White Witch, Black Curse

Edden made an ugly sound and just about threw the pen in the cup. “I don’t care.”

“He’s liable to wind up dead,” I protested, then took a sip of my coffee now that Jenks wasn’t hiding behind it. My eyes closed in bliss for a moment. I’d give the FIB one thing: They knew how to make coffee. “A banshee’s liveins never live long,” I said. “And if Mia has a baby, her emotion requirements will be almost triple.” I paused in my motion to take another drink. That was probably why she had to put five years between her children.

Edden’s mustache was bunched up, and his expression was hard. “I’m not concerned about Mia’s accomplice,” he said. “He was healthy enough to beat up my son. We pulled his record this morning by way of his fingerprints. His name is Remus, and we would never have found him this fast but he’s got a file thicker than my fist, starting from high school with an attempted date rape, up to about three years ago when he spent time in a psychiatric jail for an especially foul animal-cruelty charge. They let him out, and he dropped off the face of the earth. No credit card activity, no rental history, no W-2 forms. Nothing until now. So you can understand if I don’t rush out and try to find him for the sake of his own health.”

My stomach hurt. God, the two of them had probably killed the Tilsons together. They had killed those happy faces that were in that yearbook and taken their names, their lives, everything. Shoved what they didn’t want into boxes in their garage.

Jenks dropped the empty honey packet, staggering under the desk lamp and staring up at it. Realizing that he was singing to it to get it to turn on, I flicked the switch. Jenks exploded into gold sparkles and collapsed, giggling. My expression went blank. He was stuck on the tenth day of Christmas, but finally he gave up and started singing about four purple condoms.

I looked at Edden and shrugged. “Maybe the little girl belongs to Remus,” I said, and Edden jerked the topmost file out from under Jenks. The pixy rose three inches before falling down, mumbling as he pillowed his head on his folded arms and fell asleep in the artificial warmth of the light. Edden handed me the file, and I opened it. “What is this?”

He leaned back to lace his hands over his middle. “Everything we have on Mia. That baby makes her a lot easier to track. Without her, Remus wouldn’t exist. We found another licensed day care that Mia frequents, making four now and at least two more informal ones.”

I leafed through the small packet to read the addresses, impressed again with the FIB’s investigative techniques. The day cares were mostly in Ohio, on Cincy’s outskirts.

“I called them all this morning,” Edden said. “Mia didn’t show up anywhere yesterday, and the one she was scheduled for was concerned. Apparently she always stays to help instead of paying them for care, claiming that she wants Holly to have more socialization skills.”

“No kidding?” I said, eyebrows high. I could buy that, but not if she was taking her daughter to five other day cares to do the same thing.

“No, no, no,” Jenks slurred from under the glaring light. His eyes weren’t open, and I was surprised he was conscious enough to listen, much less comment on the conversation. “Kid isn’t socializing. The kid is sucking down emotion like…”

His words trailed off in confusion, and I offered, “A pixy with honey?”

Jenks cracked an eye and gave me a thumbs-up. “Yeah.” His eyes closed, and he started to snore. I didn’t know why, but I unwound my scarf and covered him. Embarrassment, maybe?

Edden was watching us with a questioning expression, and I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “Mia’s probably trying to spread her daughter’s damage around.”

Edden made a noncommittal grunt, and I continued to leaf through the information. “The neighbor kid who mowed their lawn said that Mia told his mom she wanted a lot of kids but had to space them out, five years apart,” I said. “That would go along with Holly being a banshee. You can’t have two kids around like that. Hell, a banshee usually has a kid once every hundred years or so, so if Mia is thinking another one in five years, she must have a really good way to keep from killing people to support her daughter’s growth…”

My words drifted to nothing. Either that, or someone with her who knew how to abduct people in a way so that they never went reported as missing. Someone like a homicidal maniac capable of serial murders. Sort of like Remus—someone who would enjoy hunting people and bringing them back for his wife and darling baby to drain. That might be why Remus was in good enough health to beat up an FIB officer, feeding his two tigers well enough that Mia could plan on adding to her little family. This was really not good.

Edden was quietly waiting for me to come to just that conclusion, and I closed the file. Numb and feeling sick, I glanced at Jenks, out cold, then to Edden, silently waiting. “I’m not doing this,” I said, dropping the packet on his desk. The draft shifted Jenks’s hair, and the pixy grimaced in his drunken stupor. “Banshees are dangerous—apex predators. And I thought you didn’t want my—excuse me—our help.”

