I trusted Jenks. Arms flailing and feet still going, I ran right off the roof.
Adrenaline surged as my stomach dropped. It was a parking lot! He sent me off the roof to land in a parking lot!
"I don't have wings, Jenks!" I screamed. Teeth gritted, I flexed my knees.
Pain exploded as I hit the pavement. I fell forward, scraping my palms. The canister of fish clanged and fell off as the strap broke. I rolled to absorb the impact.
The metal canister spun away, and still gasping from the hurt, I staggered after it, fingers brushing it as it rolled under a car. Swearing, I dropped flat on the pavement, stretching for it.
"There she is!" came a shout.
There was a ping from the car above me, then another. The pavement beside my arm suddenly had a hole in it, and sharp tingles of shrapnel peppered me. They were shooting at me?
Grunting, I wiggled under the car and pulled the canister out. Hunched over the fish, I backed up. "Hey!" I shouted, tossing the hair from my eyes. "What the hell are you doing? It's just a fish! And it isn't even yours!"
The trio of Weres on the roof stared at me. One hefted a weapon to his eye.
I turned and started running. This was not worth five hundred dollars anymore. Five thousand, maybe. Next time, I vowed as I pounded after Jenks, I'd find out the particulars before I charge my standard fee.
"This way!" Jenks shrilled. Bits of pavement were ricocheting up to hit me, echoing the pings. The lot wasn't gated, and as my muscles trembled from adrenaline, I ran across the street and into the pedestrian traffic. Heart pounding, I slowed to look behind me to see them silhouetted against the skyline. They hadn't jumped. They didn't need to. I had left blood all over that trellis. Still, I didn't think they would track me. It wasn't their fish; it was the Howlers'. And Cincinnati's all Inderland baseball team was going to pay my rent.
My lungs heaved as I tried to match the pace of the people around me. The sun was hot, and I was sweating inside my polyester sack. Jenks was probably checking my back, so I dropped into an alley to change. Setting the fish down, I let my head thump back into the cool wall of the building. I'd done it. Rent was made for yet another month.
Reaching up, I yanked the disguise amulet from around my neck. Immediately I felt better, as the illusion of a dark-completed, brown-haired, big-nosed woman vanished, revealing my frizzy, shoulder-length red hair and pale skin. I glanced at my scraped palms, rubbing them together gingerly. I could have brought a pain amulet, but I had wanted as few charms as possible on me in case I was caught and my "intent to steal" turned into "intent to steal and do bodily harm." One I could dodge, the other I'd have to answer to. I was a runner; I knew the law.
While people passed at the head of the alley, I stripped off the damp coveralls and stuffed it into the Dumpster. It was a vast improvement, and I bent to unroll the hem of my leather pants down over my black boots. Straightening, I eyed the new scrape mark in my pants, twisting to see all the damage. Ivy's leather conditioner would help, but pavement and leather didn't mesh well. Better the pants scraped than me, though, which was why I wore them.
The September air felt good in the shade as I tucked in my black halter top and picked up the canister. Feeling more myself, I stepped into the sun, dropping my cap on a passing kid's head. He looked at it, then smiled, giving me a shy wave as his mother bent to ask him where he had gotten it. At peace with the world, I walked down the sidewalk, boot heels clunking as I fluffed my hair and headed for Fountain Square and my ride. I had left my shades there this morning, and if I was lucky, they'd still be there. God help me, but I liked being independent.
It had been nearly three months since I had snapped under the crap assignments my old boss at Inderland Security had been giving me. Feeling used and grossly unappreciated, I had broken the unwritten rule and quit the I.S. to start my own agency. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and surviving the subsequent death threat when I couldn't pay the bribe to break my contract had been an eye opener. I wouldn't have made it if not for Ivy and Jenks.
Oddly enough, now that I was finally starting to make a name for myself, it was getting harder, not easier. True, I was putting my degree to work, stirring spells I used to buy and some I had never been able to afford. But money was a real problem. It wasn't that I couldn't get the jobs; it was that the money didn't seem to stay in the cookie jar atop the fridge very long.
What I made from proving a Werefox had been slipped some bane by a rival den had gone to renewing my witch license; the I.S. used to pay for that. I recovered a stolen familiar for a warlock and spent it on the monthly rider on my health insurance. I hadn't known that runners were all but uninsurable; the I.S. had given me a card, and I'd used it. Then I had to pay some guy to take the lethal spells off my stuff still in storage, buy Ivy a silk robe to replace the one I ruined, and pick up a few outfits for myself since I now had a reputation to uphold.
But the steady drain on my finances had to be from the cab fares. Most of Cincinnati's bus drivers knew me by sight and wouldn't pick me up, which was why Ivy had to come cart me home. It just wasn't fair. It had been almost a year since I accidentally removed the hair from an entire busload of people while trying to tag a Were.
I was tired of being almost broke, but the money for recovering the Howlers' mascot would put me in the clear for another month. And the Weres wouldn't follow me. It wasn't their fish. If they filed a complaint at the I.S., they'd have to explain where they had gotten it.
