The Undead Pool (37 page)

“South,” Edden said, and we started up the crumbling abandoned roadway in the dark. I didn't know why the mystics accepted David's touch when everyone else was considered a threat, but I needed it, and I lagged, head down, as the mystics demanded I follow the splintered majority and wipe everything clean. It was a bad day, indeed. “Help me,” I whispered, and his grip tightened. “Don't let go.”

“We'll get you sorted out,” David said. “Try to numb it,” he suggested, thinking it was battle rage.

But that would only make things worse. If I numbed myself, the mystics would overrule my single voice and take control. Heart pounding, I refused them any sway. I moved under David's hand, not seeing the abandoned homes or the cracked, potholed street. The sky was red, low clouds reflecting the light from the fires burning in the Hollows, and slowly I began to think again as the mystics became bored and drifted away.

“Is she okay?” Edden questioned, looking back at us.

“Ask me later,” I panted, leaning heavily on David, dizzy as the mystics darted away from me and back, bringing to me confusing visions of what they saw. There was a rustling about us, a wind that wasn't born from rising air or lowering masses.

“Where's the van?” Edden said in affront as we halted at an abandoned gas station.

David's wide shoulders slumped. “You lost the van?”

Edden spun. “I left it right here!”

“We're in the wilds! You can't leave a working car in the wilds!”

Most of the mystics had left me, and my head came up, daring to believe that I might be rid of them altogether. “There's a bus stop. You want me to see what the schedule is?”

“They don't run buses out here,” Edden said, reaching under his cap to scratch his head. The soft glow of a screen shone, lighting up his face, showing the worry wrinkles around his eyes. “Give me a second. I'm not getting a good signal.”

“Because they don't put towers out here either!” David muttered, peeved as he turned his back on us, watching the dark as we stood under the gas station awning. In the nearby distance came a rustling in the weeds, and I staggered as a hundred different mystic perspectives of the same view hammered at me. I wondered if I looked that ill or if it was just my imagination. Nauseated, I shoved away all views but the one coming from my eyes. The mystics buzzed over it, clouds of them following the electrical impulses through my brain to analyze how I put it all together. My head hurt.

David's concern was obvious when he turned back to us. He'd heard the rustling as well. “We need to keep moving. Who are you calling?”

Mood somber, Edden put the phone to his ear. “Ivy.”

“Ivy?” Mistrust surged, and I banished it with a vengeance.

Edden smiled. “She's downtown, under the streets with Jenks looking for you. Bis, too. Apparently your aura has shifted and he can't find you. Ah, Rachel? I don't want to know about those two cadavers in your front room, but they'd better be gone tomorrow. Okay?”

Nodding, I turned away, blinking fast. The memory of Ivy's last expression passed over me, confusing the mystics and prompting a flurry of discussion over I, us, and we. Ivy and Jenks were looking for me. I knew they would, and I felt loved.

Edden pulled the phone from his ear, ended the call, and hit Jenks's number instead. “Half the city is looking for you. The only reason we found you first was because of Trent.”

Trent? How had he known where I was? And why hadn't he come to get me?

Betrayed,
the mystics hummed, and I shoved it aside. Trent hadn't betrayed me. He'd told Edden how to find me, and that was more than he really needed to do.

No, betrayed!
a single mystic screamed, and I spun, hearing a new meaning in the rustling from the dark. An image of glowing eyes burst in my thoughts, ignored until now.

“It's them!” I shouted, wild magic a sudden, painful pulse.

“Down!” David shouted, falling on me.

I hit the ground, watching as the two surrendering vampires with us fell, groaning. The soft retort of twin shots echoed an instant later. Swearing, David shoved my head down and crawled to them, Edden joining him with a frantic haste as they jammed whatever was handy onto gaping wounds that glinted wetly in the dark.

We were under attack and I could do nothing, struggling with a splinter of a Goddess bent on revenge. “Not this time,” I gasped, wrenching control back. “Make a circle. A circle!”

I gave them an outlet, and a circle sprang up around us, humming with an unreal but familiar sensation. I wasn't connected to a line. It was as if I had a direct line to the divine, my every wish granted. Even the ugly ones, if I wasn't careful.

