Ever After th-11

by Kim Harrison

  Hesitating, Quen shifted his chair forward. “I’d like to go out with you the next time you look at the Loveland ley line.”

  I thought of his sluggish left leg. He probably couldn’t tap a line yet either. I said nothing, embarrassed. He wasn’t ready to battle demons again. Maybe next week. But next week would be too late.

  Quen frowned at my silence, knowing what it meant. Clearly frustrated, he leaned closer until I could smell his aftershave over the characteristic woodsy wine-and-cinnamon scent. “I think I know how Ku’Sox made that event horizon.”

  I paused in my reading and looked up. “Event horizon?” Jenks asked, but that was what Al had called it, too.

  “The purple line within a line sucking everything in,” he stated, and I shuddered. No wonder I’d felt squished, even if it had only been my mind. Al was lucky to be alive. That the collective had something for him to pattern himself on was probably how he had survived.

  Quen carefully lifted the book toward him, his eyes on the yellowed pages. “I think Ku’Sox made it by gathering up the small imbalances that already existed in the other lines, concentrating them in the leaking line you made,” he said, carefully flipping back to the paragraph where the author mentioned the possibility of small line imbalances having no effect if the individual lines were spaced out enough and aligned to the polar forces of nearby lines.

  I scooted my chair closer to Quen’s and read the first passage again. “Al did say that the lines were balanced to within safe parameters, implying they all leaked to some degree.”

  “Must have been small leaks,” Jenks said, hands on his hips as he hovered over it all, his dust bringing the print back to a new-edged brightness.

  “That’s just it,” Quen said, his thick fingers tapping the table. “They don’t add up to what’s in the Loveland ley line.”

  “They would if they acted on each other exponentially,” I said.

  Quen’s expression twisted in doubt. “Why would they do that?”

  “How should I know? I’m shooting at fairies here.” My fingers were starting to cramp from holding the book, and I took my gloves off to rub them. I had enough information to go on a fact-finding mission out at the line. I figured things out by doing, not reading about them. “Al told me that the lines push each other apart, like giant magnets,” I said, unclenching my teeth. God! Am I the only one hearing this whine? “If the lines are positive, pushing away from each other, then maybe the imbalance is negative. Maybe you can’t have a line without a little imbalance.”

  “Like those little black and white magnet dogs that don’t like each other unless they go face-to-face?” Jenks laughed, but I thought he had it almost exactly right.

  Quen adjusted his position, inadvertently telling me his hip was sore. “Lines don’t move.”

  “Mine did,” I said. “A good hundred feet from the second floor of the castle to the garden outside. Al said lines moved a lot when they were new, but they stabilized.” Reaching over, I tapped the page with my naked finger, which made Quen wince. My head gave a throb, and I curved my fingers under, wondering if this might be why Al wore gloves.

  “Maybe all the lines leaked at first like mine,” I said, wishing I could ask Al about it. “But the farther apart they got, the smaller the leak became. And when Ku’Sox put the imbalances together again, bang! Big leak.”

  Quen’s lips twisted in doubt, which made his hospital stubble more obvious. Jenks, though, was bobbing up and down. “Like one sticktight stuck to your tights compared to a ball of them.”

  “Or a bunch of dust scattered in a huge vacuum having no effect compared to the same amount balled up into a planet,” I added, and Quen’s expression smoothed as he considered it. “If that’s how Ku’Sox got that purple sludge in my ley line, then all I have to do is divvy the imbalance back up again, and the leak will go back to its original pace. Clear the crud out, and anyone can see the curse that Ku’Sox used to break my line. They’d have to side against him!”

  Jenks dusted an excited gold, but Quen still had doubts if his sour expression was any indication. “He’ll simply break it again,” he said as he closed the book and stood.

  “Maybe,” I admitted, feeling a stab of worry. “But I’ll be waiting for him this time. If I catch him at it, then he’s in trouble, not me. If I can prove Ku’Sox broke my line, they won’t kill me but band together and make him behave.” I frowned—they should just band together and be done with him regardless. Cowards.

  The hiss of the door was less this time as Quen carefully put Ellasbeth’s book away. It bothered me that Trent was with her right now, believing whatever drivel she was feeding him.

