Chapter 23

Chapter

23

It felt odd driving up the long, five-mile driveway to Trent's estate. The flickering of the low sun through the mature forest was familiar, but the nervousness plaguing me was not. At least not for a long time. Elyse wasn't much better, her eyes on the sky and her fingers fiddling with her hair whenever we met anyone. I don't think she liked its straw-blond spelled state, but because I'd used the transposition stone to disguise her, she looked the same to me.

That any oncoming car might hold Trent was a real worry despite the both of us having borrowed the images of two random people on the street. We both now appeared vaguely like elves: slim, angular facial structure, straight blond hair. It was a thin disguise, but because I'd used a demon curse, it would hold up to a cursory elf or witch spell checker. It could only be severed by me or the harsh, unaided scrutiny born of knowing it was false—the certainty of one's will. And seeing as there was no reason to doubt who we were, it would hold.

I promised Trent I'd never break into his home again, I mused, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. That I hadn't actually made that promise yet somehow made it worse, not better.

"We should have taken the Cadillac," Elyse muttered. "Rentals can be tracked."

"And you think a stolen Caddy can't? They won't track a rental until they know it's missing, and it was in the detail area. Besides, their first thought will be screwed-up paperwork, not theft." It was Kisten who had taught me how to borrow cars that wouldn't be missed, and my chest hurt. I'd just left him there. What if I never got back?

The young woman brought her gaze from the sky and scowled at me. Her concern, though irritating, was well-founded. I'd taken the time to scrape the rental barcodes off, but if they ran the plate at the front gate, we might have trouble.

"Bullying our way in," she said. "If there's a way in through the stables, why aren't we doing that?"

"Three reasons." I grimaced, not caring about her ego issues. "The stables are busy right now with foals and have more security than Trent's front office. We can't go in over the pastures until after dark, and I don't know how long they hold Trent at the I.S. after I arrest him. Besides, the pastures are monitored. Anything bigger than a badger shows up on their heat scanners. But mostly it's because I will be breaking in through the stables in a few months, and I don't want them to know they're vulnerable and plug the hole."

Elyse pulled the visor down to look at herself in the vanity mirror, head tilted to gauge her new, model cheekbones. "I still say this is risky."

"It is. But if we pick up the right glamours and IDs we need at the gate, we can walk in with an escort. It's the weekend and the labs will be empty."

She flipped the visor up with a snap. "If you say so."

Whatever. And still, a thrill trickled through me as I drove the bland black car into the small visitor lot this side of the gate and parked. I wished that Jenks was with me, not some sullen, ego-ridden, deadly skilled coven member. Why am I doing this again? Oh, yeah. If I went home without her, they would assume I'd killed her. But that was just an excuse; getting her home was the right thing to do, even if it made my life impossible. Besides, I was starting to like her. Damn it, Rachel, you have to stop making friends with your adversaries.

Trent's gatehouse had the feel of a military installation. The expansive building straddling both sides of the wall had a small kitchen, break room, holding cell, and full communication array. There was even a small meeting room for news releases. There could be as many as six people manning the gate or as few as two. Seeing as Trent was spending the evening off-site, I was betting the latter, and I sat for a moment in my car and watched the man at the desk through the thick green glass. We'd been noticed, but I knew the procedure. With no appointment, we'd have to do a face-to-face with security, which was why I didn't bother trying to get a car through the gate.

"Ready?" I tugged my glamoured bag onto my lap. "Try to stay out of my way. I don't want you damaging your synapses before they finish healing."

"I'm fine," she grumbled.

"The guardhouse has layers of complexity," I tried to explain, but she wasn't listening. "You do the wrong magic, and you trigger them."

"I am not your apprentice," she muttered, and my fake smile became stilted.

"You got that right." I took a deep breath as I got out and squinted at the low sun. Jenks could have put the cameras pointing at us on a loop, done a quick recon as to how many people were inside and who they were, maybe check the logbook for who was expected today—which was probably no one, seeing as Trent was getting married in a few hours. Someone would eventually check the security footage, but for now we were just two women from the I.S. who had been sent out in error.

A smirk found me as I waved to the man watching us. Not.

