I stopped, heart pounding as I looked up. It hadn’t been Felix in the ever-after in the beginning. It had been Nina. The surface demon hadn’t groveled in front of Nina, it had groveled in front of Felix. Like it knew him. Which would be really hard since the undead never go into the ever-after.
Lips parted, I stared at Trent, a new idea sifting down through my brain. “I think I know where vampire souls go when they die,” I whispered, seeing Trent’s face as white as mine felt.
“The ever-after,” we said in unison.
Chapter 5
I’m trying to help you,” I said, phone pressed to my ear as I sat in Trent’s car, parked across from the church. “But I need to get into my church, and I need you to take the hit off Ivy. I’ve found your souls, so back off!” Calm, composed, relaxed. The litany was no help. Coming home to find my church full of vampires was harassment, pure and simple. It had scared the crap out of me, too, but that had probably been Cormel’s intent.
“You’ve had over a year to work on this.” Cormel’s New York accent fell flat, when I usually found it charming. “You expect me to believe that today, only when I threaten you, that you have a viable plan. Just like that?”
Nervous, I picked at the window stripping until Trent made a pained sound. Beyond the tinted glass of his sports car, my church looked as if it had been hosting an all-night Brimstone party with toilet paper in the trees and what I hoped were just tomatoes smeared on the stained-glass windows. Bis was a lumpy shadow on a hard-to-reach eave, and I hoped he was okay.
“How often do the undead go into the ever-after?” I asked, and he rumbled a soft agreement. “Even I wouldn’t have figured out the connection between surface demons and vampires if you hadn’t chased me there with Ivy. Nina showing up with Felix in her unconscious was the trigger.”
Cormel was silent, probably unwilling to acknowledge why Felix had suddenly become raging and erratic—freaking out over having been tossed out on his ear by Nina—and with that doubt resonating in him, I put my last card on the table, shaking and glad we had thirty miles and probably two stories of dirt between us.
“Cormel,” I said softly. “I’m not making this up. Surface demons do not defend people, they tear them to shreds. That surface demon was Felix’s soul. It recognized Felix’s consciousness lurking in Nina. I can do this, I just need time.”
“Felix has not been dipping into Nina’s mind. He has promised me. He’s working again. A productive member of society.”
“Seriously?” Disgusted, I slumped to put my knees up against the dash, then took them down when Trent cleared his throat. “Look. I need time to prep the charms to capture it and then affix it to Felix. If it works, then we can all go back to normal. If it doesn’t, I’ll tweak it until it does, but I can’t do anything if I’m protecting Ivy. I’m doing what you want, but if you kill her, this all goes away.”
I glanced at Trent, drawn by his fingers slowly tapping in concern, not all of it for me and Ivy. It was his opinion that giving the undead a soul might not have the effect the vampires were looking for. Frankly, I didn’t care. I just wanted them to leave Ivy and me alone.
“Excuse me,” Cormel said. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Cormel?” I called, but he was gone. The line was still active, and I put my phone on speaker so we both could enjoy the happy, light sounds of dulcimers that Cormel had on his hold button. What a crock.
Peeved, I set the phone on the dash and unkinked my fingers. Someone was looking at me from the belfry and drew back when our eyes met. I was glad Nina and Ivy were still at Trent’s. Ivy had a hard enough time when a repairman came over. Seeing this invasion would jerk her instincts to the breaking point.
“Thank you for waiting with me,” I said to Trent as I pulled my shoulder bag onto my lap. It was dusty from the ever-after and smelly, and it didn’t have much in it anymore.
“I wasn’t about to drop you off and leave. I’m looking to chip some vampire fang before I go.” His smile became charming. “It’s much more satisfying than my political boardroom shuffle.”
“I’m hoping it doesn’t come down to that.” Worried, I rubbed the tension from my fingers. Sure, I could drive them away with a charm, but Jenks and Belle were in there.
The dulcimers cut off and I scrambled for the phone. “One hour,” Cormel said tightly.
“An hour!” I exclaimed, not bothering to take him off speaker. “Mr. Cormel, I have to wait until sunset before the surface demons even come out! I cannot, nor will I, go any further with this if I have to guard Ivy against your assassins.”
