A howl split the night, bringing Ayer’s expression to a frozen stiffness. “That was supposed to have been taken care of,” he said, and the man next to him fidgeted as David began to smile.
“We got the mystics out, but Smith hasn’t checked in, sir.”
More howls, this time closer. It was my pack, a fact I knew for certain thanks to a wandering mystic bringing me back an image of my tattoo.
“This was supposed to have been taken care of!” Ayer raged as his men began retreating, one by one and in pairs. For all their bloodlust, vampires did not make good soldiers. Shaggy hunched shadows were padding out from the abandoned homes and rusted cars, pushing them along. A low growl and a bark made one man fall, and he scrambled to his feet, backing up fast.
“I never thought I’d be happy to see a mob of Weres.” Edden drew closer as a thin man in jeans and an open shirt eased confidently out of the dark. No gun, no weapon, and tattoos everywhere, he came up to Ayer with a confidence that couldn’t be faked.
“Leave, or you will have to fight for your life,” the man said. Behind him, the sound of harsh panting became obvious.
Ayer moved, and suddenly his last few men were surrounded by not panting wolves, but snarling ones. “Some of us will fall, but all of you will die,” the man said, without even a glance at me, but David was grinning, eyes bright in pride. “Leave. Now.”
“Look what’s in his back pocket,” Edden whispered, and I relaxed. It was a wilted dandelion.
I think it was my relief that turned the tide, and with a snarl, Ayer took three steps back, spun on a heel, and stalked off, looking neither to the right nor the left, passing within feet of the snapping Weres without flinching. His men followed with less confidence, almost running to keep up.
David exhaled, and the alpha male smiled at me before turning to a Were on four paws. “Follow them. Don’t let them back into that house. Get them out of my hills.”
The Were huffed, tail waving as he padded off.
I dropped my circle. The mystics were slipping from me again, but since they weren’t trying to kill anyone, I let them. It was the caps the Free Vampires were wearing, I suddenly realized. They’d focused on the caps as a signal of who to trust and who not to.
Suddenly shy, the thin male who had spoken to Ayer fumbled for the dandelion, extending it to me as he minced across where the circle had been as if it were holy ground. Two gray Weres descended upon the downed vampires, whining. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man said, nodding to David. “Both of you. Can we be of any help?”
“I told you half the city was looking for you,” Edden said, and I took the flower.
“Thank you,” I said, thinking I didn’t deserve this. “Does anyone have a phone that works out here?”
Twenty-One
The heavy weight on my feet vibrated, the audible growl of discontent becoming obvious as it gained strength. My eyes opened, and I stared at the familiar patterns of dim light on my ceiling. Ivy was talking to someone at the front door with the terseness she reserved for news crews and siding salesmen. I was betting it was the former.
“Get off my stoop, or I’ll send pixy kids to play in your van,” came faintly, and the rumbling at my feet ceased.
My head rose and I smiled at David, even as I shoved at him to give me more room. I hadn’t been pleased last night when he’d insisted I wasn’t to be left alone, but you don’t argue with two hundred pounds of wolf—you make room.
“Let’s go,” an unfamiliar voice said. “We can get what we need with the telephoto lens.”
“I wouldn’t,” Ivy threatened them. “I really wouldn’t.”
The door thumped shut, and I sighed. Head flopping over, I looked at the clock. Eleven. I should be rested, but I wasn’t. Sleep had been elusive and so mixed up that I wasn’t sure it had happened. After the initial confusion over dreaming, most of the mystics had left, returning periodically to color my dreams with what they’d seen, giving me a skewed vision of what had been happening within the nearest ten miles or so. I hoped much of it was simply my imagination, because what the mystics had been bringing back for me to decipher was dismal.
Ivy’s steps were soft as she padded by my door. “Jenks, go send your kids to do something bad, will you?” she said.
“Sure, why the Turn not? Jumoke?” Jenks said, and then their voices became quiet—apart from the ultrasonic cheer that seemed to go right through the walls and into my head.
Maybe if I just rolled back over, I could catch a few more Z’s.
Z’s have to be caught? a mystic asked, and a handful of others drowned it out with their superior knowledge that Z’s were dreams, which only caused more confusion that some dreams were not sentient and an uproar ensued in the back of my head.
