Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            But it sharpened as David’s door opened and the two doctors came out. Cassie was behind them, seeming tired and small, and I stood, my heart going out to her. She was still in her borrowed sweats, her short, kinky hair loose about her head to give her a little-girl-lost mien. A professional bandage was around her wrist, and she moved with a limp. One of her eyes was swollen, the skin around it beginning to purple. Even beat up, the slim, athletic woman was gorgeous. I just looked ugly after a beating.

            Trent rose, moving fast to intercept the doctors. His pleasant confidence pulled them to a halt a mere three steps from the door, but I went for Cassie, giving her a quick hug before pushing back to search her face. “How is he?” I asked, and her breath caught.

            “Um, about the same. They’ve tried a couple of things to uncurse him, but nothin’ is workin’,” she said, the way she pronounced her r’s, lost her g’s, and the slight rise in voice at her last word a clear indication of her fatigue. She worked hard to cover her accent. “That invocation phrase you gave them isn’t known, meanin’ it’s probably demon.”

            “We will figure this out,” I said as I gave her another hug and the scent of werefox pricked through me. “Are you doing okay?”

            The frazzled woman looked over my shoulder to Edden and Glenn standing awkwardly nearby. “I don’t know,” she said, clearly suspicious of Glenn’s badge. I could understand why. The FIB handled human issues. The I.S. handled everything else. “It’s Kylie, Trank, Em, and Jedda all over again,” she added, brow furrowed.

            I felt my expression empty as my grip fell from her elbows. A ring amulet had been what cursed her employees, too, and the doctors still hadn’t figured out how to untwist it. Me either, and I had better books. We might have caught a break if it was the same curse. The invocation phrase would be a big help in identifying it.

            Cassie’s silver-gray eyes flicked to the departing doctors, her jaw tightening when Glenn and Edden inched closer. “Why is the FIB here?” she whispered, and I turned to them.

            “Cassie, this is Glenn and his dad, Edden. They’re friends of David’s. And mine.”

            “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” Glenn said as his dad leaned to shake Cassie’s hand.

            “She’s a werefox,” I said as the man tried not to stare. “From Australia.”

            “First-generation American,” Cassie said, her accent gone. “My parents came over after the Turn.”

            “Um, nice to meet you,” Glenn said again as he shook her hand.

            “You said that.” Cassie reclaimed her hand, still wearing that same smile I used when I was trying to disentangle myself from unwanted attention without being called a bitch. “I’d offer you some casino chips the next time you’re down by the waterfront, but that might be inappropriate if you work for the FIB.”

            “I don’t work twenty-four/seven,” he said, but he was already backing down, shelving his obvious attraction to the dark-haired, brown-skinned woman with silver eyes. As did his father, Glenn saw a person, not their background, but unlike his dad, he also had no problem with getting to know them in the biblical sense, either. Cassie, though, was already involved in a relationship. Knowing David, it wouldn’t be forever. The man was . . . well . . . yeah.

            “Any friend of Rachel’s,” Cassie said, but I could sense her suspicion as she turned to David’s door. I gave Glenn an encouraging smile as I followed her in, and he shrugged, used to being thought of as useless by most Inderlanders. Very few people knew it, but the FIB was hell on wheels when it came to research, investigation, and gathering information, especially on us paranormals. It was their special, paranoid-based gift.

            But my faint smile vanished as I inched into the room. David. I am so sorry, I thought as Jenks rose from David’s shoulder, where he’d been whispering into his bandaged ear.

            I didn’t see David much outside of his nine-to-five, which usually had him in a suit and tie while adjusting insurance claims. It might sound pedestrian, but his company insured witches, Weres, and vampires, and their claims often strayed from the norm. His job kept him fit, and his naturally feral grace was even more obvious when he was in fur and not his usual jeans and a crisp black shirt. Now, seeing him pale from a forced shift and Cassie arranging the white sheet about him, it was hard not to cry.

            “You’re going to be okay, David,” I said as I angled past Trent to take David’s hand. A faint tingling whispered into me. It was the focus, slumbering within David. His pack tattoo of a black dandelion gone to seed hit me like a cold smack, and I fought to keep my breath even.