The new back end had a high roof, a plywood floor, and stud walls wired for sockets and obvious gaps for wide windows. The fireplace had been left where it was, new mortar shoring up the fire damage. A covered outdoor kitchen will be a nice plus for someone, I thought, then sent my gaze over the garden. “Is Jenks around? I need to talk to him.”
Trent stepped over the low wall and held out a hand for me. “He’s watching Pike with Etude. Rachel, about your idea to turn him into a mouse . . .”
I froze, my hand in his. Then I stepped over the wall and pulled away. “I’m listening.”
Trent squinted at the belfry. Pike might not be able to move, but vampires had excellent hearing. “Are you sure you’re not doing it out of revenge?” he said, voice low.
My boots scuffed on the new walk of pavers now weaving through my garden like a slow river. Then I looked closer, wincing. They had names on them. Someone had stolen them from Cincinnati’s benefactor walk. Crap on toast, I’m going to hear about this. “Revenge for what?”
“For trying to bind you to him,” Trent said, his voice holding a shocking anger.
“Oh.” I winced, guilt flashing through me again for having enjoyed it. But the drowsing vampires had clearly heard him, one jostling the elbow of the other and grinning at us. They knew. God, how they knew. I thought it telling that Trent was more angry about Pike trying to seduce me than him trying to kill me when he failed.
“It might be better to use, say, a binding curse,” Trent continued as we made our way to the raised deck. “One that will keep Pike from straying and still allow Constance to see him with you, furthering her belief that he hasn’t yet tried to seduce you and failed.”
“But I already stirred the potion,” I said, feeling the seven tiny vials in my pocket. Pike had watched me make them, and no way would I leave them around to be ingested by accident. “They won’t be any good after a week.” I pulled Trent to a halt at the wide steps. “I even have a little carrying case for him so he won’t get crushed in my purse. He can breathe and everything.”
Brow furrowed, Trent took my elbows, his eyes pinched in his need to convince me. “If you’re out of the church, he needs to be seen with you,” he insisted. “If Constance even thinks he’s at the church alone, she’ll send her thugs to tear it apart. She’s afraid of you, Rachel. You’re the only person standing up to her, and that makes her an extremely dangerous vampire.”
Is there any other kind? A slow sigh shifted my shoulders as I looked over the sunlit grounds, remembering all the people sheltering here, filling my and Ivy’s old room, the tents in the garden, catching z’s and something to eat in a safe place until they could find a permanent solution. I couldn’t risk Constance coming here. They wouldn’t be able to stomach being displaced again. People would be hurt or killed. Not to mention Finley’s work would be torn up.
“I don’t have time to find, much less make a new curse to force Pike’s compliance,” I said, hating the hint of whine in my voice. “Hodin isn’t that good, and I can’t ask Al.” Depressed, I stomped up the stairs to the deck, hesitating when I realized that though the deck was plywood, the steps themselves were redwood. Nice. It was going to be more of an enclosed porch, maybe, and that it wasn’t going to be mine made my mood even worse.
“Rachel . . . we have options.”
Trent had followed me, and I forced a smile when Edden and Jenks came out the temporary door Finley had put up. It had room 304 on it, and I didn’t want to know where they’d stolen it from. One end of the deck had six webbing chairs arranged in a circle around a huge cooler before the old fireplace. Construction equipment had been pushed into a corner, and a huge fan was bolted to the tall ceiling where my kitchen had once been, wires running to a box switch in the open wall. It looked too industrial to be decorative, but maybe that was the theme Finley was going for. It was an outdoor space.
“Trent’s right,” Jenks said from Edden’s shoulder, and I slumped, hating it when they ganged up on me. “Constance needs to see him or she’ll attack the church. But that mouse potion Pike watched you make will be a good carrot to keep him behaving. I can sit on his shoulder and threaten to douse him if he does anything but sit down, shut up, and enjoy the ride.”
Edden ran a hand over his chin, his mustache bunching as he squinted in worry. “I have an impounded van ready downtown. Are you serious about taking Pike into the I.S.? How is threatening to turn him into a mouse going to stop him from saying the wrong thing at the right time and getting you caught? Especially when it has to be ingested, not splashed on him.”
Hearing it from Edden, I wasn’t sure, either.
Jenks snickered, exchanging a sly look with Trent. “He doesn’t know that. Fear and bluff got Francis in his own trunk.”
I nodded, remembering conning the hapless man into his trunk so I could take his interview with Trent, hell-bent on blackmail to pay off my I.S. contract. But then my smile faded. Francis hadn’t survived, taken out by Trent’s car bomb to eliminate him as a witness. We had both grown since then, but Constance was going to test that to the limit.
“Pike is smarter than that,” Trent said, making Edden frown even more.
“How big a van did you get?” I asked Edden, thinking he looked odd in jeans and a FIB jacket. Just an average guy with a pistol in a hidden-carry holster. “Maybe he can stay with you.”
Eyes wide, Edden put a protesting hand in the air. “No. Not even spelled or cuffed. I can’t protect him against a death threat. I drove past two groups of them on my way here. You’re the only reason they haven’t shown up on your doorstep to finish him off.”
Trent tugged me into him, smiling. “I wasn’t sure until now, but that was a good decision in San Francisco to beat those three off him. They know it’s not worth their effort when they can wait until you aren’t with him. Constance will know that, too. Maybe it will get you the respect you deserve.”
“Or maybe she’ll send bigger thugs to kill me,” I muttered, and I swear, I heard Etude chuckle, the faint sound of gravel being crushed coming from the roof.
But my attention went to the temporary door as Stef came out, somehow looking both relaxed and frazzled in her work scrubs with her hair in disarray. “Oh, fabulous,” she said, clearly relieved as she saw us. “Rachel, I’ve got two men insisting—”
“Who?” I said suspiciously, going to stand with Trent as two older elves in suits and ties filed out behind her, their gaze going from us to the obvious construction, and back again. Though appreciably older than Trent, they looked remarkably similar to him apart from their docked ears, each having that wispy blond hair, a slim build, narrow face, and of course, the suit that cost more than my yearly shoe budget. Trent’s dad hadn’t been big on individualism, preferring to stick with something he was confident would work. It made all the elves sort of look the same, and I knew Trent hated it.