Ever After

Lucy and Ceri were gone! Quen was possibly dying, having tried to save them. Trent . . .

I glanced at him, wishing he didn’t have to deal with this. Demons sucked.

Nina was silent, reading the emotions as neither one of us said anything. Ray was slumped against Trent’s shoulder, Jenks a silent presence of support I didn’t understand. It was obvious that Trent had never admitted to himself how much Ceri and Lucy had come to mean to him. He might not even know it now, so wrought with the pressure of dealing with the present that he couldn’t see clearly. He was suffering, though. He had no one. I didn’t think he realized it yet—he wasn’t angry enough. I could feel his realization coming. Maybe in a day. Maybe two.

Trent had always seemed to be alone, but he’d always had his assistant, Jonathan, as well as Quen. Then Ceri. Even Ellasbeth, though that hadn’t turned out very well apart from Lucy. And now even Lucy was gone. Soon he would understand that the demons had taken everything but a child who would remind him of what he lost. Things would get ugly then as the worst parts of Trent warred with the best.

A chill went through me, and Nina looked at me in question, her eyes dilating in the strong sun as I shivered. Trent had power on multiple levels and he wasn’t averse to using it. I didn’t know which side of him would win. I’d seen both. There was little I could do. Except perhaps be there so he didn’t feel so alone.

“Then you have nothing more to add?” Nina asked, her voice oily as she soaked in my sudden fear.

“No.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel,” she said, and I looked at her outstretched hand, refusing to take it. She might kiss it or something. “Trenton.” Nina hesitated, inclined her head, and then spun slowly. Trent shifted to me slightly, and we watched her walk to the cars. You could tell when Felix left her: her head came up and she breathed as if coming out from a hole. As she paced faster, her heels clicked on the pavement until she got in a car.

Arms still over my chest, I watched her slowly pivot the big car back onto the road, headed for the gatehouse. I’d stopped sneezing. That was good, right? “She thinks I’m not telling her everything,” I said, and Trent’s shoulders slumped.

“Are you?”

I touched Ray’s hair, smiling faintly. She hadn’t let go of that amulet, and it was still in her tight little grip even as she slept. “I don’t know. It’s ingrained not to tell the I.S. squat.”

I opened my car door to leave, and Trent lingered, Ray in his arms and the sun glowing on him. “Felix is teetering on insanity,” he said, eyes concerned as he watched Nina’s car go through the gate. “You’ll be okay tonight?”

“Sure, unless they decide to blame it on me.” I got in, finding my keys in my bag. Sitting there, I looked up at him. “It would be easier if Ellasbeth planned it,” I said, wanting to believe that. I didn’t like the woman, and by Jenks’s scoff as he darted in to sit on the rearview mirror, I knew he didn’t hold any love for her, either.

“I called her from the hospital,” Trent said, a surprising tone of compassion in his voice. “She seemed shocked, and she doesn’t lie that well. Even if it were ten against one, Quen wouldn’t have—” His voice broke, and I felt a surge of pity when his jaw clenched and released. “He would have prevailed.”

“I’m sorry.”

His breath coming in was shaky, but it smoothed out when he exhaled. “Me too.”

My chest hurt, and I watched him hold Ray. I knew he loved her, but the feeling that he had failed Lucy must be overwhelming. He had risked his life to find Lucy and bring her home, promised that she would be safe with him. “You’re a good father,” I said suddenly, and his lips parted. “No one can stop a demon when they make half an effort.”

“You can,” he said quickly, and Jenks made a pained sound from the rearview mirror.

The self-recrimination in Trent’s voice made me feel worse. “True, but I’m a demon.”

Trent blinked with a sudden thought. His shoulders eased, and the horrid tightness to his jaw let up. “You are, aren’t you?” he said, as if I’d given him something new to consider, a fragment of knowledge that he could use as he began scheming, looking for a way to fix this.

“What?” I said, hoping he’d tell me what my words had sparked, but he shook his head.

“Nothing. Ellasbeth has promised to take Lucy from me, even if I can get her back. She’s already filing papers.”

I wondered why he was telling me this, even as my heart went out to him. “You will get her back. Ceri too.” But I didn’t promise it.

Still between me and my car door, he swallowed hard. I wanted to reach out to touch him, but didn’t know how he’d take it. Putting the key in the ignition, I sneezed. Then I sneezed again, jerking so hard my forehead almost hit the dash. Scared, I looked at Jenks. His eyes were wide. Shit. I’d waited too long to get to my scrying mirror.

“Bless you,” Trent said dully, not paying attention. My eyes widened, and I sneezed again. Mouth dry, I grasped his free wrist.

“Trent. I’m sorry,” I said, knowing I couldn’t stop this. He was going to lose me, too.

He stared at my hand, and then his eyes widened as I sneezed again. “No . . .”

I let go of him, sitting in my car afraid to move. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t outdistance the summons. “I’m being summoned,” I said, turning away to sneeze again. A nauseating, pulling sensation had started. It was soft right now, but if I didn’t submit, it would grow until I had no choice. For a second, I panicked, thinking it might be Ku’Sox, but Al was the only one in the ever-after who knew my summoning name. And Nick.

The panic returned.

“Nick knows your summoning name!” Jenks shouted as he figured it out, too. “Rachel, fight it!”

But there was nothing I could do, and I shook my head, trying not to show my fear. I didn’t have a choice. I had to go. At least the news crew couldn’t see me. “I’m sorry,” I said again, wincing. “This might be okay. I’ll do what I can.” I looked at Jenks. His face was white. “Give me an hour, then summon me back.”

“No.” The snarl of denial had come from Trent, and I gasped as he knelt and grasped my wrist. My head snapped up as the interdimensional pulling sensation vanished. Sitting in my car, I stared at Trent, shocked as the world seemed to revolve and settle. The tips of his hair were floating. As time seemed to stand still, Jenks began to softly swear.

Trent had stopped the summons? I hadn’t known he could do that. I mean, I knew he could channel a crapload of ever-after, but this? This was incredible!

“Not you too,” he said fiercely, and I smiled, grateful even as a sudden pain lanced through my head.

Trent cried out, and his hold on me vanished. Like the shocking snap of a rubber band breaking, the parking lot and my car vanished; Trent’s aghast face was the last thing that I saw, Ray’s startled cry the last thing I heard.

Chapter Seven

The scent of burnt amber pulled through my awareness first, dragging the rest of the ever-after behind it. I left the ley line gratefully, the harsh taste/sound of it making me shudder. Ku’Sox hadn’t summoned me, or I’d be fighting for my life by now, and I sighed in relief as I decided that I was in the ever-after, blue sky, white sun, and salty-tasting wind notwithstanding. Nowhere in reality stank so bad. My nose had adjusted to the smell even before I finished coalescing to find myself standing on a round dais of white rock, two toga-clad demons before me like judges, a crowd of them behind me muttering like the mob they were.

I shivered, trying to throw off the wrong feeling of the line. I seemed to be in a Greek auditorium with rising benches of stone and stately pillars with white cloth strung between them to shade the demons from the fake sun. The horizon was lost in a stark white line, and I looked for the jukebox when I realized I was in Dalliance. It might look as if we were outside, but we were deep underground in the ever-after. The restaurant was a convenient meeting place, and I wondered why the demons were adhering to the dress rules since it was clearly not being used as an eatery, but rather . . . a courtroom? Irate demons filtered in, their varied clothing shifting to togas as they passed the threshold.