The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)

“You stupid bitches,” he snarled, and then he dropped to a kneel, hands laced behind the back of his head as the doors slid apart and angry, yelling men in ACG gear and bulletproof vests ran into the room.

It was an excellent idea, and I held my hands up, gun dangling. I hated it when the good guys didn’t recognize me. But then again, I was covered in blood. None of it was mine. I think.

“Don’t shoot the women!” Jenks was shouting as he wove between Ivy and me. “Tink loves a duck, you’re dumber than a troll’s dildo! Don’t you know a runner when you see one?”

“Ivy?” Nina cried in fear when a well-meaning man dragged her into the elevator.

With a quick palm thrust, Ivy snapped back the head of the man trying to cuff her. She bolted to the elevator, grabbing a gun from a second scared officer and throwing it across the room. “Don’t let him in!” Ivy cried out, falling beside Nina and grabbing her shoulders to make her look at her. “Nina, I’m here. We can get through this. I won’t leave you!”

Her cry brought everyone up short, and I could have smacked Felix’s face clean off when he watched, soaking in the emotion and relishing the pain and fear he was creating.

But he wasn’t trying to take Nina over, and I absently handed my gun to the man demanding it, having to lean around the flood of angry officers in order to see Nina and Ivy. Felix was being cooperative, which was more than a little disconcerting. Mad men do not submit.

“I don’t feel good,” Nina said, her complexion becoming decidedly green.

“She’s going to blow chunks!” Jenks warned, and I winced when she began to throw up great gouts of black vomit. It tended to clear a room out fast, and everyone gave her space as Ivy held her hair out of the way. Felix, the bastard, seemed amused.

“Sure, laugh now while you got the chance,” I whispered, and he turned to me, clearly having heard.

But the elevator opened again and more FIB and I.S. guys poured out. “Edden!” I called as I saw his balding head among the rest. David was with him, looking an odd mix with his long duster and borrowed FIB hat, and a knot of worry eased. He was all right. He must have escaped the chaos upstairs and gone for help. Seeing me, his lips curved up in relief and I knew we were okay.

Felix was smiling despite his hands being cuffed behind his back. As the only awake undead, he might be able to turn this around, especially if he kept acting cooperatively. But I’d seen the madness behind his eyes. He wouldn’t take Nina with him—not if I could help it.

“She’s been attacked,” I heard Ivy snarl at someone. “Get away from her.”

“I’m good?” I asked the man checking out my ID, and he nodded, handing my gun back. “Edden! David!” I called, and David touched Edden on the shoulder, leaving him with two officers as he started to me. Tired, I leaned against the back of a couch, getting nasty, icky blood all over it.

“I know I said I’d call you,” the Were said as he closed the gap. “But they did an end-around and took my scouts by surprise. I went to the church, but you were already gone— Hey!”

I pulled him into a hug, breathing in the complex scent of woods and gunpowder. “I thought you were upstairs in that mess,” I said. “I was so mad.” Leaning back, I looked at his grinning, sheepish face. “I still am mad!” I said louder. “Damn it, David. You’ve got to be more careful!”

Jenks wreathed us with a silver dust. “She was ready to avenge you,” he said, laughing. “I’ve never seen her aura like that, all silvery with the need to do mean justice.”

“I was not,” I said, embarrassed that some of the officers were listening. “Okay, I was,” I admitted. “So I take it you found some Free Vampires. Is everyone upstairs going to be okay?”

He nodded. “They are, though I might have to watch a couple of the younger ones for a while to make sure they don’t need some extra help avoiding addiction.” He leaned in, whispering, “They’ll be fine. The focus is stronger than any residual vampiric pheromone bonds.”

That was a relief, and I gave his shoulder a last shove to show how much he meant to me as Edden finished up with his officers and came forward. “You could have called,” I said.

“They took my phone.” There was a swelling on his face, and he wasn’t standing with his weight on both feet. Clearly he was hurting, and David shifted to make room for Edden.

“Rachel,” the older man said as he rolled to a stop, hands in his pockets as he ran his eyes up and down me. He didn’t look much better than David, and I wondered when was the last time he slept. “This looks familiar,” he added as he took in the mess and the officers trying to make sense of it.

