I entered the kitchen through a sheet of glittering sparkles. The room was a mess, and I flushed when Ivy stopped short and stared. My spelling cupboards were all open, stuff strewn across the counters, evidence of me cooking up the locator amulets. I should have just used the demon curse and been done with it, 'cause the last two hours had been a big waste of time. I hadn't even bothered invoking the last six potions, lined up at the back of the counter.
Ford looked up from the far corner where he had put himself to talk to Pierce. Beside him was the makeshift Ouija board and a pocket-size notebook with Ford's messy scrawl filling a page. Seeing us, the man brushed cookie crumbs from himself and leaned back. I wondered if I should say hi to Pierce. He was in here...somewhere.
"I'll tell her," Ford said softly when Rex jingled in and twined around his feet. The psychiatrist clearly wasn't talking to us, and his amulet turned a thankful blue, rich and deep.
Jenks darted about like a hummingbird on steroids. "Tell her what? What did the ghost say?" he asked, and I glared. His paranoia was getting old.
Her eyes still wide and questioning, Ivy delicately nudged a mesh sack of herbs down the counter to make room for her sword. "Doing a little cooking?" she asked mildly.
"Uh, a locator amulet to find Mia," I said, not wanting to admit that my first attempt hadn't worked. Shifting my shoulders, I started to put things away.
"If you'd let me organize your stuff, you wouldn't make such a mess," she said, and after pushing a box of candles to the back of the counter, she shifted the toaster forward. "Hi, Ford," she added, sashaying to the fridge, then coming out with the bagels. "Rachel giving you problems?"
Ford chuckled. "It wouldn't be Rachel if she wasn't."
I took in a breath to complain, catching it when Jenks unexpectedly dropped in front of me, hands on his hips. His green shirt had a tear in it, which was unusual for the usually meticulous pixy. "Tell her what you're trying to do," he demanded, putting his arms down to hide the small rip when I noticed it. "Tell her!"
Rolling my eyes, I turned to Ivy. "If I can find it, I'm going to spell Pierce a temporary body so I can talk to him."
Ivy paused with the sliced bagel in one hand, my ceremonial ley line knife in the other. The ornate handle looked odd in her fingers, and her expression was amused. "That's the ghost, right?"
A burst of light came from Jenks. "He's been spying on us!" he yelled, and I wondered why he was freaking out. Ivy and Ford weren't. "Tink's titties! Doesn't anyone see a problem with this? He's been here a year, listening to everything! Do you have any idea the crap we've been through in the last twelve months? And you want to give this guy a voice?"
My brow furrowed as I realized Jenks had a point. Secrets. They were what kept me alive: Trent being an elf, me being a proto-demon, my arrangement with Al. Crap, Pierce probably knew Al's summoning name. Mine, too. Everything.
"Pierce wouldn't say anything," I said, but Jenks took my soft voice for insecurity, and he flew triumphantly to Ivy.
Ignoring him, Ivy shoved the bread in the toaster. "You can do that?" she said, still facing away. "Give a ghost a body...?"
Her voice cut off, and she turned. The hint of hope was like thin ice, rimming her eyes, fragile. It hurt to see it there. I knew where her thoughts had gone. Kisten was dead. Seeing her hope as well, Jenks lost some of his vim.
I shook my head, and the skin around her eyes tightened almost imperceptibly. "It's a temporary spell," I said reluctantly. "It only works if a person's sprit is stuck in purgatory. And only if you have a huge amount of communal energy to work it. I'm going to have to wait until New Year's before I can even try. I'm sorry, but it can't bring Kisten back even for a night." I took a careful breath. "If Kisten were in purgatory, we'd have known it by now."
She nodded as if she didn't care, but her face was sad when she reached for a plate. "I didn't know you could talk to the dead," she said in an even voice to Ford. "Don't tell anyone, or they'll make you an Inderlander and the I.S. will put you to work."
Ford shifted uneasily on his chair, her depression probably getting to him. "I can't talk to the dead," he admitted. "But this guy?" Smiling faintly, he pointed to where Rex was now sitting in the threshold, staring at me like the creepy little cat she was. "He's unusually coherent. I've never run into a ghost who knows he or she is dead and is open to communication. Most are stuck in a pattern of compulsive behavior, trapped in their own personal hell."
Kneeling, I stacked the still-clean copper spelling pots under the counter with my cherry red loaded splat gun nestled in the smallest. I kept it at crawling height for good reason. But when Ivy gasped, I popped back up.
"This is mine!" she exclaimed, waving the map of the conservatory I had scribbled the alphabet on. Ford was scrunched back in his chair, and her eyes were going black.
"Sorry," Ford offered, shrinking back while trying not to look as if he was.
