Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(86)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Thanks," I said, gingerly searching the spelled witch until I found a couple of the little vials.

Only now did I take the amulet off my not-mother, smirking as the slightly chunky blond earth witch shimmered into existence. Yeah, it was Amanda. I flicked the top off a vial of salt water and dumped it on her. She came to, sputtering as she pushed herself off Oliver and sat with her back to the cupboards. Wyatt was next, glaring at me as soon as he could focus.

"If you move, I break your fingers," I told the ley-line witch, then turned to Amanda, crouching to look in her eyes. "Hi, Amanda," I mocked, and her lips moved, but she didn’t say anything, terrified. "Don’t worry," I said as I straightened and backed up. "I’m not going to eat you. At least not today. If you make me go hide in the ever-after, I might have a different answer for you."

Ivy silently handed me one of the two remaining guns before she took up a position near the wide entryway to the kitchen, blocking their exit and still having a good view of the hallway through the blown-off door. Her feet were spread wide, her hands were on her hips, and her eyes were dark. The fear and anger weren’t dissipating nearly fast enough. Sure, the coven was down, and we had their guns, but what was I supposed to do with them now? Trent would slap a forget curse on them. Pierce would probably want to give them to Al, seeing that those of their ilk had buried him alive. I wasn’t going to do either, and I was the one they called black. It just wasn’t fair. Frustrated, I tucked the splat gun in the small of my back.

"You’ll burn for this," Oliver snarled.

I’d had enough. Angry, I grabbed his shirtfront, shaking him as he tried to get his eyes to focus. "You should have listened to Vivian!" I said, then shoved him back against the cupboard. Wincing, he felt the back of his head, not nearly scared enough.

"Well?" Ivy said. "You want me to find some friends and drain them?"

She was joking, but Leon paled.

I scowled, wondering if Vivian knew they were here and if she was okay. Maybe they just didn’t tell her what they were doing. "I have to make a call," I muttered, rocking back to get my phone out of my bag. "If any of them move, break their fingers. If any of them speak, make it their teeth."

Ivy smiled to show her fangs, and Amanda shrank back. Unspent adrenaline made me jittery as I found my bag and pulled out my phone. On impulse, I flipped it open and scrolled to the camera function. "Smile!" I said, snapping a picture of the four of them slumped against the cupboards, then carefully punched in Vivian’s number. Not that the press would believe a photo, but I wanted it for my scrapbook.

Oliver glared at the fake sound of a shutter clicking, and he almost got up, settling back when Ivy cooed at him. She was doing remarkably well, only the faintest widening of her pupils giving away her bloodlust.

I sat on the arm of one of the chairs where I could see out into the hall and them. The propped-up door was nearby, and I kicked at it. I hadn’t let go of that broken ley line, slowly replenishing my chi and spindling it in case they tried something else.

Finally Vivian picked up. "Hey," I said before she could even say hello. "Did you know about your friends crashing my hotel room this afternoon? They made a bloody mess."

"No, but that explains a lot." She was on the conference-room floor if the background noise meant anything, and I held the phone closer when I heard Pierce’s low inquiry of my state of being. "Everyone still alive?" she asked.

"For the moment. And only because they stocked their splat balls with nonlethal charms. They blew the door right off my room, and I’m not paying for it. Aren’t coma spells a little too close to black magic for you guys?"

"Your word against ours," Oliver said snidely, and Ivy moved, threatening to hit him.

His voice was far too confident. I took a breath to tell him to shut up, but his eyes narrowed in victory and he smashed the back of his hand against the cupboard. There was a snap of glass as the stone in his ring broke.

"Down!" I shouted, and Ivy dove for cover. I cowered behind the propped-up door, but nothing happened.

Oliver was laughing, and slowly I got to my feet, embarrassed. Vivian was yelling through the phone, but Ivy was staring at me, her eyes a scared black. A second later, I knew why.

"Earthquake!" she exclaimed, and I staggered for balance as the floor suddenly became Jell-O.

"Get under a table, Rachel!" Vivian was yelling. "Get in a doorway!"

A chunk of ceiling fell between Oliver and me. I froze, not knowing what to do. As one, the four witches ran for the door. It was all I could do to stay upright, and I fell into the couch as they found the hallway and vanished. Pictures were falling, and one of the windows cracked, sounding like a gunshot.

"Rachel!" Ivy cried, then grabbed my arm and yanked me into the threshold of the door to the hallway. We stood there, holding the doorway to remain upright as the ceiling flaked and bits of plaster covered the burn marks. Finally it stopped, but I was still shaking. My eyes went to the empty hall. They were gone.

"Why do people live here?" I asked, looking at the room as if I’d been betrayed as I took the gun out of my pants and dropped it on the couch.

"Did they do that? Make the earthquake?" Ivy asked.

"Probably." Her pupils were still black, and I shifted away from her, not wanting my own fear to tip her over the edge. I put my ear to the phone to find that the connection had been lost. Pierce was probably on his way back already, a day late and a dollar short. The damage to the room from the quake had been minimal, and the broken door from their attack could be dismissed by a paid-off insurance adjuster. I still had my photograph, though.

"And they call me a black witch," I said as I closed my phone and gingerly picked my way through the burns and plaster dust to the window to look down and see if I could spot them leaving. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the smaller quakes that the coast sustained were from the coven. This was just nasty. But at least I was alive.

Ivy had gone to the wet bar, and the hiss of something full of sugar and bubbles opening was loud. We both were alive.

"Thank you for helping me," I said.

Ivy exhaled long and loud as she came up from her drink. "You’re welcome. Any time."

I smiled, but my thoughts were on her last words before the coven had shown up. Ivy and I worked well together. We always had.

Too bad I’d totally screwed it up.

Chapter Twenty

I leaned forward over the backseat to look up at the tall conference hotel we were trying to turn into, feeling lost as we waited for traffic to clear. We weren’t in my mom’s car since it would be impossible to find a parking spot. No, we were still cashing in on Trent’s hospitality, and we’d ridden across town in the car his hotel had on reserve for when their most important guests wanted to go somewhere. The car was long, black, and shiny, and came with a driver. Only problem was that Trent wasn’t in it. No Jenks, either. To say I was worried would be like saying pixies were a tad mischievous.