Hollows 11 - Ever After (33 page)

This guy is out of his friggin’ mind!
I thought as I stood where I was, eyes screwing up against the impact. Jenks darted up and away, the ringing of his sword echoing through me, mixing with the unreal sound of Felix’s anguish.

My eyes flew open as his bone-crushing grip knocked us back into the wall again. Again I poured the line through him.

His fingers tightened as he screamed his frustration, and then he was gone, whirling in anger eight feet away, his black eyes pits. Blood dripped from his face just under his eye, mirrored on Jenks’s sword.

“I will have
someone
!” Felix shouted, and my lips parted as he crouched, preparing to jump me again.
Is he trying to get me to kill him?
I thought, shocked when a low sound of hatred rumbled forth, growing as he slid closer, dancing to music that maddened him. “I will have someone . . .”

“Felix, we’re trying to help!” I cried, then traced an informal circle about myself. Seeing it, Felix lunged, arm reaching. Instinct pushed me back, and my heel broke my circle even as it formed. I gasped, then stared, shocked as a shadow from the back living room flew into the kitchen, jerking Felix from me and spinning him into the corner by the fridge.

“Ohem!” a voice boomed from the short, stocky man somehow standing between us. “Find yourself!”

“Holy crap, it’s Cormel!” Jenks shrilled, and I fell back against the wall, hand on my throat as I realized it was Rynn Cormel, probably here to talk to Ivy.

“That one needs punishing!” Felix pointed at me, pacing back and forth before him, totally out of his mind. “She is mine. Mine!”

Rynn Cormel’s jaw was tight as he raised a hand. His felt cap lay on the floor, and his coat smelled of cashmere and vampire. “Let go of the thought of her, sir,” he said calmly, and I pulled myself straight, grimacing. I’d filled the air with my fear—I’d known better. Jenks, hovering at the ceiling with a bloody, bared sword, was tense enough for both of us.

“The demon witch encouraged my scion to defy me . . .” Felix’s voice was softer now, more calculating, scaring me.

Rynn Cormel shook his head, his Brooklyn accent sounding odd as he firmly said, “This is mine, not yours. I punish her, not you.”

No one was going to punish me, but I was smart enough not to say anything. My heart pounded, and I was glad Cormel was here. Felix was out of his mind.

Felix’s angry pacing slowed, and Cormel’s outstretched hand shifted to one of welcome. “You are in need, sir,” he said respectfully. “Distraught, and drunk on the sun. Let go of this idea and turn to a new one before my ward kills you. She’s not for you. She’s not for me. She is for Ivy.”

“Ivy . . .” Felix snarled, and I held my breath as Felix thought that over. His youthful face was twisted into an ugly mask of anguish and fear, his eyes black and showing a lack of control I’d expect from the newly undead, not one older than Cincinnati’s tunnels.

“I am drunk on the sun,” he said suddenly, his beautiful voice cracking. “Oh God.” He said the words with anguish, falling back against the counter as if having abruptly found himself. “What have I done? What . . .”

Jenks dropped from the ceiling to my shoulder, and I jumped.

“What am I doing?” Felix lamented, his head bowed until his hair hid his eyes. He was shaking, and only now did Cormel glance back to make sure I was okay.

“You think it’s wise to turn your back on him?” I said as Cormel came to me, a cold hand landing on my arm to push me into the hall. He was wearing a tidy suit that made him look like a middle-aged politician, and his smile that had saved a world was now focused on me. It wasn’t working. I was scared shitless.

“I’m sorry you saw this, Rachel,” he said, and I slid out from under his hand on my shoulder. “The diseases of the undead are not easy to understand. Might I have a moment alone with him?”

Head shaking, I backed up into the corner. “Not in my church, no.” My eyes flicked behind him to the undead vampire. Felix looked crushed, beaten as he slumped against the counter and threatened to slip to the floor. Was this what happened when vampires got old? They slowly lost their mind until they walked into the sun?

Cormel’s eye twitched at my defiance. But it wasn’t until Jenks clattered his wings that he turned back to Felix.

“I can’t,” Felix said, his voice wispy and beaten. “Nina showed me the sun, and I stared too long. I can’t bring myself to forget again, now that I know what that looks like.”

