The Undead Pool (49 page)

“He is an elf!” Al shouted, and suddenly I could breathe as I found myself falling to the pavement. “A mother pus bucket of an elf! And she freed him! This is exactly how they enslaved us the last time!”

Pain lanced my hip as I hit the ground. Coughing, I rolled out of the way of Al's boot, finally coming to a stop against Trent. He pulled me farther away as I gagged on the air, my hands about my bruised throat. Newt was inches from Al, looking up as if it pissed her off.

“You allowed it to happen!” Newt exclaimed, one hand waving in the air. “We all watched you do it. She's your ward. It's your fault. And I won't let you kill her for the
audacity
of being
braver
than you!” Leaning deeper into his space, she put her hands on her hips. “You are a
coward,
Al, and you don't deserve to stand at her side, much less kill her. Go find a place to hide. A deep one. You're done here. If she's strong enough to trust him, she's strong enough to test the rest of us.”

Al's anger moved from me to her. Eyes squinting, he rocked back from Newt. “We're done, Rachel,” he said, his words striking right to my core. “Don't call on me again. You're no longer my student.”

“Al,” I said, hand to my throat when it came out in a harsh croak. Mystics spun from me, wreathing him with demands he listen, that he understand. This was not what I'd wanted. But he was blind to me and he put up a hand, stopping my next words.

“My name is Gally, and if I ever see you again, I will kill you.” Spinning to make his coattails furl, he snatched his walking stick from the ground. The top stone was broken off, and he left it behind as he walked away, vanishing between one step and the next. Confused, the mystics swarmed where he had been. My focus shifted deeper, finding a burning building.

“If you hurt her, you die,” Trent said above me.

Oh yeah. We weren't done yet.

He tensed as Newt strode to us, her androgynous robes snapping about her bare feet. “Don't be stupid,” she said, brushing him aside so she could help me stand. “You called me.”

I staggered upright, feeling dizzy. He knew Newt's name? “They can't be fake,” I said as the mystics returned to me. “They're real. They're so real!”

Pain arced through me, and I jerked. Eyes watering, I realized she'd slapped me.

“They're false,” she said. “Let them go.”

I pulled my hand from my face, warm from the rush of blood. “I tried,” I protested. “I took them right to her. I made them get in the line. They came back!” Frustrated, I ran my hands over my arms as if I could brush them away. “They keep coming back . . .”

Grimacing, Newt pinched my shoulder as she pulled me a step away from Trent. “Let them go,” she demanded again. “Look at me!” she shouted when I tried to say something. “Let them go. They're constructs of your mind, a way for your limit-bound existence to process the raw energy of creation.”

“Liar!” I yanked free of her. “They're real. She knows things I can't possibly guess, and she said someone promised her becoming wouldn't happen again. Why would she say that if she wasn't real?”

Newt blinked, a bemused, almost beatific expression softening her. “I didn't think she'd remember.”

I blinked, silent as I took in her suddenly shy demeanor. The Goddess had said this had happened before. Newt knew it. Newt was crazy. “You?” I said, sure of it when the demon blushed. “You!” I glanced at Trent, then pulled her farther away, asking him to stay put. He looked miffed, but he gave us space. “You know they're real,” I almost hissed. “Why are you trying to convince me they aren't?”

Newt glanced behind me at Trent as he picked up the broken stone from Al's cane. “Demons do not dabble in elven religion,” she said stiffly. “Even if that religion holds more power in a wish than demon magic has in an action.”

My jaw dropped. Oh God. I was going to go insane. Even if I survived, I was going to go crazy. I was going to become another Newt.

Seeing my fear, Newt rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop. Mystics didn't make me insane,” she grumbled. “You, though, must get rid of them, or the Goddess will kill you to prevent changing again. Let me gather them up. I can return them.” A smile quirked her lips. “She's terrified of me.”

I knew the feeling. “But they'll come right back,” I protested.

Newt shook her head, eyes down as she remembered something. “The Goddess will kill all memory of you once she sees you dead. You took her by surprise before, but she's forewarned. You won't escape again. She is a Goddess, and you, Rachel . . .”

I stifled a shiver as Newt ran a thin hand through my hair.

“You are not,” she finished.

The mystics in me quailed, and I gathered them close. It was obvious that Newt wanted them out of me, that she wanted to preserve her secret that she'd also looked too deeply, that she
knew
elven magic based on a deity was more powerful than demon magic based on the will of the self. But to let the Goddess kill them? For what? So I could go on to an eternity of loveless misery as they were stuck in?