“Damn, Rachel, you're glowing,” David said as he glanced up, his hands bloodied, and I looked at myself, scared. I was, the mystics' energy leaking out of my pores.

“Don't tell anyone, okay?” I said as I got up. It was better. Somehow it was getting better, and I wavered only slightly as David and Edden rose as well, standing beside me and safe in my circle.

My lip curled as Ayer sauntered out of the dark with about twenty men, all dressed alike with those damn little caps. How could I have ever thought he looked like Kisten? Ayer's soul was ugly. He was nothing like Kisten.
Careful,
I thought, not wanting to get the mystics riled up and out of control, but a small part of me was halfway to letting them have their way. Humming, the mystics darted in and out of me with little zings of power. We'd found common ground. I didn't understand why, but they were finally listening to me.

The Free Vampires stopped eight feet back with Ayer coming a few feet closer. He motioned for his men to start laying a thick electrical cord in a circle about us, and I stifled a shiver. We were safe in my mystic-born circle, but it was a trap. I'd managed to gain control of this small fraction. I'd lose it if he took them from me.

“Looks like you've got a handle on it, Morgan,” he said, and I tried to flatten my hair. Trent's hair floated when he did magic. I'd always thought it was because of the ever-after energy, but maybe it was mystics.

“Then you'd be wrong,” I shot back.

He turned. “Bring her down,” he said as he walked away. “Kill the rest.”

“Sir?”

“You want them to talk?” he shouted, clearly disgusted. “Kill them!”

Edden shifted his weight, his hand on his pistol. “They can't do anything if we're in this circle, can they?”

A howl split the night, bringing Ayer's expression to a frozen stiffness. “That was supposed to have been taken care of,” he said, and the man next to him fidgeted as David began to smile.

“We got the mystics out, but Smith hasn't checked in, sir.”

More howls, this time closer. It was my pack, a fact I knew for certain thanks to a wandering mystic bringing me back an image of my tattoo.

“This was supposed to have been taken care of!” Ayer raged as his men began retreating, one by one and in pairs. For all their bloodlust, vampires did not make good soldiers. Shaggy hunched shadows were padding out from the abandoned homes and rusted cars, pushing them along. A low growl and a bark made one man fall, and he scrambled to his feet, backing up fast.

“I never thought I'd be happy to see a mob of Weres.” Edden drew closer as a thin man in jeans and an open shirt eased confidently out of the dark. No gun, no weapon, and tattoos everywhere, he came up to Ayer with a confidence that couldn't be faked.

“Leave, or you will have to fight for your life,” the man said. Behind him, the sound of harsh panting became obvious.

Ayer moved, and suddenly his last few men were surrounded by not panting wolves, but snarling ones. “Some of us will fall, but all of you will die,” the man said, without even a glance at me, but David was grinning, eyes bright in pride. “Leave. Now.”

“Look what's in his back pocket,” Edden whispered, and I relaxed. It was a wilted dandelion.

I think it was my relief that turned the tide, and with a snarl, Ayer took three steps back, spun on a heel, and stalked off, looking neither to the right nor the left, passing within feet of the snapping Weres without flinching. His men followed with less confidence, almost running to keep up.

David exhaled, and the alpha male smiled at me before turning to a Were on four paws. “Follow them. Don't let them back into that house. Get them out of my hills.”

The Were huffed, tail waving as he padded off.

I dropped my circle. The mystics were slipping from me again, but since they weren't trying to kill anyone, I let them. It was the caps the Free Vampires were wearing, I suddenly realized. They'd focused on the caps as a signal of who to trust and who not to.

Suddenly shy, the thin male who had spoken to Ayer fumbled for the dandelion, extending it to me as he minced across where the circle had been as if it were holy ground. Two gray Weres descended upon the downed vampires, whining. “It's a pleasure to meet you,” the man said, nodding to David. “Both of you. Can we be of any help?”

“I told you half the city was looking for you,” Edden said, and I took the flower.

“Thank you,” I said, thinking I didn't deserve this. “Does anyone have a phone that works out here?”

