Ivy sighed, then came forward. “She’s going to pass out if you keep her head up like that,” she muttered as she draped the blanket over us.
“Pixy dust will hold her together for only so long,” Jenks said softly. “And I don’t want Jax to be fighting the gravity blood flow when he stitches her up.”
My eyes flashed open. Stitches? Crap, not again. I’d just gotten rid of my scars. “Wait,” I said, panic bringing me stiff at the thought of what it was going to feel like now that the vampire saliva was dormant. “No stitches. I want my pain amulet.”
They didn’t seem to understand me. Ivy bent close, looking at my eyes, not me. “We could take her to Emergency.”
From behind me, Jenks shook his head. “The Weres would track us from there. I’m surprised they haven’t found us already. I can’t believe you bit her. We have four Were packs scenting for our blood, and you think now is a good time to change your relationship?”
“Shut the hell up, Jenks.”
My stomach turned. I wanted my pain amulet. I wasn’t a brave person. I’d seen the movie where they stitched up the guy with no anesthetic and bailing wire. It hurt. “Where’s my amulet?” I pleaded, heart pounding. “Where’s Keasley? I want Keasley.”
Ivy pulled away. “She’s going incoherent.” Her brow furrowed, wrinkling her usually placid face. “Rachel?” she said loudly and with exaggerated slowness. “Listen to me. You should be stitched. Just four tiny stitches. I didn’t rip you. It will be okay.”
“No!” I exclaimed, my vision darkening. “I don’t have my pain amulet!”
Ivy gripped my shoulder through the blanket. Her eyes were full of compassion. “Don’t worry. With your head up like this, you’re going to pass out in about three seconds.”
She was right.
Twenty-four
“J enks, stop picking everything up before you break something,” I said, then drew my hand back from one of the ceramic knickknacks neatly arranged on the store shelves. It was a pumpkin with a little cat beside it, and it reminded me of Rex.
“What?” Grinning, Jenks tossed three ceramic bells into the air and juggled them.
I pointed at the handwritten sign with YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT on it. I was tired, hungry, and my new stitches hidden under my red turtleneck ached ’cause I was stupid and I deserved to hurt. Even so, the last thing I needed was to pay for broken merchandise.
Jenks watched my mood, his roguish smile fading. Tossing all three up high into the open second story, he seriously caught them one by one and set them back where they belonged. “Sorry,” he said meekly.
I puffed my air out and touched his shoulder to tell him it was okay. Between the blood loss and Ivy’s force-fed Brimstone, I was damn tired. Hands behind his back, Jenks continued perusing the shelves looking for a chunk of bone. He hadn’t found any yesterday, and I needed it to finish this run and get the hell home.
Under the disguise amulet, Jenks looked very different with black hair and a darker complexion. He had his new aviator jacket on over the T-shirt he had bought in the previous store, making him a sexy, leggy, hunk o’ pixy ass in jeans. No wonder he had fifty-four kids and Matalina smiled like Mona Lisa.
Married pixy, I told myself, forcing my eyes back to the shelf of ceramic animals. Fifty-four kids. Beautiful wife, sweet as sugar, who would kill me in my sleep while apologizing for it.
Jenks wasn’t happy about me being out here, but when I had woken up at a late three P.M. and found Ivy and Nick had taken the bus across the straits to get his truck, I had to get out. As usual, the Brimstone had made me hungry and nauseous, filling me with a brash stupidity that I was sure came from the upper that made Brimstone so popular on the streets. Seems if you took enough medicinal grade, you still got a buzz. Thanks a hell of a lot, Ivy.
It was her fault I was restless; moving seemed to help. Though I knew Ivy would disagree, I thought it unlikely that the Weres would look for us here when it was more likely we had hightailed it to Cincinnati. But I wasn’t going home until this was done. I wouldn’t take a war back to my streets, my neighbors.
“Oh, wow,” Jenks breathed. “Rachel, look at this!”
I turned, finding him standing proudly before me with a red and black striped hat on his head. The thing must have been a foot tall, like a weird top hat. “That’s nice, Jenks,” I said.
“I’m going to get it,” he said, beaming.
I took a breath to protest, then let it out. It was on sale. Five bucks. Why not?
