[English] THE WITCH WITH NO NAME

The Witch With No Name
The Witch With No Name Page 30



Landon was eyeing me in distrust, and I gave him a sarcastic smile. “You do the same with the egg white, anointing the arms of the pentagram first, and then the recipient’s palms.”

“Using the same wand?” I guessed, and he nodded, flushed. “Can I use a chicken’s egg?”

“Not if you want it to work,” he muttered, and I took that as a fact. Eggs were a symbol of rebirth, but the Mayans used to believe that hummingbirds were the souls of warriors and would make an even closer tie. I could probably pick up one at one of the more exclusive charm shops.

“So let me guess,” I said, pulling the paper to me. It looked funny seeing the clearly old charm on fresh white paper. “Step three is to anoint the point of the pentagram and his forehead with his own blood?”

He grimaced, shifting from foot to foot. “I’d use the same wand again.”

“Then what?”

Landon hesitated, as if trying to decide only now if giving me this info was a good idea.

“What next, Landon . . . ?” I intoned, and he tugged the paper back to himself.

“Roll the scarf into a cylinder and run it through the Möbius strip. Both loops.”

Big Möbius strip, check. I had one of those. I had two of them, actually. “What’s it made of?” I asked, and I almost saw him kick himself.

“****, I forgot that part,” he muttered. “Copper. Yes, copper.”

My fingers drummed on the counter. “You know what? I think I’ll just go to the library and find a nice reincarnation spell. Take my chances.”

Landon glared. “I know how to do this.”

“You sure?” I snapped, and both of us looked to the hallway at a pixy guffaw. No one was there, but a tiny whisper of pixy dust was slipping down.

Landon rolled up the paper, clearly ready to take his ball and go home. It was the lure of being the one who brought down the vampires that kept him here, kept him honest. “Most of this is all just to get the Goddess’s attention. It’s the thought that counts.”

I sobered at the reminder of the Goddess. Newt had assured me that the mystics and the Goddess herself wouldn’t recognize me even if I stood in a ley line and shouted for her, but she wasn’t called a goddess because she was impotent. “Okay, run the pentagram through the Möbius strip. Then what?”

My sudden meekness bolstered Landon’s mood, and I frowned when he tucked the paper into an inner pocket and went to get his hat from the table. “The scarf finds a neutral flow from the copper ions it picks up, so now you can shake the salt out and drape the scarf over the recipient’s face, blood spot at the forehead right where you anointed him. From there, you simply open the container holding the soul. Chanting the phrase will draw it forth, and the soul should go to him and fix into place. At least until he dies again. Burn the scarf to break the pathway and prevent the soul from escaping the body.”

He put on his hat, clearly ready to go. I nodded, still uneasy in that he might have forgotten something—intentionally. “You never said where the spiderweb fit in.”

“Oh! Right.” He hesitated in the archway. “Drape it over your shoulder for protection against an aggressive soul.”

Aggressive soul. Yes, I’d run into one of those before, but Al hadn’t used spiderwebs to help protect against them. Come to think of it, I’d never seen a spider in the ever-after, and I thought it pathetic that the elves and demons had polluted their world to the point where even a spider couldn’t survive.

“Ellasbeth, are you ready?” Landon called as he stood in the threshold between the kitchen and the hallway, and I heard her ask him for a moment. Frowning, Landon leaned against the frame of the opening.

“You sure you don’t want to add anything else?” I said, trying not to look at the pocket he put the charm in. I wanted it, wanted it bad.

“No.” Mood sour, he looked into the living room, then pushed himself forward. Steps fast, he came three paces in, eyes intent as he pulled the paper from his inner pocket, taunting me with it. I jumped when he tugged on the line out back, tossing the paper into the sink and igniting it with a single word.

Son of a bastard, I thought, grimacing at the sudden rush of shoes in the hall. Trent slid to a halt when he saw Landon standing over the fire in the sink, and he exhaled in relief. Ellasbeth click-clacked in behind him, coat over her arm, and Trent frowned. “Thanks for your help. You both have a flight out of here tonight, right?” Trent asked, clearly eager for them to leave.

Landon chuckled, turning the taps on to wash even the ash into the sewer system and out of my reach. “I’ve got a reservation at the Cincinnatian. Ellasbeth tells me it’s the only decent live-in hotel in the area.”

“Even if the staff is surly.” Ellasbeth’s mood wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. Trent must have given her something, but I bet it had cost her. Suddenly I felt as if both of us had been manipulated, even if it had been us who had called them.

“Do you have what you need?” Trent asked, and I nodded. The more satisfied Ellasbeth and Landon became, the more uneasy I felt. It technically wasn’t a curse if I didn’t have to kill anyone to perform the magic. There hadn’t been any indication that it required direct contact with the Goddess to do the curse either, but he could have left that out. He had before.

Smile stilted, Ellasbeth turned to Trent. “Thank you,” she said, and my pulse hammered. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I get a permanent address.”

My expression froze. Crap on toast, the woman was moving to Cincinnati. ****, ****, ****! Why had I gone along with this? Made it sound like a good idea?

“I’ll wait for your call.” Trent put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a cold kiss good-bye on her cheek. My gut tightened. I knew I gave myself away when Ellasbeth leaned in to accept it, her eyes on mine and a mocking smile on her thin, lipstick-red lips. The tension rose. Landon clearly wasn’t happy either. I’m an idiot. My clear conscience wouldn’t keep me warm at night, hold me when I cried, or smile when I made a joke.

“Landon,” Ellasbeth said as she held her coat out to him, and he slowly moved to settle it across her shoulders.

“Bye now,” I said as I leaned against the counter and tried not to grimace. “Thanks for the soul-stealing charm.”

Her coat on, Ellasbeth waited a telling moment for Trent to escort them to the door, but when he ignored them, she turned on a heel and stalked off, shoes clicking on the hardwood floor. Landon lurched to catch up, already digging in a pocket for the car keys.

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A shower of pixy dust sifted down from the overhanging rack. I hadn’t known Jenks was up there, but I wasn’t surprised as he gave Trent a thumbs-up and darted out after them.

Trent sighed heavily, and together we listened to Ellasbeth’s heels aggressively striking the floor in the sanctuary. “That woman is plotting,” I said softly, and Trent pulled me into a sudden, unexpected hug.

“Oh God,” he almost moaned, his arms tight around me as I scrambled to shift gears. “I think you are the only thing keeping me from going insane sometimes. You and the girls.”

But he had kissed her. “Really?” I mumbled. From the front, the door slammed, making the curtains over the sink drift.

Breath catching, he nodded, still staring at the ceiling as if the words he wanted to say were imprinted up there with pixy dust. “When everything seems to impact everything and there’s no easy answer, I ask myself: Will this decision take me closer or farther from you? And then it’s so clear. Even if it doesn’t make sense at the time.”

He thought this would bring us closer? My heart thudded. He had meant that kiss as show, but fear still lingered. Ellasbeth had brought everything back that I’d been ignoring, everything that Trent had been working his entire life for and lost because of me, everything his father had begun, everything that I couldn’t help him with and she could. I could do nothing as a flash of heartache lit through me. I love him. I can say that now. “You’re going to let her see Lucy? Trent, that’s so dangerous.”

