Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(14)
Author: Kim Harrison

"You’re the only one Quen…trusts," Trent added, his gaze on his fingers in the shaft of early sun, gray through the tinted windows.

There was that word again, and I grimaced as I looked to Quen and he inclined his head at me in unspoken encouragement. Damn it, I didn’t want to be responsible for Trent. I didn’t even like Trent. "Just get your little elf butt on your private jet and go," I muttered, jealous that his money made everything easy for him.

"I can’t," Trent explained patiently. "I can’t take the train, either. Tradition says I have to go by land, and I need to be there by Sunday night."

"Two days!" I yelped. "By car? Are you nuts? What do you need to do on the West Coast in two days that you can’t do by phone?"

Jenks’s wings hummed as if he was going to join us in the back, but a look from Ivy stopped him. The car turned a corner and the sun shifted, coming in to touch my knee without warmth. Trent leaned back into the shadows, reluctant to answer. "What’s on the West Coast?" I asked again. "Trent, if you want my help, treat me like a professional. I need to know. Especially if lame-ass assassins are going to be dogging us."

Quen sighed heavily, and at the sound Trent seemed to get mad. "It’s my personal business," Trent said, glancing at the back of Quen’s head. "No one will be hurt by it, and it doesn’t touch on your upcoming trial."

"It’s not a trial, it’s a pardon," I said quickly, but we all knew he was right.

Trent looked at me across the seat, his green eyes almost black in the shadows. "If you can get me there by Sunday, I should have time to speak for you at the meeting as well," he said, earning a bark of laughter from Jenks. "That is, if my familiar curse is gone by then."

Carrots. Sweeter than vinegar but still unpalatable, I thought, remembering the drug-laced carrots I’d eaten once while a mink trapped in his office. Son of a bitch, what was I doing?

"Get me there after Sunday, and I’ll miss my window of opportunity," Trent added. "Three days, and there is no reason for me to go at all. If we leave immediately, we can make both of our deadlines."

My trial was Sunday night, and I met Jenks’s and Ivy’s eyes. This had all the earmarks of the tip of an iceberg. Trent was in trouble with the biggest elf family on the West Coast. And though he hadn’t blamed me, I might have had some part in it. Guilt licked at my soul. I had a really bad feeling about this.

"Will you do it?" Trent asked. He sounded angry but not at me, and I could hear a whisper of past arguments with Quen in his tone. Though Trent was the boss, Quen ran Trent’s life, had since Trent’s father died. It had to rankle when the only way Quen would let him go would be with me.

"No," I said, sitting up straighter. "The last time I worked for you willingly, the boat blew up. That water was cold."

"Atta girl, Rache!" Jenks exclaimed, and Ivy leaned over to whisper a question to Quen.

Trent’s expression was empty. "I kept you alive, didn’t I?"

"Only so you could pound my head into a tombstone!"

"I was upset," he said, avoiding my glare as he gazed at the parking lot we’d turned into. The sun shifted to him, making his embarrassment easy to read.

"I had just saved your life!" I said. "And you try to kill me for something I hadn’t done and wouldn’t do. No, I don’t think so. You’re spouting pretty words like ‘trust,’ but you don’t give it. I’m not going to help you get to the West Coast so you can run your personal errand. Especially if you are playing around with black magic."

Trent’s eyes fixed on mine, his anger easy to read as he put one ankle on his knee, looking both cold and professional. "Ceri does black magic. You like her."

I squinted at him. "Ceri has morals," I said, and Quen winced. "I might not understand them half the time, but she’s got them. You…" I almost poked Trent in the chest, turning the motion into a quick point. "I don’t trust you."

"You need me," Trent said, playing it like it was his last card, desperate despite his attempts to hide his stress. "If I’m with you, the coven will be less inclined to take potshots at you. I’ll admit that my dealings with you to date have been less than aboveboard." His jaw clenched. "I’m trying to change that. If not for me, you wouldn’t even have this chance to clear your name. I swear, Rachel, that my business on the West Coast has nothing to do with you."

My foot braced against the carpet as the car gently halted. I looked up, seeing the back of my mom’s car. Finally.

"Thanks. I have it from here," Ivy said with her usual calm control. Opening her door, she slipped out. Jenks followed her, shrilling something about his kids. Quen, too, got out, and the trunk whined as it opened. Ivy had a set of keys to my mom’s Buick, and she opened the trunk, taking my garment bag as Quen handed it to her. Reaching for the door, I picked up my shoulder bag.

"You," I said to Trent, gripping my bag tightly, "are anything but aboveboard with me. You ask me to trust you, but even now you’re not telling me everything. You must think I filled a prescription for stupid pills if you think I’m going to get you out to the West Coast in two days for ‘personal business.’ God, Trent, you told the coven I was a demon!" I could bear to say it now that Ivy, Jenks, and Quen weren’t in the car, but my face still burned.

I pulled on the handle, but nothing happened. Damn it, the thing had child locks.

"I need your help," Trent said as I leaned over the front seat and unlocked the doors from the passenger panel. I flopped back in the seat and reached for my handle, shocked when Trent touched my arm. "I need your help," he said again, letting go. "Please."

Oh crap. He’d said please. Gut clenching, I covered my arm where he’d touched me. His eyes were pinched, and I wondered if I was really seeing that whisper of desperate need in the back of his eyes, or if this was all a trick to get me to do what he wanted. "Why?" I asked, letting go of my arm. It felt like he was touching me still.

At the question, the tight press of his lips eased. Outside the car, Quen, Jenks, and Ivy were talking in a small huddle, but the drama was inside the car. Trent wasn’t faking. He needed me-and he wouldn’t tell me why.

Exhaling, I closed my eyes in a long blink. Crap, I was a sucker for helpless males, especially when they looked as good as Trent. A quiver rose through me, and I felt my resolve start to fall apart. He was powerful, he was suave, and he needed my help. He’d asked for it.

Damn it, damn it, damn it! I suddenly realized that no matter how much I complained and argued, I was going to do exactly what Trent wanted. Again. And it irritated me that he was right. If the coven was going to take a shot at me en route, they would think twice if Trent was with me. I didn’t trust Trent, but I trusted the coven even less.