'God, it stinks,' I said, hand over my nose as he pulled me into a long step.
Al strode forward, head high. 'It's the stench of bureaucracy, my itchy-witch, and why I chose to go into human resources when but a wee lad.'
We'd come up to a set of imposing wooden doors. There were two uniformed men beside it—demons, by their eyes—looking bored and stupid. They probably had stupid denizens in the ever-after just like everywhere else. Behind us was a rising angry mutter that I recognized from when I tried to sneak thirteen items into a twelve- item-only line.
'Docket number?' the more brilliant of the two asked, and Al reached for the door.
'Hey,' the other said, coming to life. 'You're supposed to be in jail.'
Al grinned at him, his white-gloved grip tightening on the wooden handle, which was intricately carved in the shape of a naked, writhing woman. Nice. 'And your momma wanted you to have a brain,' he said, yanking the door open and slamming it into the guy's face.
I danced backward at the ensuing uproar, but Al took my upper arm and strode forward, nose in the air, buckled shoes snapping, and velveteen coattails swaying. 'You, ah, have a way with civil servants,' I said, almost panting to keep up. I wasn't about to drag my feet. I'd stormed a few offices myself; you had to move quickly to get past the red-tape-loving idiots and find someone intelligent enough to appreciate the nerve of barging in. Someone dying for an interruption and the chance to procrastinate. Someone like…I peered at the nameplate on the door Al stopped before. Someone like Dallkarackint. Jeez, what was it with demon names?
Wait a sec. Dali, Dallkarackint…Was this the guy Al had wanted to throw my dead body in front of?
Al opened the door, shoved me in, then back-kicked the door shut to block out the uproar storming up the hall behind us. I felt a tweak on my awareness and wondered if he'd locked it. It was a thought that grew more plausible when the pounding on the door stayed pounding and didn't turn into a big ugly demon with a broken nose.
Squinting, I caught my balance in the…sand? Shocked, I looked up as what had to be a fake breeze smelling of seaweed and burnt amber shifted my hair. I was standing in hot sand in the sun. The door had become a small changing hut, and a boardwalk ran from right to left to the surf-soaked horizon. Stretching into the almost green water was a canopy-covered dock. At the end was a large platform on which a man sat behind a desk. Okay, he was a demon, but he looked like an attractive fifty-something CEO who had brought his desk with him on vacation instead of his laptop. Before him in an upright deck chair was a woman in a purple sari. The scrying mirror on her lap flashed in the sun angling under the canopy that shaded the desk. His familiar?
'Wow,' I said, unable to look at everything at once. 'This isn't real, is it?'
Al straightened his crushed velvet and pulled me onto the boardwalk. 'No,' he said as our heels clunked on the wood. 'It's casual Friday.'
My God, the sun sliding under the awning is even warm, I thought as we found the dock and started down it. I suppose if one was a demon and had unlimited power, why not put the illusion of the Bahamas around you at the office? Al yanked me forward when I lagged to see if there were fish in the water, and I yelped when I felt a cascading shimmer cross over me.
'There,' Al soothed, and I shoved his hand off me. 'Now don't you look proper? Must wear our best when before the court.'
My pulse quickened as I realized I was wearing my usual working leathers, my hair back in a scrunchy and my butt-kicking boots on my feet. The purple scarf around my waist was new, though. 'If you're trying to make nice- nice, this might not be the best way to do it,' I said to Al when the guy behind the desk leaned back in annoyance as he saw us and the woman took her hand from the mirror.
'Relax.' Al pulled me further into his burnt-amber scent as we came to a respectful halt on the round rug laid on the rough planks before the desk. 'I'm supposed to be exiled this morning. They would have been disappointed if I didn't do something dramatic.'
A puddle of gray in the sun-soaked dinghy tied to the dock moved, and my gaze shifted.
Oh, God. It was Trent. He looked washed out and thin as he bobbed on the fake tide in the sun, and when he saw me, hate filled his bloodshot eyes. He had to know I was here to rescue him. Didn't he?
