The Undead Pool (47 page)

Trent's eyes met mine, his fear for me, not himself. Oh God, was I going to lose him just when I found out what he meant to me?

“Landon?” one of the men interrupted, a handheld scanner in his hand. “She's right. It's free-ranging mystics.” He swallowed as he looked up at me, suddenly pale. “Sir?”

Landon smiled, probably unaware that he had pulled back from Trent almost half an inch. I took a breath, shoving the voices in my head down. “Splendid. You found a way to control them. That will be handy over the next couple of months. Even better. Turn around, Morgan. Kneel. Hands on head. Keep to that order or Kalamack dies.”

If I let him have the mystics, the world would be thrown into chaos. If I attacked him, Trent would die. Indecision rocked me, and my head felt as if it was going to explode.

Become!
the mystics in me were screaming.
Let us become!

“Become?” I whispered, heart pounding. “I don't know how.”

You don't become,
one said.
We do. Just listen.

Landon's eyes narrowed. “Morgan . . .” he threatened, shoving the pistol into Trent's skull a little more.

Listen,
more said, and in desperation, I finally did.

My breath hissed in as I suddenly understood. The mystics who'd been swimming in my neural net the past two days had been slowly adapting to how I saw the world and how to work within it. What had once been confusing had cleared without me realizing. What had once taken minutes to understand had become second nature. Looking back, I could see the tracings of their gentle progression like a path through the woods. All I had to do was step out into the sun.

So I listened, and with the ease of blowing a bubble, I knew everything they saw: the frightened engineer tending to his shot partner as a man stood over them with a gun and his desperate plan to sacrifice himself to save untold millions, Ivy behind me with her hands in fists in frustration. I could see Nina, crying for Ivy as she raced ahead to where the next road crossed the tracks, hoping to stop the train even if it meant her death. I felt the stirring energy of the Weres massing in Chicago, rival gangs uniting to storm the station and overrun the train. Even the excitement in the news helicopter and Jenks holding on to Bis as he crawled to the front to find his dad. So many people willing to sacrifice—but none of it needed to happen. The mystics had evolved, become. And Trent would not die today.

“You should let them go,” I said, feeling light and unreal. Humming with light. It burned my soul, charring it even as it gave me strength.

The muzzle shoved Trent forward, and my breath slipped easily from me as I saw how I could down Landon before the bullet could get to the end of the gun. I took a step forward, and Landon's expression shifted, seeing the change in me.

“That's right,” I said, the fear gone. “I'm chock-f of 'em, and if you don't let their kin go, you're going to find out how a demon plays with wild magic.”
Oh God. It hurt.

Landon's confidence faltered. Behind him, his men exchanged glances.

“I know I'm curious,” Trent grumbled.

I watched as if in slow motion as Landon spun his weapon around and smashed the stock of the barrel against the back of Trent's head. Ivy jerked, and I sent a burst of sound to stop her before she set them off and started a bloodbath. I'd seen in Landon's mind. He wasn't going to kill Trent. Not yet. He wanted him as the fall guy should the trickery with the Free Vampires be realized. So not happening.

I got three more paces closer as Trent fell, shaken but not unconscious. Landon's shock when he looked up and found me there was like icing. And the gun moved from Trent to me—just as I had wanted.

“Kneel,” he demanded, his eyes flicking behind me to include Ivy as well.

Ivy dropped as she was told, but I couldn't do it. Wild magic spilled through me, pure and untainted from the ley lines. Burning.

And then I smiled at Jenks. He was with Bis, the little gargoyle clinging to the outside of the rocking car as he gave me the thumbs-up. Etude was with him. Now I could do this. Now it would end.

I wasn't meant for this, and head in agony, I looked at the boxes, their contents held by flimsy, variable battery power. Landon was stupid. He didn't deserve to hold the Goddess's leash. No one did.

“You have something that belongs to me,” I said, all of them oblivious to the massing mystics in me—except for Jenks and one very scared elf with a scanner.

“Down her,” Landon directed to one of his men.

