Chapters (43)
- The Outlaw Demon Wails
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- The Undead Pool: An Excerpt
- Chapter 2
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Credits
- About the Publisher
The quiet of the church soaked into me, and in the distance, I heard the sound of a car starting up. “Kitchen,” I said to myself, and sat up. Yeah, I had told Ivy I’d get on hallowed ground, but I wasn’t going to let that mess sit until tomorrow. Tomorrow I was going out with David, and once I knocked some sense into a happy band of demon summoners, I’d have my life back. Such as it was.
I stood in the threshold of the kitchen and sighed at the destruction. Maybe I could pay the pixies to clean it up. But they were tucked into the stump until the warmth of sunrise, so, resigned to the mess, I scuffed in. My back hurt as I picked up the broken clock and set it on the counter. Most of the rack was on the floor, and deciding I’d pile everything up now and sort it later, I went to the cupboard to get the broom.
It was going to be a long night.
Eleven
The moon was shining in the kitchen window as I wiped my footprints off the island counter. I was almost finished with cleaning up. It had taken a twenty-pixy-escort trip out to the shed for my toolbox, but I’d found a metal plate and a few wood screws to tack the rack together. I wasn’t going to put anything heavier than herbs on it, but at least it wasn’t hanging cockeyed from the ceiling. Yes, I had told Ivy I’d get on sanctified ground, but for some inane reason, I trusted that Al wasn’t going to show up, as some weird thank-you for not siccing Minias on him. Tomorrow he’d try to abduct me again, but tonight I was safe. And I never had told Ivy when I’d actually get to holy ground. Besides, Marshal was coming over, and the kitchen table was less datelike than the couch.
Tossing the dishcloth onto the table, I knelt before the open shelves under the counter. I had simply shoved everything in there on my first pass through, and it was a mess. If I couldn’t hang the smaller spell pots and utensils back up, I’d have to do some rearranging. My splat gun sat in the small spell pot nestled in with the rest on the bottom shelf, right where I’d need it if I was crawling. That was where it would stay. But the ceramic spoons needed a new home.
Gathering up the spoons and long utensils, I arranged them in a glass vase I’d pulled out of the back of a cupboard. I pushed my spell books down and used the vase as a bookend, taking up the space where the book Al had destroyed had been.