The Undead Pool (19 page)

Still holding her sword, Ivy flung a chrome and white leather chair to me. I lurched to catch it and wedge it between the doors. The elevator protested and whined, then went silent. Our access to the surface was open, but no one would be coming down that way.

Eyes scanning, I slowly explored the spacious room as Ivy padded from door to door, listening. Cormel had done little to change Piscary's underground apartments: pillars, white carpet, high ceilings, fake windows with long curtains, and one of those huge vid screens that let him safely see the outside during the day. It was expansive, decorated sparsely but with taste, and my eyes went to the informal dining nook placed before the vid screen where I'd beaten Piscary into unconsciousness. Anger still lingered at what he'd done to Ivy, and the vampire was long dead, really dead. Ivy's former lover, Skimmer, had killed him. I understood Ivy's fear, her frustration. I'd loved Ivy. Still did. Letting go had been the right thing to do.

My hand went to the small of my back, and I pulled my splat gun. I reached out a sliver of awareness, touching a line. We weren't too far underground. Piscary had liked his magic.

Ivy turned from the last pair of tall oak doors. “They're not in this room,” she said, but it was obvious. My brow furrowed. Dan had said Felix had refused to leave. They were down here somewhere.

As if my thoughts had drawn him, Jenks hummed out of a hallway, looking out of place among the carpet and drapes. “Are you sure Piscary didn't have a second way out of here?”

“They aren't gone,” Ivy said. Vampire fast, she strode into a corridor. My heart pounded as I jogged after her, being careful to look for attack since she wasn't. “They're in the safe room,” Ivy said as she stopped before a formidable door. It was old, made of wood, and had been hacked, burned, and dented in the distant past, the damage under at least two clear varnishes by all appearances. No attempt had been made to erase them. Badges of honor, perhaps, or trophies?

“Piscary's safe room?” I asked, wondering where the electronic safeguards were when Jenks dropped down and wedged his sword into the keyhole.

“It's his bedroom,” she said, fidgeting as Jenks worked. “The safe room is somewhere in it. I think I know where, but I'm not sure.” Her eyes met mine, black and beautiful. “He never trusted me with it. I'm surprised Felix found it.”

“Got it!” Jenks sang out, the dust spilling from him turning a bright silver.

“But the undead tend to think alike.” Ivy waved us to be quiet and I retreated a good eight feet back. Seeing me ready, Ivy opened the door just enough for Jenks. I listened, ears straining as Jenks flew in, inches above the floor.

“It's empty,” he called, and Ivy flung the door open. “It's just a bedroom,” he said, shrugging as I followed her in. “A really freaky bedroom. You want me to do another sweep?”

I shook my head. Slipping a frustrated brown dust, he hung at the doorway to watch the hall.
Freaky
was the word, and I edged in, my feet silent on the thick rugs with patterns of faces in the flowers. It looked like an Egyptian bordello, maybe, with palms and pillars, and gauzy drapes falling from the ceiling to enclose the heavy-looking circular bed holding court in the center of the room on a raised dais. There was only one other door that I could see, and it led to a bathroom as evidenced by the tile and fixtures. A chandelier, yellow with age and almost as big as the bed, hung to the side, casting a faint light.

“I told you there's no one in . . . there,” Jenks said from the doorway, his last word faltering when Ivy pointed her katana at him to shut up.

“Help me move the bed,” she said, and I tucked my splat gun in my waistband.

“There's a secret room under the bed?”

Ivy had put herself at the headboard, and she nodded as I came up the wide, shallow steps. “I think so,” she said, and Jenks snorted, arms over his chest as he hovered in the doorway. “I've never seen it, but I once found his room empty when I knew he hadn't left. There's either a room or a way out of here, and the bed is the only thing that could hide it.”

The bed was substantial, and I tried not to think about Ivy splayed across it in a blood-induced stupor as I grabbed the frame and lifted the foot. At least, I tried. The thing weighed a ton. It didn't move even a hairsbreadth, like trying to move the fountain at Fountain Square.

Ivy gave up before I did, frowning at the ceiling and the gauzy drapes. There were cords wrapped in velvet at the four corners, and with a dark expression, she plucked one. It was suspension-bridge tight. My eyes ran from the ceiling to the bed. Were they designed to lift the bed? Someone could go down, then replace the bed and no one would be the wiser.

