"Better than," Minias drawled, his fingers still toying with my perfumes. "Giving the focus to the Weres is going to turn around and bite you, but it did accomplish what you wanted." His goat-slitted eyes focused on mine, and my tension rose. "The Weres are happy, and the vampires think it's destroyed. Right?"
Right. "I'm fine," I said tartly, my fear coming out as cheek. "You can go now."
"The elf did it," he said, shaking his head. "Al has more drive and talent to teach than I gave him credit for. He taught her extremely well to be able to untwist a curse like that and leave you... relatively unscathed. No wonder he kept her for a thousand years."
Face scrunched up, he smelled another bottle and set it down. "Al is furious," he said casually, and even my false bravado vanished. "They caught him seconds after you threw him back to our side of the lines. He's in his own personal hell. And you still owe him a favor." Sniffing a third perfume, he looked at me from under a lowered brow. "I wonder what it will be?"
"I'm fine. Get out," I repeated.
"May I have this?" he asked, holding the bottle upright.
"If you leave, you can have them all."
The bottle vanished from the cradle of his fingertips. "One last thing," he said, an odd glint in his eyes. "The focus?"
I stiffened, a trickle of fear growing in the pit of my being. "Yeah? "
"It wasn't what Newt was looking for when she tore your church apart."
He began to vanish, and I stepped forward, frightened. "What was she looking for?"
I haven't the slightest idea, echoed in my thoughts.
"Wait!" I shouted. "Does she remember me? Minias! Does she remember me?"
I searched the night for sound and my mind for thoughts, but he was gone. Another instant and the light he had set glowing in my mirror faded to nothing.
Crap. What had she been looking for if it hadn't been the focus?
The thump of the front door closing echoed through the brightening air, and I looked to the front of the church. A car started, and tension brought me straight when I recognized Ivy's soft footsteps in the hall. "Ivy..." I said, then put a hand to my throat when it hurt.
I jumped when my bedroom door was flung open and a gray shaft of light spilled in. "Rachel," Ivy said, her features lost in shadow.
"Last time I checked," I said, deciding that mentioning Minias wouldn't help anyone.
"You're okay," she whispered, coming in and gripping my arm. "It's you. Right? Just you?" Her eyes were wide from the shadow, and there was a bandage on her neck. Seeing my blank stare, she took me in a surprising hug. "Thank you, God."
My tension, born of surprise, vanished and I relaxed, my face next to hers as I took in her scent as if it were water. I didn't care if it was chock-full of pheromones meant to relax me, to make it easier for her to bite me. That's not why she was holding me. She had been worried. And she was alive. A dead vampire wouldn't have cared if I was myself or not. Ivy was alive. Maybe Kisten is, too. Please let Piscary have lied to me.
"It's me," I said, remembering Ivy and Edden grappling with me in the back of a car when I'd been lost to the curse. "Uh, I have to go to the bathroom."
Ivy stepped back. "You scared me," she said.
"I scared myself," I said, catching myself against the bedpost as I scuffed forward.
"Jenks!" Ivy yelled when my bare feet edged into the hallway. "She's okay! She's up!"
"What is that stench?" I said, sniffing the distastefully harsh scent of bad incense.
"We got the church unblasphemed," she said, following me out. "The guy just left. I think you embarrassed him, so he did some research. All he had to do was find and replace the original scrap of holy cloth that the sanctity was focused on. Jenks's kids found it, and the rest was easy."
I nodded, thinking that odd sensation I'd felt when waking up must have been the blasphemy falling away. Then I wondered what the guy was going to do with the fouled cloth. Put it in the ever-after, maybe? That's what I'd do. I wobbled three more steps to the bathroom, then turned. "You're alive, right?" I asked, remembering the EMTs stopping their efforts.
From my doorway Ivy laughed. I must have really scared her. I'd never seen her show so much emotion. Clearly happy, she smiled. "I'm alive," she said, looking beautiful with her eyes wet. "Piscary didn't..." She took a breath. "I passed out when Piscary gave me enough vamp saliva to stop my heart, but the FIB guys kept me alive and the EMTs gave me an antitoxin. I never died," she said happily. "I still have my soul."
Good, I thought. Something had gone right for a change. I was afraid to ask her about Kisten. "I have to go to the bathroom," I murmured, the situation turning critical.
"Oh!" she said, suddenly embarrassed. "Sure. I'll, um..."
Her thought was cut short when Jenks blew in from the back rooms. "Rache!" he shrilled, shedding gold sparkles. "You okay? Tink's bordello, you're one wild woman. I've never seen anyone do the things you did. Who taught you to swear in Latin?"
