The Hollows Series Books 1-4. Kim Harrison
busy, and Glenn stiffly escorted me and my fish in through the front door. Tiny blisters between his neck and collar were already starting to show a sore-looking pink against his dark skin.
Jenks noticed my eyes on them and snorted. “Looks like Mr. FIB Detective is sensitive to pixy dust,” he whispered. “It’s going to run through his lymphatic system. He’s going to be itching in places he didn’t know he had.”
“Really?” I asked, appalled. Usually you only itched where the dust hit. Glenn was in for twenty-four hours of pure torture.
“Yeah, he won’t be trapping a pixy in a car again.”
But I thought I heard a tinge of guilt in his voice, and he wasn’t humming his victory song about daisies and steel glinting red in the moonlight, either. My steps faltered before crossing the FIB emblem inlaid in the lobby floor. I wasn’t superstitious—apart from when it might save my life—but I was entering what was generally humans-only territory. I didn’t like being a minority.
The sporadic conversation and clatter of keyboards remind me of my old job with the I.S., and my shoulders eased. Justice’s wheels were greased with paper and fueled by quick feet on the streets. Whether the feet were human or Inderlander was irrelevant. At least to me.
The FIB had been created to take the place of both local and federal authorities after the Turn. On paper, the FIB had been enacted to help protect the remaining humans from the—ah—more aggressive Inderlanders, generally the vamps and Weres. The reality was, dissolving the old law structure had been a paranoiac attempt to keep us Inderlanders out of law enforcement.
Yeah. Right. The out-of-the-closet, out-of-work Inderland police and Federal agents had simply started their own bureau, the I.S. After forty years the FIB was hopelessly outclassed, taking steady abuse from the I.S. as they both tried to keep tabs on Cincinnati’s varied citizens, the I.S. taking the supernatural stuff the FIB couldn’t.
As I followed Glenn to the back, I shifted the canister to hide my left wrist. Not many people would recognize the small circular scar on the underside of my wrist as a demon mark, but I preferred to err on the side of caution. Neither the FIB nor the I.S. knew I had been involved in the demon-induced incident that trashed the university’s ancient-book locker last spring, and I’d just as soon keep it that way. It had been sent to kill me, but it ultimately saved my life. I’d wear the mark until I found a way to pay the demon back.
Glenn wove between the desks past the lobby, and my eyebrows rose in that not a single officer made one ribald comment about a redhead in leather. But next to the screaming prostitute with purple hair and a glow-in-the-dark chain running from her nose to somewhere under her shirt, we were probably invisible.
I glanced at the shuttered windows of Edden’s office as we passed, waving at Rose, his assistant. Her face flashed red as she pretended to ignore me, and I sniffed. I was used to such slights, but it was still irritating. The rivalry between the FIB and the I.S. was long-standing. That I didn’t work for the I.S. anymore didn’t seem to matter. Then again, it could be she simply didn’t like witches.
I breathed easier when we left the front behind and entered a sterile fluorescent-lit hallway. Glenn, too, relaxed into a slower pace. I could feel the office politics flowing behind us like unseen currents but was too dispirited to care. We passed an empty meeting room, my eyes going to the huge dry-marker board where the week’s most pressing crimes were plastered. Pushing out the usual human-stalked-by-vamp crimes was a list of names. I felt ill as my eyes dropped. We were walking too fast to read them, but I knew what they had to be. I’d been following the papers just like everyone else.
“Morgan!” shouted a familiar voice, and I spun, my boots squeaking on the gray tile.
It was Edden, his squat silhouette hastening down the hallway toward us, arms swinging. Immediately I felt better.
“Slugs take it,” Jenks muttered. “Rache, I’m outta here. I’ll see you at home.”
“Stay put,” I said, amused at the pixy’s grudge. “And if you say one foul word to Edden, I’ll Amdro your stump.”
Glenn snickered, and it was probably just as well I couldn’t hear what Jenks muttered.
Edden was an ex–Navy SEAL and looked it, keeping his hair regulation short, his khaki pants creased, and his body under his starched white shirt honed. Though his thick shock of straight hair was black, his mustache was entirely gray. A welcoming smile covered his round face as he strode forward, tucking a pair of plastic-rimmed reading glasses into his shirt pocket. The captain of Cincinnati’s FIB division came to an abrupt halt, wafting the smell of coffee over me. He was my height almost exactly—making him somewhat short for a man—but he made up for it in presence.
Edden arched his eyebrows at my leather pants and less-than-professional halter top. “It’s good to see you, Morgan,” he said. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
I shifted my canister and extended my hand. His stubby thick fingers engulfed mine, familiar and welcoming. “No, not at all,” I said dryly, and Edden put a heavy hand on my shoulder, directing me down a short hallway.
Normally I would have reacted to such a show of familiarity with a delicate elbow in a gut. Edden, though, was a kindred spirit, hating injustice as much as I did. Though he looked nothing like him, he reminded me of my dad, having gained my respect by accepting me as a witch and treating me with equality instead of mistrust. I was a sucker for flattery.
We headed down the hallway shoulder-to-shoulder, Glenn lagging behind. “Good to see you flying again, Mr. Jenks,” Edden said, giving the pixy a nod.
Jenks left my earring, his wings clattering harshly. Edden had once snapped Jenks’s wing off while stuffing him into a water cooler, and pixy grudges went deep. “It’s Jenks,” he said coldly. “Just Jenks.”
“Jenks, then. Can we get you anything? Sugar water, peanut butter …” He turned, smiling from behind his mustache. “Coffee, Ms. Morgan?” he drawled. “You look tired.”
His grin banished the last of my bad mood. “That’d be great,” I said, and Edden gave Glenn a directive look. The detective’s jaw was clenched, and several new welts ran down his jawline. Edden grasped his forearm as the frustrated man turned away. Pulling Glenn down, Edden whispered, “It’s too late to wash the pixy dust off. Try cortisone.”
Glenn gave me a closed stare as he straightened and walked back the way we had come.
“I appreciate you dropping in,” Edden continued. “I got a break this morning, and you’re the only one I could call to capitalize on it.”
Jenks made a scoffing laugh. “Whatsa matter, got a Were with a thorn in his paw?”
“Shut up, Jenks,” I said, more from habit than anything else. Glenn had mentioned Trent Kalamack, and that had me itchy. The captain of the FIB drew to a stop before a plain door. Another equally plain door was a foot away. Interrogation rooms. He opened his mouth to explain, then shrugged and pushed the door open to show a bare room at half-light. He ushered me in, waiting until the door shut before turning to the two-way mirror and silently shifting the blinds.
I stared into the other room. “Sara Jane!” I whispered, my face going slack.
“You know her?” Edden crossed his short, thick arms on his chest. “That’s lucky.”
“There’s no such thing as luck,” Jenks snapped, the breeze from his wings brushing my cheek as he hovered at eye level. His hands were on his hips and his wings had gone from their usual translucence to a faint pink. “It’s a setup.”
I drew closer to the glass. “She’s Trent Kalamack’s secretary. What is she doing here?”
Edden stood beside me, his feet spread wide. “Looking for her boyfriend.”
I turned, surprised at the tight expression on his round face. “Warlock named Dan Smather,” Edden said. “Went missing Sunday. The I.S. won’t act until he’s gone