The Undead Pool (44 page)

“Shut up!” Ivy snarled like a substitute school bus driver as she slowly drove into the spot of light and halted where they told her. I.S. officers with weapons barred the road. Trent ducked his head, pulling his knit hat down lower as one of them came to the window.
Oh, really.

“Curfew is in effect since sundown,” the officer said brusquely as about five other officers surrounded us, trying to look in the windows only to find smiling vampires in the way. “Get out of the vehicle. All of you. Leave the keys in the ignition.”

“We're trying to fix this,” Ivy said, her hands firmly on the wheel. “You mind letting us through?”

“Get out. Now!” the officer said, and Trent looked at his feet when the man flashed a light into the back. “You'll be released at sunrise. If it was up to me, you'd be incarcerated until your trial.”

“For breaking curfew?” Nina said, and the light shone fully on her.

The man's eyes widened at the grenades. Dropping back, he made a gesture, and I shivered as a magical field went up. I sucked in my breath as a hundred mystics from who knew where flooded me, bringing a hundred different viewpoints of the roadblock. We were surrounded. The three cars that had been following us were hanging back just out of sight, engines running—waiting for the right moment.

“I didn't think those fields were legal,” Trent said, and I blinked fast, trying to keep from passing out. Too many mystics; it was like looking through the world through bug eyes. Nothing made sense when you looked at it from a hundred viewpoints. No wonder the Goddess was nuts.

Scott lifted his chin, far too eager. “You stay here, missy. We'll take care of this.”

“No violence!” Trent shouted, and the I.S. officer swore when the light hit him and Trent was recognized.

Mystic vision rocked me, and with a herculean effort, I managed to cycle the multiple viewpoints to one. It was getting easier to figure this out, and I gripped the edge of the seat as an engine revved and I watched almost as if it were a dream as a brown Buick with an orange hood plowed through the blockade, Weres waving their bare asses at the officers in passing.

“Get them!” the man at Ivy's door shouted, distracted, and I felt the restraining field drop.

“It's David!” Jenks shrilled as he darted in the front window. “Go! Bis has my kids!”

Three vampires dove out of the van, howling as loud as the second car of Weres as Ivy sedately put the van in drive and crossed the blockade behind it. The cop screamed at us to stop, faltering as he suddenly found himself facing confident vampires, one with a sledge. Angry, he spun to the man running the restraining charm, but he was gone, chasing after the Weres. Bis came in with the sound of sliding leather and pixy chatter, and Ivy picked up speed. Someone shot at us, but it didn't matter, and we careened around a corner and were gone. Worst-case scenario gave us thirty seconds before they'd find a car and follow; best case had vampires with hammers distracting them long enough for us to slip away.

Okay, maybe this will work,
I thought as we outdistanced the mystics we'd left behind. I was getting sporadic mystic reports of laughing Weres being handcuffed and slammed against the hoods of their cars. The Weres on four paws were uncatchable, racing through the streets as they tailed us. The vampires we'd left behind were happily demolishing the roadblock.

Scott, the only vamp left beside Nina, looked positively depressed. “They'll call for backup,” Nina said as she unbuckled her belt and went to sit with him. “Maybe they'll try to stop us, and then you can try your gun out.”

“Maybe,” he moaned, and Ivy smirked as Nina put a comforting arm over Scott's big shoulders. “You're just trying to make me feel better.”

Beside me, Trent shook his head, smiling.

“Rachel?” Ivy's voice was low as she fought with her instincts. “Is that David in that last car behind us?”

I'd already heard from a mystic that it was, but I leaned to look out the broken window, my hair streaming. The truck chasing us had three people in the front, and about six wolves in the bed. As I watched, another wolf loped out of the darkness and vaulted into the truck bed, nails scraping. “Can you slow down long enough to get him in here?”

Ivy put her flashers on, and once the truck blinked its lights to acknowledge it, she abruptly pulled over. My head swung as she hit the brakes hard, and Scott's muscles bunched as he yanked the door. There was a snap as he broke the safety feature, and the door slid open even before we came to a halt. I could hear sirens. My adrenaline pulsed, making Scott's eyes flash black. This was so not good.

