But it was what it was. Calming, she breathed in and out as her world realigned, her lifetime mind-set of I shifting seamlessly into an unshakable we with the unstoppable force of those who came before her. She blinked, shocked at how fast it was, how unexpected.
Slowly Trisk put a hand to her lower middle. A child?
22
The quiet sounds of Quen’s frustrations were growing louder, but Trisk pretended to be asleep as he tried to pull the sink apart for the thin shaft of metal he thought was in the drain. The foul stench from the front room was getting stronger, and his need to get out of the cell was almost palpable in the late-morning air.
“There’s nothing in this cell to break out with!” Quen whispered loudly.
“That’s the intent,” Daniel said dryly, and she rolled over to see the two men at the sink. Quen had his fingers down the drain, Daniel standing so close he was getting in the way. “Why don’t you bring that demon back,” Daniel suggested, leaning closer. “We can’t give him Trisk’s baby, but there must be something he’d take in exchange to open the door.”
Quen straightened, angrily rubbing his cramped red hand. “You offering your soul?”
Daniel blinked, probably trying to decide if he was joking or not. Frowning, Trisk sat up, tired of doing nothing. “We can’t summon Gally unless the sun is down,” she said, and Daniel spun to her. “Something about the energy in the ley lines moving the wrong way.”
Hands in his pockets, Daniel shifted to the bars. “Really?”
She stood and stretched, feeling different although nothing had changed. A child. “Ley line energy moves like tides with the sun. Energy from our world is what’s keeping the ever-after, where the demons live, intact.”
“So wouldn’t that mean they owe you something? If our world is keeping their world alive?”
For someone who hadn’t known magic was real twenty-four hours ago, he was becoming comfortable with it unsettlingly fast. “That’s not how they see it, since they were the ones who scraped the ley lines into existence.” Shaking her blanket out, she draped it over her shoulders.
Giving up, Quen sat back on the bench, elbows on his knees as he massaged his palm. “I’m about ready to chew off my own finger to make a lock pick. Do you have any ideas, Trisk?”
Daniel shifted impatiently. “You said you can’t melt the bars, but what if you focused the energy on the lock itself?”
Quen looked up past bangs clumped with sweat. “You don’t think I tried that?”
“How about making the metal brittle, with cold?” she suggested, and Quen’s focus shifted to her, his brow smoothing.
“Sure,” Daniel said, voice holding excitement. “If you can shrink the workings of the lock enough, they might slide apart. At the very least, you can repeatedly warm and chill them until fatigue breaks something.”
“Worth a shot.” Quen stood and moved to the lock. “Might take a few hours.”
“A few hours, we have,” Daniel said as he followed Quen to the door, eager to see some magic in action.
Quen’s hand took on a hazed glow as he tapped the nearest line and pulled its energy through him. But the faintest click in the outer offices struck through Trisk like a shot. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “Someone is out there,” she added, and Quen jerked his hands away, the pain of having drawn the charm back furrowing his brow.
Trisk grasped the bars and leaned toward the open office. “Hey! We’re locked up here!”
“There’s no one there,” Daniel said. “It’s just the bodies settling.”
Which was ugly all on its own, but adrenaline surged when the clatter of pixy wings sounded clear and true. “Orchid?” Trisk called, not believing it. “Is that you?”
“What would Kal’s spy be doing here?” Quen said sourly, making Trisk regret ever telling him about her, and grimacing, she pressed closer into the bars. If it was Orchid, Kal wouldn’t be far behind.
“Kal! We’re back here!” she tried again, breathless. “Please,” she whispered.
With a wash of dust, the tiny woman stopped short right in the middle of the open door. Orchid’s face was flushed and a bright silver spilled from her in uncertainty. “Kal said it would be okay if Daniel saw me,” she said, twisting the hem of her dress shyly. “Are you sure? This feels wrong.”
Quen strode forward, startling her into darting back. “It’s fine,” he said. “Where’s Kal?”
“It’s you,” Daniel said, his eyes fixed on the pixy. “I knew I saw you before.”