“It was your idea.” He exhaled, pulling me closer so my head was against his shoulder and I could feel every inch of him pressed against me. “You’re right, though. It would be more dangerous not to,” he said, his words making my hair move. “Besides, I’m angry, not cruel, and I’m confident that Ellasbeth is now cognizant of what she gambled and lost by casually tossing that all-or-nothing choice down before me. If she wants to see Lucy, she’s going to make every sacrifice she would’ve made if she had married me in the first place, but now all she gets is to be a part of Lucy’s life, not mine. She will hate Cincinnati for the very things I love about it. My revenge is complete.”

He’s giving her a chance to fulfill her original role, I thought, tension winding through me. Trent wasn’t seeing this as a way for Ellasbeth to wind him around her finger, but I did.

Trent gave me a squeeze, but I couldn’t get myself out of my funk. He was bringing pieces back into play to try to regain his standing. I knew he wouldn’t sacrifice me to reach his end, but there was no way he could do it if I was beside him—and someday he’d realize that. He’d grow cold, indifferent. I’d seen it before.

“I don’t trust Landon,” I said, feeling my breath come back from him as my fingers defined the lines of his back. “I don’t trust Ellasbeth, and I certainly don’t trust them together. As soon as we’re no longer useful to Landon, and she realizes she won’t get what she wants, she’ll try to gain custody with a more permanent means, you know that, right?”

Trent let me go, avoiding me. Damn it, he did know, and yet he was giving her the very chance she needed to stick a knife in his ribs. “Trent—”

“You think Landon’s charm is true?” he interrupted.

He was still holding me, and I pressed into him. “I don’t like using a charm passed down by oral tra***ion for two thousand years,” I said, then added, “But I think they use it enough that as long as Landon remembered it right, it will work. Are you sure you don’t have anything in your library? He could be setting us up. That charm might take our souls for all I know.”

His reassuring smile only made me more concerned. “He wants an end to the vampires more than an end to me or you. We can trust that.”

“So we’re safe until the undead vampires are dead. I should probably write it down before I forget.” I reluctantly pulled from him to get a pencil and paper from Ivy’s desk. “Even if it will be in my handwriting and not his.”

“I think Jenks has it,” Trent said, looking out at the garden. “Jenks!” he shouted, startling me. “Where’s the charm?”

Pen in hand, I turned from the table to see Trent stretching to the hanging rack to turn the few hanging pots as if to empty them. “You had him copy it? Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you—” Spent dust spilled out of one, covering Trent in silver. He sneezed, missing the postage-stamp-size scrap of paper now drifting to the floor. It had to be the copied charm, and I picked it up, recognizing Jenks’s handwriting and the glyph of a pentagram. “There it is,” he said, seeing it in my hand and smiling. “Because you aren’t used to dealing with civil servants disguised as religious leaders.”

A smile found me. “Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?” I tugged at his belt, pulling him to me again. My arms went around his neck, and I beamed at him, the copied spell in one hand, the fingers of my other hand playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, stretching until I could just brush the arch of his pointy ears. Heartache swept me. How long could I hold on to him? A year? Two?

“Repeatedly, but I’m open to hearing it again,” he said, eyes alight with possibilities as he tilted his head and our lips met in a kiss.

Emotion spilled through me, heat tingling from our lips down to my middle, all the sweeter for knowing it could never last. My hand fisted in his hair, and his breath caught at the tight demand. He pulled me closer, his hands at my waist almost lifting me off my feet. The kitchen, I thought as my back hit the counter and his hand slipped under my shirt, his fingers both smooth and demanding, tracing over my skin. What was it about the kitchen that seemed to get both of us in a rush?

My eyes opened as our lips parted, but the tingling he’d started continued, making me move against him in time with his ever-moving hands, searching, rising to hint at finding my breast and send new tingles down to my spine. “You know what to do when you think of me, huh?” I said, thinking it was one of the most telling things anyone had ever said to me, making me feel loved and needed all at the same time.

“Always,” he breathed, looking at my lips.

“What are you thinking now?” I teased.

“I’m trying to remember why you haven’t moved in with me,” he said, and we slowly stilled, pressed against each other and content to just be.

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Because I can’t take that hurt again, I thought, unable to say it. Because anything this good can’t last. Because I love you. Because Ellasbeth and he were talking again, and I knew that was what everyone wanted. Quen would be so-o-o pleased.

“Tink’s titties, you two aren’t pressing flesh again,” Jenks griped as he flew in at head height, saving me from answering. “God! I’m glad pixies dust instead of sweat. You should see the heat waves coming up from you.”

Trent started to let go, but seeing the doubt my silence had made, I pulled him back and found his lips, hungry almost as soon as I closed my eyes and let my fingers drift down his back to his tight, grabbable backside. Trent responded, and I don’t know what happened to Jenks’s copied spell as I suddenly found myself spun around and plunked on the counter.

“Oh God!” Jenks complained as I wrapped my legs around Trent, imprisoning him. The bare hint of stubble pricked over my fingertips as I traced his jawline. “Stop it, will you?” Jenks griped. “Just ’cause there aren’t any more kids in the church doesn’t mean you can . . .”

Breathless, I pulled from Trent. My lip unexpectedly caught between his teeth for a bare instant, and a flash of passion lit through me even as we parted. “Can what, Jenks?” I said, letting my feet fall from around Trent so he could turn to look at the disgusted pixy hovering before us. I’d found Trent to be a surprisingly attentive lover the last three months, the tabloids going crazy at kisses over sparkling wine at Carew Tower, and his casual touch as he tried to teach me how to golf, and though the passion had been real, I knew the intent behind the last thirty seconds had only been to shock Jenks. It made me love him even more—he was a part of my life, and I hadn’t seen it even happen. Now all I had to do was hold on until it fell apart.

Trent’s smile slowly faded as reality came slipping back, drawn by Jenks’s orangish dust and the spell in his hand. “Thanks, Jenks,” he said as he moved away. I suddenly felt alone as I sat on the counter, the bitter smell of cold coffee coming from the coffeemaker. I slid down, having to tuck my shirt in before I opened a drawer for my magnifying glass. I had like three of them, and I handed Trent the largest.

“No problem,” Jenks said as he got over his huff and set the spell on the counter. “You guys never look up, and Jrixibell had a pencil lead stashed up there already.”

Jenks’s wings seemed to slow their hum at the reminder of his youngest daughter, now out on her own and raising a family. Jax, too, had left again after only a few weeks. I intentionally bumped into Trent as we clustered over the scrap of paper, and I relaxed at the scent of cinnamon and wine hiding under Trent’s aftershave. Jenks’s sketch was more precise than Landon’s, having none of the crossed-off instructions and with the ingredients in order. Even better, it would be harder to link this to me since it was in Jenks’s handwriting.

“I’m not liking the spiderweb,” Trent said, frowning as he used one finger to hold the paper from moving from our breath. “It’s the only thing that doesn’t match from what I remember when Bancroft taught it to my mother.”

“You know it?” I exclaimed, following that through to an uncomfortable conclusion. “You know how to strip an infant’s soul from it and paste someone else’s on it? Why did you make me go through that?” But what disturbed me most was why he knew it at all.

Trent was grinning when he looked up. His expression flashed to panic as he guessed my thoughts. “Oh, Rachel, I was ten when I heard it, listening at a door where I shouldn’t have been. I’m sorry. I didn’t even remember it until seeing this.” He hesitated, and I frowned when he touched my arm. “Really, I didn’t. But I don’t remember the spiderweb.”

