The Outlaw Demon Wails (The Hollows #6)

The Outlaw Demon Wails (The Hollows #6) Page 31

The jump through the line hit me like a bucket of ice water, an uncomfortable slap right from the start with the shock turning into the sensation of being wet where you don't want to be and left dripping. I felt my body shatter - that was the shock - and then my thoughts tightened into a ball around my soul to hold it together - that was the miserable, dripping-wet part. That I was holding my soul together and not Al was a surprise to both of us.

Good, came Al's grudging, almost worried thought rippling over the protective bubble I had somehow made about my psyche. And then came the push back into existence.

Again the bucket of ice water hit my thoughts as he shoved me out of the line. I tried to see how he did it, coming away without a clue. But at least I had managed to keep from spreading my thoughts over the entire continent crisscrossed with ley lines - the stretchy stuff that kept the ever-after from vanishing, if Jenks was right.

I gasped as I felt my lungs form. Dizzy, I fell to my hands and knees. "Ow," I said as I looked at the dirty white tile, then brought my head up at the hammering of noise. We were in a large room. Men in suits were everywhere standing or sitting in orange chairs - waiting.

"Get up," Al grumbled, bending to bodily yank me upright.

I rose, arms and legs flopping until I found my feet. Wide-eyed, I stared at the irate people dressed in a vast array of styles. Al jerked me into motion, and my mouth dropped as I realized we had popped into existence upon what looked like an FIB emblem. Holy crap, it even looked like the FIB reception room. Minus the demons, of course.

Feeling displaced and unreal, I turned to where the doors to the street would have been, seeing only a blank wall and more waiting demons. "Is this the FIB?" I stammered.

"It's someone's idea of a joke," Al said, his voice tight and his accent impeccable. "Get off the pad unless you want someone's elbow in your ear."

"God, it stinks," I said, hand over my nose as he pulled me into a long step.

Al strode forward, head high. "It's the stench of bureaucracy, my itchy-witch, and why I chose to go into human resources when but a wee lad."

We'd come up to a set of imposing wooden doors. There were two uniformed men beside it - demons, by their eyes - looking bored and stupid. They probably had stupid denizens in the ever-after just like everywhere else. Behind us was a rising angry mutter that I recognized from when I tried to sneak thirteen items into a twelve-item-only line.

"Docket number?" the more brilliant of the two asked, and Al reached for the door.

"Hey," the other said, coming to life. "You're supposed to be in jail."

Al grinned at him, his white-gloved grip tightening on the wooden handle, which was intricately carved in the shape of a naked, writhing woman. Nice. "And your momma wanted you to have a brain," he said, yanking the door open and slamming it into the guy's face.

I danced backward at the ensuing uproar, but Al took my upper arm and strode forward, nose in the air, buckled shoes snapping, and velveteen coattails swaying. "You, ah, have a way with civil servants," I said, almost panting to keep up. I wasn't about to drag my feet. I'd stormed a few offices myself; you had to move quickly to get past the red-tape-loving idiots and find someone intelligent enough to appreciate the nerve of barging in. Someone dying for an interruption and the chance to procrastinate. Someone like...I peered at the nameplate on the door Al stopped before. Someone like Dallkarackint. Jeez, what was it with demon names?

Wait a sec. Dali, Dallkarackint...Was this the guy Al had wanted to throw my dead body in front of?

Al opened the door, shoved me in, then back-kicked the door shut to block out the uproar storming up the hall behind us. I felt a tweak on my awareness and wondered if he'd locked it. It was a thought that grew more plausible when the pounding on the door stayed pounding and didn't turn into a big ugly demon with a broken nose.

Squinting, I caught my balance in the...sand? Shocked, I looked up as what had to be a fake breeze smelling of seaweed and burnt amber shifted my hair. I was standing in hot sand in the sun. The door had become a small changing hut, and a boardwalk ran from right to left to the surf-soaked horizon. Stretching into the almost green water was a canopy-covered dock. At the end was a large platform on which a man sat behind a desk. Okay, he was a demon, but he looked like an attractive fifty-something CEO who had brought his desk with him on vacation instead of his laptop. Before him in an upright deck chair was a woman in a purple sari. The scrying mirror on her lap flashed in the sun angling under the canopy that shaded the desk. His familiar?

