by Kim Harrison
“Beating?” The vampire leaned closer, not knowing what had happened. “That wasn’t a beating.”
I tightened my hold on the line, feeling it start to take us. “No, the one your master is going to give you.” Thank you, Jenks. I will keep her alive.
The man’s eyes became round, fear shimmering his motion for the first time, making him somehow more captivating with the contrasting shadows of fear and power. We’d bested him, and he was going to be punished.
“No!” he shouted as I shifted my aura and the world moved around us. The red of sunset became the harsh red of the ever-after sun. His howling cry of denial evolved, peaked, and became the scream of the gritty wind. The image of his crooked fingers reaching for us dissolved, and I saw it mirrored in the broken rock surrounding us. The sound of Jenks’s wings was gone. We were alone and the world was broken—just like me.
My heart thumped and I shifted Ivy’s weight until she hissed in pain. I squinted at the distant, red-smeared horizon, then brought my eyes closer, sending it over the remains of the Hollows, already in shadow. The spires of the basilica rose over it all, the bastion carefully preserved where most everything was left to crumble. The space where my church would have been was nothing but rock and grass. My idea to walk to it vanished. Ivy was done.
“You can rest now,” I whispered. “It’s going to be okay.” Heart aching, I eased her down against a boulder, and she gripped my arm, refusing to let go. My eyes shot to hers, and the utter blackness in them stitched all my fears into one smothering black piece. I couldn’t kill her to prevent her undead existence. If Bis didn’t find us in time . . . I . . . I didn’t know.
My throat was tight as I sat beside her and pulled her head to rest against me. She could move no farther, and this was as good a place as any, better than some. Whatever happened, we would face it together, away from the filth she’d struggled her entire life to escape.
Chapter 3
The gritty wind had rubbed the skin between my short boot and pants leg raw. I huddled closer to Ivy, trying to get into the lee of the stone, but the boulder wasn’t large enough. Ivy didn’t move as my weight shifted, and I twisted my leg almost under myself to hide it. It would be asleep in about three minutes, but the respite from the wind was worth it.
Ivy’s shallow breath came and went, her scent obvious under the choking burnt amber reek that permeated the ever-after. I listened for the clink of rock or sliding rubble that would mean a surface demon as I looked over the dry bed of the Ohio River and to the crumbled remains of the Hollows below. The sun was almost down, and the light was vanishing from the basilica’s steeple inch by slow inch. Elsewhere the shadows were already thick. Behind me where Cincinnati would be, things moved, howled, and hooted as the sun vanished.
Surface demons. The large circle I’d put around us would keep them at bay, but they were gathering. No one, not even Newt, stayed still on the surface after dark—and we’d been noticed.
The horizon was still bright, but directly overhead the sky was that peculiar ever-after shade of reddish black that reminded me of old blood. A tiny sliver of moon would set just after the sun, and it glowed an eerie silver. It was the only pure thing, but so distant as to depress rather than uplift.
Experience told me the wind might abate with the sunset, a prospect I both welcomed and dreaded. It got cold when the sun went down, and Ivy was suffering, drifting in and out of consciousness. We were both thirsty, but she’d never said a word, happy that I was here with her.
Vampires suck, I thought, not for the first time as I rested my head against her shoulder and closed my eyes against the upwelling grief. How had we gotten here, playing a deadly game of waiting where Ivy’s life hung in the chance between time and pixy wings?
Black traces of smut ran over the gold glow of my aura hazing my protection circle, arching like electricity between poles. The surface demons were gathering outside, not so patiently waiting for my circle to fall. One of them stood so his silhouette would be obvious against the darkening sky. He was taller than the rest, and the way he held his staff made me wonder if he was the same one Newt had tormented last summer in her calibration curse.
“You should go,” Ivy whispered, and I started, not having realized she was awake.
I tugged her coat closer around her, careful not to hurt her. “No,” I said simply, and she turned her black eyes to me, unblinking and catching the faint light from the sky.
“I’m going to die compromised,” she said, as if she were talking about cutting her hair. “Without medical intervention, I’ll wake hungry and incoherent. You should leave. I don’t want to hurt you.”
