A Fistful of Charms (25 page)

Jenks dropped my suitcase onto a box and opened it up. “It went great,” he said, his youthful face eager as he sifted through my things. “By the seat of our pants, the way Rache works best.”

“I hate it when you work like that,” Ivy said, but I felt better that Jenks, at least, was thinking about me not having hands.

“They caught us, but Rachel worked out a deal to fight their alpha for Nick.” Jenks held up a pair of my panties so everyone could see. “I've never seen a Were go wolf that fast. It was incredible, Ivy. Almost as fast as Rachel's magic.”

I felt a spike of worry, remembering their savagery when they were bound under a common cause and one Were. It still had me on edge. Ivy went still, then turned in her seat to look at him. My tail swished in an apology, and a faint wrinkle showed in her brow. “Deal?”

Jenks nodded, hesitating between the long-sleeve T-shirt and the skimpier tank top. “If she pinned their alpha, we got Nick. I didn't see it all 'cause I was looking for crap for brains, but the sound of the fight brought in a real wolf pack. The alpha Rachel was fighting ran away. I say that means Rachel won.” I breathed easier when he put the tank top back. “Wasn't her fault their alpha got chewed by real wolves.”

Ivy took a breath in thought, holding it. I met her eyes,
knowing she had figured out the real problem, and I winced. A quick shot of adrenaline shivered through me. “They know who you are?” Ivy said, her gaze following mine to the island behind us.

Hearing the concern in her voice, Jenks straightened until his head brushed the ceiling. “Aw, hell,” he said. “We can't go home. They'll follow us, even if we don't have Nick. Damn it all to Disneyland! Where's crap for brains? Jax! What did you two steal, anyway? How are we going to convince four Were packs that we don't have it or that Nick told us where it is?”

Jax was gone. I'd seen him zip out of the van three pixy heartbeats after his dad had started using Disney's name in vain. Angry, Jenks jumped into the parking lot and headed for the showers, arms moving and face red. “Hey! Crap for brains!” he shouted.

I rose, stretching, before I loped after Jenks. He skidded to a halt when I stopped in front of him and leaned into his legs to try to tell him it was okay, that we'd find a way around this latest problem. Jenks peered down at me, his shoulders stiff. “I'll be nice,” he said, his jaw tight. “But we're leaving, and we're leaving now. We've got to get under the leaves and hope spiders spin webs above us before they start looking.”

I wasn't sure how spiders fitted into his equation, but I padded back to the van while he pounded on the shower door. Ivy got the engine going, and when I jumped into the front passenger seat, she leaned over to crack the window for me. The dusky scent of incense slipped over me, familiar and rich with undertones only my subconscious had been aware of before. Comforting.

The thump of a metal door closing pulled my attention to the lot. Jenks slipped into the van, clearly upset. Fifteen feet behind him I saw Nick, beard gone and hair dripping, spotting his gray sweats. He was moving better, head up and looking around. I had been right that the shoes were too small; he was still barefoot, the sneakers dangling from two fingers.

“You're too good to him, Rachel,” Ivy said softly. “You should be spitting mad, and you aren't. He's a liar and a thief. And he hurt you. Please,” she whispered. “Think about what you're doing?”

Don't worry about it,
I thought, enduring the indignity of thumping my tail in an effort to convey I wasn't going to let Nick back into my life. But when the memory of his battered body and his will to remain silent against drugs and pain returned to me, I had a hard time staying angry with him.

“G
ood God,” I whispered, sitting on the van's cot and looking at my legs, horrified. They were hairy—not wolf hairy, but an I-couldn't-find-my-razor-the-last-six-months hairy. Utterly grossed out, I took a peek at my armpit, jerking away.
Oh, that's just…nasty.

“You okay, Rachel?” came Ivy's voice from the front of the moving van, and I snatched up my long-sleeve black shirt and covered myself, though a heavy curtain was between me and the rest of the world passing at an awkward start-and-stop thirty-five miles an hour.

“Fine,” I said, hurriedly slipping into it and wondering why my nails were the right length, though they'd lost their polish. My red frizz was longer though, bumping about past my shoulders, where it had been before Al cut a chunk out of it last winter. I had a feeling my extra-hairy condition might be laid at the feet of Ceri. She had twisted the curse to switch me back, and apparently they hadn't shaved in the Dark Ages.

I was thankful as all hell that Jenks, Jax, and Rex were in Kisten's Corvette behind us. Getting dressed in the back of a van was bad enough. Doing it with pixies watching would have been intolerable. I'd done that before. I didn't want to do it again.

Shuddering at the long red hair on my legs, I shook out a pair of socks, wishing I had footies. My face scrunched up as I put them on. This was going to change as soon as I found
ten minutes to myself in the bathroom with a bottle of Nair. Why Jenks had shown up smooth as a baby's butt was beyond me. Maybe pixies didn't have hair except atop their heads.

