A Fistful of Charms (12 page)

For a moment he was silent, his young face pensive as he put his thoughts in order. “I'm eighteen,” he finally said. “Do you know how old that is for a pixy? I'm slowing down. You nicked me last fall. Ivy can snag me whenever she wants.”

“Ivy's got Piscary's undead reactions,” I said, scared. “And I was lucky. Jenks, you look great. You aren't old.”

“Rachel…” he said around a sigh. “My kids are moving out to make their own lives. The garden is starting to go empty. I'm not complaining,” he rushed on. “The wish for sterility I got from you is a blessing, since the last three years of children in a pixy's life have a very low life expectancy and it would kill Matalina knowing she was having children that wouldn't live a week past her. Little Josephina…she's flying now. She's going to make it.”

His voice cut off, cracking, and my throat tightened.

“Between that wish and the garden,” he continued, staring out the front window, “I'm not worried about any of my children surviving past Matalina and me, and I thank you for that.”

“Jenks—” I started, wanting him to stop.

“Shut up,” he said hotly, his smooth cheeks reddening. “I don't want your pity.” Clearly angry, he put a hand on the open windowsill. “It's my own fault. It never bothered me until I got to know you and Ivy. I'm old. I don't care what I look like, and I'm mad as all hell that you two are going to have your damn runner business from now until forever and I'm not going to be a part of it. That's why I didn't come back. Not because you didn't tell me what Trent was.”

I didn't say anything, gritting my jaw and miserable. I hadn't known he was that old. Signaling, I made a right turn to follow the strip along the water's edge. Ahead of us was the huge bridge connecting the upper peninsula of Michigan with the lower, all lit up and sparkling.

“You can't let that stop you from coming back,” I said hesitantly. “I do demon magic and Ivy is Piscary's scion.” Turning the wheel, I pulled into a two-story motel, an outside pool snuggled up in the el the rooms made. I stopped under the faded red and white striped canopy, watching the kids in swimsuits and plastic arm-cuffs run in front of the van, confident I wouldn't hit them. The mother trailing behind them gave me a grateful wave. I thought they must be either insane or Weres since it was only sixty out. “Any of us could die tomorrow,” I finished.

He looked at me, the lines of anger smoothing out. “You won't die tomorrow,” he said.

Putting the van into park, I turned to him. “How do you figure that?”

Jenks undid his belt and gave me a sideways smile that rivaled Kisten's for mischief. “Because I'm with you.”

A groan slipped from me. I had walked right into that one.

Smiling, he got out, glancing up at the first stars, almost unseen behind the town's lights. Stiff from the long ride, I followed him into the tiny office. It was empty but for an astounding display of knickknacks and pamphlets. Hands out, Jenks headed for the shelves of miniatures like a starving man, his pixy curiosity and need to touch making the display irresistible. The door shut behind us, and seeing him lost in the throes of pixy bliss, I punched him in the arm.

“Ow!” he exclaimed, holding it and giving me an injured look. “What was that for?”

“You know why,” I said dryly, finding a smile as I turned to the casually dressed woman who came in from a back room through an open archway. I could hear a TV in the background, and smell someone's lunch. Or dinner, rather, seeing as she was human.

She blinked as she took us in. “Can I help you?” she asked, becoming hesitant when she realized we were Inderlanders. Mackinaw was a tourist town, and probably not big enough to draw a huge resident Inderland crowd.

“Yes, a room for two, please,” I said, reaching for the registration card and pen. A frown came over me at the form.
Well, we could go under my name,
I thought, writing Ms. Rachel Morgan in my big loopy script. The clicks of the ceramic and pewter figurines being picked up and set down were audible, and the woman behind the counter winced, watching him over my shoulder. “Jenks, could you get the plate number for me?” I asked, and he slipped out, the seashell door chime clunking roughly.

“That will be two twenty,” she said stiffly.

Great,
I thought.
Cheap, cheap, cheap. You gotta love small towns in the off-season.
“We're only staying the night, not the week,” I said, putting down the church's address.

