If someone was targeting Trent, I wanted to know. It was worth bothering Al over, though he’d just tell me to let the man die.
That ball shouldn’t have exploded.
Two
The sun was a slow flash through Cincinnati’s buildings as I fought afternoon traffic headed for the bridge and the Hollows beyond. The interstate was clogged, and it was easier to simply settle in behind a truck in the far right lane and make slow and steady progress than to try to maintain the posted limit by weaving in and out of traffic.
My radio was on, but it was all news and none of it good. The misfired charm at Trent’s facility wasn’t the only one this morning, and so far down on the drama scale that it hadn’t even been noticed, pushed out by the cooking class in intensive care for massive burns and the sudden collapse of a girder slamming through the roof of a coffeehouse and injuring three. The entire east side of the 71 corridor was a mess, making me think my sand-trap crater had been part of something bigger. Misfires weren’t that common, usually clustered by the batch and never linked only by space and time.
Jenks was silent, a worried green dust hazing him as he rested on the rearview mirror. But when the story changed to a cleaning crew found dead, the apparent cause being brain damage from a sudden lack of fat in their bodies, I turned it off in horror.
Jenks’s heels thumped the glass. “That’s nasty.”
I nodded, anxious now to get home and turn on the news. But even as I tried not to think about how painful it would be to die from a sudden lack of brain tissue, my mind shifted. Was I really seeing what I thought I was in Trent, or was I simply projecting what I wanted? I mean, the man had everything but the freedom to be what he wanted. Why would he want . . . me? And yet there it was, refusing to go away.
Elbow on the open window as we crept forward, I twisted a curl around a finger. Even the press could tell there was something between us, but it wasn’t as if I could tell them it was the sharing of dangerous, well-kept secrets, not the familiarity of knowing if he wore boxers or briefs. I knew Trent had issues with what everyone expected him to be. I knew his days stretched long, especially now that Ceri was gone and Quen and the girls were splitting their time between Trent and Ellasbeth. But there were better ways to fill his calendar than to court political calamity by asking me to work security—me being good at it aside. We were going to have to talk about it and do the smart thing. For once, I was going to do the smart thing. So why does my gut hurt?
“Rache!” Jenks yelled from the rearview mirror, and my attention jerked from the truck in front of me.
“What!” I shouted back, startled. I wasn’t anywhere near to hitting it.
Pixy dust, green and sour, sifted from him to vanish in the breeze. “For the fairy-farting third time, will you shift the air currents in this thing? The wind is tearing my wings to shreds.”
Warming, I glanced at the dust leaking from the cut in his wing. “Sorry.” Rolling my window halfway up, I cracked the two back windows. Jenks resettled himself, his dust shifting to a more content yellow.
“Thanks. Where were you?” he asked.
“Ah,” I hedged. “My closet,” I lied. “I don’t know what to wear tonight.” Tonight. That would be a good time to bring it up. Trent would have three months to think about it.
Jenks eyed me in distrust as a kid in a black convertible wove in and out of traffic, working his way up car length by car length. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Trent’s girls are coming back tomorrow, right?”
The pixy knew when I lied. Apparently my aura shifted. “Yes,” I said, trying for flippant. “I can use the time off. Trent is more social than a fourteen-year-old living-vampire girl.” And he could text just as fast, I’d found.
Jenks’s wings blurred. “No money for three months . . .”
My grip on the wheel tightened, and I took the on-ramp for the bridge. “I’ve got your rent, pixy. Relax.”
“Tink’s little pink rosebuds!” Jenks suddenly exploded, his wings blurring to invisibility. “Why don’t you just have sex with the man?”
“Jenks!” I exclaimed, then hit the brakes and swerved when the kid in the convertible cut off the truck ahead of me. My tires popped gravel as I swung on the shoulder and back to the road again, but I was more embarrassed about what he’d said than mad at the jerk in the car. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah?” There was a curious silver tint to his dust. “Watching you and Trent is like watching two kids who don’t know how their lips work yet. You like him.”
