The Undead Pool (18 page)

The hard leather was cold against me, and her hand on my shoulder warm. “Ivy,” I said softly, tears blurring my vision. “Look at me. He didn't call her to him to kill her. He wants her alive. He needs Nina alive in order to see the sun.”

Ivy's face twisted in fear, and the scent of vampire incense poured over me, making my neck tingle. I was losing her.

“Ivy!” I called, and her gaze came back to mine. “He won't kill her unless by mistake. We have some time. We can get her back. Give me a chance to get dressed and grab my charms so I can come with you. You're not alone. We'll do this together.”

Fear showed in her eyes, and she took a heaving breath, the blade beginning to shake against me. Jenks's dust glowed in her hair, and for some dumb reason, I felt more love—more loved, maybe—than I ever had before.

“He probably took her to Cormel's,” I said to give her something to focus on so she could find herself. “That's where Felix has been staying. You have to figure out how we are going to get in. That's what you do.”

Her hand shook, and with a thump, the sword hit the floor and slid four feet. My breath came in a gasp as she spun away off me. Shaking, I sat up. She was huddled on the floor, her knees to her chin as she held herself together and cried great gasping sobs of heartache and frustration. “How can I save her?” she moaned. “How? It's like heaven in his arms. Hell in his mind . . .”

I glanced up at Jenks, then pretty much crawled over to her, pulling her to me so she didn't have to cry alone. She was real and solid, her fear and grief shaking in her. The world had shifted. I didn't need her anymore. She needed me, and I wouldn't fail her.

“We will get her back,” I said, my arms holding her against the tremors, my words a breath in her hair as she shook. “I promise.”

Eleven

P
hone to my ear, I sat in the passenger seat of Ivy's mom's big blue Buick and listened to the background FIB office chatter as Rose, Edden's secretary, looked for Edden. I hadn't had any luck getting ahold of David, his voice mail full and his cell going unanswered. It wasn't unusual for him to let it ring, especially when working, but I didn't like that the last time I'd talked to him, he'd been investigating the Free Vampires.

We were parked outside of Cormel's, Ivy fiddling with her scarf as she stared at the unassuming two-story tavern turned residence, filling the car with the intoxicating scent of frustrated vampire. As we waited for Jenks to return from his recon, the memory of our trip out west bubbled up from the recesses, pulled into existence by the faint scent of elf from the back. The two aromas were combining to make my libido run a tingling path from my neck to my groin and back again.

Vampire pheromones and curiosity once drew me into a possible lifelong path with Ivy, but we were truly better apart. She needed to be needed, and I couldn't be that person anymore. I was too much a demon, and not enough witch.

A huge Free Vampire glyph had been spray-painted on the twin oak doors, making me wonder if it was coincidence or if the cult had fixed on Felix as something special, seeing as he was awake and no other undead vampire was. The sun would be up soon, and a bright glint hazed the pristinely clean windows on the upper floor. If he was still here, Felix would be trapped in the more elaborate underground apartments, making him more aggressive in his madness. I wasn't about to ask Ivy to wait for reinforcements, though. I agreed that the longer Nina was there, the harder it would be to not only pull her out but separate their minds.

I stiffened when the chatter on the line turned into a woman's tired voice. “I'm sorry,” Rose said, clearly distracted. “Captain Edden is in a meeting. Can I take a message?”

A message?
I thought, then I exhaled, trying not to get mad. Ivy was tense enough. “Sure. Tell him that Rachel, Ivy, and Jenks are at Cormel's rescuing Nina from Felix. Free Vampires might be involved, and any help the FIB could provide would be appreciated,” I said sarcastically. “But I realize you're a little busy this morning. What with your meetings and all. I'm turning my phone off, but I'll check my
messages
when we're done. Bye-bye now.” Not waiting for a confirmation, I hung up.

Ticked, I hit the dash, then winced when I noticed Ivy's eyes had dilated at my anger. “Sorry.” I needed David and the muscle he commanded. Why didn't he answer his damn phone!

Ivy's jaw tightened. “They must have caught Jenks. Let's go.”

She reached for the door handle, and I took her arm, stopping her. Her eyes fixed on mine, and I let go, stifling a shiver at the depth of fear in them. “No one caught Jenks,” I said, looking over the quiet parking lot with its handful of cars and a sad attempt at landscaping between us and the twin-door front. No one had bothered to take down the Pizza Piscary's sign, and it looked old and tired. “But we can get out of the car. The cameras are down.”

Get out. It was a good idea. Between her frustration, my fear, and a car smelling like an aphrodisiac mix of both of us, it was a wonder she hadn't tried to jump my jugular. And the cameras
were
down. Jenks had made us wait a block over while he spent five minutes clearing our way. Anyone watching the video feeds might notice that the sun never got any closer to rising, but I doubted it.

