Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(80)
Author: Kim Harrison

I caught the cloth-wrapped package he threw at me, scrambling so as not to lose my hold on the mirror. "What is it?" I asked, thinking it was too heavy to be someone’s head.

His red eyes landed on me, seeing me scared, cold, and disheveled. "You are a mess. Wear it. I’m not picking you up tomorrow in rags."

"Hey! I have a chance here, you know. This is supposed to be a formality!"

He grinned at me with his blocky teeth. "You don’t have a rainbow’s chance in hell to get your shunning revoked," he said, fingering a marshmallow before dropping it back into the bowl. "You just traipsed across the continent, black magic spilling in your wake, freeing demons and destroying a national monument. You knocked out a coven member. Kidnapped her. Let her watch you use demon magic to fight off said freed demon. Twice. Hell, girl, you burned down Margaritaville!" His smile widened. "You are so screwed," he said, hitting his Brit accent hard.

"Shut up!" I shouted, holding my scrying mirror close between me and the package. A puff of burnt amber wafted up, and I winced. Whatever he had given me was going to need to be dry cleaned.

"All right, all right," Al said as he sat up and rubbed his hands together. "You can go home. Or to your pathetic little hotel room. Whatever," he added when I made a noise of protest. "I’m going to have a busy day today, and you’ll just muddle it up if you’re whining about here. I’ve got to make reservations at Dalliance. It’s a little tight, but if I drop your name, something will open up. And there are your quarters to arrange." He looked up at me. "Are you sure you don’t want to be roomies? You can have the soft pillow."

I closed my eyes and tried to find strength. "Please don’t start." I had a chance, didn’t I?

"Go, go, go…," Al said quickly. "And here. Sorry for being so rough. I didn’t think you had it in you."

My eyes opened, and I saw him make a tiny ley-line gesture just before the ley line took me. Warm and tasting of salt, it slipped into me, dissolving me into nothing but memory. I tried to listen to the line like Bis said he could, or sense an auratic color, but nothing could get through my protective circle. Al even took the smut for the trip, which I thought was odd, and with very little disorientation, I caught my balance as the curse touched my thoughts and rebuilt myself from my memory. My jeans still stunk of ever-after, but my aching muscles, sore back, and pulped knee felt perfect. That small gesture Al had made before sending me home must have been a healing curse, because traveling the lines wouldn’t do that to a person. I’d tried.

The walls of Trent’s penthouse suite shimmered into existence, and the soft sounds of music. Apparently Pierce had figured out the MP3 player. My dusty boots pressed into the carpet, and I shivered as I suddenly had a body again and the cool, dry, air-conditioned air hit me.

Pierce was standing at the windows, watching the light of the unseen sunrise spill over the bay. His stance was worried, and he clearly didn’t know I was back. The fog had lifted, and Alcatraz was visible. I took a breath, and he turned.

"You’re back," he said, his voice giving me no clue to his mood, but his features…It was all there to see. His blue eyes held thick worry, anxiety, and relief, all mixed up. He didn’t move toward me, and I didn’t know where we stood anymore. Obviously he was glad I was back, but not enough to touch me. He wasn’t confident enough of the future to cross the room and tell me today was going to be okay, that I was going to see midnight come and go-and be better for it.

"I’m back." Not looking at him, I carefully set the scrying mirror down and dropped the package on the coffee table behind me. God, I stank. I didn’t think the hotel soap was going to cut it. A fifty-five-gallon drum of tomato juice might.

Pierce hesitated, then went to the chair by the window, taking up his long, heavy cotton coat and shrugging into it. "What took so long? Kalamack giving you trouble?"

Why did I care what he thought? "Al was messing with me," I said shortly, not wanting to get into it.

Pierce hesitated in his motion to adjust his collar, and he looked at me from under his shaggy bangs. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, and he turned away, watching his reflection in the mirror as he arranged his sleeves. "Where are you going?" I asked, as it was obvious he was leaving.

His eyes met mine in the reflection. "To converse with Vivian."

About me? "Pierce…," I started, remembering what Newt had said about my odds. Having a shunned witch speaking for me wouldn’t help.

"Not about you," he said as he took his hat from the stand beside the door and arranged it on his head. "I’m wanting her opinion concerning me trying to reclaim my spot before they fill it. It will give you another positive voice."

My lips parted. "But you were dead!" I said, and he turned to me, his dark eyes smiling.

"I was," he said, inclining his head, almost hiding his face behind his hat. "That’s a tricky word, ‘was.’ Once a coven member, it’s for life, and I’m alive." His smile deepened as his gaze became unfocused. "Wouldn’t that beat all creation? A coven member who is also a demon’s familiar? It would make you look rather…tame." Gaze sharpening, he took a step to the door and stopped. "Do you have your phone? Call me if you have trouble."

I bobbed my head. He was going to try to reclaim his spot in the coven. I bet that would shift the odds in the ever-after if anyone knew.

"Good then," Pierce said, and I did nothing, completely shocked when he leaned into me and gave me a quick, almost-not-there kiss. On my mouth. And then he was gone before I could even find the scent of redwood in my soul.

"Wish me the luck of the dead," he said, half in the hall, half in my life.

"Good luck," I whispered, and the door shut. He had kissed me?

He had kissed me, and like an idiot, I’d done nothing. It wasn’t as if he’d never kissed me before, but clearly something had changed in his thoughts between my taking Trent to Seattle and now. When I’d left, he had been cold and broody-angry with me for having foiled his attempt to kill Al, and rightly so. I’d done nothing to apologize, and he knew I’d do it again in a heartbeat. And yet he had kissed me and left to claim his old position to help me?

I wanted to mistrust this. I wanted to believe that it was a trap to further his own standing and perhaps find a way out of his servitude with Al, because with mistrust came distance, and my heart would be safe. But a small, wiser part of me knew that for all his dark power, for all the crap he had made of my life, Pierce was true to his beliefs and wouldn’t stoop that low. If he was trying to help, it was genuine. He had set his own desires aside to further mine, and the knowledge of that was scary. His sacrifice made it far too easy for me to put him in the position of hero, inviting me to turn a blind eye to the darker side of his psyche so I could feel the rush of falling in love again.