Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(65)
Author: Kim Harrison

"We…," she tried again, slipping, but at least we were moving. The floor was charred, slick under my steps, unseen in the dark. The air was heavy, a weird mix of heat and moisture. I glanced toward the front, glad I couldn’t see the smoldering bodies of the people dead and left behind. I could smell them, though, and see the little puddles of wax burning on the tables still left standing.

"Kitchen," I said, leaning heavily on Ivy, weary. Cops and firemen weren’t coming in, which meant they were going to count the building as a loss. As soon as the right people arrived, they were going to circle the place and let it burn. We should probably get out before then.

We hit the kitchen at a staggering run, Ivy grabbing a take-out bag in passing once we got past the arc of my circle that had contained the curse. I wasn’t sure if she was supporting me or if I was supporting her when we hit the kitchen’s service doors and a slice of harsh mercury lamplight from outside spilled in. My head came up as the air changed. It was still hot but now it had the stink of garbage. Ivy was first out, looking at Trent, waiting beside my mother’s car, before taking the three-foot jump to the lower pavement and looking up at me.

Vivian sat down to slide off, leaving a long, wet mark glistening in the streetlight. Pierce hesitated only briefly before he jumped, hitting the ground in a soggy splat. Ivy’s hand was extended for me, and I took it, still shaky. Ku’Sox had left, sure, but now he knew I was a threat.

"We got the devil," Pierce said, clearly in a good mood as we all limped for the car, just twenty feet ahead. It was running. Maybe Trent had learned something after all.

"You think Ku’Sox is dead?" I said as I stumbled beside Pierce. "I didn’t see a body in there. Did you see a body? Anyone see a body? I sure as hell didn’t!"

Pierce jerked to a stop, and Ivy left me with one hand on the car for support as she got in and slid to the driver’s seat, water dripping from her. Vivian dived into the back, yelling at us to get in.

"No one could survive that!" Pierce said, water flinging from him as he pointed at the burning building. I jumped when the city’s fire codes clicked into play, and the building-wide circle snapped into place to contain the fire. Thank God we were out of it. We had only moments before someone would come back here and find us. They might have been waiting for us to get out. Maybe.

"If killing that freak was that easy, don’t you think that the demons would have done it?" I said, feeling Ivy’s eyes on me. "He’s still alive," I said as I slowly got in the car, numb.

He was alive, but I might know how to kill him now, and I dropped my eyes, ashamed to even be thinking it. It was said that Newt had killed her lovers by running a line through them. Obviously I could do the same. Otherwise why had Ku’Sox convinced Newt to kill the female demons that the elves had missed?

I looked at my hands, trying to see them shaking in the dim light. I had to talk to Newt. Great. Just friggin’ great. Maybe she’d think I was a demon and decide to kill me, too.

"Pierce, get in the car!" Ivy shouted from behind the wheel, and he shoved me to the middle as he got in, the car shaking as he slammed the door.

A cop car’s light played over our car, and swearing, Trent ducked. Ivy gunned it, bouncing my mom’s car’s fender off the bubble containing the fire as she spun in a tight circle. Pierce gaped behind us as Ivy drove like the devil himself was after us, jumping curbs and driving over the bare ground. Vivian and Trent cried out in protest from the back. There was a final, jolting thump, then the road smoothed as Ivy found the way to the interstate. No one followed.

I closed my eyes, enjoying the smell of excited vampire on my left and the rich tang of witch on my right. The lights of oncoming traffic glowed through my eyelids, and I opened them when my phone started to hum. Jenks’s wings were a beautiful web of silk and diamonds as he held on to the rearview mirror’s stem, watching our back. Always watching our back.

"Everyone here?" I needlessly asked, my fingers shaking as I flipped open my phone to see that it was Bis. The last two calls were from him as well. He had to be feeling me pull heavily on the lines. He was waking up in the day, too. Maybe he was older than I thought.

Jenks’s wings hummed to life, turning as gray as my soul as they deflected the light, their beauty lost. "Yeah, everyone’s here," he said, clearly not believing they were just going to let us drive away.

I hesitated briefly before letting Bis’s call go to voice mail and tucking the phone away. I couldn’t talk to him right now. Vivian was sobbing in the back, trying not to be obvious about it. I thought it callous of Trent not to give her any comfort, but if she was anything like me, his show of compassion would only get his face bitten off and he probably knew it.

The hum of the engine grew steady, never varying as we sped north on 95. I flexed my hand, trying to see it in the faint green glow from the dash. The memory of how much energy I’d channeled into Ku’Sox had left my body unmarked, but it had shaken me. It had been enough to fry anyone else to a cinder.

My fist closed, and I saw Ivy look from it back to the road. Her eyes were worried. Taking a breath, she pushed her wet hair back, steadying herself for whatever I might do next. She looked too young, too beautiful, too perfect to put up with my crap, and when I touched her hand, she jumped.

We’d gotten away, but my heart was like ash, as black as the coating on my soul. Vivian had seen the depth of it, taken part in it. Maybe she’d leave this part of the trip out of her report.

"Hey," Jenks said, his thoughts clearly on the same path as mine, "is it true what they say about Vegas?"

"No," Vivian said, and I caught sight of her red-rimmed eyes in the rearview mirror when the lights of a passing car lit up her misery. "I’m telling them. I’m telling them everything."

Trent shifted uncomfortably, and Jenks took a breath, a darkly glowing dust spilling from him. I calmed him with a soft nod. I wanted them to know. It might be the only thing that was going to keep my body and soul on this side of the lines. That and maybe Trent’s testimony that I was a good person. I was in trouble if they ever found out Ku’Sox was his demon.

"Double jeopardy," Trent whispered. "It’s double jeopardy." His eyes met mine when I turned to him. "It always has been."

Chapter Fifteen

It was the changing sound of the engine that woke me, but the car’s motion never shifted, so I snuggled deeper under my coat and leaned more heavily against the door. A bleary glance at the clock told me we’d been on 80 only for about an hour, and therefore were probably coming into Reno. Four hours of driving a hundred plus in the dark had been more than a little unsettling, but we’d made great time.