My heart pounded, and Trent and I waited, breath held.
“Ivy is safe until sunrise,” Cormel said. “I’m leaving a chaperone.”
“No chaperone,” I countered. Maybe that was asking a lot, but the last thing I wanted was an amorous vampire lurking in the corner, filling the air with sexy pheromones and innuendo.
“Then you have until midnight.” Cormel waited as I silently protested, but when I kept my mouth shut, he ended the conversation by hanging up. Midnight. I had until midnight to show real progress, or it would all start up again.
Exhaling, I ended the call. Trent took the keys out of the ignition; we could walk from here. “You think I should have gone with the chaperone and the extra time?”
“No.”
“Me either. Good thing I work well under a deadline.” Feeling sour, I reached for the door. Getting them to leave was going to be a treat, but with Cormel’s word, I had the clout.
“That was fast,” Trent said, and my head snapped up.
Surprised, I got out as the church’s double door banged open and a steady stream of thin bodies staggered to their cars and vans. There were a lot, and I hoped Jenks was okay. Our phone conversation this morning hadn’t instilled much confidence.
Motions graceful with a slow deliberation, Trent got out, his book on how to put souls in baby bottles tucked under an arm. It was an elven charm, so in theory I shouldn’t have much trouble with it.
A flash of guilt took me, and I looked back at the church—anywhere but at that book.
Doors thumped and engines raced. My neighbors watched behind twitching curtains. It was obvious by their unkempt state and untied shoes that my visitors weren’t assassins per se, but they could still kill someone—and with Cormel running the city, there’d be no inquiry, no notice. Ivy would be a warning, or worse.
“Hey!” I shouted as a woman with a bad case of bed hair shuffled to the last car. “That’s my coat!”
Head hanging, the woman stopped right in the middle of the street, took off my red jacket, and dropped it with a tired indifference. The rest of them were complaining and wanting her to hurry up, and not bothering to open the door to the car, she dove in headfirst through a back window. The car accelerated in a noisy squeal of tires.
I slammed Trent’s door, stalking to my jacket. It reeked of vampire, even worse of her perfume scented heavily with pine. I’d have to air it out for weeks, maybe send it to the cleaners. Vampire incense stuck to leather worse than burnt amber in my hair.
Trent scuffed to a halt beside me, one hand in a pocket, the other holding that book. “I think I just turned a profit on this one party alone,” he said, squinting up at the steeple, and I gave him a dry look. But my mood improved dramatically when a familiar glint of pixy dust arrowed out from the fireplace’s flue.
“Rache!” Jenks shouted as he came to a dust-laden halt before us, his sparkles continuing forward on momentum, making me sneeze. “Tink loves a duck, how did you get them to leave?”
I held my jacket like a dead rat. “Cormel gave us until midnight.”
Jenks flew backward as Trent and I started for the open front door. “And then what?”
My steps slowed. “He gets serious about killing Ivy.”
“Yesterday wasn’t serious?” Jenks said as he alighted on Trent’s shoulder, but it was obvious we were on borrowed time. My stomach clenched as Trent and I took t
he shallow steps, and I blanched at the smell wafting out the door.
“Nice.” Holding my breath, I went in. “What did they do? Have an orgy?”
The whine of Jenks’s wings increased as I propped the door open. “Uh, something like that. But no one died. Hey, I tried to keep them out of your stuff. I’m sorry. It was just Belle and me after the sun came up and we had to pick our battles.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your . . . fault . . .” I stopped just inside the sanctuary, lips parting as I took in the empty bowls, smeared glasses, crushed beer cans, and chips bags. The furniture had been rearranged, and someone had drawn a mustache and beard on the TV, presumably on someone’s face at the time. Kisten’s pool table had a cooler on it, and a dark stain spread under it as water dripped from the long crack running the width of the plastic. It was worse than the time my high school boyfriend had volunteered my house for the homecoming party because he knew my mom was working.
“Is Belle okay?” I said as Trent made a sorrowful noise. “Jumoke and Izzy?”
