The Undead Pool

“They pick up burnt amber that fast,” I said, taking up the plate and snagging the legal pad on my way to the back living room. Trent followed, either me or the cookies. I didn’t care which. He was here and it felt right—even if several mystics had just brought me an image of my human neighbor boarding up her basement windows.

It was the sight of our papers, notes, and scribbled plans wadded up and thrown into the black fireplace that brought reality crashing back. Between David’s street force and Ivy’s contacts, Edden had found Landon and Ayer holed up in a pre-Turn mortuary just inside the Hollows. They were twenty minutes, and a whole lot of planning, away. Edden and the out-of-state I.S. troops who’d been sent to enforce our quarantine were going to subdue Landon and Ayer shortly after midnight, but getting the mystics from there to the Goddess was up to me.

Or us, rather, I thought, feeling like I was a part of something important as I pushed aside the map of Cincinnati to make room for the cookies. I dropped the legal pad, accidentally blowing Jenks from my last scratchings. Grimacing, the pixy dropped down to stand on the paper and tap his sword tip against it in thought. After an afternoon of popcorn, cold cuts, and Trent’s tart lemonade, we had a workable plan on how to get the mystic splinter from the mortuary to the Loveland ley line, but it relied heavily on Edden’s ability to clear the roads. Trent’s copter was out as everything had been grounded, and much to Trent’s hidden dismay, his money wasn’t buying what it used to.

“I don’t know, Rache,” Jenks said, tapping the paper, and I took a cookie before pushing the plate to Trent when he sat down across from me on Ivy’s couch. “There’s a lot of ifs there. I mean, first, you’re relying on the I.S. and FIB to get us in.”

“Assumption number one,” I said, snapping a cookie between my teeth.

“We let the mystics out,” Jenks said as he rose up a bare inch and hovered backward to tap the second line.

“Assuming they’re there and we can do it,” Trent said, pulling the legal pad closer.

“The FIB clears the streets and you run to the Loveland ley line trailing mystics.” Scowling, Jenks tapped the number three. “And the Goddess takes them.” Sword tip pressed, he tore a line under the last item on the list. “This is the best plan we got, but it still sucks.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” I said, not liking that Felix okayed the outside I.S. agency to come in and help. I understood not wanting the mess in Cincinnati to spill over into the rest of the state, much less the country, but we had this.

Scowling, Jenks put his hands on his hips. “I still say a small team has a better chance than a big one. People talk too much and committees make decisions slower than a troll in love.”

Trent had his elbows on his knees as he looked at the map of Cincinnati Edden had e-mailed over. He was making notes, marking up the escape route Edden had indicated with a bright red line. “My biggest issue is this circular route around the city they want you to take. I understand needing to curtail as many misfires as possible, but the splintered mystics are hazardous. What if they catch up? You barely survived the last time,” he added, pencil tapping.

“Sometimes you just have to trust,” I said, and I couldn’t tell you why arguing with Trent didn’t feel like an attack. Maybe because he had yet to say no, just “convince me.” That, and I was still glowing from earlier—literally, if Jenks was to be believed. “The entire city wants them gone, and once they get in the line, the Goddess will take them.”

Wings a low hum, Jenks flew to the mantel to where he could keep one eye on the garden out the high windows. Trent kept studying that map as if trying to find a better way. I knew he liked this plan less than I did, but Ivy was on her way from the FIB and would fill in the gaps and turn it from one of my ill-thought-out schemes to one of her excellent strategies.

Trent reached across the space between us and took the bowl of popcorn as he said, “Speaking of trust, the Goddess doesn’t like you anymore. I’m not so sure she’s going to blindly accept them from you.”

My shadow of concern pricked through the mystics in me, bringing them to a full awareness. Letting them figure it out on their own, I shrugged. “Perhaps, but she does want her thoughts back. Crazy or not.”

Insane! a rising mystic in me cried out, and a slice of them swung around to the idea that we were in danger. Swallowing hard, I told them to chill. They were acting in concert a lot more. A hundred diverse voices I could handle. One determined developing Goddess complex was a lot harder.

Trent didn’t notice the controversy echoing in my skull, but Jenks did, and I took a handful of popcorn and flicked a kernel at him to get him to keep his mouth shut.

“Okay,” Trent said as he looked up at Jenks’s muttered swearing. “Assuming we go with this very rough plan—”