Hands on his hips, Jenks alternated his stern gaze between me and his two children, their faces red and wings dusting a black haze into the sink. “I’ll get it,” he said before I could move. “And you two better have this decided before I get back, or I’ll decide it for you,” he added to his kids before he darted out.
Their volume dropped, and I smiled. It was almost six, which meant human or witch. Possibly Were or a living vampire. “If it’s a client, I’ll see them in the sanctuary,” I called after him, not wanting to have to hide my books if they should peek into my kitchen on the way to the back living room.
“Gotcha,” Jenks shouted faintly. Rex had run off under him, her tail up, ears pricked, and little bell jingling. The two pixies at the window started right back up again, their hushed, high voices almost worse than their loud ones.
I gave a last look at the curse before I marked the page and closed the book. I had everything I needed, but the identifying object, in this case the crystal tear, had to be stolen. That was kind of nasty, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that made it a black curse. Earth magic had a few ingredients like that. Rue, for example, worked best when it was sown while cursing, and it didn’t work in a charm unless you stole it. Which was why mine was planted by the gate for easy pilfering. Jenks stole mine for me. I didn’t ask from where. The charms made from stolen rue were not considered black, so would this one be?
Standing, I crossed the room to my coat for the tear Edden had given me. He had stolen it from evidence. Wondering if that was enough, I pulled the tear out, shocked to see that it had lost its clarity, and had turned black. “Whoa,” I whispered, and I looked up as Ford’s voice became obvious in the hall. Immediately I looked at the clock. Six? Crap, I’d forgotten he was coming over today. I was in no mood for his mumbo jumbo, especially if it worked.
Ford came in with a tired smile, his dull dress shoes making wet spots as they lost the last of their snow. Rex trailed behind with feline interest, sniffing at the salt-and-water mix. A mess of Jenks’s kids were with him, all talking in a swirl of silk and pixy dust. Ford’s brow was creased in pain, and they were clearly sending him into overload.
“Hi, Rachel,” he said, taking off his coat in such a way that it made half the pixies retreat, but they came right back. “What’s this about you being followed at the airport?”
I gave Jenks a dark look, and he shrugged. Gesturing for Ford to sit, I dropped the demon book on the stack I’d brought down from the belfry and wiped my hands on my jeans. “They were just harassing me,” I said, not knowing how my brother fit into it, but sure it was me they were after, not him. “Hey, what do you think about this? It was clear this morning when Edden gave it to me.”
Ford sat at Ivy’s spot and held out his hand, shaking his head when a trio of pixy girls asked him if they could braid his hair. I shooed them away when I came around the counter to give the tear to him, and the girls flitted to the windowsill to take sides in the seed issue.
“Tink’s tampons!” Jenks yelped when he saw the tear on Ford’s palm. “What did you do to it, Rache?”
“Nothing.” At least it hadn’t felt furry or wiggled when I touched it. Ford squinted as he held it to the artificial light. The argument at the sink was starting to spill into the rest of the room, and I gave Jenks a pointed look. The pixy, though, was with Ford, fascinated by the black swirls running through the gray crystal.
“Edden gave it to me to make a locator charm,” I said. “But it didn’t look like that. It must have picked up the emotions at the airport when they were following us.”
Ford looked at me over the tear. “You got angry?”
“Well, a little. I was more peeved than anything else.”
Jenks darted to the window as the argument reached an eyeball-hurting intensity. “Peeved, nothing. She was like a pimple on a fairy princess’s ass, red and ready to pop,” he said, then started speaking to his kids too fast for me to follow. Instant pixy silence ensued.
“Jeez, Jenks!” I exclaimed, warming. “I wasn’t that upset.”
Ford shifted the tear back and forth between his fingers. “It must have absorbed the emotions from not only you, but everyone there.” He hesitated, then added, “Did the tear…take your emotions away?”
Seeing his hope, I shook my head. He thought it might be a way to help him muffle emotions, perhaps. “No,” I said. “Sorry.”
Leaning across the corner of the table, Ford handed the tear back, doing a pretty good job of hiding his disappointment. “Well,” he said, settling into Ivy’s chair and pulling Rex onto his lap. “I’m on the clock. Where would you be most comfortable?”
“Can’t we just have coffee instead?” I suggested as I tucked the tear back in my coat pocket for lack of anywhere better. “I’m not in the mood to try to remember Kisten’s killer.” Stupid cat won’t let me touch her, but a perfect stranger gets head butts and kitty kisses.
His dark eyes went to the silent coffeemaker. “Like anyone ever is?” he said softly.
“Ford…,” I whined, and then one of the pixy kids shrieked. Ford shuddered and turned a shade whiter. Irritated, I looked at Jenks. “Jenks, can you get your kids out of here? They’re giving me a headache.”
“Jumoke gets the seed,” Jenks said flatly, cutting off the rising protests with a sharp wing chirp. “I said you wouldn’t like it!” he exclaimed. “Get out. Jumoke, ask your mother where she hides her seeds. It will be safe there until spring.”
It also would ensure that she wouldn’t die without someone else knowing where she hid their valuable seed stash. Pixy life spans sucked.
“Thanks, Papa!” the exuberant pixy shouted, then fled, trailing the rest of them in a calliope of sound and color.
Relieved, I came around the counter to sit at my spot. Ford looked better already, and he shifted to a more comfortable position when Rex followed the pixies out. Jenks dropped down before him in his best Peter Pan pose, hands on his hips. “Sorry,” he said. “They won’t come back.”
Ford glanced at the coffeemaker again. “One of them is still in here.”
I shoved the demon texts next to the mundane university textbooks to make some space. “Cheeky bugger,” I muttered, standing up to get Ford a coffee.
Jenks’s brow furrowed, and he made a harsh whistle. Smirking, I waited to see who the eavesdropping pixy was, but no one showed. Maybe I could fritter all our time away, and that would be that. Talk about Jenks, maybe.
“Thanks, Rachel,” Ford said with an exhale. “I could use some caffeine. It’s real, yes?”
Pouring a cup, I slid it into the microwave and hit “fast cook.” “Decaf is cruel and unusual punishment.”
Jenks was buzzing around the kitchen like a firefly from hell, shedding sparkles to make artificial sunbeams. “I can’t find anyone,” he grumbled. “I must be getting old. Are you sure?”
Ford cocked his head and seemed to be listening. “Yup. It’s a person.”
A smile came over Jenks as the sensitive man included pixies as people. Not everyone did. “I’ll go do a nose count. Be right back.”
He zipped out, and I opened the nuker. Ford’s cup was steaming, and leaning close as I set it by him, I whispered, “Can we go out and talk about Jenks instead of me?”
“Why?” Ford asked, as if knowing I was stalling, then took a sip. “His emotions are stable. It’s yours that are jumping like bunnies in a fryer.”
I frowned at the connotation, then sat in my own chair, pulling my cold coffee close. “It’s Matalina,” I said softly, hoping the eavesdropper couldn’t hear, much less Jenks.
Ford