Page 116 of Demon's Bluff
“Tell you what?” I asked. The head of the coven appeared as tired as I felt, her hair mussed and the slippers Newt had put her in now red with ever-after dust. And still, success gave her cheeks some color and her eyes a bright shine. She had escaped a demon without so much as a sensory burn. I knew the feeling of exhausted exhilaration; I just didn’t care anymore.
“That for all the trouble you cause and are mixed up in, the world is better with you in it.”
I laughed at that. “Okay. Now you’re just sucking up. I’m not going to leave you here to take the long way home. Relax.”
“I’m serious,” she said as she shook out her robe and we both cringed, holding our breath at the billow of dust. “I had no idea that the elves had to modify their children’s DNA to such an extent for them to simply survive.Kalamack’s labs alone…” She hesitated, thinking. “The scope of Kalamack’s illegal genetic medicines is downright scary. No wonder he was trying to take over the world. He needed a country’s economy to just keep them alive.”
I reached for the hem of her robe and together we folded it. Trent had been a different person since I brought back a clean, pre-curse DNA sample to pattern a final cure upon. People changed when you took away their fear. “The elves are still trying to take over the world,” I said as we made a neat package of her robe.
“Sure, but the desperation is gone.” Elyse took the rolled-up robe and stuffed it into her hat. “The farther in the past their fears are, the less inclined they will be to make trouble. And then the demons…”
My motion to take off my robe fumbled.The demons.
“I still don’t like that they can come to reality whenever they feel like it,” Elyse said. “But you did get them to play by our rules. Sort of. This madness that’s going on now…”
I shook out my robe and Elyse snagged the bottom hem. “That took a few times before it stuck,” I said, remembering.
“Even I can tell that they aren’t as angry. I mean, in the future. To be forced underground to avoid your war waste.” Elyse’s expression emptied as we folded my robe. “Don’t tell anyone I said so, but you did a good thing there. They seem to be healing.” She hesitated. “Any chance you can get the curse lifted that prevents witches from—”
“No.” I took the stinky silk from her grip and rolled it up. The ever-after was for the demons until they opened the doors themselves. “And don’t kid yourself. You still can’t trust them.”
“Perhaps.” Elyse watched me stuff our robes, hats, and sashes into my bag to take to Sylvia, a half smile on her, content, tired, and satisfied. Sylvia was going to walk away with a net gain of one robe, seeing as Elyse’s original robe was still in my bag, all of them now reeking of demons. “But I can trust you. Maybe if I’d trusted Vivian more, we wouldn’t be here now.” Her gaze went to the empty street at the end of the alley. “I am so hungry, I could eat three Burger Daddies.”
I had no clue what a Burger Daddy was, but I was totally on board. “I’ve been thinking. Leaving a drawer empty at the morgue might not be a good idea. I want to move Kisten into it when we move John out. Exchange their appearances so it looks like nothing has changed. We can drop the robes off at Other Earthlings on the way.” I squinted at the end of the alley. “These things stink. Sylvia will be thrilled. If we’re going to move Kisten, we should do that right after we shower. It’s going to be sunrise soon.”
I took a step forward, and Elyse was quick to meet me, step for step. “Rachel, you can’t help him. The spell doesn’t bring him back to life. All you’d have is a ghost.”
My chest hurt, and anger flashed through me. “A vampire ghost can hold the city while I go into hiding. Keep Constance safe. I promised to keep her safe.”
“I’m not pursuing that anymore. You don’t—”
I jerked to a halt. “Look. You might think you’re the leader of the coven, but a vote put you there. Another can take you out.” She started to speak, and I held up a hand for her to wait. “They can and will replace you with someone who votes the way they want. I have no mirror to uncurse Brad. I will have to go into hiding. The least you can do is help me get my house in order before I leave. I risked both our lives to get that stinking stasis charm from Trent’s to get you home. You said you’d help me get a replacement body. So help me get a body.”
Yes, we had the charm, but it wasn’t reinvoked yet. She still needed me.
Knowing it, she twisted her expression up in distaste. Five feet past the alley, cars whooshed and people hurried to their jobs in the predawn light. Her gaze flicked to my pocket where Trent’s stolen amulet lay, then up to the stone pendant about my neck. “I said I’d help you and I will,” she said, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “But I want to see how you rekindle that ley line charm.”
“Sure. Why not?” I said, and together we stepped out into the world, red dust on the soles of our feet, and reeking of demons.
Chapter
28
“Is he covered?” The streetshad 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…