“That
is
the nightly rate,” she said, her voice tartly smug.

My head came up. “Two hundred twenty dollars? It's the off-season,” I said, and she shrugged. Shocked, I thought for a moment. “Can I get a discount for Were Insurance?”

Her eyes were mocking. “We only offer discounts for AAA.”

My lips pressed together and I went warm. Slowly I curled my hand up and brought it below the level of the high partition, hiding my bandaged knuckles.
Crap, crap, crap. You gotta love those small-town mentalities.
She had upped the rates for us, hoping we'd go somewhere else.

“Cash,” she added smugly. “We don't take plastic or personal checks.”

The chipped sign behind her said they did, but I wasn't going to walk out of there. I had my pride, and money was nothing compared to that. “Do you have one with a kitchen?” I asked, shaking inside.
Two hundred and twenty dollars would really take a chunk out of my cash.

“That will be thirty extra,” she said.

“Of course it will,” I muttered. Angry, I jerked my bag
open and pulled out two hundreds and a fifty as Jenks came in. His eyes went from the money in my hand to the woman's satisfaction, and finally to my anger, figuring it out immediately. Hell, he had probably heard the entire conversation with his pixy hearing.

His gaze rose to the fake camera in the corner, then out the glass door to the parking lot. “Rache, I think we hit prime-time gold,” he said, taking the pen chained to the desk and writing the plate number on the form. “Someone just peed
into
the pool, and I can smell shower mold from here. If we hurry, we can get a shot of the bridge at sunset for the opening credits.”

The woman set a key on the counter, her motions suddenly hesitant.

Jenks flipped open his phone. “Do you still have the number for the county's health department from our last stop?”

I steeled my face into a bored countenance. “It's on my clipboard. But let's wait on the opening shot. We can do a sunrise frame. Tom had a cow the last time we burned film before he had a chance to canvas the local hot spots for the worst offenders.”

The woman went ashen. I dropped the bills on the counter and took the worn key on its little plastic tag. My eyebrows rose; number thirteen, how apropos. “Thanks,” I said.

Jenks jerked to get in front of me as I turned to leave. “Allow me, Ms. Morgan,” he said, opening it gracefully, and I strode out the door, pride intact.

Somehow I managed to keep a straight face until the door clanked shut. Jenks snickered, and I lost it. “Thanks,” I said between snorts. “God, I was ready to smack her a good one.”

“No problem,” Jenks said, scanning the rooms, his gaze settling on the last one tucked at the short end of the el. “Can I drive the van over there?”

I thought he more than deserved it, and I left him to work it out as I walked across the dark lot throwing up heat to the sounds of the kids splashing in the pool. The underwater lights had come on, and they reflected up against the open
umbrellas to look inviting. If it hadn't been so cold, I'd have asked Jenks if pixies could swim. Finding out if my mental image of Jenks in a Speedo matched reality would be worth a few goose bumps.

The key stuck for a moment, but with a little wiggling it engaged and the door swung open. Out flowed the scent of citrus and clean linen.

Jenks pulled the van around to the empty spot before the door. The headlights fell into the room to show an ugly brown carpet and a yellow bedspread. Flicking on the light, I went in, heading for the pretend kitchen and the second door at the back. I set my bag on the bed, concerned when I realized the door led to the bathroom, not a second room.

Muttering about caves, Jenks came in with my suitcase, his eyes roving the low ceiling. He dropped my bag by the door, tossed me the keys to the van, and headed out, flicking the light switch several times because he could.

“Ah, Jenks,” I called, fingers smarting from the keys. “We need a different room.”

Jenks came in with my laptop and Ivy's sword, setting them on the round table under the front window. “How come? I was kidding about the shower mold.” He took a deep breath, nose wrinkling. “That smells like…Well, it's not shower mold.”

I didn't want to know what he was smelling, but when I silently pointed to the single bed, all he did was shrug, his lusciously green eyes innocent. Gesturing helplessly, I said, “One bed?”

