Читать книгу: «Every Which Way But Dead», страница 4

Four

Squinting over my sunglasses, I leaned against my car and scanned the parking lot. My cherry red convertible looked out of place among the scattering of minivans and salt-rusted, late model cars. At the back, away from potential scratches and dings, was a low-to-the-ground, gray sports car. Probably the zoo’s p.r. person, as everyone else was either a part-time worker or a dedicated biologist who didn’t care what they drove.

The early hour made it cold despite the sun, and my breath steamed. I tried to relax, but I could feel my gut tightening as my annoyance grew. Nick was supposed to meet me here this morning for a quick run in the zoo. It looked like he was going to be a no-show. Again.

I uncrossed my arms from in front of me and shook my hands to loosen them before I bent at the waist and put my palms against the ice-cold, snow-dusted parking lot. Exhaling into the stretch, I felt my muscles pull. Around me were the soft, familiar sounds of the zoo preparing to open, mixing with the scent of exotic manure. If Nick didn’t show in the next five minutes, there wouldn’t be enough time for a decent run.

I had bought us both runner passes months ago so we could run anytime from midnight to noon when the park was closed. I had woken up two hours earlier than usual for this. I was trying to make this work; I was trying to find a way to mesh my witch’s noon-to-sunup schedule with Nick’s human sunrise-to-midnight clock. It had never seemed to be a problem before. Nick used to try. Lately, it had been all up to me.

A harsh scraping pulled me upright. The trash cans were being rolled out, and my pique grew. Where was he? He couldn’t have forgotten. Nick never forgot anything.

“Unless he wants to forget,” I whispered. Giving myself a mental shake, I swung my right leg up to put my lightweight running shoe atop the hood. “Ow,” I breathed as my muscles protested, but I leaned into it. I’d been slacking off on my workouts lately, as Ivy and I didn’t spar anymore since she had resumed succumbing to her blood lust. My eye started to twitch, and I closed both of them as I deepened the stretch, grabbing my ankle and pulling.

Nick hadn’t forgotten—he was too smart for that—he was avoiding me. I knew why, but it was still depressing. It had been three months, and he was still distant and hesitant. The worst thing was I didn’t think he was dumping me. The man called demons into his linen closet, and he was afraid to touch me.

Last fall, I had been trying to bind a fish to me to satisfy some inane ley line class requirement and accidentally made Nick my familiar instead. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I was an earth witch, my magic coming from growing things and quickened by heat and my blood. I didn’t know much about ley line magic—except I didn’t like it. I generally only used it to close protective circles when I was stirring a particularly sensitive spell. And to make the Howlers pay what they owed me. And occasionally to fend off my roommate when she lost control of her blood lust. And I had used it to knock Piscary flat on his can so I could beat him into submission with the leg of a chair. It had been this last one that tipped Nick from hot-and-heavy, maybe-this-is-the-one boyfriend, to phone conversations and cold kisses on my cheek.

Starting to feel sorry for myself, I pulled my right leg down and swung the left one up.

Ley line magic was heady in its rush of strength and could drive a witch insane, making it no accident that there were more black ley line witches than black earth witches. Using a familiar made it safer since the power of a ley line was filtered through the simpler minds of animals instead of through plants as earth magic did. For obvious reasons, only animals were used as familiars—at least on this side of the ley lines—and in truth, there were no witch-born spells to bind a human as a familiar. But being both fairly ignorant of ley line magic and rushed, I had used the first spell I found to bind a familiar.

So I had unknowingly made Nick my familiar—which we were trying to undo—but then I made things immeasurably worse by pulling a huge amount of ley line energy through him to subdue Piscary. He had hardly touched me since. But that had been months ago. I hadn’t done it again. He had to get over it. It wasn’t as if I was practicing ley line magic. Much.

Uneasy, I straightened, blowing out my angst and doing a few side twists to send my ponytail bouncing. After having learned it was possible to set a circle without drawing it first, I had spent three months learning how, knowing it might be my only chance to escape Algaliarept. I had kept my practice to three in the morning, when I knew Nick was asleep—and I always drew directly off the line so it wouldn’t go through Nick first—but maybe it was waking him up anyway. He hadn’t said anything, but knowing Nick, he wouldn’t.

The rattle of the gate opening brought me to a standstill and my shoulders slumped. The zoo was open, a few runners straggling out with red cheeks and exhausted, content expressions, still floating on a runner’s high. Damn it. He could have called.