The whine of a cicada echoed in the rising warmth of the day, but it was the chortling rattle of a crow that drew my eye to the woods that stretched beyond the wall. My suspicion tightened. Elyse's familiar, Slick? An entire mile of road ran past the gatehouse to get to the compound, but here it was an old, planned forest that had grown up around and through Kalamack Senior's technological fence—and if I hadn't ridden through the grounds with Trent, I never would have known it existed. That was kind of the point.

I stifled a jump at the soft thump of Elyse's door, and I waited for her in front of the car. "That's not your crow, is it?" I said, and her attention shifted to the woods.

"No. I still say I should be the I.S. runner and you the intern," she muttered.

"Not happening." I pushed off the car, heading for the small door and gatehouse lobby. She was way too casual in her I.S. sweats and ever-after-stained shoes, even if everyone else saw gray flats, black slacks, and the blah black summer sweater her doppelganger had been wearing. My image donor had been wearing something similar, and I was hoping that it was close enough to Trent's security black that we'd blend in.

"No offense, Elyse," I said as we found the landscaped walkway. "But your entire attitude screams newbie. And as my intern, you should be happy to get the door for me."

Grimacing, Elyse took a long step to get ahead and yank the thick glass door open. "Thank God that ugly bag of yours glamoured up."

I tugged my shoulder bag higher, appreciating the two years of wear it lacked. I'd have to take her word that it looked like the leather satchel my doppelganger had been toting. "It's not ugly, and I need everything in it." Head high, I walked in as if I owned the place. I didn't recognize the man at the desk in his security uniform with a spell pistol on his hip. Oddly enough, his very anonymity gave me a feeling of confidence. Quen wouldn't keep anyone at the front gate after they'd been taken down—and take him down I would, spell pistol or not.

"Good afternoon." I stifled a shudder as the door snicked shut and the air-conditioning iced through me. "Is Quen Hansen available?" I knew Trent's number one security would be busy, either finalizing everything at the Basilica or, more likely, doing whatever best men do before the wedding. Dropping his name would give me some cred, though. I had a fake I.S. ID, but the magnetic code was a strip of foil from a heat-and-serve oatmeal box.

The guard glanced at my spelled bag, suspicion showing when I set it on the high counter between us. His name tag said Madison , and I fidgeted. "No, ma'am," he said in a slow drawl. "Perhaps I can help you?"

"Denise Monty," I said cheerfully, using my dad's first name as my last again. "We got an anonymous tip about a possible break-in during Kalamack's wedding, and they sent me out here to give you the heads-up."

Madison glanced at his computer screen. "A call would have sufficed. ID, please?"

"I did call." I put the flat of my arms on the top of the counter. "That's why I'm here. I was asked to come out with our information."

Madison reached for his keyboard. "When was this? Who did you talk to?"

The second man was still nowhere to be seen. It was taking too long. Elyse had begun to fidget, and smiling, I leaned over the high counter as if to try to see his screen. " Stabils , sweetheart," I whispered.

"Hey!" Madison's eyes widened as the curse hit him. I felt a tug on the line as he tried to fight it, and then he was falling, his control gone. "Bob!" he shouted, red-faced as he slid to the desk and then the floor. "Hit the alarm! Hit the alarm!"

Crap on toast, here we go! I vaulted over the counter, cursing Al's desire to hear his victim's pleas for mercy; it was his spell I was using. I quickly grabbed the spell pistol from Madison's hip and shot him with it, sure it would be both effective and legal—and, more importantly, not trigger the gatehouse's more nebulous security measures.

The man's eyes rolled up as he became unconscious. Sleepy-time potion, but anything more invited lawsuits.

And then my head snapped up at a scuff. A small man stood at the archway leading deeper into the building. "Hi, Bob."

Teeth clenched, Bob pulled his splat pistol.

"Captus!" Elyse shouted, and I cringed as a building-wide spell invoked with the feeling of spiders crawling through my aura. Twist it back to the Turn, she can do magic?

Bob hit the floor as a soft buzz from a hidden speaker began sounding.

"Elyse!" I cried out, annoyed as the alarm was joined by a request from the com for information. Bob, though, was down, his motions muffled as a purple and red haze coated him. He struggled, a choking gasp of air sounding dangerous. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Of course," she said, but I didn't like how he suddenly went silent. "How come your spell didn't trigger the building's security?"

