The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(109)
Author: Kim Harrison

He followed behind me, scooping up his shoes as he went and tossing them to the door. “That’s good to know.”

And then our talk turned to what we had in the fridge as I soaped his back and he lathered my hair, delighting in its length when it was wet and how the water turned it to a darker shade. This was either the smartest thing I’d ever done, or the dumbest. Trouble was, I wouldn’t know until it all fell apart or we made it stick.

Please, God. I’d do just about anything to not be alone ever again, I prayed, and the mystics hummed, their thoughts unclear and walled off from me.

One thing I knew was one hundred percent sure was that he was right. Nothing had to change unless we both wanted it to. My toothbrush was staying right where it was, but as I looked at him and the way the water sheeted off the smooth lines of his muscles and the memory of his passion arced through me, I thought I might buy an extra one.

Just in case.

Twenty-Three

Trent? Never mind. I found one,” I said, breezing into the kitchen with a legal pad I’d found stuffed in the back of my closet. Ivy had them, sure, but I was tired of looking like a pantser all the time. I could plan stuff, too.

Trent spun from the cooling rack, looking guilty as he rubbed crumbs from his fingers. “You’re a three-cookie man, huh?” I said as I found a black marker, and he grinned sheepishly.

“Five, actually. Chocolate chip are my weakness.” The cookie broke, and he lurched to catch it, looking totally accessible in the colorful silk shirt he’d borrowed from Jenks. The cuffs of his jeans were rolled up and he was barefoot, which all but pegged my meter. He looked different, but his mannerisms were as collected as always. In the background, the dryer was a contented hum. I didn’t even care since it had his socks in it.

Smiling, I got a plate. We’d been sketching out our plans in the back living room since there was less chance of being spotted by a roving news crew, and I could use a couple of cookies myself. “Where do you put it?” I asked as I intentionally bumped into him.

“High metabolism.” Ears turning red, he stacked cookies on the plate. “Mmmm, these are good. No wonder Al likes them.”

“They’re worth their weight in spells in the ever-after.” Content, I added to the pile. The world was imploding outside the stone walls of my church, and I didn’t care. “Too bad they don’t last more than an hour. Did you know that the demon who owns the coffeehouse connected to your dad’s vault drew up a contract for a supply of reality-made coffee?”

“Really?”

I nodded, remembering having shoved it into my pocket before going to talk to Newt. Al had looked at it later, tossing it into his fire after pronouncing it grossly one-sided. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.

Sure enough, Trent was thinking as he leaned against the counter beside my dissolution vat of salt water. His ankles crossed, and I almost forgot how to breathe. Damn, he looked good. “The cookies get eaten that fast?”

“They pick up burnt amber that fast,” I said, taking up the plate and snagging the legal pad on my way to the back living room. Trent followed, either me or the cookies. I didn’t care which. He was here and it felt right—even if several mystics had just brought me an image of my human neighbor boarding up her basement windows.

It was the sight of our papers, notes, and scribbled plans wadded up and thrown into the black fireplace that brought reality crashing back. Between David’s street force and Ivy’s contacts, Edden had found Landon and Ayer holed up in a pre-Turn mortuary just inside the Hollows. They were twenty minutes, and a whole lot of planning, away. Edden and the out-of-state I.S. troops who’d been sent to enforce our quarantine were going to subdue Landon and Ayer shortly after midnight, but getting the mystics from there to the Goddess was up to me.

Or us, rather, I thought, feeling like I was a part of something important as I pushed aside the map of Cincinnati to make room for the cookies. I dropped the legal pad, accidentally blowing Jenks from my last scratchings. Grimacing, the pixy dropped down to stand on the paper and tap his sword tip against it in thought. After an afternoon of popcorn, cold cuts, and Trent’s tart lemonade, we had a workable plan on how to get the mystic splinter from the mortuary to the Loveland ley line, but it relied heavily on Edden’s ability to clear the roads. Trent’s copter was out as everything had been grounded, and much to Trent’s hidden dismay, his money wasn’t buying what it used to.

“I don’t know, Rache,” Jenks said, tapping the paper, and I took a cookie before pushing the plate to Trent when he sat down across from me on Ivy’s couch. “There’s a lot of ifs there. I mean, first, you’re relying on the I.S. and FIB to get us in.”

“Assumption number one,” I said, snapping a cookie between my teeth.

“We let the mystics out,” Jenks said as he rose up a bare inch and hovered backward to tap the second line.

“Assuming they’re there and we can do it,” Trent said, pulling the legal pad closer.

“The FIB clears the streets and you run to the Loveland ley line trailing mystics.” Scowling, Jenks tapped the number three. “And the Goddess takes them.” Sword tip pressed, he tore a line under the last item on the list. “This is the best plan we got, but it still sucks.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” I said, not liking that Felix okayed the outside I.S. agency to come in and help. I understood not wanting the mess in Cincinnati to spill over into the rest of the state, much less the country, but we had this.

Scowling, Jenks put his hands on his hips. “I still say a small team has a better chance than a big one. People talk too much and committees make decisions slower than a troll in love.”

Trent had his elbows on his knees as he looked at the map of Cincinnati Edden had e-mailed over. He was making notes, marking up the escape route Edden had indicated with a bright red line. “My biggest issue is this circular route around the city they want you to take. I understand needing to curtail as many misfires as possible, but the splintered mystics are hazardous. What if they catch up? You barely survived the last time,” he added, pencil tapping.

“Sometimes you just have to trust,” I said, and I couldn’t tell you why arguing with Trent didn’t feel like an attack. Maybe because he had yet to say no, just “convince me.” That, and I was still glowing from earlier—literally, if Jenks was to be believed. “The entire city wants them gone, and once they get in the line, the Goddess will take them.”