Hollows 11 - Ever After (16 page)

“The Rosewood babies are not for him, they are for us.” Dali washed down his cookie with a sip of tea, and I gaped.

“Y-you?” I stammered, and he nodded. One gingersnap left.
Thirty seconds.

“They’re life rafts, demon-magic-capable bodies that those loyal to him can slip into and escape a failing ever-after,” Dali said, and I stared, not having considered that.

“And you believe him?” I said. “Seriously?”

Dali’s eye twitched, telling me he didn’t, but it did make it easier to understand why no one would help me. “Has it ever occurred to you that without a permanent cure, everyone who escapes on Ku’Sox’s coattails will be completely dependent on him to stay alive?”

Dali’s thick fingers were on that last cookie. Hesitating, he tapped it on the plate. “Which is why we’re not forcing him to give Ceri back,” he said softly. “We want the permanent cure.”

I leaned back in the chair, hard-pressed to not pound my head on the table. “He’s lying to you, Dali, to all of you. He’s never going to allow any of you access to those children, and he’s going to let the ever-after collapse whether you kill me for him or not. Now quit blocking me and give me Ceri and Lucy back so I can figure this out!”

Dali set the last cookie down and wiped his fingers. With a new stiffness in his manner, he shifted his weight. “You think his intent is annihilation?”

I nodded, and my shoulders eased. “Before Newt got us back underground, a gargoyle came to see who had been messing around in my ley line.”

His carefully trimmed eyebrows high, Dali eyed me, but if it was because Newt helped us or that a gargoyle was involved, I didn’t know. “In the daylight?”

“He had a huge sword that looked like it had been propping up a laundry line for the last fifty years,” I said, angry. “He said the line would fix itself in time, but destroy the ever-after in the doing of it, and that they were going to leave and to save who they could.”

“The gargoyles are leaving?” It was a soft but alarmed utterance.

“He also said I wouldn’t find enough time to fix it before it fixes itself. If you can’t give me Ceri, at least give me some time,” I demanded. “Four days,” I added, thinking of Al’s burn.

Dali’s intent gaze focused on me, considering it. Sighing, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking?”

Adrenaline jerked through me as I realized he’d probably come here with the intent to kill me and be done with it before he left. “I think I can fix the line,” I said, scrambling to find something positive to take away from this. “I just need to borrow . . .” My words trailed off reluctantly, as if not wanting to divulge just what it was, not that I had no clue what I needed. “Something from Al,” I finished, trying to appear cagey, not confused.

Dali peered at me, his mouth a thin line. “You don’t trust me.”

“Sure I do,” I said, and Bis snickered, making a weird snuffing sound.

The older-looking demon frowned. “You don’t have a clue how to fix that line,” he said, but inside, I felt a tiny spot of hope. He was thinking about it.

Beside him, Bis cleared his throat. “I can see the lines,” he said, flushing a heavy black. “I know I can help. I’m good at auras.”

Dali ignored him, which made me mad, and I said, “Ku’Sox cursed my line. That purple sludge is demon made. I have yet to find the curse I can’t untwist.”

His face scrunched up, making him look like the benevolent uncle who
wanted
to give you the quarter of a million dollars to start your chinchilla farm, but those darn investors just didn’t see the potential. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you,” he said, and I let out a loud, exasperated sigh as he continued. “But belief will be a thin comfort if we get sucked into oblivion waiting for you to figure it out. It’s not like you have much to lose.”

“If you don’t trust me, we both die, Dali,” I said, not dropping his eyes. “Even if the ever-after vanishes, do you think the coven is going to let me live after the lines disappear and there’s no more magic? I don’t.”

Goat-slitted eyes unfocused, he nodded.

“Can’t you choose what gets sucked into oblivion?” I said. “Try bubbling your rooms. Let it pull on the empty spaces for a while.”

“Perhaps.” Dali’s knees uncrossed as he set his feet on the floor. He was ready to go, and he eyed the last cookie. “No one will want to if they’re being reimbursed by Newt. We’d all like to see her brought down a decimal place or two.”

“See if you can get them to think about it,” I said, standing up and going to the counter where I had a bag of cookies for Ray. Dali might be a better choice. “I have an idea, but I need four days and your silence that we even had this conversation.”

