Black Magic Sanction (55 page)

"Then why are we stealing it?" Jenks flew up when Nick flipped to the page he wanted.

Ivy was silent, and Nick stuck a pencil between his teeth. "Ask Rachel," he said. "She wanted something embarrassing but not priceless. That's exactly what it is." The pencil came out, and he looked at me, turning slightly in his chair. "It was painted in the fifteenth century by a nobody, and Ivy, before you go off on a nut, the reason we're targeting it is because the subject looks like Trent but is actually a savage prince in the mountains of Carpathia."

Jenks landed on my shoulder as I put my new pain amulets away. His wings were a depressed blue, cold when they brushed me. "If it were me, I'd burn it," he said.

"I think he's proud of it," Nick said. "Lets him think he comes from evil kings." Looking up, he shook his head as if I was making a mistake. "Rachel, he's just going to put you in jail—if you're lucky. Prison does not equal safety from the coven
or
him."

Dont I know it.
Confident, I shut the cupboard door with a thump. "Trent won't press charges. It's a game, Nick. Like for fun? We've been stealing things from each other and giving them back since before you hot-wired your first car."
Oh God, what if I was wrong?

Jenks's wings hummed to life, sending the scent of burning leaves over me. "Like when he took your ring and mailed it back! I still don't know how he did that."

"Or me stealing his hoof pick," I said, feeling a flash of guilt quickly followed by a surge of anxiety. "It's the same thing, and as long as I give it back... " He wouldn't press charges, but it would get his attention, and that's what I wanted.

Ivy poured the last of the juice into a glass and rinsed out the container. "All this aside, I've never heard of it," she muttered suspiciously.

"It's been in his basement." Nick turned back to the blueprints. "Passed down."

Pierce and I exchanged knowing looks.
But you ve heard of it?
I questioned silently. "Sounds like you've had your eye on it for a while," I said, brushing the used bits of herbs off the counter and into my hand.

Nick gave me a familiar smile that used only half his face. "I have. It's worth a fortune."

Glass in hand, Ivy was the picture of tense belligerence. "You just said it was worthless."

"It
is
worthless, but public image is worth a lot more than money to Trent," Nick said.

Pierce leaned forward, breathing into my ear, "I don't set much store by his story."

I stifled a shiver at his breath on my skin and Jenks's warning wing draft on my other side. Unfortunately I agreed with him, and after muttering to Jenks that I had this, I turned to dampen a washcloth. My back to Nick, I asked, "So... if it's been in Trent's basement for generations, how did you find out about it?"

Nick was silent. I turned, jaw tightening as he looked at me innocently. Far too innocently. His eyes dropped, and my pulse quickened as Jenks pointedly cleared his throat. "It's amazing what you hear when you ask the right questions," Nick finally muttered, rattling the papers. "Will you get out from behind me, Ivy? You're giving me the creeps."

My expression wry, I exchanged a look with Ivy as I ran the cloth over the center counter. Moving slowly, she shifted to stand in front of him, setting her glass down right on the sum he was figuring in the margin. "If you even think about crossing us... ," she threatened, and Jax spilled a frightened green dust.

Using two fingers and a thumb, Nick moved her glass, letting it drop the last quarter-inch, hitting with a thunk that almost spilled it. "You can have the painting," he said, tossing his hair from his eyes as he looked up. "That's not what I'm after."

Pulse fast, I stood with the center counter between us, the damp cloth in my hand. "What
are
you after?" I asked, and Jenks hummed his wings in agreement.

Nick's eyes were placidly blue as he looked at me. "A clean slate."

Pierce grimaced, but I only laughed as Jenks darted from my shoulder, his dust shifting to silver. "Dream on, rat boy," he barked. "You think we've been eating fairy farts for breakfast?"

Ivy sat before her computer. She was scowling, making me feel even more uneasy. Shaking the towel over the sink, I draped it over the spigot and turned. I knew Nick. Pierce might believe Nick was doing this to get back in my good graces, but once we were in Trent's compound, Nick was going to add a little to his own personal agenda and steal something that was going to move this stunt from teenage double-dog dare you to grand larceny. I knew it. Jenks knew it. Ivy knew it. And if we knew it, we could plan accordingly.
Stupid ass of an ex-boyfriend.

