Death. Singular thoughts ended, echoed in me as mystics familiar with my way of thinking instructed the new ones on how to converse in this new, smaller world my mind made for them. And slowly it began to make sense where once there was only chaos.
“Is she okay?” Scott asked Trent, and I realized he was holding me upright.
“Give me a second,” I breathed as, like smoke over a field, the new mystics took on the wisdom of the old and the world stopped spinning. “Better,” I said, voice stronger as my eyes suddenly focused. Things shifted, and the confusion began to work for instead of against me. Images flickered through me, like watching a movie in five-second snippets, all out of order. “They’re gone,” I said, figuring that much out. “Landon and Ayer left before the I.S. got here. They took the captive mystics with them. A few escaped when they moved them to battery backup. They’re . . . confused. Confusing.”
Or at least, they had been, and with the riveting beauty of dominoes falling, the multiple images fell into place and made sense. My head came up, and every vampire’s eyes went black as my fear flashed into existence. I got it. I finally understood, and it scared the crap out of me.
“They’ve divided them up and are distributing them across the United States.” No one said anything, and I added, “It’s happening! They’re dispersing the captive mystics. They’re going to use them to kill all the undead. They have enough to do what they did in Cincinnati everywhere!”
“Mother pus bucket . . .” Trent whispered, shocking me as he used one of Al’s favorite curses. It seemed appropriate. Ivy abruptly pulled over, and David lurched, catching himself with one hand.
“Everyone stay in the van!” Ivy shouted as she grabbed her phone. We were out of sight of the mortuary, but not that far away that I couldn’t jog back in like . . . two minutes.
Immediately three Weres launched themselves out a broken window, scrambling with the sound of claws in the dark to do just that. “I’ve already sent someone for information,” David said, and I breathed easier in the extra room.
“I told you, they’re gone.” I dropped my head into my hands as I imagined the chaos. Cincinnati was used to weird things happening—thanks to me—but this unrest in Chicago, New Orleans, or even San Diego was enough to give me nightmares. Please, God. Not San Francisco.
Ivy frowned, phone to her hear. “Yeah?” she said, angry. “And just when were you going to tell us? What happened? And don’t tell me you don’t know, because I just saw you.”
“They’re gone,” David said, hand over his phone.
“I know they’re gone!” I shouted. “I just saw it in 3-D in my brain! They took off in a black car, a brown Jeep, and an El Camino with a broken taillight going south! I think they’re headed for the train station in Maysville. From there, they can fan out everywhere.” We had to do something. If the mystics got out of Cincinnati, I’d never survive the lawsuits.
“Maysville?” David muttered. “There’s nothing in Maysville.”
“There’s a train depot.” Trent’s brow was furrowed, gaze distant. “The trains don’t usually stop there, but since the Cincinnati depot is under quarantine, they’ve adjusted the schedule.” His eyes met mine. “They’re taking them out of Cincinnati by train.”
My gut hurt. Landon and Ayer had fought among themselves. The survivors took the mystics and left. “Where does the Maysville line go?”
Trent’s lips pressed tightly and he looked at his watch. “Chicago.”
Better and better.
Ivy listened to her cell phone, lips parting. “Oh.” She ended the call. “Scott, will you get the door?”
The rolling sound of the door echoed, and I flinched when a bunch of mystics pulled from me with a stretchy feeling to play in the sound wave. The door slid open to show Edden standing in the dark in a bulletproof vest with an ACG breaker under it. He was tucking his own phone away, and his cross expression melted into concern upon seeing the three vampires, David, Trent, and myself. Taking his FIB hat off, he threw it into the ditch.
“Get in,” Ivy said tartly, but Edden was still looking us over, eyes widening when Trent gave him a businesslike nod.
David gestured impatiently. “In or out!” he exclaimed, looking at his watch. “Rachel says they’re trying to catch the Maysville train.”
“Maysville?” Edden echoed as he scrambled in, then his confusion vanished. “That’s right. It stops there now.”
