Chapter 28

Chapter

28

"Is he covered?" The streets had gotten busy in the predawn glow. Anxious, I sat up straight, one hand on the wheel as I looked behind us to make sure we weren't being followed.

Elyse half turned to stretch into the narrow back seat of the maintenance truck we'd found in a weedy lot of a car dealership. Her hair was still damp from her shower, as was mine, but hers wouldn't dry frizzy, and I stifled a surge of envy. Changing vehicles had seemed like a good idea, and the blue flatbed smelled like boat gas and the lingering aroma of burnt amber from our clothes. The tags were two years out-of-date and the bed itself was rusted through in spots. The second-row seating was torn from the Turn knew what. Probably the dented, empty toolbox we'd found there.

Clearly the vehicle wasn't on anyone's radar. Which was why I had said nothing when Elyse had magically hot-wired the thing after I reset the plugs and knocked the dust from the air filter. Getting Kisten into one of the library's wheelchairs and then the elevator had been an adventure all on its own. He was now lengthwise on the rear bench seat, but the wheelchair was sliding around in the bed.

We were almost to the morgue, and my death grip on the wheel was only now beginning to ease. Worried the truck would crap out on us, I'd taken the longer way that took us past several emergency shelters. I had wanted Kisten no more than a ten-minute walk from six feet under.

"He's fine," she said, even as she tugged the brilliant blue tarp over him more securely. "The expressway would have gotten us here in like five minutes."

"I know."

We had forty minutes until sunrise, and it still felt as if we were pushing it. Tension ached through my shoulders and neck when I pulled into the morgue's lot and took one of the spots closest to the door. It was a rear entrance, and an eerie feeling of déjà vu trickled through me when I turned the key and the engine died with a choking cough. Two years divided this moment from when Ivy and I had brought in Brice, but it felt like less than a week for me.

Exhaling, I sat for a moment, hands on the wheel. So far, all I'd done was take Kisten for a little drive. Stealing a body, cremating it…

The things I do for Cincy, I thought, head down as I pulled my shoulder bag closer and shuffled past the robes stinking of burnt amber to find the defunct stasis curse and put it in my pocket beside my last forget potion. The bag stank; I could not take it downstairs, and I reluctantly stuffed it under the seat before getting out.

I snapped the chair open with a hard-won practice, the sound of the frame securing in place tingling through me with the memory of helplessness and vulnerability. I wasn't that person anymore. I wouldn't be that person ever again. And yet my jaw clenched in a remembered frustration as I pushed the chair to the truck's back door and locked the wheels.

Elyse had gotten out, her brow furrowed as she scanned the lot, gaze lingering on the camera above the entrance. "You're just going to walk in with him?"

I put Kisten's feet on the floor, groaning as I pulled him upright. I'm sorry, Kisten. "Pretty much," I said, then blew the hair from my eyes. "I could use some help."

Elyse nervously inched closer, her hesitant grip growing stronger when we took his weight and half slid, half carried him to fall into the waiting chair.

Hard part over, I thought, glad no one was back here. The black sky was brightening, and I quickly got his feet on the footrests and ran the strap around his waist.

"Could you get the door?" I asked, and Elyse shut first his, then my door before quickly jogging to the building. Elyse probably wasn't on the hot sheets for breaking out of I.S. holding anymore, but Scott might still be searching for her. And I, of course, was a known entity. Neither of us was in any sort of disguise, other than our general lack of usual style, and Elyse kept her head down to avoid the cameras.

Still crouched before Kisten, I put my forehead against his knees. I loved Trent, loved him to the ends of two realities. But I would do anything to see Kisten's smile one more time. He wasn't dead twice yet, fighting for his undead existence.

I stood, unlocked the chair, and began pushing it over the uneven pavement. Kisten's hands looked uncomfortable and unnatural on his lap, but Elyse was waiting at the door, so I ran Kisten up the ramp, the rhythmic bumps easing into a soft rumble as we found the tiled floor inside.

"Morgue is downstairs," I said as I angled her to the elevators. Which in hindsight was a stupid thing to say. I wasn't nervous. Or maybe I was, seeing as I was about to steal a body with the head of the coven.

"No door attendant?" Elyse said softly from my elbow. "That seems sloppy."

"Far end of the lobby," I said, nodding to the woman staring at us from behind an outdated computer. She reached for a phone, and I shook my head, one hand leaving the chair grips to make the gesture I'd seen Ivy give the night guard.

