The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison

current chaos.
    â€œYou think it’s connected to the misfired charms?” I asked.
    â€œCould be,” she said as she turned the map back around when I dropped my charms into my bag and went to the silverware drawer for a finger stick. “David called when you were in the shower. He wants to talk to you about some odd activity he’s been witnessing.”
    Tension flashing, I took the sticky note she pushed at me with one long, accusing finger, recognizing her precise script and the cell number on it. “Thanks, I’ll call him,” I mumbled as I stuffed it in my pocket. I hadn’t talked to him or anyone from the Were pack since an uncomfortable dinner almost a month ago. It had been to celebrate the addition of a few new members, but everyone except David had treated me as if I was some sort of revered personage. I’d left feeling as if they were glad I’d gone so they could cut loose. Who could blame them? It wasn’t as if I was around that much. My female alpha status was originally supposed to be honorary—and it had been until David began adding members. I hadn’t said anything because David deserved it. That, and he was really good at being an alpha.
    â€œWill you be around for dinner?” she asked, ignoring that I was staring at my open silverware drawer, slumped in guilt.
    â€œAhhh, I wouldn’t count on it,” I hedged, wincing when Jenks’s kids flowed through the kitchen, jabbering in their high-pitched voices. Circling Bis, they begged him to wax the steeple so they could slide down it, and blushing a dull black, the gargoyle took off after them. “You batching it tonight?”
    Ivy set a hand on her papers so they wouldn’t fly up. “Yes. Nina is with her folks tonight.”
    Her mood was off, and I put the finger stick in with my charms to invoke them later. Ivy’s control was good, but why put warm cookies in front of someone on a diet? “She doing okay?” I asked, crouching to get my splat gun out of the nested bowls.
    Ivy’s smile was wistful when I came back up. “Yes,” she said, and a small knot of worry loosened. Whatever was bothering her wasn’t Nina. “She’s doing well. She still has control issues when heated, but if she can realize it in time, she can funnel the energy into other . . . directions.” Her pale cheeks flushed, and her fingers clicked over the keys in a restless staccato.
    Knowing Ivy, I could guess where that energy was being diverted, and I dropped the splat gun into my bag, peering in to see what I’d collected. Pain charms, finger stick, wallet, phone, keys, lethal magic detection charm . . . the usual. “Hey, I appreciate you trying to get my car back. Edden still working on it?” I said, still fishing for what was bothering her.
    The irritating tapping of her pencil ceased. “No one out there knew me, Rachel,” she complained, and my eyebrows rose. She is worried about my car? “I worked in the I.S. for almost a decade, all the way from runner to the arcane, and no one out there knew me!”
    Ah, not my car, her reputation. Smiling, I dropped my bag on the table, glad no one there recognized her. Maybe now she’d be free to live her life. “Jeez, Ivy, you were the best they had. If they ignored you, it was because they’re still ticked. There’s a difference.”
    â€œMaybe, but I didn’t see anyone I recognized.” Lips pressing, she tapped her maps. “You saw how busy it was. Half of Piscary’s children worked in the I.S., and no one was out there.”
    â€œMaybe they were out at other calls,” I suggested.
    â€œAll of them?” Again the pencil tapped, the cadence faster. “Where is everyone?” she said, eyes on the map. “I can see some of them being let go when Piscary died, but Rynn Cormel would still need a foothold in the I.S. Maybe more so since