me. 'This one, Ms. Morgan,' he said, his voice high. Pollen crumbs fell, and I blew them away when Jax rose to sit on the table lamp's shade. From the corner of my sight I saw Jenks fidget. I couldn't do this with a half-trained pixy. I needed Jenks.
Fingertips brushing the large island in the straits, I felt like Ivy with her maps and markers, planning a run. My motions went still and my focus blurred. It wasn't her need to be organized, I suddenly realized. It was a front to disguise her feelings of inadequacy. 'Damn,' I whispered. This wasn't good. Ivy was a lot more fragile than she let on. She was a vampire, molded from birth to look to someone for guidance even if she could garner the attention in a room from simply walking in, and could snap my neck with half a thought.
Telling myself that Nick needed me more right now than Ivy needed me to keep her sane, I pushed my worry aside and looked at the island Jax had said Nick was on. According to the fishing pamphlet I took from the front office, Bois Blanc Island had been publicly owned before the Turn. A rather large Were pack had bought everyone else out shortly afterward, making the big island into a hunting/spa kind of thing. Trespassing wasn't a good idea.
Tension quickened my pulse when Jenks put Rex on the bed and edged closer, an odd mix of angsty teen and worried dad. Taking a breath, I said to the map, 'I need your help, Jenks. I'll do it without backup if I have to. But every time I do, my ass hits the grass. You're the best operative outside of Ivy that I know. Please? I can't leave him there.'
Jenks pulled a straight-backed chair from the kitchen, bumping it over the carpet, and sat down next to me so he could see the map right side up. He glanced at Jax on the lamp, pixy dust sifting upward from the heat of the bulb. I couldn't tell if he was going to help me or not. 'What did you two get caught doing, Jax?' he said.
The pixy's wings blurred, and dust drifted from him. 'You'll get mad.' His tiny features were frightened. It didn't matter that he was an adult in pixy terms, he still looked eight to me.
'I'm already mad,' Jenks said, sounding like my dad when I took a week's grounding instead of telling him why I'd been banned from the local roller rink. 'Running off with a snapped-winged thief like that. Jax, if you wanted a more exciting life than a gardener, why didn't you tell me? I could have helped, given you the tools you need.'
Eyebrows high, I leaned away from the table. I knew the I.S. hadn't taught Jenks the skills that landed him his job with them, but this was unexpected.
'I was never a thief,' he said, shooting me a quick look. 'But I know things. I found them out the hard way, and Jax doesn't need to.'
Jax fidgeted, turning defensive. 'I tried,' he said, his voice small. 'But you wanted me to be a gardener. I didn't want to disappoint you, and it was easier to just go.'
Jenks slumped. 'I'm sorry,' he said, making me wish I was somewhere else. 'I only wanted you to be safe. It's not an easy way to live. Look at me; I'm scarred and old, and if I didn't have a garden now, I'd be worthless. I don't want that for you.'
Wings blurring, Jax dropped to land before his dad. 'Half your scars are from the garden,' he protested. 'The ones you almost died from. The seasons make me think of death, not life, a slow circle that means nothing. And when Nick asked me to help him, I said yes. I didn't want to tend his stupid plants, I wanted to help him.'
I glanced at Jenks in sympathy. He looked like he was dying inside, seeing his son want what he had and knowing how hard it was going to be.
'Dad,' Jax said, rising up until Jenks put up a hand for him to land on. 'I know you and Mom want me to be safe, but a garden isn't safe, it's only a more convenient place to die. I want the thrill of the run. I want every day to be different. I don't expect you to understand.'
'I understand more than you know,' he said, his words shifting his son's wings.
Rex skulked to the pizza box on the floor and stole a crust, running to the kitchen. She hunkered down, gnawing on it as if it was a bone and watching us with big, black, evil eyes. Seeing her, Jenks took a deep breath, and tension brought me straight. He had decided to help me. 'Tell me what you two got caught doing. I'll help get Nick out under two conditions.'
My pulse quickened, and I found myself tapping my pencil on the table.
