The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(46)
Author: Kim Harrison

Mug held to warm my fingers, I looked over the garden to the glow of Cincinnati. The news last night had been awful, even if there were fewer misfires to focus on. Magic was being voluntarily curtailed above and beyond reason, creating almost more problems than the misfires. A bright spot was that the I.S. was beginning to function on a reduced level to try to contain the more aggressive living vampires. Nonvampire agents were teaming up with the FIB street force out of frustration as their living vampire managers became more and more circular in their thinking, unable to make a decision. It was scary how dependent they were on the undead.

The forensic and investigative teams of both factions were working together the best, giving weight to my theory that magic and technology were the languages of common sense. Still, there were more than a handful of ignorant good old boys and girls on both sides of the fence resisting. Edden was in his personal heaven and hell as he got what he’d been working toward the last three years. There was almost as much friction between the new interspecies partnerships as there was between unruly citizens and the authorities. There was talk of putting Cincinnati and the Hollows under quarantine in the fear that whatever was keeping the undead asleep might spread. We were truly on our own while the world watched.

My toes were cold, and I hid my left foot under my right. The chocolate was beginning to scum up, and I blew it to the far side of the mug before I took a sip. It was quiet, and neither Jenks nor I said anything as we listened to Cincinnati slowly shift from fear and sirens to an exhausted quiet as the day approached.

Jenks hummed a warning, but I felt Bis long before he dropped from the steeple, landing with an almost unheard thump. I turned, smiling at the serious adolescent as he shifted his batlike wings and blinked sleepily. “Kind of pushing it, aren’t you?” I asked him, seeing as he had a hard time staying awake when the sun was up.

He glanced at the steeple. “I got about an hour yet. Put me in the belfry if I zonk out, will you?” he said, the vowels grinding together like rocks. “We had six patrols drive by, but most everyone is minding their own turf.”

Especially when the world’s only day-walking demon lives on your street, I thought sourly. “We’ll get it figured out,” I said, wondering how I was going to get through today on the scant sleep I’d managed. Trent wanted me to come out tonight around six to talk to Bancroft. That might be difficult with the curfew Edden had going, but perhaps if I got a note or something from him I could get through the roadblocks.

Or I could call Trent and tell him I can’t come. I didn’t like that he’d adroitly sidestepped telling me what he and Al had discussed. But then again, I hadn’t offered to tell him about Newt’s and my conversation, either.

“You gonna call him?” Jenks said, somehow knowing where my thoughts were. “He’s probably awake.”

Bis looked behind me into the church, and the soft sound of footsteps intruded. “Everyone is awake,” I said as I turned to Ivy looking rumpled and sexy in her black silk top and pajama bottoms. Expression listless, she pushed the screen door open and shuffled out, squinting disparagingly at the horizon. She looked half dead, and I slid over a few feet to make room for her. Still not having said a word, she sank down, her feet on the step below mine. She’s wearing nail polish? Bis shifted his wings, and we all settled in again. Seeing she needed it more than me, I handed her my hot chocolate.

“Thanks,” she rasped, her voice uncharacteristically rough.

“Tink’s little pink rosebuds, Ivy. You look like hell,” Jenks said, and she gave him a black-eyed stare over the mug. The spicy, nose-prickling scent of vampire incense became stronger, and Bis wrinkled his face. I was starting to be able to pick out Nina’s characteristic scent off her. It was lighter, almost flowery compared to Ivy’s darker shadow scent, but lacing it was a thread of blackness—Felix.

“Nina okay?” I asked, thinking it was odd we were all out here on the steps while Cincinnati shook off the night.

A smile made Ivy look almost alive. “She’s sleeping like—ah, a rock,” she said. “Thank you. For caring, I mean,” she added, unable to look at me.

“Nina is a good person,” I said. Jenks darted off, unable to handle the emotional, flowery crap, as he put it, and I gave her a sideways hug. “She’s good for you, and you’re good for her. If they cancel the fireworks, you want to have a cookout when it’s all over?” When was it ever over?

Ivy took another sip. “Or sleep,” she said, focus distant. “I could use some sleep.”

“Me too,” Bis said. “I woke up yesterday when a fire truck went by. That never bothers me.”

“Maybe you’re just getting older,” I said, and he smiled, his black teeth catching the light. Giving me a nod, he took to the air, and my hair flew as he went back to the steeple to talk to Jenks. A lonely hoot of a train pulled my attention back to Cincinnati, and I wondered if they would continue to stop if we were put under quarantine. Though the waves were still occurring with no discernible pattern, the misfires were under control. I’d noticed an odd, unexpected sense of superiority from humans that their science was holding up in the face of no-magic.

The brum of a motorcycle roaring to life echoed in the quiet street behind us, and I sighed again. So much for my idea of catching a few more winks.

Ivy straightened, her expression shifting from alarm to fear when Jenks made a wide arcing path around the garden, arrowing to us. “That was Nina’s bike,” Ivy said, pale.

“Someone is stealing it?” I said in disbelief, and Ivy stood, the mug of hot chocolate spilling down the steps.

“Nina!” she cried, racing inside.

“Nina is gone!” Jenks shouted, and I froze at Ivy’s cry of heartache. It iced through me as I stood on my back porch, falling to the pit of my soul and tightening into a black knot.

I bolted inside. “Ivy!” I called, running through the back living room and into the hallway. Their bedroom door was open, and I came to a sudden, breathless halt when Ivy almost ran into me. Her eyes were black, and fear had made her beautiful. A pixy girl hovered over her, tears slipping like sun from her eyes as she wrung her dress and apologized in high-pitched, fast words. “Where’s Nina?”

Ivy shoved past me on the way to the kitchen. Her katana was in her hand. Jenks and I followed her as the pixy who’d been on watch wailed, a black dust slipping from her. “Gone,” Ivy said as she pulled out a drawer for her set of throwing knives. “He took her. He waited until I left, and then he walked her right out of the church.”