Keasley's wrinkled face was filled with a stoic acceptance as he unrolled the bag of supplies and Jih dropped inside to make the trip safe from the cold. Above the crinkled top of the bag, the pixies all cried good-bye and waved.
Eyes rolling, Keasley handed the bag to Ceri. 'Pixies,' I heard him mutter. Taking Ceri's elbow, he nodded to me and headed into the hall, his pace faster and more upright than I'd ever seen it. 'I have a second bedroom,' he said. 'Do you sleep at night or during the day?'
'Both,' she said softly. 'Is that all right?'
He grinned to show his coffee-stained teeth. 'A napper, eh? Good. I won't feel so old when I drop off.'
I felt happy as I watched them head to the sanctuary. This was going to be good in so many ways. 'What's the matter, Jenks?' I said as he remained on my shoulder while the rest of his family accompanied Ceri and Keasley to the front of the church.
He sniffed. 'I thought Jax would be the first one to leave to start his own garden.'
My breath slipped from me in understanding. 'I'm sorry, Jenks. She'll be fine.'
'I know, I know.' His wings shifted into motion, sending the scent of fallen leaves over me. 'One less pixy in the church,' he said softly. 'It's a good thing. But no one told me it was going to hurt.'
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 saltstained, 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