“Go!” David shouted as he pitched in, duster furling as Scott caught and spun him around. Three Weres on paws and with waving tails lurched in after him, and Scott slammed the door.

Nina was at the back window, head hanging out. “They're only a couple of streets away!” she shouted, and Ivy floored it. I scrambled for a handhold, and the sound of sliding nails scraped along the back of my skull as we took a corner hard. Trent gave my shoulder a squeeze, and when I nodded that I was okay, he let go.

Hat crushed in his hand, David knelt between the two front seats, holding on as we swerved and jostled. The street lighting was marginally better, and I shivered at the wind and come-and-go shadows on the faces around me, eager for action. Smiling widely, he turned, nodding first to me, then Trent.

“Sorry I'm late. Just keep going as you are and your way should be clear.”

“Should be, but isn't,” Ivy said with a sigh. “Hold on. We've got another one. Damn, it's human,” she added, and Scott frowned as he looked at his weapon. “This is going to be tricky. Nina, can you ease up a little?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” she grumbled, kicking her grenade stash deeper under the bench.

Peeved, David slipped into the front seat, busy with his cell phone. “Sorry. This was supposed to be clear. Circle around. Give me a block or two,” he asked, and without question, Ivy turned the van. There were shouts from the blockade, and a spotlight made a puddling flow as it searched, but we were down a side street and gone.

“Yes, it's me,” David said into his tiny phone. “General Lee needs another rabbit at the corner of Sleepy Hollow and ah . . . Ludville.”

I held on tight as we took a corner. “General Lee?”

Trent leaned to me, the scent of cinnamon rising. “Yeee-hahhh,” he drawled, and I got it.

“Oh my God! Look at that!” Ivy exclaimed, and the van rocked when everyone but Trent and I flung themselves halfway out a window. Ivy slowed as a wave of brown flowed out of the darkness and to the blockade. It was the Weres clearing a path.

“You can turn around now,” David said, and Ivy checked, then double-checked both sides of the road for stragglers before turning in front of a dark storefront. I tensed as an influx of mystics warned me of something, but before I could figure it out, a blossom of orange rose up over the surrounding low buildings and trees where the roadblock was. Had been, maybe. Two seconds later, the van rocked with the sound. Nina
ooooh
ed. It was the Fourth of July, and we had the fireworks to prove it.

David muttered “thanks” into his phone and closed it. “That should do it,” he said confidently. But my good mood faltered when Ivy turned the corner.

Burning chunks of car and roadblock littered the road, happy Weres with singed fur and lolling tongues pacing back and forth or licking the faces of downed humans.
Please, may no one be hurt too badly.
There were too many people. They were getting hurt.

“Damn it!” Scott complained as Ivy carefully wove her way through the burning rubble. “We haven't done anything! We can do more than look pretty, you know.”

His face split in a wide grin, David turned from the front seat. “Face it. We're better organized.”

“Only because the masters are sleeping,” Scott grumbled, depressed, as Nina put an arm over his shoulder and tried to convince him they would see some action soon.

Which was exactly what I was afraid of. But I breathed easier as a few people began to stir, one gripping the ruff of a Were for balance as he slowly picked himself up off the pavement. Either he didn't know the Weres had caused the explosion or he thought he was a friendly dog.

Finally Ivy got through the worse of it and began to pick up speed. “What are you smiling about?” I said unhappily to Trent, and he leaned closer, grabbing my shoulder so we wouldn't bump heads as we jolted along.

“I think it's amazing that when your world collapses, you have people falling over themselves to help you, and when mine collapses, I have people fighting among themselves to get the scraps.” Nodding, he looked at David, his phone to his ear as he coordinated something with Ivy. “You've done something right, Rachel, sacrificing for others the way you do.”

“They're going to get hurt,” I said glumly, and he lifted a shoulder as if to agree.

“Ah, guys?” Ivy said, the pace finally slowing as we found a street that wasn't blocked off. “We might have a problem.”