Ivy was already putting the van into drive as Scott slammed the door shut. Sitting down, the squat man’s eyes lit up at Nina’s arsenal; clearly he wanted to play with the grenades. Jenks’s kids arrowed in as we accelerated back onto the road, but no Jenks or Bis. One pixy had a walnut, and I watched him wedge it between the roof and a visor.
I hung my head as the images of cars on the expressway suddenly began to make sense, blinking when Edden touched my knee. “Rachel, are you okay? You look like crap.”
“I feel like crap.” I took a deep breath and sat up. “I’m fine. Just channeling the home world a little too much.”
Trent was on the phone, one finger in his ear to block out the noise. If anyone knew the train schedule, it would be Trent. He owned most of the lines that ran through Cincinnati.
“Where am I going?” Ivy called out as we picked up speed.
“North,” Trent said as he closed his phone. “They’re already on the train. It will pass through Cincinnati in about fifteen minutes, and from there they hit Chicago, but I doubt that’s their final destination.”
“But where am I going?” she asked again, stress showing in her voice, and he got to his feet, balance shifting as he made his way up to the front. He gave David a look, and the man eased out of the front seat to take the open spot beside me.
“This is kind of unusual for you, Rachel. A group thing?” Edden said as he gave a respectful nod to Scott across from him. The vampire was clearly uneasy with the FIB captain joining our joyride, the man years older and tons more sedentary than everyone else in the van.
“Tell me about it,” I grumped. Everyone wanted to help. Damn it, I felt like Frodo being chaperoned to Mordor, and like Frodo, I was beginning to wonder why I couldn’t have just taken the eagles and flown out there by myself and saved everyone a lot of grief. But I suppose everyone wanted to help save the world.
“What happened?” David asked, open phone in hand. “My sources are coming up empty.”
Edden brought his gaze back from Nina’s weaponry. “The intel was wrong. We moved early and found the place empty.”
The intel was wrong? Maybe the I.S. was lying to Edden as well and had thrown their own private party before inviting him. “That’s not what I saw,” I said, remembering what the mystics had shown me. “There was a fight. At least three singulars, I mean people, died.”
Edden hesitated, feet spread wide to balance himself as we swayed and leaned. “Then they cleaned up after themselves, because it looks clean.” His mustache bunched. “Too clean,” Edden muttered, coming to the same conclusion. “Seems as if Landon and Ayer had a difference in opinion.”
In a rush of wings, Jenks flew in with Bis, the pixy clearly drafting off Bis, the stronger flier. “Thanks for waiting for us, blood bag,” he snarled, panting as he landed on the rearview mirror. “We got everyone?” he asked, and a chorus of tiny, high-pitched yes’s came back.
David closed his phone with a snap. Swerving, we tore through an intersection, the traffic lights black and the road empty. “It wasn’t my people,” David said as he tucked it away. “But I do have reports of a, and I quote, ‘weird feeling’ about sunset.”
A chiming of voices in me said that was the singulars ending their incongruent thoughts, but before I could say anything, Ivy exploded with a sharp, “Are you insane?”
I jerked until I realized she was talking to Trent, still in the front seat. “And just how do you propose to get on the train?” she asked. “Those things go almost eighty miles an hour.”
“Trust me.” Trent leaned back, clearly miffed she was questioning him. “Get us on Rail Drive, and it will happen.”
Ivy sighed and made a sharp turn.
“You know, maybe I’m not understanding what the mystics are trying to tell me,” I said as I caught my balance in the wildly shifting van.
But Jenks was shaking his head, a blue-edged dust slipping from him as he hovered in the middle of the van. “No, you’re right,” he said. “We got the intel, Bis and me and my kids. According to the pixies across the street, a bunch of elves put three dead people in the back of the El Camino and headed south. There weren’t any I.S. vehicles around at the time. Something spooked them, and they ran.”
I looked sorrowfully at Trent, watching his expression become grim. Landon had cut the Free Vampires loose and taken the mystics for himself. His people were behaving badly, and there was nothing Trent could do to stop them except with muscle and magic.
