“No!” the vampire screamed, and Kisten’s teeth sank into his neck. I stared, pressed into the wide windows as Kisten’s killer jammed a palm into Kisten’s chin. I heard a sickening snap, and Kisten fell.
He hit the floor, convulsing before he even found the carpet. The other vampire clutched his neck and stomach as he staggered to the door. I heard him stumble down the hall, fleeing as he fell into dry heaves. The boat rocked, and I heard a splash.
“Kisten!” I dropped down beside him, dragging his head up into my lap. The convulsions slowed, and I wiped his face with my hands. His mouth was red with blood, but it wasn’t his, it was his killer’s, and now they both would die. Nothing could save him. The undead couldn’t feed upon each other. The virus attacked itself, and both would die.
“Kisten, no,” I sobbed. “Don’t do this to me! Kisten, you sweet idiot, look at me!”
His eyes opened, and I stared, breathless, into their precious blue depths. The haze of death quavered, and cleared. My chest clenched as I saw a moment of lucidity return to him, as he teetered on his final, true death.
“Don’t cry,” he said, his hand touching my cheek as he looked up, and it was Kisten. He was himself, and he remembered why he loved. “I’m sorry. I’m going to die, and so will that fucking bastard if I got enough of my saliva into him. He won’t be able to harm you or Ivy.”
Ivy. This was going to destroy her. “Kisten, please don’t leave me,” I said, my tears spotting his face. His hand fell from my cheek, and I grabbed it, holding it to me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, his eyes closing as he took a breath. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“You should have left with me, you dummy,” I sobbed. His skin was hot to the touch, and he convulsed once and took a rasping breath. I couldn’t stop it. He was dying in my arms, and I couldn’t stop it.
“Yeah,” he whispered, his finger twitching against my jaw where I held it. “Sorry.”
“Kisten, please don’t leave me,” I begged, and his eyes opened.
“I’m cold,” he said, fear rising in his blue eyes.
I held him tighter. “I’m holding you. It’s going to be okay.”
“Tell Ivy,” he said with a gasp, clenching in on himself. “Tell Ivy that it wasn’t her fault. And tell her that at the end…you remember love. I don’t think…we lose our souls…at all. I think God keeps them for us until we…come home. I love you, Rachel.”
“I love you, too, Kisten,” I sobbed, and as I watched, his eyes, memorizing my face, silvered, and he died.
Thirty-two
Somewhere I could hear Mia and Holly, each screaming different lyrics to the same song of frustrated anger and loss, the smooth rhythm of the FIB’s Miranda serving as a background chorus. My eyes opened, and it took me a moment to focus on the moving patterns of light playing over the ugly cement walls and ceilings. The tight chatter of two-ways was loud, and the room was echoing, Mia’s tirade and Holly’s unhappy complaints being the least of the noise.
I bolted upright, going dizzy when I clutched the blue FIB blanket draped over me. People were everywhere, ignoring me, flashing their lights up and down the tunnel, pointing their weapons at Mia as they read her her rights. She was being led away by I.S. agents, and Ford was standing across the room with Holly. The little girl wasn’t happy, but Ford was holding her with impunity. His expression was pained for his part in separating mother and child, but with him able to touch Holly, The Walker wouldn’t have her.
Beside me on the cold cement floor, like an offering, was my splat gun. My eyes widened as I saw it, and a second wave of vertigo took me as I remembered. Oh God. Kisten’s dead.
Bile rose, and I fell into dry heaves. I tried to rise but never made it up, too dizzy to get off my hands and knees when I rolled over to try to stand. No one noticed me, fascinated by Mia’s threats and struggles as she was pulled up the stairway like a wet wildcat, four undead vampires holding her leash, two before, two behind, so she couldn’t touch anyone. Their policy of ignoring her had shifted, forced by the FIB to take action.
Staring past my stringy hair at the filthy floor, I struggled to breathe, to work the memory of Kisten’s death into my existence, but it hurt like a broken knife across my soul. Ah, crap. I’m crying now. I looked at my hand, half expecting to see it pulped and bruised, but only Al’s cut was there.
“Holly!” Mia wailed as if giving my grief voice, and I looked past my lank hair at her, shocked by the fear coming from the woman. We were all having a fabulous New Year.