"Because it's not a spell, it's a curse," I said, annoyed. My magic had slid right under the radar, but that's what a good curse did. My back to her, I faced the screen and tapped my way through the building's security system as a terse "Gatehouse? Please respond" became more insistent.

"Why didn't you tell me there was an alarm associated with magic?" she said, brow furrowed as she tried to rationalize her mistake.

"I did. Why did you lead me to believe your synapses were still too raw to spell?" I snapped, and she flushed.

Yeah, you made two mistakes, Madam Coven Leader. Grimacing, I wove through the system. The voice on the radio lost its concern as my actions showed up on their end, and I began to relax. Elyse, though…

"We are done. We gotta go," she said, the first worry wrinkle showing.

"Give me a sec," I said as I typed in the silence code and the alarm went still. "Can you be quiet for a moment and not touch anything?"

I glanced at Bob to make sure he was still breathing. Madison was out cold. Elyse nodded, and I thumbed open the communication.

"We're good, estate," I said, voice pitched in a comfortable, annoyed drawl. "We have two potential gate crashers in custody. Sorry about the delay. I'll keep them in holding here for Quen."

I took my thumb off the button, and the speaker crackled to life. "Do you need any assistance?" the voice asked.

Relieved, I looked at Elyse. Gotta go, my ass… "No, but can you spare someone to help Bob secure the gate? I want to do a quick walk-through of the lab facilities. We think that's where they were headed."

The speaker crackled again. "We'll have someone there immediately to relieve you."

"Rachel…" Elyse whispered as the connection ended, and I followed her gaze up the road to see two cars coming from the estate.

My pulse hammered. They weren't the expected security golf carts but Trent's seldom-used limos, one for him, one for Ellasbeth, full of the wedding party, no doubt. I lurched to hit the button to raise the gate. "Where's my bag? My bag!" I held my hand out as Elyse yanked it from the counter and vaulted over it to duck down below the level of the desk with Bob and Madison.

Fingers fumbling, I found the transposition stone and peered at Madison through it. "A priori," I intoned, feeling the energy spill from the demon collective to me. "A posteriori," I added, and the tingling increased. "Omnia mutantur." I whispered the words through the stone and walked into the haze of the waiting charm. Ice shivered over me as my image shifted, and Elyse chuckled.

"That's a good look for you," she said as I flipped the low trash bin over and stood on it to put myself at a more correct height.

"You'd make a good partner if you weren't so me, me, me," I said, grip white-knuckled on the stone as the first of the cars passed through. Quen's head came up as if sensing my alarm. The dark man was sharp in his tux, and I bobbed my head in respect when our eyes met. He would have been told about the attempted incursion, but if Madison was at the desk, he'd assume everything was fine.

Trent was beside him, and my breath sort of caught. As usual, he was preoccupied, with his head down over his phone. His hair was slicked back and his tie was perfect. There was nothing like an elf in a tux, and I felt a pull of attraction.

I hardly noticed the second car full of white silk and lace as Ellasbeth and her bridesmaids followed, and my hands shook when I hit the button to lower the bar and lock the gate. You'd better be there to stop him, Rachel.

Giving Elyse a gesture to be quiet, I thumbed the radio open again. "Mr. Kalamack has left the facility. We are at code green with two fish in the freezer."

"Code green," the voice echoed. "Confirm."

I stifled my sigh of relief. I hadn't been sure if the code words were in use at this time. "I'm heading up," I added into the mic. "Bob will be here."

"Hey!" Elyse whispered, angry, and I waved at her to be quiet.

"You're coming," I mouthed, though I was tempted to leave her behind, then louder to the estate security, "Ah, could you have someone meet me to take me through the labs?"

The speaker cracked again. "I'll see who I can find. We're at minimal staff. Out."

"Out," I echoed, then thumbed the connection closed. Shoulders slumping, I allowed myself three seconds to gather my thoughts. We were halfway there.

"I thought you were leaving me behind." Elyse straightened from her hunch over Madison and handed me his ID.

Surprised, I fastened it to my lapel. "The gate is not supposed to be left unattended, but it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. If we take a cart and meet them halfway, they'll be in a hurry to get someone up here and won't ask questions."