  “And you know how to do this?” Quen said as the door sealed shut with a cold sound. “Separate imbalances?”

  “No,” I admitted. “But if Bis and I went out there, we might be able to figure it out. He’s really good at separating line signatures.”

  Neither one of them said anything, Jenks sitting on Quen’s shoulder and both of them eyeing me in doubt. “He is,” I said in Bis’s defense. “You look at him and all you see is a kid, but I’ve seen the lines through him, and he knows what he’s doing. Besides,” I added, “either of you Abbas got any other ideas? I’m all ears.”

  Quen flushed as I used the elf name he’d given himself, but Jenks flew almost into my face. “You’re not going into that purple line. You saw what it did to Al.” He spun to Quen, an alarmed gold dust making a sunbeam on the table. “It fried his aura, and they both almost died!”

  Ignoring him, I chewed on my lip. “I’d be careful,” I said, then stifled a shiver. What if I got sucked into it by mistake? Or Ku’Sox shoved me?

  “You’re not going out there!” Jenks shrilled, and Quen winced, looking at the closet door. “It’s not safe, and you know it!”

  “When is my life safe?” I said, trying not to get riled up. “Trent could spot me if I used Al’s rings. Would that make you happy?”

  Jenks dropped several inches before he remembered to move his wings. Still leaning against the cabinet, Quen seemed to stiffen. I knew being almost helpless bothered him. “Al’s rings?” Jenks scoffed, coming down and kicking at the gloves I’d taken off. “You think demon magic is going to work with an elf?”

  My eyes went to Quen. He was frowning in thought. “I don’t know. You got anything on demon wedding rings?” I asked, but he was already at the cabinet, putting his gloves back on. “I yanked Al’s soul out of that event horizon using a pair of rings,” I babbled. “They sort of melted our minds together.” Jenks made a face, his dust shifting green. “Not like that,” I said. “It was weird, though, as if I could pull on his strength, and he could pull on mine.”

  “Without asking?” Quen reached high to pull down a slim volume. It was falling apart and had no title, so I figured it was a demon text. “You sure they weren’t slave rings?”

  Chastity rings sounded far more slavelike than Al’s rings. “Pretty sure,” I said as Jenks peered over Quen’s shoulder. “The connection felt equal. Like a scrying mirror but more complex, sort of like the difference between a phone call and talking in person. Al said the rings made an unbreakable connection,” I said, stifling a shudder at the memory of feeling his pain, then squishing the thought of what sex might feel like. Da-a-amn . . . Feeling two orgasms at once might be worth the invasion of privacy.

  Quen eyed me in my sudden silence, setting the volume down before me and pointedly handing me my gloves. I put them on, my curiosity growing as Quen opened it to almost the last page. “I think what you want is here.”

  No matter how I tugged the gloves, they felt too tight, but I smiled as I saw the rough drawings. It faded as I read what the demon rings were actually for. Increased sexual pleasure was on there, but they were really created as an implement of war, allowing a sort of superdemon able to overpower elves and whatever more easily. There was no clear master or subordinate ring as there was in the elf chastity rings. How they decided what curse to war
with was up for debate, but perhaps that never came up in the heat of battle? I thought it interesting that it was assumed that it took two demons to overpower wild, elven magic. One thing was clear, though. The two people wearing them had no defense against each other if there was treachery. Wedding bands, indeed.

  “Look, there it is,” Jenks said, his dust sinking through the pages to make them glow from underneath. “Demon use only. You don’t make something your enemy can use.”

  He was right, but I wasn’t going to give up on this, and leaning back in my chair, I racked my brain for an answer. “Well, why not use the chastity rings?” I said suddenly, and Quen started. “You said they made a bond. If it’s tight enough to quash someone’s magic, I bet it’s tight enough to pull me out of trouble.”

  Hunched over the book, Quen’s eyes came to mine. “Those are elven chastity rings, not demon wedding bands,” he almost growled.

  “Right.” I pushed my chair out and went over to them. “But he could yank me back. Just like Al’s wedding rings!”

  They were both staring at me as if I was nuts, but I knew it would work. It had to.

