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“Nina is too weak,” she said, running an ever-after-stained finger across Nina’s neck in a motion of seduction. “Her love isn’t strong enough to best me. Leave me alone.”
“Perhaps,” I said, chin high. “But Ivy’s is strong enough for both of them.”
Nina eyes flicked to mine, her expression suddenly blank.
Seeing it, I felt my resolve strengthen. Ivy. It had always been about Ivy. “Nina,” I said suddenly. “You love her. Don’t let her think she doesn’t deserve you! She needs you, Nina, more than you need her! More than she needs me. You know that!”
“You stupid little … bitch …,” Nina choked out, suddenly wavering. She stiffened, stumbling back. “No. You’re mine. You’re mine!” Nina cried, a hand reaching as her eyes went wide. A silent scream came from her, mouth open as she gasped, and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head. I sprang forward to catch her as she went limp, her sudden weight almost bringing us both down.
“Trent!” I shouted, managing to at least break our fall. Maybe Ivy was right. Love had given Nina the strength when nothing else had.
“Oh God!” Nina sobbed, her voice high and panicked as she huddled on the floor beside the bed. “Someone help … me. Someone help me!”
“I’ve got you, Nina,” I said, wrapping my arms around the panicked woman as Trent skidded in. He must have been just outside the door, and my face flamed at what he’d overheard. “Ivy is going to be so proud of you.”
Trent reached to help us up. “Ivy’s okay. What happened?”
My foot was twisted, and I wedged it out from under me. “Nina kicked him out,” I said, truly proud of her as Trent helped me get her up. I’d call her a wimp, but what she’d done was incredible. “Upsy-daisy. That a girl!”
Her wailing suddenly ceased, and Trent’s hands sprang away as her head lifted, a snarl on her face. “I hate you!” she screamed, jerking from me. “I hate you! You don’t know anything! Leave me alone! Ivy is mine. I hate you!”
Yep, Felix was gone. She was on her own now, and out of control.
“Watch it!” Trent warned, and I danced back when she swung at me, her fingers crooked into claws. But it was only Nina, and I ducked under her arm, pinning her arms to her sides and tilting my head when she flung her head back to hit me. Ivy was at the door, eyes holding love and pride, slumped in one of the doctor’s arms. I waved her back, but she knew better than to come in yet.
“That’s better,” I soothed, trying to keep Nina facing me. The hormones that Felix had been turning on in her brain were running like a bad drug trip. He’d been keeping her calm and under control before, and now she was alone, tossed into the deep end of the pool with no life preserver. “Slow breaths. Calm down. Ivy’s right next door,” I lied.
“Let me go!” She began to twist, going limp and then wildly kicking out. “I hate you! Where’s Ivy? You can’t keep her from me! I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you both!”
“My God.” Trent glanced at Ivy as he jerked out of reach of Nina’s swinging foot. Tears spilled from Ivy, and she held a hand to her mouth. “Is this normal?”
Ivy nodded, still a silent witness. I’d seen this before. Actually, I’d seen worse. “Breathe, Nina,” I said, tossing my head to indicate the drugs on the side table. “No one is attacking you.”
“Ivy!” Nina raged, her voice raw.
“It’s going to be okay,” I soothed as Nina stopped fighting and began to sob. “Ivy loves you. She needs you. She doesn’t need me anymore. I’m not going to keep you apart. She’s resting. You can see her in a minute.” My face flamed. How much had Trent heard? All of it?
At the door, Ivy closed her eyes, aching. The doctor holding her upright finally stopped trying to get her to leave, and the professional woman watched with sympathy as Trent readied a syringe. I made my hold on Nina even looser as he took her arm. Those veins of hers were popping up like mole trails, and Nina watched through the tears as he angled the needle to her inner elbow. As out-of-control vampires went, this wasn’t half bad. Guilt had tempered her.
Snuffling, she said, “I didn’t mean to let him stay. I thought I had this. I wouldn’t hurt Ivy for anything. Ow! I love her. What did you give me?”
The spent adrenaline and lack of sleep were making me shake. “I know you do,” I said as Trent silently backed up to dispose of the empty syringe. “It’s going to be okay now. Take a deep breath. You want to lie down?”
She didn’t answer, the drug already hitting her. But she was looking at the pillow, so I eased her down, pulling her feet up as if she were a child and drawing a blanket over her. Eyes already closed, she clutched Ivy’s pillow, breath fast as she fell into a medically induced sleep.
