Kim Harrison - Hollows 2 - The Good,the Bad and the Undead

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNDEAD

KIMHARRISON

To the man who knows caffeine comes first, chocolate comes second, romance comes third—and

when they ought to be reversed.

Contents

Epigraph

E-Book Extras

ONE

I hitched the canvas strap holding the watering canister…

TWO

The gray stone of the FIB tower caught the late…

THREE

My gaze was drawn to Sara Jane’s nails as she fidgeted…

FOUR

“Right at the next corner,” I said, resting my arm on…

FIVE

Eyes on the empty hallway, I motioned for Glenn to stay…

SIX

Pixy children swarmed around Glenn as he sat at the…

SEVEN

“Rache,” Jenks said from my earring. “Take a squint…

EIGHT

Thankfully, there was no line when we pulled up to…

NINE

“Where’s my money, Bob?” I whispered as I dropped…

TEN

The late September afternoon sun was warm through my…

ELEVEN

It took more courage than I wanted to admit to walk out of…

TWELVE

I fell hard as Ivy cut my legs from under me. I rolled away…

THIRTEEN

It was warm and stuffy. I could smell cold coffee.

FOURTEEN

"Hello." Nick’s recorded voice came from my…

FIFTEEN

I wedged one of my fuzzy pink slippers off and dismally…

SIXTEEN

"Nick.!" I cried, stumbling back. The demon grinned.

SEVENTEEN

I sat at the lab stool and tapped my ankle against the…

EIGHTEEN

The early afternoon sun had almost worked its way from…

NINETEEN

My foot jiggled as I impatiently stood beside the stack…

TWENTY

Mouth agape, I looked across the office to Trent.

TWENTY-ONE

My heels clacked with more authority than I felt as I…

TWENTY-TWO

Edden swung the car into the church’s tiny weed-choked…

TWENTY-THREE

The clamor of the bus’s diesel engine was obnoxious as…

TWENTY-FOUR

“For the third time, Rachel. Would you like another…

TWENTY-FIVE

The low lub-lub-lub-lub of a bike pulled my eyes up…

TWENTY-SIX

The bus was crowded at five in the morning.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Piscary’s daytime quarters were not what I had expected.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Piscary brought his hand to his mouth to lick away my…

TWENTY-NINE

“Hey! Here!” I shouted, sitting straighter on the hard…

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Kim Harrison

Copyright

About the Publisher

One

I hitched the canvas strap holding the watering canister higher up on my shoulder and stretched to get the

nozzle into the hanging plant. Sunlight streamed in, warm through my blue institutional jumpsuit. Past the

narrow plate-glass windows was a small courtyard surrounded by VIP offices. Squinting from the sun, I

squeezed the handle of the watering hose, and the barest hint of water hissed through.

There was a burst of clattering computer keys, and I moved to the next plant down. Phone conversation

filtered in from the office past the reception desk, accompanied by a belly laugh that sounded like the

bark of a dog. Weres. The higher up in the pack they were, the more human looking they managed, but

you could always tell when they laughed.

I glanced down the row of hanging plants before the windows to the freestanding fish tank behind the

receptionist’s desk. Yup. Cream-colored fins. Black spot on right side. This was the one. Mr. Ray raised

koi, showing them in Cincinnati’s annual fish show. Last year’s winner was always displayed in his outer

office, but now there were two fish, and the Howlers’ mascot was missing. Mr. Ray was a Den boy, a

rival of Cincinnati’s all Inderland baseball team. It didn’t take much to put two and two together and get

stolen fish.

“So,” the cheerful woman behind the desk said as she stood to drop a ream of paper into the printer’s

hopper. “Mark is on vacation? He didn’t tell me.”

I nodded, not looking at the secretary dressed in her snappy cream-colored business suit as I dragged

my watering equipment down another three feet. Mark was taking a short vacation in the stairwell of the

building he had been servicing before this one. Knocked out with a short-term sleepy-time potion. “Yes,

ma’am,” I added, raising my voice and adding a slight lisp. “He told me what plants to water, though.” I

curled my red manicured nails under my palms before she spotted them. They didn’t go with the working

plant-girl image. I should have thought of that earlier. “All the ones on this floor, and then the arboretum

on the roof.”

The woman smiled to show me her slightly larger teeth. She was a Were, and fairly high up in the office

pack by her amount of polish. And Mr. Ray wouldn’t have a dog for a secretary when he could pay a

high enough salary for a bitch. A faint scent of musk came from her, not unpleasant. “Did Mark tell you

about the service elevator at the back of the building?” she said helpfully. “It’s easier than lugging that cart

up all those stairs.”

