I'd never been to Trent's primary stables, just his foaling stables a stone's throw away. But the rough-cut boards and smell of hay still felt familiar after the Pandora charm, even if the memory had almost killed me. It made stealing from Trent really easy on my conscience. Stupid elf. I waited in the glow of the security light, feeling exposed with my back pressed against the vertical boards. There was no moon, but there was nowhere to hide either, and I listened to a sitcom come down from an open window on the second floor. Breeding racehorses, Trent forced an early April foaling, so the staff on hand here would be correspondingly small.
Ivy was a shadow at the corner of the building. Jenks, Jax, and Nick were at the window beside me, more of a door, really, where they tossed the hay in. It was locked, of course, with sensor pads. The pixies were trying to find the right amount of electricity to keep the circuit closed even when it was open. They'd been at it long enough to make me nervous. It never took Jenks this long. The entire job was being run like it was a damn committee, and I hated it.
"Are we there yet?" I whispered, and Jax's wings spilled a silver dust. Sighing, I leaned back and fingered my belt pack, holding a couple of pain amulets, the three potion vials - and Trent's dad's hoof pick. I was hoping that if I gave it back, Trent would realize that it was a game and not kill me outright. Even if Pierce hadn't melted my splat gun, I wouldn't have brought it. If I got caught, it wasn't going to be with a potentially lethal weapon on my person. Using my splat gun without the backing of a warrant would put me in jail faster than Bis could hit Pierce's tombstone with a wad of spit, game or no. Any charm I used would leave a trace that the I.S. could track right back to me. I was going in almost naked, and not happy about it.
It was almost three, right when pixies and elves were about to wake up and witches about ready to crash. Crashing sounded good. I was tired. Evading Vivian this afternoon had been harder than I'd thought it would be. We'd finally resorted to jumping stores in the mall until we all went out different delivery entrances to take the bus to one of Ivy's friends. His car had gotten us to the interstate, and from there, we'd walked in across the pastures where they couldn't use motion detectors because of the horses. Everyone had an Achilles' heel, and apparently Trent's was his horses.
"Got it," Jenks said, making a quick circle around me before darting off to get Ivy. Nick gave me a toothy smile as he carefully opened the wooden door, hesitating to allow Jax to oil the hinges with pixy dust when they squeaked. A horse nickered at the new draft, and we froze, listening as the muted conversation from upstairs continued and the laugh track exploded. The pixies vanished inside, and Nick leapt easily to the sill, disappearing soundlessly.
Alone with Ivy, I exhaled in worry. I didn't like how many people it was taking to do this, but I wasn't going to miss out, and Ivy wouldn't let Nick and me do this alone.
Her hair in a black scrunchy, Ivy vaulted easily through the black window. Her hand without the cast came out, and I tobk it, using it to find my way inside.
I felt like a thief as I landed, my dew-wet running shoes quiet on the swept concrete. The fragrant hay made towers around us, and the soft, inset lighting of the stables was enough to see by. Jax was gone or not moving, but Jenks came close, landing on my shoulder to whisper, "We've got the alarms disabled and the cameras on a loop. Ivy's going to take care of the two guys and the vet upstairs. Hang tight."
I nodded as I took the cloth that Ivy had used to wipe her shoes. Calm and confident, she headed into the aisle and to the heavily polished stairway to the living quarters. There were inlaid lights on each step, and it looked far too fine to be in a stable. Arm swinging, Ivy looked more like she was crossing a bar to get a drink than going to knock out three men without raising an alarm. But having Jenks with her meant it wasn't going to be an issue.
A horse blew at us, and after handing Nick the cloth to wipe down the floor where we'd come in, I went to calm the animal, finding he was free in a nice-size box stall. The horse wouldn't come to me, but at least his ears pricked.
For no reason I could see, the hair on the back of my neck rose, and the horse's ears went back. "How you doing?" Nick whispered, right freaking behind me.
I tried not to jump, but I figured he knew he'd startled me by his smile when I turned. "I have done this before. Nic-k," I said tightly.
He went to say something, but our attention went to the ceiling at a soft thump. I tensed, relaxing when Jenks flew downstairs, dusting a soft gold. "Remind me never to piss off Ivy," he said as he hovered before me. "She dropped them faster than a slug takes a crap."
