next question and wanting to answer it my way instead of needing to work around that truth amulet. “As you can tell, the sun is up, so logic says the I.S. is taking the opportunity to be nosy while Trent is away.”
They liked that, scribbling on tablets or talking into their recorders.
“Ms. Morgan!” a man from the back shouted, his hand raised. “As Cincinnati’s only day-walking demon, have you been questioned in the incident?”
“Told you this was a bad idea . . .” Jenks muttered, and I forced my smile to widen. A sneeze shook me, and Ray patted my shoulder.
“I wasn’t an eyewitness to the incident,” I said truthfully, “but I did blow up a couple of trees so the medical copter could land.” I looked at the I.S. vehicles dramatically. “I’m sure they will blame me for something,” I added, getting the expected laughs. This wasn’t so bad. Making deals with demons had given me practice.
“Do you have an explanation as to what happened to the ley line?” a man in a sports coat asked, holding his mic out over the gate.
“No. I’m on my way home to talk to Al, actually, and find out if the demons know what happened,” I said, then sneezed again. They were coming faster, and nervously I patted Ray on her back as she said “bless you” in a garbled baby talk. “So if there are no more questions?” I said into the suddenly awkward silence.
I took a step backward, and like lions on prey, they pounced. “Is that Ray? Can we have a picture? Are you taking her home? Where is Lucy? What has the I.S. learned so far?”
Jenks was laughing, and I reluctantly turned back around. I scanned the yammering reporters, finding one I recognized. “Mark,” I said, and they all shut up. “You know I can’t divulge what the I.S. finds, and besides, I’ve only seen the search warrant.”
“Why are you taking Ray? Can we have a picture? Was Ms. Dulciate injured in the accident as well?”
I had three to choose from, and I took a step back. “Ms. Dulciate is currently occupied with Lucy. You can understand taking care of two little girls, twins, almost, is enough to drive anyone to distraction. I need to go. It’s nap time.”
“Ms. Morgan. A photo, please. Ms. Morgan!”
Ray was clutching my neck, scared. They’d already snapped pictures of Ray, so that boat had sailed, spent a week at the island, and returned to port for more tourists, but I didn’t want Ray’s fear to be what they walked away from here with. “A picture?” I taunted, and they clamored for one. “Maybe if you would all
They didn’t know what to think about that, but they did quiet down, and sure enough, drawn by the sudden silence, Ray pushed herself from my front and turned, her big green eyes wide and looking sweet in the little pink- and-white dress I’d put her in to nap in.
I smiled at the adoring faces of the women as the cameras clicked. I’d give Ceri and Quen one thing—they could make very pretty babies.
But then my smile faded as I noticed a big black car that screamed money driving slowly up to the gate. It was Trent. I knew it. And here I was, showing off Ray like a prize.
“Now you’re in for it,” Jenks said, darting off my shoulder and making Ray jerk as she watched his angling flight to the black car.
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said, hoping that Jenks would put in a good word in for me. I waved cheerfully at the last shouted question as I added, “I gotta go. And if anyone shows up on my doorstep, I will file harassment charges . . . after I let the pixies into your vans. You got it?”
But they weren’t listening, having figured out Trent was in the car as well. Head down, I hustled back to my car as they fell on his like zombies. If I could give him Ray right now, I could be home in thirty minutes and the press probably wouldn’t follow.
Sneezing, I wondered if I could make it in twenty if someone from the I.S. ran vanguard.
A man from the gatehouse came out, waving everyone back, shouting that Mr. Kalamack would make a statement in an hour, and that they were welcome to wait at the gatehouse pressroom if they liked. In pairs and groups, they parted, and the black car moved slowly through the gate and turned into the parking lot where I waited.
Nervous, I leaned against my car, pointing Trent’s car out to Ray and telling her that one of her daddies was in it. She was still gumming that charm when the car pulled to a halt two spots down. Immediately a back door opened, Trent not waiting for the driver to get it for him. Jenks darted out, shedding encouraging silver sparkles, but Trent was a great deal slower, moving as if he was in pain. Upon closer inspection, I decided he was just tired, his jeans creased and the sleeves of his riding shirt rolled up. There was a tuft of cotton and a Band-Aid inside his elbow, and I wondered if he’d given blood.
Squinting at the sun, he crossed the warm pavement, his hands outstretched for Ray. The little girl had begun to wiggle when she’d caught sight of him, and the smile that came over Trent caught in my heart. It didn’t matter if this child was not his blood—she was his child. And Quen’s, and Ceri’s.
My smile faded. I had to fix this.
“Ray,” he breathed, and suddenly I felt her absence keenly as he took her. “Your daddy is going to be okay, I think.” His eyes rose to mine. “We got him there in time. Ten more minutes and they might not have been able to stop the cascading reaction.” He blinked fast, then looked away. “That’s twice you’ve saved Quen’s life. Thank you.”
I shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable. “I’m sorry this happened.”
“Me too.”
Our eyes met for a long, silent moment. Ray jumped and wiggled as Jenks’s dust sifted over her, and I flushed when Trent noticed what she was gumming, her little fingers gripping the charm so hard they were white. I sneezed, and I shook my head at Trent’s unspoken question.
“Ah, I’m sorry about this,” I said as the driver of his car began to move the car seat to the black Jag. “I hate coming home to find reporters in my driveway. I hadn’t heard from you and I need to talk to Al. That’s why I’m sneezing. Ray wouldn’t go down for her nap, and I figured she’d fall asleep in the car.” I hesitated. “You look tired.”
“I napped during some of the tests,” he said, and I wondered at the incongruity of us standing in the sun and talking as other people moved Ray’s things to his car. “I didn’t want to leave until he was stable. They got his aura to stop cycling, but they don’t know why he won’t regain consciousness. Thank you for handling the press. One of the guards relayed what you said. You did pretty well.”
My eyes dropped at his wry smile. “I’ve been dodging them the last couple of years. I know how much you have to give them for them to leave you alone.”
Ray had fallen against him, her head tucked under his chin as she started to drift asleep, her eyes never leaving me. “Oh God,” Jenks said from my shoulder, and her eyelids flickered. “Here come the vampires.”
Sure enough, coming up the road on a golf cart were four I.S. officers. The grit ground under Trent’s heel as he spun slowly to watch as they parked beside their cars and the one in the dress suit angled toward us.
It was Nina, or Felix, maybe. I could tell by the grace and slightly pained motion of the living vampire as she crossed the lot. The sun normally didn’t bother living vampires, but Nina was channeling Felix by the looks of it.
Trent seemed to shed his fatigue like an old shirt, but I could see it in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “They had a warrant,” I explained, and he bobbed his head in acceptance. “The I.S. in your backyard is another thing I don’t like coming home to. They’ve been on the grounds for the last couple of hours, but your security tells me they’ve been escorting them the entire time so they wouldn’t wander. The hospital called them, probably.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, gently patting Ray as the tallish Hispanic woman in the black dress suit put a hand up to ask us to wait. “You did exactly what Qu— What should have been done.”
I quashed the feeling of hurt. “I used to work for them. I know your rights.”
“Trenton!” the woman boomed out, her voice too expansive and masculine for her slight frame. Clearly Felix was in her again, and I worried about her. It wasn’t uncommon for the undead to use their “children” as moving walkie-talkies, but it was unusual that Felix kept doing it. But who tells an undead no?
“Good to see you again,” Trent said, shaking the woman’s hand with an expansive motion that he usually only used with men. “How much longer until you are off my property?”
The vampire smiled, setting a finger aside her nose in a gesture I hadn’t seen anyone under the age of fifty