I jerked my jeans on, flustered when the distinctive sound of my zipper going up filled the silence. Grimacing, I drew the curtain aside and fluffed my hair. Before me rose the bridge, taking up much of the skyline. The traffic was still stop-and-go, even more so now that it was down to one lane in either direction due to construction. But Nick had his truck across the straits in St. Ignace, so that's where we were headed.

“Hi, guys,” I said, finding a place to kneel where I could see out the front. “I'm back.”

Ivy glanced at me through the rearview mirror, her gaze lingering on my frizzing red curls. Nick looked up from rummaging in the console for change for the bridge toll, smiling though a faint tremor showed in his pianist-long hands as he shuffled about. Finding the right amount, he sat back and pushed his damp hair from his forehead.

The shower had done him good. After a week of deprivation, his narrow physique was positively gaunt, making his clean-shaven cheeks hollow and his Adam's apple more prominent. Where his lean frame had made him look scholarly before, it now only left him skinny. The gray sweats hung loose on him, and I wondered when his last hot meal had been.

His blue eyes, though, had regained the sheen of intelligence as the shower, energy bars, and distance all helped him deal with what he'd endured. He was safe—for the moment.

My mind pinged back to him leaning against the brown cinder-block building, a broken man weeping as he pulled the trigger on the shotgun.

Ivy cleared her throat, and I met her gaze through the oblong glass, returning her accusing stare with a shrug. She knew what I was thinking.

“Watch the car!” I exclaimed, and she jerked her attention
back to the road. I was already reaching for a handhold when she hit the brakes, narrowly missing the bumper of the Toyota before us. Swinging forward from the momentum, I glared at her.

Nick had braced himself against the dash, and though his look was full of disgust, he said nothing. Ivy smiled at the irate driver we had almost hit, showing her pointy canines so the guy would back off and be glad we weren't stopping to make sure everyone was okay.

As we waited for the light, I stretched for my bag and charms. Nick was hurting, and there was no need for it. Yeah, I was mad at him, but him being in pain wouldn't help anyone.

The smoothness of two pain amulets filled my hand, and I slowly dropped one. I didn't hurt at all since turning back into a person, my sore back and nipped hand completely pain free. Wondering, I dug deeper for a finger stick. The prick of the blade was easily dismissed, and I massaged the three drops out. The clean scent of redwood rose, and the blood soaked in.

“Ah, Rachel?” Ivy called intently, and I stuck my finger in my mouth.

“What?”

There was a short silence, then, “Never mind.”

She cracked the window, and with the cool air off the water shifting my hair, I decided to hang back here for a while. Getting her home ASAP was an excellent idea. Vamps were homebodies—high-maintenance, party-till-you-die, don't-look-at-me-funny-or-I'll-kill-you homebodies, but homebodies nevertheless. And for obvious reasons. I still didn't know why she was here. How she was going to handle her hunger without the net of people she had left in Cincinnati worried me. Maybe it'd be easier out of Piscary's influence. God, I hoped so.

The van eased into motion, and I rifled through my bag for a complexion charm. It was too bumpy to put on makeup, but I could at least look rested and relaxed.
And it would get rid of the bags under my eyes,
I thought morosely, flipping
open my little compact mirror. Squinting in the dim light, I looked closer.

“Hey, Ivy?” I bolted forward, hunched as I lurched up to the front. “Are my freckles gone?” Eyes wide, I leaned out between Ivy and Nick, tilting my head so they both could see.

Ivy glanced from the road to me, then back again. A slow smile spread across her face, telling me my answer before she said a word. “Open your mouth,” she said.

Bewildered, I did, and she looked, making me nervous when she smoothly halted without watching the car that had stopped before us.

From my right came Nick's soft, “Are they gone?” and Ivy nodded.

“What's gone?” Shoving the pain amulet at Nick, I opened my mouth and tried to see what they were looking at. “My fillings are gone!” I exclaimed, shocked. Pulse hammering, I looked at my wrist. “That's still there,” I said, looking at Al's demon mark and wanting to check the underside of my foot for Newt's, which I didn't because of all that hair. I looked at my elbow instead. “But the scar from when I fell off my bike isn't,” I added.

Twisting, I tried to see the back of my shoulder where I'd cut myself falling into the lawn mower doing cartwheels. Ah, I had been doing the cartwheels, not the lawn mower.

“Your neck is unmarked,” Ivy said softly, and I froze, meeting her eyes in the mirror. There was the faintest swelling of black. “Do you want me to see if it's really gone?” she asked.

I leaned back, suddenly aware of her. Nick cleared his throat in a subtle show against it, which halted my first impulse to say no. If it was gone, it would be worth all the blackness I had put on my soul. Despite my better judgment, I nodded.

Ivy exhaled long and slow, the sound setting my blood to thrum. Her eyes dilated to a full black, and I stiffened, fixed to them through the rearview mirror. Though her fingers were still on the wheel, I felt as if she was touching my neck with a shocking intimacy, pressing with a light but demanding insistence.

