The Undead Pool
Page 22

I breathed a sigh of relief tinged with worry. I’d learned everything, and nothing. “Me too,” I said as I stood, jar still in hand. Somewhere between sitting down and now, she had put on a long flowing white gown that might look good next to Al in his British lord finery.
“Go collect your elf from Gally before the silly demon kills him. You’re going to want the pleasure of that yourself,” she said. “And, lovely, be sure to have sex with him before you do. Elves know what magic is good for.”
“B-but you said . . .” I stammered, shocked when I felt the line pull through me and she vanished, leaving the sunshade and the spoiled tea to go bad. The cookies, though, she’d taken.
“This is so messed up,” I whispered as I picked my way to Trent and Al, my jar of nothing tucked under an arm.
Trent took my elbow. “You don’t need to worry about Nick anymore.”
I thought of Newt’s somewhere safe, and I jerked away. “If you ever attack Al again, I’ll never speak to you,” I said.
Huffing in satisfaction, Al sidled closer, his burnt-amber-scented bulk domineering.
“That goes for you too,” I added, shoving him back with a finger on his chest. “Honestly, you’re both an embarrassment, rolling around in the dust, trying to see who has the biggest magic wand.”
Al frowned. “What did the crazy mother pus bucket say?”
I looked out over the baking dirt, trying to see it green and moist. That you loved Ceri so much you made a slave of her for a thousand years because that was the only way you could have her. That the Goddess was real and you all killed her. Not to have sex with Trent. “That someone is pulling wild magic out of the lines and to find out who and stop them,” I said, and Al growled something almost unheard.
“I’ll find out who,” Trent said grimly. “And we will stop them, Rachel.”
I turned my back on the ruined earth and the ugly nothing that the elves and demons had made of the ever-after. That we would find them and stop them was a foregone conclusion. What had me concerned was that Newt, dancing about catching fireflies, could feel the wild magic as well as I.
I wasn’t the only demon sensitized to wild magic. Newt was too.
Ten
Jenks’s kids laughing in the garden was like audible sunshine, keeping me awake as I lay on my bed and stared at my shadowed ceiling. The heavy covers had been kicked off hours ago to leave me chilly under just the sheet, my arms crossed behind my head and my foot moving slowly back and forth to make a moving bump that Rex occasionally patted. It was around four in the morning, but slumber had been elusive and I was beginning to think I might see the sunrise before I dropped off.
“Just go to sleep,” I moaned, and the cat purred.
My mind wouldn’t shut off, circling around and around what had happened in the ever-after. I was sure everything would make sense if I looked at it from the right perspective, but it never moved toward understanding: Newt with her jars of nothing, Nick dead in Newt’s hidey-hole, the feel of wild magic prickling over my skin intensifying as I took Trent’s hand, Al hurting me in his outrage that Trent was going to enslave them through my ignorance, Al spending a thousand years trying to find a way for elves and demons to have kids, Newt being sensitized to wild magic—the same wild magic that had set Al off.
Demons didn’t practice wild magic, but clearly it was a cultural bias, not a physical inability. I thought it telling that Newt believed in the Goddess when much of the elven population didn’t. Was she insane, or just aware of more than the rest of us?
Did Trent believe? I wondered. He was going to sacrifice two goats to her. Was it rote or belief? Did it matter to the Goddess if he believed as long as the goats were dead? Did I believe?
I recalled the scintillating feel of wild magic prickling over my skin like the chime of a bell—and then last spring when a presence had acknowledged me and helped me invoke those elven slave rings. Cold, I pulled the covers up to my chin. And how did sex figure into it? My focus blurred as I pulled the grit-coated memory of Trent to me, imagining how he had looked with the ever-after dust running off him in the shower, the sigh of relief he must have made, the slowly dissipating red puddle under him and the soap bubbles among his toes, the glisten of water on his clean skin, both slippery and firm as he shook his head and the drops went flying. His hair would still look light under the water. I’d seen it once. But his eyes would be a brighter green.
“Oh God, stop it, Rachel,” I moaned, rolling over and burying my head under the pillow. Just how long had it been since I’d been with anyone? Much less someone I loved?
But I don’t love Trent.
