“Rachel?”
I scooped up my shoulder bag and dropped the bottle inside. Today I felt like a demon, and I wiped my hands off on my pants, shaking as I looked at them and the red dust like blood. “We need to get out of here,” I said, seeing the eyes beginning to close in around us again.
Slowly Trent got to his feet. He looked at his spell for a moment, then away—but not at me.
I could not fail Ivy. If I failed to convince Cormel that this would be their ruin, then I’d finish the charm and fix it to Felix. And if Cormel still didn’t believe after Felix walked into the sun to end his torment, I’d find Cormel’s soul and fix it to his putrid, decaying body.
But I’d never ask Trent to do this again.
Chapter 8
Jenks tugged at my hair as he struggled to be free of it. We were back in Eden Park, but little had changed. Living vampires were in front of us, staring in the shadowy light from the nearby streetlamps. They were bruised, several sporting bloodied noses and lips, and the ground was torn up. A quick look behind us confirmed my suspicion that we were surrounded by whatever camarilla had won the fight we’d left earlier.
“Sweet ever-loving humping Tink. Can’t you jump us somewhere where we don’t have to fight for our lives?” Jenks took to the air with the sound of dry leaves.
I reached to set a circle, but Trent’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Best not show any fear,” he whispered. “I’ll keep a tight hold on the line to set a circle if we need one. It might be better if you laid off the magic for a little while.”
Laid off the magic? “Are you serious?” I said, not liking the sullen faces looking at me. But they weren’t advancing, and I eased my hold on the line until it was the lightest of touches. He was right about one thing: showing fear always brought out the worst in vampires, living or dead.
I thought of the little bottle in my bag and held it closer. They weren’t getting it. Then I grimaced, wondering why I was trying so hard to do a black elven charm that might get me killed. The last one Landon had given me nearly had. Cormel will believe me, and then I won’t have to risk it, I thought, but when Felix’s cry of agony and despair raged out to echo against the town houses, I had a bad feeling that Cormel was going to be just as blind.
“What, by Tink’s little pink rosebuds, was that?” Jenks said, and Bis made the short hop from the statue to me, wrapping his tail under my armpit and shivering.
Trent scuffed his feet into the pavement. “I think it was Felix looking for his soul,” he said. Tired, I dropped my shoulder bag, ready for a fight. Nina was still slumped on the ground and I hoped she didn’t wake up.
Never dropping my eyes, the vampire in front leaned to a scared woman who looked as if she’d come from the office, heels scuffed and dress jacket torn. “Tell him she’s back,” he said, and the woman retreated, her shadowy form swallowed by the crowd. They were just staring at us, giving me the creeps.
“Cormel wants to talk to you,” the vampire said, his voice carrying well. He was dressed casually, but his glasses were top of the line, costing more than my last trip to the spell shop.
“Good, because I want to talk to him,” I said. My stomach hurt, but a knot had eased. Cormel’s people had won. The man might be reasonable. He’d ruled the free world during the Turn, after all.
I’d have known there was a fight even if we hadn’t jumped out at the start of it. It was also obvious that a good portion of them weren’t Cormel’s usual strong-arm force. There were shopkeepers, students, and salespeople among the bouncers, street dealers, and security. Cormel had called in whoever would respond, making sure that when I popped back into reality he would control my next move. Which begged the question as to how big the faction was that didn’t want the undead to have their souls. Ally? I wondered, dismissing it. Cormel would listen, but as Felix’s laments rose anew, doubt stained my conviction.
The vampires around me were an unsettling mix of hope and fear, hope that I had a way to keep them from losing their souls, fear that it might cause them even more pain. Should I give them what they wanted, knowing it might bring an end to their undead existence and plunge the world into chaos until a new balance could be found? One that might have an elven master?
I glanced at Trent as he checked his phone. A power struggle might elevate him back to his original clout, even if he was against the entire thing. Guilt for his drop in status bothered me keenly, but he wouldn’t thank me if I handed it back to him by destroying the current balance. There was no easy answer, and as we waited for Cormel, I began to fidget. I wasn’t the only one anxious, and Jenks bobbed up and down, fidgety.
