Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “I scared my dad.” I went quiet at the memory of his pinched and frightened face as he earnestly tried to convince me to never use the lines to harm anyone ever again. To my younger self, that meant never use the lines, period. And then they kicked me out of the Make-A-Wish camp.

            “I’ve been racking my brains,” I added as we wove deeper into the building, my voice low as we began to see people. “Trying to figure out why we let everything roll off and he does the same. My God, Trent. I practically sold him to Al in exchange for my freedom. Do you think it’s because we felt as if we were in a club, saved by your dad’s illegal medicines when he let others simply . . . die?”

            “Mmmm.”

            “Perhaps that’s what keeps us together, forgiving each other,” I said, brow furrowed.

            “Not the billion-dollar drug cartel?” Trent asked slyly.

            “Well, there is that, too,” I said, perking up when a familiar rasping of dragonfly-like wings drew my attention. “Find them?” I said to Jenks as he came to a dust-laden hover.

            “Yeah,” he said, and my smile faded at his worried blue dust. “You might want to hurry. Their auras are thinner than troll shit.”

            The pixy spun in the air, darting down the corridor the way he’d come. Trent quickened his pace, taking my elbow to guide me when I swung my book-heavy bag around to find my phone. Head down, I texted Vivian that I was at the hospital. The thought that she might be in trouble rose and fell, immediately dismissed. Sure, she’d done a three-hour stint as Dali’s strip-girl, but Hodin, the demon who had sold her to him, was gone, and the rest didn’t dare try.

            The nurses’ desk was empty as we passed it, a cooling cup of coffee and half-eaten sub sandwich beside the keyboard; Jenks must have tripped another patient’s alarm to clear the hallway. We weren’t doing anything wrong—yet—but I appreciated Jenks’s discretion. It was always easier to get forgiveness than permission. Pulse fast, I followed Jenks’s faint dust trail to the last door at the end of the hall.

            Immediately I made a light knuckle knock and went in. Trent glanced up and down the hall before drawing the door shut behind us.

            “Rachel.” Cassie rose from the indulgent chair set beside the black, rain-spotted window. Bis was hunched atop a tall cupboard, and he shifted his skin from a camouflage white to his usual pebbly gray when he saw me. “Thank God. Jenks said you were on your way.”

            My damp boots squeaked as I gazed at the four narrow cots, and then I jumped, startled when Cassie practically fell into me. “I, ah, didn’t know you were here,” I said, gingerly patting her back. “Are you okay?”

            The woman blinked fast as if to ward off the tears. “Jenks said you found the countercurse?” she said, her tear-wet eyes following him as he went to sit beside Bis. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ll pay for it. Anythin’. They’re my family.”

            “Um, I have it,” I said as Trent studied a patient tablet. “We’re waiting for Vivian.”

            “The coven member?” Cassie asked, still flustered. “I come here to read to them when it gets quiet. Everyone keeps telling me they’re doing okay, but they’re dyin’.” She gestured listlessly at the four beds against the two walls. “I can’t see auras, and even I can tell that.”

            Trent set the tablet down, his brow furrowed. “We can invoke it when Vivian gets here.”

            “Vivian, hell. Do it now,” Cassie demanded, reminding me of a hospital mom, desperate for her miracle cure. “Look at them!” she shouted, pointing. “They can’t wait!”

            “Cassie might be right,” Trent said, his focus distant as if seeing through walls. Jenks, too, was nodding. “I’ve never seen that before,” Trent added, his worry obvious.

            I didn’t like using my second sight at night when the ever-after was easier to see layered over everything—even if the demon’s reality was pleasant now. Using it in the hospital was even worse as the faint images of what people used to call ghosts seemed to flit about within my blind spot. But Cassie’s hand-wringing worry and Jenks’s pale dust lured me into willing it forth.

            Gut tight, I ignored the image of wide spaces and starry skies spreading around and over me as the walls and floor became misty and indistinct. As expected, Trent’s aura was a cheerful golden yellow that nearly matched mine, right down to the streaks of red. Jenks’s aura was his usual rainbow. It was somewhat shallow in blue, but he was currently dusting that color, and my suspicion was confirmed when the blue returned and the yellow became sparse when his dust shifted color as well. Interesting. Bis’s aura, which I’d never paid much attention to, was his usual violet and blue, a warming of orange at his chest, and Cassie’s was a pleasant greenish blue, almost violet at her fingertips.