LITMIR.BIZ

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and I’d be getting a call from the second-rising morgue.

      “I don’t want to become a dead thing,” she whispered, then clenched in pain. “Rachel?”

      I closed my eyes. Ivy groaned, her pain doubling as my panic pulsed through her, bringing her alive even as she struggled to stave off death. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be her scion. But I knew I would if it came to that. Cormel had grown tired of waiting for his soul. If Ivy was dead, me finding out how to return the undead their souls would move way up on my to-do list.

      We had to get out of here. Even the safe houses held death, and the hospitals would only make her passing smell of antiseptic. Why had I worked so hard to save their miserable existences? I wondered as I found my bag and looped it over my head. But it hadn’t been just the undead in the balance when I’d freed the mystics last July, it had been the entire source of magic.

      Jenks dropped down as I gathered my resolve. “They’re everywhere, Rache,” he whispered, his fear easy to read on his narrow, pinched features, and Ivy nodded. Surrounded by onlookers, we had a small space to breathe, but we couldn’t stay here.

      Slowly I began to think. Trent. He had a surgery suite, one that wasn’t staffed by people who could be bought. I wasn’t sure where he was, but I could text him. Ivy was sitting. Maybe she could move. “Ivy,” I said, blanching at the blackness in her eyes when she looked at me from around a stray strand of hair. “Can you move?”

      Her boots scraped as she shifted them under her. “If I can’t, I’m dead.”

      A few in the crowd protested, but they backed up when Jenks rose, his fast, darting shape and the sharp sword in his grip making him a threat. My stomach turned when every hold I tried to help Ivy with only brought more pain. Teeth clenched, I tucked my shoulder under her arm and rose, staggering until we found our balance. Ivy’s eyes closed. We hung for a moment, waiting to see if she was going to pass out. In the nearby distance, a siren rose—but it brought death, not life.

      “Okay, nice and easy,” I said, and Jenks kept everyone back as we started for the curb. Ivy’s head was down, and she moved in sudden, painful limps. Step, pause. Step, pause. Her weight on me was solid, and her scent was tinged with sour acid. Tears threatened, and I ignored them. I couldn’t live with Ivy if she was dead. I couldn’t be her scion, but I knew I’d do it, even as it would destroy me. I’d try to keep Ivy sane, knowing it was a bitter fallacy. I couldn’t kill her a second time as she would want me to. I was a bad friend.

      “I’m sorry,” Ivy said as we reached the curb and she took her hand from her middle long enough to use the lamppost to help her step up.

      “This isn’t your fault,” I barked so I wouldn’t cry. “We’ll get you to Trent’s, and you’ll be fine.” His compound was almost deserted since the serious inquiries into his illegal bio labs had begun, but he probably had a surgeon on call.

      Seeing her standing to catch her breath, I dug in my bag for my phone. “Can you hold this?” I said, giving her my splat gun, and she held it loosely. My fingers shook as I scrolled for Trent. He was the last person I’d called, and knowing he might not take a call but would always check a text, I wrote 911 and Eden Park and hit send.

      My stomach was twisting as I tucked my phone in my back pocket. It was all I could do. But we couldn’t stay here. Each moment seemed to weigh more heavily on Ivy. She was slipping, and her living vampire endurance would mean nothing if she gave up.

      “You can’t go to the car, Rache.” Jenks hovered before us, watching us and our backs both. “They’ll run you down.”

      Shit. He was right. Tears of frustration pricked, and Ivy leaned against the lamppost. Behind her, people were turning away, leaving us to die.

      “Where else can I go, Jenks?” I shouted, frustrated. “Nowhere on earth is safe from them!”

      He shrugged, even as his dust grew dismal, but behind him was Eden Park, and a flash of hope lit through me. Ivy sensed it, and her eyes opened, glazed with pain.

      “The park.” I wiggled under her again, and we staggered into motion. “Ivy, hold on.”

      “The park!” Jenks echoed in disbelief, and then he nodded, rising up to fly five feet over us where he could keep watch.

      The park. There was a ley line in it, thin and broken, but it was there. I couldn’t jump the lines without Bis. He wouldn’t be awake until the sun went down, but I could shift realities if I was standing in a line. The ever-after was a poor choice, but no one could follow us there, and maybe we could walk to the church’s ley line and pop back into reality.

      Ivy stumbled as we found the grass, and we almost went down. Her moan sounded almost like pleasure. Old toxins were being pulled from her tissues to cope with the pain as her body struggled to stay alive. But this time it wasn’t a master satisfying his blood urge that was killing her, and her breath quickened as she took in my fear and kindled her own long-suppressed desires.

      “Almost there,” I panted, struggling under her weight as I scanned the open grass between us and the footbridge. It was exposed, but they probably wouldn’t shoot her and risk hitting me by accident. Cormel needed me alive and Ivy dead. They only had to wait.

      This was partly my fault, and I felt the helpless tears trying to start as I took more of Ivy’s weight. There was no way to bind a vampire’s soul to his body once he died, and as we slowly limped across the green space to Twin Lakes Bridge and the broken ley line, a warm tear ran a trail down my cheek.

      “Don’t cry,” Ivy slurred. “It’s going to be okay.”

      I wiped my eyes between our lurching steps, my stomach roiling. “Almost there.”

      Jenks dropped down, worry pinching his features. “Her aura isn’t looking good, Rache.”

      “I know!” I shouted. “I know,” I said again, softer.

      “It hurts,” Ivy said as I took even more of her weight. “It’s not supposed to hurt, is it?”

      Oh God. I knew the pain amulet was outclassed, but that the damage was too much for even the vampire toxins to mutate was scary. “Almost there. Hold on,” I whispered, eyes fixed on the statue of Romulus and Remus. “You can rest when we get to the line.”

      But I didn’t think we were going to make it, especially when Jenks’s dust went an angry red. “There’re two blood bags on the footbridge,” he snarled, his blade catching the light. “Keep going. Don’t stop no matter what you hear. I’ll take care of them.”

      “Jenks!” I cried out as he darted away. Beside me, Ivy wheezed. Her fingers rose to touch her mouth, coming away red with blood. Immediately she curled her fingers up in a ball to hide it, but a flash of fear lit through me. Internal bleeding. My gun, too, was gone, left behind somewhere on the summer-burnt grass.

      “Almost there,” I said again as we moved another few feet, but inside, I was despairing. There were no hospitals in the ever-after, only demons who didn’t care. I didn’t think we’d make it all the way to the church. If Trent didn’t show, I might have just killed Ivy by trying to save her.

      Ivy’s breath became labored, and the sudden shouting at the bridge yanked my attention up. With a quick flurry of motion, a woman swung wildly at Jenks, falling down the embankment and into the water, harried the entire way by the pixy. Suddenly she was screaming as Sharps, the resident bridge troll, rose up, swamping her.

      Without a second look, the other vampire continued toward us, leaving her to sort herself out. He was vampire-child, beautiful, graceful, and sure of himself—and when he looked at me, I shuddered.

      Jenks darted in and away, distracting him.

      “Move faster, Ivy,” I begged, knowing Jenks couldn’t hold off a determined vampire. Eyeing the statue of Romulus and Remus, I brought up my second sight. A faint haze, ill looking and sporadic, hung at chest height. It was Al’s line, half dead because of the shallow

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