"Wow," I said, unable to look at everything at once. "This isn't real, is it?"

Al straightened his crushed velvet and pulled me onto the boardwalk. "No," he said as our heels clunked on the wood. "It's casual Friday."

My God, the sun sliding under the awning is even warm, I thought as we found the dock and started down it. I suppose if one was a demon and had unlimited power, why not put the illusion of the Bahamas around you at the office? Al yanked me forward when I lagged to see if there were fish in the water, and I yelped when I felt a cascading shimmer cross over me.

"There," Al soothed, and I shoved his hand off me. "Now don't you look proper? Must wear our best when before the court."

My pulse quickened as I realized I was wearing my usual working leathers, my hair back in a scrunchy and my butt-kicking boots on my feet. The purple scarf around my waist was new, though. "If you're trying to make nice-nice, this might not be the best way to do it," I said to Al when the guy behind the desk leaned back in annoyance as he saw us and the woman took her hand from the mirror.

"Relax." Al pulled me further into his burnt-amber scent as we came to a respectful halt on the round rug laid on the rough planks before the desk. "I'm supposed to be exiled this morning. They would have been disappointed if I didn't do something dramatic."

A puddle of gray in the sun-soaked dinghy tied to the dock moved, and my gaze shifted.

Oh, God. It was Trent. He looked washed out and thin as he bobbed on the fake tide in the sun, and when he saw me, hate filled his bloodshot eyes. He had to know I was here to rescue him. Didn't he?

The demon behind the desk sighed, and my attention shifted to him. Somehow he looked right out here in the cool, Brimstone-scented, breezy shade of the canopy, his desk perched over the water with a coffee cup and a stack of files on it. Flip-flops poked from under the dark mahogany desk, and his Hawaiian-print top showed a wisp of hair at his chest. Setting his pen down, he gestured sourly. "Al, what, by the two worlds colliding, are you doing in my office?"

Al beamed as the demon recognized him, pulling himself straight, tugging the lace at his wrists, and scuffing his shiny-buckled boots on the planks. "Elevating your status, Dali, dear."

Dali leaned back in his chair and glanced at the woman silently waiting. "Before or after I sling your ass to the surface?" he said in a bothered tone, his fast voice rough. His eyes flicked to me, and his lips pursed briefly. "You don't have anything left to elevate anyone. And killing her before the courts will not excuse you from teaching her how to spindle line energy and let her run about with no compulsion to keep her mouth shut."

"Hey!" I said, not wanting that to stand without correction. "I was under compulsion to keep my mouth shut. So was Ceri. We were under lots of compulsion." Al gripped my arm and dragged me back a step as I added, "You've no idea the amount of compulsion we were under."

"You misunderstand, my most honorable ass-kisser," Al said, jaw clenched at my outburst. "I'd sooner die before giving Rachel Mariana Morgan to the courts. I'm not here to kill her, I'm here to demand that the uncommon stupidity charge against me be dropped."

My shock at the honorable-ass-kisser comment was pushed away by the thought of a law against uncommon stupidity, and I wondered how we could get one. Remembering Trent, I nudged Al.

"Oh, yes," the demon added, "and I would ask that my student's familiar be released to my custody. Busy day planned. We could use his help. Must get him trained up, up, up!"

In the dinghy, Trent pulled himself up and sat on the bench, his motions slow as if he was in pain. There was a humiliating red ribbon about his neck. I wondered why he wore it, but upon seeing that his fingers were red and swollen, I decided they weren't letting him take it off.

Dali pushed his papers away and glanced at the woman. "I appreciate your efforts to weasel out of a hundred years of community service, but you've nothing left. Get out."

I turned to Al, seeing his complexion take on a new hue of red. "Community service? You told me they were going to banish you to the surface."

"They are," he growled, pinching my elbow. "Now shut up."

I fumed, but Al was already facing Dali. "I've taken Morgan as a student, not a familiar," he said. "It's not illegal or uncommonly stupid to teach a student how to spindle line energy. I simply didn't think it was worth mentioning...at the time."

Dali's eyes widened. On the floor, Trent's hatred grew directed, and I winced. This was looking really bad, and I'd have done anything to have been able to explain. Smiling, Al looped his arm in mine. "Try to look sexy," he muttered, poking me until my back stiffened.

