Chapter Twenty-one

The doorbell gonged again, the big farm bell echoing through the church like, well, a church bell. I looked down at my jeans and white T-shirt, glad I wasn't still sporting the sweatpants I'd come home in. My clothes were probably a far cry from what he had on, but this was my church, damn it. I shouldn't have to dress up.

"What's he doing here?" I muttered as I shut the demon book and tucked my shirt in.

Jenks hovered up and down, a bright silver dust lighting the hallway. "You want me to let him in or go out and swear at him?"

Distracted, I bunched my hair up into a ponytail, then let it go. "Yes. Let him in, I mean," I said, and he darted off. "At least the kitchen is clean." I flashed Wayde a smile. "Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate that."

The Were ducked his head, a hand raised. "No worries. Ah, I'll be across the hall. Unless you want me with you?"

Jenks had worked the series of pulleys and weights we had so he could open the front door, and I heard Trent's voice mixing with that of the Weres up front. Jenks was yelling at his kids, and it was noisy. "No, no thanks," I said, answering Wayde. My thoughts went back to having touched Trent this morning, and I winced. Why on earth was that more embarrassing than when we had kissed?

Wayde scuffed his way to the back living room, hesitating when Trent appeared at the archway, Jenks on his shoulder and a black craft bag in his hand. He was in a suit, but it was more casual than usual, and his shoes looked comfortable and not shiny.

"Rachel, if you have a moment?" Trent said as he halted before Wayde and me. "I can't stay. I've got a meeting downtown in fifteen minutes, but I wanted to give you these since I was in the area."

The memory of Trent, calm and collected in a black thief suit, flashed before me, and then the sight of him angry and belligerent, his shirt off as he stood at the back of my mom's car and changed. Jenks snickered at the silence, and Wayde came forward, his hand extended to fill the obvious gap. "Mr. Kalamack. You probably don't remember me. I'm Wayde Benson."

Trent glanced at me warily, his hand going out to the Were. "Mr. Benson. Of course. Last year's Halloween concert. Good to see you again. Rachel tells me you're keeping her out of trouble lately. Sorry about that spell."

I shook myself out of my funk as Jenks landed on my shoulder, laughing at me.

"When she lets me," Wayde said, seeing that I still hadn't said anything. "Thank you for getting Rachel's ass out of a sling yesterday."

Trent thought for a moment, gaze distant. "The observatory? It was a lucky guess."

"Lucky guess," Jenks scoffed from my shoulder. "Piss on my daisies, he had three spells going when I broke into his spell hut and caught him trying to - "

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" Trent interrupted, his twitching eye belying his cool exterior, the bag in his hand crackling in his grip. "I promise it won't take long."

Wayde dropped back a step. "If you'll excuse me, I was going to talk to Jenks and Bis about how we're going to arrange security now that HAPA might make a go for Rachel."

"Say what?" Jenks blurted out. "You think those moss wipes are coming back?"

"I wish," I muttered. "I've got some serious hurt with their name on it."

Trent stifled a sigh, and Wayde shifted to his back foot. "It was nice talking with you, Mr. Kalamack."

"Likewise."

Catching Jenks's eye, the Were nodded to the back living room, and the two of them headed for the porch and the dusky evening. Jenks's complaining was cut off when the screen door slammed, and I turned my back on Trent. "Do you want some coffee?" I asked over my shoulder as I headed into the kitchen, but what I really wanted was to know what was in the bag.

"No thanks. I can't stay."

It was the second time he'd said it, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry. His steps were soft behind me, and I turned to see him looking around the brightly lit kitchen, giving me a bland smile when he brought his attention down from the top of the fridge where Bis usually lurked when he wasn't on the steeple.

I need to do something with my hands, I thought, forcing my arms down from around my middle. "Well, I want some coffee," I said as I reached for the coffeepot. "I, ah, haven't had time to wash the sweats yet. Do you need them back right away?"

Oh my God, what am I doing? He doesn't care about a pair of sweats!

"No need." Trent looked from the demon text on the table and set the black craft bag on the center counter between us. "I made something . . . if you want it."

I turned from the darkening garden, the clean coffeepot in my hands. "Really?" I looked at the bag. I didn't think it had a Statue of Liberty made out of macaroni in it.

Head down, he carefully upended the bag and a dozen or so ley-line charms slid out. "I made them for helping to confine Al, but since you wouldn't let me use them on him, you might want them for HAPA." The rims of his ears were red, and I squinted, trying to read his tells. He looked up, and I forced my expression to become neutral. "Spelling has become sort of a hobby of mine. Something to take my mind off business. I've no use for them now," he said, folding the bag up and dropping it on the counter.

