Al frowned, wearing that same wary, reluctant look he’d had in Trent’s office before he walked out with Newt and Dali. He made a “get on with it” gesture, and my heart thudded. Jenks was watching him, eh?
“Ivy?” I called, wanting to give her even more warning. “You here?” It was obvious she was, and I limped to the top of the hallway. There was a thin crack of light leaking from under her door, and I looked at Al. “Why are you here?”
“To catch you when you fall. And you will fall. It’s simply a matter of finding the right lever.”
Swell. “Ivy?” I called again. “Ah, you okay?”
Breathless, I waited at the sudden slide and thump of something heavy in Ivy’s room. A frantic hush of words followed. It was Ivy, and I reached out, finding myself painfully yanked back into Al. I fought to get his hand off me, stopping when Ivy shouted, “No. Nina, no!” I hesitated, Al’s grip easing as Ivy added, “It’s Rachel. Please. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t take it away. Don’t leave me. No. No!” Nina howled, a desperate pain in her voice. “Oh God. Give it to me!” she suddenly raged. “Give it to me!”
I couldn’t move as Nina’s fierce demands dissolved into heartrending sobs. Any hope I might have had that the newly undead might survive their souls died. Clearly Ivy had captured Nina’s, and Nina was out of her mind to get it back. Everything was out of balance and her second death was the only way to bring it back again.
“Whoever made this curse was a sadist,” I whispered, and Al’s grip on me fell away.
The light spilled into the cramped hallway as Ivy opened her door. The sound of Nina’s heartrending sobs pulled at me as Ivy slipped out and shut it behind her. The newly undead were often unpredictable as their mind reorganized under overwhelming shifts of hormones and instincts while the body fought with the mind, trying to convince it that it was still alive. Hunger usually kicked in when the original aura was depleted to a measurable threshold. But that wasn’t why Nina begged for Ivy to return in great gasping sobs. It wasn’t blood Nina wanted, it was her soul.
Back against the door, Ivy stared at me with black, haunted eyes, chilling me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“This shouldn’t have happened.” I hobbled forward, tears blurring my sight. “Ivy, I’m so sorry,” I gushed, my arms going around her as she began to cry.
Great gasping sobs shook her, and I held her to me, the silk feel of her hair bunched between us. My own tears flowed at the unfairness of it all, the end of her hope that she and Nina might have something normal, that they might have a life, a love, in the fleeting time they were allowed a moment of happiness before the curse came around full circle and took it all away.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, hardly breathing.
“She wanted me to kill her,” Ivy sobbed, her voice muffled. “She begged me, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even lie to her and promise I would.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and she pulled back from me, eyes glistening as Nina quietly wept behind the door Ivy guarded.
Ivy wiped her eyes, looking more beautiful than I’d ever seen her even if it was grief that brought her alive. “She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Ivy whispered. “There was no way to stop it. And I couldn’t finish it. When she begged the paramedic to, I . . . I wouldn’t let him.”
She’d fought them. She’d beaten them into unconsciousness with the savagery of a lover protecting the one she loved.
Trying to smile, I wiped the tears from my cheek and sniffed. “It’s okay,” I said, stomach knotting. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it either. Remember?” I hated them, hated the demons for this. Of all the curses I’d seen, heard whispers of, witnessed the destruction from, this utter raping of hope by destroying people through their love and fear was the worst.
Ivy licked her lips, haunted eyes flicking past me when Nina sobbed behind the shut door. “I should have killed her twice, but I was so scared that her soul would be lost forever when the lines fell and there was nowhere for it to go. Nina was fine until her soul went into the bottle.”
Another heartrending cry of loss rose behind the door when Ivy opened her hand to show me the hazy bottle I’d given her. Nina’s moan was so filled with pain it even made Al shift his feet. Or maybe he just wanted a closer look.
“I had to do it.” Ivy’s hand shook. “I had to. I couldn’t let her soul go to that hell.”
I took Ivy’s hand in mine, closing her fingers over the bottle before she dropped it. Her hands were frighteningly cold. Her head bowed, and I pulled her to me again, hating the demons all the more. But a niggling thought wedged under my heartache. Ivy had used the bottle after the lines had fallen. It had worked with the Goddess’s strength. Mystics wreathed her, unseen and unnoticed, my thousand eyes that I’d blinded myself to still working my will for me.
From behind the door, a wail rose, and Ivy sniffed back her tears. “She knows I have it. She wants it, but it will make her walk into the sun. Rachel, I can’t.”
I jerked when Ivy pulled back, her expression suddenly empty. “You take it,” she whispered, pressing the bottle into my hands. “Take it and hide it.”
“Ivy, I can’t.”
“Hide it where she can’t find it. Rachel, please!”
“It’s mine!” Nina howled, having heard us, and Ivy’s eyes went wide. Shaking, I forced the bottle back into Ivy’s hand.
“That won’t help,” I said, hating my own cowardice.
Ivy’s head bowed. “I didn’t know it could hurt this much,” she whispered to me. “I watched my mother die her first death, and then Kisten passed on.”
Again I pulled her to me, trying to give her strength.
“This is so wrong,” she breathed, but the tears were gone, leaving only an exhausted numbness. “How is your leg?”
“My leg?” We separated, and my heart seemed to break at the distance between us. “My leg will be fine,” I said, almost crying again.
“Ivy?” Nina warbled behind the door. “Please, I need it! Just for a moment. I’ll give it back. I promise!”
Ivy swallowed hard, empty as she stood before me and glanced at the door. “I’ve got her tied up. I was hoping . . .” Her shoulders fell, and she glanced behind me to Al. “I decided that she should have it, even if she walks into the sun.”