The Undead Pool

Tulpa was a sweet, biddable horse, and I gave the old stallion a little pat as Trent came up beside us. Both horses shunned the tall, whispering grass, already having sampled it to find it as distasteful as everything else in the ever-after. The harsh landscape had a dusky red sheen, the nearly full moon nearing the western horizon. It was just shy of midnight and we’d been riding for hours. I could tell Trent was tired, but he didn’t say anything as he brought his binoculars up, looking like a thief in his black pants and jacket with a matching black knit hat, scanning for a landmark that might be mirrored in reality where we could take simultaneous readings with Landon and Bancroft. I didn’t really know why we were doing this anymore, except that if there was a chance that me parking it in the ever-after might wake the masters up, I’d do it.

Grit ground between my fingers as I wiped my face. A lot had changed since I’d traveled the ever-after that night with Trent. I glanced at Trent’s closed expression—a lot hadn’t.

Surface demons had found us almost as soon as we’d gotten the horses snorting and prancing across the realities. They had to be interested in the horses because Trent and I were clearly able to protect ourselves and surface demons preyed only on the weak.

“Where do you think we are?” Trent said, his expression lost behind the binoculars.

I shrugged, forgetting he couldn’t see, then took my foot out of the stirrup to push Tulpa away from Red. He was making eyes at her even though she wasn’t in season. “The industrial park, maybe?” I said. “That rise is probably in reality.”

Trent’s binoculars shifted to it. A rock clinked behind us, and he dropped them to rest on his chest. Expression grim, he nudged Red into a tight spin so we could watch each other’s back. The horse’s nostrils widened as she breathed in the scent of the surface demons. They were close—and becoming bolder.

“Bis?” I called, and the little gargoyle dropped to a nearby rock jutting from the surface. Red shied, but she calmed almost immediately under Trent’s hand.

Bis’s eyes seemed to glow in the shadow light, his black teeth glinting as he smiled. “You’ve six surface demons trailing,” he said, and Trent’s frown deepened.

“How close?”

“Not close. Not since I dropped a rock on one.” Bis chuckled, which sounded like rocks in a garbage disposal. “They’re curious about the horses, I think.”

Curious, or hungry? We had to get moving. “Bis, could you tell Bancroft we want to take a reading on that hill?”

His wings opened, and Red snorted at Bis’s rapid flapping and sudden liftoff as he made the short jaunt in mere moments. He hovered over the hill until I waved to tell him that was the spot, and then he winked out of the ever-after.

“Ready?” I prompted, and Trent spun Red around, neck arched and wanting to run. Bis would take Bancroft and Landon to the hill in reality, and then pop back so we could all take simultaneous readings. Trent was working the meter, but I was writing the results down as well.

We went to the hill in a slow canter, Trent fighting Red all the way. The mare was showing an increasingly dangerous alarm at what scuffed, trilled, and clinked. Once at the top, we settled in to wait, looking out over the wide expanse of basically nothing.

Before us and to the left were the remains of Cincinnati. The ever-after wasn’t altogether real, and definitely not its own identity. Buildings rose when a new one went up in reality, but they broke even as they ghosted into existence, which was why the demons lived underground where their caverns remained untouched by what we did in the real world. The ever-after was a shadow of reality, populated by surface demons who were not demons at all.

I’d once believed the tall, skinny wraiths were the ancestors of elves or witches who had refused to flee the ever-after and had since been damaged by the ever-after sun. Now I wondered if they were really the shadows of people in reality, with their torn auras and malnourished state, but that didn’t fit, either. Unlike the surface structures, they clearly had an independence from anything in reality. Al wouldn’t talk about them, which made me wonder if they’d once been demons, now caught in an elven charm, destined to live in limbo forever—or at least until the two worlds collided.

We didn’t have anything to do until Bis returned to tell us that Landon and Bancroft were in place, and I gave Trent a glance. He wasn’t a big talker to begin with, but the more something bothered him, the less he was likely to talk about it . . . or anything else. Since Landon had given him the dewar’s ultimatum, he hadn’t said much of anything. “Trent, what does elven history say about surface demons?”

Somehow his expression became even more closed. “Nothing,” he said, his voice clipped. “Rachel, I’d like to apologize for Landon.”

A stab of alarm cut through me. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”