“Too late,” I breathed, shivering as a wave of energy skated over my skin. “Oh, far too late. They're mine. I'm taking them home.”

The barrel of the gun shifted from me to Trent. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” he said confidently, gesturing to one of his men. “I said take her!”

But the man with the scanner didn't move. “Possession is exactly it . . . Landon,” I said, standing before them, before them all in the center of the rocking car. The captured and splintered mystics howled for release. We were out of Cincinnati and as close to the Loveland ley line as we were going to get. I could take them home.

I took a final step forward, mystics bringing back to me the scent of Landon's sweat, the depth of his doubt.

“Stop! Or I kill him!” Landon shouted, and I reached for them.

“Rachel!” Trent exclaimed, and Landon's finger moved on the gun.

Go,
I thought, watching the flair of the gunpowder in the chamber, sending enough mystics to clog the weapon and make it misfire. And they went.

Now,
I thought, asking more to shift a tiny balance in the air. The poles in the batteries hiccupped. It was enough, and with a silent explosion, the splintered mystics burst from their prison. A demon could have done so with spells and curses, but with mystics swimming in my neural net, all I had to do was ask.

Trent's eyes were on me, and I saw him blink. It took forever.

And then the gun misfired, blowing Landon back.

“Rachel!” Trent shouted, scrambling forward even as Landon fell into his men and broken chairs. The attendant cried out in fear. For an instant, the air hummed with magic.

And then the freed splintered mystics fell into me.

“No!” I screamed at the flood of unconditional hatred. It wasn't simply me in pain, but my mystics, the ones who had become, as their new nature was measured and found wrong by way of fewer numbers. I fell, the bubble in my mind shifting to allow passage of those familiar to me and hold the rest back. Frustrated and angry, the splinter shifted and changed to find a way in. Again I floundered, getting one gasp of air before they swamped me anew.

Trent's arms around me tightened, burning like fire as the mystics battled, my mind the field of their conquest. The flame of becoming raced out, hot and blue at the edges, cooling to black where it passed, but there were too many splintered mystics, and for every one that became and blended, ten were overcome.

I couldn't turn them all at once. If I couldn't slow this down, I was going to go insane.

Groaning, I pulled my mystics back to me, finding a scant infinity left. Together we huddled under a protection that held only because I kept changing it. My eyes opened. Trent held me. He was mad at me, and I smiled.

“Sorry,” I panted, seeing Bis and Jenks hanging from the ceiling. “I have to go. Etude will take me to the line. I'm sorry.”

“Rachel!” he pleaded, but my skin became prickles of magic, and his hands sprang away.

“I have to go!” I shouted as I blew a new hole in the side of the car. “I'm sorry! I have to go!” I said again. “Keep the news crews from following me if you can!”

Knowing I'd survive, I ran for the edge, diving off into the blackness, an infinity of mystics within me, a larger infinity trailing behind like living pixy dust. I felt them peel from me, the agony in my head abating.

“Got you!” Etude cried, and I all but sobbed in relief as his grip encircled my waist again and the force of the wind shifted.

Jenks and Bis,
I thought, feeling them close. Behind and below, the train raced on, mystics emptying from it in an angry wave that I could see as a silver shimmer in the dark.

“Should I jump her?” Bis said, and I jerked my head up, numb as if from an aura burn.

“Slow,” I said, my words a bare whisper, and his ears swiveled to catch them. “If we go too fast, they can't keep up.” I had to take them all back to her. They were hers, not mine, and if I held them too long, the sheer power of them would drive me mad. To have let them become had been a mistake.

Etude nodded, and as Jenks buried himself in my hair, I closed my eyes to block out the dizzy sensation. Behind me, I felt the train race on without the mystics. The splinter was following me, harrowing, nipping, stabbing at my heels. Ill and nauseated, I hung in Etude's grip, thinking that I should have just called the damn eagles from the beginning and done this alone.

Twenty-Six

D
amp air with streamers of fog pressed me as Etude circled the gray slump of rock that was Loveland Castle. I could feel the splintered mystics trailing us in a threatening haze almost as bright as the full moon cresting over the surrounding hills, their confusion and hatred sparking like the neurons firing in my mind. The mystics who'd become were frightened, and I tried to soothe the hurt of their expected glorious reunion gone so wrong as we descended.

