That made Quen even happier, and his expression twisted into a stiff mask. “If there’s nothing else, Sa’han?” he said dryly.
Trent’s head went back down over the open folder. “No. Thank you.”
Quen slowly spun on one foot. “Ivy, Jenks. Rachel . . .”
“You’re not staying?” I said as Jenks flew up to escort him to the door.
Finally Quen’s bad mood cracked, and he inclined his head, smiling. “I have to take Ellasbeth to the airport.”
“See?” Jenks said loudly. “Not even one day into it, and we already have one good thing happen because Trent and Rachel had sex.”
“Jenks!” I shouted, but Trent barely glanced up, a smile quirking his lips. “Where are the girls?” I asked, wondering if Trent would have to leave as well.
“Jonathan.” Trent closed the folder and leaned back in the chair. “He’s an excellent babysitter. The girls love teasing him.”
I wasn’t too sure about that, but I understood the teasing part.
“Ma’am,” Quen said, looking right at me as he almost clicked his heels together.
I scowled at him. “Call me that again, and I’ll take care of your family planning for you.”
Quen smiled, deep and full. “Rachel,” he amended, then headed into the hall. “Jenks, a word?”
“What the hell is it with you people?” Jenks griped as he followed him out. “Can’t you make a decision without talking to the pixy?”
“Warriors build empires around the kernel of truth that others overlook,” came Quen’s soft voice, and then there was nothing but his steps going fainter until the boom of the church’s front door. Jenks didn’t come back, and at the far end of the couch, Ivy eyed me.
Excitement settled deep in my core and spread out until it seemed as if my fingertips were tingling. Within me, the mystics rose up like leaves in the wind, excited and scared when I told them they were going home.
“So which one of you has the layout of the mortuary?” I asked, and Ivy smiled, leaning forward to push her laptop to where we all could see.
Twenty-Four
The church was quiet as Trent and I waited for Ivy and David to bring back a “borrowed” van. The pixies were out somewhere, and if I cared to listen to the mystics, I’d be able to hear photons zinging about, crashing into things to make them glow with the energy my brain understood as color. I was more interested in watching Trent do a final check on his belt pack. He looked as calm and collected in Jenks’s thief black as he did in a two-thousand-dollar suit. But I already knew that. He was doing this with me, and it felt more than good; it felt right.
Bis shifted his wings from high up in the sanctuary’s rafters, leaning to look out the colored squares of stained glass at a cop car zipping by, lights and sirens going. The soot he’d drawn under his eyes worried me. The kid could go almost invisible with his color shifts, but he wanted to fit in with Jenks, now sporting half-moons under his eyes to break up his pale face. I didn’t want him to get hurt, but it wasn’t as if I could make him stay home. Frankly, I needed his help. Bis wasn’t going to let me out of his sight, saying that my aura shifted with the number of mystics behind it and that he couldn’t reliably find me anymore. Which begged the question of how the mystics kept finding me. Maybe they were homing in on the soul behind the aura.
Curfew was in full swing, and the I.S. cops from Columbus were being vicious about it this side of the river with blockades and armed officers. The pervading sentiment was unless it was on fire, it could wait, and much of the burning stuff was being left to those who cared to put it out. The church had no water pressure at all. We’d either have an easy time getting to the mortuary, or one full of trials. I was betting on the latter.
The siren was fading as Trent went to the window and put one foot on the low sill to look out and tie his shoe. Nice butt, I couldn’t help but think, and then flushed at the memory of Trent’s and my earlier escapade and the feel of his skin tightening under my fingertips. My blush deepened when Trent seemed to feel my eyes on him and he turned.
Guilt pushed to the forefront and I looked away. He was being summoned before the elven courts because of me. I’d known there’d be repercussions, but I’d thought his money would shield him from the worst of it, leaving me to deal with the demons. Seeing my distress, Trent slumped. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you? About us?”
My lips parted in shock. “How do you do that!”
His smile returned, and a thrill ran from the soles of my feet to my middle. “I know your tells.”
