Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(34)
Author: Kim Harrison

The waitress finally came forward, two pots in her hands. She looked about sixty and smelled of both Were and witch, so I couldn’t easily tell what she was. She had cowboy boots on and an apron, wearing both like they were comfortable slippers. "Morning, folks," she said, her sharp-evaluation look clearly trying to peg us as well. "Regular or decaf?"

"Um, regular," I said, and Trent put a hand over his mug.

"Decaf," he said, and the smell of the coffee rolled over the table as she poured first mine, then Trent’s. Jenks flew to my cup and dipped a pixy-size portion out, the waitress watching the entire time. She looked suspicious, not charmed, and I guessed that she had had dealings with pixies before.

"What can I get you?" she said as Jenks lifted from the rim of my cup and I took a sip.

"Oh God, this is good," I said, and the woman beamed, her wrinkles folding in on themselves to make her look wind-beaten beautiful.

"Thank you, hon. We’ve got some batter in the back. Want me to have Len make up some pancakes for you?"

I nodded, willing to put myself at the woman’s mercy if she gave me coffee like this.

"I’ll have the tomato soup," Trent said as he slid his menu to her, and the woman made a small sound. Jenks, too, turned to Trent. Ordering tomatoes wasn’t unusual, especially out in the wild where there weren’t many humans, but for Trent it was. He’d been masquerading as a human his entire life. Getting out of Cincy must be a new experience for him. Freeing, perhaps. "That is, if Len makes a good soup," he added, smiling up at her.

"The best this side of the Mississippi," she said, tucking the menus under her arm. "You want the spicy or mild?"

"Mild."

Leaving both carafes, she wandered back to the kitchen. For a moment, silence but for the pinball machine and the comfortable kitchen noises swirled around us as we all lost ourselves in the pleasure of sitting somewhere other than in the car, drinking something that wasn’t coming out of a can or a bottle.

"The best coffee I ever had in a restaurant was in this little place in downtown Cincinnati," Trent said suddenly, looking like a different person as he set his chipped mug down. The memory of the smile he’d given the woman, genuine and sincere, wouldn’t leave me. "It had pictures on the walls of babies-"

"Dressed like flowers?" I blurted out, and Jenks let a flash of gold dust slip from him.

"You know it?" Trent asked, eyes wide.

"Know it? She’s been banned from it," Jenks said, laughing.

"Junior’s," I said over the rim of my coffee, then set the mug down. I could smell pancakes, and my mouth began to water. "Mike’s," I said, correcting myself. "He banned me when I got shunned. That was the night I tried to arrest the banshee that had been terrorizing the city last New Year’s. Remember the fires at Aston’s roller rink and Fountain Square?"

Depressed, I looked into the depths of my coffee. I’d never gotten any public credit for that one, either.

"His name is Mike?" Trent asked, and my attention came back up at the amazement in his voice, and when I nodded, Trent shook his head. "You know a lot of people."

I lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "So do you."

This was kind of freaky. I was sitting with Trent, and neither one of us was baiting the other. Maybe my mom was right. Whenever Robbie and I got on each other’s nerves, she would make us clean the garage or something. My mom had had a very clean garage.

"Food’s here," Trent said, sounding relieved as he pushed back from the table to make room for his bowl.

"One stack of hotcakes," the woman said, setting a plate of three very brown pancakes before me. "And a bowl of tomato soup."

Trent was already reaching for the bowl. "Thank you, ma’am," he said with such eagerness that she smiled.

"Can I get you anything else?" she asked, setting the bill between us, facedown.

Jenks clattered his wings for attention but didn’t take flight. "Would you mind if I browsed in your flowerpots? I’m just about dead on refined sugar and processed peanut butter."

The woman’s brow pinched. "You’re welcome to what you can find, but it will be a mite thin. There’s been some singing in the rills lately. We’ve got a rove clan about somewheres. Not that they bother us big folk, but they might not take kindly to you."

Jenks beamed. "I’ll be fine. Thanks," he said, taking a slurp of his coffee to make his wings hum faster. "One more cup of coffee, and I could take on an entire fairy clan."

"You just be careful," she said as she went back to the kitchen.

The smell of my pancakes was heavenly, and shunning a knife and fork, I rolled the top one up in a tube and took a bite. Trent sighed heavily, carefully polishing his soup spoon with a paper napkin before taking a cautious taste.

His eyes blinked and started to water. "It’s hot. She gave me the spicy. This is good." Still gasping, Trent started eating in earnest, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose on his napkin.

I doubted she gave him the hot. It was more likely that the mild was hotter than most volcanoes. The light shifted as the door opened, and I turned to see Vivian standing alone and small in the narrowing band of sun arching to nothing. Giving us a halfhearted wave, she shuffled to the bar and ordered something, putting her head down on her crossed arms when the waitress yelled back to the cook to make up a milk shake.

I chewed, looking at her slumped petite form at the bar, remembering her honesty at Loveland Castle, and then her phone call that had given me leverage with Oliver, the coven’s leader. When I’d first met her, she’d been polished and refined, wearing a cashmere coat and having a trendy bag. By the end of the week, she was begrimed, sore, and full of the knowledge that everything she’d been told had been a lie. Right now, she was somewhere in between, wearing jeans and a sweater that looked too hot. Everything was designer label, though, and her makeup, though thin, had been expertly applied.

"You mind if I ask her to join us?" I asked Trent, and he looked up, green eyes watering.

For an instant he was silent, and then his spoon clattered against the white porcelain. "Why not?" he said as he stood. "Since you’re so sure she’s not going to kill you. I’ve not yet made her acquaintance."

"I was going to do it," I said, but he’d already crossed the room.

"Why not?" Jenks mocked, his wings a bright red from the caffeine. "Get him away from Quen and he thinks he’s c**k of the world."

"You noticed that, too?" I said softly. "I like his new shoes."