White Witch, Black Curse

All the way to the lot I scanned faces, watched the horizon, checked behind me, and breathed deep for the distinctive scent of Were, vampire, or witch while trying to pretend everything was normal and keeping up my end of the conversation about new bands and what I’d been listening to. Though still uptight, I breathed easier when we got to my car and found that Denon wasn’t waiting for me. It helped that my bad-mojo amulet on my key ring stayed a nice bright green.

Clearly glad to be going home, Robbie continued to chat while we loaded his bags in the back and bundled into the front seat. I cranked the heater on full for Jenks, who immediately started cussing about perfume and left me to settle on Robbie’s shoulder. I think it was more because my vastly underdressed brother had angled all the vents toward himself than my perfume. The conversation bobbled when Robbie noticed the lethal-magic detection charm hanging from my keys. He knew what it was—he’d watched our dad prep for work, too—and though his face creased in concern because his little sister had to have an amulet to warn her of car bombs, he didn’t say anything.

It wasn’t until we hit the expressway and started for home that I began to relax, but all the while I was checking my rearview mirror for the flashing of I.S. lights, and thinking, Am I coming too close again to one of their cover-ups? And if I am, am I going to back off or bust it open once more?

Eyes squinting because of the bright sun as much as my sour mood, I recalled the look of anger on Robbie’s face when he saw that his stuff had been pawed through, and I decided that yup, I was going to crack it open and let the sun shine in.

Eight

The draft from the heater made my curls tickle my neck as I sat at Ivy’s antique table and looked through one of my dad’s old demon texts for a recipe for twisting a locator amulet. A curse, to be excruciatingly honest. Jenks was reading over my shoulder, hovering an irritating two feet up. I don’t think he was pleased that even though I’d found a locator-amulet recipe in my safely mundane earth-magic books, I was still looking. Most detecting charms, be they earth or ley line magic, were sympathetic magic—using something you have to detect whatever it is you’re interested in: car bombs, shoplifters, listening devices, whatever. Earth-magic locator charms, however, worked by finding auras over long distances. It was very sophisticated magic, and I was hoping that the demons had an easier version. Chances were good they did.

I’d escaped my mom’s about an hour before, claiming I had work to do and promising that I’d be back at midnight. Robbie hadn’t said anything to Mom about the airport cops, but I was still peeved his stuff had been searched. Worried, really, but I handled anger better than fear.

The sun was going down now, and a dark gloom had taken the kitchen. Past the blue curtains, the sky was a dull gray, and, wanting to get Jenks off my shoulder, I stood, open book tingling in my hand as I went to thunk on the rocker switch by the archway. Jenks’s wings hummed as bright fluorescent light flickered into existence, and I shuffled to the center counter. The curse book thumped down and, still not looking up from the pages, I crossed my ankles and leaned over the book, using the end of a pencil to turn the page. I’d like to say that the book was cold from having been in the unheated belfry, but I knew better.

Jenks buzzed closer, his wings managing to sound disapproving. Rex watched from the threshold, her ears pricked and the little bell Jenks had put on her last fall gleaming. I’d try to coax her in, but I knew better. The only reason she was here was Jenks. Hovering an inch above the yellow pages, Jenks put his hands on his hips and looked at me. I couldn’t help but notice that the dust he was letting slip was making the hand-penned words glow. Interesting…

“Ra-a-a-ache,” Jenks drawled in warning.

“I’m just looking,” I said, waving him off before turning another page. Demon books didn’t have indexes. Most didn’t have titles. I was reduced to browsing. It made for slow going. Especially since I was one to linger, curious as to how bad a bad curse could be or how neutral some of them were. Some were easy to tell by just the ingredients, but others seemed to be a curse only because of the mixing of earth and ley line magic that all demon curses contained. They were black only because they threw nature’s book so far out of balance. I was hoping the demon equivalent of a locator charm was one of these.

I had decided last year that I wasn’t going to avoid twisting a demon curse solely on the basis of the smut. I’d been given a brain, and I was going to use it. Unfortunately, the rest of society might not agree with me. Jenks, apparently, wanted to play the part of Jiminy Cricket, and he was reading the pages as carefully as I.

