The Undead Pool

“All right!” Scott said enthusiastically, but I didn’t think Scott was going to get to bust any heads as I looked out the front window. It was the mortuary, lit up under mobile spotlights and noisy generators. FIB and I.S. cars were parked haphazardly on the street, the lawn, the lawn across the street . . . everywhere. Lines had been strung, and people dashed around looking ineffective. There were a couple of ambulances, but they weren’t busy.

They had moved on them early, as Jenks had guessed. Either Edden had been lied to about the original timing, or things had changed and had required immediate action. Looking at the red clouds reflecting the light, I figured it was the latter.

“Son of a bitch!” Jenks swore, and Nina got a scared look on her face. It was over. They had them and it was over.

“Keep driving past,” Trent said as he moved forward to crouch behind David. The alpha Were was again on the phone, looking for answers. “We don’t know what happened yet. They might still be in there.”

But I could tell they weren’t. I was getting sporadic, questionable intel from the mystics, and as soon as they came in, I sent them back out for more. There’d been a fight. Lots of noise. The mystics tended to focus on the oddest things, and I was reduced to looking at the edges of their awareness to learn anything.

“I’ll check it out,” Jenks said as he hovered before me. His dust made me shiver, and a mystic I’d never had in me before played in it. Jenks gave me a worried look as he took in my aura. “Don’t ditch me, Ivy,” he added, then darted out the window, shouting for Bis.

The gargoyle sailed eagerly after him, wings billowing the cloud of dust Jenks’s kids had made chasing after their dad. Scott and Nina clustered at the windows to look back at the crime scene. No one had even noticed us in the chaos.

Landon and Ayer were long gone. The air felt flat, and my skin wasn’t tingling. But suddenly mystics exploded over my skin and into my mind—unfamiliar mystics pulled to me by the echo of my aura and led by an enthusiastic few. My breath slipped from me in a whimper, and I clutched the seat in vertigo as images of battle, of blood, of sudden freedom made my stomach turn. Concepts flashed past that I couldn’t comprehend, but the mystics were afraid.

Death. Singular thoughts ended, echoed in me as mystics familiar with my way of thinking instructed the new ones on how to converse in this new, smaller world my mind made for them. And slowly it began to make sense where once there was only chaos.

“Is she okay?” Scott asked Trent, and I realized he was holding me upright.

“Give me a second,” I breathed as, like smoke over a field, the new mystics took on the wisdom of the old and the world stopped spinning. “Better,” I said, voice stronger as my eyes suddenly focused. Things shifted, and the confusion began to work for instead of against me. Images flickered through me, like watching a movie in five-second snippets, all out of order. “They’re gone,” I said, figuring that much out. “Landon and Ayer left before the I.S. got here. They took the captive mystics with them. A few escaped when they moved them to battery backup. They’re . . . confused. Confusing.”

Or at least, they had been, and with the riveting beauty of dominoes falling, the multiple images fell into place and made sense. My head came up, and every vampire’s eyes went black as my fear flashed into existence. I got it. I finally understood, and it scared the crap out of me.

“They’ve divided them up and are distributing them across the United States.” No one said anything, and I added, “It’s happening! They’re dispersing the captive mystics. They’re going to use them to kill all the undead. They have enough to do what they did in Cincinnati everywhere!”

“Mother pus bucket . . .” Trent whispered, shocking me as he used one of Al’s favorite curses. It seemed appropriate. Ivy abruptly pulled over, and David lurched, catching himself with one hand.

“Everyone stay in the van!” Ivy shouted as she grabbed her phone. We were out of sight of the mortuary, but not that far away that I couldn’t jog back in like . . . two minutes.

Immediately three Weres launched themselves out a broken window, scrambling with the sound of claws in the dark to do just that. “I’ve already sent someone for information,” David said, and I breathed easier in the extra room.

“I told you, they’re gone.” I dropped my head into my hands as I imagined the chaos. Cincinnati was used to weird things happening—thanks to me—but this unrest in Chicago, New Orleans, or even San Diego was enough to give me nightmares. Please, God. Not San Francisco.

Ivy frowned, phone to her hear. “Yeah?” she said, angry. “And just when were you going to tell us? What happened? And don’t tell me you don’t know, because I just saw you.”

“They’re gone,” David said, hand over his phone.