For a Few Demons More

there we went to pick Jenks up at the I.S. and physically drop off a copy of my paperwork, all nice and legal. We visited the morgue in there, too, which had left me depressed. I was sure Glenn had more to do than cart us around, but since I didn't have a valid license, I appreciated it.

David was still in custody. Jenks had overheard his interrogation, and apparently Brett had met with David yesterday to talk about Brett joining our pack. It was supposed to have been a surprise, which had me in tears when I found out. That's why Trent had targeted him. Trent was slime, and I cursed myself for letting some of the good things he did—like admit he spent the morning with me, for instance—cloud the fact that he was a murderer and drug lord. He only did something decent if it might be of some use to him, such as giving himself an alibi for seven to seven-thirty. Ceri had it right. The man was a demon in all but species.

Under some made-up point of law, the I.S. was detaining David without any formal charges. It was illegal, but someone in the basement had probably realized that the focus was out, seeing as a loner was turning human women into Weres. David was knee-deep in it. It would only be a matter of time before I joined him. Maybe if he was in I.S. custody, Trent couldn't kill him. Maybe.

I'm sorry, David. I never expected this to happen.

The cool shade of my street fell over me, and I gathered my bag onto my lap, feeling for the heavy outlines of the focus. Squinting, I realized there was a black van parked in front of the church—and someone was tacking a note on my door.

'Jenks. Look at that,' I whispered, and he followed my gaze.

Glenn eased to a stop several car lengths back, and when I cracked the window, Jenks darted out, saying, 'I'll see what it is.'

The man with the hammer caught sight of us, and with a worrisome quickness he hustled down the stairs and into his vehicle.

'You want me to stay?' Glenn asked, shoving the car into park. He had a pencil in his grip and was writing down the plate number as the black van drove away.

The dust spilling from Jenks as he hovered before the note shifted from gold to red. 'I don't know,' I murmured. Getting out, I stomped up the stairs.

'Evicted!' Jenks said, his face white when he spun in the air. 'Rachel, Piscary evicted us. He evicted us!'

My stomach going light, I ripped the paper from the nail. 'No freaking way,' I said, skimming the official document. It was blurry from being the second copy, but clear enough. We had thirty days to vacate.

They were going to tear the church down now that it wasn't sanctified, but the impetus behind it was Piscary.

Glenn leaned out the window. 'Everything okay?'

'Rache,' Jenks exclaimed, clearly terrified. 'I can't move my family. Matalina isn't well! They're going to bulldoze the garden!'

'Jenks!' I said, hands upraised though I couldn't touch him. 'It's going to be okay. I promise. We'll work something out. Matalina will be fine!'

Jenks stared at me, his eyes wide. 'I… I,' he stammered, then with a little moan, he darted up and around to the back of the church.

My hands fell to my sides. I felt so helpless.

'Rachel?' Glenn called from the street, and I turned.

'We've been evicted,' I said, moving the paper in explanation. 'Thirty days.' Anger trickled into me.

Glenn's eyes narrowed. 'Don't do it, witch,' he warned as he looked at my fists, clenched at my sides.

I gazed down the street at nothing, getting madder. 'I'm not going to kill him,' I said. 'Give me some credit. This is an invitation. If I don't go see him, he'll do something worse.' Shit. My mother.

Glenn ducked back in the window. His door opened, and he got out. My blood pressure rose. 'Get your little brown-sugar candy ass back in your ugly Grown Victoria,' I said. 'I know what I'm doing.'

My fingers felt the outlines of the focus in my bag as Glenn came to the bottom of the steps and looked up at me, pistol on his hip and attitude all over him like icing on a cake. 'Give me your car keys.'

'Don't think so.'

His eyes narrowed. 'Give them to me or I'm going to arrest you myself.'

'On what grounds?' I asked belligerently, looking down at him.

'You boots. They're breaking every unwritten fashion law.'

Huffing, I looked at them, tilting one onto the toe to see them better. 'I'm just going to talk to him, nice and friendly.'

Eyebrows high, Glenn put his hand out. 'I've seen how you talk to Piscary. Keys?'

My jaw clenched. 'Put a car at my mother's house,' I demanded, and when he nodded, I shoved the eviction paper into my bag, found my keys, and threw them at him. 'Bastard,' I muttered as they hit his hand.

'That's my girl,' he said as he looked at the zebra-striped car key. 'You get them back when you go to class.'

I opened the door to the church and put my hand on my hip. 'You call me your girl one more time and I'm going to turn your gonads into plums and make jam out of them.'

Chuckling, Glenn got into his car.

Entering the dark foyer, I pulled the heavy door shut to make the upper transom windows rattle. My bag held tight to me, I stomped into the sanctuary and headed for my desk. Yanking open drawers, I slammed and banged around until I found my spare set of keys. It had everything the first had plus the key that opened Ivy's safe and one from Nick's apartment, never thrown away. God knows why.

A smug satisfaction tugged the corners of my mouth up into a wicked smile as I dropped the keys into my bag, and I went to the side window to watch Glenn turn the corner at the end of the street. The red of the stained glass gave everything outside an unreal look, like the ever-after.

'Jenks!' I shouted as his car vanished. 'If you can hear me, get your best suit on. We have some major ass kissing to do.'

Thirty

This isn't the same, I told myself, my two-handed grip tightening on the wheel of my convertible and the wind from the cracked window tugging a few strands from my braid. This wasn't anything like the night I had tried to tag Piscary last year. For one, Jenks was with me this time. I wasn't mad either—not blind mad anyway. It was daylight for at least a few more hours—not that that made a difference. Jenks was with me. I had a nice peace offering to buy my life with, and, lastly, Jenks was with me.

Signaling, I made a quick left turn, heading to the riverfront and going against the predominant flow of traffic. I had friends at Pizza Piscary's, but Piscary was back, and they wouldn't help me. Jenks was my confidence now that the focus was really at the post office, lost in the human bureaucracy so deep and jealously guarded that even the I.S. couldn't reach it. His presence meant more to me than my splat gun, fully stocked and tucked into my bag. I had an invoked pain charm around my neck, hanging outside my shirt so it wouldn't affect me until I needed it. And I had a feeling I was going to need it.

Other than that, I was going in pretty much naked of earth charms. I had a hefty amount of ley line energy spindled in my head, though, and in my pocket a pair of heavy-duty toenail clippers you might use on an elephant, which I hoped would be strong enough to cut an anti—ley line zip-strip. But it was Jenks I was counting on to be the difference between my walking out with a new lease on life or spending an eternity of hell with Piscary or Al.

This was my best option. Trent knew I had the focus. The I.S. wasn't so dense that they hadn't realized it was still in my possession. I wanted Piscary's protection from all of them.

My God. How did I get to this place?

The breeze from my window shifted Jenks's wings. He was sitting on the rearview mirror, facing backward as he gazed vacantly into the past. His features were lined and worried. There wasn't a scrap of red on him—a symbol