Jenks took flight, and I brushed the salt from my knees. "I did it," I said. "I didn't know it was important. Sorry. I'll erase it."
Ivy stopped short and fumed, her short black hair with the gold tips swinging as Jenks landed protectively on Ford's shoulder. The man winced at the close contact, but he didn't move as Ivy seemed to catch herself. "Don't bother," she said stiffly, and when her bagel jumped in the toaster, she smacked the paper back down on the table in front of Ford.
Wincing, I wiped the crumbs from my ceremonial knife and slid her a table knife instead. Leave it to a vamp to slice her bagel with a ceremonial device designed for black magic. Ivy slowly lost her stiff posture as she layered a thick swath of cream cheese on the bagel. She glanced at the drawer where I had stashed my knife, and with what I thought was a huge concession on her part, she broke the silence with a terse "It's not a big deal."
Ford tucked his amulet away as if getting ready to leave. "Going out, Ivy?" he asked.
She turned with her bagel on a plate, and leaned against the far counter. "Just chatting with a few people," she said, flashing her sharp canines as she took a careful bite. "I've been out to the boat," she said around her chews. "Thanks for waiting. I appreciate that."
The man bobbed his head, and the tension in the room eased. "Find anything?"
I already knew the answer, and I dipped below the level of the counter to shove my twenty-pound bag of sea salt into a back cupboard. The deep-fat fryer went in front of it, and I shut the door with a hard thump, thinking the last couple of hours had been a real waste. I couldn't remember the last time I'd worked a charm and gotten no result. Maybe I could ask my mom. She was good at earth charms. It might be an excuse to get into the attic, too.
"An undead vampire killed Kisten," Ivy said, her gray-silk voice holding so much repressed fury it chilled me. "But we knew that already. He smells familiar," she added, and I turned with a stack of ceramic spelling spoons in hand. Her eyes were going black, but I didn't think it was from my rising pulse.
"Which is good," she said, her voice almost husky. "He's probably a Cincy vamp and still here, as Rynn Cormel suggested. I know I've smelled him before. I just can't place him. Maybe I ran into him in a blood house once. It'd be easier if the scent wasn't six months old."
That last was more than slightly accusing, and I quietly returned to putting things away. I was glad I hadn't been there to watch Ivy discover she knew the vampire who had killed Kisten. It had to be someone outside the camarilla, or she would have noticed his scent the morning we'd found Kisten.
"This wouldn't have been a problem if someone hadn't dosed me with a forget spell," I said dryly, and Jenks lit up in a burst of white.
"I said I was sorry about that!" he shouted. His kids scattered, and Ford's head jerked up. "You were going to try to stake the bastard, Rachel, and I had to stop you before you killed yourself. Ivy wasn't here, and I'm too damned small!"
Shocked, I reached after him as he flew out. "Jenks?" I called. "Jenks, I'm sorry. That's not the way I wanted it to sound."
Depressed, I turned to Ford and Ivy. I was acting like an insensitive jerk. No wonder Jenks was in a bad mood. Here Ivy and I were trying to find Kisten's killer, and Jenks was the one who had destroyed the easy answer. "Sorry," I said, and Ford met my guilty gaze. "That was thoughtless."
Ford pulled his legs back under him. "Don't beat yourself up. You're not the only one who makes quick decisions that come back to bite them. Jenks has a few guilt issues he needs to work out is all."
Ivy snorted as she turned her bagel to get a better grip on it. "Is that your professional opinion?"
Ford chuckled. "You're the last person to be throwing stones," he said. "Ignoring a lead for six months because you felt guilty that you weren't there to save the two people you love the most."
Surprised, I turned to Ivy. Her first startled look turned into a one-shouldered, embarrassed shrug. "Ivy," I said as I leaned against the counter, "Kisten's death is not your fault. You weren't even there."
"But if I had been, it might not have happened," she said softly.
Ford cleared his throat, looking at the archway as Jenks buzzed back in, sullen. Matalina was hovering at the lintel, her arms crossed and a severe expression on her face. Apparently the wise pixy woman was doing a bit of psychoanalyzing herself and didn't want Jenks sulking in the desk.
"Sorry, Rache," he said as he lit on my shoulder. "I shouldn't have flown out like that."
"Don't worry about it," I murmured. "I only said what I did because I was so far from putting blame on you that what I sounded like never occurred to me. You saved my life. And we'll get my memory back. You did okay. I just want to know what happened."
Ford leaned back and tucked his pencil away. "You will. It's starting to surface."
"Can we get back to the ghost?" Jenks said, his wings making my hair fly, and the wan-looking human smiled.
"He says thank you, by the way," Ford said, glancing at his notebook. "He didn't find his rest, much to his shame, but he wouldn't be allowed to walk as he is if it hadn't been for Al freeing him."