cold soak up all the way to my spine. "Do you know what they will do to me if you show up and try to snag them?" I'd known this was a possibility, but at the time, it had been me or them, and me always wins when the them is a bully.
Al stood, strutting over to Pierce and looking down at him, nudging him with a toe. "Do you know how rare it is for a coven-quality witch to summon me? Raw and untutored in the art of containing a demon? They kill their own if they become skilled in the dark arts, don't they, Gordian Nathaniel Pierce?" he said to the unconscious witch. "If you can get out of their circle, Rachel, I can, too."
My face skewed up in worry as a sheet of ever-after coated him, and suddenly it looked as if I was standing above Pierce, far too sexy and slim in my working leathers, my hair wild and my lips parted. Oh. Shit.
"My name is Rachel Morgan," Al said, mimicking my voice perfectly. "I like black panties, action movies, and being on top."
My jaw clenched, and I wondered how much I was going to pay for getting my name back. "I'm never going to get my shunning removed if you do that," I said as I shook my sock right side out again.
"I don't give a flying damn." Looking like himself again, Al shifted his shoulders as if trying to fit back in his skin. "I don't know why you even care about your shunning," he said as he returned to the table and began gathering things. "I've told you you'd be welcome here. Have a name that is respected. Have I not proved we can work together? That I can honor my word?"
"Only when I force you to."
"That you're safe, protected?" he continued as if I hadn't said anything as he slid his pyramid away and shut the cupboard. "Why do you fight this, itchy witch?"
I tugged my sock back on, eyes downcast. "I'm not a demon. You said it yourself." Lee thought I was, though.
His lips curved up in a nasty smile, and he tossed the used candles into a bin. "Perception is everything, determining how others treat us. If enough people think you're a demon, you are."
Snatching up my boot, I glanced at Pierce and away. I was eager to get home, even if I was loath to leave Pierce. He wasn't my responsibility, but that didn't mean I didn't care. I was going to have to make a call. The coven still had my old cell phone. Maybe if I warned them, I wouldn't get blamed when someone ended up dead or snagged. Maybe. Maybe not.
"You really should stay," Al said mildly as he put the ashes back in the box he kept them locked in. "Your friends are all going to die."
"Not today they're not," I said, feeling my anger rise
Al turned to look at me. "No," he agreed. "But they will. Eventually. You won't. Not anymore. Unless you're stupid about it."
My pulse hammered, and I stared at Ah Was he kidding?
"He's going to hurt you," Al said, looking at Pierce. "I can take care of you, teach you to survive. Be there for you, even if you do hate me."
I shivered. "I don't want him," I said, and Al turned away, seeming smaller somehow.
"Mmmm." Al stood before me, running his gaze up and down and lingering on the mess my hair had become. "Do you think the coven might summon me tonight?" he asked as he took my arm and escorted me past Pierce to the elaborate glyph of the screaming face. His smile deepened, becoming pure evil. "I do."
"Al, wait," I said as I hobbled with him, one foot in a boot, one in a sock. But I knew my protests would be futile. If I warned them, I wasn't helping my case of being a white witch, seeing that I'd have to explain why Al had his name back. If I didn't warn them and Al took someone... Well, if he took them all, I might stay out of jail, but how could I live with myself?
"If they don't summon me," Al continued, "I suspect that they'll likely spend their resources sending assassins after you. It's a tricky moral problem, isn't it? Warn them, and they survive to kill you. Remain silent, and they die and you live. My little gray witch."