I had to get Trent and the coven together and threaten them both with going public with their dirty laundry unless they backed off. Trent wouldn't agree to a meeting unless I had a door prize, one sensational enough to get his attention, and innocent enough that he wouldn't try to kill me.

"I can get you your canvas," Nick said, his voice even. "All you have to do is get me into the main compound. The rest is easy."

That's all, eh?
I found a finger stick in the silverware drawer and broke the safety seal with a sharp snap, slamming the drawer shut. "I can get you in," I said, poking my finger and massaging blood to the tip to invoke the demon doppelganger curses. "I have. I can do it again."

Nick sighed. "I'm not talking sneaking into the public areas with a landscaping truck. I'm talking high-tech security in the basement labs."

Ivy snorted, and I made a moot face at him. "I'm not playing tiddledy-winks in the ever-after, Nick. I can get us in."
And out.

"It's getting out that I'm worried about," Pierce muttered.

I shrugged, counting three red drops as they plunked into the first vial. Like a wash, the scent of burnt amber oozed over the top.
Crap!
I thought, capping the vial before anyone other than Pierce noticed. Ivy would freak. But at least I knew I'd done it right.

"When have I ever not gotten out?" I said, perhaps a little too pride-fully. Sure, I always got out, and it cost me every single time.

Nick wouldn't look up from his blueprints. "There's a first time for everything."

"You got that right," Jenks said, his hum by my ear prompting me to move my hair out of his way. "I never thought I'd see your ass in our kitchen again. Least not outside ajar."

I couldn't help my smile as he landed, smelling of green things. "You doing okay?" I asked when Ivy went to argue with Nick about how fast a pixy had to fly to evade detection.

"I'm fine," he said, the draft he was making dying. "My stomach hurts, is all."

His stomach hurt. God, his wife wasn't gone even a day, and he was trying to work, trying to escape the pain in the garden, maybe. My heart seemed to darken as I quickly finished invoking the other two potions, capping them and setting them aside. It didn't seem right to be doing this when Matalina's ashes weren't even cold yet, but Jenks seemed eager for anything to distract himself. I wouldn't be doing this
at all
except that Trent was going to announce his candidacy for mayor tomorrow at Fountain Square. It was the perfect opportunity to return what we stole amid a media circus.

Jenks was frowning at the three vials, his gaze going to Ivy and Pierce as if wondering which one of them was going to be left behind.

"I don't like this," Jenks said softly from my shoulder as I fanned the faint burnt amber smell away. "Nick isn't getting anything out of this. Not even notoriety."

"I don't trust him either," I said, loud enough so everyone could hear. "That's why Ivy is going with us. She's going to babysit him."

Ivy smiled, tipping her glass in salute, but Nick sputtered. Pierce's expression became dark, a protest forming. Nick, though, was faster.

"Ivy is
not
coming," he said hotly. "It will increase the risk of getting caught by eighty percent."

Ivy bristled. "I won't be the one to get us caught, you infected blood clot."

"You're not going into the belly of Kalamack's fortress without me," Pierce said. "His father was a traitorous, untrustworthy worm and Trent is the same."

"She's coming," I said to Nick. "Make it work, genius." And then to Pierce, "Tell me something I don't know. You're just worried Al is going to be pissed, and Al is pissed at you already. You're staying. You reach too fast for the black magic, and though that has saved both Ivy and me, using it now will land me in an Inderland jail, or worse, in the ever-after."

"I opine I know how to keep my magic to myself!" Pierce said indignantly.

Striding across the kitchen, I put myself right in his face, making Jenks dart away when I put my hands on my hips and leaned in. "No," I said firmly. "I've put up with you for three days. Watched you for three
very long
days!" I said, then dropped my voice again. "You have saved my life. You have saved Ivy's. I owe you everything. But you keep
overreactingl
Tell me I'm wrong, Pierce, that you
like
using black magic? Tell me that."

"I do not overreact," he said, suddenly unsure.

"You do," I insisted, "you overreacted when you broke the church window, and you overreacted when you almost fried Lee in the university's philosophy building. But the reason you're not coming is because you have bad ideas, Pierce, and you act too fast on them."

Ivy was wide eyed, and even Nick had sat back, pencil almost falling out of his mouth.

"Do tell." Pierce's lips were tight, and his brow was furrowed.

