"I told you why," Ford said, grimacing as he shifted Holly's weight. "He loves you. I guess he figured being a familiar to your demon and having a body was better than being a ghost without one in your graveyard. Give the man a break, Rachel. He's been hanging around your church for almost a year."
A smile threatened, then disappeared. I was cold, dizzy, and numb from thoughts of Kisten. It stank down here, like cold dust. Like Kisten's killer. All I wanted was to go home and take a bath.
"I think they forgot us," I said. "Help me up?"
Ford grunted, getting to his feet. Holly cooed in her sleep as he extended his free hand and I slowly found my balance, leaning against the wall until I was sure I wouldn't fall over. The cement was cold on my feet, and I shifted to stand on a corner of the blanket.
"We'll take it slow," he said, clearly unused to Holly's unfamiliar weight.
"Yeah," I whispered, my thoughts turning to him and the relief Holly was giving him. It was beautiful, and I wondered if Ford was truly a human, or a very rare type of Inderlander who hadn't been discovered yet. One who balanced out a banshee. Vampires balanced Weres. Pixies balanced fairies. Witches...okay, maybe there wasn't anything to balance banshees either. Unless witches balanced out demons?
"Ford," I said as we started for the stairs, Mia's light bobbing. "I'm happy for you."
He smiled that blissful smile again when he glanced over his shoulder. "Me, too. She's a gift, and I'll have to give her back someday. But even this little bit is heaven. I'll try to repay Mia by teaching Holly what love is. I can show her that, though I believe Mia and Remus were already doing that admirably. In their own way."
My pace bobbled when Ivy's and Edden's voices filtered down the stairs. Kisten had died to save us both, to keep some lame-ass vampire from screwing our lives up any more than they already were. And he had loved us enough to give his life in exchange for ours. How could I tell Ivy?
My strength pooled out of me, and blinking fast, I stopped, slumping against a pillar. Ford looked uneasy. "Rachel, you're a good person," he said from out of the blue, surprising me. "Remember that. Just...don't worry about the next few hours."
I stared at him, becoming frightened. What did he know that I didn't?
"Call me tomorrow if you need to talk," he said before I could ask. "There's nothing that will ever make me think you're not a good person. That's what's important, Rachel. Who we love and what we do for them."
A last smile, and he started up the stairs with Holly. I heard him speak to Ivy and Edden on the stairs, and then Ivy's familiar steps continued down. She rounded the bottom of the steps, and I smiled thinly when her pace quickened. "Are you okay?"
Kisten, I thought, and my eyes teared. "Yeah," I said softly, and she stood there, looking helpless. Throat thick, I gave her a hug.
And this time, Ivy returned it, her grip almost pressing the air from me.
My first startled reaction shifted to heartache, and I hugged her back, my eyes closed and my heart clenched all the harder. Her vampire incense lifted through me, soothing and exciting at the same time. "You scared me," she said when she let go and backed up a step. Edden was now behind her, playing his flashlight over the ceiling. "I don't like it when you tag someone without backup. Jenks said you tore out of there like a bat out of hell."
"Is he okay?" I asked, and she let go, head bobbing as she wiped her eyes. My own tears threatened as I tried to find the words to tell her I remembered Kisten's death. Thoughts of him were ringing from one ear to the other, making me dizzy.
Knowing something was wrong, Ivy took my arm and didn't let go. "Where's Pierce?" she asked as her eyes lingered on the scrape on my cheek.
My thoughts went to Tom, hanging in the demon's grip, and I hesitated. Had it really been Pierce? Either way, Tom was gone and Mia had seen the entire thing. Misreading my sudden worry, Ivy said, "Al took him, didn't he."
I shook my head. "Yes. No. It wasn't my fault," I said, and Edden squinted at me.
"Rachel...," the FIB officer warned as he took the lantern and gestured to the stairs. "Tell me now, or I'll make you fill out paperwork."
I swallowed hard and shifted my feet because of the cold. The stairs were only thirty steps away-it looked like a mile. My finger throbbed where Al had cut it, and I curled my hands into fists. "Tom Bansen was down here. He was working a deal with Walker to get Holly. He saw Ford touch Holly, so he thought she was safe. Holly killed him."
Edden grunted. "Where is he? Corpses just don't get up and walk away."
"Yes they do," Ivy said, and I leaned heavily on her arm as I looked up the long stairway.
Forcing my breath to stay even, I decided a little lie wouldn't hurt anyone. No one needed to know I'd made the spell that put Pierce inside the shunned witch. "Al got him breathing again and dragged him off," I said softly.
Edden's mouth dropped open, but Ivy snorted. "It's not my fault," I protested.
Crap, I was tired, and as Edden winced, I started for the stairs, muttering, "I'm going home." I wanted to move fast, but it was barely a crawl as Ivy and I shuffled along.
The light swung in Edden's grip as he waited for us to actually reach the stairs. "I want a statement before you leave," he said, and I made a noise of disgust.
Hours. I'd be here for freaking hours if I had to give a statement. Beside and a little behind us, Edden played his light over the tunnel. "So this is how Remus and Mia did it," he said, gazing back at the vaulted ceilings, going shadowy behind us.
I hoped there'd be someone upstairs in a hospital coat. If I moaned enough, they'd cart me out of here and I could slip away, statement or not. "How they did what?" I asked, wincing when my foot found a chunk of concrete.
