my bag by the door as I ran down the steps in my sock feet. Looking almost disappointed, the guy in brown got out, coming to meet me with a package.
"Thank you," I said as he handed it to me, and I half expected him to ask for some ID. He was a witch. I could tell from his disdainful look. My amulet was a healthy green, and snatching the small package from him, I turned and went back into my church. What did I care what some guy in brown shorts thought? Even if he wore the uniform very well. Damn, where did they go to hire these guys? The gym?
The church felt empty when I came back in, absent of pixies after the long winter. Feet silent, I padded to my abandoned desk, turning at the last moment to sit in one of the leather chairs around the coffee table. The return address was from a shipping place downtown, and tearing open the gummy label, I shook the hard plastic of my phone out onto the table.
"Oh," I said, drawing my hand back as it spun and settled. Eyebrows raised, I cautiously looked inside the package for a note, not finding one. The coven had returned my phone? I eyed my lethal-spell amulet again, still not wanting to touch it. Hell, I'd seen Vivian almost kill Ivy with two white charms. I wasn't about to take anything at face value.
"Hey! The coven sent me my phone!" I shouted, waiting for someone to come look. But no one did. "Jenks!" I shouted, scowling, and the hum of pixy wings sounded loud over Nick's argument from the kitchen.
"What?" the pixy complained. "We re kind of in the middle of something."
I looked up at him, hovering five feet above the floor, his hands on his hips and spilling a lavender dust. "The coven sent my phone back to me. Is it bugged?"
He flew a sweeping arc over it and back to his original position. "Yeah. Can I get it later? They've almost agreed on something."
My mouth opened to protest, but he was already gone, yelling at Nick to shut the hell up and that Ivy was right before he even reached the kitchen.
Slumping into the soft leather, I got brave and thumbed the phone open. It was on and charged... and I had a message.
Curious, I hit the button and listened to the prerecorded preamble. But when a high-pitched, familiar voice came through the earpiece, I sat up, heart pounding. Vivian.
"Rachel Morgan," Vivian said formally, and I pressed the phone to my ear to catch every nuance. "As of last night, and the... incident at Love-land Castle, we are reassessing the threat you represent. I told them that Brooke was trying to circumvent coven mandates and had summoned a demon after you warned her not to, and that you tried to stop him from taking her, but they think I'm lying."
Her last words sounded accusing, and I sat on the edge of the couch. "We know you used a curse to kill the fairy clan. I'll be honest with you. A reassessment is not necessarily a good thing, but you'll be given a chance to come in peacefully before we take action again. If you force this from a quiet acquisition to a public one, we'll bring your family into it."
Son of a bitch. I stiffened as I thought of my mother in Portland.
"I don't even know why I'm telling you this," she said, "except maybe to thank you for trying. With Brooke, I mean. I may be a lot of things, but a liar isn't among them, and I wanted you to know that I'm not behind that accusation. Brooke did it to herself."
The message clicked off, and I scrambled to save it, exhaling when I hit the right button. Snapping the phone closed, I slumped back to stare at the empty rafters with not a speck of dust or cobweb on them. Frustrated, I tossed the phone to the table for Jenks to debug later. I'm glad she believed me, but what good was it going to do?
Sighing, I levered myself up and headed back to the kitchen to finish up the plans. I wasn't keen on testing Trent's security, but I didn't have much of a choice. I had to get my shunning removed. To do that, I had to survive the coven. They weren't going to back down unless I got Trent to vouch for me without