The Witch With No Name (The Hollows #13)(86)
Author: Kim Harrison

“Rache?”

I dropped my head, trying to hear Trent. “I can’t leave without Ivy. Trent, I’m looking at Landon on TV. He’s going to make a statement.”

“Damn it, Rachel, get out of there!” he shouted. “It’s about to get ugly!”

I tugged at my mom with my free hand, but no one was moving anymore, all eyes fixed on the screen as Landon raised his hands at the mics shoved at him. Behind him, people were leaving the arena with the quickness of rats fleeing a foundering ship. “Wait, I want to hear this,” my mom said.

“It has been determined that the sudden absence of souls this morning was caused by the demons, not a failure in our original spell,” Landon said, his benign young smile both practiced and convincing.

“You liar!” I shouted up at the screen. “It was your lame-ass spell that failed!”

People turned to me, and I scowled as Jenks’s dust suddenly wreathed me.

“Rachel?” came Trent’s voice, tiny from the phone in my hand. “Listen. To. Me. Get out of there! For God’s sake, get out now!”

Jenks landed on my shoulder, his wings cold against me. “Ivy’s coming. Don’t move.”

But moving was the last thing on my mind as Landon spoke. “We’ve decided on a course of action, one that not only will bring the souls of the undead back and lock them to this reality, but one that will also facilitate a smoother reunion with their original bodies and rid us of the demons now among us.”

“You son of a bastard,” I whispered. I stared up at the screen, almost oblivious to the new space around me and that the nearest people were whispering. “He’s lying!” I shouted, and from the stage I could hear more voices raised in anger. “The demons didn’t do it! It’s the dewar elves with their sloppy spell casting. They’re trying to kill the undead!”

“Ah, Rache?” Jenks said from my shoulder, too cold to fly well, but I stood there and fumed. Had they forgotten the chaos of when the masters were sleeping just three months ago? Their fear of the night?

“I would implore everyone,” Landon was saying, “especially the living vampires, to find it in themselves to not take their anger out on the demons. We will resolve the issue in due course in a safe and efficient manner.”

My jaw clenched. “You’re saying that because it’s only demon magic that can fix the souls permanently, and you need them! You want the vampires dead!”

“Rache!” Jenks shouted, and I jumped when he pinched my ear. Blinking, I saw the new eight feet of space between me and everyone else. My mom stood at my shoulder, and I could hear Ivy fighting her way to get to me. My phone dangled in my hand, and Trent’s voice desperately shouted at me to leave, to get out.

I didn’t think it was going to be that easy anymore.

“You see the lies!” the zealot on the stage shouted, and I spun to see he had the stage all to himself. “She is a demon!”

Oh God, he was pointing at me. Sure, I could do some magic and blast everyone, but that’d only get me in jail, if I was lucky. “Ah, Trent. I gotta go,” I muttered, then closed the phone in the middle of his outcry.

Shaking, I tucked the phone away. The ring of people stared at me, more joining them every second. My mother took my elbow protectively. “Let’s go,” she said, but no one moved to let us through. Instead, they inched closer, expressions determined.

“Stop them! Make them answer to us!” the man on the stage shouted, and I gasped as hands reached out.

Instinct kicked in. I pulled heavily on the line. Someone cried out a warning, and I sent it through them, the power of the line arching from one to the other.

“Rachel!” Jenks shouted as it had no effect and I went down under a wash of arms and hands. There were too many of them, and my strength was diluted. Hands grasped and tugged, and I couldn’t breathe. Someone pulled my hair, and I hit the pavement. I couldn’t set a circle—there were too many bodies crossing the line and it couldn’t form.

“No!” I shrieked as a hand clamped over my wrist, and then I cowered as I felt the snap of lavender strike through me as if in protection.

“Corrumpo!” my mother shouted, and I cowered again as a wave of energy pulsed forward, ripping the grasping hands away so the sun could beat down on me again.

Stunned, I looked at the one hand still on me. “Mom?” I questioned, and she yanked me up as if I was still fourteen and couldn’t walk a block without panting. “Where did you learn that?”

“Get your hands off my daughter!” she shouted, her color high and her hair wild.

Jenks dropped down, and my mom let go of my wrist. “Jeez, Rache. Your mom kicks ass.”

I took a breath. We weren’t out of it yet. They were wary, but that guy on the stage was still yelling at them to attack us. “She needed to be to keep me alive,” I said, edging forward and seeing people grudgingly begin to part. “She once took an orderly out with a bedpan so I could go home for the solstice.”

“Move!” Ivy’s voice came, and I turned. “Get out of my way!”

The man on the stage pointed, distance making him brave. “Stop them! She’s a demon! She took their souls! If you act together, she can’t stop you!”

“The hell I can’t,” my mother muttered, and hearing her, the people pressed back to make a path.

Ivy finally broke through. Her head snapped up at the harsh claxon that suddenly rang out. “Son of a bitch,” my mother muttered, staring at the sky. “They’re going to seal the circle. Run!”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but after seeing her blow a lynch mob off me, I wasn’t going to question her. “Come on!” I shouted, grabbing Ivy’s hand and running at the people circling us.

They screamed, parting in panic as we came at them, and we plowed through. Elbows hit me, and the scent of fear. My grip on Ivy never faltered as I followed my mom and Jenks’s dust. Adrenaline was cold fire as I felt the prickling of a rising field. It was just before me, and I lunged, dragging Ivy behind me as I dove for the rising shimmer.

“No!” I cried as it licked over me, hesitating a heartbeat as it decided what side of me it would form on, and then I was through, Ivy in tow. We hit the ground together, and she spun to her feet with unreal grace.

Shocked, I sat on the pavement and stared at the purple-and-green shimmering field behind me. It was so thick, I couldn’t see past it. My palm was scraped, and I rubbed at it as I tried to decide what hurt and what didn’t. I hadn’t known they could close the square like that.