Ivy hesitated. "Um, no," she said, the unusual sound of amusement in her voice. "You're all right. You helped Rachel escape?"
"Yeah. Is she in the kitchen?" he questioned.
"Come on in." Her eyes were rolling as she preceded him into the room. "He's a geek," she mouthed, and my face froze. A geek had saved my life?
"Uh, hi," he said, standing awkwardly just inside the doorway.
"Hi," I said, too disconcerted to say more as I ran my gaze over him. Calling him a geek wasn't fair, but compared to what Ivy was used to dating, he might be.
Baron was as tall as Ivy, but his build was so sparse he seemed taller. The pale arms showing past Ivy's black robe had the occasional faint scar, presumably from prior rat fights. His cheeks were clean-shaven—I'd have to get a new razor; the one I'd borrowed from Ivy was probably ruined. The rims of his ears were notched. Two puncture marks on either side of his neck stood out red and sore looking. They matched mine, and I felt a flush of embarrassment.
Despite, or maybe because of, his narrow frame he looked nice, kind of bookish. His dark hair was long, and the way he kept brushing it from his eyes led me to think he usually kept it shorter. The robe made him look soft and comfortable, but the way the black silk stretched across his lean muscles kept my eyes roving. Ivy was being overly critical. He had too many muscles to be a geek.
"You have red hair," he said, shifting into motion. "I thought it would be brown."
"I thought you were—ah—shorter." I stood up as he approached, and after an awkward moment, he extended his hand across the corner of the table. Okay, so he wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger. But he had saved my life. Maybe somewhere between a short, young Jeff Goldblum and untidy Buckaroo Banzai.
"My name is Nick," he said as he took my hand. "Well, it's Nicholas, actually. Thanks for helping me get out of that rat pit."
"I'm Rachel." He had a nice grip. Just the right amount of firmness without trying to prove how strong he was. I motioned to one of the kitchen chairs, and we both sat. "And don't mention it. We kind of helped each other out. You can tell me it's none of my business, but how on earth did you end up as a rat in the city fights?"
Nick rubbed a thin hand behind an ear and looked at the ceiling. "I—uh—was cataloging a vamp's private book collection. I found something interesting and made the mistake of taking it home." He met my eyes with a sheepish expression. "I wasn't going to keep it."
Ivy and I exchanged looks. Just borrowing it. Ri-i-i-i-ight. But if he had worked with vampires before, that might explain his ease around Ivy.
"He changed me into a rat when he found out," Nick continued, "then gave me to one of his business associates as a gift. He was the one who put me in the fights, knowing as a human, I'd have the smarts advantage. I made him a lot of money, if nothing else. How about you?" he asked. "How did you get there?
"Um," I stammered. "I made a spell to turn myself into a mink and got put in the fights by mistake." It wasn't really a lie. I hadn't planned it, so it was an accident. Really.
"You're a witch?" he said, a smile curving over his face. "Cool. I wasn't sure."
A smile crossed me. I'd run into a few humans like him who thought Inderlanders were merely the other side to the humanity coin. Every time it was a surprise and a delight.
"What are those fights?" Ivy asked. "Some sort of crime clearinghouse where you can get rid of people without getting blood on your hands?"
Nick shook his head. "I don't think so. Rachel was the first person I ran into. And I was there for three months."
"Three months," I said, appalled. "You were a rat for three months?"
He shifted in his chair and tightened the tie on his robe. "Yeah. I'm sure all my stuff has been sold to pay my back rent. But hey, I've got hands again." He held them up, and I noticed that though thin, they were heavily callused.
I winced in sympathy. In the Hollows it was standard practice to sell your renter's things if they disappeared. People went missing all too frequently. He didn't have a job anymore, either, seeing as he was "fired" from his last one.
"You really live in a church?" he asked.
My gaze followed his, roving over the clearly institutional kitchen. "Yeah. Ivy and I moved in a few days ago. Don't mind the bodies buried in the backyard."
He smiled a charming half smile. God save me, but it made him look like a little lost boy. Ivy, at the sink again, snickered under her breath."Honey," Jenks's tiny voice moaned from the ceiling, jerking my attention upward. He peered down from the ladle, his wings blurring to nothing when he noticed Nick. Flying unsteadily, he almost fell to the table. I cringed, but Nick smiled.
