Kim Harrison: Where Demons Dare

Minias turned back to the counter attendant and smiled. “Latte grande, double espresso, Italian blend. Light on the froth, extra cinnamon. Use whole milk. Not two percent or half-and-half. Whole milk. Put it in porcelain.”

“We can do that!” the kid behind the counter said enthusiastically, and I looked up. His voice sounded familiar. “And for you, ma’am?”

“Uh,” I stumbled, “coffee. Black. That’s it.”

Minias looked askance at me, his surprise clear even through his dark glasses, and the kid behind the counter blinked. “What kind?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” I shifted from foot to foot. “Mom, what do you want?”

My mother cheerfully hustled back to the counter with Jenks on her shoulder. “I’ll have a Turkish espresso and a slice of that cheesecake if someone will share it with me.”

“I will,” Jenks sang out, startling the guy behind the register. He still had that paper clip sword with him, and it made me feel better.

My mom glanced at me, and when I nodded that I’d have some, too, she beamed. “I’ll have that, then. With forks for all of us.” She shyly looked to Minias, and the demon stepped back almost out of my peripheral vision.

The kid snuck glances at Jenks as he punched that in, announcing, “Fourteen eighty-five.”

“We have one more person here,” I said, trying not to frown, and Jenks landed on the counter with his hands on his hips. I hated it when people ignored him. And asking him to share simply because he wasn’t going to eat much was patronizing.

“I want an espresso,” he said proudly. “Black. But give me the domestic blend. That Turkish crap gives me the runs for a week.”

“TMI, Jenks,” I muttered while I yanked my shoulder bag forward. “Why don’t you find a table? Maybe a corner without a lot of people?”

“With your back to the wall. You got it,” he said, clearly doing better in the shop’s moist, balmy climate. A sustained temp below forty would send him into hibernation, and though Cincinnati was regularly hitting that after dark, the stump he and his huge family lived in would retain enough heat to keep them warm until almost mid-November. I was already dreading his brood moving into the church Ivy and I lived in, but they would not hibernate and risk Matalina, his ailing wife, dying of the cold. Jenks was why I wore the scarf; it wasn’t for my comfort.

Glad for the warmth of the shop myself, I unzipped my coat. I handed the kid a twenty, then dropped the change into the tip jar, making the businessman wait while I scribbled “client meeting” on the receipt and tucked it away.

Turning, I found my mother and Minias standing uneasily beside a table against the wall. Jenks was on the light fixture, the dust slipping from him rising in the bulb’s heat. They were waiting for me to sit down before choosing their seats, so grabbing some napkins, I headed over.

“This looks great, Jenks,” I said as I edged behind my mom to reach the chair against the wall. Immediately my mother sat to my left, and Minias chose the chair to my right, shifting it a foot back before sitting down. He was almost in the aisle; apparently we both wanted our space. I took the opportunity to remove my jacket, and my expression froze when the bracelet Kisten had given me slipped to my wrist. Pain hit, almost panic, and I didn’t look at anyone as I tucked it behind the sleeve of my sweater.

I wore the bracelet because I had loved Kisten and still wasn’t ready to let him go. The one time I’d taken it off, I found myself unable to tuck it away in my jewelry box next to the sharp vampire caps he’d given me. Maybe if I knew who had murdered him I could have moved on.

Ivy hadn’t had much luck tracking down the vampire Piscary had given Kisten to as a legal blood gift. I had been sure that Sam, one of Piscary’s lackeys, had known who it was, but he hadn’t. The human polygraph test at the FIB, or Federal Inderland Bureau—the human-run version of the I.S. – was pretty good, but the witch charm I had around Sam’s neck when Ivy “asked” him about it was better. That was the last time I helped her question anyone, however. The living vampire scared me when she was pissed.

That Ivy wasn’t getting results was unusual. Her investigative skills were as good as my ability to get into trouble. Since the “Sam incident,” we had agreed to let her handle our search, and I was getting impatient at her lack of progress, but my slamming vampires into a wall for information wasn’t prudent. What made it worse was that the answer was buried somewhere in my unconsciousness. Maybe I should have talked to the FIB’s psychologist to see if he could pull something to light? But Ford made me uneasy. He could sense emotions faster than Ivy could smell them.

Uncomfortable, I scanned the décor of the busy place. Behind my mother was one of those stupid pictures with babies dressed up as fruit or flowers or something. My lips parted and I looked at Jenks, then to the counter where the college-age kid managed the customers with a professional polish. This was it! I thought in a surge of recognition. This was the same coffeehouse where Ivy, Jenks, and I had agreed to quit the I.S. and work as independent runners! But Junior looked like he knew what he was doing now, sporting a manager tag on his red-and-white-striped apron and with several underlings to handle the nastier parts of running the place.

“Hey, Rache,” Jenks said as he dropped down to dust my sweater with gold. “Isn’t this the store we—”

“Yup,” I interrupted him, not wanting Minias to be privy to more of my life than necessary. The demon was unfolding a paper napkin and meticulously settling it across a jeans-clad knee as if it were silk. Unease flowed through me as I remembered the night I decided to leave the I.S. Going clueless into an independent bounty hunter/escort service/jack-of-all-magical-trades runner service with a vamp had been one of the most stupid and best decisions of my life. It went along with Ivy and Jenks’s opinion that I lived my life to find the edge of disaster so I could feel the rush of adrenaline.

Maybe I had once, but not anymore. Believing I had killed Jenks and Ivy with one of my stunts had cured me one hundred percent, and Kisten’s death had slammed the lesson home, hard. And to prove it, I wasn’t going to work with Minias no matter what he offered. I wouldn’t repeat the past. I could change my patterns of behavior. I would. Starting here. Watch me .

“Coffee up!” the kid shouted, and Minias took his napkin from his lap as if he was going to rise.

“I’ll get it,” I said, wanting to minimize his interactions with everyone.

Minias eased down without a fuss. I gathered myself to stand, then frowned. I didn’t want to leave him with my mother either.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” my mother said, standing to drop her purse loudly on the table. “I’ll get it.”

Minias touched her arm, and I bristled. “If you would, Alice, bring the cinnamon with you?” he asked, and my mother nodded, slowly pulling from his fingers. She was holding her arm when she walked away, and I leaned toward Minias.

“Don’t touch my mother,” I threatened, feeling better when Jenks took an aggressive stance on the table, his wings clattering menacingly.

“Someone needs to touch her,” Minias said dryly. “She hasn’t been touched in twelve years.”

“She doesn’t need to be touched by you.” I leaned back with my arms crossed over my middle. My gaze went to my mother, who was flirting in an old-lady way with the counter kid, and I paused. She hadn’t remarried when Dad died, hadn’t even dated. I knew she intentionally dressed herself to look older than she was to keep men at a distance. With the right haircut and dress, we could pass as big sister, little sister. As a witch, her life span was a good hundred and sixty years, and while most witches waited until they were sixty before starting a family, she had had Robbie and me very early in her life, giving up a promising career to raise us first. Maybe we were accidents. Passion babies.