Kim Harrison - The Undead Pool

“Apparently they are!” Ivy shouted from the other room. “Felix cut a deal with his old buddies, and with everyone else sleeping, there’s no one to say otherwise. The Columbus I.S. agents working the case are going to keep the captured mystics, and Felix gets whatever he wants in exchange. Whenever he wants it.”

Nina, I thought, my eyes finding Ivy’s when she came back in, not with the phone but her laptop. My God. He’d given the ability to control wild magic to the I.S., and therefore the undead, in exchange for Nina.

Looking scared, Ivy sat in my recently vacated chair. Her hair hid her eyes, but her fingers were trembling as she opened the computer and waited for it to come alive. It was her security, and it was going to come up short this time.

“Ivy?”

She didn’t look up. Trent was fidgeting, but Jenks was mad enough for all of us, the pixy hovering in the center of the room, his dust spilling onto the papers until I thought I could smell smoke. “Whadya mean they get the captured mystics?” he said bitingly. “They like what’s going on in Cincinnati?”

“As a matter of fact, some of them do,” she said, her eyes holding intolerance. “Being able to put your rivals to sleep is something many of the undead would pay dearly for.”

“They wouldn’t!” I exclaimed as I pieced it together. Ayer had said his original idea had been a more personal choice, a building, a room—a single undead. They could parcel the mystics up. Sell them like miniassassins. Having trouble with your labor pool? Buy a city full and watch them toe the line.

Trent slumped into the cushions, his disgusted expression making it clear he’d figured it out immediately. “The I.S. having control of the mystics would be worse than the Free Vampires putting all of them asleep,” he said.

Not to mention would cause a legal blind eye to fall on Felix turning Nina into his belonging. This was three times wrong. “I say we go there, steal the mystics, and get them to the Goddess before they leave the I.S. tower.”

“Yes!” Jenks said, exploding from the mantel in a burst of silver. “I never liked the idea of working with them anyway.”

Ivy’s relief was almost palpable, but Trent, not used to working with such a small, maneuverable ship, frowned. “You think we four—”

“Five,” I corrected him, pointing to the steeple and Bis.

“Five,” he continued, “can break into the mortuary, one they’re probably already monitoring, cut the power, free the mystics, and run for Loveland all under the I.S.’s nose?”

I nodded, rising to go stand beside Jenks to form a visual alliance. His dust made my skin tingle, and I smiled as Ivy exhaled, her fear easing. “Yup. Welcome to my world, Trent.”

“Seven,” Jenks said as he hovered by my ear. “Don’t forget David. We got an entire city of Weres to plow our road. They’re out there already, and no I.S. agent can stop a Were on four paws.”

“Seven, and a city of Weres,” Trent said. “So how do we get in? It’s a fortress. Lots of security. No easy way out once you get in.”

“If it’s pre-Turn, the security is all outdated,” Jenks said as he flew silver-dusted wreaths around Ivy and landed on her shoulder. “I have yet to find the building I can’t break into. Hell, if I can get Rache into your back office, I can get into a pre-Turn coffin klatch.”

Flicking his hair back, Trent pulled his map of the city close. A shiver rose through me as I saw him fitting into my life in a way I’d never imagined, and then I stifled it, remembering the heat in his eyes as he lay atop me, the feel of his body against mine. Why had I done the smart thing and waited so long?

“You’re not thinking like a pixy,” Jenks said, seeing Trent’s lingering doubt. “Four inches?” he said pointedly. “I only need a hole the size of a dime. Code requires adequate ventilation in those kind of facilities, and wire mesh is easy to cut.”

“You can get in,” Trent said, and I smiled when he propped his bare feet up on the edge of the table so he could use his legs as a makeshift table. “Which means we have an in as well.”

“Jenks, how long would it take for you to whip up some pixy pow?” I asked, seeing possibility where there’d only once been doubt. It was the same plan, but we were in charge now, and it made all the difference.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, a bright flash of silver slipping from him in a temporary sunbeam. “Who told you . . .” He glanced at Trent, his wings slowing. “I can have enough to blow the steeple off the church by midnight. Sundown with some help.”

Ivy hit a key decisively, and from the kitchen came the hum of the printer. “We’ll only need a thimbleful to take out the redundant power system they have in there,” she said, clearly in a better mood, though her fear for Nina was just under the surface. “I’ll take out the main power. Jenks can get you in and shut down the internal system. By the time you’re ready to run, I can be outside with a van. David plows the road to Loveland.”

Why did it sound so much better when she said it? Beaming, I passed the popcorn to her. “Told you,” I said to Trent, and he leaned back, eyeing us over his scribbled legal pad.

“You have amazing friends.”

“I need them to stay alive through my amazing life,” I said, and Ivy became almost sultry as she pulled herself together in her chair and smiled at Trent.

“Very well. But I’m still concerned that if everything goes as planned and the Goddess takes them back, she won’t be able to control them and we’ll be right back where we started.” His eyes met mine, and my shoulders hunched. It was a possibility that we had no control over, no way to plan for, and it bothered me.

Ivy stiffened when the doorbell rang. “More news crews,” she grumbled, gathering herself to stand, but Trent was faster.

“It’s probably Quen,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I asked him to bring over my phone and daily short list. If it’s reporters, I won’t open the door.”

“If it’s reporters, I’ll sic my kids on them,” Jenks said, taking to the air, and Trent jogged out, bare feet making tiny chirps of sound on the old oak flooring. It was a noise I’d never heard before in the church, and I ached that it might never sound again.

“I wonder how Quen got past the quarantine?” I asked, and Ivy cleared her throat. The dry sound of it caught my attention, and I stiffened. Oh yeah. That.

“I’m not calling what we did a mistake,” I said defensively. “Nothing is going to change.” At least not where it showed.

“It has already,” she said faintly, and then her eyes fixed on mine, black and unreadable. “I’m not moving out, Ivy.” God! What did she think I was going to do? Go live with the man? I liked my church, even if Trent did have a pool the size of my house and a twenty-four-hour kitchen. “That would be my least favorite thing to do,” I added, and her eyes dropped, making me wonder if she was the one who wanted out of this weird relationship we had.

Head down, she stared at her fingers, silent on the keypad. “Rachel? I . . . Thank you.”

Surprised, I stood, not wanting to be sitting when Quen came in. “For what? Dragging you into this? No problem. I’ll probably be doing it again before Christmas.”

Her lips curled into one of her few smiles, surprising me even more. “Sort of. Three years ago?” she said, hand lifting to indicate the church. “I can admit now that you were my long hunt. I’m sorry, but you were, and you slipped me.”