Chapter Three
The kitchen was bright with electric light, loud with the shrieks of pixies, and with a snap, I flicked the coffeemaker on before turning back to my sandwich. It was a rather large room, newly remodeled with stainless-steel counters, two stoves, and my mom's old fridge with the automatic ice dispenser right in the door. My spelling equipment hung over the center island counter, copper pots and ceramic spelling spoons making it look less like the industrial kitchen at the back of a church that it had started out as. Ivy's thick country-kitchen table where she did most of her research was depressingly empty. She'd been gone this whole week, out in Flagstaff helping Glenn and Daryl get settled in their new digs.
Standing at the counter in my evening gown, surrounded by cold cuts, condiments, and a half-empty two-liter bottle of pop, I clenched my teeth and wished the pixies would go away. They were playing war among the hanging copper pots, giving me a headache. Copper was one of the few metals that wouldn't burn them, and they loved banging into it. Telling Jenks about the abducted Rosewood babies had been bad enough, but bringing Nick into it had left us both in a bad mood that his kids weren't helping get rid of. Nick. If there was anyone who could irritate me by simply breathing, it was Nick.
The self-proclaimed thief once professed that he'd loved me, and I think he had, inasmuch as he could love another person. He loved money and the security he thought that it represented more. I honestly believed that he felt justified for all the trouble he'd heaped upon me. I hadn't trusted him for a long time, but when he had betrayed not just me but Trent in the same breath, I'd written him off. That he lured Jenks's eldest son, Jax, into a life of crime and hardship just pissed me off.
I'd not heard from Nick since he had spirited himself-and presumably Jax-out of Trent's high-security lockup. Only a demon could have done it. I frankly didn't give a damn if Nick had gotten himself indebted to a demon, but I did care about who might be holding his leash-and why he was again on this side of the ley lines stealing Rosewood infants.
The big knife Ivy left out to scare magazine salesmen was too big to comfortably cut my sandwich, but I used it anyway, setting it down on the counter with a thud when an unpopped kernel of popcorn zinged over my head and clattered against the wall.
"Jenks!" My shout sent a strand of hair drifting. "Your kids are driving me nuts!"
From the sanctuary-turned-living-room I heard him yell, "Get the hell out of the kitchen!"
Sure. That ought to do it. Frowning, I set the sandwich on a napkin, little drops of water from the lettuce making spots on it.
I reached for a paper towel as Belle edged into the kitchen, riding Rex like an elephant. The fairy had her feet snuggled in behind Rex's ears and she gave the cat a tap with the end of her bow when Rex threatened to sit down and spill her backward. Changing her mind, the orange cat twined about my ankles instead. Belle was an odd contrast of a pixy silk's bright colors and a fairy's naturally gaunt paleness. Never would I have imagined that Jenks would suffer to let a fairy live in his garden, but the small warrior woman had somehow become a part of the church-even if it had been her clan who had killed Jenks's wife. That the fairy was now wingless might have something to do with it, but I think he admired her grit.
"Your dad s-s-says to get outs-s-side," she lisped around her long teeth, her face turned upright at the noisy battle. "You shame your-s-s-selves!" With a disgusted snarl, she smacked Rex's flank as she purred and rubbed against me, hoping for a fallen morsel. "Get out!" she yelled at them. "Now!"
My head was exploding from their noise, but about half of them started for the hallway, flying backward and still shooting popcorn kernels at each other with slingshots. Someone shrieked when a seed punched through her wing, and the shouted threats got serious as the girls sided against the boys. There was a sharp ping when a seed hit my biggest spell pot and ricocheted into me, making my eyes narrow. Jenks was giving them a lot of latitude, knowing that as soon as it warmed up, half of them were going to leave to make homes for themselves.
"All right, you lot!" Jenks shouted as he flew into the kitchen, a faint red dust of annoyance spilling from him. "You heard Belle. Get out before I bend your wings backward! If you're cold, put on the long johns Belle made you, but I want you outside clearing the lines! Jumoke, get your sister a patch. You made it, you fix it. Do it nicely or you're going to do midnight sentry with Bis no matter how cold it is!"
I tossed my paper towel, exchanging a weary look with Belle as they flowed out of the kitchen with a chorus of complaints, going across the hall and up the flue in the back living room by the sound of it. Jumoke, Jenks's only dark-haired son, helped the pixy with the hole in her wing, stoically taking the verbal abuse the eight-year-old pixy was heaping on him. She'd probably be on her own next year, fully grown and ready to start a family. Why Jumoke hadn't left yet was obvious. Black-haired pixies were often killed on sight by their own kind. He, at least, would be staying.
