Every Which Way But Dead

“Yeah, yeah,” Jenks said impatiently, hands on his hips. “I know. You Ceri. Me Jenks. But what are you? Are you a witch? Rachel’s a witch.”

Ceri glanced at me and away. “I’m Ceri.”

Jenks’s wings blurred to nothing, the shimmer going from blue to red. “Yeah,” he repeated. “But what species? See, I’m a pixy, and Rachel is a witch. You are …” “Ceri,” she insisted.

“Ah, Jenks?” I said as the woman’s eyes narrowed. The question as to what the Kalamacks were had eluded pixies for the entirety of the family’s existence. Figuring that out would give Jenks more prestige in the pixy world than if he took out an entire fairy clan by himself. I could tell he was on the edge of his patience when he flitted up to hover before her.

“Damn it!” Jenks swore, frustrated. “What the hell are you, woman?”

“Jenks!” I shouted in alarm as Ceri’s hand flashed out, snagging him. Jax, his son, let out a yelp, leaving a cloud of pixy dust as he darted to the ceiling. Jenks’s eldest daughter, Jih peeked around the archway from the hall ceiling, her wings a pink blur.

“Hey! Lego!” Jenks exclaimed. His wings made a furious clatter, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Ceri had his pant leg between her thumb and forefinger. Her reflexes were better than even Ivy’s if she had enough control to be that precise.

“I’m Ceri,” she said, her thin lips tight as Jenks hovered, snared. “And even my demon captor had enough respect that he didn’t curse at me, little warrior.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jenks said meekly. “Can I go now?”

She raised one pale eyebrow—a skill I envied—then glanced at me for direction. I nodded emphatically, still shocked at how quick it had been. Not smiling, Ceri let him go.

“Guess you aren’t as slow as I thought,” Jenks said sullenly.

The ruffled pixy brought the scent of store-bought dirt to me as he retreated to my shoulder, and my brow furrowed when I turned my back on her to poke around under the counter for a teapot. I heard the soft familiar clink of pens, recognizing the sound of Ceri tidying Ivy’s desk. Her centuries of slavery were showing again. The woman’s mix of meek servitude and quick pride had me at a loss for how to treat her.

“Who is she?” Jenks whispered in my ear.

I crouched to reach into the cupboard, pulling out a copper teapot so badly tarnished that it was almost maroon. “She was Big Al’s familiar.”

“Big Al!” the pixy squeaked, rising up to land upon the tap. “Is that what you were doing out there? Tink’s panties, Rachel, you’re getting as bad as Nick! You know that’s not safe!”

I could tell him now. Now that it was over. Very aware of Ceri listening behind us, I ran the water into the teapot and swirled it around to clean it. “Big Al didn’t agree to testify against Piscary out of the goodness of its heart. I had to pay for it.”

With a dry rasp of wings, Jenks moved to hover before me. Surprise, shock, and then anger cascaded over his face. “What did you promise him?” he said coldly.

“It’s an it, not a him,” I said. “And it’s done.” I couldn’t look at him. “I promised to be its familiar if I was allowed to keep my soul.”

“Rachel!” A burst of pixy dust lit the sink. “When? When is it coming to get you? We have to find a way out of this. There must be something!” He flew a bright path to my spell books under the center island counter and back. “Is there anything in your books? Call Nick. He’ll know!”

Not liking his fluster, I wiped the water off the bottom of the teapot. My boot heels made a dull thumping on the linoleum as I crossed the kitchen. The gas ignited with a whoosh, and my face warmed from embarrassment. “It’s too late,” I repeated. “I’m its familiar. But the bond isn’t strong enough for it to use me if I’m on this side of the ley lines, and as long as I can keep it from pulling me into the ever-after, I’ll be okay.” I turned from the stove, finding Ceri sitting before Ivy’s computer, staring at me with rapt admiration. “I can say no. It’s done.”

Jenks came to a sputtering halt before me. “Done?” he said, too close to focus on. “Rachel, why? Putting Piscary away isn’t worth that!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Frustrated, I crossed my arms before me and leaned against the counter. “Piscary was trying to kill me, and if I survived, I wanted him in jail, not free to come after me again. It’s done. The demon can’t use me. I tricked it.”

“Him,” Ceri said softly, and Jenks spun. I had forgotten she was there, she was so quiet. “Al is male. Female demons won’t let themselves be pulled across the lines. That’s how you can tell. Mostly.”

I blinked, taken aback. “Al is male? Why did he keep letting me call him an it?”