“Relax,” I said, seeing someone drive a scruffy white dog away. It looked like Buddy, which sort of answered my question of what had happened to the original dog. “It’s just a conversation. No one has ever died from a conversation.”
Jenks’s wings looked silver in the light from Trent’s phone as he landed on the man’s shoulder. His dust blanked out the screen, and Trent blew it away. “Uh-huh,” Jenks said sourly as he took to the air again.
Trent stiffened, his concern obvious. “Ivy’s been taken.”
“What?” I spun, leaning to read his screen. “We were gone only half an hour!” My thoughts went back to the rival vampires, and my heart almost stopped. They had her.
Trent’s expression was grave. “It was Cormel. The girls are fine. Ellasbeth is having hysterics.” Punching a few buttons, he closed his phone. “I told them to stay put.”
My relief was short-lived, and I looked over the surrounding vampires circling us like zombies. Where is the I.S. when you need them?
“Think we’re going to have to fight our way out?” Jenks said, looking ready for it, but I was weary of it all. Three vampires, sure. Four, maybe. Two dozen—not happening.
Trent, too, seemed more eager to solve this by action than words, but his fake, political smile faded at the rising sound of approaching voices. Rynn Cormel was making his casual, unhurried way to the front of the crowd. Jenks’s wings clattered, and with a nod, I sent him up and away for reconnaissance. Bis went with him, and I breathed easier. The farther away they were from me, the safer they were, and my stomach hurt at the ugly truth of it.
Cognizant of my anger and worry—enjoying it, perhaps—Cormel stopped before us, a confident smile on his thin lips. The somewhat small man took his hands from the pockets of his knee-length wool coat, removing his hat and handing it to an aide. His eyes never left us as he fixed his hair, and my skin crawled when Felix’s soulful cry rose to an angry demand before it fell into a sob. Several vampires cringed, and I held my shoulder bag tighter. The bottle with Felix’s soul clinked. Maybe I was overthinking this. If I didn’t give them what they wanted, they’d kill Ivy. What did I care what happened next?
“You shouldn’t have taken Ivy,” I said, and Felix cried out again, the sound chilling.
“You shouldn’t defy me, Morgan.” His voice was even, his Bronx accent obvious. He was angry, but his voice lacked any vampire persuasion.
“It’s a personal choice,” I said flippantly, rethinking my approach when Trent winced. “Cormel, I’m sorry, but giving the undead their souls isn’t a good idea.”
“You might think differently in the morning,” he threatened, and my face went cold. Trent grabbed my arm, and I pushed him off me. Fear mixed with anger, and I watched every vampire’s eyes dilate. Cormel smiled at the titters of laughter. They thought they had me by the short hairs. And they sort of did.
“You just keep thinking this is funny!” I shouted. Damn it, what had happened to my midnight deadline? “If you hurt Ivy, you get nothing. Nothing!”
Cormel smiled. “Oh, I assure you that whatever I do, she’ll enjoy it. And so will you. You shouldn’t have toyed with me, Morgan. Kalamack can’t help you anymore.”
“I beg to differ,” Trent said, and a new fear slid through me. Not him. I couldn’t bear it if my mistakes got him hurt.
“Look,” I said, and Cormel’s eyes narrowed as he realized I was about to make a list of demands. “I just saw Felix with his soul, and it nearly killed him right there. I know I promised I’d find a way for you to keep them, but it totally freaked him out! Listen to him!”
Felix’s wail rose up almost as if on cue, and I shivered at the lost sound of it. I wasn’t the only one. Almost all the laypeople in the crowd were scared. It was only the heavies who maintained their “pound them” attitudes, and some of them were showing doubt.
“Perhaps if you’d been successful, he wouldn’t be so distressed,” Cormel said dryly.
“That is success you’re listening to!” I said. “I’ve got his soul. Are you blind?”
Shock cascaded over Cormel. “You . . . have it?” The upright, polished master turned toward Felix’s raw screams. It sounded as if someone was torturing him. “I thought . . .” His expression hardened. “You dangled his soul before him? Like a toy?”