“So?” Then he flushed, his eyes darting to the box of tissues on the bedside table. “Oh. Yeah. I won't fit in the Kleenex box anymore, will I?”

Not looking forward to talking to that lady, I headed for the door, snagging my shoulder bag in passing. “I'll get a new room. Do me a favor and don't use the bathroom. She'll probably charge us a cleaning fee.”

“I'm coming with you,” he said, falling into step with me.

The kids from the pool were making a quick, wet-footed
dash to their room, shivering under skimpy white towels when we crossed the parking lot. Jenks opened the office door for me, and the sound of seashells clunking mixed with the sound of a tearful argument when we entered. “You charged them the Fourth of July weekend rate?” I heard a man say, and her blubbering answer. I looked at Jenks in a mute question, and he cleared his throat loudly. Silence.

After a hushed conversation, a short, follicle-challenged man in a plaid shirt emerged, brushing his balding plate. “Yes?” he said with an artificially interested look. “What can I get for you? Extra towels for the pool?” From somewhere out of sight the woman made a hiccup of a sob, and he reddened.

“Actually,” I said, putting the room key on the chest-high partition between us, “I'd like to see about getting a different room. We need two beds, not one. My fault for not making that clear.” I smiled as if I hadn't heard anything.

The man's gaze went to Jenks, and he flushed deeper. “Ah, yes. Number thirteen, right?” he said, snatching it and giving me a new one.

Jenks headed for the knickknacks, but at my heavy sigh, he went to the pamphlets instead. Setting my bag on the counter, I smugly asked, “What's the price difference for that?”

“None,” was his quick reply. “Same rate. Anything else I can do for you? Make reservations for you and the rest of your party, maybe?” He blinked, looking ill. “Will they be staying with us as well?”

Jenks turned to look out the glassed door, his hand to his smooth chin while he tried not to laugh. “No,” I said lightly. “They called to tell us they found a place on the other side of town that filled up their pool with lake water. That wins out over moldy bathrooms any day.”

The man's mouth worked but nothing came out.

Jenks jerked into motion, and I glanced behind me to see him hunched and gripping one of the pamphlets close to his face. “Thank you,” I said, holding up the key and smiling.
“We may be staying a second night. Do you have any two-day specials?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, eyes going relieved. “Second night is half price during the off-season. I'll put you down for it if you like.” He glanced at his unseen wife through the archway.

“That sounds great,” I said. “And a late checkout for Tuesday?”

“Late checkout on Tuesday,” he said, scribbling something in his registration book. “No problem. We appreciate your business.”

I nodded and smiled, touching Jenks's arm and pulling him out the door since he wasn't moving, fixed to the pamphlet in his grip. “Thanks,” I called cheerfully. “Have a good night.”

The door chimes thunked dully, and I exhaled into the cooler night air. The parking lot was silent but for the nearby traffic. Satisfied, I glanced at the key in the dim light under the canopy. Room eleven this time.

“Rache.” Jenks shoved the pamphlet at me. “Here. He's here. I know it! Get in the van. They close in ten minutes!”

“Jenks!” I exclaimed when he grabbed my arm and pulled me stumbling across the lot. “Jenks, wait up! Jax? He's where?”

“There,” he said, shaking the pamphlet in front of my face. “That's where I would go.”

Bewildered, I peered at the colorful trifolded paper in the dim light of the streetlamp. My lips parted and I reached to dig my keys out while Jenks threw our stuff back into the van and slammed the motel door shut, shaking in impatience.

The Butterfly Shack. Of course.

H
umming nervously, Jenks put the jar of honey in the basket with my bandages and the rest of his groceries. He fidgeted, and my eyebrows rose. “Honey, Jenks?” I questioned.

“It's medicinal,” he said, reddening and turning to stand before the array of baking supplies, feet spread wide in his Peter Pan pose. Reaching to a top shelf, he dropped a jar of yeast in with the rest. “Bee pollen,” he grumbled under his breath. “Where in Tink's bordello do they keep the vitamin supplements? Can't find a bloody thing in this store. Who laid it out? Gilligan?” His head rose and he scanned the signs hanging over the aisles.