“Before!” Quen barked as he turned to him in anger, and Orchid colored.
“You were erasing his memory. No harm done, right?” Orchid said as she flitted to the lock and bent to look into it. “This is so weird. I’ve never let a human see me on purpose. But Kal said you’re probably going to be dead in a week so it doesn’t matter.”
“Daniel is not going to die,” Trisk said, surprised when the pixy woman stuck her entire arm into the workings of the lock. “The virus is condensing in the Angel tomato. Avoid that, and you don’t get sick.”
“Then one of you is going to have to kill him,” Orchid said, distracted. “Because I’m not going to be the one giving us away.”
“No one is going to kill Daniel!” Trisk exclaimed, but then the lock clicked open, and everything left her but the need to get out.
Quen pushed past the bars. Striding to Trisk’s door, he waited impatiently as Orchid hovered before her lock, the tiny woman biting her lower lip as she fiddled with it. Her dust shifted green, then red, and the lock finally disengaged. “Thank you,” Trisk said, taking a huge step forward, then blinking in surprise when Quen pulled her into an unexpected hug. Giving her a quick, confusing smile, he set her back on her feet and went to check out the front offices.
“You’re beautiful and amazing,” Daniel said, and Orchid rose up, glowing in pleasure.
“No one ever thought I was amazing before,” she said as she landed on his shoulder, shocking the man still.
“Well, I do,” Daniel stammered, trying to see her and afraid to move all at once.
“So do I,” Trisk said. Shedding her blanket, she threw it into the open cell. “Where is Kal?” she asked as she followed Daniel to the lockers.
“Looking for you.” Orchid darted up to the high window and peered out. “I took the abandoned buildings,” Orchid continued as Trisk sat to put on her shoes. “He’s hitting the hospitals, searching among the survivors. There’s a lot, actually.”
“That’s good to hear.” Daniel checked his wallet and tucked it in his back pocket. “I don’t want to be the last human on earth.”
He clearly meant it to be in jest, but Orchid made a rude noise. “I meant surviving vamps,” she said. “Humans are another story.”
“They can’t be all dead,” Trisk whispered. “It can’t possibly be moving that fast.”
Quen came back from the front office, his eyes haunted. “Stay left. Don’t look around,” he said as he grabbed his shoes, putting them on even as he shepherded the group to the front.
“They can’t be all dead,” Trisk said again, then reeled, hand over her face as she left the cellblock. Head down. Stay left, she thought as her feet scuffed on the dirty tile. But when she saw someone’s foot, she couldn’t help but look up. Swallowing hard, she averted her eyes. It was one of the younger officers, still sitting at the desk he’d died at. His face was covered in welts and blisters, his eyes swollen shut even with the blood pooled in his feet.
“It’s spotty.” Orchid flew beside her, tiny fingers delicately pinching her nose shut. “The news says big cities are handling it better, but smaller towns don’t seem to have enough Inderlanders in them to keep services going and information flowing. Stay here. I’ll go get Kal.”
“In the street, maybe,” Trisk said, gagging at the smell.
Zipping up his boots, Quen harrumphed. “I’ll come with you.”
Orchid looked him up and down, her eyebrows high. “You can try,” she s
aid, then darted off. In three seconds, she was gone.
Quen hesitated, watching her dust settle. “Damn,” he grumbled. “They’re fast.”
“They’d have to be to keep out of sight,” Daniel said, his eyes carefully down as they wove between the desks. “I can’t believe they’ve been here all this time, and no one knew it.” He hesitated, adding softly, “No one human.”
Trisk felt her gorge rise, and she reached for the wall for balance, sickened.
“You okay?” Daniel said, and she looked up when Quen opened the front door.
“I don’t know,” she said, relishing the fresh air slipping in. Maybe the entire plague was her fault.
“We’ll get you something to eat and you’ll be fine,” Daniel said. “Your blood sugar is low. Look. Your hands are shaking.”
