Pale Demon

in and settled.

My eyes jerked to his at the hint of a question in his voice. “Actually,” I said slowly, “I thought maybe I could have it so you could keep your room.”

He took a breath, holding it for a moment before slowly letting it out. Hand shaking slightly, he set the amber bottle down between us. “You will be in my room. The safeguards are chiseled into the stone. But I would appreciate the chance to update my own décor.” He took a sip, rocking on his feet. “I thought you would get that mark removed.”

My gaze darted to my last remaining demon mark, the one on my wrist that had started our association. “Uh, I forgot,” I stammered, embarrassed somehow. I sipped my drink, not knowing what it was but enjoying the mild buzz that was hitting me. “Al,” I said, my tongue markedly looser. “You just tell me what you want, and I’ll make it for you. I owe you big.”

He looked at me, emotions hidden behind his silence, for so long I wondered if I’d said something wrong. The fire snapped in the center pit behind me, and when I shivered, Al absently tossed a chunk of polished wood on it, probably gleaned from a broken building at the surface somewhere.

“Um, Al?” I questioned, feeling more than a little uncomfortable, the honey and amber filling my head with a shiny clarity. “I do appreciate you saving my ass. If there’s something I can do to show you that, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

He turned to me, still no expression on his face. “I’m reasonably sure I had brown hair.”

Oh God. I think I’d insulted him. “Al—”

Finally a shimmer of emotion crossed him. “Drink,” he said as he tapped my glass with his. “It’s a day to celebrate. You have come home.”

I didn’t know about the home part, but I lifted my glass, a sneeze ripping through me as unexpectedly as a slamming door. My fingers shook, and a splat of liquid spotted Al’s pretty black floor. Horrified, I met Al’s demon- slitted red eyes, his first reaction of annoyance shifting to dread as he stared at me in what might be pity. I was sneezing, not him. And it didn’t feel like an incoming call. It felt like a summons. And it was noon?

Ivy? Jenks?

“Rachel?” Al asked as the first gut-wrenching pain blossomed and I pushed the glass back into his hand.

“It’s a summons,” I muttered, jaw clenched and the good feeling from whatever I’d been drinking dying.

“But it’s noon!” the demon exclaimed, gaze going to the clock to affirm it.

Ow. I hunched in on myself as the pull grew stronger. “Maybe Trent only cursed me to need a summons to be able to cross. Apparently I can still walk…in the sun. Ow!” I looked up, wincing. “I gotta go.” Day or night. Trent had said day or night. Tron would be pleased. I could give him the White House pool in the sun after all.

I gasped as Al suddenly had my shirt front, yanking me up. “Who knows?” he snarled. “Who knows you can be summoned in the day?”

“Al, you’re hurting me! It’s probably just Ivy or my mom!”

His grip loosened, but he didn’t let go. “I asked you, who knows your curse allows you to be summoned during day hours?” he demanded, and I pushed his hand off me, feeling the pain of an ignored summons.

“Everyone who was in the auditorium when Trent cursed me,” I said. “Jeez Louise! I think you bruised me.”

Al’s eyes narrowed. “Trenton,” he growled, thick hands clenching.

“If I’m lucky,” I said, wondering if Trent even knew my summoning name. Probably. “I need to talk to him and get the Latin for sliding Ku’Sox’s curse back onto him so I can walk free again. I did it wrong the last time.”

I could almost see Al’s understanding hit him when his expression went blank. “You tried to slide his original curse back onto him?” Al said in wonder. “At the restaurant? And I stopped you? Sweet mother pus bucket!” he exclaimed, and I swear, dust sifted from the ceiling. “Rachel, we have to work on this communication thing.”

Hand around my middle, I bent almost double. “I gotta go,” I panted. “Trent knows the curse. I have to talk to him. If I’m lucky, it’s him.”

Again Al touched me, but this time, his hand was gentle on my shoulder. “And if you’re not, it’s Ku’Sox. He knows you’re too protected here, and you’re a threat to him. He’s summoning you. He’s summoning you to where I can’t follow. He’s going to try to kill you!”

I panted, feeling my muscles shake as the pull worsened. God, I felt like I was being split in two. “Can’t be him. He doesn’t know my name.”

“Trent does,” Al said, his grip on me tightening into pain for an instant. “I told you to take that elf firmly in hand. Trent let Ku’Sox out. They’re working together. They want you dead.”

Holding my breath, I managed to look up, feeling a wash of betrayal. It couldn’t be Trent. I’d just gotten the Latin wrong. Right? “I gotta go,” I wheezed. “This is shitty, you know? How do you live like this?”

“Rachel!” he cried, but it was too late, and I let go of my hold on the world. The pain subsided, and the comforting gray of Al’s kitchen vanished as I found myself yanked into the ley lines. Fear, hope, and anticipation rose high. If it was Ku’Sox, he was in for a nasty surprise. I was a self-pro-claimed demon, and I should start acting like it.

But even as I thought it, my throat closed, and I felt a pang of homesickness. Ivy. Jenks. What would I tell them? Pierce, how could I explain what had happened? Trent…how would I kill him if he had betrayed me?

Okay, so it might not be all bad.

Twenty-seven

The discordant jangle of San Francisco’s broken ley lines flooded my mind, and I watched as they all cycled down to one, foremost in my thoughts. I tried to listen to it without looking past the bubble of awareness that I was cocooned in, but without Bis to safely bring the sound in past my bubble, they all tasted the same.

I shivered as my lungs formed and the memory of my body rose, giving my soul something to reside in. With a pop of sound, I found myself almost exactly where I’d been not three days ago, in the dead center of the stage where I’d been cursed.

The lights were off, and it was dark but for the hiss of a kerosene lantern making a puddle of light on the stage. The circle imprisoning me took up most of it. Darkness made the huge room a cavern of black echoes from the drone of a generator in the distance. Acrid and sharp, the smell of broken cement tweaked my nose. Something had happened. The power was out.

“You see!” Pierce said, and I spun to see him standing between Oliver and Vivian. There was a fourth witch in coven robes huddled on the floor behind them. “If she was a true demon, she could not be summoned in the day. Let your claims go, Oliver.”

Pierce! I thought, then anger slid through me. They’d circled me. Like the demon that I was. Sucking on my teeth, I looked at the three witches standing in a row staring at me, the fourth completely out of it and shaking behind them. I wished it had been Ivy or Jenks—or even Trent.

“Hi, Pierce,” I said dryly. “This your idea?” I added, pinging the barrier with a finger and drawing back before it could burn me. How they knew my summoning name, my real summoning name, not Al’s borrowed one, was a mystery, until I remembered that Pierce had probably been haunting me when I chose the stupid thing. Great, I’m a demon for less than a week, and already I’m fielding calls.

Expression pained and a little lost, Pierce strode forward, his full-length coat coated with dust. His hair was mussed, and his motions were quick. My flash of anger died. Tired. I was tired. For one brief moment in Trent’s hotel, I had entertained the idea that even with our differences we might make a go of it. He loved me. I could love him, if I let myself be stupid. But I couldn’t even pretend anymore that circumstances might change someday. He was coven, and I was a demon. What was wrong with me? Why was I attracted to the very things that could hurt me?

“Let her out, Oliver,” Pierce said, squinting in anger at the stoic man holding the bubble, and my heart clenched in regret. “She’s not a demon.”

Yes, I am.