Ivy sauntered downstairs, her silhouette confident and slim as she tugged her sleeves down and pocketed something in her belt pack. "We've got ten minutes," she said sounding loud as she broke the hush. "They'll wake up in fifteen minutes thinking they fell asleep. Which they did." She patted her belt pouch and smiled, her fangs making me shiver. "I could have made it longer, but they check in with security every half hour."
Nick was eying her belt. "What is it?"
"It's mine," she said, shooing Jax away before the smaller pixy could get a good sniff.
Nervousness seeped up through me as if rising like fog from the earth. Whatever it was, it had been illegal. We were sliding into this criminal thing far too easily. Did it matter if our motives were good if the means were bad? Or was the real question, did I want to go to Alcatraz and get my ovaries taken out and wind up lobotomized? This was survival against illegal action, and Trent was at the root of it. Guilt could take a long walk in a short shadow.
"Okay. Spread out," I said. "We've got ten minutes to find the door to the tunnel."
Immediately Jenks took off, his wings a slow, depressed hum. Jax was hot in the other direction. It was obvious that Jax was trying to impress his dad with his backup abilities. Jenks didn't seem to care, still hurting about Matalina. I hadn't even wanted him to come, but he needed to be needed right now, not alone in a church.
Ivy started for the front of the stables, and Nick followed Jax to the back. I poked about after Jenks, checking out the opposite row of stalls. Somewhere in here was a passage under the road and back to the main compound. It wasn't on any of the plans, but if you brought up the public record of who got paid during the construction of the stables, it was obvious that there was one here. You don't write a check for the materials and equipment to make a tunnel just for grins. I only hoped it didn't go right to Trent's private quarters.
The lights were low as we searched, and the horses were getting nervous. Nick wasn't comfortable with the big animals, and Ivy was like having a panther among the herd. Me, they ignored as I tapped the walls for an echo and looked for unexplained worn spots on the floor.
"What's the time, Jenks?" I asked as I rapped my knuckle against the wall holding a dozen different saddles.
"Five minutes, twenty-six seconds," he said, skimming the floor where it met the wall.
"I've got it!" shrilled a high-pitched voice, and the horse across the way snorted, her ears objecting to Jax's exuberant call as much as mine. "I think I've got it!"
Jenks was gone in a burst of dust. Breath held as I walked through it, I followed his sparkles to the end of the stables. Ivy came even with me, smelling of vampire incense. She was enjoying this. It had been a while since we'd done anything together, and I'd missed seeing her happy.
"Good going, Jax," Jenks was saying as the pixy hovered in a double-size box stall, making the black horse in it toss his nose at the dust sifting down. "How did you find it?"
"There's a draft," he said, dropping down to show his dust being pulled under the straw. "See? There's a trapdoor right here."
The horse swung his head to try to bite him like a fly, and Jax darted out of the way, glowing a bright red as he landed on Nick's shoulder. The man was standing in the dead center of the aisle, uncomfortable. "Nice," I said, eying the horse, who now had his ears back, evil as he swung and tossed his head, daring us to come in.
"Girls like horses," Nick said, arms crossed. "One of you can get him out."
Ivy frowned. "Oh, for God's sake," she muttered, reaching for the gate.
"No!" I shouted, seeing the not-so-subtle equine signs.
The horse lunged forward, but Ivy was quicker, pulling her hand back an instant before the horse got his teeth on her. He stomped, tossing his head with his ears back. "Little sucker," she said, clearly shaken as she dropped back to where Nick stood.
Jenks smirked and flitted into the stall, not a hint of dust showing as he avoided the horse's bite and vanished under the floorboards. An instant later, a soft electric glow leaked up through the cracks. He'd found the lights.
"Did he get you?" I said, taking Ivy's hand, but apart from a bad mood, she looked okay.
A silver dust sifted over our fingers, and I let go when Jenks rejoined us. "It's a passage, all right," he said as Ivy shook her head. "It runs under the road. This is it."
Nick crossed his arms. "With hell horse guarding it? Ivy, will your drugs work on it?"
She shook her head. "I don't have enough. He's got to weigh over a thousand pounds."
"Hit him over the head with your cast," Jenks said. "Use what you got."
Ivy just looked at him, and I sighed, standing outside easy bite range. "I'm not going to be stopped by a freaking horse!" I said.
The horse's ears flicked forward, and his nose toss took on a less aggressive slant. My breath caught, and Jenks landed on my shoulder. "Did you see that?" he said, and Ivy chuckled.
"Rachel, I think he likes you."
"No way," I said, but the monster's ears flicked forward again, followed by a happy step toward us. My lips twisted, and I gazed at Ivy, mystified.
