The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)

Trent gingerly sat beside me, checking to see that his head was below the level of the piled desks. Reaching out across the space, the two men shook hands. “I’ve known him all my life and I think I can help.” But doubt was creeping into his eyes as he followed Bancroft’s voice over the demolished floor open to the wind on two sides. I was starting to have serious doubts myself. The man sounded nuts.

Landon stirred. Stubble shrouded his face, thicker than Trent’s and somehow ugly. “I can’t believe you brought her,” he said, his voice flat and his eyes malevolent. “Are you intentionally being contrary, or is this the famed Kalamack pride I’m seeing?”

Trent’s expression darkened, but it was Edden who shoved between us, his face red as he exclaimed, “Landon, you’re here as a courtesy! One more word, and you go down with the next body. Got it?”

The elevator dinged, and everyone looked as the plainclothes man and two of the officers came out of the second elevator. Lips tight, Landon averted his eyes, his show of contriteness just that. “Sir?” the man from downstairs asked as he looked at me.

Edden’s frown deepened. “Just take the bodies down,” he muttered. “And someone post a memo that Rachel Morgan can see me any time the thought enters her head, okay?”

Mollified, I eased closer to Trent, watching Landon closely as Edden took his hard hat off to run a hand over his hair. He looked tired as he put it back on and turned to the nest. Behind him, one of the bodies was lifted onto a gurney and taken downstairs. “I don’t know what you think you can do, Mr. Kalamack. We brought in Bancroft and Landon early this morning for breaking curfew, releasing them once we realized they were collecting data about the waves. We didn’t know Bancroft was, ah . . . an elven holy man.”

It had been hard for him to say, and I understood. How do you easily acknowledge a religion that’s been in hiding for two thousand years?

“I thought that was the end of it, but I came in this morning to find they went to the top floor to take more readings.” Edden gestured at the destruction. “And then this happened. There should be thirty people up here handling this, and I’ve got two. I was lucky to get the dogs up here to look for survivors.” Softer, he added, “Most of our resources are at a gymnasium full of high school kids being detained by vampires because some idiot kid yelled ‘Free Vampires rule.’ I’m running out of lies, Rachel, but the truth will ignite forty years of hidden hatred and fear.”

“My God,” I whispered, thinking of Ivy, and Edden held up a hand.

“We’ve got it under control,” he said, but I didn’t feel any better. “The I.S. has a couple of agents over there helping us defuse the situation, but eventually someone is going to do something stupid we can’t come back from.” He looked over the pile of desks and chairs to where Bancroft shouted. “It was a mistake to name the Free Vampires as the reason for the masters being asleep. I don’t know why I went along with it except that everyone is afraid of a plague, and only half the population is afraid of vampires.”

My eyes slid to Landon, who was ignoring me with a stiff-jawed determination. I could tell by the slant of his shoulders that he’d pushed for it. My frustration deepened, tinged with fear for Ivy. We had to find these guys and get the master vampires awake before the vampires started staking each other first and asking questions later.

Trent’s feet shifted, the thick grit soundless between his feet and the flat carpet. “Edden, can I talk to him? Something triggered this. Maybe I can find out what.”

“You’re not going closer,” I said, glancing up at what used to be the ceiling. “Jenks?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a bullhorn?” Trent said as the pixy dropped down.

“Rachel is right,” Edden said as he gestured for one of the officers to hand it over. “It’s unclear if he killed the negotiator intentionally or not, but I don’t like his talk about goats. Newman, call and stop the ambulance crew from coming back up. I don’t want any misunderstanding.”

Goats? Trent took the bullhorn, and I put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Hold on a sec. Jenks? What does it look like in there?”

The pixy’s face was screwed up in a puzzled expression. “It’s as weird as a troll living in his mother’s basement, Rache,” he said, and the officers working the monitor turned to him. Even Landon was watching, and knowing it, Jenks’s dust shifted to a nervous pink. “That pile of stuff is a big hollow ball, with lights inside everywhere making it brighter than day.”

“Hostages?” Edden asked.

“No. Just him.”

