Chapter Thirty-six
I was moving. It was warm, and I was wrapped in a blanket that reeked of cigarettes. Something was on my sore wrist, and since there wasn't an erg of ever-after in me, it seemed someone had found a zip-strip. Probably the one I had in my bag. The thrum of a big engine was soothing, but the sudden shifts of motion made me sick.
"She's awake," Jenks said, his voice holding an incredible amount of worry.
"How can you tell?" came Ivy's voice from the front, and I cracked my eyes. I was in the back of a FIB cruiser, wrapped in a blue FIB blanket and slumped across the backseat.
"Her aura brightened," Jenks snarled. "She's awake."
My breathing quickened. The fog was lifting, making me even more confused. I was thinking everything twice, almost as if trying to filter the world through an interpreter. A wave of fear took me when I realized it was the curse. I wasn't just holding it, it was apart of me. The damned thing was alive?
"Rachel..." Ivy said, and I winced. Pain iced through me as a wave of panic I didn't understand rose. I could move, but I couldn't, wrapped up tight.
"Where... where are we going?" I managed, then opened my eyes wide when we turned a corner and I almost rolled off the seat. Ivy was up front, and Edden was driving, his neck red and his motions quick.
"The church," Ivy said.
A barrier of plastic separated us. "Why?" I had to get out of here. Everything would be better if I could just run. I knew it.
Her eyes were black in fear. "Because when vampires are afraid, they go home."
The curse inside me was gaining strength, and I wiggled. "I have to get out," I breathed, knowing it was the curse but unable to stop myself.
Jenks squeezed between the ceiling and the divider, and I blinked when he stopped inches from my nose. "Rachel," he coaxed, "look at me. Look at me!"
My darting eyes, following the passing building, returned to him.
"You're okay," he soothed, but his voice was making me nervous. "The EMTs gave you something to relax you. That's why you can't move. It will wear off in about an hour."
It was wearing off now. "I have to get out," I said, and Jenks darted back when I threw off the blanket and sat up.
"Whoa!" Edden said from behind the wheel. "Rachel, take it easy. We'll be there in five minutes, and then you can get out."
I wiggled the door latch to no avail. It was a cop car, for God's sake. "Stop the car," I demanded, looking for a way out and not finding it. Panic was settling in. I knew I was safe. I knew I should ease back in the seat and sit. But I couldn't. The curse inside me was stronger than my will. It hurt, and when I moved, the confusion was less.
"Let me out!" I shouted, smacking a fist into the plastic.
Edden swore when Ivy turned in her seat, and with one motion, broke the plastic with a sharp back fist. "Tamwood! What the hell are you doing!" he shouted, the car swerving as he tried to watch the road and Ivy both.
"She's going to hurt herself," she said, clearing the shards and wiggling over the seat.
I pressed into the corner of the car, scared of her. "Stay away from me!" I exclaimed, trying to get control of myself, but I couldn't.
"Rachel, relax," she said, but her hand was reaching for me.
My breath hissing in, I moved to block it.
Ivy moved blindingly fast. She twisted her hand, catching my wrist. Yanking me forward, she wrapped her body around me, hauling me onto her lap.
"Let go!" I shrieked, but she had me firmly.
"Edden," Ivy panted, her lips next to my ear. "Pull over. You have to give her another shot or she's going to hurt herself."
"Keep driving," Jenks said. "I'll do it."
Pulse beating wildly, I struggled. Ivy grunted when my head smacked into her face, but she wouldn't let go.
"Can't you hold her still for a bleeding minute?" Jenks said from in front of me, and I twisted wildly. He wanted to drug me. The little bug wanted to drug me so I couldn't move. I wanted to move. I had to run. It was why I existed, and I couldn't let them take it from me!
"Let. Me. Go!" I grunted.
Edden flipped on the lights and pulled over. Traffic passed as we stopped right on the bridge. The thickset man wedged himself half over the front seat. Grabbing my arm at the wrist and elbow, he held it steady.
"No-o-o-o-o!" I howled, struggling, but he had that one part of me unmoving, and I shrieked at the tiny prick of a needle.
"Hold still, Rache," Jenks said as I gasped for air. "You'll feel better in a minute."
"You son of a fairy whore," I seethed. "I'm going to step on you. I'm going to pluck your wings off and eat them like chips."
"Looking forward to it," the pixy said, hovering at my eye level and peering at me. "How you feel now?"
"I'm going to stuff your stump with poison ivy," I said, blinking as Edden let my arm go. "And buy a terrier to dig you out. And then I'm going to... to..." God, this stuff works fast. But I couldn't remember anymore, and I felt my muscles go limp. The curse went somnolent, and I had a brief instant of clarity before the drug took complete control. Golden sparkles blotted my vision, turning black as I shut my eyes. "I thought you were dead, Jenks..." I said, starting to cry. "Are you okay, Ivy?" My voice shook, and I couldn't open my eyes anymore. "Are you dead? I'm sorry. I messed everything up."
