lit the candle because I was not going to sit in the dark when your familiar left and the lights went out!" I said, not about to take this meekly. "I didn't mean to drop it. The paper caught fire, and I dumped the water on it to put it out. The soul was freed. The soul, Al, you bastard. You knew I wouldn't do it if it was a soul."
He dipped his head, the fog blurring his features. "That's why I didn't tell you."
"Don't lie to me anymore," I demanded, braver now that I was back in my own reality. "I mean it, Al. If I'm going to go bad, let me make my own grave, okay?"
I had meant it to be sarcastic, but it rang frighteningly true. Frowning, Al began to turn away, hesitated, and then... came back. "Rachel, you don't seem to understand. Newt doesn't care if it's you or someone else who is able to kindle demon magic and begin a new generation of demons. She just wants to control who can. If Krathion had gained your body, she would've taken custody of you to protect the rest of us, because I certainly can't control a lunatic with the ability to invoke demon magic and jump between the ever-after and reality at will." He hesitated, his eyes meeting mine. "She doesn't care about you, Rachel. She only cares about what your body can do, and she wants to control it. Don't let her."
Scared, I tugged the blanket tighter around me, my feet getting damp in the long grass. No wonder the coven of moral and ethical standards had shunned me and Trent had bashed my head into a tombstone. I wasn't being smart about this. A simple curse like possession could negate me completely - give someone with less moral standing everything I had the potential for. And I had been ignoring that.
I exhaled, finally getting it. Standing there in my familiar graveyard, I felt a new chill of mistrust seep into me. Son-of-a-bitch demons.
Seeing it, Al grunted, seeming pleased. "Until next week," he said, turning away.
"Al?" I called out after him, but he didn't stop. "Thank you," I blurted out, and he halted, his back to me. "For getting that thing out of me. And I'm sorry." My thoughts went to Pierce and I grimaced. "I'll be more careful."
The door to the church squeaked open, and the sound of shrill pixy children carried out into the damp air. Al turned, his gaze going past me to Ivy's black silhouette waiting in the threshold. I'd said thank you. And apologized. It was more than I thought I'd ever do. "You're welcome," he said, his expression lost in the shadows. "I'll see what I can do about the no lying... thing." And inclining his head, he vanished.
Chapter Two
"I'll be over there," Ivy said like I was a three-year-old as she looked across the produce section to the meat counter and pointed. "Oh for the love of the Turn!" I protested, exasperated. "Al let me have the day off because he wanted to beat Pierce to a pulp, not because I damaged my aura. I'm fine! Just... go pick out something for the grill, okay?"
The tall woman raised an eyebrow and cocked her hip as if she didn't believe me. I could understand why. Al rarely let me have his night off, and I think my coming back early had interrupted her plans. Though I'd seen no evidence of it, I was sure the living vampire took my weekly twenty-four-hour absence as an opportunity to slake her "other" hunger - the one that we couldn't find a bottle of in the grocery store.
"I said I'm fine," I growled, tugging the eco-friendly sack she made me shop with higher up on my shoulder. "Will you let me breathe?"
Giving me a look, she turned on a booted heel and walked through the produce section, looking like a model in jeans and a short black-and-dark-green jacket. Spiked boots made her even taller. Her lightweight cloth coat was a step away from her usual leather, but the gold trim made it scrumptiously rich. She was growing her hair out again, and the straight black was almost down to her shoulders once more. Ivy could have been a model. Hell, Ivy could be anything she wanted. Except happy. Ivy had issues.
"Good God," I muttered. "What a pain in the ass." Ivy didn't miss a step. "I heard that."