At my blatant accusation, Edden reddened. “Who is going to bring her in, then? The I.S.? I talked to them this morning. They don’t care.” His eyes went everywhere but to mine. “If we don’t bring her in, no one will,” he muttered.

And he would want justice, seeing that she had something to do with his son being in the hospital. Frowning, I slid the file back off Edden’s desk and onto my lap, but I didn’t open it. “Next question,” I said, my tone clearly stating I wasn’t taking the job—yet. “What makes you so sure the I.S. isn’t covering it up?” I wasn’t about to get on the I.S.’s bad side for a paycheck. I’d done that before, and was smarter now. Yeah, it had felt great showing up the I.S., but then Denon took my license and I was stuck riding the bus again.

Edden’s expression went tight. “What if they are?”

My face scrunched up, and I fingered the file. Yeah, it left a bad taste in my mouth, too.

“According to the woman I talked to at the I.S.,” Edden said, “there should be a trail almost eighteen months long on this woman, starting with several simultaneous deaths at the time of Holly’s conception and continuing on to today. That’s probably when the Tilsons were murdered. Ms. Harbor is devious, clever, and has a tremendous knowledge of the city. About the only thing going for us is that she won’t leave Cincinnati. Banshees are highly territorial and dependent upon the people they’ve been siphoning off for generations.”

I bobbed my foot and looked at the essay I had written. “Why did you ask me to write this if you already knew it?” I asked, my feelings hurt.

“I didn’t know it yesterday. You were sleeping, Rachel,” Edden said dryly, then hid his slight guilt behind a sip of coffee. “I talked to Audrey something or other in records this morning. She was going to make me fill out a year’s worth of forms until I dropped your name.” A faint smile replaced his concern, and I relaxed.

“I know her,” I said. “You can trust what she said.”

Edden laughed, making Jenks mumble in his sleep. “Especially after I promised you’d babysit for her.” He ran a hand over his mustache to hide a smile. “She was kind of cranky. You witches aren’t at your best before noon, are you?”

“No,” I said, then my smile faded. Audrey had three kids last I checked. Crap. I was going to have to have Jenks help me; otherwise they’d railroad me into a closet or trick me into letting them eat candy.

“Audrey said Mia’s net of people is probably so intricate that she can’t risk leaving Cincy. If she does, the deaths to support the baby will be fast and easy to find, rather than the carefully chosen, hidden ones.” He hesitated, and a flash of worry for his son crossed his face. “Is that true? They already killed an FIB officer. That wasting disease was probably Mia, right?”

He was too far away for me to reach out and touch his hand in support, but I wanted to. I really needed to visit Glenn and look at his aura. It wasn’t as if I could help him, but I’d like to know if that’s why he was still unconscious. “Edden, I’m sorry,” I finally said. “Glenn will be okay, and we will find them. They won’t be allowed to think they can do this with impunity.”

The older man’s jaw clenched, then relaxed. “I know. I just wanted to hear from you that we have a chance and that they didn’t hop a plane and are in Mexico, sucking the children there dry.”

From under my scarf came a high-pitched sigh, and Jenks mumbled, “On the eleventh day of Christmas, my lover gave to me…”

I nudged the stack of files. “Hush, Jenks,” I said, then pulled my eyes to Edden, softening my gaze. “We will get them, Edden. Promise.”

Jenks’s mumbling grew loud, and I felt uneasy when I realized he was apologizing to Matalina. That was a hindsight better than what the drummers had been doing with the piper’s pipes, but his heartfelt whining was almost worse.

“Then you’ll help us?” Edden asked, rather unnecessarily, I might add.

It was a banshee, but with Ivy’s help—and a lot of planning—we three could do it. “I’ll look into it,” I said, trying to drown out Jenks’s vow that he would never touch honey again if she would get better. This was getting depressing.

Edden, too, was glancing at my scarf as he rummaged around in a top drawer. He found what he was looking for, and extended his fist, palm down. “Then you might need this,” he said, and I reached for whatever it was.

