“I’ve assigned someone to it, but we’ve been kind of busy lately. What are you doing out here? It’s not safe.”
I looked back at the mess. People were being pulled out from behind the hazy field in ones and twos, the most cooperative coming first, apparently. “Yep, I figured that out. How about getting this zip strip off me?” I asked as he unlocked the back door and opened it. Takata was watching this, and I was embarrassed.
“Next time pull your punches,” Edden said as he put a hand on my head and sort of scooted me into the backseat. “Watch your head.”
“Edden!” I complained, and he hesitated, pointing for me to stay but not shutting the door. It was awkward with my hands behind me like that, and I sat sideways with my feet on the pavement. It smelled like stale man sweat, and my nose wrinkled in disgust. My mom was already free, talking to the officers and waving to Trent as his car slowly pulled under the DON’T CROSS tape. I jumped when my phone rang, frustrated when I couldn’t reach it. Damn it, it was probably Ivy.
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” I grumbled, pulling at the plastic-coated silver strip. Trent had gotten out, and my heart thumped as he talked to Edden. He shook Edden’s hand before turning to me, his hands in his pockets and steps slow as he wove through the thinning crowd of officers.
“I told you to leave,” he said when he got close enough, and my frustration vanished at his smile, both glad to see me and worried.
“I tried,” I said, gaze shifting to my mom and then the I.S. van. “It got complicated.” I scooted out of the car, awkward until he took my shoulder to balance me. Turn-blasted zip strip, I thought, and suddenly the wristband gave way with a little pop. Surprised, I rubbed at my wrists. “Thanks,” I said as I sighed in relief.
“For coming down here? It was a calculated risk.”
“No, for taking the zip strip off.” Trent hesitated, and a cold feeling slipped into me. “Ah, didn’t you just snap it?” I hadn’t felt anything, but if he’d been quick about it, I wouldn’t, seeing as the strip blocked you from all line contact.
“No.”
Worried, I turned back to the car to find it. Uric must have put it on too tight and it just broke. But a cold feeling slipped into me when the backseat and pavement were bare. “It’s got to be here,” I said as I dropped to my knee and looked under the car.
“What?”
“The zip strip,” I said, not seeing it. “One of the I.S. guys zipped me, and it just snapped.” Worried, I dug down between the seat and the back to find an old pen and a plastic cup lid, but no zip strip. “You sure you didn’t break it?”
Trent shook his head, and my heart seemed to stop. The strip hadn’t broken. I had destroyed it. I had destroyed it with a wish, with a want, and I’d done it without access to the ley lines. There was only one way to do magic without access to a ley line, and my jaw clenched.
I had mystics in me. I might not be able to hear them, but they could hear me. And I think Al knew it. Was counting on it, maybe. He wanted me to close the lines, and it would take magic to open them back up again.
“Trent—” I started, then scrambled to grab my phone when it began humming again. It was Ivy, and I thumbed the answer tab, fingers shaking. “Ivy! Where are you?”
A velvety, angry voice flowed out, chilling me. “Don’t wait too long,” Uric said, and the phone clicked off.
Chapter 20
Trent’s tiny car was plush, the fan pushing a warm breeze over me, making my hair tickle against my neck. My hands were on the wheel, but we were parked in one of the few spots on the street right outside the I.S. building. It had been a good hour since leaving the square, and Ivy was probably in there by now, settled in whatever cell they’d picked out for her.
Fidgeting, I tapped my nails on the wheel. I’d chipped one somewhere, and I ran my thumb over the rough edge as I looked at Trent drowsing, slumped against the window on the passenger side. Jenks was in the back window doing the same. I didn’t want to wake either of them, but if I waited much longer, Cormel would start tormenting Ivy. I had one shot at getting her out, and I was lucky Trent was with me, sleepy or not. His bangs shifted as he breathed, and I stifled my urge to arrange them.
He shouldn’t be here. He’s too important, I thought, but Trent had flatly refused to leave. And I could use his help—a lot—so I sat here in his car hoping something would happen and I wouldn’t have to risk Trent’s life in order to save Ivy’s.
