The Undead Pool

I watched as if in slow motion as Landon spun his weapon around and smashed the stock of the barrel against the back of Trent’s head. Ivy jerked, and I sent a burst of sound to stop her before she set them off and started a bloodbath. I’d seen in Landon’s mind. He wasn’t going to kill Trent. Not yet. He wanted him as the fall guy should the trickery with the Free Vampires be realized. So not happening.

I got three more paces closer as Trent fell, shaken but not unconscious. Landon’s shock when he looked up and found me there was like icing. And the gun moved from Trent to me—just as I had wanted.

“Kneel,” he demanded, his eyes flicking behind me to include Ivy as well.

Ivy dropped as she was told, but I couldn’t do it. Wild magic spilled through me, pure and untainted from the ley lines. Burning.

And then I smiled at Jenks. He was with Bis, the little gargoyle clinging to the outside of the rocking car as he gave me the thumbs-up. Etude was with him. Now I could do this. Now it would end.

I wasn’t meant for this, and head in agony, I looked at the boxes, their contents held by flimsy, variable battery power. Landon was stupid. He didn’t deserve to hold the Goddess’s leash. No one did.

“You have something that belongs to me,” I said, all of them oblivious to the massing mystics in me—except for Jenks and one very scared elf with a scanner.

“Down her,” Landon directed to one of his men.

“Too late,” I breathed, shivering as a wave of energy skated over my skin. “Oh, far too late. They’re mine. I’m taking them home.”

The barrel of the gun shifted from me to Trent. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” he said confidently, gesturing to one of his men. “I said take her!”

But the man with the scanner didn’t move. “Possession is exactly it . . . Landon,” I said, standing before them, before them all in the center of the rocking car. The captured and splintered mystics howled for release. We were out of Cincinnati and as close to the Loveland ley line as we were going to get. I could take them home.

I took a final step forward, mystics bringing back to me the scent of Landon’s sweat, the depth of his doubt.

“Stop! Or I kill him!” Landon shouted, and I reached for them.

“Rachel!” Trent exclaimed, and Landon’s finger moved on the gun.

Go, I thought, watching the flair of the gunpowder in the chamber, sending enough mystics to clog the weapon and make it misfire. And they went.

Now, I thought, asking more to shift a tiny balance in the air. The poles in the batteries hiccupped. It was enough, and with a silent explosion, the splintered mystics burst from their prison. A demon could have done so with spells and curses, but with mystics swimming in my neural net, all I had to do was ask.

Trent’s eyes were on me, and I saw him blink. It took forever.

And then the gun misfired, blowing Landon back.

“Rachel!” Trent shouted, scrambling forward even as Landon fell into his men and broken chairs. The attendant cried out in fear. For an instant, the air hummed with magic.

And then the freed splintered mystics fell into me.

“No!” I screamed at the flood of unconditional hatred. It wasn’t simply me in pain, but my mystics, the ones who had become, as their new nature was measured and found wrong by way of fewer numbers. I fell, the bubble in my mind shifting to allow passage of those familiar to me and hold the rest back. Frustrated and angry, the splinter shifted and changed to find a way in. Again I floundered, getting one gasp of air before they swamped me anew.

Trent’s arms around me tightened, burning like fire as the mystics battled, my mind the field of their conquest. The flame of becoming raced out, hot and blue at the edges, cooling to black where it passed, but there were too many splintered mystics, and for every one that became and blended, ten were overcome.

I couldn’t turn them all at once. If I couldn’t slow this down, I was going to go insane.

Groaning, I pulled my mystics back to me, finding a scant infinity left. Together we huddled under a protection that held only because I kept changing it. My eyes opened. Trent held me. He was mad at me, and I smiled.

“Sorry,” I panted, seeing Bis and Jenks hanging from the ceiling. “I have to go. Etude will take me to the line. I’m sorry.”

“Rachel!” he pleaded, but my skin became prickles of magic, and his hands sprang away.

“I have to go!” I shouted as I blew a new hole in the side of the car. “I’m sorry! I have to go!” I said again. “Keep the news crews from following me if you can!”

Knowing I’d survive, I ran for the edge, diving off into the blackness, an infinity of mystics within me, a larger infinity trailing behind like living pixy dust. I felt them peel from me, the agony in my head abating.

“Got you!” Etude cried, and I all but sobbed in relief as his grip encircled my waist again and the force of the wind shifted.