For a Few Demons More(16)
Our fathers had been friends before they’d died a week apart under suspicious circumstances. At least they were suspicious to me. And that was the reason I distrusted Trent, if his being a drug lord, a murderer, and nastily adept at manipulating me weren’t enough.
Suddenly overcome with missing my dad, I shuffled through the cabinet behind the mirror until I found the wooden ring he’d given me on my thirteenth birthday. It had been the last one we’d shared before he died. I looked at it, small and perfect in my palm, and on impulse I put it on. I hadn’t worn it since the charm it once held to hide my freckles had been broken, and I hadn’t needed it since twisting that demon curse. But I missed him, and after being attacked by a demon this morning, I could use some serious emotional security.
I smiled at it circling my pinkie, feeling better already. The ring had come with a lifetime charm reinstatement, and I had an appointment every fourth Friday in July. Maybe I’d take the madam out for coffee instead. Ask her about maybe changing it to a sunscreen charm—if there was such a thing.
The give-and-take of masculine and feminine voices from the kitchen became obvious as I toweled my hair. “He’s here already?” I grumbled, finding a pair of underwear, jeans, and a red camisole in the dryer. Slipping them on, I dabbed some perfume behind each ear to help block my scent and Ivy’s from mixing, combed my damp hair back with my fingers, and headed out.
But it wasn’t a holy man I found in the kitchen covered in pixy children, it was Glenn.
THREE
“Hi, Glenn,” I said as I slumped barefoot into my chair. “Who’s pinching your ass today?”
The clearly uncomfortable, rather tall FIB detective was in a suit, which didn’t bode well. He had Jenks’s kids all over him, which was really weird. And Ivy was glaring at him from her computer, which was mildly troubling. But considering that the first time she met him, she almost bit him in anger and he almost shot her, I guessed we were doing okay.
Jenks scraped his wings, and his kids scattered, rising up through my rack of spelling supplies and herbs in a swirl of silk and shouts that hurt my eyeballs before flowing into the hall and probably out the chimney in the living room. I hadn’t seen him on the sill until now, standing by his pet sea monkeys. How come a pixy has more pets than I do?
I smiled tiredly at Glenn across the table, trying to make up for my roommate’s stellar attitude. There was a paperboard tray with two cups steaming between us, and the warm breeze coming in from the garden was pushing the heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee right to me. I wanted one in the worst way.
Ivy’s fingers hit her keyboard aggressively as she weeded out her spam. “Detective Glenn was just leaving. Weren’t you?”
The tall black man silently clenched his jaw. Since I’d seen him last, he had gotten rid of his goatee and mustache and replaced them with stud earrings. I wondered what his dad thought about that, but personally, I thought it added to his carefully maintained, polished image of young and capable law enforcer.
His suit was still off-the-rack, but it fit his very nice physique as if made for him. The tips of his dress shoes poking out from under the hems looked comfortable enough to run in if he had to. His trim body certainly seemed up to it, with that wide chest and narrow waist. The butt of a weapon glinted from a holster on his belt to give him a nice hint of danger.
Not that I’m in the market for a new boyfriend, I thought. I had a damn fine boyfriend, Kisten, and Glenn wasn’t interested, though I’m sure if he “tried a witch, he’d never switch.” And since I knew that his lack of interest wasn’t born of prejudice, that was cool.
I exhaled, my fingers shaking from fatigue. My eyes went from his expressive brown ones pinched in worry and annoyance to the coffee. “Is one of these mine, by chance?” I asked, and when he nodded, I reached forward, saying, “Bless you back to the Turn.” Pulling off the plastic lid, I took a gulp. My eyes closed, and I held the second swallow in my mouth for a moment. It was a double shot: hot, black, and oh so what I needed right now.
Ivy kept typing, and while Jenks excused himself to help the forgotten toddler crying in the ladle back to the stump in the garden, I took the time to wonder what Glenn was doing here. And so obscenely early. It was seven in the freakin’ morning. I hadn’t done anything to tick off the FIB—had I?
Glenn worked for the Federal Inderland Bureau, the human-run institution that functioned on a local and national level. The FIB was way outclassed by the I.S., the Inderlander-run side of the coin, when it came to enforcing the law, but during a previous investigation on which I’d helped Glenn, I’d found that the FIB had a scary amount of information on us Inderlanders, making me wish I hadn’t written up those species summaries for his dad last fall. Glenn was Cincy’s FIB Inderland specialist, which meant that he had enough guts to try working both sides of the street. It had been his dad’s idea, and since I owed his dad bigtime, I helped when he asked.