Page 137 of Demon's Bluff
Jenks’s wings rasped as he resettled himself on Bis’s shoulder. “Dumbass.”
“None of this is Rachel’s fault,” Elyse said, but it only made everything worse. “I interfered with her spell. She found a way to get me home. At great cost to herself, I might add.”
“Ah, guys?” Jenks said, peering over his scarf to the townhomes across the way. Bis drew himself tall upon Al’s shoulder to follow Jenks’s gaze, but I couldn’t look away from Ivy rushing headlong into heartache.
“I can smell him on you,” Ivy whispered, her face going white as she fingered my hair.
My throat tightened into a lump. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I took her hands in mine. “I didn’t look for him. He found me. By accident. At a stupid bar. He was going to run.” I couldn’t look at her. “I didn’t tell him anything, but he could see I was different, and he thought the world was better without him in it so he went back to his boat. He went back because of me. He was going to run, and changed his mind because of me.”
Adan was whispering something to Yaz, the two of them watching whatever Jenks and Bis were staring at. Al, too, the demon taking his glasses off before turning to me in shock.
“Ivy, I’m so sorry,” I said as I squeezed her fingers, but she wouldn’t look at me.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, eyes tearing as she stared over my shoulder, shaking.
“He went back to the boat to save your life,” I said. “And mine. I couldn’t change it.”
“Kisten,” she breathed, her expression empty as if she hadn’t even heard me.
“Please,” I said when she pulled from me. “I didn’t want to tell you like this, but I know how you bottle everything…up.” I stopped talking. She wasn’t listening to me. No one was.
I turned, expecting the worst, surprised to see only two figures coming across the grass. One was in a lab coat, his hands in his pockets. Hemoved with a stilted quickness, holding himself a little apart from the other. The man beside him was taller, dressed in a simple but timeless outfit, his jeans tight and his shirt open at the collar. His pace was confident, his head up as he walked barefoot over—
Barefoot? Oh, my God. It’s Kisten.
“Tink’s tampons, it’s Felps!” Jenks shrilled, his voice muffled behind his scarf.
Ivy swayed, balance gone.
“How…” Elyse said, her jaw dropping. “How did he survive the trip?”
“You brought him with you?” Scott exclaimed. “You risked the timeline to rescue yourboyfriend?”
“No.” I blinked fast as my vision swam. “He was undead, suffering from biting Art. I put him in a stasis charm so I wouldn’t have to watch him…uh…I don’t know how he survived.” Because there he was, a hint of deviltry in his gait as Iceman touched his elbow and veered off to check on his car.
Al sighed. “I can’t wait to hear this,” he said as he thumped his cane thrice on the ground and a tattered book with the spine falling apart appeared in his hand.
“Me either,” Trent muttered, worry crinkling his brow.
“I don’t understand,” I said, gobsmacked. “I used a demon stasis charm so Elyse wouldn’t die on the trip back, but that wouldn’t help him survive Art’s virus.” And yet there he was, smiling as he tossed his head to get the hair from his eyes.
“Perhaps two years is enough time for one virus to overcome the other,” Al said as he put his glasses on so he could look over them at the book. “My question is how did a stasis spell keep him from auratic starvation?” Engrossed, he turned a page. “Demon based or not, that’s not how that spell works.”
“He’s got an aura,” Jenks said. “It’s not his, but he’s got an aura.”
“I don’t understand,” I said as I remembered the fleeting feel of thousands of selves when I traveled back. But even that thought failed me when Kisten cheerfully waved and we all moved to make room for him.
“Kisten?” Ivy warbled, and then I jumped when she flung herself at him, burying her face in his shoulder as she gave him a fierce hug, holding him in a white-knuckled grip. “You’re here!” she exclaimed. “How? You were twice dead.”
His arms were around Ivy, but his gaze was on me. “I don’t know,” he said, voice melodious as his attention dropped to her. “I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to find some clothes and it took a while to get a cab.”
My God. I had left him on the floor of the morgue. “Where are you getting your aura?” I whispered, and then I felt the world shift as I put it together. The fee-for-use had sustained him. Dr. Ophees had indeed been using the curse I’d given her, the ten percent of the auras she gathered stored in the collective and funneled to Kisten in the same way I’d taken back my own energy—for two years. Somehow he had fought off Art’s virus.
Kisten was alive, or undead, rather. And he was here. Right now.
Shocked, I looked at Al. The demon stared at me, gaze flicking to Kisten before he snapped the book in his hand closed, knowing I had the answer even if he didn’t.
“Where did he get the aura?” Trent asked as if Kisten wasn’t standing in front of him.