The Undead Pool. Kim Harrison

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СКАЧАТЬ I wished they all had happy endings.

      Weary, I pushed at the picture of the university floor, broken open like a ground fault from the small-pressure charm that was supposed to cut a molecule-thin section of fossil from the parent rock. It got a ten. How in hell was I supposed to rate these without taking into account the cost of human life?

      “You okay?” Ivy flipped through a report until she found what she wanted.

      “Not really.” I ate a chip, then went to the fridge for the dip. Everything was better with sour cream and chives.

      Jenks’s wings hummed at a higher pitch, startled when I dropped the chip dip on the counter. “You really think vampires are doing this?” he asked.

      “David seems to think so.” I watched Ivy’s jaw tighten, already knowing what she thought about that theory. “Me, I’m not buying that vampires would use magic on a scale such as this, even if they think it will save the souls of their kin.” Especially after reading that pie-in-the-sky flyer, and I glanced at it on the counter where Ivy had dropped it after I’d showed it to her.

      Ivy frowned, still bent over her work. “Did you know they made a saint out of him?”

      “Who?” I ate a chip before dumping them into a bowl.

      “Kisten,” she said, and I froze, remembering the Kisten look-alike on the bridge. That doesn’t mean they’re responsible for it. Then I did a mental jerk-back. Kisten? A saint?

      “No shit!” Jenks exclaimed, and I just stared at her. Our Kisten?

      Only now did she look up, the love she once had for him mixing with the sour disbelief for the misled. “Because of what he said to you,” she added. “They think he died his second death with his soul intact and unsullied by the curse.” Her head went back down, leaving me feeling uneasy. “Cincinnati has the highest concentration of Free Vampires in the United States. If they were going to try to eradicate the masters, they’d try it here first.”

      “But why? Cincy is in shambles! It’s not working!” I said, scrambling to wrap my head around Saint Kisten. Saint Kisten, with his leather jacket, motorcycle, and windblown blond hair. Saint Kisten, who had killed and hidden crimes to protect his master. Saint Kisten, who willingly sacrificed his second life to save mine . . .

      “Nina says she’s seen some of them,” she said, and my attention fixed sharply on her. “I thought she was making it up, but if David comes up empty, I’ll ask her.”

      I rolled the top of the bag of chips down, not hungry anymore. “Sure.”

      Taking the pen out from between her teeth, Ivy leaned in to the map. “Jenks, what time did you and Rachel leave the golf course yesterday?”

      I’d be offended, but Jenks was better than an atomic clock. “We left the parking lot at twenty to eleven,” he said, and I moved the bowl of chips before his dust made them stale.

      “And then you got on 71 and came home.” She frowned, waving Jenks off when his dust blanked out the liquid crystal. “No stops between? Good roads? Not a lot of traffic?”

      “No,” I said, wondering where this was going. A cold feeling was slipping through me. “Traffic was fine until we got downtown. Then it was the usual stop-and-go.” Worried, I dragged my chair around to sit beside her and stare at her huge monitor and the gently sweeping wave of blue markers. It looked just like every other wave map she’d made, except it was the first and there weren’t as many violent crimes to go with it.

      “Okay.” Ivy was clicking, and the city map was covered by a graph. “This is the wave you got caught up in last night at the bowling alley. It’s the first one that the FIB took note on the times associated with the misfires. I’m guessing the wave has a top speed of forty-five miles an hour, but that can vary. That first one seemed to be slower, especially.”

      She had a page of math, and I gave it a cursory look. “And?” I asked, and she moved the mouse, bringing up a new map.

      “Last night’s wave that ended at the Laundromat was straight. The one that came through this morning before dawn was too, but the tracks were slightly different. It dissipated before it got to the church,” Ivy said. “And since most Inderlanders are asleep about then—”

      “I’m not,” Jenks said, and Ivy sighed, bringing up a new map.

      “Most magic-using Inderlanders are asleep then, and it wasn’t noticed much. But if you look at the one that hit you first at the golf course and then again at the bridge, you can see they do shift direction.”

      My eyes narrowed as she drew her line, making a slight angle shift obvious. If it had continued on its original path, it would have missed the bridge completely.

      Ivy was quiet as she eyed me. “Rachel, it shifted to follow you. They all are.”

      Panic iced through me. “Oh, hell no!” I said, standing up fast when Ivy’s eyes flashed black at my fear. “You mean something is getting out of the line and is hunting me?” I said, pointing at the monitor.

      But Ivy simply sat there, calm and relaxed, that pen back between her teeth. “It’s not very responsive. After you left the golf course, it took almost ten minutes before it realized you were gone and shifted to follow.”

      Feeling icky, I stared at the map, wishing Ivy wasn’t so damn good at her job. Jenks hovered between us. “So it’s more like a slime mold after the sun.”

      Jenks shrugged. “You have the same aura signature as the line. Maybe it’s trying to get back to it. Whatever it is.”

      “You think it’s alive?”

      They said nothing, and I stifled a shudder. I didn’t know if I liked this better than Free Vampires trying to change the world. “I have to call Al. Where’s my mirror?”

      Jenks spun in the air to look at the front of the church. He darted out, and from the front came a familiar-sounding boom of the heavy oak door crashing into the doorstop, followed by a woman’s voice raised in anger. “Where are my children!”

      Oh my God. Ellasbeth. I flushed, the memory of that last kiss with Trent flashing through me.

      “You ever hear of knocking?” Jenks said, his voice hardly audible from the distance, but his voice carried when he was ticked. “Hey! You can’t just barge in here!”

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