Chapters (43)
- The Outlaw Demon Wails
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- The Undead Pool: An Excerpt
- Chapter 2
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Credits
- About the Publisher
Like a light switch cutting off, my muscles quit seizing, and I sucked in a ragged breath of air that tasted like candle smoke. I took another breath, then another, content to simply exist without pain. Slowly my muscles relaxed, leaving only my throbbing head. Trent was sitting behind me with his arms wrapped around me. My face was wet, and Trent let go when I moved to wipe the dampness and carpet off my cheek. Slow and lethargic, I looked at my hand to make sure it had been tears and not blood I wiped away. My head hurt that badly.
“I’m okay,” I rasped, and Trent’s hold dropped. I heard him slide away and get up. Jenks was watching us from a railing, his face pale and pinched. “Did any demons show up?” I asked him, and he shook his head.
Utterly wiped, I shifted myself farther from Trent, embarrassed and trying to find some semblance of self again. I had done it. Damn it, it hurt so much that it had to have worked. I looked at my hands, both wanting to and fearing I might see an alien aura. They were shaking. My aura was again hidden, and I was too afraid to ask Jenks if it was mine, or Al’s, or nonexistent.
I looked at Jenks, and he smiled. “It’s yours,” he said, and my eyes closed as a lump grew in my throat. I pushed the emotion down. We had a run to finish.
“Do you have Trent’s sample?” I asked. “We have to get out of here.” I’d cry later over what I had done to myself. Right now, we had to leave.
“It’s coming,” he said. “I found it under ‘Kallasea.’ Female elf installed in…three fifty-seven B.C., if I did my subtraction right. They mark everything from when the elves abandoned the ever-after. Your court date wouldn’t have come up for five years.” The pixy laughed. “That’s what organized justice will do to you. Rome didn’t fall. It was strangled in red tape.”
“Bring it to me!” Trent shouted, and both Jenks and I jumped.
“All right, all right,” he muttered as he zipped to the statue. “Don’t have a hairy fart.”
They mark the years the same as us, I thought, shoving things into my bag and hesitating when I couldn’t find Al’s sample. Where in hell had it rolled to?