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Nineteen
The crack of pool balls was pleasant, reminding me of early mornings at Kisten's dance club while I waited for him to finish up with the stragglers and spend some time with me. Eyes shut against the heat of the overhead light, I could almost smell the lingering aroma a hundred partying vampires left behind, mixing with good food, good wine, and just a hint of Brimstone.
No, I didn't have a problem. I wasn't addicted at all. Nope. Not me. But when I opened my eyes and saw Ivy, I wondered.
Doesn't matter, I thought as I went to take my shot and felt the skin around the marks Ivy had put in me pull. This afternoon I might have been scared to tell Ivy she wasn't going to break my skin again, but I'd done it. And it felt good. Like we had really made progress, even though neither of us was going to get what we wanted.
Warming, I focused on the yellow-striped nine as I lined the shot up. So it was Halloween and I was stuck home in jeans and a red top handing out candy instead of wearing leather and lace, bar-hopping with Ivy. At least I was with friends. Holding to my new smart-but-dull-Rachel mission statement, I wasn't ready to trust Tom to do the intelligent thing, and though I was regularly stepping off hallowed ground to raid the fridge, risking a roomful of drunk potential casualties just so I could have a fun night out was a little much.
Ivy agreed, not at all surprised when I told her Tom Bansen of the I.S.'s Arcane Division was the one summoning and releasing Al to kill me. Actually, she laughed, noting, "Least it wasn't crap-for-brains." I was still toying with the idea of filing a demon complaint with the I.S., if only to avoid that spell shop bill, but Ivy said it would be cheaper healthwise to let sleeping demons lie. If nothing happened this next week, I might let it go, but if Al came at me again, I was going to let Tom have it right where it hurt—in the checkbook.
Apart from the a
Exhaling, I tapped the cue ball. It hit the dip by the corner and wobbled into the nine, hitting it perfectly wrong.
The doorbell bonged as I straightened, followed by a chorus of "Trick or treat!"
From under a ceiling of paper bats, Ivy's eyes flicked to mine, and I jerked into motion. "Got it," I said as I propped the cue stick against the wall and headed into the dark foyer with the huge bowl of candy. Ivy had filled the unlit entryway with candles to make it suitably creepy. We had turned the lights off in the sanctuary before midnight to impress the human kids, but now it was all Inderlanders and we didn't bother. A dark candlelit church didn't impress them half as much as a bowl of sugar and chocolate.
"Jenks?" I questioned, and a tight wing hum hit my ear.
"Ready!" he said, then let out an unreal wing chirp to pantomime a squeaky hinge when I opened the door. It was enough to make my teeth hurt, and the assembled kids complained loudly as they covered their ears. Damn pixy was worse than a Were's nails on a chalkboard.
"Trick or treat!" the kids chimed out when they recovered, but it wasn't until they saw Jenks glowing over the candy bowl that their expressions lit in delight, as charmed as the next person by a people-loving pixy. I had to crouch so the littlest one, in a fairy costume with illusionary wings, could reach. She was sweet, wide-eyed, and eager. It was probably the first Halloween she would remember, and I now understood why my mom loved ma
"Ring the bell! Ring the bell!" a kid in a dragon costume demanded as he pointed to the ceiling, and after I set the bowl aside, I reached for the pull, grunting as I yanked the knot almost to my knees. They stared at me in the surprising silence as the rope was jerked back up. An instant later, a deep bong reverberated over the neighborhood.
The kids squealed and clapped, and I shooed them off the stoop, wondering how Bis was handling the noise. In the distance, I heard the faint sound of two more bells from neighboring churches. It was a good feeling—like a distant affirmation of safety and community—and I watched the kids file down to the street to join their moms with strollers and wagons. In the street, vans prowled, creeping slowly amid the flashing lights and flapping costumes. Jenks's carved pumpkin glowed at the base of the stairs like Al's face itself. Damn, I loved Halloween.
Smiling, I waited with the door open until Jenks finished lighting the stairs for the youngest. Across the street, Keasley was sitting on his porch alone to hand out candy. Ceri had left at sunset for the basilica to pray for Quen, walking the distance as if in penance. My brow pinched, and as I shut the door, I wondered if things were really that bad. Maybe I shouldn't have refused to see him after all.
"Ivy, you want a game?" I asked, tired of hitting the same balls around. She at least could sink them.
She looked up and shook her head. There was a clipboard on her drawn-up knees as she sat with her back to the arm of the couch. A broken mug filled with colored pencils was next to her, and she was trying to force spreadsheets and flowcharts to give us the answer as to who killed Kisten. My realization that it had been a man had revitalized her, and her night investigating yesterday had turned up only that Piscary had given Kisten to someone outside the camarilla. That meant we'd be looking for Kisten's killer outside the city, since Piscary wouldn't have given him to a lesser, local vampire. It was only a matter of time though before we'd know who it had been. When Ivy set her sights on prey, she never let go. No matter how long it took.
I ambled over to bug Ivy, since it was her favorite part of the movie and she needed a break. "Just one game," I prodded. "I'll rack 'em."
Ivy's brown eyes were peaceful as she curled her feet under her. "I'm working. Make Jenks big and play with him."
I lifted my eyebrows, and from behind me at the desk still blissfully empty of his kids came Jenks's bark of rude laughter. "Make me big," he scoffed. "No fairy-loving way."
Ivy's attention slid to my wrist, where Kisten's bracelet had been for the last three months, when I handed her the cue. It immediately flicked back to me, accusing, and I tightened my jaw. "You took off Kisten's bracelet."
My pulse increased and I let go of the cue stick. "I took it off," I admitted, feeling the same flash of grief that I had worked through this afternoon when I had placed it in my jewelry box and shut the lid. "I didn't throw it away. There's a difference. Think about it," I finished belligerently.
From behind me came a soft "Uh, ladies?" as Jenks flitted nervously between us. He had no clue what we had talked about while shopping. All he knew was we had left tense and returned with a jar of honey for him and a roll of wax paper for the kids to slide down the steeple on. And that's all he was going to know.
Ivy's expression softened, and then she looked away in understanding. I hadn't thrown the bracelet away, I'd set it aside in memory. "One game," she said as she rose, sleek and lanky in her exercise outfit and the long, baggy sweater she hid half her body behind.
I dropped the chalk into her hand. "I rack, you break."
The doorbell rang, and Ivy sighed. "I'll rack them," she said. "You get the door."
Jenks stayed with Ivy, and content, I swatted aside a low-hanging bat and grabbed the candy bowl. Feeling all was right with the world, I pushed the door open only to have my good mood fade in a flash of a