She lifted her shoulder in a very modern show of confusion.

My breath came out in a puff and I turned back to Jenks. I started as I found him hovering right before my nose, his wings red. “You’re an ass,” he said, his tiny, smooth features creased in anger. “You should have told us. What if it had gotten you? What about Ivy and me? Huh? We would have kept looking for you, not knowing what had happened. At least if you had told us, we might have been able to find a way to get you back. Ever think of that, Ms. Morgan? We’re a team, and you just stepped all over that!”

My next outburst died. “But there wasn’t anything you could have done,” I said lamely.

“How do you know?” Jenks snapped.

I sighed, embarrassed that a four-inch man was lecturing me—and had every right to. “Yeah, you’re right,” I said, slumping. Slowly my arms uncrossed. “I’m just … I’m just not used to having anyone I can depend on, Jenks. I’m sorry.”

Jenks dropped three feet he was so surprised. “You … you agree with me?”

Ceri’s head made a smooth turn to the open archway. Her empty expression went even more so. I followed her gaze to the dark hall, not surprised to find it holding Ivy’s lithe silhouette, her hip cocked, hand on her thin waist, looking sleek in her body-tight leather.

Suddenly wary, I pulled myself from the counter and straightened. I hated it when she just appeared like that. I hadn’t even felt the air pressure change when she opened the front door. “Hi, Ivy,” I said, my voice still carrying its chagrin from Jenks.

Ivy’s blank gaze matched Ceri’s perfectly as she ran her brown eyes over the small woman sitting in her chair. She pushed herself into motion, moving with a living vampire’s grace, her boots almost silent. Tucking her long, enviably straight black hair behind an ear, she went to the fridge and pulled out the orange juice. Dressed in her casual leather pants and black tuck-in shirt, she looked like a biker chick gone sophisticate. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and she looked chilled even though she still wore her short leather jacket.

Jenks hovered beside me, our argument forgotten in the more pressing problem of Ivy finding someone unexpected in her kitchen. My last guest she had pinned to the wall and threatened to bleed; Ivy didn’t like surprises. That she was drinking orange juice was a good sign. It meant she had succumbed to that damned blood lust of hers, and Jenks and I would only have to deal with a guilt-strewn vampire instead of an irritable, guilt-strewn, and hungry vampire. She was a lot easier to live with now that she was practicing again.

“Ah, Ivy, this is Ceridwen,” I offered. “She’s staying with us until she finds her feet.”

Ivy turned, leaning back against the counter to look predatory and sexy as she took the cap off the jug and drank right from the carton. Like I’d say anything? Ivy’s gaze ran over Ceri, then flicked to Jenks’s obvious agitation, and then to me. “So,” she said, her melodious voice reminding me of torn gray silk on snow. “You wiggled out of your agreement with that demon. Good job. Nicely done.”

My jaw dropped. “How did you know …?” I stammered as Jenks yelped in surprise.

A faint smile, unusual but honest, pulled the corners of her mouth up. A flash of fang showed, her canines the same size as mine but sharp, like a cat’s. She’d have to wait until she was dead to get the extended versions. “You talk in your sleep,” she said lightly.

“You knew?” I said, floored. “You never said anything!”

“Nicely done?” Jenks’s wings clattered like June bugs. “You think being a demon’s familiar is a good thing? What train hit you on the way home?”

Ivy went to get a glass from the cupboard. “If Piscary had been released, Rachel would be dead by sunup,” she said as she poured out juice. “So she’s a demon’s familiar? So what? She said the demon can’t use her unless he pulls her into the ever-after. And she’s alive. You can’t do anything if you’re dead.” She took a sip of her drink. “Unless you’re a vampire.”

Jenks made an ugly sound and flew to the corner of the room to sulk. Jih took the opportunity to flit in to hide in the ladle hanging over the center counter, the tips of her wings showing a brilliant red above the copper rim.

Ivy’s brown eyes met mine over her glass. Her perfect oval face was almost featureless as she hid her emotions behind the cool facade of indifference she maintained when there was someone in the room beside us two, Jenks included. “I’m glad it worked,” she said as she set the glass on the counter. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, seeing her relief in the slight trembling of her long pianist fingers. She would never tell me how worried she had been, and I wondered how long she had stood in the hallway listening and collecting herself. Her eyes blinked several times, and her jaw clenched in an effort to stifle her emotion. “I didn’t know it was tonight,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t have left.”