“Why?” I said, and she made a tiny sound of surprise. “If I'm to be persecuted for who I love, then why shouldn't I be insane? I might be able to stop you all then.”

Newt drew back, alarmed. “A crazy demon has power,” I said, and she winced. “They listen to you. They'd listen to me! With the power of the Goddess, I could best you all, and you know it. That's why you all have this problem with wild magic to begin with.”

Newt ran a hand behind her neck in a gesture of unease that I'd never seen in her before. “You're simplifying things,” she said as Trent inched closer until he was right behind my elbow. “Rachel, he's an elf. A freed familiar. Maybe if there was some way to bridge our two species, they'd go along with it, but there isn't.”

She was talking about children. That's why Al had kept Ceri so long. He'd been trying to find a way to bridge the gap. And he had failed.

“Yeah, I get it,” I said bitterly. “They made you slaves, and you tried to kill them, and they imprisoned you in the ever-after, and you both screwed up each other's genetics so no one can have any kids. But
Trent
didn't do it. I'll let you in my mind to pull them forth so everyone can believe that mystics are a psychosis and you can keep your secret, but I don't want her killing them, and I want you to fix it so the demons leave me and Trent alone!”

My heart was pounding. Trent was at my elbow, and the mystics in me went silent. They knew of love and sacrifice, but I didn't want them to die. “Change the resonance of my soul,” I suddenly said, and her head snapped up. “Change it so the mystics bound to me can't find me.”
No!
they wailed, and I yelled at them to shut up. “As long as they stay out of the line, they won't contaminate her with dreams of mass.”

Newt's eyes narrowed, and I took a breath to finish my threat. “And if anyone ever does anything against me or Trent, I will go find my mystics and claim them because they are real and both of us know it.”

Her lip curled, and emboldened, I lifted my chin, managing to stifle my jump when she smashed the butt of her staff on the cement to crack it. In the distance, that burning building fell in a stately shower of sparks. For a moment, there was darkness there, and then the flames grew brighter.

“Now will you get them out, or does the ever-after have a new insane demon to contend with?” I asked.

Her grip on her staff tightened. “You'd give up the energy of creation for . . . him? He could leave you tomorrow and you'd have nothing but hatred and bitterness to sustain you.”

I remembered the feel of Trent's skin under my fingertips, the softness of his hair, the sensation of his body over, around, and in mine. I remembered how he had stood for me when I didn't have the strength myself, and the way I fought for his freedom, his life, his children. Sure, he could leave tomorrow, but that didn't rub out how I felt now. Now was all we really had.

“I've already lost Al,” I said, finding that it hurt more than I would've guessed. “Giving up being able to see around corners is a small thing.”

Expression sour, she turned to Trent. “And what do you sacrifice for her?” she said mockingly. “Love is dross without sacrifice. It fades with the sun.”

Trent's chin lifted. “I've lost my voice among my kin,” he said, and I took a breath, dismayed. “My child may be taken from me.”

“Trent!”

His fingers slipped into mine. “The silence my money has bought is no more. I will be persecuted, reviled, scorned.”

“As all elves should be,” Newt said, clearly not happy.

“I'll probably end up in jail,” he finished, and I squeezed his hand. Never. It wouldn't happen.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I said, but when I thought back to Quen's expression as he stood in my back living room, I knew I should have guessed.

“And to top it off, I lost five generations of my father's breeding program in the ever-after to surface demons,” Trent finished sourly. “I have very little left.”

Newt's anger vanished, replaced by a shockingly wistful sigh. “The horse,” she whispered. “She's beautiful.”

“She's alive?” Trent's gloom lifted. “Rachel, with that single horse, I could rebuild . . .” He hesitated as Newt cleared her throat.

Trent swallowed hard. I looked between them, seeing her desire, his need. “She is yours,” he finally said, and Newt laughed and clapped like a little girl, her staff clattering to the ground.

Eyes bright, she scooped it up, taking my elbow as she drew me closer. “Let me take them,” she said, words a breath on my hand as she held it to her. “They'll come to me. I'll change your soul so they'll never find you. But you must promise to never tell the others that the Goddess and I have more in common than is, ah, prudent.”

My heart pounded. I was doing it again: trusting demons. But as I looked past her to Trent standing in the moonlight, one city standing to fight, the other out of control and in flames, I decided that it was worth it. All of it. Even if it should end tomorrow.

