“Holy pixy piss, Trent, finish it!” Jenks shouted.
“Ta na shay cooreen na da!” Trent said, horrified as the demon tried to dig his way under the energy barrier. “Ta na shay!” he said again, to no effect.
The demon howled at the sky, then turned to Trent, hatred in his eyes.
And then the demon’s foot touched the spiral.
Shock reverberated through the surface demon, and his howling turned from anger to fear, and then panic as he suddenly dissolved, vanishing into a quicksilver pulse of light that spun through the spiral to the tiny endpoint.
The demon’s last cry echoed, but he was gone.
Nina stared, shocked as Felix’s soul was suddenly not there. In the new silence, the bottle slowly rocked, spun, and fell over, clinking against the pebbly dust.
Had it worked?
“Give. Me. My. Soul.”
It had been Nina, and I stared at her as Trent, oblivious to everything, struggled to find himself, head down and panting as the ends of his ribbon shook. He’d done it, and it looked as if it had cost him dearly. Why was I doing this with him? I was going to get him killed.
“Give it to me!” Nina shouted again, and I scrambled up as she jumped at Trent. Bis flew up in fear and Jenks darted away. Scared, I grabbed Nina’s shirt and jerked her off Trent.
“Nina! Kick him out!” I demanded, and she snarled, her hair wild as I pinned her to a tall rock, my hands feeling as if they were on fire.
“There is no Nina,” she howled. “I want my soul! Give it to me!”
“I’m sorry, Nina.” I couldn’t find a hint of her in the woman’s glazed, fierce expression. I made a fist, grabbing it with my free hand and swinging my elbow at her head.
It hit her with a resounding pop. Pain flashed up through me and was gone. It was a phantom pain. I’d done it right and all the force had gone right into her head, knocking her out.
Elbow stiff, I caught her before she fell and eased her down. If Felix had been himself, I never would have been able to do it, but he was half out of his mind, lost and adrift from having touched his soul.
“Are you okay, Rachel?” Trent whispered, and I nodded. He was slumped beside Bis, exhausted, shaken by what he’d done. I knew he’d have no regrets and would do it again if I asked. But I wouldn’t.
Seeing Felix with even the hint of his soul had been enough to convince me that giving the undead their souls would send them walking into the sun. I’d seen Cincinnati without her undead. As much as I hated them, it would be the beginning of the end.
“You can’t give him his soul,” Trent said.
Saying nothing, I crossed the space between us, kicking dust and dirt into the spiral as I went to get the soul bottle. The spiral was dead. It held nothing anymore.
“You saw what it did to him,” Trent added.
The bottle felt small in my hand, and my stomach twisted as I remembered the demon who’d taken shape from Felix’s soul, bitter and savage. Without the mind to temper it and the body to cushion it, the soul became warped and broken. How long had they been apart? A hundred years? Two hundred?
“Rachel?”
I scooped up my shoulder bag and dropped the bottle inside. Today I felt like a demon, and I wiped my hands off on my pants, shaking as I looked at them and the red dust like blood. “We need to get out of here,” I said, seeing the eyes beginning to close in around us again.
Slowly Trent got to his feet. He looked at his spell for a moment, then away—but not at me.
I could not fail Ivy. If I failed to convince Cormel that this would be their ruin, then I’d finish the charm and fix it to Felix. And if Cormel still didn’t believe after Felix walked into the sun to end his torment, I’d find Cormel’s soul and fix it to his putrid, decaying body.
But I’d never ask Trent to do this again.
Chapter 8
Jenks tugged at my hair as he struggled to be free of it. We were back in Eden Park, but little had changed. Living vampires were in front of us, staring in the shadowy light from the nearby streetlamps. They were bruised, several sporting bloodied noses and lips, and the ground was torn up. A quick look behind us confirmed my suspicion that we were surrounded by whatever camarilla had won the fight we’d left earlier.
“Sweet ever-loving humping Tink. Can’t you jump us somewhere where we don’t have to fight for our lives?” Jenks took to the air with the sound of dry leaves.
I reached to set a circle, but Trent’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Best not show any fear,” he whispered. “I’ll keep a tight hold on the line to set a circle if we need one. It might be better if you laid off the magic for a little while.”
Laid off the magic? “Are you serious?” I said, not liking the sullen faces looking at me. But they weren’t advancing, and I eased my hold on the line until it was the lightest of touches. He was right about one thing: showing fear always brought out the worst in vampires, living or dead.
I thought of the little bottle in my bag and held it closer. They weren’t getting it. Then I grimaced, wondering why I was trying so hard to do a black elven charm that might get me killed. The last one Landon had given me nearly had. Cormel will believe me, and then I won’t have to risk it, I thought, but when Felix’s cry of agony and despair raged out to echo against the town houses, I had a bad feeling that Cormel was going to be just as blind.
“What, by Tink’s little pink rosebuds, was that?” Jenks said, and Bis made the short hop from the statue to me, wrapping his tail under my armpit and shivering.
Trent scuffed his feet into the pavement. “I think it was Felix looking for his soul,” he said. Tired, I dropped my shoulder bag, ready for a fight. Nina was still slumped on the ground and I hoped she didn’t wake up.
Never dropping my eyes, the vampire in front leaned to a scared woman who looked as if she’d come from the office, heels scuffed and dress jacket torn. “Tell him she’s back,” he said, and the woman retreated, her shadowy form swallowed by the crowd. They were just staring at us, giving me the creeps.
“Cormel wants to talk to you,” the vampire said, his voice carrying well. He was dressed casually, but his glasses were top of the line, costing more than my last trip to the spell shop.
“Good, because I want to talk to him,” I said. My stomach hurt, but a knot had eased. Cormel’s people had won. The man might be reasonable. He’d ruled the free world during the Turn, after all.
I’d have known there was a fight even if we hadn’t jumped out at the start of it. It was also obvious that a good portion of them weren’t Cormel’s usual strong-arm force. There were shopkeepers, students, and salespeople among the bouncers, street dealers, and security. Cormel had called in whoever would respond, making sure that when I popped back into reality he would control my next move. Which begged the question as to how big the faction was that didn’t want the undead to have their souls. Ally? I wondered, dismissing it. Cormel would listen, but as Felix’s laments rose anew, doubt stained my conviction.