"Win-win. You okay? You look…" She shifted her shoulders like she had a spider on her back.

"I'm fine," I said, but I wasn't. Seeing Trent had shaken me almost as much as seeing Kisten. In a few hours, I was going to piss Trent off more than anyone had ever done in his life. At the time, I'd been pretty proud of myself, but thinking back on it, it had probably been the closest I'd ever been to death. I just hadn't known it.

"Let's get you looking like Bob," I said as I took the transposition stone in hand, and she nodded, shuddering when I did the spell.

I only had Elyse's satisfied "mmmm" as she eyed herself in the one-way mirror to tell me that it worked. We had a few minutes before someone arrived to relieve me, and the need to get the real Bob and Madison in the back lockup and out of sight was pressing.

"Big guy first," I said as I grabbed Madison under his shoulders, and we half dragged, half carried the man to the small short-term holding room. The placard on the door said media room three , but that was for the inspectors. It was a cell.

"The door locks, right?" Elyse said as we laboriously lugged Madison into a comfortable chair, the woman totally missing that it and the coffee table were bolted to the floor and that the floor-to-ceiling partition hid a tiny sink and toilet.

"It locks," I said, and we hustled back to get Bob. Three minutes later, he was propped up against the wall, his ID now on Elyse's collar. The thought to glamour them flickered as I shut and sealed the door, but was immediately dismissed. The only people to lift an image from were me and Elyse. And besides, Quen might waste hours trying to break a spell that didn't exist if he thought the "intruders" had made themselves look like his security.

"Your bag lost its disguise," Elyse said when we returned to the control room. I hadn't broken the spell. It must have been rubbed out when I took Madison's image.

"That would have been awkward," I whispered as I pulled my bag close. "Hand me that satchel, will you?"

Elyse tossed me the oversize carryall with the Kalamack logo on it, and I stuffed my shoulder bag into it. The woman had taken not one but two spell pistols from the weapons caddy, looking like she knew what to do with them as she checked the hoppers and wedged one at the small of her back and the other in a borrowed holster.

Damn it, Jenks, I miss you, I mused as I grabbed a key to one of the golf carts. There was a second, smaller parking lot on the estate side of the wall, only this one held electric carts to make the one-mile drive manageable.

The sun was just as warm, the breeze just as pleasant, but it felt different as I pushed out the door and into Trent's estate, safer, even as we were under more threat should we be discovered. I'd spent too many weekends here to feel anything but pleasure as I matched the key to the number on the cart.

"Car would be faster," Elyse said as she jogged to catch up.

"Madison would use the cart," I said. "We need to be well within the labs before this goes sideways."

"They wouldn't wake up at all if—"

I turned to her, disappointed. "If I had what? Killed them?"

Elyse frowned. She still looked like Elyse to me, a little young, a lot overconfident in her I.S. sweats and dusty shoes. Like Vivian, she could probably spell me into the ground. What she lacked was the ability to weigh cause and effect, the knowledge that she'd have to own the outcome of her actions and act accordingly. But then again, she was coven. Maybe she didn't have to.

"Knocked them out with something stronger," she finally said, but it was clear they weren't her first choice of words. Annoyed, I slid behind the wheel of the cart and fitted the key.

"Light footprint, Elyse," I said as I got the cart in motion and headed up the main road at a brisk twenty miles an hour, woods on one side, pastures on the other. "When we leave here, I want nothing to link to you or me that might change something. Right now, we're simply two enthusiastic reporters trying for a story on Trent's wedding."

"Ahh…right," she said, her attention fixed on the black car coming toward us.

I immediately pulled to the middle of the road and came to a halt—as if I had all the time in the world. "It's okay," I said, recognizing the blah-black sedan. "It's your relief."

Tires a soft hush, the car came to a halt, the window already whining down. "You left the gatehouse unmanned?" the woman behind the wheel accused, and I shrugged.

"I wanted backup and Kalamack is already through. I knew you were on the way. Hey, leave the two spelled and in holding until Quen returns. He's going to want to talk to them himself." I visibly shuddered. "Remember the last time he caught someone on the grounds?" I said, and the woman winced. "They're glamoured," I said to explain why two of Trent's finest were locked up in a conference room. "I wouldn't mess with it. Quen will want to see them before it's broken."