Sure enough, her face paled and her reach pulled back. I exhaled, relieved. She thought I was on the city's business. If I had my days right, Piscary had just bought the farm, a fact that wouldn't come out for a few days. I was currently in a magic-induced coma battling a Were curse. Again, something hidden from the press. It was a golden span where I could walk the city as a ghost, my alibi absolute.

"Shouldn't we…" Elyse said as she walked beside me.

She was staring at the stone around my neck and I shook my head. "Believe it or not, I'll get farther as me. I was here a few days ago with the FIB looking at some Jane Wolfs."

Her eyebrows rose. "The ones your alpha killed."

Clearly she'd done her homework. "He didn't kill them." I scuffed to a halt before the shiny doors and hit the call button hard. The woman at the desk was watching us, that frown of hers making me wonder if she had recognized Kisten. "No one knew it was possible to turn a human into a Were. They committed suicide."

"Sure, who wouldn't," she muttered. "Can you imagine suddenly turning into a wolf when you weren't biologically designed to?"

The cheerful ding startled me. "It was an accident." Head down, I pushed Kisten in, then swung him around to face the front. Elyse had already hit the button for the morgue, and I stood there, arms over my chest, not happy at the reminder. I still felt bad about it. I was the one who had given David the focus to hold on to. But if I felt bad, David had been devastated.

"You might want to fill your chi," I said, glad that Newt hadn't so much as singed her. "It's too deep for a ley line."

"Slick is up top," she said, and I bobbed my head, pulling heavily on the line until the lift dropped too deep and I lost it. I was at a disadvantage. Kisten, though, was safe underground, and I clenched the chair harder to hide my trembling fingers.

Elyse glanced at me. "You okay? You look a little rough."

Her eyes were on my death grip, and I forced myself to relax. "I loved him once," I explained. "He deserves better than this." God, Kisten. I am so sorry.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened, cutting our conversation off. Her expression closed, Elyse strode out into the bland hallway, glancing both ways before following the blue arrow and the faint scent of pine disinfectant. "We could have left him at the library," she said, pace slowing to let me go first as we passed a gurney taking up half the hallway.

"I don't want to leave an empty drawer. And besides, the library is open. Someone might come down and find him. He'll be safer here."

"Fair enough." Elyse made fists of her hands and then shook her fingers out. "How do you want to play this?"

Did she just ask for my opinion? "Ah, you have access to a line, but Iceman knows me. We go in. Confirm there's a John Doe Vamp here. Then knock Iceman out."

"Can do." Her hands flexed in anticipation as we wove our way past abandoned gurneys and wheelchairs to a set of battered double doors. The sign over them proudly proclaimed, Cincinnati Morgue, an equal opportunity service since 1966 .

Be right back, love, I thought as I left Kisten parked in the hall. Jaw tight, I stiff-armed the door open and walked in, Elyse trailing behind. I had no building ID. Not even a fifty to bribe him. Piece of cake.

"Yo, Iceman!" I said boldly, scaring the college-age kid behind the metal desk.

"Holy shit, Rachel!" the blond man said as he yanked his feet from the desk and sat up. His handheld game nearly hit the scratched-tile floor, and he exhaled, blowing his bangs from his eyes when he caught it. "You almost gave me a heart attack." His gaze went to my lack of a building ID, then to Elyse. "Ah, you know I can't let you in there without an official presence."

Behind me, Elyse took a breath to be "official."

"That's okay." I bumped her shoulder, immediately rocking away from her. The woman was practically sparking with line energy. "I'm here to get some info for Glenn."

Iceman's dented rolling chair squeaked as he leaned back. "Why didn't he call?"

I shrugged, looking over the small outer lobby/check-in area with the cluttered desk taking up one side, rows of ancient cabinets the other, and enough space in between to handle maybe five gurneys if everyone was friendly. The fourth wall was another set of those swinging double doors leading to the morgue itself. "Because the I.S. doesn't like the FIB checking up on their misfilings, so I was never here, okay?"

Grinning, Iceman laced his hands over his middle and reclined in his chair. His body language said it all. We weren't getting the drawer key. Not without the right bribes anyway—which we didn't have. "What do you need?"

Elyse beamed at him, playing the helpful assistant. "He wants to know if any John Doe Vamps came in since the Jane Doe Wolfs," she said, her high voice sounding out of place down here. "He's thinking there might be a cross-species connection."