Bothered, I unzipped my belt pack and pulled out my cell phone. Leaning against the car and looking down to avoid the eyes of the passing people, I scrolled through my short list. Nick’s was second, right after Ivy’s number and right before my mom’s. My fingers were cold, and I blew on them as the phone rang.

I took a breath when the connection clicked open, holding it when a recorded woman’s voice told me the line was no longer in service. Money? I thought. Maybe that was why we hadn’t been out for three weeks. Concerned, I tried his cell phone.

It was still ringing when the familiar choking rumble of Nick’s truck grew loud. Exhaling, I snapped the cover closed. Nick’s blue, beat-up Ford truck jostled off the main street and into the parking lot, maneuvering slowly, as the cars leaving were ignoring the lines and cutting across the expanse. I slipped the phone away and stood with my arms over my chest, legs crossed at my ankles.

At least he showed, I thought as I adjusted my sunglasses and tried not to frown. Maybe we could go out for coffee or something. I hadn’t seen him in days, and I didn’t want to ruin it with a bad temper. Besides, I had been worried sick the last three months about slipping my bargain with Al, and now that I had, I wanted to feel good for a while.

I hadn’t told Nick, and the chance to come clean would be another weight off me. I lied to myself that I had kept quiet because I was afraid he would try to take my burden—seeing as he had a chivalrous streak longer and wider than a six-lane highway—but in reality I was afraid he would call me a hypocrite since I was forever on him about the dangers of dealing with demons, and here I was, becoming one’s familiar. Nick had an unhealthy lack of fear when it came to demons, thinking that as long as you handled them properly, they were no more dangerous than say … a pit viper.

So I stood and fidgeted in the cold as he parked his salt-stained, ugly truck a few slots down from mine. His indistinct shadow moved inside as he shuffled about, finally getting out and slamming the door with an intensity that I knew wasn’t directed at me but necessary to get the worn latch to catch.

“Ray-ray,” he said as he held his phone up and strode around the front. His lean height looked good and his pace was quick. A smile was on his face, its once-gauntness muted into a pleasant, rugged severity. “Did you just call?”

I nodded, letting my arms fall to my sides. Obviously he wasn’t prepared to run, as he was dressed in faded jeans and boots. A thick fabric coat was unzipped to show a bland, flannel button-down shirt. It was neatly tucked in and his long face was clean-shaven, but he still managed to look mildly unkempt, with his short black hair a shade too long. He had a bookish mien instead of the hint of danger that I usually liked in my men. But maybe I found Nick’s danger to be his intelligence.

Nick was the smartest man I knew, his brilliant jumps of logic hidden behind an understated appearance and a deceptively mild temperament. In hindsight, it was probably this rare mix of wicked intellect and harmless human that attracted me to him. Or possibly that he had saved my life by binding Big Al when he tried to rip out my throat.

And despite Nick’s preoccupation with old books and new electronics, he wasn’t a geek: his shoulders were too broad and his butt was too tight. His long, lean legs could keep up with me when we ran, and there was a surprising amount of strength in his arms, as evidenced by our once frequent, now distressingly absent, mock wrestling, which more often than not had turned into a more, er, intimate activity. It was the memory of our once-closeness that kept the frown off my face when he came around the front of his truck, his brown eyes pinched in apology.

“I didn’t forget,” he said, his long face looking longer as he tossed his straight bangs out of his way. There was a flash of a demon mark high on his brow, gained the same night I had gotten my first and remaining one. “I got caught up in what I was doing and lost track of time. I’m sorry, Rachel. I know you were looking forward to it, but I haven’t even been to bed and I’m dead tired. Do you want to reschedule for tomorrow?”

I kept my reaction to a sigh, trying to stifle my disappointment.

“No,” I said around a long exhalation. He reached out, his arms going around me in a light hug. I leaned into the expected hesitancy of it, wanting more. The distance had been there so long that it almost felt normal. Pulling back, he shuffled his feet.

“Working hard?” I offered. This was the first time I had seen him in a week, not including the odd phone call, and I didn’t just want to walk away.

Nick, too, didn’t seem eager to leave. “Yes and no.” He squinted into the sun. “I was up sifting through old messages on a chat-room list after finding a mention of that book Al took.”