My thoughts flashed to the one time we’d tried to share blood. She’d mistakenly taken her feelings of love from it and had nearly killed me. I’d seen the beast of hunger in her before, and she hurt me because I would hurt her to stop it. “No,” I whispered, and she sighed.
Silent, I watched the tall surface demon elegantly swing his staff to drive another from his rock, and the smaller demon scuttled sideways. “Bis will be awake soon,” I said, but it sounded like a prayer even to me. Ivy wasn’t shivering anymore, scaring me. “It will be okay. Jenks went to get Bis. He can jump you right to Trent’s surgical suite. It won’t be long now.”
But I knew she heard the lie as well as I did.
“I’m sorry,” Ivy slurred, and a lump filled my throat. “I know you wanted things to be different.”
I stared ahead, trying not to blink. They weren’t going to make it here in time. Forcing a smile, I adjusted her blood-stained coat. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“I’m scared.”
I eased closer, not liking the chill she had. “I’m not going anywhere.” Damn it, I didn’t have anything to help her. Nothing. She was going to die, and all I could do was hold her hand. The tears slipped down, cold in the chill wind. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Sensing the end, the surface demon with the staff moved, easing down from his rock to hunch just outside the barrier. He looked like an Aborigine, wise, gaunt, and cautious where his kin were simply thin and hungry.
“Promise me you won’t be my scion. I want Nina to do it.”
Surprised, I stilled my hand against her hair. I’d thought she’d been sleeping. “Nina?” My voice had been bitter, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some of this was Nina’s fault. The young woman liked risks, was clever, and was in love with Ivy—and so addicted to the sensations that her master vampire could pull through her that she’d do just about anything to escape him even as she crawled back for more. If Ivy was an undead, she could claim Nina as her scion. At least that way, someone Nina loved would be abusing her instead of a half-mad, dying undead. Felix was insane from the sun already, and his children would soon be orphaned, vulnerable in the extreme unless another undead claimed them. No one would contest it.
“I can’t do that to you,” she said, and heartache filled me when I realized she was crying. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life trying to keep me from walking into the sun. If you can’t end my second life, then promise me that you’ll walk away. That you won’t try to help me. Understand that I’m lost.”
Throat tight, I held her close. “I promise,” I lied. The wind gusted and died, making the surface demon’s tattered clothes shift. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“I’m feeling better,” she said, her breath becoming shallower. “Really.”
“That’s good,” I said, my hand moving against an unbloodied part of her hair. My throat was tight. She’d tried so hard to be the person she wanted to be. She’d given me friendship, kept me from pain, sacrificed her goals to keep me alive. And I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t give her anything back. I could only hold her hand.
Maybe it’s enough, I thought miserably. The smallest things meant the world to her.
But then the head surface demon jerked straight. In a breath, he turned and vanished, rocks clinking to mark his passage. Another was a
n instant behind him. Tense, I pulled myself up, tasting the gritty night wind. Something had scared them off.
“Bis?” I whispered, the sound of my voice echoing back off the flat, rocky earth. But the sun was still up.
“I should have known,” a bitterly proud and slightly accented voice said. “How did you do it? Elf magic?”
My pulse thudded. Breath held, I sent my eyes searching. A soft glow blossomed, and I found him. Just outside my circle and between me and the ruins of Cincinnati, Al stood in a soft puddle of light. His velvet frock coat was elegant, and his stance sure. The glow leaking from the archaic lantern hardly made it past his silver-buckled shoes, but I knew it was all that could get through the thick layer of smut on his soul—and I knew it bothered him, for once he’d been able to light an amphitheater to bright noon.
“Do what?” I whispered, not moving—hardly breathing. Al had tried to kill me. Okay, he’d tried to kill me a couple of times, but this last time I think he’d really meant it.
“My line is no longer in that stinking puddle of water,” he said, nose wrinkled. “I came to find out why before the sun set. It was you?” Lip curling, he dusted a nearby boulder with a silk cloth and set the lantern down. “Trying to curry favor makes you weak.”