“Easy,” Trent whispered as I pulled my bag forward.
If that ugly thing touched me, I’d let Felix’s soul out right here and now, regardless of how hard it had been to catch. “We have it,” I said, and my fingers dipped into my bag to find the gritty, cool feel of the bumpy glass. I held it aloft, then jerked it back when Cormel began to shake. “It took all five of us, but we’ve got it.”
“And you call us unfeeling animals,” he rasped, eyes black. “No wonder he grieves!”
Swallowing hard, I held it tight to my middle. Cormel watched as if it was his own soul I held. “I can fix it to him,” I said, but I wasn’t sure he was listening anymore as he stared at the bottle. “But it will send him into the sun.” Please believe me. I don’t want to have to do this.
Felix’s screams had become more insistent, and clearly upset, Cormel leaned to speak to one of his perfectly dressed aides, not a drop of blood on his coat or a scuff on his polished shoes. “Of course he is in pain!” he said when the man scuttled away. “Give him his soul, Rachel, or Ivy will suffer.”
I had known it would be no other way, and as Trent stood behind me smelling of broken leaves and snapped twigs, I pulled myself straight. “Fine,” I snapped, knowing my doubt over Ivy’s condition was a more powerful goad than seeing her here before me tied up. “I’ll do it!” I added, “But I want to see her first.”
I jumped when Trent leaned close, whispering, “Close the deal. Make a sure end to it.”
I almost cried at his words. He knew I had no choice, even if it meant the end of the undead, and he didn’t think any less of me. I had to trust Landon. Shoulders tense, I faced Cormel again. “I’ll do it, but I want your word that this pays my and Ivy’s debt in full. Everything. And when Felix walks into the sun, there’ll be no retaliation and no more demands for your souls.”
Felix’s cries cut off with a strangled suddenness. Cormel’s lips twitched, and I remembered the aide rushing off. Anger radiated from him as he pushed forward until I put up a hand and he stopped that same eight feet back. Pixy dust glittered in his hair, and I knew Jenks was hovering above us in the dark. I could see the lines of worry around Cormel’s eyes, feel the tension in him, the overwhelming need he was trying to hide. Cormel wanted his soul. Nothing would stand in his way—not now that he might be so close. “There will be no tally of debt made until I have my soul,” he said, and I shook my head.
Nina’s shoe scraped the cement behind me, and Trent touched my elbow before dropping back to make sure that she woke as herself and not Felix.
Hands on my hips, I moved forward until Cormel could’ve reached out to throttle me. I was safe enough, seeing that he knew I was far more malleable when he hurt others than when he hurt me. And besides, Jenks was up there somewhere. “Your soul was never mentioned in the original agreement. I said I’d find a way for you to keep your soul. I’ve done that.”
“And you refuse to implement it!” Cormel shouted.
“Because it’s going to send you into the sun!” I said, hearing Trent shushing Nina and trying to get her to stand up. “Are you blind? I’m trying to help you!”
Cormel was silent. His eyes flicked to Trent and Nina, then deeper, to his people ringing us. Finally his eyes touched upon the Hollows, and then rose to the sky. I wondered if he was saying a curse to a God who had allowed this to happen—or just looking for Jenks.
“Cormel,” I said, soft, so my voice wouldn’t shake as my knees were. “I’ll fix Felix’s soul to him, but only because you’re forcing me, and even then only if you agree that when it’s over, we’re done. That neither I nor Ivy owe you anything. No retaliation. Nothing.”
Cold and unyielding, he stood before me as those who trusted him listened. “Not until we all have the security of our souls will I call it done.”
Frustrated, I backed up a step, wanting to look at Trent but not daring to take my eyes off Cormel. “Did you not hear Felix?” I said, looking from him to the scared vampires behind him. “Your own people have doubts, enough that an entire camarilla stood up to you to stop me from even trying. The elves think you can’t survive with your souls either. That’s why they taught me the charm to fix a soul to an unwilling body in the first place. They want you to kill yourselves so they can step into the vacuum of power you will leave behind.”
Cormel’s eyes flicked behind me, and I heard Trent sigh.