Twenty-One

T
he heavy weight on my feet vibrated, the audible growl of discontent becoming obvious as it gained strength. My eyes opened, and I stared at the familiar patterns of dim light on my ceiling. Ivy was talking to someone at the front door with the terseness she reserved for news crews and siding salesmen. I was betting it was the former.

“Get off my stoop, or I'll send pixy kids to play in your van,” came faintly, and the rumbling at my feet ceased.

My head rose and I smiled at David, even as I shoved at him to give me more room. I hadn't been pleased last night when he'd insisted I wasn't to be left alone, but you don't argue with two hundred pounds of wolf—you make room.

“Let's go,” an unfamiliar voice said. “We can get what we need with the telephoto lens.”

“I wouldn't,” Ivy threatened them. “I really wouldn't.”

The door thumped shut, and I sighed. Head flopping over, I looked at the clock. Eleven. I should be rested, but I wasn't. Sleep had been elusive and so mixed up that I wasn't sure it had happened. After the initial confusion over dreaming, most of the mystics had left, returning periodically to color my dreams with what they'd seen, giving me a skewed vision of what had been happening within the nearest ten miles or so. I hoped much of it was simply my imagination, because what the mystics had been bringing back for me to decipher was dismal.

Ivy's steps were soft as she padded by my door. “Jenks, go send your kids to do something bad, will you?” she said.

“Sure, why the Turn not? Jumoke?” Jenks said, and then their voices became quiet—apart from the ultrasonic cheer that seemed to go right through the walls and into my head.

Maybe if I just rolled back over, I could catch a few more Z's.

Z's have to be caught?
a mystic asked, and a handful of others drowned it out with their superior knowledge that Z's were dreams, which only caused more confusion that some dreams were not sentient and an uproar ensued in the back of my head.

Yeah. I was awake. Stretching, I ignored them as I got up, tugged my nightgown in place, and looked at David smiling wolfishly at me. “You didn't have to stay the night. Especially not
on
my bed.”

David yawned to show me his teeth as if to say nothing was going to harm me when he was around. Either that, or he wasn't about to sleep on the floor. Hopping down, he padded to my door. I knew he could handle the doorknob himself, but why get his slobber all over it? “Go on. Get out,” I said as I opened it. “I want to talk to you when you can answer me back.”

Nails clicking, he trotted out. “David!” Jenks said, and I reached for my robe. “ 'Bout time you got the princess of perpetuity up.”

My hair looked like an eighties music video, and wincing, I caught it back in a scrunchie. When I'd gone to bed, new waves of mystics had been flooding Cincinnati almost hourly, and by the faint sound of emergency sirens, they still were. None were apparently making it across the river, Ayer probably soaking them up as fast as they came. Either he was calling them out or the Goddess was out of control, looking for her missing thoughts. I wasn't sure which would be worse, and the effect was probably the same.

Not wanting to talk to anyone yet, I hustled to the bathroom. Most of the mystics were still ranging about, making me feel almost normal, and I carefully tapped a line.

Mistake.

In a terrified flood, they raced back. I staggered as the twin sensation of the line and the wild magic they brought with them raced through my synapses, tainting the clean energy with thoughts of fear, danger, and alarm. Visions of Cincinnati bombarded me in no order. Groaning, I collapsed.

“Rache!” Jenks shrilled, his dust suddenly blinding me.

Reeling, I dropped the line. It did no good. Wild magic took its place, and I cowered, hands over my head as I sat on the floor and tried to control the terrified mystics.

“I'm okay!” I moaned, talking to all of them, but their combined voices were too much, and they refused to listen to me.
You're okay! Back off!
I shouted into my thoughts.
I was just tapping a freaking line for the hell of it!

“David!” Ivy shouted, and I felt her cool arms enfold me, pulling me from the hard floor. “Rachel just collapsed.” My head lolled as she sat me up. “Jenks, what happened?”

Vampire incense poured over me and I breathed it in to pull memories of Ivy to the surface. It worked. Distracted, the mystics' fear and alarm damped like water turning a towel darker.

