Kim Harrison - Ever After

Still between me and my car door, he swallowed hard. I wanted to reach out to touch him, but didn’t know how he’d take it. Putting the key in the ignition, I sneezed. Then I sneezed again, jerking so hard my forehead almost hit the dash. Scared, I looked at Jenks. His eyes were wide. Shit. I’d waited too long to get to my scrying mirror.

“Bless you,” Trent said dully, not paying attention. My eyes widened, and I sneezed again. Mouth dry, I grasped his free wrist.

“Trent. I’m sorry,” I said, knowing I couldn’t stop this. He was going to lose me, too.

He stared at my hand, and then his eyes widened as I sneezed again. “No . . .”

I let go of him, sitting in my car afraid to move. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t outdistance the summons. “I’m being summoned,” I said, turning away to sneeze again. A nauseating, pulling sensation had started. It was soft right now, but if I didn’t submit, it would grow until I had no choice. For a second, I panicked, thinking it might be Ku’Sox, but Al was the only one in the ever-after who knew my summoning name. And Nick.

The panic returned.

“Nick knows your summoning name!” Jenks shouted as he figured it out, too. “Rachel, fight it!”

But there was nothing I could do, and I shook my head, trying not to show my fear. I didn’t have a choice. I had to go. At least the news crew couldn’t see me. “I’m sorry,” I said again, wincing. “This might be okay. I’ll do what I can.” I looked at Jenks. His face was white. “Give me an hour, then summon me back.”

“No.” The snarl of denial had come from Trent, and I gasped as he knelt and grasped my wrist. My head snapped up as the interdimensional pulling sensation vanished. Sitting in my car, I stared at Trent, shocked as the world seemed to revolve and settle. The tips of his hair were floating. As time seemed to stand still, Jenks began to softly swear.

Trent had stopped the summons? I hadn’t known he could do that. I mean, I knew he could channel a crapload of ever-after, but this? This was incredible!

“Not you too,” he said fiercely, and I smiled, grateful even as a sudden pain lanced through my head.

Trent cried out, and his hold on me vanished. Like the shocking snap of a rubber band breaking, the parking lot and my car vanished; Trent’s aghast face was the last thing that I saw, Ray’s startled cry the last thing I heard.

The scent of burnt amber pulled through my awareness first, dragging the rest of the ever-after behind it. I left the ley line gratefully, the harsh taste/sound of it making me shudder. Ku’Sox hadn’t summoned me, or I’d be fighting for my life by now, and I sighed in relief as I decided that I was in the ever-after, blue sky, white sun, and salty-tasting wind notwithstanding. Nowhere in reality stank so bad. My nose had adjusted to the smell even before I finished coalescing to find myself standing on a round dais of white rock, two toga-clad demons before me like judges, a crowd of them behind me muttering like the mob they were.

I shivered, trying to throw off the wrong feeling of the line. I seemed to be in a Greek auditorium with rising benches of stone and stately pillars with white cloth strung between them to shade the demons from the fake sun. The horizon was lost in a stark white line, and I looked for the jukebox when I realized I was in Dalliance. It might look as if we were outside, but we were deep underground in the ever-after. The restaurant was a convenient meeting place, and I wondered why the demons were adhering to the dress rules since it was clearly not being used as an eatery, but rather . . . a courtroom? Irate demons filtered in, their varied clothing shifting to togas as they passed the threshold.

Al was beside me on the dais, and finding the collected, slightly bitter demon there was a relief. He was in a toga as well instead of his usual crushed green velvet frock coat, the fine cloth tied with a crimson sash so bright that it made me squint. His hair was in oiled ringlets, making his somewhat blocky face look even more so. Sandals peeped from under his hem, and I stared at his black toenails. That was new.

His manner was off as well, his red, goat-slitted eyes holding a sheen of nervousness as he gave me a quick once-over and frowned. This didn’t bode well. He was always confident, even when he shouldn’t be, and I followed his gaze to the long bench before us just on the other side of the shallow moat, making a pained smile at Newt and Dali. Not my favorite denizens of the ever-after.

“So you always talk to Dali in front of an audience?” I quipped, and Al grimaced.

“Stand up. Fix your hair,” Al said as he smacked me into a stiffer position, keeping to his usual British nobleman accent though he now looked like a Greek councilman. “My God, what is that you’re wearing? Jeans? You smell like horse.”

“That’s because I was on one,” I said, becoming angry. “Someone from the ever-after stole Ceri and Trent’s daughter. Three guesses as to who. And why.”

My tone was sarcastic, but Al made a noise as if he didn’t care, and I shivered as a cascade of ever-after fell over me, tainted with his aura. For a moment, the rising noise of the demons behind me muted, and then it returned as his aura fell away and I found myself in sandals and a homespun robe with purple silk lining. The moist wind tugged unfamiliarly at my hair, and I reached up to find a ring of wilting flowers. The entire outfit smacked of something that Ceri, Al’s ex-familiar, might have looked good in. Me, not so much.

“There. Now you fit in.” Al stiffened as he returned his attention to the two demons reclining on a long bench before us. There was an ominous wide ring of sunken ground between us like a barrier.

“You promised you’d never summon me,” I said, nervous as Newt gave me a bright, evil-looking smile and toasted me with something red in a wineglass that didn’t fit the time period. “We had a deal. I don’t yank you across the lines, and you don’t yank me.” I tried not to complain, but I was still shaking off the adrenaline, and it was my God-given right to be bitchy. “I was trying to get to my scrying mirror, but I was across Cincy at Trent’s.” I hesitated. “Sorry,” I added. “I really was trying.”

Al didn’t meet my eyes, instead gazing forward into nothing as he squared his shoulders. “ They asked me to summon you, and since you failed to contact me, I complied.”

They? He meant Newt and Dali, and I shifted uneasily, my sandals scraping. Better and better. Al took pride in refusing to work in the system—compliance meant we were up shit creek. Again. Nervous, I followed his gaze to the dais and tried to smile at the big bad demons smiling back at me.

Newt was the only other female demon in existence, possibly driven nuts because the elves killed her “sisters,” but more likely because Ku’Sox had tricked her into killing the ones they’d missed. Slim and gender neutral, she was sporting a bald head again. Heavy black eyeliner edging her eyes was the only feminine touch beyond the spare curves showing past her toga. Her entirely black eyes traveled over me, and a turbanlike hat misted into existence atop her head, sliding her from androgynous to feminine. The demon had trouble remembering what she was doing, but she was powerful, sort of the crazy Wendy of the lost lord-of-the-flies boys. She seemed to do better when I was around, which made everyone nervous.

A good six feet away from her on the same bench, Dali reclined in apparent idleness. He was squinting at me in irritation, his decidedly round form half a civil servant, half a hanging judge. His toga didn’t do a thing for him.