We reached for our doors simultaneously, not worried about anyone actually looking out a window. The fresh air shocked through me, clearing my head. Ivy, too, seemed to breathe easier. A siren lifted from across the Ohio River, then faded, pulling my attention to Cincinnati and the brightening sky. Ivy got her katana out from the backseat, leaving the sheath on as she made a few practice moves to loosen up and get rid of some adrenaline. Me, I leaned against the car and tried calling David again to no avail, deciding to mute it instead of turning it off. If worse came to worst, I could be found with the built-in GPS—providing we weren't too deep.

“There he is,” Ivy said in relief, and I dropped the phone into my pocket and leaned into the car to get my shoulder bag. Jenks was a silver trace of dust when I levered myself back out, and I tugged my red jacket down and made sure the cuffs of my jeans weren't rolled up.

“I think I know why David isn't answering your calls,” the pixy said as he came to a hovering, white-faced halt before us, and my heart dropped. “I didn't see Nina,” he added quickly when Ivy paled. “Or David. But the ground floor where the restaurant used to be looks like a blood orgy just finished and your pack was the main entertainment, Rache.”

Shit.

Weres couldn't be turned, but they could be bound. Anger mixed with fear, the icy slurry setting my heart pounding as I strode for the front door. Anger won, and I pulled my splat gun with a cold certainty I'd use deadly force if needed. David was my rock, the one person in my life who could walk into any situation and find justice with a no-holds-barred force that held no apology, no thought to the future. Heaven help the person who hurt him.

“And you think you're a bad alpha,” Jenks said, easily pacing me.

“Rachel, wait up!” Ivy all but hissed, jogging until she caught up. With a shake, she shook the sheath from the katana.

“Go right in,” Jenks said as we got closer, the old oak door silent and unmanned. “No one is conscious.”

Asking Ivy to wait, I pulled my phone back out and hit 911. I already knew which button to hit to go to their answering machine, and as soon as I got the beep, I rushed to say, “This is Rachel Morgan. Runner number 2000106WR48. I'm at Pizza Piscary's. It's sunrise. There are multiple unconscious vampires and Weres needing medical assistance. Use caution as a master vampire may be awake and violent. And try not to shoot us, okay? It's me, Ivy Tamwood, and Jenks Pixy.”

I ended the call, and Ivy moved. Grimacing, she yanked one side of the big oak doors open and lurched in. I almost ran into her when she stopped dead in her tracks.

The predawn light didn't go very far, and I stared, hand over my nose as I tried to figure out what my still-adjusting eyes were seeing. “Holy crap,” I whispered, looking over the loungelike arrangement of couches and tables set between the still-used bar and the stone fireplace. Slack-faced people were strewn everywhere, all of them smeared in blood. Some were in skimpy evening wear, others in utilitarian uniforms. It was a free-for-all, everyone-welcome-no-one-leaves blood orgy. As Jenks had said, they still breathed, but it was obvious they were stupefied with either blood loss or blood indulgence—or both.

Where is my pack?

Ivy draped her scarf over her mouth and went in. Heart pounding and looking for something to shoot, I followed. It got worse as my eyes adjusted. Blood smeared the floor, furniture, and skin, but there were no large pools of it. People I hardly recognized wearing my dandelion tattoo looked as if they might have resisted at first, Cormel's children in skimpy attire—not so much. All dripped blood. No one was tending the satiated or depleted, which was not the norm—if any of this could be considered normal. It smelled like stale alcohol and dead things by the side of the road.

“Where's David?” I whispered, and Jenks hummed back from the fireplace, his trailing sparkle the only clean thing in the room.

“He's not here,” he said, expression grim. “Downstairs, maybe? That's where they would've taken Nina this close to sunrise. Everyone's aura looks okay. No one is going to die. Today.”

David wouldn't voluntarily leave his people like this. I tucked my splat gun away, my anger growing. All of them had taken my hurt for me, and I didn't even know all their names. I wasn't going to let this go, and someone was going to answer for it.

White-faced, Ivy crouched beside a big man with bulging muscles. “Dan,” she said, giving him a shake, and the man snorted, eyes fluttering. “Dan, wake up. Who did this?”

Please don't say Nina,
I thought, knowing Jenks was thinking the same thing as he sat on the banister and sifted an unhappy blue dust.

“Ivy?” The man smiled, then winced as pain etched his expression. “Don't move me. Oh God, don't touch me. Are they gone?”

Ivy took her hand away. With overindulgence, the undead left their victims with a very low threshold to stimulation. Even the breath of their assailant could register as unbearable pleasure, and the effect lingered for a time. “Danny. Who did this?”