Jenks laughed. It was the first time I'd heard it since Matalina died, and something eased in me. "Well, I know you're not a virgin to soothe a savage beast," he said, and I swatted at him, missing him by a mile. "Go pet the horse, Rachel."
Nick scuffed his feet. "We're running out of time here..."
"Go pet the horse," I grumbled. "Do you people know the bite pressure of those teeth?" Wiping my hand on my black slacks, I reached out, jerking when the horse hung his head over the wall and head-butted me.
"I'll be damned," Nick swore, and Jenks laughed again.
"I don't get this," I said, as shocked as Ivy appeared, her black eyes wide and wondering. My hands went up to touch him, and I looked for a halter to put on him so I could lead him out. But when my gaze fell on the nameplate, my jaw dropped. "Tulpa?" I said, and the horse blew at me, seeming to be disappointed that I didn't have a snack for him.
"Ivy, this is the horse I fell off," I said, seeing that she was allowed to touch the gate now. "It was like thirteen years ago. Horses don't live that long and look this good." My focus went blurry as I pieced it together. "You're Trent's familiar, aren't you, old boy," I said as I slipped inside the stall as if I belonged. Tulpa wouldn't hurt me.
"Tick tock, Rache," Jenks said, and I cooed at the huge animal, not caring what Nick or Ivy thought as I ran my hands appreciatively over his black coat, glistening with the first hints of silver. God, the muscles on him. "Come on in," I said as I shoved his shoulder, and the horse obediently shifted to the wall of the big stall. "Back. Back up," I said, my hand on his neck giving a soft pressure, and I smiled when the horse took two more steps off the trapdoor. At least Trent's horse liked me. I should write him a letter and tell him. It would make his day.
Ivy came in, and Jenks, eying the blowing horse as she found the lever and swung the small trapdoor open. Clearly the horse was used to it, making only a snuff at the artificial light at his feet. His head dropped as if searching for a familiar face coming up and perhaps an apple. Ivy started down the metal stairs, her vamp reflexes making it easy one-handed, but Nick was still in the hallway.
Jenks put his hands on his hips and hovered. "What's wrong, crap-for-brains?"
Her head even with the floor, Ivy hesitated. "You don't have to come."
Grimacing, he eyed me and the horse. His hand on the gate prompted a sudden shifting from Tulpa, but I pushed him back. Horses were great. Once they accepted your dominance, there was no question. They sort of seemed to like it.
"Just get down the stairs, Nick," I said, and he slipped inside, almost skating down the metal framework in his haste. Jax was with him, and it was with an odd reluctance that I left Tulpa, giving him a pat before taking the stairs and unwedging the rod that had propped it open.
"Thanks, Tulpa," I said wistfully as the door shut, inches from my head. The last sight I saw was a floppy pair of lips with bristly whiskers snuffling at the narrowing crack. I turned and went downstairs, sighing at the thumps of his hooves overhead. I'd forgotten how much I liked horses.
Jenks was waiting for me, his hands on his hips as he hovered in his black thief outfit, looking better even if his grief was just out of sight in the back of his eyes. "You really get off on the big dumb animals, don't you," he said.
"Shut up, Jenks," I muttered, pushing past Nick and starting down the long, unremarkable hallway slanting downward. I couldn't help but wonder if I had picked out of my forgotten memory the word "Tulpa" as my word to spindle energy in my head. Probably.
"Cameras?" I asked as I came even with Ivy. The walls were white and I could feel the faint brush of air vents. I still thought using the ductwork would have been easier.
"No," Jenks said, wings a soft hum, then amended, "Well, just one where the elevator is. We've got a half-mile hike."
I nodded, feeling the strain of matching Ivy's vampire-quick pace. Nick gave up and began to jog, which made Ivy smirk. We looked out of place among the white halls and taupe carpeting, all of us in black but Jax: Ivy and me in leather, Jenks in his silk body suit, and Nick in a faded T-shirt and dark jeans. God, couldn't the man have dressed up a little for the occasion?
The end of the hallway was almost unrecognizable until we were on it. "Dad?" Jax questioned, and I jerked to a halt when Jenks flew in front of us.
"Yeah," the pixy said as he flushed. "Give Jax and me a minute to get the doors open without triggering something. 'Kay?"
