Hollows 11 - Ever After (20 page)

The hiss of the door was less this time as Quen carefully put Ellasbeth’s book away. It bothered me that Trent was with her right now, believing whatever drivel she was feeding him.

“And you know how to do this?” Quen said as the door sealed shut with a cold sound. “Separate imbalances?”

“No,” I admitted. “But if Bis and I went out there, we might be able to figure it out. He’s really good at separating line signatures.”

Neither one of them said anything, Jenks sitting on Quen’s shoulder and both of them eyeing me in doubt. “He is,” I said in Bis’s defense. “You look at him and all you see is a kid, but I’ve seen the lines through him, and he knows what he’s doing. Besides,” I added, “either of you
Abba
s got any other ideas? I’m all ears.”

Quen flushed as I used the elf name he’d given himself, but Jenks flew almost into my face. “You’re not going into that purple line. You saw what it did to Al.” He spun to Quen, an alarmed gold dust making a sunbeam on the table. “It fried his aura, and they both almost died!”

Ignoring him, I chewed on my lip. “I’d be careful,” I said, then stifled a shiver. What if I got sucked into it by mistake? Or Ku’Sox shoved me?

“You’re not going out there!” Jenks shrilled, and Quen winced, looking at the closet door. “It’s not safe, and you know it!”

“When is my life safe?” I said, trying not to get riled up. “Trent could spot me if I used Al’s rings. Would that make you happy?”

Jenks dropped several inches before he remembered to move his wings. Still leaning against the cabinet, Quen seemed to stiffen. I knew being almost helpless bothered him. “Al’s rings?” Jenks scoffed, coming down and kicking at the gloves I’d taken off. “You think demon magic is going to work with an elf?”

My eyes went to Quen. He was frowning in thought. “I don’t know. You got anything on demon wedding rings?” I asked, but he was already at the cabinet, putting his gloves back on. “I yanked Al’s soul out of that event horizon using a pair of rings,” I babbled. “They sort of melted our minds together.” Jenks made a face, his dust shifting green. “Not like that,” I said. “It was weird, though, as if I could pull on his strength, and he could pull on mine.”

“Without asking?” Quen reached high to pull down a slim volume. It was falling apart and had no title, so I figured it was a demon text. “You sure they weren’t slave rings?”

Chastity rings sounded far more slavelike than Al’s rings. “Pretty sure,” I said as Jenks peered over Quen’s shoulder. “The connection felt equal. Like a scrying mirror but more complex, sort of like the difference between a phone call and talking in person. Al said the rings made an unbreakable connection,” I said, stifling a shudder at the memory of feeling his pain, then squishing the thought of what sex might feel like. Da-a-amn . . . Feeling two orgasms at once might be worth the invasion of privacy.

Quen eyed me in my sudden silence, setting the volume down before me and pointedly handing me my gloves. I put them on, my curiosity growing as Quen opened it to almost the last page. “I think what you want is here.”

No matter how I tugged the gloves, they felt too tight, but I smiled as I saw the rough drawings. It faded as I read what the demon rings were actually for. Increased sexual pleasure was on there, but they were really created as an implement of war, allowing a sort of superdemon able to overpower elves and whatever more easily. There was no clear master or subordinate ring as there was in the elf chastity rings. How they decided what curse to war with was up for debate, but perhaps that never came up in the heat of battle? I thought it interesting that it was assumed that it took two demons to overpower wild, elven magic. One thing was clear, though. The two people wearing them had no defense against each other if there was treachery. Wedding bands, indeed.

“Look, there it is,” Jenks said, his dust sinking through the pages to make them glow from underneath. “Demon use only. You don’t make something your enemy can use.”

He was right, but I wasn’t going to give up on this, and leaning back in my chair, I racked my brain for an answer. “Well, why not use the chastity rings?” I said suddenly, and Quen started. “You said they made a bond. If it’s tight enough to quash someone’s magic, I bet it’s tight enough to pull me out of trouble.”

Hunched over the book, Quen’s eyes came to mine. “Those are elven chastity rings, not demon wedding bands,” he almost growled.

“Right.” I pushed my chair out and went over to them. “But he could yank me back. Just like Al’s wedding rings!”

They were both staring at me as if I was nuts, but I knew it would work. It had to.