Slowly and in pain, Ivy shuffled in with the help of that doctor. Worried, I stood over Nina as Trent moved the cushy chair right to the bedside. No one said anything as Ivy sank down, and I put a hand on her shoulder. The doctor fussed about getting her back into a proper bed until I gave her a dark look, and she finally left in a professional huff, leaving the door open behind her.
“Wow,” Trent said, and I took a long, slow breath. “I’m totally out of my depth here.”
“She’ll be fine now,” Ivy whispered, and Nina whimpered as Ivy intertwined her long fingers in Nina’s broken-nail, red-dust-smeared perfection. “Everything will be fine. The hard part is over.” Tears spilled from her, and she kissed the top of Nina’s hand. “I’m so proud of you.”
Hard part over? I wasn’t so sure.
It smelled of frightened vampire and the ever-after, and my neck was starting to tingle. I’m not afraid to love someone, am I? I turned away, and Trent caught my elbow.
“Rachel, I can kill the vampire virus, but I don’t know how to treat someone coming off a master high.”
“Soon as Ivy’s stable, we’re leaving,” I said, not really answering his concern. “It’s not safe here.”
Ivy nodded, and deciding they were okay for now, I went into the hall. I didn’t think anywhere was safe anymore. I didn’t know what to do, and frustration tempered with fatigue rose up, swamping me.
Turning from the closed door, Trent ran a hand over his chin in thought. “Let me ask around,” he said softly as we started down the hallway. “See who owes me a favor.”
But no one owed Trent Kalamack favors anymore. Again, sort of my fault.
My guilt thickened, and sensing it, Trent looped his arm in mine, slowing our pace. “Rachel, you aren’t afraid to love. He was saying anything he could think of to put you on edge.”
Crap. Embarrassed, I tried to quicken my steps back to the kitchen and hopefully some coffee. “I think that’s the last we’re going to see of Felix for a while,” I said with forced cheerfulness, desperately trying to change the subject.
Beside me, Trent sighed in acceptance. “I hope so. But really, Rachel, what are the chances? Twice in one night.”
My pace slowed, and I nodded at the doctor as she passed us in the hall on her way back to Ivy and Nina. “The chances were never good,” I admitted. “But it feels better now. Nina kicked him out. The longer Felix sulks, the more stable she will be when he tries again.” Because he would try again.
But thin as it was, it was still hope, and my heart ached for Ivy as we found the kitchen. Tired, I sank back down in my chair, glancing at the newly lit monitor before letting my focus blur and my head hit the table.
Trent sighed, and I heard him take the cold waffles out of the toaster. “You ever see anything like that before? With the surface demons?”
“You mean that one fought the others off?” I lifted my head. “Only when they wanted to eat me by themselves.”
“That’s not what he was doing, though.” Trent’s lips twisted as he looked at the waffles. “These are awful. I’m making you some from scratch.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said, and he turned from throwing them away, his eyes pinched.
“Coffee?” he asked, and I nodded just so he’d lose that sad look. His reach for a mug hesitated at the sound of men in the hall, but it was just Quen setting up additional security. A faint smile twisted my lips. I imagine a white-clad vampire sneaking into the common rooms had put Trent’s head of security in a tizzy. Thank God Jonathan had been there.
I blinked. Thank God Jonathan had been there? Never thought I’d think that.
Trent set three full mugs on the table, and I pulled the nearest closer, a flutter going through me as I felt as if I was a part of something—Trent expected Quen to join us, and I was a natural part of the conversation—even if Quen acted as if he was humoring us.
“What strikes me as the oddest is that the demon who defended Nina was the same one who tried to chew her face off not thirty seconds earlier,” Trent said, gaze unfocused as he held his coffee and breathed in the steam. “One moment she’s breakfast, and the next she’s a god.”
I tapped the mug with a finger, not liking the red dust under the nail. “I think I’d do a little groveling myself if I’d never seen a master vampire before.”
“True.” Trent bobbed his head. “But the rest didn’t seem to care.”
“You noticed that, too?” I took a sip, startled by the rich warmth, but my thoughts were on Ivy. She was going to be okay, but the panic of sitting with her on the cold ever-after ground, holding her hand as she died, was just under my skin. I thanked God I hadn’t had to make that choice of following her desires and killing her again before she rose as an undead.
Oblivious to my thoughts, or more probable, aware and trying to distract me, Trent said, “I’ve never seen a surface demon with a weapon before. Apart from rocks.”
