The Undead Pool

“Cormel!” I shouted, then looked past Jenks at the monitors and the ambulances. They couldn’t get down here with that chair holding the elevator doors open. How long? I wondered. How long would they search? “Cormel, wake up!”

Ivy dribbled more into him. Still unconscious, Nina mewled like a cat as she smelled the blood, and my fear redoubled. The sound penetrated Cormel’s haze where the blood hadn’t. A shaky hand rubbed his mouth, and he stared at the blood repellently. “Ivy?” he whispered, his eyes hazy. Jenks was dusting her cut, and it immediately clotted. “Rachel?” he added, seeing me.

I gave him a shake as his eyes closed again. “Cormel!” I hissed, and one eye opened. “Have you seen David? Get up!”

“Who? Go away,” he moaned, his tongue red with Ivy’s blood flashing. “Let me sleep.”

“How can he not be hungry?” Jenks asked. “His aura is almost not there.”

Of course he hadn’t seen David; he’d been asleep. “You think maybe a direct transfusion might snap him out of it?” I asked, but they must have tried that already.

Ivy frowned. “It’s not the blood the undead need. It’s the aura they take with it.”

Frustrated, I slapped him, and Cormel’s eyes flashed open. “Get up!” I shouted, tugging at him. “Felix is the only undead vampire awake in Cincinnati, and if we don’t get you out of here, you might not live to see the next sunset.”

“Felix?” Cormel muttered, eyes drooping, but with me pulling, he managed to push himself up on an elbow. Ivy watched, torn as Nina began to sob, but she left her there, taking Cormel’s other arm and giving a yank. Like a drunken businessman in the gutter, Cormel rose, weaving on his feet between us. Ivy let go, and I struggled to hold him on my own.

“Where am I?” he breathed, again wiping his mouth of Ivy’s blood and looking at it in distaste. Blinking, he looked at Ivy as she hoisted Nina into her arms. “Nina . . .” he said, then looked at his hand in wonder. “I see it, but the thought of blood is repellent,” he whispered in awe, and I shivered when his gaze traveled to me. “What have you done to me?”

Jenks zipped up the stairway and back down. “Can we do this moving?” he said, making motions to get up the stairs. “The sun waits for no vampire.”

Holding Nina in her arms, Ivy easily took the steps. Adrenaline gave me strength as I tucked a shoulder under Cormel. “Waves of wild magic are passing through Cincinnati causing magical misfires and the undead to sleep,” I said, breathing deeply as vampiric incense poured over me, smelling sour somehow. “Except for Felix. Why?”

“Elves are killing vampires?” Cormel said, head hanging as he staggered.

My lips parted at the possibility, then I got us moving forward up the stairs. The light grew brighter, and the feeling of a trap lifted. “No, it’s Free Vampires. Why is Felix the only one awake? What makes him different?”

Cormel shook his head as we emerged, orienting himself. “I didn’t know this was here.”

“Cormel. Why is Felix awake?” I asked again. Ivy was already at the door, Nina in her arms and katana on her hip as she looked first one way, then the other. Nina was crying, but I didn’t think she was really aware yet. I let go of the ley line light spell, and a surge of energy lifted through me until it faded.

“I do not hunger,” Cormel said distantly, and I suddenly found myself holding him upright, staggering under his weight.

“Cormel!” I shouted as he fell down the dais’s shallow stairs. Cursing, I followed him down. His eyes were shut, and grabbing him by the lapels, I lifted his head and gave his face a smack. “Wake up!”

Cormel’s eyes flashed open. “If you keep hitting me, I’m going to lose my patience.”

“The I.S. is falling apart,” I said, trying to get him to stand. “You have to stay awake!”

But his eyes closed, and I looked at Ivy helplessly. We couldn’t leave him here.

“Smack him again!” Jenks said, and Ivy shifted Nina to a shoulder and a fireman’s carry.

“I’ll take him,” she said shortly as she came forward, and my eyes widened. She wanted to carry both of them? “Go before me and make sure everything is clear,” she added, and I watched, amazed, as she crouched with Nina on one shoulder, taking Cormel on the other as I got behind him and managed to get him somewhat upright.

Groaning with the weight, she staggered to a stand, reminding me again that she was more than human. Fear had given her strength, her fear not for Felix, but for Nina. She’d seen the hell Nina was in, been in it until my love for her had pulled her clean from it, as if a sword annealed in quenching waters. We had to get out of here before Felix realized what we were doing and dropped into Nina like a glove.