“No, ma’am,” I said, pulling the ugly cap with the plant-man logo on it tighter to my head. “I think he’s

making everything just hard enough that I don’t try to take his territory.” Pulse quickening, I pushed

Mark’s cart with its pruning shears, fertilizer pellets, and watering system farther down the line. I had

known of the elevator, along with the placement of the six emergency exits, the pulls for the fire alarm,

and where they kept the doughnuts.

“Men,” she said, rolling her eyes as she sat before her screen again. “Don’t they realize that if we wanted

to rule the world, we could?”

I gave her a noncommittal nod and squirted a tiny amount of water into the next plant. I kinda thought we

already did.

A tight hum rose over the whirl of the printer and the faint office chatter. It was Jenks, my partner, and he

was clearly in a bad mood as he flew out of the boss’s back office and to me. His dragonfly wings were

bright red in agitation, and pixy dust sifted from him to make temporary sunbeams. “I’m done with the

plants in there,” he said loudly as he landed on the rim of the hanging pot in front of me. He put his hands

on his hips to look like a middle-age Peter Pan grown up to be a trashman in his little blue jumpsuit. His

wife had even sewn him a matching cap. “All they need is water. Can I help you out here with anything,

or can I go back and sleep in the truck?” he added acerbically.

I took the watering canister off me, setting it down to unscrew the top. “I could use a fertilizer pellet,” I

prompted, wondering what his problem was.

Grumbling, he flew to the cart and started rummaging. Green twist ties, stakes, and used pH test strips

flew everywhere. “Got one,” he said, coming up with a white pellet as large as his head. He dropped it in

the canister and it fizzed. It wasn’t a fertilizer pellet but an oxygenator and slime-coat promoter. What’s

the point of stealing a fish if it dies in transport?

“Oh my God, Rachel,” Jenks whispered as he landed on my shoulder “It’s polyester. I’m wearing

polyester!”

My tension eased as I realized where his bad mood came from. “It’ll be okay.”

“I’m breaking out!” he said, scratching vigorously under his collar. “I can’t wear polyester. Pixies are

allergic to polyester. Look. See?” He tilted his head so his blond hair shifted from his neck, but he was

too close to focus on. “Welts. And it stinks. I can smell the oil. I’m wearing dead dinosaur. I can’t wear a

dead animal. It’s barbaric, Rache,” he pleaded.

“Jenks?” I screwed the cap lightly back onto the canister and hung it over my shoulder, pushing Jenks

from me in the process. “I’m wearing the same thing. Suck it up.”

“But it stinks!”

I eyed him hovering before me. “Prune something,” I said through gritted teeth.

He flipped me off with both hands, hovering backward as he went. Whatever. Patting my back pocket of

the vile blue jumpsuit, I found my snippers. While Miss Office Professional typed a letter, I snapped open

a step stool and began to clip leaves off the hanging plant beside her desk. Jenks started to help, and

after a few moments I breathed, “Are we set in there?”

He nodded, his eyes on the open door to Mr. Ray’s office. “The next time he checks his mail, the entire

Internet security system is gonna trip. It will take five minutes to fix if she knows what she’s doing, four

hours if she doesn’t.”

“I only need five minutes,” I said, starting to sweat in the sun coming in the window. It smelled like a

garden in there, a garden with a wet dog panting on the cool tile.

My pulse increased, and I moved down another plant. I was behind the desk, and the woman stiffened. I

had invaded her territory, but she had to put up with it. I was the water girl. Hoping she attributed my

rising tension to being so close to her, I kept working. My one hand rested on the lid of the watering

canister. One twist and it would be off.

“Vanessa!” came an irate shout from the back office.

“Here we go,” Jenks said, flying up to the ceiling and the security cameras.

I turned to see an irate man, clearly a Were by his slight size and build, hanging halfway out of the back

office. “It did it again,” he said, his face red and his thick hands gripping the archway. “I hate these things.

What was wrong with paper? I like paper.”

A professional smile wreathed the secretary’s face. “Mr. Ray, you yelled at it again, didn’t you? I told

you, computers are like women. If you shout at them or ask them to do too many things at once, they

shut down and you won’t even get a sniff.”

He growled an answer and disappeared into his office, unaware or ignoring that she had just threatened

him. My pulse leapt, and I moved the stool right beside the tank.