"Student?" Dali blurted, both hands going palms-down on the desk. "Al - "

"She can spindle line energy," Al interrupted. "Her blood can twist demon curses. She took a human as a familiar before I broke the bond."

"Common knowledge," the demon said, pointing irately. "You said something about status. Give me something I don't know, or get the hell onto the surface where you belong."

Al took a worried breath. His face never changed, but I was standing so close, I felt it. And somehow, that was scary. Exhaling, Al nodded once, as a student might to an instructor. It was the first show of respect I'd seen from him, and I grew more frightened yet. His gaze flicked to the woman with the scrying mirror, and Dali's eyebrows rose.

The older demon pressed his lips and gestured for her to leave. She silently stood, set the mirror on his desk with disgust, and then vanished in a pop that was lost in the sound of the wind against the water. "This better be good," Dali grumbled. "I rent her by the hour."

Al swallowed, and I swear I could smell the faintest hint of sweat on him. "This witch can be summoned," he said softly, an arm behind and before him. "She can be summoned through the lines by way of a password." Dali made a puff of air, and Al added in a louder voice, "I know this because she stole mine and was summoned out in my stead."

Dali leaned forward. "That's how she escaped?" He turned to me. "You stole Al's summoning name? Voluntarily?" he asked. I opened my mouth to tell him it was so Al would leave me and my family alone, but Dali had returned his attention to Al. "She was summoned out? How did you get out, then?"

"She summoned me in turn," Al said, his voice dropping in pitch. "That's what I'm saying, old man. She integrated her password into our system well enough for it to be used in summoning. She can invoke demon magic. She accidentally made her boyfriend her familiar."

"Ex-boyfriend," I muttered, but neither was listening.

"Now are you going to hand me a shovel so I can dig my way out," Al said, "or are you going to banish me to the surface and throw this pretty little ball of chance against the wall of elf-shit and watch it shatter? None of you have the finesse for this. Newt, perhaps, if she were sane, but she isn't. And would you trust Newt not to kill her? I wouldn't."

Dali's eyes narrowed. "You think...," he mused.

"I know," Al said, chilling me with what he might have said, and my gaze flicked to Trent, listening in the dinghy. Damn it, Ceri said I wasn't a demon, but this...looked really bad. "She is my student," Al said loudly. "I already made the deal; she's mine. But I want her free of Newt's mark to prevent any - misunderstanding. All I want from you is to serve as witness and to set up a safe place for me to do a deal with Newt."

Fear jerked me straight. He's going to do the deal now? With me here? "Ah, wait up, boys," I exclaimed, backing up until Al gave me a withering look. "This is Newt we're talking about, right? No way. No freaking way!"

Ignoring me, the demon behind the desk hesitated nevertheless. He reclined with his fingers steepled against the colorful pattern of flowers on his shirt as the wind ruffled his hair, and I was suddenly struck with the memory of me asking Edden to throw me a preserver to get myself out of my personal crapfest just last year. Damn, were we that much alike, Al and I? Using what we had and scrambling to stay alive?

"Call her," Al said as he picked a tin of snuff from an inner coat pocket. A whiff of Brimstone came to me as he delicately sniffed a pinch. "Newt doesn't remember shit about Morgan, but she knows she forgot something. She'll give me the witch's mark in return for her memory, and when she finds out Minias wiped the knowledge from her, accident or not, she'll bloody kill him. That leaves three knowing." His smile grew devious. "Three is a very stable number."

"What about Trent?" I questioned, thinking this was getting more complex than I'd dreamed it would be. "The deal was I get him."

"Patience, itchy-witch," Al muttered between his teeth as he smiled at Dali and put an arm over my shoulders. I shoved his hand off me and glanced at Trent. He had to have known this was all to get him free and that he wouldn't really be my familiar. But his look was one of pure hatred.

The older demon shifted in his chair, and when our eyes met, I stifled a shiver. In a sudden motion, Dali reached for the scrying mirror. Setting it before him, he smiled wickedly at Al. "I'll see if she's cognizant this morning."

My pulse hammered, and my palms sweated. Almost immediately Dallkarackint's brow furrowed in worry, cleared, and then he smiled. "Al...," I whispered, backing up as I remembered Newt's utterly unbalanced, powerful presence tearing apart my living room and mastering three blood circles as she searched my church for who knew what. "Al, this isn't a good idea. This really isn't a good idea."