My shoulders eased, as much from Trent’s obvious distress as from Jenks’s shrug. “Maybe you should skip that part,” Jenks suggested as he took it and rolled it into a tube.

“Maybe,” I said, when Trent ducked his head and winced. “Aren’t spiderwebs supposed to be for protection, though?”

“Protection through concealment.” Trent dropped back to lean against the counter in thought, looking especially yummy when he crossed one ankle over the other. “I think it’s okay. I probably just forgot.” His focus shifted to me. “I still think giving an undead a soul is a bad idea, but if you don’t, Ivy will suffer. Be careful what you wish for, yes?”

“Because it might come true,” I said softly. At this point, I honestly didn’t care if they all died out, but having seen the chaos in Cincinnati when the undead had been sleeping was a stiff lesson to swallow—or whatever.

I jumped when Trent’s arm went around me. “We’ll see it through,” he said, and Jenks rose up with the charm, presumably to hide it. “No matter what it takes. Soon as we get the charm prepped, we’ll go collect Felix’s soul. It’s probably still lurking about the ley line at Eden Park. We could have this done by the end of the weekend, no problem.”

Somehow I didn’t think it was going to be that easy. “Thank you.” I turned into him, head falling to his chest as he wrapped his arms around me and held me, grounding me in a way that no one had for a long time. I felt his certainty, but my doubts lingered even as I soaked him in.

I hadn’t wished for Trent in my life, but now that I had him, I was more confused, more heartbroken than I’d ever been. Trent was willing to sacrifice everything for me, but I didn’t know if I could let him.

Chapter 7

Ellasbeth’s light perfume lifted from Trent in the tight confines of his car. My head hurt, but if it was from that, or Cormel’s vampires tailing us, or Nina fidgeting in the back, or that I was on my way to Eden Park to capture a master’s soul with an elven black charm that Landon had given me, I didn’t know.

“So much to choose from,” I whispered, my grip on the wheel tightening as I glanced at Trent. He was slumped against the window, eyes shut and chest moving slowly in the faint light reflected from the twilight-gloomed sky. My irritation eased, and I stifled the urge to rearrange his hair. He looked charmingly vulnerable when he slept, and because of his nature, I often caught him catching a few winks around noon and midnight. It made me feel loved every time.

The scent of angry vampire was growing stronger, and I opened a vent. Behind us, Cormel’s thugs accelerated to close the gap as we neared the interstate’s off-ramp. The window would have been better, but that would’ve woken up Trent for sure.

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“I shouldn’t have left Ivy,” the nervous woman said, expression tight as she looked out the window. The car following us was almost on my bumper, and I flicked on my turn signal way ahead of time hoping they’d back off a little. Cormel knew where we were going, and I thought the escort was a bit much.

“They might try to kidnap her,” Nina said, her motion vampire fast as she fiddled with her hair, pulling the heavy wash of rich black out of its thick clip and redoing it. “He said he wouldn’t kill her. He never said he wouldn’t kidnap her.”

Grimacing, I took the curve off the interstate, pumping my brakes to get the vampires behind me to friggin’ back off. Trent took a deep breath as I slowed for a stoplight, blinking himself awake. His flash of confusion vanished as he sat up, looking entirely accessible in his rumpled, relaxed state.

“Kalamack’s security has too many holes,” Nina muttered, and Trent’s smile vanished.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he said as he looked out at the shadowed Cincinnati riverfront and placed himself.

“I like it when you do.” Eyes forward, I eased into motion when the light changed.

Trent’s hand landed on my leg with a contented pop. I let go of the wheel to take it, giving his fingers a squeeze even as I kept them right where he’d put them. My pulse quickened, but it wasn’t from his touch. The distance that he’d always kept between us had gradually—almost shyly—dissolved over the last three months, evolving into a surprisingly tactile nature. Casual touches and meaningful looks had become as natural as breathing. But it was different now because I wanted it to last forever.

And burn my cookies if I didn’t think he sensed the change when he ****ed his head and leaned across the space between us, whispering, “What?”

The thought was still painfully new, and I shook my head, flustered. “Nothing.”

His eyebrows high in question, he glanced at Nina as if she might be to blame for my mood, and I shook my head, staring straight out the front window as we wound through Eden Park’s outer drive. I wished things were different, that my life was easier. But then I might never have had the chance to see Trent slumped against his car door, smiling as he opened his eyes and found me watching him. Good with the bad, I thought, hoping they would equal out in the end.

“Leaving her alone was a bad idea,” Nina said again, stewing as she filled the car with the scent of unhappy vampire.

“She’s not alone,” I muttered, thinking that between Quen’s security and Cormel’s promise, she ought to be safe. My mood lifted when we passed the town houses and then where I’d left my car yesterday and I saw it waiting. It hadn’t been towed, but it wasn’t as if we could stop and get it. Frustrated, I cracked my window, neck tingling as the draft pushed everything to the front. “Ivy is fine,” I grumped, glad when Trent opened his window as well and the cloud of pheromones finally found a way out. And if Ivy wasn’t fine, I was going to spend tomorrow polishing my stakes and amulets.

I had to believe that Ivy was okay—at least until midnight—and I didn’t mind at all that Nina wasn’t with her, the edgy vampire coming with us to be the bait in the Felix-soul trap. I had a lingering concern that Nina was out for what was important to Nina, not Ivy. That she loved Ivy wasn’t in question. What she’d do to keep her was.

Trent sat up as we wound up the long drive to the overlook and the limited parking. Head down over his phone as he texted, he said, “Not very subtle, is he?”

My gaze flicked to the rearview mirror and the big black car. There were at least five heads in there, maybe more. Nina’s slow growl made me more nervous than the car did.

“Where does he get off interfering like this?” the woman said, clearly feeling threatened.

I met Trent’s eyes in concern, thinking the woman was a dangerous roller coaster of emotions without Felix’s finger in her thoughts, all the power and expectations he’d left in her out of control and beyond her emotional limits. Trent’s slight twist to his lips said he agreed with my unspoken desire to get out of the car, and I took the first parking spot I could find. There were a few people up here walking their dogs, feeding the ducks, or just enjoying the first shadows spilling over the Hollows. We’d have to take the footbridge to get to the ley line, just on the other side of the tiny twin ponds. The memory of being here almost exactly twenty-four hours ago—fighting for Ivy’s life—flitted through me.

“They promised midnight!” Nina fumed, head almost touching the ceiling. “If they’re following us now, what makes you think Ivy is even safe?”

“Nina, shut up!” I shouted, and her eyes flashed black.

Trent smiled at my frustration, and I hit the brakes hard. His head swung and he reached for the dash, but his amusement was undimmed as Nina bolted from the vehicle, her heels snapping sharply on the pavement as she strode to the car following us.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, hands on her h*ps as she stopped them right in the middle of the road, her knees almost touching the front bumper.

“Ivy is fine,” Trent said, but I wasn’t convinced. “Shall we set up? We’ve got a few minutes until Jenks and Bis get here.”

Trent turned to Nina, standing in the headlights, her silhouette obvious and shapely as she reamed them out. “Is that Felix or Nina?”

“Nina.” It would have been easier if it had been Felix, but I’d swear that Felix hadn’t taken her over. Nina was beginning to show the power Felix had taught her. It made her dangerous, more unreliable. But we had no choice.

