Ever After (The Hollows #11)(85)
Author: Kim Harrison

Felix’s ugly gaze slid to me, and I held my breath. "That’s fallacy," the younger-looking, aging, sun-addicted undead vampire said.

"Still, you will leave me to my fantasy and shun Ivy and Rachel as I ask." Cormel shifted to open a way for him to go, incidentally placing himself even more firmly between me and Felix. "My car is out front. The driver will take you wherever you wish. It would be my pleasure to show you my children if you will wait but a little."

Felix straightened at that, almost finding his old bearing. "I am so hungry," he whispered. "The blood doesn’t help anymore. There’s never enough."

Cormel’s head bowed. "I’m sorry. Give me a moment with Rachel? I’ll join you soon. My children will slake your thirst. I will stand beside you and be sure of it."

My God, it was enough to turn my stomach, but it was what they were down to. I stiffened as Felix shuffled out past me, a slight tilting of his head the only indication that he knew I was there, and I shivered when a black eye watched me from under his shifting bangs. Jenks followed him out, staying just below the ceiling as a quiet guard.

"I am not yours," I said hotly to Cormel before the back door clicked shut.

In a wash of incense, Cormel moved swiftly to the archway, leaning to look down it into holy ground. His lips were pressed in anger, and I marveled at how alive he appeared. Practice, practice, practice. "You are. I just saved your life."

"I could have taken him," I shot back, and Cormel’s irate gaze finally came to me. His eyebrows went high in a mocking question. "I just didn’t want to hurt him."

"No doubt. I think you killing him was his plan. And then what? You would be accused of murder as no one but you saw him ailing. You could flee to the ever-after, but we all know how you feel about that-Rachel."

He was right, and it irked me. "You make me sick," I said instead, pushing around him to get out of my corner. "The two of you going off to a blood orgy together, offering your children to him like they’re candy. There’s no love there, no caring. Ivy was right. Why should I help you find your souls?"

Cormel stooped to pick up his hat and dust it off. "Because I am here saving your life." I huffed in disbelief, and he turned to give me his full attention. "I’m joining Felix in his bloodletting so he doesn’t kill my children in his grief for the sun. I am there so he won’t take too much or be too brutal for their desires to withstand. I doubt very much I’ll enjoy watching an old man gum his food." His gaze became distant. "There will be no finesse, no beauty there. I had hoped that he was still recoverable, but it won’t be long now." His eyes met mine. "They failed to tell me that caring for the old as well as the young would be my responsibility when I took this job."

It was as I had thought, then. Felix had faltered and was failing fast, dragging Nina down with him. This was so ugly. "Ivy is trying to save both their lives," I said softly, and Cormel’s bad mood seemed to hesitate as he saw my own soften. "Doesn’t that count for something?"

"She still broke the rules. He is mad, Rachel. He is mad, and no amount of blood can save either of them, but Ivy broke the rules by interfering. Ohem is already lost but for his final walk into the sun and leaving Nina to lose control." Cormel leaned to look down the hall, his thoughts already in the car and the remainder of his night. "They’ll have to shoot her down like a dog to stop her once she starts to look for solace. As it was, he would have only taken himself and one other, but your Ivy wants to love again, and so we all suffer so that you might save her soul, save all of ours."

Jenks arrowed into the kitchen, bringing with him the scent of ash from the fireplace. He looked agitated that Cormel was still here, and the undead vampire raised a tired hand to tell him that he was on his way. "My children will suffer indignities and pain tonight because of you," he said, and my gut tightened in guilt. "All my children are paying the cost for Nina’s possible survival. All to keep one vampire happy." Cormel put his hat back on and buttoned his coat. "I pay it willingly. But you will give me what I want, Morgan. And soon."

My chin lifted, and Jenks’s dust turned a glittering gold. "That sounds like a threat."

He smiled from under the brim of his hat. It was the smile that had saved the world, and it was ending mine. "It was supposed to." Cormel stepped into the hall, then paused. "I know you’re occupied with repairing the lines, so I’m willing to wait, but Rachel, I will not end up like Ohem." His expression darkened, his pupils going wide and his eyes black. "I will not be a shell of myself, pitied and grasping for the sun when I know my soul is lost to hell. If Ivy leaves Cincinnati again, I will kill her myself. Tell her that for me."

Cold, I wrapped my arms around myself.

"I want my soul back. Find it."

Between one breath and the next, he was gone, the door squeaking shut the only sound marking his passage. Shaking, I sat down in Ivy’s chair.

If Ivy leaves Cincinnati again, I will kill her myself, he had said.

Don’t think so.

Chapter Twenty

Junior’s was frighteningly busy, the clientele mostly human at the early hour, stumbling about in search of their first cup of coffee. Either humans appreciated their coffee more than the average Inderlander, or Mark’s marketing gamble of claiming to serve coffee that demons crossed the lines for was paying off. I couldn’t help but notice that the floor had been repainted with circles and spirals, and I wondered if the lock access to the back door had been changed as well. The talk was loud, and the music cranked decibels higher than normal made my head hurt. I truly sympathized with the rare Inderlander accused of eating humans. They were annoying and obnoxious when they thought no one was listening.

My mood couldn’t be entirely blamed on the noise and early hour-seeing as I’d not gotten to sleep until Ivy had come home, and then gotten up at an insane seven in the morning to get here by 7:35 exactly. But if my mood was bad, Ivy had me beat, glowering in the corner of the darkest booth we had been able to snag. The three beatniks bemoaning the unfairness of life and the publishing industry had been taking up the spot when we’d arrived, but after Ivy stood over their table with her grande and bad attitude, they’d packed up their double-spaced pages and red pencils and moved to a sunnier table.

Ivy was better now that most of her drink was inside her and her head was down over the museum blueprints, but if my evening with Felix and Cormel had been disturbing, hers spent getting Nina into a safe house had devolved into terror. As Ivy had expected, Nina had gotten angry at the mere suggestion, and without Felix to steady the overwhelming sensations, clarity of perception, and power that he’d gifted her with, she’d quickly spiraled out of control. Ivy had gotten her to the safe house just in time.