Pet Shop Boys: A Short Story (7 page)

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Authors: Kim Harrison

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“No, but I’m going out there right now.” Trent’s tone was tight, and my idea that he was fixing Rosewood babies died. “Since you’re with
Quen
, would you both meet me there?”

My lips parted, even as I heard the accusation in his tone. He wanted me there? With him?

“Rachel, are you there?” Trent asked, and I flushed, glancing at Quen before pushing the phone tighter to my ear.

“Yes. The hospital, right?”
Where all the news vans were? Swell.
I couldn’t help but wonder if his invitation was because he wanted my professional opinion or simply to find out what Quen and I were doing.

“Rosewood wing,” he said, his tone grim. “I doubt there will be any indication as to who took the infant, but I don’t want evidence to be buried if the I.S. doesn’t like what they find. If one of us is there, we will at least have the truth, uncomfortable or not.”

I nodded as Quen exchanged a few words with the bartender and slipped him a bill. The I.S. was an offshoot of the original FBI and local police force before the Turn, responsible for hiding Inderland crimes before humans could find evidence witches, werewolves, and vampires existed. Covering up the uncomfortable or unprofitable was in their blood.

“Rachel, may I talk to Quen?” Trent asked, shaking me out of my thoughts.

“Um, sure. I’ll see you there.” My stomach was in knots, and I held the phone out. “He wants to talk to you.”

Quen looked at the phone, his stance never shifting as he reluctantly reached out. Turning sideways to me, he drew himself up. “Sa’han?” He hesitated. “Having dinner.” Another pause. “Of course Ceri knows. It was her idea.”

Ceri was in on this, too?
Frowning, I forced my arms from my middle. Trent would be pissed. I knew I’d been when my mom and dad rented me a live-in personal security guy for a few months.

“No,” Quen said firmly, and then again, “No. I’ll see you there.”

I could hear Trent complaining as Quen closed the phone, cutting him off mid-protest. That wasn’t going to go over very well, I decided, and when Quen gestured for me to head out before him, I meekly fell into place, my thoughts turning to the hospital.

Behind us people laughed and clinked glasses. Below, Cincinnati moved with her people, uncaring and unaware. It felt wrong now. Someone was stealing Rosewood babies. The “why” was ugly.

Quen was silent all the way to the elevator. He avoided my eyes as I handed him my ticket to give to the coat-check woman. I could have given it to her myself, but high-society came with weird rules, and it was no skin off my nose. “You’re not going to tell him?” I said, hoping he wanted to use the time it would take to get to the hospital to come up with some story other than Quen wanting to hire me to babysit Trent.

Gaze distant in thought, Quen shook out my shawl and I turned around, my head lowered. “You might be right,” he said, and I shivered as the silk settled over my bare skin. “I may have acted without thought.”

It was an honest answer, but Quen might be right as well. Trent didn’t need a babysitter, but everyone needed someone to watch their back.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

New York Times
bestselling author Kim Harrison was born and raised in the upper Midwest. Her bestselling Hollows novels include
Dead Witch Walking; The Good, The Bad, and The Undead; Every Which Way But Dead; A Fistful of Charms; For a Few Demons More; The Outlaw Demon Wails; White Witch, Black Curse; Black Magic Sanction; Pale Demon; A Perfect Blood
, plus the short story collection
Into the Woods
and
The Hollows Insider
. She also writes the bestselling Madison Avery YA series.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

A
LSO BY
K
IM
H
ARRISON

Books of the Hollows

A Perfect Blood

Pale Demon

Black Magic Sanction

White Witch, Black Curse

The Outlaw Demon Wails

For a Few Demons More

A Fistful of Charms

Every Which Way But Dead

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Dead Witch Walking

And Don’t Miss

The Hollows Insider

Unbound

Something Deadly This Way Comes

Early to Death, Early to Rise

Once Dead, Twice Shy

Holidays Are Hell

Dates from Hell

And coming soon . . .

Into the Woods

and

Ever After

C
OPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“Pet Shop Boys” will appear in the collection
Into the Woods
, by Kim Harrison, available in October 2012 from Harper Voyager, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Excerpt from
Ever After
copyright © 2013 by Kim Harrison.

PET SHOP BOYS
. Copyright © 2012 by Kim Harrison. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062237682

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A
BOUT THE
P
UBLISHER

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

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Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

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