Yeah. I was awake. Stretching, I ignored them as I got up, tugged my nightgown in place, and looked at David smiling wolfishly at me. “You didn’t have to stay the night. Especially not on my bed.”
David yawned to show me his teeth as if to say nothing was going to harm me when he was around. Either that, or he wasn’t about to sleep on the floor. Hopping down, he padded to my door. I knew he could handle the doorknob himself, but why get his slobber all over it? “Go on. Get out,” I said as I opened it. “I want to talk to you when you can answer me back.”
Nails clicking, he trotted out. “David!” Jenks said, and I reached for my robe. “ ’Bout time you got the princess of perpetuity up.”
My hair looked like an eighties music video, and wincing, I caught it back in a scrunchie. When I’d gone to bed, new waves of mystics had been flooding Cincinnati almost hourly, and by the faint sound of emergency sirens, they still were. None were apparently making it across the river, Ayer probably soaking them up as fast as they came. Either he was calling them out or the Goddess was out of control, looking for her missing thoughts. I wasn’t sure which would be worse, and the effect was probably the same.
Not wanting to talk to anyone yet, I hustled to the bathroom. Most of the mystics were still ranging about, making me feel almost normal, and I carefully tapped a line.
Mistake.
In a terrified flood, they raced back. I staggered as the twin sensation of the line and the wild magic they brought with them raced through my synapses, tainting the clean energy with thoughts of fear, danger, and alarm. Visions of Cincinnati bombarded me in no order. Groaning, I collapsed.
“Rache!” Jenks shrilled, his dust suddenly blinding me.
Reeling, I dropped the line. It did no good. Wild magic took its place, and I cowered, hands over my head as I sat on the floor and tried to control the terrified mystics.
“I’m okay!” I moaned, talking to all of them, but their combined voices were too much, and they refused to listen to me. You’re okay! Back off! I shouted into my thoughts. I was just tapping a freaking line for the hell of it!
“David!” Ivy shouted, and I felt her cool arms enfold me, pulling me from the hard floor. “Rachel just collapsed.” My head lolled as she sat me up. “Jenks, what happened?”
Vampire incense poured over me and I breathed it in to pull memories of Ivy to the surface. It worked. Distracted, the mystics’ fear and alarm damped like water turning a towel darker.
“I don’t know!” Jenks was upset, and his dust warmed my face. “One minute she’s trying to get to the bathroom without anyone seeing her, and then she falls down!” I cracked open my eyelids to see a worried dust slipping from him. “Tink’s a Disney whore, her aura is white again,” Jenks said as he dropped to within inches of me, hands on his hips as he hovered. “Jeez, Rache. How many you got in there?”
“Go calculate the rate of your dust falling,” I said, dizzy, and Jenks darted back in alarm.
“You were supposed to watch her!” Ivy accused him. My fingers were tingling, and slowly the wild magic began to abate.
“I did! I watched her fall down! Tink’s tampons. What do you want me to do? Catch her?”
It was better now, and Ivy’s eyes met mine. Damn it, I was cowering on the floor like a victim. “Okay,” I breathed, finding my voice. “I’m okay. Better now.” I looked at the ceiling, feeling the mystics there, hovering. “Get out! Go learn something!” I shouted, and Ivy gave Jenks a worried look.
Jenks, though, was hovering backward, clearly pleased. “That’s better,” he said, his dust shifting to a bright silver. “There she is. Damn mystics. Get the hell out of my church!”
Exhaling, I looked up as David walked into the hallway, an afghan about his hips. “I’m fine,” I said, trying to sit up. Ivy reluctantly let me go, worry clouding her black eyes. I didn’t wonder why. This was a structured possession, pure and simple.
“Is she okay?” David asked, and I did a double take. Damn, the man had a nice set of abs. And pecs. I bet he had nice everything.
“Yes, I’m okay,” I said sourly. “I tried to tap a line, is all.”
Ivy stood, hand extended to help me up. “It hurt?”
I wavered, hand on the wall. “Uh, no, it kind of felt good,” I admitted. “But the mystics thought it was an attack and came back.” I glanced at Jenks. “I think they brought friends.”
