strode to the front door, spelling robe drifting about his slippered ankles until the door shut loudly behind him.
“Thanks anyway,” I whispered as I flipped through Ray’s sketchbook. His hand-printed letters were razor sharp. The church felt empty without him. Really empty.
“You want anything from the garden?” Jenks asked as he drifted down to land clear of the magnetic chalk lines. “We’re hitting the peak temp for today.”
I shook my head, thoughts still on Hodin. He wasn’t what I had expected, his attitude shifting fast at my suggestions even if none of them had panned out. My jumps of reason were clearly surprising him, and I had a suspicion he was enjoying having someone to work this out with. Until now.
Motions slow, I cleaned the spoiled glyph from the slate. He’d stuck with this longer than I would have expected, but his pleasure that I might be a worthy peer was slowly smothering under continued failure. “It should have worked,” I said. “Jenks, how did you know it was going to misfire?”
Sitting atop the lamp, Jenks’s wings moved fitfully. “I heard the Goddess laugh.”
A stab of fear cut me as I glanced at the closed door. “Excuse me?” I whispered.
He grinned, green eyes merry. “It’s an expression. Like walking over your own grave? The energy flowing through it sounded wrong, and it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Jeez, Rache. You really think I heard her? I’d probably explode in a flash of dust if she whispered in my ear.” He shuddered, his dust sifting a cheerful gold.
“I didn’t know you could hear curses twisting,” I said, focus blurring.
“I usually can’t.” Jenks vaulted from the lamp. “It’s like he pissed her off, you know?”
“Yeah . . . ,” I drawled, a new thought tickling through me. Somewhere deep within the Goddess was a crazy demon. It was probably why the elves’ magic wasn’t working right, and maybe why this curse, which should have, wasn’t. “Jenks, watch my aura, okay?”
“Whoa, wait. What are you doing?” he said, suddenly very much awake.
I scraped my magnetic chalk on the table to sharpen it to a point, adrenaline seeping through me in a slow, invigorating wash. “Just tell me if I start gathering mystics. Hodin can shift my aura again if necessary.”
“You don’t know if he’s still out there.” Jenks dropped down to the table. “Rache . . .”
Head down, I sketched out a new pentagon with its ten guiding lines. “We’ve tried modifying it with earth magic, ley line magic, and bolstering it with the demon collective. There’s only one branch of magic left.”
“Uhhh . . . ,” Jenks drawled, his dust almost transparent. “Sure. You look okay so far.”
The chalk was slippery in my hand, and the words were already a whisper in my mind. I sat straighter, remembering the fear in Al’s eyes. Still, if Hodin put my aura back correctly, I could shout in the Goddess’s face and she wouldn’t recognize me. “If you see them gathering . . .”
“I tell you to quit and get Hodin,” he said, glancing at the door. “Better hurry before he tries to stop you. He might tell you no, and I’m starting to like the guy.”
“Seriously?” I stared at Jenks, and he shrugged, his dust shifting to an embarrassed red.
“I’ve been watching you. He fills a void Trent can’t. That’s all,” he said, discomfited. “Tell me I’m wrong, but if you and Trent were experimenting with line energy and covered in garden dirt, you’d be playing with his hair and bumping uglies after the first half hour.”
“Jenks!” I exclaimed as I glanced at the door to the church, and he laughed, gyrating his hips suggestively. “We would not.” But I could feel myself warming, and it bothered me.
“Yeah, okay.” He drifted down to land on the cold coffee cup. “I’m just saying that Hodin likes your ideas and doesn’t have Trent’s tendency to try to stop you before you do stupid things that might hurt you. He’s okay. A little closed and broody, but okay. You can have friends, you know? Go on.” He looked at the table and waved his hand at me. “Do your demon-elf thing.”
Stupid things that might end up hurting me. Yep, that’s exactly what this is, I thought, twice as nervous. Unadorned pentagon ready, I took up my original All candle. Ta na shay, I thought to set the melted monstrosity as I placed it in the center. Hear me. See what I do.