Sighing, I dropped the keys into my shoulder bag as I got out. Trent moved a little slower, his motions gracefully methodical as he collected the briefcase that held the equipment to capture Felix’s soul. My stomach was knotting as I stood between the car and the open door, breathing in the new night as Cormel’s vampires got back in their car, tires smoking as they backed up to the farthermost reaches of the long, narrow parking lot. They weren’t leaving, but at least we had some space.

Nina didn’t move, remaining in the middle of the street in her business skirt and collapsing hairstyle. I could tell by her bowed head and shaking hands that she was trying to bring herself back down without the help of Felix’s steadying hand. This was why master vampires seldom dropped into the living, and never to the extent that Felix had over the past few months. The reminder of what they’d lost tore at the dead. The connection unbalanced the living, forcing them to deal with emotions they had no practice in handling. The longer it went on, the more addictive and dangerous the experience was. Ivy had promised to keep Nina alive, a thin hope that was likely to fail and cement in Ivy’s mind anew that she deserved nothing good in her life.

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Pity sifted through me as Nina’s hands slowly unfisted. How many times have I seen Ivy do that? I wondered when Nina looked at the sky and closed her eyes as if in prayer—just like Ivy coming back from the edge of control.

The goons at the end of the parking lot had gotten out, shouting at everyone that the park was closed and to leave, but I think it was Nina shaking silently in the middle of the street that made the most impact. No one wants to be around when a vampire loses it. Sure, there’s compensation and apologies, but that doesn’t go very far if you get bitten. A vamp scar is forever, fading in time but able to flair into full potency if properly triggered.

Trent slammed his door, and I yanked my hand from my neck, not even realizing I’d covered it. My head jerked up when Bis flew overhead, wings flashing as he awkwardly slid to a halt on one of the shadowed picnic tables. His eyes glowed red as they found me, and the cat-size gargoyle resettled his leathery wings. His skin had gone entirely black in embarrassment for the ungraceful landing, and the white tuft of fur on the tip of his lionlike tail stood out like a beacon as it flicked nervously.

Pleased, I ambled over, smiling as his skin returned to its usual pebbly gray. If Bis was here, Jenks wasn’t far behind.

“Nice of you to wait for me, snot breath,” Jenks snarled, clearly out of breath as he dropped heavily down onto my shoulder in a wash of silver dust.

Bis shrugged, touching his wing tips together over his head and flushing again.

“I see we got a posse,” Jenks added, tugging on my ear as he settled himself. “Bis, I’m more tired than a pixy on his wedding night. You check around. See if we got vampires hiding under that lame bridge.”

Grinning to show his black teeth, Bis took to the air. I pulled the hair out of my face and looked to see Nina and Trent, the woman nodding at his soft question. There was a whiff of honey and pollen as Jenks replenished his energy, the scent mixing with the more earthy smell of ducks and the nearby barrel of garbage. He’d probably tried to impress Bis by flying the entire way instead of hitching rides.

The vampires had begun throwing stones at Bis. I took a breath to yell at them, only to snicker when Bis caught one and threw it right back, making them scatter and swear.

Nina’s steps slowed to a stop, and when Trent continued on, I rocked into motion, respecting her need to be alone. Three more steps, and Trent came along my side. He looked like a businessman on holiday with his briefcase and shiny shoes peeping out from under his slacks. A pinch of worry marred his attempt at a smile, and I slipped my arm around his waist as we crossed the footbridge. I slowed, wondering if Sharps was around. He’d been a big help last time. But the ripples on the surface were only from the wind and current, and tension began to wind its way up my spine and give me a softly throbbing headache.

“I think I’m going to puke at all this sweetness,” Jenks muttered, and I tossed my hair to get him to leave. I didn’t care anymore who saw us together, but Trent was tense.

“You’ve done this before,” I said, thinking he was stressing about the charm. “No sweat.”

“Your soul wanted to be saved,” he said as our steps became one at the apex of the bridge. “You gave me permission to take it. I doubt that is what’s going to happen here.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said. “It has a containment circle, right? Then all we need to do is lure him into it.”

He nodded, but he still didn’t look convinced.

“Hey, ah, Rache?” Jenks said, dropping down in a column of gray dust. “We’ve got company.”

Bis whistled from twenty feet up, pointing at two cars roaring into the park, one at either end to block anyone from going in or out. Cormel’s vampire thugs had turned, shouting at them as, like a clown car, the vehicles began to empty of more men than could possibly have fit in there. All of them looked eager for a fight—all of them were headed our way.

“How dare they . . . ,” Nina whispered, her hiss making my skin crawl.

Trent slowed, his gaze on the footbridge and Al’s line beyond it. “I don’t think those are Cormel’s people,” he murmured.

“Hang close, Jenks,” I said, and he alighted on my shoulder. Everyone had slowed, the original vampire guards making a front at the base of the bridge. I didn’t like that half of the second group was jogging around the small lake to encircle us. Worried, I scanned for Bis. “Come on. Let’s get into the line before they make it around the pond.”

Trent nodded. What did they think I was doing out here? Having a picnic? “Stop her!” one shouted. “She’s almost at the line!”

Okay. That was enough for me, and I grabbed Trent’s elbow to run for it. Nina, though, had turned to face them, shaking in anger.

“You fools!” she shouted, feet spread wide. “She isn’t fleeing. She could have done that from her church. Interfere, and Cormel himself will tear his revenge from your skin!”

“We don’t work for Cormel,” one shouted back, and I heard a crack as someone broke a tree branch for a makeshift club. “Stay out of that line, Morgan, or Ivy dies!”

Suddenly it was making a lot more sense. Great. We were right in the middle of a freaking vamp war. Apparently Trent wasn’t the only one who thought giving the undead their souls might be a bad thing. “Come on,” I whispered, tugging at him. “We have to get into the line.”

“And I thought the press was bad,” Trent muttered as he started to jog beside me. “What is the line doing over there? I thought the tail of it was in the water.”

I flushed, looking up for Jenks. “I accidentally moved it.”

“You moved it? How?”

“By accident,” I said again, not wanting to talk about it. “Nina!” I shouted. “If you’re coming with us, let’s go!”

The soft give of the grass became the hard thump of concrete, and I spun as the warmth of the line cascaded over me. Trent slid to a halt beside me, eyes bright and a smile lifting his lips. Nina was slower, backing up as she glared at the vampires jogging to a slow stop before us. Bis landed on the statue of Romulus and Remus. At the bridge, a pitched fight had broken out, but some were wading across the shallow pond to join the few who’d run around it.

“Don’t do it, Morgan,” a vampire threatened, dripping from the pond and stinking.

More cars were driving up, angled to light the brawl with their headlights. This was going to either make the international news or be buried so deep the lost-dog-found would get more hits. Nervous, I looked at Trent on my right, then Nina on my left, her eyes a worrisome black. I quashed the sudden fear that she might betray us all. We were in the line. The vampires hung back a safe eight feet, but that wouldn’t last. I didn’t care if getting their souls back would kill them or not.

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“Can you get there yourself?” I whispered to Trent, and he nodded. He had shifted realities before, and that’s all he had to do, not jump to an entirely new line. “Good. Bis, you’ve got Jenks. I’ll take Nina. Now!”

“What? Wait!” Nina shouted as I grabbed her arm and shifted her aura to that of the line.

“No!” I heard someone shriek, but it was too late, and their cry of outrage rose, echoed, and vanished. The rank smell of burnt amber filled me on my next breath.