“Ah, we need an lightproof bag from the I.S.,” I said as I looked at the two guys trying to wake Cormel up. “Cormel needs protective custody. I don’t care if Felix is acting sane, he isn’t.”

Head bobbing, Edden crossed his arms over his chest. “You got a few minutes to give a statement?” Edden asked, and my eyes narrowed.

“You got a few minutes to answer your phone?” I shot back, and he ducked his head, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

“Sorry.”

It was the best I was going to get, and I pushed off from the couch, leaning on David as we limped to the elevator. Nina and Ivy were in it, and Ivy held it for me when she saw us coming. “Thanks for getting here when you did,” I said to David and Edden. “I think we can safely say the Free Vampires are trying to rid Cincinnati of the undead, and they don’t care how many people they hurt doing it.”

Edden winced, looking at David. “That’s what he said, but seriously?” he said, still not believing it when David nodded. “They’re nothing more than a cult. A not-well-funded one at that. Where are they getting the magic to control the waves?”

Elves? whispered through me, and I banished the thought. Trent would know, wouldn’t he? He was their unofficial leader, their Sa’han. “I don’t know, but it’s not the demons,” I said as the doors slid closed and the lift jiggled into motion. “Al said the waves are being collected before they can leave the area. I think Cincinnati is a test case. One of the vampires upstairs said they came here to get Felix, probably because he hasn’t fallen asleep like the rest. If you give him enough rope, they might come find him again, but I want protection for Ivy and Nina.”

“We’ll be fine,” Ivy protested as she held Nina upright, gaze falling when I looked at her. The memory of my pack members taking my punishment was too new.

“I’ll see to it,” Edden said as the lift lurched to a halt and opened. Mustache bunching, he held the door so we could all limp out. The huge clock in the small room off the kitchen stared at me. Only fifteen minutes had passed. It felt like more.

“We need to find them like now,” I said, everything hurting. “If we can’t stop them from pulling wild magic out of my line, the undead will be dead by week’s end. They’re starving to death, Edden.”

Edden sighed and held the door from the kitchen to the old dining room open. The come-and-go of radios and the chatter of FIB officers became louder, and the air fresher. “Happy Independence Day,” Edden said softly.

Below us was blood, and violence. Before us, the blood-strewn room was now empty of people and looking like a macabre painting. Felix had been more vampiric than any other vampire I’d ever seen. Happy Independence Day indeed. “Someone has a sense of humor,” I said, shuffling from the kitchen, and Edden grunted his agreement.

But it wasn’t funny. If the master vampires were not around to control the living, then who was going to do it?

And were the elves behind it? Somebody was funding them. HAPA was down and disorganized. Same for the men-who-don’t-belong. Witches wouldn’t jeopardize their own magic like this. Demons would love the mischief, but wouldn’t use wild magic to do it. Elves . . . maybe.

Lunch with Trent tonight was suddenly sounding a lot more interesting.

Twelve

Rachel? Hot dog or ribs?”

I cracked an eye, gut clenching at the thought of ribs slathered in sticky red: no ribs—not after wading through Piscary’s blood-drenched upstairs this morning, not after spending fifteen minutes scrubbing it out from under my fingernails, not after the innocence of Trent’s and Quen’s girls putting a ballerina Band-Aid on my skinned elbow.

“Hot dog.” Trent’s eyebrows rose, but he dutifully passed the request to Jonathan before ambling back to the long teak table under the canopy where the two men from the elven religious sect sat deep in discussion about how Free Vampires might harness wild magic. I had yet to bring up the possibility that the elves were behind it. Diplomacy, you are my middle name.

“Ray! No! Mine!” Lucy shrilled, and I smiled as I settled myself deeper into the cushy lounge chair at the extravagantly landscaped pool. My eyes were shut, and I drank in the world through my ears: the hiss of the grill burning away the sugar sweetness, Ellasbeth’s admonishment that Ray share the toys, Trent’s musical, muted response, the sound of water tinkling in the kiddie pool. Family had never sounded so good.