Vanessa sighed. “God save him,” she muttered as she got up. “That man could break his balls with his

tongue.” Giving me an exasperated look, she went into the back office, her heels thumping. “Don’t touch

anything,” she said loudly. “I’m coming.”

I took a quick breath. “Cameras?” I breathed.

Jenks dropped down to me. “Ten minute loop. You’re clear.”

He flew to the main door, perching himself on the molding above the lintel, to hang over and watch the

exterior hallway. His wings blurred to nothing and he gave me a tiny thumbs-up.

My skin tightened in anticipation. I took off the fish tank lid, then pulled the green fishnet from an inner

pocket of the jumpsuit. Standing atop the step stool, I pushed my sleeve to my elbow and plunged the

net into the water. Immediately both fish darted to the back.

“Rachel!” Jenks hissed, suddenly at my ear. “She’s good. She’s halfway there.”

“Just watch the door, Jenks,” I said, lip between my teeth. How long could it take to catch a fish? I

pushed a rock over to get to the fish hiding behind it. They darted to the front.

The phone started ringing, a soft hum. “Jenks, will you get that?” I said calmly as I angled the net,

trapping them in the corner. “Got you now…”

Jenks zipped back from the door, landing feet first on the glowing button. “Mr. Ray’s office. Hold

please,” he said in a high falsetto.

“Crap,” I swore as the fish wiggled, slipping past the green net. “Come on, I’m just trying to get you

home, you slimy finned thing,” I coaxed through gritted teeth. “Almost…almost…” It was between the

net and the glass. If it would just hold still…

“Hey!” a heavy voice said from the hall.

Adrenaline jerked my head up. A small man with a trim beard and a folder of papers was standing in the

hallway leading to the other offices. “What are you doing?” he asked belligerently.

I glanced at the tank with my arm in it. My net was empty. The fish had slipped past it. “Um, I dropped

my scissors?” I said.

From Mr. Ray’s office on my other side came a thump of heels and Vanessa’s gasp. “Mr. Ray!”

Damn. So much for the easy way. “Plan B, Jenks,” I said, grunting as I grabbed the top of the tank and

pulled.

In the other room, Vanessa screamed as the tank tipped and twenty-five gallons of icky fish water

cascaded over her desk. Mr. Ray appeared beside her. I lurched off the stool, soaked from the waist

down. No one moved, shocked, and I scanned the floor. “Gotcha!” I cried, scrabbling for the right fish.

“She’s after the fish!” the small man shouted as more people came in from the hallway. “Get her!”

“Go!” Jenks shrilled. “I’ll keep them off you.”

Panting, I followed the fish in a hunched, scrabbling walk, trying to grab it without hurting it. It wiggled

and squirmed, and my breath exploded from me as I finally got my fingers around it. I looked up as I

dropped it into the canister and screwed the lid on tight.

Jenks was a firefly from hell as he darted from Were to Were, brandishing pencils and throwing them at

sensitive parts. A four-inch pixy was holding three Weres at bay. I wasn’t surprised. Mr. Ray was

content to watch until he realized I had one of his fish. “What the hell are you doing with my fish?” he

demanded, his face red with anger.

“Leaving,” I said. He came at me, his thick hands reaching. I obligingly took one of them, jerking him

forward and into my foot. He staggered back, clutching his stomach.

“Quit playing with those dogs!” I cried at Jenks, looking for a way out. “We have to go.”

Picking up Vanessa’s monitor, I threw it at the plate-glass window. I’d wanted to do that with Ivy’s for a

long time. It shattered in a satisfying crash, the screen looking odd on the grass. Weres poured into the

room, angry and giving off musk. Snatching the canister, I dove through the window. “After her!”

someone shouted.

My shoulders hit manicured grass and I rolled to my feet.

“Up!” Jenks said by my ear. “Over there.”

He darted across the small enclosed courtyard. I followed, looping the heavy canister to hang across my

back. Hands free, I climbed the trellis. Thorns pierced my skin, ignored.

My breath came in a quick pant as I reached the top. The snapping of branches said they were following.

Hauling myself over the lip of the flat-topped, tar-and-pebble roof, I took off running. The wind was hot

up here, and the skyline of Cincinnati spread out before me.

“Jump!” Jenks shouted as I reached the edge.

I trusted Jenks. Arms flailing and feet still going, I ran right off the roof.

Adrenaline surged as my stomach dropped. It was a parking lot! He sent me off the roof to land in a

parking lot!

“I don’t have wings, Jenks!” I screamed. Teeth gritted, I flexed my knees.