“Thanks,” I said, thinking Jenks was right. I had been an ass for not telling them. I just wasn’t used to having anyone but my mother care.

Ceri was watching Ivy with a puzzled, rapt attention. “Partner?” she hazarded, and Ivy flicked her attention to the small woman.

“Yeah,” Ivy said. “Partner. What’s it to you?”

“Ceri, this is Ivy,” I said as the small woman got to her feet.

Ivy frowned as she realized the precise order she kept her desk in had been altered.

“She was Big Al’s familiar,” I warned. “She needs a few days to find her feet is all.”

Jenks made an eye-hurting noise with his wings, and Ivy gave me a telling look, her expression shifting to an annoyed wariness when Ceri came to stand before her. The small woman was peering at Ivy in confusion. “You’re a vampire,” she said, reaching to touch Ivy’s crucifix.

Ivy sprang back with a startling quickness, her eyes flashing black.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said as I stepped between them, ready for anything. “Ivy, take it easy. She’s been in the ever-after for a thousand years. She may not have seen a living vampire before. I think she’s an Inderlander, but she smells like the ever-after so Jenks can’t tell what she is.” I hesitated, telling her with my eyes and my last sentence that Ceri was an elf, and therefore a loose cannon as far as magic was concerned.

Ivy’s pupils had dilated to almost a full, vampire black. Her stance was domineering and sexually charged, but she had just slaked her blood lust and so was capable of listening. I shot a quick glance at Ceri, glad to see she wisely hadn’t moved. “We all okay here?” I asked, my voice demanding they both back down.

Thin lips pressed tight, Ivy turned her back on us. Jenks dropped to my shoulder. “Nicely done,” he said. “Got all your bitches in line, I see.”

“Jenks!” I hissed, knowing Ivy had heard when her knuckles on her glass turned white. I flicked him off me, and laughing, he rose up and then back down to my shoulder.

Ceri was standing with her arms confidently at her side, watching Ivy grow more and more tense. “Oh-h-h-h-h,” Jenks drawled. “Your new friend is gonna do something.”

“Uh, Ceri?” I questioned, heart pounding as the petite woman went to stand beside Ivy at the sink, clearly demanding her attention.

Pale face tight with a repressed anger, Ivy turned. “What,” she said flatly.

Ceri inclined her head regally, never taking her green eyes from Ivy’s slowly dilating brown ones. “I apologize,” she said in her high, clear voice, every syllable carefully pronounced. “I’ve slighted you.” Her attention dropped to Ivy’s elaborate crucifix on its silver chain about her neck. “You’re a vampire warrior, and yet you can wear the Cross?”

Ceri’s hand twitched, and I knew she wanted to touch it. Ivy knew it too. I watched, unable to interfere as Ivy turned to face her. Hip cocked, she gave Ceri a more in-depth onceover, taking in her dried tears, her exquisite ball gown, her bare feet, and her obvious pride and upright carriage. As I held my breath, Ivy took her crucifix off, the chain gathering her hair in front of her as she pulled it from around her neck.

“I’m a living vampire,” she said as she put the religious icon in the elf’s hand. “I was born with the vampire virus. You know what a virus is, don’t you?”

Ceri’s fingers traced the lines of the worked silver. “My demon let me read what I wished. A virus is killing my kin.” She looked up. “Not the vampire virus. Something else.”

Ivy’s gaze darted to me, then returned to the small woman standing just a shade too close to her. “The virus changed me as I was forming in my mother’s womb, making me some of both. I can walk under the sun and worship without pain,” Ivy said. “I’m stronger than you,” she added as she subtly put more space between them. “But not as strong as a true undead. And I have a soul.” She said the last as if she expected Ceri to deny it.

Ceri’s expression became empty. “You’re going to lose it.”

Ivy’s eye twitched. “I know.”

I held my breath, listening to the clock tick and the almost subliminal hum of pixy wings. Eyes solemn, the thin woman held the crucifix out to Ivy. “I’m sorry. That’s the hell from which Rachel Mariana Morgan saved me.”

Ivy looked at the cross in Ceri’s hand, no emotion showing. “I’m hoping she can do the same for me.”

I cringed. Ivy had pinned her sanity on the belief that there was a witch magic that might purge the vampire virus from her; that all it would take would be the right spell to let her walk away from the blood and violence. But there wasn’t. I waited for Ceri to tell Ivy that no one was beyond redemption, but all she did was nod, her wispy hair floating. “I hope she can.”

