The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(125)
Author: Kim Harrison

My breath hissed in as I suddenly understood. The mystics who’d been swimming in my neural net the past two days had been slowly adapting to how I saw the world and how to work within it. What had once been confusing had cleared without me realizing. What had once taken minutes to understand had become second nature. Looking back, I could see the tracings of their gentle progression like a path through the woods. All I had to do was step out into the sun.

So I listened, and with the ease of blowing a bubble, I knew everything they saw: the frightened engineer tending to his shot partner as a man stood over them with a gun and his desperate plan to sacrifice himself to save untold millions, Ivy behind me with her hands in fists in frustration. I could see Nina, crying for Ivy as she raced ahead to where the next road crossed the tracks, hoping to stop the train even if it meant her death. I felt the stirring energy of the Weres massing in Chicago, rival gangs uniting to storm the station and overrun the train. Even the excitement in the news helicopter and Jenks holding on to Bis as he crawled to the front to find his dad. So many people willing to sacrifice—but none of it needed to happen. The mystics had evolved, become. And Trent would not die today.

“You should let them go,” I said, feeling light and unreal. Humming with light. It burned my soul, charring it even as it gave me strength.

The muzzle shoved Trent forward, and my breath slipped easily from me as I saw how I could down Landon before the bullet could get to the end of the gun. I took a step forward, and Landon’s expression shifted, seeing the change in me.

“That’s right,” I said, the fear gone. “I’m chock-full of ’em, and if you don’t let their kin go, you’re going to find out how a demon plays with wild magic.” Oh God. It hurt.

Landon’s confidence faltered. Behind him, his men exchanged glances.

“I know I’m curious,” Trent grumbled.

I watched as if in slow motion as Landon spun his weapon around and smashed the stock of the barrel against the back of Trent’s head. Ivy jerked, and I sent a burst of sound to stop her before she set them off and started a bloodbath. I’d seen in Landon’s mind. He wasn’t going to kill Trent. Not yet. He wanted him as the fall guy should the trickery with the Free Vampires be realized. So not happening.

I got three more paces closer as Trent fell, shaken but not unconscious. Landon’s shock when he looked up and found me there was like icing. And the gun moved from Trent to me—just as I had wanted.

“Kneel,” he demanded, his eyes flicking behind me to include Ivy as well.

Ivy dropped as she was told, but I couldn’t do it. Wild magic spilled through me, pure and untainted from the ley lines. Burning.

And then I smiled at Jenks. He was with Bis, the little gargoyle clinging to the outside of the rocking car as he gave me the thumbs-up. Etude was with him. Now I could do this. Now it would end.

I wasn’t meant for this, and head in agony, I looked at the boxes, their contents held by flimsy, variable battery power. Landon was stupid. He didn’t deserve to hold the Goddess’s leash. No one did.

“You have something that belongs to me,” I said, all of them oblivious to the massing mystics in me—except for Jenks and one very scared elf with a scanner.

“Down her,” Landon directed to one of his men.

“Too late,” I breathed, shivering as a wave of energy skated over my skin. “Oh, far too late. They’re mine. I’m taking them home.”

The barrel of the gun shifted from me to Trent. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” he said confidently, gesturing to one of his men. “I said take her!”

But the man with the scanner didn’t move. “Possession is exactly it . . . Landon,” I said, standing before them, before them all in the center of the rocking car. The captured and splintered mystics howled for release. We were out of Cincinnati and as close to the Loveland ley line as we were going to get. I could take them home.

I took a final step forward, mystics bringing back to me the scent of Landon’s sweat, the depth of his doubt.

“Stop! Or I kill him!” Landon shouted, and I reached for them.

“Rachel!” Trent exclaimed, and Landon’s finger moved on the gun.

Go, I thought, watching the flair of the gunpowder in the chamber, sending enough mystics to clog the weapon and make it misfire. And they went.

Now, I thought, asking more to shift a tiny balance in the air. The poles in the batteries hiccupped. It was enough, and with a silent explosion, the splintered mystics burst from their prison. A demon could have done so with spells and curses, but with mystics swimming in my neural net, all I had to do was ask.

Trent’s eyes were on me, and I saw him blink. It took forever.

And then the gun misfired, blowing Landon back.

“Rachel!” Trent shouted, scrambling forward even as Landon fell into his men and broken chairs. The attendant cried out in fear. For an instant, the air hummed with magic.

And then the freed splintered mystics fell into me.

“No!” I screamed at the flood of unconditional hatred. It wasn’t simply me in pain, but my mystics, the ones who had become, as their new nature was measured and found wrong by way of fewer numbers. I fell, the bubble in my mind shifting to allow passage of those familiar to me and hold the rest back. Frustrated and angry, the splinter shifted and changed to find a way in. Again I floundered, getting one gasp of air before they swamped me anew.

Trent’s arms around me tightened, burning like fire as the mystics battled, my mind the field of their conquest. The flame of becoming raced out, hot and blue at the edges, cooling to black where it passed, but there were too many splintered mystics, and for every one that became and blended, ten were overcome.

I couldn’t turn them all at once. If I couldn’t slow this down, I was going to go insane.

Groaning, I pulled my mystics back to me, finding a scant infinity left. Together we huddled under a protection that held only because I kept changing it. My eyes opened. Trent held me. He was mad at me, and I smiled.

“Sorry,” I panted, seeing Bis and Jenks hanging from the ceiling. “I have to go. Etude will take me to the line. I’m sorry.”

“Rachel!” he pleaded, but my skin became prickles of magic, and his hands sprang away.

“I have to go!” I shouted as I blew a new hole in the side of the car. “I’m sorry! I have to go!” I said again. “Keep the news crews from following me if you can!”