“Let go!” Nina exclaimed, tugging away, and Trent coughed. We’d made it.

Hand over her face, Nina squinted into the dusky night as the gritty wind lifted her hair. Bis hunched on a rock, and Jenks darted into my hair, muttering about pixy piss and bloody daisies. The light was dim and red, and it put an unreal haze to everything as it reflected the early night sky. The scorch marks from our fight earlier looked like wounds.

Trent spun around at the clink of a rock, and my pulse thundered at the glowing eyes peering at us from the dark. A second set of eyes joined the first. They had found us already?

“Oh, this is much better!” Jenks snarled from beside my ear. “God, it’s going to take me forever to get the stink out of my clothes. Remind me again of why I wanted to come?”

Immediately Trent knelt and used his hand to smooth a place to spell in. There was another shifting of rock, and Nina spun, eyes becoming black. The bluster she’d shown with the vampires was gone. It was a sucky way to live, never knowing if what you felt was real and if you could back your words up, or if you were about to find yourself pinned to the floor and your neck ripped out by someone stronger than you.

“Oh. Yeah. Right,” Jenks grumbled. “Save the world, blah, blah, blah.”

“Bis?” I asked, and he took to the air in a single downward thrust.

“On it!” he called out cheerfully, and still grumbling, Jenks went with him. There might be two surface demons here, or there might be twenty. Bis and Jenks could find out.

“I’m going to set a perimeter circle,” I whispered to Trent, and he nodded, his expression grim as he used a silver knife to carefully scrape a six-foot spiral into the ragged earth. I strained to hear any sound as I moved to the outskirts and used the heel of my foot to make a shallow groove enclosing both Trent’s spiral and the rock that Nina had her back against. I didn’t set it, concerned that Al would feel it and show up like last time—not with Trent here.

My skin prickled. Trent’s magic was beginning to rise. Face pale, he backed away from his finished spiral. His soft chanting tugged at the recesses of my mind, and I steeled myself against the lure, shivering as the chill of the night seemed to cut right through me.

Uneasy, I hastened back to Nina and set my shoulder bag down beside her. “You think Felix’s soul is still nearby?” I said as I scanned the horizon.

Neither Trent nor Nina answered me. Trent was fumbling to put his cap on, his red-stained fingers leaving marks everywhere. Lips moving in a silent prayer, he put his ribbon about his neck. Seeing him, I was amazed again at his mix of professional businessman and magic user. His motions were quick and decisive, but there was a new solemn thread to his every action that screamed his belief in the Goddess. It was no longer a game of pretend. He believed, and it made his magic stronger than a demon’s, and more variable than a dandelion tuft in the wind—dangerous and unreliable.

“What if he’s gone?” Nina said, and we all jerked as a tiny pebble rolled almost to our feet. From the tufts of grass, eyes showed. A silhouette rose, ragged, as if he wasn’t real. My breath quickened as I felt Trent pull more heavily on the line and the spiral glowed to make a puddle of green light. The glow stretched all the way to the surface demon, seeming to shred the first layer of reality from it to expose the spirit it really was.

I reached behind me for the solid feel of the rock as Trent’s magic pulled at me. It was a call to go home. I’d been there once, vulnerable to its summons.

Scared, I looked up at the black dome the sky made. “Bis? Jenks!” I shouted.

“I don’t think that’s Felix,” Nina said, and I agreed. The hatred shining from the dark was too deep, too enduring. But he was someone. Cormel, maybe? Luke’s master? Ivy’s mother? They weren’t demons, they were lost souls, shoved into the hell of the demons’ making until the body died and mind and soul became one again.

Oh God. Don’t let me do anything stupid.

Stepping carefully to not touch his spiral, Trent set a thumb-size bottle at the very center, upside down and still stoppered with a black wax. A faint glow raced from it to fill the spiral. Nina gasped, and I winced at the almost unheard whine. It set the bones in my ears vibrating. It was coming from the spiral itself, waves of glowing light pulsating from it like the heart of creation.

Even more carefully, Trent backed out.

“Ah, it’s working,” I said as more eyes showed, rising up from the grass like lions.

Crouching, Trent touched the red-drawn circle around the spiral, and a not-there shimmer seemed to rise straight up, not arching closed to make a dome but making a perfect column with the spiral glowing within it. It was his containment field, and the ache between my ears grew.

“Nina,” he said, hair falling into his face and a glow about his hands that made him look nothing like himself. “Once he shows, lure him into the spiral. You can pass in and out of it, but don’t touch any of the lines. The spell should ignore you, even if you touch the spiral, but no need to take chances. Once the surface demon touches any part of the spiral, he’ll have no recourse but to walk it. That will force his essence into the bottle.”

Is this how he captured my soul? I wondered, a faint memory of chant chilling me.

“Are you sure?” she warbled, clearly ready to break.

“Pretty sure.”

I looked at the glowing eyes inching closer, my unease growing. We’d come into this knowing what to do, but not what would happen. Trent’s magic was attracting every surface demon within a hundred miles. “Trent, how can I help here?” I asked, and Nina made a hopeless cry of despair.

Something dangerous plinked through me as our eyes met. He could sing souls to him, mine included, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. “Keep the rest off us,” he said, words having an odd cadence, not quite chanting, but oh so close, and it pulled at me. “I don’t like what your aura looks like. Stay out of the column,” he added, then more sharply, “Nina! On your right!”

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The woman shrank away, hand to her mouth as a surface demon edged in, emboldened by the others behind him. I could hear them creeping closer, and I itched to invoke the outer protection circle. “Jenks!” I shouted, searching for the sound of wings. “Talk to me!”

But the surface demon had hesitated, his eyes fixed on Nina. “Try holding out your hand,” I suggested, and she shook her head, eyes almost entirely black as she retreated.

“That’s not him,” she whispered.

I turned to Trent for his opinion, and in that instant—the surface demon moved.

Nina shrieked. Adrenaline slammed through me. I jerked Nina out of the way, my other hand extended toward the slavering soul coming at us. “Detrudo!” I shouted, locking my knees against the surge of power.

The surface demon skidded to a halt, but my magic caught him square in the chest, bowling him back into the darkness in a flurry of long bare limbs and tattered clothes.

****. “Trent!” I shouted, feeling his chant rising through me. “There’re too many of them!”

“Look!” Nina screamed, pointing at the dark.

I couldn’t see crap. Jenks and Bis were still AWOL, and frustrated, I made a fist and pointed it at the sky. “Leno cinis!” I shouted, funneling a crapload of energy through me and into the faintest imagined circle above us. A burst of amber-tinted light lit the entire area in a flash.

Nina cowered as the surface demons hid from the light. I didn’t want to invoke the perimeter circle unless I had to, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the grass rustled like dead cornstalks on All Hallows’ Eve as they faded back. But they didn’t go far.

“I don’t think he’s here,” I said softly, not wanting to interrupt Trent’s chanting.

I turned, lips parting as I saw him crouched before his circle, the amber light from my slowly drifting spell making him look covered in old blood. A memory of seeing Al like this flashed over me, shaking me.

****, what am I doing getting Trent involved in this?

Nina cried out in fear, and I spun. But it was only Bis and Jenks, and I yanked the energy from a rising spell back, feeling it burn as I dissolved the outer edges and it collapsed.

“Do what you need to do and be quick,” the pixy said, then did a double take at Trent, still chanting. “It’s like someone yelled free lunch.”