"Oh!" Iceman sat up and pulled his chair to the desk. "Just Johnny."

My heart gave a pound. Dr. Ophees's failed charge. "Johnny? How can he have a name if he's a John Doe Vamp?"

"Because he's going to be here for a while and we're all friendly." Iceman smiled at Elyse, and the young woman's expression went stiff.

"You sure he's twice dead?" she asked. "Maybe he's an undead sneaking out for snacks."

Iceman laughed. "Pretty sure," he drawled, then hesitated, sniffing suspiciously. "Ophees brought him in after sunup, so even if he had been an undead, he's twice dead now. I doubt he has anything to do with the current Jane Wolfs. Johnny came in with no body trauma, clean apart from his blood." The man sniffed again. "As in he didn't have any. No blood, no aura, no chance. Do you smell something burning?"

I glanced at Elyse, glad now I'd left my bag in the truck. We'd done the best we could to clean up, but the scent of burnt amber sort of stuck to a person. "Keep it quiet," I cautioned as I felt her pull in even more ley line energy through her familiar.

"Oh, I can be subtle," she said as she sashayed to the desk.

Iceman blinked, the man clearly oblivious as she smiled and put her palms on the desk. A whispered something passed her lips, and then she blew a haze of aura-tainted magic at him.

The guy didn't have a chance. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he slumped where he sat, hands hanging slack.

"Whoo!" she exclaimed, beaming. "That felt good! He'll wake up in about twenty minutes thinking he dozed off. He won't even remember us."

Which meant it wasn't just a sleepy-time charm but one affecting memory as well.

"I know what you're thinking." Elyse tugging at Iceman until she had his head resting on his arm lying across the desk. "It doesn't erase what happened. It simply prevents recollections from moving into long-term memory."

"Same difference," I muttered, tired of the double standard. Like I would ever work for them. If I was going to bend the law, I'd pay for it like everyone else. Was paying for it. Wake up, Rachel. Take the easy way out for once.

Elyse flushed, her pride taking a hit. "What, you want me to wake him up?" she said as I went to get Kisten from the hall.

"No," I said lightly. She was ransacking the desk when I came back in, and I cleared my throat. "Morgue key is on the Bite-Me-Betty doll."

"You're joking." Expression dubious, she looked at the naked doll hanging from a nail in the wall, finally using two fingers to retrieve it.

I backed Kisten through the swinging doors so I wouldn't have to knock them open with his footrest, and Elyse followed me in, slowing as she studied the two walls of drawers, each four rows high stretching the length of the long room. At the far end, a comfortable arrangement of chairs and a coffee table sat for anxious relatives waiting for their dead to arise. The morgue was for self-repair and the truly dead only, vampires on one side, humans and the rest on the other, though I had been assured every drawer had an interior release mechanism.

"They usually keep the unclaimed at the end," I said, glancing at the names on the drawers and wincing at the three onetime Jane Wolfs now sporting their real names. It seemed odd that I'd been here just a few days ago, though it had been two years.

"I've never seen a waiting room in a morgue." Arms over her middle, Elyse lingered by the doors to keep watch on the outer lobby.

"Key?" I asked, and she tossed it to me, the naked plastic doll landing hard in my hand. Leaving Kisten parked, I began searching. "The morgue has been here a long time," I said softly. There was a reason Cincinnati had once been known for its grave robbing, and it had nothing to do with providing the schools up north with cadavers. Our Inderland population had always been high.

"Where's the furnace?" she asked, and I glanced up at her uncomfortable tone.

"Through there," I said, and her attention followed mine to the heavy metal door tucked almost out of sight at the end of the long room. My foreboding swelled when she went to pull on the handle and it clunked against the lock. "The door code is 45202," I said, and I heard her sigh as she began to punch numbers. "Found Johnny," I added as I reached the last drawer.

The rhythmic beeps of the door lock were loud as I unlocked Johnny's drawer and pulled it open. Johnny was older, brow creased and crows' feet about his eyes. It seemed likely that once he lost his youth, his master had gotten tired of him and decided to move on. He'd been drained too far and then killed a second time, circumventing the promise to become an undead. Perhaps it had been a blessing. He might not have had the social structure to maintain his undead existence.

"I'm sorry," I said, thinking vampire mores sucked.

