you eat those?”
I looked at the bite out of my cookie and flushed. “Yeah,” I lied, brushing the crumbs off. To be honest, I usually separated them, eating the cookie part first and scraping all the frosting into one gigantic wad. But I wasn’t going to in front of Trent.
“Huh.” Trent screwed his cookie open and scraped the frosting out with his teeth. “I thought everyone opened them up.”
Damn it, I was flushing, and saw him file my lie away for later. Trent leaned closer. “Don’t call Newt,” he said. “We’re not out of options yet. Landon owes you a favor.”
“Landon?” I said around a mouthful of crumbs. “The man is slime!” I exclaimed, and Trent bobbed his head, ruefully agreeing. “Nothing but a … politically perfect engineered piece of backstabbing elf slime who thinks only of himself and the hell with the rest.”
Leaning back and looking uncomfortable, he nodded. “I know.”
“He tricked his predecessor into suicide!” I said, hand flying up into the air.
“I know.”
Frustrated, I stood up. “Trent, I’m not asking Landon for help. I don’t trust him. If it wasn’t for him, I never would have damaged the Goddess to begin with!”
“I know. But it all worked out.”
Worked out? I sputtered, trying to find the words, and Trent took my hand and pulled me closer. “Rachel, I agree it’s risky. The elven dewar and enclave would still like to see the vampires die out—and you and me with them—but I’m not asking the elves, I’m asking Landon. He owes you, and I’ve got a little blackmail left in me.”
Expression sour, I pulled my hand from him, arms around my middle as I moved to stand beside the sink. Trent silently waited. I knew how much it had hurt Trent going from everyone’s owing him to his owing everyone. He was still making his genetic medicines in his basement labs, but now it was more to keep his customers from turning him in than the other way around.
“You think Landon knows how to fix souls to bodies?” I asked.
Sighing, Trent unscrewed another cookie, stacking the black cookie with the rest he’d already scraped clean. “Positive. If I can convince him that success will mean the end of the vampires, he’ll tell you.” Jaw clenched, he stared at nothing.
“You think he’ll believe that?”
Trent’s gaze sharpened on mine. “Why not? It’s a distinct probability.”
“But …” I thought of the chaos that had taken Cincinnati and the Hollows when the undead had fallen asleep for four days. Head cocked, I leaned back against the counter. “Remind me of why we’re doing this if you think it’s going to topple the vampires’ power structure.” Not like I really had a choice.
Trent put an ankle on his knee, looking totally yummy with that cookie in his hand. “The charm Landon would know works one to one, not en masse. One vampire going insane and walking into the sun isn’t going to have an impact on the world. And when Cormel understands that having his soul will send him into the sun, they’ll all accept that it’s not a viable way to extend their undead existence.”
I didn’t like the idea of even one vampire committing suncide because of a charm I twisted, and seeing it, Trent stood, coming to me and taking me in a hug. “Rachel, Felix won’t survive more than a few more months regardless of what happens.” Leaning back, he caught my eyes with his own. “Or it will work with no ill effects, and we’ll have a different issue to deal with. Either way, Landon will help if only for the chance to see the end of the undead.”
But I didn’t trust Landon. “What’s to stop them from just killing them all, then? I mean, after we prove it works? Elves can go to the ever-after, same as witches.”
Nodding, Trent reached into the bag of cookies. “True, but whoever was going to try would have to not only catch a surface demon, but catch the right one. It’s a miracle we found Felix’s. Besides, if elves can’t make money on it, they won’t do it, and witches know better than to try.”
He put a cookie in my hand, and I ate it, thinking it over as I chewed and swallowed. But as the only alternative beyond Landon was Al, the choice was easy. “Fine. I’ll ask him.”
Trent’s arm around me tensed. “Ah, you mind if I ask him?”
Ahhh, I thought with a smile, thinking this might be why Trent was so hot to give Landon a shot at this. If it failed, then Landon would lose face in the dewar and the enclave. “Sure.”
Immediately Trent went back to mowing down those cookies, slowing when he realized I was staring at him. What are we up to now? Ten? “Great. I’ll go give him a call,” he said, dusting the crumbs from his fingers and reaching for his phone.
There was only the faintest flicker of unease as I dunked my cookie into my coffee. Even if Landon caught a flight today, he wouldn’t be here by sunset. “I don’t like doing this by phone. Too much chance for someone overhearing it,” I said, but Trent was already scrolling for the number.
“We won’t have to.” Trent stretched and yawned, reminding me that this was his usual down time. “He’s in Atlanta trying to win his position back,” he said as he rolled his shoulders. “He can be here in a couple of hours.”
“It’s not going as well as he’d like?” I prodded, and he smirked.
“Getting old men and women to agree on anything new is like wrangling cats, and he has no practical skills.” He hesitated. “Yet,” he amended. “But things change. I get better reception outside. Back in a second.”
His hand trailing across my cheek raised tingles, and I darted my tongue out to tag a knuckle, making him jump and smile. “Wicked demon,” he muttered, and I watched him leave.
My smile faded fast. I didn’t trust Landon. The last spell he “taught” me nearly killed me. I was sure the demons would have a curse that would do the same thing, and after listening to make sure Trent wasn’t going to walk back in, I pulled my scrying mirror from between my cookbooks and spelling tomes.
The cracked glass was cool, and as soon as I set my hand atop the calling glyph, I felt the hint of connection to the demon collective. Tapping the line out back strengthened it. Heart pounding, I reached out with a soft thread of awareness, lacing my thought with enough regret to choke a horse. We had the same aura resonance, damn it. Al could at least be civil.
Al?
Rage boiled up through the folds of my brain, and I jerked my hand back as the wave crested, threatening to swamp me. His anger fell back into my mirror, and the sudden snap of the cracked glass breaking made me gasp.
“You okay?” Trent shouted from outside.
Shit. “Ah, just dropped a cookie,” I lied, face flaming as I looked at the broken shards. “I’m good!”
But I wasn’t good, and I took the broken pieces to my saltwater vat and dropped them in one by one, watching them ride the currents of their passage to the bottom. They lay there, sending glimmers of light sideways out their broken edges.
Depressed, I stared out the window and watched Trent meet Izzyanna, Jumoke’s young wife. I couldn’t help but wonder if Al was angry because Trent and I reminded him of what he’d lost long before I knew him—a woman he’d once loved enough to risk everything for, give everything for, but was too afraid to fight the anger of two worlds for. Maybe Al was angrier at himself than me.
But as I washed my hands free of the salt water, I didn’t think it mattered.
The chill of the coming September evening