“It’s her!” someone shouted, and my heart seemed to stop. “It’s her! It’s that demon woman!”
“Shit,” Trent whispered, and I went cold as people in the streets turned, their faces ugly with fear, hatred, and a mad aggression. “Rachel—”
I gasped as someone grabbed me from behind. My leg gave way and I fell. “Trent!” I screamed, fighting the elbows and hands as I was pulled up and away. “Damn it, let me go!” I demanded, and then screamed when they twisted my arm behind me, forcing me through the crowd. Agony numbed my leg and I fell, so they picked me up, shoving me from person to person, pinching my arms, pulling my hair, tripping me. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
“Jenks!” I called out. He was gone. I fought to be free but someone punched me in the middle and I bent double, unaware and struggling to breathe until they hauled me up onto the stage.
Terrified, I hung in someone’s grip, shocked and bleeding as Al landed next to me in a sliding thud. Men kicked him to stay down, and he sat where he was, his new suit torn and his face bloodied. Newt still stood, her expression proud and a little wild as she waited beside me, her hands bound with a plastic bag.
“You try anything and I’ll shoot you!” the man with the gun screamed at us. The bleeding corpse behind him was dragged off, and the crowd carried it away. My gore rose, and I struggled to keep from vomiting. Trent? Where are Trent and Jenks? Jenks couldn’t fly. He’d be crushed.
“If you have any ideas . . . ,” Al said, sitting cross-legged with his hands laced behind his head.
“No, not really.” I pulled my eyes from the slick smear of blood, wondering how many demons they’d killed so far. What the hell kind of an ending was this?
“Get up!” the man with the gun screamed. “I said, get up!”
Al stood, his expression far more placid than I would’ve expected. “Thank you for our freedom,” he said to me as the man with the gun cavorted before us, whipping the crowd up to bolster his own courage. “I will never understand why you cared.”
“I don’t like bullies,” I said flatly, and Newt smiled. The electric lights caught a glint in her eye, almost anticipatory. I knew she longed for an end, but this was wrong, so wrong.
“They will all die!” the man screamed. “All the demons. Magic is dead, and we will be safe! Safe from the freaks and unholy demons!”
They might kill me, but they would damn well listen to me first.
“Shut the hell up!” I shouted, my voice cutting through the noise as if it was supplemented by magic. The crowd heard me, and in the barest hesitation of their outrage, I added, “And get your stinking hands off me!”
Adrenaline was a silver ribbon, snapping through me as I plowed my elbow into the man holding me. Weight on my good leg, I spun to break his nose with my elbow, shoving him off the stage and into the crowd.
Al cried out in elation, his expression fearsome as he rose and moved in sharp, decisive motions, flipping the two who held him into the crowd. Like a banshee gone berserk, Newt howled, kicking at everyone who got close. Between them, no one dared try the stage, and in the sudden hush, I realized no one was up here anymore but us, the forgotten gun, and the man who had shot it, now huddling beside a huge amp.
Al paced back and forth, his steps red from stepping in blood. Newt held her hands out to me and I tried to get the plastic knots free. “I was beginning to think you might not make it in time,” she said dryly.
My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t feel my leg. “Who was that?” I asked, eyes darting to the blood smear. Behind us, the man who’d shot him cowered. His hand had bones sticking out, and the gun, now useless to him, lay tauntingly within reach.
Newt glanced at the blood, then rubbed her wrists as the knots came loose. “I don’t know. He wasn’t a demon. Honestly, I was simply enjoying the fountain and he was sitting beside me.”
Relief coursed through me, quickly followed by anger. “They killed an innocent man because he might have been a demon?” I said loudly, then turned to the crowd, slowly realizing what they’d done, what they’d allowed, hell, what they’d encouraged to happen. “You killed a man and he wasn’t even a demon!” I shouted, my voice echoing between the buildings. “What is wrong with you people!”
“They’re demons!” someone shouted, quickly hushed by those nearest her.
“Yeah? So what?” I shouted back. That didn’t go over so well, and the murderous rise of complaint started to gain strength. The crowd, though, was beginning to break up at the back as the I.S. and FIB began to show.
“Demons deserve to die!” another shouted, and I turned to him, feeling both strong and weak with Newt and Al behind me.
