by Kim Harrison
Dali sniffed. “Of course you do,” he muttered.
“Even if the lines hold for only a short time, we can get the familiars out,” Newt said. “They will undoubtedly be gathering in the largest space and be easy to move.”
But I didn’t want a rescue. I wanted a resolution.
“This is a bad idea,” Dali said, unconvinced.
“But it is an idea,” I said. “Bad or not, we have to try. If I can steal the energy, will you spin the curse? All of you? I can’t do it.”
I held my breath as Dali sighed, eyes averted as he balanced what was at stake and what it might cost. Pride was his fulcrum, unfairly shifting the weight so that one side had greater force than the other to make a wrong decision more than possible, but likely. We were going to doom the world to another wave of needless violence because of pride, I thought, already trying to find a way to make this work without the demons’ help. Perhaps the dewar would be enough.
But Dali stood, looking down at himself, stuck in the form he was in when the lines closed. “No one likes this helpless muck we wallow in. I’ll ask them. They will decide.”
My heart leapt, and Trent’s fingers tightened on my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” Newt said as she beamed, reaching for Al gracefully. “There might be some dissent that needs to be addressed. Al, will you accompany me?”
Silent, Al picked up his bottle. Not looking at me, he stomped past, his shiny cop shoes catching the light and his pace holding an amazing amount of determination and bad attitude. He yanked the door open, his steps audible on the carpet as he went to the great room.
“Dali?” Newt asked smoothly, her hand now extended to the more powerful, slightly overweight demon.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Dali grumbled as they left together.
“Nonsense.” Newt looked over her shoulder at me and winked. “You got them to let her into the collective as a student. You even got them to stand up to Ku’Sox when she and Al and that elf of theirs stood up to him. And they didn’t kill Trent because of you,” Newt was saying as the door eased shut. “Getting them to practice elven magic will be nothing,” came through, muted, and then Dali’s bitter laugh.
My skin tingled where Trent’s hand traced across it as he moved to the wet bar. “Trent?”
He was silent as the enormity of what we were going to try to do fell on us. Still not saying anything, he brought me a glass of water. “Here,” he said as the cool glass filled my hand. “You need to keep your fluids up.”
“Trent . . .”
“Drink it,” he said, and I obediently took a sip, the room-temperature water bland as it slipped into me. Sighing, he sat down beside me, his brow furrowed and his gaze hard on nothing. “I want to say that it’s going to be okay,” he finally said.
“But you don’t know.” Ribs ached as I leaned to set the water on the floor. “Trent, the Goddess is looking for me. She’s better equipped for a mental battle and she knows how to fight me off. I don’t want to kill her, which means I’ll have seconds to wrestle control away, and then I’ll be fighting to get free before I infect her too deeply for her to shake it off. And then what? I’ll be hiding from her the rest of my life.”
Trent’s eyes touched on mine and he reached for my hands. “You don’t know that.”
My fingertips tingled where they rested against his aura. I started to pull back, and he gripped me harder. “Don’t move,” he said sheepishly. “You’re getting rid of my headache.”
Damn it, I was coated in them even now. No wonder Dali was looking at me like I was a leper. “You too, eh?” I said, giving up on trying to hide them anymore.
“I was so scared when they hauled you up onto that stage,” Trent said suddenly, and I held my breath as he carefully pulled me into him. “I saw my entire life with nothing. My money gone, my power stolen. I couldn’t reach you and no one listened to me. I thought they were going to kill you.”
I could hear his heartbeat as I rested my head on his chest. It felt good to do nothing. “So did I,” I whispered, unable to say it louder lest I start to cry. I’d been terrified for him. For Jenks.
“And now you’re going to do it again.”
His hand gently stroked my hair. I didn’t want to move for anything. “Probably.”
Trent made a rueful sound. “You were right. As usual. This is hard. But I’m going to do it anyway.”
He kissed the top of my head, and I tilted myself so I could find his lips with mine. A faint tingle spread between us, warming and healing even as my leg throbbed.