I took a breath to say something, my words forgotten when Felix brought his gaze up and I saw the agony in him. He had come here looking for me to kill him. He wanted to end it, but walking into the sun took too much courage.

“Let Nina be,” Cormel said, turning his back on me. “Let her have her time.”

Felix was shaking like an addict in withdrawal, and maybe he was. “I can’t. I can’t,” he said, his voice broken. “The sun pulls me. God, it’s too easy to just . . . and then I’m alive through her. I am alive.” His face became animated, almost too beautiful. “Do you remember being alive? I do. I didn’t get enough when I was alive, taken too soon. Why are you stopping me? You don’t know! How can you?”

Cormel had crossed the room, and I watched, unbelieving, as the younger undead comforted the old. “You know it will never be enough,” he said, a hand on Felix’s shoulder. “You’re lost to the sun. If you don’t let it go, it will kill you. Nina is too bright.”

Felix licked his lips, confusion slipping into his eyes. “Nina loves me.”

“You’re killing her,” Cormel said, and I wondered if I should have left when I had the chance. “Ivy is right in teaching Nina control. Let Nina live her time.”

Felix took a huge breath. “I need her!” he shouted, and the hum of Jenks’s wings increased in pitch. “Who are you to say no to me! You are a pup!” He strode back and forth, never getting any closer, never any farther. “A squalid, puking whelp snuffing along the edges of the birthing box, unable to see the depth of pain beyond it!”

“Perhaps.” Cormel inclined his head, standing very, very still. “But I, sir, know not to look. I believe the lie, and so I survive another day. You can’t have Nina anymore. I will not give you justification on Ivy or Rachel. The darkness will warm again if you turn your back on the sun. Sir. Please. It’s not too late.”

Felix spun into an ugly hunch, the hem of his beautifully tailored suit quivering in his anger. “It is my right,” he hissed, his gaze starting to dip back into madness. “I hunger because of her; she alone satisfies me . . .”

Frightened for Ivy, I moved, Cormel’s back-flung hand stopping me.

“You may not claim justice on Ivy,” he said firmly. Something had shifted. His voice was still respectful, but the subtle subtext of subordinate vampire was utterly gone. And by Felix’s reddening face, I think he recognized it as well. It was too late for him. He couldn’t let go; he couldn’t become what he had once been. There was only the task of seeing it to the end now.

“Your favored child is stealing from me. I demand compensation!”

I exchanged a look with Jenks, seeing he had seen the shift as well. Felix was no longer a functioning undead vampire, but one who was ailing, one to be humored and lied to. He was old, forgetful, lacking control. He had done it to himself, and I pitied him, remembering seeing the controlled, confident vampire through Nina’s eyes not three days ago. He had known what would happen, and he had done it anyway, all for the chance to see the sun.

“I’ll give you compensation, but you will
not
have Ivy or Rachel,” Cormel said, and I pitied Felix as he all but whined.

“Ivy could satisfy me,” he wheedled, looking ugly as he tried to hide his emotions, but he was broken and couldn’t be fixed.

Cormel shook his head. “Rachel is going to find our souls with her, and Ivy needs to remain untouched. She will find our souls so that the sun may find us again and end this lie we live. Will you wait with me for that day?”

Felix’s ugly gaze slid to me, and I held my breath. “That’s fallacy,” the younger-looking, aging, sun-addicted undead vampire said.

“Still, you will leave me to my fantasy and shun Ivy and Rachel as I ask.” Cormel shifted to open a way for him to go, incidentally placing himself even more firmly between me and Felix. “My car is out front. The driver will take you wherever you wish. It would be my pleasure to show you my children if you will wait but a little.”

Felix straightened at that, almost finding his old bearing. “I am so hungry,” he whispered. “The blood doesn’t help anymore. There’s never enough.”

Cormel’s head bowed. “I’m sorry. Give me a moment with Rachel? I’ll join you soon. My children will slake your thirst. I will stand beside you and be sure of it.”