"It's okay, Rache," Jenks said. "You're going to be okay."
I wanted to cry, but I was falling asleep. "Kisten," I slurred. "Edden, go see Kisten. He's at Nick's," and then my lips quit working. Ivy's arms were around me, keeping me from rolling to the floor as Edden twisted back into the front seat. The siren wailed a short bleep, and he pulled back onto the road. I heard Ivy whispering softly in my ear, "Please be okay, Rachel. Please."
The gentle sound of her words became the shushing of my blood in my head, and I listened, hovering on the edge of consciousness, bathed in the oblivion of whatever drug they had given me. It was a relief not to have to fight the curse. I'd made a mistake. I'd made a horrible, immense, irrevocable mistake. And I didn't think there was a way out of it.
It was a shock when I realized my cheek was cold. I wasn't moving anymore either, and the echo of voices came from everywhere, confusing me as I tried to give them meaning where there was none. The warm arms around me slipped away, and I felt dead. I think I was in the church. Yeah, I was laying on the floor like a sacrificial lamb. That was about right.
"I don't know if I can," a soft voice said. It was Ceri, and I tried to move. I really did, but the drug wouldn't let me. The confusion was starting up again. It seemed as if the more awake I was, the more the curse could exert itself. I was beginning to feel anxious and jittery. I had to get up. I had to move.
"I can help," came Keasley's gravel voice, and an unexpected fear joined my bewilderment. Keasley was my friend, but I couldn't let him touch me. He was a witch. A witch could put me back in prison. A witch had done it before. I wouldn't let it happen. I had finally gotten free, and I wouldn't go back!
I could feel the drug slipping away, but I couldn't move yet, so I pretended to be dead. I could be still as well as run. I'd been still for millennia. And then, when the time was right, I would run.
"It's not that I can't do the curse," Ceri said, and I felt someone brush the hair from my eyes. "But her psyche is mixed with it. I don't know if I can lift the curse away without taking a chunk of her. I'm calling Minias. He owes her a favor."
Panic slid through me. Not a demon. He would see. He'd put me back! I couldn't go back. Not now. Not when I had tasted freedom! I had to get up!
I winced at the brush of air and the clatter of wings. "She's waking up again," that damned tiny voice shrilled.
A presence smelling of aftershave and shoe polish came close, making the floorboards creak. "She's had enough to put down a horse," said a man, and I tried to pull back when my arm was lifted. "I don't want to give her any more."
"Just do it," Ivy said, and I tried to slow my breathing. "We have to get that thing out of her, and we can't do it if she's fighting us!"
Again the prick of the needle, and I fought it. Blackness swirled, and I was running, running, my pulse strong and my feet moving like water. But it was a dream like all the other times, and I cursed the pain it left behind when a new voice - soft, and demanding - lifted through me and stirred me to life.
It was a Were's voice. Low. Strong. Independent. I wanted it so badly I almost choked on my desire to be free. I tried to get his attention. He would take me. He had to take me. He knew how to run. This witch didn't. Not even in her dreams.
"I can legally make life-and-death decisions for her," the Were said, and I heard the rattle of paper. "See? It's right here. And I make the decision that she will exchange the favor you owe her for your helping Ceri. You will make sure Rachel is herself before it's called done, and you will not harm anyone in this room until it is finished and you're gone."
I cracked an eyelid, rejoicing in it. With sight came a confusion of double thought. The witch in my thoughts tried to stop me, but I piled pain and confusion on her, and she ceased thinking. This was my body, and I wanted it to move as I said.
A pair of purple slippers shifted on the hardwood floor, about a yard from me. A shimmering band of black was between us, but I knew the terrible stink of demons, a hundredfold worse than the green reek of elves.
"The mark is between Rachel and me," the demon said, and my hope died. It would put me back in a little box of bone. But I wanted to run. I would be free!
The Were came closer, and I sang to him, but he didn't hear me. "I'm her alpha!" he exclaimed. "Look at this paper. Look at it, you damned demon! I can make this decision for her. It's the law!"
I stiffened at the clatter of wings, hating them. It was that pixy again. Damn it, why wouldn't it leave me alone!
"Guys..." the pest said, hovering at my nose and peering into my eyes. "She needs a little more of that happy juice."
The slippered feet padded closer, and someone turned me. I stared up at the demon, feeling my hatred grow. His kind had created me. Created me, bound me, and then trapped me in a little box made of bone that couldn't move.
A sliver of satisfaction lifted through me when the demon's eyes widened and he backed away. "Bless me back to the Turn, she really does have it in her," he whispered, still retracting. "I'll do it," he said, and I struggled to move. He was going to put me back into my cell. I would kill him first! I would kill them all.
"Sleep," the demon commanded, and I shuddered as a blanket of black imbalance shifted over me, and I slept. I had no choice. The demon had willed it, and they had made me.