He nodded, and I grimaced, finally letting go of the wall. It seemed to be getting better, but the reality was I was balancing on a fine line of control. The more mystics there were, the faster they were. What was saving my ass was that they seemed to be learning how to teach one another. The Goddess wasn’t going to thank me, but maybe she shouldn’t have left them in me to begin with.
“Ah, I’m okay. You mind if I . . .” I looked at the bathroom door, and they began to drift away, Ivy to the sanctuary and David back to the far living room and presumably a set of clothes. Clearly distracted, Ivy changed her mind, brushing past me in a wave of vampire incense to go to the kitchen instead. She didn’t give David a second look, which I thought telling. She’d had a crush on him last year.
I hesitated, waiting for Jenks to back off. “David, thanks again,” I said, and he inclined his head. A long slice of sun coming through the back door glowed on him.
“It was my pleasure. Everyone has been itching to do something, and it was a good outlet for the more aggressive packs. Got them away from the city center. By the way, you have twenty minutes until Edden gets here. Vivian couldn’t get a flight in time, but she doesn’t have anything to add, just demand, so we’ll do this without her.”
He vanished into the back living room. Suddenly my need to use the can took a backseat. Vivian? The head of the witch council, Vivian? “This? Do this what?”
David poked his head out. “Talk over the state of the city, of course.”
My shoulders slumped, and Jenks darted off as Ivy shouted for him. Ah. Another one of those. The last time I had been to one of those, Al had shown up and Ivy’s ex-girlfriend had killed Piscary. At least this time the city’s problems weren’t my fault. “Shouldn’t Trent be here?”
David hesitated as if he wanted to say something, finally shrugging before he ducked into the back room and presumably a set of clothes.
A surprising spike of disappointment hit me. I ignored it along with the questions the mystics were raising over it. How could I explain when I didn’t have an answer?
Standing at the sink, I pulled the scrunchie from my hair and rummaged for a detangle charm. I’d taken a shower last night, but my hair needed major help, and as I stood before the mirror and tried to make some order out of it, my mind drifted to last night: the relieved reunion with Ivy and Jenks, my thirty-second call to Trent that ended with me feeling brushed off.
Why isn’t he coming? I thought as I gave up and let it be a lion’s mane today. He was a mover and shaker in Cincinnati, but maybe he was being excluded because his religion was suspected of funding the faction trying to kill the undead.
Mystics clustered between me and the mirror as I brushed my teeth, liking the idea of personal hygiene. Maybe it hadn’t been so much being brushed off as Trent being distracted. He’d clearly been glad I was okay. Hell, if he hadn’t cared, he wouldn’t have messaged over that finding charm to Edden. Perhaps he was simply distancing himself. My motions slowed, and I spit in the sink, refusing to admit that the idea depressed me. Distance between us was what needed to happen. It would make everyone’s life easier, mine included. It was better this way.
But a feeling of tingles cascaded over me as I remembered the touch of his hand on my waist, firm with demand, a promise of more.
Us? A handful of mystics asked, their voice clear as they combined into one. This is not us. This is . . .
“Nothing,” I whispered, wiping my mouth and staring at my reflection.
It is! they insisted, myriad conversations rising in the background. This we is different.
Whatever. Leaving them to figure it out, I shimmied out of my nightgown and found everything I needed in the dryer. Oblivious in their debate, the mystics left me alone as I got into a fresh set of jeans and a dark green camisole. Barefoot and feeling a chill in the air, I padded to the kitchen, hesitating at the threshold. Normal. It looked normal, and I wished it was mine to keep, to see again and again, like the slow repetitive feel of summer days until the fear was dabbed away.
Ivy was frowning at her monitor, Jenks sending a bright dust down her shoulder as he tried to help. Bis was asleep on top of the fridge, a red bandanna wrapped around his head like a street fighter’s. Three pixy kids darted through the hanging rack, arguing over a seed someone had found. Dressed casually in jeans and a button shirt, David made the simple task of starting a second pot of coffee into an art. We’d had men in the church before, and they all had fit in as if they belonged. None of them had stayed, though, and it was starting to wear on me.