The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(89)
Author: Kim Harrison

Line, line, she lamented. There is no line, there is only . . .

I shifted my aura and left the line, praying we weren’t underground. The Goddess felt me slip from her, and I shuddered as little claws of thought dug into my awareness. With a wrench that tore me, I felt her extrapolate from where I was, modulate what I could not, and as easy as breathing, felt myself become solid. Sort of. She was with me still, in the spaces inside me.

Surprise, elation, and understanding filled her, spilling over into me. There is a line, the Goddess thought, her conviction growing as she saw, understood, and accepted. And then she began to play with it, shifting my aura in and out, tasting what it was like to go from solid to thought, and back to solid.

Enough! I shouted. Heart pounding and lungs starved for air, I phased back into existence, the Goddess firmly embedded within me as I dropped to one knee. My hands clenched into a thick, yellow shag carpet. It was the best feeling ever, even if it was matted, and I took a moment to simply breathe. I had a tiger by the tail, and I didn’t know if I could survive a thousand thoughts-not-mine racing through me.

Not so much! I begged her. Fewer thoughts. I can’t . . . carry all of you . . . at once.

Denial met me, and I stared at the carpet, demanding that she look at it, absorb its intricacies of chaos and how they manipulated the mass around space with color and texture.

A huge chunk of her finally did, finding delight in it, and I could breathe. My connection to the ley line was unbreakable, and it flowed through me with the roar of a fire. I could hear the sound of clicking keys and low, muted voices. I stared at my sock foot, and the Goddess thought it was amazing how something solid was used to cover living mass. I am in a mass that is sentient, she thought. Impossible. Only energy can be sentient.

“Oh my God!” someone exclaimed, and the clicking of keys stopped.

I wanted to look up, but I was afraid to move, and I wiggled my big toe.

“Ah, Ayer?” a masculine voice said, and I cringed.

“What the hell?” Ayer said, and I wrestled for more control, forcing the Goddess into the background where she focused on my lungs and the bits of matter I needed in order to keep from dying and snuffing my thoughts born from organized mass. After the two corpses in my front living room, I thought it might be important.

Living, dying, so small a shift, so big a difference And it hinges on . . . this little bit of mass? she thought, only now understanding why her previous vessels kept failing her.

“Yeah,” I whispered, glad I had enough command to speak again as I slowly pulled control of my body back to me.

“Nothing registered on the auratoscope, Ayer. She just . . . appeared.”

“That tricky elf came through,” he said, and I got my head up, my attention flitting briefly over the two banks of electronic equipment staffed by men and women in military garb before going to the dark windows. I was in a large, high-ceilinged living room, an entire wall of windows looking out over the Hollows, the Ohio River, and Cincinnati beyond. The land spilled out before me, breathtakingly beautiful with the lights and fires of the living. Fifty years ago, it had been prime real estate. Not so much anymore, being too far from the city center and in the wilds.

The Goddess fastened on it, drawing understanding from me as I filled in the blanks of what she was seeing. Shag carpet, sunken living room, and top-of-the-line electronics that didn’t go with the seventies vibe the sunken living room and fire pit were giving me. And of course, the Free Vampires playing army.

New concepts spilled through the Goddess as I took control and rose, thoughts of balance and mass and the sensation of gravity—an unseen presence that grew from mass itself. Heart pounding, I stood facing them, my fear muting to anger as the Goddess gathered her rage at her missing thoughts.

“I don’t believe it,” Ayer said, motioning at two men at the outskirts. “Take her.”

I remained still as they reached for their weapons and made an uneasy semicircle around me. I didn’t really care. Like they could hold me? I thought, the Goddess agreeing. “You might want to rethink this,” I said, and Ayer blinked in surprise. His eyes were so much like Kisten’s it hurt.

“Sir, she’s not dead,” a frightened man in fatigues and a buzz cut said as he held a readout to Ayer. “She’s coated in them,” he whispered, eyes going black. “What do you want to do?”

Ayer looked down, then back to me. “Landon said the Goddess can’t inhabit the living, only the dead. Get me a different reading. That’s impossible.”

“No, just really uncomfortable,” I said, squinting at the ceiling. “She’s focused on the light photons right now, but I suggest you give her the mystics you’ve captured.”

“She?” Ayer waved the men to stand down. Reluctantly they did. “My God, you didn’t go crazy. She’s in there? With you?”

His avarice caught the Goddess’s attention, and together we focused on him, comparing the electricity in the wires in the walls to the electricity in his brain, all jumping about in a chaotic perfection. “Singular who stole my thoughts,” I said, but it was the Goddess speaking through me. “Give them back.” My hand went out palm up, the Goddess having sifted through my thoughts and finding the gesture appropriate.

Shock crossed him, and he backed up a graceful step. We breathed in the scent of frightened vampire, relishing the way it made our skin sparkle like the space between mass.

“Yes, she talks,” I said, wishing I could force her to put my hand down, but I was picking my battles and was glad I had control of my mouth. “Go on. Explain to her why you’re stealing her thoughts. I’m curious myself.”

Suddenly I was moving forward, struggling for control. “I did not dream you,” the Goddess said through me, my accent unchanged, but her anger now coloring it. “You’re therefore singular. And fragile.”

Weapons were cocking, and fear iced through me. Stop! I demanded. I’m fragile too! And she did, though I don’t know why. Maybe my fear pulled all hers together to one spot and made the danger more real.

“Singular?” Ayer took another readout from a white-faced woman with a gun on her hip. The Goddess tasted my fear, weighed it against her own, and dismissed it as incidental. How can a small bit of mass projected from a dead object end you? she wondered, but doubt seeped into her confidence when she dug deeper and found the answer.

“Singular,” I echoed, answering Ayer. “As in not a part of her.” But the Goddess’s outrage was growing. “Ah, I suggest you let them go!” I said, gaining a smidgen of control as I took another unwilling step toward him. “Please!”