The Undead Pool

Page 27

Landon came out with two more bottles of wine. Our eyes met, and I looked away, uneasy. Bancroft’s assistant seemed to focus on the very things Bancroft didn’t like about me, making me nervous in his analyzing. Landon was blond, as most elves were. His ears were docked, but he had an earring, giving him a decidedly devilish mien. Dressed like Bancroft, he had the added distinction of a multicolored sash. Jeans and tennis shoes showed under his hem. He was younger, too, his face clean-shaven where Bancroft had a tidy beard and wrinkles. Landon’s accent was midwestern newscaster, every word pronounced with a perfect blandness.
Noting my mistrustful scrutiny, Quen forked a bite of meat off his ribs, his eyes never leaving mine.
“So the goats don’t have to die to be considered sacrificed?” Trent asked as he pulled Ray up onto his lap and the toddler helped herself to his macaroni salad, eating it one shell at a time.
“No.” Bancroft reached for one of the wine bottles Landon had brought out. “It’s permissible to give them to the dewar. The intent of a sacrifice is to deny yourself a wealth or courtesy, and giving it to the church will accomplish that end.”
And put a little jingle in the coffers, I thought sourly.
Shunning the hot dog on the principle that Jonathan had made it, I focused on the chips. Church, temple, holy place. Leave it to the elves to name their church after a flask used to store precious gases. Bunch of hot air.
The snick of a knife leaving a sheath brought my head up, but it was only Bancroft, and I watched him use a ceremonial foot-long frog sticker to open the bottle of wine by running it down the bottle’s length and snapping off the top. Show-off.
“Thank God,” Ellasbeth said, busy toweling Lucy’s hair, the little girl staring at Trent’s salad. “I couldn’t stomach the idea of Trent slitting some poor goat’s throat.”
Probably with the same sword Bancroft was tucking back in his robes, I thought. Trent, though, was grimacing. I wondered if it was at the thought of killing an animal with his bare hands, or the question of it really being a sacrifice if someone other than the Goddess benefited from it. Recalling Jenks telling me about how Trent had slit the throat of an attacker, I guessed it was the latter.
The ice was long gone from my tea, and I wondered if I went to get more if I could trash my hot dog with no one the wiser. I went to stand, dropping back at Quen’s quiet clearing of his throat.
“I wanted to thank you for giving Trent the space he needs to focus on his duty,” he said, his melodious voice reminding me of earth and shadow.
Focus on his duty? Was that elf-speak for ignoring that Trent was making the biggest mistake of his life? Leaning back, I stabbed a couple of macaroni. “You’re the one who asked me to watch him.”
“Thank you for that, too.”
He was nervous. It wasn’t obvious, but it made me wonder if he knew about Trent’s and my “date.” Probably. Trent didn’t keep much from him. I concentrated on my salad, stifling a shiver as the memory of that kiss we’d shared blossomed. Newt’s warning echoed in me, and I ate another chip. What did it matter anyway?
“So, he and Ellasbeth getting along better?” I asked, smiling when Lucy finally broke from Ellasbeth. Running to Trent, she begged to be picked up. Last time the girls were here, he could have managed them both, but now they were too big.
“Yes, but it’s mostly her efforts to change. She’s not an unkind woman.”
I looked at Ellasbeth rising up in her skimpy bathing suit and cover-up that didn’t live up to its name. She was smart, sexy, and everything a man would like, and I suppressed an unexpected flash of jealousy. “She’s peeved at being asked to do something she doesn’t want to do. I get that.” The salad tasted flat, and I set my fork down. How far should duty rule a person? I asked myself as Ellasbeth went to the table and took both Lucy’s and Trent’s discarded plates. They worked well together, and knowing Trent, duty was everything.
My eyes met Jonathan’s. The nasty man had turned the grill off and was setting everything on a tray to take inside. He smiled evilly at me, and I smiled evilly back. As proper looking in his white-and-blue-striped cooking apron as he was, there was no way I was eating that hot dog now. Too bad, because it looked perfect with chili, mustard, relish, and even a sprinkling of parmesan.
