Remembering Marshal, I sighed. "Yep. A banshee. And her kid. And her homicidal husband. At the mall, no less."
He smiled, one almost of pride. "You made the news knocking over that reporter."
My eyes flicked to his and I winced. "They got it on tape?"
Leaning forward, he tucked a stray curl behind my ear, making me shiver when my thoughts went to Kisten's boat. "Knocked her right on her can," he said, oblivious. "It was good seeing you in action like that. Again."
His smile faded, and I realized this was twice now he had seen me on the news; the first time, I'd been cuffed. "Um, thanks for coming to see me," I said, sensing a growing awkwardness, as if he had stepped past our agreed-on boundaries.
Smile gone, he leaned back. He looked everywhere but at me. "Tried the pudding yet?"
"No, but I doubt it's changed since I was here last."
He chuckled, and I tried to decide if I was willing to risk taking the catheter out by myself. The one time I had, I'd hurt myself more than one would believe possible. I didn't want to stay here, and if my vitals were normal, they wouldn't keep me for simple fatigue.
The sound of Jenks returning drifted into the uncomfortable silence between Marshal and me, and we exchanged knowing smiles. Jenks was like a little kid you could hear long before you could see him. His voice was high as he talked to someone whose voice was a dull murmur, and they were moving slowly. Ivy maybe?
My pulse increased and Marshal stood when the thick oversize door creaked open. He looked nervous, and I didn't wonder why. Ivy didn't like him, and she took few pains to hide it.
"Hey!" Jenks shouted loudly as he circled the room three times. "Look who I found!"
I found myself smiling; not only was it Ivy, but Glenn, too, moving slowly and supported between Ivy and the IV stand. The black man looked awful, and it wasn't just from the hospital gown. Still, I met him grin for grin when he looked up from the floor, clearly pleased to be functioning even on this reduced level. His face was an ugly purple in places, and his hand gripping Ivy's arm was swollen, the cuts covered with stark-white bandages. "Hi, Rachel," he breathed, then focused on the tile and moving forward.
Marshal nodded his hello to Ivy, and after nudging the tomato behind the flowers before Glenn spotted it, he moved to the distant couch, built into the wall under the window, so the ailing FIB agent could have the closer chair. Oddly enough, Ivy looked like she knew what she was doing, competently shifting him around and making sure his IV didn't get tangled. She even knew to hold his gown shut while he angled to sit in the chair.
He eased into it with his arm muscles straining, and he exhaled long and loud when his weight left his feet. "Rachel," he said before he got his breath back altogether. "Ivy told me you were here, and I had to see it for myself. You look as bad as I feel, girl."
"Yeah?" I shot back. "Give me a few hours, and I'll wipe the floor with you in a game of 'round the nurses' desk.'" As far as I was concerned, he was in way worse shape than I, but he looked a whole lot better than when I'd seen him last, unconscious and surrounded by white sheets. That I couldn't stand up yet didn't mean anything. I'd be walking before sunset even if I had to crawl to do it.
Ivy came closer, and a pang of emotion went through me. The chair Glenn was now in had been pulled to the bedside when I woke up. I'd be willing to bet she'd been sitting in it all night. She looked tired, and I wondered if she had slept at all this morning. "Hi, Ivy," I said as I reached out-knowing she wouldn't. "Jenks said Remus hit you. You okay?"
Jenks clattered his wings behind the flowers, and Ivy's calm face scrunched up. "I'm fine, more mad at myself than anything." Her fingers touched mine, and I heard everything she wasn't going to say. "I'm glad you're awake," she said softly. "You had us worried."
"My pride took a hit," I said. "I'll be fine soon as I can stand." Jenks looked out around a plastic vase with a questioning expression, his hands full of pollen, and Marshal popped his knuckles. Realizing the men had become uncomfortable, I flushed. Our fingers parted.
"Marshal, you've met Glenn, haven't you?" I said suddenly. "He's the FIB's Inderland specialist. Glenn, Marshal is the swim coach at the university."
Marshal came forward. Leaning past the corner of the bed, he carefully shook Glenn's bandaged hand. "Nice to meet you," he said, and I couldn't help but notice there hadn't been a flicker of concern or reluctance in meeting an FIB officer. Not like with Nick. And I smiled.
"It's a pleasure," Glenn responded. "Have you and Rachel known each other long?"
"No," he said quickly, but I felt he deserved more than that.
"Sort of." I spoke up before Jenks, who had risen up above the flowers, could. "Marshal helped Jenks and me on that run up in Michigan. He's been in Cincinnati since Halloween, pulling snakes from under my kitchen floor and teaching me how to rock climb."
Ivy snickered at the reference to Tom, and Glenn's head went up and down in slow consideration, his gaze becoming more accepting. I knew he believed Nick was still alive, which he was, the son of a bastard-and seeing that my ex-boyfriend and master thief had a record thicker than the phone book, I wouldn't be surprised if the FIB detective grilled Marshal later over what he knew about Nick.
Ivy made a small sound of interest when she opened the card from the second batch of flowers. I wanted to ask her about her leg, but she wasn't favoring it, and I knew she wouldn't appreciate me bringing it up in front of other people.
"Slacker," I said to Glenn, and when he gave me a tired, lopsided smile, I added, "How's your aura?"
"Thin. I don't know how it's supposed to feel, but I feel...weird. Three witches looked at me after you came in. Every one of them said I was lucky to be alive."
Jenks snorted. "They came in and poked Rachel, too," he said. "Left grumbling."