She made fists of them, embarrassed. Her knees were wobbly as they went out, and she hid her hands in her pockets while she teetered down the wide, shallow stairs to the sidewalk. “I’m just glad we didn’t have to call on Gally.”
“Me too,” Quen muttered, taking in a deep lungful of air as the door clicked shut behind them. “Where do you think we are? That’s not the interstate.”
Daniel squinted at the street signs. “Downtown,” he said shortly. “The hospital they took me to is up that way. I don’t know if that’s really where we want to go, though.”
Trisk shook her head, uneasy. The buildings were taller here than just off the main road—three stories, maybe—solid and made of stone. The street itself was wider. There were birds and the sound of the wind in the awnings. The noise from the nearby interstate was sporadic and light. The noon sun was warm, driving out the chill of their cells. Still, it was obvious all wasn’t right. There was a sour smell, and something was burning in the distance, plumes of black smoke rising into the air.
“There’s a diner two blocks up. It might be open. Trisk needs to eat something,” Daniel said as he looked up the street toward a gathering of cars.
Nodding, Trisk fell in beside him, Quen on her other side. If Orchid found them once, she could find them again. Damn. Kal. “Hey, can I ask you guys not to say anything to Kal about . . .” She took a breath, reluctant to say it aloud. “You know,” she finished, feeling her face warm.
Quen glanced askance at her as Daniel murmured, “Of course.”
Her flush deepened. “I’m not ashamed,” she said, wishing her face weren’t red. “And I will tell him, but not until I know if it’s healthy. Unless he’s responsible for the plague,” she added, but the need to have viable children was so strong that his causing a plague might not even matter to most elves.
Quen’s stiff shoulders eased. “Sure. I get that,” he said, gaze roving over the empty streets. Curtains were being flicked aside as people watched them, and Trisk wondered if it was as bad as Orchid had led them to believe.
“Besides,” Trisk said, feeling better in the sun with the motion easing her muscles, “I want to make sure it’s true. Gally could’ve been trying to get me to make a mistake.”
“I won’t say anything,” Daniel said, angling them to the diner.
But it seemed unlikely that Gally had been lying if he had offered to exchange a dozen wishes for a child that might not live long enough for him to take. The shadows of bodies moved behind the glass, and nervous, Trisk tried to fix her hair, aware that she smelled like oil and gas. Still, it was comforting not to be alone anymore. She could tell Daniel was feeling the same way, a worried eagerness in him when he lurched ahead to yank the door to the diner open. “Thank God they’re not closed,” she said as Daniel hesitated just inside, looking for an empty table. She ran her fingers through her long hair again, trying to get it decent.
“You look fine,” Quen said stiffly, then took her arm, drawing her back into the sun a moment longer. “I’m sorry,” he said, and her eyes shot to his. “For judging you,” he added, gaze dropping. “Your decisions, while not those I’d choose, were made with sound reasoning. I’m a total jerk,” he added, lips pressed and focus distant.
She flushed as she remembered the passion between her and Kal. There’d been no reason, just emotion. “No, you’re not,” she said, a faint smile crossing her face. She took a breath to say more, but Daniel leaned out the door.
“Uh, I have a table,” he said, and Trisk nodded, suddenly a hundred times hungrier.
“I look like a disaster victim,” she said softly as she followed Daniel in, feeling self-conscious when the locals looked up. “On second thought, I fit right in,” she added, seeing the weary expressions, tense with doubt and fear. There was a radio set to the news blaring from behind the counter, and it was obvious that was why most of them were here.
Quen’s hand on her shoulder was comforting, his confidence and attitude of protection welcome as he raised his hand at the cook’s inquiring glance and called loudly over the radio, “Can we have three hamburgers, sodas, and fries?”
“Sit where you can,” the cook answered back, and Quen angled them toward a side booth, where Daniel anxiously waited. Her eyes darted over the clientele, clusters of them oblivious as they wove between the tables.
“Everyone here is an Inderlander,” Quen said, leaning to breathe the words in her ear.