The two pixies darted around the corner, gone. Fidgeting, I adjusted my belt pack, feeling the tiny ampoules of potion through the fabric. What if I ran into Ceri looking like her? This was so illegal it wasn't funny. Illegal, but in no stretch of the imagination deadly.
The whisper of pixy wings gave me bare warning as Jenks flew back around the corner. "We're good to go. Ivy, can you get the elevator doors open?"
Nick pushed forward around me. It's always the token dumb human who gets it first in the movies. I followed to find the hall dead-ended with the familiar silver doors of an elevator. Nick was trying to wedge the dead doors apart. Muttering "damn testosterone," Ivy strode forward, and with their joint efforts, the doors slid open to show an empty shaft. Jax hovered by my ear as we all looked up, and then down.
"Down, right?" I asked, thinking that if we had had more than a day to plan this, we could have swiped an entry card or something. No one said anything, but Jenks dropped into the darkness. Nick, too, swung into the shaft, easily grabbing the service ladder. I looked up, wondering how often they used this thing. "Down," I whispered, wishing it had been up. That half-mile hike had probably put us across the road and under Trent's business complex. I hoped.
Ivy was next, trying to stick closer to Nick now that we were actually behind the walls. The metal was cold in my hands, and it felt too small as I descended.
Jenks's pixy wings clattered as he landed on my shoulder. "Hold up," he said, and I hooked an arm in the ladder and glanced down. "Nick is trying to get the door open by himself."
"Get the hell out of the way!" filtered up as Ivy pushed past him on the ladder, despite the cast. Smirking, I was slowly descending a few more rungs when a soft artificial light blossomed in the shaft. I reached for the edge and found Ivy. She extended an arm to help me in, but I still almost fell into the carpeted hallway.
Catching myself, I looked back into the elevator shaft. "Never thought I'd ever do that," I muttered, then frowned when Nick left a smeared glove print where he'd pushed the silver doors closed. Idiot.
Jax was busy with the hall camera, and if I hadn't known we were several stories underground, I'd swear we were in an upper interior hallway with the usual flat beige-and-white carpet, wooden doors, and frosted windows that looked into the offices, all of it combining to give the illusion of an upstairs office.
Jenks hovered to inspect the clean door while Ivy finished putting her tiny spray bottle of cleaner in her belt pack. "We need to move in stages," the pixy said. "The cameras down here won't stay tripped unless you're right there babysitting them, so we're going to leapfrog it. Jax will hold one camera as I scout to the next, and so on. There will be some time where you'll show, but it can't be helped. Shouldn't be too many people watching. It's between shifts."
"Got it," I said around a long exhale, then eyed the nearby camera. The only evidence of Jax was a silver dusting slipping from it, almost unseen in the bright light. I had a fleeting thought that I hoped I could trust Jax; then I berated myself.
"Give me a sec," Jenks said. "Jax will tell you when I've got the next camera."
I didn't even have time to nod before Jenks took off, skimming just below the ceiling and around the corner. Almost immediately I heard a faint, almost ultrasonic wing scrape, and I winced when Jax shouted for us to move.
"Let's go," Ivy said, breaking into a jog. Nick was quick to join me, and we loped down the empty corridors, the pixies trading off their positions as each one found the next camera.
I was starting to think that we just might be lost down here and that the pixies were leading us in circles when Jenks doubled back. A spike of fear dropped through me at the glitter of orange dust. "Back!" he said, waving his arms. "Someone's coming!"
Nick turned to run, but it was too far away to hope to get around the last corner. I grabbed his arm to keep him from moving as Ivy kicked the handle of the nearest office door. It popped open, and I shoved him in. Ivy was close behind, and I crouched, holding the door shut with an ear pressed to the crack.
"Stay put," I heard Jenks whisper, knowing he was talking to Jax, who couldn't possibly hear him. "Just stay put, son."
The scent of vampire twined around me like a vine, and I stiffened. I glanced up to see Ivy standing right over me, tense and listening to the approaching steps. It sounded like two people, and I hoped the frame wasn't visibly damaged. Feeling my attention on her, Ivy looked down and smiled, sharp pointy canines catching the light. Just when I forget what she is.
The voices of the two people chatting grew stronger. "It's two lab guys," Jenks said. "You want their cards? They might help in getting out."
I had an image of two geeky guys tied up and shoved into a closet, scared and noisy. "No," I said, standing up and backing away from the door. "Not worth the risk."
His wings clattered in indignation. "It's not a risk."
Ivy had her ear to the door, her cast held tight to her middle. "Shut up. Both of you."