“Why, because you say so?” I said, fingertips tingling. “Maybe, but not on my watch. I warned you. I told you taking the easy way out was a bad idea. Did you listen? No! So you’re going to listen to me now!”
That went over even better, and small fights were breaking out all over as the Weres tried to get closer to the stage. “You need more practice at this,” Al said as two men vaulted onto the stage.
“Go home!” I shouted as Newt waved a cautionary finger at the men. “Go home, and pray that I find a way to reinstate the lines in Arizona, or demons without magic will be the least of your problems! You all think that security and peace are born from destroying everything stronger than you? There is no safety. There is no peace but what you make, every day, every second, with every choice.”
As if that was the signal, the crowd surged forward, swamping us.
Panic iced through me again, and I slipped on some poor man’s blood and went down, almost passing out from the pain as my hip hit the stage. “Rache!” I heard distantly, and then I’d had it.
“Enough!” I shouted, and a great boom of sound exploded from me. My fingers tingled, and I pulled my head up as men cried out, falling back from the stage, pushed by a glowing ball of silver light. My hair was floating, and I tried to flatten it, but I couldn’t stand up, and my hands were sticky. I felt as if I were glowing, and I looked at Al. He had fallen, seeming as shocked as I was. It had been magic, but how?
“Oh, you did it now!” Newt crowed, kicking that gun under the amp and almost dancing as she lurched to me and hauled me to my feet. Everyone in the square was picking themselves up. It was so quiet you could hear individual people and the whine of a siren.
“Mystics?” Al said, again at my elbow, but he wasn’t talking to me, and Newt nodded.
My heart seemed to both sink and expand. Mystics. I couldn’t hear them, but clearly they were here with me. And if they had found me, then so would . . . the Goddess.
“Oh no,” I whispered, scrambling to hide, to run, but Newt held my arm, forcing me to stay still and face the crowd.
“Just . . . let me,” she almost snarled, her lips inches away as she pinched my arm. “Let me in, Rachel.”
And panicked, I did, wiggling as I felt her siphon off some of the energy in my chi to shift my aura to hide me for a few moments more. As soon as the Goddess figured out she could find me by the mystics circling me, I was a goner.
“Bloody Band-Aid,” Newt said, eyeing the dispersing crowd. “I feel better already. Al?”
Someone in an FIB hat was beckoning us to the stairway. Numb, I shuffled that way. The crowd was scattering now as the cops started arresting them en masse, cuffing everyone and making them kneel in rows.
“Well, I’m not going to say this is a good thing,” Al grumped, and I gasped when Newt clenched my arm.
“Not good!” she snapped. “The lines are broken and you’re still going to hold to outdated beliefs based on a war that not even you remember the cause of?”
“It’s elven magic,” he whined, looking pathetic.
“Both of you shut up,” I said as I saw Trent. Oh God, he had Jenks with him, and I almost fell off the stage trying to get to them. The crowd was dispersing. They even had an ambulance, and I felt sick as I realized the medical people were clustered about that
man who’d been shot. Another, very loud group of FIB agents was reading the rights to the man who’d shot him, his broken hand bound before him, bleeding and ugly. Maybe the shot man was still alive.
“Trent!” I called, and he reached out. I fell into his arms, burrowing my head against his shoulder as I shook. “They were going to kill me!” I sobbed as Jenks’s wings clattered. “What is wrong with them!”
“Shhh, you’re okay,” he soothed, and I pulled my head up, sniffing and sniveling as Al stiffly handed me a cloth handkerchief. “Next time, can we stop the lynch mob some other way?”
“Jenks, you’re flying,” I said, and the satisfied pixy landed on Newt’s shoulder.
“For the moment,” he said, sparkles almost vanishing. “Crap on toast, girl. How come you can do magic and no one else can?”
“Because she’s got a growing sliver of mystics looking to her,” Al said sourly. “That’s probably why you can fly. She’s a magnet.”
I felt like a magnet, all spiky and full of little electrical charges. I looked up at the thump-thump-thump of chopper wings echoing between the buildings. What was left of the crowd scattered, even some of the handcuffed Weres sneaking off. It felt good to be alive, and I leaned into Trent even more. “I told you this would happen. And no one listened.”