"Ah, yeah." Her gaze was on the nearby gatehouse. "Dr. Scrim will meet you at the elevators. Take you around. You're just doing a quick check, right?"

"An hour at the most," I said, and she puffed her air out in relief.

"Good. Kalamack isn't expected on-site until almost four a.m. I do not want to be at the gate when they return."

But that four-a.m. arrival was likely going to be pushed up to midnight after I trashed Trent's plans, and I waved to her as she put her window up and headed for the gatehouse. Trent would not be dancing with his new wife come midnight but be getting bailed out of jail by Quen. Ellasbeth would be on a plane heading home, pissed that her wedding day was ruined. If we weren't gone by then…

I put the cart back into motion, and Elyse exhaled. "This is criminally easy," she whispered.

"Easy?" I barked. "No, this is me spending the last two years learning Trent's system from the inside out, the right phrases, when to banter, when to not, the SOP for intruders, not to mention the code to cut off the alarm and that the media room is really a cell." A twinge of guilt took me, and my grip tightened on the plastic wheel. "This isn't easy at all, and that you think so means you don't know shit, Elyse. Open your eyes. Maybe you'll learn something and we will survive long enough to get home."

Her lips pressed together, but she said nothing, scanning the pastures with the mares and foals as we passed the stables. As promised, the parking lot there was busy. Everyone would be gone in a month, but a feeling of vindication found me when Elyse grimaced, realizing I'd been right again.

And yet I still felt guilty for abusing Trent's trust as we pulled into a large empty lot in front of a two-story building within easy walking distance of Trent's residence. "That's probably our escort," I said as I brought the cart to a stop right at the stairs. "Dr. Scrim, was it?"

"Yeah-h," Elyse drawled as she studied the man fidgeting at the door. His lab coat was pale blue, and his hair was cut close. He waved as we got out, and I felt a surge of nerdy kinship.

"Don't spell him," I said as I hoisted the satchel holding my shoulder bag. "We need him to find the magnetic resonator if it's not already running. And remember, I'm Madison and you're Bob. You called me Rachel in front of Newt."

Elyse's attention turned to a congress of noisy crows as we took the shallow stairs. "Sorry." She hesitated. "I can't afford to get caught."

"Me either. We'll be fine," I said as I nodded to the waiting man.

But in truth, I was worried. Trent's estate was like a lobster trap. Getting in was one thing. Getting out was another.

"Hey, hi," the young man said as he ducked his head and extended his fist to Elyse, then me. "I'm Scrim. Security said you wanted a walk-through?"

"Madison," I said, stifling my sigh of relief that we didn't already know each other as we bumped knuckles. "Just a quick check on the lower levels. We detained two people trying to gain entry with a false story. I'm thinking they're after wedding gossip, but with Quen out, I want to be sure Mr. Kalamack's more sensitive endeavors are not at risk."

"No problem. I can take you down." Utterly oblivious to possible danger, Scrim led us into a small, empty lobby. The air was stifling after the pleasant breeze outside, but they probably didn't run the air-conditioning on the weekend. "Wow, a break-in." The man casually hit the call button for the elevator. "Those usually don't happen until after dark. I don't even think the dogs are loose in the day."

Oh, God. The dogs, I thought, stifling a shudder. "I'm sure they were hoping to catch us sleeping, with Kalamack off the grounds."

"You're lucky I was here," he said, then lurched into the elevator when it opened. "I came in to check on the shrimp. I'm out in an hour."

"We should be gone by then," I said as I followed him in.

"Shrimp?" Elyse asked, and Scrim hit the button for the lowest level.

"Mr. Kalamack runs his toxicology studies on freshwater shrimp," he said as the elevator began to descend. "They're very sensitive and have a reasonably fast generational period. Anything special you want to check?"

We were almost too low to reach the ley lines, but I could feel Elyse was pulling on one, her potential energy prickling over my skin. Suddenly I realized her gaze was fixed on Scrim with a predatory gleam.

"No!" I shouted, and the man jumped. Elyse's attention flicked to me, and I scowled at her as Scrim nervously laughed. "Sorry," I ad-libbed as the elevator descended and we lost the ley line entirely. "I just had this conversation with Bob on the way up from the gate. Let's start on the lowest level and work our way up. You have access to everything, right?"