I looked for anything that might control them, spinning back when Ivy grunted and a sliding sound broke the stillness. She was ending a power-filled strike with her katana, the rope before her snaking up into the ceiling as if being pulled by cheetahs. The cord vanished into a hole with a snap. Faint through the walls came the heavy thump of a counterweight falling.

“That's slicker than snot on a frog,” Jenks said in admiration, and Ivy slashed the others, a thin sheen of sweat showing. It was fear, not exertion.

“Again,” she said as she took up her place at the headboard, and this time, the bed moved when I steadied myself and lifted. Oh God, it was still heavy, but we managed it. “There,” she gasped, looking toward the bathroom, and we slid it right down the dais's wide, shallow stairs.

It thumped halfway down and stopped.
So much for stealth,
I thought, but the falling counterweights would have given us away already.

Ivy was already halfway down the hole in the floor. “Wait,” I whispered, renewing my hold on the line and making a globe of light. I couldn't touch it lest I break the charm, but Ivy and Jenks could, and the pixy flew it to her. Shadows made her face harsh with fear and uncertainty as she took it. My heart thudded, and she turned back to the stairway. It was a vampire's safe room; I was scared to death. But there was no way I was going to let Ivy go down there alone, and as Jenks took a last look in the hall and followed her down, I pulled my splat gun again.

My light in Ivy's hand was a comforting glow, and our steps were silent. There was another door at the bottom of the stairs, and I looked up at the dim square of light. Too many doors. There were too many doors between us and the sun, and I strengthened my hold on the ley line.

Ivy motioned for me to stay back, but Jenks was tight to her ear when she pulled the door open. In a hum of wings, Jenks darted inside.

“I-I-Ivy-y-y!” he shouted, and with a small moan, Ivy ran inside. The stairway went dark but for the thin slice escaping past the slowly closing door. Heart pounding, I reached out and stopped it. Inside, my globe of light rolled about the floor of the small room, making weirdly shifting shadows.

“She's okay!” Jenks was shrilling as he hovered over Ivy as she frantically felt for Nina's pulse, the blood-smeared, pale woman in her black nightgown slumped out cold in a lavishly embroidered chair. “Ivy, she's okay. Pick her up and let's get out of here!”

Someone had put her down here and left. I wanted to get out before that someone came back. Slowly I retreated to the stairs, taking in the room with its fainting couch, small table, and bank of monitors. Most showed the predawn sky and peaceful streets of ten minutes ago, but two showed a slightly brighter sky with FIB vehicles and ambulances. Stretchers holding vampires and handheld IV bags of blood were being carted out. Apparently Jenks had missed a few cameras. A pile of bedding, sundry clothes, knives, and what was probably blooding toys had been shoved in a corner, and the head-size hole in the floor had an obvious function. For all its lavish furniture, the room reminded me of the room under Cincinnati where we'd found Ivy's old I.S. boss and Denon. It was a place of hiding, of last stand, and it felt like a trap.

“She's okay,” Ivy said, her voice almost a sob.

“Let's go,” I said, making motions to get the hell out of here.

Jenks hovered over that pile of clothes, dusting heavily as Ivy hoisted Nina over her shoulder. Blood from unknown vampires smeared the both of them, and Ivy tossed her head to get the hair from her eyes as she stood. “You going to take Cormel out of here, too?” Jenks said, stopping me cold. “We got ten minutes until sunup. They probably got light-tight bags up there.”

“Cormel?” I whispered, seeing the pile of clothes in a new way.

“Ivy?” Nina murmured, and Ivy's breath came and went in a frustrated sound.

“Get her out of here,” I said, my insides knotting as I shoved the bloodstained, torn clothing aside until I found the round-faced businessman who had once run the entire free world.

“You think you can carry him?” Jenks said, hovering close.

“No.” Tossing blankets aside, I unearthed Cormel, the well-dressed, somewhat short vampire, pale and unresponsive. “Wait for me outside this hole.”
Please don't leave me here . . .

Jenks's wings hummed. “Go,” he said to Ivy. “I'll stay with her.”

I gave Cormel a smack. He wasn't a huge man, but I couldn't lift him. He made no response. Ivy still hadn't moved, and I frowned at her. “I said take her out,” I said, and Ivy let Nina slip to the floor, her expression pained. “Ivy!” I cried out as she elbowed me aside and shoved her sleeve up to her elbow.