“The vitamins would be with the medicines,” I said, and he jerked.

Clearly shocked, he stammered, “You heard that?” and I shrugged. “Damn,” he muttered, walking away. “I didn't know you could hear that well. You never heard me before.”

I trailed behind him, arms empty. Jenks insisted on carrying everything, insisted on opening every door for me, hell, he'd flush my toilet if I let him. It wasn't a macho thing, it was because he could. Automatic doors were his favorites, and though he hadn't played with one yet by getting on and off the sensor pad, I knew he wanted to.

His pace was quick, his steps silent in the new boots I had bought him all of an hour ago. He wasn't happy about me insisting we go shopping before seeing if Jax was at The
Butterfly Shack, a butterfly exhibit and wildlife store, but he agreed that if Jax was there, he was hiding or he would have had the owner call us to come get him. We didn't know the situation, and if we knocked on the door and told the proprietor he had been harboring a pixy, one possibly wanted in connection with a theft, we might start a few tongues wagging.

So Jenks and I used the interim while the proprietor closed up shop and counted his money to do a little pre-break-in outfitting/shopping. I had been pleasantly surprised to find some upscale stores right beside the tourist-crap traps in an obviously new slab of light commercial buildings that had gone up in the last five years or so. The trees only had been in the ground that long. I was a witch; I could tell.

Since it was just before the tourist season, the selections were high and the prices were almost reasonable. That would change next week when school let out and the town tripled its population when the “fudgies”—tourists named after the candy Mackinaw was known for—descended on them.

Turns out, Jenks was a power shopper, which probably stemmed from his garden gathering background. In a very short time we had hit three clothes stores, a dance outlet, and a shoe mart. So now instead of a hunky young man in sweats and flip-flops, I was with a six-foot-four, athletic, angsty young man dressed in casual linen pants and matching fawn-colored shirt. Under it was a skintight two-piece suit of silk and spandex that had set us back a couple hundred dollars, but after seeing him in it, my head bobbed and my card came out. My treat.

I couldn't help but let my eyes ramble over him as he crouched before a display of vitamins and took off the shades I had bought him, not wanting a repeat of him grumbling over the sun all the way up there. Clearly bothered, he ran a hand under his cap in worry. The red leather should have clashed with what he had on, but on him? Yum.

Jenks looked really good, and I was wishing I had brought nicer clothes. And a camera. He was a hard man to keep up with once you got him out of sweats and flip-flops.

“Bee pollen,” he said as he jiggled the sleeve of his new aviator jacket down and reached forward, blowing the dust from the lid of the glass jar. “This stuff tastes like it's already been through the bee,” he said, rising to place it with the rest, “but seeing as the only flowers they have here are stale daisies and dehydrated roses, it will do.”

His voice carried a hard derision, and I silently looked at the price. No wonder pixies spent more time in the garden than working a nine-to-five to buy their food like most people. The two bottles of maple syrup he wanted cost a whopping nine dollars. Each. And when I tried to substitute the fake stuff, he had added a third. “Let me carry something,” I offered, feeling useless.

He shook his head, pace intent as he headed to the front. “If we don't go now, it will be too cold to find any pixies who might help. Besides, the owner has to be home and watching TV. It's almost nine.”

I glanced at his phone clipped to his belt. “It's twenty past,” I said. “Let's go.”

“Past?” Jenks snickered, shifting the basket. “The sun's been down only an hour.”

He skittered sideways when I snatched the phone from his belt and held it for him to see. “Nine-twenty,” I said, not knowing if I should be smug or worried that his unerring time sense was off. I hoped Ceri hadn't ruined it.

For an instant Jenks looked horrified, then his mouth quirked. “We shifted latitude,” he said. “I'm going to be…” He took the phone from me and peered at the clock. “…twenty minutes slow at sunset and twenty minutes fast at sunrise.” Jenks chuckled. “Never thought I'd need a watch, but it would be easier than trying to switch over and then have to switch back.”

