Chapter Fourteen
My mom's kitchen had changed since the last time I'd sat at the table eating cereal. A strong herb scent was heavy in the air, though I didn't see any. There weren't any spell pots or ceramic spoons in the sink either, but the redwood smell rolling off of her when she'd answered the door in her fuzzy leopard-print robe told me that she'd been spelling heavily recently.
Now she smelled like lilac, with only the faintest aroma of redwood to mar it. I thought it funny she was trying to hide from me that she was making and selling charms under the table. Like I would turn my mom in? The I.S. wasn't necessarily generous in their pensions to widows - even those whose spouses worked in the Arcane Division - and it probably wasn't enough to meet the soaring property taxes of what had once been a middle-class neighborhood.
The afternoon light coming in the kitchen window was bright as I sat glum and weary, eating cereal out of a cracked bowl in my usual spot. Lucky Charms. I didn't know which was more disturbing, the possibility that the box was the same one from the last time I'd had breakfast here, or the possibility that it wasn't.
My gaze shifted to the pile of supermarket tabloids that my mother loved, and I tugged one out of the pile when MOURNING SISTER FINDS KITTY LITTER IN TWIN'S URN caught my eye. Below it was a short article on Cincy's colorful history of grave robbing and how bodies were again turning up missing on both sides of the river. A frown came over me. There was only one reason why cremated bodies were replaced with kitty litter - an offering of mortal ashes kept a summoned demon from appearing out of place, like outside the circle. I usually didn't bother with it, but the demons generally crashed my life, not the other way around.
The reminder of Al prompted me to tug my bag across the table. I hadn't given my mother a reason for showing up and falling into an exhausted sleep on top of my old coverlet on my bed. Depression had replaced my fear at the thought that I'd been bound, and the beginnings of forgiveness to Jenks for wiping my memory had taken hold. He had done the right thing. I could easily imagine the state I had been in, and making me forget had probably saved my life. A witch with a vamp scar couldn't stand up to the undead. Ivy would find Kisten's killer. I'd take care of the demons.
Rummaging in my bag, I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen. I had called Jenks the moment I'd woken up to check on Ivy. She was depressed, he said, which was workable. I wasn't looking forward to going back to the church and trying to patch things up. I didn't know what I was going to say. Despite everything, I was still happy that she was there. Maybe we could just ignore that she'd put four new holes in my neck and that I'd flaked out believing I'd been bound to Kisten's killer. I sighed as I checked the time.
It was just after three, and still no call from Glenn or David. Glenn would get bent out of shape if I bugged him, but David wouldn't.
The clock above the sink ticked, and I listened to the ugly thing while I scrolled through my short list for David's number. Robbie and I had bought the clock for Mother's Day ages ago, when we still thought the bug-eyed witch whose gaze and broom swept back and forth in time with the ticks was cool. There was a spot of white ceramic where the paint had chipped off the broom when it had fallen, and I wondered why she still had it. It was really, really nasty.
My attention went back to the phone when the line clicked open and David's confident hello filled my ear. "Hi, David," I said. "Got anything yet?"
I heard him hesitate, then ask cautiously, "Didn't your mom tell you?"
He knows I'm at my mom's? "Uh, no," I said, scrambling. "How do you know I'm at my mom's?"
David chuckled. "She answered your cell phone this afternoon while you were sleeping. We had a nice chat. Your mom is...different."
Different. How politically correct could you get? "Thanks," I said dryly. "I take it we're not going out this afternoon?" If it had been otherwise, I thought she would have woken me. Maybe.
"I've got the claim sitting on my desk," he said, and I heard papers rustling. "Tomorrow at two is the earliest I could nail the woman to a time." He hesitated, then quietly offered, "I'm sorry. I know you wanted to settle this today, but that's the best I could get."
I sighed and looked at the clock again. The idea of hiding in my church another night had all the appeal of painting Trent's toenails. I wouldn't be able to avoid Ivy either. "Two tomorrow is great," I said, thinking I ought to use the time to stock my charm cupboard for an assault on black witches. I'd have to move everything to hallowed ground, though. What a pain in the butt. "Thanks, David," I said when I remembered I was in the middle of a conversation. "I really think it's them."
"Me, too. I'll pick you up tomorrow at one. Get yourself dolled up, will you?" he said, amusement heavy in his voice. "I'm not taking you out in leather again."
My brow furrowed. "Dolled up?" I started, but the line was dead.
