Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “No,” he said, eyes closed.

            My shower could wait, and I stayed where I was, my hand moving against his shoulder. The light from the fire on the ceiling was mesmerizing, and I sent my senses out, finding Bis, and hopefully Jenks, at the balcony. A wave of satisfaction crossed me; Bis’s emotions were joyful and content. He loved being up here, perched where he could see everything. Jenks, too, didn’t need a full garden anymore if he was not raising a family. Getty was used to finding what she needed outside the traditional garden. I was the only one dragging her feet, Trent’s claim that he couldn’t afford to insure me aside.

            And for a moment, I felt my pulse quicken at the idea of helping Trent fill the empty space I could feel spreading around us, seeing it come alive with his plans and the girls’ needs, and maybe a little of myself.

            Until the reality of the past four years crashed over me, four years of destruction and large swaths of collateral damage. If I was to be here, seeing the girls become who they would be, I would have to let go of everything I had not only worked for but taken into my circle to protect. Ivy, Pike, David, and even Vivian.

            My eyes flicked to Trent as he sighed in his sleep, and a wave of determination swept me.

            I will find a way to make this work.





CHAPTER


            19

            “I forgot about the spell checker,” Trent said, his rain-damp fingers touching his jacket’s breast pocket as we waited in line to enter the coffee festival.

            “You want me to fly something over it?” Jenks said from my big hoop earring, and Trent’s worried expression cleared.

            “No. Thank you.”

            But even as he said it, he was glancing behind us and out the tiny lobby of Cincinnati Music Hall’s ballroom to where he’d parked across the street.

            “Jenks, would you do a quick recon?” I asked as I took off my jacket and gave it a good shake. It was raining again. Still. Whatever. Halloween was going to be a soggy mess.

            “You got it, Rache,” he said, my earring swinging as he darted off to survey the practice rooms and other areas currently off-limits.

            Three flights up, the small festival was already in full swing, and the rich, welcoming scent of freshly brewed coffee poured down the steps as we inched forward. I’d been here lots of times. The ballroom was basically a large, long, high-ceilinged room, the venue perfect for wedding receptions, elaborate city functions—and the Cincinnati Coffee Festival.

            Behind us, a buzz was starting, and I inched closer to Trent, possessively looping my arm in his. It wasn’t often that Trent mingled so freely with Cincy’s down-to-earth citizens, but he’d lost a lot of notoriety along with his councilman position, and it was only the gossip tabloids that kept him in the news now. Still, it made me nervous, as he had removed his usual first layer of security—separation.

            “I’m surprised you wanted to come to this,” I said as he scrolled through his phone to find the tickets, then showed them to security to be scanned.

            “I like coffee,” he said, smiling at the attendant as he boldly stepped through the detector. It didn’t even blip, and it was my turn to be nervous as I followed him. But I, too, got a clean screen, even with the chakra ring in my pocket. I’d left the spell books in Trent’s study under his Orchid Digest magazine, but the ring was too dangerous to leave unattended. It would stay in my pocket until Vivian saw it and I gave it to Al in return for Trent’s books.

            “Yes,” I said, resuming our conversation as I joined him on the stairs and looped my arm in his again. “But you’re rubbing shoulders with the common folk.”

            “I like common folk nearly as much as coffee,” he said, and I pulled him to a stop at the top of the stair, wanting a moment to study the room before we entered. Inside were three aisles of vendors selling everything from coffee to tea to pastries, and my stomach rumbled. Waking up on the floor of an unfinished flat in Trent’s arms had made for a hurried morning. I’d skipped breakfast in order to take a shower and hopefully tame my hair. It hadn’t worked. My hair was in its usual braid, but there was only so much pixy dust could do, and with no product . . . yeah. It didn’t help that I was in yesterday’s clothes, either.

            “They had a VIP party last night where you could have gotten your coffee fix,” I said as I scanned the crowded floor. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know about it.”