"You said to keep quiet to Al about Alcatraz, but the coven wanting my ovaries had a lot to do with convincing him to give me my name back. You nearly dragged me onto that bus that Vivian crashed into a bridge. And what's with shooting at Al with my gun with my charms in the hopper? What if you had killed him? Who do you think the demons would blame for the death of one of their own? You, the familiar? Or me, the one whose gun was smoking? Now I'm down a splat gun until I can find someone who doesn't know I'm shunned and will sell me a new one! I can't trust you in a pinch, and because of that, you're watching Jenks's kids. Got it?"

"I can fix the window and I'll get you a new gun," he said, and I made my hands into fists, frustrated. He'd saved my life and I owed him, but half my problems this week were because of him.

"The gun isn't the problem," I said. "You keep telling me what to do. You don't ask. You don't suggest. You tell. And I don't like it. I have people to help me who I trust won't overreact and make things so out of control that it takes black magic to fix. You aren't coming."

I was out of breath, and I stopped, waiting for his reaction. By the frown on his face, it wasn't going to be nice. "You don't want me to help," he said, voice tight.

"No," I said, then added more gently, "Not today."

Pierce clenched his jaw, and without another word, he turned and strode from the kitchen. Jenks's eyes were wide, and I exhaled when I heard the back door slam. Shaking inside, I turned to Nick. "Did you have something to say about Ivy coming?"

Nick glanced at Ivy, his eyes dropping to her cast, then rising to me. "No, but her being there is going to increase the time to cross the main floor by at least three seconds. I don't know if the camera sweep can handle that. If you get caught, it's not my fault."

Jenks darted up, then down. "I'll worry about the cameras, rat boy. You worry about not tripping over your big fat wizard feet."

I took a deep breath to get rid of the adrenaline. Telling Pierce off had been something I'd been wanting to do all day, and now that it was done, I felt guilty. Glad I'd done it, regardless, I followed Jenks to the table to study the papers. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what they had scribbled. "Why can't we go downstairs from a low-security office, work through the underbelly in the lab where security will be light, then come up on the other side?" I asked, then tucked my hair behind my ear when it fell forward.

Both Ivy and Nick looked at me like I'd just said we should take a train to the moon. "You mean, like in the air ducts?" Nick finally offered.

"Yes," I said, wondering why Jax was smirking. "We can all go mink or something."

Ivy looked at Nick, and I swear... I saw them bond. "No," Nick said, white faced.

"I'm not going to turn into a rodent," Ivy said, her voice low and throaty.

"A mink is not a rodent," I snapped. "God! Everyone but Trent knows that."

Taking the pencil from behind her ear, Ivy circled a camera and drew a cone around its scanned area. "I'm not turning into anything," she said, glancing at the potions on the counter.

This might make our getaway more complicated. "You're afraid!" I accused, putting a hand on my hip. "Both of you. I know how to do this! I'm not going to leave you that way! You just have to think the word to break the curse."

Nick cleared his throat, and I got more ticked yet. It would be so easy if they weren't afraid. Maybe I should just do this by myself, just Jenks and me.

Ivy looked up, her gaze distant. "There's a delivery truck at the door," she said, and the doorbell rang. "If you don't hurry, they'll take it back to the depot."

Unfortunately she was right, and I spun away, almost running in my sock feet down the hall, shouting that I was coming. They wouldn't leave packages since I'd been shunned.

Behind me, I could hear Jenks saying, "Tink's panties, Ivy. She's right. If you got small, it would be a snap. You're both chicken shit. Rachel doesn't mind. She looks good small."

"I'm not going to turn into anything," Ivy growled, followed shortly by Nick's fervent agreement.

I ran through the church as the hefty revving of a diesel truck shook the windows—apart from the one Pierce broke that was covered with plywood. Flinging the door open, I shouted and waved, snatching up my lethal amulet from my bag by the door as I ran down the steps in my sock feet. Looking almost disappointed, the guy in brown got out, coming to meet me with a package.

"Thank you," I said as he handed it to me, and I half expected him to ask for some ID. He was a witch. I could tell from his disdainful look. My amulet was a healthy green, and snatching the small package from him, I turned and went back into my church. What did I care what some guy in brown shorts thought? Even if he wore the uniform very well. Damn, where did they go to hire these guys? The gym?