The Undead Pool

She just had to jump, I thought sourly, then thanked the mystics. I wasn’t sure what they’d done, but I knew they’d been there. “Jenks, you okay?” I called out, hearing his swearing and knowing he was fine. I squinted up to find Etude blocking the wind. Bis was on his dad’s shoulder, his tail wrapped around his dad’s neck and literally white with fear. Trent was sandwiched facedown between Etude’s massive foot and the top of the car. Etude’s other foot was halfway through the outer skin of the roof, and his tail was wrapped around Scott’s leg to keep him from sliding off. Ivy was in the vampire’s arms. Slowly I let go of her wrist, and she looked up, thin bands of brown around her irises. Crap on toast, Nina was going to get her killed with all this risk taking. She never would’ve jumped otherwise. Not my careful, precise Ivy.

Shaken, I looked behind us. The road was gone. “You idiot!” I shouted as I untangled myself and sat up. “You could have been killed! Why didn’t you wait for Etude!”

Ivy smiled at me over Scott’s shoulder as she gave him a thankful hug. “He needs to save his strength,” she said, hair streaming in the wind. “Is Jenks okay?”

“I’m fine!” he yelled, but I don’t think she heard him, and I nodded.

Etude’s foot lifted suddenly when Trent wiggled, still facedown on the roof of the car. Almost dancing, the big gargoyle shifted back. The man looked shaken but okay, and he grimaced as he felt his midsection carefully as he sat up. Turning to the road, his anger eased when he saw it was gone. Thank you, Nina.

“I don’t think I’ll fit in the car,” Etude said, taking Bis from his shoulder and setting him on the rocking roof. “Bis, let me know if you need me.” His smile widened until his black teeth showed. “My world breaker.”

Bis flushed a pleased black, but I was uneasy as I looked at them: Ivy, Bis, Trent, Scott, and Jenks tangled in my hair. If any of them died or hurt themselves, I’d never let it go. “Let’s move!” I shouted, and Scott nodded. Staying low and never entirely letting go of the roof, he inched his way to the connecting bridge. It was covered to facilitate moving from car to car when necessary, and the moon glinted on the edge of steel as he cut a flap in the thick plastic and gestured us forward.

Are they here? mystics asked as they compared the real force of the wind to the memory of it of long ago. Apparently the air had thickened since they last had to plow through it with a solid body in tow.

Why don’t you go find out? I directed, suggesting that they go through the calmer air within the train so they didn’t risk being ripped away. A shudder raked through my soul as almost half of them streamed from me, some going through the hole Ivy was now snaking down, some through the skin of the train itself, some going through the soles of my feet. The mystics content to stay with me seemed to roll through my aura and settle in like a cat enjoys the sun. Promises to return eddied about me with the soft, binding force of a plant tendril, unexpected and worrisome.

Return to me, or their confederates still lodged in my soul? I wondered, then almost panicked when a twining of voices said it was the same thing. You are not mine! I shouted, trying to make my one voice louder than theirs combined. You are going back to the Goddess! That’s the entire point to this. We find the ones they stole, and you all go back!

But they didn’t seem to care, which scared the crap out of me. What if they didn’t want to go back? I couldn’t live my life as a mystic magnet.

“Rachel!” Trent shouted, and I blinked, looking down at his pale face and realizing that it was just Scott, Etude, and me up here. “Let’s go!”

He held out a hand, and I felt his strength as I slipped mine into it. I tried to pay attention, but a growing negativity swelled in me. It was the returning mystics with news of what lay below. The captives were not in the last car, nor in the hold below it.

Worried, I carefully maneuvered myself into the tight space between the rocking cars. The returning mystics were getting uncomfortably better at sorting themselves as they arrived, binding their myriad thoughts into one in such a way that I could understand them. Sure, it was unclear at first, with multiple perspectives making it a nauseating slurry of confusion, but by the time I’d gotten myself out of the wind, enough had returned to bring it into focus. They were adapting to me on an exponential curve, and whereas yesterday I’d been struggling to keep them from destroying my friends, now I could send them on a task and have them work together to find an answer—and it was scaring the hell out of me.