Ford’s words rose above Holly’s soft crying, stilling the woman’s struggles. “Your daughter is beautiful, Ms. Harbor,” he said, easily containing the little girl’s struggles, and the vampires pulling at her paused. “I will protect her with my life.”
“She’s mine!” Mia cried out, distress turning her from a power-crazed banshee to a mother watching her child being taken from her, and the tears pricked again, for Holly this time.
“She’s your child,” Ford said calmly. “I’m holding her in trust, and I will not turn her against you. She’s…my sanity, Mia. She quiets the emotions that hurt me. She will never want for emotion around me, and I will not twist her against you as The Walker would have.”
Mia’s face was stark with fear, but under it was hope. “She won’t have my daughter?”
Ford shifted Holly to a more comfortable position. “Never. The paperwork is being pushed through. Unless Walker can prove that she’s related to Holly, she doesn’t have a chance, banshee or not. I will have custody of Holly until you’re able to become her mother again, and I’ll bring her to see you whenever you ask. And Remus, if they will let me. As long as I am alive, that woman will not have her.”
“Holly?” Mia said tremulously, her voice holding only love, and the little girl turned, her pale skin red from tears. Ford moved close, and mother and child touched one last time. Tears leaked from Mia, and she brushed them away, shocked to find them wet. “My daughter,” she whispered, then pulled her hand back when the two vampires in the lead gave a tug.
Ford backed behind the security of the armed FIB officers. “It’s not forever,” he said. “You killed people to make your life easier, making your task of finding enough emotion to raise your child simple rather than the chore it rightfully should be. If you live in society, you have to live by its rules. Those same rules will let you go if you’re willing to abide by them. Right now, Holly is safe. You won’t get her away from me without killing me or those who watch you. Kill me, and The Walker will have Holly when they catch you again—and we will catch you. There are too many of us, and we know what to look for now.”
Mia nodded. She looked back only once as she headed up the stairs, the two I.S. agents before and behind her. Her eyes were black with tears that turned silver as she wept for herself.
The tension in the room dropped. I moved to sit against the wall. In an angry motion, I pulled my knees to my chin, and, not caring what anyone thought, I put my head down and cried, the wool of my coat rough against my scraped cheek. Kisten. He had died to save my life. He killed himself to keep me alive.
“Rachel.”
There was the rasp of dress shoes. Head down and hair covering my vision, I shoved whoever it was away, but they came right back. Thin, masculine fingers landed on my shoulder, gripping briefly, then falling away. Someone smelling of cookies and aftershave eased himself down to sit beside me with his back to the wall. I could hear Holly’s soft fussing, and I figured it was Ford. Wiping my nose on the corner of the blue blanket, I snuck a look. Ford said nothing, gazing over the FIB people as they packed up and started moving out. The show was over, apparently. I’d woken in time for the last act.
Ford sighed when he noticed me looking at him, and making sure Holly couldn’t touch me, he reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a package of Handi Wipes. I sniffed loudly as he worked one free and handed it to me. Taking it, I held my breath and leaned my head back against the wall
as I washed the dust and tears from my face, the soap stinging against my scraped face and cut finger. I took a breath, and the clean smell went right to my core, pulling some of the pain away. Either that, or just walling it off. The tight band around my chest seemed to ease and I could breathe again.
“You okay?” Ford asked, and I shrugged, feeling as miserable as Holly looked. I’m alive, I thought as I clenched the wipe into a tiny ball.
“I’m okay.” I sighed, exhaling as if it were my last breath, but I took another, then another. The thought of Ford’s presence with mine as I remembered surfaced, and his promise that I wouldn’t have to live through it alone. “Is Ivy here?” I breathed. I had to tell her. I’d tell Edden, too, but not until Ivy and I had a chance to deal with this first.
“Upstairs, talking to the I.S.”
My wandering gaze landed on an FIB agent tagging and bagging Pierce’s clothes and my nylons. They could have them for all I cared. And Tom’s abduction wasn’t my fault. “How did they find me?” I asked, tired.
Ford smiled, and Holly leaned against him in exhaustion, quiet at last. “Your locator amulets and footprints in the snow, apparently. Your feet must be freezing.”
