“I’m with the I.S.,” I said, flashing my ID when a cop came close, and he went the other way. News crews were setting up on the corner, and I began to inch away before I was recognized. Ivy, where are you?
The sound of pixy wings jerked my attention, and I looked up, getting an eye full of pixy dust as Jenks dropped down. “Damn it, Jenks!” I exclaimed, eyes watering.
“Tink’s a Disney whore, Rache, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed, his voice shrill as he struggled to be heard over the rising noise.
“Yeah, I’m glad to see you, too,” I said sourly, hand up for him to land on. “I’m trying to find Ivy. What is Nina doing?”
He went to land, then darted back as someone jostled me forward. My hand hit a lamppost, and I stepped up onto the footing for a few extra inches as Nina’s voice rose clear and strong, a hard surety in her voice that she’d learned from Felix. She sounded like a master, and it was chilling.
“The peace is false!” she cried, the vampiric pull in it bringing a good part of the crowd to silence. “Peace is death to the undead. It breaks them. Your masters are weeping. It’s our duty to protect them as they protect us! They keep us safe, and now it’s our turn. Even if they rage and threaten, we must withstand the anger knowing they love us! Their souls will kill them!”
“How long has she been up there?” I asked, one arm looped around the post for balance.
“Long enough.” Jenks’s wings were shading blue from the cold, and he vibrated them for warmth. “She’s, ah, rallying the living vampires to protect the undead. Not everyone is happy about it. I don’t know what’s going to happen if the elves bring their souls back.”
Concerned, I climbed farther up the pole. The crowd was ugly, and my brow furrowed when I heard a few “Let them die!” rise up. This was so not good. Had they forgotten already the chaos of Cincinnati not three months ago when the master vampires were sleeping?
“You can’t deny them their souls!” the man with the mic shouted with the professional outrage of someone comfortable with the pulpit. “It’s their God-given right!”
“Is it not our right to protect them?” Nina said, eyes black with threat. “We’ve always given them what they needed to survive. We can’t give them their death! They’ve been tricked by the elves and their own desires!”
Nervous, I looked toward the river. Trent was only a few blocks away at the arena and the closed dewar meeting. It was too easy to imagine the mob storming the place. No one could stop it with the I.S. and FIB concentrated here.
“My master found his soul,” Nina said, and the crowd stilled at the power in her voice. Felix had changed her, almost into a master herself with his thoughts running through hers for so long, and I shivered at the command. “It was fixed to him,” she intoned, and even the zealot on the stage was silenced. “It tormented him day and night until he walked into the sun. Be glad the souls have fled. Hide your masters if they should return. They bring only pain.”
“He was weeping in joy!” the man with the mic proclaimed, but beside Nina’s impassioned presence, he looked cheap. “Who are you to deny him?”
“He was in pain!” Nina shouted, and the crowd began to stir. “The grace of the undead is that they feel no pain, and he was in pain. He was broken! Tell your masters the elves lie. Tell your masters they seek to kill them! Tell them even if they should beat you and send you from their sight. You must protect them because they love you!”
The voice of the crowd rolled between the buildings, drowning out both Nina and the man onstage. Worried, I got down from the pole. I had to find Ivy and call Trent. Get him out of there. Warn him.
“Your master died because God brought his sins home!” the man was saying.
“The elves sit in conference right now to bring their souls back. We can’t let them do it!” Nina thundered. “They’re trying to kill our masters! He walked into the sun!” she cried in pain. “He walked into the sun and now I am alone!”
Her anguish raged out, connecting with every living vampire there. They knew what it was to be alone. They feared it. The urge to rise up was almost unbearable. Felix had given her the strength of the undead and the passion of the living. No wonder Ivy loved her.
“My God,” I whispered, jolted from her charisma when someone bumped me. “Jenks, is Edden here?” We had to get Nina to shut up, even if I agreed with her. The vampires were going to storm the dewar if this continued.
“Yeah.” Jenks landed on my shoulder. “He’s over by the curb. Where the horses are?”