Clearly relieved, Trent rested the bullhorn on the top of the uppermost desk. Landon was watching him with an unnerving intensity that tightened my suspicion. The elf knew something. He just wasn’t saying. Frowning, I toyed with the idea of asking Edden to beat it out of him before his silence killed us. Instead, I inched closer to Trent and renewed my grip on the ley line.

The bullhorn popped as Trent thumbed the circuit open. “Bancroft?”

“Too bright!” Bancroft was shouting, his voice muffled. “Need to be higher, higher than the light. Must get between it where it’s dark. Stop looking at me, you damn harlots!”

Trent’s brow furrowed, and I edged even closer. “Bancroft, it’s Trent.”

“Trent?” Bancroft’s tirade cut off. From the pile in the corner came a sliding crash. “Trent! Did you bring your goat?”

The officers swore as Bancroft stumbled out. He was ragged, his face stubbled and his cylindrical hat sitting askew. His hands hid his eyes as if the light pained him. “Trent, we were right,” he said as he tripped over the debris, seemingly oblivious that he could walk around them. “The mystics have splintered, gone insane. I can hear them. They have to be freed so the Goddess can make them whole again.”

Jenks’s wings hummed. “He’s nuts,” he said. I agreed, but when the officer next to me rested a long-range dart rifle on the desktop, I turned to Edden.

“You’re going to dart him?” I said, appalled.

“Easy now,” Edden said, his eyes on Bancroft. “It can take thirty seconds to work. I don’t want tomorrow’s headlines to read ‘Elven Holy Man Jumps from FIB Tower.’ Wait until he’s away from the edge.”

“He’s not an animal!” I protested, and Edden’s eyes flicked from mine to Trent’s.

“The last person who tried magic on him is dead.”

“Well, thanks for the heads-up,” I said sarcastically, seriously thinking about dropping the line, but I didn’t. A protection circle was fairly innocuous. My skin was prickling. Bancroft had stopped moving and was tugging chairs and chunks of wallboard into a circle around him as if instinctively starting another nest.

“Rache, something wicked is coming,” Jenks said as he tucked back in at my shoulder.

I stifled a shudder as the feeling of cat feet walked through my soul. “I feel it too.”

“It’s coming from Bancroft,” Jenks said, and Trent swore. “Use your second sight,” the pixy suggested. “That’s what your aura looked like, Rache. Right before those waves hit us.”

My lips parted when I pulled up my second sight to find Bancroft’s aura was a harsh white, flaring as if his soul were on fire. A wave? I wondered, and Jenks shook his head at my unspoken question. He was just covered in mystics.

“Is he close enough?” Trent said, and the man with the rifle shook his head, his gaze never shifting from Bancroft as the man dropped a monitor on top of a new wall of trash. Trent tightened his grip on the bullhorn. “Bancroft? We can get you some help.”

Bancroft patted the broken monitor, pleased with where he’d put it. “Help? Nothing can help me. I hear her eyes. All the time. Whispering, prickling through me,” he said, and a chill dropped through me when he looked up, his eyes reflecting the light like a cat’s. “I’m hers,” he moaned, weaving on his feet. “I’m her chattel,” he said, heedless to the tears making shining tracks through his stubble. “It’s too bright. Too bright,” he chanted, and then he wiped his eyes, his face becoming crafty. “She’s coming. I have to be free of them or she’ll kill me to get her eyes back!”

The man with the rifle shook his head, still not having a clean shot.

“Bancroft! Wait!” Trent shouted, but the man was climbing over the broken ceiling and walls back to his larger pile.

“Not enough goats,” the man was mumbling, picking up a ream of paper and dropping it on the pile. “Not enough goddamned goats!”

“Give me the gun.” Trent shoved the bullhorn at Edden. “I can get closer than your men.”

My stomach clenched and Jenks’s wings clattered.

“With all due respect, Mr. Kalamack,” Edden said. “No.”

My heart thudded, thinking first of Trent, angry and unafraid, and then what I’d risk to keep him from doing something dangerous. “I’ll do it,” I said, voice sounding hollow.

“Rache,” Jenks protested, and Edden shook his head.