“I have,” I said, turning my mug in a revolving circle. “Newt used a surface demon as a marker in a time and space calibration curse. It had a sword. That’s how she knows which one it is and how long it lived.”
Kisten, I thought, sighing. Kisten had died twice within moments of his first death. I’d been there, but thankfully I hadn’t had to make that choice.
I had held Kisten’s hand and he had died happy, telling me that God had kept his soul for him. Stop it, Rachel, I thought miserably, wiping a tear away before it could brim as I recalled Kisten’s laughing smile. God! My emotions were all over the map. I had loved Kisten. I could love someone without fear. Felix was wrong.
Trent’s eyes were pinched, and he fidgeted. “Calibration curse?” he asked, desperate to get my mind on something else.
Smiling faintly, I reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “Ask me some other time,” I said, remembering the pain of the surface demon living its entire existence in the span of three heartbeats. I was starting to think that surface demons weren’t much more than ghosts, living, breathing ghosts who lusted after the living like the undead only without the shackles that a consciousness imparted. How could anything survive five thousand years without magic?
Clearly relieved, Trent scooted his chair closer to mine. “You think it’s the same one? Newt’s, I mean?”
Tired, I shook my head. “Newt’s had a sword. This one used a staff.” Felix used a staff, too. Maybe that was why the surface demon liked him. But the question remained, why had it done a one-eighty and turned into a groveling love puppy? “You know, it was almost as if the surface demon knew Felix already,” I said slowly. “And didn’t recognize him at first.”
I stopped, heart pounding as I looked up. It hadn’t been Felix in the ever-after in the beginning. It had been Nina. The surface demon hadn’t groveled in front of Nina, it had groveled in front of Felix. Like it knew him. Which would be really hard since the undead never go into the ever-after.
Lips parted, I stared at Trent, a new idea sifting down through my brain. “I think I know where vampire souls go when they die,” I whispered, seeing Trent’s face as white as mine felt.
“The ever-after,” we said in unison.
Five (#ulink_0f4374cb-8156-5b5a-94b5-739d2dabe2c8)
I’m trying to help you,” I said, phone pressed to my ear as I sat in Trent’s car, parked across from the church. “But I need to get into my church, and I need you to take the hit off Ivy. I’ve found your souls, so back off!” Calm, composed, relaxed. The litany was no help. Coming home to find my church full of vampires was harassment, pure and simple. It had scared the crap out of me, too, but that had probably been Cormel’s intent.
“You’ve had over a year to work on this.” Cormel’s New York accent fell flat, when I usually found it charming. “You expect me to believe that today, only when I threaten you, that you have a viable plan. Just like that?”
Nervous, I picked at the window stripping until Trent made a pained sound. Beyond the tinted glass of his sports car, my church looked as if it had been hosting an all-night Brimstone party with toilet paper in the trees and what I hoped were just tomatoes smeared on the stained-glass windows. Bis was a lumpy shadow on a hard-to-reach eave, and I hoped he was okay.
“How often do the undead go into the ever-after?” I asked, and he rumbled a soft agreement. “Even I wouldn’t have figured out the connection between surface demons and vampires if you hadn’t chased me there with Ivy. Nina showing up with Felix in her unconscious was the trigger.”
Cormel was silent, probably unwilling to acknowledge why Felix had suddenly become raging and erratic—freaking out over having been tossed out on his ear by Nina—and with that doubt resonating in him, I put my last card on the table, shaking and glad we had thirty miles and probably two stories of dirt between us.
“Cormel,” I said softly. “I’m not making this up. Surface demons do not defend people, they tear them to shreds. That surface demon was Felix’s soul. It recognized Felix’s consciousness lurking in Nina. I can do this, I just need time.”
“Felix has not been dipping into Nina’s mind. He has promised me. He’s working again. A productive member of society.”
“Seriously?” Disgusted, I slumped to put my knees up against the dash, then took them down when Trent cleared his throat. “Look. I need time to prep the charms to capture it and then affix it to Felix. If it works, then we can all go back to normal. If it doesn’t, I’ll tweak it until it does, but I can’t do anything if I’m protecting Ivy. I’m doing what you want, but if you kill her, this all goes away.”
I glanced at Trent, drawn by his fingers slowly tapping in concern, not all of it for me and Ivy. It was his opinion that giving the undead a soul might not have the effect the vampires were looking for. Frankly, I didn’t care. I just wanted them to leave Ivy and me alone.