Belle nudged Rex into motion, and she followed them out. It was too cold for fairies, but if she was sitting on Rex, she'd be okay. The cat door squeaked, and Jenks flew a red-dusted path to the kitchen spigot, where he could watch the garden and his kids dispersing into the damp spring night. His hands were on his hips and his feet were spread wide, but he seemed more worried about Jax than the noise.
Belle's touch was showing in surprising places, and Jenks wasn't looking so much like Peter Pan these days. He still had the tights and garden sword at his hip that he used to chase off birds, but his usual green gardening coat had been replaced by a flashy multicolored jacket with tails and a dark orange vest. Belle's work. With the hunter-green shirt, it made a striking statement with his curly blond hair, trim physique, skintight boots and tights, and that narrow waist and wide shoulders. His dragonfly-like wings blurred to nothing as he watched the dusty glows from his grown children in the garden. Though his feet never lifted off, the noise of his wings increased when the cat-size shadow of Bis joined them; then he relaxed.
"Thanks," I said in relief as I took my sandwich to the table. "They don't listen to me."
Jenks frowned as he flew over the center counter, spilling a sour green dust on the cheese and making it glow briefly. "They don't listen to me, either."
It was a not-so-subtle reminder of Jax. Nick's sudden appearance had us both in a stellar mood. Uptight, I shifted to try to make the dress feel more comfortable, finally sitting sideways to the table in the hard-backed chair. My clutch purse and shawl were at Ivy's empty spot, trying to make it look less . . . empty.
Suddenly Nick didn't seem so important, and depressed, I leaned sideways over the table as I took a bite of my sandwich, trying not to get any of it on my dress. The coffeemaker on the counter gurgled its last, but I didn't bother to get up. Jenks descended from the utensil rack, using his sword to cut a pixy-size chunk of cheese. Spearing it on the tip, he angled the short sword up to eat it right from the blade.
"So-o-o-o," he drawled, his dust shifting to a more normal gold. "You never did tell me what Quen wanted."
I froze, then took another bite to give myself time to think. Nick had been on my mind when Quen dropped me off: Nick, demons, Rosewood babies. Quen's request hadn't even been in the theoretical kitchen, much less on a back burner. "Ah, he wanted to know if I'd take over some of his security duties."
"Tink loves a duck, really?" It wasn't the reaction that I had expected, and my chewing slowed when Jenks flew to sit on the back of Ivy's monitor where he could see me better. "You told him no, right?"
I made a little huff, trying to forget that surprising hug. "Trent doesn't need my help. You've worked with him. Tell me I'm wrong. Quen is a nervous worrywart. Trent can handle anything Cincinnati can dish out."
His eyes fixed on mine, Jenks tilted his head and bit off a chunk of cheese. "Sure, like his best friend locking him on a boat and blowing it up. Demons possessing said best friend. Said demon's ex-familiar living in his home, mothering the child he had with the woman who tried to kill him last summer."
I sighed. "You think I should have said yes?"
Jenks shrugged. "Trent always pays his bills."
I stared at him. "Who are you and how did you kill my partner?" I asked, and a faint red dust of embarrassment slipped from him. Last year, he would have been insulting Tink with a brandished sword for my even considering the idea, but then again, he had worked with Trent to rescue his daughter.
Head tilting the other way, he plucked the last chunk of cheese from the tip and ate it, licking the crumbs from his fingers. "Cincy is a fickle woman. One day you're leading her in a waltz, and the next she's smacked you and is walking on your face. Round the clock would be an insult, but someone to watch his back, someone in a dress who looks like a pushover and isn't always telling him what to do? Yeah, he'd go for that." His eyes met mine. "Especially if it was you."
The sandwich went tasteless, and I set it down, two bites in. I'd worked with Trent three times: the first to steal a thousand-year-old elven DNA sample from the ever-after-which ended badly; the second to apprehend HAPA-which turned out okay; and the last at a museum fund-raiser-where the assassins were aiming at me, not him. And yet . . . "I can't do it, Jenks. I can't work for him."
"So work with him, not for him," Jenks said, as if that distinction was the easiest thing in the world. "Hell, if I can work with him, you can."
"Sure, because you're great at backup," I protested. "But I'm not a backup kind of girl." Jenks nodded solemnly and I slumped, shoving the tomato back into my sandwich. "Trent isn't either," I muttered. "I'm not going to change, and I'm not going to delude myself that I can change him. I don't know if I would if I could." Focus blurring, I gazed past the kitchen's blue curtains to the foggy night beyond.