For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison Read Free Book Online

voice. “Your cat dumped my papers.”
    â€œYou bet,” he said, zipping off. Immediately I felt my blood pressure drop.
    Ivy’s soft steps intruded, and Jenks cussed fluently at her when she pulled the papers off the floor and set them on the desktop for him. Politely telling him to shove a slug up his ass, she strode past me to her piano, a spray bottle in one hand and a chamois cloth in the other.
    â€œSomeone’s coming out this morning,” she said, starting to clean Ceri’s blood from the varnished wood. Old blood didn’t flip any switches in living vamps—not like the chance to take it did. “They’re going to give us an estimate, and if our credit checks out, they’ll do the entire church. You want to pay the extra five thousand to insure it?”
    Five thousand to insure it? Holy crap. How much was this going to cost? Uneasy, I sat back up on my heels and dunked the brush. My rolled-up sleeve slipped, soaking in an instant. From my desk Jenks called out, “Go for it, Rache. It says here you won a million dollars.”
    I glanced behind me to find him manhandling my mail. Irritated, I dropped the brush and squeezed the water from my robe. “Can we find out how much it’s going to cost first?” I asked, and she nodded, giving her piano a heavy coat of whatever was in that unlabeled spray bottle. It evaporated quickly, and she wiped it to a shine.
    â€œHere,” she said, setting the bottle down beside the bucket. “It will get rid of the—” Her words stopped. “Just wipe the floor with it,” she added, and my eyebrows rose.
    â€œOka-a-ay.” I bent back over the floor, hesitating at the circle Ceri had scribed to call Minias, then smeared it to nothing. Ceri could help me make a new one, and I wasn’t going to have demonic blood circles on the floor of my church.
    â€œHey, Ivy,” Jenks called. “You want to keep this?”
    She rocked into motion, and I shifted to keep her in my view. Jenks had a coupon for pizza, and I smirked. Right. Like she would even consider ordering anything but Piscary’s Pizza.
    â€œWhat else does she have in here?” Ivy said, throwing it away. I turned my back on them, knowing that the chaos I kept my desk in drove Ivy insane. She’d probably take the opportunity to tidy it. God, I’d never be able to find a thing.
    â€œSpell-of-the-Month Club…toss,” Jenks said, and I heard it thunk into the trash can. “Free issue of Witch Weekly …toss. Credit check…toss. Crap, Rachel. Don’t you throw anything away?”
    I ignored him, having only a small arc to finish. Wax on, wax off. My arm was hurting.
    â€œThe zoo wants to know if you want to renew your off-hours runner’s pass.”
    â€œSave that!” I said.
    Jenks whistled long and low, and I wondered what they had found now.
    â€œAn invitation to Ellasbeth Withon’s wedding?” Ivy drawled in question.
    Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.
    â€œTink knocks your kickers,” Jenks exclaimed, and I sat back on my heels. “Rachel!” he called, hovering over the invitation that had probably cost more than my last dinner out. “When did you get an invitation from Trent? For his wedding?”
    â€œI don’t remember.” I dunked the brush and started in again, but the hush of linen against paper brought me upright. “Hey!” I protested, wiping my hands dry on my robe to make the tie come undone. “You can’t do that. It’s illegal to open mail not addressed to you.”
    Jenks had landed on Ivy’s shoulder, and they each gave me a long look over the invitation in her grip. “The seal was broken,” Ivy said, shaking to the floor the stupid little white tissue paper I had carefully replaced.
    Trent Kalamack was the bane of my existence, one of Cincinnati’s most beloved councilmen, and the Northern Hemisphere’s most