“They’re broken,” Quen said, and Jenks bobbed his head up and down. “The knowledge to make new ones is gone. The women burned all the texts.”

“Big surprise.” Not ready to let this go, I looked at them on their little black saucer. One was tiny, like a child’s ring, which made sense if it was to keep young people in line. “I know someone who can bring spent ley line charms back to life,” I said as I picked them both up.

Quen made a small sound, and I jiggled them in my hand.

“Pierce!” Jenks exclaimed, his wings a harsh rattle. “You’re talking about Pierce! He’s Newt’s familiar! Rache, what have you been putting in your coffee?”

Smiling, I looked at the rings in my palm. Quen was right. They were dead. Not even a whisper of magic.

“Don’t put the little one on!” Quen said as I angled it to my pinkie to see if it would fit, and I hesitated. “That’s the subservient ring. Once it goes on, it doesn’t come off until the master ring allows it.”

Oh.
Thinking, I jiggled the rings just to watch Quen’s reaction. “You said they don’t work.”

“You want to risk it? Go ahead. Put it on.”

Jenks came to hover over them, frowning in disapproval. “Even if you could get the rings reinvoked, Pierce is in the ever-after,” he said, kicking the larger one into the smaller. It made a ping that seemed to echo through me.

“Why are you two always Debbie downers?” I said, closing my fingers around them.

Jenks landed on my closed fist. “Just what do you plan to do? Call Newt and ask her to pop you over? She’s nuts!”

From behind me, Trent’s soft voice said, “She doesn’t have to.”

I spun, warming as if I’d been caught stealing his stuff again. Shit, how long had he been there?

“Sorry,” he said as he came farther in and took his hand from the closed door. “I didn’t want to wake Ray up.”

Sure, that’s what he said, but Jenks was smirking at me, and Quen seemed smug that I was the only one Trent had surprised. His manner quick, Trent held out his hand, and I dropped the rings into them. He smelled like the outdoors, and of Ellasbeth’s perfume. I stifled a surge of pique. There was a new drive in him, a purpose. He could again be what the elves wanted, and I forced myself to smile.

Quen looked pained as he stood there, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of his injuries or because Trent was behind me on this. “How do you propose she get there, Sa’han?”

Trent looked up, eager to explain. “My father’s vault door.”

“Perfect!” I exclaimed softly.

“Oh God,” Jenks muttered. “They’re at it again. I’m not going to get out of this one alive. I know it. I can see the web on the wall already!”

“Relax, Jenks.” I took Trent’s hand and turned it palm up so I could gently pry his fingers open. “You’re not going.” My eyes met Trent’s, and I took the rings. “You either.”

Trent’s expression cascaded through about six different emotions, all finally vanishing under a cold calm. “I am a part of this,” he warned me.

“Obviously,” I said as I backed up out of his easy reach. He was still wearing the matching pinkie ring, and something in me felt like it was a victory. “I’ll get the rings working, not you. I know you. You’ll get over there, and you’ll do something noble and throw everything off plan.”

“I will not!”

“You will!” I affirmed. “Besides, if I’m over there slumming in the mall looking for Pierce, everyone will think I’m taking care of Al. If you’re there, it will be noticed.”

Looking as if he were eating slugs, Trent dropped his head, making his bangs fall into his eyes. He knew I was right, and it was killing him.

“Those are my rings and my door,” Trent said, his head coming up and holding his hand out. “I’m going.”

Chin high, I refused to back up—but my hand was in a tight fist, hiding them. I had a fleeting memory of having done something like this before involving a key and the counselor’s locked office. “It’s my old boyfriend, so you stay. I’ll get the rings working, and then
we
can go out to the line and see what we can do. Deal?”

“Ah, Sa’han?” Quen interrupted.

At the
we,
Trent’s entire mien shifted from frustration to sour acceptance. Backing off, he licked his thumb and held it out, a challenging slant to his expression. My heart pounded. “Deal,” he said, and I licked my thumb and we pressed them together.

Quen hunched into himself in disgust. Jenks was on his shoulder shedding a weird purple dust, but I was ecstatic. “You won’t follow me,” I insisted, and Trent looked up from under his bangs again, making my heart stop with his half smile.

“I just thumb promised, didn’t I?”

Yes, he had thumb promised, and that he wouldn’t dare break. Or I’d throw him down the camp well and leave him there for three days.