“I don't know!” Jenks was upset, and his dust warmed my face. “One minute she's trying to get to the bathroom without anyone seeing her, and then she falls down!” I cracked open my eyelids to see a worried dust slipping from him. “Tink's a Disney whore, her aura is white again,” Jenks said as he dropped to within inches of me, hands on his hips as he hovered. “Jeez, Rache. How many you got in there?”

“Go calculate the rate of your dust falling,” I said, dizzy, and Jenks darted back in alarm.

“You were supposed to watch her!” Ivy accused him. My fingers were tingling, and slowly the wild magic began to abate.

“I did! I watched her fall down! Tink's tampons. What do you want me to do? Catch her?”

It was better now, and Ivy's eyes met mine. Damn it, I was cowering on the floor like a victim. “Okay,” I breathed, finding my voice. “I'm okay. Better now.” I looked at the ceiling, feeling the mystics there, hovering. “Get out! Go learn something!” I shouted, and Ivy gave Jenks a worried look.

Jenks, though, was hovering backward, clearly pleased. “That's better,” he said, his dust shifting to a bright silver. “There she is. Damn mystics. Get the hell out of my church!”

Exhaling, I looked up as David walked into the hallway, an afghan about his hips. “I'm fine,” I said, trying to sit up. Ivy reluctantly let me go, worry clouding her black eyes. I didn't wonder why. This was a structured possession, pure and simple.

“Is she okay?” David asked, and I did a double take. Damn, the man had a nice set of abs. And pecs. I bet he had nice everything.

“Yes, I'm okay,” I said sourly. “I tried to tap a line, is all.”

Ivy stood, hand extended to help me up. “It hurt?”

I wavered, hand on the wall. “Uh, no, it kind of felt good,” I admitted. “But the mystics thought it was an attack and came back.” I glanced at Jenks. “I think they brought friends.”

He nodded, and I grimaced, finally letting go of the wall. It seemed to be getting better, but the reality was I was balancing on a fine line of control. The more mystics there were, the faster they were. What was saving my ass was that they seemed to be learning how to teach one another. The Goddess wasn't going to thank me, but maybe she shouldn't have left them in me to begin with.

“Ah, I'm okay. You mind if I . . .” I looked at the bathroom door, and they began to drift away, Ivy to the sanctuary and David back to the far living room and presumably a set of clothes. Clearly distracted, Ivy changed her mind, brushing past me in a wave of vampire incense to go to the kitchen instead. She didn't give David a second look, which I thought telling. She'd had a crush on him last year.

I hesitated, waiting for Jenks to back off. “David, thanks again,” I said, and he inclined his head. A long slice of sun coming through the back door glowed on him.

“It was my pleasure. Everyone has been itching to do something, and it was a good outlet for the more aggressive packs. Got them away from the city center. By the way, you have twenty minutes until Edden gets here. Vivian couldn't get a flight in time, but she doesn't have anything to add, just demand, so we'll do this without her.”

He vanished into the back living room. Suddenly my need to use the can took a backseat.
Vivian? The head of the witch council, Vivian?
“This? Do this what?”

David poked his head out. “Talk over the state of the city, of course.”

My shoulders slumped, and Jenks darted off as Ivy shouted for him. Ah. Another one of
those
. The last time I had been to one of
those,
Al had shown up and Ivy's ex-girlfriend had killed Piscary. At least this time the city's problems weren't my fault. “Shouldn't Trent be here?”

David hesitated as if he wanted to say something, finally shrugging before he ducked into the back room and presumably a set of clothes.

A surprising spike of disappointment hit me. I ignored it along with the questions the mystics were raising over it. How could I explain when I didn't have an answer?

Standing at the sink, I pulled the scrunchie from my hair and rummaged for a detangle charm. I'd taken a shower last night, but my hair needed major help, and as I stood before the mirror and tried to make some order out of it, my mind drifted to last night: the relieved reunion with Ivy and Jenks, my thirty-second call to Trent that ended with me feeling brushed off.

Why isn't he coming?
I thought as I gave up and let it be a lion's mane today. He was a mover and shaker in Cincinnati, but maybe he was being excluded because his religion was suspected of funding the faction trying to kill the undead.