And we’re the entrée, I thought, flicking the mostly spent charm at the circling demons.

“How do you know you’re not chasing Felix away?” Jenks said.

My lips pressed tight. “I don’t.” Frustrated, I watched two surface demons skulk closer. Maybe Trent should tamp down his siren song a little. But then my eyes narrowed as they stopped just outside my easy magical reach. I turned to the right, seeing five more doing the same. Three were to the left, but more were coming up to fill in the blanks. Crap on toast, they were staying exactly out of my range. That’s why the first had been so bold. They’d been learning my reach. Toast. We were toast.

Concerned, I edged to Trent, hesitating when his pull on my soul became . . . tantalizingly alluring, whispering of peace and contentment.

“Trent,” I whispered, attention riveted by the glowing spiral, but he was deep into his spell. “Trent!” I said louder, nudging his foot. I didn’t want to interrupt, but we had enough souls to choose from now. “They know my reach,” I said, feeling as if we’d just left this scene in reality with the vampires. “Can you tone it down a little?” This had been a mistake. I never should have involved Trent. Newt said the Goddess couldn’t hear me. I should have done this myself.

Jenks’s dust shifted to an ugly black. “They’re focusing on Nina,” he whispered, and the vampire paled.

“You noticed that, too?” I muttered, then flung up a hand when five rushed us from three different directions. “Get down!” I shouted. Nina shrieked, and I threw wads of unfocused energy at them. Again arms and legs flailed as they were blown back, and I spun, making sure no one was sneaking up behind us. They were testing me, and my heart pounded.

“Rachel!” Bis shouted, and I whirled back around.

“No!” Trent exclaimed. His chanting cut off and pain iced through my head as something I hadn’t know was there was suddenly ripped away with his voice. I gasped, stunned and dizzy, unable to react as Nina was dragged screaming into the darkness. Jenks and Bis were slowing their progress, and when one let go to swing at Bis, Nina fought back, bucking and twisting until she got free. Sobbing, she lurched back to me.

Trent’s spell had sunk deeper into me than I’d realized, and my pulse thundered as I pulled heavily on the line. “Trent! Fire in the hole!” I shouted as I threw a wad of energy straight up. “Dilatare!” I exclaimed, exploding it with a twist of my wrist. Surface demons went flying. Nina pressed into the ground, her desperate clawing motion to get back to me never stopping.

Eyes alight, I pulled myself straight. “Rhombus!” I shouted as I set the outer circle. Satisfied we’d have a moment, I reached to help Nina stand.

Face grim with anger, she looked up at me, her expression shocked, and changing to fear as she snatched her outstretched hand away, her eyes wide and black.

My heart pounded, and then I was on the dirt, choking as the dust of the ever-after blinded me. Something . . . was on me. Pain jerked through my scalp, and I fought to breathe as bands of steel wrapped around my neck. Sinewy brown arms pinched me to the earth. Thin wiry fingers choked my throat closed.

Panicked, I spun the line through me. The demon howled like a desert wind, but he hung on, even as his skin peeled back and began to char. I could feel the vampire soul soaking into me, trying to take over my body, to merge his soul with mine. Trent’s chanting swirled through both our thoughts, making the edges blur where normally they couldn’t touch.

“Enough!” Nina raged, her demand a harsh whip.

The fingers around my neck sprang away and I gasped, rolling prostrate as I coughed and felt my neck. The line I’d used to try to burn the demon from me hummed through my synapses, scorching my brain and making every motion hurt. My heart thundered, and every pulse sent needles through my fingers. I got a clean breath in and shoved the line back into the earth as I exhaled in a half sob. It was gone. The demon was gone. I was still myself, but I could feel its alien nature on me, like red dust I had to wash off.

Gritty tears blurred my eyes as I looked up in the fading light from my charm. Nina stood over me, wisps of hair from the demon she’d pulled off me still in her fist. Trent was behind her, white faced. The demon Nina had flung into the rock beside him slid, unmoving, to the earth.

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Had she killed a soul? Was that even possible?

“You will not!” Nina raged, spinning a tight circle in warning, finger crooked, all angles and ugliness. It was Felix. Nina had broken and Felix had slipped into her, freeing her from fear, from any thought at all. “You will not because I say so. She is mine!”

Not sure if he meant me or Nina, I sat up, glad the surface demons had withdrawn to an unsettling twenty feet back, their eyes glowing and blinking. Nina’s lips were pulled back, her posture ugly with her feet spread wide and her head at a weird angle so she could see the sky and earth at the same time.

“Rachel?” Trent’s whisper made Nina twitch, and I raised my hand to tell him I was okay. Bis was beside him, black in fear but ready to act. Jenks was there, too, stuck within the circle Trent had made to protect them.

“If you ever trap me again in a circle when Rachel needs me, I will kill you in your sleep, Kalamack,” Jenks said, the unsettling black dust sifting from him and making the red dirt turn white. Wiping the grit from his mouth, Trent nodded and dropped his circle.

Jenks darted to me, and I staggered to a stand. “I’m fine,” I rasped. “Go see how many we’re dealing with.” The rock under my hand hurt. It was as if I could feel the accumulated damage from two thousand years of smut raining down on it.

“No,” he said flatly, his wings moving so fast they hurt my ears.

Shocked, I looked up, realizing how scared he’d been. For me.

“They’re leaving,” Jenks added, rising up a few feet and spinning to get a three-sixty. “Get ready for something.”

“I get that feeling, too.” Ignoring Felix/Nina, I flexed my hand to rid it of the last of the pinpricks. Trent was scrambling to repair his spiral, his chanting half heard and motions hasty, but all I wanted to do was get out of here and back to the vampires waiting to beat us to a pulp.

Nina stumbled, throwing a white hand to the ground to stay upright. My attention shot to the horizon when a surface demon became obvious, seeming to appear from nowhere.

“Trent, it’s him!” I whispered loudly, and his magic rose again, the elven drums pounding a chant into my psyche, demanding I submit, become.

Become. It had been what the Goddess had been terrified of, becoming something new, something else, destroying her as she . . . was reborn. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and the sharp stab of pain from Jenks’s sword on my earlobe jerked me back. Damn, I had been headed right for Trent’s spell.

Nina had fallen to her knees, eyes fixed on the surface demon as tears rolled down her face. “Oh God,” she moaned, the pain in her voice telling me it was Felix. “Please . . . I can’t.”

Beside me, Trent’s chanting rose, strong. Nina reached out to the demon. “My soul!” she screamed, the sound echoing back from the roof of the world. “I can’t . . .”

Jenks’s wings felt like fire. “Rache, you think them touching is a good idea?”

No, I didn’t. I shook off my shock and stumbled forward. It was obvious that the surface demon in front of Nina was Felix’s soul; the bruises I’d given him were still red and ugly. He hissed as he saw me, but he’d almost reached Nina and I didn’t dare let them touch. The woman was crying, afraid to move, I think, and I pulled her to her feet, dragging her backward to lure the soul into following us. This hadn’t been the original idea, but we were down to quick and dirty. As long as I didn’t touch the spiral, I should be okay. I’d be okay, wouldn’t I?

Nina took a step, completely unaware or uncaring as the surface demon closed the gap. Her hand went out, shaking as she enticed him closer. “Please . . . ,” she moaned, the sound going to my center and aching.