His eyes were glistening when our lips parted. I wished that this was over and it was tomorrow, and we were having coffee at Mark’s before taking the girls to the zoo. “You should stay here with the girls,” I said, and his hold on me tightened.
“Just try to stop me.”
He was looking at my mouth again, but my besotted smile faded at the sudden rap of a thick knuckle at the door.
“Ivy and Nina . . . ,” I whispered, fear causing a spike of adrenaline in me.
“Quen?” Trent said, his brow furrowed as he carefully helped me to sit up while the door opened. His hands were gentle, but I was still grimacing when I looked up to find it was Al, not Quen, standing there—staring at us with the memory of his own loss so clear on him it hurt. Seeing my pity, his face hardened.
“I wanted to let you know that Quen has found word of the ambulance driver and paramedic who picked your . . . friends up. They’re both in intensive care with internal injuries.”
“No.” I fell back into the couch after trying to stand. “What happened?”
“They’ll both make it. It helps that they were living vampires,” Al said dryly. “But as for Ivy and Nina . . .” He shrugged. “There is no sign of them.”
“Cormel.” My heart pounded as I turned to Trent. “He wanted to talk to you. He took them!”
Trent rose, pace fast as he went for the phone on the desk. Al cleared his throat to stop him dead in his tracks. “It wasn’t Cormel who injured the paramedic and the driver,” Al said. “It was Nina.”
Tension pulled my shoulders tight as I figured it out. Nina had died on the way. The sun had set and she’d never lost consciousness. She had freaked out, and Ivy had tried to contain her. Shit, where would Ivy have taken her to try to bring her under control? Somewhere safe where Cormel couldn’t touch her?
Heart in my throat, I grabbed the arm of the couch and pulled myself up. “I have to go.”
“But the demons and the lines . . . ,” Trent started, and then he changed his mind, bending to pick up the crutch Newt had thrown, bringing it to me with a sad, determined look.
“Al, tell everyone I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The crutch fit under my arm, painful as I hobbled to the door. Al stood and did nothing, making me wonder if he’d told me this knowing I’d leave. He knew better than most how close I’d come to losing myself the last time I’d fought the Goddess.
“I might suggest the helicopter,” the demon said, voice oily. “The entrance you make in that is almost as good as simply . . . popping in. Besides, the roads are impassable. I’ll go with you. No one listens to me anymore.”
“I know the feeling,” Trent said, but I was already halfway to the hallway.
“Thank you,” I said breathlessly as I passed Al.
“Don’t thank me.” Al looked at his fingertips in speculation. “I just don’t want to be there while Newt explains to the collective that we have to work with the elven Goddess to try to reopen the lines.”
“That bad, eh?” I muttered, jaw clenched as we found the hallway.
Al leaned close, voice dangerous as he whispered, “We don’t forget, Rachel, and it’s not as if it was our ancestors who were betrayed. It was us.”
Chapter 29
The glow from the streetlight made long shadows against the tombstones, and the chopper blades whipped everything not nailed down out and away. I’d never get through my hai
r tonight without a bottle of detangler, and I made a mental note to check my bathroom before we left—because even if Ivy was here, there was no way we could stay.
“Careful,” Trent said, arm around my waist as he helped me over the shallow wall that separated the graveyard from the garden. My stomach was tight, and Jenks was swearing as he looked over the destruction. I couldn’t bring myself to look up, even as the helicopter began to shut down and the wind quit pushing.
“What an unholy mess,” Al said from behind me, and I suddenly realized he was walking on sanctified ground. The elven curse was well and truly broken then.
One good thing, I thought, looking up.
Breath catching, I stopped, pain stabbing my leg as Trent continued on for a step. Backpedaling, he stood beside me as tears threatened to blur my vision. I will not cry, I said to myself, but my chest was tight and my throat almost closed.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Trent said, gently pushing me back into motion.
I let him, my head down again as we angled to the stone walk and the undamaged wooden fence. “Bis?” I called as we circled around the front, but there was nothing, no cheerful sparkling of pixy dust, no wind-chime laughter, no deep rumbling response from the gargoyle—just the faint hush of traffic a street over. It felt dead here, abandoned.