He huffed and grasped my shoulders, forcing me to stand beside him. "You asked for a bloody miracle. Who did you think I'd have to go to for it? Be a good girl and don't slouch."

I fought to get free of his grip, my motions stilling when Newt's androgynous shape misted into existence, bald and barefoot, her high cheekbones flushed and her brows raised in question. She wore a robe that was somewhere between a kimono and a sari, matching Minias's usual outfit, but hers was a dark red, billowing and lightweight. Her eyes were completely black, even the whites, and I remembered the touch of her hand on my jaw and how she had searched my face the first time we had met, comparing me to her sisters. Mouth dry, I tried to get Al between us, not caring if I looked scared. I was.

She slowly turned, her black gaze going from the bobbing dinghy to the ornate desk. "Dali," she said. Her voice had a smooth but masculine edge to it, and the demon took his hand from the mirror. Her attention shifted to Al. "Algaliarept?" she questioned. "Shouldn't you be making a sun shelter about now?" And then her eyes fell upon me.

"You!" she said, stepping forward with a vehement expression and her finger pointed.

Heart pounding, I pressed into Al. Funny how he seemed so much safer now.

"Newt, love," Al soothed, a black haze enveloping his extended hand, and I felt the tension almost crack. "You look marvelous. Don't muss your dress. She's here for a reason. Don't you want to hear it before you tear her head off?"

Newt hesitated, and as my pulse hammered in my ears, she graciously sank back into the deck chair Dali's secretary had been in. Dali was still behind the desk, but he was standing now. "Your familiar has something that belongs to me," she said almost petulantly. "I'm assuming you're here to sell her. Trying to buy space in the zoo, are you?"

Dali cleared his throat and came around his desk to offer her a tall glass of what looked like iced tea. It hadn't been there a moment ago. "Al is trying to weasel his way out of debt and thinks it will take that mark the witch owes you," the older demon said as he leaned against his desk, ankles crossed in a subtle show of submissiveness. "Be a dear and sell it to him, love."

She had taken the drink, the ice tinkling faintly as she set it on a round wicker table that showed up the instant she took her hand from the glass. "Since Al wants it, the answer is no."

Al took a step forward, leaving me to feel exposed. "Newt, love, I'm sure - "

With a glance, she stopped him. "I'm sure you have nothing - love," she mocked. "You sold everything down to your rooms to bribe for a late court date and post bail. I'm crazy, not stupid."

My jaw dropped, and I warmed. "You did what?" I exclaimed. Great. I was the student of a destitute demon. But Newt was now looking at me, and I backed up a step.

"She has something of mine," she said. "She wears my mark. Give her to me, and maybe I'll buy your rooms back for you."

At that, Al smiled. Kneeling before her, he took up her drink. "What she has is a memory of you two meeting, of what you learned and no one else but I figured out. Give me the witch's mark," Al whispered as he handed her the glass, "and I'll tell you what that is. Better still, I'll keep reminding you when that bastard Minias doses you into forgetting it - again."

The glass in her grip cracked, and an amber bead of liquid formed and rolled down the side. It was followed by another. "Minias...," she almost growled as she set the glass aside, her jaw tight in anger and her black orbs terrifyingly intent.

Her gaze fell on me, and I went cold. She stood, and Al casually backed up to get between us. "Yes or no, love," he said, putting me behind him.

"Yes," she whispered, and I yelped, shaking my foot when it gave a twinge.

Al steadied me, but his intake of breath shook at our success. "You put it on your foot?" he asked me.

"I didn't have a choice," I said, knees weak. He had done it. That fast, he had gotten Newt's mark switched to him. Now all that was left was to return his name for it, and I'd be free of the mark completely. This is working, I thought, glancing at Trent, who was watching in numb shock.

"Tell me what I forgot," Newt said, eyeing me with suspicion.

Al smiled. Laying a finger beside his nose, he leaned into her. "She can invoke demon magic," he said, holding up a finger to forestall Newt's snort of anger. "She has made a human her familiar, though I broke that bond."

"It had better be more than that, Al," she intoned, starting to look pissed as she drew away from Al and looked out over the fake water.

"She stole my name and made it her own."

Newt turned to face him, her expression empty.

"And she was summoned out under it."

