Kim Harrison - Ever After

“It’s hard,” I said, and the demons around me began to shuffle, eager to be gone.

But he smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Of course it is. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Newt pushed the dead carcass of Ku’Sox into the hole with her foot, and Nick scrabbled away from the edge. “Well?”

It hurt to say it, but I took a breath and looked straight up. Trent’s fingers were clasped in mine. “It’s Nick,” I said, then danced back when Nick cried out, reaching for me.

As one, the demons groaned. Al’s shoulders slumped, and then his eyes narrowed. “I say we still kill him,” he muttered, reaching, and Newt slammed her staff down between them.

“I claim him!” she shouted, swinging her staff in a wide circle, and they fell back, used to her outbursts. Trent pulled me out of the way, and I watched Newt almost crouch over Nick, her robes covering his feet. “He’s mine! He’s mine by rights! His actions cost me a familiar, and I claim him!”

“No!” Nick cried out, his hand reaching for me. “Rachel! Please!”

Her head tilted, Newt waited, one eye almost slitted shut as she looked at me. I nodded, and the demon laughed, hauling him up and giving him a shake. “Go wait for me,” she intoned, and he stared, panting in fear. She gave him a shove, and he stumbled, vanishing as she flung him to her rooms. I thought of him landing in the mockery of my kitchen, and a tiny part of me felt the first hints of justice.

I jumped when Al’s hand landed on my shoulder again. “He will be dead in a week,” the demon murmured, his ash-scented breath tickling my ear.

But I knew Nick. He was too ugly to die.

The sound of Newt’s staff scraping on the stones was loud as she came forward to us. Demons were vanishing with their gargoyles in pairs and groups, and the bite of windblown rock blew about my feet, rising. I closed my eyes when it reached my face, and my hair began to stream behind me. I didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow. Maybe I could take a day off.

“It was an excellent Hunt,” Trent said, and my eyes flew open to see him extending his hand to Dali. “I am Trenton Aloysius Kalamack. I am not my ancestor.”

Dali looked at it, then Trent. “No, you are not,” he said, his hand unmoving. “But you come from the same place.”

Trent’s hand slowly dropped, and he inclined his head in understanding. “Perhaps later.”

Dali backed up a step, his eyes touching mine and Al’s. “I need to think on this.” A coating of ever-after shimmered over him, leaving the clear air of morning empty of him.

Newt sighed. “And so it circles,” she said, her black eyes coming to meet mine as the sun spilled over the rim of the ever-after, turning me a blood red. “It looks as if I won’t be killing you this morning, Rachel. You have been given a reprieve.”

Nodding, I pulled the slaver ring off my finger and handed it to Trent. The two demons winced as Trent removed his slave ring, silent as he handed them back to me. They were mine again, and I could destroy them.

I was alive, but what color was my soul?

There was no moon as I followed Trent down the soft sawdust path of his private gardens. It was silent but for the sighing of the wind in the tender new leaves, and I could smell the cedar the path was made from. Small ferns laced the path, tiny because they’d been above the earth for only a few weeks, but I knew that by the end of the summer they’d be nearly as high as my knees.

“I appreciate you coming out,” Trent said, a few steps ahead of me, looking comfortable in his black pants and gray shirt, his tie loose about his neck and no coat on against the slight chill. “I have a clear schedule, but showing up at your church after midnight isn’t prudent.”

I thought of the news vans and nodded. “It’s not like I have anything on my plate,” I said, staring up at the dark branches as my steps slowed. No, it had been very quiet the last week. Most days it was just Jenks and me knocking about in the church—Ivy was spending a lot of time with Nina, trying to bring her back from the brink. I’d gotten a lot done in the garden, but I was bored to tears. When Trent had asked me to come over when I’d called to tell him I had the curse to mend his hand ready, I’d jumped at the chance. But I was more than a little curious as to why we hadn’t done it in his office or private apartments. Maybe he wanted to make s’mores? I could smell a wood fire somewhere.

“Business still slow?” he asked, holding a dogwood branch heavy with last night’s rain out of the way.

“Nonexistent, but Al is keeping me busy.” I had to force myself to move forward to duck under the branch, and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t Trent. He had been professional if somewhat quiet when he’d met me at the kitchen entrance at the underground garage. I’d never even seen the upstairs apartments, having gone immediately to Trent’s secondary office on the ground floor, and out into the gardens from there. It was nearing midnight and the public offices were deserted.

Water spotted my shoulder when Trent let the branch go. A flower drifted down, and I kept it, feeling as if it had been a gift. Trent led the way. The lamp in his hand swung, sending beams of light into the wet leaves. I shivered, then stopped dead in my tracks when the path forked. To the right was a narrow nothing, to the left, well-manicured sawdust. Trent continued on down the right path, and I wavered, feeling the need to keep moving.

“Trent,” I said, actually two steps down the wrong path. Confusion and nausea rose up, and I stopped, unable to go back. What in hell?

“Oh. Sorry.” Motions sharp, Trent came back and took my hand, pulling me back to the smaller path. “There’s a ward.”

His fingers in mine were warm, and my head came up. The nausea vanished, and I took a deep breath. “To keep people out?” I guessed, feeling funny as he led me up the narrow, crooked path as if I were a reluctant child. My breath came in a quick heave, and panic took me. Almost laughing, Trent gave a quick yank, jerking me forward another step.

I stumbled, gasping as a wave of energy passed over my aura. Wild magic sang in my veins, setting my heart to thumping, and then I was through. Halting, I turned to look over my shoulder. The main house was surprisingly close. Jenks and I had probably been within a stone’s throw of the ward when we had burgled Trent’s office, and we’d never known.

“The ward only hits you when you try to force your way in,” Trent said. “Otherwise, you’d never notice it. At all.”

Breathless, I pulled my hand from his. “You made it?” I said, and he turned away.

“My mother did.” His pace slower, Trent wove a path through the tall bushes. I could see a little roof up ahead, but little else. “She made the ward, the spelling hut, and pretty much everything in it.”

The path opened up, and I stopped beside him as he lifted the lantern high. There in the soft glow of a candle was a small house made of stone and shingled with cedar. Moss grew on the roof, and the door was painted red. It felt abandoned, but the glow of firelight flickered on the inside of the windows, and smoke drifted up from the chimney. Clearly he’d been out here earlier tonight.

“I found it shortly after she died,” he said, a faint smile quirking his lips. “Made it into my own place to avoid Jonathan. It’s only been recently that I’ve been using it to spell in. It’s remarkably secure. I thought you might like to see it.” He lowered the lamp and I followed him to the wide slate stone that served as a threshold.

There was no lock, and Trent simply pushed the door open. “Come on in,” he said as he went in before me and set the lamp on the small table beside the door. His back was to me as I hiked my shoulder bag up and sent my gaze over everything to find it neat and tidy. It was one room, the walls covered in shelves holding ley line equipment, books, and pictures in frames. Two comfortable chairs were pulled up before the small fire on a knee-high hearth, and another beside one of the small windows. A cot was half hidden behind a tapestry hanging from the ceiling. All in all, it was a nice getaway, having none of the gadgetry I’d come to associate with Trent, but all his gardener earthiness that showed itself only in his orchid gardens.