Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            Son of an everlasting troll baby . . . “Damn it, Constance! Quit pooping in my stuff!” I shouted as I took the bowl to the trash and shook her little turds in.

            Stef’s eyes were wide as I stomped to the sink and washed the bowl. Twice. Three times. Still mad, I dunked it in the vat of salt water, and then washed it a fourth. “I swear, why hasn’t she found some salt water and changed herself back,” I groused. But in truth, putting up with viciously gnawed socks and finding mouse poop on my toothbrush was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with the transformed city master vampire in her true form. I thought it odd that Constance hadn’t found a way to turn herself back, as careful as I was about keeping the lid on the dissolution vat when I wasn’t spelling. Not that I was complaining. It had taken a lot of effort to curse the erratic, half-mad undead woman into a mouse in the first place. Why she hadn’t fled when she escaped last July was a troublesome question.

            It could be that Constance knew she’d lost her clout and had nothing with which to resume control over Cincinnati. Or perhaps she was still sulking that the DC vampires hadn’t sent her here to rule but to die at my hand when her erratic “management style” caused chaos. It might even be that she was enjoying her downtime with no stress or responsibilities. Undead vampires liked to be the center of attention, but they were basically lazy.

            But whether for her lack of clout, or sulking, or vacation, the vampiric mouse had clearly remained in the church after Doyle dropped her cage and she had escaped. I had no idea where she was spending her days. The crawl space was not lightproof.

            “Constance again?” the dark-haired pixy asked as she flew in from the garden, and I nodded, flustered as I dried the bowl. Giggling, Getty pirouetted in the air, her exquisite skirt flaring to catch the light. She had spent much of her time the last three months spinning thread from spider silk and plant down, and the undyed fabric was a piece of the garden itself, all browns and golds. “Hang on a sec,” she said as she darted to the pixy hole in the screen, jerking to a halt as she almost ran into Jenks.

            “Excuse me,” the small woman said, her dust shifting to a cold blue, and Jenks hovered before her, making an extravagant, sarcastic gesture. Skirts furling, Getty darted into the garden, her fading dust showing her path.

            Jenks came forward with the scent of cold exhaust and dry leaves. “It’s going to take them a few minutes to get here,” he said, and I set the clean bowl on the counter. “If you ask me, I think Constance likes the church.”

            “Seriously?” I dumped the flour in, then the baking soda and salt. “I turned her into a mouse.”

            Stef chuckled, slurping her coffee as she hitched an ample hip up on the barstool chair before the books. “And kept her safe from the sun,” she said as she drew one of the books closer. “Saw to her blood needs until she got loose. You bested her, then cared for her. That’s what vampires respond to, according to my freshman class of Best Practices in Administering to Vampires. Even the undead ones.”

            “But she’s an old undead. A master vampire,” I said as I went to the fridge for the milk.

            “Not a very good one.” Jenks stood on the rim of the bowl, hands on his hips to look like Peter Pan. “I think she’s afraid to return to DC. You were never cruel or manipulative even after you brought her down. Finnis was, and that’s where she’ll end up if she changes back.”

            “I suppose . . .”

            Jenks’s smile fell as Getty came in with a sparkly scarf. I recognized it as a test piece for her new loom, and it was stunning. Frowning, Jenks flew to the top of the fridge to sulk.

            Getty spun to show off the scarf, somehow getting it around her neck without tangling it in her wings. “I’m going to give this to Constance,” she said, her higher voice almost too fast to be heard. “But only if she promises to stop messing with you.”

            I hesitated, my batter-covered pinky halfway to my mouth. “You know where she is?”

            Getty nodded, looking too pleased to live when Jenks frowned. “Since when?” he asked.

            “Since I found her.” Getty played with the fringe of the scarf to make it catch the light. “We had a discussion. Just the two of us.”

            I licked the batter from my pinky, deciding it was perfect. “Where is she?”

            Getty smirked. “I can’t tell you. That’s part of what we discussed.”