Kim Harrison - The Undead Pool

I slowly looked him up and down. He seemed to be taking this rather well, but then again, I’d seen him kill a man in his office. Flashing me a mirthless smile, he started scanning the place. “You see a tablecloth anywhere?”

To cover the dead vampire, I thought, shaking my head. The woman was still crying. I knew I should comfort her, but I was kind of pissed at her right now. Leaving her to cry, I found my shoulder bag and dug out my phone.

“How come you got a signal?” Trent said, grunting when he checked his phone and found the towers were back up. Unfortunately the 911 circuits were busy with a recorded message saying to hold for a thirty-minute wait time.

“Nuts to that,” I said, thinking I wasn’t going to spend my night here with a dead vampire. Hanging up, I called Edden’s direct line. “Edden,” I said as soon as his deep, low voice came clear over the sound of ringing phones and tense voices.

“Rachel? I don’t have time right now.”

Impatient, I pressed the phone to my ear. “I’m in a bar on Hostant Drive. I’ve got two vampires under sleep charms and another dead, possibly twice from a hole in her chest.”

Edden went silent, and the woman stopped crying at the sound of Trent locking the front door. “Oh,” Edden finally said. “Did you call 911?”

“Duh! There’s like a thirty-minute wait time. Edden, is there a vamp war going on? They mentioned something about free vampires.” Suddenly itchy, I turned to the door, wanting to leave.

“If there is, it involves all of them.” Edden’s voice went distant for a moment, then came back stronger. “My God, it’s a mess. The I.S. is completely down. Looks like one of your misfire waves came through again. Hold on.”

“It’s not my wave,” I muttered, one arm across my middle as Trent finally got the woman to get up off the floor and into a chair facing away from the blood and violence. “Edden,” I started when I heard the phone picked back up.

“Do you have the situation contained?” he asked, and my eyes met Trent’s. He probably didn’t want to be seen here with a corpse on the floor.

“Unless their friends show up. Yes.”

“Okay. Good. I’m sending someone right now. There’s a fire a few blocks from you, so it won’t be but five minutes. Just sit tight. Can you do that?”

I looked at the woman sobbing quietly to herself. It was more gentle, broken almost, but I remembered her fear and her outright decisive lethal action. Forty years of carefully built coexistence gone in five terrifying minutes. We were that close to losing it all.

“I’ll be here,” I said softy. “We could really use an ambulance while you’re at it. Someone was burned very badly at the fire. And thanks.”

Muttering something, he hung up. Not closing the phone, I called David’s number, but there was no answer and I didn’t leave a message. Trent was standing behind the bar, pouring vodka into a single glass when I texted Ivy that I ran into some difficulty but was okay and would be home a little later than planned. No need to tell her that vampires were behaving badly. She probably already knew that. I hoped Nina was okay. The safe houses would be busy tonight.

“You ever hear of free vampires?” I said as I went to the bar to sit and wait. Head shaking no, Trent set the vodka beside the woman and returned to stand beside me and lean against the bar, his entire body stiff with tension. “That was fun,” I said sarcastically, then noticed a darker anger in him, one deeper than the mess before us would warrant. “You okay?”

“I called to tell Quen that I was all right, and he informed me Ellasbeth is refusing to bring the girls home.”

Lips parting, I reached out. “What? She can’t do that! Ray isn’t even hers!”

My eyes darted to the dead vampire, unsure if that sigh had been caused by a muscle release or voluntary.

“Ellasbeth says that with the misfires impacting Cincinnati she has every right not to bring them into a dangerous situation,” he said. “That the estate is outside of the area doesn’t seem to matter.”

Worried, I gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m sorry. You know you’ll get them back. She can’t do this.”

His expression eased as his attention came back to me, and I suddenly realized we were inches apart. “Yes, I will,” he said softly. “How are you? Still shaky?”

Feeling the warmth between us, I looked at my skinned elbow. “Fine. Edden’s sending someone. You can go if you want. We’ll be okay.” Unless the bartender had another gun stashed somewhere.

He glanced over at the bar, gaze settling on the rifle with his prints on it. “I’ll wait. Besides, this is the most excitement I’ve had in three months.” His smile went right through me, warming me from the inside. “I’m glad we did this,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

“The date, right?” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Not the . . . this?”

Eyebrows high, he brushed me as he leaned over the bar for a bottled water. Tingles raced up my arm, and I didn’t move. “I can honestly say that a date is nothing like working with you,” he said as he cracked the top of it and handed it to me.

I took it, taking the first swig before handing it back. I was curious to see if he’d drink from it as well. My skin was still tingling, and my heart pounded when he looked at his watch, smiled, and then leaned in to kiss me.

My first flash of annoyance evaporated in a puff. His hands pulled me closer, and the sensation of fire dove through me, plinking every single trigger I had. The scent of cinnamon and vampire pheromones rose, and a soft sigh escaped me. This wasn’t enough, and uncaring of tomorrow, I slid from the stool. Our lips parted as he stumbled, and then I pulled him to me, arms going around him and up into his hair.

I had spent the last three months looking at his hair, wondering what it would feel like in my fingers again. Three long months I’d watched him move, seen him in every possible piece of clothing and wondered what he’d look like out of them and how he might move against me when the darkness was velvet and the sheets were cool. Three months of saying no, be good Rachel, be smart, Rachel.

I wanted one damn kiss, and I was going to have it, by God.

“You are fucking animals!” the woman at the table exclaimed, and when Trent’s lips threatened to slip from mine, I sent the barest dart of tongue past his lips to recapture his attention. It worked. His breath caught, and I swear the man growled. His arm crushed me to him, and it was all I could do to not wrap my legs around him. Bar stools could hold that much weight, right?

“There are three dead vampires on my floor, and you are making out?”

Energy darted between us, and breathless, I pulled back, the sound of our lips parting sparking through me. Trent’s eyes smoldered. I held their heat, tasting him on my lips. It wasn’t the vampire pheromones in here. It was three months of saying no.

“Relax,” I said to her, never dropping Trent’s gaze. My heart was pounding, and I still didn’t care about tomorrow. “Only one of them is dead, and I think she’s going to make it. You probably won’t even have any jail time.”

“Jail time! They tried to blood rape me!”

“Like I said. No jail time.”

Trent was still silent, but he was smiling at the sound of boots and the flash of cop lights on the front sidewalk. The woman made a tiny sound and ran to unlock the door. We slowly parted, his hand slipping from me in a sensation of tingles. My smile faded as I looked at his hand and realized I’d never hold it again.