Scrim shrugged as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. "Yep."

"Great. That's why we need you," I said, talking to Elyse as we followed him out.

He laughed, but it sounded nervous this time, and I gave Elyse a look to behave herself. I recognized the hallway. The expected camera at the ceiling was missing, and I wondered if it had been put in because of this little stunt. "So is it just you?" I asked.

Scrim bobbed his head. "I haven't seen anyone all day. Research and development got a three-day weekend. Unfortunately I'm essential, but it's only a half day."

"Security never rests," Elyse said, and Scrim shrugged good-naturedly.

"Hey, someone told me about a magnetized resonate, resonator…or something down here," I said. "Said it could pull your watch right off your wrist."

Scrim perked up. "The magnetic resonator? Yeah. We got one. It's on this floor, actually."

Elyse batted her eyes at him, probably forgetting she looked like Bob. "Can we see it?"

"Ah, sure." He hesitated, probably thinking more about "Bob" flirting with him than anything else. "This way," he said, turning down an empty hall. "I'm kind of glad you're here, actually. This place gives me the creeps when everyone is gone."

"It's bigger than I expected," Elyse said softly. "There's what? Eight floors?"

Scrim grinned. "That we know about. There's a couple of buttons in the elevator that don't work when I push 'em. You've never been down here?"

Elyse lifted a shoulder, but I was not surprised. Maybe she had been thinking that Trent was piddling around in a one-person lab. It had taken a Fortune-500-class business to keep his species going until we recovered a drop of ancient, pre-curse elven blood and patterned a cure. That one act had ended—or would end, rather—a lot of misery, not just for the elves' children but for those Trent blackmailed for the money to keep the scientific advances going. Funny, I couldn't recall what I got in return for helping him. I'd done it because it was the right thing to do. Or is that just how I remember it?

"It's through here," Scrim said, bringing my wandering thoughts to a point, and we came to a halt at a thick glass wall that looked in on a large apparatus. "Seems okay," he added as he gazed in at the quiet keyboards and dark screens.

It wasn't running, and I reached for a ley line, not able to find it. Crap on toast, how am I going to do this? "I want to go in," I said, and Scrim snorted.

"I don't have clearance," he said, his gaze darting to the card reader next to the door. "You want to see the animal labs?"

"I think you do," I said, hand moving fast as I snatched the ID card from his waist and ran it. The beep shocked through me, and I reached for the handle, feeling as if a stopwatch had just clicked on. I was sure the door was wired into some kind of security. They wouldn't bother Quen for it apart from a quick update possibly—but someone would come and investigate even if they knew Madison and Bob were down here checking things out. Especially, maybe.

"Hey," Scrim protested as I pulled the door open, and I gave him his card back.

"I want to see it take the watch off my hand." Elyse pushed past me, and we were in.

Scrim caught the door, holding it open as he lingered in the hall. "Ah. I don't think we should go in."

"Relax." Elyse pressed close over the dark keyboard, then hit a button to make the screen light up. "Three-day weekend, right? Let's have some fun." She turned to me, suddenly worried. "You know how to switch this on?" she whispered.

I eased to a halt beside her, lower lip between my teeth. "How hard can it be?" I mean, there weren't that many buttons, and one of them was green. Green means go, right?

"Hey, um, you shouldn't mess with that," Scrim said, ignored as he came in and let the door close.

Elyse frowned at me. "I thought you said you'd done this before."

"It was already running the last time. I've never been in this room."

"Ah, excuse me," Scrim said faintly, the man pale as he realized something wasn't right. "I need to check on something," he added, voice high as he inched to the door. "I'll be right back."

"Bob, he's yours," I said, and Elyse practically crowed.

We were too deep for a line, but as Scrim made a mad dash for the hall, she pulled a wad of energy as if from nowhere and threw it at him with an exuberant "Captus!"

I jumped at the loud pop, remembering being at the wrong end of her spells before.

"That wasn't from your chi," I accused when Scrim collapsed as if his strings had been cut. "How…" And then I got it, squinting in annoyance at her smug expression. "One of those crows out there is your familiar, isn't it. Damn it, Bob . You are making it very hard to trust you."