I inhaled, and like a sudden flame from a match, it sparked a tingling assault. Heat poured through me, following the line from my neck to my chi. A small sound escaped me, and if I'd been able to think, I would have been embarrassed.

Ivy broke our eye contact through the mirror, holding her breath as she struggled to pull her hunger back. “It's still there,” she said, her voice both rough and smooth. Wavering where I sat, her eyes met mine and darted away. “Sorry,” she added, fingers clenching the wheel.

Blood pounding, I retreated to the cot. To ask her to do that had been stupid. Slowly the tingling vanished. My scar wasn't puckering my skin, but obviously the vampire virus was still fixed there. I was terribly glad I was a witch and couldn't be Turned. Ever. I had a feeling that was one of the reasons Ivy put up with so much of my crap.

The van was uncomfortably silent, windy now that Ivy had rolled the window completely down. It was cold, but I wasn't going to say anything. My perfume, which blocked my scent from mixing with Ivy's, was in here somewhere. Maybe I ought to find it.

The tension slowly eased as we moved to the bridge. I looked at my hands in the dusk of the van, seeing them smooth and perfect, every flaw that marked my passage through time gone. It seemed like the curse had reset everything: no freckles, no childhood scars, no fillings…

Panic slid through me. Frightened, I lurched to the front, kneeling between them. “Nick,” I whispered. “What if I lost what Trent's dad—”

Nick smiled, smelling like hotel soap as he took my hand. “You're fine, Ray-ray. If the vamp virus is still fixed in your cells, then whatever Trent's father changed will be there too.”

I felt unreal as I pulled my hand from his. “Are you sure?”

“Your freckles are gone but you still have your sensitivity to vampires. That would suggest the charm resets your form by your DNA. And if your DNA was changed, by a virus or…” His eyes flicked to Ivy staring out the window, her grip deceptively loose on the wheel. “…something else, the
change is carried over.” Smiling, he leaned closer. I froze, then jerked back when I realized he was going to kiss me.

Face emptying of emotion, Nick settled in his seat. Flushing, I moved away. I didn't want him to kiss me.
What in hell is wrong with him?

“It wasn't a charm, it was a demon curse,” Ivy said darkly, jerking the car into motion. Though the traffic was stop-and-go, the roughness had been on purpose. “She put a hell of a lot of black on her soul while saving your ass, crap for brains.”

Nick's eyes widened and he turned in his seat. His expression grew haunted. “A demon curse? Ray-ray, please tell me you didn't buy a demon curse to help me.”

“I'm a white witch, Nick,” I said tartly, my words harsher at the reminder of what I'd done to myself. “I didn't make a deal with anyone. I twisted the curse myself.” Well, Ceri twisted it, actually, but pointing
that
out didn't seem prudent.

“But you can't!” he protested. “It's demon magic.”

Ivy tunked the brakes, and I caught my balance when the van stopped quick at a new yellow light. Behind us, Jenks blew the car's horn, which Ivy ignored. “Are you calling her a liar?” she said, turning in her seat to look at Nick squarely.

His long face reddened, his newly shaved cheeks a shade paler. “I'm not calling her anything, but the only place you can get a working demon charm is from a demon.”

Ivy laughed. It was ugly, and I didn't like it. “You don't know shit, Nick.”

“Stop it, both of you!” I exclaimed. “God, you're like two kids fighting over a frog.”

Angry, I retreated to sit on the cot, leaving two silent, sullen people in the front. The soft clinks of the toll money slipping through Nick's fingers were loud. As we crept forward in the slow line, I forced myself to be calm. Most likely Nick was right that I wouldn't suddenly find myself dying from a childhood disease again, but it was still a worry.

“Look there,” he said suddenly, his voice thick with warning. “Ray-ray, stay down.”

Immediately I crowded to the front to earn Ivy's huff of impatience. Before us spread the bridge, its glory marred by construction crews. We were nearly on it, and the guy holding the Slow sign was watching everyone far too intently. I could tell from three cars away that he was a Were, a Celtic knot tattoo encompassing his entire right shoulder.

“Damn it,” Ivy muttered, her jaw clenching. “I see him. Rachel, hold on.”

I braced myself when Ivy flicked the turn signal and pulled a right to get out of the bridge traffic at the last moment. Peering out the dirty square of a window in the back, I saw Jenks following. Jax and Rex were scampering about on the dash, and I don't know how Jenks managed to keep the car on the road.

The van rocked as it found its new momentum, and I felt ill. “Now what?” I said, finding Jenks's old flip-flops and putting them on.

Ivy sighed. Her grip on the wheel tightened and relaxed. Glancing into the rearview mirror, her eyes met mine. Nick's truck would have to wait. I listened to the traffic and Nick's frightened breathing. I could almost hear his heart, see it pulse in his neck as he fought the fear of his entire week of torture.

“I'm hungry,” Ivy abruptly said. “Anyone want a pizza?”