I stared at the phone for a moment, then smiled as I closed it and tucked it away. Listening to the quiet house, I ate my pink hearts, saved for last as always. Slowly my mood returned to melancholy. Someone had killed Kisten. That same someone had tried to bind me to them so I wouldn't tear their freaking head off. I had worked so hard to live with Ivy and stay unbound, and then a faceless monster killed my boyfriend and nearly bound me to it. Just that fast, my life could have been changed beyond my control. Damn it all to hell. I can't do this. I can't risk it. I can't...I can't let Ivy bite me again. Ever.
The thought settled into me like lead. I had been living with Ivy for over a year, and now that we finally got it to work, I get smart? A shiver went through me, rattling the spoon against the bowl. I couldn't play this game anymore. I had briefly lived thinking I had been bound, and they had been the most terrifying moments of my life, turning me from a confident woman into a terrified plaything with no control over the degradation her life was to become. That the fear turned out to be baseless didn't make the lesson any less real. I could not let a vampire break my skin again. Would not. And I didn't know how I was going to tell Ivy.
Worried, I ate the last spoonful of marshmallows. I listened carefully to the silent house, and once I was sure my mom wasn't coming, I picked the bowl up and drank the sweet milk. My spoon clattered into the empty bowl and I sat back with my coffee, not yet ready to move from the security of memories that muffled my thoughts of the future. There was a small red cloth bag at the back of the table that held the charms my mom had deemed necessary for my Halloween costume. It didn't seem to matter anymore. Unless David's lead panned out and I nailed the demon summoners, I'd be manning the door instead of partying tomorrow. And wearing sexy leather to give candy and cherry tomatoes to eight-year-olds had absolutely no appeal.
I sipped my coffee and stared at my phone, willing it to ring. I wondered if I should call Glenn. If my mom was answering my phone, he wouldn't tell her anything.
My hand was reaching for the phone when the comfortably familiar pace of my mom's steps came from the front of the house. I pulled back. No need to worry her more than our coming conversation would. I still had to ask her about reversing a forget potion.
"Thanks for breakfast, Mom," I said as she bustled in and headed for the coffeemaker. She'd been looking for a coat for me, and I could hear it tumbling in the dryer to air out. "I really appreciate you letting me crash here this morning."
She eased herself into the chair across from me, setting her coffee mug gently on the linoleum table, whose pattern was faded by time and scrubbings. "I don't get to be Mom much anymore, especially when you won't tell me what's wrong," she said, her eyes on my two red-rimmed bites, and a stab of guilt made the sweet milk on my tongue go tasteless.
"Um, sorry," I said, shifting my empty bowl away from her sharp gaze. I felt sick. Memory potions were illegal because they didn't break cleanly. Unlike amulets and ley line charms, they created a physical change in the brain to block the memories, and physical changes couldn't be reversed with salt like chemical changes could. I needed a counter-spell.
Gathering my courage, I blurted, "Mom, I need to reverse a memory potion."
Eyebrows high, she looked at my neck again. "You want a Pandora charm? For who?"
She wasn't nearly as mad as I'd thought she'd be. Heartened by that as much as her knowing there was an actual name for what I wanted, I winced. "Me."
My voice had been pensive, and hearing my guilt, my mother's face grew almost scared. "What do you remember now that you had forgotten?" she demanded.
Cradling my coffee in my hands, I tried to warm my soul. The furnace was on against the cold afternoon, but it wasn't able to touch the chill at the pit of my being. My fingers traced the lines of Kisten's bracelet. It was all I had of him - that and the pool table. "Being bitten by the vampire who killed Kisten," I whispered.
Her entire posture melted, and sighing with forgiveness, she reached to take my hand. Her frumpy dress made her look middle aged, but her hands gave her away. I wished she'd stop living like she was nearing the end of her life. It hadn't even started yet.
"Sweetheart," she said, and I pulled my gaze to hers to see it pinched in compassion. "I'm so sorry. Maybe you should forget about it. Why do you even want to remember that?"
"I have to," I said, wiping my eye and pulling out of her reach. "Someone killed him. I was there." I blinked fast, trying to rein in my emotions. "I have to find out. I have to know."
"If you made yourself forget, then you won't like what you find," she said. An old fear unrelated to me simmered in the back of her thoughts, showing in her face. "Let it go."
"It was Jenks - " I started, but she took both my hands, stopping my words.
"Tell me," she said suddenly. "What were you doing when you remembered? What triggered it?"