“Who do you have that’s better than me?” I said. “A splat ball will drop him instantaneously. I’d do it from here, but my range sucks.”

“I’ll do it,” Landon proclaimed as he stood. “Give me the gun.”

Like that was going to happen? Edden’s expression twisted into a sour mess. “Get him downstairs,” he said, gesturing for one of the officers to take him, and Landon protested, head high and eyes wild. “Second thought, we can’t spare the man. Lock him to a pole.”

“You don’t have to lock me up!” Landon demanded, but there was already a zip strip around his wrist making him pretty much helpless. The officer knew what he was doing, carefully manhandling him to a fallen emergency sprinkler system and cuffing him to it.

“Trent?” Bancroft shouted, and a billow of smoke poured out of the nest. “Did you bring your goat? We can stop this now if you brought your goat.”

Jenks’s dust turned gray as he hovered. “What the pixy pus is he talking about?”

Rambling about goats, Bancroft shoved and tripped his way out again. The man with the rifle put him in his sights, and my heart pounded as I found my splat gun. I’d have to get close, dangerously close. It didn’t help that the old elf already distrusted me.

“If you kill your goat, the Goddess won’t become any sicker. We can mend her. You and I. It would be a great thing. Good for publicity. It would bring the unbelievers back to the fold and solidify your standing in the enclave. The Goddess needs adherence!” Bancroft exclaimed, then hesitated as he looked at the small circle of stuff he’d laid out as if not remembering having done it. “She needs obedience. Are you pious, Trent? Your mother was a poser.”

My motion to inch out hesitated as Trent’s hands clenched on the bullhorn.

“She didn’t believe, and the Goddess killed her.” Bancroft staggered to a broken table, almost falling as he set it legs up on the pile. “Her eyes are whispering to me, how your mother asked for guidance and strength and then refused when the Goddess demanded payment.”

Trent’s expression became tight, and I crouched, waving him to stay back. Jenks’s dust was a silver white, the sparkles looking like the beginning of a migraine.

“The Goddess destroyed her,” Bancroft said, oblivious to Trent’s anger. “Drew her forth with promises and abandoned her when she needed her most. She’s a proper bitch, she is. The Goddess, not your mother. We shouldn’t be punished for our weaknesses. She gave them to us.”

My feet found a careful place in the rubble as I eased behind a file cabinet. The papers stuck to it fluttered in the stiff wind, blocking my view. Almost close enough . . . If I had more than one shot, I would have taken it.

But then Bancroft’s eyes found mine and I froze, half hidden, half not. “You brought your goat! Good man!” he shouted. “Bring her to the fire and we’ll slit her throat together.”

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, bringing my gun up when Bancroft lunged toward me, motions jerky as he fumbled for that huge knife of his, up to now hidden in the folds of his clothes. Jenks was a haze of dust between us, and I pulled the trigger. Like a villain in a fantasy flick, Bancroft waved his hand and the ball exploded three feet from him.

Gasping, I ducked back to avoid the splattering hot spell. Quickly I jammed the gun in the file cabinet before he burst the rest of the spells in the hopper and put me down with my own weapon. Trent was shouting, and Jenks inked when I suddenly found myself pulled backward, falling into the FIB’s shelter.

Eyes wide, I stared up at Trent.

“Take it!” Edden exclaimed from over me, and then I surged to my feet when the dart gun went off with a little pop. Breath held, I watched Bancroft roll to evade it.

“Unbelievers!” he shouted, clearly not hit. “You will twist and die under her power! She comes! She comes!”

“Oh my God . . .” I breathed as Bancroft ran to the edge, a stark silhouette against the bright light, arms spread wide as he faced Cincinnati. He was going to jump!

“She comes!” he screamed, and in the distance, a siren started, then another.

Trent’s face was pale, and Edden frowned as he stood over the man at the keyboard. “Just what we need,” the man grumbled. “A wave. At least we know it’s headed right for us.”

Because it’s coming for me. Chilled, I looked past Bancroft to the horizon. More sirens were lifting into the air, joined by church bells. “She comes!” Bancroft shouted, his robe falling to his elbows as he shook at the edge of the drop-off.