The demon behind the desk sighed, and my attention shifted to him. Somehow he looked right out here in the cool, Brimstone-scented, breezy shade of the canopy, his desk perched over the water with a coffee cup and a stack of files on it. Flip-flops poked from under the dark mahogany desk, and his Hawaiian-print top showed a wisp of hair at his chest. Setting his pen down, he gestured sourly. 'Al, what, by the two worlds colliding, are you doing in my office?'
Al beamed as the demon recognized him, pulling himself straight, tugging the lace at his wrists, and scuffing his shiny-buckled boots on the planks. 'Elevating your status, Dali, dear.'
Dali leaned back in his chair and glanced at the woman silently waiting. 'Before or after I sling your ass to the surface?' he said in a bothered tone, his fast voice rough. His eyes flicked to me, and his lips pursed briefly. 'You don't have anything left to elevate anyone. And killing her before the courts will not excuse you from teaching her how to spindle line energy and let her run about with no compulsion to keep her mouth shut.'
'Hey!' I said, not wanting that to stand without correction. 'I was under compulsion to keep my mouth shut. So was Ceri. We were under lots of compulsion.' Al gripped my arm and dragged me back a step as I added, 'You've no idea the amount of compulsion we were under.'
'You misunderstand, my most honorable ass-kisser,' Al said, jaw clenched at my outburst. 'I'd sooner die before giving Rachel Mariana Morgan to the courts. I'm not here to kill her, I'm here to demand that the uncommon stupidity charge against me be dropped.'
My shock at the honorable-ass-kisser comment was pushed away by the thought of a law against uncommon stupidity, and I wondered how we could get one. Remembering Trent, I nudged Al.
'Oh, yes,' the demon added, 'and I would ask that my student's familiar be released to my custody. Busy day planned. We could use his help. Must get him trained up, up, up!'
In the dinghy, Trent pulled himself up and sat on the bench, his motions slow as if he was in pain. There was a humiliating red ribbon about his neck. I wondered why he wore it, but upon seeing that his fingers were red and swollen, I decided they weren't letting him take it off.
Dali pushed his papers away and glanced at the woman. 'I appreciate your efforts to weasel out of a hundred years of community service, but you've nothing left. Get out.'
I turned to Al, seeing his complexion take on a new hue of red. 'Community service? You told me they were going to banish you to the surface.'
'They are,' he growled, pinching my elbow. 'Now shut up.'
I fumed, but Al was already facing Dali. 'I've taken Morgan as a student, not a familiar,' he said. 'It's not illegal or uncommonly stupid to teach a student how to spindle line energy. I simply didn't think it was worth mentioning…at the time.'
Dali's eyes widened. On the floor, Trent's hatred grew directed, and I winced. This was looking really bad, and I'd have done anything to have been able to explain. Smiling, Al looped his arm in mine. 'Try to look sexy,' he muttered, poking me until my back stiffened.
'Student?' Dali blurted, both hands going palms-down on the desk. 'Al—'
'She can spindle line energy,' Al interrupted. 'Her blood can twist demon curses. She took a human as a familiar before I broke the bond.'
'Common knowledge,' the demon said, pointing irately. 'You said something about status. Give me something I don't know, or get the hell onto the surface where you belong.'
Al took a worried breath. His face never changed, but I was standing so close, I felt it. And somehow, that was scary. Exhaling, Al nodded once, as a student might to an instructor. It was the first show of respect I'd seen from him, and I grew more frightened yet. His gaze flicked to the woman with the scrying mirror, and Dali's eyebrows rose.
The older demon pressed his lips and gestured for her to leave. She silently stood, set the mirror on his desk with disgust, and then vanished in a pop that was lost in the sound of the wind against the water. 'This better be good,' Dali grumbled. 'I rent her by the hour.'
Al swallowed, and I swear I could smell the faintest hint of sweat on him. 'This witch can be summoned,' he said softly, an arm behind and before him. 'She can be summoned through the lines by way of a password.' Dali made a puff of air, and Al added in a louder voice, 'I know this because she stole mine and was summoned out in