Love stinks.
My attention flicked behind me to a car beeping as someone locked it. Trent stirred, quickly placing himself and straightening with a soft sound and a stretch. From the back, I heard the hum of wings. “How long have we been sitting here?” Trent asked, fuzzy with sleep.
“About five minutes,” I lied, then shot a look at Jenks to shut up when the pixy darted into the front, his dust a tattletale orange. “You were tired. I was thinking.”
Trent frowned as he looked at his watch and then to a smug Jenks. “About what?”
About the mystics in me, I thought, then decided to keep lying. “How good that island you offered me three years ago sounds.”
“Yeah, Rache, but think of all the stuff you would have missed lounging on a beach with an umbrella drink.” Jenks parked it on the dash and ran a hand over a wing, looking for tears.
Trent’s smile took on a touch of longing. “Mmmm, yes.” He began gathering his things to get out, and I just sat there, not moving. We had a plan, but I didn’t like it. He hesitated, glancing at Jenks before settling back. Taking my hand, he pulled me to him across the small space. Eyes inches apart, he earnestly said, “We either go in under our terms, or they come get us when the sun goes down.”
“I know,” I said, thinking of how little I had in my shoulder bag. I needed his help, but I didn’t want to risk his getting hurt—or worse.
Trent’s grip on me tightened. “Ivy is down there,” he said, and I almost pulled away. “Fighting our way in and out is chancy. This gets us halfway there.”
“I know.” Damn it, I’d worked hard to stay out of Cormel’s grip.
“That is where we need to be,” Trent said, and I blinked fast. He’d said us. He’d said we.
“This isn’t your fight,” I whispered.
“Rachel . . .” Trent squeezed my hand, bringing my eyes to him. “It is. This is more than Ivy, and even if that’s all it was, I’m not about to let you walk into Cormel’s office alone. Cormel knows Landon is lying about giving him his soul. He needs you alive to give him what he wants.”
Jenks was watching us solemnly. “How does that make this your problem?” I asked, and Trent’s eye twitched.
“He needs me, too. He just doesn’t know it yet. I have to make him aware of it before he tries to kill me again,” he said, and Jenks frowned.
Sighing, I looked past Trent and to the lobby door wishing I knew how to play this political game better. I’d spent two of the last three years of my life hating Trent and the last six months realizing it hadn’t been hate at all. “I fail to share your optimism about our intrinsic worth to a master vampire,” I said dryly, and Trent ran a hand over his stubbled cheeks, a flicker of surprise crossing him at the rough feel.
“Landon is trying to find enough support to close the lines,” he said. “It’s the only way to keep the surface demons in reality. If the lines close, magic ends . . .” He hesitated, unable to look at me. “. . . for the most part. If it happens, we need to be in a position to open them back up again.”
My lips pressed in disbelief. “And we get that seven stories down in the earth?”
Trent nodded, shrugging helplessly. “If that’s where you are, then yes.”
He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight. The soft snick of Jenks sharpening his sword seemed loud. “I still say that’s a bunch of hooey, so I’ll let you come with me,” I said, and Trent smiled, leaning across the space to give me a kiss. His lips met mine, warm and tasting of cinnamon and wine. My eyes closed, and my heart gave a thump, almost an ache for how much he loved me—I loved him.
“There’s that, too,” he whispered as he pulled back, his fingers leaving tingles. “Ready?”
I was going straight into the devil’s lair, but at least I had company. “Okay, you can come,” I said as I looked behind the car for traffic and reached for the door handle.
Trent’s touch pulled me to a stop, and I turned to see his worried smile. “Thanks,” he said, and I choked back a bitter laugh before I got out, scared for Ivy, scared for me, scared for Jenks and Trent.
But I did get out, breathing in the good Cincy air as I sent my eyes up the imposing facade. Trent and Jenks were waiting for me at the curb, and I hustled forward. “Thanks for driving,” he said as I came even and I hooked my arm in his. “The nap did me good.”
“Me too, Rache,” Jenks chimed in, and I tossed my hair so he could land on my shoulder.