“You'll get them to back off Trent and me?” I asked, and her smile grew wicked as she nodded.

“I'll tell them you are romancing the cure for our genetic damage from him, and you will leave him as a broken ruin when you have it. They'll believe me. You're halfway to ruining him already.”

Al would know, but he wouldn't say anything. My heart pounded. “Then okay. You can take them, but I don't want them killed. Any of them.”

The mystics in me wailed. I reassured them, even as I felt a pang. Gone. I'd be invisible to them. They'd be like lost children in the night, but they'd be alive.

“That is acceptable,” Newt said as she looked at us. Together Trent and I nodded. I felt funny, my knees weak, and standing before her thus with our hands intertwined, I felt a bond stronger than any church could bestow fall about us. “You might want to be unconscious for this,” she added, and Trent cried out as her staff swung to strike me right between the eyes.

With a sharp thud of pain, the world blessedly went away.

Twenty-Eight

A
lion coughed as if clearing his throat, making me shiver in the cool morning air and sending my white dress to bump about my legs. Lucy's hand was slightly damp and sticky in mine as she tugged toward the ice cone stand, singing a nonsense rhyme in time with her leaping jumps that sent a tingle of wild magic sparking between us. Newt had cursed my soul to keep the mystics
and
the Goddess from recognizing me, but I could still feel the trails of self they left. The line was alive, but I couldn't be a part of it, share it. It was a constant reminder of what I'd lost—and it hurt, especially at night. Maybe that's why Newt was crazy.

Trent and Ray were beside me, the more reserved girl concentrating on her toddling steps. It was a rare day in July, perfect weather to be at the zoo and early so the girls weren't cranky yet. Jenks was doing recon somewhere, Jonathan was behind us with the empty stroller, and Ivy and Nina were at a nearby stand looking for a sunhat. Now that the undead were again awake, Felix was back in Cormel's iron grip. It should have been a relief, but Felix's mystic-induced sanity was showing signs of collapse. The why of which was worth thinking about.

But today was too beautiful to worry about the undead, and I squinted up at the sky as Lucy jumped up and down, demanding blue ice. Trent crouched, waiting for Ray to touch the colorful pictures to tell him which one she wanted. “Blue, blue, blue!” Lucy shouted, and I smiled at his patient deferment.

“Noted,” he said, taking her hands and calming her. “No one gets any ice until Ray decides. It's hard to choose when you're talking. Give her a moment.”

Eyelids squeezed closed, Lucy made a herculean effort to be quiet, sweet in her white dress and sun hat. It lasted for all of five seconds, until bursting, she opened her eyes wide and began to tell Ray the colors, trying to push her sister along.

Smiling, Trent stood and pulled out his wallet. Jonathan waited behind us in the shade, irking me as he watched with his nose in the air and that distasteful look on his face. “You're really good with them, you know,” I said as Ray splayed her hands over all the colors and beamed up at Trent with her cute little-girl squint.

“I've had practice. CEOs around a table are worse,” he said, then turned to the man tending the cart. “Can you make one with stripes of colors?” he asked, and the man nodded, but then Trent's expression shifted to a frown. “I thought I had more cash than that,” he said, and handed the man a card. “Sorry, is this okay?”

Nodding, the man took it, but it was obvious he thought we were goobers. Who uses a platinum card to buy two ice cones?

Lucy clung to the cart, eyes on the cones set out of her reach as the man ran the card. Nina's laugh caught my attention, and I turned. She'd gotten Ivy to put on a big floppy hat with peacock feathers draped down the back, and when Nina begged, Ivy fell into a seductive poise, trying it out. Nina screamed in delight and reached for another so they could vogue together. Ivy flushed, but she was smiling, and I turned away before she knew I was watching. I was so happy for her.

My smile faded, and I vowed Cormel wouldn't screw it up. They owed me for saving their miserable undead lives. They all owed me, and if they pushed, I'd remind them of that.

Turning, I scanned the open courtyard hemmed in by eateries. Jenks should be back by now. It was starting to get busy, but if we stayed away from the kids' area, we should be okay. It had been an interesting week, what with the undead waking up and their gorging serving to bring everyone back in line with an eerie suddenness. I'd tried to contact Al, only to have him crack my mirror and prove my idea wrong that he still cared and had abandoned me to protect his assets. I also didn't like that the blue butterfly chrysalis I'd found among the broken shards had gone black, the tiny movements inside making Jenks shed a worried dust.