“That bastard Cormel has been keeping in the basement,” Dan breathed. “It was the Free Vampires. They got him out. The Weres showed up, following them, and things got out of hand. He pulled us all into it. They tried to get him to go with them, but he wouldn't and they finally went away. Left us as we were.” His breath came in a staggering hiccup as he tried to sit up. “My God,” he said, eyes unfocused but brilliant. “I'd die for him. He's like liquid fire.”

Felix was here. The Free Vampires weren't. And Nina was with Felix.

Ivy didn't move when Dan gripped her arm, and the ragged tear in his flesh began to fill with blood. “Where is he?” he begged, his legs twisted at an odd angle. “I . . .” Confused, he looked at the vampires around him as if only now remembering. “Where is he?”

Ivy knelt, her katana within reach as she moved his hand off her and he moaned in pleasure. “Shhh,” she soothed, yanking a throw from a nearby couch and tucking it under his chin. “Go to sleep. Rest.”

“No,” he said petulantly. “I need.”

She nodded, her expression soft and caring. “I know. Go to sleep.”

Dan stared up at her, panting as she gently brushed the hair on his forehead, and I shuddered as he fell unconscious.

Ivy's expression was tight with a hard anger when she rose, her grip white knuckled on her katana. “It's not supposed to be like this,” she whispered, eyes black.

But it often was.

I followed her into the kitchen and the small elevator just off it that led to the lower rooms. Half the industrial ovens had been removed to make space for a big, comfortable table that could seat twenty people. Vampires were homebodies, keeping their “children” close and fostering a dependence that was attractive and felt safe. But it was a lie, and the danger usually came from within the same walls. “We're taking the elevator?” I asked, though it was obvious.

Ivy hit the down button and the doors slid apart, the car having returned to the surface to rest. She strode inside, her katana in hand and her hair pulled into a ponytail as she put herself at the back of the lift. Arms crossed, she waited for me. The elevator looked awfully small.

“I'm taking the dumbwaiter,” Jenks said as he saw her black-eyed, tense state.

Seeing me balk, Ivy tried to find a less aggressive pose, and with my thoughts on finding David, I got in. Jenks hovered at the closing doors, darting away as they slid shut. “What's your plan?” I said as the lift descended.

Ivy's posture tightened. “Felix dies, Nina lives. That's my plan.”

Yeah, I had a similar one. “You can't kill him,” I said, knowing she wouldn't like that.

“You don't understand,” she almost snarled.

Angry, I made a fist and hit the stop button. “Don't you
dare
tell me I don't understand!” I whispered, getting in her face and backing her up a step. “Not three years ago I came over here looking for revenge after Piscary blood raped you. I let him live, and you will
not
kill Felix!”

Even if they've killed David?
a tiny voice whispered, and I couldn't answer it.

Her clenched jaw eased, and she dropped her eyes.

“Felix is the only undead vampire awake,” I said, backing off before she found her anger again. “We need to find out why and if that's the only reason they're interested in him.”

Ivy's chin rose. “I'm here for Nina. I don't care about Felix or Free Vampires.”

“If you kill him, Nina will spiral out of control.”

Ivy lurched forward to hit the button to make the lift move. “Nina is fine,” she lied through clenched teeth.

Heart pounding, I smacked the stop button again. “She is
not
fine,” I said, and then pity cooled my anger. “I'm sorry,” I said softly. “The only way Felix could take control of her like that is if Nina let him, which means she's been allowing him access behind your back.” Head down, Ivy pulled away from me. “You said it yourself that she was doing better than you expected. Well, it's because she's been sipping the blood of the dog that bit her. She's still tied to him.”

“Nina doesn't need him!” she shouted.

My shoulders slumped. Hope died hard, and the lie was easier to bear. “Two steps forward,” I said softly, and Ivy's jaw tightened again.
One back,
echoed in my thoughts. I knew Ivy was thinking it too. She'd been where Nina was now, and she balanced on the edge every day.

“If you kill him, she goes with him,” I said, and Ivy nodded, tears making her eyes blacker. “Probably at the wrong end of a gun. If we get her back, we can keep taking two steps forward until she can let go. She's strong. She'll make it.” God, I hoped she made it.

Ivy nodded, wiping her tears as if surprised to see them. “I won't kill him.”

I could almost hear her unspoken “yet.” It was the acknowledgment I needed, and I pushed the button to continue. Ivy exhaled, and then the elevator dinged. My chest hurt. What the undead demanded of their children was hell. But at least she hadn't been involved in the madness upstairs. There hadn't been enough time.

“Stay behind me,” Ivy whispered, ghosting out, her balance perfect and every motion one of grace as she looked first to the ceiling and then to the sides. The large room seemed empty. She beckoned me forward, her gleaming katana dipping in a show of nervous tension. I edged to the door to look out and keep the elevator from closing.