"Good God. It's really old. Are you sure it still works?" echoed out from the furnace room, and my jaw clenched.

"Yes!" It worked, leaving no digital record, no image capture. Thank you, I thought as I took in the young man's torn neck and bloodless pallor. Thank you for helping me save the man I once loved. "You think you could give me a hand here?"

"Sure." Leaving the door open, she sauntered out. "Mmmm," she added, brow furrowed as she took up his death chart. "Ophees was right. He's scheduled for four weeks of storage to allow for identification before being disposed of. The I.S. has zero information on him. Looks like he's a D2. Drained and dumped."

Irritation sparked. "You could have a little compassion," I said, and her gaze shot to mine. "Sure, his master treated him like a chunk of meat, but someone loved him."

Elyse scowled, clearly annoyed. "You want to stop? This was your idea."

"No," I said immediately. "He is one of the lost. But living vamps stick together in the face of the abuse they put up with, and I know to the bottom of my soul that Johnny would go along with this if only to make things better for his surviving kin." I fought the urge to smooth out a forehead wrinkle. "And this will make things better."

Elyse was silent. "So…Johnny in the wheelchair, and Kisten in the drawer? I'll get Kisten."

Depressed, I tucked Johnny's modesty sheet around him as Elyse trundled Kisten closer. I wasn't sure whom to move first, but Elyse went right for Johnny's shoulders, waiting until I took his feet and together we lifted him up and out to set him gently on the floor. I am so sorry…

"You want to unstrap him?" Elyse suggested, and I fumbled for Kisten's waist belt.

I am putting Kisten into a morgue drawer…

The reality of that hit me hard, and my hands shook as I grasped his feet, struggling to lift his weight.

Kisten took a breath as his body came to rest, and I almost lost it.

"Ah, Rachel?"

"I'm fine," I said, jaw clenched. He was in a morgue drawer, and my heart was breaking. "Let's get Johnny in the chair."

I sort of blanked out the next few minutes. Fortunately we didn't have to change their clothes as the glamour charm would do that for us, but I did take Kisten's shoes off so I could put Johnny's toe tag on him. Even so, a rigorous inspection would see through the deception. Good thing that wasn't in anyone's playbook down here. As I did the charm twice to exchange their images, I couldn't help but wonder if Elyse was helping me with the intent to bring me to trial for everything we were doing once she got home. The leader of the coven of moral and ethical standards could not be known for stealing trucks, moving bodies, or knocking out city workers.

But if I believed that, I was screwed twice to the wall.

"Well?" I said, gut tight as she strapped Johnny into the chair and arranged his bare feet on the footrests. I thought about putting Kisten's shoes on him, then stuffed the flat boat shoes into my shoulder bag instead. He still looked the same to me, but Elyse bobbed her head, her obvious satisfaction convincing me the switch had been made.

"It would fool me," she said, her gaze fixed on Kisten. "Damn, I can't tell, and I know it's fake."

My hand was on the drawer, but I couldn't seem to shut it. He looked like Johnny, the deception furthered by the toe tag now dangling from his foot. As a John Doe Vamp, he'd be safe here. I will be back for you, Kisten. Throat tight, I closed the drawer, tensing at the loud snap.

"Great. Let's get him to the boat," Elyse said, her mood clearly good as we ticked one more thing off my list before I took her home. "Kisten's aura looks great, by the way."

"Swell." Head down, I pushed Johnny into the lobby. Iceman was still out cold when I hung the doll on the nail behind the desk. The numbers on the wall clock had gone red, meaning the sun was up. Johnny wouldn't care. He was already dead twice.

Elyse got the door for me. Her silence remained intact as we found the elevator and she hit the button for the upper lobby. "This feels too easy," she said, and I unclenched my jaw.

I'm so sorry, I thought again as I glanced down at Johnny. Thank you. "Piscary has a history of leaving corpses," I said aloud as I watched the numbers count up. "The entire city is on edge with Al running around, breaking things to get me to come to him. No one cares about one dead vampire."

Elyse fidgeted, starting when the elevator dinged and the door opened. "I don't blame you for staying clear of Al. In this time, I mean," she said as she strode out. "You've got two demon marks, after all."

I glanced at my wrist, wheelchair bumping as I followed her. "He wants me to testify on his behalf, and I'm rightly afraid that it will end up with me as his familiar."