“Al . . . ,” I breathed, and pain flashed across his face, ruddy from the setting sun.
“Do not call me that. My name is Gally.”
“Al, please,” I said again, carefully extricating myself from Ivy, hoping she would remain asleep. The heartache of his bitter abandonment hit me hard, my emotions already paper thin because of Ivy. I felt new tears threaten, hating them. “It was an accident. I was trying to . . .” My throat closed up. Ivy slumped behind me, but he wouldn’t help, and that hurt even more.
“Oh-h-h-h,” he said in mock distress. “Your sad, sad little friend is dying.”
He could save her with a word, but I remained silent, standing before him, hating his bitter callousness. He was better than this. I’d seen it in unguarded moments.
“You smell like carrion,” he said, nose wrinkled. Behind me Ivy stirred but didn’t wake. “Butterflies like carrion.” He paused as if in speculation. “No, that’s elf. I can smell the stink from here, even over the putrid reek of burnt amber.”
Nothing in him had changed. I knew it wouldn’t have. My finding love with Trent hadn’t hurt him this bad. I was a symptom, not the core of what brought this hatred out. The fear that he might kill Trent just to spite me was real, though, and I backed up a step.
“Silent?” He sniffed, looking disgusted. “Miracles do happen.”
Why is he still here? I heard the scrabbling of claws and I glanced at Ivy. “I could use your help,” I whispered, knowing he never would.
“Demons don’t help,” he said bitterly. “Demons torment. Can’t you tell the difference?”
“That’s not how I saw you.”
Al eyed the thin bands of smut crawling over the surface of my circle, his lips twisting in jealousy. “You did at first.”
“Because that’s all you showed me,” I shot back. I’d thought he’d understood me. I’d trusted him, and he’d turned his back on me because Trent was an elf, the same as the woman he’d once loved and hadn’t been brave enough to fight for. “What did I ever do to you?”
Al uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, anger shining from his eyes. “You hurt me!” he yelled, giving in and punching my circle.
With an inward rush of energy, my circle fell into him with a pop.
Not expecting it, Al lurched, his hat falling off as he stumbled back and caught his balance. I stared at him in shock as his hat rolled to a stop almost at my feet. There’d been an instant of connection between us, an undeniable spark. He looked just as surprised, his eyes wide in disbelief.
“H-how?” I stammered, then renewed the circle as claws scraped in the ugly red light.
His lips parted to show his blocky teeth. Al put a careful finger to my bubble. The black crawled to him, and when he touched it, my circle fell.
“Stop that!” I shouted, heart pounding as I set it anew, but he was already across it and in here with me. Something was wrong. He’d broken my circle, and he hadn’t even tried.
“That little bitch!” Al shouted, and Ivy stirred.
I gasped as Al strode to me, halting with an unexpected shortness when I raised my hand in threat. “She changed your soul, yes?” the demon demanded, fidgeting and so close I could smell the smoke from his fire on him. “Newt changed it so that puking elf goddess couldn’t find you by your aura?”
I nodded, not breathing until he took three steps back. Okay, he was pissed, but he wasn’t choking me.
“The crazy bitch changed your aura to mimic mine!”
My mouth dropped open. Horrified, I looked at my circle. Jenks had said my aura was different, but he never said it looked like Al’s! But then, mine wasn’t covered in as much smut and probably looked brighter. That’s why the demon had been able to drop my circle with a touch. Great. Now I had nothing to block his spells with!
“She patterned your new aura after mine. The bitch!” Al wasn’t looking at me, hands on his hips as he watched the surface demons throw rocks at the lantern he’d left behind until it shattered and Al’s globe of light rolled in the dust. “That’s how you were able to move my line.”
“But why?” Had it been the crazy demon’s perverted attempt at a joke? Or maybe she thought it would bring us back together. But then a new thought sparked through me. “If our auras are the same, then Treble can teach me how to jump the lines.”
Al spun, coattails furling. Expression hard, he pointed a finger at me. “I share my soul resonance with no one!”
