Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(7)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Did they tell you who sent them?" Trent prompted, and I tightened my robe again.

"Not yet." Turning to them, I smiled. "Who wants to go first?"

No one said anything. Big surprise. I flicked a glance at Trent. It was a no-win situation. If I was tough, he’d think I was a thug. If I was too nice, I’d be a pushover. Why I even cared what he thought was beyond me.

Jenks dropped down to the man. "Who sent you?" he barked, sword angled at the man’s eye.

Jack remained silent, and Jenks’s wings began slipping an eerie black dust. In a whisper of sound, Jenks darted close and then away. The intruding elf yelped, his hand smacking his head where Jenks had been. I frowned when I saw the wad of hair in Jenks’s grip. I didn’t like this. Jenks was usually easygoing, more inclined to plant seeds in the ground than people, but his land had been violated, and that brought out the worst in him.

"Ease up, Jenks," Ivy said as she came forward to touch Jill’s face. "You need more finesse with the big ones." She made a little trill of sound as the woman drew back in fear, and I sighed as Ivy started to vamp out.

Think, Rachel, I mused silently. Don’t just react, think. "Guys," I said, conscious of Trent watching. "We need to find out what’s going on without leaving any traces."

"I won’t leave a mark," Ivy whispered, and Jill paled. "Not where you can find one."

"They might be a test from the coven," I said, and Ivy’s finger, tracing the woman’s jawline, curled under and she straightened in disappointment.

"We can’t simply let them go," Ivy said. "Even if it wasn’t much of an attack."

I winced. "Maybe we should call the I.S.?"

Jenks snorted, and from the overhead rack came a peal of high-pitched laughter. Yeah, bad idea.

"Mind if I hurry this along? I have an idea."

It had been Trent, and, as one, we all turned to look at him.

"You have an idea?" Jenks said sarcastically, hovering before him in his best Peter Pan pose, his hands on his hips and his red bandanna tucked into his waistband. "The day you have a good idea will be the day I eat fairy toe jam."

"He said it was an idea. He never said it was a good one," I scoffed. But my lips parted at the sudden prickling of magic. Like a blanket rubbing the wrong way, wild, elven magic scraped across my aura, both an irritant and an enticement, pulling at my pores as if trying to draw my soul from my body.

"Hey!" I shouted, knowing it was Trent. Elves were the only species that dared to use wild magic. Even demons shunned the art. It had a horrible unpredictability along with the horrible power. It couldn’t be the two elves on the floor. They had zip strips on. "Trent, no!" I did not have a clue as to what he was doing, and with a satisfied glint in his eyes, he clapped his hands.

"Volo te hoc facere!" he exclaimed, the sound pinging through me, making me both cower and jump as the force I felt him drawing from the line abruptly fell to nothing.

I will you to do this? I thought, clutching my robe around me. An enthrallment spell?

But I think it was, and I stood at the table and stared at Trent, aghast. The rims of his ears were red, and his jaw was clenched in determination. "That was a black spell," I whispered, stepping forward and out of Ivy’s reach. "That was a black spell!" I yelled, and he retreated to the table, his eyes falling from Jack and Jill. They were motionless, almost slack-jawed, eyes unfocused and hands limp, unable to do anything apart from the most basic things to survive unless told. "You enthralled them, didn’t you!" I exclaimed, and he bowed his head. When it came back up, his eyes met mine with a fervent gleam, unrepentant.

"What did he do to them?" Ivy said, sidling up next to me. Jenks wasn’t happy either, buzzing over them as they blinked vacantly.

"He enthralled them," I said, sure of it when Trent’s lips pursed. "And it’s black." Damn it, I hadn’t known he could do something that sophisticated. It changed everything.

"Black?" Jenks yelped, darting up in a wash of yellow dust.

"Go ahead, ask them who sent them," Trent said, standing stiffly as he gestured to them. "I know who did, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Not in time, anyway. Go on. It doesn’t last long."

Well, that was one bit of good news. "And then what?" I said harshly. "Do you know how illegal those are? This is my kitchen, and I’m the one who’s going to be blamed for this. Or is that your idea?" I said with a sneer, and Ivy caught my arm, thinking I was going to cross the room and smack him.

"You need to hurry up," he said, tossing his hair back in a rare show of nervousness. "I have this under control. I’ll hit them with another charm so they don’t remember."

I shoved Ivy’s hand from me, shaking as I stood there. "Is that your plan? Make them forget? God, Trent. This is, like, six times illegal!"

Trent tugged his sleeves down as if unbothered, but his eyes were squinting. "True, but no one gets hurt this way. And I’d think you’d be the last person worrying about what’s legal. You’ve got thirty seconds. Tick tock, Rachel."

As I stood there fuming, Jack started to blink. Ivy took my arm again, this time in encouragement, but I couldn’t do it. It was wrong!

"Oh for Tink’s little red shoes," Jenks said suddenly, and he darted down to hover before the man. "Who paid you to attack Rachel?" he barked, his hand on his sword hilt.

"No one," Jack said, and I turned to Trent, my brow furrowed.

Jenks’s dust turned green. "You mean you don’t know, or you weren’t paid for it?"

Trent shifted his weight to his other foot. "They weren’t attacking Rachel, they were attacking me. Try again."

Giving me an apologetic shrug, Ivy slipped past me and crouched before Jill, lifting her chin to force her to look at her. "Who told you to attack Trent?" she asked calmly, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I wanted to know, but I’d rather scare it out of them than use black magic.

"Walter Withon," they said together, and a knot tightened in my gut.

"This was a warning," Trent said with a sigh, his shoulder easing to make him look somewhat embarrassed. No, guarded.

"Ellasbeth’s dad?" I dropped back a step, my anger fizzling. Crap on toast. Ellasbeth was the woman Trent had been going to marry-until I’d arrested Trent at his own wedding. It was something Trent thanked me for later in a weird bit of honesty when we thought we were both going to die. Yeah, the Withons had the means for a hit, and they might be a little mad. But enough to take potshots at him?