I exhaled slowly, bringing up my second sight without tapping a line so I didn't run the risk of seeing the ever-after. Not in a hospital six floors up. Sure enough, Glenn's aura was raggedy, leaking red around the broken edges and looking like a fluctuating aurora borealis instead of a continuous sheet. The gaps were not healthy, and until they healed, he'd be vulnerable to all sorts of metaphysical things. That I was in the same condition made my stomach turn. And I have a date with Al in the ever-after at sunrise tomorrow. I had to get out of it. Surely Al would give me a sick day for this. I should ask for a work excuse.
"Are you okay?" I asked Glenn, truly concerned. He looked so far out of character. The ex-military man in him peeked through when he forced himself to sit straighter, his face freshly shaved, the scent of shampoo coming faintly to me.
"I will be," he said around a heavy breath. "You went after them?"
"You know it."
"You touched the baby?" he asked, and I snorted. "Don't touch the baby," he intoned, and the corners of my mouth lifted.
"Don't touch the baby," I echoed, realizing that that was probably what had downed him.
"It's the baby who's got the witch doctors so messed up," Glenn said, almost crossing his knees before remembering he was in a peekaboo gown. "They tell me that a banshee child has no control until she's about five. But that man was holding her when I talked to him."
Jenks's wings clattered for attention. "We saw him holding Holly, too. His aura was fine. I saw it. So did Rachel."
I nodded, not making any sense out of it. "Maybe she just wasn't hungry."
"Maybe," Glenn said, "but she drained me fast enough. You, too."
Ivy went to sit on the long bench under the window. "So what did happen in that house?" she said as she looked out, and I swear she was trying to change the subject. Her lips were parted, and her breathing was a shade too fast. Her eyes, too, held a hint of...guilt?
Glenn made an ugly face. "I went to talk to the suspect about the death of my friend."
Suspect, I thought, hearing the ugliness of the word. She wasn't "Ms. Harbor," or "the lady," or even "the woman," but "the suspect." Then again, Mia had probably killed his friend, put Glenn in the hospital, and allowed her daughter to almost kill me. "I'm sorry," I said, and he grimaced, not wanting the sympathy.
"Her husband didn't like some of my questions. Remus, is it?" Glenn asked, and when Ivy nodded, he continued. "Remus tried to bully me out the door. Took a swing at me, and we knocked about the house. I actually had him handcuffed, and then-"
"You touched the baby," Jenks said from somewhere in the flowers.
Glenn looked at his knees, covered with that blue diamond print. "I touched the baby."
"Don't touch the baby," I said, trying to ease the tension. No wonder Mia didn't let anyone touch Holly. Not to mention her not wanting any more kids until Holly had grown and had some control. Right now, she was like the walking plague. But Remus could hold her. What made him special?
Glenn shifted his feet in those slipper socks they give you. His were blue. "The baby put me out, not Remus," he said. "Once I fell down, I kept falling. I think he beat me slowly so they could suck it all up. If it hadn't been for the badge, I think they would have killed me and tried to hide the body." Seeing the horror in my eyes, he attempted to smile. "But you look great," he said, gesturing. "Maybe witches have thicker auras."
"Maybe," I said, unable to look at anyone. Of course I looked better. I hadn't had a psychopath maul me for the feeding pleasure of his family.
Standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed, Marshal seemed to gather himself. "Rachel, I have to go," he said, not unexpectedly. "I've got some stuff to do this afternoon, and I just stopped by to make sure you were okay." His feet shuffled, and he added, "I'll, um, see you later."
Glenn leaned back, cutting short his motion to cross his legs when he remembered the hospital gown. "Don't leave because of me," he said, his body language not matching his words. "I have to get back to my room before I'm missed. They don't like it when us rough men go past the nurses' desk and into the women's area."
Marshal shifted back and forth; then, as if making a decision, he leaned close and gave me an awkward hug. Uneasy, I returned it, hoping he wasn't trying to shift our relationship simply because I was vulnerable and he had helped me with Tom. Tom was small potatoes to what could come crashing into my kitchen. But the scent of redwood was comforting, plucking a need to go back to my roots, and I breathed it in deep.
"I'll see you later," he said earnestly. "I'm still checking into your classes, but if there's anything I can do, shopping, errands, just call me."
I smiled, touched by his concern. My mom's warning that he was a good diversion, not a good decision, echoed through me, but so did the entire comfortable evening spent with her, my brother, and Marshal. Marshal was a nice guy, and I didn't often have the chance to do stuff with nice guys. I didn't want to endanger him by close association, but what came out of my mouth was "I will. 'Bye, Marshal. Thanks for the flowers."
He nodded, waving before going with his head lowered, leaving the door open a crack.
Glenn took in Ivy and Jenks eyeing me as if in disapproval. Clearing his throat, he said, "You're taking classes? That's great. Crime scene etiquette, perhaps?"
I rubbed my eyebrow, feeling a headache coming on. "Ley lines," I said. "There was a mix-up at the registrar's office. Marshal is trying to work it out."
"That's not all he's trying to work out," Jenks muttered, and I scowled at him when he shifted to the mums. The scent of a summer meadow grew heavy, and pollen streaked his green shirt. "He's going to want to change things," the pixy said, and Glenn leaned back, mouth shut, to listen. "You being in the hospital is going to jerk him into rescue mode. Just like on that boat of his. I saw it in him right after he yanked Tom out from under our kitchen. I'm a pixy, Rachel. I may look all tough and stuff, but I got wings, and I know infatuation when I see it."
I sighed, not surprised he was warning me off Marshal. And what do wings have to do with it? "Well, he's not helpless," I said defensively. "Tagging a ley line witch is hard."
Jenks crossed his arms and frowned. Ivy put the giraffe down and eyed me, too.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I muttered, but my thoughts went zinging to Mia standing in the dark with her wailing child clutched to her, telling me that I'd never love anyone without killing them. "He deserves someone better than me. I know the drill."