“Rachel!” Ivy cried, then grabbed my arm and yanked me into the threshold of the door to the hallway. We stood there, holding the doorway to remain upright as the ceiling flaked and bits of plaster covered the burn marks. Finally it stopped, but I was still shaking. My eyes went to the empty hall. They were gone.

“Why do people live here?” I asked, looking at the room as if I’d been betrayed as I took the gun out of my pants and dropped it on the couch.

“Did they do that? Make the earthquake?” Ivy asked.

“Probably.” Her pupils were still black, and I shifted away from her, not wanting my own fear to tip her over the edge. I put my ear to the phone to find that the connection had been lost. Pierce was probably on his way back already, a day late and a dollar short. The damage to the room from the quake had been minimal, and the broken door from their attack could be dismissed by a paid-off insurance adjuster. I still had my photograph, though.

“And they call me a black witch,” I said as I closed my phone and gingerly picked my way through the burns and plaster dust to the window to look down and see if I could spot them leaving. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the smaller quakes that the coast sustained were from the coven. This was just nasty. But at least I was alive.

Ivy had gone to the wet bar, and the hiss of something full of sugar and bubbles opening was loud. We both were alive.

“Thank you for helping me,” I said.

Ivy exhaled long and loud as she came up from her drink. “You’re welcome. Any time.”

I smiled, but my thoughts were on her last words before the coven had shown up. Ivy and I worked well together. We always had.

Too bad I’d totally screwed it up.

Twenty

I leaned forward over the backseat to look up at the tall conference hotel we were trying to turn into, feeling lost as we waited for traffic to clear. We weren’t in my mom’s car since it would be impossible to find a parking spot. No, we were still cashing in on Trent’s hospitality, and we’d ridden across town in the car his hotel had on reserve for when their most important guests wanted to go somewhere. The car was long, black, and shiny, and came with a driver. Only problem was that Trent wasn’t in it. No Jenks, either. To say I was worried would be like saying pixies were a tad mischievous.

It was getting close to midnight and the conference was starting to kick into high gear. Lights from the oncoming traffic were nonstop. Pierce sat beside me, his feet spread wide as he tried to look unaffected by the crowds, but I could tell they were getting to him. He wasn’t happy that the coven had used his chat with Vivian to take a shot at me, and he’d apologized several times, thinking I blamed him. I didn’t, but the odds the demons had given me were sounding more realistic than they had.