Pain exploded as I hit the pavement. I fell forward, scraping my palms. The canister of fish clanged and

fell off as the strap broke. I rolled to absorb the impact.

The metal canister spun away, and still gasping from the hurt, I staggered after it, fingers brushing it as it

rolled under a car. Swearing, I dropped flat on the pavement, stretching for it.

“There she is!” came a shout.

There was a ping from the car above me, then another. The pavement beside my arm suddenly had a

hole in it, and sharp tingles of shrapnel peppered me. They were shooting at me?

Grunting, I wiggled under the car and pulled the canister out. Hunched over the fish, I backed up. “Hey!”

I shouted, tossing the hair from my eyes. “What the hell are you doing? It’s just a fish! And it isn’t even

yours!”

The trio of Weres on the roof stared at me. One hefted a weapon to his eye.

I turned and started running. This was not worth five hundred dollars anymore. Five thousand, maybe.

Next time, I vowed as I pounded after Jenks, I’d find out the particulars before I charge my

standard fee.

“This way!” Jenks shrilled. Bits of pavement were ricocheting up to hit me, echoing the pings. The lot

wasn’t gated, and as my muscles trembled from adrenaline, I ran across the street and into the pedestrian

traffic. Heart pounding, I slowed to look behind me to see them silhouetted against the skyline. They

hadn’t jumped. They didn’t need to. I had left blood all over that trellis. Still, I didn’t think they would

track me. It wasn’t their fish; it was the Howlers’. And Cincinnati’s all Inderland baseball team was going

to pay my rent.

My lungs heaved as I tried to match the pace of the people around me. The sun was hot, and I was

sweating inside my polyester sack. Jenks was probably checking my back, so I dropped into an alley to

change. Setting the fish down, I let my head thump back into the cool wall of the building. I’d done it.

Rent was made for yet another month.

Reaching up, I yanked the disguise amulet from around my neck. Immediately I felt better, as the illusion

of a dark-completed, brown-haired, big-nosed woman vanished, revealing my frizzy, shoulder-length red

hair and pale skin. I glanced at my scraped palms, rubbing them together gingerly. I could have brought a

pain amulet, but I had wanted as few charms as possible on me in case I was caught and my “intent to

steal” turned into “intent to steal and do bodily harm.” One I could dodge, the other I’d have to answer

to. I was a runner; I knew the law.

While people passed at the head of the alley, I stripped off the damp coveralls and stuffed it into the

Dumpster. It was a vast improvement, and I bent to unroll the hem of my leather pants down over my

black boots. Straightening, I eyed the new scrape mark in my pants, twisting to see all the damage. Ivy’s

leather conditioner would help, but pavement and leather didn’t mesh well. Better the pants scraped than

me, though, which was why I wore them.

The September air felt good in the shade as I tucked in my black halter top and picked up the canister.

Feeling more myself, I stepped into the sun, dropping my cap on a passing kid’s head. He looked at it,

then smiled, giving me a shy wave as his mother bent to ask him where he had gotten it. At peace with

the world, I walked down the sidewalk, boot heels clunking as I fluffed my hair and headed for Fountain

Square and my ride. I had left my shades there this morning, and if I was lucky, they’d still be there. God

help me, but I liked being independent.

It had been nearly three months since I had snapped under the crap assignments my old boss at

Inderland Security had been giving me. Feeling used and grossly unappreciated, I had broken the

unwritten rule and quit the I.S. to start my own agency. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and

surviving the subsequent death threat when I couldn’t pay the bribe to break my contract had been an

eye opener. I wouldn’t have made it if not for Ivy and Jenks.

Oddly enough, now that I was finally starting to make a name for myself, it was getting harder, not easier.

True, I was putting my degree to work, stirring spells I used to buy and some I had never been able to

afford. But money was a real problem. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get the jobs; it was that the money didn’t

seem to stay in the cookie jar atop the fridge very long.

What I made from proving a Werefox had been slipped some bane by a rival den had gone to renewing

my witch license; the I.S. used to pay for that. I recovered a stolen familiar for a warlock and spent it on

the monthly rider on my health insurance. I hadn’t known that runners were all but uninsurable; the I.S.

had given me a card, and I’d used it. Then I had to pay some guy to take the lethal spells off my stuff still

in storage, buy Ivy a silk robe to replace the one I ruined, and pick up a few outfits for myself since I

now had a reputation to uphold.

But the steady drain on my finances had to be from the cab fares. Most of Cincinnati’s bus drivers knew

me by sight and wouldn’t pick me up, which was why Ivy had to come cart me home. It just wasn’t fair.

