The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(120)
Author: Kim Harrison

“A hundred die to save millions,” Scott protested, and David shook his head in warning.

“No.” Trent sat sideways to see everyone as we raced along. “A large slice of the world’s species are represented here with all our talents and ingenuity. If we can’t stop a train without killing innocents, then we don’t deserve the freedom we have.” He hesitated. “No one gets a phone call in the morning that changes their life,” he said softly. “Not if I can help it.”

The van went silent, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those calls he’d gotten himself. Two at least, from when his parents died. Another when he found out he was a father and would have to fight for his child. I was sure there was more. You can’t keep your calm when all around you are losing theirs if you don’t know what’s truly real and what doesn’t matter.

“That they’re moving is a good thing,” Trent said, his voice holding an unexpected confidence. “Rachel’s mystic intel says the containment systems are on battery. We can procure them, move them safely to the Loveland line, and release them in an orderly, safe fashion.” His gaze never went to me, but I knew his relief was enormous. “Ivy, did you bring your laptop? I need to pull up a map. If I remember right, there’s a paved bike path that runs parallel to the line outside of Cincinnati. The timing might be perfect for a transfer.”

Transfer? “It’s under the seat,” she said, but Bis had already dropped down to it, everyone watching as the gargoyle flipped it open and settled it on his crossed legs.

“How do we get across the river?” Nina asked, her mouth dropping open when Bis casually typed in Ivy’s password.

“Hey!” Ivy cried out, cheeks red as she jerked her gaze from the road to him, and back again. “You! You’re the one leaving crumbs on my keyboard!”

“Sorry,” he said, blushing deep black as Jenks snickered. “Is this it?”

Trent slipped out of the front seat to sit where he could see the screen. David and Edden were already there, and the light from it lit the four of them in an unreal glow. “Good,” Trent said, eyes pinched. “Ivy, stay the way you’re going. The wheel span on this vehicle is adequate to run across the trestle. Once on the track, we can drive across the river, then get on the bike path, and—”

“At eighty miles an hour!” David protested as he dropped back, eyes wide.

“Dude,” Jenks said with a chuckle. “I’ve got wings, and I still think that’s a dumb idea.”

“And pace them until we can get a team across the gap,” Trent finished. “If we’re lucky, we can get a call to the engine and they’ll stop the train for us once we’re there to take control of the situation. Edden, do you have a clean line to the FIB? I don’t want a hint of this leaked to the press or the I.S. until the train is stopped and they’re contained.”

“I’ve got Rose’s cell. That woman can do anything,” Edden said as he peered under his glasses at his glowing cell.

It sounded good, but the reality was a little more dicey. Ivy clenched her jaw, eyes fixed to the road. Around me, everyone became quiet as they estimated their chances, comparing their strengths and reflexes to the probable fallout if they failed to even try. We were talking about jumping to a train under full steam, but everyone’s culture, not to mention every vampire’s second life, was in the balance.

I was getting a bad feeling. Bis and Jenks had wings. No one else did. Trent slowly closed the laptop and slid it back under the seat. “This is great!” I said sarcastically, dropping my head into my hands and swaying with the van’s motion. “I like this plan! I’m excited.”

“Let me get my dad,” Bis said, and before I could say anything, he’d launched himself out the back broken window. I watched his dark shape vanish into the wider blackness, thinking that this much help was going to get all of us killed.

Twenty-Five

We were going just over fifty miles per hour according to the van’s speedometer, but with the sliding door open and the narrowness of the paved bike path we were careening down, it felt like more. Jenks was tangled somewhere in my hair, hiding from the wind ripping through the van and out the broken windows. Forty feet away, the train raced. Watching it, I felt as if it were the industrial revolution given life, a monster of power, oblivious as it raced through the darkness in one direction and its own destruction, powered by the death of a million plants and animals a million years ago.

But it was going fifty, not the usual eighty. The engine had indeed been hijacked, but the engineer was backing off on the speed, probably unaware that we were here but trying to alert the next station there was trouble. Bis’s dad, Etude, was ferrying us across. The adult gargoyle was about the size of a small elephant, but as light as a pony and variable as a kite. He’d helped me before when his son had been in danger, and I still felt guilty about the scars he now had on his pebbly gray skin. Scott had wanted to jump, but the only good handholds were the windows, and we were trying to stay unnoticed, hence our position at the back of the train.

It still felt too chancy for me, and I nervously tried to explain “a dark smear on a white wall” to the mystics. They knew their kin were close, which made them hard to hold on to, but if they left me now, they’d be pulled away and lost until they could catch up.

The drive out here had gone fast, especially when Nina took the wheel at the trestle. I’d thought it a bad move, but Nina was a better driver than Ivy, if that could be believed, her squeal of delight at the first tricky part filling the van and making Scott all but rip the seats out in his effort not to jump her jugular. Edden just hung his head, muttering about grounding his son for doing the same thing fifteen years ago. The I.S. vampires manning the tracks to keep people off them had let us through just to see if we could do it. The thousand bucks Trent had dropped into their hats at both ends had helped, too, I’m sure.

My grip on the edge of the door tightened, and I looked at Trent past the strands of my hair plastered to my face from the wind. His expression was grim as Scott made a crouched landing on the roof of the last car. Etude’s black wings shifted and he fell back out of sight. It would take him a moment to catch up.

Trent touched his pocket and turned to me. “Your turn.”

“Me?” I stammered, pulling the hair out of my mouth as Etude landed on the roof of the van with a light thump. “Ivy can go next.”