Immediately my attention sharpened. “Did you …” I stammered, pulse quickening.

My quick hope squished to nothing as he dropped his gaze and shook his head. “It was some freak wannabe. He doesn’t have a copy. It was all made-up nonsense.”

I reached out and briefly touched his arm, forgiving him for missing our morning run. “It’s okay. We’ll find something sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “But I’d rather it be sooner.”

Misery hit me, and I froze. We had been so good together, and now all that was left was this awful distance. Seeing my depression, Nick took my hands, stepping forward to give me a loose embrace. His lips brushed my cheek as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Ray-ray. We’ll manage something. I’m trying. I want this to work.”

I didn’t move, breathing in the smell of musty books and clean aftershave, my hands hesitantly going about him as I looked for comfort—and finally found it.

My breath caught and I held it, refusing to cry. We had been months searching for the counter curse, but Al wrote the book on how to make humans into familiars, and he had a very short print run of one. And it wasn’t as if we could advertise in the papers for a ley line professor to help us, as he or she would likely turn me in for dealing in the black arts. And then I’d really be stuck. Or dead. Or worse.

Slowly Nick let go, and I stepped back. At least I knew it wasn’t another woman.

“Hey, uh, the zoo is open,” I said, my voice giving away my relief that the awkward distance he had been holding himself at finally seemed to be easing. “You want to go in and get a coffee instead? I hear their Monkey Mocha is to come back from the dead for.”

“No,” he said, but there was true regret in his voice, making me wonder if he had been picking up on my worry about Al all this time, thinking I was upset with him and drawing away. Maybe more of this was my fault than I had guessed. Maybe I could have forged a stronger union between us if I had told him instead of hiding it from him and driving him away.

The magnitude of what I might have done with my silence fell on me, and I felt my face go cold. “Nick, I’m sorry,” I breathed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, his brown eyes full of forgiveness, unaware of my thoughts. “I was the one that told him he could have the book.”

“No, you see—”

He took me in a hug, silencing me. A lump formed in my throat, and I couldn’t say anything as my forehead dropped to his shoulder. I should have told him. I should have told him right from the first night.

Nick felt the shift in me, and slowly, after a moment’s thought, he gave me a tentative kiss on the cheek, but it was a tentativeness born from his long absence, not his usual hesitancy.

“Nick?” I said, hearing the coming tears in my voice.

Immediately he pulled back. “Hey,” he said, smiling as his long hand rested on my shoulder. “I’ve got to go. I’ve been up since yesterday and I have to get some sleep.”

I took a reluctant step back, hoping he couldn’t tell how close to tears I was. It had been a long, lonely three months. At last something seemed to be mending. “Okay. You want to come over for dinner tonight?”

And finally, after weeks of quick refusals, he paused. “How about a movie and dinner instead? My treat. A real date … thing.”

I straightened, feeling myself grow taller. “A date thing,” I said, moving awkwardly foot-to-foot like a fool teenager asked to her first dance. “What do you have in mind?”

He smiled softly. “Something with lots of explosions, lots of guns …” He didn’t touch me, but I saw in his eyes his desire to do so. “… tight costumes …”

I nodded, smiling, and he checked his watch.

“Tonight,” he said, catching my eye as he headed back to his truck. “Seven o’clock?”

“Seven o’clock,” I called back, my good feeling growing. He got in, the truck shaking as he slammed the door. The engine rumbled to life, and with a happy wave, he drove away.

“Seven o’clock,” I said, watching the taillights flash before he jostled onto the street.

Five

Plastic hangers clattering, I stacked the clothes on the counter beside the cash register. The bored, bottle-dyed blonde with ear-length hair never looked up as her fingers manipulated those nasty metal clips. Gum snapping, she pointed her gun at everything, adding up my purchases for Ceri. She had a phone to her ear, head cocked, and her mouth never stopped as she chatted to her boyfriend about getting her roommate fried on Brimstone last night.

I eyed her in speculation, breathing in the fading aroma of the street drug lingering on her. She was dumber than she looked if she was dabbling in Brimstone, especially now. It had been coming in cut with a little something extra lately, leaving a rash of deaths spanning all the socioeconomic brackets. Maybe it was Trent’s idea of a Christmas present.

