He grimaced as Ivy patted him down, adding another knife and more blue splat pellets in a clear, crush-proof plastic vial to her bag. I held my hand out for the splat balls and I refilled his hopper, fast enough to make Jack’s eyes widen in appreciation.
Clicking the magazine away, I hefted the splat gun, thinking it felt good in my hand. “This is my house,” I said as I indicated the church. “If you do something I don’t like, you’re going to get whatever’s in the hopper, and the law will be on my side. Clear?”
They didn’t nod, but they didn’t spout threats, either.
“Move,” I said, and with an obedience that told me the potions were nasty, the two of them started up the cement stairs and toward the double wooden doors. Slowly I began to relax.
Ivy looked at the gun, her brow furrowed. “It looks like yours,” she said.
“You noticed that, too?” Eying the attackers, I pulled one side of the door open. Jenks’s kids entered the church first—three of them carrying my broken sunglasses—then the bad guys, then us. “Are you okay?” I asked Ivy.
She smiled to show her fangs, small until she died and became a true undead, and I stifled a shiver. Ivy was great at maintaining a grip on her instincts, but fight, flight, or food brought out the worst in her, and this was all three. “Not a problem,” she said as the dark foyer took us. One of these days, we were going to invest in a new light fixture, but the sanctuary beyond it was a bright wash of light, the sun coming in the tall stained-glass windows to make colored patterns on the new set of living room furniture, my unused desk, Ivy’s exercise mats, and Kisten’s burned pool table. I still hadn’t had it refelted. My bare feet squeaked over the old oak, and I shoved Jack toward the small hallway at the back of the sanctuary.
“Trent is here already?” Ivy asked, clearly having smelled him. “He’s still alive, right?”
I nodded, wiping the grit from the sidewalk off my feet. Good Lord, I had tagged an assassin in my bare feet and a bikini. If this showed up on the Internet, I was going to be peeved. “Last I knew, he was. I told him to go into the kitchen and wait.” Assassins usually traveled in threes, but these were elven. I didn’t know their traditions.
“He’s in there,” Jenks said derisively as he dropped down to us. “I don’t think they’re real assassins. They didn’t know any ley-line magic.”
“You don’t need magic to be deadly, Jenks. You of all people should know that.”
Jenks snorted. “I don’t think they know any. They stink like elves, but they’ve got so much human in them, they might not
I shrugged, guessing as much by the almost indifference Jenks’s kids had shown the two attackers. The man in front of us glanced back as we entered the dark hallway, and I smiled mockingly. “All the way to the end,” I directed as we passed the his and her bathrooms and twin bedrooms and headed to the huge, industrial-size kitchen. I cleared my throat in warning as Jack and Jill whispered between themselves, and they shut up.
The pixies were singing about blood and daisies as we entered the sunlit kitchen to find Trent safe within a circle of his own making between the cluttered center counter and the sink, full of dirty spell pots. The bright, cheerful gold of his circle was free of any demon smut, making me uncomfortable. He’d just been under my aura and had seen the mess I’d made of it. Demon smut. Ugly. Black. Permanent—mostly.
The kitchen was hands down my favorite room in the entire church, with its expansive stainless-steel countertops, fluorescent lighting, and center island counter with my spelling equipment hanging above it and in the open cabinets below it. There were two stoves, so I didn’t have to stir spells and cook on the same surface. My mom’s new fridge took up a wall. Bis, perched atop it, was asleep next to the skull-shaped cookie jar. The little gargoyle had probably been trying to stay awake after sunup and misjudged. He’d be down until sunset no matter how noisy we were, and it was getting noisy. Pixies were flitting in and out through the one small window over the sink. Ivy’s computer was set up on the big farm-kitchen table against the inside wall, but the space felt like mine. That Trent had been in here alone sort of bothered me.
Jenks’s kids were flitting everywhere, too excited to perch in one place, and they were starting to give me a headache. Trent, too, looked like he was hurting. “Look, Ivy! Elf under glass!” Jenks said, and I sighed, even as a small twinge on my awareness went through me and Trent dropped his circle.
