Kim Harrison - Pale Demon

“Why don’t you get your kids and check out the blackberries at the far end of the graveyard,” I said, and there was another rustle in the tree overhead. “All of them.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jenks said sullenly. He rose up, pointing two fingers at himself, then at Trent—the unmistakable gesture of “I’m watching you”—before he flew off, yelling at his kids to clear out and give us some space. Trent watched them leave from their hidden nooks and hidey-holes, his tension becoming more obvious as he laced and unlaced his fingers.

A wind blew across the graveyard, smelling of cut grass and warm stone, and I shivered. “Well, what is it?” I said, leaning back in my chair with my eyes closed, pretending indifference. “You going to tell me what you can’t say in front of my partners and your office help, or are you just going to sit there ogling my bikini.”

That didn’t get the expected chuckle. I heard him take a breath and let it out. The soft, sliding sound of the magazine being replaced made me shiver again. “Your upcoming meeting with the coven?” he said softly. “I don’t think you realize what’s going to happen.”

My eyes opened, and I turned to him. He’d leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees, hands laced between them. Bowed over, a worried slant to his brow, he looked up as he felt my gaze on him.

He was worried about the coven? “The witches’ annual meeting?” I said. “Not a problem. I can handle it.” The webbing was cutting into me, and I shifted uncomfortably.

“You’re begging forgiveness for using black magic,” he said, and my gut tightened at the reminder. “It’s a little more than dodging drunk witches at the beach.”

I shifted the strap of my top to hide my unease. Trent looked scrumptious sitting on that cheap chair, even if he was worried. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I grumbled.

“Rachel…”

Nervousness twisted in me, and I grimaced. “The coven called off their assassins,” I said, but I couldn’t look at him. Sure, they’d quit trying to kill me, but they could start up again in a demon minute. Let me live in my dream world a day longer, okay, Trent?

“You’re leaving tomorrow for the coast?” he asked, and I rubbed a hand under my nose, nodding. He knew that. I’d told him last week.

“What about Jenks and Ivy?”

My gaze slid to Jenks, standing on the knee-high wall between the garden and the graveyard. True to his word, he was keeping his kids corralled. He was pissed, though, his feet spread wide and his hands on his hips. His wings were going full tilt into invisibility, but his feet stayed nailed to the sun-warmed stone. I lifted a shoulder, then let it fall, trying to look nonchalant. “Ivy’s staying to watch the firm. Jenks is coming with me. If he’s human-size, he’ll be able to handle the pressure shifts.” I hope. Suddenly suspicious, I turned to Trent. “Why?”

He sighed. “You’ll never make it. Even with Jenks.”

My heart gave a thump, and I forced myself not to move. The slight breeze became chilly, and goose bumps ran down my arms. “Oh, really?”

“Really,” he said, and I flushed as I saw him notice my gooseflesh. “Which do you think more likely: that the coven is going to let you come before them with that story of how they shunned you as part of an elaborate plan to test my security systems, or that they will simply make everything go away by killing you en route?”

It was hard to keep my head in the sand when he kept yanking my tail feathers like that. “I’m not stupid,” I said as I grabbed the suntan oil. “You don’t think I’ve thought about that? Where’s my choice here? They said they’d pardon me if I kept my mouth shut.”

“They never said whether or not the pardon would come while you were alive.”

True. “That’s so unfair.” Peeved, I flipped the bottle top open and squirted some oil onto my palm.

“You can’t afford to be stupid anymore,” Trent said, and I frowned, smacking the bottle on the table. “The same qualities that make you an attractive employee—loyalty, honesty, passion, diligence…trust—will get you killed until you realize how few people play by your rules.”

That last one, trust, had been hard for him to say, and I frowned, rubbing out the goose bumps under the guise of putting on suntan oil. “I’m not naive,” I grumbled as I found the red marks from the webbing. Yes, I worked with demons, studied with them, and was one of only two witches capable of invoking their magic, but I’d been good. I’d never hurt anyone who hadn’t hurt me first, and I’d always shown more restraint than those who’d tried to kill me. Even the fairies.

“The coven will never let you on a commercial plane, and the only way you’re going to make it to the coast is if we go together,” Trent said quickly. “The coven won’t dare attempt anything if I’m with you.”

Together? I blinked, then stared at him. This was why he’d come in my garden stinking of cinnamon and wine. He wanted to go out to the coast together and was afraid I’d say no. “Are you offering me a ride on your private jet?” I said, incredulous. I was almost free of him and the coven both, almost my own person again. If I got on his plane, it could land anywhere.

“You have to trust me,” he said as if reading my mind, but his body language said I shouldn’t.

I settled back, uncomfortable and feeling cold. “Yeah, like I believe you’d help me out of the goodness of your little elf heart. Don’t think so.”

“Would you believe I’m trying sugar instead of vinegar?”

He sounded amused, and I squinted at him. “Yeah,” I blurted out. “I’d believe that, but I’m not getting on your jet. You are a drug-running, tax-evading, irritating…murdering man, and there hasn’t been a month in the last two years that I’ve not worried about your trying to off me.”

“Irritating?” Trent leaned back against my robe, seeming to like being irritating, his fingers laced and his ankle on one knee. The position would have made me look unsure, but on him it was confident. The scent of coconut oil mixed with cinnamon, and he dropped his eyes. Silent, I waited.

“The truth of the matter is I’d rather have you alive and free of the coven than dead,” Trent said softly, glancing up as a torn leaf drifted down. “If you leave for the coast without me, you won’t make it. I still harbor the hope that you’ll someday work with me, Ms. Morgan.”

We were back on familiar ground. Work with me was better than work for me, but how many times did I have to say no? “No—you’re lying,” I said, waving my glasses at him when he began to protest, green eyes looking innocently at me from under his wispy blond hair. “You walked in here all strung out about asking me to go with you to the coast, not the other way around. You want my trust? Try buying it with the truth. Until then, we’ve got nothing to talk about. Bye-bye, Trent. See you at five. Don’t let the graveyard door hit you on the way out.”

I jammed the glasses back on my face and reclined in a huff, ignoring him as he shuffled his feet. For a moment, I thought he was going to stick to his lame claim of city-power benevolence, but then he whispered, “I need to get to the West Coast. I have to have an escort, and Quen won’t leave Ceri. She’s three weeks from her due date.”

Ceri? My jaw clenched, my eyes opening as I looked into the amber-tinted world. I sat up, eying Trent to see if he was lying. There was a hint of compassion there, but most of his expression was peeved, probably because Ceri liked his security officer instead of him.