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 ofguns…' 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
