The Undead Pool

Uneasy, David gave me lots of room as he reached for the door. My head came up as it opened, the scent of burning city a balm after the stuffy, vampire-incense-rich air. The mystics picked up on my desire to be free, bolstering my need to be outside. I practically bolted out, coming to a shocked stop at the three men in the bushes. Fear blossomed as I slid to a halt, gasping at the surge of wild magic. Vampires.

End them! the mystics raged, and I gaped at the three men in horror as wild magic coursed through me, my not-mine desire to destroy them burning bright.

You will listen! I shouted into my mind, staggering into David as I struggled for control, beating the thousand voices back, demanding that they heed my one. You will listen to me!

“It’s okay! I’ve got them cuffed!” the Were in the borrowed FIB hat exclaimed as I fell back in apparent terror. “They gave themselves up.”

“I never agreed to killing masters,” the vampire in the raggedy T-shirt said, his hands indeed pulled tight behind him, but if they were FIB-issue cuffs, they wouldn’t hold.

“Is that the woman Ayer has been going on about?” the other vampire said, and I hunched into a ball, my feet in the gravel and my hands clenched and breath held as I tried not to kill them. The scent of my cotton shirt filled my nose, and I focused on it, picking the details of the aroma apart to distract myself. Dusky, dry stones in the sun. “It’s okay, ma’am. Ayer’s crazy. We won’t hurt you.”

David pulled me to my feet and drew me past them into the shadows. “She’s not scared. She’s trying not to kill you,” he muttered. “Let’s go. Where is everyone?”

The man with the FIB cap pushed the vampires into motion. “Tailing them. They had a back door we didn’t know about, and most got out that way.” He hesitated. “Is that Morgan?” he asked, his voice holding disappointment as I stumbled, head down and not watching where I was going.

“It’s been a bad day,” David said, his hand still on my elbow. “Edden, where did you leave the car?” he asked, and Edden pushed his mustache out as he scanned the long-abandoned streets. Behind us, something exploded in a harsh pop.

“South,” Edden said, and we started up the crumbling abandoned roadway in the dark. I didn’t know why the mystics accepted David’s touch when everyone else was considered a threat, but I needed it, and I lagged, head down, as the mystics demanded I follow the splintered majority and wipe everything clean. It was a bad day, indeed. “Help me,” I whispered, and his grip tightened. “Don’t let go.”

“We’ll get you sorted out,” David said. “Try to numb it,” he suggested, thinking it was battle rage.

But that would only make things worse. If I numbed myself, the mystics would overrule my single voice and take control. Heart pounding, I refused them any sway. I moved under David’s hand, not seeing the abandoned homes or the cracked, potholed street. The sky was red, low clouds reflecting the light from the fires burning in the Hollows, and slowly I began to think again as the mystics became bored and drifted away.

“Is she okay?” Edden questioned, looking back at us.

“Ask me later,” I panted, leaning heavily on David, dizzy as the mystics darted away from me and back, bringing to me confusing visions of what they saw. There was a rustling about us, a wind that wasn’t born from rising air or lowering masses.

“Where’s the van?” Edden said in affront as we halted at an abandoned gas station.

David’s wide shoulders slumped. “You lost the van?”

Edden spun. “I left it right here!”

“We’re in the wilds! You can’t leave a working car in the wilds!”

Most of the mystics had left me, and my head came up, daring to believe that I might be rid of them altogether. “There’s a bus stop. You want me to see what the schedule is?”

“They don’t run buses out here,” Edden said, reaching under his cap to scratch his head. The soft glow of a screen shone, lighting up his face, showing the worry wrinkles around his eyes. “Give me a second. I’m not getting a good signal.”

“Because they don’t put towers out here either!” David muttered, peeved as he turned his back on us, watching the dark as we stood under the gas station awning. In the nearby distance came a rustling in the weeds, and I staggered as a hundred different mystic perspectives of the same view hammered at me. I wondered if I looked that ill or if it was just my imagination. Nauseated, I shoved away all views but the one coming from my eyes. The mystics buzzed over it, clouds of them following the electrical impulses through my brain to analyze how I put it all together. My head hurt.

David’s concern was obvious when he turned back to us. He’d heard the rustling as well. “We need to keep moving. Who are you calling?”

Mood somber, Edden put the phone to his ear. “Ivy.”

“Ivy?” Mistrust surged, and I banished it with a vengeance.