“They went to the train station,” Scott said, bracing himself when Ivy took a sharp turn.
“Either Landon or Ayer or both have been scooping mystics up like cotton candy on a stick ever since you got the Goddess riled up,” Jenks said, a still spot of wings and dust in the careening van. “They took a dozen little boxes, and if they get to Chicago, they’ll be coast to coast in a matter of days.”
“Call ahead. Stop them,” Scott said, and Edden nodded, surprising the young vampire.
Trent, though, shook his head. “They would know we’re onto them and will disappear. We either stop them on the track where we have a chance of catching them, or nothing.”
I remembered how Trent’s father and mother had escaped the West Coast by hopping trains in a plague-torn United States, making it all the way to Cincinnati during the Turn. He was right. We had to catch them unawares or they’d be gone cross-country.
“If we can’t head them off, we’ll have only a day to find each individual cell before the vampires start to sleep,” Jenks said, the van suddenly silent but for Ivy pushing the old engine into a faster pace. “Their new agenda is to shut the vampires down, coast to coast.” His dust shifted to a dull orange as he looked at Trent as if he could do something. “And when that’s done, there’s nothing to stop them from turning their eyes on the Weres and witches.”
Damn it all to the Turn and back. Between the elves’ quest for superiority and the Free Vampires’ holy mission, they were going to throw all of us back in the pre-Turn dark ages.
“That’s not going to happen,” Edden said, his thick hands opening from tight fists, and Scott looked at him as if he’d never seen a human before. “The I.S. in Chicago can catch them.”
Ivy met his eyes through the rearview mirror. “I’m not trusting anything to those yahoos,” she said, and Trent glumly nodded. “We have to stop that train.”
“Blow it up,” Scott said. “I know a guy in the Hollows—”
“We are not blowing it up,” Trent interrupted, and I watched, intrigued when he stared Scott down. David met my gaze knowingly as if to say, See?
“There are people on it,” Trent said, almost as if embarrassed.
“A hundred die to save millions,” Scott protested, and David shook his head in warning.
“No.” Trent sat sideways to see everyone as we raced along. “A large slice of the world’s species are represented here with all our talents and ingenuity. If we can’t stop a train without killing innocents, then we don’t deserve the freedom we have.” He hesitated. “No one gets a phone call in the morning that changes their life,” he said softly. “Not if I can help it.”
The van went silent, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those calls he’d gotten himself. Two at least, from when his parents died. Another when he found out he was a father and would have to fight for his child. I was sure there was more. You can’t keep your calm when all around you are losing theirs if you don’t know what’s truly real and what doesn’t matter.
“That they’re moving is a good thing,” Trent said, his voice holding an unexpected confidence. “Rachel’s mystic intel says the containment systems are on battery. We can procure them, move them safely to the Loveland line, and release them in an orderly, safe fashion.” His gaze never went to me, but I knew his relief was enormous. “Ivy, did you bring your laptop? I need to pull up a map. If I remember right, there’s a paved bike path that runs parallel to the line outside of Cincinnati. The timing might be perfect for a transfer.”
Transfer? “It’s under the seat,” she said, but Bis had already dropped down to it, everyone watching as the gargoyle flipped it open and settled it on his crossed legs.
“How do we get across the river?” Nina asked, her mouth dropping open when Bis casually typed in Ivy’s password.
“Hey!” Ivy cried out, cheeks red as she jerked her gaze from the road to him, and back again. “You! You’re the one leaving crumbs on my keyboard!”
“Sorry,” he said, blushing deep black as Jenks snickered. “Is this it?”
Trent slipped out of the front seat to sit where he could see the screen. David and Edden were already there, and the light from it lit the four of them in an unreal glow. “Good,” Trent said, eyes pinched. “Ivy, stay the way you’re going. The wheel span on this vehicle is adequate to run across the trestle. Once on the track, we can drive across the river, then get on the bike path, and—”