Ким Харрисон - The Good, The Bad, And The Undead

"Cotton?" I questioned, turning a page to some beautiful phone tables. I blanched at the price. How could something that small cost so much?

"Yeah. You know… cool, A-okay, keen, kosher."

"I know what it means," I said, recognizing it as one of my mother's favorite phrases and thinking it odd Jenks would have picked it up.

"Have you talked to Ivy yet?" he asked.

"No."

My frustration was obvious in the short word. Jenks hesitated, then, with a clattering of wings, he flew a swooping path to land upon my shoulder. "Sorry."

I forced a pleasant expression as I pulled my head up and tucked a curl behind my ear. "Yeah, me too."

He made an irate noise with his wings. "So-o-o, whatcha hiding under the catalog? Looking through Ivy's leather outlets?"

My jaw tightened. "It's nothing," I said softly.

"You looking to buy furniture?" he scoffed. "Give me a break."

Peeved, I waved him away. "Yeah. I want furniture, something other than pressboard—excuse me—engineered wood. Ivy's stuff makes mine look like trailer-park plastic."

Jenks laughed, the wind from his wings shifting the hair about my face. "So get yourself something nice the next time you have some money."

"Like that will ever happen," I muttered.

Jenks zipped under the table. Not trusting him, I bent to see what he was doing. "Hey! Stop it!" I cried, moving my foot as I felt a tug on my shoe. He darted away, and when I came up from retying my lace, I found he had pulled the catalog off the textbook. His hands were on his hips as he stood on it, reading. "Jenks!" I complained.

"I thought you didn't like ley lines," he said, flitting up and then right back down where he had been. "Especially now that you can't use them without endangering Nick."

"I don't," I said, wishing I hadn't told him about having accidentally made Nick my familiar. "But look. This stuff is easy."

Jenks was silent, his wings drooping as he looked at the charm. "You gonna try it?"

"No," I said quickly.

"Nick will be okay if you pull your energy right off the line. He'll never know." Jenks turned sideways so he could see me and the print both. "It says right here you don't have to use stored energy but can pull it off the line. See? Right here in black and white."

"Yeah," I said slowly, not convinced.

Jenks grinned. "You learn how to do this, and you could get back at the Howlers. You still have those tickets for next Sunday's game, don't you?"

"Yeah," I said cautiously.

Jenks strutted down the page, his wings a red blur in excitement. "You could make them pay you, and since you have Edden's paycheck coming for your rent, you could get a nice oak shoe rack or something."

"Ye-e-e-eah," I hedged.

Jenks eyed me slyly from under his blond bangs. "Unless you're afraid."

My eyes narrowed. "Anyone ever tell you you're a real prick?"

He laughed, rising up with a glittering sunbeam of pixy dust. "If I had a quarter…" he mused. Flitting close, he landed on my shoulder. "Is it hard?"

Leaning over the book, I swung my hair to one side so he could see, too. "No, and that's what worries me. There's an incantation, and I need a focusing object. I'll have to connect to a ley line. And there's a gesture…" My brow furrowed and I tapped the book. It couldn't be this easy.

"You gonna try it?"

The thought that Algaliarept might know I was pulling on the line flitted through me. But seeing that it was daylight and we had an agreement, I thought it was safe enough. "Yeah."

Sitting straighter, I settled myself. Reaching out with my second sight, I fumbled for the line. The sun completely overwhelmed any vision of the ever-after, but the ley line was clear enough in my mind's eye, looking like a streak of dried blood hanging above the tombstones. Thinking it was really ugly, I cautiously reached out a thought and touched it.

My breath hissed in through my nose and I stiffened.

"You okay, Rache?" Jenks questioned, launching himself off my shoulder.

Head bowed over the book, I nodded. The energy flowed through me faster than before, equalizing the strengths very quickly. It was almost as if the previous times had cleared the channels. Worried about using too much, I tried to push some of it down through me and out of my feet. It didn't do any good. The incoming force simply filled me back up again.

Resigned to the uncomfortable feeling, I mentally shook my second sight from me and looked up. Jenks was watching me in concern. I gave him an encouraging smile, and he nodded, apparently satisfied. "How about this?" Jenks said, flying to my stash of water paint balls. The red sphere was as big as his head, and clearly heavy, but he managed it all right.

"It's as good as anything," I agreed. "Toss one up, and I'll try to shift it."

Thinking this was easier than grinding plants and boiling water, I said the incantation and made a swooping loop of a figure in the air with my hand, imagining it was like writing your name with a sparkler on the Fourth of July. I said the last word as Jenks tossed the ball up.

"Ow!" I shouted as a surge of ley line force burned my left hand. I looked at Jenks in bewilderment as he laughed. "What did I do wrong?"

He flitted close with the red ball tucked under his arm, caught when it fell back to him. "You forgot your focusing object. Here. Use this."

"Ah." Embarrassed, I took the red ball as he dropped it into my hand. "Let's try it again," I said, and cradled it in my recessive hand as the book had instructed. Feeling the cool smoothness of it, I said the incantation and etched the figure in the air with my right hand.

Jenks tossed a second ball with a sharp whistle of his wings. Startled, I let loose a surge of power. This time it worked. I stifled a yelp as I felt the ley line energy dart through my hand, following my attention right to the ball. It hit it, knocking it into the wall to make a dripping smear. "Yes!" I exclaimed, meeting Jenks's grin with my own. "Look at that! It worked!"

Jenks flew to the counter to get another ball. "Try it again," he prompted, tossing it eagerly to the ceiling.

It came faster this time. I found I could do the incantation and gesture simultaneously, holding the ley line energy with my will until I wanted to release it. With that came a great deal of control, and soon I was no longer hitting them with so much force that they broke when they hit the wall. My aim was getting better, too, and the sink was littered with the balls I'd been bouncing off the screen. Mr. Fish on the sill wasn't happy.

Jenks was a willing partner, zipping about the kitchen, throwing the red balls at the ceiling. My eyes widened as he threw one at me instead. "Hey!" I cried, sending the ball through the pixy hole in the screen. "Not at me!"

"What a good idea," he said, then grinned wickedly as he made a sharp whistle. Three of his kids zipped in from the garden, all talking at once. They brought the smell of dandelions and asters with them. "Toss them at Ms. Morgan," he said, handing his sphere to the girl in pink.

"Hold it," I protested, ducking as the girl pixy threw it with as much skill and power as her father. I looked behind me to the dark splat against the yellow wall, then back to them. My mouth opened. In the instant I had looked away, they all had gotten splat balls.

"Get her!" Jenks cried.

"Jenks!" I said, laughing as I managed to divert one of the four balls. The three I missed rolled harmlessly to the floor. The smallest pixy skimmed over the linoleum, tossing them upward to where his sisters caught them. "Four against one isn't fair!" I shouted as they took aim again.

My eyes darted to the hallway as the phone rang. "Time!" I called out, lurching to escape into the living room. "Time out!" Still smiling, I reached for the phone. Jenks hovered in the archway, waiting. "Hello. Vampiric Charms. Rachel speaking," I said, ducking the ball he threw at me. I could hear pixy giggles from the kitchen and wondered what they were up to.