  “They’re broken,” Quen said, and Jenks bobbed his head up and down. “The knowledge to make new ones is gone. The women burned all the texts.”

  “Big surprise.” Not ready to let this go, I looked at them on their little black saucer. One was tiny, like a child’s ring, which made sense if it was to keep young people in line. “I know someone who can bring spent ley line charms back to life,” I said as I picked them both up.

  Quen made a small sound, and I jiggled them in my hand.

  “Pierce!” Jenks exclaimed, his wings a harsh rattle. “You’re talking about Pierce! He’s Newt’s familiar! Rache, what have you been putting in your coffee?”

  Smiling, I looked at the rings in my palm. Quen was right. They were dead. Not even a whisper of magic.

  “Don’t put the little one on!” Quen said as I angled it to my pinkie to see if it would fit, and I hesitated. “That’s the subservient ring. Once it goes on, it doesn’t come off until the master ring allows it.”

  Oh. Thinking, I jiggled the rings just to watch Quen’s reaction. “You said they don’t work.”

  “You want to risk it? Go ahead. Put it on.”

  Jenks came to hover over them, frowning in disapproval. “Even if you could get the rings reinvoked, Pierce is in the ever-after,” he said, kicking the larger one into the smaller. It made a ping that seemed to echo through me.

  “Why are you two always Debbie downers?” I said, closing my fingers around them.

  Jenks landed on my closed fist. “Just what do you plan to do? Call Newt and ask her to pop you over? She’s nuts!”

  From behind me, Trent’s soft voice said, “She doesn’t have to.”

  I spun, warming as if I’d been caught stealing his stuff again. Shit, how long had he been there?

  “Sorry,” he said as he came farther in and took his hand from the closed door. “I didn’t want to wake Ray up.”

  Sure, that’s what he said, but Jenks was smirking at me, and Quen seemed smug that I was the only one Trent had surprised. His manner quick, Trent held out his hand, and I dropped the rings into them. He smelled like the outdoors, and of Ellasbeth’s perfume. I stifled a surge of pique. There was a new drive in him, a purpose. He could again be what the elves wanted, and I forced myself to smile.

  Quen looked pained as he stood there, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of his injuries or because Trent was behind me on this. “How do you propose she get there, Sa’han?”

  Trent looked up, eager to explain. “My father’s vault door.”

  “Perfect!” I exclaimed softly.

  “Oh God,” Jenks muttered. “They’re at it again. I’m not going to get out of this one alive. I know it. I can see the web on the wall already!”

  “Relax, Jenks.” I took Trent’s hand and turned it palm up so I could gently pry his fingers open. “You’re not going.” My eyes met Trent’s, and I took the rings. “You either.”

  Trent’s expression cascaded through about six different emotions, all finally vanishing under a cold calm. “I am a part of this,” he warned me.

  “Obviously,” I said as I backed up out of his easy reach. He was still wearing the matching pinkie ring, and something in me felt like it was a victory. “I’ll get the rings working, not you. I know you. You’ll get over there, and you’ll do something noble and throw everything off plan.”

  “I will not!”

  “You will!” I affirmed. “Besides, if I’m over there slumming in the mall looking for Pierce, everyone will think I’m taking care of Al. If you’re there, it will be noticed.”

  Looking as if he were eating slugs, Trent dropped his head, making his bangs fall into his eyes. He knew I was right, and it was killing him.

  “Those are my rings and my door,” Trent said, his head coming up and holding his hand out. “I’m going.”

  Chin high, I refused to back up—but my hand was in a tight fist, hiding them. I had a fleeting memory of having done something like this before involving a key and the counselor’s locked office. “It’s my old boyfriend, so you stay. I’ll get the rings working, and then we can go out to the line and see what we can do. Deal?”

  “Ah, Sa’han?” Quen interrupted.

  At the we, Trent’s entire mien shifted from frustration to sour acceptance. Backing off, he licked his thumb and held it out, a challenging slant to his expression. My heart pounded. “Deal,” he said, and I licked my thumb and we pressed them together.