“I noticed,” she whispered back, smiling thinly in case anyone made eye contact. There were mostly witches, evident by their amulets and dexterous fingers when seen all together. A table of Weres was in one corner, the alphas suave and cool, mingling freely with their rougher subordinate kin. Their tattoos set them apart. In the back were living vampires, every one of them model perfect, every one of them scared.
Trisk slipped into the booth, sliding down when Daniel sat beside her. Eyeing everyone sourly, Quen took the seat across from them, the flats of his forearms on the table to make his fisted hands obvious.
“My God,” Daniel said as he read the headlines on the paper someone had left at the table. “China is gone. Borders closed, no communication.”
“You didn’t drop anything on China,” Quen said.
“We didn’t drop anything here, either,” Trisk said, elbowing Daniel when the server approached with their drinks.
Daniel looked up, folding the paper and tucking it away with a guilty quickness. Trisk eagerly reached for her glass, eyes watering when she gulped the soda down, the bubbles making her eyes burn. “Water, please,” she asked before the woman left, and Daniel held up two fingers. Quen sipped his drink, his eyes never leaving the gathered people.
“Don!” one of the patrons called. “Turn it up. They’re talking about Sacramento.”
The cook wiped his hands off on his apron and fiddled with the radio behind the counter. It crackled and popped, and then cleared. “. . . Global Genetics, which is now closed and barricaded behind government forces, is being blamed,” the announcer said, clearly caught halfway through his newscast. “Early numbers indicate that the tactical virus affects almost half the population, with a quarter of that succumbing.”
The sweet bubbles bursting in her throat went flat. Someone swore, quickly hushed. “Both susceptibility and immunity appear to run in families, and people are advised to stay at home until it’s discovered how the virus is being transmitted.”
Trisk pushed her drink away, her fingers cold from the glass. Someone was crying.
“Turn it off,” another man demanded, standing to get out of the way of the sobbing woman who was being helped out by an older man. “We have to make a decision. Right now, before things get uglier. I know this hurts. Everyone here has lost friends, and I’m sorry that we can’t give everyone the proper burial they deserve, but if we don’t do something, by tomorrow we will be fighting not just this new disease, but everything else decomposing bodies bring with them. We need to do a house-to-house check at the bare minimum.”
“Mass graves are barbaric, Sid,” one of the better-dressed Weres said, causing heads to bob and a soft agreement to rise.
“So is a polluted water supply,” o
ne of the vampires shot back. “That’s where we’re headed if we do nothing.”
“I say we try for Reno,” someone at the table of witches said. “The higher populations are handling this better. We don’t have the resources.”
Loud agreement came from the shadowed back where the vamps had congregated, but the Weres and most of the witches didn’t want to leave. As the arguments grew loud, Sid raised his hand, ignored. Lips pressed, he stood up on a chair. “Listen!” he shouted. “I’m all for Reno, but we can’t leave rotting corpses. It’s not right!” Eyes bright, he waited until it grew quiet. “The way I see it, we can make one common plot for every family. Luke, you know how to work the digger. We can use Phillip’s field. It’s close to town, has that pretty little church across the road. He’s not likely to protest, seeing as he’s down with whatever the hell this is.”
“And who is going to dig my grave?” a Were called out. “We can all see what’s happening. It’s taking out the weakest first. I say we go now, while we can still drive!”
“Who are you calling weak?” a flushed vampire exclaimed, and it started up again. Sid tried to shout them down, but he’d lost control. Shouts rang out and tempers frayed, pulled apart by fear as the threat of plague ran rampant.
Trisk’s pulse pounded. “No!” she called out, but no one heard her. “You’re safe!”
Quen stared at her. “What are you doing?” he whispered, but she couldn’t stay silent.
“You’re not going to die,” she said, standing up at the booth and awkwardly putting her knee on the seat for balance. “Vampires might get the pox since they’re the closest to humans, but they’ll recover. It’s only humans who are so susceptible.”
Silence fell, everyone shocked to stillness as she openly named them. It had likely never been done before, and she suddenly felt exposed, nervous.