My heart isn’t beating! I thought frantically as the sound of feathers muted into a solid numbness. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. It was as if I was being smothered in brown smog. Panicked, I looked again for a line, but there was nothing. What in hell was it?! If I could figure that out, I could break it.

A slow roaring grew, painfully loud until it cut off with a soft lub. A sparkle drifted before me, then another. I wasn’t breathing, but I wasn’t suffocating, either. Slowly the roaring started again, rising to a crescendo to end in a soft hush.

It’s my heart, I realized suddenly, seeing more sparkles as I exhaled as if in slow motion, and with that, I knew. I was trapped in an inertia dampening field. There’d been an accident, and a safety charm had malfunctioned. But why had it risen to encompass all of us? I thought, reaching deep into my chi and pulling together the ever-after energy I’d stored there. I couldn’t make a protection circle without linking to a ley line, but I sure as hell could do a spell.

Separare! I thought, and with a painful suddenness, the world exploded.

“Oh God,” I moaned, eyes shut as the light burned my eyes. Fire seemed to flash over me and mute to a gentle warmth. Panting, I cracked my eyes to see it had only been the sunbeam I was lying in. Sunbeam? I’d fallen into the shade. And where are the cars?

“Rachel!” a familiar, gray voice whispered intently, and I pulled my squinting gaze from the overhead girders to my hand. Ivy was holding it, her long pale fingers trembling.

“How did you get here?” I said, and she pulled me into a hug, right there in the middle of the road.

“Thank God you’re all right,” she said, the scent of vampiric incense pouring over me. Everything felt painfully sharp, the wind cooler, the sunlight brighter, and the noise of FIB and I.S. sirens louder, the scent of Ivy sharp in my nose.

The noise of the FIB and I.S. sirens louder? Confused, I patted Ivy’s back as she squeezed me almost too hard to breathe. I must have passed out, because there was a barricade at the Hollows end of the bridge. Most of the cars were gone. I.S. and FIB vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances had taken their place, all their lights going. It looked like a street party gone bad with the cops from two divisions and at least three pay grades mucking about. Behind me was more noise, and I pushed from Ivy to see.

Her eyes were red rimmed; she’d been crying. Smiling, she let me go, her long black hair swinging free. “You’ve been out for three hours.”