The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(111)
Author: Kim Harrison

A silver dust slipped from him as he gyrated. “Stop it, Jenks.”

“Rolled in the hay, played train and tunnel, got their parking tickets validated . . .”

“Grow up, Jenks!”

Giggling like a twelve-year-old, he went to the mantel when I threw a handful of popcorn at him. “I’m telling you, Ivy, this is the best thing to happen to her since that boy band she liked got run over by a pack of migrating deer. Look how relaxed she is. Better than a spa day.”

Ivy licked her lips, eyes darting to Trent as he put his feet on the floor and sipped his coffee. The rims of his pointy ears were a delicate shade of red, which made Jenks laugh more.

“Ah, hi,” she said, looking professional and caught completely off guard.

Trent smiled up at her. “How is Nina? Felix is leaving her alone, yes?”

“For the most part.” Her purse slipped from her shoulder, and she set it on the coffee table. Her eyes flicked over the maps and lists, but she looked very distracted. “I think it’s because he’s been too busy to harass her.”

This was going better than I had thought it would, and I set my glass of iced tea down, working my way around the coffee table to sit on the couch with Trent. “Your timing is perfect. We’re working out how to free the mystics and cart them from Cincinnati to Loveland.”

She started, her thoughts clearly jolted back to what she’d been saying when she came in. “Oh! Right. Has Edden called?”

My eyebrows rose, and Jenks stopped gyrating on the mantel. “Not recently. Why?”

Ivy took off her riding jacket and draped it over the chair I’d been in, clearly still trying to wrap her head around Trent and me. “Um, Columbus’s I.S. took jurisdiction over the run,” she said, and beside me, Trent softly swore under his breath. “They pushed out not only the FIB, but the local I.S. as well. Edden’s lucky to be observing. I’m guessing he hasn’t called because he’s still trying to argue some sense into them.”

“Or he’s afraid,” I said, and Trent exhaled loudly, a hand to his forehead. “Jenks, where’s the phone?” I added, relieved in a way that we had something more important to talk about than my sex life.

“I was afraid of this,” Trent said softly as he checked his watch.

“They can’t kick us out,” Jenks said as Ivy crossed the hall to go to the kitchen, and I slumped beside Trent. “It’s our run! Who is going to move the mystics?”

“Apparently they are!” Ivy shouted from the other room. “Felix cut a deal with his old buddies, and with everyone else sleeping, there’s no one to say otherwise. The Columbus I.S. agents working the case are going to keep the captured mystics, and Felix gets whatever he wants in exchange. Whenever he wants it.”

Nina, I thought, my eyes finding Ivy’s when she came back in, not with the phone but her laptop. My God. He’d given the ability to control wild magic to the I.S., and therefore the undead, in exchange for Nina.

Looking scared, Ivy sat in my recently vacated chair. Her hair hid her eyes, but her fingers were trembling as she opened the computer and waited for it to come alive. It was her security, and it was going to come up short this time.

“Ivy?”

She didn’t look up. Trent was fidgeting, but Jenks was mad enough for all of us, the pixy hovering in the center of the room, his dust spilling onto the papers until I thought I could smell smoke. “Whadya mean they get the captured mystics?” he said bitingly. “They like what’s going on in Cincinnati?”

“As a matter of fact, some of them do,” she said, her eyes holding intolerance. “Being able to put your rivals to sleep is something many of the undead would pay dearly for.”

“They wouldn’t!” I exclaimed as I pieced it together. Ayer had said his original idea had been a more personal choice, a building, a room—a single undead. They could parcel the mystics up. Sell them like miniassassins. Having trouble with your labor pool? Buy a city full and watch them toe the line.

Trent slumped into the cushions, his disgusted expression making it clear he’d figured it out immediately. “The I.S. having control of the mystics would be worse than the Free Vampires putting all of them asleep,” he said.

Not to mention it would cause a legal blind eye to fall on Felix turning Nina into his belonging. This was three times wrong. “I say we go there, steal the mystics, and get them to the Goddess before they leave the I.S. tower.”

“Yes!” Jenks said, exploding from the mantel in a burst of silver. “I never liked the idea of working with them anyway.”

Ivy’s relief was almost palpable, but Trent, not used to working with such a small, maneuverable ship, frowned. “You think we four—”

“Five,” I corrected him, pointing to the steeple and Bis.

“Five,” he continued, “can break into the mortuary, one they’re probably already monitoring, cut the power, free the mystics, and run for Loveland all under the I.S.’s nose?”

I nodded, rising to go stand beside Jenks to form a visual alliance. His dust made my skin tingle, and I smiled as Ivy exhaled, her fear easing. “Yup. Welcome to my world, Trent.”

“Seven,” Jenks said as he hovered by my ear. “Don’t forget Nina and David. We got an entire city of Weres to plow our road. They’re out there already, and no I.S. agent can stop a Were on four paws.”

“Seven, and a city of Weres,” Trent said. “So how do we get in? It’s a fortress. Lots of security. No easy way out once you get in.”

“If it’s pre-Turn, the security is all outdated,” Jenks said as he flew silver-dusted wreaths around Ivy and landed on her shoulder. “I have yet to find the building I can’t break into. Hell, if I can get Rache into your back office, I can get into a pre-Turn coffin klatch.”

Flicking his hair back, Trent pulled his map of the city close. A shiver rose through me as I saw him fitting into my life in a way I’d never imagined, and then I stifled it, remembering the heat in his eyes as he lay atop me, the feel of his body against mine. Why had I done the smart thing and waited so long?

“You’re not thinking like a pixy,” Jenks said, seeing Trent’s lingering doubt. “Four inches?” he said pointedly. “I only need a hole the size of a dime. Code requires adequate ventilation in those kind of facilities, and wire mesh is easy to cut.”