Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “Mrs. Sarong?” I guessed, balking when the scent of stale water and old wood rolled out. And Ivy . . . I thought in relief as I followed David and Quen into the small room lit by a dim, industrial, battery-operated light.

            “Hi, Rachel.” Ivy rose from a makeshift cardboard-box table. Pike was there, too, giving me a preoccupied smile and wave before going back to his maps. Eyes black in stress, Ivy came forward, weaving through the three metal folding chairs and Pike’s brother nestled in a beanbag chair, his knees almost to his ears. The memory-challenged vampire didn’t even look up as the door squeaked shut; he was entirely focused on his handheld game.

            “Hi, Ivy.” But my reach to give her a hug faltered as I saw the mouse cradled in her long-fingered hand. It was wearing jewelry.

            Suddenly the ceramic bowl on the cardboard-box table was making sense.

            “What is she doing here?” I said, and the mouse glared, whiskers trembling.





CHAPTER


            28

            “I told you she wasn’t going to like it,” David said, and Ivy frowned at him.

            “Constance?” Trent said, and the mouse hissed, showing him her long canines. “Ah, shouldn’t she be in a cage?” he added.

            Cooing, Ivy raised the incensed mouse to her face, soothing her with little whispers.

            Jenks snickered, hands on his hips as he hovered over Ivy’s shoulder where his dust could “accidentally” spill onto Constance. With a shriek, the vampire mouse turned her anger on him. “Constance hasn’t been in a cage for months,” Jenks said. “You know how I could never find Getty? Well, she renovated a fairy bolt-hole in the garden, dug it six feet down below the frost line in case, ah, things didn’t work out in the church. She showed it to Constance the first night.”

            “And they both lived happily ever after,” I said, all of which explained how Getty knew where Constance was hiding.

            Jenks rasped his wings, clearly proud of the independent-minded pixy woman. “If you ask me, half the reason Constance wants to shift back is because Getty won’t be able to visit once the weather closes in.”

            Quen stood beside Pike, his arms at his sides, stance disapproving. “I do not agree with this plan, Sa’han,” he said, and the mouse began squeaking, gesturing wildly.

            “Why? Because it involves Constance?” Pike said, surprising me. I’d thought he hated her, but perhaps six weeks of getting his undead fix from Ivy’s mom was leaving its mark. “There’s nothing more trustworthy than a long undead who sees you as their way to survive.”

            Until they don’t need you anymore, I thought.

            Quen crossed his arms, his pox scars in bright relief. “You can trust they will do whatever is in their best interests, and nothing else.”

            Constance hissed, and Ivy flashed him an irate look before turning to coax the rodent into a better mood. Pike left the makeshift table, giving his brother’s shoulder a reassuring but ignored pat in passing. “Which in this case is seeing that Finnis stays out of Cincinnati. Finnis wants Constance twice dead. That’s why the DC vamps sent her here in the first place for Rachel to off.”

            Worried, I frowned at the mouse staring at me. Allow Constance to resume her city-master status? Even if it was only a shell position, I’d have to uncurse her. True, Constance could have turned herself back any number of times when I’d been spelling and had a salt vat set up. That she was considering it now meant she wanted something more than being herself again. Protection? I mused, seeing as that’s what she’d been getting the last six months, living in a hole in the ground in my garden.

            Ivy set Constance on the table, and the mouse immediately went to the empty bowl and rocked it. “Rachel, I’ve been over it a hundred ways,” Ivy said as she sat beside her. “Even with the substantial force at David’s disposal, Pike and I can’t overpower Finnis, Nina’s and my mother’s help aside.”

            Leaning against a damp wall, David pointedly cleared his throat. “I disagree.”

            “Without a lot of bloodshed and major news coverage,” Ivy amended. “And someone going to jail for illegal death.”

            Grinning, David touched the rifle under his duster. “They have to catch you first.”