“That’s an excellent one,” he said, sounding almost reluctant to admit it as he dusted the curse that detailed out how to twist a broomstick-size rod of redwood into flight. There was an earth charm to do the same thing, but it was twice as complicated. I’d priced it out last year, deciding the only flying this little witch was going to do would be in the seat of an airplane.

“Mmmm,” I said, turning the page, “I could pay my rent for a year for just what the stick costs.” The next page was a curse to turn human flesh into wood. Yuck. Jenks shivered, and I turned the page, sending his blue sparkles sifting to the floor. Like I said, some of these were really easy to tell they were black.

“Rachel…,” Jenks coaxed, clearly thrown.

“I’m not doing that one, so relax.”

His wings buzzed fitfully, and he sank an inch in height, preventing me from easily turning the page. Exhaling, I stared at him to get him to move by my will alone. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared right back. He wasn’t going to give an inch, but when two of his kids, in front of the dark kitchen window, started arguing over a seed they’d found in a crack in the floor, the distraction lifted him up enough so that I could turn the page.

My fingertips resting on the faded yellow pages were going numb, and I curled them into a fist. But my heart started beating faster when I thought I recognized what was a locator charm under them. If I was reading it right, the demon curse used sympathetic magic, like a detection spell, not auras, like regular locator charms. Though a curse, the magic before me looked a hell of a lot easier than the aura-based one in the earth-magic book. All the better to tempt you with, my dear.

“Hey, look at this,” I said softly as Jenks gave a warning chirp to his offspring to settle their argument. Together we read through the ingredients. “The attunement object has to be stolen?” I questioned, not liking that, so it was no surprise that I jumped when the front doorbell rang.

Hands on his hips, Jenks alternated his stern gaze between me and his two children, their faces red and wings dusting a black haze into the sink. “I’ll get it,” he said before I could move. “And you two better have this decided before I get back, or I’ll decide it for you,” he added to his kids before he darted out.

Their volume dropped, and I smiled. It was almost six, which meant human or witch. Possibly Were or a living vampire. “If it’s a client, I’ll see them in the sanctuary,” I called after him, not wanting to have to hide my books if they should peek into my kitchen on the way to the back living room.

“Gotcha,” Jenks shouted faintly. Rex had run off under him, her tail up, ears pricked, and little bell jingling. The two pixies at the window started right back up again, their hushed, high voices almost worse than their loud ones.

I gave a last look at the curse before I marked the page and closed the book. I had everything I needed, but the identifying object, in this case the crystal tear, had to be stolen. That was kind of nasty, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that made it a black curse. Earth magic had a few ingredients like that. Rue, for example, worked best when it was sown while cursing, and it didn’t work in a charm unless you stole it. Which was why mine was planted by the gate for easy pilfering. Jenks stole mine for me. I didn’t ask from where. The charms made from stolen rue were not considered black, so would this one be?

Standing, I crossed the room to my coat for the tear Edden had given me. He had stolen it from evidence. Wondering if that was enough, I pulled the tear out, shocked to see that it had lost its clarity, and had turned black. “Whoa,” I whispered, and I looked up as Ford’s voice became obvious in the hall. Immediately I looked at the clock. Six? Crap, I’d forgotten he was coming over today. I was in no mood for his mumbo jumbo, especially if it worked.

Ford came in with a tired smile, his dull dress shoes making wet spots as they lost the last of their snow. Rex trailed behind with feline interest, sniffing at the salt-and-water mix. A mess of Jenks’s kids were with him, all talking in a swirl of silk and pixy dust. Ford’s brow was creased in pain, and they were clearly sending him into overload.

“Hi, Rachel,” he said, taking off his coat in such a way that it made half the pixies retreat, but they came right back. “What’s this about you being followed at the airport?”

I gave Jenks a dark look, and he shrugged. Gesturing for Ford to sit, I dropped the demon book on the stack I’d brought down from the belfry and wiped my hands on my jeans. “They were just harassing me,” I said, not knowing how my brother fit into it, but sure it was me they were after, not him. “Hey, what do you think about this? It was clear this morning when Edden gave it to me.”

Ford sat at Ivy’s spot and held out his hand, shaking his head when a trio of pixy girls asked him if they could braid his hair. I shooed them away when I came around the counter to give the tear to him, and the girls flitted to the windowsill to take sides in the seed issue.