“Little to the right, Rache,” Jenks whispered, and my foot cramped with tingles when my heel touched Trent’s outer circle. I hesitated, knowing I shouldn’t be here. Knees shaking, I remembered the peace the curse promised, the release from fear, from pain. But it was too soon, and I refused it. My sight dimmed with sparkles as I took another step back, dragging Nina over Trent’s spiral. The demon followed, writhing, afraid to follow, but unable to resist.

Nina didn’t seem to notice when she crossed the first of the spiral lines, even when her foot touched it. The demon, though . . .

The undead soul’s eyes widened. His outline wavered, and my grip on Nina tightened as she reached for him, tears streaming down her face and glinting black in the green and red light. Trent gasped when the demon reached out as well, his hand passing through Nina’s. He’d become insubstantial. It was working!

Nina and the demon both shook, touching but not. “Oh God, what have I done?” Nina moaned, and my heart thudded as I realized Felix’s soul was trying to merge with Nina’s. “What have I . . . Please. I didn’t know. I had to!” she sobbed. “Let me die, please God, let me die!”

“Get out of the charm!” Trent almost hissed. “Jenks, get Rachel out of there!”

I jumped when Jenks’s sword poked my ear, and dizzy, I began backing Nina across the spiral. The soul followed, his feet stepping precisely where mine had been, avoiding the glowing spiral. Trent was right. The undead couldn’t have their souls and survive. Felix was sobbing not from the joy of finding his soul, but from the guilt for the hundred years of brutality he’d committed—enjoyed. Cormel wasn’t going to believe me. I’ll make him believe.

Nina pleaded, arm stretched as I backed her up another careful step. My skin tingled, and I shivered as I reached the last arm of it and dragged her to the other side of the outer circle.

“One more step, Rache,” Jenks said, and I held my breath against the lure as I hesitated . . . breathed . . . and finally pushed myself out of Trent’s spell.

“No!” Nina moaned when I yanked her through it as well. My pulse thundered, and the zing of Trent’s field seemed to lick up the edges of my skin, trapping the demon inside. We had him.

“Oh no,” Jenks whispered, and Trent glanced at me. His face went ashen.

“What?” I said, his fear kindling my own, but neither one said anything. “What!” I said again, vertigo hazing me as Nina collapsed, sobbing. My fingertips were tingling, but they looked okay.

“Nothing.” Jaw clenched, Trent turned back to the charm. “Keep Nina back.”

“Give it to me!” Nina howled, and I suddenly found myself three feet away and gasping for breath on the hard dirt. Nina had shoved me, and I watched as she hammered on the column. Within it, the twisted shape of Felix’s soul was doing the same, both of them freaking out as their brief moment of connection was sundered.

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“Holy pixy piss, Trent, finish it!” Jenks shouted.

“Ta na shay cooreen na da!” Trent said, horrified as the demon tried to dig his way under the energy barrier. “Ta na shay!” he said again, to no effect.

The demon howled at the sky, then turned to Trent, hatred in his eyes.

And then the demon’s foot touched the spiral.

Shock reverberated through the surface demon, and his howling turned from anger to fear, and then panic as he suddenly dissolved, vanishing into a quicksilver pulse of light that spun through the spiral to the tiny endpoint.

The demon’s last cry echoed, but he was gone.

Nina stared, shocked as Felix’s soul was suddenly not there. In the new silence, the bottle slowly rocked, spun, and fell over, clinking against the pebbly dust.

Had it worked?

“Give. Me. My. Soul.”

It had been Nina, and I stared at her as Trent, oblivious to everything, struggled to find himself, head down and panting as the ends of his ribbon shook. He’d done it, and it looked as if it had cost him dearly. Why was I doing this with him? I was going to get him killed.

“Give it to me!” Nina shouted again, and I scrambled up as she jumped at Trent. Bis flew up in fear and Jenks darted away. Scared, I grabbed Nina’s shirt and jerked her off Trent.

“Nina! Kick him out!” I demanded, and she snarled, her hair wild as I pinned her to a tall rock, my hands feeling as if they were on fire.

“There is no Nina,” she howled. “I want my soul! Give it to me!”

“I’m sorry, Nina.” I couldn’t find a hint of her in the woman’s glazed, fierce expression. I made a fist, grabbing it with my free hand and swinging my elbow at her head.

It hit her with a resounding pop. Pain flashed up through me and was gone. It was a phantom pain. I’d done it right and all the force had gone right into her head, knocking her out.

Elbow stiff, I caught her before she fell and eased her down. If Felix had been himself, I never would have been able to do it, but he was half out of his mind, lost and adrift from having touched his soul.

“Are you okay, Rachel?” Trent whispered, and I nodded. He was slumped beside Bis, exhausted, shaken by what he’d done. I knew he’d have no regrets and would do it again if I asked. But I wouldn’t.

Seeing Felix with even the hint of his soul had been enough to convince me that giving the undead their souls would send them walking into the sun. I’d seen Cincinnati without her undead. As much as I hated them, it would be the beginning of the end.

“You can’t give him his soul,” Trent said.

Saying nothing, I crossed the space between us, kicking dust and dirt into the spiral as I went to get the soul bottle. The spiral was dead. It held nothing anymore.

“You saw what it did to him,” Trent added.

The bottle felt small in my hand, and my stomach twisted as I remembered the demon who’d taken shape from Felix’s soul, bitter and savage. Without the mind to temper it and the body to cushion it, the soul became warped and broken. How long had they been apart? A hundred years? Two hundred?

“Rachel?”

I scooped up my shoulder bag and dropped the bottle inside. Today I felt like a demon, and I wiped my hands off on my pants, shaking as I looked at them and the red dust like blood. “We need to get out of here,” I said, seeing the eyes beginning to close in around us again.

Slowly Trent got to his feet. He looked at his spell for a moment, then away—but not at me.

I could not fail Ivy. If I failed to convince Cormel that this would be their ruin, then I’d finish the charm and fix it to Felix. And if Cormel still didn’t believe after Felix walked into the sun to end his torment, I’d find Cormel’s soul and fix it to his putrid, decaying body.

But I’d never ask Trent to do this again.

Chapter 8

Jenks tugged at my hair as he struggled to be free of it. We were back in Eden Park, but little had changed. Living vampires were in front of us, staring in the shadowy light from the nearby streetlamps. They were bruised, several sporting bloodied noses and lips, and the ground was torn up. A quick look behind us confirmed my suspicion that we were surrounded by whatever camarilla had won the fight we’d left earlier.

“Sweet ever-loving humping Tink. Can’t you jump us somewhere where we don’t have to fight for our lives?” Jenks took to the air with the sound of dry leaves.

I reached to set a circle, but Trent’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Best not show any fear,” he whispered. “I’ll keep a tight hold on the line to set a circle if we need one. It might be better if you laid off the magic for a little while.”

Laid off the magic? “Are you serious?” I said, not liking the sullen faces looking at me. But they weren’t advancing, and I eased my hold on the line until it was the lightest of touches. He was right about one thing: showing fear always brought out the worst in vampires, living or dead.

I thought of the little bottle in my bag and held it closer. They weren’t getting it. Then I grimaced, wondering why I was trying so hard to do a black elven charm that might get me killed. The last one Landon had given me nearly had. Cormel will believe me, and then I won’t have to risk it, I thought, but when Felix’s cry of agony and despair raged out to echo against the town houses, I had a bad feeling that Cormel was going to be just as blind.