“No problem,” I said, playing along with the idea that we could actually do this. I wasn’t leaving without Ivy and Nina, and my fingertips tingled as I strengthened my hold on the lines and filled my chi, then spindled even more in my head.
Trent held the door for me, and the wind blew my hair back as I went in. The first floor of the lobby was almost empty, and noise from the second- and third-floor offices filtered down the huge stairway. I looked up at the glass railings and desks, feeling my stomach knot. Head down, we angled toward the bank of elevators. There were at least seven levels downstairs, maybe more. I’d never been there, but Ivy had told me about them one night when she’d had too much to drink.
“The treasurer is on the third floor,” Trent said, eyes flicking from the information sign.
“You think they’d let us post bail and leave with her?” I said, and Jenks snorted.
Trent’s arm slipped from mine. “It will get their attention.”
It would at that, but I figured we already had their attention. I’d sat outside their building for almost an hour. “I say we go down as far as we can,” I said as I pushed the button for the elevator.
“Excuse me!” a somewhat feminine voice called out. “Yes, at the elevator?”
We turned to the tall man coming down the stairway. He was in a trendy suit, a living vampire by the way he moved, having confidence and fear mixed in all together. “Jenks, don’t go too far but see what you can find out,” I muttered, and he tweaked my ear before flying away, his dust matching the color of the marble floor exactly.
Trent sighed as he pulled himself upright and found a professional expression. The sharp taps of dress shoes on the stairs echoed as the man jogged down, his hands free and arms swinging. “Ms. Morgan?” he said as he got close, clearly nervous and more than a little excited. “Could you accompany me downstairs?”
“Maybe.” Damn it, this felt wrong.
The clerk moved as if to put a hand to my back, and I jumped to avoid him. Flustered, the man tried to find his aplomb. “Mr. Cormel would like to speak with you,” he said, all civilized, but there were two big guys at the lobby doors now, and people lined the glass railings, watching.
Trent scratched the side of his nose, not being ignored as such, but clearly not the focus of the man’s interest. “I want to pay Ivy’s bond,” I said, though it was actually Trent’s money that would do it.
Nodding, the clerk pushed the down button on a different panel. “He can arrange that.”
“I bet he can,” I said as the door opened and Trent and the clerk got in. Eyes wide, the clerk gestured for me to join them, and sullen, I stomped into the lift. “This is not a good idea,” I grumbled as the doors closed and the clerk ran a card. Jenks hadn’t made it, but elevators had never stopped him before.
“It’s better than having them come at us over dinner,” Trent said softly, and the clerk caught back a snort.
My eyes went to the panel. Sixth floor? Way out of reach of a ley line.
“Cormel is a reasonable man,” Trent said, more for the aide than me. “He’s not going to shove us in a hole.” Trent’s voice had been confident, but the tension in his fingers against my back gave him away. He was wire tight, and my own alarm ratcheted higher.
“Yeah, well, if he tries, I’m going to burn his office down to his red stapler.” I could talk to the aide, too, and Trent’s hand fell from my back as the doors opened to show a wide, brightly lit carpeted hallway. Two more pretty men and one sexy woman waited by the narrow table against the wall. Orchids and cut flowers made it less six stories under and more thirty stories up. The silk, linen, and jewelry they wore made no attempt to hide the scars.
The clerk with us hit a button to freeze the lift, clearing his throat and holding his hand out. “Your purse, Ms. Morgan. And your cap and ribbon, Mr. Kalamack.”
My grip on it tightened. I’d lost contact with the ley lines at about level three. There wasn’t much in the bag to begin with, but I was loath to let it go. One by one, I was being stripped of my defenses.
“And your phones?” he added smugly.
Sighing, Trent dug in his pocket. Expression amused, he handed the clerk his phone, cap, and ribbon.
I hesitated, but when Trent glanced at his watch, I shoved my bag at the clerk and stomped out of the elevator. Was I a demon, or was I a demon?
I swear, Trent was smiling when he caught up, slipping an arm in mine and slowing me down. Ivy was here somewhere. If they didn’t give her to me, I was going to tear the place apart. “I hope your chess game is better than mine,” I said softly.