The smooth feel of crystal fell into my palm, and I jerked back. Heart pounding, I stared at the opaque drop of nothing, warming fast against my skin. I waited for my hand to cramp up or the stone to feel fuzzy or move or something, but it just sat there, looking like a cheap, foggy crystal that earth witches sell ignorant humans down at Finley Market.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, feeling squeamish even as the tear did nothing. “Is it one of Mia’s?” It seemed to wiggle in my hand, and it was all I could do not to drop it, but then I’d have to tell him why, and then he might take it back. So I blinked at him, my fingers going stiff in an open cradle.

“We found a stash of them in a glass flower vase, disguised as decorative stones,” Edden said. “I thought you might be able to make one into a locator amulet.”

It was a great idea, and I dropped the crystal into my coat pocket, deeming I’d held the squirmy thing long enough. My held breath slipped from me, and the hesitant, almost belligerent embarrassment he was hiding gave me pause until I realized he had taken the tear from evidence.

“I’ll give it a try,” I said, and he grimaced, eyes lowered. I had to pick up my brother at the airport, but I might be able to squeeze in a stop at the university library as well as a charm shop for Jenks before that. A locator charm was devilishly hard. I honestly didn’t know if I could pull it off. The library would be the only place I could find the recipe. Well, besides the Internet, but that was asking for trouble.

My scarf was now spouting poetry, waxing lovingly about Matalina’s charms in beautifully poetic to downright lustful terms. Giving the stack of papers a push, I flicked off the light. Jenks let out a long complaint, and I stood.

“Come on, Mr. Honeypot,” I said to Jenks. “We gotta go.”

I flicked my scarf off him, and the pixy didn’t move apart from huddling into a ball. Edden stood up, and together we eyed him. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. Usually when Jenks got honey drunk, he was a happy drunk. This looked depressed, and I felt my face lose its expression when I realized Jenks was saying Matalina’s name over and over.

“Oh crap,” I whispered as he started making promises he couldn’t keep, asking her to make one she couldn’t. My own heart breaking, I carefully scooped him up, holding the unaware pixy in my hands, cupping him in a soothing darkness and warmth. Damn it, this wasn’t fair. No wonder Jenks took the opportunity to get drunk. His wife was dying, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Is he going to be all right?” Edden whispered as I stood in front of the desk, not knowing how I was going to get home with him like this. I couldn’t just shove him in my bag and hope for the best.

“Yes,” I said absently, deep in thought.

Edden shifted from foot to foot. “Is his wife okay?”

I brought my eyes up, unshed tears for Jenks warming them as I found a deep understanding in Edden’s gaze, the understanding of a man who had lost his wife. “No,” I said. “Pixies live only twenty years.”

I could feel Jenks light and warm in my hands, and I wished he was bigger so I could just help him into the car, take him home, and cry with him on the couch. But all I could do was carefully slide him into the masculine glove Edden was holding out to me. The lined leather would keep him warm, whereas my scarf wouldn’t.

Jenks hardly noticed the move, and I could get him to the car safely and in a dignified manner. I tried to tell Edden thanks, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead, I picked up the folder. “Thanks for the addresses,” I said softly, and I turned to go. “I’ll give them to Ivy. She can make sense out of rat tails in the dust.”

Edden opened the door, and the noise of the open offices hit me like a slap, jerking me back to reality. I wiped my eyes and tugged my bag higher up on my shoulder. I held Edden’s glove carefully. Ivy and I would map out Mia’s network, starting with the day cares. Then move on to see if she worked at elderly day care centers or volunteered at the hospital. This could get really ugly.

There was a soft pull on my elbow as I rocked into motion, and I paused. Edden had his eyes on the tile, and I waited until he brought them to mine.

“Tell me when Jenks needs someone to talk to,” he said, and my throat closed. Recalling what Ford had told me about Edden’s wife dying in a stab-and-grab, I mustered a smile and nodded. My boots clicked fast on the tile as I made for the door, head high and eyes unseeing.

I wondered if Edden would talk to me next year when we went through the same ordeal with Jenks.

Seven

The airport was noisy, and I leaned against a support beam and tried not to fidget as I waited. Jenks and I had been here for nearly an hour, but I was glad I’d gotten here early when security stopped me at the spell-checker gate. It had either been my truth amulet or my lethal-spell detector interfering with theirs, because they were about the only invoked charms I had on me. Dumping out my bag for three uniformed stiffs to paw through was not my idea of how to meet guys. Jenks had thought it was hilarious. No one else was getting searched.

