The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(77)
Author: Kim Harrison

Trent’s touch shocked through me, and he pulled back as I started. He looked haunted, and ash covered his hands where he had touched something. It was on me now, and I thought the black smear was fitting as it marked me. “Rachel? Did you just . . .”

He couldn’t say it. I didn’t blame him. “I think so,” I said dully.

Dropping down to me, he peered at me in concern. “Are you okay?”

He was tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, and closing my eyes, I tilted my head so I could feel his hand on my cheek. It sang through me, tingling with the last of the wild magic, and I had no right to it. “I don’t know.”

“You are a demon!” Landon shouted, expression vehement and stumbling when his cuffed hand brought him up short. “How dare you speak to the divine!”

Numb, I could do nothing as he struggled to reach me, finally working his cuff around a bend in the piping and running at me. The two officers, finding something they could cope with, tackled him.

“Get off!” he shouted from under them. “Get off me!”

Edden lowered a hand to help me rise. “Great. I think he’s got it now.”

My hand was trembling as I put it in Edden’s and stood. Bancroft was a pile of twisted, blackened bones in the middle of the charred top floor. His rings were still on his cooked fingers, and I wondered about the shackle on his ankle, up to now hidden behind his robe.

“Get him out of here,” Edden said, and I flinched when Jenks’s dust hit me and burned with wild magic. Bancroft had said mystics lived in pixies. Why had I never felt it before now?

“That could have gone better,” Trent said, and Jenks landed on his shoulder instead of mine. Landon’s tirade cut off as the elevator door closed. The sudden silence broken by the hiss of sprinklers was somehow worse.

“At least he didn’t jump.” Fingers fumbling for his phone, Edden looked at Bancroft’s remains and sighed. “Mr. Kalamack, I’d appreciate it if you could give us an hour of your time at your earliest convenience. Rachel, you too. There’s going to be an inquiry. I can feel it already.”

“Sure.” I hate reports. I turned away, shuffling to the edge of the dry spot to watch the cloud of insane mystics sparkling in the sun as they continued on toward the Hollows. Sirens heralded their progress. The arena was right in the way, and my gut clenched at the thought of all those people huddled in fear as it passed over.

I’d like to think that the mystics had moved on because of the Goddess, that she’d driven them off, but the truth of it was they’d left because they’d felt a magnet stronger than my aura, a brighter light. Somewhere down there in the streets, someone had called the mystics away, called them to be collected, and with that, the wave would end. Slowly my numb stupor evolved into a tight anger. We had to stop these people.

The sound of Jenks’s wings was loud, but I felt his dust first, like the soft prickling of wild magic. “That was some freaky shit, Rache. You okay?”

I nodded, watching the cloud go faint in the sun as I took off my hard hat. Dropping it, I grabbed someone’s scarf, glad the file cabinet I’d stashed my gun in was in the dry zone. Using the scarf like a potholder, I opened the drawer. Sure enough, my cherry-red splat gun was coated in busted charms. Depressed, I wrapped the scarf around it and tucked it in my bag. The heat might have destroyed the charms’ potency, but I doubted it.

“David!” Edden said loudly, and I spun to the elevator, but he was on his phone. “I can’t bring the wave any closer to you than that. Did you get a fix on where these bastards are?”

“David,” I whispered, striding back to Trent. “You’re talking to David? Give me that!”

“Alone?” Edden said loudly, holding me off and grinning all the wider. Jenks, eavesdropping at his shoulder, gave me a thumbs-up. “Rachel and Mr. Kalamack are with me, and I do believe they can get there faster than that.”

“David?” I exclaimed, knowing he’d hear me. “You found them?”

“Will you be quiet?” Edden said, hand over the speaker. “I’m trying to talk to David.”

Frustrated, I dropped back to my heels. “You know where they are?” I asked when Edden ended the call with a terse “We’re on our way.” But I knew the answer already by his smile, both satisfied and predatory.

“That little coffee shop a few blocks down,” he said, gesturing for us to head for the elevators. “He’s got them pinned down but he’s alone. I don’t know if we can get there before their reinforcements arrive.”

Junior’s, I thought, my mood sobering as we passed the last covered corpse, still uncharred under my protection bubble. Of course.

Seventeen

I pulled up short as I strode out of the quiet FIB lobby and into the bright sun. It wasn’t the sudden wind that stopped me, but the cry of recognition and the surge from the newspeople. They’d seen the explosion at the top of the tower, and they knew Trent’s face, even stubbled as it was.

“Whoa! How we going to get through that?” Jenks said in disgust, his dust like needles, holding an unexpected energy as the bright sparkles slid through my aura.

Sighing, I rocked to a stop, unwilling to push through the crowd. “I can’t take you anywhere,” I muttered, and Trent looked up from his phone conversation with a frustrated acceptance. The call had started in the elevator, and I was amazed at how he was able to keep his cool when everything was falling apart. But that’s what made Trent, Trent.

“I am so sorry,” he said to me, then “Make it work” to Quen before ending the call.

Edden was craning to see over the heads to the car he’d called for, but the reporters had converged, ducking under the plastic ribbon and overwhelming the few officers out front. Backup was at least half an hour out. It would be over by then. Hell, it would be over in ten minutes! We didn’t have time for this, and I caught Jenks’s eye.

“Go tell David we’re on our way,” I whispered, lips barely moving. “Do what you can.”

“You got it,” he said, and I watched enviously as he lifted off, unnoticed as he flew over the tops of everyone.

Trent was watching too, a touch of melancholy in him. “I am so tired of this,” he said softly. Knowing it was a bad idea, I sent my fingers to find his, and he started at the tiny squeeze, returning it full force. But he didn’t let go, and I froze at the memory of that last kiss.