  Quen hunched into himself in disgust. Jenks was on his shoulder shedding a weird purple dust, but I was ecstatic. “You won’t follow me,” I insisted, and Trent looked up from under his bangs again, making my heart stop with his half smile.

  “I just thumb promised, didn’t I?”

  Yes, he had thumb promised, and that he wouldn’t dare break. Or I’d throw him down the camp well and leave him there for three days.

  Chapter Twelve

  The last time I’d been in the room outside of Trent’s vault, I’d been stealing that elven threesome statue Jenks was so enamored of to gain Trent’s undivided attention. The outer chamber hadn’t changed, the air still flat and unmoving, the floors and walls bare with no furniture. I stared at the blank wall, Jenks on my shoulder and Trent beside me. Quen was down the hall turning on Trent’s magnetic imaging device. It would shift the ley line running through Trent’s compound down into the earth. More proof that the ley lines functioned as magnets on some level.

  Once the line was out of its natural course, I could enter the ever-after not through the surface, which not only sucked dishwater but had no direct access to the demon realm, but right into their underground mall. From there I could buy a jump to Newt’s rooms. If she was there, we’d have a chat and I’d borrow Pierce for a few hours. If she wasn’t, then I’d save myself a few bucks and talk to Pierce with her none the wiser. I was hoping for the latter.

  “There it goes,” Trent said softly, staring at the wall as if it were a big-screen TV, and feeling a sudden hiccup in my balance, I unfocused my attention and brought my second sight up. Sure enough, the red smear of a ley line now ran through the room at chest height, right before and through the blank wall. It would be an easy matter to step into it, will myself across, and be safe underground. Trent’s father, Kal, had used the ley line as a way to have a temporary door to a doorless vault, accessible when the magnetic resonator was on, and completely impossible to enter when the machine was switched off. It had been off for almost a year now, since Nick and I had burgled the vault behind the wall. I agreed with Trent that having a vault full of precious artifacts where any demon could see them using his second sight was a bad idea, but then again, Trent’s dad might have been using the room for another reason.

  Nervous, I wiped my hands on my pants and turned to Trent, startled at his aura. It wavered over him like a gold sheet, like he was on fire. The slash of
red through it hadn’t grown, but there was a new hint of black to it that I thought might be the first visible signs of smut. The room with the resonator was fairly close. We had a few minutes until Quen rejoined us.

  “Is an hour enough?” Trent asked, calm as ever as he looked at his watch, but I could see by a flicker of darker gold aura that he was nervous. I wasn’t leaving until Quen was here to keep him from following me.

  “You want to make it two?” I countered, not sure how long this might take.

  Jenks flew from my shoulder, his rainbowlike aura trailing him. “How about five minutes?” he said tightly, and I pleaded with my eyes for him not to make a stink. It was daylight, and pixies couldn’t stay in the ever-after when the sun was up, same as demons couldn’t stay in reality.

  “I’ll have a better chance of success if I go alone,” I said, then craned my neck to look through the low ceiling at the banners and dappled light patterns that the demons decorated their mall with. It was early yet, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic, just a few harried familiars and disgruntled demons who’d been pressed into service to clear a debt. I thought I could hear ’80s music being piped in, echoing against the flat places. It was weird standing so far underground and feeling as if you were outside, but the demons had had thousands of years to build their pretend.

  Trent eyed me askance—making me wonder if he was checking out my aura for smut—then fixed his gaze firmly ahead to the shop sign visible through the wall, THE COFFEE VAULT. Someone had a sense of humor.

  “We can turn the magnet on at fifteen-minute intervals,” Trent said; then we both turned at a scuff at the door.

  “Sa’han,” Quen protested, out of breath but clearly having heard him. “The risk . . .”

  Trent’s pleasant expression never changed. “We can turn the magnet on at fifteen-minute intervals,” he said again, and Quen nodded reluctantly. Satisfied, Trent turned to the humming ley line.

  The sour whine to the ley lines throughout Cincinnati was getting worse. Seeming to hear it as well, Jenks hovered before the line, hands on his hips and glaring at an oblivious man behind the coffeehouse windows. There was no reason for the familiar to be using his second sight, and unless he did, we would be invisible.