I shrugged. I'd never felt the need for a watch unless I was working with Ivy and had to “synchronize” to keep her from having a fit, and then I just used Jenks. Feeling short next to his height, I steered him from the self-service line, or we would have been there all night. Jenks took charge of the
basket, unloading it and leaving me to smile neutrally at the woman.

Her plucked eyebrows rose upon taking in the bee pollen, yeast, honey, maple syrup, beer, Band-Aids, and the ailing plant Jenks had rescued from the half-price rack in the tiny floral department. “Doing a little cooking?” she asked slyly, her grin thick with an amused conclusion as to what two people might be doing with a shopping list like ours. Her name tag said
TERRI
, and she was a comfortable twenty pounds overweight, with swollen fingers and too many rings.

Jenks's green eyes were innocently wide. “Jane, honey,” he said to me. “Be a dear and run back for the instant pudding.” His voice dropped, taking on a sultry depth. “Let's try butterscotch this time. I'm bored with chocolate.”

Feeling wicked, I leaned against him, reaching to play with the curls about his ears. “You know Alexia is allergic to butterscotch,” I said. “Besides, Tom will do
a-a-a-a-anything
for pistachio. And I have some of that in the fridge. Right beside the caramel drizzle and the whipped cream.” I giggled, tossing my red hair. “God, I love caramel! It takes forever to lick off.”

Jenks broke into a devilish grin, eyeing the woman from under his hat as he took a handful of toothbrushes from the grab rack and set them on the conveyer belt. “That's what I love so much about my Janie,” he said, giving me a sideways hug that pulled me off balance and into him. “Always thinking of others. Isn't she the kindest soul you've ever met?”

The woman's face was red. Flustered, she kept trying to ring up the marked-down plant, finally giving up and putting it into a plastic bag. “Sixty-three twenty-seven,” she stammered, not meeting Jenks's eyes.

Smug, Jenks pulled out the wallet he had bought all of fifteen minutes ago, shuffling to find the Vampiric Charms credit card. He carefully ran it through the machine, clearly enjoying himself as he punched the right buttons. Ivy had arranged for it ages ago, and Jenks's signature was on file as a matter of course. This was the first time he'd been able to
use it, but he looked like he knew what he was doing.

The woman stared at the name of our firm when it popped up on her screen, her jaw falling to make a double chin.

Jenks signed the pad with a careful seriousness, smiling at the cashier as she extended the receipt and a strip of coupons. “Cheerio,” he said, the plastic a soft rustle when he took all the bags and looped his arm through them. I glanced back when the glass doors swung apart and the night air, cold off the straits, set a few strands of hair to tickle my face. She was already gossiping with the manager, putting a hand to her mouth when she saw me look at her.

“Jeez, Jenks,” I said, taking one of the bags so I could look at the receipt.
Over sixty dollars for two bags of groceries?
“Maybe we could have done something really disgusting, like lick her microphone.”
And why had he bought so many toothbrushes?

“You enjoyed it, and you know it, witch,” he said, then snatched the ticker tape from me when I tried to throw it and the coupons away. “I want that,” he said, tucking them in a pocket. “I might use them later.”

“No one uses those,” I said, head bowed while I dug in my bag for the keys. The lights flashed and the locks disengaged. Jiggling the bag on his arm, Jenks opened my door for me before going to the other side of the van and dropping his groceries beside his bags of slacks, shirts, silk boxers, socks, and a silk robe I would have protested over except that he was eventually going to get small again and I was going to claim it. The man couldn't have anything cheap, and I would've questioned his claim that oil-based fabrics would make him break out if I hadn't seen it for myself.

His door opened and he settled himself, carefully buckling in as if it was a religion. “Ready?” I said, feeling the ease of shopping start to shift into the anticipation of a run. An illegal run. Yes, we were rescuing Jenks's son, not robbing the place, but they would still throw our butts in jail if we were caught.