“Tink’s tampons!” Jenks yelped when he saw the tear on Ford’s palm. “What did you do to it, Rache?”

“Nothing.” At least it hadn’t felt furry or wiggled when I touched it. Ford squinted as he held it to the artificial light. The argument at the sink was starting to spill into the rest of the room, and I gave Jenks a pointed look. The pixy, though, was with Ford, fascinated by the black swirls running through the gray crystal.

“Edden gave it to me to make a locator charm,” I said. “But it didn’t look like that. It must have picked up the emotions at the airport when they were following us.”

Ford looked at me over the tear. “You got angry?”

“Well, a little. I was more peeved than anything else.”

Jenks darted to the window as the argument reached an eyeball-hurting intensity. “Peeved, nothing. She was like a pimple on a fairy princess’s ass, red and ready to pop,” he said, then started speaking to his kids too fast for me to follow. Instant pixy silence ensued.

“Jeez, Jenks!” I exclaimed, warming. “I wasn’t that upset.”

Ford shifted the tear back and forth between his fingers. “It must have absorbed the emotions from not only you, but everyone there.” He hesitated, then added, “Did the tear…take your emotions away?”

Seeing his hope, I shook my head. He thought it might be a way to help him muffle emotions, perhaps. “No,” I said. “Sorry.”

Leaning across the corner of the table, Ford handed the tear back, doing a pretty good job of hiding his disappointment. “Well,” he said, settling into Ivy’s chair and pulling Rex onto his lap. “I’m on the clock. Where would you be most comfortable?”

“Can’t we just have coffee instead?” I suggested as I tucked the tear back in my coat pocket for lack of anywhere better. “I’m not in the mood to try to remember Kisten’s killer.” Stupid cat won’t let me touch her, but a perfect stranger gets head butts and kitty kisses.

His dark eyes went to the silent coffeemaker. “Like anyone ever is?” he said softly.

“Ford…,” I whined, and then one of the pixy kids shrieked. Ford shuddered and turned a shade whiter. Irritated, I looked at Jenks. “Jenks, can you get your kids out of here? They’re giving me a headache.”

“Jumoke gets the seed,” Jenks said flatly, cutting off the rising protests with a sharp wing chirp. “I said you wouldn’t like it!” he exclaimed. “Get out. Jumoke, ask your mother where she hides her seeds. It will be safe there until spring.”

It also would ensure that she wouldn’t die without someone else knowing where she hid their valuable seed stash. Pixy life spans sucked.

“Thanks, Papa!” the exuberant pixy shouted, then fled, trailing the rest of them in a calliope of sound and color.

Relieved, I came around the counter to sit at my spot. Ford looked better already, and he shifted to a more comfortable position when Rex followed the pixies out. Jenks dropped down before him in his best Peter Pan pose, hands on his hips. “Sorry,” he said. “They won’t come back.”

Ford glanced at the coffeemaker again. “One of them is still in here.”

I shoved the demon texts next to the mundane university textbooks to make some space. “Cheeky bugger,” I muttered, standing up to get Ford a coffee.

Jenks’s brow furrowed, and he made a harsh whistle. Smirking, I waited to see who the eavesdropping pixy was, but no one showed. Maybe I could fritter all our time away, and that would be that. Talk about Jenks, maybe.

“Thanks, Rachel,” Ford said with an exhale. “I could use some caffeine. It’s real, yes?”

Pouring a cup, I slid it into the microwave and hit “fast cook.” “Decaf is cruel and unusual punishment.”

Jenks was buzzing around the kitchen like a firefly from hell, shedding sparkles to make artificial sunbeams. “I can’t find anyone,” he grumbled. “I must be getting old. Are you sure?”

Ford cocked his head and seemed to be listening. “Yup. It’s a person.”

A smile came over Jenks as the sensitive man included pixies as people. Not everyone did. “I’ll go do a nose count. Be right back.”

He zipped out, and I opened the nuker. Ford’s cup was steaming, and leaning close as I set it by him, I whispered, “Can we go out and talk about Jenks instead of me?”

“Why?” Ford asked, as if knowing I was stalling, then took a sip. “His emotions are stable. It’s yours that are jumping like bunnies in a fryer.”