Trent had been in the national news all week, and not in a good way. I suspected that his invite today was to help him establish a new, homey image now that Ellasbeth was being painted as the wronged woman.

I didn't mind being a part of his publicity program, and the man did need protection. People were still terrified of genetic research, and the fact that he'd come out of the closet as an elf a few months ago wasn't helping. Two years ago, I would have been right there with them, hammering on his gates and demanding access to his files before he shredded them.
Knowledge made all the difference,
I thought, then changed my mind. Trust, maybe. But research could be stolen, perverted, twisted. Maybe they were right to protest.

“I'm sorry, sir,” the man said, handing the silver card back to Trent. “Do you have another card?”

Ooooh, ouch.

“Ahhh,” Trent hedged, looking back at Jonathan in the shade of the pergola. In a stiff motion, Jonathan rose, stalking forward with the warmth of a zombie.

“I've got this,” I said, reaching into my bag, and Trent fidgeted as I handed over a five. “Oh, for Tink's toes,” I muttered as I took the ices and handed them to the girls. “You'd think I'd just hamstrung you.”

“It's not that,” he said as he handed Jonathan the card. “Jon, see what's going on.”

The girls looked tiny as they clustered about the tall man, and Ray clamped a hand on his pant leg for balance. “Yes, Sa'han,” he said, carefully disentangling Ray's fingers and transferring them to Trent's hand.

“I don't mind paying.” Jonathan was headed for the ATM, and I scanned the courtyard. It suddenly felt exposed, vulnerable.
Where is Jenks?

Trent's tight expression eased and he gave me a surprising sideways hug as he turned us back to the twin stroller parked beside the bench in the shade. “I don't mind you paying,” he said softly, his words making a tingling path down my entire side since he hadn't let go. “I simply want confirmation as to why the card isn't working.”

My thoughts went to the newscasters, their eyes alight and their words fast as they smelled blood in the air surrounding the Kalamack estate. I had a good idea as to why his card wasn't working. “Maybe it's just a glitch.”

“Doubt it.” Expression neutral, he let me go to help Lucy up onto the bench before she spilled her cone trying to do it herself. “This might end with burgers at the pool.”

I lifted Ray to sit beside her sister, taking a moment to tug her dress straight over her tights. “That sounds good to me. I missed my Fourth of July picnic.” I sat, straddling the bench so I could watch Jonathan and the courtyard at the same time. Trent, who had to show a more dignified bearing, sat on the other side of the girls, his back to most of the zoo and the long-range scopes of the news vans that had followed us here. They weren't allowed in without prior arrangements, and I think that was why we were here.

To be honest, I was worried—worried about him and his money. He'd never had to go without it, and the bigger the corporation, the faster it starved to death when the funds were cut off. He was a CEO of billions, but it wouldn't mean anything if his assets were frozen. He'd be okay, sure, but what about all his employees with no work, no pay for the year or two this was going to take to sort out?

Leaning over and behind the girls, he whispered, “I have insurance for this. Relax.”

Startled, I drew back. “God!” I exclaimed softly. “I hate it when you do that.”

He was smiling, the wind shifting his hair about his eyes, and I felt warm when he helped Lucy, now crying over an ice headache. Slowly his smile faded, damped by Jonathan at the ATM. The tall man had Trent's card in hand and was on the phone.

“Actually, this took longer than I thought it would.” Concerned, he pulled his phone from a back pocket, elbows on his knees as he pushed a few buttons.

“Sorry.” Ray was distressed at the red dripping down her hand, and I rewrapped the bottom with a new napkin.

“Mmmm.” His brow furrowed even more. “Maybe we should head home.”

Home,
I thought, leaning to look at the tiny screen. He'd brought up one of his news sites, which showed a well-groomed woman sitting next to a downward-sloping graph and the words
Kalamack Industries.
Seeing me looking, he upped the volume.

“ . . . as the Kalamack investigation continues to come up empty. Though employees questioned are denying Kalamack Industries conducts any genetic research outside of legal parameters, allegations of illegal genetic tinkering and trade of genetic products persist. In a related story, claims that the chain of subtropical islands owned by the Kalamack family were really a powerhouse of Brimstone fields have evaporated into the sound of wings. Investigators at the site found only open fields and thousands upon thousands of cocoons of a rare butterfly on the verge of extinction. When asked, Trent Kalamack made this statement.”