'What are they?' Jax asked, a healthy tone of caution mixing with hope.
'One, that you don't take another run until I give you the skills to keep your wings untattered. Nick is dangerous, and I don't want you taken advantage of. I may have raised a runner, but I did not raise a thief.'
Pixy dust sifted from Jax as he looked from his dad to me and back again in wide-eyed amazement. 'What's the other?'
Jenks winced, his ears reddening. 'That you don't tell your mother.'
I stopped my snicker just in time.
Jax's wings blurred into motion. 'Okay,' he said, and a zing of adrenaline brought me back to the map. 'Nick and I were contracted by a Were pack. These guys.'
He dropped from Jenks's hand to land on the island, and my thrill turned to unease. 'They wanted a statue,' Jax said. 'Didn't even know where it was. Nick called up a demon, Dad.' Dust sifted to make him look as if he was in a sunbeam. 'He called up a demon and the demon told him where it was.'
Okay. Now I'm officially worried. 'Did the demon show up as a dog and turn into a guy wearing green velveteen and smoked glasses?' I asked, setting my pen down and holding my arms to myself. Why, Nick? Why are you playing with your soul?
Jax shook his head, green eyes wide and frightened. 'It showed up as you, Ms. Morgan. Nick was mad and yelled at it. We thought you were dead. It wasn't Big Al. Nick said so.'
My first flush of relief turned to a deep worry. A second demon. Better and better. 'Then what?' I whispered. Rex jumped into Jenks's lap, nearly giving me a heart attack since I thought she had been going for Jax. How Jenks knew she hadn't been eluded me.
The dust rose and fell from Jax. 'The demon, uh, took what they agreed on and told Nick where the statue was. A vampire in Detroit had it. It's older than anything.'
Why would a vampire have a Were artifact? I wondered. I glanced at Jenks, his hands keeping Rex from falling over while she inexpertly cleaned her ears.
Jenks puckered his brows, his smooth features trying to wrinkle but not managing it. 'What does it do, Jax?' he said, shocking me again with how at odds his youthful face was to the tone of his voice. He looked eighteen; he sounded like he was forty with a bad mortgage.
Jax flushed. 'I don't know. But we got it okay. The vampire had been staked in the 1900s, and it was just sitting there, forgotten in the slop.'
'So you found it,' I prompted. 'What's the problem? Why are they hurting him?'
At that, Jax took to the air. Rex's eyes went black for the hunt, and Jenks soothed her, fingertips lost in her orange fur. 'Uh,' the pixy said, his voice high. 'Nick said it wasn't what they said it was. Another pack found out he had it and made a better offer, enough to pay back what the first pack paid him to finance the snatch, plus a whole lot more.'
Jenks looked disgusted. 'Greedy bastard,' he muttered, his jaw clenched.
I took an unhappy breath, leaning into my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. 'So he sold it to the second group and the original pack wasn't happy about it?'
Jax shook his head solemnly, slowly drifting downward until his feet hit the map. 'No. He said neither of them should have it. We were going to go to the West Coast. He had this guy who could give him a new identity. He was going to get us safe, then give the first pack their money back and walk away from the entire thing.'
My face scrunched into a frown. Right. He was going to get himself safe, then sell it to the highest bidder online. 'Where is it, Jax?' I asked, starting to get angry.
'He didn't tell me. One day it was there, the next it was gone.'
In a sudden motion, Rex jumped up onto the table. Adrenaline surged, but Jax rubbed his wings together in a coaxing sound and the kitten padded over.
'It's not at our cabin, though,' the small pixy said, standing under the kitten's jaw and stretching to rake his fingers under her chin. 'They tore it apart.' Stepping out from between Rex's paws, he met my eyes, looking scared. 'I don't know where it is, and Nick won't tell. He doesn't want them to have it, Ms. Morgan.'
Greedy S.O.B., I thought, wondering why I cared if he loved me or not. 'So where's their money?' I asked. 'Maybe all they want is that, and they'll let him go.'