I set down the coffeepot and leaned over the charms, my head inches from his. "Curses?"

"No."

I touched one, noticing that he hadn't said what they were. A tiny pricking in my thumb sparked through me, and I dropped it, hearing it ping metallically on the counter. Wild magic.

"Trent," I said, suddenly feeling uneasy. "You're not my familiar. Did Al talk to you? Did he put you up to this?"

Grimacing, Trent rocked back a step from the counter. "No, but he's right. You're a demon, but you don't have the stored spells they do. You need these more than I do." He looked at the charms, his expression becoming almost irate. "I've been going through my mother's library the last couple of years, trying things out just to see if they work. Modifying them if necessary. Things change in five hundred years. Sometimes it's not the flour that weaves the spell properly, but the flakes of calcite in the stone used to grind it. Ceri - " He frowned, then finished. "Ceri thinks it's a waste of time, but it's important to me to regain what we can of our heritage. If you don't take them, I'm just going to throw them in a drawer."

It was an interesting story, but I wasn't buying it. I stared at him. "Quen is outside in the car?"

"Yes . . ." he said warily.

I pushed myself into motion. "I'll be right back."

"Rachel, wait."

My breath caught as Trent snatched my elbow when I passed him, his light touch stopping me dead in my tracks. I stared at his fingers wrapped around my arm, and he let go.

"Okay, the ring I made specifically for you after you left today," he said, and my heart thumped. "But I really am working on modernizing my spell library, and you might as well get some use out of the results. Your church was on the way to my meeting tonight, and . . ." His words cut off as I eyed him. "You should see the closet I've got. Boxes of charms that will never be used - "

"He's at the curb, right?" I asked, pointing into the dark hall.

Trent's head drooped, and I hesitated as the guys up front hammered at something. He knew I wasn't going out there, but maybe just the threat of it would get him to tell me more. Sure enough, he ran a hand over his hair, leaving it mussed, and shifting his weight to one foot, looking almost angry when he finally met my eyes. "Can I have some of that coffee?" he asked shortly, and I stifled a smile.

"Sure." Feeling confident and sassy though I had no right to, I turned my back on him and went to make a fresh pot, running the taps slowly so I could hear him better.

"My father was a businessman," Trent said, and I turned the taps off. "A good one."

I turned, reaching for the cloth Wayde had left out, wiping the bottom of the pot dry. "So are you."

Trent grimaced. "So I hear. Did you hear how my mother died? Not the official story, but what really happened?"

My smile faded. "No."

He was silent. I recognized his distant expression as he tried to figure out how much to say, and I got the coffee out of the fridge. The bag was cold in my fingers, and the grounds smelled wonderful as I opened it up: bitter as burnt amber, and rich as the sunrise.

"I have tons of memories of her pressed and beautiful, as only mothers can be to their children," he said, inches away and miles distant. "Her hair arranged and smelling like perfume, diamonds glittering in the night-light." He smiled, but not at me. "She was the perfect politician's wife at official functions, but I remember her best from when she'd look in on me while I was sleeping, checking on me when she got back from wherever she'd been. I don't think she ever knew I woke up. It's funny how things stick with you the best when you're half awake."

Not meeting his eyes, I measured out the coffee. My mother had never worn diamonds when she tucked me in.

"The days I didn't see her leave, she always came back smelling like oil, metal, and sweat. Like a sword, Rachel," he said, and my breath caught at his earnest expression. "That's how I remember her best. Until the day she . . . never came back at all. Quen won't tell me, but I think she was with your father the night she died."

My God, no wonder he had hated me. "I'm sorry. That had to be hard."

A shoulder lifted and fell. "No harder than you holding your father's hand while he breathed his last, I'm sure. My dad was business, my mother . . . She was a lot of things."

I stayed where I was with the center counter between us, feeling ill. His mother and my dad? Then my dad and his father? All dead, all gone. Leaving us to . . . what?

"I was asked to become my father when he died," he said, dividing the charms into three piles. "I was expected to be him. I'm good at it."

"It's not what you want to be," I whispered with sudden insight, remembering bits of conversation here and there, his quick conversion from businessman to child thief on our three days out West.

He never looked up, arranging the spells he'd made for me, wild magic woven with the power of the moon and sun, shadow and light both. "I'm good at it," he said again, as if convincing himself.

But I knew that wasn't what he wanted to be, and I remembered the cap and ribbon he kept stuffed in a pocket, probably in his suit even now. I recognized in his silence the pain of wanting something and being told that it's not for you - that you should be something else that was easier, not so hard to become. "You were pretty good when we went after that elven sample in the ever-after."

