And as I backed up onto the street and headed across town, I began to regret my casual ultimatum that Al and his brother make peace or stay out of my life.
CHAPTER
8
All the way down to the white-picket fence, I thought as I made my way along the uneven pavers from Keric’s house to the shady curb where my red MINI waited. It was an old neighborhood on the outskirts of Cincy, meaning you couldn’t easily tell who was Inderland and who was human—which was how some Inderlanders liked it. There were bikes abandoned on the front lawns and chalk runes on the sidewalk. Old trees were beginning to come down, but there were new ones replacing them, and the bright spots of light were filled with sun-loving plants and swaths of even green. A good place to raise a demon, I thought, smiling when I heard the little boy laugh through the window.
But my smile faded when Dali’s low voice rose up to join it, pulling into memory our conversation about master vampires and demon subrosas. He was a conniving bastard. Maybe I should come back after Dali left and make them a demon bell. They were nice people, too nice to be taken advantage of. Average everything. He worked in retail; she, as a computer programmer. Neither were especially talented in earth or ley line magic, but I was betting they were going to learn if only to keep up with their kid. A bell might keep Dali out while they were sleeping if nothing else.
Americana suburbia. Not where you’d expect a demon to spring from, I mused as I went through the low gate, needing to wiggle it to make it latch. That is, unless you were among the very few who knew that witches got their start as genetically stunted demons, the result of a magical assault inflicted by the elves thousands of years ago in an attempt to slowly wipe them out. Occasionally the damaged genetics lined up to produce a true demon from their stunted children. Trouble was, it was linked to a lethal suite of genes that caused the Rosewood syndrome. One hundred percent lethal.
It had only recently been circumvented by Trent’s dad, and now, Trent himself. It still remained a question if Trent’s dad, Kal, had broken the elven genetic curse intentionally as a way to end the war, or accidentally in his efforts to help a friend. I was betting on the latter. Trent’s dad was said to have been a major phallus, and anything he did would have been to further his interests, not for the greater good, and certainly not to help the demons.
I was unlocking my car when I heard steps on the walk and turned. It was Dali, and I waited, his knowing smile widening when Keric’s loud complaint at his absence spilled out into the lengthening afternoon.
“You need a ride?” I said as he closed the distance between us. He couldn’t be leaving now, not when it was going so well, and he shook his head.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said, an unusual gruff reluctance pinching his brow.
Oh. I leaned back against my car, arms over my middle so Trent’s ring caught the light. “You’re welcome. I have to admit you’re more proficient at this than I thought you’d be.”
He glanced back at the house, looking marvelously elegant in his demon robes and hat. A car drove past, slowing down to look at him in the sun, then speeding up. “You don’t forget how to hold a child no matter how long you live.”
My next words caught in my throat. Seeing the demons now, it was hard to remember that they all had lives we didn’t know about, lives with chains and stolen children, of hunger and madness, of defiance, of success, and bitter, bitter payback that had brought both the demons and the elves to the edge of extinction.
“Dali, can I ask you to do something for me?”
Annoyance flickered over him. Posture stiff, he again became the hard-ass, why-should-I-care politician/public servant. “I’m not helping you with Constance. Get control of her yourself.”
I pushed up off my car, startling him as I was suddenly inches from his face. “I want you to remember that Keric is going to live forever and his parents are not,” I said softly. “They have eighty, maybe a hundred more years with him, and only twenty of them will be as his parents. I’m asking you to think past your singular desires and pride to respect their wishes about what to and what not to teach him as long as he’s under their roof.”
With one thick finger, Dali pushed me back until my butt hit my car. “I don’t care—”
Anger bubbled up that he was going to blow this chance for them to find societal acceptance because of his pride. “You can wait twenty years!” I shouted, leaning back into his space. “You will let him have twenty years as his parents’ child before you warp him with your twisted version of what’s morally ethical or not.” My pulse was hammering, but it was in anger, not fear. “Got it?”
Dali was silent. We both knew I had little to back up my words, except that I was the one who had shamed them into making the effort to survive when everyone else wanted them dead. There was a place for them, and I wanted them to live, not just exist.
The scent of burnt amber tickled my nose, and, not knowing if it was from him or me, I dropped back, tired of fighting for the demons when they wouldn’t fight for themselves. “Fine,” I said. “Okay. Do what you want. I have to go home and clean my room. It looks filthy now that Stef has cleaned everything else.”
“You will kill yourself trying to be something you are not,” he mocked as I walked away, making me more angry yet.
Frustrated, I yanked my door open, hesitating to look back as I got in. He was already heading up the walk and to the house, his head down in thought. Frankly, I was surprised he’d come out at all. “He’s going to blow us all back to the Turn,” I muttered, angry at his inability to let anyone have a contrary opinion.
Motions rough, I took my phone off airplane mode and plugged it in to charge. My phone dinged, then dinged again. Frowning, I risked a glance at it as it dinged a third time. Voice mails. “Can’t the world spin for an hour without me?” I said, then put my car back into park and picked up my phone. I’d only had it off for an hour.
Lips pressed together, I stared at the screen. N. Lendorski. I didn’t know an N. Lendorski. But then my frown deepened. It was local. From the monastery. Whoever it was, was calling from the dewar.
Nash? I wondered, a cold feeling slipping through me. Big, hulking, blond elf serving as Zack’s bodyguard, Nash?
Again the phone dinged. Jenks had left me a message, too, but I hit Nash’s first.
“Rachel, they took him,” a tension-filled, masculine voice said, and my grip on my phone tightened. It was Nash. I’d recognize his musical baritone anywhere. “He’s gone. I need your help. It was vampires. I can smell them, everywhere. They were here, and Zack is gone. It was Landon. He knocked me out.” There was a pause. “Oh, God. The kitchen is destroyed,” he said, voice cracking. “He put up a fight, and I wasn’t here. I left word at the front desk to let you in. I’m at the monastery. Call me.”