Chapter Twelve

T
he last time I’d been in the room outside of Trent’s vault, I’d been stealing that elven threesome statue Jenks was so enamored of to gain Trent’s undivided attention. The outer chamber hadn’t changed, the air still flat and unmoving, the floors and walls bare with no furniture. I stared at the blank wall, Jenks on my shoulder and Trent beside me. Quen was down the hall turning on Trent’s magnetic imaging device. It would shift the ley line running through Trent’s compound down into the earth. More proof that the ley lines functioned as magnets on some level.

Once the line was out of its natural course, I could enter the ever-after not through the surface, which not only sucked dishwater but had no direct access to the demon realm, but right into their underground mall. From there I could buy a jump to Newt’s rooms. If she was there, we’d have a chat and I’d borrow Pierce for a few hours. If she wasn’t, then I’d save myself a few bucks and talk to Pierce with her none the wiser. I was hoping for the latter.

“There it goes,” Trent said softly, staring at the wall as if it were a big-screen TV, and feeling a sudden hiccup in my balance, I unfocused my attention and brought my second sight up. Sure enough, the red smear of a ley line now ran through the room at chest height, right before and through the blank wall. It would be an easy matter to step into it, will myself across, and be safe underground. Trent’s father, Kal, had used the ley line as a way to have a temporary door to a doorless vault, accessible when the magnetic resonator was on, and completely impossible to enter when the machine was switched off. It had been off for almost a year now, since Nick and I had burgled the vault behind the wall. I agreed with Trent that having a vault full of precious artifacts where any demon could see them using his second sight was a bad idea, but then again, Trent’s dad might have been using the room for another reason.

Nervous, I wiped my hands on my pants and turned to Trent, startled at his aura. It wavered over him like a gold sheet, like he was on fire. The slash of red through it hadn’t grown, but there was a new hint of black to it that I thought might be the first visible signs of smut. The room with the resonator was fairly close. We had a few minutes until Quen rejoined us.

“Is an hour enough?” Trent asked, calm as ever as he looked at his watch, but I could see by a flicker of darker gold aura that he was nervous. I wasn’t leaving until Quen was here to keep him from following me.

“You want to make it two?” I countered, not sure how long this might take.

Jenks flew from my shoulder, his rainbowlike aura trailing him. “How about five minutes?” he said tightly, and I pleaded with my eyes for him not to make a stink. It was daylight, and pixies couldn’t stay in the ever-after when the sun was up, same as demons couldn’t stay in reality.

“I’ll have a better chance of success if I go alone,” I said, then craned my neck to look through the low ceiling at the banners and dappled light patterns that the demons decorated their mall with. It was early yet, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic, just a few harried familiars and disgruntled demons who’d been pressed into service to clear a debt. I thought I could hear ’80s music being piped in, echoing against the flat places. It was weird standing so far underground and feeling as if you were outside, but the demons had had thousands of years to build their pretend.

Trent eyed me askance—making me wonder if he was checking out my aura for smut—then fixed his gaze firmly ahead to the shop sign visible through the wall,
THE COFFEE VAULT.
Someone had a sense of humor.

“We can turn the magnet on at fifteen-minute intervals,” Trent said; then we both turned at a scuff at the door.

“Sa’han,” Quen protested, out of breath but clearly having heard him. “The risk . . .”

Trent’s pleasant expression never changed. “We can turn the magnet on at fifteen-minute intervals,” he said again, and Quen nodded reluctantly. Satisfied, Trent turned to the humming ley line.

The sour whine to the ley lines throughout Cincinnati was getting worse. Seeming to hear it as well, Jenks hovered before the line, hands on his hips and glaring at an oblivious man behind the coffeehouse windows. There was no reason for the familiar to be using his second sight, and unless he did, we would be invisible.

I stepped forward, dipping a hand through the line and deciding it felt okay even if it sounded bad, the flow even and smooth. Perhaps Trent’s dad had had a deeper relationship with demonkind than Trent wanted to admit. Being able to step through a ley line and into the demon mall and coffee shop was a little too convenient—even if it was going to save both our asses.

Ready to go, I ran my hands down my linen blouse. It was going to stink to high heaven when I got back. “Quen, don’t let him follow me,” I said as I took a step forward into the line.

“Rachel, wait!”

