A Perfect Blood

me,” that Trent got to his feet and intercepted him, taking both babies and moving to a bench just down the way.
    I exhaled in relief as he put space between the girls and Al. They’d grown another month older since I’d seen them last, and Lucy was standing now, holding Trent’s knee and wobbling as she fussed for her mother. Ray wasn’t happy, either, looking more mad than anything else, her little face squished up in annoyance as Lucy filled the air with her noise.
    “Al—” I whispered, wanting him to do the curse instead, but he shook his head.
    “No,” he said, his head down as he examined the tiny spear now sticking out of his arm. Apparently the fairies didn’t like him. “Your curse seems fine. The last thing I want is you embarrassing me.”
    “Liar,” I said, and he turned to me, shocked.
    He plucked the spear out and dropped it, clearly wanting to protest, then seemed to collapse in on himself. Expression bothered, he glanced at Trent, trying to wrangle the two babies into some semblance of quiet, then came close to me, his boots with the silver buckles rapping smartly. I leaned back in my garden chair, and he put a hand on the table, almost pinning me there. “Hell, Rachel,” he breathed into my ear, and I stifled a shiver at his dusky form around me. “I don’t know what I’m doing, either. If you screw it up, it looks like another stupid-Rachel moment. If I screw it up, it looks as if I don’t know what I’m doing, and while the first is embarrassing, the second is intolerable. ”
    He pulled back at the sound of hooves on stone, his red eyes wide. “Chin up, chest out, stand up straight,” he said as he yanked me to my feet, smacking my gut and shoulder in quick succession until I stood before the table, scowling at him. “Don’t say anything. Ceri thinks I’m a god.”
    I knew that wasn’t true, and I edged away from him as he waited with one arm behind him, one before, as if he was meeting royalty. Somehow he’d gotten from the outskirts to the center of the patio, looking as if he belonged among the ferns and Victorian garden furniture. Ceri and Winona were dusky shadows as they came around the bend, a small garden lamp lighting their path. Trent pointed them out to the girls, and Lucy’s wail turned plaintive with little mmmumm-mums and half bounces for Ceri to come and pick her up.
    Winona looked up as I said hi. She was in a comfortable, long-sleeved sweater and floor-length skirt, but her gray-skinned, ugly face with its curling horns and abnormally pointed chin put her far from normal. Her head made her top heavy, and her goat-slitted eyes reflected the light like a cat’s.
    “Hi, Rachel,” she said, her smile fading as she looked from me to Al, standing beside me at the table. Clutching Ceri’s arm, she whispered, “Is that him?”
    “Yes!” Al exclaimed as Ceri disentangled herself from Winona, gave him a dry look, and physically pushed him out of the way so she could set the lamp on the table. “I am Al!” he continued, looking almost hurt, but upon bending closer to Winona, still standing at the edge of the light, his goat-slitted eyes widened. “My God, what did that bitch do to you?”
    Winona lifted her chin as Ceri hissed at him to behave, and I smacked his shoulder with the back of my hand. But I had to agree that she looked monstrous, especially in the early dark of a snowy evening. “My apologies,” Al said, sincere enough, I suppose. “Winona, to better gauge my student’s possible success, may I . . . inspect you?”
    Winona looked fearfully at Ceri for advice, but she’d gone to pick up Ray. Standing beside Trent, she gestured for Winona to approach Al. “It’s okay,” I added, and Al gave me a sidelong look.
    “Oh, I doubt that,” he said, but Winona had been brutalized so badly that Al held little threat. At the bench, Trent and Ceri had a hushed argument. Clearly they hadn’t united entirely on their child-rearing guidelines when it came to demons. Trent wanted to take the girls into the vault, and Ceri wanted to use it as a learning experience. Me, I was leaning toward the vault.
    “You may look,” Winona said softly, her feet tapping the slate as she came forward into the light. I watched Al’s face, not hers, as he leaned closer to her, breathing in her scent. His hand came out, and she stiffened.
    “I won’t harm you,” he said formally. “May I touch you?”
    I thought it was weird how careful he was being, like