The Witch with No Name(184)

Ivy licked her lips, haunted eyes flicking past me when Nina sobbed behind the shut door. “I should have killed her twice, but I was so scared that her soul would be lost forever when the lines fell and there was nowhere for it to go. Nina was fine until her soul went into the bottle.”

Another heartrending cry of loss rose behind the door when Ivy opened her hand to show me the hazy bottle I’d given her. Nina’s moan was so filled with pain it even made Al shift his feet. Or maybe he just wanted a closer look.

“I had to do it.” Ivy’s hand shook. “I had to. I couldn’t let her soul go to that hell.”

I took Ivy’s hand in mine, closing her fingers over the bottle before she dropped it. Her hands were frighteningly cold. Her head bowed, and I pulled her to me again, hating the demons all the more. But a niggling thought wedged under my heartache. Ivy had used the bottle after the lines had fallen. It had worked with the Goddess’s strength. Mystics wreathed her, unseen and unnoticed, my thousand eyes that I’d blinded myself to still working my will for me.

From behind the door, a wail rose, and Ivy sniffed back her tears. “She knows I have it. She wants it, but it will make her walk into the sun. Rachel, I can’t.”

I jerked when Ivy pulled back, her expression suddenly empty. “You take it,” she whispered, pressing the bottle into my hands. “Take it and hide it.”

“Ivy, I can’t.”

“Hide it where she can’t find it. Rachel, please!”

“It’s mine!” Nina howled, having heard us, and Ivy’s eyes went wide. Shaking, I forced the bottle back into Ivy’s hand.

“That won’t help,” I said, hating my own cowardice.

Ivy’s head bowed. “I didn’t know it could hurt this much,” she whispered to me. “I watched my mother die her first death, and then Kisten passed on.”

Again I pulled her to me, trying to give her strength.

“This is so wrong,” she breathed, but the tears were gone, leaving only an exhausted numbness. “How is your leg?”

“My leg?” We separated, and my heart seemed to break at the distance between us. “My leg will be fine,” I said, almost crying again.

“Ivy?” Nina warbled behind the door. “Please, I need it! Just for a moment. I’ll give it back. I promise!”

Ivy swallowed hard, empty as she stood before me and glanced at the door. “I’ve got her tied up. I was hoping . . .” Her shoulders fell, and she glanced behind me to Al. “I decided that she should have it, even if she walks into the sun.”

“Ivy . . .”

Tears spilled from her anew as her chin lifted. “Even if it means she dies.” Her black gaze found Al. “You all deserve to die in whatever manner the elves can devise. What you have forced on us deserves payment in pain.”

Al became solemn. “The elves killed the maker of the curse years ago.”

“You let him do it!” Ivy raged, and Nina screamed in pain behind the door.

Al held his hat before him, head lowered. “I agree, but we can’t unravel her work.”

A woman? I mused. A woman did this?

“And even if we could,” Al said, gesturing to the door, “enough of the undead would refuse it out of fear, wanting the chance at immortality even if it cost them their soul.” His gaze fastened on Ivy, and she quailed. “You yourself can’t walk away from it. Or you would have let Rachel take the virus from you already.”

“Al, stop,” I said as shame caused Ivy to drop her eyes.

“You like it,” Al said bitterly. “The urge, the lust, the glorious satisfaction of fulfilling that need.”

“That’s enough!” I exclaimed, but my neck was tingling with remembered passion.

Expression holding a bitter betrayal, Al shifted his accusing gaze from Ivy to me. “The curse is power, Rachel, and she knows without it her world would be flat and gray. She’d rather live with pain and heartache than no feeling at all.”

Angry, I got in his face. “That is a sad excuse to cover your own guilt,” I snapped, then dropped back when Ivy touched my arm.

“No, he’s right,” she said, shocking me. Her hand fumbled behind her, rattling the knob. Never turning around, she pushed open the door. “See what your pride has wrought, demon.”

She opened the door to show her bedroom, the cool grays and soothing greens lit by a battery-powered lantern hanging from the dark light fixture. Nina was tied up with soft straps. They were designed for this, but they still cut into her skin as she struggled to be free, her eyes black and wide. Blood marked her clothes, but I think it was from the fight in the ambulance. She hadn’t been dead long enough to be hungry. Though her soul was gone, her aura would remain for a few hours yet.