“Me, too.” Ivy glanced at the crucifix Ceri was extending to her. “Keep it. It doesn’t help anymore.”

My lips parted in surprise, and Jenks landed upon my big hoop earrings as Ceri placed it about her neck. The elaborately tooled silver looked right against the rich purple and green of her formal gown. “Ivy—” I started, jerking when Ivy narrowed her eyes at me.

“It doesn’t help anymore,” she said tightly. “She wants it. I’m giving it to her.”

Ceri reached up, clearly finding peace in the icon. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Ivy frowned. “Touch my desk again, and I’ll snap every one of your fingers.”

Ceri took the threat with a light understanding that surprised me. It was obvious she had dealt with vampires before. I wondered where—since vampires couldn’t manipulate ley lines and would therefore make lousy familiars.

“How about some tea?” I said, wanting something normal to do. Making tea wasn’t normal, but it was close. The pot was steaming, and as I rummaged in a cupboard for a mug good enough for a guest, Jenks snickered, swinging my earring like a tire swing. His kids were flitting into the kitchen in twos and threes—much to Ivy’s annoyance—pulled by the novelty of Ceri. They hovered over her, Jih taking the closest stance.

Ivy stood defensively before her computer, and after a moment’s hesitation, Ceri sat in the chair farthest from her. She looked lost and alone as she fingered the crucifix about her neck. As I searched the pantry for a tea bag, I wondered how I was going to make this work. Ivy wasn’t going to like another roommate. And where would we put her?

The accusing clatter of Ivy’s pens was loud as she rearranged her pencil cup. “Got one,” I said in relief as I finally found a tea bag. Jenks left me to bother Ivy, chased off my earring by the steam drifting up as I poured the boiling water into the mug.

“Here, Ceri,” I said, waving the pixies away from her and setting it on the table. “Do you want anything with it?”

She looked at the cup as if she’d never seen one before. Eyes widening, she shook her head. I hesitated, wondering what I had done wrong. She looked like she was ready to cry again. “Is it okay?” I asked, and she nodded, her thin hand shaking as she took the mug.

Jenks and Ivy were staring at her. “You sure you don’t want sugar or anything?” I asked, but she shook her head. Narrow chin trembling, she brought the cup to her lips.

Brow furrowed, I went to get the coffee grounds out of the fridge. Ivy rose to rinse the carafe. She leaned close to me, running the water to blur her words as she muttered, “What’s wrong with her? She’s crying over her tea.”

I spun. “Ceri!” I exclaimed. “If you want some sugar, it’s okay!”

She met my gaze, tears streaming down her pale face. “I haven’t had anything to eat for—a thousand years,” she choked out.

I felt as if I had been punched in the gut. “Do you want some sugar?”

Still crying, she shook her head.

Ivy was waiting for me when I turned back around. “She can’t stay here, Rachel,” the vampire said, her brow tight.

“She’ll be fine,” I whispered, appalled that Ivy was ready to kick her out. “I’ll bring my old cot down from the belfry and set it up in the living room. I’ve got some old T-shirts she can wear until I take her shopping.”

Jenks buzzed his wings for my attention. “Then what?” he said from the spigot.

I gestured my frustration. “I don’t know. She’s much better already. She wasn’t talking half an hour ago. Look at her now.”

We all turned, finding Ceri sobbing quietly and drinking her tea in small reverent sips as the pixy girls hovered over her. Three were plating her long, fair hair and another was singing to her.

“Okay,” I said as we turned back. “Bad example.”

Jenks shook his head. “Rache, I really feel bad for her, but Ivy’s right. She can’t stay here. She needs professional help.”

“Really?” I said belligerently, feeling myself warm. “I haven’t heard of any group therapy sessions for retired demon familiars, have you?”

“Rachel …” Ivy said.

A sudden shout from the pixy children brought Jenks up from the spigot. His eyes went past us to his kids as they descended upon the mouse, who had finally made a dash for the living room and found itself in its own personal hell. “Excuse me,” he said, flitting off to rescue it.

“No,” I said to Ivy. “I’m not going to dump her in some institution.”

“I’m not saying you should.” Ivy’s pale face had started to color, and the ring of brown about her eyes was shrinking as my body heat rose and my blood grew warm, triggering her instincts. “But she can’t stay here. The woman needs normal, and Rachel? We aren’t it.”