My God, it was enough to turn my stomach, but it was what they were down to. I stiffened as Felix shuffled out past me, a slight tilting of his head the only indication that he knew I was there, and I shivered when a black eye watched me from under his shifting bangs. Jenks followed him out, staying just below the ceiling as a quiet guard.

“I am not yours,” I said hotly to Cormel before the back door clicked shut.

In a wash of incense, Cormel moved swiftly to the archway, leaning to look down it into holy ground. His lips were pressed in anger, and I marveled at how alive he appeared. Practice, practice, practice. “You are. I just saved your life.”

“I could have taken him,” I shot back, and Cormel’s irate gaze finally came to me. His eyebrows went high in a mocking question. “I just didn’t want to hurt him.”

“No doubt. I think you killing him was his plan. And then what? You would be accused of murder as no one but you saw him ailing. You could flee to the ever-after, but we all know how you feel about that—Rachel.”

He was right, and it irked me. “You make me sick,” I said instead, pushing around him to get out of my corner. “The two of you going off to a blood orgy together, offering your children to him like they’re candy. There’s no love there, no caring. Ivy was right. Why should I help you find your souls?”

Cormel stooped to pick up his hat and dust it off. “Because I am here saving your life.” I huffed in disbelief, and he turned to give me his full attention. “I’m joining Felix in his bloodletting so he doesn’t kill my children in his grief for the sun. I am there so he won’t take too much or be too brutal for their desires to withstand. I doubt very much I’ll enjoy watching an old man gum his food.” His gaze became distant. “There will be no finesse, no beauty there. I had hoped that he was still recoverable, but it won’t be long now.” His eyes met mine. “They failed to tell me that caring for the old as well as the young would be my responsibility when I took this job.”

It was as I had thought, then. Felix had faltered and was failing fast, dragging Nina down with him. This was so ugly. “Ivy is trying to save both their lives,” I said softly, and Cormel’s bad mood seemed to hesitate as he saw my own soften. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“She still broke the rules. He is mad, Rachel. He is mad, and no amount of blood can save either of them, but Ivy broke the rules by interfering. Ohem is already lost but for his final walk into the sun and leaving Nina to lose control.” Cormel leaned to look down the hall, his thoughts already in the car and the remainder of his night. “They’ll have to shoot her down like a dog to stop her once she starts to look for solace. As it was, he would have only taken himself and one other, but your Ivy wants to love again, and so we all suffer so that you might save her soul, save all of ours.”

Jenks arrowed into the kitchen, bringing with him the scent of ash from the fireplace. He looked agitated that Cormel was still here, and the undead vampire raised a tired hand to tell him that he was on his way. “My children will suffer indignities and pain tonight because of you,” he said, and my gut tightened in guilt. “All my children are paying the cost for Nina’s possible survival. All to keep one vampire happy.” Cormel put his hat back on and buttoned his coat. “I pay it willingly. But you will give me what I want, Morgan.
And soon.
”

My chin lifted, and Jenks’s dust turned a glittering gold. “That sounds like a threat.”

He smiled from under the brim of his hat. It was the smile that had saved the world, and it was ending mine. “It was supposed to.” Cormel stepped into the hall, then paused. “I know you’re occupied with repairing the lines, so I’m willing to wait, but Rachel, I will not end up like Ohem.” His expression darkened, his pupils going wide and his eyes black. “I will not be a shell of myself, pitied and grasping for the sun when I know my soul is lost to hell. If Ivy leaves Cincinnati again, I will kill her myself. Tell her that for me.”

Cold, I wrapped my arms around myself.

“I want my soul back. Find it.”

Between one breath and the next, he was gone, the door squeaking shut the only sound marking his passage. Shaking, I sat down in Ivy’s chair.

If Ivy leaves Cincinnati again, I will kill her myself, he had said.

Don’t think so.

Chapter Twenty

J
unior’s was frighteningly busy, the clientele mostly human at the early hour, stumbling about in search of their first cup of coffee. Either humans appreciated their coffee more than the average Inderlander, or Mark’s marketing gamble of claiming to serve coffee that demons crossed the lines for was paying off. I couldn’t help but notice that the floor had been repainted with circles and spirals, and I wondered if the lock access to the back door had been changed as well. The talk was loud, and the music cranked decibels higher than normal made my head hurt. I truly sympathized with the rare Inderlander accused of eating humans. They were annoying and obnoxious when they thought no one was listening.