My fingers trembled as I sifted through a display of beads, trying to decide if they were made of bone. I’d been out here with Jenks for an hour, and though he was loaded down with fudge, T-shirts, and useless bric-a-brac only a twelve-year-old or a pixy could love, I hadn’t found anything suitable yet. I knew it wasn’t smart to be out there, but I was a runner, damn it, and I could take care of myself—as long as I had Jenks to back me up, anyway. That and my splat gun tucked in my shoulder bag, loaded with sleepy-time charms.
A smile quirked the corners of my mouth as I watched Jenks ogle a rack of plastic dinosaurs. He still had that hat on, but with his physique, the man could wear anything. Feeling my attention on him, he glanced up and away. Sure, he was oohing and ahhing over the trashiest stuff, but his eyes were constantly shifting, scanning the area more closely than a candy shop owner with a store full of elementary kids.I knew he wished Jax was with us to play scout, but the pixy had gone with Ivy and Nick. Ivy wasn’t letting Nick out of her sight since Jenks had found him in Squirrel’s End trying to leave his sorrow in an empty glass. If she hadn’t hated him before, she did now, seeing that he had put everything in jeopardy to slam down a few in the comfort of humans.
“Rache.” Jenks was suddenly at my elbow. “Come and look at what I found. It’s made of bone. I think it’s perfect. Let’s get it and get out of here.”
His brow was creased in concern, because of my increasing fatigue, and deciding I had pushed my luck far enough, I shuffled after him. I was tired, the blood loss starting to win out over Ivy’s Brimstone cocktails. Hiking my bag higher, I stopped beside a case full of American Indian stuff: tomahawks, little drums, carved totem poles, strings of beads and feathers. There was some turquoise in there, and realizing by the price tags that it wasn’t tourist crap but real artwork, I leaned forward. Didn’t Indians carve stuff out of bone?
“Look at that necklace,” Jenks said proudly, pointing through the glass. “It’s got a hunk of bone for the pendant. You could get that. Put the demon curse in it, and bang! Not only do you have a new focus, but you’ve got yourself some kick-ass Native American bling.”
Hunched over the display case, I glanced wearily up at him.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, and I followed his gaze to an ugly totem shoved into the corner of the case as if in apology. “Look at that! That would look great in my living room!”
I exhaled slowly, dubiously eyeing it. The thing stood about four inches high, and the animals portrayed were so stylized, I couldn’t tell if they were beaver, deer, wolves, or bear. Blocky teeth and big eyes. It was ugly, but a right kind of ugly.
“I’m getting it for Matalina,” he said proudly, and my eyes widened as I tried not to imagine what to a pixy would be akin to a six-foot totem pole in the middle of Matalina’s living room. I had no idea how pixies decorated, but I couldn’t imagine the woman would be pleased.
“Ma’am?” he called out, his posture upright and eager. “How much is this?”
I leaned heavily on the counter as the woman finished up at the register and hustled over. Tuning her and Jenks out as they haggled over the price, I looked at the necklace. It was out of my easy price range, but there was a statue of a wolf next to it. It was expensive too, but if it didn’t work, I could bring it back.
Reaching a decision, I straightened. “Can I see that wolf statue?” I asked, interrupting Jenks trying to sweet-talk the woman into giving him a senior citizen discount. She wasn’t buying that he had kids and a mortgage. I couldn’t blame her. He looked like he should be in high school with that funky hat on.
Her eyebrows high and her expression cagy, the woman unlocked the case and set the statue in my hand. “It’s bone, right?” I asked, turning it over to see the MADE IN CHINA sticker. Not so authentic, then, but I wasn’t going to complain.
“Ox bone,” the woman said warily. “No regulations on importing ox bone.”
I nodded, setting it on the counter. It was pricey, but I wanted to go home. Or at least back to my motel room. “Would you give us a price break if we bought two pieces?” I asked, and a satisfied smile spread over the woman’s face.
Delighted, Jenks took over, overseeing her wrap both pieces up and boxing them individually. My pulse slow and lethargic, I dug in my bag for my wallet.
“My treat,” Jenks said, his young features looking innocent and flustered. “Go stand by the door or something.”
His treat? It was all coming out of the same pot. Eyebrows high, I tried to look past him, but he got in my way, pulling off his hat and using it to hide something he had slipped onto the counter. I caught a glimpse of a bottle of Sun-Fun color-changing nail polish, then smiled and turned away. Next year’s solstice gift, maybe?