Black eyes going wide, Newt sucked in her breath. "I killed my sisters!" she said, and my brief elation at getting her mark shifted to Al twisted into fear. "She can't be kin!"

"Oh, she's kin," Al said, chuckling as he pulled me to him, his grip tightening as I struggled. "Kin born not of us but of the elves. Stupid, stupid elves who forgot and fixed what they broke. You figured it out, and Minias stole the knowledge from you for long enough that I could realize it, too, and get her first."

"She should be mine! Give her to me!"

But Al shook his head as Dali tensed behind his desk, the demon smiling as he breathed in the scent from my hair. I let him, numb and bewildered. Kin? Witches really were kin to demons? It went against everything I'd been taught, but damn it, it made sense!

I jumped at a soft pop of displaced air. Minias burst into existence, his sandaled feet on the old wood. He was wearing his purple robes, and I fingered my belt, starting to think that was the color demons dressed their familiars in when they were pleased with them. "Newt!" Minias exclaimed, drawing back when he realized who else was here, giving Trent barely a glance. "What are you doing here?" he questioned, then paled at her venomous look.

"You made me forget what she is," she whispered. "Come here, Minias."

Red, goat-slitted eyes widening, Minias reared back and vanished.

"Wait!" I shouted, then turned to Al. "I need him. You promised me Trent!"

Al's expression at my outburst was one of pure disgust, and when Newt turned to me, I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. "You want that elf for a familiar?" she asked.

I licked my lips. "He put me in a cage," I said, trying to come up with a reason other than rescuing him. Trent got to his feet, the dinghy rocking until he steadied himself against the dock, whereupon Dali kicked him back to the bottom of the boat.

"He's the perfect familiar for my student," Al interjected smoothly over my head, his grip on my arm telling me to shut up. "Easily hurt, stubborn, prone to biting, but basically harmless. One must learn to ride a pony before tackling the stallion. He owes Minias a favor. I could press the issue since the elf is voluntarily wearing her smut, but honestly, it's easier just to buy a mark." Al smiled with a delicious irony. "Maybe I'll offer to tell him about my new student. That ought to be worth something."

I tensed as Newt's eyes narrowed. "You'll tell me again, if I forget?" Al nodded, and Newt's face grew ugly. "The elf doesn't owe Minias anything. I give his mark to you."

Trent groaned and fell back, his hate-filled expression chilling me.

Dali's brows rose. "I didn't know you could do that."

Newt spun, making her robe unfurl. "He's my familiar, bought and paid for. I can claim anything of his. Even his life."

Al cleared his throat nervously. "That's good to know," he said lightly. "Important safety tip. Rachel, write that down somewhere as lesson number one."

Her lips pressed tightly, Newt pulled her attention from the false horizon and found me. Ice seemed to scum my skin, and I felt myself pale. I had everything I'd come for. I had rubbed out Newt's mark, or at least I would when I gave Al his name back. I had saved Trent - I thought. So why did every instinct tell me everything was about to hit the fan?

"You will teach her?" Newt said to Al, looking at me with her black eyes.

Al nodded and pulled me closer, and I let him. "As if she were my daughter."

Newt dropped back a step, her hands clasped before her and her head bowed. She looked funny, and I got the feeling that something was being settled that I didn't understand. "You're a good teacher," Newt finally said when her head came up. "Ceri was very skilled."

"I know. I miss her."

Her head moved up and down, and then she turned to me. "When you're ready, come to me. Maybe by then I'll have my memory back and I'll know what in hell is going on."

I clenched my hands so no one would see them tremble, but when I took a breath to answer her, she vanished.

Dali's exhale was loud and strong. "I give Minias two days."

Al's shoulders slumped. "He's used to evading her. I give him...seven." He shifted uneasily, looking at the sparkles in the surf. "Rachel, collect your elf. I'm tired and I want to wash the cell-stink off me." I didn't move and he gave me a shove in Trent's direction before turning to Dali. "I'm assuming the charge of uncommon stupidity will be dropped?"

Dali smiled. "Yes, yes, take your student's familiar and get out. Are you going to remind Newt as you said you would?"

Al smiled. "Every day until she kills him. Yes."

Unsure, I looked at Trent gazing murderously at me, then Al. "Uh, Al?" I prompted.

