too, stood, lingering until I looked up. “Do you mind if I make a few more calls before Quen gets here with the car?” he said, hand on my shoulder. “Things are going to start happening fast now that the dewar has scheduled a press release for tomorrow. I want to head off the rumors and arrange for a closed-door meeting tonight to explain what happened. I’d like you to be there if you feel up to it. And if you can get Hodin to come, all the better.”
My eyes narrowed, and my hand cupping Bis under the table twitched. “I’ll be there, but don’t count on Hodin,” I muttered, and Trent nodded, excusing himself to sit at a nearby table.
“What’s up with Hodin?” Jenks said, and my anger flooded back.
“He left Trent and me in the lurch when the Order showed up,” I muttered, and the pixy’s wings hummed into fitful motion. I’d have liked to blame him for what happened, but honestly, I probably would have tried to work with the Goddess anyway, and I took a gulp of my cooling coffee. “Did I tell you I had a dream a few days ago about Ray getting married?” I said, my eyes dropping to Bis curled up on my lap, and Ivy brought her attention back from the sunny empty streets. “Bis was there, grown to the size of a pony,” I whispered. He would have been about seventy. Just about old enough to be on his own.
“Rache, we’re going to get him back,” Jenks said, and then he stiffened. “Al’s here.”
Even with his warning, I jumped when Al popped in at the in-out circle at the back of the store. “Why are there fire trucks at your church?” the demon bellowed, and I winced, not turning. I could tell by his overdone accent that he was probably in full green-crushed-velvet regalia.
Mark grimaced, a tray in his hand as he stood before the oven. “I am closed,” he grumbled, then asked Zack to get two more sandwiches out of the freezer.
Sighing, I turned to Al. Sure enough, he was in his top hat and full coat and tails, his blue-tinted glasses doing nothing to hide his sleep-deprived fatigue. “Because it was on fire?” I said, and Al grimaced. Resigned, I pushed a chair out for him.
“Dali said you bottled the baku.” Al tugged his lace down at his cuffs and stepped forward. “Is that it?” he said, looking at it on the table before turning to Junior and Zack behind the counter, one in an apron, one in a suit. “Demon grande in porcelain, if you please,” he said, then frowned at Trent, still on the phone. “Damn elf lives with that thing stuck to his ear. Tell me, Rachel, does it remove it for sex?”
“Demon grande!” Mark said, and a bell above the register rang of its own accord.
“Excuse me.” Ivy rose, eyes on the Jeep that had quietly pulled into the lot. “I want to talk to Glenn before he lands in this.”
I nodded, and she touched my shoulder before slipping from the table and sauntering to the door. Zack’s security noticed, watching her all the way. The click of her undoing the lock was loud, and from behind the counter, Mark sighed—at the new customers, not Ivy.
“This should be interesting,” Jenks said, and I blinked fast when he came to sit on my shoulder smelling of green things and whipped cream.
Shoes tapping, Al halted at the head of the table. “My God. It’s really in there?” he said, making no move to touch the soul bottle. “How did you do it?” he asked, and Jenks’s wings buzzed against my neck. “Dali is green with curiosity. Even Newt didn’t know how to manage it.”
She does now, I thought as I took the bottle in hand, and Al visibly stiffened—as if I held a poisonous viper. I was trying not to care that the church now had smoke damage in addition to everything else. I should just walk away before I burn it to the ground, I thought, but the church was the first time I’d felt a part of something big, something wonderful. Even if I did keep destroying it.
“I broke the rules—that’s how,” I said, unable to look up from the swirling pearl and blue behind the glass.
Al sat, his head tilting as he touched my chin and forced me to look at him. “Rules. You captured the baku. No one has ever done that.