My breath grew stale, and in a sudden flurry of motion, I flung the covers off and sat up. Rex dropped down, going to the door with a hopeful chirp of an early breakfast. The oak floor was cold on my toes, and I felt ill from lack of sleep. Pushing my hair back, I looked at my clock blinking a slow four A.M. The sun rose at about ten after five this time of year, and giving up, I reached for my robe, angry almost as I stuffed my arms in the blue terry cloth sleeves and tied it closed around me. Maybe warm milk would help.
The church was silent apart from the pixies outside, and the air was cold on my bare legs as I padded to the kitchen. Ivy and Nina were sleeping, and the mental image of them spooned together, their hair mingling as they shared the same pillow, drifted through me. I smiled and left the kitchen light off. Happiness was happiness wherever you found it.
Warm milk alone wasn’t going to do it, and I quietly got out the hot chocolate mix. The coming dawn let in enough light to see by, and I found things by memory, fingers moving sure in the dim light as Rex twined about my feet and got in my way. Newt’s empty jar sat on the sill next to Al’s chrysalis and Trent’s pinkie ring. I knew it was empty, but it gave me the creeps—the early light catching the edges of the glass and making them glow.
My phone was in my bag, and I eyed it as I got out the sugar. If the pixies were up, Trent would be too. Squinting in the light from the fridge, I smiled as Jenks came in, probably drawn by the activity. “Morning, Jenks,” I whispered as I filled a mug with milk and added the cocoa.
“Can’t sleep?” he said as he perched on the roll of paper towels.
A bright silver dust spilled from him. Morning and evening were truly his time. Feeling fuzzy, I shook my head and looked out the small kitchen window. Most of the red glow in the clouds was from the fires in Cincinnati. Sirens, too, had been a faint, almost nonstop background. Edden hadn’t asked me to come in, and for that I was thankful. Today he’d probably be screaming for help as he tried to cope with rising vampire violence.
“Too much going on,” I said as I put the mug in the nuker and hit go. I leaned back against the counter while the microwave spun, the square of light diffusing into nothing. Trent had once made me hot chocolate. Stop it, Rachel.
The seconds on the microwave counted down, and not wanting to wake up Ivy and Nina, I cut it short. Jenks was a quiet hum of accompaniment as I took the hot chocolate out onto the back porch. The door would thump if I closed it, so I left it open, carefully easing the screen door shut before padding over the slightly damp wood and sitting on the top step, my knees almost to my chin. God, I was tired, but sleep wouldn’t come.
Mug held to warm my fingers, I looked over the garden to the glow of Cincinnati. The news last night had been awful, even if there were fewer misfires to focus on. Magic was being voluntarily curtailed above and beyond reason, creating almost more problems than the misfires. A bright spot was that the I.S. was beginning to function on a reduced level to try to contain the more aggressive living vampires. Nonvampire agents were teaming up with the FIB street force out of frustration as their living vampire managers became more and more circular in their thinking, unable to make a decision. It was scary how dependent they were on the undead.
The forensic and investigative teams of both factions were working together the best, giving weight to my theory that magic and technology were the languages of common sense. Still, there were more than a handful of ignorant good old boys and girls on both sides of the fence resisting. Edden was in his personal heaven and hell as he got what he’d been working toward the last three years. There was almost as much friction between the new interspecies partnerships as there was between unruly citizens and the authorities. There was talk of putting Cincinnati and the Hollows under quarantine in the fear that whatever was keeping the undead asleep might spread. We were truly on our own while the world watched.
My toes were cold, and I hid my left foot under my right. The chocolate was beginning to scum up, and I blew it to the far side of the mug before I took a sip. It was quiet, and neither Jenks nor I said anything as we listened to Cincinnati slowly shift from fear and sirens to an exhausted quiet as the day approached.
Jenks hummed a warning, but I felt Bis long before he dropped from the steeple, landing with an almost unheard thump. I turned, smiling at the serious adolescent as he shifted his batlike wings and blinked sleepily. “Kind of pushing it, aren’t you?” I asked him, seeing as he had a hard time staying awake when the sun was up.
He glanced at the steeple. “I got about an hour yet. Put me in the belfry if I zonk out, will you?” he said, the vowels grinding together like rocks. “We had six patrols drive by, but most everyone is minding their own turf.”
