was coming over to drop off that box you left in my car,” Marshal said, shifting to stand between Tom and me. “That’s when I saw this”—he gave Tom a shove and the man caught himself against the island counter—“coming over the far wall. So I parked and watched. He gave a couple of kids a can of black spray paint and a twenty, and after Bis chased them off your front door, he snuck around back and broke the lock on your crawl space access.”
Mouth open in anger, I thought about giving Tom a shove myself. “You paid someone to ruin our sign!” I shouted. “Do you know how long it took me to clean it the first time?”
Tom’s lips were starting to pink up, and he pressed them together, refusing to answer. Behind him, I saw Bis sneak out of the kitchen. The small gargoyle had gone entirely white to match the ceiling, and only the rims of his ears, his long clawlike nails, and a thick stripe down his whiplike tail were still gray. He was crawling along the ceiling like a bat, wings held to make sharp angles and claws extended. It just about broke my creepy meter.
“Rachel,” Marshal said gently, “he did it to get rid of Bis.” Marshal took off his hat and unzipped his coat, sending a wave of redwood into the kitchen, heady from whatever magic he’d used to catch Tom. “What’s important is finding out what he was doing under your church.”
We all turned to look at Tom. “Good question,” I said. “Got an answer, witch?”
Tom was silent, and Ivy cracked her knuckles one by one. I hadn’t even known she could, but that’s what she was doing, pop, pop, pop.
“Ivy,” I said when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything. “Why don’t you call the I.S.? They might be interested in this.”
Tom snickered, his arrogance clear. “Sure, you do that,” he said. “I’m sure the I.S. would love to know a shunned witch was in your kitchen. Who do you think they’ll believe if I tell them I was buying charms from you?”
Oh shit. My gut twisted, and I frowned when Marshal’s eyes widened at the word “shunned.” Without a word, Ivy set the phone down. Her eyes a dangerous black, she eased closer. A threatening haze seemed to drift a few seconds behind her as she placed her finger under his chin and asked in a soft voice, “Is there a contract out on Rachel?”
Fear bubbled against my skull, and I caught it before it triggered something worse in Ivy. I’d lived with a death threat before, and it was hard. If not for Ivy and Jenks, I would have died.
Tom took a step back and rubbed his wrist. “She’d be dead already if there was.”
Jenks bristled, his wings a sharp clatter as he came to stand on my shoulder.
“Oooooh, I’m scared,” I said to hide my relief. “What are you doing here, then?”
The angry witch smiled. “To wish you a happy New Year.”
My eyes narrowed, and, fist on my hip, I looked at the dirty puddles his boots were making. Gaze slowly rising, I took in his white nylon pants and his gray coat. His face was calm but the hatred was there, and when Ivy shifted her feet, he jerked, tense. “I’d start talking,” she threatened. “If you’re shunned, no one will care if you don’t show up for church next week.”
The tension started to rise, and my gaze broke from Tom when Bis flew back in.
“Tink’s diaphragm!” Jenks shouted. “When did he leave? Rachel, did you even see him leave?”
“Here, Rachel,” the gargoyle said as he dropped an amulet and my hand flashed out to catch it. The metallic circlet hit my palm with a cool sensation, smelling like redwood and frozen dirt. “I found it stuck to the floorboards. It was the only one.”
Tom’s jaw went stiff as he clenched his teeth. My anger grew as I recognized it from the days when I’d sit with my dad while he prepped his spells for a night at work. “It’s a bug,” I said as I handed it to Marshal to look at.
Ivy’s face grew even grimmer, and spreading her feet, she tossed her short, gold-tipped hair out of her eyes. “Why are you bugging our kitchen?”
Tom didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. I’d found him in front of the Tilsons’ house. He had told me he was working. He probably thought we’d have the inside scoop on the situation, and since he didn’t have access to anything magical or the Inderland database, he was going to steal what we knew and use it to jerk the tag out from under us.
“This is about the Tilsons, isn’t it,” I said, and I knew I was right when his eyes went to the soup, scumming over. “You want to tell me now? Save me the trouble of having Ivy beat it out of you?”
“Stay away from her,” Tom said vehemently. “I’ve been watching that woman for five months, and she’s mine! Got it?”
I leaned back, nodding as he confirmed my thoughts. Tom knew they weren’t the Tilsons and was probably working on the murders already. He seemed to think the woman had done it. “I’m just doing my job, Tom,” I said, starting to feel better. Sure he had bugged me, but my car was probably not wired to explode; dead people don’t talk—usually. “Tell you what. You stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours, and the best witch will win. Okay?”
“Sure,” the man said, confidence suddenly flowing from him. “Good luck with that. You’re going to come begging to talk to me before this is all over. I guarantee it.”
Jenks’s wings made a cool draft on my neck. “Get the cookie out of here,” he said sharply, and Marshal came forward to manhandle him out. Ivy beat him to it, gripping Tom’s wrist and twisting his arm into a painful angle to propel him into the hall.
“Don’t forget his amulet,” I called after her, and Bis darted down to take it from Marshal and fly after them. I heard a muttered comment from Ivy, and then the back door shut. Bis didn’t come back. I assumed he’d gone with her.
“She can handle him okay?” Marshal asked, and I nodded, my knees suddenly shaky.
“Oh yeah. She’ll be fine. It’s Tom I’m worried about.” My stomach hurt. Damn it, it had been ages since anyone had dared to violate the security of my home, and now that it was over, I didn’t like it. Grimacing, I stirred the soup, nervous energy making me slop it over. Jenks was flitting like a mad thing, and while wiping up my spill, I muttered, “Park it, Jenks.”
The kitchen grew quiet apart from the rasp of Marshal taking off his coat, but it was the gurgle of him pouring two cups of coffee that brought my attention back. I managed a thin smile when he brought me one. Jenks was on his shoulder, which was unusual, but the man had saved us a lot of trouble, and Jenks had to appreciate that since he couldn’t go outside and Bis was just one gargoyle—and a young, inexperienced one at that.
“Thanks,” I said, turning from the soup and taking a sip of coffee as I leaned against the counter. “For Tom as well as the coffee,” I added.
Looking satisfied and smug, Marshal pulled a chair around and sat with his back to the wall and his legs in the middle of the room. “Not a problem, Rachel. I’m glad I was here.”
Trailing a thin green dust, Jenks flew to land beside me, pretending to feed his brine shrimp on the sill. I knew Marshal thought my estimation of the danger I could attract was overrated, but even I’d admit that his catching a shunned ley line witch