I nodded, glad I had the blanket to rest them on. My gaze rose from the lumps my feet made to find his eyes, remembering him taking Holly for the first time, tears flowing in relief as she devoured every last emotion he had but his own. “You can hold her,” I said, my heart aching that something good might come from this. “Holly, I mean. Even when she’s upset.” Walker wasn’t going to get Holly after all, and wouldn’t she be pleased about that?
Ford’s gaze was beautiful when he looked at the sleeping little girl. “She absorbs everything before it gets to me,” he said, his voice carrying awe. “I don’t really need to hold her, just be close. But I’m not going to put her on the floor.”
I smiled and tugged the blanket up higher around my shoulders. It was freezing down here. I was glad for Ford, but I was cold, bitterly disillusioned, and aching from a memory I’d thought I wouldn’t have to deal with. The last of the FIB guys was leaving, and I gathered myself. “Hey, you probably have a diaper to change, huh?” I said as I got to my feet. Dizzy, I put a hand to the wall to find my balance. My stomach clenched, and I sat back down fast. Mia had stripped my aura again, damn it.
“You want a stretcher?” Ford asked, and after I reluctantly nodded, he went to talk to one of the departing FIB officers. I couldn’t make it up the stairs like this, pride be damned.
Slowly the dizziness abated, and I concentrated on breathing as I looked over the room. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain Pierce’s clothes. Tom’s abduction was going to be even harder. It wasn’t like I could pretend he hadn’t been here. Both Ford and Mia had seen him. That Al had taken both of them was not going to look good for me at all. Damn it, I am so not going to take the blame for this.
Ford came back as the last FIB agent headed upstairs. Setting Mia’s lantern by me, he sank back down with Holly to wait. “This is unbelievable,” he said. “I don’t know for sure what you’re feeling. I can see it in your face, but not feeling it? That’s freaky.” He dropped his eyes as I noticed they were filling with emotion. “He’s not dead anymore, you know.”
The shadows shifted as I banked the lantern to focus the light ahead and toward the stairs. “Tom?” I said, glad he couldn’t feel my emotions while he was holding Holly. It had to be Tom he was talking about. Kisten was gone, gone, gone, and I’d just relived his death. “I know. Al took him.” A pang of fear hit me, fear that if the I.S. knew, they would use it against me.
“Not Tom,” Ford said, and my head jerked up. “Tom is dead. I felt him die. I’m talking about Pierce.”
Startled, I turned to him. “Al snagged him,” I said. “Broke the charm and took him. His clothes were right over there.”
Ford’s smile widened and he shifted the sleeping child higher. “That wasn’t Tom the demon pulled into the ever-after, it was Pierce.”
This wasn’t making sense, and I just stared at him, hunched in the blue FIB blanket.
“Your potion was targeted to Pierce,” Ford explained. “Tom died and Al used your summoning charm to force Pierce into his body. I felt Tom’s emotions die. Pierce’s emotions took their place, coming from Tom’s body. I’d know his thought signature anywhere. He’s a unique individual.”
I looked to where Pierce’s clothes had been, a chill rippling through me as I shivered. “That’s black magic,” I whispered, hearing it echo in the tunnels behind me, like sin itself. “It was my spell! I didn’t know it was black. It was in a university textbook!”
Ford leaned back against the wall, clearly not bothered. “It was your spell, and it was white, but the demon perverted it. He loves you, you know.”
“Al?” I yelped, and Ford laughed. Holly smiled in her sleep, and the man’s face calmed.
“No, Pierce.”
I was dizzy from my outburst, and I looked at the stairway, wishing they would hurry. Kisten had loved me. Pierce was a teen crush. “Pierce doesn’t even know me,” I said softly, heart aching. “Except for that one night. God, I was eighteen.”
Ford shrugged. “It would explain your troubled history with men. You saw what you wanted at eighteen, and no one now is measuring up.”
I sighed. I was sitting on my butt on the cold, dusty concrete, waiting for a stretcher, and he was analyzing me. “Ford, I don’t love Pierce. It was teenage infatuation. Attraction to a charismatic power. I loved…Kisten.”
