The Undead Pool. Kim Harrison
silver dust quickly vanished in the July heat, and I felt a moment of angst as Trent accepted the congratulations of his team. He looked relaxed and easy out here, the calm he usually affected true instead of fabricated. I liked seeing him this way, and feeling guilty, I dropped my gaze. I had no business even caring.
As one, the rest started to the green with a clinking of clubs and masculine chatter, undoubtedly feeling pushed by the next team waiting just off the tee. The big guy in the lime-green pants had been talking loudly the entire time, trying to throw Trent’s game off, no doubt, but Trent had outplotted corporate takeovers, evaded genetic trafficking charges, slipped murder accusations, and survived demon attacks. One overweight man huffing and puffing for him to move faster would not break his cool.
Sure enough, Trent needlessly fussed over the divot as the rest went on ahead, refusing to relinquish the tee area until he was ready. Smirking, I hoisted his bag, the three other clubs he used clinking lightly as I came to take his driver. I wasn’t a caddie, but it was the only way they’d let me on the course and there was no way that Trent would ever be in public without some kind of security.
Even if he could take care of himself, I thought, smiling as I took his club and our separate paces became one. My God, it’s nice out here.
“Subtle,” I said as we found the manicured grass, and he snorted to make me flush, not because I’d seen through him, but because I was one of the few people Trent would drop his mask around. It shouldn’t have been that important. But it was. What am I doing?
“Watch the guy in the green pants,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “He has a tendency to drop his ball into the players ahead of him.”
“Sure.” Head down, I paced beside Trent, his clubs banging into my back, feeling as if I belonged there almost. I’d been working with him the last three months while Quen, Trent’s usual security adviser, was on the West Coast with the girls. This new feeling of . . . responsibility, I guess, bothered me. Jenks’s words, though crass, had been echoing in my thoughts in quiet moments, and I looked at Trent’s hand, wishing I had the right to take it.
“Are you okay?”
I looked up, almost panicking. “Sure. Why?”
Trent’s eyes ran over me as if searching for the truth. “You’re quiet today.”
I was quiet today? Meaning we’d been spending enough time together that he knew the difference. Forcing a smile, I handed him his putter. “Just trying to stay in the background.”
He took it, eyebrows high, and I’d swear I heard him sigh as he turned away. Head coming up, he stepped onto the green and joined in the light banter between the other CEOs. My heart was pounding, and I dragged my melancholy ass out of the way to rest under the shade of the storm shelter.
“Just trying to stay in the background,” Jenks said in a high falsetto. “My God, woman. Your aura is glowing. Just admit you like him, bump uglies, and get on with your life!”
“Jenks!” I exclaimed, then wiggled my fingers apologetically at the man lining up his putt.
Smirking, Jenks landed on the storm shelter’s rafters, his hand carefully going over a small wing tear to even out a raw edge. “That’s how pixies know we’re in love,” he said as he folded his dragonfly-like wings and wiggled out of his red jacket, wincing as something pulled. “If the girl has glow, she won’t say no.”
“Nice.” Arms over my middle, I set the bag down and watched Trent, glad the girls were coming back tomorrow. With Quen taking up security, I’d be able to wrap my head around reality. I was confusing my work with everything else—and I was done with being confused.
“How’s Cookie Bits’s game?” Jenks asked. “He looks as distracted as you.”
Frowning, I raised my hand as if to bop him, but it would never land. Cookie Bits. That’s what Jenks had been calling Trent ever since he caught us sitting in his car outside the church after a job. I’d only wanted to hear the end of the news, but try telling Jenks that.
“Tink’s little pink rosebuds, the local pixies are more stuck up than a fairy nailed to my church’s steeple,” Jenks said, giving up on getting a rise out of me since it wasn’t working. “I’m wearing red for a reason, not because I look good in it. Look! Look what they did to my coat!”
Disgusted, Jenks held up the bright red jacket Belle had made for him, poking his finger through a hole just under the armpit. I stiffened, suddenly seeing his small wing tear in a new way. A pixy wearing red should’ve been given free passage. I’d been seemingly everywhere in Cincinnati with Trent the last couple of months, but the country club was the worst. I hadn’t known Jenks was having issues. He’d probably been too proud to tell me. “You okay?”
Jenks froze, his pale face becoming red and making his shock of curly blond hair look even more tousleable. His wings hummed, sifting a pale yellow dust that colored him from head to toe in working black. He looked like a theater guy, but the sword hanging from his belt was real enough, having had deterred everything from bees bothering his children to assassins bothering me.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, embarrassed. “I just don’t like dodging arrows when I shouldn’t have to. We’re cool as a breath strip.” He squinted at me, head tilting. “You sure you’re all right? I’m serious about your aura glowing. You got a temp or something?”
“Jenks, I’m not in love,” I replied grumpily, ignoring the odd tingle rising through me as Trent crouched to line up his putt. Cincinnati’s ley lines were faint but discernible, the upwellings of power usable even at this distance if not for the course’s ward of no-magic, in place to prevent tampering with the game. I’d found a way around it weeks ago. But it almost felt as if there were a line the next hole over, and I looked back the way we’d come.
That big man in the lime-green pants was standing between the markers with his club. We were too close for them to be teeing off, but even the practice swings were making me nervous. It was only a par three—as in “on the green in one drive.”
“Ah, Rache?” Jenks rose up, hovering by my ear as Mr. Lime-Green Pants swung. There was the crack of a ball, and my heart jumped. “Oh no he didn’t!” Jenks said, and I stiffened, tracking the ball’s path.
“What do you think?” I whispered, skin tingling as if I’d tapped a line already.
“I think it’s going to be a problem.”
“Fore!” I shouted, lurching out into the sun. Heads turned and Trent remained crouched where he was. Instinctively I sent out a ribbon of awareness, easily bypassing the no-magic ward and tapping the nearest ley line. Energy flowed in with an unusual sharpness, burning the inside of my nose as it seemed to come from everywhere, not just the line, as I filled my chi and forced the energy back out through the pathway of nerves and synapses to my hands.
My eyes widened as I tracked the ball’s path, energy burning as it flowed in smaller and smaller channels until it reached my fingertips. Shit, it was headed right for him.
“Derivare!” I shouted, hand moving in the simple gesture that harnessed the ley line charm and gave it direction. It was a small spell, one I’d been using for weeks to tweak Trent’s ball to make him slice as I practiced getting around the course’s no-magic ward. It wasn’t much, but it would divert the ball’s path from the green. I didn’t even need a focusing object anymore.
My intent sped from me with the surety of an electron spinning. I watched, breath held, as it headed for the ball arching down. Men were scattering, but Trent stood firm, confident that I had this.
And then the charm hit the ball, pain flaring simultaneously from my gesture hand.
I yelped, clutching my wrist as a thunderous boom shook the air, flinging me back to land on my butt. Shocked, I stared as chunks of sod and dirt rained down. Men were shouting, and Jenks was swearing, tangled up in my hair. My lips parted, and I blinked at the car-size crater ten feet off the green and in the fairway. “That wasn’t