A Fistfull of Charms(30)

Jenks slumped. “I’m sorry,” he said, making me wish I was somewhere else. “I only wanted you to be safe. It’s not an easy way to live. Look at me; I’m scarred and old, and if I didn’t have a garden now, I’d be worthless. I don’t want that for you.”
Wings blurring, Jax dropped to land before his dad. “Half your scars are from the garden,” he protested. “The ones you almost died from. The seasons make me think of death, not life, a slow circle that means nothing. And when Nick asked me to help him, I said yes. I didn’t want to tend his stupid plants, I wanted to help him.”
I glanced at Jenks in sympathy. He looked like he was dying inside, seeing his son want what he had and knowing how hard it was going to be.
“Dad,” Jax said, rising up until Jenks put up a hand for him to land on. “I know you and Mom want me to be safe, but a garden isn’t safe, it’s only a more convenient place to die. I want the thrill of the run. I want every day to be different. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I understand more than you know,” he said, his words shifting his son’s wings.
Rex skulked to the pizza box on the floor and stole a crust, running to the kitchen. She hunkered down, gnawing on it as if it was a bone and watching us with big, black, evil eyes. Seeing her, Jenks took a deep breath, and tension brought me straight. He had decided to help me. “Tell me what you two got caught doing. I’ll help get Nick out under two conditions.”My pulse quickened, and I found myself tapping my pencil on the table.
“What are they?” Jax asked, a healthy tone of caution mixing with hope.
“One, that you don’t take another run until I give you the skills to keep your wings untattered. Nick is dangerous, and I don’t want you taken advantage of. I may have raised a runner, but I did not raise a thief.”
Pixy dust sifted from Jax as he looked from his dad to me and back again in wide-eyed amazement. “What’s the other?”
Jenks winced, his ears reddening. “That you don’t tell your mother.”
I stopped my snicker just in time.
Jax’s wings blurred into motion. “Okay,” he said, and a zing of adrenaline brought me back to the map. “Nick and I were contracted by a Were pack. These guys.”
He dropped from Jenks’s hand to land on the island, and my thrill turned to unease. “They wanted a statue,” Jax said. “Didn’t even know where it was. Nick called up a demon, Dad.” Dust sifted to make him look as if he was in a sunbeam. “He called up a demon and the demon told him where it was.”
Okay. Now I’m officially worried. “Did the demon show up as a dog and turn into a guy wearing green velveteen and smoked glasses?” I asked, setting my pen down and holding my arms to myself. Why, Nick? Why are you playing with your soul?
Jax shook his head, green eyes wide and frightened. “It showed up as you, Ms. Morgan. Nick was mad and yelled at it. We thought you were dead. It wasn’t Big Al. Nick said so.”
My first flush of relief turned to a deep worry. A second demon. Better and better. “Then what?” I whispered. Rex jumped into Jenks’s lap, nearly giving me a heart attack since I thought she had been going for Jax. How Jenks knew she hadn’t been eluded me.
The dust rose and fell from Jax. “The demon, uh, took what they agreed on and told Nick where the statue was. A vampire in Detroit had it. It’s older than anything.”
Why would a vampire have a Were artifact? I wondered. I glanced at Jenks, his hands keeping Rex from falling over while she inexpertly cleaned her ears.
Jenks puckered his brows, his smooth features trying to wrinkle but not managing it. “What does it do, Jax?” he said, shocking me again with how at odds his youthful face was to the tone of his voice. He looked eighteen; he sounded like he was forty with a bad mortgage.
Jax flushed. “I don’t know. But we got it okay. The vampire had been staked in the 1900s, and it was just sitting there, forgotten in the slop.”
“So you found it,” I prompted. “What’s the problem? Why are they hurting him?”
At that, Jax took to the air. Rex’s eyes went black for the hunt, and Jenks soothed her, fingertips lost in her orange fur. “Uh,” the pixy said, his voice high. “Nick said it wasn’t what they said it was. Another pack found out he had it and made a better offer, enough to pay back what the first pack paid him to finance the snatch, plus a whole lot more.” 