The picture shifted to one of Trent, looking calm and collected in his usual suit as he stood beside a podium at his gatehouse media room. “Our intent in replanting the cane fields was twofold, not simply helping a vanishing species to recover, but advancing the local population into more well-paying jobs and fostering new opportunities. Changing the local harvest to a more sustainable product, in this case, the trade of tourism, we would achieve both goals. A cane field will employ a family, but tourism brings in dollars from around the world and employs not just farm workers to maintain the butterflies' life cycle, but also promotes far more skilled labor and the cottage industries that tourism fosters.”

I looked at Trent, remembering the conversation he and Quen had in my back living room over bugs in the Brimstone field. “Well played,” I murmured, realizing that he had distributed the butterflies to all his fields, effectively eating the evidence.

Trent cleared his throat nervously. “Thank you.”

“Regardless, Kalamack stock continues to plummet,” the newscaster continued as she reappeared, and Trent sighed. “Whether the claims are groundless or rooted in truth, it seems more and more likely that Kalamack Industries has seen the last of its golden years.”

“Sorry,” I said as Jenks's dust blanked out the screen. I'd heard his wings an instant before he dropped to my shoulder, and a knot of worry eased in me.

“Enks!!” Lucy shrilled, and the pixy darted out of her sticky reach. “Pixy, pixy, pixy!”

“Yeah, I'm buying up Kalamack stock as fast as Rachel's rent check clears,” Jenks said as Lucy dropped her ice, her hands outstretched as she jumped. “Watch out, cookie maker, or I'm going to own you.”

Clearly amused, Trent put his phone away. Jonathan was still on the phone. Apparently Trent had a lot of accounts to check. Eyes intent, Ray watched Jenks, a brown, icy cold water dripping out the end of her cone unnoticed.

But then my head came up as a familiar scent tickled my nose. “Ah, Jenks? Why do you smell like burnt amber?”

The sound of Jenks's wings hesitated, but it was Trent's suddenly bland expression that rang the alarm bells.

“I gotta check the perimeter,” the pixy said, darting off, much to Lucy's dismay.

Catching her hand before she ran after him, I dug out the little packet of Handi Wipes from my bag. “Jenks!” I shouted, but he was gone. Eyes squinting, I turned to Trent. “What have you two been up to?”

Trent took the packet and pulled one out. “Mmmm. I've been helping Newt with Red,” he said as he worked at getting the blue off Lucy's fingers. “I asked Jenks to watch my back.”

My lips parted, and I looked into the pergola, knowing he was up there somewhere, the chicken. “And why would you think you had to keep that from me?” I asked, but I couldn't keep the frown off my face.

Lucy twisted and squirmed, and he started on the other hand when I gave him a clean wipe. “I don't,” he said, wincing. “But she saw you ride Tulpa and she's embarrassed that she can't get on Red.” His lips curled into a smile as he let Lucy go and the girl ran to jump in the dust Jenks was sending down. “That stupid horse is balking at everything, and Newt is oblivious to how to handle her. It's going to be a while before she can get on her.” He chuckled, using the last of the wipe to clean his own hands. “It's going to be a while before she can touch her.”

I wondered where Newt had the horse, then decided she had enough room. It would be the feed I'd be worried about. “So you're under investigation for drug trafficking, illegal genetic research, and whatever else they can come up with, and you decide to go to the ever-after? Without me?”

“Of course not.” Trent gave me a sideways glance. “Newt and Red came to me. The animal needed to see the moon. That's half the problem if you ask me. Soon as Red associates Newt with clean grass, she'll settle down.”

I rolled my eyes, shifting my leg to sit properly as Ray set her uneaten cone down and went to stand just outside the circle of sparkles sifting down. “Oh, that's much better,” I said, hoping they had a hidden glen to do this in. “You're giving riding lessons to demons.”

He rubbed his chin as he watched his girls. “In exchange for storage space for a few machines I don't want to lose.” Eyes rising, he looked at me. “I could do this for a living. I like horses. I like demons. It's a perfect fit.”

He was joking, but there was a grain of truth to it, and I threw away Ray's cone before I reached for the wipes. “I'm sorry. I don't think they're going to stop until you lose everything.” Angry, I cleaned my hands, thinking I should have thought this through a little more. We could have done something different, maybe. Tried to hide it. Put off the inevitable. But as Trent took my damp hand in his to still my frustrated motions, I knew that to try to hide it would have only made it worse when the truth came out.

“Not everything, no,” he said. “But I'm not the only one giving things up. I know it was hard abandoning the mystics.”