My eyes opened at a sudden drop, and I let go of Etude to push my hair back. The night fog puddled in the low spaces and trees poked above like islands. I could feel the earth moving—the unseen sun seeming to grow distinct as we neared sunrise. My ley line was glowing, shining with a haze I could see even without my second sight. That wasn't right. I was afraid to open my second sight to see, but a handful of mystics brought me an image, distorted from multiple viewpoints, but clear in substance. The line was ablaze with a harsh, painful glare. It was the Goddess. She was looking for her missing thoughts, and she wasn't happy.

“Are you seeing what I'm seeing?” Jenks said, still hiding in my hair. We'd taken a moment after fleeing the train to get me on Etude's back instead of in his grip, but Jenks had opted to stay where he was, tangled and close.

“Like the fires of hell leaking out?” I said, and he snickered. “Yep.” Oh, she was pissed.

Etude shifted his balance as the earth seemed to rise up, and with his wings making one last pulse of motion, we were down.

The silence was deafening. Not even a cricket or frog from the nearby stream. It was as if the humming force from the line was pressing all other sounds out of existence. My mystics swarmed at my apprehension as I swung my leg over and slid to the ground. The shock reverberated up to my knees and jolted the numbness from me. Faint in the distance was Loveland's siren. The splintered mystics were coming.

“Thank you, Etude.”

He was a lumpy shadow in the moonlight, the gargoyle flicking an ear to acknowledge me. “It's a small thing. I'll wait over there if you need a ride home.”

Home?
The memory of my front stoop with the sign over the door shadowy in the dim light rose up, and the mystics in me pooled their excitement. None of them left to go into the line, worrying me as I pulled my fog-damp hair from my shoulder so Bis could land on it. His presence joined mine with a soft thump, and turning to the glowing line, I sighed. I'd left Ivy and Trent. If I had stayed, I would've gone insane as Bancroft had.

“They'll get over it,” Jenks said, seeming to know where my thoughts were as he clambered his way out of my hair and onto Bis's head, where he stood between his ears, hands on his hips and feet spread wide.

Where my thoughts were was actually a pretty good analogy, because as soon as I turned my mind to Ivy and Trent, an image surfaced. It had been there for a while, ignored as I flew to the Loveland ley line. It was of Ivy, leaning against a FIB car, arms over her chest and her lips pressed tight. Nearby, Trent was talking persuasively to another officer, the news crews waiting by the grounded copter. Landon's men were being led away, most of them limping. We'd got them, but the victory seemed hollow.

Are you sure you want to lose this?
I thought, then quashed it. Sure, it was great seeing the world through a thousand eyes, but it had hurt. No wonder Bancroft had committed suicide. The Goddess could have them—have them all. It was like being connected to a line all the time. They were never quiet, and I just wanted to sleep.

“Oh, for Tink's ever-loving humping,” Jenks whispered, a dull red dust seeping from him. “I think that's them. Rachel, can you see?”

I nodded, feet shifting in the knee-high grass as I tried to dampen my aura. I didn't know what I was going to do if they ignored the line glowing like a miniature sun between us and fell into me again. If the sirens rising up in our wake hadn't been enough, I would've known it was them by little pings of energy they gave off like heat lightning. Thirty seconds. I guessed thirty seconds, and we'd know if everything was for naught or not.

Bis's tail circling around my back and armpit tightened. “You want me to do anything?”

I shook my head, heart pounding as a cloud of mystics boiled over the tree line in a glow rivaling the moonlight.
You go first,
I thought at the mystics in me, and in a reluctant, swirling wave, they lifted from my soul.
All of you,
I reiterated, and disjointed images of the last few days sparked through my mind as they left.

My thoughts were finally empty, and I took a slow breath, relishing the silence. An adrenaline-based shiver shook me when the glow from the line jumped as my mystics entered it.

“Go, go, go . . .” Jenks whispered, and I found myself backing away from the line as a cloud of splintered mystics eddied to it and balked.