But my smile faded at Bancroft’s grating southern drawl, his words indistinct but the emotion clear. The faint chill in the air from the setting sun seemed to cascade over me, and I shivered. Bancroft was the official of Trent’s religion, dressed the part in a long purple robe I wouldn’t expect in Ohio, no-nonsense shiny dress shoes poking out from underneath. I’d talked to him briefly before he grabbed his assistant, Landon, and retreated to a quiet room. He was back now, and I’d come to the conclusion that as polite as he was, he really didn’t like me. I knew it wasn’t anything I’d said or done. It was what I was, and it bothered me I hadn’t had the chance to show him how nasty I could be before he wrote me off.

Smirking, I settled deeper into the cushions as Jonathan dabbed sauce on the ribs and they flamed up. It was blissful here, but the trip out had been a nightmare of roadblocks and checkpoints. A terrified world was watching Cincinnati now that the misfires were on the decline and the vampire violence rising, most people demanding a lockdown until it could be determined who was causing the undead to slumber. I’d be going home by ley line if they cordoned off Cincinnati and the Hollows. It was becoming a distinct possibility. I’d seen too many ambulances today, heard too many sirens, witnessed too much grief. My mind drifted as I began to fall asleep, twitching at the flash of memory of the blood-smeared bodies at the tavern. Felix is awake because his age-born disease makes him always hunger. Why is that significant?

The sound of beating wings fluttered, and the dream of purple blinking eyes lifted through me. They were taking Ivy from me, and the purple eyes became vampire black and angry.

“Don’t wake her.” Ellasbeth’s voice slid between my dream of silvery wings, and the wheels with eyes faltered.

From right over me, Quen’s voice said, “Her hot dog is done.”

“Aunt Rachel is napping. Shhhh,” Lucy said brightly, and the last of the wings beat at the eyes, smothering them until they were gone.

I pulled myself awake, smiling at Quen as I sat up. He had two plates of food, and I thought it funny that they were paper. It was almost as odd as seeing him in casual jeans and a polo shirt. “I’m not asleep. I was listening to everything.”

Knowing it for the lie it was, Quen handed me a plate. I took it, needing to sit up even more. I couldn’t help but wonder if Ellasbeth had been being nice or if she simply hadn’t wanted me taking part in dinner. Ribs, hot dogs, macaroni salad, baked beans, and chips. Who knew? Maybe they were practicing for the Fourth.

“Lucy,” I said, seeing her sitting on Trent’s lap as he continued to discuss some small point of religious belief with Bancroft under the canopied table. “Did you know that you can hear everything better when your eyes are closed?”

Ellasbeth eyed me from the inflatable pool set beside the fenced-off pool. She looked fittingly perfect in her swimsuit and light pullover with her feet in the water, Ray between them as the little girl watched the water run off her hands as she lifted them, then reached for more.

Lucy, though, settled onto Trent’s lap with a little bounce. Sitting with a new stiffness, she closed her eyes, the picture of stillness for all of three seconds before opening her eyes and sliding down her father’s legs. Wearing a wicked grin, she jumped into the pool. Water hit Ray, and the little girl started crying as Lucy splashed harder. Wailing, Ray clutched at Ellasbeth, and the woman lifted her up, admonishing Lucy to settle down as the dark-haired little girl pouted and glared, clutching Ellasbeth for security. I ate a chip, thinking Lucy had better stop tormenting her sister or she was going to find worms in her hair before her second birthday.

Then I looked up, surprised to see Quen still standing over me. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked, and I glanced at my plate. I wasn’t used to being waited on, and not by someone who could flatten me with magic or martial arts.

“No thanks. I’ve got my iced tea.”

“Mind if I sit down?” he added, his attention on the chair beside my lounger, and I put my feet on the patio and sat all the way up.

“Sure. Go ahead.” I eyed my dog with all the trimmings, then Jonathan. Maybe I’d just stick with the salad.

Quen gracefully sat, the love in his eyes for Ray obvious as he watched Ellasbeth dry her off and help her into a robe. Lucy had taken over the pool, and Ray made her determined way to Trent with a rubber duck in her grip. It was an odd sort of family but it was a family, and I was grudgingly impressed with how Ellasbeth had endeared the girls to her. I hated to admit it, but she seemed to know what she was doing.