you think the demons would blame for the death of one of their own? You, the familiar? Or me, the one whose gun was smoking? Now I'm down a splat gun until I can find someone who doesn't know I'm shunned and will sell me a new one! I can't trust you in a pinch, and because of that, you're watching Jenks's kids. Got it?"
"I can fix the window and I'll get you a new gun," he said, and I made my hands into fists, frustrated. He'd saved my life and I owed him, but half my problems this week were because of him.
"The gun isn't the problem," I said. "You keep telling me what to do. You don't ask. You don't suggest. You tell. And I don't like it. I have people to help me who I trust won't overreact and make things so out of control that it takes black magic to fix. You aren't coming."
I was out of breath, and I stopped, waiting for his reaction. By the frown on his face, it wasn't going to be nice. "You don't want me to help," he said, voice tight.
"No," I said, then added more gently, "Not today."
Pierce clenched his jaw, and without another word, he turned and strode from the kitchen. Jenks's eyes were wide, and I exhaled when I heard the back door slam. Shaking inside, I turned to Nick. "Did you have something to say about Ivy coming?"
Nick glanced at Ivy, his eyes dropping to her cast, then rising to me. "No, but her being there is going to increase the time to cross the main floor by at least three seconds. I don't know if the camera sweep can handle that. If you get caught, it's not my fault."
Jenks darted up, then down. "I'll worry about the cameras, rat boy. You worry about not tripping over your big fat wizard feet."
I took a deep breath to get rid of the adrenaline. Telling Pierce off had been something I'd been wanting to do all day, and now that it was done, I felt guilty. Glad I'd done it, regardless, I followed Jenks to the table to study the papers. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what they had scribbled. "Why can't we go downstairs from a low-security office, work through the underbelly in the lab where security will be light, then come up on the other side?" I asked, then tucked my hair behind my ear when it fell forward.
Both Ivy and Nick looked at me like I'd just said we should take a train to the moon. "You mean, like in the air ducts?" Nick finally offered.
"Yes," I said, wondering why Jax was smirking. "We can all go mink or something."
Ivy looked at Nick, and I swear... I saw them bond. "No," Nick said, white faced.
"I'm not going to turn into a rodent," Ivy said, her voice low and throaty.
"A mink is not a rodent," I snapped. "God! Everyone but Trent knows that."
Taking the pencil from behind her ear, Ivy circled a camera and drew a cone around its scanned area. "I'm not turning into anything," she said, glancing at the potions on the counter.
This might make our getaway more complicated. "You're afraid!" I accused, putting a hand on my hip. "Both of you. I know how to do this! I'm not going to leave you that way! You just have to think the word to break the curse."
Nick cleared his throat, and I got more ticked yet. It would be so easy if they weren't afraid. Maybe I should just do this by myself, just Jenks and me.
Ivy looked up, her gaze distant. "There's a delivery truck at the door," she said, and the doorbell rang. "If you don't hurry, they'll take it back to the depot."
Unfortunately she was right, and I spun away, almost running in my sock feet down the hall, shouting that I was coming. They wouldn't leave packages since I'd been shunned.
Behind me, I could hear Jenks saying, "Tink's panties, Ivy. She's right. If you got small, it would be a snap. You're both chicken shit. Rachel doesn't mind. She looks good small."
"I'm not going to turn into anything," Ivy growled, followed shortly by Nick's fervent agreement.
I ran through the church as the hefty revving of a diesel truck shook the windows - apart from the one Pierce broke that was covered with plywood. Flinging the door open, I shouted and waved, snatching up my lethal amulet from