“I’ll find him,” Jenks said as he hacked his way through the tangle of my hair.
“You can fly?” I asked as he got himself free and hovered backward, tugging his clothes straight and checking his sword belt.
“Yeah.” Expression serious, he peered up at the steeple. “It feels pretty good here, even if it looks like the back room of a troll bordello.”
He darted up, wings clattering, and Al pushed past us. “Damn mystics,” he muttered, stomping through the gate and toward the front door.
Mystics. I suppose they might have gathered here more than anywhere else, either mine or the Goddess’s thousand eyes looking for me.
Guilt closed in. I should have checked on Bis. Okay, I’d been busy, and until the sun went down he hadn’t been in any danger, but I was responsible for him.
“He’s a grown gargoyle,” Trent said, whispering it so Al wouldn’t hear.
“How do you do that!” I exclaimed, but Trent’s smile faded very fast. “He’s just a kid.”
Al turned from where he waited in the shadows, his new suit rumpled. “Treble is sleeping,” he said, voice low. “I’m sure he’s doing the same.”
Sleeping or in shock? I mused, stretching out my awareness and finding nothing, nothing at all. Trent’s grip on my elbow pinched as he looked behind us at the empty graveyard. Al took the stairs, impatient with our slow pace. Neighbors watched us from behind tweaked blinds, vanishing when he sarcastically doffed his hat at them. “You’d think they never saw a demon before,” Al muttered.
“I think it’s the helicopter,” I said, glancing over my shoulder before starting up the wooden stairs. Ivy had to be here. She was scared, possibly hurt. Vampires always went home to ground when they were hurt. The city was in a panic, but here in the Hollows it was eerily silent as everyone held their breath for sunrise. Please be okay, Ivy. Please.
Al gave the DON’T CROSS tape a look before yanking it down to flutter into the bushes. Jenks’s wings were almost normal, and I felt the first hints of relief at the bright silver dust.
“I found Bis,” he said as Trent helped me up the stairs. “He looks okay. His aura looks like he’s just asleep.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, and Al grunted as he shoved the door open.
“I told you, it’s the shock. If they’re lucky, they’ll simply not wake up.”
Saying nothing more, Al strode inside as if it didn’t bother him, but I could tell it did. His grumbling grew louder as he clicked the light switch several times to no effect.
“Jenks, what about Ivy?” I whispered.
The pixy hovered before Trent and me, a worried dust slipping from him. “She’s in her room. Nina too. Wait!” he shouted when I started forward. “Slow down. You go in there stinking like fear and you’ll set Nina off. Give Ivy a chance to organize her thoughts. She knows you’re here. They’ll be afraid of Al, but you and Trent look like easy prey.”
Oh God. “It’s bad?”
Jenks nodded, making my heart sink. “You, cookie maker, need to take a backseat. We know how to bring Ivy down. You don’t.”
“I know what not to do,” Trent said, but his worry was obvious as he helped me shuffle inside. I was glad there was no light as I looked over the soggy gloom. Al was poking about my seldom-used desk, head cocked as he held up a tiny chair Jenks had left there. Jenks was darting about, lighting the candles we had scattered around for when the power went out. Slowly the space brightened as the wicks took hold and wax began to burn. It smelled—sort of a sour, bite-at-the-back-of-your-throat smell, stinking of vampire fear and heartache. Ivy . . .
I looked down the black hallway, both afraid and anxious.
“Maybe I should go get Bis,” Trent said, and Jenks made a sparkling beeline back to us.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard out of you since you, ah . . . never mind. You’re going to need a ladder,” Jenks said, but Trent was already taking the belfry stairs two at a time. Sighing, Jenks pointed at Al, then his own eyes, and then Al again before following Trent.
Al frowned, wearing that same wary, reluctant look he’d had in Trent’s office before he walked out with Newt and Dali. He made a “get on with it” gesture, and my heart thudded. Jenks was watching him, eh?