"Jenks, right?" Nick asked.
"Baron," Jenks said, stumbling as he tried to take his best Peter Pan pose. "Glad you can do something other than squeak. Gives me a headache. Squeak, squeak, squeak. That ultrasonic stuff goes right through my head."
"It's Nick. Nick Sparagmos."
"So, Nick," he said, "Rachel wants to know what it was like having balls as big as your head that drag on the floor."
"Jenks!" I shouted. Oh, God help me. Head shaking violently in denial, I looked at Nick, but he seemed to have taken it in stride, his eyes glinting as his long face grinned.
Jenks took a hasty breath, darting out of the way as I made a snatch for him. He was rapidly regaining his balance. "Hey, that's one bad-ass scar on your wrist," he said quickly. "My wife—she's a sweet girl—patches me up. She's a wonder with her stitching."
"Do you want something to put on your neck?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
"No. It's all right," Nick said. He stretched out slowly, as if he were stiff, abruptly straightening when there was a soft touch on my slippered foot. I tried not to be too obvious as I looked him over. Jenks was a lot more blunt.
"Nick," Jenks said, landing next to him on the table. "Have you ever seen a scar like this?" Jenks pushed his sleeve up to show a puckered zigzag from his wrist to his elbow. Jenks always wore a long-sleeved silk shirt and matching pants. I hadn't known he had scars.
Nick whistled appreciably, and Jenks beamed. "I got that from a fairy," Jenks said. "He was shadowing the same take my runner was. A few seconds at the ceiling with the butterfly-winged pansy, and he took his runner somewhere else."
"No kidding." Nick seemed impressed as he leaned forward. He smelled good: manly without dipping into Were, and no hint of blood at all. His eyes were brown. Nice. I liked human eyes. You could look at them and never see anything but what you might expect.
"What about that one?" Nick pointed to a round scar on Jenks's collarbone.
"Bee sting," Jenks said. "Had me in bed for three days with the shivers and jerks, but we kept our claim on the southside flower boxes. How did you get that one?" he asked, taking to the air to point at the softly welted scar ringing Nick's wrist.
Nick glanced at me and away. "A big rat named Hugo."
"Looks like he nearly took your hand off."
"He tried."
"Lookie here." Jenks tugged at his boot, yanking it off along with a nearly transparent sock to show a misshapen foot. "A vamp pulped my foot when I didn't dodge fast enough."
Nick winced, and I felt ill. It must be hard to be four inches in a six-foot world. Parting the upper part of his robe, he showed his shoulder and a hint of a curve of muscle. I leaned forward to get a better look. The light crisscrossing of scars appeared to be nail gouges, and I tried to see how far down they might go. I decided Ivy was wrong. He wasn't a geek. Geeks don't have washboard stomachs. "A rat named Pan Peril gave me these," Nick said.
"How about this?" Jenks let his shirt fall completely about his waist. I felt my amusement fade as Jenks's scarred and battered body came to light. "See here?" he said, pointing to a concave, round scar. "Look. It goes right through to the other side." He turned to show a smaller scar on his lower back. "Fairy sword. It probably would have killed me, but I had just married Matalina. She kept me alive until the toxins worked their way out."
Nick shook his head slowly. "You win," he said. "I can't beat that."
Jenks rose several inches in pride. I didn't know what to say. My stomach rumbled, and in the obvious silence afterward I murmured, "Nick, can I make you a sandwich or something?"
His brown eyes meeting mine were warm. "If it's not too much trouble."
I rose and shuffled in my pink fuzzy slippers to the fridge. "No trouble at all. I was going to make myself something to eat anyway."
Ivy finished putting the last of the glasses away and started cleaning the sink with scouring powder. I gave her a sour look. The sink didn't need cleaning. She was just being nosy. Upon opening the fridge, I silently assessed the takeout bags from four different restaurants. Apparently Ivy had been grocery shopping. Shuffling about, I found the bologna and a head of browning lettuce. My eyes went to the tomato on the windowsill and I bit my lower lip, hoping Nick hadn't seen it yet. I didn't want to offend him. Most humans wouldn't touch a tomato with a gloved hand. Shifting to block his view, I hid it behind the toaster.
"Still eating, are we?" Ivy murmured under her breath. "A moment on the lips…"