“Can she ever be right without rubbing your nose in it?” Al griped, and Jenks spilled a silver dust that vanished too quickly for my comfort.
The chopper swung into the square, and I smiled up at it, knowing it was going to take me somewhere where I wouldn’t have to think for a while, where I could have a bath, wash my hair, and maybe get the bullet out of my leg.
“Oops, she’s going down!” someone called, and I felt myself fall into Trent’s arms.
And I swear, I heard him singing as the helicopter lifted us up and away.
Chapter 28
The wind whipped my hair into a snarled mess as I inched to the edge of the medical helicopter. In an instant, the scent of antiseptic and bandages was stripped away, the hint of pavement and horse coming to me in the moonless night. Trent reached up, his hand bandaged and a raw red scrape on his cheek where he’d fallen. My heart seemed to skip a beat as I settled my fingers into his. I could have lost him. I could have lost everything.
“She should be in the chair,” said the paramedic who’d taken the bullet out and stitched me up on the way over. Trent just shrugged and lifted me down, my muscles aching as his grip tightened on me. My ribs hurt, and I held my breath. I’d rather die than sit in that chair with straps and be lowered down.
Which is a distinct possibility, I thought as my feet hit the parking lot and the resulting jolt of pain broke through whatever mundane drugs they had me on. “Thanks,” I whispered, feeling ill as I tucked the crutch Trent was handing me under my arm. It was already sized to me. Seemed he kept them on hand as a matter of course.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the mob at the square. They’d shot that man in cold blood. Newt was going to be next. Then me. Then Al. Nothing could excuse that kind of mindless panic, and I was shaken, betrayed by the same people I’d risked my life to save.
“Tink loves a duck!” Jenks protested, tugging at my hair as the wind swamped him. “Can we get inside? I want to check on my kids.”
“First thing on the list,” I said as I looked past Al and Newt, ogling Trent’s holdings, to the cluster of people coming down the stairs to greet us. This wasn’t the usual way, but the parking lot had been empty for almost three months and apparently there was an issue waiting for Trent in his front office and this was quicker.
“That’s one good thing,” I whispered, barely heard over the copter blades as I saw Quen, Ellasbeth, and the girls. Ellasbeth held Ray, the little girl solemn and quiet. Lucy was more vocal, but clearly unhappy as she reached for Trent, complaining loudly when Ellasbeth stopped short at the sight of Al and Newt.
Grinning, Al tweaked Lucy’s nose, but his smile vanished worryingly fast.
“Trent!” the woman exclaimed, looking frazzled with her hair down and Lucy tugging on it. “There are demons everywhere! Everywhere!”
“None of them can do any magic, Ellie,” Trent admonished, taking Lucy before the little girl jumped out of her mother’s arms.
“But they’re everywhere!” the woman complained, shooting sideways glances at Newt and Al. “Cooking in the bar’s kitchen, in the garage looking at your cars, in the conservatory talking to the fairies. I’ve had to put up a sign to keep them out of your apartments.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Trent said as Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a fierce, little-girl kiss.
My teeth clenched as I step-hopped to the stairs, trying to decide how to get up them. Ellasbeth looked awful, not just tired from dealing with the stress of what was probably four hundred demons showing up on her doorstep, but frightened now that magic was gone.
“You need to do something about Landon, too,” she said, taking Lucy back when Trent saw me balk at the stairs. “He’s been on the news, talking to everyone with a mic. He’s trying to put a spin on this to blame Rachel.”
“Me!” I barked as Trent cupped a hand around my free elbow to half lift me up a step.
Ellasbeth looked at me, her words hesitant as she took in the bandages and blood. Not all of it was mine. Most of it wasn’t mine, actually, and that somehow made it worse. “Ah, no one believes,” she said. “But you need to do something, Trent. He’s blaming you, too.”
“I’ll get right on it,” he said wearily, and she scowled, thinking she was being put off, but I honestly didn’t know what she expected him to do. According to the news, anti-Landon sentiment was growing among the elves as they demanded answers and he kept blaming me. Even the elves had lost their magic. Either the Goddess was withholding her strength, or the elves needed the lines, too.