“Ivy?” I called, wanting to give her even more warning. “You here?” It was obvious she was, and I limped to the top of the hallway. There was a thin crack of light leaking from under her door, and I looked at Al. “Why are you here?”
“To catch you when you fall. And you will fall. It’s simply a matter of finding the right lever.”
Swell. “Ivy?” I called again. “Ah, you okay?”
Breathless, I waited at the sudden slide and thump of something heavy in Ivy’s room. A frantic hush of words followed. It was Ivy, and I reached out, finding myself painfully yanked back into Al. I fought to get his hand off me, stopping when Ivy shouted, “No. Nina, no!” I hesitated, Al’s grip easing as Ivy added, “It’s Rachel. Please. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t take it away. Don’t leave me. No. No!” Nina howled, a desperate pain in her voice. “Oh God. Give it to me!” she suddenly raged. “Give it to me!”
I couldn’t move as Nina’s fierce demands dissolved into heartrending sobs. Any hope I might have had that the newly undead might survive their souls died. Clearly Ivy had captured Nina’s, and Nina was out of her mind to get it back. Everything was out of balance and her second death was the only way to bring it back again.
“Whoever made this curse was a sadist,” I whispered, and Al’s grip on me fell away.
The light spilled into the cramped hallway as Ivy opened her door. The sound of Nina’s heartrending sobs pulled at me as Ivy slipped out and shut it behind her. The newly undead were often unpredictable as their mind reorganized under overwhelming shifts of hormones and instincts while the body fought with the mind, trying to convince it that it was still alive. Hunger usually kicked in when the original aura was depleted to a measurable threshold. But that wasn’t why Nina begged for Ivy to return in great gasping sobs. It wasn’t blood Nina wanted, it was her soul.
Back against the door, Ivy stared at me with black, haunted eyes, chilling me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“This shouldn’t have happened.” I hobbled forward, tears blurring my sight. “Ivy, I’m so sorry,” I gushed, my arms going around her as she began to cry.
Great gasping sobs shook her, and I held her to me, the silk feel of her hair bunched between us. My own tears flowed at the unfairness of it all, the end of her hope that she and Nina might have something normal, that they might have a life, a love, in the fleeting time they were allowed a moment of happiness before the cur
se came around full circle and took it all away.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, hardly breathing.
“She wanted me to kill her,” Ivy sobbed, her voice muffled. “She begged me, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even lie to her and promise I would.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and she pulled back from me, eyes glistening as Nina quietly wept behind the door Ivy guarded.
Ivy wiped her eyes, looking more beautiful than I’d ever seen her even if it was grief that brought her alive. “She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Ivy whispered. “There was no way to stop it. And I couldn’t finish it. When she begged the paramedic to, I . . . I wouldn’t let him.”
She’d fought them. She’d beaten them into unconsciousness with the savagery of a lover protecting the one she loved.
Trying to smile, I wiped the tears from my cheek and sniffed. “It’s okay,” I said, stomach knotting. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it either. Remember?” I hated them, hated the demons for this. Of all the curses I’d seen, heard whispers of, witnessed the destruction from, this utter raping of hope by destroying people through their love and fear was the worst.
Ivy licked her lips, haunted eyes flicking past me when Nina sobbed behind the shut door. “I should have killed her twice, but I was so scared that her soul would be lost forever when the lines fell and there was nowhere for it to go. Nina was fine until her soul went into the bottle.”
Another heartrending cry of loss rose behind the door when Ivy opened her hand to show me the hazy bottle I’d given her. Nina’s moan was so filled with pain it even made Al shift his feet. Or maybe he just wanted a closer look.
“I had to do it.” Ivy’s hand shook. “I had to. I couldn’t let her soul go to that hell.”
I took Ivy’s hand in mine, closing her fingers over the bottle before she dropped it. Her hands were frighteningly cold. Her head bowed, and I pulled her to me again, hating the demons all the more. But a niggling thought wedged under my heartache. Ivy had used the bottle after the lines had fallen. It had worked with the Goddess’s strength. Mystics wreathed her, unseen and unnoticed, my thousand eyes that I’d blinded myself to still working my will for me.