“Take them!” I shouted. “Damn it all to hell! Take them!”

“Rache!” Jenks shrilled. “Get down!”

I dropped, instinctively tapping the line and making a circle. Fear rolled up as the wet earth hit me and the long grass scraped my face. Every time I touched a line, mystics overwhelmed me. But this time there was nothing but the pure clean force of the line. She had them. She had them and they were no longer mine!

Relief echoed in my new emptiness, and with Bis standing beside me, I looked up as a white flash of energy exploded from my ley line. It lit the grove, turning the leaves razor sharp and the grass into slivers of glass. Lips parted, I watched in awe as for an instant, the world hung unmoving, and then the pure light was sucked back into the line taking everything not real with it.

The sudden silence was a shock, broken by the running creek and the lowering wail of a distant emergency siren fading to nothing. Before me, the ley line was a hint of presence, invisible as it should be. The energy in my protection circle hummed. It was simple, the one dimension of sound feeling hollow. Hand shaking, I reached out to feel the strength of it until I got too close and my aura broke the charm. I shook as the flow shifted to run through me back to the line. They were gone. Everything felt normal.

Everything felt . . . dull.

“Did we do it?” Bis asked, and I slowly sat up and brushed the dampness from my palms.

“I think we did.” Aching, I rose to my feet and looked at the moon, not believing it was finished. My brow eased and I almost cried. They were gone, and all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

“Bis, if your dad's still around, I'd like to take him up on his offer of a ride,” I said as I thought of Ivy and then Trent. I didn't want to travel through the lines right now. Maybe not ever.

He smiled, his black teeth catching the moonlight. “I'll get him.” He lifted off in a downward pulse of wings, and Jenks darted after him. Somehow, I thought it would have been harder than that, and I sighed, feeling empty and one-dimensional.

Pain! Betrayal!
Mystic emotion slammed into me, and I spun to the line as they darted into me, burrowing deep.

“No!” I shouted, hands over my head and cowering as more arrowed out of the line. I stumbled, falling to my hands and knees as wild magic flashed through me, and my hands gripped the soil as it burned and burned and never eased. What had happened? They'd gone in. I'd felt them leave me!

“You!” thundered a familiar voice, and I looked up past my stringy hair, gaping at Ayer standing before me, sopping wet and pale—too pale to be alive anymore. A cement block was tied to his leg, and he shambled forward, oblivious to it even as it brought him to a halt.

“Ayer?” I gasped, confused and unable to think past the mystics pouring into me, all of them frightened and making my head pound. How had he gotten here? How had he gotten twice dead?

But the answer was obvious, and I pushed up until I sat back on my heels, trying to breathe around the mystics in my head. Landon had killed Ayer. He'd dumped him in the Ohio River by the looks of it, where the cold had kept his neural net somewhat functional—because everything seemed to be working. As zombies went, he was a good one, because it wasn't Ayer anymore. It was the Goddess.

“Ah, I can explain,” I said as I wobbled to my feet. The mystics were pooling in familiar places, making the pinch of wild magic almost bearable. It hurt, though, solidifying my idea that the mystics would eventually kill me, even if they didn't mean to. I wasn't a being of energy and space. I was made of mass, and I felt the power squeeze from me as my muscles bunched.

The Goddess's eyes latched on to mine, chilling in intensity. “You took them,” she said, Ayer's beautiful face and voice twisted in anger until they were ugly. I'd taught her that, either through my returning mystics or when she'd possessed me. Her power visibly danced over Ayer's pale skin, cresting over him like a purple wave, little sparks of energy flashing like her eyes in the moonlight.

“You left them!” I backed up, wincing at the first cut of a thousand wings on my thoughts, and my mystics rose in outrage. “I brought them back to you! All of them! I freed them and brought them home! I don't want them! Take them!”

Again she pushed Ayer forward, and he stumbled, almost falling when the block stopped him. “I can't,” she said through him, and the rope dissolved. His skin, pale with death, was glowing. “You made them become. To take them back would make
me
become. I will not become. You will be ended, trickster Morgan!”