Trent put his hands on the counter, still at last. "You called me a businessman. You were right. I should have sent Quen to get the sample." His expression became empty. "Quen wouldn't have gotten caught."

"I was mad," I said. "It was the worst insult I could think of. Jenks says you weren't a slouch when you, ah, reacquired Lucy."

His eyes darted to mine, then away, but I saw the pride and love for his daughter. "I had fun with that. Jenks is quite the operative."

I gazed at the charms between us, wondering how long he had worked on them. Fun. He had called it fun. The Withons would have killed him had they caught him. That had been the agreement. He'd been confident enough of his success that it had been fun.

"I'll leave these with you, then," he said, his voice low, almost a monotone. "Throw them out if you don't want them. It's all the same to me. The ones with the blue pins temporarily paralyze your opponents, the ones with the gold pins temporarily blind them. Maintain eye contact when you pull the pin so the charm acts on who you want." Trent looked at his watch. "Sorry about the coffee. I have to go. Maybe next time."

He was leaving, and for some reason I couldn't fathom, I didn't want him to. I hadn't known he relaxed by rescuing elven charm recipes. Or that he was stuck in a life he didn't want. "Trent, about this morning."

He hesitated, now eyeing his phone. "Don't worry about it. The carpet has been replaced and most of the fish survived."

"No," I said, coming around the corner of the counter. "I didn't mean that . . ." Trent looked up, waiting, and I swallowed hard. "I didn't really thank you. For helping with Al."

"You're welcome." He hesitated, his eyes going to my empty wrist, tossing his hair from his eyes. "Is that all?"

"No." He snapped his phone closed and tucked it back in an inner pocket of his jacket, and I fidgeted, remembering his face when he'd opened up to me, just that little bit. "Ah, I'm sorry you can't be what you want . . . to be."

His professional mask back in place, he put his hands behind his back. "I never said that."

"I know." The silence stretched until it became awkward. "Thank you for the charms."

Finally he smiled, but it was faint and it faded fast. Even so, I exhaled as if it meant something. "You're welcome," he said, tugging his jacket sleeves down. "Good luck finding HAPA. My guess is they're downtown somewhere."

Downtown? They couldn't be downtown. We'd find them in an hour if they were downtown, and they knew it.

But he was leaving, and I just stood there, feeling inadequate. Trent glanced at my hands, then gave me a sharp nod. "I'll see myself out," he said as he turned away. "Good choice on the fabric color for the table. Red is tacky."

Red is tacky echoed in my mind as I slumped back against the counter as his steps grew faint. He made a comment to the Weres working on the table, and then he was gone.

"You are pathetic, Rache," Jenks said, and my eyes darted to the top of the rack and I saw him standing there, hands on his hips and frowning at me, his wings a silver blur. "Rachel and Trent, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. No wait, it was a hospital room, and he had his hands on your ass and you had your tongue down his throat. I can see why you might be confused."

"Grow up, Jenks. He's helping me to help himself. You watch. In three months, he's going to be knocking on my door with some problem that only I can solve, and I'm going to do it because I owe him. He's a businessman. Period. I am a commodity he has been working toward for two years."

Damn it, why had I fallen for that poor-me crap? Ticked, I went to the demon texts, piling them up in my arms before going behind the counter and shelving them.

"Yeah, okay." Clearly not believing me, Jenks landed next to Trent's charms and kicked one, sending it rocking. "Except for one thing."

I came up from shelving my books, catching the charm he had kicked as it rocked off the counter. The tingle of wild magic pricked, and I shivered, remembering it flowing through me and the charms he'd been making for the last year or so. Wild magic. "What," I said flatly.

"This," he said, kicking at the ring, and I took it up, turning it in my fingers to study it. It really was pretty, made of three individual metallic bands, interwoven to make one solid piece - sort of like a puzzle ring but able to hold together off a finger. "He didn't tell you what it does," Jenks said, rising up as his kids started screaming from the front room, arguing over the chalk again. The Weres began laughing, and I didn't think it was because they were almost done.

I'd noticed that myself, and I set it down in mistrust. "So? He was in a hurry."

"Knock it off or I'm going to come in there and turn your wings backward!" Jenks shouted down the dark hall, then came back, grinning. "So I've seen my boys do that a hundred times with the neighboring pixy girls. Give her their favorite seed and be too flustered to tell her what it was." He rose up again, the screams from the front becoming louder. "I gotta take care of this. 'Scuse me."

He darted out, leaving me blinking as I stared at the ring, among the rest of the charms. A cold feeling was trickling through me. Jenks was wrong. Trent had simply forgotten.

Right?