Dali’s attention jerked to me. Bright eyed, he stood and took the cookies like the bribe they were. “Really?” he said, the plastic rustling softly. “Secrets, Rachel?”

I met his gaze squarely. “The fewer who know, the better.”

Dali’s head cocked suspiciously. “You
trust
me?”

My heart gave a thump. I didn’t have a problem asking for things, according to Al, but in this case, I was asking for a lot. “You’re a member of the courts,” I said. “If I fail, go ahead and kill me,” I continued, making Bis rustle his wings. “I don’t want to be around to see the fallout when magic fails on this side of the lines. But if I succeed, I want all my debts slid to Ku’Sox.” Dali began to smile. “Everything to date
and
any I acquire while resolving the mess he started,” I said, feeling nervous. It was quite a lot. “Newt’s debts accrued because of his tampering, too,” I added. “I want that demon so far in the hole that if we survive, he will be spending the next thousand years as a busboy at your restaurant.”

Dali chuckled, and I felt out of breath. “We,” he said, and I blinked, not knowing why he’d said it until realizing I’d said it first. I had said
we
. I had lumped myself in with them, and it had come out as natural as if it had been
we
for a long time. “I like the way you think, Morgan. No wonder Al has risked so much on you.”

“Well?” I asked, since it was obvious Dali was leaving.

His fingers tightened on the bag of cookies. “You have four days. More than that, and the ever-after will be too damaged.”

Bis’s ears pricked, and the sound of the front door opening echoed through the church. My gaze darted to the clock on the stove. They were early. “Four days,” I said. Al would be able to tap a line in three. It would be close, but maybe by then I’d have this figured out.

“If it’s not fixed by midnight, you die.” Dali looked at his watch. “That’s Friday,” he said sourly as he squinted at Bis as if he had failed in something—and then . . . he vanished.

I exhaled, shaking as I went to prop the window open to let out the stink of demons. Dali had taken the cookies but left the petits fours. “Thank you,” I whispered into the night, though he couldn’t possibly hear me. Never underestimate the power of home-baked cookies. Bis’s chair creaked as he eased his grip. Looking out at the dark graveyard, empty of even the glow of sleeping pixies, I felt my gut clench at the sound of Trent’s steps in the hall. I had no idea what I was going to do next, but Trent wouldn’t be happy with what I’d found.

“Pepper piss! It stinks in here!” Jenks swore as he darted in, fingers pinching his nose shut as he swooped a large circle through the kitchen and landed atop Bis’s head. The gargoyle twitched his big fringed ears, and Jenks shifted to the top of the roll of paper towels we kept on the table. “He left? Just now? I wanted to talk to him.”

I leaned back against the counter, glad the kitchen was clean. I think it was the first time Trent had seen it when it wasn’t covered in spelling supplies. “Which is why I asked Trent not to bring you home until now,” I said, smiling thinly.

Trent’s nose was wrinkled at the stench, and worry warred with hope, showing in the way his brow was pinched. A long lightweight coat hid his suit. He looked wary as he held a hat to hide his missing fingers. The light caught his eyes as they traveled over the kitchen as if looking for a visible sign of Dali, but all that was left was the smell.

“Jenks said I could come in,” he said, and my mouth went dry. I had no comfort to give him, and I stayed where I was with my arms over my middle. I didn’t care if I looked pensive.

“Hi,” I said. Jenks’s wings clattered in surprise, but I didn’t know what more I could say.

Looking polished and together, Trent came in another step. He nodded to Bis, and the gargoyle touched his wingtips over his head. Eyeing me up and down, Trent’s hope slowly dulled and vanished. “That good, eh?”

I took a deep breath. Unable to meet his eyes, I pushed off the sink, my middle coming to rest against the center counter. The petits fours were sitting there, and the plate scraped as I pushed it away. “Dali’s hands are tied,” I said softly. “Ceri went willingly with Ku’Sox.”

“What!” Jenks rose up on a column of dust, and Bis turned an apologetic shade of black.

Trent’s face became ashen. “Ku’Sox took Lucy,” he breathed, and I nodded.

“And Ceri went willingly to keep her safe,” Jenks finished, now darting between Trent and me in agitation.

My head hurt, and I rubbed it. It was so simple, so devious. Trent’s feet scuffed, and I pulled my head up.

“That’s it, then,” Trent said, every vestige of softness gone in the hard clench of his jaw. “If there’s no chance at a political resolution, then I will use more drastic means.”