"Get your elf, itchy-witch," he said under his breath. "I want to get out of here before Newt remembers a rule or something and comes back."

But Trent was looking at me like he wanted to jam a pen in my eye. Taking a shaky breath, I strode to him, falling into a crouch and extending a hand to help him out of the bobbing boat. A low sound rose from him. I stared at him, frozen, as he lunged at me.

"Trent!" I managed before he got a grip on my throat. My back hit the dock, and he landed on me, pushing my air out. He was straddling me, his grip cutting off my air - and then he was gone and I could breathe again. I heard a thump, looking up to see that Al had backhanded him off of me.

Trent slumped to the dock, a leg hanging off it and threatening to pull him into the water. Shocked, I stared as he curled into himself and retched over the side.

"Lesson number two," Al said as he yanked me up with a white-gloved hand. "Never trust your familiar."

"What in hell is wrong with you!" I shouted, glaring at Trent as I shook. "You can kill me later, but right now, I want to get out of here!"

I reached out, and this time he did nothing when I pulled him to Al. I didn't know how to travel the lines, but I assumed Al would jump us, seeing as I had just saved his demon ass.

"Thank you," I muttered, very conscious of Dali watching us with calculation.

"Thank me later, itchy-witch," Al said nervously. "I'm popping you and your familiar back to your church, but I expect to see you in fifteen minutes in your ley line with your spelling supplies and a new stick of magnetic chalk. I need some time to, ah, rent a room somewhere."

My eyes closed in a long blink. Al really was broke. Swell. "Can't we start this next week?" I asked, but it was too late, and I felt Trent's grip on me tighten as my body was torn apart by time, then melted back into existence. I was so tired, I could have cried.

I didn't even feel dizzy when the stink of the ever-after vanished. The acidic scent of cut grass hit me, and wavering on my feet, I opened my eyes to the somber gray and green of my graveyard. Slowly I slumped. I was home.

"Dad!" a tiny voice shrilled, and I jerked to find one of Jenks's kids staring at me. "She's back! And she's got Mr. Kalamack!"

Blinking back the tears, I took a deep breath and turned to the church shining in the morning sun. It had to be later than that. I felt like I'd lived a lifetime. Seeing Trent at my feet, I reached to pull him up. "We're back," I said wearily, hauling on him. "Get up. Don't let Ceri see you on the ground like that." It was over. At least for now.

Still on the ground, Trent yanked on my arm. I sucked in my breath and tried to land in a front fall, but he pulled me off balance and I landed on my side instead.

"Trent - " I started, then yelped when he jerked me up, slamming my head into a tombstone. "Hey!" I shouted, then howled when he twisted my arm.

Quicker than I could follow, he slammed my head into the stone again. My vision blurred as the pain swelled, and trying to figure out what the hell was going on, I stupidly did nothing when he wrapped an arm around my throat from behind and started squeezing.

"Trent...," I managed to get out, then choked, feeling my face seem to bulge.

"I won't let you do it!" came his voice snarling in my ear. "I'll kill you first!"

Do what? I thought, struggling to breathe. I just saved his ass!

Putting my heels to the ground, I shoved backward, but we only fell over. His grip loosened and I got a breath, and then his grip went tighter.

"Demon kin!" Trent exclaimed, his voice raw and alien. "It was there in front of me, but I didn't believe it! My father...Damn him!"

"Trenton!" Ceri's voice came faintly from over the graveyard as my consciousness started to slip. "Stop! Stop it!"

I felt her fingers trying to wedge between Trent's grip and my skin, and I choked as it loosened again. I couldn't break his hold, and my oxygen-starved muscles were like wet paper.

"She has to die," Trent said, his voice close and rasping in my ear. "I heard them. My father. My father mended her," he agonized, and his grip tightened. "She can start it up again! Not now! I won't let her!"

His arm muscle bunched, and as pain struck through me, I heard my last breath gurgle.

"Let go," Ceri pleaded, and I saw her dress. "Trent, stop it!"

"They called her kin!" Trent shouted. "I watched her take a demon's name. She was summoned out under it!"

"She's not a demon," Ceri demanded. "Let her go!" Her braid slapped me as she bent over us and tugged at his fingers. "Trenton, let her go! She saved Quen. She saved all of us. Let her go! She's not a demon!"

His grip loosened, and as I gasped, retching almost, he shoved me away from him.

