his wings moving but not lifting him at all.

“Wings,” I prompted, and Bis lifted them high so I could work the tank top around them.

“She said a passing clan thought that Jenks had died, so they attacked,” Bis said, his red eyes glowing. “They didn’t know what to do. The kids, I mean. Jih was across the street, and it was noon. But Belle was awake, and she saw them. Raised the alarm. They would have taken the garden and killed everyone if not for Belle.”

I dropped back, thinking the shirt was perfect—even if it looked odd on him. There was the faint click of the front door opening, and Ivy’s soft murmur followed by the thunking of Trent’s cast on the old oak. My tension spiked. Trent was in my church.
Why?

“
She
saved the garden,” Bis said as he looked at himself in my dresser mirror. My perfumes were scattered about his feet, and he didn’t hit one as he shifted and turned. “Took over the fight. Told everyone what to do. Kept the lines from breaking until Jih could help. No one got hurt except Belle. She took an arrow in the leg.”

Alarmed, I turned to Jenks. “I thought you said no one was hurt!”

“A fairy?” he said in disbelief. “Since when are you worried about a fairy?”

“When one saves the lives of your children,” I said, and Trent thumped to a halt at my door. My eyes fell from Trent’s, and I slammed my suitcase shut. “Jenks, you’re ugly when you talk like that,” I said, then turned to Bis, hesitating at the sight of him in a bright red shirt. “Where’s Belle?” I asked, imagining her broken and bleeding somewhere in the garden.

“Uh, the kitchen,” he said, glancing at Jenks as if the pixy was going to protest.

A last hard look at Jenks, and I started for the hallway. Trent was standing in the doorway with Lucy, smelling of fresh baby powder and baby wipes, and his injured hand gently patted her as he rocked. I jerked to a stop when he didn’t get out of my way fast enough, my eyes dropping to the floor as I flushed. “Come on in,” I said softly. “I don’t think we have anything but water, but you’re welcome to it.”

He awkwardly edged back, and I breathed easier. “Ivy?” I called as I strode to the kitchen. “Belle’s been hurt!”

“Belle?” came from her room. “Is she okay?”

“I think so. I’ll let you know in a minute.”

Jenks’s wings were clattering, and Bis was a bright spot as he crawled along the ceiling to get there before me. His expression worried, Jenks dusted at my shoulder, not coming to rest there like he might have otherwise. “Ivy knew, too?” he asked, and I realized his somber mood wasn’t because he felt bad but because he was the last to know.

I flipped the bright kitchen lights on, squinting. Bis had said he’d talked to her; she had to be awake. “Jenks, if a fairy can hide in your garden for three months, then have the grace to help your kids survive an attack, don’t you think you should rethink your attitude?” I turned to him, and his defiance faltered. “You’re going to live to be forty years old. You’re going to have to grow up. It’s a small world after all, or didn’t you go on that ride?”

Wings silent, Jenks hovered dead center in the doorway, at a complete loss. Trent edged in around him, taking in the kitchen as he stood between Ivy’s farm table and the center counter. My annoyance at Jenks vanished in a flash of memory: a memory of Trent standing in my unreal kitchen, confused, irritated, and attractive as all hell as he tried to save my soul with a kiss. And then the kiss itself, burning its way through me, kindling my chi back to life. I’d been mortified when I’d woken up and discovered that the kiss had been real—which didn’t negate how good it had felt, but did lead me back to Trent standing with Lucy in his arms, his eyes roving over my kitchen as if comparing it to his memory.

Flustered, I turned, seeing the chrysalis trapped under the brandy snifter where my Mr. Fish had once been. My beta was still in the ever-after with Al, and I hoped the demon would remember to feed him. Maybe Pierce would do it—if he was still alive.

With a surprising jolt, my eyes started to swim and I spun before Trent could see, hiding my tears by opening the window behind me wider and letting in the night air and the sound of pixies. Someone was mowing his lawn at half-past midnight. They don’t sell lawn tractors with headlights for nothing. I didn’t know if my sudden emotion was relief that I was home—really home—or that I’d said good-bye to everything in the ever-after for good.

A small touch on my shoulder shocked me, and I stiffened to find Bis standing beside the sink, his eyes wide in concern as something he had no control over had set me to shaking. But even his worry did nothing to help; he was touching me, and I couldn’t feel a thing. There was nothing in my mind, nothing but a faint hum of elven magic coming from my wrist. And I missed the ley lines, even as I relished the freedom I now had.

“I’m fine,” I whispered to him, then squared my shoulders and turned slowly on my heel. “Belle?” I warbled, and Jenks stared at me like I’d gone nuts when I wiped the back of my hand over my eye. Trent made no comment, but he gingerly sat on the edge of Ivy’s chair, his foot in the cast tucked under it.

A ping at the rack over the center counter drew all our attention up, and Jenks flushed, swearing and dusting an embarrassed red when a tiny white-haired head showed over my smallest spell pot, the one with the dent in it. I still didn’t know how it had gotten there. The dent, not the pot.

“Welcome back, Rachel” came Belle’s curious hissing accent, sounding like crickets. “Have a good vacation?”

My eyes darted to Trent, thinking of the wingless fairies he now had in his garden. If he hadn’t known they’d come from me, he soon would. “I’ve had better,” I said, head craning. “Are you okay? Jenks said there was a fight.”

Jenks made a small sound as a thin line dropped from the bowl and Belle snaked down it. She looked odd in a bright pink pixy dress that was too short for her, and I glanced at Jenks on the spigot, his arms crossed and standing almost sideways so he wouldn’t have to face her.

