Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

I winced as the woman was replaced by a shot of Edden, David, and Mrs. Sarong going into the very same building, their heads down to avoid the press. It was dark, clearly before sunrise, and I gave Trent’s hand a squeeze under the table.

“But it’s here in our own Cincinnati that all are watching, as former U.S. president Rynn Cormel meets with various members of the scientific and religious community who flew in earlier today from all points with the intent of developing an end solution to this tragedy.”

My hand slipped from Trent’s as he stood. “Excuse me,” he said, eyes down. “I think our drinks are up. Rachel, you sure you don’t want a muffin or something?”

I shook my head. It was too early to eat.

“Living vampires are demanding a removal of the free-roaming undead souls that some are beginning to refer to as surface demons in the wake of the destruction they cause. Experts are advising the living to check on their undead and protect them from unnecessary surface travel. If a loved one does find their soul, they’re advised not to leave them unattended.”

Jenks’s wings clattered, and I followed his gaze to Trent weaving his way to the pickup counter. The coffee wasn’t up. He just didn’t want to hear any more, depressed that his voice was being ignored and that he was forced to work from secondhand information.

Jenks silently flew after him, startling the man when he landed on his shoulder. Ivy sighed and closed her laptop. Eyes red-rimmed from fatigue, she leaned back into her chair and nursed her sweet coffee. “The news is circling now,” she said softly. “Nothing new.”

Circling like the thoughts of the undead, I mused, brow furrowed when I remembered that’s how mystics saw them—little lights in the dark that never changed. “You look tired,” I said, and her eyes flicked to me.

“Didn’t get much sleep. Did you stop at the church on your way in?”

My gaze dropped. “No, I’m afraid to.” I wanted to know if she still had her soul bottle. I hadn’t seen it, but it was small enough to easily fit in a pocket. “How’s Nina?”

“Good.” Her eyes looked up, and a tiny thrill of emotion spilled through me at the love in her eyes for Nina, the relief. “She’s good. She . . . helped me yesterday when I thought Cormel had you. Grounded me. She’s with my folks right now. I’m really worried about my mom.”

Helped? I thought, imagining Ivy freaking out, her frantic terror disguised as planning a foolhardy rescue. Nina had probably had to take charge to keep Ivy from doing something stupid, such as confronting Cormel in person. Oh, wait. That’s just what I’d done. But it had probably proved to Nina that her love for Ivy was stronger than her need for Felix, and I smiled because something good had come of it. Things would be better now.

“My mother is terrified,” Ivy whispered, her hands laced about her cup. “Torn. She wants her soul. Wants a way out even if it kills her.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jaw clenched, Ivy swung her hair from her eyes and looked out the plate-glass windows at nothing. “This is hell, you know? An entire people cursed. What did we do to deserve this?”

I knew the demons had begun the vampires, probably as a cruel answer to a wish made in fear that grew like a disease, taking the guilty and the innocent alike. I didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched. It felt like it was ending—not just because of the sirens and quiet desperation going on outside the security of the coffeehouse. Just . . . everything. “Ivy . . .”

“I know.” She took a sip of cooling coffee, not looking at me. “I feel it, too. I wanted it to last forever, but things change. People change.”

She was fingering the bracelet that Nina had given her, and I felt proud of her. “Not everything,” I said, reluctant to let her think that after one night at Trent’s I was abandoning her, the church, Jenks . . . One night? Try a couple dozen.

Smiling faintly she shrugged, barely shifting her shoulders. “How we react to things has. Are you happy when you’re with Trent?”

I nodded, not surprised by her question.

“I would have called you a liar if you had said anything else.” Sighing, she shifted her cup out of Jenks’s dust when the pixy came back with a tiny mug. Trent was still at the counter, sprinkling cinnamon into an open cup.

“I should’ve come back last night,” I said.

Jenks slurped his hot coffee. “There was no reason to. Besides, Ivy and Nina—”

“Shut up, Jenks,” Ivy said, a faint blush on her cheeks, but her eyes were earnest as she waved the giggling pixy out from between us. “Sometimes I think Jenks and I stuck with this as long as we did because we were afraid you wouldn’t find someone else who could survive you.”

Swearing at his spilled coffee, Jenks stopped his gyrating and dropped down. Depressed, I put my head on the table, forehead on my crossed arms. Someone who could survive me. Maybe if I didn’t keep putting him in life-threatening places.

“You know what I’d like to do once the church is fixed?” Jenks said. “Travel.”

“To the Arizona desert?” I said, breath coming back warm and stale from the tabletop.

Ivy chuckled. “In your red boots and hat?” she teased, and I pulled my head up to see Jenks hovering, his dust red in embarrassment.

“It’s not that,” he protested, almost belligerent. “I could travel, you know.”

I picked at a small dent in the table. “I think you should.”

“Who’d watch your back?” The pixy snorted, turning to Trent coming back with three steaming cups. “Cookie bits over there? Just ’cause you’re not in the church doesn’t mean you’re not out there doing dumb things.”

“Thanks, Jenks,” I said, smiling at Trent as he carefully set the hot coffee down.

“Here you go, Rachel,” he said, pushing the one with the cinnamon to me before sitting down with his own straight black. “What did I miss?”

His voice was heavy with uncertainty, and I eagerly took a sip, hoping someone else would answer him. Jenks was on the edge of Ivy’s laptop, his ankle crossing one knee to mimic Trent. Lips smacking, he took a long draft of his own brew. “I was just telling Rache how we should all move out to Arizona.”

Trent relaxed, eyeing Ivy as she succinctly sipped her coffee with deliberate slowness. “Arizona, eh? Too hot for horses. I could go for somewhere else, though.”

Surprised, I swallowed the bitter, nutty brew. “You’d move? Seriously?”

Uncomfortable, Trent eased back in his chair. “Sure, why not?” His eyes roved over nothing. “It might be nice to start again without my father’s legacy hanging over me.” He carefully sipped. “Anywhere else looks real good to me right now.”

Jenks rose up, ankle still on his knee. “Meeting must be over. Al is here.”

I leaned past Trent to see the back of the store. Al was indeed there in his forties suit, shaking off the last of the ley line as he stood in an elaborately painted circle next to the door to the back. My eyebrows rose as I realized it was a jump-in/-out circle, not so much having any magical power on its own, but simply a designated space to keep clear of boxes and merchandise for demons to come and go as they would.

My eyes flicked to Mark as Al strode to the order counter. Mark, what have you gotten yourself into, inviting demons into your coffeehouse?

Trent stood. “I’ll get a chair,” he said, eyeing the nearly full establishment. Al’s presence had been noted, and people were gathering their things and making a beeline for the door.

“Demon grande, extra hot!” the barista sang out, and Mark snagged it before it got to the pickup window, handing it to Al himself with a smile that was too relaxed for my liking.