My mood couldn’t be entirely blamed on the noise and early hour—seeing as I’d not gotten to sleep until Ivy had come home, and then gotten up at an insane seven in the morning to get here by 7:35 exactly. But if my mood was bad, Ivy had me beat, glowering in the corner of the darkest booth we had been able to snag. The three beatniks bemoaning the unfairness of life and the publishing industry had been taking up the spot when we’d arrived, but after Ivy stood over their table with her grande and bad attitude, they’d packed up their double-spaced pages and red pencils and moved to a sunnier table.

Ivy was better now that most of her drink was inside her and her head was down over the museum blueprints, but if my evening with Felix and Cormel had been disturbing, hers spent getting Nina into a safe house had devolved into terror. As Ivy had expected, Nina had gotten angry at the mere suggestion, and without Felix to steady the overwhelming sensations, clarity of perception, and power that he’d gifted her with, she’d quickly spiraled out of control. Ivy had gotten her to the safe house just in time.

The morning was bright and chill, and Jenks was warming himself on the light fixture. It was just us three, the way I liked it, and I had a suspicion that we were at the very same booth where we had made our agreement to go into business together. I wondered at all the changes in our lives since then. We were all better, weren’t we? I wasn’t so sure anymore. I’d loved and lost. So had Ivy. So had Jenks. There was good stuff too, wasn’t there?

Ivy checked her watch, folded up the map, and shoved it away.

“Is she here?” Jenks asked, his dust an odd light blue edged in gold. I’d never seen that before, and I wondered if his extended life span was giving him a wider repertoire.

Ivy shook her head, casually pulling her coffee to her with long, pale fingers. Silent, she stared out over the patrons at nothing as she tried to put her night in perspective. Her hair was perfectly arranged, and her short jacket made her look like a model. People were eyeing her in envy. She looked like she had everything.
Looked
was the keyword. Her eyes were red with worry, and fatigue pulled at her like a cur.

“I would rather have done this at night,” I said, thinking that the idea to just walk in, grab the rings, and walk out was great if you were fourteen and trying to steal a candy bar, but not twenty-seven and aiming for a piece of irreplaceable elven heritage. Then again, the oldest tricks worked the best.

“Security is impossible at night,” she murmured.

“Ana ’eesides, ’ache,” Jenks said as he dropped down, his words slurred as he chewed one of the nectar and pollen balls Belle had made for him. “Ee don’t ’ave time to plan ah ’eel job. Ou’ll ’e great!” He swallowed a chunk. “It’s not that much different from legit work. You get busted for doing that, too, half the time.”

Resettling my scarf, I eyed him sourly. His cheek was still bulging like a chipmunk’s as he furiously chewed. Belle had made his travel food her size, not his, and his kids had had giggling fits this morning when the fairy had gruffly given them to him in a paper sack she had folded herself. Jenks had only said thank you, even as he’d gestured for his kids to leave off. I was proud of him.

“Piece of cake,” I whispered, wanting to ask Ivy for the map.

“Easy as pie!” the pixy said, his fingers now sticking to a napkin. Frustrated, he lifted off the table, taking the napkin with him. His dust shifted to an irate red, and Ivy pinned the paper with her index finger. Wings clattering, he drew his sword, and with three frustrated motions, he rose up, a piece of napkin drifting down under him.

“If you two don’t relax, I’m going to jump Rachel’s jugular,” Ivy muttered, and I slumped into my chair, taking my double shot grande, Italian blend, skim milk, shot of raspberry, no foam coffee with me. Al liked whole milk, but I thought it was too rich that way.

“Sorry.” It bothered me more than I wanted to admit that we had to steal the stupid rings. Involving an innocent kind of bothered me, too. But as Jenks had said, there hadn’t been enough time for Ivy’s usual beauty-in-planning. We had to go in dirty and fast. Get in, move to the secure area where the pieces were being held under the cover of a distraction, do a little light-fingered shopping, and leave a pair of fake rings before walking out the front door with what we’d come for. It was that skinflint elf’s fault—going back on an arranged . . . arrangement. Trent was still in the ever-after, and it bothered me. A lot.