The pixy was currently down the hall at the flower cart, not a single indication that he had been honey drunk earlier. He was working a deal with the owner for some fern seed if he could entice a few people to buy roses for their departing loved ones. He had still been out cold when we passed the charm shop, and I hadn’t stopped either there or the library. But if he could get the fern seed, he’d be a happy pixy.

It was cool in the drafty terminal, but vastly warmer than the blue, white, and gray world outside the huge plate-glass windows. Plows kept the runways clear, and the mounds of snow at the outskirts just begged to be played on. The people around me were a mix of hurried harassment, bored irritation, and anxious expectation. I fell into the last, and as I waited for Robbie’s plane to clear checks and disembark, I felt a shiver of anticipation—though some of that might have been lingering anxiety from having been stopped at the heavy-magic detector.

Witches had always worked in aviation, both on the ground and in the air, but during the Turn they’d taken it over and hadn’t given it back, changing the laws until there had to be at least one highly qualified witch on duty at each security checkpoint. Even before the Turn, witches had been using heavy-magic detectors right along with the mundane metal detectors. What had looked like a random check on a harmless-looking man or woman had often been a covert search for contraband magic. Why I’d been stopped I didn’t know. Bothered, I tried to smooth out my brow and relax. Unless Robbie was in first class, it would be a while.

A cloying, too-sweet scent of cinnamon and the rich aroma of coffee gave a glimmer of contentment to the rising excitement. The conversations grew loud when the door opened and the first yawning person pushed through, intent on reaching the rent-a-car stand, his eyes glazed and his pace fast. A few feet from me was a mom with three toddlers, like stair steps, probably waiting for their dad. The eldest wiggled from his mom and ran for the huge windows, and I jumped when the mom set a circle to stop the toddler dead in his tracks.

A smile curved over my face when the little boy screamed in frustration, pounding at the faintly shimmering barrier glowing a thin blue. That had been something I’d never had to worry about when I was little. Mom sucked dishwater at making circles. I hadn’t been able to walk until I was three anyway, too sick to do much more than survive before then. It was a miracle I’d made it past my second birthday—an illegal medical miracle that worried me every time I went through something like the heavy-magic detection field. There was no way to detect the tampering done to my mitochondria, but I worried anyway.

Anxious, I shifted my weight to my other foot. I was eager to see Robbie, but tonight’s dinner wasn’t going to be fun. At least I’d have Marshal to take some of the heat off me.

The toddler’s screaming shifted from frustration to recognition, and I turned when his mother dropped her circle. She was beaming, looking absolutely beautiful despite the weariness of keeping three energetic children within society’s norms. I followed the toddler with my eyes as he ran to an attractive young woman in a smart-looking suit. The woman bent to pick him up, and the five of them came together in a wash of happiness. They all began to move in a confused tangle, and after a heartfelt kiss between the two women, the one in the suit exchanged a trendy bag for a gurgling infant. It looked noisy, messy, and utterly comforting.

My smile slowly faded as they moved away, and my thoughts went to Ivy. We’d never have such a recognizable relationship, where we somehow fell into normal roles that could function within society’s parameters. Not that I was looking for something so traditionally nontraditional. Ivy and I did have a relationship, but if we tried to make it fit her ideas or go past my limits, it would blow everything to hell.

Something older than the spoken word tickled my instinct, and I pulled my eyes from the couple’s vanishing backs. My gaze landed on my brother, and I smiled. He was still in the tunnel, obvious over the shorter people ahead of him. His red hair stood out like a flag, and he had a sparse beard. Sunglasses almost made him look cool, but the freckles ruined it. Seeing his smile widen as our eyes met, I pushed from the piling and waited, anticipation tingling my toes. God, I’d missed him.

People finally moved out from between us, and I could see his narrow-shouldered frame. He had on a light jacket and was carrying a shiny leather satchel and his guitar. At the head of the tunnel he stopped and thanked a short, awkward-looking salesman-type guy who handed him a piece of luggage and vanished into the crowd, carrying it for him so he wouldn’t have to check it, I suppose.

“Robbie!” I called, unable to stop myself, and his smile grew. His long legs ate up the distance, and he was before me, dropping his things and giving me a squeeze.