I looked over the heads to where the mounted police usually hung out. Sure enough, there were two very unhappy horses, an FIB van, and a bunch of FIB guys clustered around something. A plan to get the people out of here, maybe.
“How am I going to get over there?” I muttered, gaze roving over the square. The huge vid screen was now showing the Cincy arena. The wind down there was intense, blowing the newscaster’s hair everywhere as the dewar began to break up and people began to leave. My breath came easier. Maybe they were evacuating before the crowd decided elves were on a par with biogeneticists and lynched them all. Maybe the vampires were trying to get rid of the elves . . . So far, only Felix had died, and he’d been on his way out already.
“It’s God’s will they die!” the zealot was screaming, a harsh contrast to Nina’s powerful anguish. “It’s penance for the atrocities they have perpetrated! Let them be judged!”
Jenks’s dust was a beacon as he hovered over me, looking for the easiest path to the curb. “Ah, Rache? Is that your mom?”
Oh God. I shoved someone, trying to see. My fear redoubled as I spotted her standing on a planter, hand in a fist as she shouted and gestured, calling someone a prejudiced prick and religious hypocrite zealot all in one breath. She looked fantastic in her outrage, and I almost lost sight of her when the crowd shifted. “Mom!” I shouted, then grunted when I got an elbow in the gut from some faceless woman. “Mom!”
She heard me. Somehow she heard me over the noise and confusion. She turned, her face still alight with the fire of battling injustice. Clearly this was where I’d gotten it from, and without even a glance at the stage, she fought her way off the planter and to me.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” I said when she finally got close.
“Oh, you ruined your funeral!” she moaned, giving me a quick hug.
She was okay, and I hugged her back. “Mom. We have to get out of here,” I said, not believing she was worried about my funeral.
“No matter,” she said, beaming as she shoved someone to get a smidgen more room. “The band crapped out on me anyway. Isn’t it a marvelous day for a protest?”
Wincing, I held her shoulder so no one would force us apart. Marvelous wasn’t exactly the word I’d use. Nina was on the bullhorn again. Some were listening raptly, others—mostly human by the look of it—were booing. I could tell who were the living vampires not only because of the way they reacted to Nina but because they looked terrified. It was starting to slide from a mob to a riot. “Jenks? Find Ivy. My car is on Vine.”
He darted off, making me envy his wings. My heart pounded. “Mom, we have to go.”
But she was watching the stage as Nina exclaimed, “If there’s one thing the living have learned, it’s that what you want most will kill you. It’s our time to protect them. We can’t allow the elves to bring back their souls!”
My mom wiped an eye. “It reminds me of the Turn,” she said, smiling. “But it smells a hell of a lot better. No one decaying in the alleys.”
I elbowed someone out of the way so we could start for the street. “Mom, where’s Donald?”
“He went to get me a coffee. It takes him a while. People recognize him, and he always stops and talks. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes.”
Visions of tomorrow’s headlines began swimming before me. Stomach tight, I began to inch her to the curb. She jerked me to a stop with a hug. “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. I’ve been watching Nina, and I think she’s perfect for Ivy. It wouldn’t take much to change your funeral into a wedding for them.”
“Mom!” I said as I disentangled myself. “We have to get out of here!”
“I’m just saying she’s smart, attractive, and has more determination than you. Look at her. Magnificent! She’s so entrenched in her belief. It makes me want to protect the beastly things myself.”
“We have to go,” I said again, then jumped when my phone vibrated.
“Go!” she exclaimed, face flushed and eager. “It’s just getting started!”
She turned to the stage, arm pumping in the air as I let go of her to fish my phone out. It was Trent, but I’d never be able to hear him. Just glad he was alive, I flipped the phone open. “Trent? You okay?” I shouted, hand over one ear as the zealot with the mic pointed at the TV and proclaimed that now they would know the true purity of the soul.