I could re-felt the table, but I knew I never would. I’d have to look at that stain on Kisten’s memory for the rest of my life.
“They’re okay.” Jenks hovered by my ear, a depressed bluish-orange dust slipping from him. “Jumoke and Izzyanna kept to the garden, but Belle was with me. I couldn’t have saved the kitchen without her. That fairy is something else.”
A faint smile found me, and I started to think again. It was a God-awful mess, but I almost didn’t care if it meant Jenks and Belle had attained a deeper level of respect. “Ah, sorry about your room,” Jenks said as I ran a hand down the smooth finish of the pool table’s bumper. “I figured you’d rather I save your kitchen, and ah, they really wanted the bed.”
Oh God. My bed. “Don’t worry about it. You saved the kitchen?” Tired, I started for the hallway. I’d send Cormel the cleanup bill if I thought he’d pay it.
Sure enough, the bathrooms were trashed. I think every vampire in the Hollows had used my shower. I’d probably just throw what was left of my soap away. Even so, it wasn’t as bad as my bedroom.
“I’m really sorry, Rache,” Jenks said as I peeked in, nose wrinkled as I hustled to prop the stained-glass window open. I couldn’t deal with this just yet, and Trent went across the hall to make sure Ivy’s window was open as well. Someone had been through my closet and my clothes were everywhere. My perfumes, too, were knocked over, most of them empty. More clothes spilled from my open drawers, and I began to get mad. Multiple someones had had sex in my bed by the look of it. There were nasty scratches in the headboard and the top of the footboard had been snapped off as if someone had kicked it in the throes of passion.
“Oh, Rachel,” Trent breathed, his words making a warm spot on my shoulder. “This was totally uncalled for. I am so sorry.”
Angry, I turned to the kitchen. “Not half as sorry as Cormel is going to be.”
Belle, looking small without Rex beside her, stood at the threshold to the kitchen. She slumped, clearly fatigued as she leaned on her six-inch bow. “Rachel.” Her lisping, raspy voice, too, lacked its usual flair. “Is-s-ss Ivy well?”
Damn it, Cormel, if your people have hurt my cat . . . “Yes,” I said, again finding a drop of good in the ugly. “Your sister and brothers are keeping her safe.”
Jenks’s wings cut out for a brief second. “Holy pixy piss, really?”
Trent nodded, a faint smile on his face as he put a hand on the small of my back and almost shoved me into the untouched kitchen. “I’ve let most of my security go, and at Quen’s urging, I’ve come to an agreement with the clan that’s been living in my gardens. I’ve been told that pixies would have been better—”
“Not likely,” Belle interrupted as we came in.
“But I appreciate their unobtrusiveness and good manners,” he added, and Jenks frowned.
Slowly my shoulders eased. After the disaster of the rest of the church, the dishes I’d left in the sink yesterday looked like heaven, even if everything was covered in pixy dust. Da-a-amn, Jenks must have worked his wings to bare veins to keep them out.
“You guys are the best,” I said, miserable as I stood beside the center island counter and looked at my spelling supplies hanging from the rack, the twin stoves sporting a thin layer of sparkles, and the huge antique farmhouse table shoved up against the interior wall. Ivy’s latest research was in her usual careful disarray, and the bag of cookies I’d had for breakfast yesterday looked untouched. “I can’t believe you kept them out of here.” Crap on toast, I was almost crying, and Jenks’s wings shifted to an embarrassed red.
Trent set his book on the center counter with a soft thump. A thin cloud of spent pixy dust rose and vanished into nothing. “So is the rest of the church as bad as the front?” he asked as I slid the single window open. Thank God Al’s chrysalis is still here. The church stank, far worse than if it had simply been living vampires. It had been an all-access party. The sanctity of the church had been broken by Newt three months ago. I should have gotten it reinstated, but it was expensive, and insurance wouldn’t cover it a second time. Cheaper to just move. I can’t move, this is my home.
“I’ve yet to s-s-s-survey the damage in the garden,” Belle said, having snaked up a thin line to stand on the counter. “We kept them from the kitchen, though it was a mighty task.”
