“I’m not working here,” he said, and then my eyes widened at the sudden falling feeling in the pit of my gut.
“Trent!” I shouted, but I don’t think the word made it past my lips as Hodin yanked me into a ley line, and I was nothing more than a thought.
CHAPTER
15
Hodin’s aura skated smoothly over me in a protective cocoon even as I felt myself dissolve. Before he could do more, I snapped a bubble around myself to maintain a bare semblance of privacy in my thoughts. Even so, I got the sensation of a satisfied nod from Hodin at my quickness. The hum of the lines scoured through me to make my synapses tingle pleasantly. I had no idea where we were going, and I reached for my phone to call Trent when we misted into existence.
“My church?” I said, voice echoing in the two-by-four-scented darkness of the vestibule. It was after noon, but the construction-cluttered sanctuary was dim, lit only by the remaining window and the red-and-green glow on the sawdust-dirty floor.
“I have no spelling lab as of yet. We will use yours. Such as it is.” Hodin strode forward and I followed. He’d changed. Not just from a pixy back to his usual tall, broody self, but from his dark leather to an extravagantly embroidered vest, robe, and . . . pantaloons?
But it was the robe that caught my attention, the glistening rich purple at his shoulders darkening to black at the hem brushing the floor. It was bound about his waist with a gold sash that jingled with tiny fringe bells. Wide sleeves draped long, making it a rather dangerous outfit to spell in even if the weird mix of demon and ancient elf made him look eminently capable. I’d never seen anything like it. His head was bare, but a traditional cylindrical elven cap wouldn’t have been out of place.
“I can’t truthfully say that your spelling lab is a pleasure,” Hodin muttered, twitching his hem free of sawdust as he wove past the construction equipment. “But we will likely be undisturbed, and sometimes that’s more important.”
I stiffened, shifting direction to avoid walking over the plywood covering the hole in the floor. “We’ve had some issues. You aren’t catching us at our best.”
Hodin paused as he gained the ankle-high stage, where the coffee table and chairs still remained. “Us? Do you mean you and . . . Al?”
It was the first time I’d heard him call him Al instead of Gally, even though he’d almost spat the word. “Me, Jenks, and Ivy,” I said, and he seemed to lose about half his annoyance. “Al doesn’t share space with me.”
“You may yet survive.” He stood with his clasped hands hidden in his sleeves, effectively blocking my way up onstage. “Before I do this, I want to know why you changed your mind.”
I squinted up at him. “You were there. Spying. You tell me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I was not spying. Say it so there’s no future complications.”
Fine. I cocked my hip, not liking that he’d put himself higher than me. “In return for me and Bis keeping our mouths shut about you, you’re going to teach me how to do this, and I’m going to change Al’s soul expression.” My chin lifted. “Chicken.”
“You think so, eh?” he said, but he’d dropped back, and I immediately took the step up.
The challenge in his voice was irritating, and as he brushed the sawdust off the couch, I shifted the dried lasagna dish from the top of the coffee table to under it. Sure, he’d bitched about my spelling space, but it felt good here and we both knew it. “What kind of complications? What do I have to do? Kill someone?”
I looked up at his silence to see him eyeing the shadow of the cross still on the wall. “Just who you are is all. What you want to be,” he said softly.
“What is it between you and Al?” I asked, and he turned, lip twitching. “Yes, he’s an ass, but when you know why, it’s almost charming.”
“Charming?” Hodin gestured, and a woven basket of spelling supplies materialized on the table. “You have no idea what he’s done.”
I snatched a gold silk scarf from the top and began to wipe the stray ions from the table. “I’m not totally ignorant,” I said, remembering throwing up and crying in a FIB bathroom after reading the crime scene reports of what Al had done as Piscary’s murder weapon of choice. “But what