Ever After (The Hollows #11)(103)
Author: Kim Harrison

Then again . . . I mused as I came in to find her scowling at Nick, the man leaning against the wall to wedge his shoes off without using his hands. I debated whether to change the zip strip for one encircling one wrist, not two-then decided not to. I was sure he was Ku’Sox’s ace in the hole. Otherwise, he’d be dead by now.

"Okay, we’re inside. Sit," Ivy said tightly, and Nick dramatically fell into the soft leather sofa to send up a puff of vampire-incense-scented air.

"I came to help!" he protested when she poked her sword tip at him to move down, and I set Jax on the top of the couch so I could take my coat off. It smelled of ever-after, and in a splurge of motion, I tossed it out on the back porch to air out.

"Help?" Ivy leaned forward, stinking of angry vampire, her fangs showing as she gripped his shoulder and put her head right next to his. "You want to help yourself."

She shoved him into the cushions, and Nick flicked a nasty look at me for not stopping her. He was a big boy. He could take care of himself. "I was coming to talk to you when the gargoyles grabbed me," he said. "I was on the front walk. I wanted to tell you I was sorry."

"But you’re not." Jenks nearly spat it, his wings transparent as he hovered at eye level.

Nick turned to face me as Ivy pointedly sat in the chair across from him. "I made a mistake. I’m trying to fix things," he said, but his tone was too hat-in-hand.

Jenks laughed bitterly. "So is Rachel. Actually, she’s trying to save all the demons and the entire ever-after, so what’s your point, crap for brains? Didn’t you expect the deranged, freak-of-nature demon to turn on you?"

I didn’t like Jax being so close to Nick, and I put my hand down for him to climb on so I could move him to the end table. "I’m sorry, Ms. Rachel," he said as he got on and sat down, tattered wings tickling my palm. I said nothing, mad at all of them as I set him under the table lamp and turned it on to warm him. Still angry, I sat in the chair beside him and snatched up the remote, turning the TV on for any news that would indicate we were in worse trouble than before. Setting the remote clattering onto the end table, I traced my cheek where Nick had slapped me. Not hurting him for the hell of it was harder than I thought it would be.

"I knew you wouldn’t believe me," Nick said, and Ivy shoved the coffee table into his shins to get him to shut up. "I want to help."

This time it was belligerent, and Jenks laughed. "Help!" Jenks exclaimed, and Jax hunkered down under the light, his back to his dad and looking miserable. "No fairy-farting way!" he yelled, and his kids who had been hovering vanished. "You are not switching sides. You are lying! Rache, why are we even listening to this? Nick put the lie back in believe."

"I don’t know," I said listlessly. "Maybe because if he’s sitting in front of me, he’s not coming behind me with a knife. Besides, there’s nothing on TV."

Nick pushed the coffee table away from his knees, and Ivy pushed it back. Clearly at the end of his patience, he tossed the hair from his eyes and held his wrists up, asking to be released. I shook my head, and he lowered his bound hands. "Ku’Sox dying is the only chance I have of surviving this."

"You think?" Jenks said, but I could feel Nick’s eyes on me as I watched the news-nothing so far about surface demons at the park, not even a teaser for the end of the broadcast.

"I was mad," Nick continued. "I thought . . ." He hesitated as my teeth clenched. "I was trying to get back at you, okay? It went too far."

My eyes flicked to his, holding. Jenks’s wings clattered, and he rose. "Too far?" he said. "Destroying the ever-after and magic to tell your old girlfriend-who doesn’t even like you-that you were mad at her was ‘too far’?"

I didn’t have to say a word. Jenks was doing all my yelling for me. I appreciated it. It freed me up for more important things, like watching the latest insurance commercial. But even so, my anger grew. Because of him, Ray would never know her mother.

"I was wrong," Nick said staring down at the table, his hands in his lap. "You were right."

At that, I couldn’t help myself. "I’m the better bet now, huh?"

Relief slipped into his expression as I finally talked to him. "I’m trying to survive."

"Rachel doesn’t owe you crap, you lying sack of toad shit," Jenks said.

I put the arches of my feet on the edge of the coffee table. "I don’t owe you crap, you lying sack of toad shit." That one, I wanted to say.

Nick pressed his thin lips together, his stubble showing strong when he flushed. "Fine. I’ll leave."

He shifted forward to stand, getting no more than three inches before Ivy stood, the pointy part of her sword touching his chest. Looking at it, he sank back down. The tension was getting thick. I didn’t have a clue what to do with him, much less what I was going to wear tomorrow. "Let him go, Ivy," Jenks said bitterly. "We don’t need him."

"He can’t go," I said as three of Jax’s sisters brought the miserable pixy a blanket. Damn it, he was crying silver tears. I was going to smack Nick into the next dimension for having misled Jax so badly. "He’ll run back to Ku’Sox and tell him how I’m going to smear him into demon pate."

"Is that what you think I’d do?" Nick said, his words clipped. "Go back to Ku’Sox?"

I leaned over the table. "If the crap stinks, wipe your ass."

"I made a mistake!" Nick’s gaze was fixed on mine, and his words were precise. "Throw me a goddamned life preserver, will you?"

My eyes went to the low ceiling, remembering thinking that myself so many times before. His mistake had cost Ray her mother. Lucy, too. "Nick? Shut up."

Sullen, he pushed back into the cushions. Jax was staring across the room at Belle. She’d come in and was standing beside Rex at the archway, her bow strung and her expression severe. Rex had been Jax’s cat, and I’d give a lot to know what Jax was thinking, both about the cat and that Belle, a fairy, was living under his father’s roof.

"Rache, this is dumb," Jenks said, wings going full tilt as he landed on my knee. "Call the I.S. to come pick him up so we can get on with what we have to do."

Standing before Nick, Ivy shrugged, which told me she agreed with Jenks. I thought for a moment, my gaze lingering on Jax, miserable as he huddled under a blanket his mother had made. "I’m not happy about this either," I said, "but the I.S. can’t hold him if Ku’Sox can pop him out."

"I told you-" Nick started.