I shook my head, imagining it. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t ever repay you.”
Jenks looked pleased, but Belle scowled, sullen. “If I had a flight under my direction, the entire church would have been untouched.”
“They would have just burnt it to the ground,” I said, eyes on the ceiling. “You chose what I would’ve saved.” It was going to be hard to find any sleep tonight, but then again, I probably wouldn’t get the chance to sleep. My face scrunched up as I thought of my bed. No way. I was buying a new one.
“I’ll check everything out if you make coffee,” Trent offered, and I nodded. He wasn’t being sexist, he just didn’t want me to see anything until he had a chance to maybe fix it. Half of me wanted to go through the church from the belfry to the most distant tombstone and use that anger to get through the next twelve hours, but the other half just wanted to get my sheets in the washer, ignoring the rest until I could deal with it.
The cat door in the back room squeaked as Belle went into the garden. I ran a finger across the pixy dust, head coming up in surprise when Trent pulled me into an unexpected hug. I went willingly, and for a moment, we just stood there, taking strength from each other as I breathed him in, finding his cinnamon and wine scent under the chaotic vampire mashup. The sound of Jenks’s wings grew loud, then vanished as he followed Belle out. Trent’s grip was firm without being binding, and the faintest hint of energy slipped between us as our auras tried to mix.
“You going to be okay?” he said, and I nodded, pushing back even as I made sure he didn’t slip away completely. Oh, I was still pissed, but after enough people try to kill or imprison you, the stuff that can be fixed and forgotten in a week tends not to matter as much.
“Thanks,” I said, and his smile became devious. “Could you do me a favor and open the windows in the belfry first? With them and the back door open, the place airs out remarkably fast.” Most of it was surface stink. They hadn’t been here long enough for the pheromones to soak into the paint and woodwork.
“You bet.” Trent rocked back, and my hand slipped reluctantly from his waist. He was looking at my lips as if wanting to kiss me, but then he turned and headed down the hall. Just the idea that he was thinking about it was almost as good as the kiss would have been, and I found a smile. I could tell the instant the belfry windows opened as the pixy dust vanished in the fresh air. I could never repay Jenks for keeping the kitchen untouched, and as I ran the tap for warm water to make up some suds, I pulled Trent’s book closer.
It wasn’t the first elf spell book I’d ever seen, but again I was surprised that most of the charms I browsed
past had the same mix of earth and ley line magic that demon magic did. I’d be willing to bet the two branches of magic had developed hand in hand despite the long-standing anger between them.
Remembering that I’d promised coffee, I set the book aside. The charm to capture a soul looked easy, I thought as I dumped yesterday’s grounds and changed the water to cold. Easy, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it without asking the Goddess for help. Lots of elves didn’t believe and still got the job done. Landon, for example, though he probably believed in her now.
Landon. My lips twisted in disgust. He’d used Trent and me to try to destroy the vampires. That the elven muckety-mucks of both the religious-oriented dewar and the political-faction enclave had disavowed any knowledge of his plot made it obvious that they’d each backed him. Though still in charge of the dewar, Landon had lost credibility. Trent had lost more.
At least no one had died, I thought, my mind going to Ivy, still at Trent’s mini-hospital.
Apart from the quiet and the vague unease, it almost felt like a normal, quiet Saturday as I measured out the grounds, the scent of it reminding me of how much I enjoyed living here with Ivy, even as hard as it was sometimes. Understanding didn’t come cheap, and I blinked back an unexpected surge of sadness at the thought that it might be ending. I wasn’t moving in with Trent, but this latest snag made it feel . . . over somehow.
“Stop it, Rachel,” I whispered. Nothing was really ending. Jenks, Ivy, and I had been through worse. We’d get through this, and everything would return to normal. Better even.
But how many times can we get back up as if nothing has changed?
I folded the bag of the grounds down and fastened it shut with one of Ivy’s binder clips. I wished I had a reset button. How far back would I take it? I wondered. To the day I made that deal with Cormel? Farther?
I snapped the coffeemaker on, then found a smile when I heard Trent and Jenks in the hallway. “Coffee ready yet?” Trent called loudly.