The Witch with No Name(198)

“Al, just wear it,” I said. “And get your ass back out with the wedding party. You’re going to make them late coming in.”

“I will not,” he said stiffly, frowning as Ivy gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Quen has my steed. I have plenty of time to pop back. Listen, they haven’t even found her yet.”

It was true. The hounds still bayed, and I shivered. I’d asked Trent to forgo that part, but Ray had insisted. The dogs wouldn’t be allowed to follow them back to the glen, though.

“See you at the reception,” Ivy said, turning to stand right in front of Al until he moved out of her way.

“Damn cheeky vampires,” he grumbled as he moved. “Thinks she owns the world.”

I soothed Red before reaching for her bridle. “She’s in love,” I said softly. “She does own the world.”

Al was silent, and I turned to see him staring at me, the wolf pelt hanging half off his shoulders. “You took your hair down,” he said, his voice shifting, deeper and less flamboyant. “Is that for your elf?”

“No.” The pelt was slipping off his shoulder, and I stood before him and tugged it straight. “Jumoke’s kids took Ray’s cap, and I gave her mine.” He wasn’t jealous—not really.

“I suppose if you have stood with him this long against all the forces of nature opposing you that you’d be afraid to do anything . . . else?” Al said, his tone rising in question at the end.

Jenks’s wings clattered in warning that I was going to be late, but it was Al who grimaced. “I’m not afraid of anything except missing my cue,” I said. “Will you just wear the pelt?” I grumped as I adjusted it. “It’s only for an hour. Pretend that it’s a job. I’ve seen you wear worse.” A horn blew, and I frowned. Damn it, I was late.

“It’s undignified!” Al moaned, his usual mood restored.

Jenks’s wings shivered against my neck. I hadn’t even felt him land. “This coming from the demon who let a live Tyrannosaurus rex eat him so he could blow him up from the inside during the last ten minutes of the film?”

Al frowned. “I do my own stunts. It was in the script.”

Which was true. Al had five Oscars to his credit and had produced and directed movies that had earned twice that many. As he had said, Al did his own stunts, and the dinosaur had been real, reengineered from old DNA using sophisticated magic and some of Trent’s more illegal machines. The one they didn’t blow up was on loan to the San Diego Zoo.

“Can you get me tickets to the premiere of Mesozoic: In Time, No One Can Hear You Scream?” I asked, and when he winced, I shook my head. “Wear it, big man, or I’ll change something other than your ears to snakes.”

He leered, making Red’s ears pin back. “How do you know someone hasn’t beaten you to it?”

“Al!” I shouted. “Wear. It.”

Sighing, he tugged it back into place. Jenks was laughing, his dust looking gray in the lamplight, and I hustled forward to adjust the pelt before Al could take it back off. “He looks like a Neanderthal in Armani,” Jenks said, laughing merrily.

“It’s not that bad!” I soothed, pulling Al down to kiss his cheek and make his ruddy complexion shift even redder. “You look like the big bad wolf. Now go. I have to meet Trent and Quen on the hill.”

“Quen is with the hunting party, and if it wasn’t for Ray, I’d never do it.”

“Then I have to meet Trent. And she loves you. Go!”

Grumbling, Al backed up, but he hesitated before he winked out, a familiar, crafty glint to his expression as he took a breath and his eyes opened wide.

“Tink loves a duck,” Jenks said loudly. “I think Brimstone breath just got an idea.”

“Yes!” Al exclaimed, and Red bobbed her head, agitated when the demon was suddenly coated in shimmery silver ever-after. “I have an idea!” he cried again, his voice distorted as the energy field fell away to show that Al’s silver-threaded overdone finery was gone, replaced by thick boots trimmed in fur and an elegant coat with shadings of tree and field. The wolf pelt worked with it, especially in the graying light and the smell of horse, and I smiled. “If I’m to be a huntsman, I will be a huntsman! They will tremble in fear, and that whiny Keric will think twice about stealing my beloved Ray!”

“Go get ’em, Al,” I said, weary as he jumped and his shiny afterimage fading to nothing.

Jenks snickered as he took to the air. “I think you might have just birthed the idea for his next film.”

“Just as long as he leaves me out of the credits. I got hate mail for three whole years the last time.”