He was flitting madly between Ivy and me, and I put a hand to the wall so I didn't lose my balance trying to watch him. "It was the curse, not me," I said.
"How's your knees?" he said, dropping down to look at them, and my head snapped up when he darted to the ceiling. "You hit them pretty hard when Ceri took you down."
"I don't remember that either," I said, crossing my legs and praying. "Would you get out of my way? I have to go to the bathroom."
"Holy crap," Jenks said, rising up to follow Ivy and me. "I thought you were going to kill Edden. He's the one who gave you the black eye."
So that's why my face feels puffy, I thought, shuffling down the hallway. "What day is it?" I asked, wondering how long it had been since I ate.
"Monday." Ivy was hovering tight to my heels. "Wait. It's Tuesday now."
"Oooooh, the spirits did it all in one night," I said, squinting as I flicked on my bathroom light. My eyes hurt. I turned to find them staring at me as if I'd said something scary. "What?" I protested, and Jenks landed on Ivy's shoulder.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yes, but if I don't get into this bathroom, I'm going to make a puddle."
Jenks took flight, and Ivy took three steps back. "You want something to eat?" she said, and I hesitated in my motion to shut the door.
"Anything but Brimstone," I said, and her face flushed guiltily. The door closed between us, and I put both hands on the washer, leaning over it and shaking. It wasn't blood loss. And I wasn't beaten up that badly. I was fatigued. Something - maybe someone - had fought a battle in me, and I didn't remember any of it. The focus was gone, so it had lost. I was the one picking myself up off the battlefield and hobbling to the next fight.
I hoped it would be easier than this last one.
Pushing myself upright, I went to the mirror. My hand moved to peek behind the bandage on my neck, then dropped. I didn't want to know just yet. Turning my head, I looked myself over, deciding that it wasn't bad. A complexion amulet would take care of the black circles under my eye, and the fat lip made me look pouty. There was a bruise on my shin and another on my hip just below where the T-shirt ended. My back hurt when I bent over to check out my knees, but nothing would need more than a day or two to return to normal. It was almost a disappointment. Having been a demon curse, however brief, should leave some kind of mark. A streak of silver hair, or bewitching eyes. Maybe crows on one's roof or a hound from hell at your heel. But what do I get? Blowing out my breath, I stood and squinted at my reflection.
A black eye. Swell.
Ivy's voice murmured as she talked on the phone, and after taking care of my most urgent need, I decided a shower could wait until after I got a few questions answered and my stomach filled. The dryer contained a pair of jeans instead of Kisten's clothes, so with a new depression, I tucked my STAFF shirt in, invoked a complexion charm, ran a toothbrush over my teeth, and called it good. The smell of coffee sifting in under the door made me feel ill, I was so hungry.
Movements slow from the expectation of bad news, I headed out. The bright light of a new day spilled into the hallway from the kitchen. This was the third morning I'd gotten up at dawn instead of going to bed, and I was tired of it.
"Rachel just woke up," came Ivy's voice before I had gone two steps, and I slowed. She wasn't on the phone; we had someone in our kitchen. "She's not talking to anyone until she gets a chance to eat and catch her breath, and she's not talking to your shrink, so you can just get back into your cruiser and the hell back to the FIB where you belong."
My eyebrows rose, and I hastened forward. What's Glenn doing here?
Shit. Kisten, I thought miserably, answering my own question. He's dead.
"Felps wasn't at Sparagmos's apartment," I heard Edden say, and my reality shifted. Not only was Kisten's death still uncertain, but this wasn't Glenn, it was his dad. I didn't know if that was better or worse. "We need to find him, and Rachel might be able to help," he finished.
"Give the woman some peace!" Jenks said. "Piscary said he was dead. Find him on your own. The I.S. isn't going to stop you. They don't care."
I pushed into motion, ready to try anything if it would lead to Kisten's still being alive. "But if he's alive, he might be hurt," I said as I entered, and Edden turned from his position at the back of the kitchen. There was someone else with him, looking spare next to Edden's squat bulk, and my bare feet squeaked to a stop. Edden had brought the FIB's shrink out with him?
Edden glanced at the young man beside him. Ignoring the threat of Ivy standing before the sink with her arms crossed, Edden came forward, his brow pinched in worry. He was in his usual khaki slacks and white shirt, and the gun in his shoulder holster said he was working. "Rachel," he said, glad to see me. "You look a lot better."
"Thanks." I blinked in surprise when he gave me a hug. The scent of Old Spice puffed up, and I couldn't help my smile when he awkwardly dropped back. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
He smiled and rubbed his elbow. "Don't worry about it. It wasn't you."