“What, by Tink’s little pink rosebuds, was that?” Jenks said, and Bis made the short hop from the statue to me, wrapping his tail under my armpit and shivering.

Trent scuffed his feet into the pavement. “I think it was Felix looking for his soul,” he said. Tired, I dropped my shoulder bag, ready for a fight. Nina was still slumped on the ground and I hoped she didn’t wake up.

Never dropping my eyes, the vampire in front leaned to a scared woman who looked as if she’d come from the office, heels scuffed and dress jacket torn. “Tell him she’s back,” he said, and the woman retreated, her shadowy form swallowed by the crowd. They were just staring at us, giving me the creeps.

“Cormel wants to talk to you,” the vampire said, his voice carrying well. He was dressed casually, but his glasses were top of the line, costing more than my last trip to the spell shop.

“Good, because I want to talk to him,” I said. My stomach hurt, but a knot had eased. Cormel’s people had won. The man might be reasonable. He’d ruled the free world during the Turn, after all.

I’d have known there was a fight even if we hadn’t jumped out at the start of it. It was also obvious that a good portion of them weren’t Cormel’s usual strong-arm force. There were shopkeepers, students, and salespeople among the bouncers, street dealers, and security. Cormel had called in whoever would respond, making sure that when I popped back into reality he would control my next move. Which begged the question as to how big the faction was that didn’t want the undead to have their souls. Ally? I wondered, dismissing it. Cormel would listen, but as Felix’s laments rose anew, doubt stained my conviction.

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The vampires around me were an unsettling mix of hope and fear, hope that I had a way to keep them from losing their souls, fear that it might cause them even more pain. Should I give them what they wanted, knowing it might bring an end to their undead existence and plunge the world into chaos until a new balance could be found? One that might have an elven master?

I glanced at Trent as he checked his phone. A power struggle might elevate him back to his original clout, even if he was against the entire thing. Guilt for his drop in status bothered me keenly, but he wouldn’t thank me if I handed it back to him by destroying the current balance. There was no easy answer, and as we waited for Cormel, I began to fidget. I wasn’t the only one anxious, and Jenks bobbed up and down, fidgety.

“Relax,” I said, seeing someone drive a scruffy white dog away. It looked like Buddy, which sort of answered my question of what had happened to the original dog. “It’s just a conversation. No one has ever died from a conversation.”

Jenks’s wings looked silver in the light from Trent’s phone as he landed on the man’s shoulder. His dust blanked out the screen, and Trent blew it away. “Uh-huh,” Jenks said sourly as he took to the air again.

Trent stiffened, his concern obvious. “Ivy’s been taken.”

“What?” I spun, leaning to read his screen. “We were gone only half an hour!” My thoughts went back to the rival vampires, and my heart almost stopped. They had her.

Trent’s expression was grave. “It was Cormel. The girls are fine. Ellasbeth is having hysterics.” Punching a few buttons, he closed his phone. “I told them to stay put.”

My relief was short-lived, and I looked over the surrounding vampires circling us like zombies. Where is the I.S. when you need them?

“Think we’re going to have to fight our way out?” Jenks said, looking ready for it, but I was weary of it all. Three vampires, sure. Four, maybe. Two dozen—not happening.

Trent, too, seemed more eager to solve this by action than words, but his fake, political smile faded at the rising sound of approaching voices. Rynn Cormel was making his casual, unhurried way to the front of the crowd. Jenks’s wings clattered, and with a nod, I sent him up and away for reconnaissance. Bis went with him, and I breathed easier. The farther away they were from me, the safer they were, and my stomach hurt at the ugly truth of it.

Cognizant of my anger and worry—enjoying it, perhaps—Cormel stopped before us, a confident smile on his thin lips. The somewhat small man took his hands from the pockets of his knee-length wool coat, removing his hat and handing it to an aide. His eyes never left us as he fixed his hair, and my skin crawled when Felix’s soulful cry rose to an angry demand before it fell into a sob. Several vampires cringed, and I held my shoulder bag tighter. The bottle with Felix’s soul clinked. Maybe I was overthinking this. If I didn’t give them what they wanted, they’d kill Ivy. What did I care what happened next?

“You shouldn’t have taken Ivy,” I said, and Felix cried out again, the sound chilling.

“You shouldn’t defy me, Morgan.” His voice was even, his Bronx accent obvious. He was angry, but his voice lacked any vampire persuasion.

“It’s a personal choice,” I said flippantly, rethinking my approach when Trent winced. “Cormel, I’m sorry, but giving the undead their souls isn’t a good idea.”

“You might think differently in the morning,” he threatened, and my face went cold. Trent grabbed my arm, and I pushed him off me. Fear mixed with anger, and I watched every vampire’s eyes dilate. Cormel smiled at the titters of laughter. They thought they had me by the short hairs. And they sort of did.

“You just keep thinking this is funny!” I shouted. Damn it, what had happened to my midnight deadline? “If you hurt Ivy, you get nothing. Nothing!”

Cormel smiled. “Oh, I assure you that whatever I do, she’ll enjoy it. And so will you. You shouldn’t have toyed with me, Morgan. Kalamack can’t help you anymore.”

“I beg to differ,” Trent said, and a new fear slid through me. Not him. I couldn’t bear it if my mistakes got him hurt.

“Look,” I said, and Cormel’s eyes narrowed as he realized I was about to make a list of demands. “I just saw Felix with his soul, and it nearly killed him right there. I know I promised I’d find a way for you to keep them, but it totally freaked him out! Listen to him!”

Felix’s wail rose up almost as if on cue, and I shivered at the lost sound of it. I wasn’t the only one. Almost all the laypeople in the crowd were scared. It was only the heavies who maintained their “pound them” attitudes, and some of them were showing doubt.

“Perhaps if you’d been successful, he wouldn’t be so distressed,” Cormel said dryly.

“That is success you’re listening to!” I said. “I’ve got his soul. Are you blind?”

Shock cascaded over Cormel. “You . . . have it?” The upright, polished master turned toward Felix’s raw screams. It sounded as if someone was torturing him. “I thought . . .” His expression hardened. “You dangled his soul before him? Like a toy?”

“Easy,” Trent whispered as I pulled my bag forward.

If that ugly thing touched me, I’d let Felix’s soul out right here and now, regardless of how hard it had been to catch. “We have it,” I said, and my fingers dipped into my bag to find the gritty, cool feel of the bumpy glass. I held it aloft, then jerked it back when Cormel began to shake. “It took all five of us, but we’ve got it.”

“And you call us unfeeling animals,” he rasped, eyes black. “No wonder he grieves!”

Swallowing hard, I held it tight to my middle. Cormel watched as if it was his own soul I held. “I can fix it to him,” I said, but I wasn’t sure he was listening anymore as he stared at the bottle. “But it will send him into the sun.” Please believe me. I don’t want to have to do this.

Felix’s screams had become more insistent, and clearly upset, Cormel leaned to speak to one of his perfectly dressed aides, not a drop of blood on his coat or a scuff on his polished shoes. “Of course he is in pain!” he said when the man scuttled away. “Give him his soul, Rachel, or Ivy will suffer.”

I had known it would be no other way, and as Trent stood behind me smelling of broken leaves and snapped twigs, I pulled myself straight. “Fine,” I snapped, knowing my doubt over Ivy’s con***ion was a more powerful goad than seeing her here before me tied up. “I’ll do it!” I added, “But I want to see her first.”