“What’s not to like?” I grumbled, appreciating the thinner traffic on the bridge.
“Yeah, but you thought you hated him last year. That means you really like him.”
My hands were clenched, and I forced them to relax on the wheel. “Is there a point to this other than you talking about sex?”
He swung his feet to thump on the rearview mirror. “No. That’s about it.”
“The man is engaged,” I said, frustrated that my life was so transparent.
“No, he isn’t.”
“Well, he will be,” I shot back as the bridge girders made new shadows and Jenks’s dust glowed like a sunbeam. Will be again.
Jenks snorted. “Yeah, he lives in Cincy, and she lives in Seattle. If he liked her, he’d let her move in with him.”
“They’ve got a kid,” I said firmly. “Their marriage will solidify the East and West Coast elven clans. That’s what Trent wants. What everyone wants. It’s going to happen, and I’m not going to interfere.”
“Ha!” he barked. “I knew you liked him. Besides, you don’t plan love, it just happens.”
“Love!” Three cars ahead, horns blew and brake lights flashed. I slowed, anticipating trouble. “It’s not love.”
“Lust, then,” Jenks said, seeming to think that was better than love anyway. “Why else would you explode that ball? A little overly protective, yes?”
My elbow wedged itself against the window, and I dropped my head into my hand. Traffic had stopped, and I inched forward into a spot of sun. I was not in love. Or lust. And neither was Trent, despite that I’m-not-drunk kiss. He’d been alone and vulnerable, and so had I. But I couldn’t help but wonder if all the engagements this last month were normal or if he was trying to get out of the house. With me. Stop it, Rachel.
A horn blew behind me, and I moved forward a car length. Trent had his entire life before him, planned out better than one of Ivy’s runs. Ellasbeth and their daughter, Lucy, fit in there. Ray, too, though the little girl didn’t share a drop of blood with him. Trent wanted more, but he couldn’t be two things at once. I had tried, and it had almost killed me.
My gaze slid to my shoulder bag and the golf ball tucked inside. “The explosion was probably the same thing affecting the 71 corridor,” I said. “Not because I overreacted.”
Jenks sniffed. “I like my idea better.”
Traffic was almost back up to speed, and I shifted lanes to get off at the exit just over the bridge. We passed under a girder, and a sheet of tingles passed over me. Surprised, I looked up at the sound of wings, not seeing anything. Why are my fingertips tingling?
“Dude!” Jenks exclaimed. “Did you feel that? Crap on toast, Rache! Your aura just went white again!”
“What?” I took a breath, then my attention jerked forward at the screech of tires. I slammed on the brakes. Both I and the car ahead of me jerked to the left. Before us, a car dove to the right. Tires squealed behind me, but somehow we all stopped, shaken but not a scratch.
“I bet it was that kid,” I said, my adrenaline shifting to anger. But then I paled, eyes widening at the huge bubble of ever-after rising up over the cars.
“Jenks!” I shouted, and he turned, darting into the air in alarm. The bubble was huge, coated in silver-edged black sparkles with red smears of energy darting over it. I’d never seen a bubble grow that slowly, and it was headed right for us.
“Go!” I shouted, reaching for my seat belt and scrambling to get out of the car. No one else was moving, and as Jenks darted out, I reached for a line to make a protection circle. But I was over water. There was no way.
Turning, I plowed right into someone’s door as it opened. I scrambled up, frantically looking over my shoulder as the bubble hit my foot. “No!” I screamed as my foot went dead. I hit the pavement and fell into the shadow of the car. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Brownish-red sparkles flowed into me instead of air, and my ears were full of the sound of feathers. I couldn’t see. There was no sensation from my fingers as I pushed into the pavement. There was simply nothing to feel.
My heart isn’t beating! I thought frantically as the sound of feathers softened into a solid numbness. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. It was as if I was being smothered in brown smog. Panicked, I looked again for a line, but there was nothing. What in hell was it? If I could figure that out, I could break it.