I frowned at the connotation, then sat in my own chair, pulling my cold coffee close. “It’s Matalina,” I said softly, hoping the eavesdropper couldn’t hear, much less Jenks.

Ford set his mug down, but his fingers didn’t leave it, seeking the warmth. “Rachel,” he said even more softly, “I don’t mean to sound trite, but death comes to everyone, and he will find a way to deal with it. Everyone does.”

My head went back and forth, and I felt a sliver of fear. “That’s just it,” I said. “He’s not human, or witch, or vampire. He’s a pixy. When she dies, he might go with her. Will himself to death.” It was a wildly romantic notion, but I had a feeling it was standard pixy fare.

“He has too much to live for.” Ford’s knobby fingers tightened on the porcelain, then released. “You, the firm, his children.” Then his eyes lost their focus. “Maybe you can ask one of his kids if that’s common.”

“I’m afraid to,” I admitted.

There was the buzz of Jenks’s wings darting past the arch as he went into the living room, and Ford’s expression became neutral. “What’s this Edden was saying about Marshal catching someone under your church?”

I rolled my eyes. “Tom Bansen, formerly of the I.S. Arcane Division, was bugging the church. Marshal was returning the box I forgot in his car and he caught him.” I managed a smile despite the pang of hurt from what I’d asked Marshal to throw away. “Marshal is coming to dinner tonight with my mom and brother.”

“Mmmm.”

It was long and drawn out, and I brought my gaze up to see the usually stoic FIB psychologist wearing a wan smile. “What’s that supposed to mean? Mmmm?” I said tartly.

Ford sipped from his mug, his dark brown eyes twinkling deviously. “You’re taking someone to meet the family. It’s good to see you moving forward. I’m proud of you.”

I stared at him, then laughed. He thought Marshal and I… “Marshal and me?” I said with a guffaw. “No way. He’s coming over as a buffer so I don’t walk out of there tonight facing a blind date with my mom’s paperboy.” Marshal was great, yeah, but it was also nice knowing I could leave things alone if I tried.

“Right.”

His voice dripped disbelief, and I set my mug down. “Marshal is not my boyfriend. We just do stuff together so no one hits on either of us. It’s nice and comfortable, and I’m not going to let you turn it into anything more with your psychobabble bull.”

Ford placidly arched his eyebrows at me, and I stiffened when Jenks zipped in and said, “You musta hit pretty close to the mark there, sheriff, to get her riled up like that.”

“He’s just a friend!” I protested.

Relenting, Ford dropped his eyes and shook his head. “That’s how good relationships start, Rachel,” he said fondly. “Look at you and Ivy.”

I felt the muscles in my face go slack and I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve got a great relationship there,” he said, busying himself with his coffee again. “Better than a lot of married couples I see. Sex ruins it for some people. I’m glad you’re learning that you can love someone without having to prove it with sex.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said uneasily. “Hey, let me top your coffee off there.”

I could hear him shift as I turned my back on him and went to get the carafe. And he wanted to put me under hypnosis? No freaking way. He knew too much about me already.

“Ford,” Jenks said gruffly, “your spider sense is whacked. All my kids are accounted for. Maybe it’s Bis.” He looked at the corners. “Bis, you in here?”

I smiled as I poured half a cup into Ford’s mug. “Not while the sun is up, he’s not. I saw him on the front eave when I went out for the paper this afternoon.”

Taking a sip of coffee, Ford smiled. “There are three emotion sets in this room other than mine. Someone’s nose got counted twice. Look, it’s okay,” he added when Jenks started dripping green sparkles. “Forget about it.”

The soft strains of ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” drifted into existence, muffled but annoying. It was Ford’s phone, and I eyed him with interest, thinking it an odd sort of tune for the straitlaced guy, but then my lips parted when I realized it was coming from my bag. My phone? But I knew I’d had it on “vibrate.” At the very least, it wouldn’t be playing that song. “Cripes, Jenks,” I said, scrambling for my bag. “Will you leave my phone alone!”

“I haven’t touched your phone,” he said belligerently. “And don’t be blaming it on my kids either. I bent their wings back last time, and they all said it wasn’t them.”