Trent’s voice stopped me cold, and I turned, still in reality even if I was in the ley line. He was digging in his pocket, and I warmed when I realized I’d almost left without the rings. He held them out, and a spark of magic jumped between us as the rings fell into my hand. It was the ley line, not him, but I still shivered. “Thanks,” I said sheepishly. Nodding, he stepped back with a quick, sharp motion, gesturing for me to go. Jenks’s wings clattered, and with a final thin smile, I willed myself into the ever-after.

Nose wrinkling, I took three steps within the line, walking through the wall in reality and into the demon coffeehouse. I jerked as the muggy stink of ever-after and the echoing sound of a European band singing about red balloons hit me.
What is it with demons and the ’80s?
I wondered, not for the first time.

The familiar looked up from behind the counter. “By the two worlds colliding, don’t jump into reality in here!” he berated me, perhaps not even knowing about the door and thinking I’d jumped in. He looked oddly familiar with his green apron and cap. “I don’t care how much of a hurry your demon is in for his coffee, if you mesh with the wall, I’m not paying for it.”

I gave the guy a quick smile, backpedaling for the door. “Sorry, wrong store.”

“Use the circles at the fountain,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Stupid-ass newbie.”

He looked like a Scottish lord from a romance novel, the bushy sideburns and thick blocky muscles not doing a thing for me, but as my scrabbling hand found the doorknob, he muttered an oath. “Hey, wait. You’re Rachel Morgan, right?” he said, dropping his rag. “Hold on. I got something for you.”

My hand slipped from the knob, and I turned. “Me?”

His head was down and he was rummaging in a bin behind the counter. “Yeah. My boss has a proposition you might be interested in.”

Shoulders slumping, I sighed. Trent, Quen, and Jenks were probably watching with their second sight, and I did have a timetable. “Sorry,” I said as I yanked the door open and the music got louder. “I’m not making tulpas right now. Saving the world, you know.”
Again.

“No, wait! Just take it. I’ll give you a coffee on the house!”

I couldn’t care less about the nasty coffee, but the guy at the fountain’s jump-spot might, and I reluctantly took the envelope he was eagerly extending. It was thick, contract thick, and I shoved it in a back pocket to look at later. An ever-after job might be advantageous if Al and I ended up being strapped for cash.
Again . . .
Was my life truly this predictable, or did I just keep making the same mistakes over and over?

“Straight up black, right?” the guy was saying, hustling behind the counter for a to-go cup and filling it with something black and bitter. It wasn’t coffee, but it was the best they had, and I took it just to get out of the place.

“Great. Thanks,” I said, hoisting it. “Mmmm, good!”

“On the house,” he affirmed, backing up and looking both nervous and pleased with himself. “Let me know about the contract!”

There was no bell to jingle as I went out into the mall, and after a quick look up and down the wide avenue, I headed to the central fountain and the jump-demons. Though demons could jump lines at will, familiars needed to buy them, and to facilitate ease of passage, demons convicted of minor crimes such as uncommon stupidity paid their debts by providing jumps. On the weekend there might be as many as ten jump-demons clustered around the center fountain moving people out, but this early on a Tuesday morning and with the impending line trouble, there was only one. Head down, I angled to him. He might have just been a demon waiting for someone, but the hat he was wearing said differently.

“Jump me to Newt’s for a coffee?” I said as I got close, and he opened one eye. It was really weird. I knew I was deep underground, but between the shifting lighting, shadow, fitful breeze, and wide space, it felt as if we were outside on a cloudy day. A really hot, cloudy day.

“Newt’s?” he said around a lazy yawn, then did a double take, pulling himself upright when he actually looked at me. A panicked expression raced across his face until it was replaced by mistrust. My eyes narrowed when he poked my shoulder as if trying to decide if I was real. “By the two worlds colliding, you really are Rachel. I thought you were Newt. Damn, girl! Wait until I tell my familiar!”

“Touch me again, and you’ll really be in pain,” I said, shoving the cup at him. “Newt’s kitchen? You know it?”

He took the coffee and looked at the ceiling. “Costs more this week.”

I forced my jaw to unclench. “Look, I’m trying to save your asses. You really think it’s a good idea to try to skin me for a sliver of smut?”

The demon’s gaze came back to me. “No. Look up there. The ceiling is down by about a foot from yesterday. Space is shrinking, and unless you want to end up in a wall, I need a gargoyle assist.”