Sighing, I set my plate aside, and as Ellasbeth gracefully took her seat at the large, canopied table, Trent beckoned me over. “Here we go,” I whispered, both eager and dreading Bancroft’s pronouncement.
“Let me help you with that,” Quen said as he took my plate, and I reluctantly passed it to him. I’d get rid of the hot dog somehow.
“Thanks.” Feeling awkward, I crossed the patio as I tried to decide where to sit. There was an empty place beside Trent, but that was out of the question with Ellasbeth smiling thinly at me. The chair beside Bancroft was not a good option. Neither was the chair beside Landon.
“Here, Ms. Morgan,” Landon said as he stood to pour out the wine, and my choice was made for me.
“Rachel, please,” I said as I sat down and pushed my empty wineglass away to make room for my iced tea. “We’re being so informal today.”
At least some of us were, I thought, glancing at Ellasbeth in her swimsuit. Trent was business casual, as was Quen. I didn’t know what Bancroft and Landon were, but they seemed professional. And I, of course, was trying to impress everyone with how businesslike I could be with my black slacks and white top. Boring, boring, boring.
Quen silently slid my plate with my untouched hot dog before me, and I winced.
“Are you perhaps vegetarian?” Landon asked as he set the bottle down. “And no wine?”
My eyes flicked over the table, embarrassed that I’d telegraphed so much. “Just not hungry. And the sulfites in the wine give me a headache.”
“A demon with a sulfur intolerance?” Bancroft said in disbelief, his dramatic drawl temporarily stilling Lucy’s babbling.
Trent reached across the table to take my plate and hand it to Quen to remove from the table. “Rachel is not your usual demon,” Trent said with a smile, and I felt a wash of gratitude. His eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly in question, and I glanced at Jonathan. Frowning, Trent held Ray closer as he watched Jonathan take his apron off. Ellasbeth’s jaw was clenched at our silent communication, and she forced a smile when I noticed.
“What a shame!” Landon pushed back with his glass of red wine and eyed me over it. “To not be able to fully enjoy the fruits of the earth. You must make up for it in other ways.”
His words were innocent enough, but the way he said it made me feel as if I were naked.
Bancroft harrumphed as he settled himself. It was nearing dusk, and the outside lights flicked on. “I appreciate your unique insight into recent events, Morgan,” the man said as he took his cylindrical hat off and set it aside.
“I showed you mine. I’d appreciate if you’d show me yours,” I said, and Landon snorted into his wine.
Bancroft ran his hand over his sparse hair to smooth it. “I beg your pardon?”
I leaned forward, wanting to hurry this up so I might get home before they closed Cincy. “The wave is wild magic. Do you really think vampires have the skill to pull it from my line and then catch it so it doesn’t circle the globe? Just what are they doing with it, anyway?” Bancroft’s expression went closed, and I drummed my fingers. It was going to be like that, eh?
“Wild magic is always leaking from the lines,” Landon offered.
“Not like this it isn’t,” I said, offended they would try to snow me like that.
Stretching, Trent snagged the pitcher of iced tea. “I’ve found Rachel to be circumspect. She knows the value of information and works best when she has it. All of it.”
“She is a demon,” Bancroft said, staring at me. I refused to look away, even when Trent refilled my glass and the ice tinkled to the top.
“She is my associate in this matter,” Trent said, the soft threat in his voice making Ellasbeth sniff. “If you don’t explain the workings of the Goddess, I will.”
Bancroft thought that over as Quen silently cleared the table. It was Bancroft who looked away first, and I drank my tea like a victory draft. Point to me.
“The Goddess is both one being and a thousand,” Bancroft said sourly. “A communal mind. Usually she’s in concert with herself, but as I prayed in Cincinnati this afternoon, I sensed a division. She is two. The subset of mystics being held from her is beginning to separate and take on a new personality. She’s beginning to become insane.”
“I think insane is a somewhat strong term,” Trent said, and a flash of annoyance crossed Landon’s face, fleeting and almost not there.
“She can’t be balanced anymore,” Ellasbeth said dryly, leaning back in her chair with her glass. “Think of a group of people marooned on an island. In a few generations, the lack of genetic diversity begins to show itself.”
