A Perfect Blood

to the phrase ‘hooked on reading.’ Right, Bob?”
    The TV changed to a shot of Central Ave., bright under a low sun. The picture was blurry, clearly taken from some distance. “Look!” Jenks exclaimed, hovering to block the TV. “Rache! That’s you!”
    I leaned forward to see a figure in a red shirt being carried out by a man in a suit, Trent, obviously. “Good God, I look Brimstoned,” I said, hoping this wouldn’t be syndicated out to the West Coast. My mom would pee her pants, then call her neighbors to brag.
    “Which is why you’re sitting,” Ivy said. “Eat your pizza. You’ve hardly touched it.”
    “Quiet,” Wayde muttered from the kitchen. “I didn’t get a chance to see this.”
    “You didn’t miss anything,” I said as I lifted my wedge of pizza while the announcer gave a brief history lesson on the tunnels and how there was no record that they connected with the library.
    Again Wayde shushed me, his eyes bright. “She’s talking about you!”
    I chewed quietly, not excited. Most times my name made the news, I had to hide in the church for two weeks.
    “Though sources haven’t verified it, witnesses claim that Cincinnati’s very own demon witch Rachel Morgan was on the scene. Phone calls to the firm she calls one-third her own have gone unanswered—”
    “Because I’m eating,” I muttered, shushed by both Daryl and Wayde.
    “But Vampiric Charms is known to have worked with the FIB in the past.”
    “Oh, crap!” I exclaimed as the thirty-second video of me wearing nothing but an FIB coat flashed up on the screen. I didn’t care if the important bits were being blocked out. I looked awful, my hair wild and the coat riding up to show my fuzzed ass.
    “Whoa! I didn’t know the station had that,” Glenn said, and I flushed.
    “Trent’s in the background,” Jenks said, and horrified, I looked to see the elf, his eyes averted.
    “Oh God. Can we please turn this off?” I pleaded, and Daryl worked the remote to turn the volume down, her little mouth drawn up as she laughed at me.
    Glenn stood behind Ivy, a beer in one hand, smiling at last. “Thank you, Rachel, Ivy, and Jenks,” he said, raising the bottle in salute. “You were the difference between success and failure. Good tag.”
    Ivy shifted in her chair and raised her glass above her head, clinking with him. “I wish I’d been there at the end. I would’ve enjoyed smacking Eloy under the flag of justice.”
    I would have enjoyed smacking Eloy a little more, too, and as the announcer flirted with her male counterpart, I set my pizza aside. Caught not once but twice with my own magic, I thought as I spun Trent’s ring on my pinkie. But at least we’d gotten him. My smile faded as the memory of the-men-who-don’t-belong surfaced. If their radio had been working, things might have turned out differently. I might not be so banged up, for instance. They had left, and that was just . . . wrong.
    Focus blurring, I remembered Trent’s casual acceptance of everything, his matter-of-fact recitation of all the things wrong with me before the ambulance personnel had their look and confirmed it. He hadn’t panicked when finding me beat up and broken. Instead, he quietly sat beside me and looked for the-men-who-don’t-belong. A part of me thought I should be mad that he let me sit there in pain, but I wasn’t. He’d known what was wrong with me before the ambulance personnel had. Nothing had been life threatening, but finding the-men-who-don’t-belong had been then or never. Besides, I had told him no ambulance.
    Head down, I spun the ring on my finger, squinting as I noticed that one of the three bands had turned black. It was a three-charm spell, I thought in surprise. It still had some power.
    Wayde wandered out of the kitchen with a plate of pizza in one hand, pop in the other, and looked over the seating arrangements. Seeing the Were at a loss, I shifted my legs so he could sit between me and Daryl. “Thanks,” he said as he sank and a puff of vampire- and dryad-scented air rose. “I still don’t believe that you eat pizza,” he said to Glenn as he inched himself forward and out of the cushion trap to set his plate on the coffee table. “You’re okay, FIB man. You can run with me anytime.”
    Glenn gave him a look, his expression one of wondering mistrust. “Thanks.”
    Ivy picked a pepperoni off her pizza and gave it to Glenn. He was still standing over her, watching his bust through the