Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(54)
Author: Kim Harrison

Al had gone back to his book. "I told you…"

"To take him firmly in hand, yeah," I said, seething. Stupid on top of stupid. God! I was ready to smack Trent into next week. "But he loosed Ku’Sox before I gave him his freedom," I said, remembering the blood coming from Trent’s ears and nose. Maybe Trent was stronger than I gave him credit for.

Al made an uninterested sound and turned a page. "And of course the first thing Ku’Sox did was find me."

"Because you’re my teacher," I said, and Al laughed, the sound ending in a short cough.

"No," he said, clearing his throat and waving his hand. I shivered as the dust in the air fell like rain, and I brushed it off. "Not everything is about you, itchy witch. Ku’Sox and I go back a long way. The son of a bitch completely yanked Asia out of my grip just when things were becoming interesting. I couldn’t get a familiar there for nearly a hundred years until Newt finally trapped him and tucked him safely away in reality. The demon is a genius."

Ku’Sox was Al’s rival? Great. "And he can be under the sun," I prompted, wondering if he had meant Ku’Sox was a genius, or Newt.

Al blew the dust off a page and turned it. "That was the entire point of creating him," he said distantly, as if it bothered him and there was nothing he could do about it.

I wanted to go, but I thought he was working on something for me. The drip, drip, drip of the blood falling from the silent tapestry was loud, and sullenly I said, "I’m sorry."

A short guffaw broke from Al, and he looked at me. "That makes me feel so-o-o much better. I’ll be sure to tell everyone that. My student freed her familiar, who let loose a demon we didn’t want to kill and just barely managed to imprison? Newt will be most vexed. Honestly, you told me you were going to be smarter. This isn’t it."

"It’s not like you ever tell me anything," I said sourly. "If you’d said, ‘Don’t go to St. Louis and free the crazy demon under the arch,’ I wouldn’t have." Nervousness pulled me to my feet, and I went to the bookcase, shelving the scattered books one by one in no particular order-which might be a problem since none of them had names. "And I didn’t free Ku’Sox. Trent did. What Trent does is not my responsibility."

A hint of deviltry was in Al’s voice when he asked me, "You severed all responsibility?"

"Yes," I said as I shelved another book. "One hundred percent."

"You didn’t even keep a call-back clause?" Al asked, then waved his hand and answered his own question. "Of course not. You’ve had the worst upbringing of any demon I’ve seen."

I turned, the book I held pulling the heat from me through the binding. "I’m not a demon," I said, and Al stood to bring me the book he was looking at, splayed open on his palm.

"Which emancipation clause did you use? This one, right?"

I leaned over to look at the curse he was pointing to, and though it was in a different book, I could tell it was the same. "That looks like it."

Al smiled, and seeing it, a knot of worry eased. For the first time, that awful smile of his made me feel…good. "Trent is bound to come to your aid when you ask. Did you know that?" Al snapped the book shut and shelved it beside the one I’d just placed there. "I think that puts him in a slightly higher standing, thus freeing you from responsibility for his actions."

"Really?" I said, willing to give Trent the high ground if he’d get in trouble, not me.

His pace a jaunty limp, Al crossed his kitchen, kicking bits of rock and wood out of his way. "I do believe your do-gooder tendencies have finally come home to save you," he said as he pulled a chest from the wreckage, opened it, and fingered through whatever was inside. "Trent’s in trouble, not you. Go back to your little scavenger hunt."

"It’s not a scavenger hunt," I said indignantly. "I’m trying to clear my name."

"Whatever." Al dramatically waved a silver amulet. "You’re taking the runt with you."

"Pierce?" I came up from the floor with another book in my hand, the image of him standing over Al, ready to kill him, sifting through my mind. "He just tried to kill you!"

"Yes, but for all his anger, he still thinks he loves you." Al squinted at the black jewel centered in the amulet, muttering a word of Latin to make the stone glow a brilliant silver, and then darken. "You’re going to need protection if Ku’Sox is free to come and go. A demon killer is just the thing to keep you safe. I’d do it myself, but I don’t want any taint of interference to mar our agreement that if you can’t get your shunning removed, you abandon reality."

"Al," I protested, thinking my strolling into the coven meeting with a witch they’d buried alive for black magic wasn’t going to look good. "He’s going to get me labeled a black witch."

Al looked at me over his glasses, almost pouting. "You’re going to be labeled a black witch anyway, love." He smiled, snapping the chest closed and dropping it down the stairway to his herb cellar, to shatter by the sound of it.

Remembering the look of fury on Pierce’s face, directed at me, I shook my head, reaching for books as fast as I could place them, as if helping Al clean up might win me some favor. "I do not want Pierce tagging along on this magic carpet ride." But just yesterday, I had.

"Which is why this is so perfect." Smug, Al dramatically snapped his fingers, cocky again. In a soft pop of displaced air, Pierce flashed into existence, his clothes disheveled and his hair everywhere. Immediately his confused look turned to one of anger-deepening when his gaze landed on me.

"You’re a mess," Al said, almost his old self as he smacked the man so hard he stumbled.

The smack had been a curse of some sort, because Pierce stiffened, shuddering as a sheet of red ever-after coated him, changing his outdated clothes into something more modern. He was still wearing creased black pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but now there was a colorful patterned vest and a sharp-looking, trendy hat in his hand. He looked good, even with his hair disheveled, and I squashed the thought.

"You’re going on a field trip, runt," Al said as he looped the amulet he’d taken from the chest over Pierce’s head. "You will keep my student alive or die trying."

"Hands off," Pierce all but growled, and Al smacked his face, taking the hat out of Pierce’s hand and smashing it smartly on the witch’s head. I tensed, but clearly Pierce was used to the manhandling, and he only frowned more deeply.

"You will make sure that nasty demon Ku’Sox doesn’t kill her," Al said conversationally. "Understand? You’re angry, but you still like her, yes? Want to have wild demon sex with her even if she ruined your attempt to kill me? Keep her alive, and you might get some. Eh? Eh? You’d like that, mmmm?"