My skin was prickling. He was pulling on the line, gathering energy to him. Our eyes met, and he grimaced when he realized I could feel it. He took a breath, and frantic, I dove for cover. “Knock it off!” I shouted as a ball of black-tinted energy exploded against the ground, peppering me with bits of rock. “It wasn’t my idea!” I added, scrabbling to my feet.
But he was already deep in a chant, a glowing mass of forced power stretching between his fingers. Crap on toast. He was using old battle magic. “Al!” I protested, then stiffened when Al’s lantern light rolled into my circle and it fell with the sensation of sparkling tingles.
“Ivy,” I whispered, turning to see a surface demon creeping to her.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. Ignoring Al, I dove for her. Howling, I pulled a massive wave of energy from the line. Al lurched to get out of my way, his goat-slitted eyes wide when I threw the unfocused energy at the surface demon instead of him. The surface demon skittered back, scuttling away with an evil chatter.
“And don’t come back!” I shouted, shaking as I reinstated the circle. “Or I’ll give you more of the same!”
My skin prickled. I spun back to Al. But the demon wasn’t even looking at me. Relieved, I turned to Ivy, seeing her eyes black and beautiful. “You okay?” I asked her, and she smiled.
“I’ll miss watching you work,” she said, more alive than I’d seen her in two hours.
Pissed, I pulled the hair out of my mouth and glared at Al. “You’re a prick for standing there when I need help, you know that?” I said, then ducked as something flew over my head.
“Rachel!” Bis called, the cat-size gargoyle winging in a tight circle to drop down onto the rock Ivy was slumped against. “Jenks said you were going to walk to the church. Hold on. I’ll be right back. Trent’s at the wrong line.”
Trent? I took an elated breath, but the little guy was gone. The sun had gone down unnoticed, and his pebbly black skin was hard to see against the night. I’d hardly recognized him before he’d vanished.
My knees were shaking, and I turned to find Al was gone. Coward. “You left me!” I shouted. “And I can love anyone I want!” I added, but there was no one there but Ivy to hear me.
“Son of a bastard,” I muttered, hope a quick flash as a figure stepped fro
m nothing in the soft sound of displaced air. There was the quick pulse of leather wings, and Bis was gone again.
“Nina!” I had expected Trent, but it was Nina, the athletic woman in her classy dress suit and black nylons bolting to Ivy with a vampiric quickness despite her high heels.
“You’ve been here for hours!” Nina exclaimed, black eyes angry as she fell to kneel before Ivy and covered her with her jacket. “Why didn’t you give her any blood?”
It hurt when she said it like that. “She doesn’t want any,” I said, my relief overwhelming.
Ivy pushed weakly at Nina, eyes slipping shut. “No. I’m okay. Rachel did what I asked.”
“She doesn’t want blood. Stop forcing her,” I said.
Hunched over Ivy, making her Hispanic elegance into a frightening shadow, Nina all but hissed, “This is what she is. What she wants means nothing when it comes to keeping her alive.”
But if she quit striving for who she wanted to be, Ivy might as well be dead.
I took a breath to tell Nina to back off, startled when Bis jumped back into existence. The little gargoyle was on Trent’s shoulder, and he immediately popped back across the lines, for Jenks, probably.
Thank you, God. Trent shuddered as the stink of burnt amber filled his lungs, and something flip-flopped in me. My eyes darted to where Al had last been to be sure he was gone. Trent was here. I didn’t have to do this alone. He wouldn’t let Ivy die. We’d be in time.
“Rachel.” Trent’s usual slacks and dress shirt looked out of place, sheened with red from the glow in the sky. His dress shoes slipped on the dust, and he caught his balance effortlessly. His pace crossing the dust was fast, and his eyes were quick. Sunset, even in the ever-after, was truly his best time. “Thank God you’re all right. Jenks told me what happened. Is Ivy okay?”
“She’s hurt bad,” I said as he reached me. Nina was trying to get her pearl button undone from a silk cuff, but Ivy wouldn’t let her, insistently promising she was okay. “She’s got internal injuries and a concussion.” I hesitated, surprised at the sudden lump in my throat. “I probably shouldn’t have moved her, but I had to get to a line . . .”