Kim Harrison: White Witch, Black Curse

“What are you doing?” Ivy said, her hand on the door as I fumbled around under the seat.

“I’ve got an FIB sign in here somewhere,” I muttered, fingers jerking back as they unexpectedly found something cold and squishy.

A closed-lipped smile came over Ivy. “The entire FIB knows your car.”

Making a soft sound of agreement, I gave up and tugged on my gloves. Yeah, they did, seeing that they’d given it to me in payment for helping them out once, something most of them seemed to be forgetting lately. “Ready, Jenks?” I called, and got a half-heard stream of curses back. Something about my cream rinse and puking fairies.

Ivy and I got out together. The excitement of a run hit me when the doors thumped shut. Standing by my car, I pulled the sharp, dry air all the way to the bottom of my lungs. The clouds had that solid feel that they only get right before a heavy snow, and I could smell the pavement, white with salt and so dry and cold it would burn your fingers if you touched it.

Heels snapping, Ivy came around the car, and I followed her to the small house. The crunchy five inches of snow had been packed down, but a sad-looking three-foot snowman presided over a corner of the yard, his face melted and his hat covering his eyes. The curtains were open, and the yellow rectangles of light on the snow were starting to become obvious. Red and green lights from a neighbor’s display made an odd counterpoint, and I could hear the conversation from the duo on the corner. Cold, I tugged my bag up higher as we walked.

More neighbors were coming out; I felt a surge of disgust when the slow-creeping lights of a van with an antenna showed under the streetlight.

Crap, they were here already? I’d wanted to talk to the neighbors before the interviewers had them thinking sensationalism instead of realism. I was sure Edden had interviewed the closest, but his people wouldn’t ask the questions I wanted answers to.

“There,” Ivy murmured, and I followed her gaze to the dark shadow coming out from the garage’s side door to meet us.

“Hey, hi!” I called out, pitching my voice high to give the impression we were harmless. Yeah, right. “Edden asked us to come out. We’re from Vampiric Charms.” Asked us? It was more like forced into it, but why bring that up.

The young FIB officer flicked on the outside lights, washing the crusty drive in an artificial glare. “Can I see some ID?” he asked, then did a double take. “Oh!” he said, tucking his clipboard back under an arm. “You’re the witch and the vamp.”

From my hat came a disgusted “And a really cold pixy. Can you hurry it up, Rache? I think my ’nads fell off.”

I stifled a grimace, pasting on a fake smile. I’d rather be known by our company name than “the witch and the vamp,” but at least Edden had told them we were coming. Maybe he wasn’t going to be such a pain in the butt about us helping. I watched the officer’s body language, but couldn’t tell if his impatience was from the FIB’s new distrust or simply the cold.

“Yes, Vampiric Charms. We’re here to help with the possible Inderland connection,” I said before Ivy could get all vampy. Her pulling an aura and scaring the crap out of him wouldn’t help-as entertaining as it might be.

“Can we go in?” Ivy asked with a faint promise of threat, and Jenks snickered.

“Sure.” The officer’s head was down as he wrote something. “Put on a pair of booties, okay?”

Ivy was halfway to the door off the garage, her motions stiff at his assumption that she didn’t know her way around a crime scene. I glanced back at the street, hesitating. The news crew had set up, and the huge light they had was gathering people like a bonfire. “Hey, uh, Ivy…,” I murmured, and she hesitated, a long, gloved hand resting on the open door.

She smiled with half her mouth. “You want to go talk to them?” I nodded, and she added, “You’ll be okay, Jenks?”

“Oh crap,” I swore under my breath. I’d forgotten about him.

“I’m fine!” he barked, and I felt a soft tug as he settled himself. “Nothing’s going to change inside, but I want to hear what the neighbors say. Gossip, Ivy. That’s where the truth is. It’s all about the gossip.”

I didn’t know about gossip, but if he said he’d be okay, I’d rather get first impressions than stale, regurgitated comments after everyone had had a chance to think.

Ivy frowned, clearly of the opinion that crimes were solved by carefully gathered evidence, not nebulous feelings and hunches. But with a shrug, she went inside and I headed out into the night.

Pace fast, I found a spot at the back of the growing crowd, trying to stay out of the camera’s line of sight. Jenks was probably hearing twice what I could, and I went on tiptoe to glimpse the man with red cheeks in the felt coat the newscaster was interviewing. I didn’t think it was live, seeing that it wasn’t six yet, and I eased closer, jostling for position.

“They were the nicest people,” the man was saying, his eyes bright with excitement. “Nice people. I never would have expected anything like this from them. They kept to themselves and were real quiet.”

My eyebrows rose, and Jenks snorted. Sounded like Inderlanders to me.

But then the kid next to me made a rude sound, and Jenks tugged my hair when the boy said snidely to his friend, “Like he knew him. The guy is a creep, and the woman is whacked.”

“Got it, Jenks,” I whispered so he would stop yanking on my hair. Slow and steady investigation was nice, but I wanted to find them before the sun went nova.

Smiling, I turned to find a young man in a black knit hat with the Howlers’ emblem, and encouraged by the show of Inderland acceptance, I felt an unusual surge of kinship. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and his hands were jammed into his jeans pockets. “Whacked?” I said, giving his friend a quick smile to include him in the conversation. “You think?”

“I know,” he shot back, then fidgeted. I was guessing he was in high school, and I turned the Mrs. Robinson charm on full.

“Yeah?” I said, almost bumping into him as the crowd grew noisy when the newscaster looked for fresh meat. “Don’t you love how they always say one thing in front of the camera, but at the bar, the truth comes out?”

He grinned, clearly thinking I thought he was older than he was. From under my hat came Jenks’s impressed “Nice. Reel him in, Rache.”

“So you know them?” I said, linking my arm in his and easing him from the news crew. I kept us close so as not to leave the highly charged atmosphere the news van was creating, angling so that if a camera should point our way, all they’d get would be my back. His friend had stayed behind, and was currently jumping to try to get in the background of the shot. He didn’t have a coat either, and I thought it unfair that they were warm and I was freezing my butt off out here. Witches had a lower cold tolerance than just about everyone else, excluding pixies.

“You’re not a reporter,” he said, and I smiled, glad he was smarter than I’d thought.

“I’m from Vampiric Charms,” I said, digging in my bag until I found a bent card and handed it to him. “I’m Rachel. Rachel Morgan.”

“Righteous!” he said, his face becoming animated. “My name is Matt. I live over there. Hey, I’ve heard of you,” he said, tapping the card against his hand. “Is that really you in that shot, being dragged down the street-”

“On my ass,” I finished for him, adjusting my hat to send a whiff of cold air under it to get Jenks to stop laughing. “Yeah, that’s me. But I don’t really summon demons.” Much.

“That’s cool. That’s cool,” he said, seeming to grow three inches taller. “You’re trying to find the Tilsons?”