I fiddled with my cup of coffee, feeling the silence become uncomfortable. “I’m glad you’re back,” I said, and Ivy’s eyes flicked to mine. “It’s been quiet.”

Her brow furrowed and she looked away. “I’ll try not to make so much noise.”

Anger flickered and died, and I watched her pupils dilate and return to normal in response. She’d had a difficult night. I could cut her some slack. “I didn’t say you were being noisy. I said it’s been quiet. I also said I’m glad you’re back. I’m sorry you had such a hard night with Nina. Is she going to be okay? Felix was . . .” I hesitated, my anger vanishing as I remembered his hunched shadow, as he stood anguished in my kitchen in a moment of lucidity, his eyes rolling as he looked for me to kill him as a way out of his new hell. “I don’t like undead vampires, the way they use people like tissue and discard them, but seeing him broken like that and losing his mind?” I looked up, seeing her own pain. “I feel bad for him.”

Ivy’s eyes were haunted as she watched her fingers encircle her cup.

“Hey, ah, I’m going to check out the perimeter, okay?” Jenks said, then darted off through the drive-up window, scaring the crap out of the barista managing it. Though the sun was bright this morning, it was too cold for him to be outside long. He’d be back.

Chicken,
I thought, but I didn’t blame him. Ivy exhaled, still avoiding me. Either she would talk or she wouldn’t.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have interfered,” she said, and I strained to hear her over the noise of “background” music and conversation. Ivy’s eyes came up, heartache mirrored in them. “People suffered for me last night, good people. Not just my friends at Piscary’s who fed that monster, but the ones at the safe house, too. Nina agreed to this arrangement with Felix. Who am I to try to help her?”

I leaned over the table, and Ivy flinched as my hand covered hers. The cup was long cold, but her fingers were warm. “Nina did
not
agree to
this
. She bought into a lie, one coated in power and euphoria. People suffered for her, but they did it knowing it was to help one of their own come back. If Nina can survive, if you can bring her back from where Felix filled her with ecstasy and then dumped her, then there’s hope for them. That’s why they took your pain. You gave them hope that they might survive, too.”

Ivy looked away in guilt, and I remembered the wild abandonment I’d seen time and again at Piscary’s under Kisten’s management, living vampires going there to lie to themselves that life was good and they had the world on a string. They needed knowing that there was a way out, perhaps more than they knew.

My eyes were warm with unshed tears, and Ivy blinked fast when she pulled her hand out from under mine. She wanted to believe, but it was hard for her to accept others sacrificing for her.

“Keep Nina safe,” I said, hiding my hand under the table. A resolve had filled me somewhere between finding Felix in my kitchen and Ivy stumbling home last night crying over someone else’s pain. I couldn’t let Ivy suffer the hell I’d seen Felix trapped in. I had to find a way to save her soul.
I had to.

“Thank you,” Ivy whispered, her motion slow as she balled up her ecofriendly napkin. Taking a deep breath, I could almost see her focus on the “now.” “It was a rough night. It took six of us to hold her down when the bloodlust hit her. If this goes okay, I’m going to try to be there when she wakes up so she knows I’m . . . okay.”

She couldn’t look at me, and I wished she wasn’t so ashamed of what we had to do to survive. We all fell. What mattered was what we did after that. “Tell Nina for me that she can do this, okay? That it’s worth it.”
That you’re worth it.

“I will,” she whispered. “Next time I see her. Thank you.”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I was smiling and so was she. Nina was strong. She would survive. I never would have thought that Ivy would ever be on the other end of the addiction, and I was proud of her.

Ivy’s gaze flicked past me. She didn’t move, but something shifted in her, a predator’s quiet breath slipped in and out, and I suppressed a shudder. Just that fast, everything changed.

Reaching for a napkin, I pretended to dab my mouth as I turned to the line. “Is that her?” I said, seeing a blonde with her sweater cut low and her spring skirt cut high. She was in a tight jacket, and she seemed to know everyone behind the counter, talking loud and cheerful as she flirted, waiting for her turn.