A slow roaring grew painfully loud until it cut off with a soft lub. A sparkle drifted before me, then another. I wasn’t breathing, but I wasn’t suffocating, either. Slowly the roaring started again, rising to a crescendo to end in a soft hush.
It’s my heart, I realized suddenly, seeing more sparkles as I exhaled as if in slow motion, and with that, I knew. I was trapped in an inertia dampening field. There’d been an accident, and a safety charm had malfunctioned. But why had it risen to encompass all of us? I thought, reaching deep into my chi and pulling together the ever-after energy I’d stored there. I couldn’t make a protection circle without linking to a ley line, but I sure as hell could do a spell.
Separare! I thought, and with a painful suddenness, the world exploded.
“Oh God,” I moaned, eyes shut as the light burned my eyes. Fire seemed to flash over me and mute to a gentle warmth. Panting, I cracked my eyes to see it had only been the sunbeam I was lying in. Sunbeam? I’d fallen into the shade. And where are the cars?
“Rachel!” a familiar gray voice whispered intently, and I pulled my squinting gaze from the overhead girders to my hand. Ivy was holding it, her long pale fingers trembling.
“How did you get here?” I said, and she pulled me into a hug, right there in the middle of the road.
“Thank God you’re all right,” she said, the scent of vampiric incense pouring over me. Everything felt painfully sharp, the wind cooler, the sunlight brighter, the noise of FIB and I.S. sirens louder, the scent of Ivy prickling in my nose.
The noise of the FIB and I.S. sirens louder? Confused, I patted Ivy’s back as she squeezed me almost too hard to breathe. I must have passed out, because most of the cars were gone. I.S. and FIB vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances had taken their place, all their lights going. It looked like a street party gone bad with the cops from two divisions and at least three pay grades mucking about. Behind me was more noise, and I pushed from Ivy to see.
Her eyes were red rimmed; she’d been crying. Smiling, she let me go, her long black hair swinging free. “You’ve been out for three hours.”
“Three hours?” I echoed breathily, seeing much the same behind me at the Cincy end of things. More cars, more police vehicles, more ambulances . . . and a row of eight people, their faces uncovered, telling me they were alive, probably still stuck in whatever I’d been in.
“You weren’t in a car, so I made them leave you,” she said, and I turned back to her, feeling stiff and ill.
My bag was beside her, and I pulled it closer, the fabric scraping unusually rough on my fingertips. “What happened? Where’s Jenks?”
“Looking for something to eat. He’s fine.” Her boots ground against the pavement as she stood to help me rise. Shaking, I got to my feet. “He called me as soon as it happened. I got here before the I.S. even. They’re telling the media an inertia dampening charm triggered the safety spells of every car on the bridge.”
“Good story. I’d stick with that.” I leaned heavily on her as we limped to the side of the bridge and into the shade of a pylon. “But those kinds of charms can’t do that.”
“Rache!” a shrill pixy voice called, and I looked up, blinding myself as Jenks dropped down from the sun. “You’re up! See, Ivy. I told you she’d be okay. Look, even her aura is back to normal.”
Well, that was one good thing, but I was starting to see a pattern here, and I didn’t like it. “You got out okay?” I asked, and he landed on Ivy’s shoulder.
“Hell, yes. That wasn’t multiple spells. I watched the whole thing. It was one bubble, and it came from that black car with the jerk-ass driver.”
Hands shaking, I leaned on the cool railing. Two medical people were headed our way, and I winced. “Oh crap,” I whispered, grabbing Ivy’s arm as they descended on us, medical instruments flopping from pockets and their tight grips.
“I’m okay. I’m okay!” I shouted as the first tried to get me to sit back down, and the second started flashing a light in my eyes. “It was just an inertia dampening charm. I think it was so big ordinary metabolic functions couldn’t break it. I got out using a standard breakage charm. And get that light out of my eyes, will you?”
“A breakage charm?” the one trying to fit a blood pressure cuff on me said, and I nodded, glad that ambulance teams were required by law to have at least one witch on staff and he knew what I was talking about.
“I’m willing to try anything,” the first said, turning to look at the line of people.