Jenks's head went up and down, and he zipped and unzipped the small waist pack he had put his few tools in. Taking a steadying breath, I started the van and headed to the shops and the theater. Bridge traffic was congested, and had been for the better part of the month, according to the disgruntled clerk in the shoe outlet. Apparently it was down to one lane either way while they scrambled to make maintenance repairs round-the-clock to finish before Memorial Day. Fortunately we didn't have to cross the huge suspension bridge, just weave past the confusion.

The van was blowing cold air even though I had the heater on, and I thanked the stars that Jenks was big. Tonight would have been iffy for him if he were four inches tall. I only hoped Jax had found somewhere warm. A butterfly exhibit would have enough food, but why heat it to a comfortable seventy-five degrees when fifty will do?

The theater was in a mazelike cluster of new shops catering to tourists on foot—sort of a mini-open-aired mall plopped beside the original downtown—but they had a special lot for the cinema, and I parked between a white truck and a rusting Toyota with a bumper sticker that said
FOLLOW ME TO THE U.P., EH?

The engine cut out, and I looked across the van at Jenks in the new silence. The sound of slow crickets came in from the nearby empty field. He seemed nervous, his fingers quick as they fussed with the zipper on his pack. “You going to be okay?” I said, realizing this was the first time he had been on a run where he couldn't just fly out of danger.

He nodded, the deep concern on his face appearing out of place on someone so young. Rustling in a bag, he pulled a bottle of maple syrup out from behind the seat. His green eyes met mine in the uncertain light, looking black. “Hey, um, when we get out, will you pretend to fix your shoe or something? I want to take care of the cameras on the back of the building, and a distraction might help.”

My gaze went to the bottle in his hand, then rose to his wary expression, not sure how a bottle of syrup was going to
fix the cameras but willing to go along with it. “Sure.”

Relieved, he got out. I followed suit, leaning against the van to take off my shoe and shake a nonexistent pebble out. I watched Jenks with half my attention, understanding when he let out a trill of a whistle, anxiously touching his red hat as a curious, aggressive pixy zipped up to him in the cooling dusk.

I missed what was said, but Jenks returned looking satisfied, the bottle of maple syrup gone. “What?” I said as he waited for me to fall into step with him.

“They'll put the cameras on loop for us when we leave the building,” he said, not taking my arm as Kisten or Nick might, but walking beside me with an odd closeness. The shops lining the thoroughfare were closed, but the theater had a small crowd of what were clearly locals, to judge by the amount of noisy banter. The movie showing had been out for three weeks in Cincy, but there must not be a lot to do up here.

We neared the ticket booth and my pulse quickened. “They'll loop the cameras for a bottle of maple syrup?” I asked, voice hushed.

Jenks shrugged, glancing at the marquee. “Sure. That stuff is liquid gold.”

I dug in my bag for a twenty as I took that in. Maybe I could make more pimping maple syrup to pixies than running? We bought two tickets to the SF film, and after getting Jenks a bag of popcorn, we headed into the theater, immediately going out the emergency exit.

My eyes went to the cameras atop the building, catching the faintest glint of streetlight on pixy wings. Maybe it was a little overkill, but being placed at the theater if The Butterfly Shack's alarms went off might be the difference between keeping my feet on the street and cooling them on a jail cot.

Together we made our way from the service entrances in back to the front, Jenks shedding clothes and handing them to me to stuff in my bag every few yards. It was terribly distracting, but I managed to avoid running into the Dumpsters and recycling bins. Upon reaching the shuttered tourist area,
he was in his soft-soled boots and his skintight outfit. We had come out a few blocks from the theater, and it was creepy being on the street at night with everything closed, reminding me how far from home and out of my element I was. The Butterfly Shack was tucked into the end of a cul-de-sac, and we headed for it, feet silent on the cement.

“Watch my back,” Jenks whispered, leaving me in a shadow while he twirled the long tool in his fingers into a blur, crouching to put his eyes even with the lock.