Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            Hunching, Constance hissed.

            “Also, I want you to take lessons on how to act the part,” I added. “Ivy can teach you.” Ivy’s eyes were wide, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. “She’s been training for this her entire life. She knows how to keep the peace in Cincinnati through enormous respect and a little fear, not the other way around. Listen to her.”

            The mouse went silent, clearly thinking.

            “Well?” I prompted. “I need some kind of acknowledgment. We doing this, or not?”

            Whiskers trembling, the mouse spun to Pike and Ivy. Ivy had her arms over her middle in a rare show of unease, but Pike was bright and eager. Finally the mouse nodded.

            “Great!” Jenks said, startling me. “Who has the salt water?”

            Pike turned to his brother. “Brad, do you still have that jug you brought down?”

            Brad looked up from his game. “No,” he said, but then David found it, giving the forgetful vampire a reassuring pat on his shoulder before handing it to Pike.

            Constance stood at the bowl’s edge, holding it as he poured it in.

            “Wait,” I cautioned her as the last glugged in, and she hesitated, clearly afraid. “I want to make sure it’s the right concentration,” I said, dipping a finger in and finding that, yes, it tasted right. “It’s all yours.” I glanced between the surrounding faces. “You brought something for her to wear, right?”

            But it was too late. Constance had scrambled up and over, landing in the water with an ungraceful flop.

            “There she goes!” Jenks shrilled, and with a startling pop and whiff of burnt amber, a haze enveloped the bowl, expanding in a muffled woof.

            Constance shrieked, the high-pitched sound raking over my nerves, and then, with a sodden thump, she hit the floor, her sudden weight crushing the box and busting the bowl into three shards underneath her. A small, brown, naked, heavily scarred woman sat and shook, trying to figure out what had happened.

            “Maybe you should have put the bowl on the floor,” Quen said sourly, and Constance glared at him, her red lips pulling away to show her teeth.

            “Mother pus bucket, that never gets old!” Jenks exclaimed, and Constance turned to him, her eyes pupil black as she flipped the wet coils of her hair back.

            “Give me my necklace,” she rasped at the pixy.

            Brad stood, hooting and tugging on his brother’s arm, pointing as if it was a grand trick.

            “Jenks, give her the necklace,” I said, nervous as the scent of the long undead thickened in the stale air. My neck began to tingle and my pulse quickened.

            “Why? She can’t wear it.”

            “Give it to her,” I said again, not sure I liked the submissive way Ivy was helping the woman stand up and shrug into a robe. Clearly they had come prepared. I would have been upset, thinking that my decision was a foregone conclusion, but Ivy would have brought the water and robe even if there’d been no chance that I’d uncurse her. And if you had asked me yesterday, those were the odds I would have given you.

            “Jenks, give her the necklace!” I exclaimed when he balked, and, sullen, he took it from around his neck and dropped it into her damp, shaking hand.

            Immediately she put it on her finger as a ring. “We’re good, right?” I said, and she wiggled her hand to make the jewels catch the light.

            “We are . . . adequate.” Constance’s gaze went sidelong to Pike. “I’m hungry.”

            I couldn’t tell if her eyes were dark from the dim light . . . or something else. Quen had gone ashen, his back to the wall as he drew Trent away. I’d forgotten that Piscary had given him a scar. It must be hell at the moment. “That’s from the transformation spell,” I started, my words faltering when she held her hand out for Pike.

            “Um . . .” I began. “We agreed hands off my people.”

            “It’s not my hands that I’m going to touch him with,” she said, but Pike only grinned, taking her tiny fingers in his own and kissing the top of them. For such a small woman, she had a lot of ugly charisma.