The lobby had gotten busy in the twenty minutes we'd been down there, and Elyse moved quickly to the door, ignoring everyone as if taking a corpse-white body out into the sun was an everyday occurrence. "But that's what happened, isn't it?" she asked. "You became his familiar?"

"Not exactly." Not surprisingly, the very thing that had freed Al from the accusation of uncommon stupidity had bound me even closer to him. He'd been forced to take me as his student, not his familiar. It was a claim that was still being played out even though my position as a witch-born demon was indisputable.

Elyse held the door for me, and I bumped over the sill, head coming up at the dawn-clean feel of cool air. My smile vanished.

"Son of a bitch," Elyse whispered, her gaze tracking mine to the truck. A huge crow stood on the tailgate, head bobbing and wings flashing open as it saw us. But it was the tall figure getting out of the adjacent rental car that had pulled us both to a stop.

Scott.

Crap on toast. My bag. If Scott has my phone… "I thought you told your crow to leave us alone," I said, disgusted as Scott pushed his hair from his eyes and squinted at us. His suit was a mess and he seemed tired. His phone was in his hand, and I could almost hear someone on it. It didn't see my bag anywhere and I hoped it was still under the truck's seat.

"Get Johnny in the truck," she muttered, feet shifting to find a secure stance. "I'll distract Scott. Don't wait for me. This is going to be fast."

I took a breath as I counted the steps to the truck. You think?

"Elyse?" the man said in wonder as he looked at his phone as if in betrayal. "How—"

I twitched, feeling it when she yanked on the nearest ley line. "Light footprint!" I cried out, but she was winding up hard. Her hair wild and her eyes alight, Elyse gestured a spell into existence, her aura flashing into the visible spectrum as Scott stared from her to his phone.

"Teneo!" she exclaimed, the single word of Latin exploding from her as an aura-tainted ball of energy hissed through the air to slam against Scott's hastily erected protection circle. Snapping and popping, little arcs of power skated over the man's circle, slowly dissipating.

Head down and skin tingling, I pushed Johnny down the ramp.

His jaw set, Scott stepped through his bubble of protection, oblivious to me. "Who the hell are you?" he exclaimed.

"Crescit eundo!" Elyse shouted, my pace bobbling when the pavement in front of Scott blew up as if a bomb had hit it.

Scott stumbled, safe under his protection circle as rock and asphalt rained down. Shielding Johnny the best I could, I ran for the truck.

Scott found his height, his face red in anger. "By the authority of the coven of—"

"Crescit eundo!" she exclaimed again, and I winced, skin tingling as the boom echoed between the buildings.

"Son of a—" Scott rolled, aura sparking as he came to a halt beside the dumpster. I wasn't too happy, either, as chunks of rock and pavement fell thumping around us. Elyse was clearly enjoying herself, her expression alight with the joy of rubbing out past slights. Faces were showing at a few windows. We had to get out of here. Now.

"Hurry up, witch!" she said, and Scott's gaze jerked to me. His brow furrowed as he realized she hadn't been trying to hit him, but only to distract him.

"Stop!" he shouted at me, then yelped, his half-formed curse falling back in on itself when the ground exploded again at his feet.

I was at the truck. Heart pounding, I locked the wheels. I itched to turn and fight. Elyse was yelling something, but I didn't dare look as I fumbled the door open. Crows were cawing, more than one diving down to distract Scott as I worked the lap belt free.

In a sparking-haired glory, Elyse stood just outside the building, her hands moving in sweeping gestures as she gathered power. Line energy dripped from her fingers, glowed from her limbs, her obvious passion of working magic making her almost unreal. I stifled a gasp when one of Scott's charms hit a crow…But it was only an illusion, and the black shadow exploded into a shower of sparks that hissed against the broken pavement. There's only one crow…

"Get in there," I muttered as I yanked Johnny's deadweight into the back of the truck.

"Hurry up!" Elyse shouted as she hustled down the stairs. Scott was picking off her illusions, but for each one he took out, two replaced it.

I scrambled in over Johnny and pulled him the rest of the way. Struggling, I lurched back out, shoved his legs in, and slammed the door. Behind me another spell-based boom rocked between the buildings, the tang of spent energy like tinfoil on my teeth.

This was as backward a run as I had ever been on. Jenks would laugh his lily-white ass off. Ivy would cringe at the lack of planning. Trent would…

I grimaced. Trent would do something drastic, like bring down a wall or wrap Scott in a twining, Goddess-born snake of destruction. And as I stood beside the driver's door, my fingers tingling with the strength of the line, I thought that fortunately for Scott, I wasn't Trent.

