Rachel Morgan is an earth witch (which means she uses wooden charms activated with drops of her own blood to do magic, as opposed to layline witches who draw their power from laylines) and works for the IS (Inderland Security), a police force consisting of supernaturals like witches, living vampires, werewolves, fairies and pixies. They police the supernatural crimes, while the FIB (Federal Inderland Bureau) is its mundane, human counterpart. For the last year, Rachel has had a run of truly awful assignments and what seems like very bad luck on top of things.
She’s sick and tired of being jerked around and after being sent to reclaim a leprechaun for tax fraud, she decides that enough is enough. She’s going to quit the IS and go into business for herself. For the leprechaun’s three wishes, she makes it seem as if she had the wrong paperwork, so the little barmaid can go free, and Rachel can use her first wish to make sure she doesn’t get caught. However, she promises her other two wishes to another IS runner, Ivy Tamwood, and Jenks, her pixy backup, to make sure they don’t report her.
Unfortunately, although Rachel’s boss tells her to her face that he’s been trying to make her quit for the best end of a year, she’s still under a death threat until she can pay off what remains of her contract. The IS seriously try to discourage people from defecting from their ranks. She is further surprised when Ivy, an incredibly talented and experienced IS runner, announces that she’s going to buy her way out of her own contract and offers to go into business with Rachel instead. She claims to already have an office space they can share, which turns out to be an old converted church, where Ivy is currently living.
Because news travels fast, and everyone in supernatural Cincinnati knows Rachel is under the IS death threat, she’s already been evicted from her apartment and all her possessions have been cursed. Until she gets them doused in salt water, they could kill her. So when Ivy claims Rachel can rent the extra bedroom, she doesn’t really have any other choice. Nevertheless, she has reservations, as Ivy is a living vampire (she has the vampire virus in her system from birth which gives her quicker reflexes, enhanced senses, but she can choose whether to drink blood or not – although most do, but she won’t be forced to stay out of the sun and subsist on only blood until she dies and becomes a full vampire). Ivy reassures her that she’s not drunk blood for three years, and that Rachel will be safe in the church.
Until Rachel’s able to find enough money to pay off the threat against her, she’s in danger every time she sets foot outside her door. She decides that the way to make the money is by proving that the city’s golden son, wealthy, charming, handsome and somewhat mysterious councilman Trent Kalamack has a double life as a large scale manufacturer and dealer in illegal bio-engineered drugs. When she tries to question him, she’s shocked to find that he wants to hire her to work for him, offering a very lucrative salary, which would certainly make sure she was safe from the IS forever. She flatly refuses his offer and tries to sneak into his estate to find evidence while transformed into a mink. Trent is a very resourceful man, however, and Rachel ends up caught and put into a cage in his office. Even after she manages to escape and turn herself human again (after Trent took her to fight in the city’s rat fights), she can’t really act on the things she discovered about the ruthless businessman unless she gets proof.
To complicate matters further, it seems that the IS may not be the only ones who want Rachel dead. While working on a way to prove that Trent’s a crook, Rachel is attacked by a demon, sent to kill her and only barely survives, after being forced to make a deal with it. Being an independent contractor turns out to be much more dangerous than Rachel ever imagined.
As of me writing this, the book is on sale at Amazon. My full review can be found here.
Ha! I had forgotten how much crazy stuff happened in the first book. I’m so glad you are reviewing the series.
I discovered that I hadn’t ever reviewed the first seven books in the series. While I’ve never re-reviewed book before, I may do for at least some of the later ones, which I frankly reviewed a very long time ago.