She smiled with half her mouth. "You want to go talk to them?" I nodded, and she added, "You'll be okay, Jenks?"
"Oh crap," I swore under my breath. I'd forgotten about him.
"I'm fine!" he barked, and I felt a soft tug as he settled himself. "Nothing's going to change inside, but I want to hear what the neighbors say. Gossip, Ivy. That's where the truth is. It's all about the gossip."
I didn't know about gossip, but if he said he'd be okay, I'd rather get first impressions than stale, regurgitated comments after everyone had had a chance to think.
Ivy frowned, clearly of the opinion that crimes were solved by carefully gathered evidence, not nebulous feelings and hunches. But with a shrug, she went inside and I headed out into the night.
Pace fast, I found a spot at the back of the growing crowd, trying to stay out of the camera's line of sight. Jenks was probably hearing twice what I could, and I went on tiptoe to glimpse the man with red cheeks in the felt coat the newscaster was interviewing. I didn't think it was live, seeing that it wasn't six yet, and I eased closer, jostling for position.
"They were the nicest people," the man was saying, his eyes bright with excitement. "Nice people. I never would have expected anything like this from them. They kept to themselves and were real quiet."
My eyebrows rose, and Jenks snorted. Sounded like Inderlanders to me.
But then the kid next to me made a rude sound, and Jenks tugged my hair when the boy said snidely to his friend, "Like he knew him. The guy is a creep, and the woman is whacked."
"Got it, Jenks," I whispered so he would stop yanking on my hair. Slow and steady investigation was nice, but I wanted to find them before the sun went nova.
Smiling, I turned to find a young man in a black knit hat with the Howlers' emblem, and encouraged by the show of Inderland acceptance, I felt an unusual surge of kinship. He wasn't wearing a coat, and his hands were jammed into his jeans pockets. "Whacked?" I said, giving his friend a quick smile to include him in the conversation. "You think?"
"I know," he shot back, then fidgeted. I was guessing he was in high school, and I turned the Mrs. Robinson charm on full.
"Yeah?" I said, almost bumping into him as the crowd grew noisy when the newscaster looked for fresh meat. "Don't you love how they always say one thing in front of the camera, but at the bar, the truth comes out?"
He grinned, clearly thinking I thought he was older than he was. From under my hat came Jenks's impressed "Nice. Reel him in, Rache."
"So you know them?" I said, linking my arm in his and easing him from the news crew. I kept us close so as not to leave the highly charged atmosphere the news van was creating, angling so that if a camera should point our way, all they'd get would be my back. His friend had stayed behind, and was currently jumping to try to get in the background of the shot. He didn't have a coat either, and I thought it unfair that they were warm and I was freezing my butt off out here. Witches had a lower cold tolerance than just about everyone else, excluding pixies.
"You're not a reporter," he said, and I smiled, glad he was smarter than I'd thought.
"I'm from Vampiric Charms," I said, digging in my bag until I found a bent card and handed it to him. "I'm Rachel. Rachel Morgan."
"Righteous!" he said, his face becoming animated. "My name is Matt. I live over there. Hey, I've heard of you," he said, tapping the card against his hand. "Is that really you in that shot, being dragged down the street-"
"On my ass," I finished for him, adjusting my hat to send a whiff of cold air under it to get Jenks to stop laughing. "Yeah, that's me. But I don't really summon demons." Much.
"That's cool. That's cool," he said, seeming to grow three inches taller. "You're trying to find the Tilsons?"
A jolt of adrenaline made me shiver. Edden hadn't told me their names. "More than just about anything. Do you know where they went?"
He shook his head, trying to look older than he was as he gave his friend a superior look. "No, but they are weird. The entire family. I mowed their lawn this summer. The guy is a janitor at my school. He says he's allergic to grass." Matt smirked. "He's allergic to work if you ask me. But if you make him mad, stuff happens to you."
My eyes widened. "Magic?" Were they Inderlanders, like Ivy thought?
Matt shook his head and looked ill. "No, stuff like your dog dying. But his wife is even weirder. I don't see her much. She stays inside a lot with their kid. She talked with my mom once, and she wouldn't let my mom touch her baby."
"No kidding," I said, hoping he'd say more.
"And that baby of theirs is just as freaky as they are," he said, glancing at his friend. "Got these weird blue eyes that follow you around. She's quiet, like she's deaf or something. Her mom never puts her down. Mrs. Tilson wears the pants in the family, that's for hell sure."
"Is that so...," I prompted, and Matt bobbed his head.
"Last year, someone put a firecracker in the can in the back toilet. Blew shit all over the place. Tilson was screaming about killing someone, so they sent him home. I mowed their lawn the next day. I was scared, man, but my dad made me. Tilson is nuts. He thought I knew who blew up the john and he pinned me against the fence. God, I thought I was going to die. But then she came out and he went all soft and stuff. He even apologized. Freakiest shit I've ever seen. She's smaller than you, and all she did was say his name and he went all meek and shit."
I blinked, my mind racing as I tried to figure it out. Mr. Tilson was a homicidal maniac with a chip on his shoulder. Mrs. Tilson was in charge. And the kid was weird. Living vampires, maybe?
"How old is the baby?" I asked, trying to keep him talking. This was pure gold.
Matt made a face. "I don't know. A year? My mom says she's going to be a spoiled brat and Mrs. Tilson shouldn't wait five years before having another one, like she says she wants. Some kind of medical reason. She wants five or six kids, my mom says."
