Kim Harrison - The Undead Pool

His door thumping shut shocked through me, and a few slipped my leash, returning almost immediately with an image. His head was down, and his hand was bandaged. He had all five fingers, though, and he’d found a clean set of clothes somewhere.

“Don’t touch me,” I said softly as a cloud of mystics ushered him forward, feeding off a faded emotion, intensifying it.

Shoes scuffing on the sidewalk, he halted five feet back. There were no lights, and he was a dark shadow under the trees. “It’s just me,” he said, and his voice rose and fell to make my heart ache more.

Setting my feet down, I turned to look at him with my own eyes instead of the mystics’. “You’re full of wild magic. If I touch you, she might find me.” Anguish rose up, biting and thick. “I tried!” I wailed suddenly, and his head dropped in understanding. “They won’t go back. They adapted to me and refused to meld with her. Now she’s out to kill me, and if she doesn’t manage it, then she’s dead herself, changed into something new, something I made.”

Trent came closer, and I stiffened until he sat at the far end of the bench. The distance made me feel better, and together we looked out over the Hollows. “How did you find me?” I said, almost whispering it.

He leaned back against the bench and sighed. “Like I always do; I know where you go when you’re in trouble. Bis is worried sick. Your aura has shifted again and he can’t find you.”

I looked at my hand as if I could see it. “I really screwed this up.”

“No, not really.” The hint of his usual confidence didn’t make me feel any better. “Landon has been stopped and the dewar and enclave are both denying any knowledge of what he was doing—though I doubt that is true. No one on the train died, not even the conductor who was shot. Nina didn’t crash her car into the train. The Weres in Cincinnati have found an unexpected, uneasy truce in their unification. Unfortunately it’s against elves. On the good side, the undead are beginning to wake up. You made the news, but the headlines are positive.”

Swallowing hard, I came out with what really bothered me. “I’m sorry I left you like that.” Maybe if I hadn’t, things would have been different.

Trent’s head shifted back and forth in denial, a dark shadow under the trees. “No. Etude can only carry one, and staying wasn’t an option. You did the right thing.” He hesitated. “Even if it was the hardest thing I’ve had to endure to date.”

Frustration pulled me straight, and my back hit the hard bench. “It did no good. The Goddess can absorb the splintered mystics,” I said, gesturing at nothing. “What she can’t handle are those reformatted for a reality-based mind.” He looked at me, and I shrugged. “That would be me. I held them too long. They changed in order to communicate with me. It seems to be a better system than she has, and it began to cascade through her. I fled to keep her from being swamped, but this has happened before, according to her, and as soon as she gets angry enough, she’s going to hunt me down and crush me so that the mystics I’ve corrupted won’t cause her to change.” Won’t kill her, I thought, miserable.

My eyes grew warm, and I wiped them before I could cry. Silent, Trent propped his ankle up on his knee in thought. “If it’s happened before, the demons might know something about it.”

I stiffened. “I’m not calling Al. I have mystics in me! Your Goddess!” I protested, but what worried me more was that Trent and I were a couple, and Al would know that beyond a doubt. It wasn’t just that we had had sex. We were making decisions together. We were shaping the world. Damn it, we were . . . were . . .

Emotion plinked through me as Trent took my hand and leaned over the space between us. “I am not ashamed of who I love.”

My heart pounded, but there wasn’t a whisper of wild magic in him. “I’m not either,” I whispered. It was as much as I could give right now, but it was everything. “Trent . . .”

He stood, his hand slipping from mine. “It will be okay,” he said, but I couldn’t see his face, shadowed in the dark. “Al can lift them out of you. Newt was catching them in a jar, so there’s a way to contain them. He’s been in your mind before, so Al knows what’s you and what isn’t.” Trent looked past me to the turmoil in Cincinnati. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

“You can’t stop him,” I protested, heart thudding. “There’s got to be another way.”

Trent shook his head. “This is the only way.”

“Trent . . .”

“It will be okay,” he said, and my heart just about broke when he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Algaliarept, I summon you,” he said softly, and I jerked back.

“This isn’t safe!” I protested, feeling as if the world was backward. He was summoning Al with no circle, and I was the one complaining.

“No, it isn’t.” Al’s voice rolled out of the darkness, and I stood, heart pounding.

Al was on the wide sidewalk. Behind him, Cincinnati tore herself apart, a suitable backdrop to his elegant crushed green velvet frock, walking stick, and top hat. “Al,” I begged for understanding, but I knew the demon hadn’t grasped the depth of the situation because I was still breathing.

“Help her,” Trent said simply, and by the light of the moon, I saw Al’s eyes narrow.

I flinched as Al strode forward, gripping my jaw to look into my eye. The mystics rose up, and I frantically demanded be still, be still, be still, terrified.

“Do you realize what you have done!” Al shoved me away.

Trent lunged, catching me before I fell, and we stood before him. Al was pissed, but he still didn’t realize it all.

“Help her,” Trent repeated. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t turned your back on her.”

“Do not blame this anathema on me!” Al shouted, his voice echoing back from the town houses across the park. “I said to walk away. There’s no solution here! You should have let the world go to hell!”

“They’ve become attached to her,” Trent said, because I was too scared to say it. “You’ve been in her mind. You know what is her and what isn’t. Take out what doesn’t belong.”

The top of the cane cracked as Al gripped it. “and then what?” he said, taking three steps closer. “Put them in a jar? Don’t you understand?” He dropped his head, his eyes holding hate when he looked up. “There is no Goddess!” he said, hammering the words at Trent. “There never was! These voices she says she hears . . .” Al drew back in disgust. “They’re in her head alone. She is insane!”

“Al!” I shouted when he reached for Trent, but Trent did nothing, grim faced as Al twined his gloved hand into Trent’s shirt and pulled him close.

“And you pushed her into it,” Al snarled. But then his expression went empty, and he let Trent go, backing up until he could run his eyes Trent’s full length. “You slept with her,” he said, but it wasn’t a question.

Oh God. Now it was going to get bad.

“You slept with him!” Al exclaimed, coattail furling as he spun to me. “Y-You,” he stammered, unable to find the words. “I gave you everything! And you repay me with this?”

Al recoiled when I reached for him, and my heart seemed to twist. “Al, please,” I begged. “I didn’t mean it to happen.”

Al pulled his lips from his teeth in a savage snarl. “You let it happen.”