Kim Harrison - The Undead Pool

“Three hours?” I echoed breathily, seeing much the same behind me at the Cincy end of things. More cars, more police vehicles, more ambulances . . . and a row of eight people, their faces uncovered, telling me they were alive, probably still stuck in whatever I’d been in.

“You weren’t in a car, so I made them leave you,” she said, and I turned back to her, feeling stiff and ill.

My bag was beside her, and I pulled it closer, the fabric scraping unusually rough on my fingertips. “What happened? Where’s Jenks?”

“Looking for something to eat. He’s fine.” Her boots ground against the pavement as she stood to help me rise. Shaking, I got to my feet. “He called me as soon as it happened. I got here before the I.S. even. They’re telling the media an inertia dampening charm triggered the safety spells of every car on the bridge.”

“Good story. I’d stick with that.” I leaned heavily on her as we limped to the side of the bridge and into the shade of a pylon. “But those kind of charms can’t do that.”

“Rache!” a shrill pixy voice called, and I looked up, blinding myself as Jenks dropped down from the sun. “You’re up! See, Ivy. I told you she’d be okay. Look, even her aura is back to normal.”

Well, that was one good thing, but I was starting to see a pattern here, and I didn’t like it. “You got out okay?” I asked, and he landed on Ivy’s shoulder.

“Hell, yes. That wasn’t multiple spells. I watched the whole thing. It was one bubble, and it came from that black car with the jerk-ass driver.”

Hands shaking, I leaned on the cool railing. Two medical people were headed our way, and I winced. “Oh crap,” I whispered, grabbing Ivy’s arm as they descended on us, medical instruments flopping from pockets and their tight grips.

“I’m okay. I’m okay!” I shouted as the first tried to get me to sit back down, and the second started flashing a light in my eyes. “It was just an inertia dampening charm. I think it was so big ordinary metabolic functions couldn’t break it. I got out using a standard breakage charm. And get that light out of my eyes, will you?”

“A breakage charm?” the one trying to fit a blood pressure cuff on me said, and I nodded, glad that ambulance teams were required by law to have at least one witch on staff and he knew what I was talking about.

“I’m willing to try anything,” the first said, turning to look at the line of people.

“They’re going to wake up thirsty,” I said, but they were already striding back to the people under the sheets with a new purpose. Thankful that Ivy hadn’t let them put me in that horrible line, I gave her arm a squeeze. “Thanks,” I whispered, and her fingers slipped from me.

“It works!” came an exuberant cry, and a cheer rose as a man sat up, groggy and holding a hand over his eyes.

I was so glad that I wasn’t going to be the only one to wake up from this. “Where’s my car?” I asked as I scanned for it, and Ivy winced.

“I.S. impound, I think.”

“Swell.” My keys were still in it, and tired, I looked in my bag to make sure I still had that golf ball. “Okay, who out here owes me a favor?”

Jenks rose up from Ivy’s shoulder, turning in midair to look toward Cincinnati. “Edden.”

Nodding, I gathered myself, and as Ivy hovered to catch me if I stumbled, we shuffled that direction. I was surprised. As a captain of the street force of the FIB, or Federal Inderland Bureau, Edden didn’t get out much, but this had happened six blocks from their downtown tower, and with both human and Inderland Security fighting for jurisdiction, he’d want to make sure the I.S. didn’t sweep anything under the carpet.

The chaos was worse on the Cincy side of things and they were still moving cars out. Unfortunately none of them were mine. Behind the blockade were even more official vehicles, and behind them, the expected news vans. I sighed, trying to hide my face as a helicopter thumped overhead. Three hours?

But the shadows on the road agreed with the lapse of time, and as we looked for Edden, I thought back to that inertia bubble. Safety charms didn’t grow that big, and it wasn’t a cascading reaction of one triggering another, either. It had been a misfired charm in a morning of them. What the Turn was going on?

“Found him,” Jenks said, darting away, and Ivy angled to follow his shifting path through the people. It was tight, and I leaned closer to her, not wanting to be bumped. Everything felt uncomfortably intense, even the sun.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I said as I pressed into her to avoid a harried medic looking for a sedation charm for some poor woman. Her husband was fine; she was having hysterics.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

No, it was never my fault, but somehow I always got blamed, and upon reaching the blockade, I dug in my bag for my ID. Ivy had already flashed hers, and after comparing the picture to my face, the two officers let me past. Jenks was hovering over Edden like a tiny spotlight, and I limped a little faster. There were definite advantages to being a noncitizen, but only if you were four inches tall.

Captain Edden had put on a few pounds since taking over the Inderland Relations division after his son had quit. His ex-military build made the stress weight look solid, not fat, and I smiled as he took off his sunglasses, his eyes showing a heavy relief that I was no longer out cold on the pavement. Standing beside an open car door, he finished giving two officers direction before turning to us.

“Rachel!” he exclaimed, thick hand finding my shoulder briefly in a heartfelt squeeze. “Thank God you’re okay. That wasn’t you, was it? Trying to stop something worse, maybe? You would not believe my day. The I.S. is so busy with misfired charms that they don’t even care we’re out here.”

“Wasn’t me this time,” I said as we came to a halt in an open patch of concrete. “And why is everything automatically my fault?”

The bear of a man gave me a sideways hug, filling me with the scent of coffee and aftershave. “Because you’re usually mixed up in it somewhere.” His tone was pleased, but I could see the worry. “I wish it had been you,” he said, his eyes flicking to include Ivy and Jenks as he put an arm over my shoulder and moved us away from the news vans. “The I.S. is giving me some bull about it having been a cascading inertia dampening charm.”

Jenks rose up, but I interrupted him, saying, “It was an inertia charm, but it was one charm, not a bunch of them acting in concert. It came from about three cars ahead of mine. Probably the black convertible the kid was driving.” I hesitated. “Is he okay?” Edden nodded, and I added, “Nothing came from my car. If it had, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of it.”

Edden chewed on his lower lip, clearly not having thought it through that far. The I.S. would have, though. Ivy looked tense, and I was glad I had friends who’d sit with me on the hard road and protect me from helpful mistakes. A guy with an armful of bottled water went past, and I eyed it thirstily.

“If anyone would bother to look,” I said, voice edging into accusation, “they could see my safety charm hasn’t been triggered. It’s probably another misfired charm. Have you listened to the news today? No one’s brain dissolved. We got off easy.”

Edden shook himself out of his funk and looked over the surrounding heads. “Yes, we did. Medic!” he called, and I waved the woman off as she looked up from putting an ice pack on an officer’s swollen hand, probably crushed when they were getting the people out of their cars. “I’m fine,” I said, and Edden frowned. “I could use some water, though. You don’t know where my car is, do you?”