“Hi, sis,” he said, his hug growing fierce before he let go and stepped back. The crowd flowed around us, but no one minded. Little pockets of reunion were going on all over the terminal. “You look good,” he said, tousling my hair and earning a slug on his shoulder. He caught my fist, but not until after I’d connected, and he looked at my hand, smiling at the little wooden pinkie ring. “Still not liking your freckles, eh?” he said, and I shrugged. Like I was going to tell him I didn’t have freckles as the side effect of a demon curse?

Instead, I gave him another hug, noticing that we were almost the same height with me in heels and him in…loafers? Laughing, I looked him up and down. “You are going to freeze your butt off outside.”

“Yeah, I love you, too,” he said, grinning as he removed his sunglasses and tucked them away. “Cut me some slack. It was seven in the morning and seventy-two degrees when I left. I haven’t had any sleep but for four hours on the plane, and I’m going to crash if I don’t get some coffee in me.” He leaned to pick up his guitar. “Mom still making that nasty excuse for road paste?”

Smiling as if I would never stop, I picked up the larger bag, remembering the last time I’d carried his luggage. “We’d better stop and get some now. Besides, I’m waiting for Jenks to finish up with something, and I want to talk to you about Mom.”

Robbie straightened from trying to grip his satchel and guitar in the same hand, his green eyes looking worried. “Is she okay?”

I stared for a moment, then realized what my last words must have sounded like. “Mom’s happier than a troll under a toll bridge. What happened out there with you, anyway? She came back tan and humming show tunes. What’s up with that?”

Robbie took the bag from me, and we angled to the nearest coffee stand. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was her, ah, traveling companion.”

My brow furrowed and my pulse quickened. Takata. I’d thought as much. She’d gone out to the West Coast to spend time with her college sweetheart, and I wasn’t sure what I thought about him. I mean, I knew who he was, but I didn’t know him.

Silently we got in line, and as I stood shoulder to shoulder with Robbie, I suddenly felt tall. Takata was birth father to both of us, a college sweetheart who gave our mom the children her human husband—and Takata’s best friend, incidentally—couldn’t, while Takata ran off and traded his life for fortune and fame, down to dying his hair and changing his name. I couldn’t think of him as Dad. My real dad had died when I was thirteen, and nothing would change that.

But standing beside Robbie now, I snuck sidelong glances at him, seeing the older rocker in him. Hell, I could look in the mirror and see Takata in me. My feet, Robbie’s hands, my nose, and both our heights. Definitely my hair. Takata’s might be blond where mine was red, but it curled the same way.

Robbie turned from the overhead menu and gave me a sideways hug. “Don’t be mad at him,” he said, instinctively knowing where my thoughts were. He’d always been able to do that, even as kids, which had been really frustrating when I was trying to get away with something. “He’s good for her,” he added, shoving his luggage farther along the line. “She’s moving past the guilt of Dad dying. I, uh, spent some time with them,” he said, nervousness making his words soft. “He loves her. And she feels special with him.”

“I’m not mad at him,” I said, then smacked his shoulder just hard enough to make him notice. “I’m mad at you. Why didn’t you tell me Takata was our dad?”

The businessman in front of us turned around briefly, and I made a face at him.

Robbie moved forward another foot. “Right,” he murmured. “Like I’m going to call you up and tell you our mom was a groupie.”

I made a scoffing noise. “That’s not what happened.”

He looked at me and made his eyes wide. “It makes more sense than what did happen. For Christ’s sake, you would have laughed your ass off if I had told you our real dad was a rock star. Then you would have asked Mom, and then she would have…cried.”

Cried, I thought. Nice of him to not say “go off her rocker,” because that’s what she would have done. It had been bad enough when the truth came out. A sigh shifted my shoulders, and I scooted forward to the counter when the guy ahead of us ordered his tall latte something or other and moved off.

“I’ll have a grande latte, double espresso, Italian blend,” Robbie said, his eyes on the menu. “Light on the froth, heavy on the cinnamon. Can you make that with whole milk?”

The barista nodded as he wrote on the paper cup. “This together?” he asked, looking up.

“Yeah. Um, just give me a medium-size cup of the house blend,” I said, suddenly disconcerted. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought that Robbie’s order had sounded exactly like how Minias took his coffee.

“You want a shot of something in it?” the barista persisted, and I shook my head as I ran my card through the machine before Robbie could.

“Just black.”

Robbie was struggling with his stuff, so I grabbed both cups when they came up and followed him to a table too small and sticky to encourage anything but the shortest of stays. “I can carry stuff now,” I said as I watched him stagger under it.