"Hey, Rache," Jenks said, dropping down from who knew where. "Your back is clear. And what is Plan B?"
My eyebrows rose and I looked askance at him as he flew alongside, matching my pace exactly. "Grab the fish and run like hell."
Jenks laughed and landed on my shoulder. He had ditched his tiny uniform, and he looked like his usual self in a long-sleeve hunter-green silk shirt and pants. A red bandana was about his forehead to tell any pixy or fairies whose territory we might walk through that he wasn't poaching. Sparkles glittered in his wings where the last of the pixy dust stirred up by the excitement remained.
My pace slowed as we reached Fountain Square. I scanned for Ivy, not seeing her. Not worried, I went to sit on the dry side of the fountain, running my fingers under the rim of the retaining wall for my shades. She'd be here. The woman lived and died by schedules.
While Jenks flew through the spray to get rid of the last of the "dead dinosaur stink," I snapped open my shades and put them on. My brow eased as the glare of the September afternoon was muted. Stretching my long legs out, I casually took off the scent amulet that was around my neck and dropped it into the fountain. Weres tracked by smell, and if they did follow me, the trail would end here as soon as I got in Ivy's car and drove away.
Hoping no one had noticed, I glanced over the surrounding people: a nervous, anemic-looking vampire lackey out doing his lover's daytime work; two whispering humans, giggling as they eyed his badly scarred neck; a tired witch - no, warlock, I decided, by the lack of a strong redwood smell - sitting at a nearby bench eating a muffin; and me. I took a slow breath as I settled in. Having to wait for a ride was kind of an anticlimax.
"I wish I had a car," I said to Jenks as I edged the canister of fish to sit between my feet. Thirty feet away traffic was stop-and-go. It had picked up, and I guessed it was probably after two o'clock, just beginning the span of time when humans and Inderlanders started their daily struggle to coexist in the same limited space. Things got a hell of a lot easier when the sun went down and most humans retired to their homes.
"What do you want with a car?" Jenks asked as he perched himself on my knee and started to clean his dragonfly-like wings with long serious strokes. "I don't have a car. I've never had a car. I get around okay. Cars are trouble," he said, but I wasn't listening anymore. "You have to put gas in them, and keep them in repair, and spend time cleaning them, and you have to have a place to put them, and then there's the money you lavish on them. It's worse than a girlfriend."
"Still," I said, jiggling my foot to irritate him. "I wish I had a car." I glanced at the people around me. "James Bond never had to wait for a bus. I've seen every one of his movies, and he never waited for a bus." I squinted at Jenks. "It kinda loses its pizzazz."
"Um, yeah," he said, his attention behind me. "I can see where it might be safer, too. Eleven o'clock. Weres."
My breath came fast as I looked, and my tension slammed back into me. "Crap," I whispered, picking up the canister. It was the same three. I could tell by their hunched stature and the way they were breathing deeply. Jaw clenched, I stood up and put the fountain between us. Where was Ivy?
"Rache?" Jenks questioned. "Why are they following you?"
"I don't know." My thoughts went to the blood I had left on the roses. If I couldn't break the scent trail, they could follow me all the way home. But why? Mouth dry, I sat with my back to them, knowing Jenks was watching. "Have they winded me?" I asked.
He left in a clatter of wings. "No," he said when he returned a bare second later. "You've got about half a block between you, but you gotta get moving."
Jiggling, I weighed the risk of staying still and waiting for Ivy with moving and being spotted. "Damn it, I wish I had a car," I muttered. I leaned to look into the street, searching for the tall blue top of a bus, a cab, anything. Where the hell was Ivy?
Heart pounding, I stood. Clutching the fish to me, I headed for the street, wanting to get into the adjacent office building and the maze I could lose myself in while waiting for Ivy. But a big black Crown Victoria slowed to a stop, getting in my way.
I glared at the driver, my tight face going slack when the window whined down and he leaned over the front seat. "Ms. Morgan?" the dark man said, his deep voice belligerent.
I glanced at the Weres behind me, then at the car, then him. A black Crown Victoria driven by a man in a black suit could only mean one thing. He was from the Federal Inderland Bureau, the human-run equivalent of the I.S. What did the FIB want? "Yeah. Who are you?"
Bother crossed him. "I talked to Ms. Tamwood earlier. She said I could find you here."
Ivy. I put a hand on the open window. "Is she all right?"
He pressed his lips together. Traffic was backing up behind him. "She was when I talked with her on the phone."
Jenks hovered before me, his tiny face frightened. "They winded you, Rache."
My breath hissed in through my nose. I glanced behind me. My gaze fell on one of the Weres. Seeing me watching him, he barked out a hail. The other two started to converge, loping forward with an unhurried grace. I swallowed hard. I was dog chow. That's it. Dog chow. Game over. Hit the reset button.
Spinning, I grabbed the door handle and jerked it up. I dove in, slamming the door behind me. "Drive!" I shouted, turning to look out the back window.