Like one entity, Jenks’s kids swarmed Trent. He stiffened, but did little other than grimace when Jrixibell asked if she could make a dandelion necklace for him. Yeah, Jack and Jill might be elves, but they weren’t full- blooded like Trent. The pixies were almost ignoring them.
“Jenks…,” I prompted, my own head splitting from their noise as I glanced at Bis. How the cat-size, gray- skinned kid could sleep through this was a wonder, but he was, his leathery wings lying close to his back, his black- fringed ears drooping, and his lionlike tail wrapped around his clawed feet in slumber.
Jenks clattered his wings for their attention. “Okay, you lot!” he shouted. “Jumoke, Jack, Jixy, Jhan can stay if you’re quiet! The rest of you, hit the garden. Evens take cleanup. Odds on perimeter. Not a butterfly crosses the lines without someone knowing! And watch the splat-ball marks. Stay back until we have a chance to get out there with salt water. And no dropping moths into the puddles to see what the charms do! Clear?”
In a chorus of affirmation and disappointment, they dispersed, the eldest children Jenks had asked to remain retreating to the overhead rack. I exhaled in relief, and realizing that I was standing like Jenks with my bare feet spaced wide and my hands on my hips, I dropped my arms.
“Sit,” I said to the would-be assassins, pointing at the floor beside the fridge, and they gingerly lowered themselves. With a languorous stretch, Ivy shoved the magazines off her chair with a booted foot. They hit the floor with a thump and slid into a long pile against the wall. Deceptively calm and relaxed, she drifted back to the doorway, standing to look aggressive as she took her hair out of its ponytail and let the strands fall where they might. Unless the assassins went through the window, they were stuck.
A breath of self-preservation made me toss a roll of paper towels to the woman. Not only was her chin bleeding, but the man’s forehead was scraped where I’d thunked him into the sidewalk. Ivy would appreciate it, if nothing else. The harsh ripping of the paper sounded loud, and folding up a sheet, Jill dabbed at her jaw and passed the roll to Jack.
“Move, and I’ll be on you like a demon,” Ivy said. “Do, please.”
Jack and Jill looked at each other. Together they shook their heads. I kept one eye on them as I unloaded Ivy’s bag next to my broken sunglasses, setting the two splat guns and five knives on the counter, looking right at home among my magnetic chalk and scrying mirror. The knives had an elaborate, intricately raised design on the handles to help with the grip. I didn’t like that one of the guns looked like mine. I wondered what was in them. That first shot had been aimed at Trent, making me wonder about his story of Quen not letting him leave Cincinnati without me. He could’ve gotten himself on someone’s hit list, but these guys weren’t good enough to be taken seriously. And why would elves want me dead? No, I was betting they were here for Trent.
“Did they tell you who sent them?” Trent prompted, and I tightened my robe again.
“Not yet.” Turning to them, I smiled. “Who wants to go first?”
No one said anything. Big surprise. I flicked a glance at Trent. It was a no-win situation. If I was tough, he’d think I was a thug. If I was too nice, I’d be a pushover. Why I even cared what he thought was beyond me.
Jenks dropped down to the man. “Who sent you?” he barked, sword angled at the man’s eye.
Jack remained silent, and Jenks’s wings began slipping an eerie black dust. In a whisper of sound, Jenks darted close and then away. The intruding elf yelped, his hand smacking his head where Jenks had been. I frowned when I saw the wad of hair in Jenks’s grip. I didn’t like this. Jenks was usually easygoing, more inclined to plant seeds in the ground than people, but his land had been violated, and that brought out the worst in him.
“Ease up, Jenks,” Ivy said as she came forward to touch Jill’s face. “You need more finesse with the big ones.” She made a little trill of sound as the woman drew back in fear, and I sighed as Ivy started to vamp out.
“I won’t leave a mark,” Ivy whispered, and Jill paled. “Not where you can find one.”
“They might be a test from the coven,” I said, and Ivy’s finger, tracing the woman’s jawline, curled under and she straightened in disappointment.
“We can’t simply let them go,” Ivy said. “Even if it wasn’t much of an attack.”
I winced. “Maybe we should call the I.S.?”
Jenks snorted, and from the overhead rack came a peal of high-pitched laughter. Yeah, bad idea.
