Page 33 of Demon's Bluff

“Okay, let’s pack it in,” I said. “Bis, we gotta…” My words trailed off as I saw his sick expression.

“What is it?” Ivy asked for both of us, and Bis half fell, half flew to the floor. Leaving the book where it lay, he pushed down once with his wings to land on the end table, one powerful foot resting on the glamouredReader’s Digest.

“Did you know?” the gargoyle said to Scott, and my gut tightened.

“Know what?” I asked, and Bis’s nails made an awful sound, scraping three lines into the table.

“You can’t bring Kisten’s ghost back with that spell,” he said, his eyes darting to the book he’d left on the floor. “It requires an intact body, not ashes.”

I froze, feeling as if I had gotten kicked in the gut. Elyse had known this wouldn’t work even before she’d dangled it in front of me two weeks ago. Sheliedto get me under her thumb,liedto trick me into betraying my adopted kin.

And as I stared at Scott, the beginnings of a true hatred began an insidious trickle through me, tightening my spine vertebra by vertebra.

I jerked, startled when Ivy lunged for him, pinning him to the chair.

“Did you know?” she snarled, her teeth grazing his neck, and Scott shuddered, his eyes closing as the scent of his fear drenched the room. “Did you know!”

“Ivy!” I shouted as I grabbed her arm. It was dangerous to take prey from a vampire, but this wasn’t hunger. This was heartache. “Let him go. Let him go! Ivy, this is not who you want to be. Let. Him. Go!”

She let go, giving Scott a shove that was hard enough to almost tip the chair over. Breath shallow, she turned away and tried to bring herself down. She had let him go for me—not for Scott, and certainly not for herself.

Scott wiped the saliva from his neck with his bound wrists, a cold sweat on his smooth brow. Bis glanced once at Ivy, then shifted himself to my shoulder. His firm grip grounded me and I exhaled, realizing how close I’d been to letting Ivy have her way. This wasn’t who I wanted to be, either.

But still, anger filled me. The coven didn’t want me forme. They wanted everything I knew, and they wanted it in a way that would not only give them control over me but remove me as a rival so their own skills would shine all the brighter.

“Ivy wants to know if you knew it wouldn’t work,” I said, one hand on Bis’s feet. The kid was shaken, and the line running through both of us was soothing. “So do I. Did you?”

Scott glanced from Ivy’s hunched back to me. “Yes,” he said, voice soft. “If it means anything, I voted against it. Demons don’t belong in the coven.”

My lip twitched. “Yeah? That doesn’t look as if it’s helping you much, does it.”

Ivy slowly pulled herself straight, her eyes haunted as she turned. She was working hard not to break anything, even as her world was falling apart. I hadn’t seen that look on her face for a long time, and my heartache shifted and grew. She was in mourning. Again. It had been hard for me when Kisten had died, but it had been devastating to Ivy. He had been her confidant, her business partner, her lover—knowing everything about her and loving her anyway.

Motions slow, I picked up the book Ivy had pulled from under the couch. It was mine and I was taking it home as we had agreed. The soft leather was glowing in recognition. “Let’s go,” I said as I put it in my shoulder bag, and Scott scowled at the glamouredReader’s Digest, clearly thinking it was the one Bis had left on the floor by the door.

“Leave it, Morgan,” he warned in his high voice, and I hesitated.

“Why would I want a spell I can’t use?” I said, fighting the urge to smack the confidence from his smooth, young face. Making the semblance of a deal was not out of order, though, a way to claim it was mine when the subterfuge was discovered, and I exhaled my tension. “I came for my book, not yours,” I said, tracing a light finger on the glamoured book to make Scott’s lip curl. “Leaving with a second one wasn’t in the original deal. But seeing as Elyse broke the first agreement and I had to comefetchmy property, how about a new one?”

I stood before him, a ley line tinging through me by way of Bis’s feet. “I renounce any claim I might have on that book right there. I walk out of here, free and clear. In return, I won’t retaliate for you trying to buy my services with a curse you knew wasn’t worth troll spit. Deal?”

“Deal,” he said, and I nodded, satisfied that even when the switch I’d made was discovered, chances were good they’d drop the issue.If it looks as if you’re getting something for nothing, don’t make the deal. Demons 101. Dumbass…

“Rachel, we have to go,” Bis whispered from my shoulder, and I nodded even as I hesitated.

“You voted against this, eh?” I said as I hiked the bag higher up my shoulder. “Good for you. Bad that you couldn’t convince the rest of them. Here’s some advice from me to you, old man, advice from someone who has been across the board and back again. Pawn made queen.”

I leaned in, and Bis left my shoulder in a flurry of wings. “I am not going to hide in the ever-after and leave this reality to your coven’s gentle mercies. I am not going to submit and be incarcerated in Alcatraz. And I amnevergoing to be coven,” I almost whispered, reaching to arrange the strings dangling from his hoodie. “It was rotten to the core when Brooke wanted to turn me into a broodmare to give her a demon child, and I don’t see anything different with Elyse in charge, hiding behind a gossamer-thin claim of white magic. Vivian was the only decent person among you, and she’s gone.”

I straightened, shoving his shoulder to push him into the cushions. “If you were smart, you’d get out again before the shit hits the fan.”

Done with him, I touched Ivy’s shoulder and together we walked out, leaving Scott to wiggle free of his bonds or not. I didn’t care. Bis flew out over our heads to make sure the way was clear, and I picked up the book Al wanted in passing, shoving it in my already heavy bag.

I’d gotten what I’d come for, and then some, but heartache followed us like an ill fog, coloring the night and those yet to come.

Chapter

8

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