Ivy was already reaching for her purse. “Yes,” she said, standing up and not looking at her. “Five minutes to eight. Right on time.”

Jenks dropped down, his wings giving me a bare instant of warning. “She came in in the blue Mustang,” he said, still picking napkin from between his fingers. “I think it’s new since the cover is open. It’s too cold for that unless it’s your first convertible. I’ll get you the keys, Ivy. You’re going to want that top closed.”

“Thanks,” she said, giving me a soft smile before she turned away and breezed out, coming within inches of the woman.

I stood as the blond woman shivered as if chilled. “Chicken,” I berated Jenks as I moved to get in line right behind her.

“You think I’m going to get involved in that heart-to-heart women crap?” he said as he snuggled in behind my scarf. “Hell, no! Aw, she’s sweet! You sure we have to lock her in the trunk?”

When I’m done with her, she’s going to be more pissed than a cat in a well,
I thought as I took a quick step back from her as she ordered. I was afraid if I got too close, I might catch whatever cheerful bug had infected her. It was too early to be that sickeningly bouncy, but I suppose if your job required you to dress as a professional distraction, a happy disposition might be an asset. Right now, she was making me ill on smile overload.

“Holy toad piss,” Jenks muttered. “This woman is even bouncier than you after you’ve got some, Rache.”

“Shut up, Jenks.”

“I haven’t seen you like that in . . . hell, how long has it been?”

“Shut up!” I muttered, tightening my scarf until he called uncle, laughing at me. It had been a while, and even worse, it had been with Pierce. Everyone I had sex with died. Except Marshal, and that had only been because he left in time.

Adrenaline hit me when Ms. Bouncy-Hair finished her transaction, catching my eye as she moved to the pickup counter. She must have heard me telling Jenks to shut up, but being the crazy woman would only help, and I gave her a neutral smile and hitched my shoulder bag higher. Sweet or not, she was our fast and dirty ticket into the museum and behind security doors. I hated locking people in their own trunks. Except for Francis. That had been fun.

I was still wearing my smile as I stepped up to the counter. “Ah, two grandes, black. A skinny chai tea tall, and a vanilla grande with a shot of pumpkin in it if you still have it.” I knew they did. The drinks I ordered were was the exact same ones Ms. Bouncy-Hair had ordered, right down to the size. “Oh, and can you put it all in a to-go bag? Thanks.”

“Got it,” the barista said, never looking up, never noticing it was a duplicate order. Junior would have, and I was glad he wasn’t here.

I handed the barista a bill to cover it, turning around to see the blue Mustang in the parking lot, the top still open to the sky. “Thank you,” I said around a yawn as he gave me my change. Eight? Was it really eight? Adrenaline or not, this was an insane time to be up. That was humanity’s problem right there. They were brain damaged from the early sun.

“Ah, Rache?” Jenks whispered, poking me in the neck, and I jumped, giving the barista a faint smile as I moved down.

I stood just inside most people’s personal zone, and sure enough, Ms. Bouncy-Hair noticed, shifting down a smidge. My pulse quickened. I couldn’t help it. Maybe I was as bad as Ivy. When the woman’s order slid onto the counter in one of those paper trays, I was ready.

“Thanks, Bill!” she called out cheerfully, reaching for it as I leaned in as if going for it too. The woman got there first, her hands full of hot coffee as she turned, smashing right into my upraised hand. It would have gone all over me, but I was the one planning accidents, and with a little flip, it went down her front instead.

“What the fuck!” the woman exclaimed, staggering back with her entire order spilled on the floor. Well, not all of it, and her pink V-neck sweater was now an ugly brown.

“Ooh, mouthy,” Jenks said, and I heard him take to the air, wings clattering.

My shock was fake, but it looked real enough. I’d had plenty of practice. “Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed, standing there with my eyes wide and hands up in the helpless-me position. “I am so-o-o-o sorry!”

The baristas were already moving to mop it up, and she dropped back to the tables and chairs, disgust swamping her. “Bill, can I have another set?” she said, and then muttered at me, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going,” as if embarrassed for the F bomb she’d dropped.