A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(99)
Author: Kim Harrison

I frowned, wondering if Trent would mind being the size of a fairy for a day. He could talk to the newest tenants in his garden. "Gee, thanks," I said sourly.

"Well, what about you?" Wayde leaned over to set the bowl between us on the counter. "Growing up to be a bad-ass runner must have had its perks."

"Right," I said dryly as I rubbed my forehead. "I was in and out of hospitals until I was almost eighteen, or didn’t Takata tell you that? Home-schooled most of the time, but with enough public school to know what it’s like to get beat up."

Wayde winced, the cloth slowing on the next bowl. "Growing up sucks."

I reached for one of Ivy’s sticky notes and started making a list. Ceri knew this curse. She would help make sure I got it right. Me trying out curses on myself was one thing. On Trent, it was completely different. "I would’ve given a lot to be somewhere new every day where no one knew who I was, that my dad was dead and my mom nuts."

"That bad, huh?"

Suddenly I wished I hadn’t said so much. "Not really," I said, trying to back out of my mini pity party. "I’m a drama queen tonight. Ford, the FIB’s psych, would say my childhood gave me trust issues, but hiding from my mom that I was getting beaten up and fighting off boys with sticky hands gave me a better perspective of what’s really important. I wouldn’t change it." Much. I hadn’t talked to Ford in ages, and I wondered how he was getting on with Holly. I suddenly realized that a bunch of my friends needed babysitters and vowed to start screening my calls. All I needed was someone else’s kid on my hip as I took down a surprise assassin.

Wayde set a third pot inside the stack and dropped down to put them exactly where they belonged on the bottom shelf. "And what is important, Rachel Morgan?" he asked, and I looked at him through the open shelves.

"Friends you can trust." I tapped the pencil against the book. "Maybe Ford was right."

Wayde silently dropped the cloth and returned to the suds to wash the smaller stuff.

"I want these guys, Wayde," I said into the silence, thinking about Chris dancing in delight as Winona withered in agony and turned into a monstrosity. "I want them to know they can’t do what they did to Winona with impunity." My hands gripped the demon texts, and I forced them to open. The pages were beginning to glow. Responding to my anger, perhaps, even though I was not tapping a line right now? Damn, I’d missed the weird stuff like this. Everything was connected. I’d forgotten how that felt.

"You’ll get them," Wayde said, his back to me and the metal stuff clanking.

"I’m not so sure." Something always seemed to break their way. HAPA was like mint. You could rip it up, and six months later, it was back, healthier than ever. Mint smelled better, though, and you could make juleps out of it. I don’t know what I could make out of HAPA. Compost, maybe.

"You want these rinsed in saltwater?" he asked as he held up my spoons.

"Yes, but not until you get the suds off them," I said, looking at the dripping bubbles.

Wayde silently ran the tap, letting the spoons sit on the drying cloth for a moment as he washed the mortar and pestle, actually taking a scrub pad to them. "At least I can tap a line again," I said, rubbing my leg and circling in to where there should be a bullet scar but wasn’t. "Trent doesn’t think he did anything, but he did."

Why am I telling him this? I asked myself, but I couldn’t talk to Ivy or Jenks. They would jump to the wrong conclusion. Fidgeting, I looked past Wayde to the dark night, wanting nothing more than to be out in it.

"I trust him," I said, thinking Ford would be proud of me. "He let me handle Al my way." I chuckled, remembering Trent’s ball of magic ricocheting into his fish tank. "Mostly."

"Sex changes people more than wars," Wayde said as he dried his hands, then dunked the spoons in the saltwater.

I blinked. "Where does sex come into this?"

His back to me, Wayde pulled himself to his full height, hesitating, as if to collect his thoughts. From the front of the church, the big farm bell we used as a doorbell gonged.

"Jenks!" I shouted, still wondering where Wayde had been headed with his thoughts. "You want to get that?"

There was a brief silence, and then Jenks exclaimed, "It’s Trent! What the hell does he want?"

My eyes widened, and I froze, Wayde grunting as he turned around with a handful of dripping spoons. Trent? Here? Why?

Chapter Twenty-one

The doorbell gonged again, the big farm bell echoing through the church like, well, a church bell. I looked down at my jeans and white T-shirt, glad I wasn’t still sporting the sweatpants I’d come home in. My clothes were probably a far cry from what he had on, but this was my church, damn it. I shouldn’t have to dress up.

"What’s he doing here?" I muttered as I shut the demon book and tucked my shirt in.

Jenks hovered up and down, a bright silver dust lighting the hallway. "You want me to let him in or go out and swear at him?"

Distracted, I bunched my hair up into a ponytail, then let it go. "Yes. Let him in, I mean," I said, and he darted off. "At least the kitchen is clean." I flashed Wayde a smile. "Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate that."

The Were ducked his head, a hand raised. "No worries. Ah, I’ll be across the hall. Unless you want me with you?"

Jenks had worked the series of pulleys and weights we had so he could open the front door, and I heard Trent’s voice mixing with that of the Weres up front. Jenks was yelling at his kids, and it was noisy. "No, no thanks," I said, answering Wayde. My thoughts went back to having touched Trent this morning, and I winced. Why on earth was that more embarrassing than when we had kissed?

Wayde scuffed his way to the back living room, hesitating when Trent appeared at the archway, Jenks on his shoulder and a black craft bag in his hand. He was in a suit, but it was more casual than usual, and his shoes looked comfortable and not shiny.

"Rachel, if you have a moment?" Trent said as he halted before Wayde and me. "I can’t stay. I’ve got a meeting downtown in fifteen minutes, but I wanted to give you these since I was in the area."

The memory of Trent, calm and collected in a black thief suit, flashed before me, and then the sight of him angry and belligerent, his shirt off as he stood at the back of my mom’s car and changed. Jenks snickered at the silence, and Wayde came forward, his hand extended to fill the obvious gap. "Mr. Kalamack. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Wayde Benson."