The man's long face took on a tinge of disgust as he glanced behind him in his rearview mirror. "Are they with you?"
"No! Does this thing move, or do you just sit in it and play with yourself?"
Making a low noise of irritation, he accelerated smoothly. I spun in my seat, watching the Weres come to a halt in the middle of the street. Horns blew from the cars forced to stop for them. Turning back around, I clutched my fish canister and closed my eyes in relief. I was going to get Ivy for this. I swear, I was going to use her precious maps as weed block in the garden. She was supposed to pick me up, not send some FIB flunky.
Pulse slowing, I turned to look at him. He was a good head taller than me, which was saying something - with nice shoulders, curly black hair cut close to his skull, square jaw, and a stiff attitude just begging for me to smack him. Comfortably muscled without going overboard, there wasn't even the hint of a gut on him. In his perfectly fitting black suit, white shirt, and black tie, he could be the FIB poster boy. His mustache and beard were cut in the latest style - so minimal that they almost weren't there - and I thought he might do better to lighten up on his aftershave. I eyed the handcuff pouch on his belt, wishing I still had mine. They had belonged to the I.S., and I missed them dearly.
Jenks settled himself at his usual spot on the rearview mirror where the wind wouldn't tear his wings, and the stiff-necked man watched him with an intentness that told me he had little contact with pixies. Lucky him.
A call came over the radio about a shoplifter at the mall, and he snapped it off. "Thanks for the ride," I said. "Ivy sent you?"
He tore his eyes from Jenks. "No. She said you'd be here. Captain Edden wants to talk you. Something concerning Councilman Trent Kalamack," the FIB officer added indifferently.
"Kalamack!" I yelped, then cursed myself for having said anything. The wealthy bastard wanted me to work for him or see me dead. It depended on his mood and how well his stock portfolio was doing. "Kalamack, huh?" I amended, shifting uneasily in the leather seat. "Why is Edden sending you to fetch me? You on his hit list this week?"
He said nothing, his blocky hands gripping the wheel so tight that his fingernails went white. The silence grew. We went through a yellow light shifting to red. "Ah, who are you?" I finally asked.
He made a scoffing noise deep in his throat. I was used to wary distrust from most humans. This guy wasn't afraid, and it was ticking me off. "Detective Glenn, ma'am," he said.
"Ma'am," Jenks said, laughing. "He called you ma'am."
I scowled at Jenks. He looked young to have made detective. The FIB must have been getting desperate. "Well, thank you, Detective Glade," I said, mangling his name. "You can drop me off anywhere. I can take the bus from here. I'll come out to see Captain Edden tomorrow. I'm working an important case right now."
Jenks snickered, and the man flushed, the red almost hidden behind his dark skin. "It's Glenn, ma'am. And I saw your important case. Want me to take you back to the fountain?"
"No," I said, slumping in my seat, thoughts of angry young Weres going through my head. "I appreciate the lift to my office, though. It's in the Hollows, take the next left."
"I'm not your driver," he said grimly, clearly unhappy. "I'm your delivery boy."
I shifted my arm inside as he rolled the window up from his control panel. Immediately it grew stuffy. Jenks flitted to the ceiling, trapped. "What the hell are you doing?" he shrilled.
"Yeah!" I exclaimed, more irate than worried. "What's up?"
"Captain Edden wants to see you now, Ms. Morgan, not tomorrow." His gaze darted from the street to me. His jaw was tight, and I didn't like his nasty smile. "And if you so much as reach for a spell, I'll yank your witch butt out of my car, cuff you, and throw you in the trunk. Captain Edden sent me to get you, but he didn't say what kind of shape you had to be in."
Jenks alighted on my earring, swearing up a blue streak. I repeatedly flicked the switch for the window, but Glenn had locked it. I settled back with a huff. I could jam my finger in Glenn's eye and force us off the road, but why? I knew where I was going. And Edden would see that I had a ride home. It ticked me off, though, running into a human who had more gall than I did. What was the city coming to?
A sullen silence descended. I took my sunglasses off and leaned over, noticing the man was going fifteen over the posted limit. Figures.
"Watch this," Jenks whispered. My eyebrows rose as the pixy flitted from my earring. The autumn sun coming in was suddenly full of sparkles as he surreptitiously sifted a glowing dust over the detective. I'd bet my best pair of lace panties it wasn't the usual pixy dust. Glenn had been pixed.
I hid a smile. In about twenty minutes Glenn would be itching so bad he wouldn't be able to sit still. "So, how come you aren't scared of me?" I asked brazenly, feeling vastly better.
"A witch family lived next door when I was a kid," he said warily. "They had a girl my age. She hit me with just about everything a witch can do to a person." A faint smile crossed his square face to make him look very un-FIBlike. "The saddest day of my life was when she moved away."
I made a pouty face. "Poor baby," I said, and his scowl returned. I wasn't pleased, though. Edden sent him to pick me up because he had known I couldn't bully him.
I hated Mondays.