“God save me from lovesick elves,” Jenks moaned, his dust a cheerful silver as he went to talk to his kids. There were yammering about something, and Belle stalked into the sanctuary, fist on one hip, bow clenched in the other. Clearly there was an issue in the babysitting rules.
But Trent had moved to stand before me, a rare hint of vulnerability in the back of his eyes. “It’s my fault,” I said, gesturing at nothing. “The summons, I mean. If you hadn’t told Ellasbeth to get out . . .”
Trent checked his watch. “I believe that was my decision, not yours.”
“I could have told you to go home,” I blurted, and his eyebrows rose in challenge. “I could have!” I protested, and he chuckled until I found a smile.
Trent’s good humor slowly died. “And now?”
“Nothing’s changed,” I said, and his motions again became graceful.
“Good!” Jenks shouted as he waved his kids off and dropped down to us. “Let me know if it does so I can dust some sense into her.”
Disconcerted, I dropped my eyes, then abruptly sat down as a slew of ranging mystics fell into me, making me dizzy with images of a white van and Ivy. “Ivy’s on her way,” I said, looking up at Trent’s concern. His hand was on my shoulder, steadying me, and I thought I could feel a rising tingle of wild magic between us. “I don’t know how old the image is, but she’s got the van,” I added. I wasn’t sure what I appreciated more, that he’d have been there if I’d needed it, or that he wasn’t treating me like an invalid, accepting that I’d had a moment and I was okay.
“That’s probably her,” he said at the unmistakable sound of an engine, and Jenks, plastered to the colored glass, gave a thumbs-up.
I stood, heart pounding. We were ready. “Okay!” I said brightly. “Jenks, Bis, Trent. This is going to be easy. We go in. Collect the mystics. We go out to the line. Done.” It wasn’t going to be that easy, but I could hope.
Jenks hovered between us, his kids a sullen cloud behind him. “Ah, we’re coming with you.” Wincing, he looked over his shoulder. “All of us.”
“Seriously?” I shrugged into my black jacket and zipped it up. From outside, Ivy revved the engine, wanting us to hurry. “Who’s going to watch the church?”
Jenks made a sharp wing chirp to shut his kids up. “It’s not going to run away,” he said. “I’ve seen the foundation and it doesn’t have wheels. Belle will be here. But we’re coming. All of us.” His expression became pained. “I can’t make them stay, Rache. They want to help.”
I grabbed my bag from the coffee table and slung it over my shoulder. “We already have too many people.” I strode for the door, but there was nothing I could do to stop them either.
“We don’t take up any room,” Jenks said as he paced me, his kids silently following. “And you’re going to need us.”
I hesitated at the door. Trent was no help, checking his watch as he deferred the decision to me. Jenks coming was a no-brainer, but a half-dozen noisy, ill-experienced pixies getting in the way might be a problem. Bis shrugged as he hung from the door frame, and pixy dust eddied when he dropped to wrap his tail across my back and under my arm in a secure hold. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “They can stick with me.”
Bis taking responsibility for them—for all of them—would be a load off my mind. “Okay,” I said reluctantly, and we were suddenly covered in pixy dust, Bis hunching at their ultrasonic noise. “Let’s go!” I said louder, and Trent opened the door to give them somewhere to go. “Before Ivy has a cow!”
My words were confident, but I was anything but as I gave Belle a last salute and we left. Motions slow, I tugged the door closed behind me, my fingers trailing on the heavy wood as I was struck by the feeling that I might never return to open it.
Bis took off from my shoulder and the pixies dove in and out of the open windows of the van. Trent hesitated on the top step for me. “You all right?”
My feet thumped down the stairs, the shock reverberating all the way up my spine. “Jittery,” I said. I was getting the worst premonition. This wasn’t going to go well. Something was going to go wrong. It was more than the scent of smoke and furtive figures traveling from backyard to backyard. I’d always had the demons to fall back on, and this time, I’d be in worse trouble if they found out. They wouldn’t care if the world fell apart—and while I was busy trying to explain, it would.
“It will be done in a few hours,” Trent said, the sound of plastic on metal a harsh rolling as he yanked the sliding door of the van open.