The girl before me looked underage, so I could either sic Health and Inderland Services on her or haul her ass down to the I.S. lockup. The latter might be fun, but it would put a real crimp in my afternoon of solstice shopping. I still didn’t know what to get Ivy. The boots, jeans, socks, underwear, and two sweaters on the counter were for Ceri. She was not going out with Keasley dressed in one of my T-shirts and pink fuzzy slippers.

The girl folded the last sweater, her bloodred manicure garish. Amulets clanked about her neck, but the complexion charm hiding her acne needed to be replaced. She must have been a warlock because a witch wouldn’t be caught dead with a bass-ackward charm like that. I glanced at my wooden pinky ring. It might be small, but it was now potent enough to hide my freckles through a minor spell check. Hack, I thought, feeling vastly better.

A hum rose from nowhere, and I felt smug that I didn’t jump like the register girl when Jenks all but fell onto the counter. He was wearing two black body stockings, one atop the other, and had a red hat and boots on against the chill. It was really too cold for him to be out, but Jih’s leaving had depressed him, and he’d never been solstice shopping before. My eyes widened as I took in the doll he had lugged to the counter. It was three times his size.

“Rache!” he exclaimed, puffing as he pushed the black-haired, curvaceous plastic homage to adolescent boys’ dreams upright. “Look what I found! It was in the toy department.”

“Jenks …” I cajoled, hearing the couple behind me snicker.

“It’s a Bite-me-Betty doll!” he exclaimed, his wings moving furiously to keep himself upright, his hands on the doll’s thighs. “I want it. I want to get it for Ivy. It looks just like her.”

Eyeing the shiny plastic leather skirt and red vinyl bustier, I took a breath to protest.

“Look, see?” he said, his voice excited. “You push the lever in her back, and fake blood squirts out. Isn’t it great!”

I started when a gelatinous goo jumped from the blank-eyed doll’s mouth, arching a good foot before hitting the counter. A red smear dripped down her pointy chin. The register girl eyed it, then hung up on her boyfriend. He wanted to give this to Ivy?

Pushing Ceri’s jeans out of the way, I sighed. Jenks hit the lever again, watching in rapt attention as red squirted out with a rude sound. The couple behind me laughed, the woman hanging on his arm and whispering in his ear. Warming, I grabbed the doll. “I’ll buy it for you if you stop that,” I all but hissed.

Eyes bright, Jenks rose up to land on my shoulder, tucking in between my neck and my scarf to stay warm. “She’s gonna love it,” he said. “You watch.”

Pushing it at the girl behind the counter, I glanced behind me at the tittering couple. They were living vamps, well-dressed and unable to go thirty seconds without touching each other. Knowing I was watching, the woman straightened the collar of his leather jacket to show off his lightly scarred neck. The thought of Nick brought a smile to me, the first time in weeks.

As the girl recalculated my total, I dug in my bag for my checkbook. It was nice having money. Real nice.

“Rache,” Jenks questioned, “can you put a bag of M&M’s in there, too?” His wings sent a cold draft against my neck as he set them vibrating to generate some body heat. It wasn’t as if he could wear a coat—not with those wings of his—and anything heavy was too limiting.

I snatched up a bag of overpriced candy whose hand-lettered cardboard sign said the sale would go to help rebuild the fire-damaged city shelters. I already had my total, but she could add it on. And if the vamps behind me had a problem with that, they could curl up and die twice. It was for orphans, for God’s sake.

The girl reached for the candy and beeped it, giving me a snotty look. The register chirped to give me the new total, and as they all waited, I flipped to the check register. Freezing, I blinked. It had been balanced with neat tidy numbers. I hadn’t bothered to keep a running total as I knew there was tons of money in it, but someone had. Then I brought it closer, staring. “That’s it?” I exclaimed. “That’s all I have left?”

Jenks cleared his throat. “Surprise,” he said weakly. “It was just laying there in your desk, and I thought I’d balance it for you.” He hesitated. “Sorry.”

“It’s almost gone!” I stammered, my face probably as red as my hair. The eyes of the register girl were suddenly wary.

Embarrassed, I finished writing out the check. She took it, calling her supervisor to run it through their system to make sure it was good. Behind me, the vamp couple started in with a snarky commentary. Ignoring them, I flipped through the check register to see where it went.

