LITMIR.BIZ

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of frightened vampire and the ever-after, and my neck was starting to tingle. I’m not afraid to love someone, am I? I turned away, and Trent caught my elbow.

      “Rachel, I can kill the vampire virus, but I don’t know how to treat someone coming off a master high.”

      “Soon as Ivy’s stable, we’re leaving,” I said, not really answering his concern. “It’s not safe here.”

      Ivy nodded, and deciding they were okay for now, I went into the hall. I didn’t think anywhere was safe anymore. I didn’t know what to do, and frustration tempered with fatigue rose up, swamping me.

      Turning from the closed door, Trent ran a hand over his chin in thought. “Let me ask around,” he said softly as we started down the hallway. “See who owes me a favor.”

      But no one owed Trent Kalamack favors anymore. Again, sort of my fault.

      My guilt thickened, and sensing it, Trent looped his arm in mine, slowing our pace. “Rachel, you aren’t afraid to love. He was saying anything he could think of to put you on edge.”

      Crap. Embarrassed, I tried to quicken my steps back to the kitchen and hopefully some coffee. “I think that’s the last we’re going to see of Felix for a while,” I said with forced cheerfulness, desperately trying to change the subject.

      Beside me, Trent sighed in acceptance. “I hope so. But really, Rachel, what are the chances? Twice in one night.”

      My pace slowed, and I nodded at the doctor as she passed us in the hall on her way back to Ivy and Nina. “The chances were never good,” I admitted. “But it feels better now. Nina kicked him out. The longer Felix sulks, the more stable she will be when he tries again.” Because he would try again.

      But thin as it was, it was still hope, and my heart ached for Ivy as we found the kitchen. Tired, I sank back down in my chair, glancing at the newly lit monitor before letting my focus blur and my head hit the table.

      Trent sighed, and I heard him take the cold waffles out of the toaster. “You ever see anything like that before? With the surface demons?”

      “You mean that one fought the others off?” I lifted my head. “Only when they wanted to eat me by themselves.”

      “That’s not what he was doing, though.” Trent’s lips twisted as he looked at the waffles. “These are awful. I’m making you some from scratch.”

      “I’m not hungry,” I said, and he turned from throwing them away, his eyes pinched.

      “Coffee?” he asked, and I nodded just so he’d lose that sad look. His reach for a mug hesitated at the sound of men in the hall, but it was just Quen setting up additional security. A faint smile twisted my lips. I imagine a white-clad vampire sneaking into the common rooms had put Trent’s head of security in a tizzy. Thank God Jonathan had been there.

      I blinked. Thank God Jonathan had been there? Never thought I’d think that.

      Trent set three full mugs on the table, and I pulled the nearest closer, a flutter going through me as I felt as if I was a part of something—Trent expected Quen to join us, and I was a natural part of the conversation—even if Quen acted as if he was humoring us.

      “What strikes me as the oddest is that the demon who defended Nina was the same one who tried to chew her face off not thirty seconds earlier,” Trent said, gaze unfocused as he held his coffee and breathed in the steam. “One moment she’s breakfast, and the next she’s a god.”

      I tapped the mug with a finger, not liking the red dust under the nail. “I think I’d do a little groveling myself if I’d never seen a master vampire before.”

      “True.” Trent bobbed his head. “But the rest didn’t seem to care.”

      “You noticed that, too?” I took a sip, startled by the rich warmth, but my thoughts were on Ivy. She was going to be okay, but the panic of sitting with her on the cold ever-after ground, holding her hand as she died, was just under my skin. I thanked God I hadn’t had to make that choice of following her desires and killing her again before she rose as an undead.

      Oblivious to my thoughts, or more probable, aware and trying to distract me, Trent said, “I’ve never seen a surface demon with a weapon before. Apart from rocks.”

      “I have,” I said, turning my mug in a revolving circle. “Newt used a surface demon as a marker in a time and space calibration curse. It had a sword. That’s how she knows which one it is and how long it lived.”

      Kisten, I thought, sighing. Kisten had died twice within moments of his first death. I’d been there, but thankfully I hadn’t had to make that choice.

      I had held Kisten’s hand and he had died happy, telling me that God had kept his soul for him. Stop it, Rachel, I thought miserably, wiping a tear away before it could brim as I recalled Kisten’s laughing smile. God! My emotions were all over the map. I had loved Kisten. I could love someone without fear. Felix was wrong.

      Trent’s eyes were pinched, and he fidgeted. “Calibration curse?” he asked, desperate to get my mind on something else.

      Smiling faintly, I reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “Ask me some other time,” I said, remembering the pain of the surface demon living its entire existence in the span of three heartbeats. I was starting to think that surface demons weren’t much more than ghosts, living, breathing ghosts who lusted after the living like the undead only without the shackles that a consciousness imparted. How could anything survive five thousand years without magic?

      Clearly relieved, Trent scooted his chair closer to mine. “You think it’s the same one? Newt’s, I mean?”

      Tired, I shook my head. “Newt’s had a sword. This one used a staff.” Felix used a staff, too. Maybe that was why the surface demon liked him. But the question remained, why had it done a one-eighty and turned into a groveling love puppy? “You know, it was almost as if the surface demon knew Felix already,” I said slowly. “And didn’t recognize him at first.”

      I stopped, heart pounding as I looked up. It hadn’t been Felix in the ever-after in the beginning. It had been Nina. The surface demon hadn’t groveled in front of Nina, it had groveled in front of Felix. Like it knew him. Which would be really hard since the undead never go into the ever-after.

      Lips parted, I stared at Trent, a new idea sifting down through my brain. “I think I know where vampire souls go when they die,” I whispered, seeing Trent’s face as white as mine felt.

      “The ever-after,” we said in unison.

       Five

      I’m trying to help you,” I said, phone pressed to my ear as I sat in Trent’s car, parked across from the church. “But I need to get into my church, and I need you to take the hit off Ivy. I’ve found your souls, so back off!” Calm, composed, relaxed. The litany was no help. Coming home to find my church full of vampires was harassment, pure and simple. It had scared the crap out of me, too, but that had probably been Cormel’s intent.

      “You’ve had over a year to work on this.” Cormel’s New York accent fell flat, when I usually found it charming. “You expect me to believe that today, only when I threaten you, that you have a viable plan. Just like that?”

      Nervous, I picked at the window stripping until Trent made a pained sound. Beyond the tinted glass of his sports car, my church looked as if it had been hosting an all-night Brimstone party with toilet paper in the trees and what I hoped were just tomatoes smeared on the stained-glass windows. Bis was a lumpy shadow on a hard-to-reach eave, and I hoped he was okay.

      “How often do the undead go into the ever-after?” I asked, and he rumbled a soft agreement. “Even I wouldn’t have figured out the connection between

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