“I’m fine,” she said, smacking her bare leg and the bandage there. “It’s going to take a few more days before I can pull my longbow with any strength, but I’ll mend. If I live or die, doesn’t matter. We held our territory.” Her eyes went to Bis on top of the fridge, and she smiled. “I like the shirt.”

“Thanks.”

I did a double take at the soft shyness in his voice. Jenks had heard it, too, and cleared his throat, making Bis blush a deep black.

“Your territory,” Belle amended, thinking that’s what Jenks had taken offense to. I wasn’t so sure.

Wings clattering, Jenks landed beside her. His eyes went to her bandage, then her face. She looked like a long-armed, sinewy Amazon next to him. “Uh, thank you,” he said grudgingly, glancing nervously at Trent, but the man was more interested in the spell pots over the counter, his hand gently patting Lucy as she slept. “I should have said that first off.” Belle’s sparse eyebrows rose, and he added, “Thanks for telling them what to do. They’re good kids, but—” He tried again. “You saved their lives. Please…stay in
my
garden. If you like.”

Even as hesitant and possessive as that had been, I looked at Bis in wonder. The gargoyle was grinning, accepting Jenks’s change of heart with a quickness only a kid could possess. I’d be a little more hesitant, but Jenks wouldn’t say anything unless he meant it.

Belle’s long features were pale and out of place with the pixy colors on her. “Your hair is getting long,” she said shortly, her tone giving nothing away.

Jenks’s hand went up to touch it. “Yeah, well, I don’t have anyone to cut it anymore.”

I wondered how these two warriors were going to find a way to exist together. Belle finally nodded her acceptance of his apology but clearly was withholding complete judgment.

Feeling awkward, I opened the fridge and cringed. Yep, we were down to water, ketchup, and a tub of butter. Maybe I could make Trent a virgin Bloody Mary; we had some Worcestershire sauce, too. “Anyone want to order pizza?” I said softly, wondering how long it would take for Quen to check out the graveyard.

“I do!” Bis chimed out, and I ducked when Jenks’s kids swarmed in from the garden and hallway, shouting out their toppings. Their high-pitched voices woke up Lucy, and she began to wail, frightened. Bis pinned his ears to his skull and made the jump to the top of the fridge. Trent frowned as he tried to calm Lucy, but the pixy girls were humming over her and scaring her even more. Clearly they had been eavesdropping, and the lure of pizza had overridden their fear of their dad.
Nasturtium blossoms?

“Jenks!” I exclaimed as I shut the fridge door, and he shrugged.

Belle, too, had sat down, her bored expression clearly saying that it wasn’t her problem. “You’ve had nothing but pizza for a week,” she complained, her voice loud to be heard over the noise. “I would have thought you’d be tired of it by now.”

“Pizza?” Jenks exclaimed. “What about all the good food I put aside…” His voice faltered. “Never mind,” he finished, scowling at Bis, and the gargoyle went three shades darker in embarrassment. “I want you all out!” he shouted, and the noise was cut by about half, leaving only Lucy crying. “Out and watching that elf in the garden!”

“But, Papa,” one of his younger daughters complained, “he’s only sitting in the car.”

That figured, and I gave Trent a sidelong glance.
Check out my property, huh? Make sure everything is safe, eh? What do you want, Trent?
I sighed as it struck me that this was the way I’d begun this mess, standing in my kitchen and wondering what Trent wanted.

“Go! All of you!” Jenks said, pointing, and they flowed from the kitchen, a mix of complaints and shouted topping requests. “Asleep when the garden was invaded! You’d all be
dead
if not for Belle. What have you been doing all week? Watching TV?” Jenks crabbed as the last of them left.

Lucy’s blanket was almost slipping from her, and I wanted to go tuck it back around her. Trent had given her a pacifier, and Lucy was wide-eyed in his arms, quiet but sucking on it with a vengeance, angry almost. It brought a smile to my face.

The sound of Ivy’s boots was loud as she came in, having changed into lots of leather. Hand on her hip and posture screaming sexual domination, she gave Trent the once-over as he sat in
her
chair. The angry, frustrated baby on his lap seemed to grant him some immunity, and she turned away with only the slightest widening of her pupils. “I’m going out. You going to be okay?” she asked.

Across the kitchen, Trent’s posture seemed to relax, which only tightened mine. He wanted to talk to me alone. Great. We had just spent five hours in a little tin can flying through the air. Couldn’t he have brought it up then?

“Go.” I wiggled my fingers for the pizza coupons stuck to the fridge, and she handed them to me.

“If you’re sure,” she prompted, and my eyes met hers, sending a shock of realization through me. We were home, and though everything had changed, we were still solid. Better, even.

“You really want to stay for pizza?” I asked, and she took a backward step to the hallway, smiling as well to tell me she knew it too.

“No. See you after sunup. Bye, Trent,” she called over her shoulder when she reached the hallway, then louder, “Jenks! Can I talk to you for a moment about our security?”

A knot in me unraveled. We were okay. Grinning at me, Jenks rose up. “Coming, Mother!” he mocked.

Her boots clunked into the sanctuary, and I watched Belle snake down to the floor, sword ready as she braved Jenks’s cat to go outside.

“I’m glad you’re home, Ms. Rachel,” Bis said shyly, taking his shirt off and leaving it on top of the fridge before he jumped to the ceiling and crawled out after Belle. There was a faint scrape of nail on stone, and I figured he’d slithered out through the flue in the back living room instead of using the smaller cat door.

Yes, it was a weird life, but it was mine, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Trent scuffed his foot cast against the floor, and my anxiety came flowing back. Ignoring him, I wiped the dust from the phone and scooted up onto the counter as I tried to remember what he liked on his pizza. Just in case he was staying.