I froze. A creak came from Bis’s chair as he tightened his grip.
Drastic measures?
The last time Trent had instigated
drastic measures,
San Francisco was trashed and I ended up in a spell-induced coma for three days. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, hand in the air. “You’re
not
going to give yourself up in exchange. It’s exactly what he wants.”
What all the demons wanted.

“Which is exactly why it will work.”

I shook my head, but he wasn’t listening, wasn’t even looking at me as he stared at the wall two feet to my right. Cool and distant, he ignored even Jenks hovering inches before his face. “No fairy fart way, elf-man,” the pixy said, a bright red dust spilling from him. “We talked about this, remember? You give yourself up, and then Rachel’s just going to have to bail your ass out again, which means I’m stuck saving hers. I can’t take it anymore. I’m not a young pixy. She’s a demon, let her do her Tink-blasted job!”

Trent’s iron-hard hold on his emotions cracked. Turning, he tossed his hat on the table. “If I call his bluff, he’ll kill them,” he said. “You know he will. Then he will steal someone else for leverage and it starts again. I
do
have feelings, Rachel. I
do
love people. I’m not going to let them die for me!”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said softly, and his glare fell from me. “We can’t get them back through the courts, but in the meantime, I’ve got four days to balance the line.”

Clearly frustrated, he spun away, his coat furling. “How does that help Lucy and Ceri?” he said, his back to me as Jenks shot me a look and landed on his shoulder.

Curious,
I thought as Trent’s shoulders relaxed at something Jenks said. Bis noticed as well. Clearly the two men had come to some kind of understanding. “If I can fix the line or prove that Ku’Sox made the hole, the demons will turn against him,” I said, but it was really more of a hope. “Ceri and Lucy will be returned.” I looked at the counter as if I could see the books on the shelf below. There was nothing in them about ley lines. Nothing in them, nothing in the library, nothing in Al’s library. If there had been, we would have found it by now.

Exhaling loudly, Trent slowly sank down in a chair. The last of his mask fell away and he slumped, elbow on the table as he sat sideways to it. “I can’t risk him killing Lucy and Ceri,” he said, and a lump filled my throat. He was hurting. It wasn’t my fault. He was the one who had let Ku’Sox out, but he’d done it to save my life, or rather, my freedom.

Jenks was making motions for me to do something, and I grimaced, finally moving around the center counter to stand there, feeling self-conscious. I wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten. “Al and I went out to look at the line,” I said hesitantly. “He got burned pretty bad, but it did give us a better idea of what Ku’Sox did.”

Trent didn’t acknowledge me, making me feel more awkward as I edged back to sit in Ivy’s chair. My eyes went to Trent’s ring, and I remembered how it had felt to wear Al’s. “I think I saved his life. Again.”

“I bet that was a surprise,” he said dryly.

Chuckling, I dropped my eyes. “It was. He won’t be able to tap a line until Thursday. And since I don’t trust anyone else over there, I’m stuck here until he heals. I know I can fix the leak in the line with Bis’s help,” I added, and the gargoyle bobbed his head, his tail whipping about to wrap around his feet. “If I can fix it, I can prove Ku’Sox is trying to destroy the ever-after. Ceri and Lucy will be the last thing on his mind if the entire collective is after him. None of them like him, anyway.”

Trent said nothing, staring at the table. I wasn’t even sure he had heard me.

My thoughts went to the demons and what Dali had said about them fearing Ku’Sox. Together, they could overpower Ku’Sox, but fear had made slaves of them. They were expecting me to take care of him, hiding behind semantics that it was a personal vendetta between us. Were they really afraid, or was apathy easier than survival? Maybe they just didn’t care if they lived or died.

Trent still hadn’t moved, and at Jenks’s exasperated motions, I reached out across the table, putting my hand atop his. “We’ll get them back.”

Trent blinked as our hands met, not in shock, but as if bringing himself back from a deep thought. His expression was empty when his eyes touched my hand, and I gave him a smile and a slight squeeze before I pulled away. I could smell hospital on him, and I realized that’s probably why my head hurt. I hated hospitals.

“How’s Quen?” I said.

Trent eased back into the chair, his hand sliding from the table to fall into his lap. “He’s not conscious yet, but his brain activity is good.”