The Undead Pool

Newt ran a hand behind her neck in a gesture of unease that I’d never seen in her before. “You’re simplifying things,” she said as Trent inched closer until he was right behind my elbow. “Rachel, he’s an elf. A freed familiar. Maybe if there was some way to bridge our two species, they’d go along with it, but there isn’t.”

She was talking about children. That’s why Al had kept Ceri so long. He’d been trying to find a way to bridge the gap. And he had failed.

“Yeah, I get it,” I said bitterly. “They made you slaves, and you tried to kill them, and they imprisoned you in the ever-after, and you both screwed up each other’s genetics so no one can have any kids. But Trent didn’t do it. I’ll let you in my mind to pull them forth so everyone can believe that mystics are a psychosis and you can keep your secret, but I don’t want her killing them, and I want you to fix it so the demons leave me and Trent alone!”

My heart was pounding. Trent was at my elbow, and the mystics in me went silent. They knew of love and sacrifice, but I didn’t want them to die. “Change the resonance of my soul,” I suddenly said, and her head snapped up. “Change it so the mystics bound to me can’t find me.” No! they wailed, and I yelled at them to shut up. “As long as they stay out of the line, they won’t contaminate her with dreams of mass.”

Newt’s eyes narrowed, and I took a breath to finish my threat. “And if anyone ever does anything against me or Trent, I will go find my mystics and claim them because they are real and both of us know it.”

Her lip curled, and emboldened, I lifted my chin, managing to stifle my jump when she smashed the butt of her staff on the cement to crack it. In the distance, that burning building fell in a stately shower of sparks. For a moment, there was darkness there, and then the flames grew brighter.

“Now will you get them out, or does the ever-after have a new insane demon to contend with?” I asked.

Her grip on her staff tightened. “You’d give up the energy of creation for . . . him? He could leave you tomorrow and you’d have nothing but hatred and bitterness to sustain you.”

I remembered the feel of Trent’s skin under my fingertips, the softness of his hair, the sensation of his body over, around, and in mine. I remembered how he had stood for me when I didn’t have the strength myself, and the way I fought for his freedom, his life, his children. Sure, he could leave tomorrow, but that didn’t rub out how I felt now. Now was all we really had.

“I’ve already lost Al,” I said, finding that it hurt more than I would’ve guessed. “Giving up being able to see around corners is a small thing.”

Expression sour, she turned to Trent. “And what do you sacrifice for her?” she said mockingly. “Love is dross without sacrifice. It fades with the sun.”

Trent’s chin lifted. “I’ve lost my voice among my kin,” he said, and I took a breath, dismayed. “My child may be taken from me.”

“Trent!”

His fingers slipped into mine. “The silence my money has bought is no more. I will be persecuted, reviled, scorned.”

“As all elves should be,” Newt said, clearly not happy.

“I’ll probably end up in jail,” he finished, and I squeezed his hand. Never. It wouldn’t happen.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, but when I thought back to Quen’s expression as he stood in my back living room, I knew I should have guessed.

“And to top it off, I lost five generations of my father’s breeding program in the ever-after to surface demons,” Trent finished sourly. “I have very little left.”

Newt’s anger vanished, replaced by a shockingly wistful sigh. “The horse,” she whispered. “She’s beautiful.”

“She’s alive?” Trent’s gloom lifted. “Rachel, with that single horse, I could rebuild . . .” He hesitated as Newt cleared her throat.

Trent swallowed hard. I looked between them, seeing her desire, his need. “She is yours,” he finally said, and Newt laughed and clapped like a little girl, her staff clattering to the ground.

Eyes bright, she scooped it up, taking my elbow as she drew me closer. “Let me take them,” she said, words a breath on my hand as she held it to her. “They’ll come to me. I’ll change your soul so they’ll never find you. But you must promise to never tell the others that the Goddess and I have more in common than is, ah, prudent.”

My heart pounded. I was doing it again: trusting demons. But as I looked past her to Trent standing in the moonlight, one city standing to fight, the other out of control and in flames, I decided that it was worth it. All of it. Even if it should end tomorrow.

“You’ll get them to back off Trent and me?” I asked, and her smile grew wicked as she nodded.

“I’ll tell them you are romancing the cure for our genetic damage from him, and you will leave him as a broken ruin when you have it. They’ll believe me. You’re halfway to ruining him already.”

Al would know, but he wouldn’t say anything. My heart pounded. “Then okay. You can take them, but I don’t want them killed. Any of them.”