Clearly something had shifted at the dewar, and I turned to the TV, showing the riverfront with lots of blond men and women coming out of the stadium now instead of one or two as before.
“Rachel?” Trent’s voice came, tiny and small. “I’m fine. Where are you?”
“I’m looking for Ivy. I’m at the square with my mom and Jenks!” I shouted. On the screen, a reporter I recognized elbowed a CNN reporter out of the way to get in front of Landon. “Nina’s rallying the vampires to stop the elves from returning the undead souls. Trent, you have to get out of there.”
“I’m going right now,” Trent said, but I never would’ve understood it if I hadn’t heard him whisper in my ear before. “You have to leave the square. Now!”
But the reporter had gotten Landon to stop, and the crowd quieted enough to hear her say, “Sa’han Landon, Sa’han Landon, can you comment on the sudden disappearance of the undead souls with the rising sun? Have the elves agreed on a course of action to bring them back?”
Her voice was echoing between the buildings, and the sound of the crowd diminished even more, punctuated by the occasional shout.
“Rache?”
I dropped my head, trying to hear Trent. “I can’t leave without Ivy. Trent, I’m looking at Landon on TV. He’s going to make a statement.”
“Damn it, Rachel, get out of there!” he shouted. “It’s about to get ugly!”
I tugged at my mom with my free hand, but no one was moving anymore, all eyes fixed on the screen as Landon raised his hands at the mics shoved at him. Behind him, people were leaving the arena with the quickness of rats fleeing a foundering ship. “Wait, I want to hear this,” my mom said.
“It has been determined that the sudden absence of souls this morning was caused by the demons, not a failure in our original spell,” Landon said, his benign young smile both practiced and convincing.
“You liar!” I shouted up at the screen. “It was your lame-ass spell that failed!”
People turned to me, and I scowled as Jenks’s dust suddenly wreathed me.
“Rachel?” came Trent’s voice, tiny from the phone in my hand. “Listen. To. Me. Get out of there! For God’s sake, get out now!”
Jenks landed on my shoulder, his wings cold against me. “Ivy’s coming. Don’t move.”
But moving was the last thing on my mind as Landon spoke. “We’ve decided on a course of action, one that not only will bring the souls of the undead back and lock them to this reality, but one that will also facilitate a smoother reunion with their original bodies and rid us of the demons now among us.”
“You son of a bastard,” I whispered. I stared up at the screen, almost oblivious to the new space around me and that the nearest people were whispering. “He’s lying!” I shouted, and from the stage I could hear more voices raised in anger. “The demons didn’t do it! It’s the dewar elves with their sloppy spell casting. They’re trying to kill the undead!”
“Ah, Rache?” Jenks said from my shoulder, too cold to fly well, but I stood there and fumed. Had they forgotten the chaos of when the masters were sleeping just three months ago? Their fear of the night?
“I would implore everyone,” Landon was saying, “especially the living vampires, to find it in themselves to not take their anger out on the demons. We will resolve the issue in due course in a safe and efficient manner.”
My jaw clenched. “You’re saying that because it’s only demon magic that can fix the souls permanently, and you need them! You want the vampires dead!”
“Rache!” Jenks shouted, and I jumped when he pinched my ear. Blinking, I saw the new eight feet of space between me and everyone else. My mom stood at my shoulder, and I could hear Ivy fighting her way to get to me. My phone dangled in my hand, and Trent’s voice desperately shouted at me to leave, to get out.
I didn’t think it was going to be that easy anymore.
“You see the lies!” the zealot on the stage shouted, and I spun to see he had the stage all to himself. “She is a demon!”
Oh God, he was pointing at me. Sure, I could do some magic and blast everyone, but that’d only get me in jail, if I was lucky. “Ah, Trent. I gotta go,” I muttered, then closed the phone in the middle of his outcry.
Shaking, I tucked the phone away. The ring of people stared at me, more joining them every second. My mother took my elbow protectively. “Let’s go,” she said, but no one moved to let us through. Instead, they inched closer, expressions determined.