Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            Trent sighed, his attention on an orderly as she went into a nearby room. “He claims I’ve been dealing west of the Mississippi.”

            I took a slow breath. “Have you?”

            Head down, Trent stared at his coffee cup. “His product isn’t safe.”

            “Trent . . . you keep doing that, and he’s going to try to take both sides of the river.”

            “It’s not safe,” he said again. “And until he ups his purity, I’m going to keep offering it.”

            I sipped my coffee, knowing better than to argue. Besides, I agreed with him. Unaltered, Brimstone was a dangerous mood booster and metabolism upper all in one. Making it work-safe reduced the mood enhancements to leave only a caffeine-like buzz without sacrificing the increased blood production. Living vampires used it to keep their blood capacity high enough such that their undead didn’t have to go outside a small, known circle for their needs. I thought it stupid that humans had outlawed the very thing that kept them off the menu. But that was exactly why the I.S. and the human-run Federal Inderland Bureau, or FIB, looked the other way. It was an unenforced law that only came into play when you were wanted for something else they couldn’t pin on you.

            Trent’s posture eased as he studied the depths of his cup. “Quen disagrees, but I plan on sharing my numbers with Lee. He needs to see the benefits of spending more up front to get a better number at the back. He’d up his sales by eight percent if he’d make his Brimstone work-safe. Do you have any idea how significant an increase of eight percent is?”

            I smiled and took his hand in mine. “I doubt a week of partying is enough to soften him up enough to even listen. Lee is a stubborn ass.”

            Trent grinned, apparently enjoying the challenge. “True, but I’ve found him more pliable when money is involved.” Slowly his smile faded, his eyes on our twined fingers. “This is important, Rachel.”

            “I know.” A faint hum of magic cramped up my arm, and I gave his hand in mine a squeeze. The sensation was coming from the pearl pinky ring Trent had given me last year. It was sort of an “I’m dead and can’t get up” spell. Trent had one, too, and they’d both turn black if one of us died or took ours off. Vivian contended mine was on the wrong finger, but I wasn’t ready to move in with Trent, much less marry the man. Besides, if Trent had wanted it on my ring finger, he would have sized it for that. He’d made it clear he had no commitment issues, but he knew better than to push, having seen my pattern of self-sabotage when I felt emotionally scared.

            “Hey, ah, mind if I ask Lee to help me put in a window ward on my porch while he’s here?” I asked, sort of nervous. The ley line charm was complex, more art than anything else. Lee had installed the huge three-story window ward at Trent’s estate when he’d been in his teens. My little eighteen by ten would be nothing for him.

            Trent smirked, mischief glinting in his green eyes. “That’s a great idea. Every time you ask him for help, he chalks it up as a win against me.”

            The elevator dinged, and Trent stiffened, his fingers slipping from mine as he sat back. Ivy? I mused, but my eyebrows rose when the doors opened to show Edden and Glenn, the older man in an ugly, rasping nylon coat, and his son in a flat black wool duster and trendy scarf. I hadn’t called them, but Glenn had recently taken over his dad’s FIB position of Inderland specialist and would have gotten more info than the news had.

            Though markedly short beside his son, Edden carried his chair-weight well, his ex-military body moving with purpose and the expectation that things would go his way. His dark, fine hair had taken on a lot of gray in the five years I’d known him, and his neatly trimmed mustache was white. Though he was officially retired, I still had yet to see him in anything other than his usual creased kakis and button-down shirt.

            Beside him, Glenn was positively polished, the Black man’s step a little longer, his mien a tad closed, but I’d found his brooding presence hid an adventuresome spirit that kept him just this side of the law. Comfortably muscled, Glenn was tight where he should be. A glint of a stud earring gave him some bad boy bling. Edden had adopted him when he married Glenn’s mother, but the two had been on their own for most of Glenn’s life. And whereas they looked as different from each other as they possibly could, they were alike where it counted.

            And I was really glad to see them.

            “Edden. Glenn,” I whispered as I stood, my worry for David returning as I pulled Edden into an earnest hug. “Thank you for coming.” That was what you said, wasn’t it? When someone you cared for was in the hospital and you were helpless to do anything?