Mystics clustered between me and the mirror as I brushed my teeth, liking the idea of personal hygiene. Maybe it hadn't been so much being brushed off as Trent being distracted. He'd clearly been glad I was okay. Hell, if he hadn't cared, he wouldn't have messaged over that finding charm to Edden. Perhaps he was simply distancing himself. My motions slowed, and I spit in the sink, refusing to admit that the idea depressed me. Distance between us was what needed to happen. It would make everyone's life easier, mine included. It was better this way.

But a feeling of tingles cascaded over me as I remembered the touch of his hand on my waist, firm with demand, a promise of more.

Us?
A handful of mystics asked, their voice clear as they combined into one.
This is not us. This is . . .

“Nothing,” I whispered, wiping my mouth and staring at my reflection.

It is!
they insisted, myriad conversations rising in the background.
This we is different.

Whatever. Leaving them to figure it out, I shimmied out of my nightgown and found everything I needed in the dryer. Oblivious in their debate, the mystics left me alone as I got into a fresh set of jeans and a dark green camisole. Barefoot and feeling a chill in the air, I padded to the kitchen, hesitating at the threshold. Normal. It looked normal, and I wished it was mine to keep, to see again and again, like the slow repetitive feel of summer days until the fear was dabbed away.

Ivy was frowning at her monitor, Jenks sending a bright dust down her shoulder as he tried to help. Bis was asleep on top of the fridge, a red bandanna wrapped around his head like a street fighter's. Three pixy kids darted through the hanging rack, arguing over a seed someone had found. Dressed casually in jeans and a button shirt, David made the simple task of starting a second pot of coffee into an art. We'd had men in the church before, and they all had fit in as if they belonged. None of them had stayed, though, and it was starting to wear on me.

Pixies, friends, almost lovers, I mused, wondering if it would all amount to anything other than a good story. My head hurt. I needed a cup of coffee.

Lovers?
a returning mystic asked, and it was swamped by the new debate over the different we's they had found.

The coffee smelled wonderful, and as it went chattering into a mug, I gave the mystics a memory of Kisten, the way he'd touched me, the way I'd felt, the emotions I could pull from him, the desire. Ivy looked up, the rim of brown about her eyes shrinking, and I shrugged. Shaking her head, she went back to her computer. The mystics were even more confused.

“It means nothing,” I breathed as I sat at my usual spot, the cup of coffee warm in my hand.

Jenks was taking me talking to myself in stride, the visual clue of my aura flaring making it obvious I wasn't alone in my skull, but David and Ivy exchanged worried looks. I didn't care as I took another sip, eyes closing as it warmed me from the inside out and woke me up. I felt lost, even as the mystics gave me a sensation of the space around me as they darted through the room and garden like pixy kids coming back to me with their visions. The idea of David crossing the room lifted through me, and I started, eyelids flying open when I heard a chair being pulled out and I saw him in my mind as he sat down.

“Sorry, didn't mean to startle you,” he said, and I turned, seeing him exactly where I knew he'd be.

This can't be safe,
I mused, hiding my concern behind another sip of coffee. If the mystics didn't drive me insane, or the Goddess didn't kill me for polluting them with my “singular visions,” Newt would, just for the crime of harboring elven wild magic. Al would beat them out of me or kill me trying. And Dali would sell tickets. I was on my own.

But as a handful of mystics flowed back to me with the idea that a woman was entering the back door, I set the cup down and smiled. I was on my own—with a lot of help. All I had to do was learn how to use it.

Jenks rose up in a wing-clattering alarm as the woman I'd seen in my thoughts appeared in the doorway, her Were-soft steps silent on both the steps and in the hallway. “Holy mother of toad piss!” he exclaimed. “Give a pixy a little warning, huh?”

I didn't know her, but clearly everyone else did, and I couldn't help but notice David's eyes light up. “David,” she said flicking a glance at me that was neither subservient nor challenging, and I warmed when it lingered on my hair, frizzy and full—like a red wolf's mane. “I know the meeting is about to start, but that issue with the Black Sands has come to a head. You want me to facilitate an alliance while it might be still effective?”