A Perfect Blood

shakers on the back of the stove. I could hear them in the back living room, arguing over a moth one of them had dug out of a crack. Jenks’s kids were kind of like cats, playing things to death.
    The kitchen was warm, but I was cold as I finished injecting the last of the splat balls with the sleepy-time potion. It wasn’t the night seeping in around the kitchen window frame, but the cold from the memory of the woman curled up in the fetal position, twisted and broken, buried under a slab of cement and a demon curse. What they’d done to her was so horrific that they’d tried to bury it—and yet I’d found her.
    My jaw clenched, I held the tiny, empty blue ball up to the light as I injected another portion of potion into the specially designed paintballs. Slowly the ball inflated, and I pulled the needle out, being careful not to get any potion on me despite my plastic gloves. Waking up to a bath of saltwater and Jenks laughing at me was not my idea of a good time.
    It had been the last, and setting the empty syringe down, I wiped the ball off on a saltwater-soaked rag before I dried it and dropped it with the rest in Ceri’s delicate teacup. It was overflowing with little blue balls. Maybe I’d gone overboard, but I wanted to nail these bastards, and thanks to the two would-be assassin elves last year, I now had two splat guns to fill.
    Taking off the gloves, I crouched before the open cupboard under the center island counter and pulled out the one I hadn’t filled yet. When not in my shoulder bag, I kept my splat guns at ankle height in a set of nested bowls. The smooth, heavy metal filled my hand, and I stood, enjoying the weight in my palm. It was modeled after a Glock, which was why it was cherry red. The coven of moral and ethical standards had worked hard to keep these from needing to be licensed. Sometimes, what humans didn’t know saved us a lot of trouble.
    “Can I help?” Bis said from behind me and atop the fridge, and I turned from throwing away the old charms still in the hopper.
    “No, but thanks,” I said, seeing him there with Belle, a sheet of Ivy’s paper, and a pencil. The fairy was too embarrassed to tell Jenks she didn’t know how to read, so Bis was helping her.
    The tight sound of Jenks’s wings prompted a flurry of motion, and I watched Bis jam the wad of paper into his mouth and Belle yank a hand of homemade cards from under her leg. Bis suddenly had a hand of cards, too—looking tiny in his craggy fist—and I rolled my eyes when he threw a card down on the pile as Jenks flew in.
    “Hey, I got the last of the toad-lily flowers you wanted,” Jenks said as he dropped a bundle of them on the counter. “The best of the lot. They’re done. Trust me.”
    “Thanks,” I said, tapping the hopper on the counter to get the balls to settle. “Here’s hoping I won’t need any more before spring.”
    “The Turn take it, it’s colder than Tink’s titties out there!” he exclaimed as he made the hop-flight to the stove. “Think we’re going to have snow early this year?”
    Belle tossed her cards down as if having lost, and Bis began shuffling. “I’ve never s-seen snow,” the fairy hissed dubiously. “Are you sure it’s safe? We’ve always wintered in Mexico.”
    “It’s safe.” Jenks strutted to the edge of the oven, and his hair rose in the heat. “My kids even have snowball fights.”
    I chuckled, remembering it. They’d gone after me, and I’d nearly fried them, thinking they were assassins. It was funny now, but I’d been furious at the time.
    The larger fairy frowned as she picked up the cards Bis dealt her. “You’re making it up,” she said, and Bis shook his head.
    “It’s true!” he said, his red eyes wide. “You can bring the snow inside and play with it before it melts.”
    I finished filling the hopper, replaced it in the gun, removed the air canister, and took up a firing position, my feet spread wide and my elbows locked. Holding the gun up as if I was going to shoot, I aimed it into the dark hall. Maybe someday we’d actually get lights put in. I glanced at Jenks doing warm-up exercises with his feet an inch off the warm porcelain. Maybe not.
    A sudden soft scuffing in the hall turned into Wayde, and he stopped short as he saw the gun pointed at him, his eyes wide as he put his hands up in mock surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll tone the chili down!”
    My arms dropped, and he smiled. “Sorry,” I said, then held up the empty