Ever After (The Hollows #11)(97)
Author: Kim Harrison

The way he was looking at me made me nervous, and I dropped my eyes.

"Mmm," he grumbled, apparently satisfied. "Demons acting in concert isn’t enough. To surpass Ku’Sox, there must be a complete melding of thoughts into one action. My rings only work between demons. There’s no way to join an elf soul to a demon."

There is, I thought, suddenly scared to say it. "Ah, that’s kind of why I’m here . . ." Heart pounding, I extended my arm and opened my palm, the firelight glinting on the rings.

Al leaned forward in interest, his thick bare fingers brushing against mine as he took the rings. "These are . . . Where did you get these?" he said, his black eyes narrowed as he made a fist around them, hatred pouring from him.

My lips parted. Scared, I fought to keep from backing up. His grip on the rings looked tight enough to crush them. My thought went back to what Quen had said about demons perhaps being slaves first. "The museum. I wanted something else, but they were gone when I got there, and these were-" I gasped when his fist clenched. "Al, no!" I shouted, grabbing his hand and trying to pry open his fingers. "Don’t break them! It’s all I have! Please!"

He snarled at me, the lines in his square features heavy and ugly. With a grimace, he yanked out of my grip and threw the rings into the corner. My breath came fast, and I lunged after the twin pinging sounds, scrabbling like a spider as I found first one, then the other.

I held them tight to my chest, my back to him as my pulse pounded. He would never help me. Head high, I walked back to the fire with the rings in my shaking hand.

"Elven slavers!" Al growled. "They are ugly, and I have done a lot of ugly, Rachel."

"Ku’Sox is uglier," I said stiffly. "This is what I have. I’m going to use them. If I can hold him off long enough, maybe the rest of you cowards will stand up to him."

"Except the rings are dead." Al’s voice was harsh.

I stood before him, the fire warming my shins. I wasn’t sure how he was going to react once I told him I could bring them back to life. "I, ah, can reinvoke them."

He looked up at me, a sour anger in the tilt of his head. "No one can reinvoke them."

Sitting down, I scooted until our knees almost touched. "I reinvoked elven silver two days ago with Pierce’s help."

Taking up a poker, he jabbed it into the flames. They were slavers. He’d never help me. "So go ask him," Al muttered, clearly not believing me.

"He’s dead. Nick helped him escape Newt so he and Ceri could try to kill Ku’Sox."

"Ceridwen?" Al’s head snapped up. "What does she have to do with this?"

I suddenly remembered that she’d been with him for a thousand years, that he’d been so careless when replacing her as his familiar that I’d been able to save her life. Looking back, I think he’d done it intentionally. And all this time I’d thought that I’d been more clever than he. God, I was stupid. I think he had loved her.

"Al, I’m sorry," I whispered, kicking myself for not considering that he might feel pain at her loss. "Ku’Sox-"

Al extended a shaky hand to stop my words, his head dropping. "Enough," he said, the hard sound of his voice a band of metal around my heart, squeezing, hurting.

I shifted closer, the scent of burnt amber coming from the fire stinging my eyes. Al had taken a deep breath, and I watched as he slowly exhaled, his hands unclenching. "I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Didn’t Newt tell-"

"I said enough!"

I hunched into myself, my own grief welling up as I watched him shove his own down, denying its existence. "Al, I need your help," I whispered, and he seemed to become a dark lump before the low flames. "I only have until tomorrow midnight. I’ve done this before. I don’t know why it’s not working."

Al’s shoulders were slumped under that blanket, and his expression was numb. I wasn’t even sure he was listening anymore. "You don’t know what you ask."

"It’s the only way to make a sure connection between an elf and a demon," I said. "And since no demon will help me . . ."

Al’s head turned from the fire. His black eyes bore into me, and I stifled another shudder. "Top shelf," he said flatly. "Behind the books."

I followed his gaze to one of the few open bookcases. Silently I stood and shoved the rings in my front pocket. Feeling his eyes on me, I crossed the room, counting my steps. It was smaller by about a foot. My hands were steady as I stood on tiptoe, one hand on the shelf for balance as I moved three books out of the way, my hand searching blindly in the small space behind them. A jolt went through me as I found the cool, smooth shape of a ring.

"Don’t put it on," Al cautioned as my heels came down and I turned with a ring in my hand. It was tiny, almost a pinkie ring. I wondered whose it was, since it wouldn’t fit on Al’s hand. Unless . . . he was in the shape of that gaunt black bat.

"What is it?" I asked, cold but too wary to come back to the fire.

"Half of a set," he grudgingly said, his eyes down as he snatched it from me, cradling the ring to him as if it were alive. My eyes widened as I realized it was his shackle, his tie to a miserable past. "I want you to see this," he said. "To know what you risk."

"I’m sorry," I said softly as I came forward to sit cross-legged before him again. He was flushed, embarrassed and ashamed to be clearly still tied to it. "Where’s the other half?"

Al smiled a savage, ugly smile. "Gone, along with its owner."

My eyes fell. I couldn’t look at him. Al had been a slave? "Al-"

"I trusted once."

I couldn’t say anything, huddled cold before his fire in his shrinking room, failing world.

"You’re willing to risk your life," he said, "but what of your soul? What if the master ring falls to someone else? What then? It’s only the slave ring that can’t be removed by its wearer."

My eyes fell to Al’s hands, just visible among the folds of the blanket. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and they looked hard and worn. But I had no choice. Miserable and unsure I looked up. "I have to do this."

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His eyes catching the red glow of the low flames seemed almost normal. "Then why have you failed?"

Oh God. I knew why I’d failed, and I dropped my gaze. "I’m afraid," I whispered, and he smiled. "Damn it, it’s not funny!" I shouted. "I’m afraid!"

Still smiling, Al looked at my fingers knotted around one another, but he didn’t reach out to touch me. "Do you trust Quen?"