Shit, it is happening already. No wonder it is so warm.

“Well?” he said. “How bad you want in?”

If I didn’t get these rings fixed, nothing was going to happen. I really didn’t give a flying flip about the ever-after, but I wanted Ceri and Lucy back. “I’ll take the smut,” I said, and he grandly took his cap off to dust the nearest circle.

Two demons across the plaza had noticed me. Damn. One of them was Dali. I gave him a bunny-eared kiss-kiss, and he vanished, leaving his friend to eye me in speculation. Great, this was going just great. “Can we make this fast?” I said as I stepped into the circle. It was taking too long.

Grunting, he gestured and the line iced through me, dissolving me to a thought and back to substance again. The line felt sour, but it was still even in flow. The gargoyle assist made the materialization smooth without the barest hint of unequal air pressures or misstep. I misted back into existence . . . in my kitchen.

“Hey!” I shouted, turning to him, but the jump was complete and I was yelling at my old refrigerator. My eyes narrowed. It was my
old
refrigerator, the one you could put a goat into, not that Ivy and I ever had. I’d blown it up almost two years ago on the solstice.

“I vowed if you ever put her image on your twisted bones again, I would not stay my hand, you foul carrion!”

I spun. “Pierce!” I shrieked as he came at me from across the kitchen, grabbing a knife from the counter as he ran. “Pierce, it’s me!” My breath exploded out of me as I hit the wall, his arm under my chin and a knife at my middle. This wasn’t my kitchen. The fridge was old. The light was wrong. The copper pots were too tarnished. “It’s me,” I choked, blood pounding. “Get off!”

But he only snarled, the scent of coal dust and shoe polish filling my senses.

“Hey!” I yelped when the knife pricked me, and I kneed him, getting my arms up and between his when his grip eased. “Get off!”

Clutching himself, he fell back. Pissed, I tugged my clothes straight and kicked the knife away. A wave of ever-after coated him, and I touched my side, my fingers coming away wet with blood. Damn it, he’d cut right through my shirt.

Pierce knelt on the floor before me in wool trousers and a colorful vest, looking like an actor from an early movie. His expression pained, he leaned back on his heels, his arms spread wide and his neck bared to me. “Go ahead!” he screamed, eyes shut as if daring me to strike him with lightning. “Rip my heart out, you foul beast! I could use the time off to plan your demise!”

I stared. He looked okay, other than the total surrender thing he had going on. His dark curly hair was down to his shoulders again, but his beard was gone, making him look younger. If he was upright, he’d be almost my height exactly, well proportioned and looking like no stranger to hard work. He opened one eye, and when I didn’t say anything, a hint of confusion made him all the more appealing. I thought I might have loved him once, but he was too quick to use the black magic and he kept trying to kill the very people I needed to survive.

“Ah, Pierce?” I said, thinking this might have been a mistake. “You okay?”

His breath came in a heave and he scrambled to his feet. His face became ashen, then red. “Rachel?” he said, echoing my same hesitancy.

I looked over the kitchen, so clearly a mockery of mine now that I had a moment to look at it.
My God, it was hot in here.
“Newt isn’t here, is she?” If Newt was making duplicates of my kitchen, then she was probably taunting Pierce with images of me as well. Either that or the man was truly off his rocker; by the horrified expression he was now wearing, though, I thought he was stone-cold sane.

“By all creation. It’s really you!” he exclaimed, and I fell back to the wall when he rushed me. My lips curled up in a smile when he gave me a quick hug, my arms going about him to find he felt both familiar and different. Almost immediately he dropped back, pumping my hand up and down. “I am powerfully sorry!” he gushed, eyes bright. “I thought you were her. The hag appears as you to get a rise out of me when she’s bored. Are you hurt? Did I bruise you? I should have known it was you. Gods, I’m a toad!”

“I’m fine,” I said, hoping he didn’t see the tiny cut. “Sorry about, ah, hitting you. Are you okay?”

He went scarlet, glancing at the floor where he’d prostrated himself on my mercy. “I’m of a mind I deserved it and more.” Looking shamed, he fell back a step. “I agree my situation isn’t ideal and a far cry from the pomp and circumstance of a coven member, but I understand the world here, unlike the one you live in, and every time I try to kill her, I get a little closer.”