I frowned, wanting to believe him. Unless it was general nuisance, Jenks’s kids usually didn’t make the same mischief twice. Dropping my bag on my lap, I pulled out my phone, finding the call to be from an unlisted number. “Then why does it keep going off ‘vibrate’? I almost died of embarrassment the night I tagged Trent.” Flipping it open, I managed a courteous, “Hello?”

Jenks landed on Ford’s shoulder, smiling. “It started playing ‘White Wedding.’”

Ford laughed, and I pulled the phone from my ear. There was no one there. Clicking through the menu, I put it on “vibrate.” “Leave it alone,” I growled, and it went off again.

“Jenks!” I exclaimed, and the pixy flew up to the ceiling, grinning from ear to ear.

“It’s not me!” he chimed out, but he was having too much fun for me to believe him.

It wasn’t worth trying to catch him, so I dropped the phone in my bag and let it ring. Ford was very still, and a wave of apprehension swept me at the look in his eyes. Scared, almost.

“Someone else is in this room,” he said softly, and Jenks’s laughter cut off. I watched as Ford pulled out his amulet. It was a swirl of emotions, confusing and chaotic. No wonder he liked to work one on one. “Both of you, go back by the fridge,” he said, and it was as if the warmth left my body. Shit, what in hell is going on?

“Go,” he said, waving, and I stood up, totally creeped out. Maybe it’s a demon, I thought. Not really here, but here on the other side of the ever-after, looking at us with his second sight. The sun wasn’t down yet, but it was close.

Jenks silently landed on my shoulder, and we backed up until the amulet shifted to a frustrated black.

“And he or she is extremely frustrated,” Ford said mildly. “He, I think.”

I didn’t believe this. How could he be so calm? “You sure it isn’t a pixy?” I almost whined, and when Ford shook his head, I asked, “Is it a demon?”

Ford’s amulet flashed a confused orange. “Maybe?” Ford offered, and when the amulet turned the purple of anger, he shook his head. “Not a demon. I think you have a ghost.”

“What?” Jenks yelped, the burst of yellow pixy dust settling onto the floor to slowly fade. “How come we didn’t know before? We’ve been here a year!”

“We do live next to a graveyard.” I looked over my kitchen, feeling it was alien suddenly. Damn it, I should have gone with my first gut feelings when I saw the tombstones. This wasn’t right, and my knees weren’t feeling all that sturdy. “A ghost?” I stammered. “In my kitchen?” Then my heart did a flip-flop, and my gaze shot to my demon library, down from the belfry. “Is it my dad?” I shouted.

Ford put a hand to his head. “Back up. Back up!” he cried. “You’re too close.”

Heart pounding, I looked at the eight feet between us and pressed into the fridge.

“I think he meant for the ghost to back up,” Jenks said dryly.

My knees started to shake. “This is freaking me out, Jenks. I don’t like it.”

“Yeah,” Jenks said. “Like I’m all peach fuzz and nectar here?”

Ford’s expression eased, and the amulet around his neck went a sorrowful brown tinged with the red of embarrassment. “He’s sorry,” Ford said, gaze unfocused as he concentrated. “He didn’t mean to scare you.” A smile came over him, unusually soft. “He likes you.”

I blinked, and Jenks started to swear in one-syllable sentences in a way that only a pixy can manage. “Likes me?” I stammered, then got the willies. “Oh God,” I moaned. “I’ve got a peeping Tom of a ghost. Who is it?”

The amulet went entirely red. Ford looked down at it as if needing confirmation. “I’d say not a peeping Tom. I’m getting that he’s frustrated, benevolent, and he’s starting to feel better now that you know he’s here.” Ford’s eyes slid to my bag. “Ten to one he’s the person who has been changing your ring tones.”

I fumbled for a chair, yanked it to the fridge, and sat down. “But my phone has been doing this since the fall,” I said, looking at Jenks for confirmation. “Months.” Anger started trickling in. “He’s been here all that time? Spying on me?”

Again, the amulet went an embarrassed red. “He’s been trying to get your attention,” Ford said gently, as if the ghost needed an advocate.

I put my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. Swell.

Clearly frustrated, Jenks landed on the sill beside his brine shrimp tank. “Who is it?” he demanded. “Ask him his name.”