I reached for a handhold . . . and faltered, rocking back to the sidewalk. The van was full of vampires. Not just vampires, but vampires with guns, and chains, and chest wraps of grenades. Trent’s expression was as shocked as mine. The normal seats had been removed, replaced with two big bench seats along both sides, making it look like a SWAT van—if SWAT vans had excited vampires comparing the pros and cons of their handguns in them. Okay, on second glance, I counted only six vampires including Ivy and Nina up front, but it looked like more. Whoa. Was that a sledgehammer?
My attention shot to Ivy at the wheel, dressed in black with her hair up in a bun that would be hard to grab. “Ah, Ivy?” I said, ignoring the eager hands held out to drag me in. None of them were David’s. “This was supposed to be a small, intimate affair.”
“It just kind of happened.” Ivy waved the darting pixy kids out from between us. Bis was already perched on the headrest of the front passenger seat, his big claws making dents in the vinyl. Nina looked far too eager for my liking.
“Don’t be mad at Ivy,” Nina said as she twisted to look at me. She was sporting a black jumpsuit that looked as if it got its start in a skydiving class—apart from the grenades sewn onto it. “She told us about the I.S. trying to control the mystics. It’s not just about them killing our undead anymore. No one should have that kind of power over another. It ends here.”
I backed up into Trent. Six excited vampires. My neck was tingling. “Where’s David?”
A muscular vampire I remembered as being one of Piscary’s bouncers pushed everyone back and told them to shut up and make a hole for us. Scott, I think. “He thought it was too crowded and is running with his pack,” Scott said, the lines about his eyes telling me he was worried about his second life as well. I couldn’t tell them to go home and wait.
“Get in the van, Rache!” Jenks prompted from the rearview mirror, but I balked at the muscular bodies and the quick reactions that living a life on the edge of death engendered. It might sound good on paper, but sure as pixy dust, by sunrise there’d be yelling and screaming and blood in someone’s mouth.
Trent’s hand touched the small of my back, and my scar tingled. “They know the risks,” he said, ushering me forward when Ivy yelled at us to hurry up. “It’s their masters’ lives in the balance.” Accepting Scott’s help, Trent stepped inside. Turning, he held out his hand for me. This was a bad idea, but I reached out and let them both pull me up and in.
“Finally!” Ivy muttered, accelerating before the door was even shut.
“Slide down!” someone said, and there were more happy complaints about squishing the ammo and “who took my detonators?”
Jenks’s dust was a contented gold as he sat on my shoulder. “I like these people,” he said as I took the seat right behind Ivy where I could see out the front.
I looked worriedly at Nina, remembering how she’d harbored Felix without anyone knowing. Sure, he had told the Free Vampires to take a hike, but he’d also agreed to give the mystics to the I.S. in exchange for her. Grimacing, I leaned forward to Ivy, lips barely moving. “Is she clean?”
Her grip on the wheel tightened, and I backed up. “Yes,” she said, eyes flicking to Nina then back to the road. “Rachel, she wants to help. To prove that she can.”
I eased back, knowing the importance of that. “Then she should help,” I said to make Ivy’s brow ease a little, but inside, I was worried.
Someone screamed in fun as we took a corner fast to avoid a roadblock, and I was jostled into Trent. He sat me back upright, and I tried to quell a growing feeling of disaster. Everyone was having so much fun. Through the window, I watched the Hollows pass in the darkness. Most of the streetlights were shot out, and an eerie red sheen reminiscent of the ever-after glowed on the abandoned cars and occasional burnt-out shop front. Dark shapes darted from shadow to shadow like surface demons. It didn’t help that it felt as if I’d gotten into a van of Brimstone heads on their way to a concert. “Ivy, crack the windows,” I asked, but I didn’t think the side windows opened any farther. This might be an issue.
Scott quit fiddling with his ammo and leaned across the open space between us. His face held a wide smile, and he rocked from side to side with the van’s motion, his feet solidly planted on the bare floorboards. “Unless you tell us different, we’ll handle the outside. Keep your escape route open. Hold anyone you might flush out.”