And yet I had blown down everyone in the square using mystics. Hurray, me. I snuck a glance at Al and Newt, glad they both seemed to be ignoring it. Newt’s cheerful attitude in the face of the-end-of-all-magic wasn’t giving me any warm fuzzies, though.
“Sa’han, Dali is waiting for you in your office, and Cormel would like to speak with you at his convenience,” Quen said.
Ray reached out, and Trent took her, leaving me to handle the next step alone. “In my office, eh?” Trent said, nodding for Quen to take my elbow since Ray had buried her face in his chest and wouldn’t let go. “Tell Cormel he’s going to have to come to me if he wants to chat.”
Newt and Al were waiting for us at the top of the stairs, and Quen scooped me up. I would’ve protested, but I’d slowed everyone else down to a crawl. “That was incredibly stupid,” Quen muttered, lagging behind as Trent took Ellasbeth’s elbow and turned her away from me. “You put yourself and Trent in incredible danger taking the stage like that.”
I frowned, not saying anything until we reached the top and I wiggled until he put me down. “I didn’t take the stage, they dragged me up there. And what would you have done if you saw Jon on a stage with a gun to his head and a dead body at his knees?”
Quen’s eye twitched as he looked past me to Ellasbeth, ushering Lucy inside, Trent and Ray following as Trent argued over something with the frazzled woman. “The same. Are you going to let me help you to Trent’s office?”
The helicopter was winding up again, lights flashing over us and making Al look more demonic than usual as he grabbed my arm. “I’ll help her,” he said, making me wonder at his motives.
“Both of you back off,” Newt said as she pushed Al away with a single finger on his chest. “I’m helping Rachel today. She saved my life, the poor dear.”
I was starting to feel like a dog’s tug toy, but I really wanted to sit down and didn’t care who helped me to Trent’s office. I leaned heavily on Newt as Al held the door and we shuffled inside. “Thanks,” I muttered, and Jenks swore at me as I tucked my hair behind my ear when the wind cut off. I’d forgotten he was there. Ellasbeth was a
lready halfway down the hall, her voice twined with Lucy’s as the little girl tried to outdo her mother in volume.
“It was incredibly brave of you,” Newt said as we slowly paced after them. “Very brave, but incredibly stupid.”
Oh God, I thought my ribs were going to cave in, and my teeth clenched. “I wasn’t thinking about rescuing you. I just wanted them to stop killing people.”
“Obviously,” she cooed, and my steps became even slower as we got to the carpet in the hallway and I couldn’t shuffle anymore.
Trent was standing outside his office at his empty secretary’s desk. His expression was pinched with irritation. Ellasbeth didn’t look much better, and she almost had a cow when he handed Ray to Al. “Quen, I’d like you and Jon to find out where Ivy and Nina are. Apparently they never made it to the hospital.”
I spun, my sight dimming when I moved too fast. “What?”
Quen took Ray from Al and inclined his head. “Sa’han,” he said simply, turning to go.
The soft clatter of Jenks’s wings under my ear shocked through me. He’d been so quiet I’d forgotten he was there. “Hey, Quen,” he shouted. “How about dropping me off at the greenhouse? I want to check on my kids.”
“Crap, I’m sorry, Jenks,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. Go sit somewhere,” Jenks said, a thin red dust spilling from him as he took to the air. “Your grinding teeth are giving me a headache.”
Ellasbeth and Lucy trailed along behind him, leaving Al and Newt staring expectantly at Trent and me. Trent took my elbow, his expression grim as he angled us to his office.
Ivy . . . “Trent, you don’t think Cormel has Ivy and Nina, do you?” I asked. “He wanted to see you.” See Trent, not me. The slight difference was the only thing keeping me here and not stealing one of Trent’s faster cars, bad leg or no.
“That’s what Quen is going to find out.”
It was going to be a long night, and I almost cried when we finally got to Trent’s office. Dali was in there, and I tried not to lean on Trent as he opened the door. The couch Trent had put in last week for short catnaps never looked better, and I gave Dali a swift nod, heart pounding as I moved as fast as I could and almost fell into it. Leather-scented air puffed up around me, and I thought it smelled wrong without a little vampire incense in with it.