The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(91)
Author: Kim Harrison

This is a mistake, I thought at her, but with a primal scream, she drew her thoughts of anger into one point and exploded the room.

“Now!” Ayer shouted, and I gasped as the room flashed white.

“No!” I screamed as the Goddess’s power was pulled through me, out of the spaces and into their control.

“Secondary storage full!” someone exclaimed. “Third online!”

Stop! I howled into my thoughts, but she didn’t hear, continuing to funnel her frustration and anger into one act of violence that Ayer pulled to him like a master taking in a soul. With an unheard shatter, the windows blew out. I fell, my hair hiding my vision—but I could see it all from a thousand different angles as her eyes filled me.

“They are mine!” the Goddess raged, my throat becoming raw.

Looking alien in the emergency light and the smoke, Ayer smiled. “Do your worst,” he taunted. “I’m going to bleed you dry, bitch.”

Wild magic sang in me, heartbreaking in its singular intent of revenge and justice. I could only watch as the Goddess filled the room with her intent, not listening to me, ignoring my single voice among her outraged thousands.

They’re killing you. I begged her to listen as I felt the sensation of being sucked up from the inside. Stop! Just stop!

I . . . I . . . She faltered, only now noticing that she was failing, that we were slumped to the floor, the acidic bite of smoke stinging our eyes. I am . . . failing? she thought, a new idea born. She found my own memories of loss, and pain, and failure, learning from them, and I took a deep breath as the sting of a dart found me.

What . . . she seemed to mumble as I plucked it away, but it was too late.

“I told you not to do that,” I said, muscles going slack.

But inside me, the Goddess abandoned her new emotions of failure, fastening on an old one. You knew this would happen! she accused me. You betrayed me!

I curled into a ball. I could hear fire extinguishers and smell the outside. Wild magic pricked my skin, but it was the escaped mystics. “It was Landon,” I whispered, eyes clamped shut. “Not me. I tried to warn you! You didn’t listen.”

Your thought was too small! she said as men whispered in fear over us. Only thoughts with many agreements should be followed.

“Not when they come from a singular,” I whispered. The drug was taking hold, making it easier to think as the Goddess began losing her grip on me, and I moaned at the wild magic they pulled through me, lessening her bit by bit. “My single voice is the sum of a thousand thoughts. Listen to me!” I said, and another dart hit me. “You have to leave,” I breathed, eyes closing. “They’re destroying you. Go!”

But you have only one voice, she thought, trying to understand. How can it be correct?

“Storage unit three full, Ayer.”

“Go to four. I want everything this bitch can dish out.”

And with a sudden implosion of understanding, she understood. Making a sob that would make angels cry, she vanished.

“Wave complete!” someone said, and I gasped at the sudden silence in my mind.

Oh God. She’s gone. It was what I wanted, but I felt awful. Bleary from the drug, I turned my head, my cheek sliming in my own drool. Hands fell from me, and I welcomed the stark emptiness of nothing.

“Sir!” It held the confidence of a battle won. “Entity is gone. We tripled our density, but there are a few clouds condensing in the immediate area. Do you want us to mop them up?”

Heavy boots crossed the room, tripping on something in the dim light. “Go. Yes,” Ayer said, and I focused enough to see him bending over a glowing screen. “Don’t let them out of the area. I don’t want them increasing the isolation zone.”

I was empty, and as the drug took hold, I felt as if I was dying. I could no longer feel the sun pouring through the earth. Even the circling thoughts of the undead, revolving like lighted tops in the night, were missing. Numb. I was numb and empty. I shook, alone on the floor, ignored as nothing. What if she came back? She thought I’d betrayed her. She’d kill me, make my dream no more.

A toe nudged me, and I did nothing. “If she can survive the main entity, she might be able to draw all of them in,” Ayer said. “We don’t need Landon anymore. Cut him loose.”

“Sir.”

“Wrap her up,” he added. “Put her in the chair. As soon as the ranging cloud is collected.”

“Now?” someone new blurted. “She’s almost dead.”

“Which is why you’re alive,” barked Ayer, and I groaned when he flipped me over with his boot, my arm flopping to hit the floor. “She’s a demon. Treat her like one or you’ll be someone’s toy. As soon as the ranging mystics are collected, I want her hooked up. We get them talking, and that bitch will come back.”

Swell. I couldn’t even move my fingers as they bundled me up. All too soon I was being lifted, and the rattle of a gurney intruded. My breath came out in a gasp when they dropped me onto a rolling table and the disconcerting feeling of motion made me dizzy.

“Nicely done, Morgan,” Ayer whispered, and I felt the sudden lurch of an elevator. “You survived. Not what Landon promised, but I’m flexible. You’re going to bring the mystics right to me. Very efficient. You moved my timetable up two months. Let’s see what another minute or two connected to the divine will do.”

I cracked an eye. There were three men in the elevator with me, but I could do nothing. Wrap her up. Put her in the chair. Better and better. “That’s what she does, you know,” I said, and Ayer stopped the nervous man from darting me again. “She gives you what you ask for. And you pay for it in the end.”

Ayer grunted, eyes on his watch as he took my pulse. I couldn’t feel him holding my wrist, and he looked so much like Kisten it hurt. Between the drugs and my failure, I couldn’t help my eyes tearing up. How was I going to come back from this? I was so alone.

But then a tiny whisper of tingles sparked through me, shocking me. Mystics. There were some in me, resonating to my feelings of loss and grief. Eyes fixed open, I stared at Ayer counting my pulse, seeing my hand dangle limply in his. She’d left behind what she didn’t want to think about, and now her thoughts of betrayal and loss added to my own, almost crushing me.

“Are you sane?” I asked them, words slurring, and Ayer dropped my hand.

“History will judge me, not you,” he said, thinking I was talking to him, and he pushed me into the hallway when the doors opened.