“All right!” Scott said enthusiastically, but I didn't think Scott was going to get to bust any heads as I looked out the front window. It was the mortuary, lit up under mobile spotlights and noisy generators. FIB and I.S. cars were parked haphazardly on the street, the lawn, the lawn across the street . . . everywhere. Lines had been strung, and people dashed around looking ineffective. There were a couple of ambulances, but they weren't busy.

They had moved on them early, as Jenks had guessed. Either Edden had been lied to about the original timing, or things had changed and had required immediate action. Looking at the red clouds reflecting the light, I figured it was the latter.

“Son of a bitch!” Jenks swore, and Nina got a scared look on her face. It was over. They had them and it was over.

“Keep driving past,” Trent said as he moved forward to crouch behind David. The alpha Were was again on the phone, looking for answers. “We don't know what happened yet. They might still be in there.”

But I could tell they weren't. I was getting sporadic, questionable intel from the mystics, and as soon as they came in, I sent them back out for more. There'd been a fight. Lots of noise. The mystics tended to focus on the oddest things, and I was reduced to looking at the edges of their awareness to learn anything.

“I'll check it out,” Jenks said as he hovered before me. His dust made me shiver, and a mystic I'd never had in me before played in it. Jenks gave me a worried look as he took in my aura. “Don't ditch me, Ivy,” he added, then darted out the window, shouting for Bis.

The gargoyle sailed eagerly after him, wings billowing the cloud of dust Jenks's kids had made chasing after their dad. Scott and Nina clustered at the windows to look back at the crime scene. No one had even noticed us in the chaos.

Landon and Ayer were long gone. The air felt flat, and my skin wasn't tingling. But suddenly mystics exploded over my skin and into my mind—unfamiliar mystics pulled to me by the echo of my aura and led by an enthusiastic few. My breath slipped from me in a whimper, and I clutched the seat in vertigo as images of battle, of blood, of sudden freedom made my stomach turn. Concepts flashed past that I couldn't comprehend, but the mystics were afraid.

Death. Singular thoughts ended,
echoed in me as mystics familiar with my way of thinking instructed the new ones on how to converse in this new, smaller world my mind made for them. And slowly it began to make sense where once there was only chaos.

“Is she okay?” Scott asked Trent, and I realized he was holding me upright.

“Give me a second,” I breathed as, like smoke over a field, the new mystics took on the wisdom of the old and the world stopped spinning. “Better,” I said, voice stronger as my eyes suddenly focused. Things shifted, and the confusion began to work for instead of against me. Images flickered through me, like watching a movie in five-second snippets, all out of order. “They're gone,” I said, figuring that much out. “Landon and Ayer left before the I.S. got here. They took the captive mystics with them. A few escaped when they moved them to battery backup. They're . . . confused. Confusing.”

Or at least, they had been, and with the riveting beauty of dominoes falling, the multiple images fell into place and made sense. My head came up, and every vampire's eyes went black as my fear flashed into existence. I got it. I finally understood, and it scared the crap out of me.

“They've divided them up and are distributing them across the United States.” No one said anything, and I added, “It's happening! They're dispersing the captive mystics. They're going to use them to kill all the undead. They have enough to do what they did in Cincinnati everywhere!”

“Mother pus bucket . . .” Trent whispered, shocking me as he used one of Al's favorite curses. It seemed appropriate. Ivy abruptly pulled over, and David lurched, catching himself with one hand.

“Everyone stay in the van!” Ivy shouted as she grabbed her phone. We were out of sight of the mortuary, but not that far away that I couldn't jog back in like . . . two minutes.

Immediately three Weres launched themselves out a broken window, scrambling with the sound of claws in the dark to do just that. “I've already sent someone for information,” David said, and I breathed easier in the extra room.

“I told you, they're gone.” I dropped my head into my hands as I imagined the chaos. Cincinnati was used to weird things happening—thanks to me—but this unrest in Chicago, New Orleans, or even San Diego was enough to give me nightmares.
Please, God. Not San Francisco.

Ivy frowned, phone to her hear. “Yeah?” she said, angry. “And just when were you going to tell us? What happened? And don't tell me you don't know, because I just saw you.”