I fell against the tombstone that he had hammered my head against, and I held it, fingers shaking as I pulled lungful after lungful of air into me, holding my neck and trying to find a way to breathe that didn't hurt. "She might not be a demon," Trent said from behind me, and I turned. "But her children will be."

I slumped back against the stone, feeling the blood drain from me. My children...

Ceri was kneeling beside him, her hands on him as she felt for damage, ready to hold him back if he tried to finish the job. But all I could do was sit in the sun and stare. "What?" I rasped, and he laughed bitterly.

"You're the only female witch my father fixed," he accused, taking the red ribbon from his neck and letting it fall to the ground. "Lee can't pass on the cure. It's in the mitochondria. You're the only one who could start it all up again. But I'll kill you first!"

"Trenton, no!" Ceri exclaimed, but he was too weak to do anything.

Staring at him, I felt my reality start to crumble. God, no. It was too much.

"Trent," Ceri was saying, kneeling between us, trying to distract him. "She saved us. You have a cure waiting in your labs because of her. We can be whole again, Trent! Kill her, and you stain our beginning. You lose everything! Stop fighting them. It's killing us!"

From under the mat of his hair, Trent seethed, his eyes trying to burn me where I sat. I felt dirty, unclean. Filthy.

"Your father saved her because he was friends with her father," Ceri rushed. "He didn't know what it would do. It's not your fault. It's not her fault. But she gave you the way to make us whole today. Right now." Ceri hesitated, then added, "Perhaps we deserved what happened."

Trent's attention tore from me, landing on Ceri. "You don't believe that."

Ceri was blinking to keep from crying, but a tear slid down, making her all the more beautiful. "We can start again," she said. "So can they. The war almost destroyed both of us. Don't start it up again. Not when we finally have a chance to live. Trent. Listen to me."

I shut my eyes. Why doesn't it go away?

In a rush of sound, Ivy and Jenks arrived together, standing over us in shock while Ceri held Trent back from killing me.

"Hi," I croaked, still holding my neck, and Ivy dropped to me.

"What happened?" Ivy asked, and my chest clenched to an unbearable tightness. She didn't know. How could I tell her? "You're back," she added, checking me for damage. "Are you okay? Your mother said you went with Al at Eden Park. Damn it, Rachel, stop trying to fight everything by yourself!"

I opened my eyes at the concern in her voice. I wondered whether I should just stay in the ever-after. At least there, I wouldn't be putting my friends in danger. Kin. Witches are kin to demons. Suddenly it was making a whole lot of sense. Demons had cursed elves into a slow slide of extinction. Had it been done in retaliation? Had the elves hit the demons first?

"Rache, you okay?"

No. I wasn't okay, but I couldn't seem to get my mouth to work to say the words. I wasn't a demon, but my children would be. Damn it! This wasn't fair.

"Is it Trent?" Ivy said, her anger rounding on him, and I shook my head. "Get out of here, Kalamack, before I pound you into the ground!"

Ceri's delicate form helped Trent up, and as they hunched into each other, she helped him hobble to the street gate. She turned once, the tears flowing freely from her anger-black eyes. "I'm sorry, Rachel. I-I..."

I looked away, unable to bear it. I wasn't ever going to have kids now. Not with anyone. Never. Stupid-ass elf. Look what they did to me.

"Rachel," Ivy said, forcing me to look at her. "Tell me what happened."

She gave me a shake, and I stared at her, numb. Jenks was on her shoulder. He looked terrified, like he already knew. "Trent," I started, and tears spilled over. Wiping them angrily, I tried again. "Trent's dad...he..."

Jenks took to the air and got in my face. "You're not a demon, Rachel!"

I nodded, trying to focus on him. "I'm not," I said, choking on my words. "But my kids will be. Remember last year when I said witches and demons both started in the ever-after? I think the elves spelled the demons, magically stunting their kids and starting the witches, and when Trent's dad fixed me, he broke the genetic checks and balances they put in to keep the demons from having children. Witches are stunted demons, and now demons can come from witches again. From me."

Ivy's hand fell from me, and I saw the horror in her quiet face.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to screw up your life."

Ivy sat back, stunned, and the sun blinded me. Tired beyond belief, I looked up to see Ceri helping Trent out of the garden.

What in hell had it all been for?