Jenks looked disgusted. “Greedy bastard,” he muttered, his jaw clenched.
I took an unhappy breath, leaning into my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “So he sold it to the second group and the original pack wasn’t happy about it?”
Jax shook his head solemnly, slowly drifting downward until his feet hit the map. “No. He said neither of them should have it. We were going to go to the West Coast. He had this guy who could give him a new identity. He was going to get us safe, then give the first pack their money back and walk away from the entire thing.”
My face scrunched into a frown. Right. He was going to get himself safe, then sell it to the highest bidder online. “Where is it, Jax?” I asked, starting to get angry.
“He didn’t tell me. One day it was there, the next it was gone.”
In a sudden motion, Rex jumped up onto the table. Adrenaline surged, but Jax rubbed his wings together in a coaxing sound and the kitten padded over.
“It’s not at our cabin, though,” the small pixy said, standing under the kitten’s jaw and stretching to rake his fingers under her chin. “They tore it apart.” Stepping out from between Rex’s paws, he met my eyes, looking scared. “I don’t know where it is, and Nick won’t tell. He doesn’t want them to have it, Ms. Morgan.”
Greedy S.O.B., I thought, wondering why I cared if he loved me or not. “So where’s their money?” I asked. “Maybe all they want is that, and they’ll let him go.”
“They took it.” Jax didn’t look happy. “They took it the same time they took him. They want the statue. They don’t care about the money.”
I put my hand on the table to entice Rex to me but all she did was sniff my nails. Jenks curled a long hand under her belly to put her on the floor, where she stared up at him. “And they’re here?” Jenks asked, my attention following his to the map.
Jax’s head bobbed. “Yup. I can show you exactly where.”
My eyes met Jenks’s and we exchanged a silent look. This was going to take longer than a simple snatch and dash. “Okay,” I said, wondering if there was a phone book in the room. “We’re here at least another night, probably through the week. Jax, I want to know everything.”
Jax shot almost to the ceiling. “All right!” he shouted, and Jenks glared at him.
“You are staying here,” he said, his tone thick with parental control, though he looked like a kid himself. His arms were crossed, and the determination in his eyes would have rocked a bulldog back from a bone.
“Like hell I—” Jax made a startled yelp when Jenks snatched him out of the air. My eyes widened. I didn’t know what Jenks was worried about. He hadn’t slowed at all.
“You will stay here,” he barked. “I don’t care how old you are, you’re still my son. It’s too cold for you to be effective, and if you want me to teach you anything, it starts now.” He let go of Jax, and the pixy hovered right where Jenks had left him, looking scared. “You have to learn how to read before I can even take you out with me,” Jenks muttered.
“Read!” Jax exclaimed. “I get along okay.”
Uncomfortable, I rose and stretched, opening drawers until I found the yellow pages. I wanted to know my resources, seeing as we were out of Cincinnati. An island, for God’s sake?“I don’t have to know how to read!” Jax sputtered.
“Like hell you don’t,” Jenks said. “You want this life? That’s your choice. I’ll teach you what I know, but you’re going to earn it!”
I sat at the head of the bed, where I could see them while flipping through the thin pages. It was last year’s book, but nothing changed fast in small towns. I slowed when I found a large number of charm shops. I knew there must be a resident population of witches taking advantage of the heavy-duty ley lines in the area.
Jenks’s anger vanished as quickly as it had come, and more softly he said, “Jax, if you could read, you could have told us were you were. You could have hitched onto the first bus to Cincy and been home by sunset. You want to know how to pick the locks? Loop the cameras? Bypass security? Show me how bad you want it by learning what will help you the most first.”
Jax scowled, slowly descending until his feet settled in a glowing puddle of pixy dust.
“Here.” Jenks took the pencil I had left behind and leaned over the map. “This is how you write your name.” A few more silent moments. “And that is the alphabet.” I frowned at the sharp snap of the pencil being broken, and Jenks held the broken nub of graphite out to Jax. “Remember the song?” he prompted. “Sing it while you practice the letters. And L-M-N-O-P is not one letter, but five. It took me forever to figure that out.”