The Witch with No Name

I pushed my fingers into my forehead, trying to decide if I wanted to tell Edden this might not go away with the sun, but my home had exploded and no one had admitted it had happened other than the building inspector. “And this is my problem why?” I asked as Trent backed up. Jenks clutching for the stem of the rearview mirror.

“It’s your problem because you’re the only one who can help!” Edden said. “With great power must also come great responsibility.”

“That is bull!” I shouted, and Jenks’s wings burst into a surprised red. “The only thing great power ever gave me was a dwindling bank account and a court order to stay out of San Francisco. Where was the FIB when my church was attacked, Edden? Where were you when you knew damn well the vampires were plotting to kill me? The I.S. I can understand, but what about you? Has anyone even been out to my church to investigate?”

Trent’s grip on the wheel tightened, and I settled back in my seat and angled the vents to me. “Look, I gotta go make spaghetti for Trent. He doesn’t think I can cook.” Little girls like spaghetti, don’t they?

Edden’s sigh only made me angrier. “Making the vampires accountable will take more money than rebuilding the church,” he muttered.

“So they get away with it?” I said bitterly as Trent took a turn too fast and Jenks swore at him to slow down.

“You’re a demon, Rachel. What can we do that you can’t?”

Pissed, I held the phone closer. “I’m not saying you should’ve tried to stop them, but you are ignoring the fact that it happened! If you don’t say it’s wrong, then you’re telling them you agree. And now you want me to bail you out of trouble because I have the balls and skills and associates to make a fist of it?”

Make a fist of it? Crap on toast, where had that come from?

Jenks was looking kind of worried, and I resolved to ease up a little. Edden was way over his head and the I.S. wouldn’t help. I was going to do what I could, such as it was, but I wanted to know I wasn’t out there by myself. Edden, though, hadn’t said anything, and not wanting him to hang up, I said, “Look. I agree that master vampires crying in their cups isn’t a good thing and that demons laughing in theirs is even worse, but either I’m a part of this world or I’m not. Either you stand up and say something, or you ignore it and tell them it was acceptable to try to kill me.”

I jumped when Trent’s hand landed on mine and he gave it a squeeze.

“I see your point,” Edden finally said, and I exhaled. “I should have lodged a formal protest, posted on the FIB news feed, gotten a team out there to make a report. We’re too used to ignoring things out of our control.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“But the I.S. isn’t functioning and demons are causing trouble.” Edden’s voice quickened. “Can you get them to back off? We’ve got laws on the books for demons now, but no way to administer them.”

Laws on the books. If there was one thing demons understood, it was rules. The trick was to get them to go along with them because I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life enforcing them—even if I was the only one who could. Damn it, how did I get here? Fingers pushing into my forehead again, I hoped Ivy was okay. “Where are they?”

Jenks sighed, and Trent’s grip tightened on the wheel once more. We’d stopped at a red light, and when it turned green, he sat there and waved at the car behind us to go around.

“I’ve got a group at a coffeehouse two blocks from the FIB,” Edden said, and Trent flicked the turn signal on. “We’ve got it cordoned off but . . .”

“Junior’s? I mean Mark’s?” I asked, wincing. Sweet ever-loving pixy dust. What was it with that place?

“Ah, yes. I think that’s the name of it.”

I had my shoulder bag, but there wasn’t anything in it that would be of use against uncooperative demons. Damn it back to the Turn. “Okay,” I said around a sigh. “I’ll talk to them. Keep your men back. Just having them there is enough of a statement. I don’t want anyone turned into a toad.”

“Rachel, I’m sorry,” Edden said, his entire demeanor shifting now that I’d said yes. “I never thought of it that way. You seem so capable of anything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, not liking the empty streets as we sped over the bridge and into Cincinnati. No one was out here, and it was creepy. “I’m still going to send you a bill.”

I could hear the smile in his voice, the relief, when he next spoke. “I’ve got a couple of tickets for the FIB picnic with your name on them. Oh, and don’t get Trent killed, okay?”

Trent’s teeth caught the gleam of the streetlight as he smiled, and I felt his hold on a ley line tingle through me. “Hey, tell the I.S. I could use a couple of vans designed for ley line witches, eh?”

A burst of dust lit the car. “Shit, Rache! You’re going to arrest them?”

I didn’t have time for this. “Maybe.”

“You got it,” Edden said, and I nodded as I hung up and closed my phone.