“What?” I kept moving, the long grass hissing against my legs. “No!” I didn't understand, and Ayer's expression bunched. I choked, hands rising to my neck as suddenly a wave of her mystics covered me, clogging my mouth and blinding my eyes with pinpricks of sensation. She was trying to suffocate me, and I staggered, panic rising.

My mystics rallied, rising from my skin to drive her eyes away and making the Goddess howl. In a wave of anger, she blew the grove apart. I fell, and from the corner of my sight I saw Etude spin away. Bis and Jenks were gone as well. Shaken, I knelt on the ground, my skin prickling with fire.

“You made them become!” the Goddess said, Ayer's voice echoing in my ears as the vampire stood over me, the rank smell of dead vampire and soured river water filling my nose. “You lied. You stole them from me.”

“They're right there!” I shouted, just wanting her to go away, and then I screamed as another wave of mystics arrowed to me, pain bending me double as my throat suddenly clogged with feathers.

“I brought them back!” I screamed, panicking as I tried to shove the mystics out of my mind, but they slipped around my demand, falling back into me like water. “Take them! They'll adapt!”

“They. Will. Not!” she thundered through Ayer, and the vampire's skin flamed white. “They have become. Not again! I will not become again!”

But suddenly I could breathe, and I stared as the Goddess's mystics peeled from me in a visible wave, chased away by my own mystics.

No . . .
The Goddess shrieked and flailed in anger, beating at nothing I could see. They hadn't been chased away. Her mystics were changing, becoming, in a visible wave.

Shaking, I got to my feet, still trying to figure this out as Ayer stumbled backward, the Goddess wailing as the gold of my mystics slurried through her purple haze. Like rivers in reverse, tendrils of light snaked through the aura of power surrounding her. As Ayer spun and slapped, the tendrils grew, became threads, became streams, became sources for more tendrils that grew into nets.

It's the becoming,
I suddenly realized. It was me, the way I'd changed the mystics in order to survive them. I was seeing the concepts and ideas I'd given them snaking through the Goddess's psyche, changing her in turn, making her become something different, in essence, killing her.

“You brought them to destroy me!” the Goddess wailed, and then her anger crested to a savage ruthlessness. “There is one Goddess!” she howled, a burst of energy spilling from her with the sound of wings in the wind. “Your thoughts will be forgotten. I will make them forget. They will be forgotten and you will die!”

Shit, this was not what I wanted to happen. “I was trying to help!” I shouted, then froze when her Ayer doll suddenly collapsed.

For a heartbeat, there was silence. The haze of her power flickered, falling in on itself with a little pop. My mystics milled in confusion in the moonlit grove stinking of ozone and crushed grass. The cement block remained, but she was . . . gone?

“Jenks?” I called hesitantly, and then screamed, stiffening when the Goddess dove into my mind, ripping through me as if to tear me to shreds.

“No!” I howled, feeling my mystics hum through the spaces in me, driving her off as she dug, burrowed, and tried to swamp me. If she succeeded, I'd be hers utterly, becoming her forever.

“Stop!” I demanded again, wrestling for control, and with a realization come too late, the Goddess recoiled in sudden terror. She'd attacked me, but wherever her thoughts touched to destroy and rend, my memories sparked, growing like an infection among her own thoughts. Just as before when she tried to break the hold the Free Vampires had on her, the more she fought, the more she lost.

And the Goddess wept as she felt herself change, become something else.

Please, stop!
I cried in panic, and the mystics carried her deeper, forcing the change.
Go back! I don't want you!

But the mystics weren't listening. They'd seen, and they couldn't go back. They liked the world of mass. Who could have guessed the limitations of three dimensions made a world richer than four?

Feathers beat on me as she tried to escape. The Goddess's terror rose thick, twining about me even as I felt her change.
I will end you!
she vowed, the smell of burning feathers choking as she was suddenly fighting for her own existence.
I will end your thoughts! I will not become again!
A great wailing rose up, pushing through my own horror.
You promised it would never happen again!
she cried like a lost child.