“Hitting him won't help,” she said, and I gasped when she calmly picked up a knife from the pile and cut the inside of her arm where it wouldn't be as noticeable. “He's starving. Look at his pallor.”

That's what Al had said, and I felt ill as she squeezed her fist and a trace of blood dripped from her elbow. Her expression was empty as she dribbled it into his mouth. Most of it ran down his chin, but then his lips opened. A tongue pushed out, becoming red, and Cormel's face bunched up in distaste.

“Cormel!” I shouted, then looked past Jenks at the monitors and the ambulances. They couldn't get down here with that chair holding the elevator doors open.
How long?
I wondered.
How long would they search?
“Cormel, wake up!”

Ivy dribbled more into him. Still unconscious, Nina mewled like a cat as she smelled the blood, and my fear redoubled. The sound penetrated Cormel's haze where the blood hadn't. A shaky hand rubbed his mouth, and he stared at the blood repellently. “Ivy?” he whispered, his eyes hazy. Jenks was dusting her cut, and it immediately clotted. “Rachel?” he added, seeing me.

I gave him a shake as his eyes closed again. “Cormel!” I hissed, and one eye opened. “Have you seen David? Get up!”

“Who? Go away,” he moaned, his tongue red with Ivy's blood flashing. “Let me sleep.”

“How can he not be hungry?” Jenks asked. “His aura is almost not there.”

Of course he hadn't seen David; he'd been asleep. “You think maybe a direct transfusion might snap him out of it?” I asked, but they must have tried that already.

Ivy frowned. “It's not the blood the undead need. It's the aura they take with it.”

Frustrated, I slapped him, and Cormel's eyes flashed open. “Get up!” I shouted, tugging at him. “Felix is the only undead vampire awake in Cincinnati, and if we don't get you out of here, you might not live to see the next sunset.”

“Felix?” Cormel muttered, eyes drooping, but with me pulling, he managed to push himself up on an elbow. Ivy watched, torn as Nina began to sob, but she left her there, taking Cormel's other arm and giving a yank. Like a drunken businessman in the gutter, Cormel rose, weaving on his feet between us. Ivy let go, and I struggled to hold him on my own.

“Where am I?” he breathed, again wiping his mouth of Ivy's blood and looking at it in distaste. Blinking, he looked at Ivy as she hoisted Nina into her arms. “Nina . . .” he said, then looked at his hand in wonder. “I see it, but the thought of blood is repellent,” he whispered in awe, and I shivered when his gaze traveled to me. “What have you done to me?”

Jenks zipped up the stairway and back down. “Can we do this moving?” he said, making motions to get up the stairs. “The sun waits for no vampire.”

Holding Nina in her arms, Ivy easily took the steps. Adrenaline gave me strength as I tucked a shoulder under Cormel. “Waves of wild magic are passing through Cincinnati causing magical misfires and the undead to sleep,” I said, breathing deeply as vampiric incense poured over me, smelling sour somehow. “Except for Felix. Why?”

“Elves are killing vampires?” Cormel said, head hanging as he staggered.

My lips parted at the possibility, then I got us moving forward up the stairs. The light grew brighter, and the feeling of a trap lifted. “No, it's Free Vampires. Why is Felix the only one awake? What makes him different?”

Cormel shook his head as we emerged, orienting himself. “I didn't know this was here.”

“Cormel. Why is Felix awake?” I asked again. Ivy was already at the door, Nina in her arms and katana on her hip as she looked first one way, then the other. Nina was crying, but I didn't think she was really aware yet. I let go of the ley line light spell, and a surge of energy lifted through me until it faded.

“I do not hunger,” Cormel said distantly, and I suddenly found myself holding him upright, staggering under his weight.

“Cormel!” I shouted as he fell down the dais's shallow stairs. Cursing, I followed him down. His eyes were shut, and grabbing him by the lapels, I lifted his head and gave his face a smack. “Wake up!”

Cormel's eyes flashed open. “If you keep hitting me, I'm going to lose my patience.”

“The I.S. is falling apart,” I said, trying to get him to stand. “You have to stay awake!”

But his eyes closed, and I looked at Ivy helplessly. We couldn't leave him here.