Almost two grand for my new desk and bedroom set, four more for insulating the church, and $3,500 for a garage for my new car; I wasn’t about to let it sit out in the snow. Then there was the insurance and gas. A big chunk went to Ivy for my back rent. Another chunk went to my night in the emergency room for my broken arm as I hadn’t had insurance at the time. A third chunk to get insurance. And the rest … I swallowed hard. There was money still in there, but I had enjoyed myself down from twenty thousand to high four figures in only three months.

“Um, Rache?” Jenks said. “I was going to ask you later, but I know this accounting guy. You want me to have him set up an IRA for you? I was looking at your finances, and you might need a shelter this year, seeing as you haven’t been taking anything out for taxes.”

“A tax shelter?” I felt sick. “There’s nothing left to put into it.” Taking my bags from the girl, I headed for the door. “And what are you doing looking at my finances?”

“I’m living in your desk,” he said wryly. “It’s kind of all out there?”

I sighed. My desk. My beautiful solid-oak desk with nooks and crannies and a secret cubby at the bottom of the left-hand drawer. My desk that I had used for only three weeks before Jenks and his brood moved into it. My desk, which was now so thickly covered in potted plants that it looked like a prop for a horror movie about killer plants taking over the world. But it was either that or have them set up housekeeping in the kitchen cupboards. No. Not my kitchen. Having them stage daily mock battles among the hanging pots and utensils was bad enough.

Distracted, I tugged my coat closer and squinted at the bright light reflecting off the snow as the sliding doors opened. “Whoa, wait up!” Jenks shrilled in my ear when the blast of cold air hit us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, witch? Do I look like I’m made of fur?”

“Sorry.” I made a quick left turn to get out of the draft and opened my shoulder bag for him. Still swearing, he dropped down to hide inside. He hated it, but there was no alternative. A sustained temp lower than forty-five degrees would throw him into a hibernation that would be unsafe to break until spring, but he should be all right in my bag.

A Were dressed in a thick wool coat that went to his boot tops edged from me with an uncomfortable look. When I tried to make eye contact, he pulled his cowboy hat down and turned away. A frown crossed me; I hadn’t had a Were client since I made the Howlers pay me for trying to get their mascot back. Maybe I’d made a mistake there.

“Hey, give me those M&M’s, okay?” Jenks grumbled up at me, his short blond hair framing delicate features reddened by the cold. “I’m starving here.”

I obediently shuffled through the bags and dropped the candy in to him before pulling the ties to my shoulder bag shut. I didn’t like bringing him out like this, but I was his partner, not his mom. He enjoyed being the only adult male pixy in Cincinnati not in a stupor. In his eyes, the entire city was probably his garden, as cold and snowy as it was.

I took a moment to dig my zebra-striped car key out from the front pocket. The couple that had been behind me in line passed me on their way out, flirting comfortably and looking like sex in leather. He had bought her a Bite-me-Betty doll, too, and they were laughing. My thoughts went to Nick again, and a warm stir of anticipation took me.

Putting my shades on against the glare, I went out to the sidewalk, keys jingling and bag held tight to me. Even making the trip in my bag, Jenks was going to get cold. I told myself I should make cookies so he could bask in the heat of the cooling oven. It had been ages since I’d made solstice cookies. I was sure I had seen some flour-smeared cookie cutters in a nasty zippy bag at the back of a cupboard somewhere. All I needed was the colored sugar to do it right.

My mood brightened at the sight of my car ankle-deep in crusty slush at the curb. Yeah, it was as expensive as a vampire princess to maintain, but it was mine and I looked really good sitting behind the wheel with the top down and the wind pulling my long hair back… . Not springing for the garage hadn’t been an option.

It chirped happily at me as I unlocked it and dropped my bags in the unusable backseat. I folded myself into the front, setting Jenks carefully on my lap, where he might stay a little warmer. The heat went on full-bore as soon as I got the engine started. I tunked it into gear and was ready to pull out when a long white car slid up alongside in a slow hush of sound.

Affronted, I glared as it double-parked to block me in. “Hey!” I exclaimed when the driver got out in the middle of the freaking road to open the door for his employer. Ticked, I jammed it into neutral, got out of my car and jerked my bag farther up my shoulder. “Hey! I’m trying to leave here!” I shouted, wanting to bang on the roof of the car.

But my protests choked to nothing when the side door opened and an older man wearing scads of gold necklaces stuck his head out. His frizzed blond hair went out in all directions. Blue eyes glinting in suppressed excitement, he beckoned to me. “Ms. Morgan,” he exclaimed softly. “Can I talk to you?”