“Just so,” Bancroft reaffirmed, reaching for more wine. “When an elf petitions for attention and help, he—”
“Or she,” Ellasbeth interrupted, gently bouncing Lucy on her lap.
Bancroft inclined his head politely. “Or she,” he consented, “is not communicating with the entirety of the Goddess, but only the parts of her that are sympathetic to the petitioner’s aims. The more the prayer resonates with the Goddess, the stronger the connection.”
So the more the Goddess agreed with you, the more likely you were to be heard? “That doesn’t sound very fair,” I said, fiddling with my drink. “What does this have to do with wild magic leaking from my lines?”
“I’m getting to that,” Bancroft said, and Landon coughed dryly. “We call her individual thoughts mystics. They roam freely in reality, leaving her by way of the lines and bringing ideas and concepts back to her, though not usually in the concentrations you’ve been witnessing lately. Several species host them in minute amounts, such as pixies, leprechauns, and Weres. It enables them to access their magic naturally without a connection to a line. It’s the concentration of them in the wave that is unnatural, not their presence.”
I nodded, remembering Jenks once telling me that he was “magic, baby!” I bet it burned the elves’ cookies that they weren’t hosts to their own Goddess when pixies were. It was starting to make sense, and I tapped the table in thought. “Then the wild magic is what’s in the line that witches, elves, and demons get their strength from?”
Either warming up to me or the wine he was slamming down, Bancroft raised a hand for patience. “Only elves can access it directly from the Goddess. Energy collects between spaces naturally, sort of pools up. Witches and demons siphon it off through ley lines.”
As long as I didn’t think about it too hard, it made sense. Little bits of sentient energy combining into one mega Goddess, the entirety of Inderland magic running on the energy she gave off, much like vampires existed on the energy given off from the soul. “Seems like a lot of trouble for such a tiny bit of energy.”
Bancroft fiddled with his glass, watching the red wine swirl. “The amount in the waves is tiny, but it can be used to great destruction. It’s like the sun. In space where it belongs, it warms and protects, but even a half-second burst on earth is devastating.”
A sudden thought broke over me, and I sat up. Ellasbeth started at my quick motion, but Trent was smiling. “Newt!” I exclaimed. “That’s what she was doing yesterday.”
“Ah . . .” Bancroft said as he and Landon exchanged worried glances. “Newt? She’s the insane demon, right?”
“Not all the time. She was catching mystics,” I said, looking at Trent for confirmation. “Remember? Right before that last wave we got caught up in.”
“She was decidedly not!” Bancroft huffed.
“She was! I have some in a jar on my windowsill.”
Trent leaned across the table, almost shouting to be heard over Bancroft’s loud and continuous denials that anyone could catch the Goddess in a jar. Lucy was right there with him, shouting and banging as she sat on Ellasbeth’s lap. “You kept it?” he asked, his eyes alight.
“Duh. You think I’m going to trash anything Newt gives me? The woman is crazy, not stupid.”
Bancroft shut up when he realized no one was listening to him, and I gathered my hair back and let it go in thought. This had possibilities. “Do you think we can talk to the Goddess directly?” I asked, and Ellasbeth gasped. “Maybe tell her what’s going on so she can maybe, I don’t know, stop parts of herself from wandering off?”
Bancroft’s face was white. “It would take a huge fraction of the Goddess’s attention to even attract her awareness of you. You can’t talk to her as if she was a . . . a . . . person. And you can’t catch her in a jar!”
“Someone is,” I said, and the man put a hand to his chest, sputtering. “The same group of people pulling them out of my line,” I added. Trent glanced at Quen, and the man stood, quietly taking Ray and then Lucy. “Otherwise the mystics would be circling the globe.”
Bancroft stood, the cuffs of his robe shaking. “You cannot capture the Goddess! Who told you that?”
“A demon,” I said flatly, ignoring his conniption fit. I was tired of arguing with people who couldn’t see over the edge of the box they lived in. “The FIB—a human-run institution—figured out how to monitor for the waves yesterday. It’s how we got the misfires under control. Someone is collecting them.”