"Quod periit, periit!" I shouted, slipping my spell behind Scott's defenses when he dropped them to destroy another of Elyse's illusions. It was a joke curse, but Elyse was pinned down and we needed to get out of here.

Scott yelped as the spell struck him, the man freezing as he scrambled to figure out what he needed to counter. I yanked open the truck door, jumped in, and started it in an exploding thrum of old Detroit muscle. I shouldn't have worried about the truck. It was solid.

I put the truck in drive, arm reaching to make sure my bag was where I'd left it. It was. "Let's go!" I shouted through the open window to Elyse.

She bolted forward, looking back when Scott shrieked in terror as his hair cascaded from him in a dark wash. Eyes round, he stared at me, his arms hanging as if afraid to move.

Elyse vaulted into the truck bed and pounded the side. "Drive!"

Asphalt chips popped and flew as I hit the gas, tires slipping until they found good pavement. Sirens wailed in the distance, and I hunched low in the seat as I wove through the destruction. Chunks of asphalt lay everywhere, in the road, on dented roofs.

But as I glanced into the rearview mirror, I realized Scott was wreathed in a green glow—staring at us. My expression emptied.

"I've got this!" Elyse shouted as she knelt in the truck bed.

"No, no, no, no!" I shouted, then winced when she screamed something and the truck seemed to shiver. Power exploded from her palms, and I yelped, hands clenched on the wheel when the truck was shoved forward. Through the mirror, I watched the buildings crack as a huge ball of force slammed into them, windows breaking and entire walls dented inward to show a perfect arc of a circle.

We bounced out onto the street. Behind us, Scott slowly got up, a hand to his head.

"I don't remember that happening two years ago!" I shouted over the wind. A sick feeling had settled in my gut to spin in mad circles.

Elyse dragged herself to the little window between us, one hand on the side of the truck, one hand supporting a cawing, excited crow. "Maybe they blame it on your demon," she said as she wedged herself by the window and tried to soothe the bird.

Maybe…

"Hey, ah, it's only twenty-five through here," she said, so I took my foot off the gas to slow down. Though to be honest, people weaving in and out like it was the Indy 500 was pretty normal for Cincy.

"Sorry." I flicked my gaze from her to the road and back again. She was tired but elated. Kind of like me when I had survived something stupid. And this is better than Trent how?

The sirens were two streets off, but they were also two streets too close, and I fumbled for Newt's charm. A priori, I thought, looking through the stone at a passing pickup truck, shiny in the early morning light. A posterior, I thought, scanning what I could of the truck we were in. Blowing through the hole, I felt ley line energy tingle through me as I finished the curse with a shaky Omnia mutantur .

Relief was heady when a haze of energy tingled over the truck and lifted my hair. The engine hiccuped, then roared on as we merged onto the expressway. I glanced behind us, breathing again at the absence of blue and gold lights.

That was close. Too close. Ivy, I will never laugh at your plans again.

"Who's a good crow? You are!" Elyse crooned as she soothed the bird. "And here I thought you had shacked up with a lady crow while I was at camp. You were here, helping me."

I took a breath to protest, then let it out. Maybe she had been here. How was I supposed to ever know? "Hey, um. I appreciate that Slick helped us back there, but can you make him leave?" I asked, having to nearly shout it.

Her fingers stroking her bird slowed. A heady fondness found her face as she used her feet to wedge herself in place and pet the crow into a blissful state. "I doubt it."

My grip on the wheel tightened. "Can you at least not pull on a line through him?"

Elyse shrugged, her attention going everywhere but to me. "As long as we stay aboveground. You think we could pull over so I can come up front? I don't think they're following us."

"I can do you one better." I flicked the turn signal on and took the next exit. "Burger Daddy. My treat." I didn't have much money left, but I probably had enough.

Elyse glanced at the body slumped between us, half on the floor. "What about him?"

I could hear her better now that we had slowed, and the air shook in my lungs as I took a moment to pull my bag onto the seat when I halted at a stop sign. "He'll be okay. He's already dead, and if I don't eat something soon, I'm going to join him."

She laughed as I eased forward, my eyes on the gaudy sign two blocks up with an unusual fierceness. All that was left was reinstating that ancient ley line charm.

Damn. I think we had done it.