I took my sunglasses off, staring. “Takata?” I stammered.

The older rocker winced, his face sliding into faint wrinkles as he glanced over the few pedestrians. They had noticed the limo, and with my outburst, the jig, as they say, was up. Eyes pinched in exasperation, Takata stretched out a long skinny hand, jerking me off my feet and into the limo. I gasped, holding my bag so I didn’t squish Jenks as I fell into the plush seat across from him. “Go!” the musician cried, and the driver shut the door and jogged to the front.

“My car!” I protested. My door was open and my keys were in the ignition.

“Anon?” Takata said, gesturing to a man in a black T-shirt tucked into a corner of the expansive vehicle. He slipped past me in a tang of blood that pegged him as a vamp. There was a flush of cold air as he got out, quickly thumping the door shut behind him. I watched through the tinted window as he slipped into my leather seats to look predatory with his shaved head and dark shades. I only hoped I looked half that good. The muffled sound of my engine revved twice, then we jerked into motion as the first of the groupies started patting the windows.

Heart pounding, I spun to look out the back window while we pulled away. My car was edging carefully past the people standing in the road shouting at us to come back. It worked its way into the clear, quickly catching up and running a red light to stay with us.

Stunned at how fast it had been, I turned.

The aging pop star was wearing outlandish orange slacks. He had a matching vest over a soothing earth-toned shirt. Everything was silk, which I thought was his only saving grace. God help him, even his shoes were orange. And socks. I winced. It kind of went with the gold chains and blond hair, which had been teased out until it was so big it could frighten small children. His complexion was whiter than mine, and I dearly wanted to pull out the wood-framed glasses that I had spelled to see through earth charms to know if he had hidden freckles.

“Uh, hi?” I stammered, and the man grinned, showing his impulsive, wickedly intelligent demeanor, and his tendency to find the fun in everything even if the world was falling apart around him. Actually, the innovated artist had done just that, his garage band making the jump to stardom during the Turn, capitalizing on the opportunity to be the first openly Inderland band. He was a Cincy hometown boy who had made good, and he returned the favor by donating the proceeds of his winter solstice concerts to the city’s charities. It was particularly important this year, as a series of arson fires had decimated many of the homeless shelters and orphanages.

“Ms. Morgan,” the man said, touching the side of his big nose. His attention went over my shoulder and out the back window. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

His voice was deep and carefully schooled. Beautiful. I was a sucker for beautiful voices. “Um, no.” Setting my shades aside, I unwound my scarf. “How are you doing? Your hair looks … great.”

He laughed, easing my nervousness. We had met five years ago and had coffee over a conversation centering on the trials of curly hair. That he not only remembered me but also wanted to talk was flattering. “It looks like hell,” he said, touching the long frizz that had been in dreadlocks when we last met. “But my p.r. woman says it ups my sales by two percent.” He stretched his long legs out to take up almost the entirety of one side of the limo.

I smiled. “You need another charm to tame it?” I said, reaching for my bag.

My breath caught in alarm. “Jenks!” I exclaimed, jerking the bag open.

Jenks came boiling out. “About time you remembered me!” he snarled. “What the Turn is going on? I nearly snapped my wing falling onto your phone. You got M&M’s all over your purse, and I’ll be dammed before I pick them up. Where in Tink’s garden are we?”

I smiled weakly at Takata. “Ah, Takata,” I started, “this is—”

Jenks caught sight of him. A burst of pixy dust exploded, lighting the car for an instant and making me jump. “Holy crap!” the pixy exclaimed. “You’re Takata! I thought Rachel was pissing on my daisies about knowing you. Sweet mother of Tink! Wait until I tell Matalina! It’s really you. Damn, it’s really you!”

Takata reached over and adjusted a knob on an elaborate console, and heat poured out of the vents. “Yeah, it’s really me. Do you want an autograph?”

“Hell, yes!” the pixy said. “No one will believe me.”

I smiled, settling myself farther into the seat, my fluster vanishing at Jenks’s star fawning. Takata tugged a picture of him and his band standing before the Great Wall of China from a dog-eared folder. “Who do I make it out to?” he said, and Jenks froze.

“Uh …” he stammered, his hovering wings going still. I shot my hand out to catch him, and his featherlight weight hit my palm. “Um …” he stuttered, panicking.