The Undead Pool

I nodded, watching the cloud go faint in the sun as I took off my hard hat. Dropping it, I grabbed someone’s scarf, glad the file cabinet I’d stashed my gun in was in the dry zone. Using the scarf like a potholder, I opened the drawer. Sure enough, my cherry-red splat gun was coated in busted charms. Depressed, I wrapped the scarf around it and tucked it in my bag. The heat might have destroyed the charms’ potency, but I doubted it.

“David!” Edden said loudly, and I spun to the elevator, but he was on his phone. “I can’t bring the wave any closer to you than that. Did you get a fix on where these bastards are?”

“David,” I whispered, striding back to Trent. “You’re talking to David? Give me that!”

“Alone?” Edden said loudly, holding me off and grinning all the wider. Jenks, eavesdropping at his shoulder, gave me a thumbs-up. “Rachel and Mr. Kalamack are with me, and I do believe they can get there faster than that.”

“David?” I exclaimed, knowing he’d hear me. “You found them?”

“Will you be quiet?” Edden said, hand over the speaker. “I’m trying to talk to David.”

Frustrated, I dropped back to my heels. “You know where they are?” I asked when Edden ended the call with a terse “We’re on our way.” But I knew the answer already by his smile, both satisfied and predatory.

“That little coffee shop a few blocks down,” he said, gesturing for us to head for the elevators. “He’s got them pinned down but he’s alone. I don’t know if we can get there before their reinforcements arrive.”

Junior’s, I thought, my mood sobering as we passed the last covered corpse, still uncharred under my protection bubble. Of course.

Seventeen

I pulled up short as I strode out of the quiet FIB lobby and into the bright sun. It wasn’t the sudden wind that stopped me, but the cry of recognition and the surge from the newspeople. They’d seen the explosion at the top of the tower, and they knew Trent’s face, even stubbled as it was.

“Whoa! How we going to get through that?” Jenks said in disgust, his dust like needles, holding an unexpected energy as the bright sparkles slid through my aura.

Sighing, I rocked to a stop, unwilling to push through the crowd. “I can’t take you anywhere,” I muttered, and Trent looked up from his phone conversation with a frustrated acceptance. The call had started in the elevator, and I was amazed at how he was able to keep his cool when everything was falling apart. But that’s what made Trent, Trent.

“I am so sorry,” he said to me, then “Make it work” to Quen before ending the call.

Edden was craning to see over the heads to the car he’d called for, but the reporters had converged, ducking under the plastic ribbon and overwhelming the few officers out front. Backup was at least half an hour out. It would be over by then. Hell, it would be over in ten minutes! We didn’t have time for this, and I caught Jenks’s eye.

“Go tell David we’re on our way,” I whispered, lips barely moving. “Do what you can.”

“You got it,” he said, and I watched enviously as he lifted off, unnoticed as he flew over the tops of everyone.

Trent was watching too, a touch of melancholy in him. “I am so tired of this,” he said softly. Knowing it was a bad idea, I sent my fingers to find his, and he started at the tiny squeeze, returning it full force. But he didn’t let go, and I froze at the memory of that last kiss.

“I’ll go first,” Edden said, eyes narrowed. “Stick to no comment. I don’t know what kind of a spin I have to put on this yet.”

I took a deep breath as the somewhat squat man began waving his arms, dropping down the last few steps to the sidewalk to force a path. My hand slipped from Trent’s, and he touched the small of my back, making me go next. I stifled a shiver, something in me rebelling, another part enjoying the sensation I knew I had no right to call mine. Head up against the shouted questions, I fell into place behind Edden. We got about three steps.

“Captain Edden.” Shoved and harried, a woman with her hair pulled back into an unusually informal ponytail fell into the squat man, forcing him to recognize her. “Sorry about that,” she said as she found her feet and gave him a winning smile. “Can you comment upon the most recent explosion and destruction of the top floor of the FIB building?”

Ignoring the mic shoved at his face, Edden kept moving forward. “Not at this time.”

“Captain Edden!” a man at the back shouted, his mic held up over the heads of everyone. “Cincinnati has been closed as well as the Hollows. Give us something, or we’re going to start making things up!” There was a light titter, but it wasn’t much of a joke.

“Mr. Kalamack! Can you comment on what you and Ms. Morgan were doing at the FIB today? Was that demon or elven magic?”

“We can make stuff up about that, too!” someone else said, getting a more certain laugh.