He gave me a sideways smile. “Not while I’m around. Sit.”

So I sat, and it felt good as he bustled about, arranging his things and asking an old couple if he could have one of their chairs. I had a moment of panic when I realized the abandoned paper on the table was folded to show that shot of the Tilsons’ house. Snatching it up, I jammed it in my bag just as Robbie joined me.

Landing heavy in his chair, he took the lid off his coffee and inhaled his first deep sniff, followed by a deep draft. “That’s good,” he said around a sigh, and I followed suit. For a moment he was silent, and then he eyed me expectantly over his paper rim. “So, how’s Mom?”

The businessman who had been ahead of us had foam on his nose as he stood and looked at the departure screens. “Fine.”

Robbie silently cracked his knuckles. “Do you have anything to say to me?” he asked so smugly that I turned to look at him.

There’s a cop car outside Mom’s house, and you’ll want to know why. I’m doing a murder investigation, and it might spill over into my home life. The university won’t let me attend classes. I have a date every Saturday in the ever-after with Big Al the demon. And thanks to Trent Kalamack’s dad, I’m the source of the next demon generation.

“Uh, no?” I said, and he laughed, scooting his guitar closer.

“You bailed on the I.S.,” he said, green eyes showing his amusement. “I told you joining them was a bad idea, but no-o-o-o-o! My little sister has to do things her way, then work twice as hard to get out of them. I’m proud of you for realizing it was a mistake, by the way.”

Oh, that. Relieved, I took the lid off my coffee and blew across the top of the rich blackness, giving him a sideways look. “Bailed” wouldn’t quite be the word I would use. “Stupidly quit” might be more appropriate. Or “attempted suicide.” “Thanks,” I managed, though what I wanted to do was start a tirade about how it hadn’t been a mistake in the first place. See, I can learn.

“They aren’t still after you, are they?” he asked, glancing to the side and shifting uncomfortably. I shook my head, and his long face became relieved—apart from a remaining hint of caution. “Good.” He took a deep breath. “Working for them was too dangerous. Anything could have happened.”

And usually did, I thought as the first hot sip of coffee slipped down and I closed my eyes in bliss. “Like what I’m doing now, is that safe?” I said as my eyes opened. “Jeez, Robbie, I’m twenty-six. I can take care of myself. I’m not the puny ninety-pound nothing I was when you left.” It might have been a tad harsh, but the resentment of his trying to stop me from going into the I.S. remained.

“All I meant was that the people who run it are liars and corrupt vamps,” he cajoled. “It wasn’t just the danger. You would never have been taken seriously there, Rachel. Witches never are. You hit that glass ceiling, and there you sit for the rest of your life.”

I would have gotten mad, but looking in hindsight at the last year I spent at the I.S., I knew he was right. “Dad didn’t do too bad,” I said.

“He could have done a lot more.”

Actually, he had done a lot more. Robbie didn’t know it, but our dad had probably been a mole in the I.S., passing information and warnings to Trent’s dad. Crap, I thought in sudden realization. Just like Francis. No, not like Francis. Francis had done it for money. Dad must have done it for the greater good. Which begged the question of what he’d seen in the elves to risk his life helping them stay out of extinction. It hadn’t been in return for the illegal medicine to save my life. They had been friends even before I was born.

“Rachel?”

I took another sip of my coffee, scanning the busy terminal for Jenks. A sense of unease was growing in me, and I almost choked on my drink when I spotted the security guard looking at us from across the hall, just standing there, watching. This keeps getting better and better.

“Earth to Rachel…Come in, Rachel…”

I gave myself a mental shake and pulled my gaze from the air cop. “Sorry. What?”

He looked me up and down. “You got quiet all of a sudden.”

I forced my eyes to stay off the armed guard. Another one had joined him. “Just thinking,” I hedged.

Robbie looked into his coffee. “That’s a switch,” he needled. But there were three rent-a-cops now. Two I could handle, but three was iffy. Where are you, Jenks? I wanted to get out of here, and I pretended to accidentally knock my coffee over.

“Whoops!” I exclaimed brightly, and while Robbie jumped up to avoid getting soaked, I scurried for the napkins to get a better look at the terminal police. Two Weres, I thought, and a witch. They had joined forces and were making their slow way over here. Shit.