“Excuse me,” Cormel said. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Cormel?” I called, but he was gone. The line was still active, and I put my phone on speaker so we both could enjoy the happy, light sounds of dulcimers that Cormel had on his hold button. What a crock.
Peeved, I set the phone on the dash and unkinked my fingers. Someone was looking at me from the belfry and drew back when our eyes met. I was glad Nina and Ivy were still at Trent’s. Ivy had a hard enough time when a repairman came over. Seeing this invasion would jerk her instincts to the breaking point.
“Thank you for waiting with me,” I said to Trent as I pulled my shoulder bag onto my lap. It was dusty from the ever-after and smelly, and it didn’t have much in it anymore.
“I wasn’t about to drop you off and leave. I’m looking to chip some vampire fang before I go.” His smile became charming. “It’s much more satisfying than my political boardroom shuffle.”
“I’m hoping it doesn’t come down to that.” Worried, I rubbed the tension from my fingers. Sure, I could drive them away with a charm, but Jenks and Belle were in there.
The dulcimers cut off and I scrambled for the phone. “One hour,” Cormel said tightly.
“An hour!” I exclaimed, not bothering to take him off speaker. “Mr. Cormel, I have to wait until sunset before the surface demons even come out! I cannot, nor will I, go any further with this if I have to guard Ivy against your assassins.”
My heart pounded, and Trent and I waited, breath held.
“Ivy is safe until sunrise,” Cormel said. “I’m leaving a chaperone.”
“No chaperone,” I countered. Maybe that was asking a lot, but the last thing I wanted was an amorous vampire lurking in the corner, filling the air with sexy pheromones and innuendo.
“Then you have until midnight.” Cormel waited as I silently protested, but when I kept my mouth shut, he ended the conversation by hanging up. Midnight. I had until midnight to show real progress, or it would all start up again.
Exhaling, I ended the call. Trent took the keys out of the ignition; we could walk from here. “You think I should have gone with the chaperone and the extra time?”
“No.”
“Me either. Good thing I work well under a deadline.” Feeling sour, I reached for the door. Getting them to leave was going to be a treat, but with Cormel’s word, I had the clout.
“That was fast,” Trent said, and my head snapped up.
Surprised, I got out as the church’s double door banged open and a steady stream of thin bodies staggered to their cars and vans. There were a lot, and I hoped Jenks was okay. Our phone conversation this morning hadn’t instilled much confidence.
Motions graceful with a slow deliberation, Trent got out, his book on how to put souls in baby bottles tucked under an arm. It was an elven charm, so in theory I shouldn’t have much trouble with it.
A flash of guilt took me, and I looked back at the church—anywhere but at that book.
Doors thumped and engines raced. My neighbors watched behind twitching curtains. It was obvious by their unkempt state and untied shoes that my visitors weren’t assassins per se, but they could still kill someone—and with Cormel running the city, there’d be no inquiry, no notice. Ivy would be a warning, or worse.
“Hey!” I shouted as a woman with a bad case of bed hair shuffled to the last car. “That’s my coat!”
Head hanging, the woman stopped right in the middle of the street, took off my red jacket, and dropped it with a tired indifference. The rest of them were complaining and wanting her to hurry up, and not bothering to open the door to the car, she dove in headfirst through a back window. The car accelerated in a noisy squeal of tires.
I slammed Trent’s door, stalking to my jacket. It reeked of vampire, even worse of her perfume scented heavily with pine. I’d have to air it out for weeks, maybe send it to the cleaners. Vampire incense stuck to leather worse than burnt amber in my hair.
Trent scuffed to a halt beside me, one hand in a pocket, the other holding that book. “I think I just turned a profit on this one party alone,” he said, squinting up at the steeple, and I gave him a dry look. But my mood improved dramatically when a familiar glint of pixy dust arrowed out from the fireplace’s flue.
“Rache!” Jenks shouted as he came to a dust-laden halt before us, his sparkles continuing forward on momentum, making me sneeze. “Tink loves a duck, how did you get them to leave?”
I held my jacket like a dead rat. “Cormel gave us until midnight.”
Jenks flew backward as Trent and I started for the open front door. “And then what?”
My steps slowed. “He gets serious about killing Ivy.”
“Yesterday wasn’t serious?” Jenks said as he alighted on Trent’s shoulder, but it was obvious we were on borrowed time. My stomach clenched as Trent and I took the shallow steps, and I blanched at the smell wafting out the door.
“Nice.” Holding my breath, I went in. “What did they do? Have an orgy?”