It had been almost a year since I accidentally removed the hair from an entire busload of people while

trying to tag a Were.

I was tired of being almost broke, but the money for recovering the Howlers’ mascot would put me in the

clear for another month. And the Weres wouldn’t follow me. It wasn’t their fish. If they filed a complaint

at the I.S., they’d have to explain where they had gotten it.

“Hey, Rache,” Jenks said, dropping down from who knew where. “Your back is clear. And what is Plan

B?”

My eyebrows rose and I looked askance at him as he flew alongside, matching my pace exactly. “Grab

the fish and run like hell.”

Jenks laughed and landed on my shoulder. He had ditched his tiny uniform, and he looked like his usual

self in a long-sleeve hunter-green silk shirt and pants. A red bandana was about his forehead to tell any

pixy or fairies whose territory we might walk through that he wasn’t poaching. Sparkles glittered in his

wings where the last of the pixy dust stirred up by the excitement remained.

My pace slowed as we reached Fountain Square. I scanned for Ivy, not seeing her. Not worried, I went

to sit on the dry side of the fountain, running my fingers under the rim of the retaining wall for my shades.

She’d be here. The woman lived and died by schedules.

While Jenks flew through the spray to get rid of the last of the “dead dinosaur stink,” I snapped open my

shades and put them on. My brow eased as the glare of the September afternoon was muted. Stretching

my long legs out, I casually took off the scent amulet that was around my neck and dropped it into the

fountain. Weres tracked by smell, and if they did follow me, the trail would end here as soon as I got in

Ivy’s car and drove away.

Hoping no one had noticed, I glanced over the surrounding people: a nervous, anemic-looking vampire

lackey out doing his lover’s daytime work; two whispering humans, giggling as they eyed his badly

scarred neck; a tired witch—no, warlock, I decided, by the lack of a strong redwood smell—sitting at a

nearby bench eating a muffin; and me. I took a slow breath as I settled in. Having to wait for a ride was

kind of an anticlimax.

“I wish I had a car,” I said to Jenks as I edged the canister of fish to sit between my feet. Thirty feet

away traffic was stop-and-go. It had picked up, and I guessed it was probably after two o’clock, just

beginning the span of time when humans and Inderlanders started their daily struggle to coexist in the

same limited space. Things got a hell of a lot easier when the sun went down and most humans retired to

their homes.

“What do you want with a car?” Jenks asked as he perched himself on my knee and started to clean his

dragonfly-like wings with long serious strokes. “I don’t have a car. I’ve never had a car. I get around

okay. Cars are trouble,” he said, but I wasn’t listening anymore. “You have to put gas in them, and keep

them in repair, and spend time cleaning them, and you have to have a place to put them, and then there’s

the money you lavish on them. It’s worse than a girlfriend.”

“Still,” I said, jiggling my foot to irritate him. “I wish I had a car.” I glanced at the people around me.

“James Bond never had to wait for a bus. I’ve seen every one of his movies, and he never waited for a

bus.” I squinted at Jenks. “It kinda loses its pizzazz.”

“Um, yeah,” he said, his attention behind me. “I can see where it might be safer, too. Eleven o’clock.

Weres.”

My breath came fast as I looked, and my tension slammed back into me. “Crap,” I whispered, picking

up the canister. It was the same three. I could tell by their hunched stature and the way they were

breathing deeply. Jaw clenched, I stood up and put the fountain between us. Where was Ivy?

“Rache?” Jenks questioned. “Why are they following you?”

“I don’t know.” My thoughts went to the blood I had left on the roses. If I couldn’t break the scent trail,

they could follow me all the way home. But why? Mouth dry, I sat with my back to them, knowing Jenks

was watching. “Have they winded me?” I asked.

He left in a clatter of wings. “No,” he said when he returned a bare second later. “You’ve got about half

a block between you, but you gotta get moving.”

Jiggling, I weighed the risk of staying still and waiting for Ivy with moving and being spotted. “Damn it, I

wish I had a car,” I muttered. I leaned to look into the street, searching for the tall blue top of a bus, a

cab, anything. Where the hell was Ivy?

Heart pounding, I stood. Clutching the fish to me, I headed for the street, wanting to get into the adjacent

office building and the maze I could lose myself in while waiting for Ivy. But a big black Crown Victoria

slowed to a stop, getting in my way.

I glared at the driver, my tight face going slack when the window whined down and he leaned over the

Kim Harrison - Hollows 2 - The Good, the Bad and the Undead

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