“I know.” His hand touched my shoulder, shocking me. “I’m sorry.”
I turned away, forcing my thoughts from Kisten lest I start to cry again. “Pierce had a deal going with Al. Probably about getting a body in return for service.” I felt my face scrunch in hopelessness. “And I helped. How nice is that? I don’t even know why he did it. He was better off as a ghost.” I looked to the stairway. There was the distinct possibility they might forget we were down here.
“I told you why,” Ford said, grimacing as he shifted Holly’s weight. “He loves you. I guess he figured being a familiar to your demon and having a body was better than being a ghost without one in your graveyard. Give the man a break, Rachel. He’s been hanging around your church for almost a year.”
A smile threatened, then disappeared. I was cold, dizzy, and numb from thoughts of Kisten. It stank down here, like cold dust. Like Kisten’s killer. All I wanted was to go home and take a bath.
“I think they forgot us,” I said. “Help me up?”
Ford grunted, getting to his feet. Holly cooed in her sleep as he extended his free hand and I slowly found my balance, leaning against the wall until I was sure I wouldn’t fall over. The cement was cold on my feet, and I shifted to stand on a corner of the blanket.
“We’ll take it slow,” he said, clearly unused to Holly’s unfamiliar weight.
“Yeah,” I whispered, my thoughts turning to him and the relief Holly was giving him. It was beautiful, and I wondered if Ford was truly a human, or a very rare type of Inderlander who hadn’t been discovered yet. One who balanced out a banshee. Vampires balanced Weres. Pixies balanced fairies. Witches…okay, maybe there wasn’t anything to balance banshees either. Unless witches balanced out demons?
“Ford,” I said as we started for the stairs, Mia’s light bobbing. “I’m happy for you.”
He smiled that blissful smile again when he glanced over his shoulder. “Me, too. She’s a gift, and I’ll have to give her back someday. But even this little bit is heaven. I’ll try to repay Mia by teaching Holly what love is. I can show her that, though I believe Mia and Remus were already doing that admirably. In their own way.”
My pace bobbled when Ivy’s and Edden’s voices filtered down the stairs. Kisten had died to save us both, to keep some lame-ass vampire from screwing our lives up any more than they already were. And he had loved us enough to give his life in exchange for ours. How could I tell Ivy?
My strength p
ooled out of me, and blinking fast, I stopped, slumping against a pillar. Ford looked uneasy. “Rachel, you’re a good person,” he said from out of the blue, surprising me. “Remember that. Just…don’t worry about the next few hours.”
I stared at him, becoming frightened. What did he know that I didn’t?
“Call me tomorrow if you need to talk,” he said before I could ask. “There’s nothing that will ever make me think you’re not a good person. That’s what’s important, Rachel. Who we love and what we do for them.”
A last smile, and he started up the stairs with Holly. I heard him speak to Ivy and Edden on the stairs, and then Ivy’s familiar steps continued down. She rounded the bottom of the steps, and I smiled thinly when her pace quickened. “Are you okay?”
Kisten, I thought, and my eyes teared. “Yeah,” I said softly, and she stood there, looking helpless. Throat thick, I gave her a hug.
And this time, Ivy returned it, her grip almost pressing the air from me.
My first startled reaction shifted to heartache, and I hugged her back, my eyes closed and my heart clenched all the harder. Her vampire incense lifted through me, soothing and exciting at the same time. “You scared me,” she said when she let go and backed up a step. Edden was now behind her, playing his flashlight over the ceiling. “I don’t like it when you tag someone without backup. Jenks said you tore out of there like a bat out of hell.”
“Is he okay?” I asked, and she let go, head bobbing as she wiped her eyes. My own tears threatened as I tried to find the words to tell her I remembered Kisten’s death. Thoughts of him were ringing from one ear to the other, making me dizzy.
Knowing something was wrong, Ivy took my arm and didn’t let go. “Where’s Pierce?” she asked as her eyes lingered on the scrape on my cheek.
My thoughts went to Tom, hanging in the demon’s grip, and I hesitated. Had it really been Pierce? Either way, Tom was gone and Mia had seen the entire thing. Misreading my sudden worry, Ivy said, “Al took him, didn’t he.”