"Trust?" the young-seeming woman said, chin high. "I am the coven. You are—"

"The one getting you home!" I exclaimed as I knelt to check on Scrim. Breathing, check. "And you are making my job harder than it needs to be." I stood up, frustrated. "This is not a contest over who knows the most magic, and if you keep withholding from me, we might be stuck here." I grabbed Scrim's shoulders and dragged him out of sight of the hall window. "He's okay, right?"

"He's fine," she said, clearly annoyed. "I do not kill people."

"Yeah, you only incarcerate them and feed them magic-killing amino acids." Uneasy, I left him there to go back to the screen. It wanted a password, and I typed in the nonsense word written on the side of the keyboard. "We're in," I said as several windows opened and a prompt asked me what cycle I wanted to run.

"He'll be out for a few hours." Elyse stared down the empty hallway. "Wake up on his own with a headache. I didn't hurt him." She hesitated. "Can you turn it on?"

"I think so." Lip between my teeth, I told it to run the last program and tapped the enter key—only to get an error prompt. "Mmmm. Hit that green button."

Elyse went to the machine, her steps silent in her ever-after-red sneakers. "This one?" she said, punching it—and then we both jumped as an odd sensation rippled over my aura.

"Pixy piss, I think that's it," I said when a faint whine blossomed in my ear. On the screen, data began scrolling past, the machine asking for information I had no clue about. But when I reached for the ley line, it was there.

"It moved!" Elyse exclaimed as if she only now believed I'd been telling the truth. "It's working! The line is there. It's like right there."

Excitement tingled down to my toes. "Let's move." I grabbed my bag and headed for the hallway. "We have to be in and gone before someone gets curious enough to try to unspell Bob or Madison and figures out they aren't."

Elyse bolted into motion, pushing past me and into the hallway.

"Yeah, now you're in a hurry," I added as I followed, wishing again that Jenks was with me. The pixy would have put the camera at the ceiling on a loop, but I'd have to break it—which would tell them exactly where we were.

"Which way?" Elyse halted at a junction, fidgeting as she looked one way, then the other.

"It's behind a set of wooden double doors." Exhaling, I sent my senses searching for a hint of ley line power.

Elyse's eyes widened. "You don't know where it is, do you."

"I do! Just give me a sec to orient myself." The memory of fleeing before Trent's hounds intruded, making it hard to think. I could not be caught. It would destroy the next two years, and I loved Trent desperately. Breath held, I followed the sensation of the ley line, sensing where it dipped and then rose anew. "This way," I said, quickening my pace. "Follow the line, and we find the vault."

I broke into a jog, Elyse tight behind me. "There," I said as I recognized a corner. "Go right."

"It's a dead end." Elyse slid to a halt after making the turn, and I slowed, confused at the small alcove set off the short hallway. There was a couch against the back wall, and several chairs around the low table, making an informal meeting area. There was no locked door, no key panel, but the ley line had been pulled down to run through it. We were at the right place.

"Is it?" I asked as I unfocused my attention, shuddering when the walls and ceilings of reality went opaque and the multistoried, high-ceilinged demon mall flickered into existence just outside my blind spot. I could almost hear the Carpenters done instrumental. Under my second sight, my old demon marks practically glowed an evil, smutty black. Elyse's aura, I couldn't help but notice, was almost too clean. Is she sloughing her smut off on someone?

Just behind the wall with the red couch was Trent's dad's vault, accessible only through a ley line. You had to pass into the ever-after to go through the wall, then will yourself back into reality. It was only four steps, but two of them were in the ever-after.

"Stay here," I said as I moved to the couch. "Keep watch. I'll be as quick as I can."

"Rachel, it's the demons' underground! I can see it!"

"How did you think I was getting in there?" I said, annoyed. "You go into the ever-after to get through the wall, then come out in the vault. I thought you understood."

White-faced, she stepped up onto the couch and then into the line, vanishing.

"Son of a fairy-farting whore!" I shouted, but no one was there to hear but me. She was there. In Trent's vault instead of watching my back.

Frustrated, I stepped onto the couch and into the ley line. Energy played about my hands and middle, mystics snarling my hair when I shifted my aura to match the line, become a part of it—and I felt myself spill into nothing as I stepped into the ever-after.