Edden took my other arm and gestured to the tunnel stretching into the black. "How they kept slipping through our lines," he explained.
I nodded, head down as I walked between them. "What are these, anyway? A vamp underground? I never knew this was down here."
"It's an old mass-transit plan started in the 1920s," he said, sounding like an instructor as the walls of the stairway closed in around us. "Too little money, too much political infighting. Unexpected structural damage when they drained the canal. A war and a depression. It never got finished. Some of the tunnels are filled in, but stretches of it still exist here and there. It's cheaper to inspect them once a year than destroy them. Some carry water pipes now."
"And Mia would know because she was here when it was built," I said sourly.
Edden chuckled. "I'd be willing to bet she was on the committee to beautify it or something." Making a little grunt of remembrance, he thumbed the two-way on his belt and said loudly, "Hey, someone call utilities and tell them we need a new lock out here!" and then to me, "Rachel, I'm not one to say I told you so-"
A flash of anger lit through me. "Then I'll say it for you," I snapped as my foot almost slipped off the stair. "I told you so. She is a bad seed. A spoiled brat with a goddess complex. She wants to live above the law, and I should have treated her like an animal and gunned her down on sight!" Heart pounding, I shut my mouth and concentrated on the next step.
"And yet you stopped her with just your earth magic," Edden said, completely unruffled as he took my other arm. "You're becoming a superhero, witch."
I winced as I remembered Holly's plaintive cries for her mama when they'd hauled Mia upstairs, roped like a tiger. "That's funny," I said sourly. "I so totally feel like crap."
No one said anything. Another step behind me, I took a breath and let it out. We were almost to the top, and all I wanted was to go home. "Edden, can I give my statement later?"
Eye to eye with me, he nodded. "Go home. I'll send someone tomorrow."
"After noon, right?" I reminded him, wobbling when the stairway opened up and the tight confines of the small room took us. The cold was worse up here, and I clenched my coat closer. I'd never be warm again.
"You okay, Rachel?" Ivy asked.
I exhaled heavily, thinking of Jenks and missing his support. Making a face, I leaned harder on Ivy's arm and started to shake. I was cold. My feet were numb and would probably have cuts when they thawed out. And Kisten's death, once safely removed from my mind, had reached out and bitch-slapped me with all its broken promises and shattered beauty.
"No," I said, wondering if I'd have to walk all the way back to the coffee shop in my bare feet. Edden followed my gaze to my bruised, white toes, and after murmuring something about socks, he set the lantern down and left me with Ivy. Alone at last, I caught Ivy's eyes. She saw my fear, and they dilated. "While I was unconscious, I remembered the night on Kisten's boat," I whispered. "All of it."
Ivy's breath caught. Outside I could hear Edden on his radio yelling for a car to come the hell back and pick us up.
I swallowed hard, barely able to force the words out. "Kisten's murderer had been in the tunnels before he came to take Kisten's last blood," I said, my soul as cold as the snow drifting in. "That's what I've been smelling," I added as I dismally brushed at the filth on me. "It's this damned dust. He'd been in it, and it was all over him."
Ivy didn't move. "Tell me," she demanded, her eyes black and her long hands clenched.
I gave her an evaluating look, wondering if this might be better at home with some wine, or even in a car with some privacy, but if she was going to vamp out, I'd rather have a few dozen FIB agents with guns around. Voice low, I said, "The vampire had come for Kisten, and I was in the way. Kisten died from a blow to the head before the vamp could do more than sniff his blood. He was really mad," I said, my voice going high so I wouldn't start crying again as I remembered his grip on me and my helpless rage, "but then he decided to make me his shadow to hurt you. Kisten woke up..."
Blinking fast, I wiped the sting of tears from my scraped cheek as I remembered his confused eyes and his angelic grace. "He was beautiful, Ivy," I said, crying. "He was innocent and savage. He remembered he loved me, and on that alone he tried to save me, save us, the only way he could. Remember, Jenks said I told him Kisten bit his attacker? He did it to save us, Ivy. He died in my arms as his attacker ran away."
My voice broke and I went silent. I couldn't tell her the rest. Not here. Not now.
Ivy blinked fast. It almost looked like panic in her slowly widening pupils. "He killed himself to save you?" she asked. "Because he loved you?"
I clenched my jaw. "Not me. Us. He chose to sacrifice the rest of his existence to save both of us. That vampire hates you, Ivy. He was going on and on about how you were Piscary's queen and he couldn't touch you, but killing Kisten wasn't enough, and how he was going to make you pay for his going to jail and living off discarded shadows for five years."
Ivy backed up. Frightened, she put a hand to her throat. "It wasn't someone who went to visit Piscary. It was someone who was in jail at the same time," she whispered.
Her eyes went utterly black in the dim shadows of the lantern-lit room, and I stifled a shiver. "The psycho was going to kill everyone you had ever loved, including your sister, just to hurt you. After Kisten bit him, he ran away. He fell off the boat. Kisten didn't know if he got enough saliva in him to start a rejection of the virus. He might still be alive. I don't know." Drained, my voice trailed off at the end.
For a moment, Ivy said nothing. Then she turned to the door, yanking it open with enough force to send it crashing into the wall.
"Edden!" she shouted into the snowy darkness. "I know who killed Kisten. He's down here. Bring me another flashlight."