"Five or six?" I said, truly surprised. Maybe the Tilsons were Weres and the woman was from a highly dominant pack. But why space them out over five years? "That's a lot."
"Yeah," the kid said, scoffing. "I'm not having any kids. But if I do, I'm going to have them all right away. Get it over with. I don't want to be sixty and changing diapers."
I shrugged. There was eight years between me and Robbie, and I didn't see anything wrong with it. He'd raised me as much as my parents, and I had no complaints. But my mom was a witch, so changing diapers at sixty was about the norm. Glenn's attack was sounding more and more like an Inderland incident. "Thanks," I said, suddenly wanting to get inside. Jenks was probably freezing. "I should get in there. But thank you. You really helped."
The boy's expression became disappointed, and I smiled. "Hey, I could use someone this spring to mow my graveyard." I hesitated. "If you don't think that's too weird. My number is on the card."
He beamed, fingering it. "Yeah, that would be great," he said, then glanced at the house. "I don't think my dad will let me mow their lawn anymore."
"Call me, about April?" I said, and he nodded. "Thanks, Matt. You were a big help."
"No problem," he said, and I gave him a final smile and walked away. When I looked over my shoulder, he had his head bent to his friend's, and they were ogling my phone number. "You okay, Jenks?" I said, hoofing it away from the lights and back to the garage. Damn, wait until Ivy heard what I'd found out.
"Yeah," he said, gripping my hair harder. "But will you slow down? Unless you want pixy barf in your hair."
Immediately I checked my pace, tripping when I took the curb without looking so I wouldn't have to tilt my head. Jenks swore when I stumbled, but my pulse jackhammered when my head swung up. It wasn't the almost-fall that shook me, but who was standing by my car, staring at it. Tom Bansen-it had to be-the same man who had tried to kill me by way of Al.
"Holy crap, it's Tom," I said, then shouted, "Get away from my car!" as I started to jog.
"Son of a fairy whore," Jenks swore. "What's he doing here?"
"I don't know." Caution slowed me down as I approached. "Better be quiet. If he knows you're here, all he has to do is knock my hat off and Matalina is a single parent."
Jenks became quiet. Tom continued to stand with his hands in his pockets, looking at my car as if debating something. Nervousness coated my anger as I halted a careful five feet back, puffing out white clouds in the streetlight and looking at the man like the snake he was. I'd heard he'd gotten fired from the I.S.-probably for the stupidity of being caught summoning demons to murder someone-but since I'd been the one Tom had been trying to off, the I.S. had done nothing more than that.
"What are you doing here?" I said, not anxious to have to defend myself, but not wanting to let him poke around in my car either.
The young man had a new hardness in his blue eyes as he stood on the shoveled sidewalk and looked speculatively at me in the lamplight. He was clearly cold in his parka and hat, the chill almost killing the redwood scent that all witches had. I'd once thought he was attractive in a tidy, almost-scholarly way-I still did, actually-but freeing Al to kill or abduct me had long since shifted the attraction to disgust.
"Trying to make a living," he answered, a tinge of red showing on his cheeks. "I've been shunned, thanks to you."
My jaw dropped and I backed up. I wasn't surprised, but I wasn't going to take the blame for it either. "I wasn't the one kidnapping girls to pay demons for black curses," I said. "Maybe you should rethink your logic, Sherlock."
He smiled in a not-nice way. Turning as if to leave, he said, "I'll be around if you want to talk." I sputtered in disbelief at the invitation and he added, "Nice car," before he walked away, hands still jammed into his big pockets.
"Hey!" I shouted, almost going after him, but the thought of his shunning and Jenks in my hat changed my mind. Rocking back on my boot heels, I exhaled loudly. Shunned? The coven of ethical and moral standards had shunned him? Damn! I hadn't thought they'd go that far. Sure he summoned demons, but that didn't get one shunned. It must have been kidnapping that girl for black magic. Shunning was exactly what it sounded like, and the man was in trouble. Getting the ethical and moral standards coven to reverse a decision was like surviving an I.S. death threat. He was absolutely cut off, and any witch associating with him ran the risk of being shunned in turn.
Making a living, I thought as I watched him. Tom had probably gone independent, seeing that the I.S. wouldn't touch him now, even under the table. And looking like he was having a hard time of it, I added as he got into a rust-cut '64 Chevy and drove away.
I headed for the Tilsons' house, jerking to a halt at a sudden thought. Fingers fumbling in my bag, I pulled out my key ring and the lethal-magic detection amulet on it. The thing had saved my life a couple of times, and Tom had a vested interest in seeing me gone.
"Rache...," Jenks complained as I started to make a slow circuit around my vehicle.
"You want to be blown up smaller than fairy dust?" I muttered, and he tugged on my hair.
"Tom's a weenie," the pixy protested, but I finished my circuit, breathing easier when the amulet stayed a nice, healthy green. Tom hadn't spelled my car, but a sense of unease lingered, even as I turned to the cordoned-off house and crossed the street. And it wasn't because I might have some competition in the independent-runner arena. My car had originally belonged to an I.S. agent who died in a car bombing. Not this car, obviously, but a bomb had killed him.
Just that fast, my life can end. Tom hadn't left a charm on my car, but it wouldn't hurt to ask Edden if he'd have one of his dogs sniff around it. Boot heels clacking, I reached the door off the garage and went inside. Jenks sighed heavily, but I didn't care if I did look like a paranoid chicken when I asked Edden for a ride home.
I was done with being stupid about these kinds of things.