I leapt for it, tripping on my dress. Someone fell on me to pin me to the floor. I fought silently, lashing out with my fists. A man was yelling at me to be still. The memory of the clatter of pixy wings was like a knife through my soul, and I felt the last of myself, of Rachel Morgan, vanish, hiding from the heartache.

There was a grunt as my fist found a tender spot, and in the slight release, I clawed for the door. Someone grabbed my wrists, and I cried out when they were wrenched behind my back.

Snarling, I fought to be free, then went still as I lay on the floor, a crafty smile curving over my face. I didn’t have to fight with my body; I could fight with my mind.

“Someone strap her!” shrilled a pixy from above. “She’s tapping a line!”

“Rachel! Stop!” a woman cried, and I whipped my head at the familiar voice.

“Ivy?” I warbled. My breath hesitated at seeing her sitting slumped against the wall, a hand pressed to her neck and pale from blood loss. Reason tried to force its way through my brain, but a heady feeling of power shoved it out. Men stood between me and the door. The woman on the floor wasn’t enough to best the curse’s demands.

Shivering, I twisted to sit upright. Latin spilled from me, the words coming from somewhere in my past, my future, from everywhere.

“I’m sorry, Rachel,” a gravelly voice said behind me. “We don’t have ley line bands.”

I turned, savage in my need to hurt someone. A fist swung at me. Stars exploded, lighting my conscious thought, dying away to leave only the blackness of sweet oblivion.

But as my breath left me in a gentle sigh and I fell, I could swear that the drops of warmth upon my face were those of tears, that the shivering arms holding me from the cruel coldness of the tile had the luscious scent of vampire. And someone…was singing about blood and daisies.

THIRTY-SIX

I was moving. It was warm, and I was wrapped in a blanket that reeked of cigarettes. Something was on my sore wrist, and since there wasn’t an erg of ever-after in me, it seemed someone had found a zip-strip. Probably the one I had in my bag. The thrum of a big engine was soothing, but the sudden shifts of motion made me sick.

“She’s awake,” Jenks said, his voice holding an incredible amount of worry.

“How can you tell?” came Ivy’s voice from the front, and I cracked my eyes. I was in the back of a FIB cruiser, wrapped in a blue FIB blanket and slumped across the backseat.

“Her aura brightened,” Jenks snarled. “She’s awake.”