Ever After. Kim Harrison

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СКАЧАТЬ kill my partner?” I asked, and a faint red dust of embarrassment slipped from him. Last year, he would have been insulting Tink with a brandished sword for my even considering the idea, but then again, he had worked with Trent to rescue his daughter.

      Head tilting the other way, he plucked the last chunk of cheese from the tip and ate it, licking the crumbs from his fingers. “Cincy is a fickle woman. One day you’re leading her in a waltz, and the next she’s smacked you and is walking on your face. Round the clock would be an insult, but someone to watch his back, someone in a dress who looks like a pushover and isn’t always telling him what to do? Yeah, he’d go for that.” His eyes met mine. “Especially if it was you.”

      The sandwich went tasteless, and I set it down, two bites in. I’d worked with Trent three times: the first to steal a thousand-year-old elven DNA sample from the ever-after—which ended badly; the second to apprehend HAPA—which turned out okay; and the last at a museum fund-raiser—where the assassins were aiming at me, not him. And yet . . . “I can’t do it, Jenks. I can’t work for him.”

      “So work with him, not for him,” Jenks said, as if that distinction was the easiest thing in the world. “Hell, if I can work with him, you can.”

      “Sure, because you’re great at backup,” I protested. “But I’m not a backup kind of girl.” Jenks nodded solemnly and I slumped, shoving the tomato back into my sandwich. “Trent isn’t either,” I muttered. “I’m not going to change, and I’m not going to delude myself that I can change him. I don’t know if I would if I could.” Focus blurring, I gazed past the kitchen’s blue curtains to the foggy night beyond.

      “Good, because you can’t.” Jenks dropped down, his wings rustling as they lay flat on his back. “No one can change anyone but themselves.”

      My thoughts drifted again to the unusual hug Trent had given me, and then his request that I come out to talk about the abducted infants. I knew the subject of security would come up again. I could see it already, Quen forcing the issue and both Trent and I staunchly against it. I wasn’t averse to spending time with Trent, and I liked kicking ass that needed kicking, but either I was in charge of his security and he took direction from me, or I wasn’t. “People don’t change,” I whispered, silk sliding as I stood to get a cup of coffee.

      “You did.” I turned from the open cupboard to see Jenks smirking at me. “You’re a hell of a lot easier to work with than you were a few years ago.” He paused. “Tink’s little pink rosebuds, has it only been a few years? It seems like three times that.”

      The sound of coffee chattering into the porcelain was comforting, and I smiled faintly. “He invited me out tomorrow to go over the abductions. If it’s warm enough, do you want to come? I could use your take on things.”

      Jenks struck a pose as if shooting from the hip. “Pow! See? You never would have asked me that two years ago. Hell, yes, I’ll come. Elf babies are almost as cute as pixy newlings. What time, so I can get Belle to watch my kids?”

      Cup cradled in my hands, I leaned back against the counter and winced. “Eleven.”

      He snickered. “I’ll wake you up at nine,” he said, then flew to the counter, dust sifting silver and gold from him. “Felix knows about Nick, right? The I.S. probably has an APB out on him already. I bet that put slugs in Trent’s roses.”

      “I didn’t tell Felix,” I said, eyes flicking to Jenks, and the pixy’s eyes widened. “Quen didn’t tell him, either.”

      “Why the hell not? He was right there!”

      “What would be the point?” Avoiding his eyes, I came back to the table. “I can’t prove anything. All I’ve got is a hunch.” Admittedly, a pretty good hunch, but still just a hunch.

      Jenks hovered at the coffeemaker to catch a drop in a pixy-size cup. “Like needing proof ever stopped you before.”

      Blowing over the top, I took a sip. “You’re the one who said I was capable of change. Besides, if there’s one thing Nick can do, it’s disappear. He’s long gone.”

      Sitting cross-legged on the coffeemaker with his cup, Jenks frowned. “And lie. He’s really good at that.” Wings slipping silver dust, he eyed me. “You should call him.”

      “Felix?”

      “No, Nick!” Jenks looked at my clutch purse. “You’ve still got his number, don’t you? It might still work. Ask him if he’s involved. Even if he lies, you’ll be able to tell. At the very least, you’ll know if he’s here or in the ever-after.”

      I sat for a moment and thought about it. I’d never bothered to take Nick’s number out of my phone. I didn’t know why. Maybe because I had so few friends whose number ever made it that far. Jenks made a get-on-with-it gesture, and I half stood, my dress pinching as I stretched across the table to reach my clutch bag. “Okay, I’m game.”

      Jenks flew over to eavesdrop, and I wondered if he’d suggested it in the hopes of finding out about Jax. I heard a stitch give when I fell back into my chair with my purse. Wings clattering, Jenks hovered over my open phone as I scrolled, his dust making the screen blank out until he moved away.

      “Tink’s panties, why do you still have Denon’s number in your address book?” Jenks said, and I made a face at him. Not only was Denon no longer my boss, but the man was dead, entombed and burned to ash in one of Cincy’s tunnels. I helped with the last part, but he got dead all on his own.

      “You got a problem with that?” I asked him, and he held his hands up in surrender. Embarrassed, I punched Nick’s number and put the phone to my ear. The hum of Jenks’s wings was loud as he came to sit on my shoulder so he could hear.

      “I don’t think it’s good anymore,” I said, but then my bobbing foot stilled when the phone machine clicked on and an automated voice told me to leave a message. It was generic but familiar. The number was good. I finally got a beep, and I filled the silence with my attitude.

      “Hello-o-o-o, Nic-k,” I said, hitting the K hard. “You might want to consider getting a new number if you’re going to be doing bad-guy stuff.” Jenks flew backward off my shoulder, giving me a thumbs-up with both hands. “I saw you tonight—running away as usual. If I catch you, you will be in the I.S. lockup with a zip strip bolted to your forehead. That’s a promise from me to you, you hear me, crap for brains? These are babies, not a piece of antiquated piece of history no one cares about. You are stealing someone’s child, and I’m going to—”

      The phone clicked. “Rachel.”

      The flat sound of my name cracked through me, and my eyes darted to Jenks, now standing on my plate. It was Nick all right, his tone dry and accusing. The image of his narrow face, scruffy stubble, and casual, unkempt clothes flashed through my mind, and my gut tightened. What had I ever seen in him? But behind his rough exterior was a wickedly clever mind, one that was going to get him in a hole in the ground.

      “Oh,” I said lightly. “So you have a pair after all, huh?”

      “You left me with no recourse but to sell my soul,” Nick said.

      “Oh please.” I stood, pacing to the other side of the kitchen with Jenks hovering by my ear. “You sold your soul all on your own. I never made you summon a demon. I asked you once, but you were summoning him already, so I’m not taking the blame for that. Besides, you don’t belong to Al. Who owns you, СКАЧАТЬ