Especially when the world’s only day-walking demon lives on your street, I thought sourly. “We’ll get it figured out,” I said, wondering how I was going to get through today on the scant sleep I’d managed. Trent wanted me to come out tonight around six to talk to Bancroft. That might be difficult with the curfew Edden had going, but perhaps if I got a note or something from him I could get through the roadblocks.
Or I could call Trent and tell him I can’t come. I didn’t like that he’d adroitly sidestepped telling me what he and Al had discussed. But then again, I hadn’t offered to tell him about Newt’s and my conversation, either.
“You gonna call him?” Jenks said, somehow knowing where my thoughts were. “He’s probably awake.”
Bis looked behind me into the church, and the soft sound of footsteps intruded. “Everyone is awake,” I said as I turned to Ivy looking rumpled and sexy in her black silk top and pajama bottoms. Expression listless, she pushed the screen door open and shuffled out, squinting disparagingly at the horizon. She looked half dead, and I slid over a few feet to make room for her. Still not having said a word, she sank down, her feet on the step below mine. She’s wearing nail polish? Bis shifted his wings, and we all settled in again. Seeing she needed it more than me, I handed her my hot chocolate.
“Thanks,” she rasped, her voice uncharacteristically rough.
“Tink’s little pink rosebuds, Ivy. You look like hell,” Jenks said, and she gave him a black-eyed stare over the mug. The spicy, nose-prickling scent of vampire incense became stronger, and Bis wrinkled his face. I was starting to be able to pick out Nina’s characteristic scent off her. It was lighter, almost flowery compared to Ivy’s darker shadow scent, but lacing it was a thread of blackness—Felix.
“Nina okay?” I asked, thinking it was odd we were all out here on the steps while Cincinnati shook off the night.
A smile made Ivy look almost alive. “She’s sleeping like—ah, a rock,” she said. “Thank you. For caring, I mean,” she added, unable to look at me.
“Nina is a good person,” I said. Jenks darted off, unable to handle the emotional, flowery crap, as he put it, and I gave her a sideways hug. “She’s good for you, and you’re good for her. If they cancel the fireworks, you want to have a cookout when it’s all over?” When was it ever over?
Ivy took another sip. “Or sleep,” she said, focus distant. “I could use some sleep.”
“Me too,” Bis said. “I woke up yesterday when a fire truck went by. That never bothers me.”
“Maybe you’re just getting older,” I said, and he smiled, his black teeth catching the light. Giving me a nod, he took to the air, and my hair flew as he went back to the steeple to talk to Jenks. A lonely hoot of a train pulled my attention back to Cincinnati, and I wondered if they would continue to stop if we were put under quarantine. Though the waves were still occurring with no discernible pattern, the misfires were under control. I’d noticed an odd, unexpected sense of superiority from humans that their science was holding up in the face of no-magic.
The brum of a motorcycle roaring to life echoed in the quiet street behind us, and I sighed again. So much for my idea of catching a few more winks.
Ivy straightened, her expression shifting from alarm to fear when Jenks made a wide arcing path around the garden, arrowing to us. “That was Nina’s bike,” Ivy said, pale.
“Someone is stealing it?” I said in disbelief, and Ivy stood, the mug of hot chocolate spilling down the steps.
“Nina!” she cried, racing inside.
“Nina is gone!” Jenks shouted, and I froze at Ivy’s cry of heartache. It iced through me as I stood on my back porch, falling to the pit of my soul and tightening into a black knot.
I bolted inside. “Ivy!” I called, running through the back living room and into the hallway. Their bedroom door was open, and I came to a sudden, breathless halt when Ivy almost ran into me. Her eyes were black, and fear had made her beautiful. A pixy girl hovered over her, tears slipping like sun from her eyes as she wrung her dress and apologized in high-pitched, fast words. “Where’s Nina?”
Ivy shoved past me on the way to the kitchen. Her katana was in her hand. Jenks and I followed her as the pixy who’d been on watch wailed, a black dust slipping from her. “Gone,” Ivy said as she pulled out a drawer for her set of throwing knives. “He took her. He waited until I left, and then he walked her right out of the church.”