I took a breath to protest, then let it out. Frowning, I glanced at Ceri. She was wiping her eyes, the hand curled about her mug shaking to make rings on the surface of her tea. My eyes went to the pixy children arguing over who was going to get to ride the mouse first. It was little Jessie, and the tiny pixy screamed in delight when the rodent darted out of the kitchen with her on its back. In a blur of gold sparkles, all but Jih followed. Maybe Ivy was right.

“What do you want me to do, Ivy?” I said, calming. “I’d ask my mom to take her in, but she’s a step away from being in an institution herself.”

Jenks buzzed back. “What about Keasley?”

Surprised, I looked at Ivy.

“The old guy across the street?” Ivy said warily. “We don’t know anything about him.”

Jenks landed on the sill beside Mr. Fish and put his hands on his hips. “He’s old and on a fixed income. What more is there to know?”

As Ceri collected herself, I sifted the idea through my mind. I liked the old witch whose slow speech hid a sharp wit and high intelligence. He had stitched me up after Algaliarept had torn my neck. He had stitched up my will and confidence, too. The arthritic man was hiding something, and I didn’t think his real name was Keasley any more than I believed his story that he had more medical equipment than a small emergency room because he didn’t like doctors. But I trusted him.

“He doesn’t like the law and he knows how to keep his mouth shut,” I said, thinking it was perfect. Eyes pinched, I looked at Ceri talking to Jih in soft tones. Ivy’s eyes were doubtful, and peeved, I pushed into motion. “I’m calling him,” I added as I motioned to Ceri that I would be right back and went into the living room for the phone.

Three

“Ceri,” Jenks said as I flipped the switch and got a pot of coffee going. “If tea makes you cry, you gotta try french fries. Come here, I’ll show you how to use the microwave.”

Keasley was on his way over. It might take him a while since he was racked by arthritis so badly that even most pain charms wouldn’t touch it. I felt bad for pulling him out into the snow, but it would have been even more rude to descend upon his house.

With an intentness I didn’t understand, Jenks perched himself on Ceri’s shoulder and talked her through the task of microwaving frozen french fries. She bent to watch the little carton spin, my pink slippers on her feet looking overly large and awkward. Pixy girls swirled around her in a whirl of pastel silk and chatter, mostly ignored. The unending noise had driven Ivy into the living room, where she was currently hiding with her earphones on.

My head came up when the air pressure shifted. “’Ello?” came a strong raspy voice from the front of the church. “Rachel? The pixies let me in. Where are you ladies?”

I glanced at Ceri, recognizing her sudden apprehension. “It’s Keasley, a neighbor,” I said. “He’s going to check you over. Make sure you’re healthy.”

“I’m fine,” she said pensively.

Thinking this might be harder than I thought, I padded in my sock feet into the hallway to talk to him before he met Ceri. “Hi, Keasley, we’re back here.”

His hunched, wizened figure limped down the hallway, eclipsing the light. More pixy children escorted him, wreathing him in circles of sifting pixy dust. Keasley had a brown paper grocery bag in his hand, and he brought the cold scent of snow in with him, mixing pleasantly with a witch’s characteristic redwood scent. “Rachel,” he said, his brown eyes squinting up at me as he got closer. “How’s my favorite redhead?”

“I’m good,” I said, giving him a quick hug and thinking that after outwitting Algaliarept, good was an understatement. His overalls were worn and smelling of soap. I thought of him as the neighborhood’s wise-old-man and a substitute grandfather figure all in one, and I didn’t mind that he had a past he wasn’t willing to share. He was a good person; that’s all I needed to know.

“Come on in. I have someone I want you to meet,” I said, and he slowed with a wary caution. “She needs your help,” I said softly.

His thick lips pressed together, and the brown wrinkles of his face deepened. Keasley took a slow breath, his arthritic hands making the grocery bag crackle. He nodded, showing me a thinning spot in his tightly curled, graying hair. Blowing in relief, I led him into the kitchen, holding myself back so I could see his reaction to Ceri.

The old witch rocked to a halt as he stared. But upon seeing the delicate woman standing in pink fuzzy slippers beside the microwave in her elegant ball gown with a folder of steaming fries, I could understand why.

“I don’t need a physician,” Ceri said.

Jenks rose from her shoulder. “Hi, Keasley. You gonna check Ceri out?”

Keasley nodded, limping as he went to pull out a chair. He gestured for Ceri to sit, then carefully lowered himself into the adjacent seat. Wheezing, he set his bag between his feet, opening it to pull out a blood pressure cuff. “I’m not a doctor,” he said. “My name is Keasley.”